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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering

Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16174
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2022 3:37 pm Post subject:

Why not redirecting? It would seem to merely be more difficult to do so, not impossible. _________________ "No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996. The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

Mamatried
Commodore

Joined: 16 Dec 2017
Posts: 1829
Location: Norway

Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2022 7:02 pm Post subject:

garhkal wrote:

Mamatried wrote:

My two cents is that the lightwhip deals less cutting damage, after all it is a flexible blade compared to the regular lightsaber.

I can not imagine somone cutting through a blast door like obi wan and qui gon in phantom menace using a lightwhip.

I would however give the while the nomal entangle abilities common to any whip.

Did you ever see AVP 2 requiem? IMO how that Uber predator chieftain had his funky whip work, where it DID cut apart xenos, is how i'd possibly see a light whip cutting people..

Quote:

On parrying blaster bolts, I see no issues. The whip could be twirled in front of the Jedi creating almost a shield of sorts. I see no issues with a Jedi using the force being able to do this and deflect and redirect blaster bolts. Given the nature of the force, I am further more than willing to suspend trying to apply over-realism to this.

Blocking maybe. Redirecting? IMO NO.

I would not limit the cutting power much if any against "flesh" and even though the xeos do have acidic blood they are still "soft" comapred to a the feat of cutting through a balst door.
but being a lightsaber weapon of course if cuts, and does so well, just differently and not in the same way as a sword......I can cut things with a whip and with a sword, but I can use my sword to cut my way through the harder door, the whip not so much

garhkal
Sovereign Protector

Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14031
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 12:57 am Post subject:

CRMcNeill wrote:

Why not redirecting? It would seem to merely be more difficult to do so, not impossible.

From how we've seen Lightsabers work in the films, the reason they can redirect a bolt, not just block them, is how the jedi holding it angles the blade 'just right'.. With how whips are all over the place, i am having a hard time seeing, them being used in that manner..
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering

Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16174
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 12:59 am Post subject:

garhkal wrote:

That's what I'm saying; it's not flatly impossible that a Force user could get a lightwhip into the proper position to block a blaster bolt, but it would certainly be more difficult.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)

Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10297
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 1:25 am Post subject: Re: Official Rules -> Lightwhips?

A lightwhip might be the most gimmicky gimmick-lightsaber there is. And ironically it is from a time long before the the 21st century gimmick-lightsaber era.

I remember that in one of my 20th century campaigns, there was a "lightdagger" but it was nothing more than lightsaber with a 1' blade. It was wielded by non-Force character. We gave it lower damage and difficulty, with less danger of harming oneself. That's it. I've never gone more gimmicky than that. I've never even had a double-bladed lightsaber appear in my game, even though TPM is canon in my SWU.

BentuSinn wrote:

So the official rules for a lightwhip says thats when an opponent attempts to parry an attack from the weapon he should "increase the difficulty by one level"

Now what difficulty is meant here?

Where was this rules citation coming from? The Weapons compilation document in the RP Library doesn't have anything about this.

Official means officially published by WEG. Are there even "official" SWD6 rules for lightwhips? The Gamer magazine referenced in the Weapons "compilation" is actually a d20 product published by WotC. There are some basic d20 stats there, which are not D6 and not official WEG. That makes the Weapons stats document more than just a WEG compilation. It includes some stat conversions from non-WEG sources.

And we know from Defining a Galaxy: 30 Years in a Galaxy Far, Far Away that Bill Slavicsek was advised by Lucasfilm to ignore Marvel for the WEG SW RPG. So was this thread correctly put in Official Rules or should I move it? Anyone?

CRMcNeill wrote:

Why not redirecting? It would seem to merely be more difficult to do so, not impossible.

A lightsaber has a statically-shaped blade of "solid" energy that already requires such a large degree of disbelief suspension as it is. A true "lightwhip" would have a dynamically-shaped thong made of energy that requires a superior degree of disbelief suspension, and for me, without any supporting nostalgia factor that lightsabers have. But if you want an in-universe reason, then maybe because sabers are stiff while whips are limp.

CRMcNeill wrote:

The lightwhip is described as having both solid and energy components... I personally picture something more along the lines of the whips used by Whiplash in Ironman 2, more of a force whip than a light whip.

That makes a lot more sense to me, but if they are just energized physical weapons than they would not be true "light" weapons, which would be a good reason that a Jedi can't do everything with these whips that they can with lightsabers, which were originally designed by Jedi for Jedi. IMO weapons shouldn't be even called light-anything without a damaging component of pure energy.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering

Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16174
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 10:54 am Post subject: Re: Lightwhips?

Whill wrote:

So was this thread correctly put in Official Rules or should I move it? Anyone?

I say move it. There were never any official rules for Lightwhips.

Quote:

But if you want an in-universe reason, then maybe because sabers are stiff while whips are limp.

Correct, but it has never been stated that rigidity is a requirement for deflecting the bolt. My thinking is that the block/redirect is an effect of the energy field of the blade, not rigidity. garhkal's argument seems to be that the whip itself is capable of blocking a blaster bolt, but can't redirect it. That implies the blade is physically capable of blocking a bolt, but that while the wielder can possibly exercise enough control over the whip to successfully block, they can't exercise enough control to redirect the bolt at a particular target. That seems arbitrary to me, in that a sufficiently skilled character, guided by the Force, wielding a weapon that can block blaster bolts, should be able to block and redirect blaster bolts if they roll high enough.

Quote:

CRMcNeill wrote:

more of a force whip than a light whip.

I agree on the Force/Light weapon distinction, but the ability to deflect/redirect blaster bolts should be based on something more concrete than nomenclature. Note, for instance, that the magnetically sealed walls of the garbage compactor (presumably, an energy field projected over/around a solid core) in ANH deflected blaster bolts quite nicely. Thus, if a similar field could be projected around a thin, flexible core, it would be capable of deflecting a blaster bolt.

Ultimately, I just really like the visual of a character with a whip cracking blaster bolts out of the air, and I think the tech exists that would allow it. I'd absolutely make it more difficult compared to a lightsaber, but this is consistent with my preference for limiting characters by making things extremely difficult, rather than flat-out impossible. I see it as one of the trade-offs for using a lightwhip as opposed to a lightsaber in the first place (although I have long wanted to do a Zorro-style character dual-wielding a lightfoil and a lightwhip).
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)

Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10297
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 12:40 pm Post subject: Re: Lightwhips

CRMcNeill wrote:

Whill wrote:

So was this thread correctly put in Official Rules or should I move it? Anyone?

I say move it. There were never any official rules for Lightwhips.

Done.

CRMcNeill wrote:

Whill wrote:

...But if you want an in-universe reason, then maybe because sabers are stiff while whips are limp.

My unquoted feeling wasn't worthy of a response to you, and it's great if you have a superior ability to suspend disbelief enough for lightwhips (or "forcewhips"). Lightsabers are one of many fantastic technologies of SW that this middle aged science nerd is tasked with disbelief suspension for as it is, and that probably wouldn't even be possible without a strong notalgia factor for my childhood love of SW.

As a kid I read many issues of the Marvel Star Wars comic book standing in the grocery store while my mom shopped (and a few more that a friend had), but I either retained no memory of the lightwhip ("lightflail") or didn't read any issues it appeared in. In my childhood I only ever owned one issue of the Marvel SW comic (#37), and now I only own the Annual #1 plus reprints of the three Marvel movie adaptations.

And your stance that there is nothing special about the lightsaber, so Jedi should be able to do everything they do with them in films with more mundane items has been well expressed here. We'll just have to agree to disagree there, because I find SW is more meaningful to me if lightsabers are unique Jedi weapons (which probably drives part of my resistance to the existence of other gimmicky "light-" weapons in my SWU). The grognard in me feels you just can't improve on a classic, so why bother?

If any GM wants light/forcewhips and want them to be able to deflect (and even redirect) blaster bolts (at a higher difficulty or even the same), cool if that works for you. One of the few cool things about Wonder Woman 1984 was a scene where she just spun her lasso in front of her to deflect bullets from several different shooters at once. Of course she is a demigod and the lasso is magic (and I have different standards for it), but something like this certainly wouldn't be the most magical thing the Force makes possible in the SW franchise.

CRMcNeill wrote:

I agree on the Force/Light weapon distinction, but the ability to deflect/redirect blaster bolts should be based on something more concrete than nomenclature.

It is something more than nomenclature for me. Part of it is a material difference between a weapon with a component made of pure energy vs an energized physical one. Most of it is my disability to suspend disbelief for certain things without a nostalgia factor and my feeling for the uniqueness of lightsabers. But an energized whip's capabilities with the Force is probably a moot point for me anyway because I doubt one will ever appear in my game.

And I know "force pikes" are a thing in WEG (by way of Brian Daley), but I don't care for the "force" designation for energized physical weapons. Force pikes are vibroweapons which are sometimes shown in visual media with a light/energy effect that seems out of place. I don't feel vibrowhips should be able to deflect blaster bolts either, but that's me.

As far as energized whips go, I'm thinking the most special they should be are having the capability to resist being cut by lightsabers, like the magna guard's electrostaff. But I consider that capability to be more based on the physical material of the staff than an "energy field". And that still strains my personal disbelief suspension because whips are limp, not stiff like a staff.

CRMcNeill wrote:

Note, for instance, that the magnetically sealed walls of the garbage compactor (presumably, an energy field projected over/around a solid core) in ANH deflected blaster bolts quite nicely. Thus, if a similar field could be projected around a thin, flexible core, it would be capable of deflecting a blaster bolt.

The garbage masher comparison doesn't do anything for me because the term "magnetically sealed" strongly implies to me it is is something done to the inside of a sealed enclosure. A "magnetic" field on the outside of an small object would be the reverse of the garbage masher, a technological function that we never explicitly see in SW.

Protecting objects from outside damage with energy fields is the realm of shield technology, and that tech does not show blaster bolts being "reflected". In effect it appears that shields absorbs or dissipates the energy to various degrees.

CRMcNeill wrote:

Ultimately, I just really like the visual of a character with a whip cracking blaster bolts out of the air, and I think the tech exists that would allow it. I'd absolutely make it more difficult compared to a lightsaber, but this is consistent with my preference for limiting characters by making things extremely difficult, rather than flat-out impossible. I see it as one of the trade-offs for using a lightwhip as opposed to a lightsaber in the first place (although I have long wanted to do a Zorro-style character dual-wielding a lightfoil and a lightwhip).

I get that. I think a Zorro-style character with a lightfoil and a non-energized whip sounds like a cooler idea. And either way, he would have the lightfoil to deflect blaster bolts so wouldn't need to do it with the whip. Cool

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CRMcNeill
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Joined: 05 Apr 2010
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:44 pm Post subject: Re: Official Rules -> Lightwhips?

Whill wrote:

My unquoted feeling wasn't worthy of a response to you,

I don't think "worthy" is accurate. We all play in our own versions of the SWU, thus your feeling about how things should be in your own universe isn't in dispute. I can hardly disagree with how you feel about what should or should not be in your setting. Thus, I only quoted the portion that I disagreed with, which had to do with how things would be in my headcanon

Quote:

Lightsabers are one of many fantastic technologies of SW that this middle aged science nerd is tasked with disbelief suspension for as it is, and that probably wouldn't even be possible without a strong nostalgia factor for my childhood love of SW.

Indeed. I use Clarke's Third Law quite often in my appreciation of the SWU.

Quote:

As a kid I read many issues of the Marvel Star Wars comic book standing in the grocery store while my mom shopped (and a few more that a friend had), but I either retained no memory of the lightwhip ("lightflail") or didn't read any issues it appeared in.

My experience was similar, and I did manage to read the comics in question. It was during the post-RotJ extra-galactic invasion by the Nagai and Tofs arc, very near the end of the Marvel Comics Star Wars line.

Quote:

And your stance that there is nothing special about the lightsaber, so Jedi should be able to do everything they do with them in films with more mundane items has been well expressed here.

I think that's an incorrect description of my stance. It would be more accurate to say that I think the WEG rules place too much emphasis on the Lightsaber, and not enough on the character holding it. IMO, the lightsaber's unique properties are in its ability to cut through "anything", block attacks without taking damage and (arguably) to function far more reliably than a device of its size, type and method of construction should be able to. On top of that, it's the tradition, symbolism and huge body of history, technique and methodology that have inextricably intertwined the lightsaber with the Jedi. Not all of these things can be readily expressed in a gaming rule system.

That being said, while a lightsaber has the capacity to deflect a blaster bolt, it doesn't confer upon the ability to do so onto the user. That skill set is inherent to the user, not the device. As such, a Jedi who has the precognitive ability to position a lightsaber in such a way as to intercept a blaster bolt should be able to apply that precognition to intercepting a blaster bolt with other objects as well. Of course, said object will not be nearly as well suited to the task as would a lightsaber, and will likely take damage (with nearby objects - such as said Jedi - taking splash damage) as a result.

So, it's not that there is nothing special about lightsabers; rather, it's that what makes lightsabers truly special is much more nuanced than the WEG rules make them out to be.

As an aside, I do have a concept for this, essentially a "Force Assisted Construction" power wherein a Jedi uses Enhance Attribute and Magnify Senses to achieve an extreme level of precision when assembling a lightsaber by hand, resulting in a device far more reliable and efficient than it should be (hence the unreliability of Tapani Lightfoils).

Quote:

And I know "force pikes" are a thing in WEG (by way of Brian Daley), but I don't care for the "force" designation for energized physical weapons. Force pikes are vibroweapons which are sometimes shown in visual media with a light/energy effect that seems out of place. I don't feel vibrowhips should be able to deflect blaster bolts either, but that's me.

I agree, and we have discussed this elsewhere. I'm inclined more toward the WH40K format, where an energy field around a solid core is a "power weapon". A "force weapon" would be a "power weapon" that is infused with psychoactive material that allows Force/Warp energy to be focused through it, thus increasing its damage. I can see something like the latter being used for the Sith Swords found in the TotJ Companion.

I'm not quite sure on the timeline, though. This thread sat idle for almost nine years, so my use of "Force Whip" very likely preceded that discussion.

Quote:

As far as energized whips go, I'm thinking the most special they should be are having the ability to resist being cut by lightsabers, like the magna guard's electrostaff. But I consider that ability to be more based on the physical material of the staff than an "energy field". And that still strains my disbelief suspension because whips are limp, not stiff like a staff.

My thinking is that energized weapons would have the advantage of being able to dial down their intensity, so as to inflict Stun Damage or even no damage at all (thus allowing a Power Whip to be usable for whip tricks ala cheshire's A Crack Of The Whip article from D6 Magazine #1). There are also several offsetting weaknesses in the design, as described thusly in the Wookieepedia article:

However, lightwhips featured just as many drawbacks as advantages. Unless the wielder was already a master with ordinary whips, a lightwhip blade was difficult to control, able to just as easily maim an untrained wielder as an opponent, and was weaker than the standard lightsaber blade as it could not always penetrate durasteel armor or walls, and many substances could survive from a direct hit. It needed to be swung wide to gain momentum for attack, and it was difficult to use defensively as flexible tassels are not well suited for parrying, leaving the wielder vulnerable to both great speed and brute force. In fact, lightwhip blades were even known to short out violently when struck with enough force.Plenty to work with there insofar as writing a balanced stat with multiple pros and cons when compared to a lightsaber. Technology can also help with some of the practical issues, too; cheshire's article mentions that a bullwhip can be anywhere from one to six meters long, depending on what it's best suited for, so a high-tech whipcord could alter its length, extending out to hit targets at range or retracting down into something better suited for melee in close quarters.

Quote:

A "magnetic" field on the outside of an small object would be the reverse of the garbage masher, a technological function that we never explicitly see in SW.

Ultimately, though, it does show that a solid object can be "sealed" so that it redirects a blaster bolt without causing said bolt to lose coherence or be absorbed by the field.

Quote:

I think a Zorro-style character with a lightfoil and a non-energized whip sounds like a cooler idea.

But then we couldn't have cool scenes like this. YMMV.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)

Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 10297
Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy

Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2022 1:52 am Post subject: Re: Lightwhips?

CRMcNeill wrote:

I use Clarke's Third Law quite often in my appreciation of the SWU.

I've noticed. Unfortunately 'The tech is so advanced that it seems magical' or 'it is beyond explanation by us' doesn't always work for me. As you've probably noticed.

CRMcNeill wrote:

I was thinking it was sooner, but I see now it was near the end, Star Wars #95. That was junior high for me, and I was already collecting comic books by then, but not Star Wars. (After the summer of '83, our interest in Star Wars had waned and we got back into D&D.) All through junior high and early high school I was into superhero comics. I do remember being turned off by the artwork on some of the Star Wars covers so I didn't read them. Now I can say I've definitely never read any comics with lightwhips. I probably didn't even learn of their existence until the 90s, but it is possible that one of my high school WEG SW players told me about them in the late 80s.

CRMcNeill wrote:

OK, that's well stated.

CRMcNeill wrote:

I agree, and we have discussed this elsewhere. I'm inclined more toward the WH40K format, where an energy field around a solid core is a "power weapon".

"Power weapon" is better.

CRMcNeill wrote:

Whill wrote:

I think a Zorro-style character with a lightfoil and a non-energized whip sounds like a cooler idea.

But then we couldn't have cool scenes like this. YMMV.

That is a cool scene. I like Iron Man 2 even though it seems unpopular to do so among MCU fans. But as this shows, we do have cool scenes like that without them being in Star Wars.

Although they don't seem particularly necessary for my SWU, I really don't have any problem with energized physical power whips existing. The part I really take issue with is them providing lightsaber-like benefits to Force-users, so it seems that goes back to my grognard views on the uniqueness of lightsabers. Just because it can be argued that Jedi precognitive abilities shouldn't be limited to lightsabers, that doesn't change the fact that I just like it better with lightsabers. They're iconic.
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