I have only one issue with core rules, although some individual talents are broken.

Defence... it breaks down completely at higher experience levels. I have reworked that part of the game to scale better with experience.

I do want my player to do heroic things, but getting gunned downed because your defence can't get even with your enemies offence makes no heroic tale.

By heroic you mean taking significant risk for good* reasons, right? To me, the biggest disincentive to play flashy, risk-taking characters isn't that the discrepancy between die facings means I'll get hurt, it's death . If I go beyond a threshold and get K.O.ed, that's fine - unless I'm surrounded by carnivorous animals , I'm going to assume that leads to another scene. (One where I'm in a cell. Or being washed by a pretty nurse.)

In FFG's Star Wars death mainly comes in the form of Critical Hits, but while there are many opportunities to increase the lethality of Critical Hits (Lethal Blows/Vicious weapons), the ability to decrease them (with Durable) is far rarer. The best I can do is invest in talents that help avoid Crits entirely by giving you a chance to negate Advantages (and they're of limited use against stuff like "mono" edged weapons and high-proficiency characters rolling Triumphs).

* by "good" I mean "valid, according to my motivations".

I've had to rethink my position on a lot of these things, myself, in order to make the game feel dangerous again.

So you'll solution is to create that will gun the whole party down just to get at the one guy specced to handle it?

Brilliant!

No, my solution is to creating the guy who won't bother fighting the rest of the party because he's designed to fight the high-soak Marauder . Maybe the party wipes if the Marauder goes down, but being as how hitting your Wound Threshold isn't the same as dying, this is just another chance for role-playing.

So, yes. Brilliant.

I never thought there was an issue with Soak until my group had a Marader. Now that his soak is in the 9-10 range, it's crazy. I understand what the design intention probably was, gotta make the melee guy survivable so that he can actually see melee, but when you add Soak talents to a spec where the character has a high brawn it just gets crazy with a high Soak and WT. I only hope he doesn't get cortosis armor any time soon...

Looking back at it now, I'm somewhat surprised that the base Soak wasn't just a flat 2 for all characters, not tied to Brawn. Or tie base Soak to base Brawn before any ability increases, even increases at character generation. That way all Wookies would have a base 3 Soak, all Humans would have a 2 Soak, and all Duros would have a 1 Soak. That way it wouldn't matter if a Wookie had a 5 Brawn, they still only have 3 Soak while out of armor. That is until talents raise that Soak.

If Soak is broken for your Marauder, you need a better class of opponent. Have NPCs attack him at a distance with Heavy Blaster Rifle. Sure, he'll soak its base damage, but any extra successes will hurt him. Or upgrade it to a Heavy Repeating Blaster with 15 base damage. Make sure you're upgrading your NPC weapons just like your PCs upgrade theirs, for extra accuracy and damage, particularly. Put him against melee NPCs with as much soak as he has. Hit him with weapons and abilities that do Strain damage.

I've had to rethink my position on a lot of these things, myself, in order to make the game feel dangerous again.

I think the part you are missing is that, sure you can construct your encounters to deal with the high soak character, but that usually means all the other characters are even worse off, or encounters begin to feel contrived as they frequently just happen to circumvent the high soak of the marauder.

I don't think this is a problem at all. It just means the party has to come up with creative means of dealing with these kinds of situations before they happen. And see my last post: If the party wipes, it's just another chance for role-play, since hitting Wound Threshold isn't the same as dying.

This is why Soak is discussed in a thread of "ways the rules could be better." Good GMs can run with anything and a super high soak is only so much of a stumbling block, so high soak really isn't that huge of an issue. As has been commonly pointed out, just use stun weapons, heavier weapons, good tatics, or throw the combat guy into social skills. However, just the point that you have to do something different because a character is built one specific way is, to me, evidence that the rules could have been written "better" or at least different.

BTW: My group had a marader and a sniper. So, throwing long range threats at the group really wasn't too much of an option. The sniper would sit out at extreme range picking off bad guys while the marader eventually made it to combat. The bad guys were always given a tough choice of who to shoot at. They could shoot at the marader charging towards them, who they know will mess them up something fierce. Or, they could move towards the sniper to be within long range to return fire on the sniper, which this would also bring the marader closer to them. The sniper never got shot at because he stayed hidden and the marader was always seen as the bigger threat.

Yeah that's another thing. If a player goes out of his way to create a soak monkey, then the game breaks down completely. When we start playing this at some point I'll need to fix that too.

Yeah that's another thing. If a player goes out of his way to create a soak monkey, then the game breaks down completely. When we start playing this at some point I'll need to fix that too.

How about changing Enduring? Instead of adding 1 to Soak it adds 1 to Defence? That way Enduring may reduce damage or it may prevent a Crit or it may do nothing.

Disallowing Marauder is kinda harsh. Lots of fightin' types probably want to be an insane blender.

How about changing Enduring? Instead of adding 1 to Soak it adds 1 to Defence? That way Enduring may reduce damage or it may prevent a Crit or it may do nothing.

Disallowing Marauder is kinda harsh. Lots of fightin' types probably want to be an insane blender.

I think the problem with allowing to add Defense is that there's already a number of ways to increase one's Defense rating, such as armored clothing or heavy battle armor, as well as weapons with the Defensive quality, to say nothing of the Guarded Stance maneuver. Start stacking all those together, and you've got a PC with loads of setback dice being added to each opponent's attack roll, in a system that generally tries to keep the dice pools fairly small.

I've not run into any issues with Enduring, although to be fair no character in any of the games I've run or played in has tried to make themselves an un-damagable meat-wall, so I've not seen these "impossible Soak Values" come into play except as purely hypothetical character builds, combining an obscenely high Brawn, Armor Master, Enduring, and padded armor to achieve, while being either average or sub-par in pretty much everything else.

Perhaps an alternate notion might be to let each rank of Enduring counteract a rank of Pierce. So if a PC with Enduring 2 got hit with a vibro-ax (Pierce 2), then they'd ignore the effects of the Pierce quality and not reduce their Soak Value prior to the damage being applied.

Soak is only a problem if it is a problem. If you have a min/max player and either can not adjust for him or do not want to deal with him, then I guess banning Marauder might be a solution. Or changing Soak.

From looking at peirce. It is the counter for soak. If you have a marauder running around have people with peirce type weapons show up often enough to give them pause.

plus pierce won't do extra damage to lower soak characters if its rating exceeds soak.

Perhaps an alternate notion might be to let each rank of Enduring counteract a rank of Pierce. So if a PC with Enduring 2 got hit with a vibro-ax (Pierce 2), then they'd ignore the effects of the Pierce quality and not reduce their Soak Value prior to the damage being applied.

"Sheer elegance in its simplicity."

The font!

Perhaps an alternate notion might be to let each rank of Enduring counteract a rank of Pierce. So if a PC with Enduring 2 got hit with a vibro-ax (Pierce 2), then they'd ignore the effects of the Pierce quality and not reduce their Soak Value prior to the damage being applied.

"Sheer elegance in its simplicity."

I disagree. There are places where it is either implied or stated outright that vibro-technology can cut through durasteel (force pike is described in this manner I believe). I therefore feel it would be bit excessive if someone could ignore, say, vibro-ax's pierce attribute.

I am a somewhat new GM so might be slightly ignorant but I don't see why GM can't just state that any value of soak over 7 is rounded down to 7 (or some other suitable value).

I don't expect PSs' soak valuees to pose problems in our games but what I find somewhat odd is Hutt Crime Lord's soak 10. I mean, the dude is basically a slithering bucket of lard, no armor, no nothing. If someone sticks a vibrosword through him, at which point does the soaking actually happen?

//B3NDR

Hutts are described as having thick hides and a great deal of fat shielding their vital organs deep within. One of their few weaknesses is radiation, which the Shell Hutts actively avoid by encasing themselves in floating cylinders.

Hutts are pretty much indestructible. It's not like someone would find a way to ignore those natural defenses and, say, strangle them to death. I mean, how would anyone manage to catch a Hutt by surprise, while holding some kind of thick rope or chain, without alerting any bodyguards? Sheer lunacy, my friend!

I disagree. There are places where it is either implied or stated outright that vibro-technology can cut through durasteel (force pike is described in this manner I believe). I therefore feel it would be bit excessive if someone could ignore, say, vibro-ax's pierce attribute.

Yer right. However reducing Piercing by 1 instead of providing +1 Soak results in exactly the same amount of damage when being attacked with vibroweapons (etc.).

8 Damage w/Pierce 2 vs. Soak 8 = 2 (as a guy with Brawn 5, Padded Armour (2) and 1 rank of Enduring would currently get)

8 Damage w/Pierce 1 vs. Soak 7 = 2 (as the same guy would have if Enduring reduced Pierce instead of adding to Soak)

Donovan's suggestion merely reduces Enduring's utility against weapons that don't have Pierce.

I'm going to address the Marauder.

Assuming they start with Brawn 4, a Marauder PC will have to spend 110 experience points to get Soak 6 if they go straight to both ranks of Enduring in the Marauder tree. Another 50 xp will grant them Dedication +1, adding it to Brawn increases to Soak 7. If they have Padded, Laminate, or Heavy Battle Armor they are finally at Soak 9.

So, to get there they would have to spend 160 xp, buy absolutely no other Skills or Talents, and spend 500, 2.5k, or 5k on armor. Soak 9 makes for a tough character. Sure, if they get there as fast as possible, they can't do much else except Soak damage.

But they're also in Melee combat all the time. They should be getting hit with Vibro-axes, Vibroknives, and Vibrosword. Each one has at least a rank of Vicious which reduces Soak by 1. The Vibro-ax is Vicious 3 which reduces the Soak 9 Marauder to Soak 6. If wielded by an angry Wookiee, that's a minimum of 8 damage per hit not counting any successes over the initial success needed to hit. A modified Vibro-weapon can easily increase the Vicious quality. It's not too hard, and a Nemesis wielding a Vibro-ax with Vicious 6 is going to give any Marauder pause. A few solid hits from the aforementioned Wookiee adversary will put just about any Marauder on his back.

Yes, a Soak 9 or 10 Marauder is tough to put down, but if they go for nothing but Enduring and Dedication (Brawn), they aren't going to be able to do much else. Their Melee skill is going to be mostly Ability dice, and they will have only 1 Talent useful for Melee defense (i.e. - Defensive stance).

And a powerful Melee adversary to face the Marauder does not equal instant death for the rest of the party. If the gunslingers have room to maneuver, it's pretty easy to kite a Melee heavy adversary in this game.

In short, I don't see the problem.

P.S. - I accidentally said 'Vicious' in the above when I meant 'Pierce', and Pierce would be even worse for the Marauder than the math indicates. All Vibro-weapons are minimum Pierce 2.

My bad; it's early!

Perhaps an alternate notion might be to let each rank of Enduring counteract a rank of Pierce. So if a PC with Enduring 2 got hit with a vibro-ax (Pierce 2), then they'd ignore the effects of the Pierce quality and not reduce their Soak Value prior to the damage being applied.

"Sheer elegance in its simplicity."

I disagree. There are places where it is either implied or stated outright that vibro-technology can cut through durasteel (force pike is described in this manner I believe). I therefore feel it would be bit excessive if someone could ignore, say, vibro-ax's pierce attribute.

I am a somewhat new GM so might be slightly ignorant but I don't see why GM can't just state that any value of soak over 7 is rounded down to 7 (or some other suitable value).

I don't expect PSs' soak valuees to pose problems in our games but what I find somewhat odd is Hutt Crime Lord's soak 10. I mean, the dude is basically a slithering bucket of lard, no armor, no nothing. If someone sticks a vibrosword through him, at which point does the soaking actually happen?

//B3NDR

Well if you really want to get technical, a lightsaber should just flat out murder anything it hits, since it's been shown to cleave through pretty much anything and everything, with only Vader's armored shoulder surviving a glancing hit from Luke's lightsaber. A full-blown blast door only slowed Qui-Gon down, and he was pretty well on his way to being through that door when the destroyer droids finally rolled in.

Or hell, pretty much anyone that gets shot in the head or chest by a blaster should be dead as well, as Leia only survived by virtue of being shot in the arm.

Point is, this game isn't a realistic combat simulator. It's an abstraction and done in such a way as to keep the things moving and not get bogged down in pointless minutia like the one you're hung up on.

As the Col. Orange noted, the only thing my suggested to tweak Enduring does is make the talent less powerful against weapons that don't have Pierce, which seems to be the crux of the issue for most folks, while weapons that do have Pierce are largely unaffected as they'd operate much the same as they do under the RAW version of Enduring. And it's a lot easier to stack on ranks of Pierce than it is to purchase ranks of Enduring.

Point is, this game isn't a realistic combat simulator. It's an abstraction and done in such a way as to keep the things moving and not get bogged down in pointless minutia like the one you're hung up on.

I am not looking for realism, I am looking for consistency. Or at least I feel it would be nice to have some. Your mileage may vary, like it very clearly does.

//B3NDR

Perhaps an alternate notion might be to let each rank of Enduring counteract a rank of Pierce. So if a PC with Enduring 2 got hit with a vibro-ax (Pierce 2), then they'd ignore the effects of the Pierce quality and not reduce their Soak Value prior to the damage being applied.

"Sheer elegance in its simplicity."

I disagree. There are places where it is either implied or stated outright that vibro-technology can cut through durasteel (force pike is described in this manner I believe). I therefore feel it would be bit excessive if someone could ignore, say, vibro-ax's pierce attribute.

I am a somewhat new GM so might be slightly ignorant but I don't see why GM can't just state that any value of soak over 7 is rounded down to 7 (or some other suitable value).

I don't expect PSs' soak valuees to pose problems in our games but what I find somewhat odd is Hutt Crime Lord's soak 10. I mean, the dude is basically a slithering bucket of lard, no armor, no nothing. If someone sticks a vibrosword through him, at which point does the soaking actually happen?

//B3NDR

Well if you really want to get technical, a lightsaber should just flat out murder anything it hits, since it's been shown to cleave through pretty much anything and everything, with only Vader's armored shoulder surviving a glancing hit from Luke's lightsaber. A full-blown blast door only slowed Qui-Gon down, and he was pretty well on his way to being through that door when the destroyer droids finally rolled in.

Or hell, pretty much anyone that gets shot in the head or chest by a blaster should be dead as well, as Leia only survived by virtue of being shot in the arm.

Point is, this game isn't a realistic combat simulator. It's an abstraction and done in such a way as to keep the things moving and not get bogged down in pointless minutia like the one you're hung up on.

As the Col. Orange noted, the only thing my suggested to tweak Enduring does is make the talent less powerful against weapons that don't have Pierce, which seems to be the crux of the issue for most folks, while weapons that do have Pierce are largely unaffected as they'd operate much the same as they do under the RAW version of Enduring. And it's a lot easier to stack on ranks of Pierce than it is to purchase ranks of Enduring.

But making something you spent 110 points to get weaker seems like a rather dickish thing to do to a PC. As a GM learn to think outside of the box. So they have 10 soak. Drop them in a pit with a rancor. The rest of the party fights some thugs to get to the controls to get them out. In the mean time the Marauder gets some alone time with a appropriately powered rancor and to look bad ass.

This has probably been said before. Whatever the PC's can do in my campaigns the bad guys can do as well. Especially if they are fighting the Empire, Hutts, Black Sun, etc who have a lot of resources at their disposal. The PCs might blow through a few encounters which draws a lot of attention down on them so the BBEG's send an elite team to take them down. Make this elite group with a couple of nemesis and several rivals that all have their own ranks of Durable, Enduring, Armor Master, and modded gear that is just as badass as the PCs, and if they still need backup then they call in an assault speeder, AT-PT, AT-ST, TIE close air support, or something that tips the scales. Not like the above mentioned groups don't have the money or manpower to throw at a problem like a badass PC. I also use law enforcement to harass the PCs about any unlicensed gear they might be carrying around in the open.

jay Little is fond of mirroring the PCs. So they basically face them selves.

Or hell, pretty much anyone that gets shot in the head or chest by a blaster should be dead as well, as Leia only survived by virtue of being shot in the arm.

To be fair, Hollywood is a bunch of idiots when it comes to "what happens in reality". For example, getting stabbed in the chest or gut isn't instant death, even if the heart is hit. It still takes time for someone to actually die. Yet someone who isn't a "main" character getting hit in the lower gut seems to just fall over dead...

As a GM learn to think outside of the box. So they have 10 soak. Drop them in a pit with a rancor. The rest of the party fights some thugs to get to the controls to get them out. In the mean time the Marauder gets some alone time with a appropriately powered rancor and to look bad ass.

jay Little is fond of mirroring the PCs. So they basically face them selves.

Both of which get boring very fast. Very, very, very fast.