My argument is pretty simple and works for both PC vs PC, PC vs NPC, NPC vs PC and NPC vs NPC.

You look at the abilities, etc that can affect the roll from the Attacker's perspective and apply them to the roll. These could be done in any order of the attacker's choosing.

Then its the target's turn to attempt to fend off the critical, at which point you then apply the target's abilities, talents, etc.

An argument could then be made that the critical hits the target has previously suffered would be applied here. I would also suggest that these abilities, etc could be applied in any order the target chooses.

If this is the case, the only issue then is to know what the actual result is as many of the abilities give an actual numeric value, where Precision Strike changes that.

I didn't read the previous post the attackers talent thus far appear to affect when the critical is inflicted, ie just after the point the advantage or triumph is spent, the defenders talents occur at the time the defender suffers the critical so the attacks modifiers are spent for first then the result is modified. Once this occurs the critical is then inflicted. The defender can then use talents like durable or supreme armor master which can then modify the result as it is suffered at this point talents like precision strike can no longer be used.

Exactly. However I just got an interim response from Max Brooke:

Now if only I could get an answer on the second part of precision strike , can you using ranged skills and gunnery weapons be done non lethality

For the record I am more than happy that it applies the way Max describes.

Precision Strike only works when using Brawl, Lightsaber and Melee.

Yeah, trying to say that Precision Strike can be used with ranged attacks is really splitting hairs and employing a degree of anal-retentive literal analysis of the wording that per the devs' own words isn't employed when writing up the various rules.

As GM Hooly said, it's pretty clear that both parts of the talent is meant to work with a specific class of weapons. Trying to get it to say otherwise is akin to trying to say that the Pierce quality lets the attacker inflict automatic damage based solely upon the way the quality is worded, when the intent behind Pierce is clearly that it simply reduces the target's soak value.

You forget it sit on both sides of the fence here as I said I used to study to be a judge for one of the most specific rules based card games where nothing is left to dubiety, I applied the same amal retemtive thinking here that agrees with GM Hooly on how it works with supreme armor master and durable, and the answer from Max disagrees.

I can see BOTH rulings applying when it comes to ranged skills, in fact I put forward a third possibility that they perhaps worded it that way to give GMs the option. I've waited three weeks for an answer from support on it. I'm fine whichever way the dice land on the subject.

Uhh, it says exactly what GMHooly said. It doesn't work with ranged skills. Now if you've got one you can throw and are still using one of the skills like the whole saber toss thingy, then it does, but not with ranged weapons, that's very clear in the rule.

Simmer down kids We are all friends here.

Basically you can't take the second paragraph of Precision Strike without reading it with the first. The reason it's there is because you are deemed to kill Minions with a Critical. This talent just let you knock them out. I think it's mainly there for characters who have Morality. Knocking out = Good; Killing indiscriminately = Bad.

If the paragraph was alone by itself, I could see the confusion. Fortunately, it isn't, and therefore only applies when a) using the talent and b) when applying a crit to a Minion group.

Precision strike

When the character inflicts a critical injury with a brawl, melee, or lightsaber weapon, he may suffer 1 strain to change the result to any Easy critical injury result.

Additionally, whenever the character defeats a minion or rival NPC, he may always choose to do so by nonlethal means, even if the environment or exceptional circumstances make that very difficult or impossible.

Read the talent and note the lack of any qualifiers (other than the rival or minion restriction) in the second paragraph. This could, and I believe, does mean it applies to ranged combat for that part of the talent.

There are other talents with similar different sections that back up this belief, however if you go by the wording then the wording for the first part of the talent is technically incorrect also since it appears that you choose to pay the strain not when it is inflicted but after everything else has gone off also. If you inflict a wound that happens when the actual hit occurs when you suffer a wound that is what happens after its been inflicted, so the wording of durable, supreme armor master, precision strike are all wrong if precision strike applies last.

This wording is very important since someone with precision strike can effectively nullify every critical adjusting talent and quality in the game, meaning that someone with a crit 1 melee, brawl, or lightsaber could theoretically back to back stagger a nemesis with durable 10 and Supreme armor master as long as they could cause damage and roll 1 advantage. That's pretty powerful for a tier 2 talent.

The reverse is also true , if durable gets applied second then that part of precision strike can be made much more infective with a few ranks of durable dropping the critical applied to that lower than the one that is chosen. The only way we can tell the difference is either an official order of how a critical hit works (and how far do you take that when this isa narrative game) or you look to the wording. FFG have been making Magic the gathering like card games long enough to know how important that wording should be. Imagine if the same dubiety happened at an official x wing tournament.

Precision strike

When the character inflicts a critical injury with a brawl, melee, or lightsaber weapon, he may suffer 1 strain to change the result to any Easy critical injury result.

Additionally, whenever the character defeats a minion or rival NPC, he may always choose to do so by nonlethal means, even if the environment or exceptional circumstances make that very difficult or impossible.

Read the talent and note the lack of any qualifiers (other than the rival or minion restriction) in the second paragraph. This could, and I believe, does mean it applies to ranged combat for that part of the talent.

There are other talents with similar different sections that back up this belief, however if you go by the wording then the wording for the first part of the talent is technically incorrect also since it appears that you choose to pay the strain not when it is inflicted but after everything else has gone off also. If you inflict a wound that happens when the actual hit occurs when you suffer a wound that is what happens after its been inflicted, so the wording of durable, supreme armor master, precision strike are all wrong if precision strike applies last.

This wording is very important since someone with precision strike can effectively nullify every critical adjusting talent and quality in the game, meaning that someone with a crit 1 melee, brawl, or lightsaber could theoretically back to back stagger a nemesis with durable 10 and Supreme armor master as long as they could cause damage and roll 1 advantage. That's pretty powerful for a tier 2 talent.

The reverse is also true , if durable gets applied second then that part of precision strike can be made much more infective with a few ranks of durable dropping the critical applied to that lower than the one that is chosen. The only way we can tell the difference is either an official order of how a critical hit works (and how far do you take that when this isa narrative game) or you look to the wording. FFG have been making Magic the gathering like card games long enough to know how important that wording should be. Imagine if the same dubiety happened at an official x wing tournament.

Uhhh, no.

Posting because I'm interested if there will be an official answer, and I don't think that this qualifies as "anal" reading either.

The part about " even if the enviroment or exceptional circumstances would normaly make that very difficult or impossible " makes no sense when using brawl or a melee weapon.

What impossible circumstances would prevent me from defeating someone without killing with a melee weapon or even better in a brawl? Even a lightsaber, the possibly deadliest weapon in this game, can do that - as demonstrated by Obi-Wan in the first, original Star Wars.

I think that is, for example, meant to talk about space battles or other situations where "not killing" someone becomes much more difficult. Like shooting someone with a weapon that can't be used non-lethal-y, like a Thermal Detonator or a Turbolaser .

Also, and this is purely personal opinion, but after flipping through the books I have with me (Eote core, AoR core, F&D core), Precision strike is the only (uncomplete, read PS, below) one of a handful Talents with a hanging indent and extra line spacing, which imo strongly hints at the "Additionaly" being a seperate part. It is also defined as "Activation: Active (Incidental, Out of Turn)" which further suggests that the second part is separate since the first part - inflicting crits - normaly only happens during your turn. Now, you can say what you want, and call me anal, but that paragraph probably is there to seperate those two sentences by more than a dot.

I think this is simply one talent: Don't kill who you don't want to kill .

PS: Comprehend Technology has a second paragraph with extra spacing and hanging indent that starts with "for example", Sarlacc Sweep , Force Assault , Now you see me and Improved reflect have extra conditions (like: you can't reflect if you were killed), Shroud and Valuable Facts have roleplay advice.

PPS: I know how ridicolous this sounds, but at work we produce a lot of print material - in 4 languages - and I would be so incredibly happy if readers simply accepted that the paragraphs and breaks and indents are there for a reason.

For the record on this and the other thread I'm not trying to change people's minds about how they think the talent works, when I read it initially I read it to mean that it only worked with close range weapons, and this made sense to me, then I had read the wording of another talent and had made assumption's on how it worked, only to find that on the order 66 podcast one of the devs pointed out it worked differently from how most people had thought, however when you went back and read the talent it made sense, because of how it was worded.

So I went back and read through a lot of talents and discovered that the way this is sectioned out the two are separate different effects from the talent (much like talents like command have 2 effects, which as another talent that was misread by many who thought that the boost die for the people listening was per rank, they cleared up the wording to make of more clear, but the original wording was specific enough on it thoughif you read the talent.)

If you take it the way I do, if you bring the close range weapons into the second part then you actually have to apply the rest about it being when you cause a critical So would it actually make sense worded like this

If you are using a brawl, melee or lightsaber weapon and choose to cause an easy crit by paying one strain you can take out a minion or rival nonlethally.

Why mention rivals since this would never come up, also it would mean minions taken over their wound threshold are taken out lethally, its only those killed by the easy crits that this section would affect

Posting because I'm interested if there will be an official answer, and I don't think that this qualifies as "anal" reading either.

The part about " even if the enviroment or exceptional circumstances would normaly make that very difficult or impossible " makes no sense when using brawl or a melee weapon.

What impossible circumstances would prevent me from defeating someone without killing with a melee weapon or even better in a brawl? Even a lightsaber, the possibly deadliest weapon in this game, can do that - as demonstrated by Obi-Wan in the first, original Star Wars.

I think that is, for example, meant to talk about space battles or other situations where "not killing" someone becomes much more difficult. Like shooting someone with a weapon that can't be used non-lethal-y, like a Thermal Detonator or a Turbolaser .

Also, and this is purely personal opinion, but after flipping through the books I have with me (Eote core, AoR core, F&D core), Precision strike is the only (uncomplete, read PS, below) one of a handful Talents with a hanging indent and extra line spacing, which imo strongly hints at the "Additionaly" being a seperate part. It is also defined as "Activation: Active (Incidental, Out of Turn)" which further suggests that the second part is separate since the first part - inflicting crits - normaly only happens during your turn. Now, you can say what you want, and call me anal, but that paragraph probably is there to seperate those two sentences by more than a dot.

I think this is simply one talent: Don't kill who you don't want to kill .

PS: Comprehend Technology has a second paragraph with extra spacing and hanging indent that starts with "for example", Sarlacc Sweep , Force Assault , Now you see me and Improved reflect have extra conditions (like: you can't reflect if you were killed), Shroud and Valuable Facts have roleplay advice.

PPS: I know how ridicolous this sounds, but at work we produce a lot of print material - in 4 languages - and I would be so incredibly happy if readers simply accepted that the paragraphs and breaks and indents are there for a reason.

You're both hanging from ropes? Knock someone out, ordinarily that means bye bye, that Talent means you break their arm around the rope and knock them out. Knock someone out underwater holding their breath, and typically that means they're a goner.

Minions and Rivals are defeated when critt-ed, in those circumstances it would mean death typically. This Talent lets you forgo those circumstances.

OK, some of you need to read Rivals again. They are killed when defeated. I do agree that it says that they CAN be killed at the GMs discretion, but I read this as they are killed unless the GM says otherwise.

Precision Strike says when a minion or rival is defeated (and they take a critical by the way) the player can choose to knockout the Rival rather than kill him, meaning the "GM's discretion" part is removed, giving the narrative control to the player if they choose.

Minions and Rivals are defeated when critt-ed, in those circumstances it would mean death typically. This Talent lets you forgo those circumstances.

Actually no. Minions are killed on a Critical, but only 1 minion. Rivals suffer them normally. The purpose of the talent is to allow PCs to knock out their Rivals rather than kill them when they are "defeated". The term "defeated" being spelled out to sustain more wounds than their Wound Threshold.

Please read the talent again the talent doesn't not say defeated using any particular weapon nor does it say defeated by a critical it just says defeated, this is in its own paragraph after the word additionally, like it is describing a separate effect of the talent, instead of having a simpler option of tagging something like the following onto the previous paragraph. - when doing so if the character defeats the NPC they can do so non lethally. Instead they devote a whole paragraph to it and complete separate it from the previous section.

Look at the following paragraphs

Being overweight can lead to you being unfit.

Additionally it can lead to an increased risk of heart disease and other heart related disorders.

Now in the above statements does it say you have to be unfit to have the increased risk. No it doesn't both effects are separate and any other time you would see the same format they would be as well unless there is something in the second paragraph,

My original query was, is the second effect linked to particular weapons, the wording may say no, but the Devs may say yes, and that was why I asked. Iknkow for sure it definitely isn't linked to the critical

Posting because I'm interested if there will be an official answer, and I don't think that this qualifies as "anal" reading either.

The part about " even if the enviroment or exceptional circumstances would normaly make that very difficult or impossible " makes no sense when using brawl or a melee weapon.

What impossible circumstances would prevent me from defeating someone without killing with a melee weapon or even better in a brawl? Even a lightsaber, the possibly deadliest weapon in this game, can do that - as demonstrated by Obi-Wan in the first, original Star Wars.

I think that is, for example, meant to talk about space battles or other situations where "not killing" someone becomes much more difficult. Like shooting someone with a weapon that can't be used non-lethal-y, like a Thermal Detonator or a Turbolaser .

Also, and this is purely personal opinion, but after flipping through the books I have with me (Eote core, AoR core, F&D core), Precision strike is the only (uncomplete, read PS, below) one of a handful Talents with a hanging indent and extra line spacing, which imo strongly hints at the "Additionaly" being a seperate part. It is also defined as "Activation: Active (Incidental, Out of Turn)" which further suggests that the second part is separate since the first part - inflicting crits - normaly only happens during your turn. Now, you can say what you want, and call me anal, but that paragraph probably is there to seperate those two sentences by more than a dot.

I think this is simply one talent: Don't kill who you don't want to kill .

PS: Comprehend Technology has a second paragraph with extra spacing and hanging indent that starts with "for example", Sarlacc Sweep , Force Assault , Now you see me and Improved reflect have extra conditions (like: you can't reflect if you were killed), Shroud and Valuable Facts have roleplay advice.

PPS: I know how ridicolous this sounds, but at work we produce a lot of print material - in 4 languages - and I would be so incredibly happy if readers simply accepted that the paragraphs and breaks and indents are there for a reason.

You're both hanging from ropes? Knock someone out, ordinarily that means bye bye, that Talent means you break their arm around the rope and knock them out. Knock someone out underwater holding their breath, and typically that means they're a goner.

Minions and Rivals are defeated when critt-ed, in those circumstances it would mean death typically. This Talent lets you forgo those circumstances.

Gonna answer that with a quote:

Uhhh, no.

So, Syrath, have you or somebody else asked the devs directly? Since it is such an awesome tool I don't want to annoy them with multiple iterations of the same question.

This may have got off topic.

Posting because I'm interested if there will be an official answer, and I don't think that this qualifies as "anal" reading either.

The part about " even if the enviroment or exceptional circumstances would normaly make that very difficult or impossible " makes no sense when using brawl or a melee weapon.

What impossible circumstances would prevent me from defeating someone without killing with a melee weapon or even better in a brawl? Even a lightsaber, the possibly deadliest weapon in this game, can do that - as demonstrated by Obi-Wan in the first, original Star Wars.

I think that is, for example, meant to talk about space battles or other situations where "not killing" someone becomes much more difficult. Like shooting someone with a weapon that can't be used non-lethal-y, like a Thermal Detonator or a Turbolaser .

Also, and this is purely personal opinion, but after flipping through the books I have with me (Eote core, AoR core, F&D core), Precision strike is the only (uncomplete, read PS, below) one of a handful Talents with a hanging indent and extra line spacing, which imo strongly hints at the "Additionaly" being a seperate part. It is also defined as "Activation: Active (Incidental, Out of Turn)" which further suggests that the second part is separate since the first part - inflicting crits - normaly only happens during your turn. Now, you can say what you want, and call me anal, but that paragraph probably is there to seperate those two sentences by more than a dot.

I think this is simply one talent: Don't kill who you don't want to kill .

PS: Comprehend Technology has a second paragraph with extra spacing and hanging indent that starts with "for example", Sarlacc Sweep , Force Assault , Now you see me and Improved reflect have extra conditions (like: you can't reflect if you were killed), Shroud and Valuable Facts have roleplay advice.

PPS: I know how ridicolous this sounds, but at work we produce a lot of print material - in 4 languages - and I would be so incredibly happy if readers simply accepted that the paragraphs and breaks and indents are there for a reason.

You're both hanging from ropes? Knock someone out, ordinarily that means bye bye, that Talent means you break their arm around the rope and knock them out. Knock someone out underwater holding their breath, and typically that means they're a goner.

Minions and Rivals are defeated when critt-ed, in those circumstances it would mean death typically. This Talent lets you forgo those circumstances.

Gonna answer that with a quote:

Uhhh, no.

So, Syrath, have you or somebody else asked the devs directly? Since it is such an awesome tool I don't want to annoy them with multiple iterations of the same question.

Yes, 3 weeks ago

What was the exact question if you don't mind providing that?

I asked them if the second paragraph worked with only with melee, brawl or lightsaber weapons, or did it work with ranged weapons. Not about the difference in opinion in the way we each of thinks it works, this was long before this thread came up.

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.

Actually, one of the great ways you can use this talent, esp with the confirmation from the devs, is to optimally use a weapon that can crit on a single advantage roll (lightsaber , morgukai staff, vibroweapon with monmolecular edge) , use the result to stagger the opponent every round that you can depriving the opponent of their action. If you can chain it round to round and you can combine with grapple you can lockdown the opponent whike you and your buddies beat him almost to a pulp