Troika! Star Wars: The force

So!  A while back I thought I would do a 5e-GLOG hybrid.  However, it seemed that not many people wanted to do that, except 5 Torches Deep who did it 10 times better and... well I found Troika! and that was a big distraction.

Troika is a fun, fast system with a sort of fantasy sci-fi setting.  And you know what else is a fantasy sci-fi setting?  Star Wars!  Troika! is also a setting (very quirky, extremely well written) and a system.  They are interwoven but they can be separated.

A fundamental part of Troika! is a list of backgrounds, ie "classes".  Writing the new backgrounds for a new setting is fundamental in making a new setting for Troika!  If I was doing another fantasy setting like say Warhammer, this would be 90% of the work.  But in Star Wars there are a few more things to convert, so I'll keep the backgrounds for last.

Instead, I'll start by replacing the magic system with THE FORCE!

How does the Force work?  Instead of starting 100% from scratch (and having to do a lot of research), I will using the SAGA system as a reference.  I will keep the basic mechanical structure of Troika's magic system - each "spell" (ie force powers) has a cost in stamina, and a skill check to use successfully.  However there will be a difference.

1:  There will be a "use the force" skill, which will allow you to make small force effects.  "Use the force" is the gateway skill to force powers, but some people have it without powers - they are "force sensitive" but have never been trained.  Use the force may be used in conjunction with certain powers.

2:  Several powers will have two "steps" - you can increase the impact of the power by spending luck along with the stamina.

3:  A few powers are a hybrid between a skill check and a spell - they don't have a stamina cost, but they *can* be enhanced by luck.

4:  There will be no "oops" table, it's just not what happens in Star Wars.

5:  However, there is the Dark Side...

6:  Luck is heavily related to the Force, and how Luck works

So here we go:

LUCK:  Luck will be usable as a "saving throw" as in basic Troika! and also to increase your damage.  But two extra effects are possible:   (This represents the Force being a living thing that infuses all things - ie really lucky people are people who subconsciously use the force to their advantage.)

First, you can do a luck check (spend 1 luck).  If you succeed, a skill check has advantage. Second, you can "search your feelings" (same procedure) to get an inkling about a situation.  Think "I've got a bad feeling about this!!".

ADVANTAGE:  Roll 3d6 and take the best 2  (in some cases this means the lowest 2, in some cases the highest).  Disadvantage is the reverse.


USE THE FORCE:   Use the force is a skill that some people can learn (who can learn this skill after initial character creation is something best decided by individual GMs).  Use the Force is used for the following feats

- Sense the Force:   You can detect disturbances in the force (a location strong in the dark side, a friend in great danger/pain, a huge catastrophe).   A check can allow the detection of a force user in a region (about 100 km).  A force user can attempt to conceal their presence by doing a use the force check, the check becomes an opposed one (ties goes to the person trying to hide).

- Move light objects:  move up to 5 kg with the force.  If this object is use to batter someone, does club damage - you must do a use the force check to lift, then a second one as an attack

- Sense your surrounding:  Do a Use the force check instead of an awareness check, ignoring penalties for cover or concealment.

-  Telepathy:   exchange a single thought with an intelligent and willing creature (such as "run!", "danger!", "help!", "attack!").  The check is done with advantage if the person is on the same planet, normal if done in the same system, and at disadvantage at interstellar range.

- Force trance:  Enter a meditation.  At the end of this meditation, do a use the force check.  If successful, gain 1 stamina per hour spent meditating.

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The end or a new beginning?

I stared this post a long time ago - January - and then I started running a UVG campaign, the pandemic hit etc etc.  But I was recently asked about this project, and although I'm not sure I will finish it... well others could pick up the torch I suppose, and it's a start.

I would also recommend using the "general Troika! improvement" from this post to generate slightly more competent heroes.

What's left to do are actual force powers (ie "spells"), weapon damage (my work on UVG will help for that), lightsaber combat, space combat rules (oh boy...) and backgrounds.  And on that, I do have some ideas...

WARRIOR

11 Mercenary (heavy gunner)

12 Pirate

13 Armored Fighter (someone pretending to be a mandalorian? An actual Mandalorian? A runaway stormtrooper? Really ugly?  Whatever the reason, you are seldom seen outside your armor)

14 Gunslinger

15 Sniper

16 Combat droid

ROGUE

21 Twilek Smuggler

22 Sly Protocol Droid 

23 Gambler

24 Twilek dancer

25 Bothan Spy

26 Runaway Scion

SCOUT

31 Hunting guide

32 Runaway Farmer

33 Bounty Hunter

34 Archeologist

35 Tusken exile

36 ADORABLE CREATURE (1d3:

 1: Force wielding frog-like creature

 2: blood thirsty Ewok

 3: insufferable child pilot

TECH

41 Jawa Scavenger

42 Scrapyard Rat

43 Medic

44 Undercity Worker

45 Wookie Spacer

46 Repair Droid 

PILOT

51 Duros Pilot

52 Corelian Freight Pilot

53 Landspeeder Racer

54 Biker 

55 Runaway tie fighter pilot

56 Astromech Droid

JEDI

61 Swamp witch

62 Desert Hermit

63 Kel Dor mystic

64 Jedi hopeful

65 Hutt Gym Mystic 
66 Reformed Dark Sider

EDIT:  As requested:

Hutt physique mystique 

Your fellow Hutt are busy building empires, but you are building your body.  You know that if you want to master others, you must first master the self.

Advanced skills

Force Powers:

- Mind Trick 2

- Move Object 1

- Force Slam 1

- Farseeing 1

Advanced Skills

- Use the force 2

- Strength 3

- Galactic Knowledge 1

Possession:  

Ill fitting brown robes

A set of weights

A useless twilek hanger-on

Special:  You are a Hutt. Your thick skin acts as modest armor (and does not take inventory slots), but you are slow, moving only 8 meters (4 squares) per move instead of 12. 

(Required disclaimer: this post an independent production by me and is not affiliated with the Melsonian Arts Council. Also, I hope I won't get sued by the big D)

UVG-Troika! damage conversion - take two (and two important questions)

Hello

I recently posted a damage conversion from UVG to Troika!  Unfortunately, I screwed up.  My players protested even before the play-test, I looked at it again, and I realized something fundamental.  Specifically the damages rolled on an 1 are WAY too high.  If you look at the existing weapon damages in Troika!, on a 1 you do 1-4 points of damage, with the sole exception of dragon fire (which is 6).  If you look at my first attempt, you will note that for several weapons, damage on 1 are WAAY above this.

Sausage indeed...

The value you get on a 1 is pretty important because it represents "grazing" damage and, because of armor, it comes up not that rarely (armor imposes a penalty on the 1d6 roll).  It's also important as a determinant of the effectiveness of a weapon vs heavily armored foes.  So I have to re-do this.

First, I'm tweaking my basic patterns:

AVG 6 (base step is 2)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT (can opener, sword)	4	6	6	6	6	8
Average (spear based)	3	4	6	6	8	9
Wild (ax derived)	2	4	6	6	8	10
superwild	1	3	5	7	9	11
Spike	2	2	4	6	8	14

You'll note that the roll on a 1 or less for the average damage is no longer 4, but 3.

The second thing is that the damage on a 1 must NOT change when the average damage is scaled up.  So if I have an average damage of 7 (not 6) I would go +1 to everything *except* on a 1.  The extra missing damage would go on the 6 instead.  So an average spread, average damage 7 would look like:

3 5 7 7 9 11, instead of 4 5 7 7 9 10 (the old method)

On an average damage of 8, the extra goes on the 4, becoming

3 6 8 9 10 12 , instead of 5 6 8 8 10 11

This may have to be adjusted for individual damage patterns of course - for example on the "flat" pattern that extra is applied to the 6 twice.

Once we reach an average of 9, we create a new set of patterns.  You'll note that the damage on 1 has gone up a wee little bit, but not much.  This means that damage will go wilder as it goes up - a pattern that already happens in Troika!

AVG 9 (base step is 3)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT (can opener, sword)	5	9	9	9	9	13
Average (spear based)	4	7	9	9	11	13
Wild (ax based )	2	6	9	9	12	16
Superwild	2	5	7	10	13	17
Spike	3	4	6	9	13	19

Again, if you need a higher damage you increase damage but *not* on the 1 d6 value.  And when we reach average 12, a new set of patterns is needed.  Note how the minimum damage has crept up, but again not too much.

AVG 12 (base step is 4)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT (can opener, sword)	6	12	12	12	12	18
Average (spear derived)	5	10	12	12	15	18
Wild (ax derived)	3	8	12	12	16	21
Superwild	2	6	10	14	18	22
Spike	3	5	8	12	16	28

So let's apply this to UVG guns...

UVG PISTOLS	-1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
Inquisitor squirt gun	2	2	3	4	5	8	10
Revolver	2	3	4	5	7	9	12
Porcelain Prince Pistol	3	6	8	9	10	12	14
Ultra Blaster	5	10	10	10	10	15	18
Blue God Blaster	5	12	14	15	17	21	25
UVG RIFFLE	-1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
Heavy Crossbow	4	5	7	8	9	9	12
Scavenger bolter	2	5	7	7	9	12	15
Redland District SMG	2	4	7	10	11	14	17
Violent Cat Riffle	4	9	10	10	12	15	20
Vome Slagger	2	6	8	11	14	19	24
black city matter disruptor	2	7	10	10	13	18	22
Satrap gun	2	8	11	12	14	19	22
Voice of Death	3	6	9	13	17	30	35

This isn't perfect, but it should be a lot better.  There are probably slight tweaks here and there that would make that much smoother, but it's a solid step forward. It feels more in line with existing Troika! weapons, although some of them hit *very* hard indeed. I admit that I may have pushed the damage too high - playtest will reveal this.  But now that I have my patterns down, adjusting them should be fairly easy from now on.

Lastly, the important question.  In Troika, you have skills tied with specific weapons - spear, hammer, knife.... but when it comes to ranged weapon, there are only 4 - bow, crossbow, pistolet, fusil.  So I assumed that if  you had pistolet, you were proficient in all pistols, and fusil in all rifles... but now I am not so sure.  With that interpretation, it will push people towards pistols and rifles.  

Another thing I was thinking about is the importance of melee combat in Troika! Whenever someone attacks another, there are no "misses" - either the defender gets hurts *or* the attacker get hurts (baring the occasional ties).  This makes fights go quickly, it's a very cool aspect of the system!  But in a ranged battle, especially if everyone has cover... fights can go long because there is a lot of of missing going on.  I wonder if this needs a fix or not... 

 "this post is an independent production by me and is not affiliated with the Melsonian Arts Council"

Converting Troika! damage: How the sausage is made

As I have mentioned before, I'm currently running a UVG game with troika!  It's a lot of fun, the feel of the rules work well with the setting, it's all good.

But behind the scene, converting Troika to UVG's D20 ish system is not easy.  And this is particularly true for weapon damage.  The Technical Grimoire took a crack at it, but this was done quickly, and I felt that it needed more attention.  (edit: I am glad to note that we are collaborating on this project).

The author of Troika! has kindly given us DIY-type game bloggers permission to create new Troika! material, but with the following disclaimer "this post is an independent production by me and is not affiliated with the Melsonian Arts Council".  And well... the following is going to make Daniel Sell and any fan of Troika! scream, because this is NOT what Troika! is about - it's whimsical and fun and mysterious.  But converting a series of weapons doing 1d8, 3d6 etc damage to the Troika! 1d6 damage chart system is *harsh*.   You either completely eyeball it (and this is much more difficult than it looks).  Or you go about it systematically.

So please Troika! fans, don't throw too many tomatoes... (who am I kidding, no one reads this blog ha!).

Please note that this has NOT been play-tested, and is not the final product.  The interesting thing here is the system, not the end results.

So, in Troika!, to roll damage, you roll a D6 and consult a chart.  The dice can be affected by armor or luck, so a result of 0 or 7 are possible, but the 1-6 range is the most important.  For example, let us consider a few weapons:

	1-	2	3	4	5	6	7+
WEAPON
Sword	4	6	6	6	6	8	10
knife	2	2	2	2	4	8	10
Club	1	1	2	3	6	8	10
Greatsword	2	4	8	10	12	14	18

You will note that the "pattern" of damage distribution varies a lot between weapons.  So the sword has a very "flat" damage.  This means that it will be relatively unaffected by luck or armor.  I don't know if this was the author's intent, but the sword is the game's can opener, really good at piercing even heavy armor.  The knife can do as much damage as a sword, but most of the time it's paltry, and armor is very effective against it.  The club is less "spiky" than the knife, but it's almost useless vs armor.  The greatsword can deal devastating blows, and the average damage vs an unarmored character is high, but again not as good vs armored foes than a sword.   (Armor imposes a penalty to the 1d6 that can range from -1 to -3).

So not only do I have to consider the average damage, I have to consider the pattern of the damage on the 1d6 chart.  I also have to consider the "flavor" of the weapon.  If the damage in UVG is 3d6 (fairly high damage and fairly "tight" grouping, very high or very low results will be rare), how do I reflect that in Troika!  And what do I do if the "flavor" of the weapon doesn't match the dice?

So to start, I made 5 damage patterns:  flat, medium, wild, superwild, and "spike", based on existing Troika! weapons.  Flat is the best vs armor, while superwild is the worse, but has a much higher max damage potential.  I didn't include the 7+ in these patterns - that value comes up less often and I just eyeballed it.  I also ensure that all these had the same average damage vs an unarmored foe:  6

AVG 6 (base step is 2)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT (can oppener, sword)	4	6	6	6	6	8
Average (spear)	4	4	6	6	8	8
Wild (ax derived)	2	4	6	6	8	10
superwild	1	3	5	7	9	11
Spike	2	2	4	6	8	14

If I have a weapon I want a higher average damage, I just increase each value by 1 - for example a "wild" weapon with an average damage of 7 would have damage values of 3,5,7,7,9,11.

However, as damage goes up, what was wild before can become very tame.  For example, if I used this for a weapon with an average damage of 12 points (ouch),  and used the wild pattern, the resulting pattern would be  8, 10, 12, 12, 14, 16 ... which seems kinda flat doesn't it?   So I created 2 more patterns sets, one for an average damage of 9, and one for an average damage of 12:

AVG 9 (base step is 3)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT	6	9	9	9	9	12
Average	6	6	9	9	12	12
Wild	3	6	9	9	12	15
superwild	2	5	7	10	13	17
Spike	3	4	6	9	13	19

AVG 12 (base step is 4)	-1	2	3	4	5	6
FLAT	8	12	12	12	12	16
Average	8	8	12	12	16	16
Wild	4	8	12	12	16	20
superwild	2	6	10	14	18	22
Spike	4	4	8	12	16	28

The two values to keep an eye on here is the minimum (1 or less) and the max (6).  A six can *really* hurt a PC, but it rarely happens because, in my experience, most PCs wear at least light armor.  The minimum has *very* big impact on performance vs heavily armored foes.   Heavy arrmor is -3 on the damage chart, so rolling a 1 or a 4 results in the same damage.  So a sword would become 4 4 4 4 6 6, while a superwild weapon (average 6) would be 1 1 1 1 3 5!  Again, there is a reason I call the sword a can opener in Troika!.

So that was probably the hardest part.  Now that we have that, we need to decide what average damage in Troika corresponds to what average damage in the UVG.  We are a little constrained here by existing weapons, and it results in a system where bows and crossbows are a little bit better than some cheap firearms... but I can live with that.   The conversion is as follows:

UVG dmg	UVG avg.	Troika avg.
1d6	3.5	4
1d8	4.5	5
1d10	5.5	7
2d6	7	8
3d6	10.5	10
2d10	11	10
2d12	13	11
3d10	16.5	13
4d8	18	14

Now this level of damage seems a bit dangerous, and it *is*, but remember that large monsters can also hit very hard.  Also, in my version of Troika, heroes can gain a bit of stamina with spending XP.   Lowering (or increasing!) the Troika! damage chart is possible.  You'll note that the Troika versions hit a bit harder for low damage weapons, and a bit less hard for higher damage weapons, this was done on purpose.

Next, we have to decide what pattern applies to each gun.  The "flavor" of the gun was a dominant factor for me.  Again, this has not been playtested yet.  Use with caution!

(edit: ha! we found a serious flaw.  New numbers will be posted, I don't recommend you use this!)

UVG PISTOLS	-1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
Inquisitor squirt gun	2	2	3	4	5	8	10
Revolver	2	3	4	5	7	9	12
Porcelain Prince Pistol	6	6	8	8	10	10	12
Ultra Blaster	7	10	10	10	10	13	16
Blue God Blaster	10	10	14	14	18	18	25

The revolver uses slow, fat bullets that armor deal with well... but a lucky shot vs an unarmored foe can hurt a lot (so a tweaked wild).  The Squirt gun is a "dart" gun so I used spike, but I had the jump from 6 to 7 be modest - there is only so much a lucky shot from that can do!  The porcelain prince pistol I put at average - fairly high tech, reliable, but not a huge gun, you aren't going to kill an elephant with one shot.  The Ultra Blaster is a hyper advanced weapon that is very dependable and makes a mockery of today's armor, so I gave it a flat damage.  The Blue God Blaster's dice is 4d8 which suggests a very flat damage - but the power seems wild, so I compromised and made it average.  It's quite effective even against well armored foes, which makes sense for the necrotic nature of the damage.

UVG RIFLES	-1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
Heavy Crossbow	4	5	7	8	9	9	12
Scavenger bolter	2	4	6	8	10	12	15
Redland District SMG	3	5	7	7	9	11	16
Violent Cat Riffle	7	7	10	10	13	13	20
Vome Slagger	3	6	8	11	14	18	22
Black City matter disruptor	4	7	10	10	13	16	22
Satrap gun	5	8	11	11	14	17	22
Voice of Death	9	9	11	13	15	21	30

The heavy crossbow is based on the crossbow already existing in Troika! , and is quite effective vs armor.  The scavenger bolter I made superwild - basically it's the revolver on crack.  The redland SMG (submachinegun)  is wild, due to using revolver-like bullets.  The violent Cat Riffle is noted as being dependable, so I gave it average damage.   The Vome Slagger and the Black City matter disruptor both have 3d6, but I figured that the explode-y nature of the Vome Slagger would make it super wild, while the matter disruptor is "merely" wild - keep in mind that it has exploding damage dice, which I still haven't decided how to do in Troika!, and that special power changes this weapon.  The Satrap Gun is a laser gun, and I decided to make it wild as well.  Lastly, the Voice of Death has a spike pattern, given its divine origin and sonic nature.

And that's how you convert damage from a d20 based system to Troika! in a systemic manner!   Should you?  Nah, let those diehards from the internets do it for free for you...  If playtesting shows this doesn't work, adjustment will be made :)

Lastly, I will do melee weapons later!