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Killing a Jedi
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 2:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As long as we're allowing non force sensitives to dodge blasters, I don't see why the roll to deflect shouldn't also be opposed.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 2:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
As long as we're allowing non force sensitives to dodge blasters, I don't see why the roll to deflect shouldn't also be opposed.

Apples and Oranges. When Dodging a Blaster bolt, the character is trying to make himself a more difficult target, while the firing character's Blaster skill is an indicator of his ability to hit difficult targets. One is the natural opposite to the other.

In the case of parrying lightsaber bolts, how does a good Blaster skill roll make the bolt harder to parry? As above, Blaster is an indicator of how well you can put your shots on target. Fine. But how is a blaster shot fired by Boba Fett different from a blaster shot fired by a one-eyed stormtrooper once it leaves the blaster's barrel? At that point, they are both just a linear discharge of plasma energy traveling at a velocity dictated by physics. Yes, one is far more likely to hit than the other, but a character's Blaster skill's effectiveness ends the moment the bolt leaves the blaster. Downrange, at the target, one will be no more difficult to parry than the other. The Blaster skill is just an indicator of whether or not the shooter was good enough to hit the Jedi in the first place, not how well a blaster bolt can dodge around a lightsaber blade.

I would think having a base difficult of Very Difficult or Heroic would be a good starting point as a flat Difficulty (with the requirement that the Jedi must have Lightsaber Combat up to use it). This difficulty then gets stacked with coordination bonuses for multiple attackers, MAPs for multiple shots taken, or Auto-Fire dice ratings from automatic weapons. Jedi misses his parry roll against the flat difficulty? It means something got past his lightsaber while he was parrying something else, and he takes full damage. No reaction Dodge allowed.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 4:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:

See, this is something that has never made sense to me. Why is it assumed that a good Blaster skill roll somehow makes a blaster bolt harder to parry? Does it somehow make the plasma in the bolt travel faster? Does it "curve" the shot somehow? Does wishful thinking on the part of the shooter translate into Force energy that supernaturally enhances the bolt?


No but the better blaster skill someone has, the more precise they can PLACE their shot (Or more shots they can take to overwhelm someone's defenses) to bypass the defense of an enemy.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 7:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
No but the better blaster skill someone has, the more precise they can PLACE their shot (Or more shots they can take to overwhelm someone's defenses) to bypass the defense of an enemy.

And if a Jedi's defenses were based on a kata or some other predictable pattern, that might fly. They aren't. They are based on precognitive warnings from the Force, telling the Jedi where to move his lightsaber to deflect the bolt. If there were an opening, and someone were to aim for that spot while rolling well enough to hit, the Jedi would know in advance and be able to parry it so long as he had Lightsaber Combat up.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 7:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I get what you're saying, CR... I'd be inclined to base the difficulty on the range the shot was made from. The closer the shooter, the more difficult to block.
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Tinman
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PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2016 9:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
See, this is something that has never made sense to me. Why is it assumed that a good Blaster skill roll somehow makes a blaster bolt harder to parry? Does it somehow make the plasma in the bolt travel faster? Does it "curve" the shot somehow? Does wishful thinking on the part of the shooter translate into Force energy that supernaturally enhances the bolt?

My feel has always been that parrying blaster bolts should have a flat difficulty, or if anything, based on Damage (as in, the more energy delivered by the blaster bolt, the more energy the lightsaber has to deflect). The prequels show that the best way to overload a Jedi's lightsaber defenses is to hit with multiple shots in rapid sequence, not a single, well-placed one.

In fact, the Clone Wars has some great ideas for non-FS characters fighting Jedi. Watch any battle sequence between a Jedi and Cad Bane. He uses rocket boots to keep the range open, barrages of blaster fire from his pistols, grenades or demolition charges, unparryable weapons like flamethrowers, or entangling weapons to immobilize. The focus is on keeping out of range of the Jedi's lightsaber and keeping the Jedi too busy defending himself (or untangling himself) to pursue or go on the offense (translation: MAPs).


Well, in terms of pure game mechanics, fondness for house rules varies between groups. It's something we only do in the odd situation where something just isn't covered, and we've been playing long enough to know off the top of our heads what is and isn't in the source material. That's just done for consistency between GMs ("you don't monkey with the rules, and I won't either") and eliminating the sense of any GM "making the game universe 'theirs.'"

That said, it was the sort of thing which was only believable because the character was an absurdly skilled firearm duelist, and that from years spanning play and development. It was described as him simply being able to draw and fire so quickly that even Force-enhanced reflexes and prescience were overwhelmed by it. Using a Force Point also meant that crude use of the Force was also a factor, on top of the sheer level of skill involved. If we'd considered it really deeply, we might have concluded that he unconsciously used the Force to scramble his adversary's Force-granted ability to anticipate the attack properly.

In terms of the game itself, this villain got the prize for being the most truly aggravating game villain ever. He was more of a counterintelligence agent than an enforcer like Vader (playing foil to a group of Rebellion intelligence agents) and over a couple years was truly despised in a very personal way by the entire group of characters for various reasons. It was also the campaign finale, and it had been a long term goal for that particular character to one day just gun the creep down. It was extremely satisfying to the entire group of players to finally see it happen that way, especially since it wasn't just allowed to happen. He got him fair and square, and that just made it even better.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2016 8:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I had a thought on this, insofar as resolving the conflict between the RAW and the films.

My objection, as stated above, is that good shooting ability doesn't affect the physics of the blaster bolt itself, so a single blaster bolt should only have a fixed Difficulty, not an opposed roll. Unfortunately, there isn't really a way to replicate multiple blaster shots without rolling each individual shot and opposed Lightsaber parry.

But then I got to thinking how the Dueling Blade combat rules distills an entire combat round's worth of attack and parry into a single opposed roll.

So why not apply that here?

Here's what I'm thinking:
    1). When a character wants to fire a blaster at a Jedi, he declares a barrage attack.

    2). For barrage attacks, the character makes a single Blaster skill roll with the intention of getting off as many relatively accurate shots as possible, with the goal toward overloading the Jedi's defenses with more shots than he can parry.

    3). The shooter rolls his Blaster skill against the base Difficulty, and for every 3 points by which the shooter beats the Difficulty, one additional round of ammunition is expended.

    4). The Jedi rolls his Lightsaber skill as normal, but if he fails the roll, for every 3 points by which he fails, he takes an additional hit for damage. However, they can attempt to redirect one Bolt for every 3 points by which they succeed on the roll.

    5). Characters can still coordinate their fire for added effect (this includes stormtroopers), and weapons with Auto-Fire dice can add the dice to accuracy to enhance the shot, as well.

So, in summary, the idea is to use the RAW for lightsaber vs. blaster to represent an entire round of shooting and parrying, with increased ammo consumption to represent multiple rounds fired. It uses a single set of opposed rolls without the endless tedium of shooting and parrying each individual shot.

Thoughts?
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Last edited by CRMcNeill on Sat May 28, 2016 2:39 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Raven Redstar
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2016 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
I had a thought on this, insofar as resolving the conflict between the RAW and the films.

My objection, as stated above, is that good shooting ability doesn't affect the physics of the blaster bolt itself, so a single blaster bolt should only have a fixed Difficulty, not an opposed roll. Unfortunately, there isn't really a way to replicate multiple blaster shots without rolling each individual shot and opposed Lightsaber parry.

But then I got to thinking how the Dueling Blade combat rules distills an entire combat round's worth of attack and parry into a single opposed role.

So why not apply that here?

Here's what I'm thinking:
    1). When a character wants to fire a blaster at a Jedi, he declares a barrage attack.

    2). For barrage attacks, the character makes a single Blaster skill roll with the intention of getting off as many relatively accurate shots as possible, with the goal toward overloading the Jedi's defenses with more shots than he can parry.

    3). The shooter rolls his Blaster skill against the base Difficulty, and for every 3 points by which the shooter beats the Difficulty, one additional round of ammunition is expended.

    4). The Jedi rolls his Lightsaber skill as normal, but if he fails the roll, for every 3 points by which he fails, he takes an additional hit for damage. However, they can attempt to redirect one Bolt for every 3 points by which they succeed on the roll.

    5). Characters can still coordinate their fire for added effect (this includes stormtroopers), and weapons with Auto-Fire dice can add the dice to accuracy to enhance the shot, as well.

So, in summary, the idea is to use the RAW for lightsaber vs. blaster to represent an entire round of shooting and parrying, with increased ammo consumption to represent multiple rounds fired. It uses a single set of opposed rolls without the endless tedium of shooting and parrying each individual shot.

Thoughts?


Seems like a decent enough concept to me. I do like the idea of gunslinger characters being able to try to overcome Jedi defenses. I'm also fond of fewer rolls... I may decide to give this a try if/when I get a game going again.
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2016 1:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
I get what you're saying, CR... I'd be inclined to base the difficulty on the range the shot was made from. The closer the shooter, the more difficult to block.


That was how I did it when I was running a Jedi-based game during the Clone Wars.

The difficulty to deflect a blaster bolt was fixed and harder the closer the range.

The amount that the deflect roll beat the incoming attack roll also served as the attack roll of the redirected blaster bolt if the jedi wanted to redirect the bolt to a specific target.

When a jedi took lots of incoming blaster bolts and suffered from MAPs he was less able to return blaster fire back accurately.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2016 2:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So blocking each incoming shot was its own action? Or was that only for redirection?
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2016 3:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Best place to defeat someone like a Jedi Master is in space or on some type of vehicle. The next one is lure them out into the open and take them out with a star ship with personal or speeder scale weapons, or an area of effect attack like Thermo detonators. Most importantly do not attack from someplace that said Jedi can get at you.

I've had players in the past that got really creative when having to deal with Jedi Master level enemies. One involved a drop forge and several tons of molten metal. Very Happy
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2016 6:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, after reading this page, I still feel like its rather disingenuous to suggest that because a Jedi's ability is based on precognition, that the difficulty should be static versus a character trying to dodge.

Are we to believe that "once the bolt leaves the blaster" that some how dodging it would be harder than parrying it. In my understanding, the act of "physically" dodging a blaster bolt would also require some form of precognition.

Or else we must go outside of RAW and say that a character may only attempt to dodge if there is suitable cover/concealment within arm's reach.

As it stands, the Jedi's precognition would allow him to dodge out of the way, if he chose to use a small movement (tilt his head out of the way or turn his body, etc) without actually "diving" clear.

But since we are considering house rules as a solution to the problem, I submit that a rather painless alternative to RAW is simply to roll sense by itself for blaster deflection, and alow for coordinated shooting to overwhelm the the sense roll via a high attack roll.

As for a single character shooting, there are two considerations:

Make a minimum difficulty to successfully parry blasters regardless of the attacker's total such that a failure of the weapon's base difficulty is the only way the shooter can miss.

The second is to consider that a Jedi could very well use precognition and dodge in thae same round (MAPs, of course) thereby representing the "realistic" attempt to do everything possible to not die.

And I believe garhkal's question is rasther apt: deflecting blasters is a reaction. You roll it once per round, not once per attack, which makes the second solution a lot more sensible from a gameplay standpoint.
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2016 6:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
So blocking each incoming shot was its own action? Or was that only for redirection?


It's been years since I played that campaign, but I seem to remember I had Jedi characters lose a die for every blaster bolt they intercepted but being at the height of the days of Jedi power, they started with quite high stats...even as padawans.

One Padawan character was taken out by a barrage of fire from some B-2 Battle Droids...was overwhelmed in a single round and the others quickly learned from his mistake; even a jedi should take cover when facing dozens of blaster-wielding mooks.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2016 11:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Are we to believe that "once the bolt leaves the blaster" that some how dodging it would be harder than parrying it. In my understanding, the act of "physically" dodging a blaster bolt would also require some form of precognition.

My understanding of "Dodge" is that it is less about actively avoiding a ranged attack than it was about moving in general in such a fashion as to be a more difficult target. To actually have the ability to intercept a blaster bolt with the blade of a lightsaber (i.e. to get something that narrow in the way of a blaster bolt) requires a greater degree of precise knowledge than simply diving for the nearest piece of cover.

Quote:
As it stands, the Jedi's precognition would allow him to dodge out of the way, if he chose to use a small movement (tilt his head out of the way or turn his body, etc) without actually "diving" clear.

I recall discussing this here in the past, in that a Jedi could either parry or Dodge, but couldn't do both against the same attack.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2016 11:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Raven Redstar wrote:
Seems like a decent enough concept to me. I do like the idea of gunslinger characters being able to try to overcome Jedi defenses. I'm also fond of fewer rolls... I may decide to give this a try if/when I get a game going again.

That was pretty much what I was going for. Gunslingers like Jango Fett and Cad Bane tended to get the best results from overloading a Jedi's defenses with multiple attacks rather than using a single well-aimed shot. Fett's slaying of Jedi Coleman Trebor at the Battle of Geonosis is a prime example.
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