LethalDose said:

I obviously think I am asking the difficult questions that need to be answered before it becomes too late to do anything about them, but I can see how opinions differ.

Thinking some more on the changes to XP costs for extra specializations and non-career skills.

Perhaps for specializations, change the wording so that if you buy a non-career spec, you just have to pay an extra 10XP?  It'd be a lot easier to calculate and has the added bonus not screwing over a player that, for the sake of their character concept, wants to branch out into a non-career specialization prior to taking another career specialization.

For example, a Hired Gun that started with Marauder might want to venture into Assassin to expand their range of melee talents after a brief tour in Bodyguard to beef up their staying power.  Under the current system, they're being penalized if they go Bodyguard to Assassin (10 XP for Bodyguard then 30 XP for Assassin) instead of Assassin then Bodyguard then Assassin (20 XP for Assassin then 15 XP for Bodyguard).  Just making a flat 10 XP still makes branching out of one's main career, but doesn't excessively punish a player that has chosen not to plot out their character's advancement well in advance. So for the Hired Gun example, it'd cost 35 XP to pick up Assassin and Bodyguard no matter what order they did it in.

As for the skill costs, I don't agree with this at all, as it severely penalizes those characters who elect to start in careers or with specializations that don't offer combat skills.  While it makes sense that a Colonist or Tech Specialist would have a tougher time of learning how to better use a blaster pistol (i.e. buying ranks in the Ranged (light) skill) than would say a Gadgeteer Bounty Hunter, Scoundrel Smuggler, or Hired Gun, having to pay double the usual cost is a bit too punitive.  I think the flat cost of an extra 5 XP per rank worked just fine, and this change tried to fix something that honestly wasn't broken.

AluminiumWolf said:

Frankly, a lot of your posts come across as having more whine than a Skywalker Family Reunion.  So while LethalDose was less than polite, he's got a very valid point.

As it's probably not obvious to someone that hasn't bothered to read the Beta book, this is a very different game than the WH40K line.  So what complements or complaints you have about those games have little to no bearing to this game.  It's akin to complaining about why combat in a FATE game is so different than a D&D4e game; they're two very different beasts, and a logical fallacy to assume they're going to be even remotely similar.

Regarding Specialization costs, perhaps rather than the cost for new specializations being based on the "total" specializations, each type, career or non-career,  could be based on how many of that type you would now possess.  So your 2nd career would always cost 10 (5 x 2nd spec) and 3rd would be 15 (5 x 3rd spec).  Your non-career specs would also scale based only on themselves… 1st for 10 (10 x 1st), 2nd for 20, 3rd for 30, etc.  That way it wouldn't matter what order you pick up your specializations in.  You could jump back and forth between your limited career choices and the multitude of non-career options.  Just an idea.

I would argue that the things I complain about - the downsides of the three games of escalating power level release structure especially as regards to little thought apparently put in to how the core system will cope with later games is very similar.

Plus I think commenting that it took them years to fix the autofire rules in their last game, so people might want to ensure it works in their new game is probably fair.

Seriously man, I have heard a lot of these arguments before with the 40k games. You may not like the idea that 40k has much to do with Star Wars, but I assure you that, especially for our purposes here, they are very similar indeed. I feel I am saying that this is what they did last time, and this is what I perceive the results were. I don't think 'well I am sure that won't happen again' is a particularly compelling response.

Anyway, I shall try not to derail this thread further. If you want to see me do enthusiastic, post something in my inspiration threads. 

(Believe it or not, I have even had the (what I perceive to be) the 'it doesn't matter if the combat system sucks because this is a narrative system, and anyway it will help me railroad my players in to doing what I want' argument with 40k. Even Transformers fans like to think they are telling stories in the best possible way.)

Thank you thank you and a BIG Thank you for changing the Gands characteristic stats…. that was really bugging me. One less house rule when the final book comes out. Unlimited XP growth, very awesome… no more temporary vs. permanent work. Just make them all permanent, I like this.  I wouldn't  mind if the wonderful folks at FFG were to spring a Lawman Career on us with three Law related Specializations… I think having the option to play and be part of some Sector Security Force along some Outer Rim worlds would be very fitting with the theme of Edge of the Empire.

AluminiumWolf said:

AluminiumWolf said:

@AluminumWolf:  If autofire balance was a problem in other games, explain what the problem was, how it was fixed, and how that fix could be applied here.  You have done NONE of the above in this thread, and instead chosen to get in the way of figuring it out.

If you were to actually do this, we could all have a converstation about it and you could take your own advice about not derailing threads.  If you can't do this then GTFO.

-WJL

I like the change to Skill costs… just simplifies things a bit. Next Rank x 10 for Non-Career Skills, much easier than Next Rank x 5, then plus 5. I like this change. 

LethalDose said:

Er, it was +20% to hit and every 10% under your skill was an additional hit. Semi Auto was +10% to hit and every 20% under your skill was an additional hit. That was bad enough in Dark Heresy with everyone in the kinda 30% skill range, but reached ultimate brokenness when a Space Marine with a Heavy Bolter could reliably land a whole bunch of hits and decimate most opposition, leading to vast inflation in the wounds of enemies in order to try to keep them alive long enough to have a decent fight. And because of the way the dodge rules work (with dodge degrees of success cancelling full auto attack DOS, but a single DOS negating a single fire attack), auto fire dominated.

However, while it was always broken, it was kinda cool.

In Black Crusade it was change to Full Auto being - I think it is Single +10%, Semi +0% (+1 hit per 20% under skill) and Full Auto -10% (+1 hit per 10% under skill), and semi and full are half actions to encourage movement. This makes it more worthwhile to do things other than full auto, but makes full auto less awesome.

As to EotE, I dunno, you've played it. I'd rather autofire works like it does in video games where people probably spend most of their time firing long burst of autofire in to each other, rather than real life where they don't if they know what they are doing. But you knew that.

Donovan Morningfire said:

For blast, I was commenting on the 3A for the miss condition. Even if you miss, the property still applies.

I can see your reasoning for most thrown weapons being "fire and forget." I was going to make a thrown-expert for a friends upcoming play test, but the decided lack of thrown weapons makes that a bit hard to do. What can I say, I usually play the odd character :p 

-EF

LethalDose said:

Agreed. I like the flexibility this allows, and the escalating cost means most character's aren't likely to have more than 3 - unless very experienced - anyway.

LethalDose said:

Disagree. Remember that picking up a specialisation only grants additional class skills (reducing the cost by 5 per rank), it doesn't actually give you any skill ranks. So the escalating cost of specialisations, coupled with the diminishing returns (class skill wise) of picking up additional specialisations, means it'll most often be cheaper to just bite the bullet on the extra skill costs if you only want one skill. I've noticed the characters in my game already have most, if not all, of the class skills they want to improve with the 1-2 starting specialisations they have.

While I admit that FFG seem to have fixed a problem that "wasn't broken", I don't think it's necessarily a bad change and I assume FFG made the change for a reason (would be nice to know what that is though…).

I'll reserve judgement until I see the effects of the change in play.

LethalDose said:

LethalDose said:

Agreed. I think 2 Adv to activate seems right, given that one "hit" in this game isn't meant to represent one shot hitting an opponent once anyway. It's not the walking fire onto multiple targets that is the problem (both because that's inherently more difficult, and because it spreads out the damage), it's being able to easily stack 2-3 times the base damage of (an already high damage) weapon on a single character that causes issues mechanically.

LethalDose said:

Agreed. Ditto for the damage avoidance talents allowing difficulty upgrades instead of setback dice.

Also like the droid changes. The equipment sidebar was needed, and the rules changes tie into the "specialist" role, without being overpowering.

Also noticed: Lightsaber now has Breach again, but there isn't a rating. I assume it's meant to stay as "Breach 1"?

gribble said:

I think you should look at the numbers before you say it'll be cheaper to get one skill out of class.  See below:

• Buying one career skill from 0 to 5 ranks = 15*5 = 75
• Buying one non-career skill from 0 to 5 ranks (old system) = 15*5 + 5*5 = 75+ 25 = 100
• Buying one non-career skill from 0 to 5 ranks (new system0 = 15 * 10 = 150

[There are 15 skill ranks to buy going from 0 to 5: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15]

So where before, it was approximately a wash to go go from 0 to 5 ranks via out-of-career vs buying a new career and then getting ranks:

• 0-5 ranks out of class (OOC): 100 XP (see above)
• 0-5 ranks after new spec (assume 20 XP for new spec): 75+20 = 95

And for 0-4 it WAS 70 OOC vs 70 when buying the new spec, so the equilibrium point was fairly high.

But under the new system:

• 0-5 ranks OOC: 150 XP
• 0-5 ranks after new spec (assume 20 xp for new spec): 95

The equilibrium point happens between rank 2 (new cost OOC 30 pts, New spec + 2 ranks: 35 XP) and rank 3 (60 pts OOC vs 50 pts with new spec).

This is a problem because before, players paid a slightly increased cost to improve OOC skills, but didn't feel compelled to tack on new specs to do so.  Now, the savings can be 35 XP for just one skill [it should be clear how much crazier it gets with multiple skills]

This is a problem because so few classes have combat skills.  Under these new rules, players will feel compelled to buy a combat spec to keep up on combat skills.  This wasn't an issue before, because the cost of buying a new spec just wasn't worth it.  The character didn't get some of the bells and whistles in the form of combat talents, but they could still be effective with a weapon type of their choice in a "non-combat" spec.

-WJL

I'm a bit of two minds when it comes to the price increase of specialisation and (non-career) skills.

First off the removal of the limited number of specialisation makes it "cleaner" and more tidy - at least on the surface. This had to be followed by an increase in price, in some way or another. I wonder if one should track career and non-career separately, like someone has already suggested. Considering that one only get one career, all talents but three will be considered non-career. I think its a fair trade off. Doing it this way, we can keep the new cost system. If one were to keep the new system of acquiring specialisations, I would argue for a price system like Donovan suggests. To me either or would be fine. (granted I have not run the numbers).

The new cost of non-career skills is… well, not fun. This creates an incentive - as I think has been mentioned already - to take on specialisations rather than investing in non-career skills - even if there is only one or two you actually need. To me specialisation requires and suggest training - I would not let players just pick up a new specialisation because they need a skill or talent, it would have to be done through roleplaying and in-game events… if a character on the other hand wanted to learn how to point and click a trigger (not saying its an easy skill to shoot), that would require training and experience from actually trying in combat. I preferred the old pricing system - I might keep it regardless of this update.

The new droid changes confused me last night, but I see them now and I like them. Although I also liked the previous of "any 2 skills" - which my current droid player used in a good way. I'll let him keep the ranks I think - older model

The talent changes seems ok, nothing to add.

Combat clarifications - Good! Thank you!

 I'm really glad that the specialisations are getting an overhaul, and especially that talents are now all permanent. Even though players may never have got to the point where they needed to take a 4th spec, the perceived risk of spending something and losing it later is a big turnoff.

Having said that, I still think more work is needed on the talent trees, which IMO are one of the weakest parts of an otherwise excellent system. My main grumbles about the system are

* It's overly complicated for what is otherwise a very simple system. The basic die mechanic (once you get used to reading the funny symbols) is fast, and having a stack of special rules introduced by talents slows that down. Sometimes, players are forgetting that they have a relevant talent - although I expect that to improve over time, they'll also have more talents to remember.

* The talent tree connections are somewhat random between the specialisations. While it makes sense for some careers (for example, Politico), some of the decisions are baffling (Slicer being the worst offender.)

* Some of the talents simply are not very good. For example, Improved Bodyguard is a very weak upgrade to Bodyguard - the extra maneuver is a significant extra cost especially as it is either going to replace an action (which could be used to proactively neutralise a threat) or cost 2 Strain.

* Other talents are only situationally useful. For example, the Scholar's bonus to dealing with institutes of learning. Honestly, if I were running a game with a Scholar in it and they were negotiating with an institute, I'd give them a boost die for free.

* Other talents can be accommodated using the rules as they stand - Utility Belt allows you to spend destiny to "find" a useful item not on your sheet. However, that's a already an acceptable use for destiny, so why would I expect a character to spend points on this talent?

In summary, I would like to see talent trees pruned down to the most "iconic" and useful abilities for each specialisaton. I'm going to go away and think how this could be done, and maybe post some examples.

Re: skills, I've never been a fan of restricting skills access based on class. Why is is it significantly easier for my assassin to learn how to fly a ship than how to shoot someone with a blaster pistol? Why do gadgeteers get access to talents that improve their ability to coerce people but don't have access to the skill itself? If you really have to do this, why not charge a one-off cost (say an extra 5-10 XP) to make a  skill a career skill - you could do this as a separate cost to taking a new specialisation (in other words, taking a new specialisation doesn't give you new class skills, you have to buy the extra "career" skill slots 5-10XP at a time.)

Doc, the Weasel said:

But there are a couple of problems.

1. It costs a manuever to engage. If the manuever is never spent I can't say they are engaged unless I have to give them a free engage manuever. If I throw a thermal detonator in a 10x10 room full of people that are not specifically engaged with the one target, obviously blast should be able to be activated on all/most of them. In the next round are they all considered engaged for melee with the original target and they can spend their manuever on something else before attacking him or if they want to run away from him they have to disengage first?

2. The clarification on engage makes it sound more like a state than a range. There is very little difference between engaged and short. They even call it a subset.

Perhaps blast should affect all at short range? 

Also I can't remember if blast is active or passive but it should probably be passive for larger explosives. If I hit someone with a thermal detonator and they are surrounded by people they should all be affected whether the attacker wants it or not.

I'm not trying to get too down on this and I'm comfortable with breaking the rules to make sense of a situation but I think there are more realistic and simple solutions to both engaged and blast that don't require exceptions. As a GM I don't want to force a PC to be engaged if they didn't plan to be just becasue it makes sense that a grenade should hit them. It could also be that I have something wrong here and need to be set straight.