Silly question:
Two rulebooks now, each lists some "ongoing effects" such as stagger and immobilize, and describes their effects succinctly.
Neither book however says explicitly HOW a character gets INTO these states (at least, I cannot find it) ... the only other mention seems to be in a very few weapon-quality descriptions (such as "concussion") ... and it took an hour and a half of trawling the books and the web to find this (which stopped a whole game from running). Would it have killed the guys at FFG to somehow cross-reference an effect to its cause? They seem to enjoy breaking causal explanations - forcing one to skip chapters ahead or back to figure mechanisms out.

Q: are these the ONLY way to trigger these effects?
[i'm not in the mood to reread 400 pages to see what other unlinked small-print causes may exist]

A: Nope!

Critical injuries, threat/despair results, environmental effects, there's lots of ways.

Thanks Ghostofman
Not very specific though ...
I found 1 mention of stagger in 1 crit effect, nothing about the other 'ongoing effects'
There is no mention of them under threat and despair effects
I can see no mention of them under environmental effects pp226-228 (though undetailed effect states are mentioned there, such as 'suffocating') ...

I understand that these states EXIST and the GM can 'declare' them ("you are immobilized by the spiderweb") but they are listed in a very legalistic section (combat wounds etc) yet a very cursory way (with no mention WHATSOEVER of cause) which really just makes no sense whatsoever.

We have LOTS of cross referenced mentions of threat, despair, triumph etc. (you can't avoids them! FFG went to a lot of effort to highlight their trademark new mechanisms, and that's as it should be) yet they'll happily toss in whole new categories of character state with just a one-off half written paragraph.

First of all, I'm pretty sure there are criticals that cause both of these effects.

Second, you can get them from talents - at leat Pin, in the Archaeologist tree, can render a target immobililzed. I don't remember one for Staggered, but I think there might be one somewhere.

And finally (and probably most commonly) you can get them from various types of weapons and equipment. Both bolas, nets, glop grenades and net guns can make a target immobilized, and I believe Bowcasters have a mod that can stagger a target. There's also the Wheighted Head attachment for melee weapons, although I don't think it has any weapons it can be attached to yet.

Well also remember this is a core book issue. So immobilized for example, shows up as a weapon quality in another book.

But the rest of it is sort of what you call gm declared stuff. So for example of environmental effect, you could say that a character going unprotected out on the toxic surface of planet X is considered staggered rather then using suffocation which could kill the players.

Players can declare it too. Say you shoot at the stormtroopers and miss, but still walk away with a triumph. So you say you shoot the support of a canopy above them, causing it to fall, immobilizing the troopers.

Thanks everyone. That helps.

Would be nice if FFG had thought to mention one or two of these in the section that only described the effects, or to think of supplying a comprehensive index!

I'd hoped that Volume 2 (AoR) would clarify some of these things, sadly its 90% reprint, and after the confusion my (admittedly "legalistic") players refuse to return to FFG till it supplies the mass combat promised with AoR - aaaaand of course now it seems that's still another few months and another $40 away, still waiting for even the lightweight mass combat (squad rules) cause the GMK isn't out in my country yet (sigh)

I had SUCH hopes that after the tragic WEG & WoTC efforts we were really onto something ... here's hoping they come good.

Silly question:

Two rulebooks now, each lists some "ongoing effects" such as stagger and immobilize, and describes their effects succinctly.

Neither book however says explicitly HOW a character gets INTO these states (at least, I cannot find it) ... the only other mention seems to be in a very few weapon-quality descriptions (such as "concussion") ... and it took an hour and a half of trawling the books and the web to find this (which stopped a whole game from running). Would it have killed the guys at FFG to somehow cross-reference an effect to its cause? They seem to enjoy breaking causal explanations - forcing one to skip chapters ahead or back to figure mechanisms out.

Q: are these the ONLY way to trigger these effects?

[i'm not in the mood to reread 400 pages to see what other unlinked small-print causes may exist]

What sort of scenario or circumstance specifically occurred when you needed the information on the ongoing effect? As other's have stated the primary cause is the various weapon effects like you yourself have mentioned, being Disorient, Ensnare, and Concussion. One weapon, Talent, or another causes one or multiples of them.

Oh .. sorry 2P51, didn't realise that certain questions were illegal.
My players and I are academics (gosh who knew? Nerds play RPG!) ... & we see systems for what they are supposed to be; complete. So an effect without a cause is a major problem ... and when its a GAME one doesn't want to have to read 400 pages to find the answer(s). Those few tiny paragraphs clearly indicate that there is a mechanism that has NOT been mentioned before (or since). A thinking person, learning a new system, has difficulty in finding that there are seemingly "hidden" mechanisms.
A simple sentence or two such as "ongoing causes can arise from ...." would have sufficed; enough to know where to START looking. But, of course that is too much to ask - I guess one must not ask such questions, until one has posted (glances up) 2,877 times.

Kharld out - too many 3L337s here for my taste.

I am really bummed out that this the OP topic was enough to shut down a game session. How did it come up that your players needed some sort of list of what caused each ongoing effect?

I found that having the effects listed there was helpful when I was reading through the weapons qualities, and they are presented is a streamlined way that doesn't bog down the combat chapter.

Would be nice if FFG had thought to mention one or two of these in the section that only described the effects, or to think of supplying a comprehensive index!

One of the things that FFG has done, and this is somewhere between obscure and common knowledge, is that the Core Rulebook is written with forward compatibility in mind. So there might be other ways, down the road a bit, that Immobilized is utilized from a different source.

I had SUCH hopes that after the tragic WEG & WoTC efforts we were really onto something ... here's hoping they come good.

I'm really trying to be helpful here. Perhaps it's just that I am not understanding the situation that led to the OP line of questioning, but I find the gaming group's reaction to this question to be super unnecessary, even from a "legalistic" play group. The need to know everything about one particular aspect of the game is all well and good, but I suggest that in the future it would be beneficial to take the rules as written in the Game Master section to heart, especially the ones that deal with running a session.

Again, I'm really saddened by the news that a whole evening of gaming got hung up over this. I hope you're able to sort it out with your players!

(Edit: unfinished sentence)

Oh .. sorry 2P51, didn't realise that certain questions were illegal.

My players and I are academics (gosh who knew? Nerds play RPG!) ... & we see systems for what they are supposed to be; complete. So an effect without a cause is a major problem ... and when its a GAME one doesn't want to have to read 400 pages to find the answer(s). Those few tiny paragraphs clearly indicate that there is a mechanism that has NOT been mentioned before (or since). A thinking person, learning a new system, has difficulty in finding that there are seemingly "hidden" mechanisms.

A simple sentence or two such as "ongoing causes can arise from ...." would have sufficed; enough to know where to START looking. But, of course that is too much to ask - I guess one must not ask such questions, until one has posted (glances up) 2,877 times.

Kharld out - too many 3L337s here for my taste.

Academic? How do you define that, rude and immature. For goodness sake all I did was ask a question to determine where the issue arose so that I could point you in a proper direction. Since I'm just a nerd who likes to post in forums a lot I managed to figure it out by an old academic method.....I read the book. Lots of luck.

Uh... Wow. Did someone edit their posts to take out the part where they insulted this guy? Because everything seemed mostly okay, right up until he went off...

If you're still here, the answer is certain weapon qualities and critical hits.

*blinks* Wow ... *kicks into 'mom' voice* 2P51 what did you say to that poor boy that I can't see?

LoL talk about over-reactions.

Maybe I'm more lenient on game designers use of indexes as I played White Wolf for over 15 years *fondly remembers searching for 'Page XX'* but I've found the FFG cross reference sections to be pretty clean.

After I put some ice on the lump on my head I asked myself the same question, haven't come up with an answer yet though.....