Talk:Star Wars: Revised System/Archive

Feats

Dan's feat notes

Could the 'force resistance' feat be replicated with an Integrity specialty? Though it often requires the usage of supernatural aid, Integrity usually governs resistance to natural and supernatural mental influence - could resistance to the mind tricks of the Jedi perhaps be an Integrity specialty, rather than a feat? I started making my own list of feats I thought we should convert, and it, to the feat, resembles yours almost exactly, with the exception of force resistancen and lucky (which I love, I just forgot). I'm trying to avoid anything I can imagine simulating with abilities (Gearhead is just a Repair specialty, etc.).
- If force resistance is only a way to resisit the telepathic tricks of a jedi then it could perhaps be converted, though there are alien species who recieve a benfit beyond what a specialty provides. Such a thing could be covered instead in a species bonus of sorts, though we've discussed not giving aliens ability bonuses. Without looking at my wording I would have intended this feat to apply to more than just the jedi mind tricks, and therefore above and beyond the scope of an integrity specialty. If others prefer just a specility its fine by me. (Tony)
- I've found it challenging to come up with feats that don't directly augment abilities (Gearhead, etc.) We have a list of mostly combat feats, which affects attack styles, which is fine. Lightsaber feats will augment this. But we need more feats that have benefits beyond combat, and now we only have two (Eidetic Memory and Lucky). Perhaps many of these "ability based feats" can remain, but benefit in a different capacity. Perhaps we could adopt feats like "Dodge" and "Lightning Reflexes" to piloting or repair. For example, Gearhead could cut in half repair time or allow for repairs without having all the necessary parts. Kirkland 11:53, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Should Integrity be a mental ability? If you've already considered this and decided that it shouldn't, then don't worry about it. I think it should stay social, as it really represents a "strength of character" - strength of mind is willpower. That said, I just wanted to make sure the opinions of others jibed with my own on the matter.
- I like Integrity where it is, but I'm not overly opposed to a change if people want. (Tony)
- Keep it where it is. Kirkland 11:53, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Should the lightsaber forms be treated like martial arts styles? i.e. Each lightsaber has a set of feats associated with it, just as each martial arts style has a set of charms associated with it?
- That is how I intended it, and the way I started to format the lightsaber feat section. (With each style having its own short 'tree' of feats, check out new WOD martial arts for what I was thinking) I also thought there would be some force/lightsaber feats that are not style specific. Examples would be lightsaber deflection, and an advanced version of the same feat allowing a counter attack with the deflected bolt. (Tony)

Feats vs. Special Abilities

Many species have many special abilities, which begs the question: Do we want to treat these special abilities as free feats that are restricted to a certain set of species? Or do we want to have a separate category for special abilities? Or does it really matter?

Some examples are:

Hutt and Toydarian force resistance (stronger than the current Force Resistance feat we have)
Wookiee Berserker Rage and Climbing Claws (which could really just be reflected in a free Climbing specialty)
Quarren and Mon Calamari aquatic survival, which again could be reflected as free specialties
Special abilities like species that can shoot acid, have venom, or other physical advantages.
Twi'lek tentacle communication

Kirkland 12:34, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

I would say that we're best of just counting these as special abilities, trying to constrain them into feats seems like it could present problems. Seems simple enough to just make them separate. --FyreFly 14:45, 7 December 2008 (EST)

Technical Aptitude

Technical Aptitude: The character has a natural technical ability that halves the time required to repair.

Should this be split into different technical aptitudes, one for ships, equipment, computers/droid, etc? Kirkland 11:47, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

I would vote for no, I think Technical Aptitude should cover the whole repair tree. Players don't get that many feats so I think we're better off keeping it as one. --FyreFly 14:46, 7 December 2008 (EST)

Vehicle and Space Combat

Vehicle Stats

Hull and Shields would function as soak.
Fire Control/Accuracy would be a bonus to the attacker's gunnery skill.
Damage would be based on the weapon. For example, quad laser cannons would be 6L, Proton Torpedoes 9L, Concussion Missiles 10L, etc. Is there a different between Bashing and Lethal damage for vehicles, I'm thinking not?
Damage Type - Weapons such as concussion missiles and ion cannons would penetrate the shield, removing it from the defender's soak.
Shield Arcs - for simplicity I'm tempted to do away with shield arcs in favor of a "one shield covers all" approach.
Maneuverability would be added to the pilots DV calculation. Something like (Piloting + Maneuverability) / 2.
- I'd like to keep this on a scale of 1 to 5. Examples:
  - 1 - B-wings, TIE Bombers, Star Destroyers, most Heavy Cruisers
  - 2 - Y-wings, TIE Fighters, MC80 Star Cruiser, most Medium Cruisers
  - 3 - TIE Interceptors, X-wings, E-wings, most Light Cruisers
  - 4 - TIE Advanced, A-wings, Picket Ships, MC100 & MC90 Star Cruisers
  - 5 - TIE Defenders
Health Levels would need to be determined on a per ship basis. Scale comes into consideration here.

Scale

In my opinion there are 5 sizes: Personal, Vehicle, Starfighter, Capital, and Death Star. Each weapon on this scale does significantly more damage to the scale below it and significantly less to the scale above it. In addition, larger-scale vehicles are much easier to hit and much harder to damage. There are a couple different mechanisms we can use to deal with this but we need to find the right balance.

DV Caps - for example, the Death Star scale DV cap would be zero. This could be determined by maneuverability. A starfighter is easy to hit with a blaster pistol if it's parked in a bay, but a moving starfighter would be harder to hit. However, lowering the DV means that all attacks are going to do a ton of extra damage. This can be negated by substantially larger hardness and soak values.
Reducing target number for a success - if you're attacking something of a larger scale, perhaps you only need a 6, or a 5, or a 4 to achieve a success. A vehicle firing at a star destroyer in the atmosphere would roll their same dice pool, but get a lot more successes, reflecting the ease of aim. Again, this brings up the "ton of extra damage" problem, when the reality is reverse - it's hard to get any damage in at all against something of a larger scale.
DV Bonuses/Penalties - instead of capping the DV, just reducing (or increasing) the DV by a fixed amount when going across scale.
To scale or not - Do we want larger scale weapons to do large amounts of damage (10+) or do we want to keep things scaled and apply modifiers when we go across scale? If we don't take scale into consideration, then capital ships are going to have tons of health levels and their weapons are going to do tons of damage. I'm not sure we can maintain a proper balance when working with numbers that might get out of hand.
Damage Bonuses/Penalties - when damaging something of a smaller scale, we could double the number of dice rolled or the number of successes on a damage roll. On the flip side, when damaging something on a larger scale, we could cut in half the number of dice rolled or the number of successes rolled. We could apply this multiple times when jumping across multiple scales (a starfighter would do 1/4 damage against the death star, for example).

Discussion

It has been decided that we will proceed with no scaling of any kind. The balance between various sized ships will be achieved with higher soak levels, health levels, and damage levels. I will keep the other ideas posted above just for reference, in case this needs to be revisited. Kirkland 11:44, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

We'll probably want to start working out some stats for ships and what not, given that I think we will see quite a bit of space battle in our new storyline. Some things to consider:

How a ship can be repaired throughout a battle?
- The first thing that comes to mind for me is that repair checks can be made to repair away the wound penalties of a ship, not the actual health levels int he amount of time that would be had in battle. This would be an extended roll with a set number of successes or something along those lines. just an idea.
Ship 'healing times' how a ship is repaired after battle?
- Obviously and extended repair roll is necessary, as well as some tools. But what kind of time are we thinking and how detailed into repair should we go are things to consider.
Do ships receive wound penalties? I would think so to show damage to thrusters and all that good stuff.
Do we want to allow called shots? Seems like a pretty big thing in starwars, but can bog down a system pretty quickly. Also leaves open the ability to exploit those damn vulnerable bridges and exhaust ports.
Does initiative work differently? With pilots, gunners, commanders, and all that jazz. I would think no, but something to consider.
Definitely agree no shield arcs, I think it should work pretty much just like armor. And Hull is like natural soak. Things like concussion missiles complete pierce the armor.
Also we should consider Ion cannons, they can play a large role in space combat. Especially if the rules aren't done right.
Ship design system?

--FyreFly 15:14, 7 December 2008 (EST)

Knowledges

I like the idea of knowledge points. And I agree with the 3 * Int number, though perhaps it should be higher. I think as we start to create characters we will realize if it should be. We also need to come up with a system for rewarding additional knowledge points, perhaps tie that in with leveling up. I would rather not use experience to increase knowledge points since the whole idea behind them is that they're not that significant and a player wouldn't want to "waste" XP on it. But I think they are a good way to get some bonus dice in situations that your character would deserve them. It's also a good way to represent Languages much more so than a Linguistics skill, because while they are 7 or 8 languages in Exalted there are millions in Star Wars. Kirkland 11:54, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

I like the idea of tying increased knowledges into leveling up, perhaps at level up you get a number of knowledge points equal to your intelligence rating. This would make knowledges pretty plentiful for some characters, but I'm okay with that I think. Also that will offset the fact that some characters will not start with too many. I do think that you should be able to buy knowledge points, if you decide you want more you should be able to. Something like 1 bonus point = 2 knowledge points, 1 exp = 1 knowledge point would probably work. --FyreFly 14:51, 7 December 2008 (EST)

The Force / Dark Side Points / Humanity

I'm going to let someone else write up the Humanity-like system we will use to represent a character's affinity toward the Dark Side. But let me sum up what I believe we agreed upon the other night, please correct this if I don't get it quite right.

Dark Side points will be on a scale of zero to five (six, ten?) with the last point indicating that the character has succumbed to the dark side of the force. The more dark side points a character has, the more "evil" it takes to get another one.

As a power lure, a character can call upon the dark side of the force to gain one additional success for the remainder of the scene. This is rewarded with an automatic dark side point.

To balance the power of the dark side, there is a cap imposed on dark side characters on the number of force points they can obtain. I don't remember if we decided on a specific number, or when this cap takes place (is it when a character has 5 DSPs, and unlimited otherwise?)

Bonus Points

I added the BP stuff to the character creation of the main page, give me your comments on these costs. Kirkland 12:08, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

Attribute: 4
Force Attribute: 5
Ability (favored): 1
Ability (unfavored): 1 up to 3 dots, then 2
Ability (force): 2
Backgrounds: 3
Willpower: 2

Force Attributes and Force Abilities should be the same cost as all other abilities and attributes in my opinion, Jedi are already straining for points given that force attributes start at zero rather than 1 and they have 5 extra abilities to purchase. Backgrounds should be 1 to raise instead of 3, 2 to raise above 3 unless favored. Force potential should cost 3 to raise to 4 and 4 to raise up to 5, making it 3 background dots and 7 freebees to take force potential 5.

Specialty: 1 (2 per 1 if favored ability)
Feats: 5

-Tony

I'm going to go ahead and make the suggestions that I had on the front page, I'll leave these here so we can change them back if we want.--FyreFly 15:04, 7 December 2008 (EST)

Character Sheet

Dan, when you're making the character sheet, it may be best to leave 7 dots for attributes. Remember that characters such as Wookiees receive +2 strength which increases their maximum strength to 7. I don't think there will be any bonuses beyond +2. Also if you could upload a draft of the character sheet PDF here I would love to take a look at it.

This is pending my re-installation of Photoshop after a reformat (I need to convert .psd --> .pdf). Dan 6:08, 2 September 2008 (EDT)
- Can't you just rename the file? Str8TalkXPress08 18:36, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

Timeline

I have flirted with the idea of moving our timeline back a few years, maybe 30-35 years. The reason is because I could have more flexibility with the setting. I could come up with a new villian or Sith apprentice for Palpatine. In our current time period, we have Darth Maul, and while he is awesome, I am reluctant to play canon characters in my storylines. Plus, you wouldn't be able to kill him and maintain consistency with the movies. The only two characters you are permitted to kill are Jar-Jar and Ziro the Hutt. Let me know what you think about the timeline adjustment, and if you see any disadvantages. I can't think of any. Kirkland 12:24, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

I agree that this would provide more freedom in the storyline - With a 30-some year gap, you've got a lot of freedom to enact truly long-term plans for the characters without being too capped by the events of the main series. If they exist, this would change already existing player-made plans for PC characters, but this isn't too extreme - it's not an era shift or anything. One thing that comes to mind, however, is a mood shift. The further you get from the events of the main movies, the less turbulent things are in the galaxy. At five years before TPM, you still have things like the growing tensions between the Separatists and Republic, the Trade Federation, etc. to stir things up and provide plot hooks. While it would make sense that events in which starting-level characters would participate wouldn't shake up the galaxy, it does place more of the burden on the storyteller to create a mood conducive to achievement on the part of the characters, as there is less of an overarching framework to set the galactic status quo. On the flip side, as I mentioned earlier, if you're willing to work within a more peaceful overall galaxy, this slightly earlier point in history would allow you more long-term creative freedom. Dan 6:22, 2 September 2008 (EDT)
- After further consideration, I realize that the current time period is not all that limiting. There are plenty of entities outside the Republic to play with. Since only one character in the group is a Jedi (possibly two if Drue plays) I'm not tied to pitting Jedi vs. Sith in a classic battle. That's not to say the next major villian you face won't know how to use the force - just look at Count Dooku. We'll keep the timeline where it's at. Kirkland 18:32, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

Exotic Weaponry

When you take a dot of Exotic Weaponry, do you have to pick which weapon (Lightsaber, Bowcaster, Archaic Weapons, etc.) or are you equally skilled in all of them? Kirkland 16:35, 4 September 2008 (EDT)

Each different exotic weapon must be bought separately. Taking exotic weapon lightsaber makes you no more skilled with a bowcaster and vice versa.

Backgrounds

I deleted Panoply because I think we decided not to use it, it wasn't very helpful or setting appropriate.
I added a new background 'Workshop', check it out on the main page. I think its fitting but let me know if people disagree.

--FyreFly 16:55, 7 December 2008 (EST)