@Tass

We are being civil. We're just having a conversation about game mechanics. =)

@Bunny

I think you made a good point, which illustrates why so many complain about how the system behaves. We're led to believe that Padawan Obi-Wan is basically how a new PC would feel. He's out on what appears to be his first mission with his Master. And yet he's still fully capable of performing amazing Force feats. But as you said, that's after presumably 10 years of training since childhood. He's still a Padawan, not even a Knight, after 10 years. So what does that say about our PCs, except that after 10 years of playing, maybe you'll be about as good as a Padawan.

Except its not his first mission with his master he's almost a Jedi Knight and ends up becoming one at the end of the movie.

So He's not an inexperienced padawan he's been doing it for a long time.

Meh, like I said before. It's just something that's always bugged me, conceptually. I get all the game balance and such, it just seems to go against the cinematic feel of a Lightsaber wielding Jedi. If you're a Stormtrooper, trying to line up your next shot. And you see a Jedi with their Lightsaber in hand, or you see some random X-Wing pilot standing there with a blaster in hand... who do you think you're more likely to hit? You've seen the Imperial Historical Archives, where Jedi keep killing people with their own blaster bolts. Do you want to be part of that statistic, or do you want to shoot the random pilot instead?

Allowing Jedi to indefinitely reflect blaster bolts goes against the cinematic feel of a lightsaber-wielding Jedi. Jedi as depicted rarely just stand back and reflect all day. Instead they defend, then surge forward to put down the attackers in melee range, or seek cover, etc. All of which suggests that Jedi have an incentive to end the fight before they get too tired to reflect effectively, and the strain cost is a way to incentivize PCs to actively engage rather than drawing out combat by standing back defending.

It's also worth mentioning that combat in this system is intended to be dangerous no matter who you are. Thus, why the PCs with one of the LS Form specs can't just turtle-up and use Parry and Reflect all day long, or at least can't do so without investing in specific talents (Supreme Parry and Supreme Reflect), and even then you'd need to buy into a couple of specs to really be "immune" to incoming attacks. And even then, so long as a single point of damage gets through, you're vulnerable to a critical injury, which depending on the weapon can really ruin your day.

As for Reflect not just providing extra points of ranged defense, one of the tenets that Jay Little had when designing this system was to try and keep dice pools from getting too ridiculous; thus the caps on characteristics, skill ranks, and difficulty ratings, with boost and setback dice being added in fairly small numbers. This might also be why the rules on defense ratings stacking is being reviewed, as it's possible for melee defense to start getting pretty ridiculous (fully modified Lorrdian gemstone + armored robes + Improved Armor Master as just one possible example), and the more dice you have in the pool, the longer it takes to calculate the result.

You wanna talk ridiculous dice pools, try playing Shadowrun! =)

Defense rating stacking is being reviewed, because it doesn't stack at all. There are very few things that give a bonus to defense.

Multiple sources of defense DO NOT STACK.

Armored Robes gives 1 Defense it does not stack with Defensive circle or defensive training.

The best you can do is a Lorrdian crystal in a curved hilt which when fully moded will give you a defensive 4 which does not stack with the defensive 1 of the armored robes, but does gain the bonus from the Improved armor master. Technically the curved hilt mod may not even work if its added before the Lorrdian, because the Lorrdian defense would overwrite it. Thats a GM call.

I think there is plenty of precedent from the movies of Jedi reflecting multiple blasts in what would be considered a single attack. The prequels especially show them holding off multiple shots from multiple troopers at once, only to finally fall after a few "turns" of being under fire.

To me, this translates mechanically to them spending strain like crazy for that first round or 2, on each shot, but eventually running out of strain, and being unable to reflect at all anymore. Then they died. Each example we see in the movies only has them holding off the volley of fire for a few seconds. That's pretty in synch with the rules for turns, and the idea of them applying reflect to each individual hit from auto-fire.

Defense rating stacking is being reviewed, because it doesn't stack at all. There are very few things that give a bonus to defense.

Multiple sources of defense DO NOT STACK.

Armored Robes gives 1 Defense it does not stack with Defensive circle or defensive training.

The best you can do is a Lorrdian crystal in a curved hilt which when fully moded will give you a defensive 4 which does not stack with the defensive 1 of the armored robes, but does gain the bonus from the Improved armor master. Technically the curved hilt mod may not even work if its added before the Lorrdian, because the Lorrdian defense would overwrite it. Thats a GM call.

And this is exactly why the clear as mud defense rules are being reviewed. "Multiple sources of defense do not stack."

Armored Robes, and armor in general, has a static Defense value. This is a "source of defense ", providing the base number for you to work with. If you had one item that gave you a straight up Defense 1, and another that gave you a straight up Defense 2, those would not stack into Defense 3, but you would use the Rating 2 over the Rating 1.

Items with the Defensive quality are different. They are not stipulating a static value, they are providing a modifier. Specifically the book says "the Defensive quality increases his melee defense by the weapon's Defensive rating." Which would mean that where your armor gave you Defense 1 (which equates to Melee 1 / Ranged 1), now you add +1 to the Melee aspect (giving you Melee 2 / Ranged 1). And if some item had the Deflection quality, that would modify the Ranged aspect instead.

This is completely logical, given that the Lightsaber helps you to parry the attack or shot, but it will still impact the armor if that fails. So both the Lightsaber and the armor are parts of keeping you safe. You aren't "stacking sources of defense " b/c Defensive isn't a source, it's a modifier.

Defensive Training imbues your weapon with the Defensive quality at some rating, whether it had a rating before or not. Which would mean that if your weapon already had Defensive 2, and you learned Defensive Training 1, you would actually be nerfing yourself. Your Defensive Training 1 would replace the inherent Defensive 2, according to the talent.

Defensive Circle clearly specifies that it grants allies a melee and ranged rating. This would in fact be "a source of defense " and would not stack with anything they already had in place. Which means they could either go with the defense provided by their armor, or by your Defensive Circle , but not both. However, they should still be able to apply Defensive modifiers to either one afterwards. So your Defensive Circle may give them 1/1, and then their Defensive item gives them 2/1 in the end.

At least, that's how some see it. Which is why FFG is reviewing their decision and will hopefully come out with less murky errata before too long.

As others have mentioned Sense is the key to upgrade your Defence and this being a narrative system you could describe that as nearly anything including reflecting blaster bolts. If the PC is using the Force and wielding a Lightsabre not having the Reflect Talent isn't important, unless you want the extra benefits, because thats just a game mechanic and could be described as an extra effort.

Exceeding your Strain threshold does not automatically mean you lying on the ground unconscious from exhaustion. It makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a characters willingness to continue contributing to the current encounter. So exceeding ST can easily be narrated as your character deciding this is the time to retreat, your no longer a threat to your opposition.

Exceeding your Strain threshold does not automatically mean you lying on the ground unconscious from exhaustion. It makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a characters willingness to continue contributing to the current encounter. So exceeding ST can easily be narrated as your character deciding this is the time to retreat, your no longer a threat to your opposition.

When a character has suffered strain greater than his strain threshold, he becomes incapacitated...

He is likely unconscious, or he may just be so dazed and staggered that he's completely unaware of his surroundings and unable to interact with them.

Either you're out cold, or you're in shock and unresponsive. You're not just "tired of fighting and decided to retreat". =)

Exceeding your Strain threshold does not automatically mean you lying on the ground unconscious from exhaustion. It makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a characters willingness to continue contributing to the current encounter. So exceeding ST can easily be narrated as your character deciding this is the time to retreat, your no longer a threat to your opposition.

When a character has suffered strain greater than his strain threshold, he becomes incapacitated...

He is likely unconscious, or he may just be so dazed and staggered that he's completely unaware of his surroundings and unable to interact with them.

Either you're out cold, or you're in shock and unresponsive. You're not just "tired of fighting and decided to retreat". =)

I was aware of that, and i don't want to take away that possibility, but there are plenty of times that a character suffers strain that has no logical reason to cause them to pass out. Its definitely more relevant to Social encounters, but during combat performing a Knowledge or Social check that inflicts Strain on the character through Threat just doesn't make sense. It is discussed in Desperate Allies a little too. Now i also understand its probably less relevant to a Lightsaber Reflect, but going unconscious from Scathing Tirade? odd.

One of the only instance I can see reflect having a single cost per a attack to reflect multiple blaster bolts is the fact I've routinely had a single attack do 40+ damage with all the advantages I've been able to make auto fire happen. It's a tough decision to allow auto fire to a pc when they can almost one shot anything even our nemesis in a game I play. For my gm's sake I've sometimes hamstring my character just so his hard work doesn't go to waste and even let them live so they can come back deranged and more determined next time. I think auto fire is one of the most op with linked (atrau striker talent I'm looking at you). It leaves me considering if out of sake of not being a ****** to my Gm to pull punches.

One of the only instance I can see reflect having a single cost per a attack to reflect multiple blaster bolts is the fact I've routinely had a single attack do 40+ damage with all the advantages I've been able to make auto fire happen. It's a tough decision to allow auto fire to a pc when they can almost one shot anything even our nemesis in a game I play. For my gm's sake I've sometimes hamstring my character just so his hard work doesn't go to waste and even let them live so they can come back deranged and more determined next time. I think auto fire is one of the most op with linked (atrau striker talent I'm looking at you). It leaves me considering if out of sake of not being a ****** to my Gm to pull punches.

Ask him to send multiple Squads of 10 Storm Troopers at your group, while you "Hold them off" the others can deal with the Nemesis. Their dice pool to attack is still "Just" 2 Ability and 3 Proficiency until you get them below 6 left in the group. But with a wound pool of 50 and a soak of 5 on each seperate hit from the auto-fire attack they tend to last.

Even less well armed NPC's still work, basically tell him to think about how to stop a real world Machine Gun, lots of people from multiple directions or APC's.

Also he should use the Squad rules from the AoR GM screen, it makes each seperate hit only take out a single minion, very handy vs auto-fire which normally take out multiple minions with each hit.

Then lastly i congratulate you on actually wanting to not dominate, have a side arm that goes everywhere with you, but consider the places it would be socially inappropriate to carry a Machine Gun.

(Personally i think Auto-Fire represents a fully automatic belt fed Machine Gun very well, unfortunately those weapons tend to kill a lot of people very quickly, but they are also exceedingly rare, big, and unwelcome in any but the most dire of situations.)

Exceeding your Strain threshold does not automatically mean you lying on the ground unconscious from exhaustion. It makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a characters willingness to continue contributing to the current encounter. So exceeding ST can easily be narrated as your character deciding this is the time to retreat, your no longer a threat to your opposition.

When a character has suffered strain greater than his strain threshold, he becomes incapacitated...

He is likely unconscious, or he may just be so dazed and staggered that he's completely unaware of his surroundings and unable to interact with them.

Either you're out cold, or you're in shock and unresponsive. You're not just "tired of fighting and decided to retreat". =)

I was aware of that, and i don't want to take away that possibility, but there are plenty of times that a character suffers strain that has no logical reason to cause them to pass out. Its definitely more relevant to Social encounters, but during combat performing a Knowledge or Social check that inflicts Strain on the character through Threat just doesn't make sense. It is discussed in Desperate Allies a little too. Now i also understand its probably less relevant to a Lightsaber Reflect, but going unconscious from Scathing Tirade? odd.

Players suggesting use of Threat? Best thing ever! They say 2 heads are better than 1, so 6 people will have more ideas than a single GM. Definitely more fun letting them come up with nasty things to happen to themselves