Sorry if this is a bit late to the party, but I've got a player who wants to take the Doctor career and go down the brawler/pressure point route.

We've both read the talent as is, and initially the the 'medicine ranks as pierce' was proposed, as was posted elsewhere in the forum. What we've agreed for now is that the target of the pressure point attack keeps what soak they would have which comes from talents, armor etc.

I'm posting it here because I'm hoping to get some GM opinions, concerned with the prospect of plot-important NPCs falling like flies due to an abundance of nerve-pinching and pressure-pointing. I'm also concerned by anatomy lessons being the feat directly below it on the tree.

Does anyone have any experience of this in your own games, and if so did (it being overused) upset either your plans or the flow of the game as a hole?

I am one of the proponents for the Medicine rank = Pierce rank for this talent. Being able to ignore all Soak is simply too good.

It sounds plausable, and fun, as far as a OP concern goes, just increase the Rank of the difficulty dice to justify getting in close.

There are a lot of proposed ways to tweak the talent, plenty of suggestions. Personally I don't fret too much over it. I also require anyone playing a Dr. to be a Dr. No half assing the career, which means big points in intellect and such. My personal tweak was to require the player to execute the double Aim maneuver picking a specific target location if actively engaged with a target. That introduces two setback dice into the roll. Seems reasonable to me if you're trying to hit a specific nerve cluster in an active fist fight. I don't require it if they do the sneaky sneaky up behind someone. I like the idea of the nerve pinch over the shoulder from behind.

I personally don't see an issue with it.

If you wanted to just adjust it, changing it to pierce is a fine way to go. But otherwise, I'd recommend just adjusting the type of enemies. If everyone in the group starts using stun damage, keep in mind stun from a majority of weapons is restricted to short range. Toss in enemies that aren't as low in strain thresholds, or simply boost their's up. Toss in droids - droids may have weakspots that could knock them out, but medicine and Pressure Points sure won't help the brawler find those. Exotic animal the brawler wouldn't have come across in a book to know where to hit it - that could require a successful medicine or xenology check first. Melee defense and adversary are also generally solid - decrease the chance to even touch the enemy, or make something exciting happen with despairs.

It's also worth noting that if the group doctor is busy whaling on people he's not healing anyone. Dish out some damage to the rest of the group and they'll be screaming for him to let go of the poor NPC he's manhandling and get over to heal them.

This one hasn't come up in my campaign, but I'd at least make some common-sense ruling that you can't use it on anyone wearing full armour like a powersuit or full battle armour.