Star Wars: Cost of Hope

[General Havoc]

In case anyone wondered. Commodore Darillian spent this and other sessions facepalming.

In fact, if you want a vision of the future, imagine a hand slapping a human forehead, forever.

[Josh]

We assumed Darillian was on the ship and that palming was involved, yes.

[Josh]

And by that I mean his well-known penchant for amusing the troops with feats of legerdemain.

[Marcao]

I wanted to inform everyone that I will be on vacation from the 3rd of August until the 13th. I will be in Florida with the wife so I will not be online at all.

[White Haven]

Given how the last session ended, I'm damned glad you said the third and not the second.

[General Havoc]

So, I'm afraid I've hit a snag. My mother's birthday is tomorrow, and I've just been informed that we're changing the venue from a lunch event to a dinner event, which means I shall miss the game. I am very sorry to do so, and further sorry for the late notice, but I was expecting to be back well in time for the game. Nothing for it, I'm afraid.

[Josh]

You'll be happy to know that in the interim your prisoner was preserved and delivered to the Alliance for interrogation.

In other news, I really wish I'd actually been keeping tabs on 34's body count from the beginning. At this point all I have is "a lot".

Let's see... 2 Tie interceptors at the station, four Stormies on the boarding party, a Gundark, like eight Nar Shadaa riffraff, 3 at least of those elite Hutt bodyguards, 4 swoop pilots, two more interceptors last night and the Krayt gunship.

So at least twenty-six thus far.

He will be up long hours of the night in angst because he missed a shot, though.

[Karrick]

34's continued muttering about the murder of organics gives me hope that we survived the session. I would like to apologize on behalf of my internet service for dropping out early. Those responsible have been... Chastised.

[Josh]

Oh yes, we survived. However, we left an unexploded TIE factory behind, someday we'll have to go back and remedy that.

[Hotfoot]

So after some discussion with various individuals, I have decided to revise my method on how to make the Concussive (really, staggered, but you know) quality nasty, but not stun-locking. This is still up for discussion, but here is the proposed plan.

Concussive gives players affected by it two negative upgrades to their actions for a number of turns equal to the rating of Concussive for the weapon in question. Multiple applications of the staggered effect increases the duration appropriately, not the amount of upgrade penalties applied.

So for instance, if a character is affected by a Concussive 1 weapon, if they would normally have two purple dice to their difficulty, it would be 2 red dice, and would last for one turn. Concussive 2 lasts for 2 turns, etc.

Any thoughts, or is this good to go?

[Josh]

I'm copacetic.

[rhoenix]

So after some discussion with various individuals, I have decided to revise my method on how to make the Concussive (really, staggered, but you know) quality nasty, but not stun-locking. This is still up for discussion, but here is the proposed plan.

Concussive gives players affected by it two negative upgrades to their actions for a number of turns equal to the rating of Concussive for the weapon in question. Multiple applications of the staggered effect increases the duration appropriately, not the amount of upgrade penalties applied.

So for instance, if a character is affected by a Concussive 1 weapon, if they would normally have two purple dice to their difficulty, it would be 2 red dice, and would last for one turn. Concussive 2 lasts for 2 turns, etc.

Any thoughts, or is this good to go?

Other than being very tempted to keep that other lightsaber crystal, this all looks good to me.

[White Haven]

Speaking as the resident guy with Concussive 2, no complaints. It's abusable as all hell stock, and I only have it because it comes standard on the gloves I wanted anyway. The only thematic possible addition I can think of is to reduce the activation advantages of Knockdown from 2 to 1 on targets already affected by Concussive.

[Lys]

Jesus yes, you all should totally do that, it makes perfect sense for a staggered person to be easier to knock down.

[rhoenix]

Jesus yes, you all should totally do that, it makes perfect sense for a staggered person to be easier to knock down.

Exactly - it makes thematic sense, and the system for it is concise.

To be honest, I'd want the other lightsaber crystal mostly for when we face the Big Nemeses up ahead, as they're much less trouble when they're stunned and vomiting on the floor.

On the other hand, my trusty Ilum crystal's sole job in life is to be very good at hurting people, and if I manage to break mine, we have more.

[Hotfoot]

If I can find a way to make that work without getting into convoluted special case rules we'll all likely forget, I'll consider it. As it is, it's already very straightforward, Two advantages + 1 per silhouette above 1. Given how unlikely you are to deal with targets with targets that big on the ground (and it's silly to allow it against many vehicles), and given how the previous form of the ability did not affect targets negatively on the defensive side, I'm hesitant to heap on the penalties on this one.

[White Haven]

I could totally see LN-84 getting in a fistfight with an AT-ST...

[Josh]

I could totally see LN-84 getting in a fistfight with an AT-ST...

Would pay good credits to see that happen.

[Hotfoot]

Sure you wouldn't want an easier fight? Like a trash compactor?

[Josh]

In honor of our penchant for treating raids like Shadowruns, I have decided we need street names.

So without further ado:

Gazan: Chatterbox
Doc: Deadeye
AL-T34: Love Machine
Nils: Cuddles
Zappa: OpSec
Terrik: OpSec II
Issan: Loverboy
Darillian: Humility
LN-84: Big Love Machine aka the Mormon Monstrosity (Latter name being his Luchador identity.)

[White Haven]

Zappa: OpSec
Terrik: OpSec II

BAAAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

[rhoenix]

Yeah... that happened.

[Cynical Cat]

I'm Cuddles? What happened to Hutt Daddy?

[Josh]

Oh shit, whoops, yes.

I'm forgetful in my old age.

[Josh]

In the name of the Great Maker, who has given us his most blessed creation, the R-1, the ancient intelligence, we offer to you these sacrifices. Let this vessel be painted with the blood and gibs of the unworthy, that the Great Maker may smile upon our devotions and reward us with the subjugation of the organic beneath the benevolent foot of the his most worthy creations.

Let none escape and none survive.

(This is the translation of the strange binaric whistling that 34 is doing as he stalks down the halls. You know, the whistle that sounds like an endless repetition of 'A three hour tour' from the Gilligan's Island theme.)

30 or 40 down, somewhere between 10 and 210 to go!

We really need to work on this reconnaissance stuff. I do admire our streamlined planning process this time, which utterly dispensed with anything past "Sneak onto ship, improvise from there but mostly just walk around killing people while Alan sells his soul for triumphs on slicing rolls."