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Azhais posted:There's really only one thing to do with people that minmax that hard nah we have fun with it the issue isn't that I can't hurt him (I'm the GM, I have infinite options for doing this), it's that anything that can threaten him would instantly liquify the rest of the party, unless I let him draw aggro like in a computer game I try to structure things so that rather than traditional d&d showdowns (you're all in a room, there's five enemies on the other side of the room, fight!), our action is segmented. More like what they have in a lot of ensemble tv shows and procedurals. Combat person's fighting in one place, distracting the enemies and hitting some objectives. Tech person is hacking or sabotaging in a different place. Face person is schmoozing in yet a third place. This allows me to throw whatever I want at the wookiee. Heavy weapons squads, walkers, kitted-out bounty hunters with exotic weaponry, tanks, rancors, goddamn airstrikes. This works out because the other players are less interested in combat, with one of them being completely disinterested in it. When we do have larger team battles, I challenge him with dynamic terrain and mobile enemies, since he has low strain and has never cultivated any ability to fight at range. I do respect that he at least had to invest a lot of forethought and a year's worth of XP into his build to get it the way he wanted. The Gadgeteer autofire monkey is a bigger offender, imho, because it is easy to blunder into it with a pretty low-XP character. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Aug 18, 2017 |
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Aug 18, 2017 21:47
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The actual answer is "crafting," which is kinda the root to both of those characters. Weapon and armor modification leads to horrible things.
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Aug 18, 2017 21:48
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None of my players are really skilled at mechanics, so sometimes I'll let them use other skills to craft, as a way to generate unique loot for them. For example, one of my players was able to use brawl to "craft" some unique brass knuckles for himself by winning them in a boxing competition.
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Aug 18, 2017 22:54
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Crash a moon into the offending wookie. (But seriously, I have found that the ensemble system is really nice, particularly if you have players who can invest in the narrative and enjoy watching the story unfold for other characters.)
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Aug 19, 2017 04:02
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I got to play a game of Edge with Sterling Hershey GMing, at GenCon. He signed my character stand. I knew I should have brought my Edge book 
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Aug 20, 2017 01:17
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Arcturas posted:Crash a moon into the offending wookie.  too soonNow, the team's face character (an assassin/trader, of all things) has been seriously investigating options for slamming the wookiee into enemy starships the game currently lacks a boarding torpedo, and the few vehicles cheap and disposable enough to be adapted into boarding torpedos - lifepods, selonian coneships - lack the hardpoints for it, but I'll probably let them go off-books to build one sometime soon. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 17:03
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PupsOfWar posted:Gadgeteer w/ heavy blaster rifle Just to clarify, how does it do 33 Damage per attack? With Base Damage 11, is it the autofire attacks that are getting it to 33 per shot, or is that 33 for each shot of the autofire?
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Aug 21, 2017 13:52
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Harkano posted:Just to clarify, how does it do 33 Damage per attack? With Base Damage 11, is it the autofire attacks that are getting it to 33 per shot, or is that 33 for each shot of the autofire? By "per successful attack" I mean the sum of all damage generated during the individual attack roll. The sum of all shots which hit the target. _ A heavy blaster rifle with Superior customization deals a minimum of 11 damage per shot. With those two mods installed, a hit will generate 2 extra Advantage. With jury-rigged, 1 advantage is enough to trigger auto-fire, so those 2 Advantage generate 2 additional shots, each also dealing a minimum of 11 damage. 3 shots, with a minimum of 11 damage per shot. Now, those extra Advantage can still be cancelled out by Threat (I believe), so it is not quite accurate to say that 33 is your minimum damage output. However, cancellation is not too terribly likely if you have a decent AGI, decent Ranged (Heavy) score and are fighting at medium range or less. This dice-roller can generate probability distributions for rolls, which is useful if you're trying to min/max http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=1&ability=3&difficulty=3 Rolling 3 ability dice and 1 proficiency die versus 3 difficulty dice (standard difficulty for attacking at medium range, increased by 1 due to autofire) results in net Advantage or an Advantage/Threat wash two-thirds of the time. _ Now, high-soak enemies are still good at resisting powerful autofire builds, as soak applies to each individual shot. A character with 10 soak or a vehicle with 1 armor (which counts as 10 soak) would neutralize 30 of those 33 points of damage. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 14:08
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PupsOfWar posted:
SWTOR uses a lot of those drop pods to drop soldiers onto starships, I'd let them do it for the right price. They make a hole in the ship and the clamp opens up into a boarding ramp.
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Aug 21, 2017 16:38
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PupsOfWar posted:By "per successful attack" I mean the sum of all damage generated during the individual attack roll. Thanks. That makes more sense. I've got a player speccing for crazy high damage gunnery weapons so just wanted to figure it out. Since it's 11 minus soak each time it's a low lower than I was thinking (theoretically a 33 damage single shot would destroy most things I've put together  )Also since he's already out damaging every other party member combined we're currently in a gentleman's agreement where autofire as a rule doesn't exist.
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Aug 21, 2017 18:09
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PupsOfWar posted:
At least the base damage bonus is only at long and extreme range, where it gets offset a bit by the difficulty. Need to add in the targeting cybernetic implant while you're at it for more free advantages tho!
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Aug 21, 2017 18:19
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Harkano posted:Thanks. That makes more sense. I've got a player speccing for crazy high damage gunnery weapons so just wanted to figure it out. Since it's 11 minus soak each time it's a low lower than I was thinking (theoretically a 33 damage single shot would destroy most things I've put together
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Aug 22, 2017 01:56
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Harkano posted:Thanks. That makes more sense. I've got a player speccing for crazy high damage gunnery weapons so just wanted to figure it out. Since it's 11 minus soak each time it's a low lower than I was thinking (theoretically a 33 damage single shot would destroy most things I've put together Yeah, it's an awkward situation because autofire seems important to the flavor or ~feel of certain weapons, specs or archetypes. So nobody wants to take it away entirely, but the RAW is genuinely gamebreaking in a way that nothing else in the system is, so people feel as if they must. There are a ton of different house-rules that attempt to fix or mitigate this. Some I've seen: - increase the base activation cost of Autofire to 3, so that jury-rigged only reduces it to 2. - disallow using jury-rigged on Autofire to begin with. - rule that the difficulty of an autofire attack must be increased by 1 per each extra shot that the character wants to fire, so that difficulty scales as fast as damage. - remove the autofire quality from Heavy Blaster Rifles and similar weapons, so that it is limited to huge unwieldy support guns and small crappy SMG analogs. Autofire is far from game-breaking on the Vrelt autopistol, with its base damage of 4. - rule that you must use auto-fire while prone or firing from an entrenched position. You'll find a ton of these if you poke around the FFG forums for a bit. Personally, I'd only use the RAW if I had a party with just one combat character. Or a situation where the player was comfortable with me using narrative context to ~deprive them of the weapon much of the time. (Think of how, in Firefly, Jayne doesn't get to use Vera all the time because sometimes the crew is trying to be low-key, or how Arnold only gets to break out the minigun for the biggest and gaudiest battle in Terminator 2). Better yet, if the player suggests this themselves. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 04:16
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I had a player who had 10 soak and a ton of defense and I got fed up with his nonsense and hit him with a quad heavy turbolaser. I let him choose death or living in a medical coma with no legs. Now somebody's gotta make him new legs. He was rescued by a redshirt PC named Hom Tanks so this guy is really Lt. Dan now.
Elendil004 fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 04:55
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PupsOfWar posted:Yeah, it's an awkward situation because autofire seems important to the flavor or ~feel of certain weapons, specs or archetypes.
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Aug 22, 2017 14:23
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But shooting someone multiple times should be allowed. Because, you know, you can do that.
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Aug 22, 2017 15:51
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Fuzz posted:But shooting someone multiple times should be allowed. Because, you know, you can do that.
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Aug 22, 2017 16:51
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Talkie Toaster posted:Right, but it's not as if the system is 'One attack roll = one shot' anyway- rounds aren't the D&D-style 6-second ones. Say autofire is using the weapon to spray a large area, job done. The gameplay problem is mostly from autofire being able to burst down rivals/nemesises in a single attack, and it solves that. Then it does become blast, yeah. Could house rule it that for every extra advantage (or two) over the activation threshold you can declare a target that gets hit twice. Can't hit a target more than twice, just to make it slightly more fair.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:41
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Fuzz posted:Then it does become blast, yeah.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:47
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Talkie Toaster posted:Though it does become a more flexible blast that can allocate additional hits beyond 'engaged' at a cost of higher advantage cost per hit, in general longer range, reusabity, and higher damage. Most blast weapons are either short ranged shotgun-types with weak blast or one-use grenades. It also burns an action unless you have a reload talent, since it empties your clip by default as soon as it's activated.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:51
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Fuzz posted:It also burns an action unless you have a reload talent, since it empties your clip by default as soon as it's activated. Does it? Huh, never knew that, balances it a bit.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:57
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Thought so, though maybe that was just how it was house ruled early on and we've just kept using it. Don't quote me on it, but I feel like that was a mechanic.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:58
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Fuzz posted:Thought so, though maybe that was just how it was house ruled early on and we've just kept using it. Don't quote me on it, but I feel like that was a mechanic. Not sure if you're talking about blast or auto fire, but that's not a mechanic for either.
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Aug 22, 2017 18:31
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Would adding further advantage required for each hit so anything with those builds? Like, 2 advantage for one extra hit, then 3 for the next, etc.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:41
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Guys, I have a question about the FFG system. I've just read the EotE rulebook, and, to me, it seems far slower and more complex than the WEG D6 system, especially due to how dice rolls work (compare attribute AND skill, plus talents, build the pool, upgrade dices, add more dices of different colors, roll them all. Count the symbols. Interpret the result. Think what advantages/disadvantages mean in this particular context. Discuss what players want to do with them. If you got a triumph/despair, think what that means and discuss that too. Then solve all of it. etc, etc, etc). The system encourages over-thinking a lot of stuff that detracts from the pace, in my humble opinion. In comparison D6 system was so streamlined and simple, yet allowed enough depth when needed. It sems far more "star-warsy" to me; Especially with an inexperienced group of players. Do you think I am right? Or is there something obvious I'm missing here?
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Aug 22, 2017 22:23
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Fights tend to be really quick. Weapons typically hit hard, and people don't have a ton of health. The thing that bogs fighting down is having too many participants, not rolling and interpreting results. The dice can seem intimidating at first, but after a session or two you get used to them. If you use a character editor like oggDude's, it will pre-calculate all your standard dice rolls for each skill for you, including some talents*. All you have to do to roll is grab whatever the sheet says you need. * always-on, passive talents that give boost dice or remove setback dice are added to your dice pool next to the skill names, but situational talents are not. For those, you'll need the talent section of the character sheet handy.
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Aug 22, 2017 22:42
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Super86 posted:Guys, I have a question about the FFG system. The group I recently played with, 3 of them had never played EotE before and within about 4-5 rolls, everyone had it figured out. Once you know to remove dice that are blank and canceled, figuring out the roll is much easier. And half the fun of the game is figuring out what advantage/thread/despair/triumph can do to make the game more exciting.
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Aug 22, 2017 22:53
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Every combat scenario I have run or been a player in has lasted maybe two rounds, three tops, going slightly longer if it's a big setpiece encounter. Building and interpreting the dice pools barely takes any time at all, you'll generally know exactly what dice you're rolling before your turn ever comes around with variables usually being the result of previous rolls. The only thing that I ever saw really making things take appreciably longer than other systems is when indecisive (or inattentive) players spend a lot of time trying to decide what to do with narrative effects like Advantages or Triumphs, and there's still a handy "just do this if you can't think of anything else" table for generic results if you want to speed things along. Personally I like my players to think up ridiculous things on the fly, but it's not always for everyone.
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Aug 22, 2017 22:55
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Judgement posted:Every combat scenario I have run or been a player in has lasted maybe two rounds, three tops, going slightly longer if it's a big setpiece encounter. Building and interpreting the dice pools barely takes any time at all, you'll generally know exactly what dice you're rolling before your turn ever comes around with variables usually being the result of previous rolls. Yeah. There are lists out there, official and unofficial, that give you ideas to use. If you can't think of anything within, I dunno, five seconds, just give the next slot a blue or black die and move on.You don't have to come up with a narrative description for every single little thing if you don't want to.
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Aug 22, 2017 23:02
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Crumbletron posted:Fights tend to be really quick. Weapons typically hit hard, and people don't have a ton of health. The thing that bogs fighting down is having too many participants, not rolling and interpreting results. The dice can seem intimidating at first, but after a session or two you get used to them. I'm not particularly worried about combat, as that's structured and advantages/disadvantages' effects are clearly defined. What bothers me are the rest of situations that require a roll. I can't see a quick way to solve the myriad of results you can get from every roll, every time, for every player. At least not without coming up with simplistic generic answers ("you get a boost dice in your next action") every time and just moving on; which in my opinion kills the whole pourpose of the system. Everytime you try to deceive somebody, or to plot a course through hyperspace, to repair something, to navigate with a compass, land your ship with a broken landing gear, try to get information from somebody, hack a computer, bribe a guard, search for a clue, roll to see if your PC knows something, intimidate a civilian, win a game of sabbac, acquire updated navigational charts, encrypt a transmission, convince a wookie that guy over there just insulted him, repair a speeder without proper tools, or try to throw that thermal detonator into that pool over there before it detonates. The point is for every action there are at least 8 possible outcomes, taking into account success, failure, advantage, disadvantage, triumph, and despair; and different degrees of each (+1 net advantage is not the same as +4 net advantage, for example). The system encourages (almost forces) you to think carefully what that specific result means. That requires a lot of stopping, thinking, discussing, and re-thinking. In WEG D6, you succeed, or fail. That's it. You can add flavour to the roll according to the margin of success, but that's optional. A Star Wars setting benefits from the latter type in my opinion. Am I wrong?
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Aug 22, 2017 23:17
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Sounds boring.
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Aug 22, 2017 23:20
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I mean, if you prefer a binary pass/fail resolution, nothing is stopping you from playing a game like that. But what attracts me about games like FFG's is the more cinematic nature of determining what happens with each roll. Yeah, it takes more effort than just saying "yes, I succeed and hit the stormtrooper", but having rules backing for "I missed, but my shot hit a steam vent and now we've got some temporary cover" is awesome.
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Aug 22, 2017 23:23
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WEG star wars suffers from the worst dice rolling mechanic of all time in the form of a wild die that causes you to have a failure of some sort 1/6 of the time
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Aug 22, 2017 23:25
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Super86 posted:I'm not particularly worried about combat, as that's structured and advantages/disadvantages' effects are clearly defined. It's really not that mentally demanding. For combat, like you said, the rules are fairly well delineated. For non-combat, it's situational, yes. My group has been playing with this system for about a year now. Nearly everyone, including friends we played Pathfinder games with that did one-game drop-ins, that we've made try the system has said they enjoyed it because they felt they had more agency over what they were doing. Success/fail is simple. Either the action you made worked or it didn't. Advantage/threat just shifts the situation a bit toward one side's favour. If a player rolls and passes with an advantage against the GM, he gets to take the reins for a second and describe some added cool thing that happens. If he rolls a threat, the GM in turn can up the stakes, even if the player accomplished his goal. For non-combat situations, don't think of advantages having specific set values. In the early game, rolling 3 advantages is great. Let your players do something great. Not awe-inspiring, because it's not quite a triumph, but it's a good roll nonetheless. Getting one advantage? Okay, something smaller but still cool might be in order. That's precisely what makes it more interesting than the binary D6 system. When I GM, I don't prep for every single option for every single roll. I used to, but that's exhausting and frustrating to do and play out. And why would I? Part of what makes this game cool is that unless you're running a pre-made, how the story unfolds is up to the players. Any GM capable of reacting to his players going off-script in any other game will do fine. I'm not saying you're going to be pro advantage/threat idea guys after one session but it becomes natural after a while. I can't even remember the last time I turned down a player's advantage suggestion because people know what flies and doesn't instinctively now. Crumbletron fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 23:42
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Agreed. It's hard to go back to binary success-or-fail systems after playing failing-forward types.
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Aug 22, 2017 23:45
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The Advantage/Threat system is one of the better features of the game, and makes it more cinematic than "I hit the stormtrooper. I miss the stormtrooper. I miss again. Now I hit him." It's really not that hard to come up with ideas for Advantage and Threat either. There are predefined examples for players to choose, and at the worst, just go with whatever cool thing that somebody thinks of first; don't over analyze it. I like running this version of Star Wars, because the varied results that the dice-mechanics produce encourages a lot of off-the-cuff descriptive elements that you might normally not think of.
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Aug 23, 2017 00:14
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And yes, sometimes you do just ignore advantages/threats when it's on rolls you and the players don't feel is appropriate (see: checks to find/buy gear most the time). You can just do that occasionally, or just heal/cause some strain every so often. The system has the flexibility for rolls to have as big or little influence on the narrative as seems appropriate at the time.
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Aug 23, 2017 00:41
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Iceclaw posted:Agreed. It's hard to go back to binary success-or-fail systems after playing failing-forward types. As someone who was running an Edge of the Empire game while also playing in a Star Wars saga edition game, holy poo poo is this true.
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Aug 23, 2017 01:35
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I think you're really overestimating how long it takes to come to decision. You're not trying to pass a bill through congress here. I think the longest it's ever taken one of my groups is like a minute, and that was a rare case.
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Aug 23, 2017 02:11
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It's important to not overthink things. Not everything even needs to add straight dice to things. They succeed with advantage but they aren't doing anything after to boost? That's cool, let them describe succeeding with style. Or maybe there's other bonuses they could get. Like...think Star Wars. Success with threat or despair? You find an escape route - the trash compactor. Failure with advantage? Greedo doesn't buy your bullshit - but he also doesn't notice you begin to pull your gun out. The statistics of the dice are actually weighed a bit towards "success with threat," which, imo, fits Star Wars perfectly. You succeed at the thing you were doing! ...You're still in trouble, it's just a new trouble. I mean poo poo, Han Solo more or less never just fails or succeeds - his failures are always with advantage, his successes loving absolutely always with threat. EDIT: Right until he succeeds with like five advantage and a triumph. I get Lando's meant to be the prototype gambler, but Han Solo is 100% a Gambler Scoundrel who refuses to make any rolls at all without invoking Double or Nothing. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 05:42
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