The Taris Event: Prologue

[Whiteness]

Ok, I have honestly never played anything like this before so I will pick something simple.

I will be Syric Frost, human scoundrel.

[Blackferne]

Ok. How do we fill out the character sheets and such and add what skills/feats we know? I haven't played anything like this in over 20 years, so am a bit rusty. Heh.

The last kind of games like this I played was just under 17 years or so, so I'm in the same boat. Here is Arrican's character sheet

http://www.thechurchofalvis.com/SWSE/Arrican.pdf

So the top is all basic stuff, Characters name, your name (forum handle is fine if different than Character's name), Age, Height, Weight. Leave Destiny blank, you might get one during the campaign but for now don't worry about it.

Okay the next step is your ability scores:

Whitey you're a human who has no racial modifiers, so just apply out of the numbers I gave you. You can choose what you want where. So let's say you have 17, 15, 14, 12, 11, 10 (I'm making up numbers but you should have a PM with the real ones) just assign one of those numbers into one of the 6 spots. So like Scoundrels like Dexterity and Intellect so you might make 17 your Dex score and 15 your int score. Check the rule book to get an idea on what attributes you should really care about.

Happy you have that weirdo race so you will take your scores and add or subtract as we agreed. So -7 str, -7 dex, -7 con, +7 wis +9 int are your modifiers. Let's take teh list whitey had for attributes and play with them. Let's say you make Int the 17(+9 racial)=26 Int. Take the 15 for wisdom add your racial +7 and you have 22 Wis. take the 14 as Charisma, you have no racial so it stays 14. You take the 12 as strength subtract your 7 and you get 5, 4 for dex and 3 constitution. So even though I might have given yu 17, 15, 14, 12, 11& 10, your sheet will have numbers 26, 22, 14, 5, 4 & 3. If you are playing something odd age wise (For example I'm playing Arillius who is a middle aged human at 55) I had to add some numbers to some stats and subtract from others.

Now in the modifier column there is a modifier table on page 18 of the PDF which would show that in Happy's example here he would put +8 for the intellect modifier but like -4 for the constitution modifier. Basically if your attribute is a 10-11 there is no modifier value, the higher you go the larger that modifier goes, and the lower the bigger the penalty. Those modifiers will come in handy or not so handy when we talk about skills.

Defenses
So there are 3 kinds of defenses Fortitude Defense, Reflex Defense, Willpower Defense. Each has a particular use. I'll show how we calculate the Fortitude defense 10+(your level or armor)+class bonus+your ability mod off constitution. So In Arrican's case he is wearing armor which equals 0, but if he was just wearing clothes it would be 1. Add that to his class modifiers. He is a soldier which is +2 to Fort def, and +1 to reflex Def. Scoundels by contrast have +2 to willpower defense and +1 to reflex defense. Finally there is the modifier. For Fortitude defense this cues off of constitution. Arrican's constition is 17 which is pretty high so he gets +3. So for the Fortitude defense you add up all the steps and he gets 15. Similar caluculations are done for the other two kinds of defenses.

So how does this all work? Well Let's say I make a bear attack Arrican. The bear is level 1 (base attack +1) but because it is a bear it is pretty freaking strong like let's say its strength is 25. So it has a strength modifier or +7. So to see if I hit arrican I would roll 1 20 die and add that +1 (base attack and +7 (strength modifier). If that total is equal to his reflex Defense (which is 17) then the bear hits arrican. I roll a 5. so 5+1+7=13. The bear misses Arrican. In the next round the bear rolls a 13 so 13+1+7=21. The 21 is a hit on Arrican so I would then roll damage. Now this is where the fortitude defense comes into play. Let's say the damage a bear can do is 2d6 or the sum of 2 6 sided die. For melee weapons like a bear claw the formula is weapon damage (2d6)+(.5 of the heroic level rounded down so 0 for thsi bear)+ (Strength modifier +7). So let's say I roll a 5 and a 1. that is 6+ 0+7= 13 which is less than his Fortitude defense which is important because of his damage threshold. If in one round he takes a chunk of damage greater than his damage threshold he would slide over on that condition track section which starts applying penalties to all sorts of things.

Finally there is the will defense. This is how you can defend against mind attacks force powers etc etc. Jabba apparently has a really high one, your average stormtrooper does not.

Hit points: There is a formula in your class section that should help you calculate what your hit point total is. During combat we will track that and if it hits 0 you don't die, you just fall unconscious. There are special rules for when that happens and we will cover those later.

I'll cover skills and feats a bit later when I have more time to type it up.

[Happyclam]

Ok. I guess I'll need the modifiers that my chair would provide me for fortitude and reflex, if any. Got my will calculated, if that's any consolation. heh.

[Happyclam]

Looking at the droid models, I was looking at either a 1st degree model or a 5th degree ASP droid.

As far as background goes, I could be a minor noble accompanying the senator from Columi as one of his assistants or what have you. As far as being outside of Coruscant, I could be deliverying a communique or something.

[Blackferne]

Ok. I guess I'll need the modifiers that my chair would provide me for fortitude and reflex, if any. Got my will calculated, if that's any consolation. heh.

Let's have the chair's force field be +7 to armor. And it can absorb the first 12 points of damage to start and we'll add 1d6 of damage soaking per level.

Reflex defense throw +3 in the misc field. Let me know how that affects your stats if I feel you are too weak or now too durable given where your other stats are I'll tweak it.

[Bulwark]

equipment/money question...

Do you roll us out our credits? Is that what we use to buy starting equipment?

I may need some extra credits to get 2 shoulder mounted e-web repeating blasters and a thermal grenade launcher with a sniper scope
Also, can I have an X-wing with lightsabers mounted on the wings so I deflect all incomming shots and fly through other ships without taking any damage?
Also, my character is just pretending to be a soldier, he is really a level 20 Jedi Master. But I only use Jedi mind tricks to pick up women at bars.
..and yes, I heard all these while playing SW RPG in High School.

[Bulwark]

one other thing. I looked at Arrican's sheet. He does not understand basic. If none of our party can understand sherriwook (much less speak it), will that be bad?

[Blackferne]

1. Use the formula at the end of your starting class section for money. Go ahead and max that out.
2. No extra credits for super sweet gear. I gave Arillius a ship so I can cart your asses around to start, but none of you should be able to afford one.
3. If you want to really be a super secret jedi master I guarantee I will find a way for you to die in the first 20 minutes of the game. The downside is you will probably kill everyone else. The power of the force is insignificant when compared to the gravity one experiences meters away from the event horizon of a black hole that wasn't indicated in the ships nav computer. Protip: Shareware Nav Programs are bug proned.

And I did tell Arrican he had to understand basic (as is indicated in the Wookiee section of the rulebook). I do have Arillius understanding lots of languages so that will do for now. If no one else picks up Wookieespeak I'll just throw it in with Happy's droid.

[Bulwark]

gear comes from starting credits?

[Happyclam]

PDF has gone downhill. This is a pain in the ass to fill out.

I rolled for my own credits and already bought my equipment, but have no problem with GM rolling and adjusting my stuff as needed.

Oh, I pretty much picked up almost all of the languages, so no worries there. Heh.

[Happyclam]

What's your email address to send this pdf to, Blackie?

[Blackferne]

gear comes from starting credits?

Yes. I can't have you guys starting out too wealthy.

And PDFs should be sent to blackferne (at) thechurchofalvis (dot) com

[Happyclam]

Well, I started with 4800 credits, and on my next level will choose wealthy which is another 5000 credits. Fits in with my character type, so no worries.

[Dood]

I'm just going to roll Dood as a Scout. I'll probably multi into Scoundrel or Nobel later, but for now I'm all about variety.

[Blackferne]

How to choose/use skills:

Okay in your class section they have skill lists you can choose from. Looking at Arrican's character sheet I can see he is allowed 5 skills. This is modified by your attributes and in some cases species. I can see he has chosen the following skills: Climb, Knowledge Tactics, Perception, Persuasion, and use computer. For those skills he put and X but putting +5 also is acceptable. Now if you look on the skill section there is an area where you add in your attribute modifiers. He got those from the attribute section of his character sheet. We know he is strong so he gets a +4 modifier on skills that have strength as the primary attribute he put 4s. His Charisma is pretty low so on skills where Charisma is a key attribute he put -1.

There is also a level section where you will half your level and round down. Everyone but Arillius is lvl 1 so that will start 0. There is a misc section so if your race has some kind of skill bonus (like bothans and gather information or bothans and die to klicknik) you can put that in there.

Add up those totals and fill in your skill scores. At some point I might ask for you to do a skill check. Like let's say I have you guys in a room I might ask people to roll a perception check. Arrican will roll 1d20+6(half skill level+training+attribute modifiers). Depending on what I set the perception check at he may or might not notice the deadly snake slithering on the floor near the parties feet, or that Dood is wearing ladies undergarments.

So while you can do a skill check on anything on that list, you obviously will do better on ones you have trained or have a natural talent for. Arrican isn't charismatic so charisma based skills he hasn't trained he is at a disadvantage to someone has stacked Charisma.

Some skills if you fail you can reroll assuming that there isn't some mechanic of failure. Like anyone can do a skill check on knowledge galactic history, but if they fail they can't reroll since they just don't know who the 3rd president of the planet blah was. Other stuff like climbing they can try again. The downside is the time commitment to try and succeed, or any injury that they mighth have sustained when they failed their climbing check.

[Kitoshi]

Kitoshi the Sarlacc Noble...

[Blackferne]

Kitoshi the Sarlacc Noble...

That is one hell of a movement penalty you are taking there.

Also just to speed up your gameplay. You wake up finding yourself hungry like you have every day for the last 2,000 years. Will today be the day something falls in you wonder.

The day passes. You eat more sand.


Night falls.

Just keep rereading this over and over. Hope you liked your game.

[Kitoshi]

Kitoshi the Sarlacc Noble...

That is one hell of a movement penalty you are taking there.

Also just to speed up your gameplay. You wake up finding yourself hungry like you have every day for the last 2,000 years. Will today be the day something falls in you wonder.

The day passes. You eat more sand.


Night falls.

Just keep rereading this over and over. Hope you liked your game.

This is gonna be sweet...

[Bulwark]

if I had a bounty-hunter sarlaac, could I use his jetpack to get around?

[Blackferne]

if I had a bounty-hunter sarlaac, could I use his jetpack to get around?

Jetpacks are not equippable by sarlaacs.

[Kitoshi]

Kitoshi the Duros Scoundrel is good to go. Sent the sheet earlier. If I made any mistakes I blame Dood.

[Blackferne]

Kitoshi the Duros Scoundrel is good to go. Sent the sheet earlier. If I made any mistakes I blame Dood.

So I want you to rework it. Some things you should take into consideration: 1) your intellect modifier gives you 4 more languages. You don't need to take them if you just want to speak basic and durese but otherwise you are leaving stuff on the table that might prove useful. And if you don't have them when we start I'm not going to allow you to decide halfway through the first adventure when you meet a ithorian that "oh yeah I speak ithorian".

Second on skills. You need to redo this whole section because I have no idea where you are getting some of these numbers from. If it is a skill you are training put +5 in the Trained column. Then populate the ability modifiers all the way down. The 1/2 level column should all be 0. Then down the skill bonus column on the left side of this section just add it all up. So let's say you take acrobatics trained +5 and ability mod +5 because of your ridiculous dexterity would make the acrobatics skill bonus +10. If you didn't train it you would just put the +5 you got from dexterity.

Defenses: Figure this out. Are you wearing armor? Based on your equipment list I'm guessing not. So you will put your level 1 in that box, class bonuses you got, add the ability modifiers and add all that together (plus that nice 10 they give you) to get your defenses.

Equipment: how many charges does your power pack have? Do you own clothes or are you naked? I'm not judging, just wondering.

Other than that looks good.

[Kitoshi]

Kitoshi the Duros Scoundrel is good to go. Sent the sheet earlier. If I made any mistakes I blame Dood.

So I want you to rework it. Some things you should take into consideration: 1) your intellect modifier gives you 4 more languages. You don't need to take them if you just want to speak basic and durese but otherwise you are leaving stuff on the table that might prove useful. And if you don't have them when we start I'm not going to allow you to decide halfway through the first adventure when you meet a ithorian that "oh yeah I speak ithorian".

Second on skills. You need to redo this whole section because I have no idea where you are getting some of these numbers from. If it is a skill you are training put +5 in the Trained column. Then populate the ability modifiers all the way down. The 1/2 level column should all be 0. Then down the skill bonus column on the left side of this section just add it all up. So let's say you take acrobatics trained +5 and ability mod +5 because of your ridiculous dexterity would make the acrobatics skill bonus +10. If you didn't train it you would just put the +5 you got from dexterity.

Oh wait I see what I did. Fixing now.


Defenses: Figure this out. Are you wearing armor? Based on your equipment list I'm guessing not. So you will put your level 1 in that box, class bonuses you got, add the ability modifiers and add all that together (plus that nice 10 they give you) to get your defenses.

Oh yeah, I see I do get a +10. Sweet. I'll fill that in.

Equipment: how many charges does your power pack have? Do you own clothes or are you naked? I'm not judging, just wondering.

In the rule book it says for my pistol I use power packs, and each power pack will give my pistol ~50 shots. I didn't see anything about clothes in the rule book, I figured it was assumed I was rocking my ThinkGeek apparel. How much do generic clothes weigh? 1kg?

Other than that looks good.

I also have a question about Base Attack. Where do I get this? I remember from D&D it was given with level and class, but I couldn't find it in this rule book.

Besides that I've updated everything and resent.

[Kitoshi]

Also, nice call on the languages. I missed that.

[Blackferne]

Base attack is determined by level (Level 1 =0 each level you gain one) + any bonus you get from feats or talents that would always be there.