Lightsaber damage

[JimBobRedneck]

I've decided to open this poll since I unwittingly hijacked someone else's thread with this topic. Any thoughts and comments are welcome, but please, let's keep any discussion civil.

 

Here's the postings from the other thread:

It's sorta a shame the game doesn't use two-handed weapon rules from standard D&D, where using a lightsaber with two hands would give you a bigger increase in damage from your strength bonus.

I've never really understood why your strength bonus gets included into a lightsaber's damage in the first place. Higher strength lets you swing a physical weapon harder and faster, meaning more kinetic energy, resulting in more impact when it connects. A lightsaber, being composed of energy, should theoretically be very close to weightless (except for the hilt). Any increase to kinetic energy from swinging it harder would be negligible due to it's lack of mass. Besides, the damage is energy based and not physical. If anything, your Dex bonus should be added to the damage due to well placed strikes (though that's a bit of a stretch in and of itself).

 

Well, actually striking with a light saber is forcing matter into matter. So if you are stronger, you can push one matter (lightsaber) deeper inside the other matter (the target). It would make sense to make it dex based only if the lightsaber would simply cut through anything like butter.

 

There's the crux of the problem though. The lightsaber blade isn't matter. It's energy. Physical strength should have nothing to do with the amount of damage it causes, and as I noted in my previous post, even using your Dex modifier to add to the damage caused is a bit of a stretch.

 

I haven't played the d20 version of the Star Wars RPG, but I did play using the old d6 rules, and if I remember correctly, in that ruleset Jedi's could use their dice in the Alter Force ability to add to the damage caused by a lightsaber. If that were to be converted into the game rules, I suppose using your Wis modifier to add to the damage would be the best bet, since a higher Wis is supposed to represent a stronger connection to the Force and thus more control over it.

 

According to all of the Star Wars source materials I've seen, a lightsaber could cut through anything (not quite as easily as butter with some substances) except for cortosis. The only reason it doesn't in the game is strictly due to game balance. Still though, that doesn't explain why strength factors into the equation.

 

A good example of this is when Qui-gon Jinn uses his lightsaber to cut through the blast door aboard the Trade Federation Droid Control Ship in Episode I. He uses no strength here other than to just hold the hilt of the lightsaber. The blade of the lightsaber is doing all the damage. When the inner blast doors are shut, all he does is push the hilt closer to the door, causing the blade to extend into the inner door and melting it as well.

 

Think of it as using a VERY powerful cutting torch. It doesn't matter how hard or fast you swing the torch around (that actually hinders it's performance, not to mention it looks a little silly). It's the sustained contact of energy (in this case, heat) with matter (usually metal) that causes the damage. Of course, with a lightsaber the energy output is exponetially greater, removing the need for extended contact except in more extreme circumstances (again, the blast door example).

 

That way, enemies in all SW games should loose their limbs a plenty

 

But ok, i understand what you mean, though you said it yourself, it would ruin the so called 'game balance'.

[drcloak]

Interesting points in some of those quotes.

 

But I agree, the blade of the saber is 'Energy'. If I swung a Light Saber at slow speed at a target (lets say the neck for example) and a Major League Baseball player (any steroid pumping player will do) swung at his fastest possible speed, in the end, we would both have done the same amount of damage. The end result would be the same.

 

I say eliminate the strength modifier to damage altogether. With 5 upgrade crystals (too many in my opinion) you are already dishing out insane damage.

 

- dr cloak

[Oberon]

What if you are fighting an enemy with another lightsaber? If you are stronger than them and you clash blades you can use your strength to over power them, since a lightsaber doesn't just cut through another lightsaber. Same thing with not cutting right through vibroblades or similar.

[JimBobRedneck]

That's a situation where the To-Hit modifier would come into play. The Str mod would reflect being able to overpower the opponent and force his lightsaber aside, leaving him open to attack. Similarly, with a Jedi using the Weapon Finesse (sp?) feat, he would use his Dex mod to simulate deflecting the opponent's lightsaber and thus creating an opening to attack. Either way though, these bonuses would only apply to hitting the target and not the actual damage caused by the strike.

[Forceoflight]

So that means, that the light has to form a real blade, like an kinetic. Because any kind of Laser-Beam (Light) would actually cross over and wouldn't be able to stop another Laser-Beam in movement.

Actually it's true (by what I know) that a lightsaber is emitting enough energy to cut any kind of matter (if a lightsaber would be real).

But a lightsaber (in games, movies, e.u.) only "cuts" what he touches. Now maybe we should accept, that Kotor is a game and the admins just didn't wanted to programm more so that the strength doesn't just determines, if you win a lightsaber-block by another jedi/sith.

[rick]

This is interesting...

 

I agree with the idea of strength modifier adding to "to-hit" bonus; afterall, you can't swing your lightsaber quickly if you don't have strength. But by the same token, shouldn't strength also play a minor role in... say, blaster deflection?

 

As for damage-bonus, I do agree that strength seems to have very little to do with it. The only problem though, is that the game's fighting animation never show "clean cut". So for all those instances where opponents takes damage but not killed, I can only interpret as the cases where the lightsaber "touches" the opponent briefly to cause injury, but not enough disable or dismember the opponent (since total undefended strikes should probably be a kill in a hit). I think that usually happens as a result of the defender was not strong enough to "stop" the blade before it contacts the skin (and the watery parts as HK-47 would call it).

 

If that were the case, it would actually make sense that strength damage-bonus be applied. Since if you are sufficiently strong, you can make a "deeper" contact, causing more damage. And if you are so strong, I suppose you could cut right through even if your blow was blocked.

 

I am no expert in this stuff, but that's what I think anyway. Let me know if I'm wrong.

[Shneider]

Agreeing with the majority of the substantive points thus far to a point. If the armor were akin to what the Yhuuzan Vong wear then strength should apply; or unless the lightsaber in question were similar to what Luke Skywalker has in modifying it later to cut through Cortosis then strength shouldn't be applicable to damage. If anything dexterity for control should depending upon the accuracy of lethal cuts, slices and thrusts.

[G@mbIT]

Just a stupid question besides I actually have an opinion on this topic:

 

Why are we discussing this?

[JimBobRedneck]

To Forceoflight:

That deals with the term "lightsaber" being somewhat of a misnomer. The blade is composed of energy, but I highly doubt it's actually light. Simple light just wouldn't be able to generate the kind of power that a lightsaber blade does, even when focused into a laser. What's more feasible is that the energy of the blade is contained inside a tight magnetic field extending from the end of the hilt, creating the "blade". It would be these fields opposing each other when 2 sabers clashed. The field would simply pass through simple matter, exposing it to the energy contained within. This theory is a little flawed when dealing with certain metals, but it's the best I got.

 

To rick:

Strength would play a minor role in blaster deflection, but so minor as to negligible. It would basically only matter in as much as you were able to rather effortlessly hold and maneuver the hilt. Blaster deflection isn't about reacting to the shot coming at you, since that would be moving too fast for even top notch reflexes to handle. It's only possible due to the Jedi's use of the Force to "perceive" the event before it happens. The Jedi basically senses where the blast will come from just before it happens and positions his saber in it's path. Qui-gon describes this ability (not about blaster deflection per se, but a Jedi's amazing reflexes through limited precognition) on Tatooine when talking about how Anakin is such an excellent pod racer. Also, that is one of the only real arguments I've ever been able to find credit in that supports the use of a Str mod for damage purposes. Still, that would only apply to the context of the video game and not the d20 rules system (but that's an arguement for another forum) and I personally feel that the Str mod should truely only apply to the To-Hit check. Otherwise there would need to be some kind of system for partial damage based on To-Hit checks, since the difference between a very slight graze and a full slice would be more than the +4-5 damage from a massive strength.

 

To Shneider:

I'm not very familiar with the Yhuuzan Vong (Truce at Bakura is the only post-RotJ novel I've read) so I'm not sure of what you're talking about. If it's simple cortosis that they use, strength really doesn't apply. Cortosis resists the damage caused by lightsabers not due to it's physical strength, but due to a disrupting effect it has on the particular energy used by lightsabers. Swinging harder isn't going to help overcome that. If Luke modified his saber to cut through cortosis, he modified the energy's particular characteristics to something that cortosis doesn't disrupt. While I feel it would be better for a Dex mod to affect lightsaber damage than a Str mod, I think it would be even better if neither did. Even though that was one of my original suggestions, after thinking about it more, accuracy in combat would come more from training and experience than from natural abilities. Just because you have the dexterity to juggle well doesn't mean you know where to strike an opponent for maximum effect.

 

To G@mbIT:

We're discussing this because I used Affect Mind on you all, though by the looks of the votes, I need to upgrade that to Dominate Mind next level.