Quote from: Skywalker;728355I don't see any reason why you can't attempt a trip as your main action, using successes to achieve it, rather than making an attack for damage and hoping to get a trip as well. The later seems an unnecessary reading down of the RAW IMO. Its like arguing that you can't trip someone over in B/X D&D as it doesn't list that as a combat move. ...

Of course the GM can wing it and use their own creativity to fix a broken rule in any rpg, but that's irrelevant to what is written in the EotE rules.  I'm commenting on EotE, not general GMing philosophy.

Quote from: Brander;728420Of course the GM can wing it and use their own creativity to fix a broken rule in any rpg, but that's irrelevant to what is written in the EotE rules.  I'm commenting on EotE, not general GMing philosophy.

I am not talking about winging it. I am talking about EotE. Using a Skill is a combat action. Brawl is a Skill (assuming you are doing it without a weapon). How the GM applies the dice and interpets the results for Skill use is relatively clear under the RAW. You don't need to force tripping into the rules for an attack action to cause harm.

In any case, even taking your more restricted view of the rules, I am not sure there is any substantial difference between EotE and D&D. You try the grapple, roll the dice and see if you succeed. All EotE adds is the ability to damage in the same roll as well.

Quote from: Skywalker;728433I am not talking about winging it. I am talking about EotE. Using a Skill is a combat action. Brawl is a Skill (assuming you are doing it without a weapon). How the GM applies the dice and interpets the results for Skill use is relatively clear under the RAW. You don't need to force tripping into the rules for an attack action to cause harm.

QuoteI never wanted "to force tripping into the rules for an action to cause harm," I'd happily have settled for simply being able to attempt a specific outcome without having to wait and see if I have enough advantage to even bother thinking about it.

I was actually wrong on the "aim at their leg" part I mentioned before, it's explicitly possible, with the Aim maneuver, to target a specific location or item.  However, all that does is let you do damage to it.  If you still want to get a specific outcome beyond "hurt it" you still have to get enough advantage.

Brawl is a combat skill in the RAW and is a "Perform a Combat Check" action, not just a skill check.  And the RAW for Combat Checks are quite explicitly limited to selecting the skill first, checking to see if you have the requisite weapon, and declaring the target of the attack, in that order.  Then you gather your dice pool, roll, total and do damage, and only only after all that do you apply advantage/triumph, then threat/despair, which is where you finally get more than the standard "damage" outcome.

I'll add that it takes 10 pages of text to explain the dice and the dice system, before we even get to combat.  Most other games I've read manage such things in a paragraph or two.

Quote from: Skywalker;728433In any case, even taking your more restricted view of the rules, I am not sure there is any substantial difference between EotE and D&D. You try the grapple, roll the dice and see if you succeed. All EotE adds is the ability to damage in the same roll as well.

It's not my restrictive view of the rules, the game's own advice is to play it that way.  Check out the "Dice Etiquette and Protocol" section in the Game Master section which quite clearly recommends rolling dice in front of the players because the dice system takes care of most of the narrative.

And still, like I said, you don't even know if it's worth thinking about a trip until after you roll enough advantage, and what if you don't want to do the damage?  D&D's special dice have a many decade advantage of both now being common and usually having easily readable numbers on them.  And D&D is only being mentioned because it's the most popular, lots of games do it both better and easier.

I'm not picking on the dice system for how it could be played, I'm directly saying it's bad the way they say to use it.  And again, there are good things in the game, but the sooner you replace the dice and advantage/threat the better, it wouldn't even be hard.  For ex:  Roll the same sided normal dice, count any result 4 or over as a success, and 8 or higher counts as 2.  GM rolls difficulty the same way only needing 5 or higher, with 9 or higher being 2 failures. 12's could still be despair/triumph.  No it won't be the same, but it will be close, and instead of spending advantage, spend successes.

And again, I'm commenting on RAW not "RAABAGGM"*

"Rules As Applied By A Good Game Master

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;726945I dislike proprietary dice like the ones used in the currently hot Star Wars: Edges of the Empire.

Why have they re-emerged at this time in the hobby's history?
Are they going to be a trend for the foreseeable future?
Are they really worth the added trouble?
Have they ever been done well?

1. Because FFG likes to make money.
2. I hope not.
3. No.
4. No.

I should add, there's one instance in which proprietary dice are good, and that's when they speed up gameplay.  FATE dice, for instance.  The EOTE dice are just a gimmick for FFG to make more money.

Quote from: Brander;728548I was actually wrong on the "aim at their leg" part I mentioned before, it's explicitly possible, with the Aim maneuver, to target a specific location or item.  However, all that does is let you do damage to it.  If you still want to get a specific outcome beyond "hurt it" you still have to get enough advantage.

Which is the same as D&D, right? Actually it's better than D&D as D&D relies even more on HP damage and has no real mechanics for aiming for specific locations. EotE has the ability for additional effects to arise from standard attacks to replicate certain specific location damage.

Quote from: Brander;728548Brawl is a combat skill in the RAW and is a "Perform a Combat Check" action, not just a skill check.  And the RAW for Combat Checks are quite explicitly limited to selecting the skill first, checking to see if you have the requisite weapon, and declaring the target of the attack, in that order.

A Combat check is for attacks doing damage. That doesn't prevent Skills being used for other things, even Combat Skills which the RAW stresses are Skills too. There is even a specific action for this Skill use. Not using that action for what it is intended ro cover is a restriction of your own making.

Quote from: Brander;728548And still, like I said, you don't even know if it's worth thinking about a trip until after you roll enough advantage, and what if you don't want to do the damage?

Even using your restricted view of Skill use, this is no different from D&D. You want to trip someone, you roll the dice and see if you can succeed in doing so. In both, you don't know if you will trip someone up before rolling the dice. And as said, above, if you don't want to do damage, don't use the rule for attacking someone to cause damage. Use the rules of Skill use more generally.

Again, I concede that the guidelines for using the dice in EotE are not that good, and it gets bogged down in an attempt to pander a 3.5e style of play, which doesn't gel that well with the dice system. But what I am suggesting is in the RAW and not house rules. If a GM wants to prevent the core system being applied in a universal manner, even when it doesn't contradict the specific rules, that's their call. Such is the nature of RPGs. But that's not a failing of the RPG alone.

Quote from: Skywalker;728554Which is the same as D&D, right? Actually it's better than D&D...

It's still true that the dice and dice system don't let you do more than damage things with it until after you have done damage and even then any effect other than damage is completely reliant on getting enough advantage.  Whether D&D can do it or not is irrelevant, this is EotE.

Sure I can say "I'm going to trip them with my gaffi stick" but if I get one success and less than 3 advantage, I just do lethal damage, technically even if I didn't want to.

I think it would be a lot better narrative to say "I'm tripping them", be given a modified difficulty, and then succeed or fail at that action.  It would also play a lot faster since no one would have to narrate what exactly the 2 advantage they might have received instead.  But that's a different claim.

Quote from: Skywalker;728554A Combat check is for attacks doing damage. That doesn't prevent Skills being used for other things, even Combat Skills which the RAW stresses are Skills too. There is even a specific action for this Skill use. Not using that action for what it is intended ro cover is a restriction of your own making.

Are you claiming that a trip is not an attack or that you can achieve a knockdown outside of a combat check?  I sincerely doubt most GMs will let someone use their Brawl skill to knock people prone with a single success with a "Use Skill" action outside of combat.  Specifically when in combat it requires 2 advantage and a success with a weapon that has the Knockdown quality or at least a success and 3 advantage without that quality.  I think the existence of those options makes it quite clear that using Brawl that way is not RAW.  I think it's also quite clear in the explicit write-up of combat skills and combat actions, but I think the existence of an actual way to do it and an actual quality for it makes it pretty likely that's what they intended.

Quote from: Skywalker;728554Even using your restricted view of Skill use...

Again, not me, just RAW.

Quote from: Skywalker;728554...But what I am suggesting is in the RAW and not house rules. If a GM wants to prevent the core system being applied in a universal manner, even when it doesn't contradict the specific rules, that's their call.

Sorry to break the paragraph here, but what you suggested pretty clearly would contradict the specific rules.

Quote from: Skywalker;728554Such is the nature of RPGs. But that's not a failing of the RPG alone.

The problem is then no criticism against any rule is valid because all RPGs allow the GM to improvise.

This is kind of a different note, so I wanted to separate it

Quote from: Skywalker;728554...
Again, I concede that the guidelines for using the dice in EotE are not that good...

I don't think the game is un-salvageable, for the dice I'd mainly get rid of the funky dice and replace them with their normal equivalents, make 4+ one success, 8+ 2 successes (on any die), and a 12 a super success (Triumph).  Turn all advantage requirements into success requirements, and allow successes to be spent as if they were advantage (and my numbers above slightly inflate successes) if desired (but NOT required, since not spending them = damage).  I'd also have the GM total and roll all the negative dice (which would be 5+, 8+ and 12 instead, adding 1 difficulty die for each advantage result desired beforehand (want to knockdown, add 3 dice to difficulty, 2 if the weapon already has the knockdown quality).

At least that is my first attempt at what could use most of the rules as written.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;728550I should add, there's one instance in which proprietary dice are good, and that's when they speed up gameplay.  FATE dice, for instance.  The EOTE dice are just a gimmick for FFG to make more money.

I disagree. At least insofar as my experience with WH3rd, the dice provide a wealth of information quickly that in other systems would require a number of charts and/or mathematical equations. They significantly speed up complex resolutions once one is familiar with them.

Quote from: TristramEvans;728590I disagree. At least insofar as my experience with WH3rd, the dice provide a wealth of information quickly that in other systems would require a number of charts and/or mathematical equations. They significantly speed up complex resolutions once one is familiar with them.

While I know nothing of the game-play, I think the WHFRP 3rd dice have icons that are much easier to understand.

I'm still not a fan of most funky dice beyond Fudge dice.  My wife, on the other hand, is insanely fond of all dice, funky or otherwise.  :-)

Degree of Success and Crits are not a hard mechanic to integrate into regular dice rolls in my experience.

Quote from: Opaopajr;728605Degree of Success and Crits are not a hard mechanic to integrate into regular dice rolls in my experience.

Except Advantage and Threat are independent of success.

Its not a linear scale, its two axes (and two additional binary switches (Triumph, Despair))

Quote from: Opaopajr;728605Degree of Success and Crits are not a hard mechanic to integrate into regular dice rolls in my experience.

Sure, but WH3 dice not only tell you if you succeed and how well, but also in what manner-i.e. you know if it was inherent talent that let you scrape by, superior skill and experience that win out, or blind luck just twisted fate in your favour.

I think anti-piracy is the big reason, along with attempting to increase price margins.

Both are really fair enough.  Gaming companies have to make a profit.

The ability to innovate with dice mechanics has always been there.  It's just now there are desirable outcomes, whereas previously gaming companies may have been more afraid of alienating audiences.

But I think it needs to be seen as part of an emphasis away from making rpgs as books and selling them as games.  

The whole combination, box sets, widgets etc, help to make the experience of playing the game somewhat hard to replicate via piracy.  

Sure you can make your own dice, and you can ignore the little widgets or make them too, but it's always going to look cheap and shoddy.  There's a psychological barrier there; probably the only gamers who are going to do that would be those who really couldn't afford to buy the game.

There may also be a factor for companies like Fantasy Flight Games, in the hope that making their rpgs more like their board games in appearance, there's greater chance of gaining crossover sales.

Quote from: Brander;728587Whether D&D can do it or not is irrelevant, this is EotE.

So, this is a complaint about dice systems generally and not EotE specifically? :confused:

Again, you can do more in EotE by the RAW than what you have limited yourself to. There is no reason for ignoring one of the specified action in the Combat Section and forcing all uses of a Combat Skill into the attack to cause damage rules. That's your choice and it seems to be at the heart of most of your complaints.

Quote from: Brander;728587Are you claiming that a trip is not an attack or that you can achieve a knockdown outside of a combat check?  

If your intent is to trip someone up and not to harm them, then it doesn't use the attack action. It's a use of the Brawl Skill. I can't speak for your experience or judgement of most GMs, except to say that they differ from mine.

In EotE the success/failures determine how well you succeed with your intended action. If thats to harm someone then they determine damage. If its not to harm someone then success/failure won't grant damage but something else.

Using the Skill Use action and applying the core system is not house ruling. I guess you could call it improvising if you take the broadest sense of the word, but it is improvising using an explicit rule in the RAW and the guidelines contained therein and most application of the RAW by the GM would be called so. Again, this sounds like a much wider issue that you have than just EotE dice system as most RPGs involve this process in some way.

Quote from: Emperor Norton;728607Except Advantage and Threat are independent of success.

Its not a linear scale, its two axes (and two additional binary switches (Triumph, Despair))

Yes, I know, I have played the game. And again the idea of DoS and Crits, even on separate axes, is not new nor hard to integrate for me. The game offered me nothing but a proprietary hard-to-pirate resolution format that obfuscates probabilities.

But perhaps the idea was new to you, so... :idunno: