Before seeing the Beta Book, I expected it to appear as a Foresee or Sense power upgrade of some kind.

Now that I have F&D...I don't think there is a problem with these Talents. They can certainly build up over time.

If I had any quibble, it's that apparently every Jedi in the movies and TCW dipped into Shien Expert to get Improved Reflect...it's the only tree that has this, and it's the only way to redirect blaster fire back at the shooter, which they all seem to be able to do. I would think Improved Reflect should be available in at least one other place.

As a side note to that, as I read through the spec trees, it seems like most of the Jedi we see are at least half way along at least half of them...mimicking that in the game will take a lot of XP, but I do like that it's a long path.

If I had any quibble, it's that apparently every Jedi in the movies and TCW dipped into Shien Expert to get Improved Reflect...it's the only tree that has this, and it's the only way to redirect blaster fire back at the shooter, which they all seem to be able to do. I would think Improved Reflect should be available in at least one other place.

Reflecting bolts at B1s and storm troopers doesnt count- that's just threat being strain that turns into wounds. (because minions)

As for reflecting at the Droidikas... that was the players saying "Threat! I reflect blaster bolts" and the GM going, "These ones are rivals. They take strain as your reflected bolts are absorbed by their shields." and the players going "Crap! Run!"

If I had any quibble, it's that apparently every Jedi in the movies and TCW dipped into Shien Expert to get Improved Reflect...it's the only tree that has this, and it's the only way to redirect blaster fire back at the shooter, which they all seem to be able to do. I would think Improved Reflect should be available in at least one other place.

Reflecting bolts at B1s and storm troopers doesnt count- that's just threat being strain that turns into wounds. (because minions)

As for reflecting at the Droidikas... that was the players saying "Threat! I reflect blaster bolts" and the GM going, "These ones are rivals. They take strain as your reflected bolts are absorbed by their shields." and the players going "Crap! Run!"

Well, as Rivals they'd still take the strain as wounds, with the only difference being they've got a lot more wounds in contrast to a Minion. And given they were using auto-fire attacks, Obi-Wan and probably Qui-Gon as well would have been pushed over either their Strain Threshold or Wound Threshold long before they could have dealt enough strain.

Also remember that in most cases, it's the GM who spends the threat and Despair results, be it a PC or NPC that rolls. This is noted under Step 5: Resolve Threat and Despair in the combat chapter of each book (pg148 for FaD). So there's no assurance that Threat an an adversary's attack roll is going to automatically equate to strain damage.

I've said this before, but I think we have been so programmed with tactical combat systems (I used to write for Rolemaster) that we have a harder time remembering that this system is narrative, hence why things are looser than what we experienced with d20 or one-roll=one swing/shot. Rakaydos is right in that the parry/reflect against minions will generate threat, which can be used to inflict strain on the shooters, therefore representing reflected bolts if the players and GM so choose.

In addition, the addition of setback dice due to Melee and ranged defense means that opponents are far more likely to be generating threat than advantages, therefore inflicted strain. Parry and Reflect shouldn't be looked at in a vacuum.

I also find the suggested minute stretches credulity. However, the system is pretty abstract, so if they just change it to "each turn represents an indefinite period of time between a few seconds and a minutes" it becomes a bit less glaring.

Yes, that's why in my home game combat rounds will be fairly quick, whereas "noncombat rounds" (one action and manuever) will be whatever length of time necessary.

It's meant to be loose. 6 seconds is fine, 30 seconds is fine, 1 second is fine. 1 minute and 3.4 seconds is fine. The round is however long it needs to be for characters to do something important.

I have never told my players how long a combat round is. As such I feel that we just play it as being as long as is needed to suit the narrative. That may be seconds in one instance and minutes or more in others.

Both time and distance in this game relies on feeding into the narrative.

What is really cool about this is what I think and explain as the GM make sense to the player. However, neither of us may be on the same page when it comes to exact time or distances immagined. If I see 30 seconds worth of combat and he 6 does it matter if the narrative feels right to both of us?

The problem in fixing in a time scale or distance scale is you then have expectation not being met by the narrative. The "You can't do that in 20 seconds" or "You can do that 10 times in a minute".

Interesting points these last ones. If reflecting blaster fire as seen in the movies can be "justified" by narrating the threat generated by rivals and minions, what are the actual talents, (like Improved Reflect) emulating from the movies?

And the combat system of this rpg is not narrative (or at least no more than many other rpgs), it is an abstract combat system which works well without a map.

I was wondering if one possibility would be to replace in other talent trees the last Parry/Reflect talent of the tree by an Improved Parry / Reflect.

This will probably lead to the need of tweaking the Parry / Reflect talent, may be in a way like Donovan was proposing 1 + (2*Rank) or 0 + 2*rank or similar.

I also find the suggested minute stretches credulity. However, the system is pretty abstract, so if they just change it to "each turn represents an indefinite period of time between a few seconds and a minutes" it becomes a bit less glaring.

Yes, that's why in my home game combat rounds will be fairly quick, whereas "noncombat rounds" (one action and manuever) will be whatever length of time necessary.

The exact wording in each Core Rulebook (including the FaD Beta) is as follows:

"Rounds can last for roughly a minute or so in time, although the elapsed time is deliberately not specified. Players should keep in mind that a round lasts long enough for their character to move to a new location and perform an important action."

It's meant to be loose. 6 seconds is fine, 30 seconds is fine, 1 second is fine. 1 minute and 3.4 seconds is fine. The round is however long it needs to be for characters to do something important.

@borithan and evileeyore, I think you're using "turns" and "rounds" interchangeably, but they're different. A combat round is up to a minute long, within which each participant takes their turn. So a turn could only be a few seconds, but isn't going to be the full minute of the whole round.

Yepesnopes,

Yeah, part of the rationale for my revision to Parry and Reflect was to "make room" on many of the spec's talent trees for Improved Reflect, particularly Ataru Striker and Soresu Defender, as both were developed from Shii-Cho's blaster defense training, with Ataru focusing on "lightning fast offense" while Soresu's focus is "defensive patience and right moment to strike," which could be inferred as "the opponent rolls Despair or enough Threat to trigger Improved Parry/Reflect." Ataru's also been noted to not be that great at blaster reflection, but it could be overcome with sufficient skill and dedication (as Qui-Gon demonstrated in TPM), thus why I replaced the Row 5 parry with the talent and snipped the connection to the Row 4 Dodge, thus hiding it behind Dedication. Soresu I put it as a Row 4 talent but tucked behind one instance of Reflect either way.

I opted to leave it off Shii-Cho Knight and instead swap out two of the four ranks of Parry for two ranks of Reflect, but to leave Improved Reflect out (I don't think Improved Reflect should be spread across too many of the specs). It's the foundation for all the other Forms, and was largely developed when blaster technology was still in its relative infancy, so bouncing attacks back wouldn't be a major focus for Shii-Cho.

Niman Disciple generally works as-is, since Niman itself is more of a "generalist" Form regarding lightsaber fighting, and instead opted to include a couple possible talent substitutions to give nod to its scholarly nature and common nickname of "The Diplomat's Form." It covers the basics of using a lightsaber in combat and as a defensive tool, but instead favors applying the Force as an alternate means of attack.

Makashi is noted as being pretty lousy against deflecting blaster fire as it's first and foremost a dueling style and centers on melee combat. A Makashi practitioner could learn blaster defense/reflection, but they'd need to adopt a different style given how ill-fitting the stances and maneuvers of Makashi were to that particularly task.

if there's every a Juyo-based spec, that one I would expect to offer both Improved Parry and Improved Reflect at the 15 XP level, since it's pretty much a "take the best bits of Forms 1 thru 5 and add in some aggression," with the later aspect being why it wasn't often taught during the later years of the Old Jedi Order. It'd probably also have at least two ranks of Parry and Reflect at various levels and potentially some other defensive talents (Side Step and Defensive Stance, or just Dodge) to complement both melee and ranged defensiveness and a couple of pretty aggressive lightsaber-based talents, particularly if FFG incorporates any elements of Mace Windu's Vaapad style (itself a variation of Form VII) into the spec.

I'm pretty happy with reflect/parry as is. The only thing I might change is to make the talent slightly more potent, but put less of them in the trees. Right now the lightsaber tree's seem pretty bloated with parry/reflect's. I would prefer a few less of them, and some other talents to build interest and diversity.

I'm pretty happy with reflect/parry as is. The only thing I might change is to make the talent slightly more potent, but put less of them in the trees. Right now the lightsaber tree's seem pretty bloated with parry/reflect's. I would prefer a few less of them, and some other talents to build interest and diversity.

My initial thoughts are that I agree. I kind of wish there had been a universal tree that included "basic lightsaber" talents like Parry and Reflect (but no Improved, etc), along with a few of the Talents from FSE like uncanny senses/awareness, etc. This would allow the other trees to focus more on their respective styles and other more interesting talents.

Edit: also, the way it feels to me is that replicating any "jedi knight" from TCW means you'd have to have at least started all the trees in your career plus a few outside your career (whether Force user or not), but mechanically in the game that's a lot of XP.

This is what I wrote a while back.... I think it sums it up pretty well. I hope the devs take notes.

" I personnaly feel that paying 15, 20 or 25 experience points to gain 1 increase in reduced damage is a ripoff.

My suggestion would be to modifie taletns to reduce damage by "1 + 2 per rank" for a cost of 3 strain, removing excess Reflect or Parry talents to lessen the total possible reduction. (Idea by Donovan M.)

RAW, Makashi has 5 ranks of Parry for a total reduction of 7 ; with these new rules, you need only 3 ranks to get the same effect. This solution opens up the talent trees for other talents, giving them more flavor. "

Also remember that the ENDURING talent gives a permanent +1 boost to soak and costs between 15 to 25... So you get the equivalent of 1 rank of Reflect/Parry, that is always on (doesnt cost strain) against both ranged and melee. The only upside to Parry/Reflect is that they reduce Breach damage.

I'm pretty happy with reflect/parry as is. The only thing I might change is to make the talent slightly more potent, but put less of them in the trees. Right now the lightsaber tree's seem pretty bloated with parry/reflect's. I would prefer a few less of them, and some other talents to build interest and diversity.

My initial thoughts are that I agree. I kind of wish there had been a universal tree that included "basic lightsaber" talents like Parry and Reflect (but no Improved, etc), along with a few of the Talents from FSE like uncanny senses/awareness, etc. This would allow the other trees to focus more on their respective styles and other more interesting talents.

I totally agree with this. Which if I am not wrong was the initial concern noted by Donovan.

Well, part of my concern was that it felt like the LS Form trees were simply "stuffed" with ranks of Parry and Reflect just to fill up space. Probably not the design team's intent, but that's how it came across to me.

In so far as the notion of "paying 15/20/25 XP for a +1 is a ripoff," I can't say I agree. For instance, you've got the Grit talent, which is a mere +1 to Strain Threshold per rank, and can be found in higher tiers of more than a few talent trees. Toughened is slightly better, offering a +2 to Wound Threshold per rank, but given how easy it is to get hurt in this system and the limited access to healing (stimpacks are a diminishing return, and even the Medicine skill can only do so much if the PC is really badly shot up) that +2 is almost needed, thus why it was changed from the "+1 Wound Threshold per rank" effect that it had in the Beta.

While I admit the "+2 per rank" is pretty sweet, the problem I see with doing that is once the PC gets past 3 ranks (which isn't that hard, especially for Parry), as it allows a PC to pretty much negate the damage of an entire attack before it has a chance to reach their Soak Value. Just 4 ranks of Parry with the "base 1 plus 2 per rank" negates 9 points of damage from a melee attack, which in many cases is going to be the entire attack unless your opponent is using a very powerful lightsaber or is using a vibro-ax with a very high Brawn score. Paying 3 strain to completely negate all the effects of an opponent's attack is a bargain and a half, making the GM's job to challenge such characters a lot harder in the long run.

Thus, why I kinda prefer setting the base damage mitigation at 3 (or even use a base value of 4) and keeping the +1 per rank. This way, it starts a little quicker, but doesn't begin to quickly escalate to absurdly high values once the PC picks up their 3rd rank.

As a point of comparison, here's how the damage mitigation value would grow under each method:

RAW Method: Base 2 + 1 per rank

1 Rank = 3 points of damage mitigation

2 Ranks = 4 points of damage mitigation

3 Ranks = 5 points of damage mitigation

4 Ranks = 6 points of damage mitigation

5 Ranks = 7 points of damage mitigation

6 Ranks = 8 points of damage mitigation

Method: Base 3 + 1 per rank

1 Rank = 4 points of damage mitigation

2 Ranks = 5 points of damage mitigation

3 Ranks = 6 points of damage mitigation

4 Ranks = 7 points of damage mitigation

5 Ranks = 8 points of damage mitigation

6 Ranks = 9 points of damage mitigation

Method 3: Base 1 + 2 per rank

1 Rank = 3 points of damage mitigation

2 Ranks = 5 points of damage mitigation

3 Ranks = 7 points of damage mitigation

4 Ranks = 9 points of damage mitigation

5 Ranks = 11 points of damage mitigation

6 Ranks = 13 points of damage mitigation

Method 4: Base 4 + 1 per rank

1 Rank = 5 points of damage mitigation

2 Ranks = 6 points of damage mitigation

3 Ranks = 7 points of damage mitigation

4 Ranks = 8 points of damage mitigation

5 Ranks = 9 points of damage mitigation

6 Ranks = 10 points of damage mitigation

Method 3 offers a pretty big jump in contrast to any of the other methods, while Method 4 is also a significant jump in the early going. And while you might not see a lot of PCs with more than 5 ranks in Reflect (barring the suggested revisions to the 'saber spec trees I've posted), seeing PCs with more than 5 ranks in Parry is probably going to be fairly common, particularly if Shii-Cho Knight or Makashi Deulist (both of which offer loads of ranks in Parry) are taken; going into Soresu Defender from Shii-Cho Knight can easily result in 6 ranks of Parry under how the specs are currently structured.

For the Saturday game I'm in, we've been using Method 2 (GM wanted to use Method 4 since that was his idea, but after a long talk we felt it was easier to gradually ratchet up the talents vs. extreme boost followed by quick nerf if found too powerful), and with two ranks of Parry and Reflect each, being able to negate 5 points of damage from an attack is pretty cool, making my Minor Jedi's odds of survivability pretty good, even in those instances where he doesn't have the Sense power's defensive effects activated, particularly ranged attacks since he generally gets his Soak Value on top of those, meaning I pretty much trade 3 strain to knock the damage of a ranged attack down by 8 points instead of just the normal 3 that my Soak Value would provide, which proved pretty nifty in the last session when having to square off against a couple pirate crew minion groups (4 each) using heavy blaster pistols, since if they hit, I only took "chip damage" (a couple of points), though I did wind up spending most of the Advantages I generated on recovering strain given how often I was being attacked, which since they'd just seen me hand their boss' posterior to him in a duel (hiding a lightfoil as the handle of a pimp cane was pretty nifty, I'll give him credit for that) I can't fault them for that.

One of the players is talking about retiring her character and making a pure FaD character vs. the Frankenstien Hodge-Podge that mine is (Smuggler/Scoundrel/Emergent/Ataru Striker) that's also a 'saber-user to see how a pure FaD would work under one or more of these modifications to Parry/Reflect, but she's not pulled the trigger on that one just yet, partly as the GM is currently adverse to having multiple Force users in the party.

This has probably been mentioned elsewhere, but one could also just say 2 damage reduction per rank, no base... of course with 6 ranks that still stacks up to 12... which is pretty beardy.

Method 2 and 4 of DM's suggestions seems to be all right. Damage mitigation is damage mitigation though, regardless of the XP cost. Whether 1 or 2 per rank, it's still reducing damage.

As dono points out, play experience can really shift perspective on these.

I never thought they needed much of a boost, but these talents give you an option to survive when that option would not be there otherwise, and for a pretty low cost (though still a noticeable one). After seeing them in games for the last 4 weeks... man they're good. And reflect the endurance of jedi in the films IMO.

If they got a boost, I think dono's idea of bumping up the base from 2 to 3 would be acceptable, as that makes even a base level reflect on the most un geared brawn 1 with heavy clothes able to take a couple blaster shots and keep on ticking.

I've been hoping to run some test combats using characters with 3 ranks of Parry and Reflect under the different alternate methods (particularly 2 and 3), but so far that's not been able to happen, and the only experience I've got to pull from thus far is with the RAW method (mostly participation and watching of sessions at GenCon) and Method 3.

I'd not really thought about a "2 points per rank" method like what JegerGryte suggested, but that winds up being sub-optimal at 1 Rank (3 Strain to negate 2 damage), no real change at 2 ranks (negate 4 damage), becomes an improvement at 3 ranks (negate 6 damage), and starts getting "beardy" at 4 ranks or more, which specs like Shii-Cho Knight (4 ranks of Parry), Makashi Duelist (5 ranks of Parry), Soresu Defender (4 ranks of Parry) can easily provide. For Soresu Defender and Niman Duelist, it'd be a simple matter to just pick up Shien Expert and pack on a couple of fairly easy-to-obtain ranks of Reflect with a couple more ranks of Parry to but them at 5 ranks of Parry and Reflect each, which would be 10 points of damage mitigation, and enough to pretty much stop most attacks that use Melee or Ranged (Light) cold.

I think I favor the idea of 3 +1 per rank. That would basically allow them to remove one of each (parry and reflect) from each tree, and give them something a little more interesting. It doesn't even have to be particularly powerful, just some nice flavor talents.

In so far as the notion of "paying 15/20/25 XP for a +1 is a ripoff," I can't say I agree. For instance, you've got the Grit talent, which is a mere +1 to Strain Threshold per rank, and can be found in higher tiers of more than a few talent trees. Toughened is slightly better, offering a +2 to Wound Threshold per rank, but given how easy it is to get hurt in this system and the limited access to healing (stimpacks are a diminishing return, and even the Medicine skill can only do so much if the PC is really badly shot up) that +2 is almost needed, thus why it was changed from the "+1 Wound Threshold per rank" effect that it had in the Beta.

While I admit the "+2 per rank" is pretty sweet, the problem I see with doing that is once the PC gets past 3 ranks (which isn't that hard, especially for Parry), as it allows a PC to pretty much negate the damage of an entire attack before it has a chance to reach their Soak Value. Just 4 ranks of Parry with the "base 1 plus 2 per rank" negates 9 points of damage from a melee attack, which in many cases is going to be the entire attack unless your opponent is using a very powerful lightsaber or is using a vibro-ax with a very high Brawn score. Paying 3 strain to completely negate all the effects of an opponent's attack is a bargain and a half, making the GM's job to challenge such characters a lot harder in the long run.

I agree that with the current setup, a Force User will get pretty high scores of "soak" with Reflect and Parry in the "1 + 2 per rank" idea. If you take Makashi Duelist, with 5 ranks of Parry (RAW being a total of 7 damage reduction), that would lead to a 11 damage reduction. My suggestion is to remove excess ranks to keep the total reduction the same. So for Makashi, with "1 + 2 per rank", you'd need only 3 ranks of Parry instead of 5, freeing 2 talents for flavor talents (or grit or toughened).

I think I favor the idea of 3 +1 per rank. That would basically allow them to remove one of each (parry and reflect) from each tree, and give them something a little more interesting. It doesn't even have to be particularly powerful, just some nice flavor talents.

I still think that +1 damage reduction for 1 talent is a pretty high cost, but since first rank will be pretty good, I guess it evens out. I think it's another fair compromise where you get to remove 1 instance of each to give the LS Form trees more flavor. I still favor the "1+2*rank" but "3+1*rank" would also get my vote.

In so far as the notion of "paying 15/20/25 XP for a +1 is a ripoff," I can't say I agree. For instance, you've got the Grit talent, which is a mere +1 to Strain Threshold per rank, and can be found in higher tiers of more than a few talent trees. Toughened is slightly better, offering a +2 to Wound Threshold per rank, but given how easy it is to get hurt in this system and the limited access to healing (stimpacks are a diminishing return, and even the Medicine skill can only do so much if the PC is really badly shot up) that +2 is almost needed, thus why it was changed from the "+1 Wound Threshold per rank" effect that it had in the Beta.

While I admit the "+2 per rank" is pretty sweet, the problem I see with doing that is once the PC gets past 3 ranks (which isn't that hard, especially for Parry), as it allows a PC to pretty much negate the damage of an entire attack before it has a chance to reach their Soak Value. Just 4 ranks of Parry with the "base 1 plus 2 per rank" negates 9 points of damage from a melee attack, which in many cases is going to be the entire attack unless your opponent is using a very powerful lightsaber or is using a vibro-ax with a very high Brawn score. Paying 3 strain to completely negate all the effects of an opponent's attack is a bargain and a half, making the GM's job to challenge such characters a lot harder in the long run.

I agree that with the current setup, a Force User will get pretty high scores of "soak" with Reflect and Parry in the "1 + 2 per rank" idea. If you take Makashi Duelist, with 5 ranks of Parry (RAW being a total of 7 damage reduction), that would lead to a 11 damage reduction. My suggestion is to remove excess ranks to keep the total reduction the same. So for Makashi, with "1 + 2 per rank", you'd need only 3 ranks of Parry instead of 5, freeing 2 talents for flavor talents (or grit or toughened).

I think I favor the idea of 3 +1 per rank. That would basically allow them to remove one of each (parry and reflect) from each tree, and give them something a little more interesting. It doesn't even have to be particularly powerful, just some nice flavor talents.

I still think that +1 damage reduction for 1 talent is a pretty high cost, but since first rank will be pretty good, I guess it evens out. I think it's another fair compromise where you get to remove 1 instance of each to give the LS Form trees more flavor. I still favor the "1+2*rank" but "3+1*rank" would also get my vote.

IMO keeping the numbers at "3 base +1 per rank" would still keep most LS trees a collection of repeated talents. To keep things interesting, no tree should have more than 3 copies of the same talent.

So, using another suggestion based on discussions from other topics too, I'd suggest the following changes:

Parry/Reflect: cost 2 strain to activate (instead of 3), and negates 2 damage per rank (instead of 2 base + 1 per rank).

Improved Parry/Reflect: spend 2 Threat (instead of 3) or 1 Despair, and take 2 strain to activate (no strain cost, originally). Can also be activated on a miss, in which case you don't have to pay 2 strain to also activate Parry/Reflect.

Every LS tree should be limited on how many Parry and Reflect it has, to a maximum of 3. This way, Makashi Duelist would have 3 ranks of Parry, negating up to 6 damage. DM's suggestion for the talents substitution on each LS on the other thread fits nicely. And also, this way, the activation of Improved Parry/Reflect will be more on the player's hand, since they roll 2 threat more frequently, but at a strain cost that will make them think twice before redirecting every attack.

I'd not really thought about a "2 points per rank" method like what JegerGryte suggested, but that winds up being sub-optimal at 1 Rank (3 Strain to negate 2 damage), no real change at 2 ranks (negate 4 damage), becomes an improvement at 3 ranks (negate 6 damage), and starts getting "beardy" at 4 ranks or more, which specs like Shii-Cho Knight (4 ranks of Parry), Makashi Duelist (5 ranks of Parry), Soresu Defender (4 ranks of Parry) can easily provide. For Soresu Defender and Niman Duelist, it'd be a simple matter to just pick up Shien Expert and pack on a couple of fairly easy-to-obtain ranks of Reflect with a couple more ranks of Parry to but them at 5 ranks of Parry and Reflect each, which would be 10 points of damage mitigation, and enough to pretty much stop most attacks that use Melee or Ranged (Light) cold.

Yeah, forgot about the 3 Strain cost You could lower it to 2, but I get the problem though... some sort of dynamic Strain cost could also be added, but ... meh... not for me.

This has probably been mentioned elsewhere, but one could also just say 2 damage reduction per rank, no base... of course with 6 ranks that still stacks up to 12... which is pretty beardy.

I was thinking along these linges too.

Also if the number of Parry/Reflect talents is reduced over the different trees (some replaced by the improved version and by other more specific talents for the specialization as Whafrog suggested) it will become costy xp wise to stack that much defense.

TedMaul,

When I started my thread on revising the various 'saber specs, one of the things I was angling for was to cut down on the number of times that Parry showed up.

For Shii-Cho Knight, i suggested dropping two ranks of Parry and replacing them with two ranks of Reflect, putting the spec at 2 and 2 respectively.

For Soresu Defender, I suggested dropping a Parry and with a slight bit of reshuffling replace it with Improved Reflect, putting it 3 ranks of each, which fits as Soresu is meant to be primarily a defensive Form.

For Niman Disciple, I suggested dropping one of each in place of more scholarly-themed talents, putting it's ranks of Parry and Reflect at 2 each vs. the current 3 of each.

For Ataru Striker, I suggested replacing that final Parry in Row 5 with Improved Reflect, but also snipping the connection between that talent and Row 4's Dodge talent, again putting the spec at 2 instances of both Parry and Reflect.

Makashi Duelist is another "specialist" spec in that it's supposed to be really good at melee combat (especially one-on-one duels though not so hot at handling multiple foes at once) and so it having a bunch of ranks in Parry makes sense, though I did suggest dropping at least one rank for a rank in Defensive Training.

Makashi Duelist is another "specialist" spec in that it's supposed to be really good at melee combat (especially one-on-one duels though not so hot at handling multiple foes at once) and so it having a bunch of ranks in Parry makes sense, though I did suggest dropping at least one rank for a rank in Defensive Training.

Ok... maybe Makashi should have 4 ranks of Parry, then. This would make a full Makashi Duelist able to negate 8 damage with a single use of Parry... which is close in range to the RAW (5 ranks of Parry, for a 7 damage mitigation).

But the point was the changed to Parry/Reflect, and I can't tell if you didn't like my suggestion or just ignored it, @Dono.

Parry/Reflect: cost 2 strain to activate (instead of 3), and negates 2 damage per rank (instead of 2 base + 1 per rank).

Improved Parry/Reflect: spend 2 Threat (instead of 3) or 1 Despair, and take 2 strain to activate (no strain cost, originally). Can also be activated on a miss, in which case you don't have to pay 2 strain to also activate Parry/Reflect.

Quoting for evaluation purposes.

Parry/Reflect: cost 2 strain to activate (instead of 3), and negates 2 damage per rank (instead of 2 base + 1 per rank).

Improved Parry/Reflect: spend 2 Threat (instead of 3) or 1 Despair, and take 2 strain to activate (no strain cost, originally). Can also be activated on a miss, in which case you don't have to pay 2 strain to also activate Parry/Reflect.

Quoting for evaluation purposes.

I for one think the parry/reflect suggestion of yours seems ok, at least in spirit. It does somewhat lessen the value of Supreme Parry/Reflect, at least where Supreme Parry/Reflect is placed in the 20+ XP area. If Supreme Parry/Reflect cost 10 XP, or perhaps 15 at most, it wouldn't seem like such a waste, as it would if it cost 20 or 25 XP to for reduce strain cost by 1 with the new reduced Strain cost of reflect/parry that you're suggesting.

The improved parry/reflect suggestion of yours seems ok, but it could become fiddly with the contingent strain or no strain cost.