Lethality in Star Wars

[JohnOSpencer]

I am busily converting old WEG Star Wars material to Hero and having a problem with the lethality. No one wears personal armor(except Stormies). And, without allowing truly silly amounts on Combat Luck, I can't think of a way to keep characters for getting killed easily.

 

Any suggestions, or should I give in and use Feng Shui instead.

 

John

[Curufea]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

Hero is a low lethality game - just make sure that all damage is normal, rather than killing (except for lightsabres).

[JohnOSpencer]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

If you make all the damage normal, then you get the knocked out all the time problem. With no armor most characters are gonna have like 10 defenses max, and like 30 stun or so. Any attack that could believable kill someone(8d6 or so) is gonna knock someone out in maybe two hits and the first stuns them. If you make a blaster a more palatable 6d6, it will take several shots to knock someone out, but buying up STR and getting a club looks like a viable option.

It's an idea, but I'm not sure. Anyone run a game like this and have any other suggestions?

 

John

[Inu]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

Luck dice - make these compulsory. Use one of the luck variants (say, you get X many points, spend a certain number to penalise opponent's rolls to make them miss).

[Fox1]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

I am busily converting old WEG Star Wars material to Hero and having a problem with the lethality. No one wears personal armor(except Stormies). And, without allowing truly silly amounts on Combat Luck, I can't think of a way to keep characters for getting killed easily.

 

Any suggestions, or should I give in and use Feng Shui instead.

 

John

 

I've ran one-shot disable/kill campaigns for years. It's not that hard, except for 'training' the players to cope.

 

The following ideas work for any setting where you want to have weapons on average kill typical people and seriously wound/knock out heroes:

 

 

1. Buy the Heroes a single 'level' of combat luck. 3 rPD and 3 rED should be enough.

 

2. Set weapon damage in the 2d6 to 3d6 K range. Add as many bonuses to the stun multiple as you see fit. Should be at least +1

 

3. Keep most stats in the human range. Don't vary Body throughout that range much (I use 8-12, based mostly on size of the character). Keep figured stats close to their base values (I allow one to double PD & ED at max, add 5-8 to stun and that's it).

 

 

4. Check out the house rules for damage on my website. There are important concepts there that help out. Not treating body as cuml is one of the more important ones.

 

 

That should make things hot for everyone. They won't want to be hit, but generally they will live through the experience. They just most likely won't be standing.

 

 

 

Now, keeping the players in the fight:

 

4. Players should have a 3 point edge in combat value. You can have this occur through DEX, Luck (Skill Levels- DCV, SPX is luck), or skill. They should have a 1-2 point SPD edge.

 

5. Let your players practice with basic tactics- cover, finding best range of engagement, etc. If they don't play smart, they will lose too often and it won't be fun.

 

6. Don't play the bad guys as smart as they players play their characters. Play them enough to make them sweat a little- no more.

 

7. Rule 6 bears repeating. Don't play the bad guys as smart as they players play their characters.

 

8. Storm Trooper armor looked to be worthless. Make it be so. Give it a +1 DCV and life support/radio (i.e. the armor reflects near hits, nothing more) vs. energy. No more that 4 or 5 points of rPD.

 

9. Start out with weaker foes and slowly work your way up. At some point you notice the players starting to worry- you're set. That should give you the baseline for your campaign.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

Well, if you don't mind adding a metagame mechanic that integrates well with the standard HERO System, you might consider incorporating Jesse Zwerling's Action Points! from his pulp-era campaign, "Thrilling True Tales!!!" IMO this would be very appropriate to a swashbuckling setting like SW, and you could give Action Points! a "Force" rationale if you wish.

[Outsider]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

Give blasters Increased Stun Multiple, as said above, then make them Reduced Penetration against Combat Luck & Blast Armor only.

 

PCs and named NPCs are allowed (or even assumed to have) 1 level of Combat Luck (3 rPD/rED) while Stormtroopers and some others wear Blast Armor (also 3/3 or perhaps 1/5 would be better)

 

Then your 3D6 Blaster will do 5+5 Body (2+2 gets through) and quite a lot of Stun. Disabling wounds will be very unlikely if you roll damage, or flat out impossible if you use standard effect rules. At least to 'named' people or faceless ones wearing Blast Armor. If you use the 1/5 option for Blast Armor, standard/man portable blasters become not a deadly threat to someone wearing blast armor. They will still get stunned out of their gourd, of course. That's how you convince Stormtroopers to charge into a hail of blaster fire, maybe.

 

Primitive weapons generally won't be RP against Blast armor, and will still be dangerous to fully armored stormtroopers. Especially if you go with the 1/5 Blast Armor option.

[sinanju]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

In the Fudge system I like to use, characters have a wound chart and the levels are as follows:

 

Scratch (2 or 3 boxes)

Hurt (1 or 2 boxes) - you're at -1 to all actions

Badly Hurt (1 box) - you're at -2 to all actions

Incapacitated (1 box) - barely able to crawl or speak

Near Death (1 box) - unconscious and Mostly Dead.

 

Note that the highest level is Near Death. Nothing will kill you outright by accident or bad die roll. That's left as a decision for the GM. Doesn't mean you can't die, but only if it's dramatically appropriate or otherwise called for.

 

If you're really worried about lethality, use that rule. No matter what the dice say, death happens only when and if it seems right. Doesn't matter how much body you take.

[input.jack]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

I was in a long-running Star Wars game run in HERO, and the solution to your problem is simple:

 

Give the PC's alot of points to build with, relative to the Unnamed Hordes. Also, allow them to buy several Levels. In the game I was in, most of the PC's had Dexes that were about 3-8 points higher than the Stormtroopers (in this case, Stormtroopers had a Dex of 12-13, and PC's had 15-21 Dexes). The actual numbers dont matter, so long as the 'Troopers are competent compared to Dex 8-10 Normals, but still a couple of CV points shy of the PC's. The Troopers in this game had one All Combat Level and one with their preferred weapon. PC's tended to have one or two Overall Skill Levels, and one or two more levels applicable to combat as well.

 

It meant that we wanted to take cover (Trooper blasters were doing 2d6K with a +1 Stun Multiplier, I believe), but the more bold and daring of us could afford to chance it out in the open if it was important.

 

Levels and relative CV's are what make PC's stand out against Troopers, in a game like this. (Also, for reference, I think that Stormtrooper armor was bought as about 6 PD / ED armor).

 

Hope that helps!

[Eosin]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

Yep, the players in SW played smart and used cover, ran, or in some other manner "evened" the score so that they could win when they were out numbered. Heroes in SW don't get hit often, and when they do they are usually "clipped" rather than nailed. Suggestions by Fox1 and Outsider both work well and would be the extent of my changes.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

I am busily converting old WEG Star Wars material to Hero and having a problem with the lethality. No one wears personal armor(except Stormies). And, without allowing truly silly amounts on Combat Luck, I can't think of a way to keep characters for getting killed easily.

 

Any suggestions, or should I give in and use Feng Shui instead.

 

John

 

It does seem to be a genre issue.

 

The mechanics thing to do is, like people have suggested, make blaster damage against NPCs killing and against PCs normal. That simple change does increase the longevity of PCs compared to everyone else - it also avoids many other changes. If you also standardise damage from the stormtroopers weapons (3 STUN/1 BODY per dice) it also means that only you have to be aware of the differences on a minute by minute basis (I'd tell the players of their special advantage so that they feel more free to swashbuckle while others are falling around them).

 

The CV differences are also important. I wouldn't make stormtrooper armour valueless - they did simply seem to walk through the rebels when it came to close combat. I would discourage the wearing of stormtrooper armour by players (except for camouflage purposes) by telling them that when they are wearing it they will take killing damage like everyone else...

 

 

These help enforce genre conventions and would all be a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

 

 

Doc

[JohnOSpencer]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

Dang! Thanks for all the ideas. I'm still chewing on the whole thing. But if I come up with anything earth-shattering, i'll let everyone know.

 

John

[SleepyDrug]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

John,

 

I have a bunch of stuff I could show you....see my email.

 

My main tip is to avoid the mistake most gamers make and treat the reality of Star Wars with the respect it deserves.

 

1) Everyone wants to fight Stormtroopers and Dark Jedi. Those are elite foes. Despite the poor showing in some portions of the original trilogy; pay attention to when Kenobi calls them the best trained military in the galaxy. "Only Stormtroopers are this precise".

 

2) Uhhmm...it sucks, but most people DO get butchered by military-grade blasters. Watch the movies and see how most people get cut down like flies on 1-2 hits.

 

3) I made most blasters EB's except high end military stuff. Solves a lot of the trouble. And if you play dumb against Stormtroopers you deserve to get cut up.

 

4) Bacta Tanks heal fast

 

5) Rule #1 redux -- remember to start small. Imperial Army and other groups (such as Imperial Inteligence). Save the Stormtroopers.

 

6) If most blasters are 2 to 3d6 Killing, then 1-2 levels of Combat Luck and a blast vest go a long way.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

If you want to emulate the feel of the Original Trilogy, simply have the enemies (Storm troopers probably) miss. A lot. Of course, in the movies (any movie for that matter, not just SW) the Heroes only get hit when its dramatically important. Hero can simulate this well by having scrubs with low CV's. Figure out the average CV of the Heroes and have their most common foe working with only half this (i.e. if the main characters have an average CV of 6, give the Stormtroopers a CV of 3) and this will make the characters perform particularly well against this common enemy.

 

Of course, the typical Blaster carbine should probably do somewhere around 8D6N damage unless you want blaster shots to be dangerous...

 

Remember when Princess Leia got hit by a stray Blaster shot in RotJ? It didn't seem to do much flesh damage, did it....

[gamerz123]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

How about giving all Stormtroopers Unluck 3-5d6 with the appropriate negative point custom adder of "Only against PC's in combat."

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

Check out this thread: Stormtrooper Effect

 

I think bad guys using suppressive fire is a good idea, as is having PC's buy things like "+X DCV, only vs blasters".

[Fox1]

Re: Lethality in Star Wars

 

How about giving all Stormtroopers Unluck 3-5d6 with the appropriate negative point custom adder of "Only against PC's in combat."

 

You don't make PCs exceptional by making normal people useless. You make them exceptional by making them exceptional.

 

Give bonuses to the PCs, don't give minuses to NPCs.