Echoes wrote:generic Stormtroopers... your ass dies
I didn't have time this morning and I want to examine this in more detail.
So if you actually look at the fucking numbers it goes a bit like this.
When do You even fight how many Storm Troopers?
The CL Guidelines tell us that "encounters with 2-6 opponents work best" and that encounters with "more than a dozen opponents" will make the party feel "overwhelmed". Which is basically as close to an admission stating "these rules are totally fucked up for heroic or large scale encounters so don't even try it" as you are going to get.
Now the CL Guidelines neglect to actually tell you what the expected baseline encounters level is and how often you should fight "Challenging", "Difficult"and "Unfair" encounters (and neglects to actually match those categories up explicitly with the CL bands it mentions in the refereed to text that is supposed to describe them) and it says precious little about easier encounters. Why? Because it's a randomly truncated mess written by a game designer who didn't even grasp the basic workings of the 3.x edition challenge rating system and didn't realize which bits we actually needed.
But it looks like, stupidly, the default challenge level is the "challenging" but "fair" challenge rating. Yes that's a stupid thing but it's how it is. And the 6 storm trooper encounter that "works best" is a standard "challenging" encounter for a party of 4 level 2 heroes. The Dozen storm troopers you shouldn't exceed and which already exceed the game's own self acknowledge fail point of "not working the best" limit of 6 are a "challenging" encounter for a party of 4 level 4 heroes.
Storm Trooper Attacks
Storm troopers output an average of 12.5 damage on their autofire shots
on hits and 6.25 on misses at +4 to attack, but with a -5 autofire penalty to a net -1 to attack. Their grenades are averaging 14 damage on a hit and 7 on a miss at +3 to attack and while marginally better frankly may as well be the same. Blast ranges on autofire are pretty tiny not big, you really get one, maybe two characters a shot if you are lucky and the PCs are dumb as bricks.
PC Defenses
The average level 2 character is probably getting something like (and lets be generous and give out 14 dex) a Reflex of 17. The average level 4 character, well lets give them 16 dex and a Reflex of 20. Now you are going to hit the odd specialist with one or two points more, but you'll also hit the odd dex dumper with less so we will just run with those numbers.
Except... that Soldiers will be running around in armour. They probably won't take the Armour talent tree that early if ever, but they can just put on some armour pretty much free. Now, the wealth guidelines are poorly written and concieved, but just to barely scrape level 2 a soldier is running around with something like 4375 credits in wealth over that time. And to scrape into 4th level he is running around with 16875 credits. Now there are other expenses and weapons and stuff, but if you are ever going to invest in armour you are going to do it early in your career before the stupid way the system handles armour vs level bonus makes the armour mostly redundant/crippling, so you do spend a large portion of your wealth on it if you get the free proficiencies like a Soldier does. Now a level 2 Soldier is running around with a combat jump suit (or better) for at least 19 Reflex, and a level 4 soldier is running around with minimum Battle Armour even if he didn't take Heavy Armour Proficiency for a Reflex 24.
Storm Troopers attacking PCs
Now, I don't actually have any fucking idea whether AoE's and Autofire specifically get to have critical hits. Because the rules are stupid. See it's an attack roll, and attack rolls get to be autohits and criticals on 20. So maybe they do. But the text in the AoE and autofire sections just say that hits are just normal damage. And EITHER text could be interpreted to over ride the other.. I'm going with no criticals on AoEs, it's not going to swing the math much.
So once we throw in the to hit roll the autofiring Storm Troopers are average at a around 7.4 damage per turn per storm trooper per target (but hit maybe 1.5 targets per turn). Against the low end 17 defense. Now after that I couldn't really be assed because at that point all we do is approach a number that rounds down to 6 from a number that rounds down to 7 and the difference is fucking negligible.
Meanwhile storm troopers who opt to just flat out shoot you attack at +4, against the 2nd level 17 defense targets they are dealing about 5.6 damage average accounting for misses, hits and criticals to a standard level 2 party. This is more strongly effected as reflex defense scores go up because of crazy level stuff or soldiers putting on armour, so the level 2 soldier in armour is averaging a little over 4 points of damage taken per attack, the standard level 4 targets are taking about 4 points on average per attack, and the level 4 soldier with the best medium armour at less than half his budget without even investing further resources is at a mere average 1.25 damage per attack.
A Moment To Acknowledge just how much of a bad mechanic Autofire is in general
Now the whole thing where spraying an area guarantees damage, is stupid. The thing where storm troopers have the ability to NEVER MISS, yes STORM TROOPERS that never miss, is also stupid. The thing where as people get level up compared to you and better at defending it is comparatively more viable to spray and pray, is stupid. The thing where once any significant disadvantage kicks in you just swap over to guaranteed damage and non-proficient Ewoks nobles run around everywhere spraying autofire from rapid fire blaster cannons and are comparitively effective if not marginally more so than a proficient skilled character making deliberate directly aimed single target attacks? Monumentally stupid. The whole thing where the game cannot handle more than 6 opponents in an encounter because in large part the broken Autofire mechanic lets comparitively lower level opponents contribute reliable damage output that DOESN'T drop off the scale in the way the level to defense bonus system intentionally makes normal direct damage drop off the RNG is fucking stupid.
The Autofire mechanic is, quiet frankly, an example of exactly exactly what sort of fundamentally arse backwards bad for the game mechanics that absolutely typify Saga edition.
Do Storm Troopers kill everyone who doesn't “dip scout” for evasion?
But WILL storm troopers fucking kill you if you don't have Evasion? Well. Evasion is actually Improved Evasion, because why not and screw system familiarity. You convert full damage to half and half to none. The 2nd level straight scout is converting the average 7 damage per turn to an instead to an average of a mere 1 damage per turn from spray and pray troopers. So... the troopers just switch to shooting directly and only really lose out on 1 damage and shoot directly rounding their average damage out to about 6, (maybe 5 scouts do get a whopping +1 extra ref defense and I know there would be screams of foul murder if I skipped over it without mention as tiny as it is).
We do not even NEED at this point to bother with HP considerations and storm trooper survivability. (We will in a second anyway). But at that marginal a difference taking Evasion at the level where you are most intended to actually encounter 6 storm troopers (which is the most enemies you are supposed to encounter before the game throws up It's hands and says “not for the best!”) characters having evasion is just short of meaningless to their survivability as the damage output difference between being direct fire shot by Storm troopers and Autofire shot by storm troopers is
just short of meaningless.
Now by 4th level when you might conceivably push the system to its “fuck it I guess you can but don't go further than this” limit of 13 whole storm troopers, the difference between Evasion and direct fire is bigger but unless you are a soldier in armour it's still not all that much of a difference. But, at THAT level you are actually SUPPOSED to mostly be fighting things more like 6 HEAVY storm troopers who have burst fire and now handily ignore Evasion outright while simultaneously raising their damage output notably.
But even if storm troopers are killing you very marginally more slowly with direct fire than by autofiring on a character without evasion... how long does it take them to kill you?
How long does it take for storm troopers to whittle down your proto-type for padded sumo giant starting HP?
Well. Your good character classes are racking in at level 2 with about 37.5 HP.. Your sucky trap classes get 23.5 HP. And your stupid “I'm pretending not to be a trap class” Scout is wracking in between at 30.5 HP.
So it takes an average 5 and a tiny bit shots to whittle down a Jedi or soldier with autofire. OR an average of 6 and a little bit direct fire shots. The shitty trap Nobles and Scoundrels take a mere 3 and a bit average shots to go down from autofire and just short of 4 shots standard fire. The straight level 2 scout takes 4 and a bit shots to go down if he doesn't take Evasion, so he takes Evasion, and takes 5 or 6 shots direct fire to go down depending on how well he leveraged the +1 extra class based Ref defence he might have over some other PCs.
So in the end it just flat out comes down to focus fire, a problem for any d20 system and ranged attacks period. Jedi and Soldiers without Evasion (or Deflect) go down to Autofire in an average 6 shots... and Scouts with Evasion go down to direct fire in an average 6 shots. And there are 6 Storm troopers and if they completely focus fire they average a dropped PC per turn on raw HP damage REGARDLESS of whether you have evasion. And that's focus fire for you, very nice of Saga Edition to break all it's promises about heroic escapades that level scaling defense bonuses were supposed to solve that shit with by handily adding in a mechanic to let focus fire circumvent them somewhat.
BUT WAIT... Scout is a LEVEL DIP!!! (according to the retard brigade). Yeah... it's not in the given scenario as the level where “generic stormtroopers” are actually their most level appropriate you only HAVE two levels, the difference between our sample level 2 scout and a 1 Scout/1 ???? isn't enough to bother with here.
BUT WAIT... 12 storm troopers! It's allowed by the challenge guidelines... sort of. And is a standard encounter at level 4 where everyone has more resources on standard defenses anyway. But your Straight scout is relatively further behind on HP by then, and with enemies averaging 4 damage a pop on direct fire... they can still focus the scout down in one turn if they want with 12 of them, and pretty much the same goes for straight good HP. And no one really gives a shit because at that level 12 storm troopers is an aberrant encounter by level guidelines and 6 heavy storm troopers turm up as the standard encounter instead and change the entire scenario ignoring Evasion outright and increasing individual damage output.
HOWEVER. Second Wind is also a thing. Once per day you can, close enough to free have your HP back just for being a heroic character. So as long as you get a go before all 6 storm troopers attack you then screw those guys, you live! Until next turn anyway. Unless you are a trap class like Scoundrel and you need to do that in between the 2nd and 3rd shot and then three more guys shoot you and kill you with some to spare anyway. And that brings us to two further questions in storm troopers supposedly totally fucking killing you if you don't take Evasion for no reason.
Who Goes First?
The PCs go first. Initiative is now a skill. Storm Troopers are chumps and don't take it. Every PC base class has it as a class skill. The skill rank system was chucked in favour of inexplicably letting everyone front load up to half their rank bonuses. So the PCs all get a base of +5 before their dex and half level bonus. And someone in the party probably noticed how stupid the whole front loaded skill for initiative thing is and took an extra +5 from skill focus (Initiative). So yeah, all up the PCs probably have about a +5 drop on the Storm troopers and odds are relatively good, though not perfect, that no storm trooper goes before at least one PC and all the PCs have gone before the last couple of storm troopers get their actions. .
Also you can apparently take 10 on Initiative rolls. Somehow. They don't really outline the circumstances but take time to shout piece of crazy out.
What Is Storm Trooper Survivability?
Storm Troopers have 10 HP. An average hit with a blaster or a light saber just plain kills them (and yes murder type kill because it also on average exceeds their damage threshold so your heroic star wars heroes flat out graphically murder most storm troopers on average hits).
Storm Troopers have 16 Reflex Defence. You can fairly safely give your level 2 characters something like a +4 net attack bonus without really trying and attacks, especially in a three type defense situation, are more likely to be invested in, so it's probably even higher. Lets just say that the PCs are hitting storm troopers about half the time, and when they do, they usually kill them.
Nobles and Scoundrels and Scouts however are the characters most likely to not manage the basic damage and attack assumptions however, so a single level dip into scout (or just being a level 2 scout) flat out setting you -1 BAB behind the curve before any other considerations.
There are 4 PCs, for about 2 storm troopers dropped per turn. The PCs pretty much act first, so actually you probably see 4 storm troopers fire in the first round, 2 in the next, and then the party wins even against total focus fire with autofire with no evasion with only enough damage to not kill (but use up the second wind on) one “good class” soldier or jedi character. And the chances that you will get a chance to use second wind are "high".
If you bring a trap class like Noble or Scoundrel, they are at significant risk of going down, and missing their chance to second wind in the process, but are actually more likely to DIE to direct fire since Autofire is more likely to non-fatally reduce them to 0 HP (because the way this version of d20modern handles death at 0 HP, yes death at 0 HP, is weird and fucking stupid too).
If you bring a scout, or other minor drop in offensive power, you are marginally more likely to let the Storm Troopers get off an extra shot of focus fire before they go down, which is probably not enough to kill/knock out a character, but might be. And it's more likely with a lower HP target... like a Scout.
What About Damage Threshold
You know I would LIKE to have included damage threshold in these considerations, because in theory it favors direct fire, because the auto half damage isn't going to make damage thresholds but direct hits are significantly more likely to do so, thus progressing you down the Condition Track, which is basically one of those incredibly stupid “Death Spiral” mechanics we sometimes talk about around here.
BUT. Quite frankly THAT is not warranted. Because the Condition Track is totally tacked on bullshit put there by total fucking incompetents. And among other things even aside from it being flat out annoying to track and all, it turns out that they laced the system with piles of “recover X on the Condition Track”options, and there is a default one built in at what is frankly too cheap an action cost to use.
Storm troopers go down to HP damage before the condition track kicks in, auto fire almost never triggers condition track progression, and on the off chance direct fire does you just skip a move and two unused swift actions and get better.
However. It is worth noting there is a stupid fucking death at 0 HP mechanic in the game. So at 0 HP you are knocked out, but if the damage that got you there exceeded your Damage Threshold you are killed with what is basically permadeath (well there are force points shenanigans, but lets not get into those right now because force point mechanics are a clusterfuck in their own right).
The upshot of THAT is that while in our standard storm trooper encounter the scout with evasion takes the same average 6 direct shots to fall down as the Soldier/Jedi takes 6 average autofire shots to fall down... the Scout is SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to fall down DEAD when they do so while the soldier is most likely just unconscious.
This is long enough to need a conclusion
The mechanics involved are broken and stupid at several points in several ways, it's a sheer fluke that Evasion ISN'T a must have level dip against Storm Troopers. Storm Troopers and Autofire DO manage to do spectacularly stupid things mechanically, starting with the thing where storm troopers never miss and ending with the bit where it undermines the systems stated and attempted goal of high level characters curb stomping low level threats.
And focus fire is still a major issue, regardless of Evasion. Though notably the system's attempts to fix this in some arenas have been undermined by it's needless and stupid changes in others.
BUT... Evasion isn't a must have basic survival option against storm troopers. It's impact is incredibly negligible at best.
edit: Oh and I Forgot One Thing
I was going to include a comparison of the Jedi Deflect talent to Evasion. What with it being basically "Evasion only also it makes direct fire miss you". The basics of that one are, that it's hands down better than evasion except in extreme focus fire. At which point not much saves you anyway.
edit: And it's worth noting
Burst fire is also REALLY badly written. It probably works like autofire for how it applies it's damage, and that's basically how it's written in the Autofire section of the combat rules, but it isn't explicit and if you only ever read the feat you might not think it worked like that at all.
