My idea is that Supreme Armour Master would apply at step 4, but not step 5. Precision strike allows the attacker to select a critical hit of their choice from the chart, thus the supreme armour master's ability to reduce a roll by 10 per rank of soak wouldn't apply here.

Just to clarify. When I say the term "Result", I mean the numeric value, and for "Type" I mean the name of the Critical Injury (i.e. Distracted, Off-Balance, etc).

So a 10 point talent supersedes a 20 point talent?

Hooly, I would say this is a good question to submit to the Devs.

First, I would probably write step 5 out. The character picks one and sticks with it, not chooses the best of the two.

As for Durable and Armor Master, I can see three reasonable arguments:

1. Both apply
2. Neither apply, meaning Precision Strike bypasses the entire number section
3. Durable doesn't apply, as it is a passive quality, but Armor Master can, as it is an active defense.

The way I read Precision Strike it allows the attacker to spend 1 strain to choose the Critical they inflict from the list of Easy critical injuries. It's sort of all in the name, you precisely strike the target to get the effect you want.

As to whether all the increases and decreases happen after choosing that crit I don't have a clue. I would go in favour of the PC, but if it's PCvPC I shrug my shoulders! My gut says Supreme Armour Master is applied last, but definitely a good dev question. If only someone had asked when the Order 66 did their episode on KtP...

I know right! I missed the deadline for that, and I didn't even consider it until recently. I've posted the question to their Messages from the Edge, here (obviously) and the D20 Radio Facebook Page.

I need to send the question to the Devs.

Personally, I would let Precision Strike's effects trump Supreme Armor Master.

Yes, SAM is a more expensive talent, but it's also far more broadly useful, being able to drop the effect of a crit by 50 or more (assuming Brawn 2 and Armor Soak of 3) at a minimum. Precision Strike is cheaper, but the "select a crit" portion is restricted to specific weapon types and effectively neuters a critical injury result, requiring the PC to take a result that combat-wise is often sub-optimal.

Technically as much as Id like to say otherwise precision strike allows you to choosenthe crit result, the crit reduction effects apply after the crit result is fixed, so precision strike basically gets defeated by the crit reduction talents

I disagree: crit reduction talents (Durable, Supreme Armor Master, etc.) affect the critical injury roll. Your opponent rolls an "X," you have Durable 3, you can choose to take either a critical injury of "X" or "X-30." Go to that place on the chart and it will tell you what the result is.

Precision Strike essentially says, "Roll the dice. Don't like the result? Then ignore the dice and choose any result with an 'Easy' in front of it."

I would say it goes like this:

1) Attacker activates a critical injury 1 or more times;

2) Attacker rolls the dice to determine base result (Options: "X");

3) Attacker decides whether or not to activate any crit increasing abilities (Vicious, Lethal Blows, etc.). (Options: "X," "X+A");

4) Defender decides whether or not to scribed crit decreasing abilities (Durable, Supreme Armor Master, etc.). (Options: "X," "X+A," "X-D," "X+A-D");

5) If the final result is not to the attacker's liking, the attacker may activate Precision Strike and ignore the final numerical result and instead choose any "Easy" critical injury.

Now, what would beat Precision Strike would be Unstoppable. If the injury result is reduced low enough, the injury goes away. The attacker isn't inflicting a critical injury result anymore, so can't change it.

Unless someone is making a custom NPC I don't see how it would be relevant since they're PC Talents. If I were making a custom NPC I wouldn't select it and have it occur so as to just skip the headache. I also think a dev ? is the best course.

I'd say there's also the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle to keep in mind, especially if this comes up in the middle of a session.

In that light, just saying Precision Strike overrides the whole process is probably the simplest solution for when you're in the middle of a game. May not be the 'mechanically correct' solution, but if it keeps the action going, then I'm all for it.

Precision strike applies its result when the critical injury is inflicted, at this stage the defender has yet to suffer the criitcal injury ,since he cannot suffer it until the result is decided. Both durable and supreme armor master apply when the defender suffers thhe injury so precision strike can no longer chamge the reult becuase it cant be inflicted at this stage.

I'd rule things like Durable and Supreme Armor Master to take the effect once the I jury would be applied finally. So,Minor Nick (04) is rolled. PC doesn't like that, suffers a strain and hits for another Easy, like Stunned (36-40). Then, I'd have Durable and or Armor Master take place.

Narratively, Precision Strike sounds like said PC is aiming to do something specific, like landing a discouraging wound or distracting the person. However,if the person is durable and or has supreme armor master unlocked, I'd say narratively, this person isn't as easy to distract, slow down, set off balance, sting, or what have you simply because this person is so Durable or is so in tune with their armor. That makes more sense, imo, than such a precise shot that this person's durability or fine armor is negated.

It's pretty simple, in my eyes. Durable and Supreme Armor Master reduce the critical roll made. When Precision Strike is used, there is no critical roll , and therefore nothing to reduce.

Precision Strike holds a singular purpose, and for that reason it overrides both Durable and Supreme Armor Master in this case.

I personally don't see the confusion here or that these Talents are exclusive of each.

Attacker inflicts a crit and rolls it. Defender uses whatever roll result altering Talent(s) to adjust result roll. Attacker can decide if they like the result and if not spend the Strain to pick an Easy crit result.

I think its important to think about the purpose of each of these talents:

Durable: Reduce the severity of all Criticals received

Supreme Armour Master: Massively reduce the severity of a single Critical received (Likely reduce it by 60 or more)

Unstoppable: Completely remove the effect of a Critical Received if it can be reduced by other means

Precision Strike: Reduce the effect of a Critical inflicted to ensure non-lethality, its using the advantage/triumph to make a well timed blow in place of a massive blow.

To me i feel the first two are all about attempting to reduce Average and Hard Criticals to an Easy, neither of them can actually prevent a critical so most of their job is done once the dice result has been reduced to 40 or less. Precision Strike does that reduction of the Critical for the target as well. There is very little difference between an 01 and a 40 on the table, all are short term efects. They are all easy to recover from, probably with a single medicine check or a night of rest. So in my eyes Precision Strike isn't reducing the effectiveness of the Durable and SAM talents, its just allowing a little more control to the attacker.

Unstoppable is where things get important IMHO, i believe it unfair on the attacker for that to be allowed after the decision has been made to use Precision Strike, and if that talent is allowed then it really relies on Durable in particular to activate, which would require Durable be applied to the Precision Strike result therefore i would use the talents in this order:

1. Attacker spends required Advantage/Triumph to cause a Critical injury
2. Attacker rolls on Crit Inj table
3. Apply all positive modifiers; Vicious, Previous Crits, Lethal Blows, force powers and force talents etc
4. Apply all negative modifiers; Durable, Supreme Armour Master, force powers and force talents etc
5. IF the modified result is reduced to 1 AND the Defender has Unstoppable then stop HERE, no Crit is received, the Attacker is simply not able to penetrate the Defences, otherwise continue on to step 6.
6. Attacker decides if they want to change the final Crit Result, either reducing it's severity or changing the effect of the Crit, either way if they choose to do so the Defender receives a Critical Injury chosen by the attacker from the list of Easy Critical Injuries.
7. The Defender applies the results.

A redundant post.

If that is the case, then which numeric value does the critical have? I only ask this question because the talents say that numbers (i.e. +10, etc) are taken off the final result, which poses a problem when the result lies somewhere between 2 numbers when you "change the result to any Easy (<D>) Critical Injury result".

You apply it to the roll the person makes who is inflicting the critical hit. Once they've done that if it is modified in some fashion to the point the result is no critical is suffered, then there's no crit imo and Precision Strike is irrelevant. You don't apply modifiers to the critical hit they select with Precision Strike, all the other 'defense' and 'offense' critical hit modifiers only apply to a critical hit that is rolled by the attacker. Once that result is determined, if there is still a critical hit being suffered, then the attacker with Precision Strike makes the decision whether they want to stick with whatever the rolled result # ends up being, or simply choose an Easy result from the chart.

The attacker makes a critical hit % roll. That gets modified by attacker and defender however they can, with whatever they can. If a critical hit is still suffered, the attacker with Precision Strike then decides whether to go with the final modified random result, or use Precision Strike and pick an Easy result.

I want to agree with you, but the terminology used doesn't support that I don't think.

I don't know about verbiage, but Precision Strike's description clearly states you still roll a critical and then decide whether to use the Talent after the roll the way you always would, modifiers included.

Yes , because you choose to modify the result, so yes the crit roll is still made.