I was just looking at the description of the Outdoorsman talent and found it a little vague. "The character removes setback dice per rank of Outdoorsman from checks to move through terrain or manage terrain or environmental effects". Now, the terrain part is fine, I was thinking more about the "manage environmental effects" bit.

My thought is that this lets you remove setback dice inflicted by for example weather, like the Twi'leks' ability to ignore a setback die from dry or hot climate. Is this how the rest of you have treated it? And if so, how do you handle the inevitable issue of setback dice on combat checks due to for example darkness or smoke? Those are also environmental effects, but at this point the talent seems to overlap (and overshadow) Brace.

Any thoughts?

My ruling of Outdoorsman has been tied to the checks for moving, just as it says. Things like smoke and darkness only impact movement in certain ways, so they may come up.

Outdoorsman will NOT remove setback dice in attack rolls (unless movement is involved, like the talent says).

That said, this comes to pass if the terrain is really rocky, muddy, unstable, smokey, squishy, living, etc and causes one or more setback die, Outdoorsman will negate a die per rank. Simple as that.

"The character removes setback dice per rank of Outdoorsman from checks to move through terrain or manage terrain or environmental effects".

My reading:

The character removes a Setback die:

(1) From checks to move through terrain;

(2) To "manage" terrain effects;

(3) To "manage" environmental effects

"Manage" is not a well-defined term, nor is it a mechanical term of art, so I would interpret that possibly as "mitigate."

Move through terrain is clearly involving the terrain rules (p. 213). "Managing" environmental effects might be like...Resilience checks when moving through the desert while encumbered. "Managing" terrain effects might be like...well, this is the tricky one and I don't have a good example. Possibly gravity-related issues?

So yes, I would have it remove Setbacks related to things like heat, cold, wind, sand. Now, that is pretty broad, and I don't know if that's the RAI but I see it as pretty clear RAW.

Outdoorsman should help in Athletics-based (on foot) chases with terrain that offers Setback(s).

Yes, the movement and terrain bit I'm on board with. It's the "manage" and "environmental effects" that I'm looking for input on.

I think by environmental in the context of Outdoorsman they mean cold, and heat and thin air etc. Natural environmental stuff, weather and so on.

I'm slicing a computer while smoke begins filling the room...

I'm climbing a metal fence during a rainstorm...

I'm in a speederbike chase and the bike ahead is low enough to kick up a lot of sand...

...but that's okay. [Fists on hips] Because I'm an Outdoorsman!

(Speederbike crashes. (Should really have hands on handles.))

Either that or something to do with gardening.

I'm an outdoorsman and I'm okay,

I sleep all night and I work all day.

[/Monty Python reference]

I think by environmental in the context of Outdoorsman they mean cold, and heat and thin air etc. Natural environmental stuff, weather and so on.

Basically this.

If it was restricted to ONLY movement, it would probably only mention movement.