Hey, all! I've been playing Star Wars RPGs since the WEG d6 days, and I've got to say: EOTE is a HUGE adjustment for me. I'm working my way through the combat chapter, and I could really use your help to make sure I'm interpreting the rules correctly.

On pg. 204, it says, "The first and foremost point to keep in mind is that a combat check is a skill check. It follows all the rules and procedures for making a skill check" (emphasis added).

So, I refer to pg. 19ff., and see the following steps: "applying skills and characteristics," "applying task difficulty," "modifying [the] dice pool," and finally (and most importantly for this question), "interpreting the dice pool." On pg. 23 it says, "After all Threat symbols have canceled Advantage symbols, a pool will have one or more Advantage symbols, one or more Threat symbols, or have everything canceled out." OK, great, I think I have it.

But on pg. 205, step 4 of the Combat Check is "resolve [advantage] and [triumph]," and step 5 is "resolve [threat] and [despair]."

So here is the question: am I correct to say that unlike a normal skill check, threat and advantage do not cancel each other out in a combat check?

If I am correct in saying that, then each and every combat check is going to generate multiple advantage, triumph, threat, and/or despair, all of which have to be resolved before the next character is activated. It seems like that is a incredibly complex mechanic, so here is a follow-up question: does all that resolution bog down the action? How can you keep all that stuff straight from character to character and turn to turn, and still keep an encounter moving at a reasonable pace?

Thanks for tolerating my newbie question. I look forward to the replies!

Threat and advantage do cancel each other. I think that set up is if there are more threat than advantage. Also, the major effects of triumph and despair don't cancel, so if you roll both, or advantage and despair, you'd interpret both.

You do all the netting first, with all the cancellations, etc….

Note that the Success part of Triumph can be cancelled, but the Triumph part of Triumph cannot. Same with the Failure part of Despair.

Then you interpret.

I think the point of that paragraph is to say that you narrate Triumphs, Success, and Advantage first, then Despair, Failure, and Threat.

Things get complicated when you have both Triumph and Despair, or net Success and Despair, or net Advantage and Despair, etc…. So, the developers are trying to make it easier on you by having you narrate the positive part of the pool first, then the negative part.

This way, with one net Success plus Despair, you can say something like:

Okay, you have one net Success, so you do succeed at your check. However, you also have Despair, and the way I’m going to rule that is although you do succeed at the main point of your task, you inadvertently do something else that causes significant problems in a different area.

That “different area” could be like setting off the alarm, breaking the handle that is supposed to open the outer door, or something else that is a setback, but is not directly related to the thing they were trying to achieve with this particular roll.

As to the question of bogging down combat, initially yes, every skill check takes longer to resolve. But quickly it speeds up, especially combat. One of the tricks is to get players into the habit of pre-building their dice pools before the previous person has finished their turn. It requires plenty of dice in a big pile in the middle of the table, but it's worth it. Then when the player decides to take an initiative slot then they just declare what they are doing, the GM adjusts the difficulty as required and the player rolls.

A decent combat with a party of 5 can be done in 15-20 minutes, it's great!

Session prep is where you as GM will see the biggest change, 30 minutes for a 3 hr session... Yep!

One recommendation is to get the adversary decks, they make no prep GMing on the fly a piece of cake.

Thanks, everybody! These are all super helpful! I think that what I was missing was the idea that while, yes, advantage and threat cancel each other out, triumph and despair don't. So that way you could have a net threat of 2, with a triumph. So per the rules, arbitrate the triumph first, then the threat. Thanks again!

Thanks, everybody! These are all super helpful! I think that what I was missing was the idea that while, yes, advantage and threat cancel each other out, triumph and despair don't.

Sometimes the best moments in the game is when a player comes up with both triumph and despair (occasionally multiples of both!). That's when the table has fun coming up with crazy ideas on how to narrate the roll.

It seems like that is a incredibly complex mechanic, so here is a follow-up question: does all that resolution bog down the action? How can you keep all that stuff straight from character to character and turn to turn, and still keep an encounter moving at a reasonable pace?

Just to add to what's been said on this: view each action in a longer light that what you might be used to. A round can be up to a minute long, so after the dice are resolved, the narration can account for quite a bit.

Also, even if you have a group of players over 50 years of age (ahem), they'll get the mechanic within about 20 minutes.

Sometimes the best moments in the game is when a player comes up with both triumph and despair (occasionally multiples of both!). That's when the table has fun coming up with crazy ideas on how to narrate the roll.

The thing that is most exciting to me at this point is how much room this system gives to the players to narrate the actions and come up with cool ideas. I always tried, in previous versions of the game, to give the players lots of room to come up with interesting ideas, but that was usually only on their own actions, not on resolving checks. I'm looking forward what game play is like when everybody has a hand in narrating events!

The general rule, if I'm not mistaken, is that the players can decide what to do with their advantage/triumph, but it's generally up to the GM to decide what happens with threat/despair. Everybody can contribute their ideas, but GM makes the last call. I know some have struggled with slow games because every roll turns into a committee, and others have had the GM make every decision, slowing things down and sapping the joy.

The general rule, if I'm not mistaken, is that the players can decide what to do with their advantage/triumph, but it's generally up to the GM to decide what happens with threat/despair.

Just a note that it's vice versa when the GM is rolling, i.e.: if the GM rolls a Despair, the players get to decide what happens to that NPC (subject to GM approval of course).

Typically, per the rules the GM will narrate the "bad stuff" for the players, but I've found that more often than not I will use the suggestions the players come up with for their own bad stuff. What is really funny is when another player comes up with bad stuff for another player and hilarity ensues. This system has been great to engage the players more than ever before because we all want to contribute to the narrative. It's awesome!

One thing that I do as well is if the player is going to use a destiny point, they need to come up with a narrative reason. I do it myself as a GM when flipping the dark-side to a light-side. Also, I have them narrate their talents used in an encounter as well. It just gives another layer of texture to the narrative we are all enjoying.

I try and do something else as much as possible ... see what results happened on which dice. That can help with the narrative too when you think about where those results are coming from.

Ability Dice (Green) - successes or advantages on these dice come from (more times than not) the pure natural ability of the character. If they have more ranks than their linked characteristic in the skill, then it would be their training in that skill is what gives results on the green dice.

Proficiency Dice (Yellow) - successes, advantages, or triumphs on these dice come from (more times than not) the skill and training of the character. If they have more ranks than their linked characteristic, then it would be their natural ability giving results on these yellow dice.

Boost Dice (Blue) - successes and advantages one these dice come from the environment around the character giving them an advantage, or aiming their weapon, or help from others, or an effect from another check giving an advantage to the character for some reason.

Difficulty Dice (Purple) - failures and threat on these dice come from the base difficulty of the check.

Challenge Dice (Red) - failures, threats, and despair on these dice come from (more times than not) and upgraded difficulty of the check due to the adversary talent, destiny points, or other factors that directly effect the base difficulty.

Setback Dice (Black) - failures and threats on these dice come from the environment around the characters (darkness, cover, defense).

So, keeping all that in mind can help shape the narrative into something truly special.

Z

Just a note that it's vice versa when the GM is rolling, i.e.: if the GM rolls a Despair, the players get to decide what happens to that NPC (subject to GM approval of course).

Good note! I hadn't read closely enough to see that, but I'll definitely use that mechanic when the game gets rolling.

I narrate positive before negative if a roll ends in success, but has threat or despair. I narrate negative before positive if the roll ends in failure. That way I can always say you succeed, BUT...something bad or you fail,BUT....something good

It seems like that is a incredibly complex mechanic, so here is a follow-up question: does all that resolution bog down the action? How can you keep all that stuff straight from character to character and turn to turn, and still keep an encounter moving at a reasonable pace?

Just to add to what's been said on this: view each action in a longer light that what you might be used to. A round can be up to a minute long, so after the dice are resolved, the narration can account for quite a bit.

Also, even if you have a group of players over 50 years of age (ahem), they'll get the mechanic within about 20 minutes.

And I got the mechanics real fast at 14 and I'd only learned that there were some dice that weren't six sided a few weeks before!

The key to the system is being fast on your feet for the triumphs and despair effects or have a few in mind for each encounter or environment that players are in