How can an Ewok take out a Scout Trooper?

[pawsplay]

Ok, another Star Wars question. How to handle armor? In Star Wars d20 or D6 it's not such a big deal, since enough enemies can overwhelm someone in armor because of the scaling. But GURPS is more, shall we say, realistic. This raises a problem because armor has to be capable of stopping certain attacks based on what we know the armor is for, but at the same time, it's pretty obvious that cinematically armor provides little benefit to its wearer.

First, let's present the basics. Assuming, for now, we base Star Wars armor on Ultra-Tech. The most likely candidates are Ablative Nanoplas armor (because it's laser-resistant and flexible, and less effective against spears) or ballstic armor worn with a Light Clamshell (for laser protection).

The scenarios:
Episdode 1:
Ewoks versus Scout Troopers

A gang of ST 7 teddy bears attack a Scout Trooper armored with spears. With the ablative armor, things go pretty much like you would expect, with the relatively paltry damage gradually building up as they exceed the ablative armor's conventional DR. With the Light Clamshell and helmet option, it becomes difficult to explain how a spear or rock poses a threat on a head shot.

Episode 2:
Han versus the Scout Trooper

In Return of the Jedi, Han punches a Scout Trooper in the stomach. If the armor is flexible and ineffective against punches, he might be able to pull this off if I implement some kind of mook rule or a sucker punch possibility:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...2&postcount=71

If it's the clamshell, no luck.

Scout Troopers are one thing, but what about stormtroopers? For them to take damage from rocks, I would have to assume that their armor is, contrary to appearances, either flexible or simply ablative nanoplas anti-laser armor. Going by the Star Wars databanks, it should probably be a Combat Hardsuit with a sealed Combat Infantry Helmet. That is somewhat plausible from a standpoint of blasters (3d6 with a divisor of 5 is about half the damage you would need), but Stormtrooper armor is evidently not heavy duty.

So decision time. Should I...?

A) Use the UT figures and tweak them based on what I can tell about their relative effectiveness (i.e. Stormtrooper is similar to a combat hardsuit, but might lighter with about a third the DR).
B) Assume all stormtrooper armor is albative nanoplas (TL10) armor or something similar.
C) Start eyeballing numbers and come up with completely independent numbers, using UT mainly for artistic inspiration, and assume exotic materials are not as cheap/light/whatever in Star Wars as your typical TL11 GURPS world. Perhaps armor is more likely to add Hardened as TL goes up rather than higher DR.
D) Dispense entirely with reality and declare that all armor in Star Wars is actually medieval TL 3 metal or leather armor that just LOOKS like high-tech armor. Heck, maybe Stormtroopers just have Gadget-based Infrared and Telescopic vision and the Quirk, Wears Armor.

Keeping in mind that whatever I decide, Darth Vader's armor has to exist somewhere in the same reality.

[Cybren]

E) Stormtroopers don't wear armor, they wear cheapo flimsy environmental suits that were built after some kind of no-bid contract

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by Cybren

E) Stormtroopers don't wear armor, they wear cheapo flimsy environmental suits that were built after some kind of no-bid contract

Problematic.

Originally Posted by http://www.starwars.com/databank/organization/stormtroopers/index.html

Stormtroopers abandoned individuality in exchange for their loyalty. They are completely encased in a white armored spacesuit shell, and are armed with blaster pistols or blaster rifles. Their helmets contain comlinks for long-range communications. Officers were denoted with colored shoulder pauldrons. Specific environments called for specially trained and equipped stormtroopers, such as the snowtroopers that besieged the ice world of Hoth and the lightly-armored scout troopers that patrolled the forests of Endor.

[dynaman]

Let me rephrase your problem.

You have two math texts, one says 2+2 = 5 and the other says 2+2=3.

You are basically trying to get them to agree. The fact is you can't, so choose which text you wish to use and stick with it.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by dynaman

Let me rephrase your problem.

You have two math texts, one says 2+2 = 5 and the other says 2+2=3.

You are basically trying to get them to agree. The fact is you can't, so choose which text you wish to use and stick with it.

Right. I'm just trying to find a good compromise value, and come up with something that isn't too much work for me.

[LemmingLord]

I suggest making trooper armor a reflec armor with DR1 and when it is convenient for the plot, let it bounce stray blaster fire.

[weby]

Here is a good article on it: http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWtrooparmor.html :)

In my starwars game that does not have stormtroopers but does have lots of people in armor(It is set approximately to same era as Kotor 1&2) I have just scaled down armor values and ranged weapon and lightsaber damages.

Basically armors are DR 3-11 and blasters are in the 1d to 2d damage range mostly with a (2) armor divisor.

This makes quite well for the feel in the games where melee is a viable option and most people survive multiple hits.

If I wanted to model the feel of the movies, the damages would have to be higher to allow for one shot srops on every vitals hit, but even there the armor does not appear to give any real protection.

[SuedodeuS]

In the movies, armor does nothing. It's just a uniform that dehumanizes the soldier. If you want to have the campaign function just like the movies, you'll want to go with the last bit of D. If you want a campaign that actually makes sense, ignore how the armor "works" in the movies and have it actually do something. This will make it so that teddy bears with small rocks and stone spears won't be able to harm armored ultra-tech soldiers without making use of effective traps - or finding weak points in the armor (Targeting Chinks). In any world resembling our own, this is as it should be.

[David Johnston2]

It can drop a tree on one.

[Plane]

edit: added note: there was a 200lb chimpanzee named Travis who actually TORE OFF the hands of a woman named Charla Nash in 2009

Chimps stand between 3'3" and 4'11" while Ewoks range from 3-4 feet. Both are arboreal.

Supposedly they're lighter like 30 pounds though I don't really understand how (hollow bones like birds?) but maybe that's a baseline while higher ST lifestyles could increase their weight to chimp-like levels. Certainly would expect that of warrior-caste Ewoks. I've also seem 30kg which would be 66 pounds, but even that seems low. This isn't just some child, it would be like a muscular dwarf, they're a STOCKY species, not gangly-limbed youths.

Tearing off limbs, if Ewoks can emulate Travis in doing it, is something so amazing that we've only seen it visited in GURPS Fantasy for berserkers who have a speciall all-or-nothing Cutting Attack followup to define it. You can't even do it under usual rules, yet a chimp did it IRL.

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

This will make it so that teddy bears with small rocks and stone spears won't be able to harm armored ultra-tech soldiers without making use of effective traps - or finding weak points in the armor (Targeting Chinks).

Or using momentum
https://www.starwars.com/news/5-tips...unt-as-an-ewok

Pro-tip: try sneaking up on stormtroopers. Backstabbing a buckethead with a spear does more damage than a frontal attack.

As an Ewok, you can jump from elevated areas and perform a lethal plunging spear attack, eliminating any stormtrooper in a single blow

The closest I can think of to a GURPS mechanic for this is how Martial Arts allows you to substitute slam damage (based on HPxSpeed) for thrust damage (based on Striking ST) when using a Move and Attack.

If you can do that from "speed I got from running forward" then it seems reasonable to allow it for "speed I got from falling downward". That would be a reasonable tactic for stubby-legged creatures like Ewoks to use, vertical momentum rather than horizontal.

There should probably be some kind of reasonable limit for this though, in either case. At some point transitioning the rapid deceleration of your spear into the rapid deceleration of your body (ie what allows you to add your own HP mass into the damage the spear does based on it's own meager weight) won't be possible because of the amount of Grip ST that you would need to keep ahold of it.

A low-ST guy falling at terminal velocity for example, might be able to add SOME of his momentum into the spear before the rebounding forces rip it out of his hands and he continues falling and leaving the spear behind.

Overpenetrating the target (spear can keep on moving) would of course limit the amount of rebound, but there would still be some, proportionate to the amount of force it took to rip through them.

I'd be interested in ideas on how to crunch this up. The idea of varying degrees of grip quality is present in Technical Grappling (represented as Control Points a wielder has on their weapon).

A zero-risk situation of grip loss would be holding a weightless (not necessarily massless) weapon, or any weapon in zero gravity.

Minimal-risk would be holding onto low-weight weapons and doing nothing with them: you might gradually tire out holding a 10lb warhammer at your side and eventually drop it, but that could take hours unless your ST was pathetic.

Actually swinging the weapon about (whether to attack or to parry, whether you miss or hit a target) should compromise (or at least risk compromising) grip CP in gradual amounts (probably in decimal increments) which require compensation to retain maximal control.

This is all so minor for average or low-intensity combat ie "it's not even worth a full control point or action point" that it wouldn't work in a non-tenth CP/AP system unless you wanted to keep a separate tally that eventually folded into whole-point losses.

In terms of the terminal-velocity Ewok able to gain enough momentum to impale some hundred-DR stormtrooper suit though, that's definitely the territory where I could see attack-rebound mattering in terms of several AP/CP at a time.

There are conceptual difference we should note regarding retaining grip on a weapon via an instantaneous swing (striking ST) vs holding a weapon in a rigid position while moving (running forward or falling downward) with it. If constructing mechanics for continuous grip degredation in response to actions, those should probably be acknowledged somehow.

Air resistance is only a factor that would matter with wide weapons, and even a big mallet is probably going to be narrow compared to the body of it's wielder unless you're some 6 inch fairy wielding a 48 inch head hammer. Basically imagine running with an open umbrella in front of you (your grip prevents handle from moving toward you) or behind you (your grip prevents handle from moving away from you)

With that resistance not being a factor, you don't need to worry about overcoming the inertia of your weapon to get it moving with a fall (gravity is handling that for you, at the same rate it is overcoming you own intertia) and the falling Ewok instead deals with a situation of "the spear is hitting the stormtrooper and I am not" so they are effectively using the spear to break the weight of their own fall, which adds together as a cumulative impact of the spear against the stormtrooper. If you lack the grip ST to do that, you only partially transfer your momentum to the spear, lose your grip (and maybe some palm epidermis) and the remainder of your momentum carries you to fall either atop the stormtrooper or adjacent to him.

You pretty much need to share the hex (in horizantal terms) of both the spear and the stormtrooper if you want to keep the spear angled directly downward to maximize transfering your weight into it. If you want to fall aimed at a hex adjacent to them, then to have the spear tip hip the stormtrooper would require angling the spear diagonally, which would limit tranfering your weight into them.

Diagonal-angled spears during falls would also be a different angle of force on your grip, which might make it easier to hold on to. Squeezing a bar hard enough that the friction prevents it moving perpendicular to your forearm (ulnar/pinky or radial/thumb) is in my experience harder than squeezing it hard enough to prevent it moving away parallel to the forearm (compare hanging from a horizontal rope/bar vs hanging from a vertical rope/bar for time)

In terms of crunch to represent that it might be somehow related to the -4/yard for wrap shots? Perhaps to both DX and/or ST rolls for retaining CP from the wrenching that happens as the spear is stuck in the target and you have a sudden "free disarm" attempt made by the enemy's own mass when it's stuck into him (immobile) and your momentum wants to keep you falling past him.

As for 'teddy bears', Ewoks might actually be pretty strong. There seem to be mixed interpretations of this though. Two 'star wars RPG' adaptations made them weaker than humans for example:
*In the Fantasy Flight Games version of the Star Wars RPG they had a BU (burliness) stat of 1 compared to 2 for humans (3 for wookies/hutts)
*they are -2 ST in Star Wars Saga (humans are base, hutts +2, wookies +4)

But this could just represent baseline inborn ST, their LIFESTYLE could end up making them much stronger than humans because they spend all their lives climbing trees and stuff. Humans could have a higher baseline but sedentary stormtroopers fall behind bodybuilder ewoks, basically.

Bodybuilder ewoks wouldn't just have higher ST (lifting/striking) but also higher HP for mass-based moves.

One house rule I like is instead of substituting slam for thrust, to add slam to thrust. This could be seen as double-dipping (ArmSt/StrikingST and HP are both derived from ST) but I like how it makes running/falling attacks scarier. It creates more incentive to back up and use them if you've already closed with a foe.

We can distinguish both forms:
1) "I have pre-thrust my spear, and am just running forward with my arms already extended" (sub slam, you're not moving your arms so you don't get to use 'thrust' from arm/striking ST)
2) "I have not pre-thrust my spear, I thrust it last-minute as usual concurrent with my running/falling"

Since the latter case should be trickier, a reasonable tradeoff might be to apply a -2 penalty (doing two things at once) to be able to ADD (rather than substitute) slam+thrust damage. It's easier to make an accurate hit if you've pre-thrust the spear

Running (or standing!) with a pre-thrust spear is probably more exhausting though (it's easier leverage-wise to hold weights closed to your body than with arms parallel to ground). In a system where you're tracking APtenths this should matter.

"Keeping a foe at bay" for example could be done by keeping a spear pointed at a foe and occupying the 3 hexes between you, but holding it that way for minutes/hours will fatigue your arm way faster than keeping the spear vertical (which also usually allows you to rest it on the ground, if you shift to a lesser grip) because even though you're holding the same weight off the ground, you're doing it at different levels of efficiency based on skeletal alignment and muscles.

In terms of quick running attacks it wouldn't amount to much, but for someone running for several seconds (or CONSTANTLY doing this over several minutes of combat) adding that up to more fatigue would be realistic.

Slam-based damage should probably also somehow replace the +1/2 yards rate used for a Stop Thrust bonus. Not sure whether it would make sense to use the mass of the stopper or the stopped or some combination of the two. I guess using whatever the usual collision rules are and combining their effects with a strike?