What's wrong with the WOTC D20 Star Wars RPG?

[Eleas]

That's actually something that I like about the d20 version, you can't survive multiple hits. If you read carefully enough, you'll see that your vitality points aren't really traditional hit points. Instead, a "hit" to your vitality means you just barely dodged in time (using up some of your limited supply of luck/stamina/whatever). Only hits to your wound points involve an actual hit. And in that case, a direct hit is either going to kill you or seriously wound you. A stormtrooper rifle does 3d8 damage (average 13-14, vs. typical con score of 12-14), enough to leave an average character lying in a pool of their blood dying. Only the toughest characters can survive an average rifle hit, and even then, an above average roll will still drop them just as easily.

I agree here. The vitality system was one of the premier aspects of the new system as compared to most other d20 products I've tried. It neatly sidesteps the various stupidities inherent in escalating Hit Points.

However, I would not say it's necessarily superior to WEG's system. In WEG SW, especially if you add one die to the general damage notations of weapons, even Wookies will think twice before jumping into the fray. The same cannot be said of d20 Star Wars. Vitality or Hit Points, whatever you care to name it - the result will still be that you can run through a corridor against the enemy with virtual impunity, provided you have sufficient Vitality.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Vitality points are an improvement on hit points, but are more at home in a Matrix RPG than in SW. It changes the reason why people can survive many hits to a slightly more realistic one, but not the fact that they can.

[lPeregrine]

That's actually something that I like about the d20 version, you can't survive multiple hits. If you read carefully enough, you'll see that your vitality points aren't really traditional hit points. Instead, a "hit" to your vitality means you just barely dodged in time (using up some of your limited supply of luck/stamina/whatever). Only hits to your wound points involve an actual hit. And in that case, a direct hit is either going to kill you or seriously wound you. A stormtrooper rifle does 3d8 damage (average 13-14, vs. typical con score of 12-14), enough to leave an average character lying in a pool of their blood dying. Only the toughest characters can survive an average rifle hit, and even then, an above average roll will still drop them just as easily.

I agree here. The vitality system was one of the premier aspects of the new system as compared to most other d20 products I've tried. It neatly sidesteps the various stupidities inherent in escalating Hit Points.

However, I would not say it's necessarily superior to WEG's system. In WEG SW, especially if you add one die to the general damage notations of weapons, even Wookies will think twice before jumping into the fray. The same cannot be said of d20 Star Wars. Vitality or Hit Points, whatever you care to name it - the result will still be that you can run through a corridor against the enemy with virtual impunity, provided you have sufficient Vitality.

Well, not really... critical hits still bypass vitality completely, so every shot you expose yourself to, you've got a 5% chance of dying/serious wounds. And that's just with natural 20 auto hit/critical. Add in the 19-20 rifles, and that chance goes up to 10%, 20% with the improved critical feat. And with autofire weapons (which any decent high-level opponent will have), you're getting 5 shots per round per opponent aimed at you. So in theory, if four stormtroopers open fire on you, you're taking a serious wound. Potentially more, if you don't use cover effectively.

Cover becomes really important in Star Wars d20 now that armor gives damage reduction instead of an AC bonus. Even the highest-dex character can't get above AC 17 without cover (even a 1st level weak stormtrooper hits 15% of the time). So even that high vitality is going to go away pretty quickly if you insist on charging carelessly into a fight.

[lPeregrine]

Vitality points are an improvement on hit points, but are more at home in a Matrix RPG than in SW. It changes the reason why people can survive many hits to a slightly more realistic one, but not the fact that they can.

The simple fact is, player characters aren't supposed to die easily. Nobody wants to spend hours creating a character personality and background, then have them die in one hit. And in a game based on random rolls, that hit is going to come soon. All it takes is one opponent getting a bit luckier than normal, and all the time invested is wasted. The vitality point system is a simple but realistic way of giving player characters decent survivability.

The alternative is to massively increase the complexity of combat, so that player characters can stack lots of modifiers to make themselves hard enough to hit that they actually survive. Instead of a nice simple "cover = +4 AC" rule, you need more degrees of cover. Or maybe different AC bonuses based on color contrast between the character and the environment, calculated differently depending on which angle a shot is coming from (and therefore which background they're seen against). Or maybe you need appropriate penalties for full-auto fire, calculating recoil for each shot based on each character's appropriate weapon skill.

The end result of that alternative is incredibly slow combat spent trying to figure out exactly what defense bonuses apply. It's not much fun if it takes 10 minutes and a page of physics equations to aim a blaster.

[Eleas]

Well, not really... critical hits still bypass vitality completely, so every shot you expose yourself to, you've got a 5% chance of dying/serious wounds. And that's just with natural 20 auto hit/critical. Add in the 19-20 rifles, and that chance goes up to 10%, 20% with the improved critical feat. And with autofire weapons (which any decent high-level opponent will have), you're getting 5 shots per round per opponent aimed at you. So in theory, if four stormtroopers open fire on you, you're taking a serious wound. Potentially more, if you don't use cover effectively.

Regular stormtroopers aren't high-level. You've got a sixty percent chance of being unhurt in said scenario if I did my maths correct, unless the Stormtroopers are inordinately tough, and assuming they hit with every shot.

Cover becomes really important in Star Wars d20 now that armor gives damage reduction instead of an AC bonus. Even the highest-dex character can't get above AC 17 without cover (even a 1st level weak stormtrooper hits 15% of the time). So even that high vitality is going to go away pretty quickly if you insist on charging carelessly into a fight.

Oh, I grant that. But it's still a viable tactic to charge a single, or even two, foes, particularly if you're high-level. Which is just weird.

[Eleas]

The simple fact is, player characters aren't supposed to die easily. Nobody wants to spend hours creating a character personality and background, then have them die in one hit. And in a game based on random rolls, that hit is going to come soon. All it takes is one opponent getting a bit luckier than normal, and all the time invested is wasted. The vitality point system is a simple but realistic way of giving player characters decent survivability.

Vitality points aren't realistic anyway you slice it. It's simple, it's workable. That's giving it the due it deserves. But realistic? Ludicrous.

Also, said hit will only happen with certainty if the game revolves around combat. I grant you that this can be true in Star Wars (though it by no means must be so), but I find it interesting that you assume it to be universal.

The alternative is to massively increase the complexity of combat, so that player characters can stack lots of modifiers to make themselves hard enough to hit that they actually survive. Instead of a nice simple "cover = +4 AC" rule, you need more degrees of cover. Or maybe different AC bonuses based on color contrast between the character and the environment, calculated differently depending on which angle a shot is coming from (and therefore which background they're seen against). Or maybe you need appropriate penalties for full-auto fire, calculating recoil for each shot based on each character's appropriate weapon skill.

The end result of that alternative is incredibly slow combat spent trying to figure out exactly what defense bonuses apply. It's not much fun if it takes 10 minutes and a page of physics equations to aim a blaster.

Or you could use the system I presented earlier, with all of the benefits and none of the ponderous yet abstract rules you mention.

Edit: There are tons of more options if you want the game to be survivable yet challenging. All you need is to consider the effect you want, and then find out the simplest method of reaching it.

[Eleas]

I'm gonna go away to Germany for the weekend, so I guess I'll have to cut this debate short. A pity.

[lPeregrine]

Well, not really... critical hits still bypass vitality completely, so every shot you expose yourself to, you've got a 5% chance of dying/serious wounds. And that's just with natural 20 auto hit/critical. Add in the 19-20 rifles, and that chance goes up to 10%, 20% with the improved critical feat. And with autofire weapons (which any decent high-level opponent will have), you're getting 5 shots per round per opponent aimed at you. So in theory, if four stormtroopers open fire on you, you're taking a serious wound. Potentially more, if you don't use cover effectively.

Regular stormtroopers aren't high-level. You've got a sixty percent chance of being unhurt in said scenario if I did my maths correct, unless the Stormtroopers are inordinately tough, and assuming they hit with every shot.

I think you've got a mistake in there somewhere. Assume you just charge, not shooting (because if your superior reflexes let you shoot them all before they fire, it's not really an untouchable charge), spending one round (5-6 seconds) under fire. And lets say it's against four of the mid-level stormtroopers presented in the book (a fair match for a party).

Those stormtroopers are going to fire 16 shots at you as you run, each with an attack bonus of +5/+5/+5/+0. So that's 12 shots at a +5 bonus, and 4 shots at +0.

Lets say you have a very high dex of 20, and are a 5th level soldier for a +5 bonus, so 20 AC total.

The 12 +5 shots will hit on a roll of 15 or higher, so an average of 3 will hit. That's 36 vitality damage right there, enough to completely erase many 5th level characters vitality points and start to deal physical wounds (especially since your high-dex character probably had to sacrifice con to get that high dex). And if you've done any fighting earlier in the day, it's even worse, you're probably dead.

The 4 +0 shots only hit on a natural 20, so we'll ignore them. But even without a single critical hit, you're taking some serious wounds. That insane charge is going to leave you badly "hurt" for the next encounter, so it's a very very bad idea.


Oh, and it only gets worse if you have to run more than 60' to get to them. Because now they get to spend another round firing at you, and you probably die. Or if the DM decides to give the stormtroopers repeating blasters (more shots per round) instead of the basic rifles.

Cover becomes really important in Star Wars d20 now that armor gives damage reduction instead of an AC bonus. Even the highest-dex character can't get above AC 17 without cover (even a 1st level weak stormtrooper hits 15% of the time). So even that high vitality is going to go away pretty quickly if you insist on charging carelessly into a fight.

Oh, I grant that. But it's still a viable tactic to charge a single, or even two, foes, particularly if you're high-level. Which is just weird.

Not too weird. If you're talking about single-round charges, that's at close range already, so not much running involved. And PCs are supposed to be able to do difficult things.

But why does the fact that it's possible make it a viable tactic? With the exception of lightsabers, melee weapons in Star Wars d20 are absolutely useless. So what advantage is gained by charging into point blank range of your target?

=========================================

Vitality points aren't realistic anyway you slice it. It's simple, it's workable. That's giving it the due it deserves. But realistic? Ludicrous.

Which was my whole point. Truly realistic combat is not appropriate for an RPG, it just takes too much time spent on rules and not on the story. So you use an approximation that's close enough, but can be done quickly. The vitality point system gives characters the ability to survive combat as long as they fight intelligently and prevent a single lucky roll meaning character death, but doesn't give them an unlimited supply of luck/dodging/etc to spend carelessly.

Also, said hit will only happen with certainty if the game revolves around combat. I grant you that this can be true in Star Wars (though it by no means must be so), but I find it interesting that you assume it to be universal.

If the game doesn't revolve around combat, then the combat system doesn't matter. If you're playing a Star Wars game based around politics in the Old Republic senate and only get into a fight once every few weeks, who cares if the combat is realistic. In fact, having a simple and efficient system becomes the highest priority, since the exact turn by turn results are irrelevant compared to the story effects of the fact that there was combat.

Or you could use the system I presented earlier, with all of the benefits and none of the ponderous yet abstract rules you mention.

Which was what, the D6 version with higher damage? Since I've never played that, I can't offer any opinion on it.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Sorry to cut your post to pieces, but my current internet connection refuses to submit posts past a certain length.

The simple fact is, player characters aren't supposed to die easily. *snip* The vitality point system is a simple but realistic way of giving player characters decent survivability.

It's a compromise that would not be necessary with a more sensible game system. You're drawing a false dilemma between d20's methods and a character's fate being determined by the result of a single roll.

The alternative is to massively increase the complexity of combat, *snip*

Don't be ridiculous. If you dispense with the nonsensical concept of AC, you can craft a cover system that's far more effective while still being simple.

*snip*It's not much fun if it takes 10 minutes and a page of physics equations to aim a blaster.

There is a trade-off between realism and ease of play, but it is possible to greatly increase realism over d20 without sacrifing ease of play.

[Xess]

I'd like to thank everyone for their tips. I'm thinking of using the WotC D20 system as a base for converting into D6 with lots of your tips thrown in.

[lPeregrine]

I'd like to thank everyone for their tips. I'm thinking of using the WotC D20 system as a base for converting into D6 with lots of your tips thrown in.

Just make sure you're careful about game balance. When mixing systems and adding tons of custom rules, it's easy to unbalance the game.

[Utsanomiko]

I think a good solution is the one used in Västmark, where there are three kinds of wounds - Scratch, Wound, and Serious Wound. A mook given a Serious Wound is dead automagically. A character, on the other hand, is just down, in pain, comatose, bleeding, etc. Anything worse is up to circumstances, the GM, and the stupidity of the given situation.

For example, the player of a young Jedi jumps from a catwalk down into a group of three thugs with blaster rifles, who are exchanging fire with the other player characters. In the first round the Jedi lands attacks on two of them, one a Serious Wound, another a Scratch. One of the mooks have a -1 to his moves, the other topples to the ground in two smoking halves. Then, however, one of the mooks fires blindly, hitting the character.

Now, charging into these three thugs wasn't really suicidally stupid (they're using blaster rifles in melee, which is hardly ideal), so the GM doesn't feel there's much reason to even consider that the shot was lethal. And since the Jedi's friends are charging from cover, blasters blazing, the thugs have neither reasons nor time making sure the character is dead.

Basically, in any situation the GM feels justified in saying "you're hopelessly overmatched, have no help coming, and the enemy is out to destroy you utterly", character death would be expected to occur. Otherwise it wouldn't be likely.

This, though, doesn't mean the characters can't for instance slowly bleed to death. A Serious Wound is, after all, serious. The idea is to give the character a chance, rather than killing him/her outright at the whim of a die.

Technically, that's the sort of leeway that SWRPG 2ed (R&E) recommends. It strongly suggests that GMs not kill off characters unless they make poor rolls and decisions. Basically, in the same sense that players who are better at creating good in-character dialogue get better NPC responces than ones that merely drag their feet and 'roll-play' with shallow actions like "I'll con him", players that make good, clever strategies or attempt actions that should work due to importance to the story shouldn't outright fail or get knocked-out from missing by a few points. The GM should be willing to fudge the result down 1-2 levels to compensate (another reason I'm glad I own a GM screen), make the injury regional (they're incapped and lose an arm rather than die). Sometimes losing equipment, money, or status can be an alternative to dying; some players will see starting over that way is better, some may see it as worse.

On the other hand, if a player is a moron, talks trash to a thug who'd clearly kill them in a heartbeat, promptly gets a gun stuffed in his mouth, and takes 19 points of damage, that's different. There's not much reason to put thought into saving a character that didn't put thought into getting into that situation. In a similar manner, it suggests a way to simplify vehicle combat is to write down a couple damage results of 2-3 varying degrees (for the non-reocurring enemies to be knicked, seriously damaged, or blown up), rather than rolling random results. This includes simply declaring the target is destroyed by any good hit over 10-14 or so for the sake of speeding up the adventure. Generally it's just about keeping the rules and numbers from derailing a good session by a random flub or turning the prefect opportunity into an anti-climax (all the characters, escaping from a detention center, jump onto the hovertruck just as it escapes at the last minute... except for the guy who stuck his neck out to help the others escape, who fails his Jumping roll by 5 and falls to his doom).

The book doesn't spell it out as clear or styrong as, say "Never ask the players if they want to roll against a Con attempt," but Revised and Expanded does emphasize roleplaying over strict rules several times and offerrs suggestions for handling results that are just plain inopportune (one reason that critical failures on the wild die oftne just lead to 'complications' rather than botch the whole roll).

[The Dark]

I'd like to thank everyone for their tips. I'm thinking of using the WotC D20 system as a base for converting into D6 with lots of your tips thrown in.

Do you have the rulebook with the conversion suggestions from D6 to D20? If not, Wizards has their guidelines online.

[Utsanomiko]

I'd like to thank everyone for their tips. I'm thinking of using the WotC D20 system as a base for converting into D6 with lots of your tips thrown in.

Just make sure you're careful about game balance. When mixing systems and adding tons of custom rules, it's easy to unbalance the game.

I've found the species' stats to be annoying to convert from D20. While the special abilities are clear enough to represent in D6 difficulty numbers or dice (so long as they aren't nonsensical or twisted to fit the ruleset. I notice how all 4-armed species have enough non-dominant hands to be considered no better than humans, even ones WEG lists as having bonuses to Dexterity, multi-actions, multiple weapons, and Strength skills), the Ability Modifiers just don't have the kind of consistency or variety that D6 does. "+2, +2, -2" adjustments to 10-18 Ability numbers doesn't yield detail in how to make unique or useful minimum and maximum Attribute die. Movement speeds are also too uniform, and even though the listed heights are pretty accurate, ignore the illustrated height-charts; they're waaay off.

Another thing about SW D20 is the Pilot skill. Every vehicle operation ability is covered by this thing. I may not exactly agree with WEG's SWRPG separating piloting skills into every individual driving mechanism (though I'd also argue that repair specilizations being divided by manufacture and model isn't as good as component/system, so maybe it's just me).

[lPeregrine]

Another thing about SW D20 is the Pilot skill. Every vehicle operation ability is covered by this thing. I may not exactly agree with WEG's SWRPG separating piloting skills into every individual driving mechanism (though I'd also argue that repair specilizations being divided by manufacture and model isn't as good as component/system, so maybe it's just me).

That's the kind of thing I was talking about. If you're going to split up the Pilot skill to some degree, you're probably going to want to increase the skill points each class gets (especially if you do the same to other skills). Otherwise you're going to end up really short on useable skills for each character.

[Utsanomiko]

For a D6 (or even D20) player, I recommend looking at the Dark Lords of the Sith.

I wish I hadn't. The Attributes for aliens seen in Episode I seemed very unbalanced and the special abilities poorly represented and haphazard. The weapons i looked at weren't much better, I read several unnotable editorials, and most of the supplements are just awful; either overly-complex/useless additions or just nonsense (the 'cinematic feats' were atrocious). I guess it's better than not owning any sourcebooks with item/species stats, but otherwise nothing I'd need to skim over again.

*Needs a drink now*

[Eleas]

So now I'm back. Still a bit groggy from the trip, but this shouldn't take long.

Regular stormtroopers aren't high-level. You've got a sixty percent chance of being unhurt in said scenario if I did my maths correct, unless the Stormtroopers are inordinately tough, and assuming they hit with every shot.

I think you've got a mistake in there somewhere. Assume you just charge, not shooting (because if your superior reflexes let you shoot them all before they fire, it's not really an untouchable charge), spending one round (5-6 seconds) under fire. And lets say it's against four of the mid-level stormtroopers presented in the book (a fair match for a party).

Who said anything about a "fair match for a party", and which specific party would that be? I was talking about stormtroopers like we've seen them act in the movie against bog standard heroes (ANH, for example). Luke and the others aren't very combat-capable at all - the highest level they had was 4, and that was Leia, a Noble. And yet, multitudes of Stormtroopers failed to smoke them, even in pitched battles (Han chasing Stormtroopers comes to mind). Strange, if the Stormtroopers were anything other than the Level 2 types from the Corebook. The balance madness that plagues d20 doesn't seem very borne out by what we see in the Star Wars movies, does it?

The reason I'm against Vitality is that, while it's far superior to the regular Hit Point lunacy, it still leads to strange results. It remains a weirdly abstract hitpoint retcon method, but at least it's been isolated from physical wounds. Even so, it allows a person to mysteriously avoid being hit when he has no business being able to, automatically. This was my whole point in my first place.

Finally, your statement was off - the autofire rules for +9/+4 are +5/+5/+0; three actions, not four. We seldom see them fire aimed shots that quickly in the movies, of course, but since when was d20 SW similar to those?

But why does the fact that it's possible make it a viable tactic? With the exception of lightsabers, melee weapons in Star Wars d20 are absolutely useless. So what advantage is gained by charging into point blank range of your target?

Well, in real life, successfully charging into a group of riflemen while weilding a dagger can generally prove remarkably deadly to the riflemen. But in point of fact I wasn't discussing effective tactics in the game, because rigid tactical games that masquerade as RPG systems generally tend to be boring. Rather, what I was discussing was logical holes in the system. Situations in which a man trapped in an elevator is able to mysteriously dodge ten shots from two Stormtroopers with repeating rifles, for example.

Which was my whole point. Truly realistic combat is not appropriate for an RPG, it just takes too much time spent on rules and not on the story. So you use an approximation that's close enough, but can be done quickly. The vitality point system gives characters the ability to survive combat as long as they fight intelligently and prevent a single lucky roll meaning character death, but doesn't give them an unlimited supply of luck/dodging/etc to spend carelessly.

As did my suggestion, with fewer rules and no Vitality.

Also, said hit will only happen with certainty if the game revolves around combat. I grant you that this can be true in Star Wars (though it by no means must be so), but I find it interesting that you assume it to be universal.

If the game doesn't revolve around combat, then the combat system doesn't matter.

Uhm... I see. The definition of "revolve" is pretty clear, you know. So if the game doesn't completely focus on combat, then the combat system is irrelevant?

In any case, a categorical declaration such as the one you made looks rather shortsighted to me. To be frank, any complex situation difficult for the GM to arbitrarily adjudicate (and/or make interesting) can be improved by the addition of a system of rules, which are there to give a sense of consistency, consequence, and complexity to the world. If said rules are good, they can provide a swift, appropriate and colorful description of what happened in the situation they govern.

Having gone through quite a lot of games where the fighting was kept to a bare minimum, I can only state that your rationale would have likely as not ruined them utterly, as the absence of combat only makes it more intense once it occurs. For some reason, in a situation tailor-made to snuff out lives, players tend to get awfully keen on making sure that their characters in particular don't get shafted (or blasted, or sliced, ad nausaem).

There's a reason most games have a combat system. Without the system, it usually comes down to GM fiat. Like it or not, it's just not as exciting as a situation where you have to use your wits, ingenuity, and luck to survive. Or in the case of d20, level, feats and knowledge of holes in the system.

If you're playing a Star Wars game based around politics in the Old Republic senate and only get into a fight once every few weeks, who cares if the combat is realistic.

"Realistic" combat is a red herring. What matters is that the combat is exciting, a bit dangerous, and above all interesting. In other words, few people want realistic combat for its own sake. They do, however, tend to want plausible combat in the context of the setting. And in the campaign you described, the stakes in an eventual fight would tend to be far higher, and therefore the need for good rules would correspondingly increase.

Rules that provide strange consequences would interfere with the illusion, because if you know metagaming will result in victory, the suspension of disbelief will suffer, even if you don't use your knowledge actively.

In fact, having a simple and efficient system becomes the highest priority, since the exact turn by turn results are irrelevant compared to the story effects of the fact that there was combat.

Again, I disagree, as the reasons stated above lead me to a different conclusion.

Which was what, the D6 version with higher damage? Since I've never played that, I can't offer any opinion on it.

No, this.

I think a good solution is the one used in Västmark, where there are three kinds of wounds - Scratch, Wound, and Serious Wound. A mook given a Serious Wound is dead automagically. A character, on the other hand, is just down, in pain, comatose, bleeding, etc. Anything worse is up to circumstances, the GM, and the stupidity of the given situation.

[Eleas]

For a D6 (or even D20) player, I recommend looking at the Dark Lords of the Sith.

I wish I hadn't. The Attributes for aliens seen in Episode I seemed very unbalanced and the special abilities poorly represented and haphazard. The weapons i looked at weren't much better, I read several unnotable editorials, and most of the supplements are just awful; either overly-complex/useless additions or just nonsense (the 'cinematic feats' were atrocious). I guess it's better than not owning any sourcebooks with item/species stats, but otherwise nothing I'd need to skim over again.

*Needs a drink now*

That was my general reaction as well. There was no fix there that was needed, which is kinda funny because the SW D6 rules need some revisions. The foundation may be solid, but the walls are in dire need of repair.

[Thunderfire]

Another problem - that a Y-Wing will defeat a TIE Int in a dogfight 9 times out of 10.

That a stormtrooper is nothing but a low-end thug.

That the entire system is so HORRIBLY skewed in the Rebels favour that its just not funny.

Hmm I haven't play West Ends SW RPG alot but this game favored the Rebels alot too. A Y-Wing beating a T/I 9 out of 10 times happends in XvT or XWA too.

[Typhonis 1]

Actually if you want a fair analogy for a TIE fighter..

Take an X-wing

Rip out the hyperdrive,and the two weeks supplies plus cargo compartment.

Remove the droid socket and Two weapons.


Leave the rest.

[Imperial Overlord]

Who said anything about a "fair match for a party", and which specific party would that be? I was talking about stormtroopers like we've seen them act in the movie against bog standard heroes (ANH, for example). Luke and the others aren't very combat-capable at all - the highest level they had was 4, and that was Leia, a Noble. And yet, multitudes of Stormtroopers failed to smoke them, even in pitched battles (Han chasing Stormtroopers comes to mind). Strange, if the Stormtroopers were anything other than the Level 2 types from the Corebook. The balance madness that plagues d20 doesn't seem very borne out by what we see in the Star Wars movies, does it?

To nitpick Solo was around level 6 or 7 and the revised Core Book has shmuck troopers as level 4 thugs.

[Eleas]

Who said anything about a "fair match for a party", and which specific party would that be? I was talking about stormtroopers like we've seen them act in the movie against bog standard heroes (ANH, for example). Luke and the others aren't very combat-capable at all - the highest level they had was 4, and that was Leia, a Noble. And yet, multitudes of Stormtroopers failed to smoke them, even in pitched battles (Han chasing Stormtroopers comes to mind). Strange, if the Stormtroopers were anything other than the Level 2 types from the Corebook. The balance madness that plagues d20 doesn't seem very borne out by what we see in the Star Wars movies, does it?

To nitpick Solo was around level 6 or 7 and the revised Core Book has shmuck troopers as level 4 thugs.

I have to concede that all your nitpics are correct. I misread Solo's stats as being at the end of Episode VI and not the beginning of Episode VI. The fact that the most low-level Stormtroopers is at a level 4 is rather telling to me.

[Imperial Overlord]

The fact that the most low-level Stormtroopers is at a level 4 is rather telling to me.

You mean that they are higher level than starting characters, even if they are nerfed NPC levels? If so, its a reoccuring problem with d20, starting characters at shmuck level and one of the reasons I never start d20 campaigns with 1st level characters.

[lPeregrine]

Who said anything about a "fair match for a party", and which specific party would that be? I was talking about stormtroopers like we've seen them act in the movie against bog standard heroes (ANH, for example). Luke and the others aren't very combat-capable at all - the highest level they had was 4, and that was Leia, a Noble. And yet, multitudes of Stormtroopers failed to smoke them, even in pitched battles (Han chasing Stormtroopers comes to mind). Strange, if the Stormtroopers were anything other than the Level 2 types from the Corebook. The balance madness that plagues d20 doesn't seem very borne out by what we see in the Star Wars movies, does it?

To nitpick Solo was around level 6 or 7 and the revised Core Book has shmuck troopers as level 4 thugs.

I have to concede that all your nitpics are correct. I misread Solo's stats as being at the end of Episode VI and not the beginning of Episode VI. The fact that the most low-level Stormtroopers is at a level 4 is rather telling to me.

Not really. The lowest level stormtrooper is a 4th level thug, not a 4th level character. The NPC-only classes are much, much weaker than the PC classes. That 4th level stormtrooper is the equivalent of a 1st or 2nd level PC.

So in that scenario you described, a party of 4th level characters could own large numbers of stormtoopers, as long as they don't fight too many at once. There's no contradiction between the rules and the movie. Especially since Han is 8th level, and Chewbacca is 6th level. The two of them alone could take on the number of stormtroopers we see them fight in the movie.

[Eleas]

So in that scenario you described, a party of 4th level characters could own large numbers of stormtoopers, as long as they don't fight too many at once. There's no contradiction between the rules and the movie. Especially since Han is 8th level, and Chewbacca is 6th level. The two of them alone could take on the number of stormtroopers we see them fight in the movie.

What I disagreed with regarding Vitality and that situation was simply that Vitality worked as ablative armor. It still works, but not as well as some other methods, IMHO.