Balance, less lethal

[u/CanuckLad]

I played Star Wars D6 through most of my teen years. I'm now 50. We purchased most, not all, sourcebooks, adventure journals, etc

I love the system. I love that you can build exactly what you want. I love how easy character creation is. I love that being a world class X doesn't mean you also have to be a world class Y.

That being said, the game always tended to be lethal. And Jedi weren't terribly useful in the early stages, and god-like when they got their Force skills higher. Had anyone ever come up with a solution for either? I don't think re-up does much to tackle these issues does it?

Or maybe others don't see these things as issues, am I the only one?

On the Jedi, I'm thinking: - Remove the Force power "Lightsaber combat" - Allow Jedi to use Sense to deflect blaster bolts without keeping a power "up". If they want to deflect it, perhaps that needs an additional Control action (posdibly at a penalty) - don't allow Force sensitive players to have more than 5 Force points

[u/ScottAleric]

Honestly after playing d20 (pathfinder and DnD) for the past 15ish years, I’m glad to get back to the more lethal d6 Star Wars.

It’s refreshing to me that players will go out of their way to make plans to increase their chances, reduce their exposure to risk, instead of just charging in and expect to win.
It’s fun when a character uses a speeder to run over a droid or a monster tramples a character or a character rolls 3x 6s on the wild die damage or has to blow 5cp to survive the bad guy’s lucky shot.
…ETA: I’d like to think I’m not a monster - I’ll tell them when I roll really well. In dire circumstances, I’ll even tell them the target number or range and let them decide how much of a hit to take. I fudge results sometimes to make a more cinematic experience: does the action economy, strictly followed, allow them to dive into the chute to escape the starfighter scale concussion missile attack on the ship’s bridge? Nope. Am I going to make them suffer? Hell no. Jump into the chute and fire and blast wave follows you down. Someone or two gets singed.

It adds challenge when the players have to suddenly change the plan to come to the rescue of a mortally wounded character.

Sometimes the dice conspire to doom the character - and that leads to interesting and intense moments. It gives the medical professional or the Jedi a moment to shine, to bring in the magic of the Force, to improvise.

The only thing I needed to start out with is that d6 IS a more lethal game and characters can die.

As for Jedi- there were two changes I needed to make in the last big run, and that was lightsaber combat could give bonuses to either hit or to damage. Not both (IIRC, that’s what 2nd ed or ReUp did as well). The other one was when they chose to use a FP and call on the dark side for an immediate second one: the second point increases the stat multiplier by 1, instead of doubling it.
Otherwise, it’s a matter of being sure to enforce action penalties, the cost of keeping force powers “up” and so forth.

But honestly, you do you. Check with your players before committing to a harder or easier run. Talk with them about what they want and expect from the game.
You may be overthinking it.

[u/StevenOs → u/ScottAleric]

As far as d20 and lethality go the Original and Revised SWd20 games used Wounds/Vitality instead of straight hitpoint. Now vitality was a lot like hitpoints but Wounds were only equal to a character's CON and taking that much wound damage was lethal. Critical hits go straight to Wounds and in a system where 3d6, 3d8, or worse were routine damage figures you needed a very good CON score to reasonably avoid being one-shotted buy some mook's critical.

[u/Solo4114]

So, I've mostly run D6 Star Wars at conventions, and therefore adjust the game rules somewhat to make it (1) move faster, and (2) work better for convention play. That said, towards this end, here's how I deal with the issues you mentioned.

1. How to balance Jedi? I don't. My adventures don't involve them. Or at least, they haven't so far. First, from a mechanical standpoint, it seemed to me that (as you noted) Jedi are pretty squishy and useless early on, but can become demigods the longer you play with them. Which is in keeping with the film, but still kinda "off" to me for gameplay purposes. Second, in-universe, in my view the Jedi should be so rare that you basically never see them. And if that's the case, nobody needs to play one, unless the story revolved around it. Like, I would probably either do what I usually do where there are no Jedi, or it'd be an adventure where every player is a Jedi, and the story is oriented around that fact.

2. Re: lethality, I basically just tilt things in players' favor. The heroes are heroes. That's not to say they can't get shot, wounded, even killed, but generally speaking, I tweak how durable enemies are. Unarmored mook enemies basically go down in one hit, unless they are merely stunned. Armored enemies get stunned, wounded, incapacitated. Important enemies get treated like player characters, and thus have all the durability of PCs. Similarly, I sidestep initiative by having heroes go first (which is in keeping with the rule changes for the Introductory Adventure box), unless there's a story reason otherwise (e.g., they get caught by surprise/in an ambush/etc.).

This makes the game move fast enough that I can fit a tightly-designed adventure into a 4-ish hour game slot at a con, gives everyone a taste of good, fun, Star Wars-y action, and life goes on. If it were a longer campaign...I might actually keep the same rules, just because I like the vibe of play, unless I wanted to make it an intentionally tougher campaign.

Like, if I wanted to do something more with the vibe of Andor, I'd probably make enemies more durable. If I wanted to do something with the vibe of the A-Team, I'd use my convention rules.

[u/Kiyohara → u/Solo4114]

I like the mook rules and have been experimenting with them.

[u/gufted]

If you really want to touch on lethality you can check the OpenD6 space variations. You can adjust the wound track accordingly or even use a HP based system.
However, that said, I don’t find Star Wars D6 particularly lethal. PCs are above average when starting, and they get meta currency like Character Points and Force Points to help in times of need.
It’s not D&D. PCs are not meant to overcome odds by killing everything in their path. They’re meant to win the odd fight, and when the going gets tough to make a run for it. This is the expectation and that’s how adventures are designed.
Think space opera not epic battles.
Hope this helps

[u/CanuckLad → u/gufted]

I understand, but RAW a character can easily die from a single bad shot from a mook.

[u/gufted → u/CanuckLad]

Easily? No. If they’re hit (which is a big if depending on distance, cover and dodging, which PCs should actively do) an average blaster does 4D damage versus 3D strength for an average PC (I’ll consider they’re not wearing any armor). That’s only 1D on top which is 50-50 on stunned/wounded. The calculation to kill instantly someone that was hit in the above example gives 2.83%. Anything the PC does reduces this even further.

[u/CanuckLad → u/gufted]

You haven't seen my average roll for my own characters 😞

[u/ScottAleric → u/CanuckLad]

That’s negative/confirmation bias.
Human brains are wired to fixate on the outliers, especially when they have negative outcomes.

What this means in practice is out of 60 rolls, statistically speaking,

• 40 will have a normal result on the wild die.
  
• 10 will explode up.
  
• 10 will mishap down.
  

It is those last 10 we fixate on and remember (or the explode up if the “negative outcome” is high rolls the player suffers from and you have to stress about keeping them alive)
They feel more common, more monumental, more important or dangerous. Your brain is telling you, “avoid making dice rolls, bad things happen when you do.”

Because our brains are wired that way. Remember the bad outcome and what led to it.
It helped us avoid those red berries that made us feel sick or the growling sound of a nearby dangerous animal warning us to stay away or the weakened dead branch of the tree we were climbing that broke.

What broke my dice confirmation bias?
I sat down and roll 4d6 with a wild die.
Rolled 200 times.
Recorded the results on excel (now Google Sheets would do the same for free)
Charted the results.

Hope this helps

[u/CanuckLad → u/ScottAleric]

But 10 out of 60 is what I'd call lethal. We've gone through the math already. Ignoring wild die, 3% chance of one hit kill, in my opinion, is pretty steep. Which is likely why the system has a reputation for being fairly lethal.

[u/ScottAleric → u/CanuckLad]

IF they’re hit.
In practice, it’s rare for characters to get hit in the first place.

And I’m not even sure 3% is an accurate number - the CP option heavily weighs in favor of PCs. Up to 2 for offense and 5 for defense? Come on.

I’ve rolled thousands of attacks (quick estimate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15k, and that’s fairly conservative) on PCs over the years. A 3% kill rate would mean I would have some 450 dead PCs to my name. I’ve got about 8. That’s 0.05%

The times I’ve seen characters die have been because of things like someone foolishly spent all their CPs in training and didn’t save enough for defense, the one time I was doing open rolls and got some 50+ on the damage and they rolled a mishap and kept rolling 1s on the CPs, or the other players didn’t get to the mortally wounded character in time.

If you’re in a game where characters die 3% of the time, there’s something seriously wrong.

[u/gufted → u/ScottAleric]

2.83% is the chance that a Blaster HIT (4D) will kill instantly an unarmored PC (3D). I’ve calculated it via Anydice using Wild Die probabilities for both attacker and defender, the math is correct, I can provide the link. However as I said in the beginning, it is NOT the chance to die when shot at. It is the chance to die when HIT and also if deciding not to spend any character points. The actual chance considering to hit probabilities, active defense, occasional armour, etc is much lower.

[u/ScottAleric → u/gufted]

Great, thank you for clarifying. 😌

It’s all those other options you can’t mathematically account for that makes the 3% misleading.
…and what the OP naturally latched on to.

[u/CanuckLad → u/ScottAleric]

What I "latched" onto is that on average 1 in 36 times I'll roll a 1 and the mob will roll a 6.

[u/gufted → u/CanuckLad]

For the sake of the discussion I would like to offer even more insight on the lethality of the D6 system, and also compare it to a few other systems.

In all cases we're talking about new characters against mooks. For the D6 system I'll consider a 3D character in attributes, with 1D extra in Dodge at 4D, and for the mook the Imperial Soldiers with 4D+1 blaster and a blaster pistol that does 4D damage.

I will also describe how the odds are reduced in case of other modifiers with more examples.

The calculations for this all account for the Wild Die probabilities, using Anydice, you can find it here https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsD6/s/vDRqc2pGOI and here: https://anydice.com/program/16dd5

To use it you write down how many Wild Dice (1) you roll, the additional Normal Dice, and the Pips. So for a 3D+1 roll, you'd write in anydice "output [wild 1d6 2 dice 1 pips]" at the bottom of the script, and check the "At Least" tab.

Case Example

Character is out in the open at Medium range, has nowhere to hide, decides to do nothing about it, no dodging and instead to shoot at the imperial troopers. They shoot back, or could potentially dodge, reducing their hit chance, but let's say they're as reckless as the character.

Taking the median of the Moderate difficulty that is Medium range, the target number is 13.
Anydice gives the Mook at 39.97% chance to successfully hit. A hit as I calculated before has a 2.83% chance to be a kill, so the overall chance for a one-shot kill here is 1.13%. (Worst Case)

Now if the Imperial Trooper decided to dodge as a multi-action (he's taking fire after all), with a -1D multi action penalty, the to-hit chance drops immediately to 12.01%, and the overall chance to one-shot kill goes down to 0.33%

Should the character decide to do a Full Dodge instead, the to-hit chance of the Mook who won't try to dodge this time becomes 1.36%, which means for a one-shot kill 0.04%

Let's take the possibility now that there was cover around, as an example we'll take 1/2 Cover at +2D difficulty. The character doesn't dodge. The to-hit chance of the Mook becomes 6.63%, and if the Mook decides to also dodge, it becomes 2.06%. These correspond to a one-shot-kill of 0.19% and 0.06% respectively.

If the character wore a Blast Vest (+1 against energy) this would reduce all the above chances by 25.44%, as the one-hit kill drops from 2.83% to 2.11%.

All the above examples where without using any character points.

Lethality Comparisons

For the sake of space, these will be done against the Worst case scenario.

Let's start with the comparison to the DnD family. Unfortunately I haven't played D&D for more than 20 years, so I'll go back to AD&D 2ed. I think it's only fair as SWD6 is of the same time period. So an orc against a 1st Level PC (Warrior) wearing Studded Leather and Shield, has a 40% chance to hit him, and a 45% chance to bring him to 0 hit points, for a whooping 18% chance of a 1-shot kill.

As my next example I'll take Savage Worlds Deluxe Explorers edition.
Our hero will be a d6 character overall, against a d6 Mook, with Shooting d8, armed with Laser Pistol, at Medium range. The to-hit chance is 37.50%., and if the Mook uses all of the 3d6 of the Laser Pistol, with a 9.30% chance of a one-shot-kill, this becomes 3.49%. Of course the defender has Bennies to use, which are similar to Character Points.

Next we'll see BRP, an average character will have 12 HP. The Mook will have Energy Weapons at 65%, and be armed with a Blaster Pistol which can shoot two shots (+5%). The to-hit-chance at Medium range (Difficult) is 35%. The chance that two shots hit is 17.5%, and the chance for a special success is 7% which will do Impaling damage (double damage). The damage of a Blaster Pistol is 1d8+2. So the damage considering all the above is... 3.5% * 3d8+6, 3.5% * 2d8+4, 14% * 2d8+4, 14% 1d8+2...
3d8+6 has a 98.05% chance of a Fatal Wound, and 2d8+4 has a 67.19% chance for a fatal wound. These give a 15.19% chance of a Fatal Wound with a single shot.

Last I will compare against GURPS. Let's give the PC an ST of 11 and the Mook a Beam Weapons skill of 12 and a Blaster Pistol. The range will be 15yds, at -5 to Hit. The ROF is 3 and will do 3 shots. There's a 6.94% chance of a single hit (3d - 50% to be 11 or more), a 4.63% chance of two hits (6d), 4.17% chance of three hits (9d - 99.55% to be 11 or more) and 0.46% chance of a critical hit (instant death in this case using max damage rules of GURPS Lite). This gives a total of 8.08% for a one-shot kill against a Passive target in GURPS that does nothing.

Conclusion

In my opinion it's not a more lethal system than others. Either the GM is too harsh, the players don't utilize the best tactics, or the dice rolls were really really bad.

[u/CanuckLad → u/gufted]

Why use beginning characters as the example. In D6 your ability to shrug off damage from successful attacks does not increase as your character advances. Perhaps This Is where the lethality of the system comes from. In D&D for example a first-level warrior can be one hit, but at 15th level his hit points far exceed his own damage output. Whereas in D6 your strength is about the same, so The lethality of the same weapon is unchanged from a beginning D6 character to a very powerful one. The only significant difference is the amount of character points they might have, and again that's a touchy subject because that's also how you progress the character in the first place.

[u/gufted → u/CanuckLad]

How come it doesn’t? With the exception of the really slow increase of the Strength attribute, your character can increase their dodge skill, shooting skill and make multiple actions to help them. They also earn Character Points and also have the option of getting better defensive gear and armour.
In my list of examples I also provided Savage Worlds, BRP, and GURPS, all of which can easily run a Star Wars or Space Opera game, and all of which don’t increase the Wounds/HP of the character during advancement. Yet you choose to hang on to the one example of D&D which has nothing to do with Space Opera, and can only run Epic Fantasy.
You are biased and I’m not going to continue wasting my good will here. You choose to deny the root cause of your issue, which is how you play the game, and instead are fixated on changing the system. Have fun

[u/CanuckLad → u/gufted]

As your defence increases, I assume the enemies attack does also. But my comment is about how the character deals with damage upon a successful attack against you. You can increase your strength, but that's very expensive, and some players build a character to fit their vision of the character, not for mechanical advantage. Not everyone wants to play a bulky weightlifter for example. In D&D hit points scales faster than damage output in most cases. In D6 your strength to damage ratio remains more or less constant (for most characters I should think).

[u/SWATJester]

High lethality is a necessary function of the SWRPG d6 system due to the fundamental design of how die codes work and the scaling involved. But it's not quite as lethal as people think, it's just a more compacted scale.

Remember, the average result of a d6 is 3.5, so we can do basic math here.

If an average NPC's STR code is 3D, and we assume maybe 1D in armor, then you're assuming average resistance roll against damage of 14. At your absolute top end, lets take a maxxed out Wookie (6D) in heavy armor (2D), so that's 8D resist total for an average of 28.

A standard 4D blaster pistol, therefore, only has a ~50% chance on average (slightly worse actually as they lose a tie) to damage the average armored NPC, even if they do hit. And consider that the NPC has many better ways to avoid getting hit and to boost that roll, than they do to reducing/soaking that damage.

Wearing appropriately scaled armor against an appropriately scaled threat is a good way to keep yourself healthy. Tanky builds can be essentially immune to lighter weapons (in somewhat comical ways) but can still be wrecked when facing off against a threat with high damage armor piercing weapons -- like lightsabers.

I'm gonna give you some math here that's applicable generally but based on 2E R+E as that's what I play.
Assume human NPCs with 3D attributes/5D skills, a Wookie w/ 6D strength and 1D armor, and a Jedi with 5D in everything. Assume 1 attack, no coordination, standard Wild Die.

NPC A shoots blaster (any) at NPC B:

Defense	Short	Medium	Long
No dodge	89.00%	69.83%	33.83%
Regular dodge, 5D	52.53%	52.53%	52.53%
Full dodge, 5D	12.22%	3.87%	0.93%

So as you can see right off the rip, dodge + appropriate armor gives you a strong chance you're not going to get hurt.

Attack versus resistance	Any effect	No effect	S	W	I	M	K
4D pistol vs B’s 3D	71.02%	28.98%	21.28%	25.52%	13.29%	5.89%	5.05%
5D heavy pistol vs B’s 3D	83.31%	16.69%	15.46%	26.30%	18.74%	9.99%	12.82%
6D rifle vs B’s 3D	91.26%	8.74%	10.26%	21.05%	20.70%	13.84%	25.40%
4D pistol vs Wookie’s 7D	11.87%	88.13%	6.85%	3.70%	0.91%	0.24%	0.17%
5D heavy pistol vs Wookie’s 7D	22.30%	77.70%	11.11%	7.47%	2.46%	0.74%	0.53%
6D rifle vs Wookie’s 7D	36.43%	63.57%	15.33%	12.41%	5.14%	1.92%	1.63%

As you can see, the lethality is not quite so bad as people make it out to be. Even worst case scenario (rifle vs mook), if there is an effect, it's about ~50% chance of only being wounded or better. And that's after the ~50% chance you successfully dodged.

Weapon and target	No dodge: Short	Medium	Long	Regular dodge	Full: Short	Medium	Long
4D pistol → B	63.21%	49.59%	24.02%	37.30%	8.68%	2.75%	0.66%
5D heavy pistol → B	74.15%	58.18%	28.18%	43.76%	10.18%	3.22%	0.78%
6D rifle → B	81.22%	63.72%	30.87%	47.93%	11.15%	3.53%	0.85%
4D pistol → Wookie	10.56%	8.29%	4.02%	6.23%	1.45%	0.46%	0.11%
5D heavy pistol → Wookie	19.85%	15.57%	7.54%	11.71%	2.73%	0.86%	0.21%
6D rifle → Wookie	32.42%	25.44%	12.32%	19.14%	4.45%	1.41%	0.34%

You can also see that building yourself as a tank is viable --the vast majority of shots against you are not going to have any effect if you're a raging armored Wookie or HK unit. And you can also see that it's not perfect immunity -- its still possible to kill the Wookie with heavy weapons and time/effort.

Wookie brawls NPC B:

B’s defense	Hit	Any effect	S	W	I	M	K
No parry	100.00%	91.26%	10.26%	21.05%	20.70%	13.84%	25.40%
Regular parry	89.33%	81.52%	9.17%	18.80%	18.49%	12.37%	22.69%
Full parry	75.41%	68.82%	7.74%	15.87%	15.61%	10.44%	19.15%

As you can see, the Wookie will rip the arms off anything that it wants quite easily if you let it get close. Full Parry helps a bit and would help more with better skills, but if it hits you though it's as lethal as taking a direct hit from heavy weapons.

Now look at Jedi lightsabering NPC B:

B has 3D Strength and uses 5D Brawling Parry. Because the Jedi is armed with a melee weapon, the Jedi receives +10 to the attack roll against Brawling Parry.

Jedi mode	B’s defense	Hit	Any effect	Stunned	Wounded	Incapacitated	Mortally wounded	Killed
Raw: 5D attack/5D damage	None	33.825%	28.179%	5.229%	8.896%	6.339%	3.380%	4.336%
Raw	Regular 5D Brawling Parry	90.031%	75.003%	13.917%	23.677%	16.871%	8.996%	11.541%
Raw	Full 5D Brawling Parry	12.224%	10.183%	1.890%	3.215%	2.291%	1.221%	1.567%
Lightsaber Combat: 8D attack/8D damage	None	88.301%	86.711%	2.921%	8.219%	11.587%	11.652%	52.332%
Lightsaber Combat	Regular 5D Brawling Parry	99.048%	97.264%	3.277%	9.219%	12.997%	13.070%	58.701%
Lightsaber Combat	Full 5D Brawling Parry	54.492%	53.511%	1.803%	5.072%	7.150%	7.191%	32.295%

Without LSC, you practically never hit, and you are combat ineffective against a defending opponent. Use a regular melee weapon instead.

With LSC, you likely hit. Regular parry is counterproductive as the natural difficulty was 20 anyway, so either you should full parry or not bother.

Jedi vs the Wookie:

Jedi mode	Wookie defense	Hit	Any effect	S	W	I	M	K
Raw: 5D attack, 5D damage	None	33.825%	7.545%	3.757%	2.526%	0.830%	0.252%	0.180%
Raw	Regular 8D parry	50.145%	11.185%	5.569%	3.745%	1.231%	0.373%	0.267%
Raw	Full 8D parry	1.264%	0.282%	0.140%	0.094%	0.031%	0.009%	0.007%
LSC: 8D attack, 8D damage	None	88.301%	59.247%	15.124%	18.553%	11.358%	5.872%	8.340%
LSC	Regular 8D parry	87.055%	58.411%	14.911%	18.291%	11.197%	5.790%	8.222%
LSC	Full 8D parry	15.311%	10.273%	2.622%	3.217%	1.969%	1.018%	1.446%

Same story -- with LSC turned on, you have a good chance of getting damage through on the Wookie. It will go down in a couple of rounds. Full parries remain the only viable defense (assuming of course you have a weapon that can do that with a lightsaber).

You are correct that the MAP is particularly brutal to low-skill Jedi. D&D used to be very fatal to 1st level wizards too. That's the risk you take with picking a more advanced class. Removing Lightsaber combat skill isn't really the solution there though -- the solution is to be careful about how you use and introduce Jedi, and give them appropriate chances to train and advance their skills while not forcing them to blow CP on "crutch" skills until they're ramped up. 5-6D in Force attributes and a few die in lightsaber combat is more than enough to make you a threat. It is fair to ask you to make other sacrifices elsewhere in your character early on, to bring that online. When you consider that Jedi get ample ways to self-buff, this usually works out as OK.

Probably the best houserule I'd recommend is allowing Lightsaber Combat to be brought up as a prepared action w/o the MAP. The reason is, at 5D attributes, if you take the MAP (-1D to both rolls), you're only going to have about a 35% chance of Lightsaber Combat activating. Without the MAP, that jumps to 62%. That failure chance is just too punishing for your signature skill at early levels to be fair.

[u/CanuckLad → u/SWATJester]

This doesn't take the wild die into account though. Every 36 shots or so (out every 1 in 5 if you're me) you're going to roll a 1 and the enemy's dice are going to explode. That can be devastating.

[u/SWATJester → u/CanuckLad]

Yeah, a roughly 3% chance of a thing happening is not something I'm going to particularly bank on. The math around exploding dice is pretty well known -- the chance of multiple explosions is already low and drops off exponentially with each additional explosion, and because our dice are limited to d6's, the impact is even less than in other systems. So your roll of a 6 explodes and gives you another average 3.5? If 3.5 was the difference between success and failure, you could have relied on a CP expenditure to make it happen too, with consistency.

It's more meaningful on a roll of a 1, because of the complication and taking away a dice. But don't forget, there's only 1 Wild Die, and you have a 66% chance of not rolling anything special on it. It provides fuzziness at the ends of the spectrum and allows for desperate chances or some drama, but it does not fundamentally change the structures of the system.

[u/CanuckLad → u/SWATJester]

Maybe, but if your strength is 3d6, and you're facing a blaster rifle, then the one hit scenario for that alone is 6%, and then 6% for the wild die situation. But that's just the one hit kill scenario, two hits to kill you is a considerably better chance.

[u/SWATJester → u/CanuckLad]

That's very much a comparable risk to other games. For instance, in D20 systems, where a natural 20 is a crit (5%), and a crit frequently is capable of one-hitting a character at early levels, you're not too far off. But the difference there, is in those systems that 5% crit chance is an unavoidable floor. In SWRPG d6 however, through good planning and preparation, you may be able to shape that 6% one-hit chance into something more favorable.

My point being that while SWRPG d6 has a reputation for being a very lethal system, the likelihood of death is not really so different than other comparable game systems games. It just has much fewer levels of granular steps between alive and dead (i.e. wound states, not HP), so if you're not paying attention and bite off more than you can chew, you'll end up moving between them much faster than you expect.

Also of note -- healing is one of the things you CAN be really good at as a low skill Jedi. The checks aren't that hard, especially on your friends.

[u/CanuckLad → u/SWATJester]

Appropriate armour? Honestly, about half the players I've played with didn't wear armour because it didn't fit what they envisioned for their character. We don't see Han Solo, Lando, Luke, or any of the main characters wearing armour in the films. Bounty hunters would of course, and troopers. But it would seem odd for many types that a player might want to play.

[u/SWATJester → u/CanuckLad]

Right, but consider that neither Han, Lando, nor Luke or any of those other main characters are soldier by profession. Any time they're thrust into a fight, it's usually against their will. Contrast with people depicted actually seeking out combat (bounty hunters, stormtroopers etc.) who do.

So like, if you're Han and Lando, you're fast-talking your way out of fights and letting Chewie tank for you. If those characters are getting blaster rifles shot into your chest frequently they've likely done something wrong. And consider that it doesn't always work out great for them -- Leia getting shot on Endor more or less takes her out of the fight. Compare with people expecting to get into fights (i.e. any Mandalorian, Baze Malbus, Cyril Karne when he suits up to go raid, etc.) who do, and consider how frequently we see named characters with armor tanking multiple hits.

[u/CanuckLad → u/SWATJester]

But most PCs aren't soldiers by profession either. At least as observed at my tables.

[u/SWATJester → u/CanuckLad]

And if that's the case, it should be quite rare that they have anything stronger than a 4D blaster pistol getting pointed at them, unless they badly erred.

[u/CanuckLad → u/SWATJester]

Why do you say that?

[u/SWATJester → u/CanuckLad]

Because it's avoidable, that's the point. If you're not a soldier, and you're constantly getting heavy weapons shot at you, that's a self-induced problem; it makes little sense to complain about the lethality of a system if you're intentionally putting non-combat oriented characters into combat situations and then wondering why they're performing worse.

[u/CanuckLad → u/SWATJester]

You added "constantly". It only takes once.

[u/SWATJester → u/CanuckLad]

OK. And if it happens once, you have mechanisms to get out of it safely. Full dodge, spend a FP, spend CP, etc.

I'm not sure what's difficult to understand about the argument I'm making here though. You were complaining about the lethality - I demonstrated the lethality isn't as high as you think, and is mitigated by armor. If your characters don't want to wear armor because they're non-combat characters, then don't let them get into combat. If they find themselves there as a one-off thing (it happens), it shouldn't be a problem, because you've got tools and resources to get yourself out of it. If they find themselves there repeatedly, that's either a problem with players not taking adequate precautions, or a GM not being fair to the players with the encounters they develop. But those are still issues unique to your table, not flaws with the system itself.

[u/CanuckLad → u/SWATJester]

I don't agree with most of what you've said. We shall agree to disagree.

[u/May_25_1977 → u/SWATJester]

   Thanks for posting these tables to examine.  I do see the point /u/CanuckLad was making about the wild die, since what would ordinarily be a 6 roll on that die actually becomes at least a 7, effectively, due to the re-roll.  Also worth reminding that a 1 roll on the wild die can simply mean "Add up the dice normally", no complication or subtraction, if the gamemaster so chooses from the three available options -- Second Edition, Revised and Expanded page 74 "The Wild Die."  (Of course, "The wild die rule counts for all die rolls in the game," by PC or NPC alike, whether rolling dodge, attack, damage, or strength.)

   The "maxxed out Wookiee (6D) in heavy armor (2D)" does sound formidable; in practice, I'd imagine a GM could point players toward using the book's "Wookiee" character template (Strength 5D -- page 283), and deem that whole-body protection of 1D or more belongs to bounty hunter armor and armored spacesuits like stormtrooper armor (see page 234), which aren't necessarily wearable by non-humans of that size.  (Han: "No. I don't think the Empire had Wookiees in mind when they designed her, Chewie."  ;)  (Note, the NPC "Average Wookiee" has "Strength 4D+1" -- page 218.)

   Jedi characters can incur no multiple action penalty when activating "lightsaber combat" Force power by rolling the Force skills in consecutive rounds, instead of in one round, according to Revised and Expanded page 142 "Using Powers"; once activated, this power while kept "up" still counts as using the two Force skills, reducing die codes as if taking actions (again, page 142).  For the combat scenario, I'll note that a melee parry roll would get a +5 bonus modifier defending against a brawling attacker who "is unarmed and doesn't have sharp natural weapons" (pages 89-90; see also skill and specializations on pages 39-40); a lightsaber's difficulty of "Difficult" (page 228) can be a number from 16-20 which is "the difficulty's range" (pages 75-76); and a parry doesn't mean the combatants/weapons make contact necessarily, in Revised and Expanded, it's "to get out of the way or block the attack" (pages 89-90).  (The original Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, 1987, did consider the chance for wounds and weapon damage caused by brawling/melee attacking another character who parries using a lightsaber -- see page 49 of that book.)

 

[u/SWATJester → u/May_25_1977]

Very true on your first point. But it's still effectively a flat +6 increase most of the time (since if 1D averages 3.5, exploding 6 is equivalent to rolling 2D where one is a guaranteed 6 and the other is still an average 3.5, so 9.5 average with an extremely low (>3%) chance of a further explosion for another +6 flat). As such, in most cases a bad Wild Die result is usually mitigable by CP spend to get you pretty close to back to where your base roll was.

Having just completed the first book of DarkStryder with said maxxed out Wookie -- as I really wanted to test out the theory that it was game-breakingly OP -- across all 6 adventures there was only one instance where I chose to wear the armor on top of the Wookie. After 5-6D of baseline STR to resist, the additional dice don't make you more survivable against most foes, just more survivable against increasingly unlikely heavy weapons. So, it's diminishing returns, and I found quickly that it was not worth even taking a -1D dex penalty. Your solution of limiting the armor bonus to 1D or less for non-humanoid forms is also quite reasonable.

But overall I didn't actually find the Wookie to be broken in combat (quite deadly at melee, not super helpful at range, a distraction to the opponents mostly). I did find them to be unreasonably good at trivializing Lifting and Athletics skill checks -- this came into play almost immediately in the first adventure of the campaign, as it trivialized half the checks in the rescue/relief operation. We twisted that into a gameplay challenge -- this Wookie in particular is an aspiring influencer, so they're filming themselves doing everything on holoremote (so the checks are all a bit harder because he has to make it look extra good for the camera and really doesn't want to look bad failing). But notably -- they were REALLY bad at contributing anywhere else. So overall I didn't find it tremendously unbalanced: it's a very niche character that fights great and doesn't do much else.

[u/Bunnsallah]

Your ideas are solid imo. We did something like this where we just had a lightsaber skill and damage was a max 6d. I like your idea of capping force points so they don't horde them for a big epic fight.

Another post mentioned it but I like to be a fan of the players and never kill them. They can be taken out of the scene and come back to the game with a disability or disadvantage until they take time to fix the problem.

[u/Kiodie]

Jedi getting overpowered was an issue in the last campaign I ran, luckily it was only one jedi. I'm thinking in the next campaign that I am working on, I will increase the point cost for learning or improving skills/powers. I will probably restrict learning new powers dependent on what they are, not that I won't potentially offer them a way to possibly learn a skill; I just won't allow them to easily learn it. I don't want to force a jedi player to spend points on other skills, but I don't want them to become overpowered too fast either.

[u/May_25_1977 → u/Kiodie]

   On the overpowered topic, I've noticed that West End's Second Edition, the 1992 book as well as 1996 Revised and Expanded, changed the difficulties for certain Force powers in some subtle ways, compared to earlier books, even while it added "required powers" and other new learning restrictions.  For example, the "Affect Mind" sense difficulty was "The target's control or Perception roll" in Second Edition (page 152; also Revised and Expanded page 149), compared to the 1987 original book where the "Affect Mind" sense difficulty had been "Make a perception or control roll for the target, and modify for relationship."  (Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game page 79)

 
   As for proximity modifier, I'll point out for you and the OP /u/CanuckLad an interesting note that had been asterisked "*" on the chart in the original game book, but didn't appear on the proximity chart in Second Edition and Revised and Expanded -- from Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (1987) page 140 "Force Difficulty Chart - Proximity":

 

...
same star system but not on the same planet    +20*
not in the same star system        +30*
...
*Applies only to Farseeing; other powers may not be used at these distances.
 

 

[u/Kiyohara]

I do two things:

1. I change the number of wounds a PC can get to their Strength Score. Strength of 3? Three Wounds. Wookie with a 6 Strength? He's a tank at 6 Wounds, sure. But it also gives a reason for PCs to consider buying Strength out past 2.

2. I get rid of "dead." When a player goes past Mortally Wounded or is otherwise killed I ask if they want to let their character die and make a new one or if they want to keep playing the same character. If they want to keep playing, they get an appropriate injury (like missing limb, missing eye, etc). This gives them a penalty to certain actions: missing leg slows them down and makes some actions more difficult like running or climbing, missing arm might cause issues with action that need two hands (like piloting) or limit their actions in combat (can't hold a pistol in one hand and toss a grenade with the other) and so forth.

They can replace them with cybernetics of course, but that's expensive and has it's own drawbacks (Cybernetics can fail at plot appropriate times or with a bad Wild Die, they can be disabled by bad guys, vulnerable to ion weapons, etc).

[u/kraken_skulls → u/Kiyohara]

This is kind of my thing too. I sometimes "kill" a PC, they have a negative consequence narratively appropriate to the storyline and character, as well as player's desires. Like a scar, they are taken captive, they are looted by their enemy when appropriate etc. I stress a consequence for "death" but usually let the player have some say in whether it is their final end or not. To me, Star Wars, especially with the d6 system, reflects the pinnacle of cinematic tabletop roleplaying. Sometimes death is what makes the scene, but the star of the show often does alright in the end. Luke's playtime with the Wompa on Hoth, for instance. It moved the story, he was "dead" or incapacitated alone against a foe. But his recovery served the plot, as did his wounding.

[u/Similar_Onion6656]

I don't think Jedi really SHOULD be balanced with other character types, and in my experience the system starts to get clunky when Jedi start coming into their own.

So I don't have Jedi in my D6 games and I use a different system when I want to do a Jedi game.

I can't say as I experienced the lethality problem. Are you stingy with character points?

[u/CanuckLad → u/Similar_Onion6656]

I've not actually played in about 30 years, so I would be hard pressed to say how stingy I was with CP. I think I was relatively generous, I can't remember 🙂

[u/DrDirtPhD → u/CanuckLad]

As an aside, that is really not how I'd shorten that term

[u/CanuckLad → u/DrDirtPhD]

Which? CP for character points?

[u/Mysterious-Mess-9606]

I run Jedi like the old Mage the Ascension game. So long as you have the three Force Attributes, you can pretty much do what you want with the Force with a sliding scale for difficulty that starts at the high end of Moderate.

It’s been a while since I’ve run d6 Star Wars and the rest is a bit fuzzy, but any DSPs that the character has are rolled and subtracted from the total score. We also capped lightsabers at 6D.

It was more balanced with non Force users, and still let the Force user feel like he was wielding the Force like in the movies.

[u/CanuckLad → u/Mysterious-Mess-9606]

I never played Make the Ascension, but I was reading the book just a few months back. What did you think of the game?

[u/Mysterious-Mess-9606 → u/CanuckLad]

Mage is a decent enough game, but your players all need to be on the same page about the game they’re playing because it can weird quick. And that’s not a bad thing.

If you’re planning on picking it up, I believe the 20th Anniversary edition is the most complete. I had hoped it would see a 5th edition release, but that’s not happening. Maybe it’ll get a 6th edition in 3 or 4 years

[u/organicHack]

Strength being reused to defend against wounds was always the biggest balance breaker for me. A real dilemma. Perhaps you can bench a truck, a blaster bolt is still a blaster bolt, intended to burn straight through armor and flesh. I wish that they had better settled this. Letting a player character be a Wookie is incredibly unfair to other players due to the 5d6 strength... the game is supposed to be lethal, but not if you are strength 5d or 6d, then you just shrug.

[u/davea1968]

Drop lightsabre combat to pips per d Keep deflection rules ignore kept up penalty after activation
Ignore scale penalties up 3d and or subtract additional pips=control d of armour

[u/CanuckLad → u/davea1968]

Do we even need the "Lightsaber Combat" power? Is it enough that Jedi just get better at using their lightsaber through experience and training?

[u/BabaBooey5]

Jedi rules were made for the Imperial era, where finding a Master to train was next to impossible. I make it that to increase Force skills and gain powers, the Jedi has to train with a Master who has the power of skill level they want to achieve. If the Imperial Inquisitors can't find them, Jedi Masters should be very hard to find.

Now if you play in the Old Republic era it's a different story.

[u/May_25_1977]

   Combat can be lethal if a character gets hit; it's important to avoid getting hit.  Different game editions varied in how they treated "reaction skills" and damage.  For example, in the original Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (1987) a character's dodge skill roll always added to attackers' base difficulty number (e.g., "short range" = 10) instead of replacing that number, but only in effect for the round's current "action segment" (such as, first actions) -- to dodge attacks in subsequent segments would require subsequent dodge (or other reaction skill) rolls, for additional dice penalties per use.  Under the original game rules, if hit, there was a higher chance to be "wounded" (damage roll at least 1x strength roll, but less than 2x), but no result to be killed outright (worst result on the chart was "mortally wounded": damage roll at least 3x strength roll).  (See Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game pages 12-14 and 47-48.)

   As for Jedi characters, a gamemaster should look to the book's character templates to take notice of the ways they balance or limit characters who begin the game having Force skills.  (For example, the "Quixotic Jedi" has sense Force skill only, but no lightsaber, and lacks control skill to resist unwanted uses of the Force by others; the "Minor Jedi" has control Force skill only, and a lightsaber, but lacks sense Force skill to parry blaster bolts using the saber.  See Roleplaying Game pages 16, 49, 71; also, page 81 "Making Up Templates".)  In one sense, the initial hinderance provides motivation (see page 99) and room for growth by such player characters through the course of adventuring, and a means of pacing for the GM, as opposed to a PC receiving all the benefits 'up front'.

   The rate and amount of points awarded to players, and how players spend those points, matters over the long run, too.  Hypothetically, an "Alien Student of the Force" whose player allocated 6 beginning dice to the three Force skills (control 3D, sense 3D, alter 3D) and the remaining 1 die to another skill (say, dodge 3D+1), would need to receive and spend 756 skill points in order to increase those Force skills each to 10D without a master (double the normal cost -- Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game pages 69-70).  If awarded 9 skill points at the end of every adventure, that would mean 84 adventures; if finishing an adventure every 2 weeks, that's 168 weeks, or 3.23 years!

   However, besides having no lightsaber in starting equipment (page 124), by now, this example Alien Student didn't increase any other skill (dodge is still 3D+1).  Imagine what the other players could have done in the meantime with the same number of skill points for all their own characters' skills.  But, also imagine how much of a benefit this Alien Student can be to fellow PCs, having the Force skills necessary to perform "Control + Alter" powers (page 79) aiding others, among other abilities, better allowing the whole group to accomplish their missions together.  ("...the players must cooperate to do well in the game." -- pages 9-10 "Character Connections")

 

[u/CanuckLad → u/May_25_1977]

6d to starting Force skills is pretty extreme isn't it? It wouldn't leave them with little to distribute to their regular attributes, and they would still be fairly useless Jedi for months to come.

[u/May_25_1977 → u/CanuckLad]

   My hypothetical allocation of beginning skill dice, 2D apiece to the three Force skills, was to portray a player who pursues maximum starting advantage by having a character with all three Force skills ("Alien Student" template) at their highest possible starting codes (3D each) -- from Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (1987) page 71 "Using Force Points":

 

   Using Force skills does not require a character to spend Force points. However, you may notice that the difficulty numbers for the more impressive uses of the Force are rather high, and the maximum skill code a starting character can have is 3D. Players may find that to make Force skills useful they must often spend Force points.
 

 
   From page 8 "Special Rules for The Force":

 

...If a Force skill is printed on your template, the skill code is printed next to it;  ...
...If you have a Force skill on your template, you can allocate dice from your 7D to increase your skill code. If you don't have Force skills, too bad; the only way to gain a Force skill is to find someone who knows one and can teach it to you.
 

 

[u/ApewiseHerculese]

If I remember correctly, we used the 1e damage table with the extra wounded level . The 1e table was easier to survive on, I believe. But double check it. But soak (house rule)was also 2D+1, + 1 pip per 1D in STR to reign in crazy edge cases. If you think a wookie’s soak is too low, give em a racial bonus.

I think in the end, Jedi used Sense only to Deflect. Lightsaber damage was 5D, +1 pip per 1D in Control. No keeping up a separate power. If they keep whipping out a lightsaber, roll a bunch of wild 6s or blow through Force points, there’s a disturbance and an inquisitor might be on the trail.