Now I ask this question with the caveat that I know the CMB says that weapons tech outadvances armor tech...but can we at least get some better armor??!!!

I mean come on...it cost astronomical amounts of credits to purchase something that just has 1 more soak value in it??

I mean 50 for 1 soak to 1000 for 1 soak/armor??!! to almost 2K for 2 soak??!! Redonkulous!

And the Kicker 5K for Superior just to get 1 more soak??!!!

There has to be something out there that can have 2/2 and be a reasonable price or some attachments for better armor or soak plates for a reasonable price.

Am I the only one who thinks this??!

Have a great Weekend!

1/2 is about as good as it gets, stock. Problem is there are talents also that bump the armor and personal soak up. Lots of threads about players that focus on soak being too tough to hurt. More would only increase that I would think.

Most of your soak is, I guess, supposed to come from Brawn.

The flip side is, it's easy to remove a PC from combat with damage, but hard to actually kill them.

I don't see the problem with the large jumps in prices in different armor levels. It's what we see in the real world (I recently researched and purchased 10 entry vests at work for a special response team). A cheap Level II concealed vest can be purchased for only $150, a Level IIIA (it's better) concealed vest $500, an entry "SWAT" vest with all of the pieces & rifle plates (even better) can easily cost $3,000. In a non-scifi modern game using this system I might classify those three as Soak 1, Soak 2, and Soak 2/Defense 1.

Rare should be the character that can walk into combat and ignore blaster bolts. If more readily available armor was, more characters in armor we would see. A smuggler craves not these things. A simple blast vest, sufficient is.

Anyway.

The game is quite nicely balanced at a "brutal damage" level. If you do the math and figure 1 round = about a minute, how lame would it be watching a movie and the good guys and bad guys just kept chipping away at each other's armor for 5+ minutes? It's like playing with imaginary guns as kids: "I shot you!" "No ya didn't!'

1 Soak is a nice boost. 2 soak is an incredible boon. That is just the way the numbers work. If you want to change it, you'd have to re-balance the whole game. And to me that just seems like too much work to fix something that really ain't broken.

Note also: the prices reflect not only the defensive stats of the armor but also their hardpoints for attachments and many variable in-universe concerns.

Once a person hits 7 soak (which is not all the difficult to do), a character can ignore most blaster pistol shots (CRB stat wise). That is crazy 'good'. Think about that a moment...

Once a person hits 7 soak (which is not all the difficult to do), a character can ignore most blaster pistol shots (CRB stat wise). That is crazy 'good'. Think about that a moment...

Sounds like Captain Rex from TCW. He just stands in the middle of the field, unloads with his two pistols, and then gets back behind cover. Not a scratch on him most days.

And that's a solid character concept! But it does take a little doing to get there (XP, character design, and cash).

Once a person hits 7 soak (which is not all the difficult to do), a character can ignore most blaster pistol shots (CRB stat wise). That is crazy 'good'. Think about that a moment...

Sounds like Captain Rex from TCW. He just stands in the middle of the field, unloads with his two pistols, and then gets back behind cover. Not a scratch on him most days.

And that's a solid character concept! But it does take a little doing to get there (XP, character design, and cash).

Yes it is. I am kind of headed that way, but will never see that kind of armor. Starved economy and all. Best I can hope for is armored clothing with Superior quality.

Anyway... 7 soak is just crazy good for our campaign.

I actually appreciate the fact that armor isn't the end-all-be-all in damage mitigation. If 1 extra soak is exponentially more expensive, maybe the character will come first and one of the few "hard" mechanics of the system will be seen for what it is: less important with regards to the story.

Once a person hits 7 soak (which is not all the difficult to do), a character can ignore most blaster pistol shots (CRB stat wise). That is crazy 'good'. Think about that a moment...

Sounds like Captain Rex from TCW. He just stands in the middle of the field, unloads with his two pistols, and then gets back behind cover. Not a scratch on him most days.

And that's a solid character concept! But it does take a little doing to get there (XP, character design, and cash).

Yes it is. I am kind of headed that way, but will never see that kind of armor. Starved economy and all. Best I can hope for is armored clothing with Superior quality.

Anyway... 7 soak is just crazy good for our campaign.

Starved economy but you have access to Superior goods? Superior is vastly expensive for what it does, and I don't think that anyone that considers taking Superior gear is truly hurting for credits.

I did say the best I could hope for.

I just paid about 50k credits for my Mandalorian armor to get fixed and upgraded since it's been rotting away in my tomb for the last 5 years. My character has over 1000xp and hasn't spent much on gear and weapons. I've been using armored clothing and the heavy blaster rifle you find in one of the beginning adventures the whole time lol.

Armoured Clothing with modded Optical Camoflauge (thanks, Tinkerer).

If I'm investigating or just relaxing I don't want to seem like I'm looking for trouble.

If I'm on the job I prefer the acquisition never sees me coming.

There's some good armour in Dangerous Covenants (Hired Gun book). At first glance, none of it looks too crazy.

I think a large part of the game is about the person accomplishing something, not their gear*. Even gear-heads like Boba Fett have talents (having a look at Gadgeteer and Outlaw Tech may be worth your time) that makes their gear something personal.

* Again, echoing the poorly equipped Rebels vs. pristine Imperials theme that's in the original films.

My Marauder in Laminate armor is sporting 8 soak (4 Brawn + 2 Enduring + 2 Armor) and I have no intention of going higher. Until I raise my Brawn, anyway.

You don't need more than that. We have a very combat capable party and the lowest soak is 5, but those three points matter in this game. As away awayputurwpn stated, why would you want your combats to be a total slog? Plinking things for one point of damage gets old really fast, and the human tank is game breaking.

Buy an ATPT.

But yeah, the trend of the military of Star Wars from Clone Wars on is that personal armor can't deflect beat blaster bolts. You'd need an ATPT or Destroyer Droid to do that- which frankly isn't that bad, those weapon systems aren't much larger than a person (Silhoutte 1). In comparison IRL you'd need at least an light tank to be truly impervious to heavy machine gun-type fire.

I can see a supplement for KOTOR/TOR supplying rules for effective personal shields and armor, since that 'time period' is supposedly when defenses were good enough that one could wade in with a sword into a blaster fight. I would rule that 'modern' blasters would be able to eat through those materials like well, a .45 through platemail.

My Marauder in Laminate armor is sporting 8 soak (4 Brawn + 2 Enduring + 2 Armor) and I have no intention of going higher. Until I raise my Brawn, anyway.

You don't need more than that. We have a very combat capable party and the lowest soak is 5, but those three points matter in this game. As away awayputurwpn stated, why would you want your combats to be a total slog? Plinking things for one point of damage gets old really fast, and the human tank is game breaking.

You might need more than that if your enemies are scaling up too. Your Marauder is near the bottom of his talent tree, so it's not unreasonable to think that Nemesis-level baddies might have talents from near the bottom of a tree too. Consider what an enemy patterned after a Mercenary Soldier using a blaster carbine fired with Agility 4, Ranged Heavy 3, Deadly Accuracy - Ranged (Heavy), Point Blank 2, and True Aim 2 can do to your character. With one Aim maneuver, he's shooting with YYYYGB and doing base damage of 14, and that's no where near the top of what you could be facing if his skill level and/or gear are improved.

All true HappyDaze, but that's the way it's supposed to be. I shouldn't be able to wade into the middle of a barrage laid down by such an NPC. It's time for me to get clever when facing such an opponent.

The alternative is that the GM sends a few such guys against us and my low-soak pals get perforated permanently. What I'm trying to get at is the idea that the party soak has to scale up together. I won't raise my Brawn until the group catches up.

I'm Ok with the idea that eventually it will take a whole battalion of stormtroopers to take us out (party soak 7-10), but I don't think that parties should get there too fast.

I'm pretty happy with the way armor is handled. My assassin has been tooling around with soak 2 def 1 armor (armored clothing with superior) for the last couple hundred exp, and has only recently picked upa suit of the Battle Armor from Dangerous covenants. For the most part she has to keep her distance in combat, and is still often the first to get knocked out. Nobody likes a sniper for some reason.

Armor is a good start for upping your soak, but to be truly dominating in combat you need to combine it with a high strength, and lots of talents. A properly specced marauder/gadgeteer (or the like) can be scary.

I guess I can't ask more of my Smug (Pilot) since he is a Pilot 1st & a Gunslinger 2nd (2 Blasters w/ Acentuating Mod. & Bantha's Eye's) & wearing 1/1 amored clothing. I guess I am used to being the Tank in D&D and wanted to last a little longer in battle.

Thanks for the input guys

I'd mod the clothing for +Defense and maybe go into Gadgeteer for its defensive Talents if you feel like you need it.

But yeah, the trend of the military of Star Wars from Clone Wars on is that personal armor can't deflect beat blaster bolts.

This is something that bothered me since I read it on the SW EotE core book. They claim that armour it is not effective enough as to stop blaster fire to justify keeping armour soak values down from 0 - 2 (wait! the armour has the same soak value in case someone throws you an arrow from a bow or hits you with a bare fist or shots you with a blaster rifle...).

Yet you can have an unarmored human character with brawn 5 and 2 ranks in Enduring talent for a total of Soak 7. So now, some one has to tell me why an armour can maximum soak 2 (3 with mods, does not matter) points of damage from a blaster and a human body can soak up to 7 (or more)! It is even more curious if you think that another human character can have a soak value as low as 1 (seven times smaller...). Toughness based soak is a difficult thing to swallow, especially when you deal with sci-fi games with lasers and so on. There is no (human) body that can soak a bullet for example, it will just tear your muscles and / or break your bones, period. I don't like this concept and from a "simulaitonist" point of view is bad. But ok! not necessarily bad for a game though

But yeah, the trend of the military of Star Wars from Clone Wars on is that personal armor can't deflect beat blaster bolts.

This is something that bothered me since I read it on the SW EotE core book. They claim that armour it is not effective enough as to stop blaster fire to justify keeping armour soak values down from 0 - 2 (wait! the armour has the same soak value in case someone throws you an arrow from a bow or hits you with a bare fist or shots you with a blaster rifle...).

Yet you can have an unarmored human character with brawn 5 and 2 ranks in Enduring talent for a total of Soak 7. So now, some one has to tell me why an armour can maximum soak 2 (3 with mods, does not matter) points of damage from a blaster and a human body can soak up to 7 (or more)! It is even more curious if you think that another human character can have a soak value as low as 1 (seven times smaller...). Toughness based soak is a difficult thing to swallow, especially when you deal with sci-fi games with lasers and so on. There is no (human) body that can soak a bullet for example, it will just tear your muscles and / or break your bones, period. I don't like this concept and from a "simulaitonist" point of view is bad. But ok! not necessarily bad for a game though

Hence my initial misgivings about Brawn as soak and an attempt to initiate a discussion involving the possibility of removing Brawn from damage soak., but I've a different workaround.

Let's say a character takes 2 damage in excess of his/her WT- add +2 to the d% roll on the critical table (a result of 31 becomes 33; Stunned). Later, the same character takes another 7 damage- as this is an additional critical injury, add +17 (10 for the additional critical and 7 damage) to the previous critical result (33 + 17 = 50; Head Ringer). A third critical results in 4 damage (50 + 14 = 64; Slightly Dazed). And so on. Once a PC suffers a critical injury, only one d% roll is made to determine the initial critical severity. Additional critical injuries result in 10 + damage being added to the previous critical value to determine the new critical effect, simulating a rapidly deteriorating physical condition.

Weapon qualities and talents that boost critical effects remain unchanged, as does healing.

I think the point of Brawn-based soak is to make armor an option, not a necessity. Throughout the Star Wars trilogy, every one of our protagonists is in at most heavy clothing or a flight suit. You could make an argument for armored clothing at most. Actual armor (padded/laminate on up) is found only on Imperial forces except for a segment of New Hope. Even then, Han and Luke don Stormtrooper armor more for its disguise value than for protection, and discard the armor the first chance they get. The frontline Rebel troops on Hoth are probably in adverse environment gear - at most you could argue they're in padded armor.

By restricting armor from adding more than 2-3 points of soak baseline, the characters' own statistics and abilities, and more importantly, their actions, take front and center in their combat survivability. This makes using armor more of a style choice than an absolute necessity when going into combat, which I think is a good thing for the game.

I think the point of Brawn-based soak is to make armor an option, not a necessity. Throughout the Star Wars trilogy, every one of our protagonists is in at most heavy clothing or a flight suit. You could make an argument for armored clothing at most. Actual armor (padded/laminate on up) is found only on Imperial forces except for a segment of New Hope. Even then, Han and Luke don Stormtrooper armor more for its disguise value than for protection, and discard the armor the first chance they get. The frontline Rebel troops on Hoth are probably in adverse environment gear - at most you could argue they're in padded armor.

By restricting armor from adding more than 2-3 points of soak baseline, the characters' own statistics and abilities, and more importantly, their actions, take front and center in their combat survivability. This makes using armor more of a style choice than an absolute necessity when going into combat, which I think is a good thing for the game.

I'm with this, I don't want every character to look like Mass Effect. I understand the lack of reality in regards to Brawn, soak, and armor in this game and I choose to embrace it.

Higher soak? How long do you want combat to last, anyway?