So I had a question for the community regarding cost vs benefits of the two talents Reinforce Item and Parry. I currently play an Armorer from Keeping the Peace, and the big thing I am noticing is a severe lack of defensive ability when dealing with lightsabers.

I've reached a point where I can pick up the Reinforce Item talent, however I am not sure its actually worth it as I am already planning on branching out into Protector or Soresu Defender. Reinforce Item requires not only 3 strain a turn but also committing 2 force die to maintain the ability, not to mention having to activate it on my turn, but ultimately this doesn't actually do anything unless I'm attacked. On the other hand Parry allows me to use it reactively when I need to, and assuming I have enough points into it can reduce a good chunk of damage.

My main issue is that strain is already very hard to come by, so having to not only spend a maneuver to activate the ability, in addition to 3 strain per turn seems like a very steep cost for only a chance at benefiting from the cortosis quality. Thematically I love it, it feels very well suited to the concept of a force smith, but the cost of it I simply can't justify since it feels like I'm already burning through strain every encounter fairly quickly.

There are some talents that are less useful than others, and you've found one of those.

From a purely defensive stand point, and where your only being targeted by one breach weapon a round then your correct, parry has a lot more flexibility. But Let's say you party is being attacked by two Lightsaber Wielders then suddenly your able to go toe to toe with BOTH for the same strain cost. Sure you don't have your Force Dice to use, but so what, you can soak an absolute bunch of damage not normally possible.

I think it's important to remember Guardian characters are "the last stand" types, and Armour is the tank of them all. I would expect a brawn of 3 at least (int 4 will 3 as well), throw some soak 3+ Armour on there, add in Armour Master and suddenly you have at least 7 soak with 10 being your goal... On every single hit! Now to reduce 1 hit by 7 damage with Parry you need to spend an absolute heap of XP on 5 ranks of Parry across at least 2 Spec trees. Reinforce Item is much cheaper XP wise.

But that's ignoring the other side of Reinforce Item, it's not just for defence. Let's say your in s bar fight and some guy in a cloak rips out a Lightsaber, now you can Reinforce your Bar Stool and have at least a fighting chance of not dying. Or Inquisitor X disarms you, what will you do?

Then finally there is the most important part, the full description states "grant 1 item your engaged with" so you can Reinforce allies gear, now we are talking. This has the obvious benefits of helping other PC's that don't actually have a Lightsaber (bah why you hanging out with that lot!) but want to face off against one. But what about your buddy who just entered a Fated Dual with the BBEG Inquisitor? Now you can help a lot without actually helping.

Finally Lightsabers are not the only weapon with sunder and ignoring Pierce is super helpful too some times.

Dont forget that Cortosis ignores all Pierce and Breach. That includes against ranged weapons. Suddenly you can tank up against Repeating Blasters, Missile Tubes, Thermal Detonators etc. Yes, it will still hurt, but soaking 7 or 8 off 20 will keep you up from 1 hit at least. And yes, you could get reflect and parry to cover it all, but that is a lot of XP. Plus don't forget to stack parry and reinforce item for ultimate damage reduction.

Yeah, I get the feeling that it's not a bad talent, just a bit more situational then others.

Well currently my stat block is looking like this, 5 brawn (after dedication) 2 agility, 3 intelligence, 2 cunning, 2 willpower, 1 presence. I chose gank for species, a bit odd but it fits the "smith" theme, with my main focus on skills like mechanics, coordination (so I can fly our ship via cybernetics), discipline, and lightsaber. With all the armorer talents my soak is already high, sitting at a 9 with my crafted armor and 1 defense. My biggest issue is just anytime we run into anyone wielding a lightsaber I basically just have to take it as I have no way to mitigate. parry seems like the go to for this but I'd figure I would ask some more experienced folks.

With stats like that (Soak 9!!!), Reinforce Item should be your bread and butter against 'sabers. I mean, 3 strain and 2 Force Dice for reducing the damage of ALL hits for the round by 9?

To get that much reduction from Parry you'd need 7 ranks, and it would still be 3 strain PER HIT instead of per round. Seems like no contest to me.

Also, side note: Gank Guardian. That's awesome. That is all.

With stats like that (Soak 9!!!), Reinforce Item should be your bread and butter against 'sabers. I mean, 3 strain and 2 Force Dice for reducing the damage of ALL hits for the round by 9?

To get that much reduction from Parry you'd need 7 ranks, and it would still be 3 strain PER HIT instead of per round. Seems like no contest to me.

Also, side note: Gank Guardian. That's awesome. That is all.

Yeah, seems like something that would be awesome vs multiple lightsaber users. Or someone who uses two lightsabers.

Or an Ataru user spamming the Saber Swarm, or a double-bladed 'saber, or...

There are dozens of reasons why Reinforce Item would be more useful.

In playing Guardian, I can see both the advantages and disadvantages of Imbue Item and Reinforce Item. Now, the advantages are it's a strong power with a maneuver cost, rather than costing an action like most actual Force Powers do.

Reinforce is also interesting in that if you use it versus a single opponent, the odds are you won't necessarily need it on for more than a couple of rounds as your entire party will hopefully be able to take out the big threat asap.

Disadvantages are the Force Dice requirement. I only have 2 on my current Guardian, about to get a third. I've been using Sense with the abilities to make incoming attacks upgrade twice per turn, and have 3 defence for both melee and ranged. This means the average check against my Jedi is going to be 2 red, 3 black. Add in defensive when needed, and dodge if you get a tree with that, and you're looking at silly dice to even try and hit.

Couple the above with a bit of cortosis (yes it's 10k, which is a lot but totally worthwhile if you're coming across a load of Breach/Pierce X enemies) and you are now doing Reinforce for a monetary cost that takes up 2 hardpoints in armor, rather than spending EXP down to that level and then committing Force Dice.

Rule of cool factor though - picking up a stick and squaring off against a lightsaber using opponent, using the Force to make the stick able to withstand the saber and hardening your comfy cotton robes against it too; this is how truly badass old hermits fight.

Also Guardian has awesome synergy with other party members. Stand next to the high damage output glass cannons and take hits for them!

Actually kind of thinking about grabbing the fated duel signature ability, would certainly help me ensure I'm not wasting strain when activating my reinforce item talent. Anyone have any experience with this ability? It looks similar to the talent the soresu defender gets at the end of their tree, the name escapes me at the moment.

The difference between Fated Duel and Strategic Form is that Fated Duel is all-way, while Strategic Form is one-way.

Let me explain.

Fated Duel:

Can You Attack Non-Targets: No;

Can the Target Attack Your Allies: No;

Can Allies Attack the Target: No;

Can Other Hostiles Attack You: No.

Strategic Form:

Can You Attack Non-Targets: Yes;

Can the Target Attack Your Allies: No;

Can Allies Attack the Target: Yes;

Can Other Hostiles Attack You: Yes.

Basically, Strategic Form forces the targets to attack you, but doesn't limit the options of non-targets (you, your allies, and other enemies) in any way. While this can be useful, it can also really help you enemies gang up on you - if half their team has to attack you anyway, why not all attack you and get you out of the way?

Fated Duel is just that: a Duel. You and your opponent can only attack each other, and no one else can interfere. Another advantage is that it's easier to make last a long time - you have to spend Force Points to increase the duration on a per-target basis with Strategic Form, but Fated Duel lasts 3 rounds to start with, and you can easily get that to 5 without making your check harder (it actually gets easier!). Strategic Form is also limited only to when you're wielding a lightsaber (and making Lightsaber [intellect] checks, at that!), whereas Fated Duel has no weapon restrictions.

Additionally, while its not spelled out, in certain circumstances I would rule as GM that Strategic Form stops working if the target moves out of range (short). It's hard to use your lightsaber skills to force someone to engage only you when they're well out of range of your glowstick of death. Fated Duel would not have that restriction.

Fated Dual does have the restriction of only being available to Guardians, and is only usable once per session, its also a hell of a lot more expensive! But then it should be since it gives a lot more control to the PC and can have a big impact on an encounter. to be clear you need BOTH talents purchased that the Signature Ability links to to be able to purchase the Signature Ability, so in the case of Armourer you need the Dedication and Force Rating talent.

Yes I actually already have those, so in this case it would be cheaper for me to pick up the signature ability rather than buying into a new specialization and go down the tree.