So, I'm building a character and trying to decide between Armored Clothing, which gives 1 Defense and 1 Soak, or Padded Armor which gives 2 soak.

Which is better in the long run? On one hand, Defense potentially makes an entire attack fail, thereby mitigating all damage. But one setback die only has a 30% chance of rolling a failure.

Whereas 1 additional soak helps every single time I'm hit.

Has anyone done the numbers, or have any anecdotal evidence on which they prefer?

Thanks

Hard points.

Armored clothing has the advantage of hard points I believe a setback dice also has the opportunity to prevent a critical from happening which could make or break a character. However it's more prudent to seek toughness in your talent trees.

Hard points.

ah yes, good point. Armored Clothing has 1 hardpoint, whereas padded armor has none.

Methinks I'm gonna go with Armored clothing. Besides, if I take cover, that'll be 2 setback die in total on attacks against me.

Edit: Also good point about preventing crits. Armored Clothing sounds like a good choice.

Personal preference. The defence is currently like walking around with your own cover (Armour and Cover don't stack since cover "Grants Defence 1" it doesn't "increase defence by 1" although there are rumors Defence is being reviewed by the devs for a possible errata.)

So if you think your going to use cover a lot, the 2 soak is better. but if you dont think you want to use your maneuvers for getting into cover, or may not react quickly enough to get into cover before being shot then the Defence 1 Soak 1 is better. Also Hard points....

Edit: the 1 in3 failure and 1 in 3 threat chances do help a lot, the threat can even be applied on a missed attack, something the extra soak has no effect on.

Methinks I'm gonna go with Armored clothing. Besides, if I take cover, that'll be 2 setback die in total on attacks against me.

Quick clarification: cover doesn't stack with armor defense. But don't let that stop you from finding "more sturdy" cover

And not that that should influence your decision, really. The defense and hardpoint combo is nice. Plus that, and more importantly to my reckoning, armored clothing is way less obvious than padded armor and can be worn in various social situations without turning heads.

It also doesn't look as dumb as padded armor. It is definitely the stylish choice.

One aspect to note is how common lightsabers are among your friends and foes.

One more soak rarely has an effect on a lightsaber strike, and is usually negated by breach, but defense is not. Plus, the extra chance of threat might help you trigger an improved reflect or parry in response.

Methinks I'm gonna go with Armored clothing. Besides, if I take cover, that'll be 2 setback die in total on attacks against me.

Quick clarification: cover doesn't stack with armor defense. But don't let that stop you from finding "more sturdy" cover

And not that that should influence your decision, really. The defense and hardpoint combo is nice. Plus that, and more importantly to my reckoning, armored clothing is way less obvious than padded armor and can be worn in various social situations without turning heads.

and you can use that hardpoint to get superior and then you have 2 soak and less encumbrance and 1 defense

It also doesn't look as dumb as padded armor. It is definitely the stylish choice.

You mean padded armor.

It also doesn't look as dumb as padded armor. It is definitely the stylish choice.

You mean padded armor.

Thats a battle armor for sure.

Honestly, in the long run the one point of soak isn't going to be that huge of a difference. The extra point of defense can help a bit, but there's also a chance that it won't do squat against a bad guy's attack.

Personally, I tend to lean towards armored clothing, but that's more due to it not looking like armor and thus not drawing the kind of attention that traipsing around in full-combat armor would draw.

Consider this another vote for armored clothing.

The choice comes down to if you would rather decrease the chance of the bad guys hitting you, or it hurting a tiny bit less when they do. I like making it harder for them. The Hard Point is just gravy, making a good choice even better.

My players always kept a locker full of padded armor on their starship to be broken out if expecting heavy action or if they wanted to obscure their identities somewhat. They normally ran around wearing heavy clothing for everyday use.

I would say that unless your pc is overly committed to making themselves difficult to hit, I would value the soak much more. Sure lightsabers ignore it, but other then that three are many weapons that are not.

and you can use that hardpoint to get superior and then you have 2 soak and less encumbrance and 1 defense

Pretty sure it's just the soak increase and encumbrance decrease. Superior doesn't increase your defense. But it does make the armored clothing eligible for the Improved Armor Mastery talent, which does increase defense by 1 So that'd be a nice synergy.

and you can use that hardpoint to get superior and then you have 2 soak and less encumbrance and 1 defense

Pretty sure it's just the soak increase and encumbrance decrease. Superior doesn't increase your defense. But it does make the armored clothing eligible for the Improved Armor Mastery talent, which does increase defense by 1 So that'd be a nice synergy.

Thanks for the reminder that armor defense doesn't stack with cover. I had forgotten that. Armored Clothing is sounding better and better.

Also, I plan for my guy to be a sniper of sorts, so he's probably gonna drop prone every now and then and not really be in cover anyway (come to think of it, does the Defense from armor stack from the setback from dropping prone? I'm thinking it does)

Thanks for the replies guys!

Yeah, the Setback from targeting a prone character isn't defense, so it stacks beautifully.