Rules Discussion

This thread can be used to keep track of our interpretation of specific rules within the system. And to kick it off Ezeriah has asked about how Vigilance and Perception shall work. I'll just paste his comments below;
And my answer to him was that we will use the F&D version of the stats. So Vigilance will be a passive stat for when you are not actually looking for something, Perception will be a kind of investigation check; if you are studying something or actively looking we will use this stat.

As far as skill checks go, how would you like us to proceed in the future when we actively do something, like a Perception check, and don't know the difficulty yet?

I don't want to assume difficulty levels as in a TT game the GM determines that, so should we just roll our proficiency and ability dice? This would allow you to respond in TT fashion and edit in the difficulty dice later as you see fit, along with any boost dice we requested (that make sense to you) and setback dice you see fit.

If it's a risky action, I'd definitely ask the difficulty before rolling the check, so I'm not concerned with how to proceed in that case. But, in the above situation, how would you like to go about things?

Okay, so I've essentially dumped all of my points into boosting my vigilance checks. Obviously I would prefer to use vigilance to do things like perceive my surroundings using the force as this is essentially my only jedi like powers...

Vigilance lets you do exactly that, it's just more of a subconscious awareness with less detail now.

I think the way Vigilance is now strongly benefits you. Basically, your character, especially the way you set it up, is a walking radar. The way things used to work in the original EoE rules, Vigilance was pretty much used only for initiative when you were surprised (so the old way would be even worse for you as Vigilance had *no* perceptive application or mention of noticing the environment beyond ambush initiative). The designers probably made the change to give Vigilance more value (I'm guessing some player feedback suggesting Vigilance was fairly worthless led them that way).

Typically, so as not to clue players in that something might be amiss, when I GM local games with my friends, I make their Vigilance checks via a nifty dice rolling app on my computer (I use my computer while I'm playing anyway, so mouse clicks give nothing away). Asking them to roll a Vigilance check tells them something is wrong. However, before I got the app I wised up and started to ask them to roll Vigilance checks occasionally as decoys, masking the real Vigilance checks when I needed them. The bottom line is that Vigilance, imo, is really something you won't roll typically as it is passive. However, unlike Perception, it is always on. I also think using Perception is an action, so it slows you down whereas Vigilance does not.

In sum, I think Vigilance will serve exactly how you want it to; it will save your hide when Perception won't. You'll passively notice things (like the above sniper situation) without having to be actively looking for them. Vigilance working for you passively will give you a chance to use Perception you otherwise didn't have.

In the game right now, really you've just got an advantage over the rest of us. You can reach out with Perception too, and you've got extraordinary Vigilance too back it up.

Since you've designed your character, I've been counting on your Vigilance to stop us from getting ambushed, stepping on a trap at the last second, noticing the faint smell of toxic gas... anything that gives us that little bit of warning before its too late.

Skill Check Mechanics:

Whenever you make a skill check of any kind, you take into account the characteristic & the skill rank level involved. The higher of the two forms your base ability pool (green dice) while the lower of the two converts that number of dice in the aforementioned ability pool into yellow dice.

So, in the case of your Mechanics skill, it uses Intellect (4) for a characteristic and clearly your Mechanics skill ranks (2) for determining this via the above method. Your Intellect is the higher of the two at 4, so this forms your base pool of four green ability dice. You have two ranks in the Mechanics skill, so this upgrades two of those four green dice into yellows. The net result is you would roll 2 yellow and 2 green.

Other quick examples (as they are great learning tools) based on your character Drekrok:

Computer (Intellect 4, Ranks 1): Your Intellect would give you 4 green dice as a base pool; 1 rank in Computer skill would convert one of those green dice to a yellow. Altogether, you would roll 3 green and one yellow.

Perception (Cunning 2, Ranks 0): Your Cunning would give 2 green dice as a base pool; 0 ranks in Perception would mean no conversion of dice. Altogether, you would roll 2 green dice.

Lastly, consider an example where a character had, let's say, a 2 agility and 4 ranks in Stealth. The higher number between the characteristic and skill ranks here would be the skill ranks. In this case, they would form a base pool of 4 green dice. Then, the agility would convert two of those green dice into yellows. Altogether, you would roll 2 green dice and 2 yellow dice.

The great thing about the system is that you can learn anything and aren't completely limited by characteristics. The only way characteristics do act as a limiter is by ultimately limiting your potential to truly excel at any given task.

Consider two characters who both have 5 ranks in Mechanics. One of them is a future higher level Davro (Intellect 4). The other one, let's say Bob, is someone with a lot of practice at Mechanics, but not innately intelligent (Intellect 2). Both of them having 5 skill ranks, Bob will roll (2 yellow and 3 green) whereas future Davro will roll (4 yellow and 1 green).

Also, sometimes characters can work together, bringing the best aspects of their skills together. An example from our game would be Davro and Kellin working on a Computers check together. Because Kellin has more skill ranks in Computers (2) than Davro (1) he brings his skill ranks into the equation. Because Davro has a higher Intellect (4) than Kellin's (2), Davro brings his Intellect into the equation. So, we take the higher number (Davro's 4 Intellect) which gives 4 green ability dice as base pool. Then, we use Kellin's skill ranks (2) to upgrade two of those green dice into yellows. Altogether, the final check would consist of (2 yellow and 2 green dice). You guys are putting your heads together, Kellin's experience/better training enhanced by Davro's Intellect. Alone Davro would get (1 yellow 3 green) and Kellin would get (2 yellow).

Ultimately, once you become familiar with it, it is a great system with a lot of flexibility that just makes sense.

I know that was a lot, but I hope it helps.

well that explains more. sorry for screwing up simple things.

Well, games are something you learn as you play so no worries.

How does the destiny pool work? Is that were our force points come from?

The simple answer to your question is no. I'll explain both below.

FORCE POINTS

You use force dice to generate force points on a force power check. To do so, you simply roll force dice = to your force rating to determine how many force points you have available to use; as a side note, everyone in our group right now has a force rating of one as nobody has gone far enough up any skill tree to take an upgrade for force rating.

Each force die has 12 faces, 7 of them dark side points, 5 of them light side; the greater number of dark side faces is used to reflect the temptation to give in to the dark side to use force powers. However, the ratio of light side and dark side points available is the same. There are six single point and 1 double point dark side faces (totaling 8 points) whereas there are two single point light side faces and three double point light side faces (totaling 8 points).

When you make a roll in forum, the force die is the white one furthest to the right. An example of some rolls for someone with a force rating of 5 is at the bottom of this post; this would be a character that has taken four force upgrades from skill trees.

THE DESTINY POOL

The destiny pool on the table top is a group of tokens about the size and shape of dimes or nickels, each one having a white side and a black side (light and dark representing the force). You can flip one that is light side up to the dark side in order to upgrade a skill check. This means converting a green dice to yellow, or, if the pool already consists of all yellow dice you add another green to the pool.

For example, if Venzo was doing a Perception check (1 yellow and 1 green for him), if I thought the check was that important I could flip an available token that is light side up over, revealing it's dark side. Now the Perception check would be (2 yellow dice) as the singular green was converted to yellow.

Destiny tokens that are now dark side up are available to the GM now to use in the same fashion, allowing them to flip a dark side up token to the light side when doing so.

Only one destiny point may be flipped on a single check. Even when flipped, the destiny points stay in play, allowing the players and the GM to continue using them as they see fit. Typically, you want to save destiny points for more important rolls.

I imagine in the PbP forum, whenever we flip a destiny token Flug will update us on the number of light vs dark showing on the "table."

Exactly. You can also use your white destiny points to change something in the narrative. For example, in my other game as GM I flipped a dark side point to make a new NPC that a character had just met her first love. So it turned out she had bumped into an old flame. I had my reasons for doing that, but it was worth it just for the fun of throwing the player a curve ball.

You could use one to "notice" a conveniently placed power cell which a blaster shot could explode, thus taking out a group of enemies. Mechanically this means we add this object into the game. The more creative you get with these, generally, the better.

Generally actions which create conflict are (from page 324 of the CRB):

- Knowing Inaction - you know that an NPC or PC is going to do something bad (something that would generally cause 5+ conflict points) and you choose not to intervene.

- Lying for Personal Gain (1) - The PC tells a lie for selfish reasons or to benefit himself. Some lies can be told without penalty to benefit others, such as avoiding a combat situation or protecting innocents.

- Resorting to Violence as the First Solution (1) - When confronted with a problem, the PC defaults to violent acts to solve it, without exploring any other options. This penalty can be mitigated if the PC is the one being attacked.

- Coercion and Threatening with Violence (2) - The PC threatens someone with violence or coerces the person to do his bidding against the person's will.

- Inflicting Emotional Abuse (2) - The PC says something cruel or petty just to upset or cause mental torment in a person.

- Theft (2-3) - The PC steals something that does not belong to him. The conflict point penalty can be mitigated in this case if the PC is stealing from a corrupt and/or wealthy authority (such as the EMpire) and does so to give back to those who need it. The Conflict point penalty can be increased if the PC steals something from those who can particularly ill afford to lose it.

- Unnecessary Destruction (3-4) - the PC destroys objects, property or other items willfully and without good cause.

- Unprovoked Violence or Assault (4-5) - The PC assaults, beats or otherwise attacks an NPC for no reason.

- Unnecessary Cruelty to Non-Sapient Creatures (6-7) - The PC maliciously tortures or torments animals or droids with animal level intelligence.

- Torture (10) - The PCs torture a character

- Murder (10+) - The PCs murder a character. In this case, murder is killing someone who is helpless or nor threat to the PCs.

House rule note:

I don't love RAW around strain recovery in combat - especially if you're up against stun-inducing weaponry. It basically means you have to be lucky to recover strain. I'm okay with a stimpack healing strain (as well as wounds) and have it suffer the same consequences as stimpacks do with wounds (e.g. repeated usage in a short period of time is less effective each time you use it).

If we play with this and it makes things seem imbalanced, I'll modify it.

Thought a Star Wars Quick Reference might be useful to those that are interested.

It basically has all (?) the rules of the game condensed into one spot. Simply download the "Force and Destiny - System Cheat Sheet (Word)" and "FFG Star Wars Fonts" and you're good to go (you can find them about halfway down the page). You can use it without the fonts, it'll just be a bit harder to interpret (the fonts are for the dice symbols to show properly).