4) Apply Talents to reduce Critical Injury result (Durable, etc)

There you go.

So a 10 point talent (Precision Strike) beats a 20 point talent (Supreme Armor Master) then?

I would say that you must declare that you using PS immediatly after the roll and Supreme Armor Master activates during step 4, you may declare that you are activating then and only then. That way, the 20 point point talent doesn't get over ruled. Or you could rule that if SAMaster is activated, Precision Strike can't be activated.

So a 10 point talent (Precision Strike) beats a 20 point talent (Supreme Armor Master) then?

Yes.

Durable in the Soldier talent tree has a 20 point cost too. Cost represents location in the tree, not necessarily value of the talent. The higher in the tree one goes, the more cumulative impact the talent has, which determines its cost in that tree.

Beyond that, though, Precision Strike only affects Easy difficulty Critical Results, which limits its power. Durable and Supreme Armor Master affects all critical results, giving it far more versatility and when stacked much more power. It's also important to note that nothing in the Durable or Supreme Armor Master descriptions imply that it is there to prevent a critical injury altogether (represented in the fact that it mins at 1 - ensuring a critical is still applied), while Precision Strike is designed to ensure that you get the niggling injury that you desire (by giving your choice of a range of critical it can apply).

So a 10 point talent (Precision Strike) beats a 20 point talent (Supreme Armor Master) then?

Yep.

I replied in the EotE thread for this question, but Kyla hits the highlights of why this would be the case.

In short, SAM is far more useful in a broad sense, where Precision Strike (though cheaper) is far more restricted in what it can do.

Though with Precision Strike, I wonder if GMRen's point about needing to declare it's usage immediately after triggering a critical injury would render SAM, Durable, Lethal Blows and anything else that impacts rolling for a critical injury result (like disruptors and enforcing a minimum critical injury result no matter how poorly you roll) moot? When you trigger Precision Strike to select an Easy level critical injury, you're pretty much taking the dice rolls that the afore-mentioned talents would adjust out of the equation, rendering them essentially useless.

It's a good question for the devs, and I'd be curious to hear their answer.

*Puts on X-Wing Timing Mistress hat*

Okay, so when we look at the wording of the talents themselves, some timing indicators clearly come into play. We'll handle Supreme Armor Master first;

"Once per round, may suffer 2 strain to take the Armor Master Incidental: reduce the next Critical Injury suffered by 10 per point of soak, to a minimum of 1."

This clearly states the timing for activation as prior to the rolling of the Critical Injury. The effect timing indicates that it reduces the score of the critical injury result in the same manner as Durable, whose text is as follows;

"May reduce any Critical Injury suffered by 10 per rank of Durable, to a minimum of 1."

This is where the working of Precision Strike is important:

"When this character inflicts a Critical Injury with a Brawl, Melee or Lightsaber weapon, may suffer 1 Strain to change the result to any Easy Critical Injury result."

So the order of timing that has been established is as follows:

1. Spend an Incidental to activate Supreme Armor Master

2. Attacker rolls to hit and results activate one (or more) Critical Injuries

3. Attacker rolls first Critical Injury

4. Attacker modifies first result using weapon qualities and offensive abilities

5. Defender modifies first result using armor qualities and defensive abilities

6. Attacker applies results to defender and checks for remaining Critical Injuries from attack

7. If remaining, Attacker rolls next Critical Injury and repeats steps 4 through 7, otherwise end

The crux of the debate seems to be in the statement of "inflict" and "suffer" though that isn't necessarily the case. If we use X-Wing timing logic, then all modifications by one party must be made prior to modifications made by the other party, though each party can modifiy the dice in any order they wish within their own opportunity. If we continue this, then we can ignore the "inflicts/suffers" by stating these are both "modifications" of the dice at the point of rolling. This is true thanks to all of the above using the phrase "critical injury result." This we can take to mean the unmodified % result of the roll.

This of course means that I must change my position on the timing of Precision Strike (though I maintain my stance on a 10pt talent being able to trump a 20pt talent for the stated reasons).

In light of analysis, the timing as I see it would go as such;

1. Supreme Armor Master is activated by Jedi Bob.

2. Inquisitor C'thulhu wacks Bob with his Lightsaber and scores a Critical Injury (cause ... C'thulhu).

3. Inquisitor C'thulhu's player rolls his Critical Injury roll and gets a 26 - Flip a DP.

4. The player of Inquisitor C'thulhu knows that she has Vicious 1 on her weapon, which will increase a result by 10, and Precision Strike, allowing her to change the result to any other Easy difficulty Critical Injury result. This is (essentially) the ability to name any number from 01-40 (as they are all numbers controlling Easy Critical Injuries). This means that she can choose to EITHER: Increase the result of the roll by 10 to 36, and then reduce it lower (in case she wanted Sudden Jolt to make Bob lose his Lightsaber) OR she could use Precision Strike to increase the result to 40, and then add the Vicious +10 creating a 50 - Head Ringer Average Critical Result! While this may seem overpowered (in that it would basically guarantee an Average result when using a Vicious Weapon or Lethal Blows) the Precision Strike power is most powerful when you want to keep someone alive by taking a Critical Result over 150 and reducing it down to merely staggering them.

5. Now that we have our result modified by the attacker, we then modify the result as the defender. This is when the current result (we'll assume that knowing Jedi Bob had Supreme Armor Master up, Inquisitor C'thulhu tried for the highest crit she could) of 50. He has soak of 2 from his Jedi Armor, as well as a level of Durable. That means he may reduce it a total of 30 = he must reduce it once by 20 (Supreme Armor Master lacks the word "may") and may opt to reduce it by a further 10 step. Little did we know that Jedi Bob is secretly a Sith, so being cheeky, he opts to use Supreme Armor Master to reduce the result by 20 down to 30, but he forgoes his Durable talent and accepts the Discouraging Wound - flipping a light side point to a dark side one!

All in all, that's what X-Wing timing would say - and it seems to make sense, the only assumption made is that of Precision Strike modifying the result to any number instead of any Specific Title of result, but as the only qualifier of the result is the broad "Easy" category, all numbers within said category are just as valid.

When the character inflicts a critical inkury he may pay 1 strain to reduce the result

At this point in time the result is locked by the inflicting player precision strike can no longer change the result again because the injury is now inflicted.

Durable - the character may reduce the result he suffers ( the attacker has made his decision prior to the defender suffering the injury) by 10 per rank.

Supreme armor master uses the same wording ie when the defender suffers the injury.

This wording of whenthe defender suffersbthe injury means that at this stage the trigger (when the attacker inflicts) has passed and been decided

I agree with most of what you have said Kyla, except for your choice on when Supreme Armour Master must be activated. An Out of Turn incidental can be activated at a specific time, usually with some trigger requirement. It was always my impression that SAM is designed for saving the PC from death or severe injury once they know that they are about to receive a bad critical. It would kind of suck to die or loose a limb on a freak roll with a heap of strain still available to you. I mean the wording is quite clear in the talent description

Once per round, when the character suffers a critical injury,they may suffer 3 strain to take the Armour Master incidental.

I agree with most of what you have said Kyla, except for your choice on when Supreme Armour Master must be activated. An Out of Turn incidental can be activated at a specific time, usually with some trigger requirement. It was always my impression that SAM is designed for saving the PC from death or severe injury once they know that they are about to receive a bad critical. It would kind of suck to die or loose a limb on a freak roll with a heap of strain still available to you. I mean the wording is quite clear in the talent description

Once per round, when the character suffers a critical injury,they may suffer 3 strain to take the Armour Master incidental.

You seem to be correct; it is reflected differently depending on where you read it from. I initially determined the timing from the Talent tree phrasing on page 25 of Keeping the Peace which says;

Supreme Armor Master: Once per round, may suffer 3 strain to take the Armor Master incidental: reduce the next Critical Injury suffered by 10 per point of soak, to a minimum of 1. (Quoted directly from the talent text in Keeping the Peace pg. 25).

However, the Talent description on page 30 of the same book directly counters this, and actually changed the entire nature of the power from pro-active to re-active;

Armor Master (Supreme): Once per round, when the character suffers a Critical Injury, he may suffer 3 strain to take the Armor Master incidental. If he does, he reduces the Critical Injury result that he suffers by 10 per point of his soak, to a minimum of 1.

This changes the talent to work more like the Durable talent, and differs from the talent tree description in two major ways; first, it becomes a reactive talent, and second, it becomes an optional reduction thanks to the "may" statement. Obviously the working of the Talent was changed during development, with one of the two being an archaic version.

This changes the timing of activation as Richard mentioned above to occur with the rest of the Defensive modifications.

Actually it doesn't exactly change the timing if you look at the wording in the short description it doesn't actually specify when it can be activated , leading you to assume it is a proactive talent , however looking at the longest description it doesn't contradict the wording as you still pay the 3 strain before the critical result is applied, ie after the attacker has inflicted but before the defender suffers the wound. The short description just isn't a specific enough about it and the wording is misleading, although not incorrect.

In this instance the timing is controlled by the phrase "Next Critical Injury suffered."

Should you use in response to a Critical Injury, then you would already have a critical injury and it would apply to "the next" one after that. Therefore, you would have to use it prior to the roll for the Injury.

Not exactly, the strain is paid before the critical injury is inflicted as it is a cost for triggering the talent is you pay the strain first before the effect occurs. So when the strain is paid it is affecting the next critical injury ie the one you are paying the strain to affect, the wording didn't specify how long before the next critical injury occurs that you pay the strain. Semantics I know, but I studied to be a magic the gathering judge and believe me when I say in competitive games where major prize money is involved the wording is critical. I still don't see the short wording being a contradiction.

I've discovered often that looking at the talent sheets isn't enough to understand a talent and have been burned more than a few times before by the wording, which the short description doesn't provide.

One of the conundrums that could happen with supreme armor master if strain occurs at the same time as the crit is the result

Winded- until the end of the encounter the target cannot voluntarily suffer strain until the end of the encounter,

So if you pay strain after the critical to reduce it, if you reduce it to winded you could not pay the strain,ergo the critical would be stuck at the pre reduction level so the strain cost must come first before the result is applied so in effect the strain is paid and the next critical that is inflicted (not the next critical suffered) is affected by the talent

May be better to bring all of these discussions together. Follow the main one HERE.