Keep in mind you did ask us how grapple worked last night and that's where we got bogged down. Normally, if I have a problem with something I'll just bi-xt about it on the vassal window and go back to the ship if I get too annoyed (IE: the scene with the derelict ship that defied physics and consistency).

Plus, you were understandably frustrated because we were mowing down some pretty big beasts in what..a round and a half at most. I do fear though that it's a slippery slope that you are on. If every enemy constantly makes attacks that we are unaware of (to avoid Block and deflect) or unchargeable (not sure??) to get by Bill's damage, or with a ridiculous perception check to get by me catching them flat footed, it's going to stop being fun.

We're already there a little bit with Dean's character. Why is it all of a sudden that the Chiss have no freaking info to tell Klick? I can understand a planet here or there (but it should be pretty rare) yet the last 3? planets...

There are/were better ways to control characters. Princess Leia as a level 1 Noble was a sentaor in a defunct system, so she had very little power. Level 6 she was in charge of a small portion of the Rebel Alliance. Level 12 or so, she was under Mon Mothma. Level 15 and she was the President/Chancellor (whatever they call it) of the New Republic. So to translate it into our group, you didn't have to let Dean be 3 people down (yet) from control of the Chiss Asendancy at level 4.

A planet far from Chiss reach-good reason for no info to Klick, not just sheer incompetence.

A planet devoid of the Force or full of Ysalamiri like creatures...no UTF checks to block or deflect even.

Technology too primitive or advanced for the techie.

An alien species that sees in a different spectrum (identify shapeshifter).

A planet with an atmoshpere so heavily ionized that the use of blasters will create a 1 mile wide firestorm.

So, yeah, I don't have a problem with you breaking the rules. I do it all the time, but never out of frustration because I want to damage the players, or hinder their abilities.

My words of caution.

And for Pete's sake, stop changing your mind. If you tell us we can do something, then when it comes up and you don't like it, you can't just say, "No". Then worse, two minutes later you rule that I could do it at the end of the round, which makes even less sense. Try to answer a question and stick with the answer you first give. Obviously a little discussion of it is fine to be sure you and the players are on the same page.

For example, last night, there was no logical reason I couldn't attack the Reek that attacked me. I had readied an attack and held my entire turn for the moment I was attacked. You should have finished the Reek's turn, then allowed me to attack. I know you tried to compromise with letting me make the attack at the end of the round, but that makes 0 sense as a realistic situation - which is why I refused to do it. Why would I attack it 30 seconds later and not right after it hit me, when I'm standing there with my lightsaber ready to swing at the first thing that hits me? Just try to be logical about it, give an answer and stick with it, even if you or the player doesn't like it.

Ways to improve on the fly:
If we are mowing through your guys faster than you expect, have back up plans ready to go. Have more beefy reinforcements to bring in for such a situation is one example. Last night you could have brought in 2x level Reeks after we killed the first two so quickly, if you wanted us to stay there and fight longer than we had. Or alternately, the easiest solution for the GM, is simply to double/triple the hps on the fly. We don't know how many they have until you kill one off. If you think we are going through them too fast and really want to challenge us, just change hps on the fly. Don't use this every time we kill something quickly, particularly do no use it because someone scored a crit. Crits happen, and you need to award the player for getting one, not punish us. But generally speaking, as we level, if we are out manning your prepared guys way to quickly because you didn't realize how much extra damage that level would give us, just bump the hps up mid battle - none of us would know the difference.

Better descriptions of what is going on and where we are. Perhaps the biggest issue we are having is we don't understand the world's you are creating. You just plop us down somewhere, tell us really generic things, then expect us to figure it out on our own, and when we don't see what's in your head, you get frustrated. You gotta think in character for our guys during the critical description parts. What would we be able to logically see and hear? Give us both mundane (useless observations) and useful details. Let us figure out which ones to pay attention to and deal with. You can simply make this stuff up on the fly, but if its helpful write down 4-5 sentences of each person/place you intend us to encounter before hand.

Answer our attempts at finding out information with more information. If Dean wants to hear from the Chiss on something, then tell him things - the incompetence thing was fine once, it's getting stupid now. It doesn't even need to be relevant information. If you don't want to tell us the things you have planned, that's totally fine. Tell him random stuff about the place/person. When the jedi do UTF-perception checks, we should know more than the average person - that's part of being a jedi. I have no problem with what you told us last night (surrounded by living creatures) because that is an answer the jedi would get to something like that. But you don't have to tell the whole group. Use the PM boxes to tell these kinds of private things and force the characters to talk to each other to share them.

Stop putting guys we can't see on the board. I know you are trying to keep track of them or something, but it adds confusion and makes us think they are significant. You have to learn to move them in private off screen. Make a second Vassal account and load it on another computer if you want to to do it. Or simply use pen and paper, and write down the space your random hidden guys are in at a given moment.

Be prepared for ideas not to work from time to time. Breaking the rules on occasion (better to do it in secret) is fine for a GM. Breaking them because you as the GM didn't think of something ahead of time and want to damage us is not ok. For example last night the perception check of the first set of reeks. When Dean yelled to everyone, "Get Ready something coming" none of us should have been flatfooted. Think about it logically here. Our "leader" just warned us something was coming that he sensed, I had my lightsaber ignited and was standing in attack position, and have given up an entire round of action to ready my attack. You wanted to catch us flatfooted, but that's a big problem here. We wouldn't have really been flat footed. Now, as the GM, a better solution would have been that the attack you made is against us flat footed, but then for other things (block/my readied attack) it wouldn't. That's breaking the rules in a way that makes logical sense. But there is a better solution to the entire scenario that broke down because you as the GM didn't prepare it the way you wanted it to work.

Here's how it should have occured.
1. Enter the forest.
2. "Ok guys make a perception check".
3. Roll Perceptions, tell you the GM our results.
4. Roll init, begin actions.
5. Attack us, with only the GM knowing who passed their Perception check and who didn't, thus declaring flat footed or whatever you want.

Do you see the difference here from what occurred last night? If you want to catch us flat-footed or whatever that's fine. But don't give us ways to get around it, and then simply declare them null and void because it didn't work the way you thought it would. The moment Dean yelled, we all would have been ready to go, and thus not flat-footed entirely. You ignoring the role playing part of it, i.e. Dean acting in character just for the purposes of damage doesn't make it more fun, it makes it less fun. As it was you went to all that trouble, made me angry about the attacking thing that you told me I could do, and did 0 damage to me. Was that worth it?

Finally - the rule of logic should defeat written rules in most situations. A couple of examples. First a very good one you did. Not allowing block to negate the Pin last night - rules technically allow it, but that is indeed stupid. Very good choice and on the fly reasoning to why it wouldn't work (you can't stop all 8 arms so no damage, but still pinned). Cool, good answer, good solution, good rule modification because it was a logical occurrence. There was one other way to solve it as well. "Ok block, roll your saves (we roll), ok roll for second arm at -5 (we roll) ok roll for third arm at -10 (we roll) and 4th arm at -15". But for being faster, your solution was fine. Now to a poor one. Brad's hiding his gun from a beast. Really? That is so illogical, it should never happen beyond the first round. I'm sorry, if you are hunting a bear let's say. The bear (assume it's been hunted before and knows to fear a weapon) might not think you are a threat if you have a hidden gun. But the moment you shoot it with the gun, it's not going to ever care again that you stuck your gun back in your pocket, no matter how well you hid the gun lol. Against a person with a higher intellect, the trick could totally work for a longer period. Like the guy gets hit, gets mad, but when he looks for who did it, he doesn't see the gun, so Brad could do it to him again. But there has to be a limit to this as well. Every time a guy gets shot from the same area, it's logical that even if he doesn't see the gun, he's eventually going to figure out where it's coming from. You could even do hidden perception rolls with decreasing difficulty each time Brad tries the trick to eventually figure it out. Let's say by round 3, you make the roll. Either say outloud, or tell Brad in PM, (guy X finally figured out you were shooting him, hiding the gun no longer works on him) or something like that. But to a beast? Use logic, break the rule here. No Reek would care that Brad put his gun away stealthily. He wants to eat him. Hiding a gun isn't going to make the Reek think Brad is any less of a threat (i.e. granting flat-footed bonus in the second round).

That may sound harsh, but take it as criticism. You are doing a fine job, and I like the story arc we are on. I think it's fun an interesting and overall I like the detail of your planets/characters and your ability to help us out when things get tough (i.e. Rou's crazy cannon a couple of sessions ago, and the turret tech war was really cool). These are just a few things that will help move us forward and make it more fun and less frustrating for everyone.

Agreed, though last night I was just doing it to get in the habit. When you first told me to pick up Hidden Weapons I kind of assumed I'd get to do it once for each weapon. The I read the rules further and was like...."Eh, I guess I could see that". Even at once per weapon, that could get pretty absurd, though I never plan on having more than two lightsabers and blasters (I want the ability to quick draw the weapon of choice with either hand, and I think that requires one each to be on opposite sides of my body).

I can kind of see Bill's scenario happening occassionally, but really if the guy's is looking at me (I did just attack him, so what enemy wouldn't...besides those actually flanked) then he should at least get a +5 bonus to his perception. I just don't get the abstraction of the rule. Is he flat-footed because he doesn't know I have a weapon? Or because he doesn't know where it is? I personally favor the first one, meaning I can use Hidden weapons oncer per enemy, maybe twice if you are being nice with my second weapon. Which in the end, still means I have to conceal my weapons at the end of every round, since I never know when I will move to a new enemy.

You know what, that's pretty lame too. I'm kind of picturing Cel learning to dispatch his enemies and rehide his weapons quickly while hiding on Coruscant as a jedi. Still why would he put his weapon away while there are still guys threatening him?

So maybe, I can ready swift (or free) actions(assuming I have them left) to reconceal my weapons each round, and the action doesn't occur until all adjacent enemies are defeated. This would then allow me to move and Hidden Weapons the next group of guys on my next init, without all the "just in case" nonsense I was doing last night.

My character isn't built on the Hidden Weapon premise, so I don't feel like I am losing much, but don't want to hinder too much another character (in a future game) who wants to base off of Hidden Weapons

This next time if we have a problem then I just have to quit as the GM lol( i am joking)

Since I have had this battle coming up planed since Dec.

Thanks for the help everyone and no the rpg will not turn out you guys vs me.

Also, If we are going to be doing an aspect of the game the you don't know well you may want to designate one person to review the rules for that section and aid you when you are not sure. So taking last night as an example: since you did not know the grapple rules well call/P/whatever someone and ask them to review the grab, grapple, pin rules and then talk to them 10 minutes before the game starts to review with you. If you are unsure ask that specific person what they think and then making the final ruling. That way you are dealing with one other person (not the group) and are able to keep the game moving.

I am having fun (or I would not keep playing). I know that this is your first time GMing and that last week you were on pain killers. We are all here to have fun, and as the GM you set the stage, but you do not have to carry the hole game, delegate.

For now ill look over my builds and if I have a question about them Ill pm or talk with someone.
For the next time we play I just need to level my builds but other than that we are good. The only time we have had problems is when its not a 100% Jonny build and I can fix that.

@Brad Its that they dont know you have a weapon on you(conceal item). I have a fix for the weapon problem there will be a stealth check added to concealing your weapon but you get +5 to the stealth check most of the time. If they are just not buying it you just wont get the +5 to your check but i dont see that happening that often.

Equipment sizes are on SV38 and conceal item is on core 72
-5 for small 5+kg
+0 for tiny 2-5kg
+5 for Diminutive(this is a pistol) 1-2 kg
+10 for Fine(anything less than 1kg)

Oh, one miner thing: you don't need to use maps for non combat encounters. Just describing things to us is normally faster and adds depth to the game.

Ahhh, and therein lies the anser. Even though I can draw or reholster my weapons as a quick or free action, actually concealing them is a standard action (not something I am likely to waste in combat). Of course, in the case of a blaster one would think it's the holster that's concealed...

So basically, this translates to once per combat per weapon and I am totally fine with that. The +5 Stealth bonus should then only come into play after combat is over and I use Stealth not Deception (which I used last game) to reconceal for the next combat. Also only my lightsaber is diminutive, so only it gets the +5 bonus. A regular sized lightsaber (once constructed) will be at +0 for the bonus as is my current Heavy Blaster Pistol.

its a swift to conceal for you brad one of your talents changes that.
You can draw your pistol for free but to conceal is a swift action.

Oh ok. I forgot that's what Art of Concealment was for. So you're saying then, that I can draw (free) shoot, move and reconceal (swift) all in one turn? I can thus get each guy in a group this way, but never the same guy twice?

Yes

I am creating a Chalenge rating calculater for Jonny. I currently have Cirdena Piraxus' and Vsil Poke's. Everyone else post your current XP so I can have the sheet uptodate before I pass it to Jonny

Great idea!
edit: I've updated Bringe's post: 19,100 xp, CL 6 (1 Scoundrel, 5 Soldier)

Since no one else has posted there XP... I have attahced what I have:

Are we playing RPG tonight?

You know it.

I still think I should buy a fighter escort. It's pretty crappy "privateers" that roll around in a single military grade freighter.

You aren't a privateer yet my young padawan...

@Brad you will have a shot at getting a starship tonight.

You all are on your way to the Star forge station to meet with some of Rue's friends because Rue/Chase were not able to crack the device.

Star Forge? First shot at Malak's Sith Spirit!