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atgxtg
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 Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 12:01 am Post subject: |
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It seems to me than an unfamiliarity penalty is going to hurt the PCs and not have much effect on the NPCs.
Often the PCs need to use whatever they can get their hands on at the moment (a seppie blaster, stormtrooper blaster rifle, the fist time out in an X-Wing, a stolen shuttle). Meanwhile their foes typically have stuff that they are familiar with.
If anything, why not just set the target numbers a little higher on the difficulty range for a little bit? It would accomplish the same thing without needing to adjust die codes. |
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Leon The Lion
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| Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 3:48 am Post subject: |
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| atgxtg wrote: | It seems to me than an unfamiliarity penalty is going to hurt the PCs and not have much effect on the NPCs.
Often the PCs need to use whatever they can get their hands on at the moment (a seppie blaster, stormtrooper blaster rifle, the fist time out in an X-Wing, a stolen shuttle). Meanwhile their foes typically have stuff that they are familiar with. |
True, that. But such is an adventurer's life 
| atgxtg wrote: | | If anything, why not just set the target numbers a little higher on the difficulty range for a little bit? It would accomplish the same thing without needing to adjust die codes. |
...Damn. I flat-out forgot there are two ways to do penalties in the system - penalize the skill die code and increase the difficulty - and that anyone may not know which one I ment  The whole time I've been talking under the assumption that it's the difficulty of the task that increases, and not the skill which is lowered. Sorry for any confusion. Mea culpa.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 6:43 am Post subject: |
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True this will penalize the pc's more often than npcs, but the npcs don't get as many cp/fp to use as the pcs do.
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Esoomian
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| Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I would. For a long time when i first started gming, any time the pc's were exposed to a new type of weapon they had never experienced before, i gave them a -5 to their dodge due to being unfamiliar with how it works. |
But what if the players dodge as Leon has descriibed below?
| Leon The Lion wrote: | In the situtation you describe (and just let me say I love the idea of an insane Jawa crimelord  ) the worst case scenario is the weapon producing an area effect - firing a burst of shots, a conical blast or a grenade/missile with a blast radius, maybe a wide net. And since you're not sure what will happen, it's best to assume the worst case scenario and dodge accordingly. You could maybe suffer a penalty, but only if you never dodged a weapon with an area effect before. Otherwise, if your dodge is good enough to evade an area effect than it's more than enough to evade any other attack the weapon may produce. You dodge as far as you can (preferably sideways) / behind the toughest cover you can find and hope for the best. Just make sure the players are describing their characters dodges accordingly. If anyone is willing to act all tough and says they're dodging the weapon like it's a normal straight shooting blaster or firearm instead of playing it safe and doing a dodge effective against an area effect - well, it's their life to gamble away. But I still wouldn't apply any penalty to their dodge per se. They would just be screwed if the weapon turned out to produce an area effect after all, as they would still be cought in the blast, even if they dodged the direct hit.
So yeah, I agree with the philosophy that: "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball" |
It seems to me that this makes a lot of sense. If you cannot have specalization with a skill then it isn't fair to also give penalties if you come up with an unfamiliar situation. Especially if the players go to such lengths in describing how much effort they're putting into getting out of the way.
| Leon The Lion wrote: | | atgxtg wrote: | | If anything, why not just set the target numbers a little higher on the difficulty range for a little bit? It would accomplish the same thing without needing to adjust die codes. |
...d*mn. I flat-out forgot there are two ways to do penalties in the system - penalize the skill die code and increase the difficulty - and that anyone may not know which one I ment The whole time I've been talking under the assumption that it's the difficulty of the task that increases, and not the skill which is lowered. Sorry for any confusion. Mea culpa. |
I had wondered why you'd dismissed the difficulty levels as it made more sense to me than messing with the dice. As a player I always feel a little miffed if the dicepool I spent so many character points is reduced but oddly enough I have no problem with a high difficulty.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 1:03 am Post subject: |
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If you don't know what will happen, how can you 'assume' the worst case senario?
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Leon The Lion
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 2:54 am Post subject: |
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...If you don't know what will happen, assuming the worst case scenario is the only logical choice to make (hope for the best, be prepared for the worst). And in this case the worst case scenario is completely obvious. Unless you're assuming the dodging character has never before dodged an area attack, or, more accurately, isn't even aware that such attacks exist. Otherwise his desired course of action is crystal clear: try to dodge as far away from where the weapon is pointing as he possibly can... and pray.
Yes, there could be some special cases, like the spray of bouncing boomerangs Esoomian mentioned, but I would handle those by requiring several consequetive dodge rolls, and not applying a penalty to the initial dodge. Or, if the attack is so huge and far reaching, just not allow any dodge at all and declare an automatic hit on everybody (shooter probably included).
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garhkal
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| Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 6:59 am Post subject: |
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Interesting..
Though we already have seen one weapon (espo riot gun/deck sweeper) which has rules for dodge penalties, i wonder if there are others?
IMO a scattershot shotgun should use them as well.
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 11:38 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | True this will penalize the pc's more often than npcs, but the npcs don't get as many cp/fp to use as the pcs do. |
Yeah, but the NPCs don't have to make as many rolls. Nor are the majority of NPCs expected to appear at the next game session. And most of the time we really don't care what happens to the NPCs. |
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Leon The Lion
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 6:29 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | Though we already have seen one weapon (espo riot gun/deck sweeper) which has rules for dodge penalties, i wonder if there are others?
IMO a scattershot shotgun should use them as well. |
Yeah, if you mention it (I was actually waiting for somebody to bring that up ), let's talk about that.
Problem is, apart from that one weapon, the game really has no rules for differentiating dodging "normal" shots from dodging area attacks, or handling area attacks at all except for scatter (as far as I can remember, anyway). And that's not so good. In my argument above, I was assuming dodging by RAW. Bringing house rules in, I would assign dodge penalties (or to-hit bonuses, whichever you like more) to all area effect weapons (grenades, missiles, shotguns, riot blasters, net launchers, etc.), to simulate the increased difficulty of getting out of an area on time as opposed to "simply" getting out of the way of a pin-point attack. Base the penalty on the blast radius, so that you can easily judge, in case of a failed dodge, how far away you did manage to move, which will be important for weapons whose damage drops with distance from the epicenter. Maybe a direct one-to-one mapping of the penalty to meters in the radius: 5m radius = -5 to dodge?
| atgxtg wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | True this will penalize the pc's more often than npcs, but the npcs don't get as many cp/fp to use as the pcs do. |
Yeah, but the NPCs don't have to make as many rolls. Nor are the majority of NPCs expected to appear at the next game session. And most of the time we really don't care what happens to the NPCs. |
Again, I have no problem with this, as GM or player. It is after all the logical consequence of using the ruling I proposed. I consider it a fair price to pay for my prefered level of, and my understanding of, versimilitude. But, as always, whatever floats your boat.
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 2:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon The Lion wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | Though we already have seen one weapon (espo riot gun/deck sweeper) which has rules for dodge penalties, i wonder if there are others?
IMO a scattershot shotgun should use them as well. |
Yeah, if you mention it (I was actually waiting for somebody to bring that up ), let's talk about that.
Problem is, apart from that one weapon, the game really has no rules for differentiating dodging "normal" shots from dodging area attacks, or handling area attacks at all except for scatter (as far as I can remember, anyway). And that's not so good. In my argument above, I was assuming dodging by RAW. Bringing house rules in, I would assign dodge penalties (or to-hit bonuses, whichever you like more) to all area effect weapons (grenades, missiles, shotguns, riot blasters, net launchers, etc.), to simulate the increased difficulty of getting out of an area on time as opposed to "simply" getting out of the way of a pin-point attack. Base the penalty on the blast radius, so that you can easily judge, in case of a failed dodge, how far away you did manage to move, which will be important for weapons whose damage drops with distance from the epicenter. Maybe a direct one-to-one mapping of the penalty to meters in the radius: 5m radius = -5 to dodge?
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I'm not so sure if I agree. People really don't dodge pin point attacks but instead make themselves harder to hit. Since lasers and other enegy weapons are supposed to be moving at the speed of light, dodging it out of the question. Heck, people can't enough dodge bullets.
What I could see is giving area effect weapons a bonus to hit. It should be easier to hit a house with something another house. This would probably help to offset some of the scaling penalties, too.
On a related note, on my autoweapons thread, I reduced the damage for rapid fire weapons a little and gave them a Burst Value rating, that was usuable as either fire control, damage, or to hit multiple targets with one attack.
A bonus to the weapon would probably be easier, too.
As for Area Attacks,I have always considered that they hit the area, not the character. So a character can't dodge a grenade, since it isn't being thrown at him, but at where he is standing. |
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Esoomian
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| Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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| atgxtg wrote: | | I'm not so sure if I agree. People really don't dodge pin point attacks but instead make themselves harder to hit. Since lasers and other enegy weapons are supposed to be moving at the speed of light, dodging it out of the question. Heck, people can't enough dodge bullets. |
That's an excelent point people aren't actually dodging the shot they're making themselves harder to hit by being a moving or small target. It makes more sense to give a bonus to area effect attacks than to penalize the one dodging. As for unknown weapons, no area effect then no bonus.
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Leon The Lion
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| Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 3:53 am Post subject: |
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| atgxtg wrote: | | I'm not so sure if I agree. People really don't dodge pin point attacks but instead make themselves harder to hit. Since lasers and other enegy weapons are supposed to be moving at the speed of light, dodging it out of the question. Heck, people can't enough dodge bullets. |
| Esoomian wrote: | | That's an excelent point people aren't actually dodging the shot they're making themselves harder to hit by being a moving or small target. It makes more sense to give a bonus to area effect attacks than to penalize the one dodging. |
That's semantics. Of course the characters in SW don't actually actively dodge bullets and blaster bolts, like characters in The Matrix. Instead they just make themselves harder to hit by moving erraticaly and diving for cover. I never claimed otherwise, so I'm not really sure what you mean with your disagreement. But in game terms, which is what I'm talking about all the time, you DO "dodge an attack" - you roll your Dodge skill against an opponents to-hit roll with his pertinent skill, and if you beat him it means you avoided the attack - realistically it means you made yourself a difficult enough target that he missed.
Yes, giving a bonus to the attacker instead of a penlty to the one dodging does reinforce the idea that you do not truly dodge bullets but instead make yourself harder to hit. But we all know this, so I see no reason whatsoever to reinforce the point. That it is simply easier to do is a far better reason to use this option.
I'm sorry if I'm comming over as a little dismissive and "Well, DUH?  " but I have personally never met anyone who didn't understand the difference between a game terms "dodge" and really dodging bullets where it wasn't appropriate to the setting, so I find the need to point it out and reitereate the point, especially as often as I've seen it done on RPG forums, somewhat mistifying... I guess your experience does not match mine?
| atgxtg wrote: | | On a related note, on my autoweapons thread, I reduced the damage for rapid fire weapons a little and gave them a Burst Value rating, that was usuable as either fire control, damage, or to hit multiple targets with one attack. |
A simple and elegant solution. I quite like it, I must give it a try.
| atgxtg wrote: | | As for Area Attacks,I have always considered that they hit the area, not the character. So a character can't dodge a grenade, since it isn't being thrown at him, but at where he is standing. |
So if anyone chucks a grenade at their opponent in your game, and they don't already have some cover between themselves and the point of impact, they're completely screwed, as they can do nothing to get out of the blast zone? They must stand there and take it, praying for the thrower to miss the range difficulty and scatter beyond blast radius? Wow, that's harsh!  Or am I missing something? Because it sure looks like a "kiss your rear goodbye" situation to me.
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atgxtg
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| Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 12:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon The Lion wrote: | That's semantics. Of course the characters in SW don't actually actively dodge bullets and blaster bolts, like characters in The Matrix. Instead they just make themselves harder to hit by moving erraticaly and diving for cover. I never claimed otherwise, so I'm not really sure what you mean with your disagreement. But in game terms, which is what I'm talking about all the time, you DO "dodge an attack" - you roll your Dodge skill against an opponents to-hit roll with his pertinent skill, and if you beat him it means you avoided the attack - realistically it means you made yourself a difficult enough target that he missed.
Yes, giving a bonus to the attacker instead of a penlty to the one dodging does reinforce the idea that you do not truly dodge bullets but instead make yourself harder to hit. But we all know this, so I see no reason whatsoever to reinforce the point. That it is simply easier to do is a far better reason to use this option.
I'm sorry if I'm comming over as a little dismissive and "Well, DUH? " but I have personally never met anyone who didn't understand the difference between a game terms "dodge" and really dodging bullets where it wasn't appropriate to the setting, so I find the need to point it out and reitereate the point, especially as often as I've seen it done on RPG forums, somewhat mistifying... I guess your experience does not match mine? |
I think you missed my point. Since lasers travel at the speed of light, and I can't see someone getting a penalty to dodge a slower moving MG burst. If anything the MG burst should be easier to dodge, as the PC has a lot more time to do so.
| atgxtg wrote: | | On a related note, on my autoweapons thread, I reduced the damage for rapid fire weapons a little and gave them a Burst Value rating, that was usuable as either fire control, damage, or to hit multiple targets with one attack. |
A simple and elegant solution. I quite like it, I must give it a try. [/quote]
The tread is around here. It has the formula I used to detemine a weapon's rathing.
| atgxtg wrote: | | As for Area Attacks,I have always considered that they hit the area, not the character. So a character can't dodge a grenade, since it isn't being thrown at him, but at where he is standing. |
So if anyone chucks a grenade at their opponent in your game, and they don't already have some cover between themselves and the point of impact, they're completely screwed, as they can do nothing to get out of the blast zone? They must stand there and take it, praying for the thrower to miss the range difficulty and scatter beyond blast radius? Wow, that's harsh! Or am I missing something? Because it sure looks like a "kiss your rear goodbye" situation to me.[/quote]
Well first off, the rules do mention that grenades can be thrown at a target area.
As for characters being completely screwed, not quite. First off I don't have grenades go off on contact with the ground. Instead, there is usually some time (a couple of seconds) for someone to try and throw it away (as per the 2nd R&E book), to dive behind some cover (gaining the cover bonus), or to try and move out of the blast area (thier runing success determining how many meters they moved before the greande goes off).
What I don't allow is someone to just roll a dodge roll and wade through the area ingoring the grenade. I don't run it like D&D, where the PCs makes a save so he isn't affected in anyway.
Dodging represents thing like moving erratically to make you character harder to target. It should be of much use against an attack that isn't specially targeting the character, but which the character is merely within the area of affect. I don't allow character to dodge explosive blast radii or gas clouds or other saturation effects.
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Esoomian
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| Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon The Lion wrote: | | I'm sorry if I'm comming over as a little dismissive and "Well, DUH? " but I have personally never met anyone who didn't understand the difference between a game terms "dodge" and really dodging bullets where it wasn't appropriate to the setting, so I find the need to point it out and reitereate the point, especially as often as I've seen it done on RPG forums, somewhat mistifying... I guess your experience does not match mine? |
My posts are in response to Garhkal's posts about penalizing the dodge skill for unknown weapons as you've already said you wouldn't do that.
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Leon The Lion
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| Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 5:53 am Post subject: |
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Oops. Seems, as my posting goes, this was a spectacular case of "foot, meet mouth". Hope I didn't offend you guys. In my (very flimsy, I'm aware) defense, this is somewhat of my pet peeve. "Oh look. Someone is making the 'But you don't really dodge bullets, you know' speech. Is it that time of the year already?"
| Esoomian wrote: | | My posts are in response to Garhkal's posts about penalizing the dodge skill for unknown weapons as you've already said you wouldn't do that. |
Yup, I totally didn't clue in on the context. My fault entirely. Sorry.
| atgxtg wrote: | | I think you missed my point. |
I sure as hell did, yes. It happens to me sometimes with points. I'd like to say it's because the little buggers can often have a ton of dice in their Dodge, but it's much more plausible I'm just not that good of a shot
| atgxtg wrote: | | Since lasers travel at the speed of light, and I can't see someone getting a penalty to dodge a slower moving MG burst. If anything the MG burst should be easier to dodge, as the PC has a lot more time to do so. |
With single fire you'd get absolutelty no argument from me. But what about a rapid firing machine gun, filling several meters of battlefield with lots (depending on the MG it could well be a hundred or more) of flying bullets, versus a single shot from a laser? That's what I ment. Would you say such a killing ground still be easier to dodge (dodge in game terms) that a single laser?
Also, while we're on the subject. Being anal and playing Captain Obvious (I've already made an @$$ of myself, your opinion can't sink that much lower ), I'd have to point out that no handheld energy weapons in Star Wars that I can remember are lasers or described as such. The're blasters, and as we've repeatedly seen in the movies blasters act nothing like lasers. Most importantly, they assuredly don't travel at the speed of light. If anything, blaster bolts are significantly slower than even conventional firearm bullets.
| atgxtg wrote: | Well first off, the rules do mention that grenades can be thrown at a target area.
As for characters being completely screwed, not quite. First off I don't have grenades go off on contact with the ground. Instead, there is usually some time (a couple of seconds) for someone to try and throw it away (as per the 2nd R&E book), to dive behind some cover (gaining the cover bonus), or to try and move out of the blast area (thier runing success determining how many meters they moved before the greande goes off).
What I don't allow is someone to just roll a dodge roll and wade through the area ingoring the grenade. I don't run it like D&D, where the PCs makes a save so he isn't affected in anyway.
Dodging represents thing like moving erratically to make you character harder to target. It should be of much use against an attack that isn't specially targeting the character, but which the character is merely within the area of affect. I don't allow character to dodge explosive blast radii or gas clouds or other saturation effects. |
Ah, I think I get it now. Let me try to take this apart 
| atgxtg wrote: | | As for characters being completely screwed, not quite. First off I don't have grenades go off on contact with the ground. |
That's nice of you
| atgxtg wrote: | | Instead, there is usually some time (a couple of seconds) for someone to try and throw it away (as per the 2nd R&E book), to dive behind some cover (gaining the cover bonus), or to try and move out of the blast area (thier runing success determining how many meters they moved before the greande goes off). |
So you do allow characters to react to an area attack, just not as a Reaction Skill (and I did kind of filter that you could do that out of my mind ). But there are grenades or other area effect weapons in the game, like missiles, that may also target the ground but do go off on impact. What then? Are the characters screwed then?
| atgxtg wrote: | | I don't run it like D&D, where the PCs makes a save so he isn't affected in anyway. |
But the basic Reaction Skill Dodge does in fact work very much the same as a D&D save - you beat the difficulty (attackers to-hit roll), you're safe.
| atgxtg wrote: | | Dodging represents thing like moving erratically to make you character harder to target. It should be of much use against an attack that isn't specially targeting the character, but which the character is merely within the area of affect. I don't allow character to dodge explosive blast radii or gas clouds or other saturation effects. |
I can't quite agree. Dodging should be more difficult against area of effect attacks, precisely because such attacks do not need to hit the character directly to affect him, agreed. But it should be of some use, I believe. It depends on how far you move, of course, but generally your moving erraticaly will make you harder to target also for a grenade-lobbing (missile/net/etc. firing) opponent. Sure, he gets much leeway as he doesn't need to pinpoint your location exactly, just hit the general area around you, but you're still forcing him to adjust his aim somewhat. If he adjusts it wrong, he could land the blast too far from you, catching you with its edge only, from which you should be able to dodge away.
Also, and much more importantly, I just don't really see why a character should be able do dodge against a pin-point attack aimed directly at him, which we said you can't realistically dodge anyway, but not an area-of-effect attack aimed at his vicinity. It's still a threat to him. Is it really so important that the character doesn't get an instant reaction like from a Reaction Skill (be it even not a Dodge but a Running roll, as this really seemes to make more sense), but must react only once his turn in the round comes along? Especially as this creates the problem with being basically defenseless against impact-triggered blasts, as I mention above? To use your argument about attack speeds, a grenade in flight is even slower than a firearm bullet, so you have even more time to judge where it's going to fall and react accordingly (if you see it comming of course, but that's true for all attacks). If you judge it wrong? Well, the rules of dodging do allow for unwittingly dodging into enemy fire so I see no problem.
Maybe I'm missing something again. Maybe it's just a matter of taste. Maybe I'm talking out of my rear - wouldn't be the first time
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