Well, I want to start the OOC soon. And I guess I could start it now. I will add the mock battle to the opening post, as you said. I'm hoping to attract some Sith players soon.
Short version: This is a character driven RP(with some wider viewed guidance by the GMs) that focuses specifically on both the Jedi Order and the Sith. The story will be driven by the actions of the characters, but the outcomes of those actions will be driven by dice. I have a system, modified(heavily in some areas) from the old Star Wars table top. See below. This is an an alternate universe from both the new canon and the old EU in an unspecified future where the Sith have been gone until recently, and the Jedi had dwindled down to their last Master and Apprentice. That Apprentice is the Master now, and he is seeking Padawans of his own, but so is a new Sith Lord.
Note: Whichever side you intend to join, you won't be a part of it already when you introduce your character. The RP has already started, so we don't want to shoehorn new characters in with retcons saying they were always there.
There's an Interest Check ( http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/87520-star-wars-opposing-forces/ooc ) already in progress, and there are a few Jedi Padawans, but no Sith Acolytes yet. There's a lot of discussion over there, I'm covering the important parts in this post, but there is a beta test of our dice system in the form of a fight between my character and the GM's. The beta test battle is now in a hider below.
Untold centuries after the fall of Emperor Palpatine and his apprentice, Darth Vader, the galaxy is united as a republic once more. It was a long fight, Imperial remnants holding as much ground as they could, for as long as they could. In the midst of it, over the decades, the Skywalker family made a few quiet attempts to restart the Jedi Order. They didn't dare be as open as the old Order was. They were afraid of attracting powerful enemies, and they were afraid of being seen as one.
Their soft hand was their downfall. The New Order attracted some students, but they never again achieved the reach that the Jedi were known for, and over time they faded from the general public's awareness, remembered as some mystical order of paladins or monks. Long after Luke Skywalker's death, the Order failed for decades to attract new padawans, and as the older masters died out, soon there was only one left. The last Apprentice of the New Jedi Order, he achieved the rank of Knight, and the last Master passed his title to him as he died. Oberon Markel considered letting the lineage die, knowing the Force was alive, and would resurface when it was needed.
But that was not the Force's will after all. Something pulled on him, and he found himself drawn by intuition to Corellia. He stood outside a junk shop(the owner fancied himself an antique's dealer) when David Starsea walked out with an old, dead lightsaber in his hands. He was the first apprentice in almost fifty years, and after learning all Master Markel had to teach, he found himself more successful in finding padawans than his predecessors.
Unfortunately, so was someone else.
Stats are ranked by how many d6(six sided dice) you roll for it. Every stat has at least one d6, and you have 11 addition to divy out. None can be higher than five .
Dexterity(includes ranged combat, tricky tasks, and sleight of hand) Perception(includes finding hidden things, stealth, and social interactions) Strength(all close combat fighting, as well as any feat of strength) Technical(piloting, as well as mechanical skills and other knowledge based tasks) Force(includes any and all force based powers. Individual powers will be skills).
Skills are subsets of stats. Anything is a skill, there’s no limit to what you can decide your character is good at. You have 7 points to assign, so you could do seven skills at one point each, or you could be particularly good at a few skills. Your skill level is those points added onto your stat. So if you had a Strength of 3 and added 2 points to lightsaber skill, you'd have 5, and would roll 5d6, or five six sided dice, in lightsaber combat.
Your stats will stay the same, but your skills will increase in a few ways.
Anytime you roll for a skill, you already have, you’ll gain experience with it. A failure will be 2 exp, and a success will be 1. The amount of exp you need is equal to the current level of the skill times 10. That's the number of skill points, put in, not the total for your rolls. So if you have 4 strength and put 2 in to lightsaber combat, you'd need 20 experience, not 60, to advance. Another character who has a skill that you don't can take the time to teach you. They’ll roll with their skill to determine if they manage to educate you. If you attempt the same task you don’t currently have a skill for five times, you’ll get one point into it, and you can start leveling it normally.
Tasks
I’m not going to make you roll for everything, but for some failable tasks, a GM will assign a difficulty rating, which will just be the number for you to beat with your roll. A GM will make the roll for you, rolling a number of d6 equal to the relevant skill. If you don't have the skill, you'll use the stat instead.
Very Easy: 5 (Pulling your lightsaber to you from the ground below where you're hanging in the ice) Easy: 10 Moderate: 15 Difficult: 20 Very Difficult: 25 Heroic: 30 (Lifting an X-Wing fighter out of a swamp)
Doing two(or more!) things at once: You can make as many actions as you want in a post, but here's the catch. For every extra action you take, all actions lose a die in the roll. So, if you take two actions both rolls lose a die. If you take three, each one loses two dice. Etc etc.
Combat
If rolls tie in combat, there is no effect. The winner of the roll is the one who has the higher number. Throughout a fight, the “excess” is added up, to give the result. So, if two are fighting with a saber, and we get a 14 against a 19, the first player is(by the chart below) “wounded.”(five points over). The players will write exactly what this entails in their prose. Even at this point, they are able to keep fighting. The damage accumulates throughout an instance, and when you reach “Incapacitated” you cannot continue the fight. At that point, it’s down to your comrades to save you, or your opponent to show mercy. It’s possible to be overwhelmed immediately, and for the wound to kill you in one go(for instance, if you’re already at 8 damage, and your opponent deals an additional 8 you’ll be killed).
Name: David Starsea Species: Human, Corellian Age: 42
Bio: David's father, Brom, owns the Starsea shipyards, an orbital base above Corellia. His company does not manufacture many ships itself, merely rents out the floating platforms to do so. David grew up in moderate wealth, and fancied himself a hotshot pilot. And it was true, he had quite a talent for it, one nurtured in a small shuttle, almost a toy, that he flew around the shipyards as a child. When still a young man, he was on the surface of the planet, and found himself drawn into a junk trader's shack. The place was dirty, and David had the technical knowhow to spot that most of what he owned truly could be called junk. But he found a cylinder, long enough to be held with both hands, and was oddly fascinated by it. He bought it, meaning to find out what it was through whatever means he need to employ. He was scheming its dismantling(even imagining it with precognitive accuracy) when he almost ran into Oberon Markel. The two were friends quickly, and Master and Apprentice not long after that. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now, Oberon is gone, and Jedi Master Starsea seeks with great fervor the rebuilding of the Jedi Order.
He used money from his father's company to set up a base on Ilum, which has the advantage of being uncharted even in this day and age, and findable only by a Force sensitive.
Stats and Skills
Dexterity: 2
Perception: 2
Strength: 3 Lightsaber: 5
Technical: 5 Piloting: 7
Force: 3 Farseeing: 4 Telekinesis: 4 Healing: 4
~~~
His stats are gong to act as a sample. Please note that I will be adding two extra skill points onto him(and TheUnknowable's Sith Lord character will have two extra as well) to set him apart from his apprentices, but at the moment he has the same number of stats that any other character can be given.
So here's a breakdown to help with understanding, in case anyone needs it.
He has 1 base in all stats, with 11 extra spread around them. For a total of 16 points in stats.
Skills are added as I see fit, I make the skills up myself, there isn't a list we are pulling from. There are seven points to give, and you add the points onto their base stat. So I put two points into piloting, its base stat is Technical which has five already, giving me seven. He's a prodigious pilot, as his dogfight with Pim in our beta test showed.
In the Force section, every power has its own skill. We're not counting the passive precognition that gives all Jedi their reflexes, nor their general sense of the Force. We only need to add active powers that they hone. Remember that even if you don't add a Force power, that doesn't mean they can't use it. You'll just roll their base Force stat when your character makes an attempt. If they are strong enough in the Force, they will be able to use many abilities quite easily.
Ilum The temple on Ilum is an ancient Jedi ruin, only partially reclaimed by the new order. There are three floors that have been maintained, and that are heated to keep the cold of the ice planet out. The first floor was once an atrium, but now it is the primary training ground, as there isn't anywhere else to do so. The second floor is divided into many rooms. They were meant to all be quarters, and some of them still are, but most have been converted to serve other purposes. Workshops, kitchens, that sort of thing. The third floor is the hangar, and has a great door that opens to let ships in and out. It also houses the temple's reactor that keeps it powered. Beyond these rooms, there are first ruins, older chambers that are colder the further from the reclaimed area you go. Further still, there are caves. Force sensitive individuals see things here, visions. It is these caves that David took his trials, and where he expects his padawans to take theirs.
The hangar on the third floor of the temple houses a YT-2550 light freighter, and three antique X-Wing star fighters. All are holdovers from the Jedi Order that Luke started. The YT, or "Yit Twenty Five," as David calls it, using an old spacer abbreviation, was once used by the older order for its inconspicuousness. Nowadays it's an antique and a bit more noticeable, but David is fond of the old Corellian vessel. It was heavily modified when David found it in the hangar at the Ilum temple, and in addition to his restorations, David has modified it further, modernizing its engines and weapons.
Corellia Bay 37 of the Starsea Shipyards is always reserved. Even Brom Starsea doesn't know what his son uses it for. Sometimes an antique YT model freighter can be seen docked here. Most people assume it is a pet project of the Starsea Heir. Brom thinks otherwise, but keeps his nose out of it.
This is just a copy/paste of my and TheUnknowable's mock battle to test the system in combat. We hope it will give a good idea of how it works, for you who learn better by practical examples. Some of our chatter has been edited out, but some has been left in. U are his posts, G are mine. For some of the time, Unknowable was rolling the dice for me.
~~~ U Pim's sensors notified him that they had detected a vessel with the signature of the jedi's ship coming out of hyperspace. His master had sent him on an important mission to cripple the nascent Jedi order, and he would not fail. Once their master was dead the others would be that much easier to convert or kill.
"R-Sebentine, turn on dee power" he said. Once his droid had brought the ship's weapons up to normal levels he flew directly behind the jedi, ignoring any radio traffic in the area, and fired a photon torpedo directly at his main engine. Without an engine he would be a much easier target.
G David had a bad feeling while he was still in hyperspace, and as his fighter exited in Ilum's orbit, he already had his eye on his weapons scanner. It was blinking.
Without looking to see where the torpedo came from, he turned his controls into a twirling dive down toward the planet.
((So we'd roll their piloting against each other. For ships, we'll use the same damage scale. If the aggressor's roll is higher he hits and deals damage by the excess of the roll. Roll this one normally, we'll doctor a future roll to put them on the planet's surface if we need to.))
U (Me:6+1+2+3+1=13) (You:5-5-3-3-5-4-6=31) (I missed by a mile)
Pim's shot missed wide and he lost track of the ship as it dove towards the planet. By the time he got back on its tail it was outside of his weapon's range.
"R-Sebentine, max powa to da engines." He sped up. Hopefully he could catch up with it before it entered the atmosphere.
G The warning light cut out, and David pulled up to skim the atmosphere, glancing between his instrument panel and the space above him through his cockpit. There was a warning light, but it was a heat alert from the upper atmosphere's friction on his deflector shields.
He found the attacker and pulled up sharply, putting extra into the turn to compensate for the atmosphere drag on his tail end.
He could escape into the atmosphere, but there was no guarantee he wouldn't be followed. Better to fight it out up here, with that escape route remaining handy.
He put the ship in his sights and fired with his blasters. His ship didn't have torpedoes. It was a fighter, but he didn't keep it equipped for combat.
As he pulled on the triggers he murmured, "The Force is strong..."
U (You: 5-6-3-4-4-1-3=26) (me:6-3-2-4-1=16) (10 points damage: incapacitated)
Pim's shields collapsed as alarms started to sound. He had lost most of his engines and some of his weapons. He wasn't going to win this in space.
He flew into the atmosphere and landed in the middle of an open field. If his enemy wanted to fight, he would be waiting for them.
(edit: you get first attack now)
G David followed the ship down, keeping a distance, but confident it wouldn't continue to fight. At least not in the air. He still sensed malice and aggression from the pilot, and knew he couldn't meet it with his own.
The stricken vessel landed in an open tundra, and an unlikely creature stepped down from it. David had never seen a Gungan, and didn't know the word for it. The alien looked amphibious, and David wondered how he handled the cold. If he was a Force sensitive, David supposed, he might be able to warm himself.
David landed some distance away and hopped out of his ship as well. He was still wearing his space suit, though he removed the helmet and let the cold air whip at his face. He had his lightsaber already in his hand, and he ignited it moments after touching down on the ground, already walking toward the Gungan. The light flurry of snowflakes evaporated on the green blade.
Anger was the second step to the Dark Side, and David kept his reigned in, but couldn't help the remnants of fear. This creature had laid in wait at his home to ambush him. Were his apprentices untouched? Had he already visited the surface? His anger flared as he got in striking distance. He didn't wait for the creature to speak, he struck out.
((I used his vibroblade skill, I assume that's what he's fighting with. He has a winning roll with whatever he reacts with.))
U The Jedi was fast. Pim had barely managed to nick his shoulder before he stopped Pim's blade. Maybe trading blows wasn't the best plan, but it was what Pim was best at. What would his Master do in this situation? he thought. Then it came to him.
"Good." he said slowly, menacingly. "Meesa feel your anger, your fear. Itsa given you strength. Now use it." He pushed against the Jedi's blade as hard as he could, forcing the blade towards the Jedi's wound. (Strength) "Yousa betta kill me, Jedi." If he could distract the Jedi, he could win. Or better yet he would turn him. Either way his master would be proud.
G Pim: 4, 6, 2 = 12 David: 6, 5, 2 = 13
David was angry, and he did give in for a moment. With both hands on his saber he shoved the vibroblade away. He almost counter attacked, but held himself in check, taking a moment, his guard remaining up, to clear his mind and control his emotions.
"That's darkside talk," he managed to speak calmly, his voice puffing out in an equally serene cloud. The wind had died down and the two could hear each other very clearly. "I knew you must be strong in the Force, you couldn't have gotten here otherwise," he struck out with a controlled attack, aiming to wound his blade wielding arm.
((So how I'd like to do it is we'll just roll for ourselves after our move, and then the response will do the same.
So: Lightsaber combat: 3, 3, 3, 2, 3 = 14.
See that's not a great roll.))
U (5-5-5-4-3=22. Promise I didn't rig it.)
Pim lept into the air and flipped over the Jedi's head, dodging the strike. With the powerful leg muscles inherent to his race, he didn't even have to use the Force to aid him as he sliced at the Jedi's unprotected shoulder on his fighting arm. "Yousa shoulda used yousa anger to beat me."
Seeing the Jedi's almost severed arm hanging by his side, Pim walked back to his ship, content that the Jedi would bleed to death, as Vibroblade didn't cauterize their wounds like a lightsaber did. After applying a bacta patch to his wound he returned to taught the Jedi. "Now meesa gonna go see how many Padawans meesa can kill or turn."
(This should give you a chance to use Force Heal. You have 10 points of damage and I have 1.)
G ((Would you roll for me? I'm on mobile. Right now I'm trying the heal roll divided by 3 for the amount of damage healed. We'll see if it's reasonable.))
David's saber fell into the snow, vaporizing a great cloud of it an continually emitting a cloud of steam from where it was now hidden and sunken in the snow. The cut was bad. Really bad, to the bone! He put his free hand(that arm also had a wound from the first blows traded) and focused with the Force, willing his flesh to knit back together.
He spoke to distract the alien while he healed. "And how do you mean to find them?" His voice was shockingly calm for someone about to lose an arm, "It's a big planet."
((((Added in a separate post, still referring to the healing skill)) I think that will work well. With his middling skill, the most he can heal at a time is 8 points. Right now that would take him from incapacitated to a minor wound. The lowest possible roll, meanwhile, would be 4, divided by three and rounded to 1 point, would be basically useless. As it should be. ))
U ((Rolling for my healing here))(2-3-1-5=11, so rounding to the nearest whole number, 4 points of healing.)
"Meesa thinkin yousa ship's computer know where they are. If not, the locals might know, and theysa always you." He looked at his ship's droid. "R-Sebentine, connect to de jedi's ship's computa and find the lokashun of his Prentices." A series of beeps informed him that the droid understood, and it lowered itself out of his fighter and started towards the Jedi's ship.
"Now, we see how well dat Jedi trainin holds up ta tortya." He stabbed for the Jedi's lower leg.
((Now rolling his own attack))(3-5-2-1-3=14)
G His arm wasn't usable, but he wouldn't die from bleeding now. David barely had time to be amused at the alien's attempts to find his temple. He deliberately never recorded its location, just like he had deliberately never charted Ilum's location. Even a Force sensitive would have a hard time finding it, the caverns that dotted the planet radiated Force energy, masking the presence of anyone on it. This was why the Order chose it as their new central temple in this age when they were avoiding detection.
The alien seemed to realize all of this, as he turned back to David and announced his intent to torture the information out of him.
David raised his good hand to Force push the alien away.
((We'll roll David's telekinesis against the roll you just made.))
U (1-4-2-3=10. 4 points damage)
Pim managed to knick the Jedi's calf before being thrown backwards. He hit the ground and had the breath knocked out of him, but he didn't seem to be injured. "Poodoo Jedi" he said, standing up. "Meesa gonna make yousa sorry yousa did dat." He reached out his hand and tried to grab the Jedi's trachea with the force, trying to crush his windpipe. Sure, if he did it for too long it would kill the Jedi, but he wouldn't use it for that long.
(1-2-2=5. That's not good for me.)
G ((I'm going to assume victory on my next roll. The chances of losing are pretty low, but I'm also just ending the instance.))
David had a retort for the alien's crude expletive, but he had no chance to use it. The breath caught as the Sith - he must be Sith - grabbed his throat from across the field. David raised his hand again and pushed once more, sending the Gungan soaring toward his own vessel. David gasped as his throat cleared and stumbled through the snow toward his ship.
"Arthur," a shortened nickname of R-30, "Take off." As he finished the command he was stepping onto the X-Wing's ladder to climb for the cockpit. As it rose into the air he looped his bad arm gingerly around the ladder and held his good hand backward. His lightsaber flew to his hand, and he placed it onto the magnetic catch on his belt and continued climbing to the cockpit.
As he fled into orbit once more, he sent a brief and cryptic message to his apprentices back in the temple, and then lay back to let R-30 plot a hyperspace course to Corellia.
U Pim stood up. He had dislocated his shoulder upon landing, and may have cracked a rib or two. "R-Sebentine, come back. Plota course home." Without knowing the Jedi's location he would have to try again later. Besides, he had some healing to do.
Wedging his hand in the landing gear he twisted his body a heard a loud pop as his arm returned to its proper place. His Master would not be happy about his failure. He'd have to put in a good bit of extra practice if he wanted to go against the Jedi again.
CSes are freeform, except for the stat section. I was taking them through PM before, but after one player said he sent one but I never received it, I've come to suspect the PM system may be broken. So go ahead and post here. We're looking for Sith before Jedi right now. This RP will always have openings, though.
It's by the skill points put into it, so it's twenty. Doable, but his skill won't go up too fast or too slow.
So, we have two Jedi(one sent a CS to me in PM) and I'm not sure what Rokun the bounty hunter is gonnna be. No Sith characters yet. I'm going to edit the first post to be more informative for anyone who peaks in, and make a new post in the General Interest Checks section.
I enjoyed our skirmish very much, I think the system works pretty good. Unless anyone can spot any problems?
I want to make, I think, two additions. The first will be a difficulty rating chart, and the second will be a rule for attempting multiple things in one post.
When you try to do two things in one post, you lose one die from both rolls. If you try to do three, you lose two dice from each of the three rolls. Four things and you lose three, etc etc. This way you can do multiple things at once, but it's harder.
Well that's why I think you should put that point into blaster or brawling. Because then his superior reflexes will actually show in combat.
((That's five, actually. I'm going to assume victory on my next roll. The chances of losing are pretty low, but I'm also just ending the instance.))
David had a retort for the alien's crude expletive, but he had no chance to use it. The breath caught as the Sith - he must be Sith - grabbed his throat from across the field. David raised his hand again and pushed once more, sending the Gungan soaring toward his own vessel. David gasped as his throat cleared and stumbled through the snow toward his ship.
"Arthur," a shortened nickname of R-30, "Take off." As he finished the command he was stepping onto the X-Wing's ladder to climb for the cockpit. As it rose into the air he looped his bad arm gingerly around the ladder and held his good hand backward. His lightsaber flew to his hand, and he placed it onto the magnetic catch on his belt and continued climbing to the cockpit.
As he fled into orbit once more, he sent a brief and cryptic message to his apprentices back in the temple, and then lay back to let R-30 plot a hyperspace course to Corellia.
His arm wasn't usable, but he wouldn't die from bleeding now. David barely had time to be amused at the alien's attempts to find his temple. He deliberately never recorde its location, just like he had deliberately never charted Ilum's location. Even a Force sensitive would have a hard time finding it, the caverns that dotted planet radiated Force energy, masking the presence of anyone on it. This was why the Order chose it as their new central temple in this age when they were avoiding detection.
The alien seemed to realize all of this, as he turned back to David and announced his intent to torture the information out of him.
David raised his good hand to Force push the alien away.
((We'll roll David's telekinesis against the roll you just made.))
I think that will work well. With his middling skill, the most he can heal at a time is 8 points. Right now that would take him from incapacitated to a minor wound. The lowest possible roll, meanwhile, would be 4, divided by three and rounded to 1 point, would be basically useless. As it should be.
((Would you roll for me? I'm on mobile. Right now I'm trying the heal roll divided by 3 for the amount of damage healed. We'll see if it's reasonable.))
David's saber fell into the snow, vaporizing a great cloud of it an continually emitting a cloud of steam from where it was now hidden and sunken in the snow. The cut was bad. Really bad, to the bone! He put his free hand(that arm also had a wound from the first blows traded) and focused with the Force, willing his flesh to knit back together.
He spoke to distract the alien while he healed. "And how do you mean to find them?" His voice was shockingly calm for someone about to lose an arm, "It's a big planet."
I will do so today. I'm working on getting ready to go to work right now, though.
EDIT: Okay, I looked at it anyway. Looks good, though, as I said before, I don't know that you'll ever specifically use a reflex skill. Reflexes are bundled up into your other skills, with how quickly you'll draw your blaster, and how well you can react while flying etc.
David was angry, and he did give in for a moment. With both hands on his saber he shoved the vibroblade away. He almost counter attacked, but held himself in check, taking a moment, his guard remaining up, to clear his mind and control his emotions.
"That's darkside talk," he managed to speak calmly, his voice puffing out in an equally serene cloud. The wind had died down and the two could hear each other very clearly. "I knew you must be strong in the Force, you couldn't have gotten here otherwise," he struck out with a controlled attack, aiming to wound his blade wielding arm.
((So how I'd like to do it is we'll just roll for ourselves after our move, and then the response will do the same.
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