I think it's really meant to scale as a player advances. You add in the double Difficulty upgrade from Sense potentially. Some ranks of Dodge. The mountain of Setback dice potentially from Protect and there could end up being quite a few uncancelled Threats and Despairs in a dice pool result. It's not meant to work frequently at lower levels I don't feel.

I think it's really meant to scale as a player advances. You add in the double Difficulty upgrade from Sense potentially. Some ranks of Dodge. The mountain of Setback dice potentially from Protect and there could end up being quite a few uncancelled Threats and Despairs in a dice pool result. It's not meant to work frequently at lower levels I don't feel.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that is the intent as well.

I have to admit initially to a bit of a "say wha?" moment when I first read the talents, but the more I think about them, the more comfortable I am that they do they right thing in this system. That is a good sign that we're starting off from an already well (alpha) tested product, IMO.

I think I like the damage mitigation system. Rather then one shot being lowered, I see it as perhaps 3 shots were fired, and two were deflected. One still hit/grazed the Jedi.

As far as reflecting back, I must agree. I don't like having to rely on 3 setback or a despair. Those don't come up very often when fighting at higher exp levels. I also don't like (if I'm remembering correctly) that there's only 1 tree that lets you reflect blasts back at somebody. That's a pretty iconic Jedi power, and should be in more of the combat trees.

I think I like the damage mitigation system. Rather then one shot being lowered, I see it as perhaps 3 shots were fired, and two were deflected. One still hit/grazed the Jedi.

As far as reflecting back, I must agree. I don't like having to rely on 3 setback or a despair. Those don't come up very often when fighting at higher exp levels. I also don't like (if I'm remembering correctly) that there's only 1 tree that lets you reflect blasts back at somebody. That's a pretty iconic Jedi power, and should be in more of the combat trees.

Agreed. We should have Improved Reflection in at least one other tree (I'm thinking Soresu).

And we could possibly stand to have the threats required to activate Improved Reflect dropped to 2? That would make it more likely to occur, but not much more likely. Thinking Improved Parry can remain at 3, since that's a more potent ability (or at least can be). Plus, a character could always dip a little ways into the Misdirect power to automatically generate threat when being attacked.

I need some help. I attacked a player with a Vibro Axe and he used Parry with his lightsaber. I struggled explaining narratively how his lightsaber didn't destroy the axe. I know I can't just have my bad guys losing their weapons every time they attack, but any help with the narrative would be great. Thanks.

You don't have to take parry to be a literal parry. He could have easily just dodge your attack or mitigated the damage in some narrative way. The talent could easily have been designed to be literal, but it's up to the players and GM to narrate its effects.

I need some help. I attacked a player with a Vibro Axe and he used Parry with his lightsaber. I struggled explaining narratively how his lightsaber didn't destroy the axe. I know I can't just have my bad guys losing their weapons every time they attack, but any help with the narrative would be great. Thanks.

Easy. Instead of actually blocking the incoming attack, the lightsaber guy simply launched a quick counterattack that caused the vibro-ax wielder to go off-balance, still doing damage but not as much since he couldn't fully commit to the swing for fear of leaving himself open to 'saber guy's sudden burst of offense.

One thing to remember about actually reflecting a blaster bolt back at an enemy is that, against minions, you don't actually need the talent to do it! Against minions, threat generating Strain, which is damage to minions, is pretty much the same as reflecting bolts back at them. So, you pretty much only need the improved reflect talent to deal with Rivals and Nemesis, which, in TCW for example, almost never got blaster bolts reflected at them. Minion droids? All the reflections! And the system works perfectly to allow you to narrate that.

I need some help. I attacked a player with a Vibro Axe and he used Parry with his lightsaber. I struggled explaining narratively how his lightsaber didn't destroy the axe. I know I can't just have my bad guys losing their weapons every time they attack, but any help with the narrative would be great. Thanks.

TCW shows plenty of weapons being able to parry lightsabers. Its easy enough to say that the blade of a vibro-weapon can take a hit, but if the jedi ever sunders, then they obviously hit the weaker hilt.

The best tree for reflecting back shots and riposting in melee is Sorensu into Bodyguard. Pick up the reflecting powers in Sorensu, and dive Bodyguard for 2 defensive stances, 2 Sidesteps, 2 hard headed and the Improved Hard Headed talent.

If Donovan Morningfire 's suggested change to the saber trees is followed through with, Ataru Striker is even better, with 2 ranks of Dodge leading into Improved Reflect, right next to Dedication. With Sence, 2 ranks of Dodge, and 2 ranks of Defensive Stance, you can turn a PP into CCCC , and with Improved Hard Headed, you dont really need to worry about Strain costs either.

One thing to remember about actually reflecting a blaster bolt back at an enemy is that, against minions, you don't actually need the talent to do it! Against minions, threat generating Strain, which is damage to minions, is pretty much the same as reflecting bolts back at them. So, you pretty much only need the improved reflect talent to deal with Rivals and Nemesis, which, in TCW for example, almost never got blaster bolts reflected at them. Minion droids? All the reflections! And the system works perfectly to allow you to narrate that.

This. The strain system and its interaction with minions already provides us with the means by which to narrate a lot of incidental deflections.

Additionally, having seen parry and reflect in action, I like them both a lot. They provide meaningful choice without adding more dice to the equation. These talents are also dependable, which helps to prevent dice based stupidity.

TCW shows plenty of weapons being able to parry lightsabers. Its easy enough to say that the blade of a vibro-weapon can take a hit, but if the jedi ever sunders, then they obviously hit the weaker hilt.

What if like the lightsaber of EotE and AoR we are not seeing the picture. They could be planning to release other saber specs with slightly modified names and different focuses. Soresu Avenger for example that could add more counter attack focus.

Not sure how they would do spec skills if that were the case though.

Reflect amounts to 3 soak that you can only use if you spend 3 strain AND if you have a lightsaber AND if it's ignited in hand AND it only soaks certain types of damage from certain types of attacks.

This talent seems weak and even less fun for such an iconic Jedi power. Enduring is much more powerful and a protocol droid can get that and a couple of armor implants way easier and be more powerful in this regard than a Jedi hunting through a bunch of trees tracking down ranks in this talent by spending a lot of XP.

Luke was learning to use this power blind within days of having a lightsaber.

It should be able to stop you from getting hit entirely just like shields, side-step, cover and all other defense can. Soak is for armor and brawn.

I propose:

After an attack against you is rolled, spend 3 strain to add one failure per rank in Reflect to the results. If the attack roll was an autofire attack, add one threat per per rank in Reflect to the results instead.

Don't be afraid to make a Jedi a Jedi!

Don't be afraid to make a Jedi a Jedi!

Han solos, Bob Fetts and Leia Organas should definately be afraid of "making a jedi a jedi" too easilly.

A Seeker Hunter with a heavy blaster rifle, Mando armor and a jet pack should be able to defeat a saber specialist at range, if he can keep the range open.

Don't be afraid to make a Jedi a Jedi!

Han solos, Bob Fetts and Leia Organas should definately be afraid of "making a jedi a jedi" too easilly.

A Seeker Hunter with a heavy blaster rifle, Mando armor and a jet pack should be able to defeat a saber specialist at range, if he can keep the range open.

That's a matter of opinion but strain is a limited resource so maybe it takes your guy a few more shots is all given in this scenario the Jedi never closes or takes cover.

I'm not really focused on making a Jedi balanced or imbalanced relative to [insert your favorite character type here]. And anyway I've see some crazy powerful combat characters that have nothing to do with the Force. Live and let live, I say (or not in this case).

I'm just making comments about what we see Jedi do and what makes for a fun game (and that soak in this case is very odd compared to other defensive abilities). I think there's room for a little improvement concerning this iconic Jedi ability and I don't think it accurately reflects (see what I did there) what we all know and love about Jedi abilities.

That's fair that you're not concerned with balancing "jedi" v non-jedi, but the core rules should be compatible. Not just in mechanics, but in the suitability of the material contained within.

So if specific "jedi" talents are significantly better than their non-jedi counterparts, that's an issue.

For what you suggested, there are talents that could work as a model, but that would require a large redesign at this point, which is unlikely.

I suggest you look at talents such as coordinated defense and good cop/bad cop for talents to model your suggestion, if you want to submit it to FFG.

EDIT: I'm away from book, so I may be miss remembering the names of those talents. their a touch new, from Far horizons.

You caught me. I guess I'm also saying that within the game mechanics Reflect seems weak, and speaking of games my chief complaint is that it is not *fun* as written. It will be a drag to say, "yeah I guess I'll use reflect to change that three damage to three strain"

Again, 3 soak for three strain and not against all attacks and if you have a lightsaber seems pretty underpowered compared to a talent like Enduring. Especially consider where and how often it's in the talent tree. I think my proposal is conscientious. Apply one failure for three soak. Surely that's not a crazy mechanics changing imbalancing suggestion.

For that xp you could move your vibroax crit rating to one advantage and rank melee a few times and that does not seemed balanced if you want to look at it that way.

But back to the source material. Why reflect and get hit? Seems silly versus the source material and contrary to other defensive abilities. Not sure why changing Reflect from soak to helping an attack miss is asking for a major overhaul. It's what shields do.

Let's leave some room for discussing the game in the context of the source material too please.

Well. also remember that the PCs in Force and Destiny pretty specifically are not Jedi, and especially not Jedi Knights.

That said, if you feel that Reflect (and by extension Parry) don't do enough, I've got a thread down in the Game Mechanics sub-forum that discusses changes to those talents and by extension the LS Form specializations. The two main suggested changes are:

Option 1: Damage mitigation is 1 + 2 per rank of Parry/Reflect (3 ranks of Reflect = 7 points of damage mitigation vs. ranged attacks)

Option 2: Damage mitigation is 3 +1 per ranks of Parry/Reflect (3 ranks of Reflect = 6 points of damage mitigation vs. ranged attacks)

Personally, I prefer Option 2 as it prevents the damage mitigation bonus from getting too bloated once you've got PCs that start stacking LS Form specs, but it seems more folks in the thread are a fan of Option 1.

You caught me. I guess I'm also saying that within the game mechanics Reflect seems weak, and speaking of games my chief complaint is that it is not *fun* as written. It will be a drag to say, "yeah I guess I'll use reflect to change that three damage to three strain"

Again, 3 soak for three strain and not against all attacks and if you have a lightsaber seems pretty underpowered compared to a talent like Enduring. Especially consider where and how often it's in the talent tree. I think my proposal is conscientious. Apply one failure for three soak. Surely that's not a crazy mechanics changing imbalancing suggestion.

For that xp you could move your vibroax crit rating to one advantage and rank melee a few times and that does not seemed balanced if you want to look at it that way.

But back to the source material. Why reflect and get hit? Seems silly versus the source material and contrary to other defensive abilities. Not sure why changing Reflect from soak to helping an attack miss is asking for a major overhaul. It's what shields do.

Let's leave some room for discussing the game in the context of the source material too please.

Keep a few things in mind:

• 3 damage mitigation from Parry/Reflect is 5 XP. You're probably going to be picking up multiple iterations of the talents, and having the option of trading 5, 6, 7, 8 damage for 3 strain becomes very good.
• While soak modifiers are often going to be more useful, remember that Parry/Reflect stack with soak (and things like Enduring) and can reduce damage to attacks that soak can't (things with high Pierce or Breach, such as, oh, lightsabers ).
• One roll of the dice isn't equivalent to a single attack--each round takes between 1 and 5 minutes, so each roll is more like several attacks, along with some moving around, so getting hit for damage when you use Parry/Reflect is less like getting hit by a swing/shot you only semi-blocked, and more like you were able to block some, but not all, of the swings/shots coming your way.
• Luke gets hit by the remote when he's first learning, and then we don't see him training with the lightsaber again, and only see him batting back blaster shots a couple years (and a lot of XP) later.

Yeah, with Luke by the time we see him using Reflect actively, he's probably got several ranks in it (wouldn't be surprised he took both Shien Expert and Niman Disciple to beef up his lightsaber prowess), enough so that between a decent Soak Value (possibly just a 3, but maybe a 4 or even a 5 depending on if he picked up Enduring along the way to go with his black duds and boosted his Brawn above a 2), anytime that one of Jabba's goons managed to land a hit, he could just use Reflect to drop the damage to something that his Soak Value would just absorb, and probably spending most of the Advantage he generated to recover strain.

Even the biker scout attack could be handled this way, as he did look a bit winded after deflecting a couple shots from it's laser cannon (which per the stats for the Aratech 74-Z is a character scale weapon) and then slicing off the steering vanes, which would reflect both strain taken to use Reflect and the few points of wound damage that remained after applying his Soak Value.