Hi all

i need to say at the moment i'm not playing (however planning to play some demos and maybe start a mini campaign, thanks to hype from Rebels and ofc Ep VII...)

but reading around the rules of AoR (and also some of FaD, but seems pretty similar save from char creation and specific Force rules like Conflict and Morality) i found lacking the "Jedi deflecting lot of blaster" thing

i mean: in the movies and series, first thing you notice for a Jedi using 'saber is they go defensive and deflect blaster shots

Kanaan did a lot of time in Rebels, and deflecting blasters is something like first thing Ezra and Luke learned. We can assume deflecting blaster shots is the main use of Lightsaber in combat.

I'm not talking about Ahsoka or Clone Wars era Jedi.

However, while searching on FaD i only see the talent "Reflect" who let the Jedi "take 3 strain to reduce damage by 2+rank in reflect"...

this does'nt look more like the one i see in the movies/series (is more similar to Vader's "absorbing blaster shots" when first meet Han and Leia on Bespin)

I'm missing something?

I remember reading someplace, maybe in the Beta or here on the forum, something like "adding 1 ranged defense per rank in reflect", and that's really makes a lot more sense to me (also add more threat chance on attacker's roll and thus more Improved Reflect's deflected blaster shots)

However, i'm not finding anything on the book about this rule (so i suppose was on the beta and then removed, or from an house rule i found on the forum)

What do you think about it?

Reflect is the deflecting mechanic. In the long form of the talent it reads "This talent may only be used [...] when the character is wielding a lightsaber weapon". It's pretty clear that this is the deflection talent.

It's important to remember that a round's length is very fluid, and one roll of the dice does not mean 1 blaster shot. 1 roll of the dice could be a whole salvo of blaster shots. If the lightsaber user reflect 5 of the 7 damage heading her way, narratively she deflect a few shots but was grazed by a stray bolt.

Don't forget that Reflect happens on top of Soak. So with a reasonable soak value of 3 or 4 and only a couple ranks of Reflect under your belt, you are completely nullifying the damage from a blaster pistol. More Soak (such as from Force talents or powers) and/or more ranks in Deflect (furthering your Jedi training) will see the character ignoring the damage from heavier weapons. The mechanic is actually quite sound.

The idea of Ranged Defense is a decent one, but one can see how dice pools would get quickly out of hand with all that stacking of Setbacks.

The one thing that this mechanic doesn't do well is deflect fire from small vehicles, like Luke vs. the speeder bike on Endor. There have been some suggestions as to how to houserule it, but I would take such situations as they come and rule them on the spot. My two credits.

Don't forget that Reflect happens on top of Soak. So with a reasonable soak value of 3 or 4 and only a couple ranks of Reflect under your belt, you are completely nullifying the damage from a blaster pistol. More Soak (such as from Force talents or powers) and/or more ranks in Deflect (furthering your Jedi training) will see the character ignoring the damage from heavier weapons. The mechanic is actually quite sound.

The idea of Ranged Defense is a decent one, but one can see how dice pools would get quickly out of hand with all that stacking of Setbacks.

The one thing that this mechanic doesn't do well is deflect fire from small vehicles, like Luke vs. the speeder bike on Endor. There have been some suggestions as to how to houserule it, but I would take such situations as they come and rule them on the spot. My two credits.

How I would run that is simple: Reflect doesn't take scale into account. So if the vehicle weapon does 4 damage and you have Reflect 1, you block 3 of it, and 1 gets through. You're still screwed though, because the 1 damage that gets through its vehicle damage, and so deals 10 to you.

Of course, I haven't reviewed the vehicle weapon stats myself recently (vehicle combat is my least favorite part of the setting, just personal preference), so that hack might not work exactly as intended, but that is how is do it off the top of my head.

In my RL game, I play a Soresu/Shien with 6 ranks in Reflect, Improved Reflect and Supreme Reflect. Does that mean that I can take Turbolaser shots and turn them back at a Destroyer? At the cost of 1 strain if I didn't attack last turn?

As I said, I hadn't looked at the ship weapon stats recently, so I wasn't sure if that would work straight as given. Apparently it won't, and more thought is needed.

The one thing that this mechanic doesn't do well is deflect fire from small vehicles, like Luke vs. the speeder bike on Endor. There have been some suggestions as to how to houserule it, but I would take such situations as they come and rule them on the spot. My two credits.

There is no reason to House Rule it because the Blaster on the Speederbike isn't actually vehicle scale it's a personal scale Light Repeating Blaster so Luke could reflect it just fine.

EotE pg 250

ARATECH 74·Z MILITARY SPEEDER BIKE...

"Weapons: Forward Mounted Light Repeating Blaster­ this weapon's entire profile uses personal scale, not planetary scale."

My player is able to reflect a star destroyer at the cost of his life and new character gets plus ten xp if they have his last name and are from his legacy

My player is able to reflect a star destroyer at the cost of his life and new character gets plus ten xp if they have his last name and are from his legacy

You mean reflect a Turbo laser?

Reflecting a Whole star Destroyer dropping on you would be a whole 'nother level of magnitude there.

My player is able to reflect a star destroyer at the cost of his life and new character gets plus ten xp if they have his last name and are from his legacy

You mean reflect a Turbo laser?

Reflecting a Whole star Destroyer dropping on you would be a whole 'nother level of magnitude there.

Yeah, those are some Starkiller power levels there. You aren't compensating him enough with that 10 XP.

Isn't Shien supposed to be designed to repel high-power weapons (lore-wise, not mechanically)? I don't know about turbolasers , but I thought that was at least half of it's purpose.

(...) However, while searching on FaD i only see the talent "Reflect" who let the Jedi "take 3 strain to reduce damage by 2+rank in reflect"...

this does'nt look more like the one i see in the movies/series (is more similar to Vader's "absorbing blaster shots" when first meet Han and Leia on Bespin)

It works better if you don't see lost wounds as laser burns, bleeding gashes and broken bones, there are critical injuries for that.

Mechanically, deflect (and parry) transfer damage from your finite resource pool (wounds) into your renewable resource pool (strain). Narratively, you still deflected the whole laser beam (actually, the round worth of laser shots from that adversary). The mechanics are only there to let you know that you can't keep up like that indefinitely.

My player is able to reflect a star destroyer at the cost of his life and new character gets plus ten xp if they have his last name and are from his legacy

You mean reflect a Turbo laser?

Reflecting a Whole star Destroyer dropping on you would be a whole 'nother level of magnitude there.

No I meant an entire Star destroyer coming at him. He just waved his glow Stick and reflected the star destroyer at another star destroyer and destroyed both of them. However, I had one of the escape pods hit him in the head at extreme velocity and he died on impact. His next character never tried the same move as his cousin and is now a jedi master telling his padawan what he shouldid and shouldn't reflect

So, how did you rule that skill wise/rulewise? I don't see how Reflect would have even applied to a ship, especially using a lightsaber...

IMO all it would have done is cut into the ship.

In order to have shifted a ship, it would have taken use of the "Move" Power and I don't even think you could reach that size of Silhouette size.

There are only 4 strength upgrades which would give you a max size of 4. ... If the Force power wouldn't let you do it, a Light Saber reflect power shouldn't either.

Just My Opinion, play it how you want, but if I allow something in my game, especially outside the scope of the rules, I have to be consistent every time. Something like that would jsut open a can of worms from them on due to the expectations has now been set of being able to do it.

The Reflect talent is the deflecting blaster bolts thing. Also, if you look at the original trilogy Luke doesn't exactly deflect a lot of shots. There is the training droid, and then maybe one or two shots on the sail barge in Return of the Jedi. The main way he dealt with ranged opponents was through his momentum, keeping moving and getting close to people before they had a chance to react properly. It dididn't seem to present it that he could have deflected blaster bolts constantly, or if barraged by his opponents, only if getting shot once or twice individually.

And then we had the prequels that spoiled the presentation of the Jedi with over the topness.

If you want to be able to reflect vehicle weapons one of our peers on the forum - I forget his nick, sorry dude - has changed reflect to add failure to an attack check, instead of pre-soaking.

If you want to be able to reflect vehicle weapons one of our peers on the forum - I forget his nick, sorry dude - has changed reflect to add failure to an attack check, instead of pre-soaking.

That would be Josep Maria.

See, I don't think a Jedi should be able to deflect an endless barrage of blaster bolts, and it should really only work on small-arms fire. I know it's "canon" and all, but I consider almost everything in the prequels to be ridiculous, and I don't really use it. Certainly not a couple of guys effortlessly mowing through dozens and dozens of battle droids. Oh, and you want to swat a TIE fighter's laser back at it? Sorry, buddy, but even a "hit" probably just means the blast landed somewhere near you and exploded. Yes, you're way over your wound threshold and unconscious, but you've only taken one critical hit. Be happy.

If you want to be able to reflect vehicle weapons one of our peers on the forum - I forget his nick, sorry dude - has changed reflect to add failure to an attack check, instead of pre-soaking.

That would be Josep Maria.

Doh! Of course! I knew it was something more name-like than most nicks Perhaps even a real name?

Oh, and you want to swat a TIE fighter's laser back at it? Sorry, buddy, but even a "hit" probably just means the blast landed somewhere near you and exploded. Yes, you're way over your wound threshold and unconscious, but you've only taken one critical hit. Be happy.

Yeah, I agree with this here. I had forgotten that speeder bikes use personal-scale damage.

See, I don't think a Jedi should be able to deflect an endless barrage of blaster bolts, and it should really only work on small-arms fire. I know it's "canon" and all, but I consider almost everything in the prequels to be ridiculous, and I don't really use it. Certainly not a couple of guys effortlessly mowing through dozens and dozens of battle droids. Oh, and you want to swat a TIE fighter's laser back at it? Sorry, buddy, but even a "hit" probably just means the blast landed somewhere near you and exploded. Yes, you're way over your wound threshold and unconscious, but you've only taken one critical hit. Be happy.

When it comes to minion groups, it's only one attack the PC is dealing with, but the entire group shooting at them. So a force user could deflect, or reflect in this case, and massive amount of fire assuming they had enough talent buys.

As far as vehicle weapons? Feel free to try. I'm sure your team mates will be willing to bury the small pieces of you they manage to find.

Yeah, I agree with this here. I had forgotten that speeder bikes use personal-scale damage.

Except you can mount auto-blasters on Sil2 vehicles, and there are at least one or two Sil2 starfighters where that would make sense.

So, yeah — you can mount vehicle-scale weapons on speeder bikes.

In the Dark Horse Comics Dark Empire storyline, doesn't Luke reflect an AT-AT shot?

Oh, and you want to swat a TIE fighter's laser back at it? Sorry, buddy, but even a "hit" probably just means the blast landed somewhere near you and exploded. Yes, you're way over your wound threshold and unconscious, but you've only taken one critical hit. Be happy.

Yeah, I agree with this here. I had forgotten that speeder bikes use personal-scale damage.

Not really. The 74-Z only does damage as personal scale, but otherwise operates in the vehicle scale. It's the odd man out.

Don't forget that Reflect happens on top of Soak. So with a reasonable soak value of 3 or 4 and only a couple ranks of Reflect under your belt, you are completely nullifying the damage from a blaster pistol. More Soak (such as from Force talents or powers) and/or more ranks in Deflect (furthering your Jedi training) will see the character ignoring the damage from heavier weapons. The mechanic is actually quite sound.

The idea of Ranged Defense is a decent one, but one can see how dice pools would get quickly out of hand with all that stacking of Setbacks.

The one thing that this mechanic doesn't do well is deflect fire from small vehicles, like Luke vs. the speeder bike on Endor. There have been some suggestions as to how to houserule it, but I would take such situations as they come and rule them on the spot. My two credits.

The gun Luke deflected on Endor was a light repeating blaster. As that is what is on a speeder bike. And this mechanic does that just fine.