The way I see it is that both Strain and Wound are abstractions to determine the general well-being of the character. Strain represents mental strain, while Wound represents physical stress. Actual physical damage, to me, is represented by Critical Wounds. When you take wounds, I see it more like pushing your body to do what you want it to do, straining your muscles, or taking bruises and cuts and scrapes. When you reach your Wound threshold, it means that your body can't take any more abuse without something snapping (Critical Wounds). So a stimpack is more akin to an athlete getting a cortisone injection in his knee, except instead of just masking the pain, it revitalizes the character's health and boosts his natural healing ability. A stimpack, of course, won't do much of anything for actual damage, like a broken leg or a blaster hit to the gut. For that, you need more specialized medical attention, which the rules do a good job of spelling out.

So, honestly, I have no problem with Wound and Strain (and Critical Wounds) staying the way they are.

Exactly this is what you have in games like TOR (and many others, I just refer to TOR because I am playing it a lot recently), and that is what I want to create with the "Endurance". Notice though that the designers of the game had a different idea for what wounds mean:

Wound Threshold: A character's wound threshold is, basically, how many wounds -physical damage- a character can withstand before he is knocked out.

But if you read the sidebar on the same page (pg 215), it clarifies what it means to take "wounds":

• At this point, he's suffered a few cuts, bruises, and scrapes. However, he has not taken any permanent or incapacitating damage. He's a bit battered, but he's still hale and hearty overall.

• Critical Injuries are actual injuries that have some sort of detrimental effect. A character may be critically injured and wounded.

For example, in a rpg with a setting where horror plays a big role, I expect mechanics for mental stress tied with mechanics for mental sanity and a good set of guidelines of how to use them and affect the game, otherwise those are redundant mechanics.

Can you give examples of the kind of methods where they are tied together and working well in other games you know of?

Similarly, in a game where diplomacy and intrigue is expected to play a big part, mental stress, together with good social interaction rules, make a nice pack.

Again, can you give examples?

In EotE strain ("mental stress") is mixed with fatigue and wounds, goes up and down like the mana bar of a computer game, with no other consequences than your character falling unconscious once it goes above your threshold.

So, in FFG’s SWRPG, a lot depends on the narrative. This is true for many different types of game mechanics. If the GM doesn’t provide sufficient narrative to go along with the numbers, then the game is likely to get pretty boring.

FFG provides a certain amount of game mechanic that you can use to track something, but there’s only so much they can do in this space. The GM has to fill in with narrative.

So it's as I said originally. Being "wounded" just means you've taken some sort of physical abuse, from muscle strain to cuts, scrapes, bruises, and just generally pushing your body to the limits. For "damage" like this, it's not a stretch that some sort of rejuvenating elixir can be injected into you that'll make you feel better, or that continued use will have diminishing effects (it can only do so much). A stimpack isn't the same as a healing potion. It does nothing to fix broken bones, gaping wounds, or missing limbs. It'll just take the edge off the pain, help fatigued muscles, and maybe boost your immune system so your cuts and scrapes don't get infected. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

Besides "it's as I said" being a bit categorical since it is only your interpretation, and "a stimpak no being a healing potion", which I do not agree since they do exactly the same as for example D&D healing potions - they recover wounds - I must say I am nearly fully convinced by your argumentation of wounds representing just some sort of physical abuse. So thanks for the effort of pushing it.

Nevertheless, I still think that some of the mechanics in the game, like the slow natural recovery of wounds (which easily may take longer than naturally recovering from a critical injury), do not support your vision. Which still leaves me wondering what exacly the designers may have had in their minds.

For example, in a rpg with a setting where horror plays a big role, I expect mechanics for mental stress tied with mechanics for mental sanity and a good set of guidelines of how to use them and affect the game, otherwise those are redundant mechanics.

Can you give examples of the kind of methods where they are tied together and working well in other games you know of?

For an easy example of the above, easy beacuse it uses very similar mechanics as EotE, I recommend you to check the mental stress + mental sanity mechanics in Warhammer 3 (from the same designer as EotE).

Similarly, in a game where diplomacy and intrigue is expected to play a big part, mental stress, together with good social interaction rules, make a nice pack.

Again, can you give examples?

The first game that comes to my mind where mental stress and mental resistance are related to social interactions is The Burning Wheel (a really good game, worth reading it at least), but there are many more.

Wait... Am I doing something wrong? Why are your players incurring so many criticals that they become difficult to track? My guys get crits upon them but it's a big deal when they do and it usually means it's time to disengage and retreat. Also healing is not instantaneous after the med roll. At least not in my game. The healing roll stabilizes the wound and means you will recover, but that recovery takes time. Bed rest and down time. Don't just roll them away, this is a narrative game.

If your guys are getting so beat up maybe they should avoid combat a little more often, or get better at it.

Stim-Packs may feel video-gamey but the practical effect is that in this system, characters get hit more often than not. You don't generally get a dodge roll or a roll to resist being hit; cover is actually kinda crappy especially compared to the ways to boost Defense; the best you can really get is Talents like Dodge, Side Step, Defensive Stance and that just makes their dice pool worse (and still costs you strain), it's not you actively comparing successes to see if there is a hit or miss like in a lot of systems, or that the attacker needs to hit a certain success threshold - they just need 1 net success.

The result is that most hits connect. Remove soak and those hits each do more damage. Remove a way to heal and you have to re-tool every weapon stat otherwise players go down really quick if there are successive combat encounters. And in my experience >75% of sessions have at least 1 combat encounter.

Or you basically end up with people basically constantly bleeding or covered in wounds with no way to recover it, and probably lots of downtime. And that doesn't feel very Star Wars - look at most of the fight scenes in the movies. The heroes are pressed but "miraculously" never really get hit (because in the movies blasters are hyper-lethal).

So I'll take kind of a video-gamey way to recover wounds to basically playing gritty Dark Heresy in the Star Wars universe.

Sorry for the delay mate, I'll try to help you

Mainly:
- I would like to get rid of stimpaks.
- I would like to get rid of having to track two separate items in combats, wounds and strain. I don't see the added value in this game for it.
- I would like to stop tracking 1, 2, 3, 4... different critical wounds per character with different small effects each one; and having to go through 1, 2, 3, 4, different "too easy to be dramatically relevant" medicine rolls per character to heal them (plus interpreting all the advantages, triumphs and disadvanteges).
- I would like to get rid of soak but give armours a decent role (or no role at all) in the game.

1. I don't like Stimpaks so much too, but I understand them as a "mechanics to solve some in-game" usual problems. In movies, we don't use to see full battles. We use to see just some Jedi speaking via holocom, in the next scene their robes are a bit dirty and they are reflecting some bolts and in the last scene thei are fighting the last droids from an entire army and defeating the Federation Commander. But in roleplay players use to confront every single minion, nut use to jump from scene to scene XD

Also, as canon-defender, I don't remember a clear appearance of stimpacks, but like in videogames, they have a useful utility: Keep players alive.

Heroes from movies always use to roll ok. Players PC's use to miss checks. So, stimpacks or other healing options are needed.

2. I like the two separate ways personally, but in some cases, is confusing. Every one seems that aproves the idea that a though guy can resist so much damage than a weaker senator (Higher Wounds and Soak until now), but, if do you use your Stun Weapon setting to hit on Strain, the result will reverse, and the senator will survive more shots than the strong guy XD

Wounds and Strain (as pseudo fatigue system, mental and physical) seems pretty good, but in some cases can cause weird situation like the stun weapon and the strong guy (Wounds 20, Strain 10) and the senator (Wounds 10, Strain 20). Weird, pretty weird XD. Even with that problem, I prefer that to the alternative: Though guys with "hundred of HP" like the classical "d20 Barbarian Style".

Separating those pools, you can have that even the strongest guy have his/her extraordinary skills limited to the lack of strain.

3. Unless you have Makashi finish or some weapon with serrated edges... criticals doesn't use to be a problem XD Criticals is a small point of realism in a cinematic/simulator game. Instead focus on "all damage are just numeric values" you have also those special effect. But, if do you want to make it easier, consider that every critical upgrades/increases or downgrades/decreases difficulties/skills. Imagine the cinematic effect that you wish, but effect and result like this way will be pretty clear. Also, the amount of criticals is the Medicine difficulty to heal it. Pretty simple

4. Soak... the eternal discussion XD Seems that almost all your goal is achieve an easier and faster combat. I'am also trying to find something as an alternate versions to Soak. As an "easy" sollution, I suggest to you just forget Soak mechanics and use the next one.

- Main Soak come from species. 1 Weak (Jawa?), 2 Medium (Human), 3 Strong (Wookie)

- Soak can be added thanks to Talents.

- OPTIONAL: Soak that doesn't come from armors is only applied to Bludgeoning? This can slow the combat a bit.

- Armor values are up to x2 (or even x3). So a Soak 1 Armor can have some variants up to 2 (or 3), Soak 2 -> 3-4... and so on.

Not sure if I helped but I tried it

Happy geeky gaming mate!

Wait... Am I doing something wrong? Why are your players incurring so many criticals that they become difficult to track? My guys get crits upon them but it's a big deal when they do and it usually means it's time to disengage and retreat. Also healing is not instantaneous after the med roll. At least not in my game. The healing roll stabilizes the wound and means you will recover, but that recovery takes time. Bed rest and down time. Don't just roll them away, this is a narrative game.

If your guys are getting so beat up maybe they should avoid combat a little more often, or get better at it.

3. Unless you have Makashi finish or some weapon with serrated edges... criticals doesn't use to be a problem XD Criticals is a small point of realism in a cinematic/simulator game. Instead focus on "all damage are just numeric values" you have also those special effect. But, if do you want to make it easier, consider that every critical upgrades/increases or downgrades/decreases difficulties/skills. Imagine the cinematic effect that you wish, but effect and result like this way will be pretty clear. Also, the amount of criticals is the Medicine difficulty to heal it. Pretty simple

Notice, that high soak and high number of wounds means you will last longer before falling unconscious, therefore the chances of accumulating critical injuries increases.

Interesting side effect of the mechanics...makes sense.

Wait... Am I doing something wrong? Why are your players incurring so many criticals that they become difficult to track? My guys get crits upon them but it's a big deal when they do and it usually means it's time to disengage and retreat. Also healing is not instantaneous after the med roll. At least not in my game. The healing roll stabilizes the wound and means you will recover, but that recovery takes time. Bed rest and down time. Don't just roll them away, this is a narrative game.

If your guys are getting so beat up maybe they should avoid combat a little more often, or get better at it.

I don't know if you do something wrong, but in the skirmishes I design for my players is quite common that they end up with critical injuries, 1 to 3 are common numbers, 4 and 5 have been seen in some large combats. Notice, that high soak and high number of wounds means you will last longer before falling unconscious, therefore the chances of accumulating critical injuries increases. You see, limiting the value of soak is good for the PCs

3. Unless you have Makashi finish or some weapon with serrated edges... criticals doesn't use to be a problem XD Criticals is a small point of realism in a cinematic/simulator game. Instead focus on "all damage are just numeric values" you have also those special effect. But, if do you want to make it easier, consider that every critical upgrades/increases or downgrades/decreases difficulties/skills. Imagine the cinematic effect that you wish, but effect and result like this way will be pretty clear. Also, the amount of criticals is the Medicine difficulty to heal it. Pretty simple

This is definitively a nice idea, I am aiming to something like this.

Just to add onto this, it also depends on how you spend advantages that your NPC's generate. If you have a lot of low crit rating weapons and spend the advantages on crits whenever possible, then naturally your party will accumlate a lot of crits. Blaster Rifles and most blaster weapons require at least 3 advantages to crit for most part, melee weapons either 1/2 (for all vibro weapons and some beasts) to 3 (for pretty much everything else.). The other way to spend those advantages would be to add boost dice or setback dice to further checks of groups; which may be an idea if you want an alternative to criting.

Wait... Am I doing something wrong? Why are your players incurring so many criticals that they become difficult to track? My guys get crits upon them but it's a big deal when they do and it usually means it's time to disengage and retreat. Also healing is not instantaneous after the med roll. At least not in my game. The healing roll stabilizes the wound and means you will recover, but that recovery takes time. Bed rest and down time. Don't just roll them away, this is a narrative game.

If your guys are getting so beat up maybe they should avoid combat a little more often, or get better at it.

I don't know if you do something wrong, but in the skirmishes I design for my players is quite common that they end up with critical injuries, 1 to 3 are common numbers, 4 and 5 have been seen in some large combats.

I think Wonderduck might be on to something here. I have had plenty of games now and indeed criticals have come up but 3 as common number and 4 maybe 5 in larger combats? That does seem mighty excessive...

I like the system as is (well I'm kind with you on the stimpaks), but offering help here is my take:

Mainly:
- I would like to get rid of stimpaks.
- I would like to get rid of having to track two separate items in combats, wounds and strain. I don't see the added value in this game for it.

- I would like to stop tracking 1, 2, 3, 4... different critical wounds per character with different small effects each one

Get rid of the stimpaks. Or make them weaker or for only long term care. But of course consider what that will do for the overall lethality of the game.

Strain is an instrumental part of the game system. It's also something important. Stress, fear, unconsciousness seperated from physical wounds. Many systems seperate those two for a good reason. It would be a mammoth rewrite for your house rules plus I think you would be losing a very key element regardless of system.

Criticals? I haven't seen them as a chore, but if you must toss them and instead have "criticals" deal increased damage or like d20. I would do such only a probationary basis and see what happens in-game. You may have to adjust the increased damage up or down to your liking.

So my final opinion for you is keep the Strain, weaken or toss stimpaks, then convert criticals to something new like increased damage. This keeps the house rules simple without need of rewriting talents and such. Then playtest it.

for my players is quite common that they end up with critical injuries, 1 to 3 are common numbers, 4 and 5 have been seen in some large combats.

So each player gets up to 3-5 critical wounds every battle? How do they survive? How do they still have limbs? Are they winning these fights? Does the next scene after the fight always start with them coming out of cloning vats?

Even if it were 3 to 5 across the entire party it would still be quite a lot...

For stimpacks; something I've considered for a long time is to tweak stimpacks to have a negative consequence as well. The two options I've considered are:

- Have each stimpack use inflict Strain on the subject, to reflect the toll the artificially elevated adrenaline levels would have on them. 2 each sounds about right. This only works if you put some limits on what PCs can spend Advantage on, if they're only spending them to recover strain this isn't as good a solution.

- Have the Wounds granted by stimpacks be removed at the end of the encounter, as the character "crashes" at the first chance they get. That way if characters are relying on stimpacks to get through a fight, they'll still be incapacitated at the end of it, and it becomes more of a desperation move. More drastic fix, but I like it better.

I've tested both of these in a couple of encounters; it generally went well and turned stimpack use into a more considered thing, even with new players who thought of them as "healing potions". I haven't implemented either of them into my main campaigns mostly because I haven't seen the need; we mostly play combat-light games with low-power characters, so encounters are more about escaping than slugging it out. If I run a combat-oriented campaign though I will definitely use one of them, probably the latter.

To clarify a bit. I have a party of 8 players, the minimum we play is 6 players, but most of the time we are 8, that to start with. Normally, after a combat the group ends easily with 4 - 5 critics. That is an average of one critic per every two players.

And, never ever I will spend advantages and triumphs in something which is not triggering critical injuries unless I can trigger autofire of course! Nevertheless, I don't use heavy weapons on NPC usually, maximum Blaster rifles, but most of the times blaster pistols. So I need 3 advantages or 1 triumph to activate the critics from NPC weapons.

And yes, there are already two prosthetic eyes, and a few prosthetic limbs in the party.

And, never ever I will spend advantages and triumphs in something which is not triggering critical injuries unless I can trigger autofire of course!

If you think the system is causing too many crits, why do you insist on spending advantages and triumphs on them exclusively? If you use them on other things your problems would be solved, would they not?

And, never ever I will spend advantages and triumphs in something which is not triggering critical injuries unless I can trigger autofire of course!

If you think the system is causing too many crits, why do you insist on sending advantages and triumphs on them exclusively? If you use them on other things your problems would be solved, would they not?

I like a good mix of crits and narrative events for combat. Whatever will make the scene the most fun or play into what I had in mind for lingering issues.