*Note - Please keep in mind I am new to this game only now just starting to read through the material

This is just an idea I had when I was perusing the combat/injuries area of the Core rulebook.

(This might have already been talked about but I couldn't see the topic anywhere)

I was thinking an easy way to make armour a little more useful (and at the same time make the lethality of the game just a touch higher)

would be to rule that when a PC/NPC takes damage and their soak reduces the damage to zero, they still take 1 wound.

After all, a miss or near miss is already in the dice mechanics and I cant reconcile with a PC/NPC actually being struck by a blaster bolt, vibro-axe, lightsaber etc. and it have absolutely no effect!

The advantage of wearing armour is that in cases where the PC/NPS's soak does reduce the wounds taken to zero, they actually dont take any wounds. ie. the armour took the hit/absorbed/deflected the damage.

This means that armour is a little more useful and makes more sense why people would wear it but doesn't actually change any of it's properties/stats.

The fact that unarmoured PC/NPC's take at least 1 wound per hit means that even the toughest being is going to be whittled down eventually.

I think this little tweak adds just a hint more risk/consequence to combat encounters and Players will be less inclined to just go in guns blazing all the time - or if they do, it will be all the more impressive!

Apologies again if this has already been bandied about etc., as I said above, I am very new to this system.

Anyone have any thought?

Well, even a light blaster does 5 base damage, so it will do a minimum of 6 damage on a hit. Unless you have Brawn 4, you are going to take some damage. Now, it's possible to get, say, a droid marauder with a high soak, but there are plenty of weapons that can penetrate a soak of 10 no problem, so the GM just has to whip those out. Personally, I think you might be trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

But, what do I know? Give it a shot and see how it plays.

My advice is always learn the system as is, play with it for a long while to get a feel for how it works, and then see if you need to make changes.

It's very easy to spot problems that don't exist, really love something, despise something, etc at first glance and then have all your opinions flip flop after a few sessions/campaigns. If you start changing how things work now you'll cause major headaches for all around the table and every bump in the road with grind your sessions to a halt as you now have to tweak your rules midsession.

Also, look into triumphs and advantages and their effects. There is plenty you can do with an attack even if it fails to hit or deal damage.

*Note - Please keep in mind I am new to this game only now just starting to read through the material

Noted. You're fixing a rule that isn't broke, leave it alone.

After all, a miss or near miss is already in the dice mechanics and I cant reconcile with a PC/NPC actually being struck by a blaster bolt, vibro-axe, lightsaber etc. and it have absolutely no effect!

You are thinking about this the wrong way. Taking damage in this system isn't whittling away hit points. It's all collective; taking 1 Wound isn't equal to taking one blaster bolt. What you are thinking of as more traditional damage in other systems is more akin to Critical Hits in this system. That hit for a single wound is sort of like, "the bolt grazes you and the heat singles your skin. You'll have a minor burn later, but in the heat of the moment you aren't slowed down."

*Note - Please keep in mind I am new to this game only now just starting to read through the material

Noted. You're fixing a rule that isn't broke, leave it alone.

Just, oh by the Force, THIS.

What you propose is a bad idea. A very bad idea.

Soak in this game is designed to stop all damage if possible. It is balanced around this concept. You should stop trying to screw that up. Armor is already extremely useful. It is also exceptionally uncommon to have any character (PC or NPC) to have a soak that is so high they can't be damaged by most weapons, especially since additional successes add to weapon damage.

Based on you're self-described experience with this system, or lack thereof, you're probably not familiar with how critical injuries work. If you were, I doubt you'd be here posting this.

Players in this system learn not to go in guns blazing real fast. Or they die. Or the GM is seriously holding back. But its definitely one of these.

If you want to combat to scare your players with combat, throw them up against a couple rivals with weapons that have autofire and pierce qualities. It'll just take one time.

But seriously, posting recommended changes to the system from a point of near complete ignorance about the system is a waste of everyone's time: yours in posting it, ours in responding to it.

Sorry if my previous post was overly terse or blunt. The intent was not to offend or insult, but it was intentionally written in that tone for impact. Moreso than most this is a game that needs to be played to be understand it's balance.

Additionally, this game really may require a set of house-rules and modifications to run smoothly because of the authors' "omission by intent" style of design. It's hard enough to keep track of those rule changes without additional suggested rule changes like what's been posted out of ignorance above.

I must agree with the vast majority here. Our campaign is in the 500+ exp range, and the only one with a soak higher then 5 is the marauder. I don't remember exactly what her soak is, but it's pretty high, and I can still pretty easily nickle and dime it down in a long fight.

The mechanics let me nickle and dime the marauder down with the majority of baddies legitimately concentrating their fire on the juggernaut. Meanwhile I can have a few people take shots at the remaining characters and drop their wounds at a similar rate.

Also, on a Crit, you have do at least one point of damage. If you can eat up all the damage through soak, the Crit does not effect them. By using your house rule, you are now changing this rule too. The game designers did this for a sound solid reason. But you can run your game the way you want. It's funny, how you state you are just starting to read the rules, but want to go against the people who spent years making this game, and have special degrees in game design and most spent decades in game design and building.

Those have always been my favorite GMs, those who don't know the rules, but feel the need to make the book I purchased worthless, as reading it gives different rules than what is being used.

Sorry, dude, but this is a horrible idea. Read the book, learn the book, use the book. Then after a long while, learn what works best you and your group and then decide if any changes are warranted. If I was a player in a game using this rule, I would be looking for a new GM that is not looking to eff me over, because that is all this is doing, not making the game more fun, or enhancing anything, or making the fights more exciting. If you don't want characters going in guns blazing, then don't give them those types of encounters. Encounter design is where you can flex your creativity, not rule bastardization.

The game, if it has a wounds/soak issue, is not that there isn't enough damage caused, it's that it's a bit dicey at times challenging a party without blow torching them in my experience as a GM. Soak is fine as is.

Thanks for the replies guys.

Even if I do feel like I got flamed a little for just asking question.....

Wasn't my intention to poke holes in the system.

Not sure if this may have helped but my original thought came on the back of experiences with the the old WEG D6 system (which I thought was pretty **** good in general) and issues we had with this kind of thing.

Again, all probably things that could of been handled differently at the time but I like to think we are always learning how to do things better/ more creatively right?

At any rate I am appreciative for the responses and from what you guys are saying it seems that the system works well as is.

I'm not looking to fix problems that don't exist and it's good to see that people are enjoying the game.

I have literally not played the new system yet but was just anticipating something I thought might crop up as an issue.

I probably should have just asked how people felt about the combat rules/lethality level of the game etc. but I had some thoughts on how to 'tweak' things a little if it was a bit nerfed so I thought I'd share them.

Looking forward to playing the system.

Thanks again.

I don't suggest doing this all the time, but a good way to make an encounter dangerous is to always spend advantage on critical injuries to your PCs whenever you can. Again, this will become very adversarial if you do it often, but an encounter every few sessions where the opponents have ranks in lethal blows and low crit weapons with the vicious quality will keep them scared.

Thanks for the replies guys.

Even if I do feel like I got flamed a little for just asking question.....

Wasn't my intention to poke holes in the system.

Not sure if this may have helped but my original thought came on the back of experiences with the the old WEG D6 system (which I thought was pretty **** good in general) and issues we had with this kind of thing.

Again, all probably things that could of been handled differently at the time but I like to think we are always learning how to do things better/ more creatively right?

At any rate I am appreciative for the responses and from what you guys are saying it seems that the system works well as is.

I'm not looking to fix problems that don't exist and it's good to see that people are enjoying the game.

I have literally not played the new system yet but was just anticipating something I thought might crop up as an issue.

I probably should have just asked how people felt about the combat rules/lethality level of the game etc. but I had some thoughts on how to 'tweak' things a little if it was a bit nerfed so I thought I'd share them.

Looking forward to playing the system.

Thanks again.

This game in many ways is the spiritual successor to WEG Star Wars. But do not try to use experience from WEG star wars to fix this system.

It's going a ways back now (decades..... ) but I think the WEG D6 system might have been my first foray away from D&D. It certainly opened my eyes to new ideas!

Let me be clear, I am not trying to 'fix' the system or jury-rig in a bunch of home brewed rules onto it right out of the gate.

I like the system so far (from what I have read) and have played plenty of others over the years so am no stranger to doing things differently.

Like I and my gaming colleagues have always done, we will play it as is and if we feel we need to make adjustments here and there then we will.

Unless you are completely new to Role playing then it is arrogant to think that you can start looking at a new system though and not compare it others and naturally consider rules adjustments.

I've yet to find a 'Perfect System' right out of the box.

That doesn't mean to say that you don't play as written or automatically have to change things, I'm just acknowledging that game systems evolve over time - hence Errata documents, FAQ's and Second editions etc.

Am I wrong in thinking it's a bit harsh to classify my original post as 'ignorant’?

That’s not the word I would use. Perhaps not well-versed in the system that you apparently have not yet played, but I wouldn’t say “ignorant”. After all, you did demonstrate an understanding of the potential problem, even if the proposed solution doesn’t end up being necessary/desirable.

It was a question/query after all, not a declaration of intent.

It may have been intended as a question/query, but that’s not quite how I read it.

Just be aware that this kind of written forum can often make it difficult to interpret tone and context and posts that come off as 'Judgemental' only serve to discourage participation.

Indeed, the forum mechanism and the written word can be very hard to get across what you meant to say, as opposed to what was received.

Thanks to those that replied with useful comments and rationales.

I look forward to being able to do the same for others in the future.

And I look forward to future discussions with you! Thanks!

I take responsibility for qualifying the OP as "ignorant," and frankly, I stand by it ( definition of ignorance ). You suggested (and I believe that is the correct term) a major change to an important rule with, as you very clearly stated, little to no knowledge of the system.

That is literally ignorant.

However, here you equate ignorant to stupid:

Also, please be honest, because statements like this:

really misrepresent your OP. The only question therein was if the community had any thoughts.

And this...

If new players/GM's cant ask questions then all you end up with is a board full of people patting themselves on the back for already knowing everything.

The responses you got here aren't people patting themselves on the back, they're concerned community members trying to nip a problem in the bud. Aggressively. New players/GMs can ask questions, and they should ask questions. Specifically, you can and you should ask questions.

I honestly take all of the above on board and at face value which I can see was intended to be helpful.

I didn't realise that I came across with my OP as it being a rule I had implemented but I accept that it obviously did.

This is just an idea I had when I was perusing the combat/injuries area of the Core rulebook.

I'm definitely not interested in unnecessarily muddying the waters rules wise.

I will make sure that I state my position more clearly next time I post.

Thanks for taking an interest and helping to clear up my OP.

I've only seen combat as extremely lethal thus far a blaster rifles knock off large chunks on PCs with 3 soak. The only one that feels survivable is the brawn 3 bounty hunter in superior heavy armor with armor master being soak 7 but even she won't hold under constant attack for long

Bear in mind that taking wounds in this game is lot harder to recover from that some other systems like D&D. Taking wounds is a bigger deal so it's expected that PCs will be able to have less inflicted on them to compensate for the harder recovery.

I was thinking an easy way to make armour a little more useful (and at the same time make the lethality of the game just a touch higher)

would be to rule that when a PC/NPC takes damage and their soak reduces the damage to zero, they still take 1 wound.

After all, a miss or near miss is already in the dice mechanics and I cant reconcile with a PC/NPC actually being struck by a blaster bolt, vibro-axe, lightsaber etc. and it have absolutely no effect!

The advantage of wearing armour is that in cases where the PC/NPS's soak does reduce the wounds taken to zero, they actually dont take any wounds. ie. the armour took the hit/absorbed/deflected the damage.

This means that armour is a little more useful and makes more sense why people would wear it but doesn't actually change any of it's properties/stats.

The fact that unarmoured PC/NPC's take at least 1 wound per hit means that even the toughest being is going to be whittled down eventually.

Would Heavy Clothing count as Armor?

Would Armored Clothing?

This idea causes you to draw a line as to what is armor, and what is not.

RAW, it's all just adding to Soak and Defense.

Bear in mind that taking wounds in this game is lot harder to recover from that some other systems like D&D. Taking wounds is a bigger deal so it's expected that PCs will be able to have less inflicted on them to compensate for the harder recovery.

IMO wounds aren't that bad to heal if you have someone in the group with the Medicine skill. It's the critical injuries that *really* mess up a PC's day.

There has been many threads on the EotE forum about combat monsters with very high Soak PCs unbalancing Combat. This usually happens with Min-Maxed PCs but it can happen even if a Player isn't intentionally Min-Maxing. Generally the Soak system works, however there are times when it feels like it's breaking when Combat becomes a cake walk for part of the party while remaining challenging for the rest. The solution my group uses is a one wound minimum per hit House Rule. It almost never effects low Soak PCs as weapons generally do enough damage to get past 2-4 Soak so the minimum is always met but with very high Soak PCs (6-9) it keeps combat risky without nerfing them.

There has been many threads on the EotE forum about combat monsters with very high Soak PCs unbalancing Combat. This usually happens with Min-Maxed PCs but it can happen even if a Player isn't intentionally Min-Maxing. Generally the Soak system works, however there are times when it feels like it's breaking when Combat becomes a cake walk for part of the party while remaining challenging for the rest. The solution my group uses is a one wound minimum per hit House Rule. It almost never effects low Soak PCs as weapons generally do enough damage to get past 2-4 Soak so the minimum is always met but with very high Soak PCs (6-9) it keeps combat risky without nerfing them.

A similar solution is to re-interpret how the Pierce ability works.

*** I AM AWARE THAT WHAT I'M WRITING BELOW IS DIRECTLY CONTRARY TO RULE CLARIFICATIONS IN THE FAQS ***

So that's clear? Right? Seriously.

Pierce says "ignore one unit of soak per rank of pierce" and this means "reduce soak by one". In other words, the point of soak is 'taken off the top', so if the damage dealt plus pierce rating still doesn't beak soak, then no damage still goes through.

Instead, you could interpret the "ignore one soak" to mean [Pierce rating] damage always goes through.

In effect, this leads to an interpretation that is nearly identical to FuriousGreg's interpretation, just limited to weapons with Pierce.

Anyway, that's just another option if you find that "uber-soak" characters are problematic.

A similar solution is to re-interpret how the Pierce ability works.

*** I AM AWARE THAT WHAT I'M WRITING BELOW IS DIRECTLY CONTRARY TO RULE CLARIFICATIONS IN THE FAQS ***

So that's clear? Right? Seriously.

Pierce says "ignore one unit of soak per rank of pierce" and this means "reduce soak by one". In other words, the point of soak is 'taken off the top', so if the damage dealt plus pierce rating still doesn't beak soak, then no damage still goes through.

Instead, you could interpret the "ignore one soak" to mean [Pierce rating] damage always goes through.

In effect, this leads to an interpretation that is nearly identical to FuriousGreg's interpretation, just limited to weapons with Pierce.

Anyway, that's just another option if you find that "uber-soak" characters are problematic.

I've seen this one before as well but for our group we felt that it was simpler to just have the minimum. I should note though we ignore this minimum for Unarmed attacks.

A similar solution is to re-interpret how the Pierce ability works.

*** I AM AWARE THAT WHAT I'M WRITING BELOW IS DIRECTLY CONTRARY TO RULE CLARIFICATIONS IN THE FAQS ***

So that's clear? Right? Seriously.

Pierce says "ignore one unit of soak per rank of pierce" and this means "reduce soak by one". In other words, the point of soak is 'taken off the top', so if the damage dealt plus pierce rating still doesn't beak soak, then no damage still goes through.

Instead, you could interpret the "ignore one soak" to mean [Pierce rating] damage always goes through.

In effect, this leads to an interpretation that is nearly identical to FuriousGreg's interpretation, just limited to weapons with Pierce.

Anyway, that's just another option if you find that "uber-soak" characters are problematic.

I've seen this one before as well but for our group we felt that it was simpler to just have the minimum. I should note though we ignore this minimum for Unarmed attacks.

Yeah, I originally posted it a long-@$$ time ago, I think during the EotE beta. It got clarified, so there was no use in pursuing it further, and I never implemented it during a game. In fact, looking at how this would work is why I felt somewhat qualified to say the OP here was such a bad idea.

Whatever works best for your group is great. I only offered it as an option if a group found the soak values were an issue and wanted a middle ground. An even more restrictive version would be to make Pierce an optionally active ability, requiring the expenditure of adv to 'push' a minimum damage through the target's soak value.

But again, just tossing out ideas for people that feel the need to change the system, I really don't.