Example please.

I agree that intuition would send his point cost at least to the mid 30s. The 2 FPs can be quickly used up on his twin attack should he miss (as I found out). I played him in the RaR sealed tounament and won the whole darn thing. However i have not explored him in constructed old republic squads, and how well he would do outside of sealed. But as an individual piece i believe he is appropriately priced

You can make the exact same argument for Han Solo Scoundrel as well. Remember, these are abstractions and sometimes the abstractions will interact in odd ways. For example, should a character get jedi hunter when attacking Zuckuss??? Of course not. Jedi hunter should only work when fighting actual jedi, but in our game it just doesn't work that way. All of the things you brought up are totally legit reasons, and that's why I said my solution to Carth's design would upset some people. I'm perfectly ok with it. To work as I wanted him to, and to properly represent his skill and knack for getting out of bad situations (luck), this was the best course of action. When possible, we on the design team will use WotC's model as much as possible and remain as conservative as possible when making new abilities. We could have created a brand new stat called, "Luck Points" that work in the exact same way as FPs but don't count as force. Then we also would have to create a new ability called, "Lucky movement" that he could spend those points on to move just like Surprise move. Alternately, we could have bumped his cost up 10 points and given him intuition. Or we could have dropped SM entirely, and changed one of the central aspects of his character. None of those are particularly better choices and all represent either a loss of flavor equal to giving him the force and SM, or a game balance issue that we didn't want (high 30s cost for Carth).

Ultimately, you make the best of it. IF you simply do what I always did with Han Scoundrel and think of his force use as either "Luck Points" or some kind of natural latent force ability that he was never aware of, the abstraction doesn't bother you as much. Basically Carth should work a lot like Han Scoundrel, he should be able to reroll missed shots, should be able to use a limited intuition like ability, and should be able to reroll evades. And since I could get him to work exactly how I wanted him to feel with existing abilities that require a small abstraction in the player's mind, I went with it. And since there is a very good precedent for it in WotC's design (understandable that many people never liked it on Han over the years) that's how we went. When possible, stay conservative. That's what we always said we would do. I think when you play him you will realize that like Han Scoundrel he feels like Carth.

Well first off thats a wiki quote, and just as good as the next guys opinion, and all i have to say to it is, That's what Editors are for. And generally they don't do their job well, or just let endless retcons occur one after the next to make it easier. Sometimes those retcons fix things, sometimes they change things for the worst.

Lucky points would be too much of a change to the game. I know everyone wants to keep it on the same template as the WOTC game, so NO new mechanics is the right way to go. But I am sure an actual special ability could have been created to do it all better. Thats my bottom line this whole time pretty much.

Bolded for emphasis. That's the whole point of the quote. Glad we agree.

Yep, we took the "easy way". Please, no insulting comments about our work. Nothing we do is "easy". It takes a ton of time, lots of play testing, lots of writing and rewriting, and what you call the "Easy way" is that we identified very early that this issue would come up. It came up with the first play testors to see the stats (David and Daniel). We went through the possibilities then and stuck with this. Then it came up again with the secondary PT. We went through it again, and again for the 3rd time, everyone more or less agreed this was the best way to handle it. So please, nothing was the "easy way". We chose what we believe to be the "Best way". You might not like it, I'm sure some others won't as well, but it is the best way. I described the other possibilities above. Do you care to comment on which one you think would have been better?

And then we have dissonance with the entire history of the game. Care to give us an example? How could we adequately represent Carth with a limited intuition and represent his luck with one simple, easy to do Special Ability? Please write one and demonstrate how we took the "cheap trick". You can't ignore this and pretend like it's not an issue. Nor can you ignore that the game already uses this "cheap trick" just because you don't like it. Case in point, I absolutely hate how the Lightsaber +10 rules work. But I've still used them on characters and will continue to do so. Sure, I could write a SA called, "Lightsaber Attack" that does the same exact thing except adds that it's a melee attack. But that's an ability too close to what we already have, that simply makes the game more complicated than it needs to be. Remember, one of the critical design goals, keep it simple stupid. You don't add things just because you can, you do so because they are necessary. I don't view changing this precedent for basically 1 character at all worth it, especially when it would look stupid sitting next to Han Solo, General Greivous, Jarael, Aurra Sing, Mara Jade Jedi, etc.

You may not like the abstraction, that's fine, but unless you are prepared to answer all of the concerns I listed above and come to a best fit answer, then don't tell us how we should have done the job, or say that we have taken the "easy way" or done something "cheap". That's just mean, unnecessary and patently false. And with this, I've given my explanation of why Carth got 2 whole FPs, and I will not discuss it again barring answering a question or something in this thread.

I had apologized in advance and along side any comments I made in previous posts within this thread. I very greatly disagree with force points being continued to use the way they are. Now that the game is in your hands as well as the other new Devs, I didn't think we would see it again. But in WOTC run after it went on for a while you couldn't expect it to up and disappear. I'll say it again, I appreciate everyone hard work, and I don't mean to downplay anything, but I had to speak my mind on this matter.


Fair enough



I already commented on Luck points that you mentioned, and I see no other method other than having an imagination based around Han Solo, Scoundrel. btw It is not the "Best" way, as that is just an opinion. All you have state is that you tried intuition and force points. What other methods did you guys try out? What other abilities had you considered using.



If the intent to represent him as lucky is to have an intuition type of ability, without the side effect of positive and negative force related effects then I can think of an easy way off the top of my head.

Lucky Intuition - If your initiative check is an odd number, this character can immediately move up to 6 squares before any other character activates

Now that surely represents Luck. Perhaps your own luck on the roll as much as Carth's, so lets just call it destiny. But it is a basic and easy example. If odd numbers only might be too often then change it to be more specific as seen fit. Say 2, 6, 10, 14, 18. Something more variable than a 50/50 chance. Lots of ways to do it.

How about this as save protection

Lucky Reactions - If this character fails a save with a roll of 1 to 5, he may reroll the failed save

Can always fiddle with the numbers to be specific ones, odds, evens and so on. It still represents a Lucky chance to have a reroll.




I wrote one that demonstrates two Lucky type methods than handing out Force points. I believe both are better ways.



aren't we taught to learn from past mistakes?



Lightsaber should have been thought out better or had an errata to properly reflect what it actual does and represents. And if a second "Lightsaber Attack" was created, I don't see how it would be confusing. We already have multiple ranks of force powers that do different damage as well as different effects

Are people confused between Force Push 2 and Force Push 3? What about all the other damaging force powers that are similar, such as burst, thrust and so on? All similar in design, but with a different mechanic. All it takes is to read an ability to not be confused.



did you mean "stupid simple"?



Unnecessary and mean I suppose, but not false as it is my opinion on how that specific matter was handled. You have brought it to our attention that it was greatly tested and debated. I don't ignore the hard work that went into testing and trying various methods. But the end all is to use what has become an easy way out trend created by Rob, instead of making something new when the option was absolutely there. I'm surprised there was never a Fix within WOTC run actually. Anyway it is a preexisting method, but that doesn't make it the "BEST" way to have handled it.

I'll ask again. What methods were tested other than Intuition and Force Points? I'd like to know what else was considered.

I believe I have responded to everything accordingly, and I look forward to your responses to my comments. Also as I said, I don't mean to rude or hostile, but definitely confrontational as I want to speak my mind on the matter.

Challenge accepted:

instead how about
Gambler's luck (the one Han has from DotF, by the way Carth totally gambled)
Preparations (replaces attacks, this character gains intuition until the end of his next turn)

Also love the set, you designers did great work except for not enough Grievous (come on maul as an epic an mini set?) haha. I won't play Carth because you guys missed his two biggest traits:

spoilers maybe to those that never played:
Emotional Burden (each time this character activates make a save of 11, on a success or failure any allied character within 6 squares has to stop and help Carth work through his issues. Allied characters affected in this way are considered activated and have -4 defense because they just don't care anymore)
Poor Babysitter (whenever mission Vao is targeted, this character immediatly flees the battlefield leaving her to die)

Thing is, it has been a stated goal of the vset design team to not 'reinvent the wheel'. On the SHNN and in posts it has been said that the designers do not want to create new abilities when an existing ability will do just fine in terms of game mechanics.

I was a play tester for R&R. I tested the Old Republic specifically. I had no issues with Carth having 2FP and Surprise Move. I was a little surprised at it, asked for justification, and I was satisfied with the reasoning. The piece plays VERY well, which is my main concern.

lol at the abilities General, I like those haha.



No its not very different at all, you are correct. I just know they didn't want to change the very basic frame of the games format is all. Or thats how I recall it.



I want to add some more possible versions

Lucky Intuition (Substitute even number for odd, just to change it up but all example will use odd only unless stated otherwise)
If your initiative check is an odd number, this character can immediately move up to 6 squares before any other character activates

If you win your initiative check with an odd number, this character can immediately move up to 6 squares before any other character activates

If you lose your initiative check with an even number, this character can immediately move up to 6 squares before any other character activates

If you win your initiative check with an odd number or lose it with an even number, this character can immediately move up to 6 squares before any other character activates (can switch the odd and even around)

I figured these were worth stating, plus as I said you can always use specific numbers as well. I believe adding int he win or lose versions, or the win/lose combo reduces the numbers/chance variety anyway without having to use specific digits only. As its not just what you roll, but under a condition as well.

I think an ability like this is very unique as it truly relies on Luck, and not just deciding to use an ability because you feel lucky at the time. A reroll does in fact take luck when you can do one, but using surprise move doesn't take luck.. its instead a limited activation on demand ability.

and If I think of something else, another ability, I will post it.