RuneQuest Star Wars

[bluejay]

Hmm... to totally contradict my last post I guess one important aspect of SW is A-Team style blaster fights where none of the heroes get hit.

This may be quite difficult to model in RQ without giving out a lot more Combat Reactions. There are many fights with our heroes again 6 or 7 Stormtroopers or tens of Battle Droids. Far more than could successfully be dodged or deflected in a round. In this situation it would be advantagous if 'heroes' were simply harder to hit than regular characters.

The simplest solution would be to give cannon fodder characters very low weapon skills. I may consider giving Stormtrooper Rifles a penalty to hit.

For Han Solo characters, good use of cover would help as well.

I'd love to open the floor to everyone here with the following ideas. Take a scene from Star Wars and try and model it using a variant of MRQ. Don't have to go into full details but give examples of how the rules support the scene or need to be modded slightly. Give details of any new rules introduced.

I'll give the first (very brief) example below: -

Film: A New Hope
Scene: Stormtroopers attack Docking Bay 94

A small group of Stormtroopers attack Han as he finishes preparing the Falcon for take-off. Only a mild skirmish but I would imagine that blaster rifles could kill or disable him in a single shot. Stormtroopers only have low chances to hit and I'd give Han minor cover. Han takes a couple of pot shots (with possible hits, difficult to tell) and dodges blaster fire. He may be burning up a Hero Point or two here. The entire skirmish can't last more than 2 rounds at most. Seems like the rules could handle it no problem.

 

[bluejay]

Film: The Empire Strikes Back
Scene: Vader fights with Luke

A big scene here with lots of moves and tricks. Would be a great test of the system to play it out.

Let's break it down into separate sections.

The opening section starts with some fairly straight duelling. Luke uses his lightsaber two-handed while Darth only uses one hand and seems to be toying with Luke. Whatever damage lightsabers end up doing, I'd give them a bonus for being wielded two-handed.

So the fight opens with a couple of standard attacks and blocks. No problem. Vader then easily disarms Luke (despite his two-handed grip). Again, easy enough. He also maneuvers Luke away from the saber. Not sure if this could be modelled using attack and dodge (forced to give ground). Vader uses a Force Push to knock Luke into the carbon freezing chamber. This probably acts like a spell effect. Luke leaps from the chamber using a Force Jump which is either a spell effect or Legendary Ability. I'd say he uses Athletics and Stealth to clamber amongst the pipes unseen. Improvises an attack with the opened pipe to stun Vader (I would imagine environmental attacks like this would work like Poison effects) and uses Force TK to (again a spell) to safely pull his lightsaber to his hand.

More follows...

 

[bluejay]

Ok, I'm guessing that the gas attack (from the pipe) weakens Vader temporarily and Luke uses this advantage (and a Hero Point or two) to press the attack. Possibly even uses Flurry here to seize the advantage.

Vader is pressed backwards while parrying (hmm... not sure how to do this) and actually forced backwards off a ledge. I guess he makes an Athletics check or uses a Force Power to land safely somewhere and then uses Stealth to hide.

Luke jumps down after him (and his head pops back up if you look closely).

Section 2 of the fight uses more force powers than anything else. Vader clearly shows that his Force TK can be used in conjunction with his lightsaber skills. Luke takes a few hits but little more than bruising. He also proves that he's not too good at parrying this stuff thrown at him. Eventually Vader smashes a window and Luke is hurled out into some kind of shaft.

The final section of the fight is the most brutal. Luke manages to survive his fall (more Athletics rolls). He attempts to leave but is surprised by Vader. At this point, Vader presses the attack and Luke fights defensively. Again, the defender is forced backwards and I'm tempted to include this as a possibility for parries in the game. Possibly the attacker can elect to attempt to force a defender backwards. Finally Luke has nowhere further to go and fights a lot harder, even injuring Vader. Now this is quite interesting because he gets a decent hit but doesn't do much more than a glancing blow. Possibly Vader's armour blocks some of the damage or possibly Luke just rolls low. Anyway, Vader returns the favour and cuts Luke's hand off in one single hit. How much damage are we looking at there? Around 10 points in one hit perhaps? I guess Vader should have +1d4 damage bonus anyway. One useful effect is that lightsabers appear to cause no bleeding damage due to their cauterising nature. At this point, Luke effectively surrenders before leaping off the ledge.

All do-able but perhaps some kind of ability to force defenders backwards during a parry might be nice.

 

[Rurik]

Just use the knockback rules.

In the case of Lightsabers I would think they have very high AP in keeping with the flavor of duels in the movie - If not even blocking all damage on a sucessful attack.

In your example Luke (two handed and all) scores a solid hit, damage > Vaders SIZ. Vader blocks all the Damage (2xAP result perhaps) but is till knocked back.

 

[Shadow Queen]

How about playing as Matt said Anti-heros??

 

[bluejay]

Great stuff Rurik, that's exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for.

After all, if I intend to model these scenes I need to know that the basic system is capable.

Perfect example there.

I agree with you about high APs for lightsabers. Given that they are energy perhaps they simply stop all damage full stop. I would imagine that most lightsaber duels are over after the first hit or two.

I guess Vader takes a wound in that battle in ESB. He also takes a severe wound in RotJ. In AotC, Obi-Wan is given two minor hits without dying, similarly Anakin takes a major wound losing part of his arm.

Hey, here's a question:

How do we model that final Obi-Wan attack on Anakin in RotS? I guess it's a flurry with some serious damage! I think he takes off an arm and both his legs in one hit!

 

[Rurik]

Well for one, I think Jedi's will be kind of like RuneLords, and should have some legendary abilities.

One could be a 'sweeping slash' special attack with a lightsaber, that allows yoy to apply damage to another location after severing a location. Maybe a damage bonus to the ability. After each severed location roll location again. A massive damage roll could sever 3 locations.

Good thing there are no total HP

I would think this would only apply to Lightsabers as they can slice through most things like butter.

 

[bluejay]

Yeah, I guess there could be the equivalent of a 'Great Cleave' mechanic where if you sever a location you can keep on attacking either the same person (like poor ol' Anakin) or the next guy in line (like Qui-Gon against the battle droid who tries to arrest him for going to Coruscant).

So far, the system seems to hold up really well.

 

[bluejay]

So... Darth Maul's double-ended lightsaber... we count that as two weapons?

 

[bluejay]

Oh, and lightsabers have infinite AP for the purposes of blocking but probably fairly low AP/HP if the hilt is targetted directly. AFAIK this happens twice in the films:

1. Obi-Wan cuts Darth Maul's double-ender in half in TPM.
2. In AotC, when Anakin uses two sabers against Dooku, he cuts one of them in half.

Also, Anakin's saber is cut in half in the factory sequence as well...

 

[bluejay]

Oh and following with Rurik's Legendary Ability: Sweeping, of course we have the classic moment where Anakin takes both of Dooku's hands in RotS.

Again, all of these examples can be covered by flurry but I'm happy to use a Legendary Ability.

I do agree that heroes like Jedi should be RunePriest equivalents but even your Han and Leia types probably need quite a high Dodge at least...

...and lo, Dex became even more of a God-stat.

 

[Rurik]

Oh, and lightsabers have infinite AP for the purposes of blocking but probably fairly low AP/HP if the hilt is targetted directly. AFAIK this happens twice in the films:

1. Obi-Wan cuts Darth Maul's double-ender in half in TPM.
2. In AotC, when Anakin uses two sabers against Dooku, he cuts one of them in half.

Also, Anakin's saber is cut in half in the factory sequence as well...

According to the MRQ rules the only way to damage a weapon is a precise attack targeting the weapon - which covers your scenarios nicely. I would make a targeted attack on Darth Mauls thingy too!

On to his lightsaber thingy- you could give it the staff bonus from MRQ (+10 to parries), or you could do what you said, just count it as a second weapon (either one bonus parry or a bonus attack at -20%).

I'd say MRQ covers the cinematic scenes well.

 

[bluejay]

Yeah, so far it's looking very fitting for SW.

Nothing too difficult really...

Is it possible to parry for someone else in MRQ... I can't remember.

 

[Shadow Queen]

How about high speed manuvers ie: podracing and deathstar trench's?

 

[Rurik]

Yeah, so far it's looking very fitting for SW.

Nothing too difficult really...

Is it possible to parry for someone else in MRQ... I can't remember.

I don't think it mentions that. You could allow it, but I would propose at least -20% if not more (not too big a problem for a Jedi).

Or maybe Legendary ability again. If the characters outnumber a sith lord 3 to one, you don't want all three of them using parry reactions on each attack. Kinda goofy if you ask me.

 

[Rurik]

Passions and Vices and Virtues ala Pendragon would bey very cool in a Star Wars Game.

Just a thought.

 

[mthomason]

Without going into toooo much detail yet, we've got an third-party RQ-logoed product being announced soon that might just interest the people on this thread (alas, not an SW licence before anyone asks )

 

[Archer]

Without going into toooo much detail yet, we've got an third-party RQ-logoed product being announced soon that might just interest the people on this thread (alas, not an SW licence before anyone asks )

I strongly suspected you might. Looking forward to it.

 

[bluejay]

Sounds great. I certainly don't want to do more work than I have to!

Just watched Episode III tonight again. Lots of options in combat required...

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

Without going into toooo much detail yet, we've got an third-party RQ-logoed product being announced soon that might just interest the people on this thread (alas, not an SW licence before anyone asks )

Silly question, but I have to ask...

:?: