With the SWRPG being so innovative, this resilience/soak mechanic is still dredged along?

This!

Plus soak and specially high soak does not feel Star Warsdish. Star Wars combat (as seen in the movies) is getting into cover, running and trying no to be hit, because one single hit from a blaster is deadly, even from a light blaster pistol. Or is it only me thinking this?

Soak is more fitted to a universe like Warhammer 40K.

The game does not support all-or-nothing avoid the hit playing. It's simply too easy to hit despite the best efforts of the target, so the game aspect is played out as a resource management with Wounds and Strain being your currency.

Just wrote an example how the high soak guy can easily be addressed with RAW. Doesn't even require big huge guns, although by my count in docking bay 94 there were 7 troopers, with a LRB and at least one HBR, so it isn't like they don't show up ready to rock in the movies.

But if that very same stormtrooper clique were to then find their attention on another PC (presumably not the worrisome soak-beast), it splatters the poor fool so far into "DEAD", the potential risk of the character sheet spontaneously bursting into flames at the table is real...

Try "I surrender" ?

Stormtroopers do, on occasion, take prisoners.

(Maybe with a Charm roll, if they've itchy trigger fingers.)

Wait, you're saying

All the time in TV (and movies) except for this: there's no EoE script- big guy goes down, everyone else gets indignant, bum rushes the opposition, BOOM! Everyone down. Maybe they're captured, or looted and left for dead? Maybe some even die! But not one of my players would consider surrender if offered, even after their "tank" were laid low. So what now? The opposition doesn't want to accidentally kill the princess- they don't just grow on trees- but she's not surrendering! Stand there and take the bum rush, or put her down? What if she dies?

That is a bad thing.

Players simply do not behave realistically, even in-character, when playing a game.

There's no script, so the TV/movie analogy is a little shaky.

Star Wars has a solution for the feisty princess that doesn't surrender-

"Set for Stun" bro.

EOTE has a built in mechanical solution as well, losing all of your wounds doesn't mean your dead. So if the enemy uses and EWeb to down the heavy, and then turns it on the non-coms who don't surrender..no biggy.

Unleash it. You're not going to kill their characters- technically, but they will lose a bunch of limbs/eyes/etc and other nasty stuff from the critical hits table. If they keep fighting when given the chance to surrender, and wind up having to play a couple of sessions missing a hand, well, that will teach them to surrender. If they don't learn they'll be a collection of cyborgs..which honestly kind of has it's own appeal.

Regarding Brawn/Soak-

Star Wars is a universe where yes, dudes sit out in the open, in the middle of a battle, shooting people constantly and ignoring the fact that blaster bolts are flying everywhere. Load up any Clone Wars clone trooper episode and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's amazing sometimes how bad they are at taking cover.

The thing is, these guys earn this ability through their character traits. They can stand out in the open and not worry about it because THAT'S WHO THEY ARE. they are badasses. They don't suddenly lose this ability if they're not wearing a helmet, or the proper issue gear, or didn't have time to put it on. If Jar Jar puts on Clone Trooper armor, he's not suddenly able to stand out in the open and shoot people like Rex. Amidala doesn't stand and shoot battle droids with a BFG, she hides in cover.

I like to think that this 'Brawn/Soak' is illustrative of the guy that sits out in the open and totally ignores blaster bolts flying everywhere. He didn't get hit by the blaster bolt and have his armor soak it- he got 'grazed' and he doesn't care. Now, yeah, if it's like a Wookie, you CAN just be like..yep, the Wookie is getting hit with blaster bolts and is pretty much full of holes and burns, but there's so much meat on him he doesn't care. If it's a clone trooper, then..he has plot protection. same idea.

Keep in mind, that in this universe, being shot full of holes is far from a death sentence. Pretty sure you can get by just being a head in a jar. Because blaster bolts automatically cauterize, you COULD just play off that 'I'm just that badass' and have a guy walking around with multiple blaster wounds, pumped full of painkillers and stimulants, just shrugging it off until he collapses at the nearest bacta tank.

The point is not to take out the high soak character. Just like it isn't to make the elite slicer not be able to crack the computer. The point is to make them feel that the character they created is doing the job it was created to do. So if someone creates a "soak monster", he probably wants to wade into combat, shrugging off hits and take out the bad guys. Or at least keep the bad guys busy while the rest of the party picks them off or goes about their business. Certainly you can challenge him once in a while, by either creating a "monster" of your own to challenge him or be hitting him in the dumps stats. But overall he should be effective at what he does, which is soak up hits.

I have to admit that I don't understand why this is an issue for some. Do you also look for ways to cut other characters off at the knees because they are good at what they do (pilots, facemen, slicers)? This all seems rather adversarial to me. At the end of the day I find the random nature of combat is more than enough to put the fear into the hardiest of characters. The right roll at the right time can take them out just as easily as anyone else.

For me it's more a matter of feeling. " I'm going to get 1 point more of brawl to resist blasters better" it just sounds really weird in my head. I dont mind if a character has high soak, and i dont mind adding stuff so a character who wants higher soak can get it with armor, personal shields and the like. I just dont like a brawl 6 wookie getting hit with a light blaster again and again for next to no damage.

The game does not support all-or-nothing avoid the hit playing. It's simply too easy to hit despite the best efforts of the target, so the game aspect is played out as a resource management with Wounds and Strain being your currency.

I dont think that's hard to improve upon with greater defense bonuses for things such as cover.

Anyway, I'll probably post my progress tweaking. I play a very particular kind of game ( I was going to use ORE at the beginning which is far more letal than EotE) so increased lethality is a must anyway .

Ok, everyone, sorry to derail the topic here a little. How do you guys handle damage to armor? Does the armor ever get damaged? My thought on it was a quick and dirty system that really doesn't make make too much sense, but doesn't require a ton of book keeping either. If one of my PC's takes a crit, then they will lose one point of soak from the armor at the end of the encounter. If they take another crit, then it will lose one point of defense or soak, which ever it has, and will go back and fourth like that. Then at the end of the encounter, they need to repair the armor for a few hundred credits, the book has rules on that, I just don't them off the top pf me head, so i won't even try to quote them. How do you guys work armor damage?

Ok, everyone, sorry to derail the topic here a little. How do you guys handle damage to armor? Does the armor ever get damaged? My thought on it was a quick and dirty system that really doesn't make make too much sense, but doesn't require a ton of book keeping either. If one of my PC's takes a crit, then they will lose one point of soak from the armor at the end of the encounter. If they take another crit, then it will lose one point of defense or soak, which ever it has, and will go back and fourth like that. Then at the end of the encounter, they need to repair the armor for a few hundred credits, the book has rules on that, I just don't them off the top pf me head, so i won't even try to quote them. How do you guys work armor damage?

Damage to gear is already covered in the chart showing suggested spending of Advantages and Triumphs.

All the time in TV (and movies) except for this: there's no EoE script- big guy goes down, everyone else gets indignant, bum rushes the opposition, BOOM! Everyone down. Maybe they're captured, or looted and left for dead? Maybe some even die! But not one of my players would consider surrender if offered, even after their "tank" were laid low. So what now? The opposition doesn't want to accidentally kill the princess- they don't just grow on trees- but she's not surrendering! Stand there and take the bum rush, or put her down? What if she dies?

That is a bad thing.

Players simply do not behave realistically, even in-character, when playing a game.

There's no script, so the TV/movie analogy is a little shaky.

If my players play that dumb and needlesly try to be heroes i kill their chars without mercy. Must be because i mostly GM Dark Heresy.

Thinking and using your equipment and skills gets you far further than brute strength. Strength might work for a while until someone/thing gets send to put you down.

And unlike DH EotE offers far more weapons to stun/immobilize someone.

With the SWRPG being so innovative, this resilience/soak mechanic is still dredged along?

This!

Plus soak and specially high soak does not feel Star Warsdish. Star Wars combat (as seen in the movies) is getting into cover, running and trying no to be hit, because one single hit from a blaster is deadly, even from a light blaster pistol. Or is it only me thinking this?

Soak is more fitted to a universe like Warhammer 40K.

The game does not support all-or-nothing avoid the hit playing. It's simply too easy to hit despite the best efforts of the target, so the game aspect is played out as a resource management with Wounds and Strain being your currency.

I find that the soak/wounds/strain system is no different than hit points or vitality/wounds or any other way of tracking damage in a game. They are all mechanics and do not make a game any more or less Star Wars for me. Much like other systems, the only shot that generally has any significance is the one that takes you you out. Up till then they are really nothing more than grazes and near misses, wearing you down.

Ok, everyone, sorry to derail the topic here a little. How do you guys handle damage to armor? Does the armor ever get damaged? My thought on it was a quick and dirty system that really doesn't make make too much sense, but doesn't require a ton of book keeping either. If one of my PC's takes a crit, then they will lose one point of soak from the armor at the end of the encounter. If they take another crit, then it will lose one point of defense or soak, which ever it has, and will go back and fourth like that. Then at the end of the encounter, they need to repair the armor for a few hundred credits, the book has rules on that, I just don't them off the top pf me head, so i won't even try to quote them. How do you guys work armor damage?

*I'm a player in this game, so I may be biased. *

We've done the took some hits, pay to fix up your armor up until now. I have no problem there. Stuff gets beat up and we were never charged an arm and a leg (well, I was charged an arm...**** disruptors) for the repairs. Hey, stuff gets beaten up, pay a few hundred here and there for repairs. No biggie. R2builder brought up the reducing soak/defense at the last game so it hasn't come into play yet. For my .02 credits, I don't like it, but I wouldn't argue against it. All of our armor only has two points total. Whether it's laminate or light battle armor (Cartol's emporium, basically D1 S1 battle armor) nothing we have can take more than two crits before it's useless. I'm definately in the camp that armor doesn't do enough already, but to make it useless after two crits lowers the value of armor significantly.

Note that a Triumph used to damage armor is a Triumph NOT used to cause a critical injury!

So regarding crits, be careful what you wish for Armor is there so that it gets broken instead of you. So in that sense, if it gets damaged, it's really just doing its job.

But pieces of gear should generally have more than 2 degrees of damage...I don't have the rules memorized regarding damaged items, but doesn't damage go something like this: Mild, Moderate, Heavy, Broken? If so, that's like 4 activations of "sunder" before you item breaks.

Minor, Moderate, Major, and then Broken obviously in the case of Sunder. At Major, an item is considered unusable.

Minor, Moderate, Major, and then Broken obviously in the case of Sunder. At Major, an item is considered unusable.

Cool. Yeah, I just figured that item damage would follow those guidelines in most cases. Unless there is a part of the rulebook that prescribes something different? I don't like reinventing the wheel...so if there are guidelines already in place for things like that, I like to make use of them by extrapolation.

The thing is it's in the maintenance section for weapons and it really doesn't get into details so a GM would have to sort of wing it. 1 Triumph is suggested as temporarily disabling an item, 2 as destroyed, not much wiggle room. Sunder is explained well though.

Note that a Triumph used to damage armor is a Triumph NOT used to cause a critical injury!

So regarding crits, be careful what you wish for Armor is there so that it gets broken instead of you. So in that sense, if it gets damaged, it's really just doing its job.

Yes, but R2builder's system is that the player takes the crit and his armor is degraded after combat ends.

Note that a Triumph used to damage armor is a Triumph NOT used to cause a critical injury!

So regarding crits, be careful what you wish for Armor is there so that it gets broken instead of you. So in that sense, if it gets damaged, it's really just doing its job.

But pieces of gear should generally have more than 2 degrees of damage...I don't have the rules memorized regarding damaged items, but doesn't damage go something like this: Mild, Moderate, Heavy, Broken? If so, that's like 4 activations of "sunder" before you item breaks.

I don't agree here at all. There is nothing that I have found in the book where it says anything of that nature. Where does it talk about crits on armor? The mentioned chart does not talk about armor, it does talk about equipment that is on the person, like comlinks, weapons and the shield generator. In none of the examples is armor mentioned. So I do not think what Happy mentioned has any real bearing here. So I can spend two Triumph and blow up your gun, not you. I get that. But if I am shooting at you, and hit and do damage and blow through your soak, and the soak of your armor, then I have effectively hit both. The shield generator on your belt I do not typically aim for, but center mass. Sunder also expliciatly states that you can pick an item openly wielded such as weapon, shield generator, or item on the belt.

Up until now I have been trying to run my game as close to RAW as I can. But after playing for a little while, some little questions have been coming up and now I am looking for things that may not be covered by the RAW; like how does armor get damaged? Being a veteran gamer, I can totally understand the game vs realism thing. The more you try to bring in real life examples, make the game more realistic; the more bookkeeping, the more time, and the less fun I think we have. So I was looking for a fair and easy way to look at combat and armor damage. I figure that armor has to take a beating, so there should be some way to have a game mechanic for it without getting to convoluted or too abstract. I myself do not like the school of thought where the armor has to be targeted separate from the person like a piece of equipment. If that were the case then I feel the soak/defense qualities should not be automatic and active all the time, you should have to spend a maneuver to line your armor up to defend you. Now that's just plain silly! (I did mean to go totally absurd there) I am just trying to figure out a clean and elegant system that can also allow for the armor to take a little damage to show the stress of combat, without saying " well guys, that was a pretty tough fight, spend 500 on fixing your armor."

So if people don't like my idea that a crit on player will hurt the armor and that effect will happen at the end of the encounter, then what are the other options out there?

Maybe the first crit rolled is applied to armor and breaks it right then and there?

If a bad guy sees someone wearing armor, would they just naturally try to target/take out the armor first?

Or is armor just incapable of being damaged and not really within the scope of this game?

How have the other groups out there been dealing with this subject?

I'm ok with saying 3 advantages or a Triumph damages armor and maybe drops soak 1 until repaired. 2 Triumphs makes it go kablooey and it's time for a trip to Dave's House of Armor for a new set.

I give armour the same damage rules as other items described in the Sunder rule. Unless it is 2 Triumphs, but those ruin anything.

And i will be demanding some credits for fixing it after getting hit about 10-15 times, depending on the damage suffered. Obviously i have to eyeball that a little bit with the different soak values, but i'm confident that my players will play along.

Ok, so let me see if I understand you right 2P51. Baddie A shoots PC with a crit. I roll on crit table doing X effect, but I don't hurt the armor. Baddie B rolls up three Advantage, I can now shoot the armor, not the PC doing damage to the armor. P 159 repairing gear lists minor damage as one additional setback die.

Would you impose that setback penalty, or would it reduce the amount of soak? Repairing cost 25 % of armor. What if the armor gets hit again? Moderate damage then? The final and third hit (3 advantages to hit armor not PC) renders it useless?

Segara82, you only have armor get hit with a weapon that has the Sunder capability? And you also just kind of wing it with getting it repaired? Like I said before, I have been doing the wining thing on repairing armor, but want something a little more concrete when it comes to the damage and repair of armor.

I still don't like the idea of treating armor as "equipment" when it comes to hitting a character, be it PC or NPC. But even though "Armor" is not mentioned in the spending Advantage chart, perhaps it should be treated as equipment.

Sorry, i only have a few minutes during my brakes to post a comment and sometimes get too hasty.

I ment that i use the 4 levels of damage from the Sunder rule for damaging gear.

So if you roll the 3 advantages (or whatever is necessary to cause a crit) you can instead damage a piece of equipment of the hit (N)PC.

1 damage nets 1 setback dice. Repair cost is 25% of the price.

2 damage nets 2 setback dice. Repair cost is 50% of the price.

3 damage renders the item/weapon/armor/... useless, but it can still be repaired for 75% of the price.

4 damage destroys the item/weapon/armor beyond repair.

As with the description of sunder

Triumph work twice that fast, so the first goes to 2 setback dice, the second one destroys it.

That concrete enough? ^^

Edit:

As for hits that do not cause a crit/damage i somewhat eyeball it as i think is appropriate. It depends on what hits and how often that at the end of the encounter i give out damage levels to armour.

Hits from Holdout Blasters do not mount to much compared to a Vibro Axe or a Blaster Rifle.

So every 10-15 times a char get hit i look back what hit him and then hand him a damage level.

Okay, so we now know that segara82 is a race car driver who can only post right before taking a corner.

An odd compulsion but I'm certainly not one to judge.

Hur dur ... i work in an office and get maybe a 10-minute-break per hour to not stare at a monitor. Which i mostly still do to check up on you guys. Or to stretch my legs. Or other things. So, yes, sometimes i'm in a hurry and post a half-written statement.

Um, no that is not concrete enough! Perhaps you could make that more asphalt enough for me!

Ok, I get what you guys are saying. I still don't like it though. Treating armor as a piece of equipment you are wielding as opposed to part of you doesn't make much sense to me, but I guess it works for this more abstract system. So I guess I will go with this system from now on. I just wonder how my players will take it when their armor starts taking crits and not them...Time to turn that Doc into a mechanic...

Gee wiz, it has been about a decade that i did a summer job for a construction company so i'm a little out of touch with that.

It is just a simple house rule. Sometimes it seems more appropriate to damage your (N)PCs armour (which is still a piece of equipment). That is especially mean/good when you are operating under water or in space.

I'd say you have it all about right R2. Nothing says you always have to handle spare advantages that way either.

I've never been a fan of some of the more "realistic" systems that I've seen suggested throughout the years. Everything from crits to equipment damage. The main reason is that these systems are biased against the players in my opinion. A player character is center stage and most of the action resolves around them. NPCs and oppenents are transitory 99% of the time. So when a PC gets his "realistic" crit or his equipment gets destroyed it has long lasting effects on the game. But when the PCs do this to the opponents, there are no long term effects. The opponent is defeated and never seen again. In some ways it works against the PCs even more. What if you are out and about somwhere that you can't resuply and you get jumped by someone with some nice armor or a weapon. That equipment could really help you out, but if you damage it, you are only damaging one of your goals for defeating that opponent.

FFGs crit system works for me because most of the effects from a crit end at the end of combat. You may still have a crit against you giving +10 against the next crit, but the effects end. To me this is a great comprimise. You can have detailed crits, without the players suffering from a downward spiral for engaging in multiple encounters. How many times have you or your players rolled a mental skill degrading crit on the gun bunny shooting at you only to think that was a waste of a crit. When it's against a gun bunny PC, that +10 still lingers for a long term effect, but for an NPC, they're defeated and it doesn't matter.

Ok, I get what you guys are saying. I still don't like it though. Treating armor as a piece of equipment you are wielding as opposed to part of you doesn't make much sense to me, but I guess it works for this more abstract system. So I guess I will go with this system from now on. I just wonder how my players will take it when their armor starts taking crits and not them...Time to turn that Doc into a mechanic...

That really depends on how often it is brought against us. Every once and a while, I doubt there will be any change. If our armor and weapons start getting torn up every combat we'll definately change. I'd probably ask for my well rounded talent that I just picked up to be switched to mechanics and I would retire my light battle armor for my heavy clothing or at most padded. I can see our gadgeteer giving up on his laminate after the second time it gets destroyed and switch to padded. At 6-8K (rough guess based on our game's economy) a pop for laminate I wouldn't blame him. I doubt anyone would ever pick up a superior attachement for their armor or weapons at 10k each. Attachements may even fall by the wayside all together if they get destroyed along with the equipment. When 75% of your cost is the attachements, they're not really worth it. It could also lead to much more looting. As things have been, we rarely loot anything except maybe for a few loose stimpacks. But if armor and weapons are getting torn up all the time, I can see us starting to scrounge over bodies for replacement equipment. But this is all what would likely happen if equipment damage happened a lot. If it's every now and then, it probably won't change anything.