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<     Episode 1828: Gryo-burnt Opponent-stymier     >

Episode 1828: Gryo-burnt Opponent-stymier

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If you're going to take someone out to make a job easier, make sure you take them out. Otherwise you've probably just made your job harder.

Commentary by Keybounce (who has not seen the movie)

I am really confused here. Do we see this storm trooper armor actually working? The shot not having an effect? Or are these troopers being shot at, and still walking boldly without a care? Are they actually ignoring being shot at?

There's no reaction visible until Finn the trooper in front of Finn is shot, and then Finn decides to change sides on the pretense of taking the attack to the one person shooting at them. With no backup. No other troopers go with him.

It's like there's 50-100 pieces of target practice that ignore you, and one that actually pays attention to you. Which sounds more like a badly programmed game than a competent force of enemies.

Alright, we need better commentary than this.

Sometimes, in a RPG, you need to have enemy troopers that respond intelligently to being attacked - taking cover, shooting back, etc. As a general rule, if you fire at enemy troops, you are giving away your position. And sometimes, you need to have players able to easily take out large numbers of troopers for no good reason.

Of course, that usually means you have a badly balanced scenario, or incompetent troops, or perhaps even illusionary troops. After all, if your shots are not affecting a group when you normally lay waste to them, perhaps it's a holographic projection and the real troops are elsewhere?

Now, who would actually do that? Sending in a fake projection of troops, and have the real troops elsewhere? That's like a propaganda war, pretending to send your troops to one beach, getting the enemy forces to commit to defending at one location, and then actually landing at another beach where there are fewer enemy troops to defend. If we can do that in World War 2, then perhaps the Galactic Republic is doing that in Galactic War 2.

So, if the players find that things are either too easy, or just being ignored, perhaps this is fake and they are way out of position?

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Poe must be holding back until there's more troopers in range of the X-wing engine back-blast, so he's just shooting at them. Of course, gotta draw them into the area of effect somehow, seeing as he can't push the ship on his own, so there's some decent logic to looking dangerous. Poe looks to be a crack shot as well, assuming he's actually an ace pilot.

That's also a good idea to try and take out the other PC. Even discounting the possibility that her character is better than the other troopers, that would change the fight against the GM and Annie to just the GM. Gotta have all the advantages you can get when one PC is sneaking around for non-stabbing purposes and the other is just... striding about. Through Near the flames of a burning village.

And I guess Annie's trooper is part berserker/barbarian then. She's also got a better reason to trigger Rage there than I've seen most characters have. Almost no contest between avenging a fallen comrade versus getting really angry when something looks slightly dangerous. There's also the psychological bonus to consider when playing at a table. If you tell me, "I've got damage resistance to a few things and I hit things slightly harder", that's not going to have nearly the same effect as standing up, raising your fists, then starting to shout, "You shot! My! Friend! RAAAAGH!"

Transcript

[SFX]: Pow!
[SFX]: Pow!
Poe: Wait, one of these troopers is Annie, right?
Pete: You're not going to let that stop you, are you?
Poe: No! I want to make sure I take her out as soon as possible, to remove their tactical advantage!
[SFX]: Pow!
Finn: You shot my buddy!
Finn: Now I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds!!
Poe: Uh oh.


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Published: Sunday, 19 April, 2020; 03:11:18 PDT.
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