I had an issue with a player regarding breach. Breach weapons ignore one point of armor for every rating of breach (meaning they also ignore 10 points of soak for every rating of breach).

His interpretation is that his lightsaber ignores 10 soak always, even normal brawn related soak or extra soak gained by talents such as enduring. Effectively ignoring all soak in character scale combat.

My interpretation is that breach weapons ignore armor only, and that only soak related to armor is what is ignored. The 10 points of soak mentioned in parentheses obviously refer to the soak provided by regular armor and to the planetary scale and represents the lightsabers ability to cut open a hatch on an AT-AT walker like luke did.

How do you handle this in your games?

Which do you believe is the correct interpretation of the rules and why?

The only soak breach does not ignore is that from parry. Think about it look at how easily Qui-gon slipped his lightsaber into a blast door. Do you really think human flesh is going to hold up to that? They lop off hands and heads easily.

Yes, lightsabers ignore all soak.

Parry doesn't add soak to characters, it subtracts from damage completely separately from soak.

The only soak breach does not ignore is that from parry. Think about it look at how easily Qui-gon slipped his lightsaber into a blast door. Do you really think human flesh is going to hold up to that? They lop off hands and heads easily.

On what page number is "The only soak breach does not ignore is that from parry"? Or is that your interpretation/house rule?

Where is the rule that soak from brawn is not ignored? There is nowhere where is says that because no where in the rules does it say brawn soak is not ignored by anything. I really have no idea where you got that idea. why would something that blows through armor not ignore the soak from your muscles...do you really think your muscles are harder than armor plate?

Where is the rule that soak from brawn is not ignored? There is nowhere where is says that because no where in the rules does it say brawn soak is not ignored by anything. I really have no idea where you got that idea. why would something that blows through armor not ignore the soak from your muscles...do you really think your muscles are harder than armor plate?

I know mine are! #flex247 #crossfit #IdontactuallyknowwhatImtalkingabout

Just to clarify- The rules as written state on page 116 F&D left column, last entry

" Weapons with breach burn through the toughest armor ; they are often heavy weapons or starship weapons.

Breach weapons ignore one point of armor for every rating of breach (meaning they also ignore ten points of soak for every rating of breach.)

Also see F&D PG 164 Starships, Vehicles, and scale, and Specifically page 166; right column ARMOR paragraph. Stating specifically...

"Much like personal body armor worn by Player Characters, a ship or vehicle's armor soaks a number of damage points equal to its rating. As it is based on a planetary scale, one point of a ship's armor is equivalent to ten points of soak on a personal scale."

Page 116 states ARMOR specifically, the statement in parenthesis beginning with the word "meaning" indicates a reference to another rule, the only similar rule I can find is the armor paragraph on page 166, which does put lightsabers and heavy weapons on an equal scale with a speeder or starship and makes sense.

This part of the rules is kind of poorly written in my opinion (no offense FFG) its confusing and can lead to way overpowered lightsaber wielding hack and slashers and could break the game for novice GM's

Considering that most adversaries have soak in the 2-5 range and unmodified ilum crystal lightsabers have a base damage of 6, I'm not sure how that breaks anything for a novice GM. That is, unless you consider blaster rifles with 9 base damage or 5-brawn vibro-ax wielders to be similarly game-breaking.

Also, consider that it's the GM's call when to give the players real lightsabers. I have a group of characters with 10 sessions at 20xp each under their belts and I still haven't given the Jedi a real lightsaber.

Finally, I'm not really sure what you consider to be poorly written about the section. It says very clearly in breach that you ignore 10 points of soak per breach rating. What's unclear about that? Putting it in parentheses doesn't make it unclear. The armor section you quoted goes on to say that "one point of a ship's armor is equivalent to ten points of soak" (emphasis added). Equivalent meaning they are literally the same thing.

I find the conversions slightly clunky; I'm not really sure why the designers felt the need to have a 1:10 ratio instead of just multiplying all the values by 10 before sticking them in the vehicle stat blocks. However, the rules in this instance are very clear: Breach 1 ignores 10 points of soak. It doesn't care where the soak comes from.

That being said, feel free to house-rule if you can't handle the breach quality. Just don't be surprised if the vibro-ax dude beats the pants off the jedi ginsu with a similar amount of xp and credits.

Where is the rule that soak from brawn is not ignored? There is nowhere where is says that because no where in the rules does it say brawn soak is not ignored by anything. I really have no idea where you got that idea. why would something that blows through armor not ignore the soak from your muscles...do you really think your muscles are harder than armor plate?

Where is the rule that soak from brawn is not ignored? There is nowhere where is says that because no where in the rules does it say brawn soak is not ignored by anything. I really have no idea where you got that idea. why would something that blows through armor not ignore the soak from your muscles...do you really think your muscles are harder than armor plate?

I know mine are! #flex247 #crossfit #IdontactuallyknowwhatImtalkingabout

I'm simply stating that, according to the rules concerning "breach" it only mentions armor. Thats what the book says.

" Weapons with breach burn through the toughest armor

It also says it burns, so obviously breach also gives the burn quality right?

That is flavor text, the rules text states: Breach 1 ignores Armor 1. This is equivalent to 10 points of soak.

It does not say This is equivalent to 10 points of soak provided by character's armor. This keeps it simple, so you don't need to have your Unmodified soak, and your armored soak, and your force-soak, and your flatfooted soak or whatever. You have one soak value and you remember that.

Lightsabers have been balanced around their ability to ignore all of 99% of character's soak. That's why they generally have a base of 6 damage despite being arguably more dangerous than a blaster rifle, which has 10+ damage.

I'm simply stating that, according to the rules concerning "breach" it only mentions armor. Thats what the book says.

steve, in the rules you quoted, it also directly mentions "soak." It tells you in parentheses exactly what "ignoring 1 point of armor" means. They didn't have to do that (the rules for translating armor to soak can be found elsewhere) but they did it to probably emphasize what a powerful weapon the lightsaber really is.

Further, bean-counting points of soak (whether they come from armor, or Brawn, or talents) is really antithetical to the game at hand. I would suggest you ditch your interpretation in favor of design intent, evidence from quoted rules, balance considerations, and simplicity of damage adjudication.

Where is the rule that soak from brawn is not ignored? There is nowhere where is says that because no where in the rules does it say brawn soak is not ignored by anything. I really have no idea where you got that idea. why would something that blows through armor not ignore the soak from your muscles...do you really think your muscles are harder than armor plate?

Where is the rule that soak from brawn is not ignored? There is nowhere where is says that because no where in the rules does it say brawn soak is not ignored by anything. I really have no idea where you got that idea. why would something that blows through armor not ignore the soak from your muscles...do you really think your muscles are harder than armor plate?

I know mine are! #flex247 #crossfit #IdontactuallyknowwhatImtalkingabout

I'm simply stating that, according to the rules concerning "breach" it only mentions armor. Thats what the book says.

No it specifically says it ignores 10 points of soak and can burn through the toughest armor. I am still baffled as to why you think human flesh would hold up better than than vehicle armor. The only differentiation I have seen is Vehicle Armor is tougher than personal armor and there is no different between personal armor and soak from brawn. lightsabers go through people like a hot knife through butter in the movies. Darth Maul cut in half no real effort. Luke's hand cut off easily. Vader's hand cut, arms, legs cut off easily. Starship door cut through pretty easily. Blast door only slowed them down. front of a speeder bike cut off with no effort. At what point are you going to get lightsabers are dangerous? Breach 1 makes perfect sense for them. Breach ignoring 10 points of personal scale soak makes perfect sense.

As to the question of why the scale? Because we see many weapons do absolutely nothing to vehicles. Not do very little. But literally not even scratch the paint. That is why there are scales for damage. Some people feel there ought to be a middle ground with a vehicle scale and a starship scale.

Our group has played it so that a saber ignores all soak. The rules seemed pretty straight forward.

While in play it's certainly nice, my Jedi hasn't been any more powerful in combat then our groups marauder (less actually). The Marauder has a higher base damage, and pierce of 3 (I think, don't have stats in front of me). Her pierce goes through most soak for your average mook, and her increased base damage (with a str of 4, plus some talents to increase damage more). If the two were to go toe to toe my poor jedi would get obliterated.

It's a problem with the wording. Since breach is a starship weapon characteristic and starships don't have any fleshunderneath the metal the armour is their soak, but they do clarify it – badly, but still – "one point of a ship's armor is equivalent to ten points of soak on a personal scale." and soak being armour + brawn, so there you have it.

The issue behind this, which sent me and the group back to re-evaluate the rule book was the easy, super easy kill of the main plot villain not even half way through the second turn of combat. I had even boosted him beyond the stats a little (not enough obviously) and we're all experienced gamers, the players (who always like to win) were a little disappointed it was so easy, even though they went through a building full of lackeys to get to him.

Great points everybody, thanks for the input.

I think this only leaves me with option of raising soak and doubling, perhaps tripling wound thresholds. it's the only other option I can see.

thanks again, everyone.

Don't raise soak to power up your baddies. That would just make it useless for your players to use any weapon besides a lightsaber. Stick with higher wound thresholds and ranks in the adversary talent.

I'm curious what the baddies stats were. Even on a good hit a light saber does six base damage. Assuming you get 5 successes, that's 11 damage. Most starting PC's can take at least two hits before they go down.

I still don't see how it's that much worse then a Marauder with a 7ish base damage (4 str and a vibro axe), who then gets 5 successes. That's 12. Most vibro weapons have a pierce of at least 2. The average badguy has about a 5 soak. Take off the pierce and your soak is only 3, so damage is 9. Only two less, and most starting characters still go down in two hits. That's not even getting into talents to raise damage, or mod's to the weapon.

This is a pretty lethal system, melee weapons can do sick and disgusting damage.

they specifically made the Parry talent and cortosis armor attachments to deal with lightsaber. You are doing yourself a disservice if you are not using these.

Also, this game is not intended to be run 5-on-1 PCs vs Red Dragon style of game. Throw in baddies to support your BBEG or handle it narratively by using the Squad/Squadron rules from the AoR GM kit.

The issue behind this, which sent me and the group back to re-evaluate the rule book was the easy, super easy kill of the main plot villain not even half way through the second turn of combat. I had even boosted him beyond the stats a little (not enough obviously) and we're all experienced gamers, the players (who always like to win) were a little disappointed it was so easy, even though they went through a building full of lackeys to get to him.

There's your problem.

It sounds like you've got the old problem of "it worked in another systems so it should work here."

Nemesis in this system work a little different then you seem to expect. Unlike other systems, slapping the Nemesis quality on an NPC will not suddenly allow him to solo a party.

See, other systems tend to use a functional, but lazy, mechanic to prolong "boss fights." Make them tougher. Maybe they pile on a huge number of hit points, or give them silly strong AC, or massive damage reduction, or whatever. Just anything at all so that the players can't inflict the kind of damage needed to down him.

FFG didn't do that. They went a different direction that's more challenging for the GM, but results in a more believable encounter. Nemesis characters aren't inherently any tougher then Rivals, or a Minion group, though they can certainly be beefed up a bit. Instead they have access to pretty much anything else they need to actually fight. Any talent, even special ones only for them are available. Tools, and weapons that are normally out of reach for the players they can just have. Plans that players don't have.. and so on.

Example:

That's how "Boss fights" are supposed to work here. BBEGs are supposed to stack the odds in their favor and leverage their strengths and the other guys weaknesses. It's that "fighting smarter" concept that makes it work, and it's even seen in the films.

Example:

And one last thing.... you are just making the character to fit your need right? You're not doing something silly like making NPCs follow the same build rules as PCs or something? I assume not since you said you're experienced, but I've seen plenty of "experianced" D&D GMs caught by surprise when they learned that NPCs don't have to follow the rules here...

And one last thing.... you are just making the character to fit your need right? You're not doing something silly like making NPCs follow the same build rules as PCs or something? I assume not since you said you're experienced, but I've seen plenty of "experianced" D&D GMs caught by surprise when they learned that NPCs don't have to follow the rules here...

This. One thousand times this. NPCs should never follow the same rules as the PCs. They should lie, cheat, connive and outright have abilities to make the PCs cringe.

Other than the OP getting pissy in some of his replies, I'm not really seeing where the issue is.

Breach is pretty clear on what it does, both for Armor on vehicles and Soak Value on character-scale targets.

Parry is pretty specifically called out as not being related to Soak Value simply in how the talent is stated to work, namely that it's triggered before the damage is applied to the target's soak and the full description of the talent in the Talents chapter spells it out pretty clearly.

So the OP's player is right in that Breach 1 ignores any and all Soak Values that are 10 or less.

And as Ghostofman points out, it doesn't take that much to work around a lightsaber having such a high potential for damage output without having to resort to Cortosis armor on all your major villains.

GhostOfMan knocks this one out of the park.

Thanks again, some great advice in the last few threads. Totally forgot about cortosis.

I was using a modified Master Bounty Hunter, soak value 6 w/thresh. 25. Long story short I don't remember the exact numbers, first round Bounty hunter, smuggler, diplomat, saboteur a couple misses a couple hits and whittled him down a little. The Saber wielder is a min/maxed twilek Schii-cho Knight that uses two shoto sabers, force jumps in does 13 damage I think and crits with one attack, (he rolled really well) The BH nemesis was nocked down to 7 beginning of the second round, and slash that was it.

It was kind of funny in a way, the players looked at me like WTF, and I know I had the same WTF look on my face too, because it sure didn't live up to the hype. Kind of like when I was walking out of the theater after seeing The Phantom Menace and thinking, "what hell just happened?" lol

Live and learn I guess

Thanks again, some great advice in the last few threads. Totally forgot about cortosis.

I was using a modified Master Bounty Hunter, soak value 6 w/thresh. 25. Long story short I don't remember the exact numbers, first round Bounty hunter, smuggler, diplomat, saboteur a couple misses a couple hits and whittled him down a little. The Saber wielder is a min/maxed twilek Schii-cho Knight that uses two shoto sabers, force jumps in does 13 damage I think and crits with one attack, (he rolled really well) The BH nemesis was nocked down to 7 beginning of the second round, and slash that was it.

It was kind of funny in a way, the players looked at me like WTF, and I know I had the same WTF look on my face too, because it sure didn't live up to the hype. Kind of like when I was walking out of the theater after seeing The Phantom Menace and thinking, "what hell just happened?" lol

Live and learn I guess

You had him solo.... that's your problem. Put him as a leader of a squad. then all those first couple of rounds of hits will hit the minions and not him.

Yeah, the NPCs in the adversaries section are useable, but also examples, but if you want to really give the players a run for their money dropping one of them in at random won't cut it.

Next time try a more tailored encounter and you'll get better results.

If the players are low to middle XP try using the Inquisitor build system in the back of FaD. Your players will either get spanked, or slam the guy with so many Crits they'll eventually start to feel bad....