Did I get this right? If you are prepared or in a planned situation you roll Cool, but if you are caught by surprised or suddenly get in a fight you roll Vigilance? So if you have a high Vigilance and a low Cool, you should never plan or be prepared?..

That can`t be right. What did I miss?

You're right, technically that would be how it works.....my table had a similar conclusion, however it should be emphasized that it means the character doesn't put much emphasis on planning but is great at reacting to the unexpected......that being said, walking in to a situation with no plan doesn't mean you roll vigilance. Willfully walking in to danger would still be cool in my book.

Well i think you would be in a different kind of a situation if you were using cool. Like maybe you have stealthed somewhere or something and you are going to combat 1 or 2 people.

Vigilance, maybe your the one being ambushed though you have an advantage in that you are going to act earlier you arent in a situation where you are wanting combat.

But yeh it can be a bit weird if people start to think they should intentionally try to be the 'attackee' lol.

If only could make someone who fails their vigilance to lose a maneuver or action but that might be too much of a punishment. Unless your a jedi i cant see where vigilance would have an advantage over cool.

I just let my players use them interchangeably.

I feel nothing is lost.

I find it quite realistic... I come to find I work terrible under pressure for instance. Knowing I have to do something scary like giving a speech can really get me worked up, but being invited unto a stage and just winging it phases me a lot less.

I like the split. Cool is to Discipline as Vigilance is to Perception, and you wouldn't use Discipline and Perception interchangeably.

I like the split, however I don't like how careers get the skills. For example, the Assassin does not get Cool. If anyone should be able to be prepared, wait until the enemy has walked into the trap, and pull the trigger when they feel the time is right, it should be the Assassin.

My group always seemed to be rolling Cool for initiative since we were pretty much always expecting a fight. However, almost none of us had access to Cool as a career skill because EotE was stingy in giving it out. If I was the GM, I'd probably use them interchangeably 80% of the time (let the players pick) but have specific plot points where I determine which one should be used. Just fighting some mooks while clearing out a gang's base? Use whichever you want. Going up against the gang leader? I'll determine which to use for story reasons.

I only say this because there are several careers which don't get Cool but yet seem like they should. If more careers had Cool that felt like they should have Cool, like in AoR, then I wouldn't be so flexible.

There are a few anomalies, like the Scout doesn't get Stealth even though they have the Stalker Talent. I think though, that too much is made of whether specs have a career skill or not (I've been guilty of this too). The cost for a non-career skill is negligibly higher...getting one or two ranks in Cool when it's not a career skill isn't going to break the XP bank.

It's the same for people who made a Force character and want to be able to use a Lightsaber...only 1 in 3 specs has it as a career skill, but that shouldn't stop people from taking it.

It's possible to put points into Cool.

If you put points into Cool, you're better at the stuff that uses Cool. If you have points in Vigilance, you're better at the stuff that uses Vigilance.

Isn't it true that if you have a low Melee but a high Ranged Light you'll be better at using a pistol than a sword?

Personally, I go with the narrative when it comes to which skill to roll. If the group is actually surprised, or not expecting trouble, I have them roll Vigilance. If they're trying to set a trap, or being sneaky, it's Cool. If they're alert and walking into a dangerous situation, but are keeping an eye out for where the trouble might come from, I usually give them a choice of which they might want to roll. I guess it depends on the situation and how well prepared they are. If I evaluation the situation, and determine that there's compelling arguments for rolling either skill, I let them choose.

I actually always roll Vigilance for initiative slot (representing how well you react to changing circumstances of the battle). However I created an 'ambush' rule that uses Cool to initiate combat, representing how well characters are able to spring a trap. This is in part because if felt more logical, and in part because there is so little cool in the party compared to vigilance, we were mechanically shooting ourselves in the foot if we ever ambushed an enemy, and since we're the ones being attacked the majority of the time anyway, cool was a poor investment for initiative. I've included the house rule below.

Initiating Combat

• If both parties are aware of each other, in combat range, and not hostile; the party initiating combat gains a blue die to initiative checks.
• If one party successfully performs an ambush (is aware of the incoming enemy, prepared and not detected prior to initiating combat) perform the following:
  • Roll an opposed Cool vs. Vigilance check.
    • Success grants a Blue to Initiative, with an additional blue per two additional successes
    • Two advantage may be spent to gain a free maneuver before combat. Unspent Advantages carry over to the Initiative check
    • Triumph may be spent for a top initiative slot, or for a free action (just action, not full round) before combat, or positively affect the battle.
    • Failure has no effect.
    • Three disadvantage may be spent to gain a black die to the initiative check
    • Despair may be spent to lose your free maneuver in the first round, or negatively affect the battle.
  • The ambushing party gains one blue die to initiative (regardless of roll outcome)

I had this argument with one of my players. He has great vigilance and awful cool. Seriously, one presence and no ranks. He didn't understand the concepts involved and kept trying to provoke enemies into attacking. I pointed out to him that just because they threw the first punch, he wasn't caught by surprise. He was trying to provoke them, thus he expected the fight.

Sometimes both parties can expect the fight and thus both roll cool. Sometimes they can both be surprised, thus both roll vigilance. It isn't always cool vs. vigilance and I find it far more fun when it is not.

How did he end up in a situation where he has great Vigilance and awful Cool?

Does he understand you can spend experience points on skills you want to be good at?

I'm afraid this is something I just do not understand. Some folks are building new combat mechanics, others are ignoring the definitions of the rules, rather than just have their players spend some points on a skill in order to be good at it?

If your conception for your character is that they're great at ambushing people, then maybe buy some ranks in Cool. What am I missing about how this is not the main thing said whenever this question comes up?

Also...to take a more min-max approach... if people really want Cool as a career skill, they can always buy a spec that has it. If it's their first other in-career spec, four ranks of Cool pays for the tree, plus they have a host of other things to enjoy in the tree.

Having vigilance and not cool doesn't have to be an oversight, it can make perfect sense in character. Your classic Jedi Exile would be like this - constantly on the look out for someone who might be on to them, very aware of their environment, but not particularly good at restraining exhibiting their thoughts or fitting in among a crowd in the open. Yet they end up in this situation:

"So, if I am heading into the docking bay, just throw the door open and suddenly see stormtroopers in front of our ship, I get YYGG, but if I stop to look through the window and see there are stormtroopers there, I get GG instead?"

By making cool instead of rather then in addition to vigilance for initiative, you create situations where scouting ahead and planing becomes detrimental to the person/group.

Quicksilver, if a party doesn't want scouting ahead to become "detrimental" to the group, perhaps they could buy some ranks in the skill that keeps that from happening? Likewise if I don't want to be terrible at firing a rifle, wouldn't it make sense to buy ranks in the skill that makes me good at firing a rifle?

I'd also consider that there's 'detrimental' and then there's 'detrimental'. Just having a couple of successes fewer when determining Initiative doesn't have to be the end of the world.

I'm not trying to be belligerent, I am just trying to understand this mindset.

It's completely reasonable for a character to use a Holdout Blaster because their concept is that they're not really a fighter, they're just a mechanic/droid/scout/whatever. Sure, they could get more numbers added to other numbers when they shoot if they used a Heavy Blaster Pistol, but if that's not the character concept, then why is having more numbers more important?

Likewise, if it's your character's concept that they're NOT "cool", then I'd say just go with it. It's not the worst thing ever to happen in the world that you're rolling GG instead of YYGG or whatever on Initiative.

And if you decide you want to be better at setting the trap or ambushing people, then I still don't see how the answer isn't just "buy ranks in Cool". Doesn't that make sense?

Because it doesn't seem logical that the Jedi Exile character above is more likely to be gunned down before reacting by stormtroopers they saw then stormtroopers they didn't see, regardless of how cool or vigilant they are. Maybe equally likely, but more likely?

And your proposed answer to solve this break in game logic issue is to buy a skill that doesn't make sense for the character.

On top of that, there's still no benefit to ambushing someone, even if you do keep your cool & vigilance identical the most you've accomplished is not taking a penalty for launching an ambush.

It's like if you told your charming businessman Negotiator "If you didn't have enough money, it'd be negotiate to lower the price, but because you do have enough, you'll have to use coercion instead."

or if you told your gunslinger "Firing your pistol from the hip is Ranged (Light) but if you aim you have to steady with the other hand, so it becomes Ranged (Heavy)" (no blue die, this is the only "benefit" of aiming)

It's also not that it doesn't benefit them - like carrying a smaller pistol, it's that scouting ahead, hell even attempting perception checks to spot hidden enemies, actively hurts their chances, when there's no logical reason for it to do so.

(Sorry, reads a little more aggressive then I intended.)

Also...to take a more min-max approach... if people really want Cool as a career skill, they can always buy a spec that has it. If it's their first other in-career spec, four ranks of Cool pays for the tree, plus they have a host of other things to enjoy in the tree.

Who gets Cool in EotE? For careers it's just Explorer. For specs it's Doctor, Driver, Demolitionist, Scoundrel, Charmer, Gambler, and Gunslinger. Only two of those specs are in the core EotE book. No bounty hunters. Only one Hired Gun. I'm surprised Big-Game Hunter doesn't have it, but at least they get it from Explorer if you start that way. Out of the seven specs, four of them are Smugglers, which says to me that FFG thinks that Smugglers are the only ones who generally prepare for battle.

On the other side, Vigilance is fairly common because the careers Bounty Hunter, Hired Gun, and Smuggler get it as a career skill. That's half of all careers. With an even career distribution, that means that half of all characters can start with Vigilance. Although, on the flip side it is surprisingly rare as a spec skill, only appearing on the Marshal and Thief trees.

There are what, currently 30 trees? At character creation, there are 12 starting career tree choices you could choose to start with Cool as a career skill. As for Vigilance, there are 17 starting career tree choices to gain this career skill.

I... I don't really know what to do with this information. I'm now conflicted since it's harder to get Vigilance after picking your starting career than it is to get Cool. However, the careers that get Vigilance are the combat ones which I feel some of those trees should have access to Cool as well, such as Assassin and Mercenary Soldier.

I still don`t get how being prepared and ready is a bad thing. If a character has really high Vigilance and really low Cool, it`s a bad thing for him or her to be prepared for what is comming. I would get it if the player could choose to roll cool if he or she wanted in that situation.

Shouldn`t being prepared always be a good thing, even for more vigilant characters? Forget guard duty, I`m vigilant!

I like the thought of having two skills for initiative, I just don`t get how it is explained or handled, it makes little sense to me, narratively and mechanically.

I just do not understand what the problem is. In the first place, it's not THAT bad a thing to maybe not get the best initiative slot in a combat. The whole abstracted, game-concept of "initiative" is not a thing your character understand, it's not like your character knows "wow it's strange that when when I get jumped, my friends and I are often able to respond quickly but when I'm planning the attack, my friends and I sometimes have to go after one of our enemies."

It's not even like D&D where it's YOUR initiative slot. If you just don't have ANYBODY in your party who's good at launching ambushes or attacks or whatever, maybe that's a problem you need to work out and it's not the system's fault. Just have somebody buy a rank or two in Cool.

If you want to be good at getting the best initiative slot in combat when you're the one launching the attack, there is a skill which covers that and you can buy points in it. Having a cool, steady hand when you're planning an attack is a different concept than having a quick response when you're surprised. If you want your character to be good at both because they have steely nerves, then buy ranks in Cool and Vigilance.

It's like James Bond. Bond would have ranks in both Cool AND Vigilance. He is Cool, because he's great at blending in to an environment, he always seems like he belongs, and he's great at dispassionately planning and executing an attack. He's ALSO very Vigilant and observant and responds well to surprise attacks.

The way this game handles it is definitely not the way most other games handle it. I feel like I've made my case on the subject, so if you're still not willing to just buy ranks in Cool then you have my best wishes and I hope you can work it out some other way.

I still don`t get how being prepared and ready is a bad thing. If a character has really high Vigilance and really low Cool, it`s a bad thing for him or her to be prepared for what is comming.

That seems like an odd way to look at things. Every skill you learn means you're relatively worse at everything else. It's not a "bad thing", it just means you invested in the tools you prefer. If you want to be good at Cool, invest in Cool.

One can always be on watch or aware of danger. One can always be planning and prepared. Sometimes you can't be both. Sometimes you are better at watching out for things than you are at planning. Get it?

I still don`t get how being prepared and ready is a bad thing. If a character has really high Vigilance and really low Cool, it`s a bad thing for him or her to be prepared for what is comming.

That seems like an odd way to look at things. Every skill you learn means you're relatively worse at everything else. It's not a "bad thing", it just means you invested in the tools you prefer. If you want to be good at Cool, invest in Cool.

This would be great if the only thing Cool did was be good at planing ambushes/engaging expected attacks. But it's not - That's not even it's primary function, just look at what careers/specializations get it; FFG clearly considers it in it's social implications, not its combat ones. Indeed it's application to combat seems to be all but an afterthought. Telling me to "Just by the skill" doesn't make it any more logical, or useful. You're telling me to spend 10, 25 or 40xp to make the system make sense in one case, and not make sense in the others again.

Also, I think the characters would, indeed, find it funny that "Gee, every time the bountyhunter's jump us without us noticing, we shoot them before they can get a shot off, but every time we storm into a hangerbay to attack the bounty hunters checking out our ship, we get shot before we can even find cover."

It's odd because the "check" is the same - "Initiative", but the skill changes, meaning a characters relive ability to accomplish it changes. There are no other actions like that in the game - no other instances where the same "action" is covered by two different skills in different situations, particularly where one is logically more favorable to the characters.

To reiterate my analogy, it would be like if gunslingers had to use Ranged (Light) if they just shoot, but Ranged (heavy) if they aimed before shooting, with no other adjustment/benefit.

(Just to note, as a game effect I agree Initiative isn't super important, I'd just as soon strike it from the system entirely and just let the PCs go first because they're heroes, but it's the logic of application that bothers me.)

I definitely do think cool is a nice skill and makes sense for blending into the social surroundings and it makes sense for some careers not to have it *cough* scholar

I usually think half the point of an ambush is to attack first.

If you are going to say you are going to just be aware instead of plan then you could make problems by trying to intentionally use vigilance.