I think at some point FFG will come out with some kind of hierarchy where by you go through and identify each source of a characters Defence (Cover, Armour, Weapons, Talents). Second step is to add to those sources with only the applicable Defence Modifiers (eg; a crystal doesn't add to the defence of your armour) and then you end up with multiple defence numbers from various sources. Then the last step is a list of which sources can be added together to get to your final defence totals (Weapon and Weapon No, Armour and Weapon Yes?)

They could simply cap defense in general at 4 or 5 and be done with it. IIRC they have capped starship shields already at 4.

I think at some point FFG will come out with some kind of hierarchy where by you go through and identify each source of a characters Defence (Cover, Armour, Weapons, Talents). Second step is to add to those sources with only the applicable Defence Modifiers (eg; a crystal doesn't add to the defence of your armour) and then you end up with multiple defence numbers from various sources. Then the last step is a list of which sources can be added together to get to your final defence totals (Weapon and Weapon No, Armour and Weapon Yes?)

They could simply cap defense in general at 4 or 5 and be done with it. IIRC they have capped starship shields already at 4.

I'd be fine with defense/deflection provided by equipment to cap at four with the caveat that temporary circumstantial modifiers (bonuses granted by the use of the Foresee force power, bonuses granted by spending advantage after a skill check or attack, maybe some forms of cover, etc.) would still apply.

I'd be fine with defense/deflection provided by equipment to cap at four with the caveat that temporary circumstantial modifiers (bonuses granted by the use of the Foresee force power, bonuses granted by spending advantage after a skill check or attack, maybe some forms of cover, etc.) would still apply.

That is not how it works for vehicles. 4 is the cap, no matter what.

On the other hand, the defense gained from Defensive Driving does fall under the limitation of the no more than defense 4 in any zone. If you managed to purchase five ranks of Defensive Driving across four or five different specializations, the fifth rank would be useless.

Hope this helps!

Sam Stewart

Senior RPG Producer

Fantasy Flight Games

Or... do as I suggested above, and let the Boost and Setback dice cancel each other out. Then you can apply everything you can get your hands on, and still end with a manageable pool. If you can scrape together 5-6 Boost dice, and the other guy can scrape together 5-6 Setback dice... then you're just rolling a base skill check in the end.

If your only motivation is to roll giant fat handfuls of dice, try playing Shadowrun =)

I'd be fine with defense/deflection provided by equipment to cap at four with the caveat that temporary circumstantial modifiers (bonuses granted by the use of the Foresee force power, bonuses granted by spending advantage after a skill check or attack, maybe some forms of cover, etc.) would still apply.

That is not how it works for vehicles. 4 is the cap, no matter what.

On the other hand, the defense gained from Defensive Driving does fall under the limitation of the no more than defense 4 in any zone. If you managed to purchase five ranks of Defensive Driving across four or five different specializations, the fifth rank would be useless.

Hope this helps!

Sam Stewart

Senior RPG Producer

Fantasy Flight Games

Besides, it seems pointless considering the attacking pilot can suffer setback on the attack roll in various ways. The net effect of (uncapped) seven defense vs. four defense plus three setback is the same (which is what I was getting at with "circumstantial modifiers").

Or... do as I suggested above, and let the Boost and Setback dice cancel each other out.

The dice are not mirrors of each other.

EDIT: I quoted the wrong post by accident; fixed now.

The net effect of (uncapped) seven defense vs. four defense plus three setback is the same (which is what I was getting at with "circumstantial modifiers").

No, it is not. The dice are not mirrors of each other.

Agreed.

Setback dice aren't as detrimental to a check as boost dice are beneficial. So if you allow them to cancel on a one-to-one basis, then you're giving more value to a setback die, which has a 1 in 3 chance of having no impact on the roll vs. a boost die which only has a 1 in 6 chance of having no impact on the roll.

So if a PC makes an attack with 3 boost dice vs. an NPC with defense 2, the player suffers more in the cancelling out of those boost dice than they would if they'd rolled the 2 setback dice.

Granted, in the games I've run and played, the number of boost and setback dice in a given roll have rarely exceeded 3, mostly as the GM and players aren't looking to cheese the system for maximum benefit quite as much as some other groups might. I personally don't design my NPCs to have a defense higher than 2 (being harder to hit/hurt is what the Adversary talent is for after all), with the simple house rule of not letting the Defensive and Deflection qualities stack, there's little risk of PCs having outrageously high defense ratings.

I personally don't design my NPCs to have a defense higher than 2 (being harder to hit/hurt is what the Adversary talent is for after all), with the simple house rule of not letting the Defensive and Deflection qualities stack, there's little risk of PCs having outrageously high defense ratings.

Defensive- Defensive weapons are particularly good at fending off incoming melee attacks. A character wielding a weapon with the defensive quality increases his melee defense by the weapon's defensive rating.

Deflection- An item with the Deflection quality increases the wearer's ranged defense by the Deflection rating

So reading your 'house rule' it looks like you misunderstand how they interact (or don't in this case)

Since they affect different ratings ( one does melee defense the other does ranged defense) they won't stack anyway.

I personally don't design my NPCs to have a defense higher than 2 (being harder to hit/hurt is what the Adversary talent is for after all), with the simple house rule of not letting the Defensive and Deflection qualities stack, there's little risk of PCs having outrageously high defense ratings.

I don't see how that would matter

Defensive- Defensive weapons are particularly good at fending off incoming melee attacks. A character wielding a weapon with the defensive quality increases his melee defense by the weapon's defensive rating.

Deflection- An item with the Deflection quality increases the wearer's ranged defense by the Deflection rating

So reading your 'house rule' it looks like you misunderstand how they interact (or don't in this case)

Since they affect different ratings ( one does melee defense the other does ranged defense) they won't stack anyway.

I think they meant they don't allow multiple instances of Defensive or Deflection to stack up with each other. Since technically according to the wording, you could be wearing armor and dual wielding Defensive weapons or something, and add up all the modifiers to come out with a pretty significant defense.

Ahh Sorry I picked that up wrong, I still don't think it needs house ruled, if you have a weapon that gives defensive 2 and one that has defensive 1 , then neither of them have given you defensive 3. You have defensive 1 or 2.

Found a source of confirmation that defensive, and ergo deflection sources do not stack.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/161404-defense-stacking/

I personally don't design my NPCs to have a defense higher than 2 (being harder to hit/hurt is what the Adversary talent is for after all), with the simple house rule of not letting the Defensive and Deflection qualities stack, there's little risk of PCs having outrageously high defense ratings.

I don't see how that would matter

Defensive- Defensive weapons are particularly good at fending off incoming melee attacks. A character wielding a weapon with the defensive quality increases his melee defense by the weapon's defensive rating.

Deflection- An item with the Deflection quality increases the wearer's ranged defense by the Deflection rating

So reading your 'house rule' it looks like you misunderstand how they interact (or don't in this case)

Since they affect different ratings ( one does melee defense the other does ranged defense) they won't stack anyway.

You misunderstand.

Take for instance a PC wearing armored clothing with 2 ranks of the Defensive Training talent, which adds Defensive 2 to any melee weapon they are wielding. Said PC decides to dual-wield a pair of vibroknives.

Since Defensive is an additive bonus, going strictly by the last FAQ/Errata, the PC would now have a melee defense of 5. My house rule is simply that the PC would have a melee defense of 3, since the two sources of Defensive don't stack.

Or, you've got a PC with a riot shield (Deflection 2, Defensive 2) in their off-hand and a vibro-sword (Defense 1) in the main hand while wearing armored clothing. Under the last FAQ/Errata, the PC would have a melee defense of 4 and ranged defense of 3, where my house rule has them at melee defense 3 and ranged defense 3, since again the two sources of Defensive don't stack.

Or a PC with a fully-modded Lorrdian gemstone lightsaber (Defensive 2, Deflection 2) wearing armored clothing and carrying a riot shield. Again, the last FAQ/Errata says the PC would have a melee and ranged defense of 5 each, where my house rule puts the PC at a melee and ranged defense of 3 each, since the two instances of Defensive and the two instances of Deflection would not stack with one another at my table.

So no, I don't have them confused with one another. And the main problem is that per the last dev ruling, no sources of defense would stack, meaning that in all the examples above, you'd simply take the single best source of a type of melee or ranged defense and that's it. It also means that talents like Sixth Sense and Superior Reflexes (generally 25XP each) become virtually worthless the moment a PC puts on a set of armored clothing, which is readily more available by comparison.

I misunderstood you originally in thinking that you thought defection and defensive stack. I think though that you misunderstand me and the rules. If you have defensive training 4 it gives defensive 4 to what you are wielding, if you were then using a vibrosword you have Defensive 1, that doesnt give you defensive 5 you can choose to use defensive 1 from the sword or defensive 4 from your talent. This isnt a house rule , this is how its supposed to work.

So lets take the following

Armored clothing,defensive training 1, vibrosword (with defensive 1), riot shield with defensive 2, and the talent superior reflexes

This person, according to the rules has defense 1, defensive 1( from the talent defensive training), defensive 1 ( from the vibrosword) defensive 2 ( from riot shield) , and +1 melee defense from superior reflexes.

This gives the total of 1 defense, with defensive 2 (from the riot shield) and +1 melee defense from superior reflexes, giving a total of 4 melee defense. The defensive from the talent defensive training and the defensive from the vibrosword are "wasted" since the talent defensive isnt cumulative. In effect your "house rule" is the actual rule

Edit this is covered in the rules somewhere where it states that bonuses from the same type of source dont stack. Example 2 Warleaders with suppressing fire are within short range when you miss with a combat check the talent calls that can spend advantage to cause target to suffer strain up to ranks in suppressing fire once per turn. This means that if you had one warleader with rank 2 and one with rank 1, that you couldnt cause 3 strain you couldnt stack the ranks nor coukd you trigger it twice. You could only take advantage of the warleader with rank 2

And here is the details from the thread I provided with a quote from a reply from sam stewart confirming your house rule is correct

Answer from Sam :

You would benefit from the best source of defence, since multiple sources do not stack unless specified otherwise. But you would get to choose, since you’re wielding both weapons (this is one of the primary benefits of shields).

Both weapons would get the benefit from Defensive training, but since the two sources do not stack, you simply pick one of them to apply.

And you may share the answer if you wish.

Sam Stewart

Senior RPG Producer

Fantasy Flight Games

I misunderstood you originally in thinking that you thought defection and defensive stack. I think though that you misunderstand me and the rules. If you have defensive training 4 it gives defensive 4 to what you are wielding, if you were then using a vibrosword you have Defensive 1, that doesnt give you defensive 5 you can choose to use defensive 1 from the sword or defensive 4 from your talent. This isnt a house rule , this is how its supposed to work.

*infamous quote from Sam*

You're a little late to the party. That blurb from Sam is what has spurred ALL of the subsequent Defense threads, including this one. And they (the Devs) have since thrown out that answer of his, and said that "someday" they will get back to us with how Defense should really work.

His answer, if you notice, is that ANYTHING which remotely affects defense, is to be considered a "source of defense". Armor, weapon, shield, talents, none of them can be combined according to his answer. Which is totally bogus when you look at the actual wording of all of those "sources."

Armor, and certain talents, come right out and say "give you Defense 2" or something like that. Which means you have a Melee defense 2, and a Ranged defense 2, all rolled into a single package. If you had an outfit that "gave" you Defense 1, and another outfit that "gave" you Defense 2, those would not stack into Defense 3. That part we can all agree upon.

But... Defensive, Deflection, and other talents, come out and say "increase your Melee defense by 1". This wouldn't affect your Ranged value at all, only the Melee. And it doesn't say it "gives" you anything, it says it "increases" which means it adds onto something pre-existing. SO... if you were wearing armor of some kind with Defense 2, and then you equipped a weapon with Defensive 1, that would give you an end total of Melee 3, Ranged 2. If it had Deflection instead, it would total out to Melee 2, Ranged 3.

But Sam's answer was that you EITHER get to acknowledge the 2 / 2 from the armor, or the 1 / 0 from the weapon, and that's it. Which means there is no point in getting Defensive or Deflection unless it can exceed your armor values. Which is totally counter to how they wrote the books to begin with. And as I said, the other Devs have since come back and dismissed his answer and said they will eventually get around to letting us know how they want it to work. Either by clarifying just which "sources" are allowed to stack, or by re-wording all the "sources" to make it clear that they are not meant to increase each other.

Ahh I think that the source of the problem then may be how the question was put forward, as the answer appears to relate to a question about dual wielding something. So the answer may well be taken out of context.

From the faq

Q. Some armor, talents, and item qualities provide a static defense value, while others specifically increase a defense value. How do they interact?A. When a character can choose between two static defense values, (for example, if he is in cover and is wearing armor that has a defense value), he chooses the better of the two values. Then any armor, talents, and item qualities he has that “increase” his defense value are added to the static value he chose. (Cover has been clarified in the errata to reflect this.)As a side note, the prone condition simply adds ∫ or ∫ to ranged or melee attacks targeting the char-acter (respectively), and therefore may stack with the character’s defense value.

Now the next part and I cannot locate the section but there is one that specifies that boosts from the same source do not stack. So you have a weapon in your left hand has defensive 2 and the one in your right has defensive 1 my argument is that according to the rules (and not an out of context quote from Sam) is that weapon qualities dont stack. So the highest source of defensive or deflection applies. If you think about it breach and pierce apply only to the weapon being used at the time so if you use two pierce 2 weapons you are not getting pierce 4. Defensive means you can choose which weapon (or talent if applicable) you want to use. So according to the rules you can have your base defense , your highest defensive quality and any other thing that adds +x to your melee defense, as long as it doesnt duplicate something else. The defensive training talent grants the user with defensive X.

Please re-read the talents/weapon qualities in question

Defensive increases melee defense by 1 per rank

Deflection doesnt affect melee defense at all it works on ranged defense the same way as defensive except on ranged defense

Defensive training grants the weapons (melee brawl, includding unarmed, and lightsaber) thh defensive quality equal to ranks.

Superior reflexes grants +1 melee defense

Sixth sense grants + 1 ranged defense

Cover gives ranged defense

So far I see nothing that doesnt fit with the rules.

I remember long before this all started that FFG had wording that meant that cover and armor stacked this as far as I know is the only rule change that has occured and is covered under the faq under this part

In the Cover entry, replace “increases the charac-ter’s ranged defense by 1” with “allows the character to gain ranged defense 1”

So Donavan's House Rule is the actual rule.

The net effect of (uncapped) seven defense vs. four defense plus three setback is the same (which is what I was getting at with "circumstantial modifiers").

No, it is not. The dice are not mirrors of each other.

What? In either case we're talking seven black dice.

How are seven black dice not equal to seven black dice?

Sadly, the FAQ is woefully out-of-date in that regard, with the dev responses that bkoran mentioned being the more recent take by the devs on how defense is meant/intended to work in their eyes.

What?

I quoted you by accident; it was supposed to be an answer to the poster above you. Sorry for the confusion - that's what I get for posting on my pad ...

What?

I quoted you by accident; it was supposed to be an answer to the poster above you. Sorry for the confusion - that's what I get for posting on my pad ...

Okie dokie. I often browse the forum on mobile so I, too, know that pain.

Or... do as I suggested above, and let the Boost and Setback dice cancel each other out.

The dice are not mirrors of each other.

EDIT: I quoted the wrong post by accident; fixed now.

Oh hey, that's me now =)

I realize the dice aren't perfect mirrors of each other. You may be losing a few of these in exchange for a few of those. But... cancelling Boost and Setbacks would reduce the overall dice pool, which is apparently what the Devs were worried about when they tried suggesting limiting Defense stacking. If you can muster several sources together and come up with a huge handful of Defense dice... and the attackers can muster sources for a huge Attack... cancelling out dice brings it back down to a small handful instead.

Otherwise you turn SWRPG into Shadowrun.

Instead of trying to impose limitations on what people can and can't count, even though they were allowed to purchase and use those things in the first place... just cancel out things until you end up with a grand total at the end. Players still get the satisfaction of applying all those awesome benefits, but they don't need to re-roll the same dice over and over, or buy 10 sets of dice, or rely on a dice roller app.

I realize the dice aren't perfect mirrors of each other. You may be losing a few of these in exchange for a few of those. But... cancelling Boost and Setbacks would reduce the overall dice pool, which is apparently what the Devs were worried about when they tried suggesting limiting Defense stacking.

IMO, having Boost dice cancel out Setback dice is a very poor way to achieve a smaller dice pool.

Yes, I realize that this game breaks down when it comes to throwing Fistfuls of Dice, but green dice don’t cancel purple dice, and yellow dice don’t cancel red dice.

Cancellation only comes into play when you start looking at the results from the dice, where Advantage and Threat cancel each other, while Success and Failure also cancel each other. But even that isn’t total, as Triumph and Despair do NOT cancel each other.

IMO, you’re better off finding other ways to keep the size of the dice pools down. Having boost dice cancel setback is not a good solution to the problem.

The other way of not trying to min max everything is one way to do it. I find the sniper in my game I GM is more than fine working with 6 boost die (accurate 2, double aim and a few other talents that add to it as well. Unlike ranged though melee attacks are pretty much a fixed difficulty (nemesis and things like dodge or defensive stance) so having differing melee defense that can range from 0 through 8 or more diversifies this, As long as you dont let defensive stack with itself it doesnt really become a major issue if you ask me.

The other way of not trying to min max everything is one way to do it. I find the sniper in my game I GM is more than fine working with 6 boost die (accurate 2, double aim and a few other talents that add to it as well. Unlike ranged though melee attacks are pretty much a fixed difficulty (nemesis and things like dodge or defensive stance) so having differing melee defense that can range from 0 through 8 or more diversifies this, As long as you don't let defensive stack with itself it doesn't really become a major issue if you ask me.

So why are you comfortable with your Sniper having +6, but you disagree with his target having +6 Defense? Why put caps and limitations on defending against an attack, while you permit improving the attack. That's only going to lead to min/max'ing entirely towards the attack.

If you capped both, then people would stop buying bonuses for either side once they reached that cap. If you leave both uncapped, they will purchase bonuses for both sides, which will balance itself out through increasing costs. But capping one side and leaving the other open means they'll stop at the cap and spend everything else towards the free rein attack dice.

Yes, I realize that this game breaks down when it comes to throwing Fistfuls of Dice, but green dice don’t cancel purple dice, and yellow dice don’t cancel red dice.

There's already a cap on all those, you can't get more than 6 on either side. The dilemma comes from being able to purchase items and abilities which give you a ton more Boost / Setback dice to work with in addition.

So why are you comfortable with your Sniper having +6, but you disagree with his target having +6 Defense? Why put caps and limitations on defending against an attack, while you permit improving the attack. That's only going to lead to min/max'ing entirely towards the attack.

If you capped both, then people would stop buying bonuses for either side once they reached that cap. If you leave both uncapped, they will purchase bonuses for both sides, which will balance itself out through increasing costs. But capping one side and leaving the other open means they'll stop at the cap and spend everything else towards the free rein attack dice.

Im not advocating capping either I have just said talents and weapon qualities do not stack. So if we take of the attackers nearest relative to defensive or deflection, which is accurate, then it doesnt stack either. So if they were dual wielding pistols or melee weapons with accurate 2 they arent getting to stack that up to 4 dice either. So how is this unfair on the defender.