Also, how do you manage parry and reflect? Inflicting strain means very limited deflection, most jedi can use this power very frequently.

Most Jedi never get hit by blasters period, but with this game's mechanics, there gonna get hit eventually (sooner than later).

I think this comes under the fact that you can't have a true jedi in an RPG game because in reality they are just too awesome.

If they made Jedi like they should be, they would over powered.

Recovering Strain usually isn't too hard with enough spare Advantages.

The PCs are no JEDI.

The FaD Corebook states explicite that all players are just "Force-Sensitives" that stumble over some teachings, or found out the hard way about their powers.

That said:

Parry cost strain so the PCs don't get invulnerable and getting the Parry/ reflect skill would becoming an Auto-Win function.

Further on:

Even the Movie Jedi can't reflect infinitifly.

I reffer to Ep II - the Arena scene where a lot of jedi where shot down by mere droids. AND Ep III - order 66 - we see how Ki-Adi-Mundin is running on a bridge when his clones receve the elemination order. When he realizes what happens he still can reflect some of the blasterbolt before he goes down for good.

Even in the TCW there are scenes where some jedi were hit by blasters.

And to parry... if they all could parry without problems... well there would never be any winner in those Lightsaber duells, would there?

Even jedi grew tired if they do physical tasks (just look on how exhausted Qui-Gon seems to be after his first show off with Maul on Tatooine) or how hard Anakin is breathing when he has Dooku on his knees, or Obi-Wan after his duell with Ani on Mustafar.

So it is all good that the PCs in this game have to keep theire Strain in mind while using ANY talent thats out of turn, or extra maneuvers.

First off, remember that in this system one attack roll represents several shots, not just a single trigger pull. So a single roll form a minion group of battle droids can easily be a narrative of a dozen or more blaster bolts headed toward the character.

Next, as the Pirate points out, every check you make that generates advantage can pump your strain back up. Also after every encounter you can roll a Discipline or Cool check to regain Strain.

Finally, now that you know that, run the actual numbers. Take two Knight level characters with a rank or two in parry and fight two or three groups of 3 battle droids in a starship hallway. Barring a series of unlucky checks I think you'll find the two knight levels will make pretty quick work of the droids with enough strain to run away, recover their strain, hide, slip onto the Trade Federation drop ships, meet a gungan, go to an underwater city, pilot a submarine through a planet's watery core, avoid bigger fish, rescue a queen from two more groups of 3 droids, recover more strain, fight past (but not kill all) another group of 3 groups of 3 droids, recover strain, run the blockade, and then take a nap while flying to Tattooine to look for a new hyperdrive....

Not that I've given it much thought.....

Also, don't forget there are other defensive abilities available to them. Maxing out the Sense power on the left hand tree will result in 2 attacks being upgraded 2 times at no strain cost, Dodge works vs all attacks at 1 strain per level and so on.

That Parry and Reflect cost strain to use, that a PC with those talents can't become "invincible" is very much by design, and in keeping with the system's design tenet that combat is going to be dangerous no matter how skilled/powerful you are. One problem that's constantly cropped up in prior Star Wars RPGs is that after a certain point, a Jedi PC is more or less invincible and that anything that could seriously threaten them would likely steamroll the rest of the party, with the WEG D6 system being a serious culprit in this respect.

And unless the PC gets absolutely dogpiled by bad guys and are judicious about using advantages to recover strain in combat, they shouldn't be in too much risk of exceeding their strain threshold. Plus, you've got talents like Supreme Parry and Supreme Reflect that cut the strain cost down to almost nil, provided you don't make a combat check.

Plus, as Nightone said, the PCs are not really Jedi in the classic sense. More often than not, they are Force-sensitives that have picked up a few bits of lore here and there regarding the Force. The PCs don't have the benefit of having been trained since early childhood in the ways of the Jedi; Ahsoka at the start of The Clone Wars series (age 14) has more training in the Force and the Jedi arts than your typical starting PC, due to her having been raised by the Jedi Order for as long as she can remember.

Ghostofman's got some really solid points as well, namely that a combat check accounts for multiple attacks, and is really more of an aggregate of the acting character's offensive efforts, especially since combat rounds in this system are far longer than the handful of seconds that most other RPGs use.

Plus, Parry and Reflect shouldn't be the only defensive options a PC has to fall back on. Sense is easy to acquire (40 XP grants you the ability to commit a Force die and so enables the PC to upgrade the difficulty of an attack twice, twice per combat round), as are ranks of Defensive Stance, Defensive Training, Dodge, and Side Step. I played an Ataru Striker that only had two ranks of Parry and Reflect, but the kid was dynamite in a fight thanks to Sense and judicious use of Dodge.

There's also the Grit talent, and that if the GM is using Morality, a PC gets a boost to their strain threshold once they hit the higher tiers of being a Light Side Paragon, giving you a bit of incentive to be a proper Jedi in deed and action as opposed to being a quasi-psychic thug with a laser sword.

Most Jedi never get hit by blasters period, but with this game's mechanics, there gonna get hit eventually (sooner than later).

I think this comes under the fact that you can't have a true jedi in an RPG game because in reality they are just too awesome.

If they made Jedi like they should be, they would over powered.

If the Jedi were that good we would have seen more than 3 of them in the Original Trilogy.

Order 66 proved that Jedi aren't blaster-proof.

I see Donovan recommended some solid defensive Talents, but don't forget Soak. Against most enemies, a good Soak helps tremendously.

I see Donovan recommended some solid defensive Talents, but don't forget Soak. Against most enemies, a good Soak helps tremendously.

True, but part of the OP's post also seemed to be a concern about lightsabers, which for the most part bypass soak. To say nothing of weapons in the Ranged (Heavy) and Gunnery that do enough damage that most soak values have a negligible effect.

It seems that by the time a player has around 140xp (10 + 25 + 10 + 30) they could have a total 5 ranks in parry, which would reduce the damage of even a successful lightsaber strike to 0 (6 damage + 1 success), essentially making a lightsaber duel a strain only battle. Rolling advantage and the occasional unsuccessful attack would probably allow the character to hold their own almost indefinitely against a lightsaber wielding opponent (bonus successes still causing damage etc).

(2 ranks from Soresu Defender for 5 each, 25 points to access Warrior Shii-Cho Knight, 2 more ranks from the first tier in Shii-Cho, one rank from tier 3)

On 7/11/2016 at 7:30 PM, Reddicediaries5 said:

Also, how do you manage parry and reflect? Inflicting strain means very limited deflection, most jedi can use this power very frequently.

A lot of the Force Sensitive specs are strain-heavy due to talents requiring the character to take strain to activate. Thankfully, said Force Sensitive specs usually come with a couple copies of Grit to increase your strain threshold. Really it's a matter of management, as you put it in your first sentence. If you start with 12 strain and have the ability to parry/reflect, you know you can at most, parry/reflect 4 attacks before you are at your max strain. Throughout the combat, when you roll advantages, you can spend those to lower your strain threshold, thereby allowing you to parry/reflect more.

I would also say your ability to keep up with parry/reflect in combat has a lot to do with how the GM is targeting the player group in combat. If the GM is taking it easy, (maybe because the NPCs are random thugs and not trained military) the attacks will be spread out between the party. If the GM is being more ruthless (because the NPCs are elite military or highly trained killers) then the attacks will focus on one character until they are incapacitated before moving onto the next. Force Sensitives with lightsabers are great targets to focus on since they can mitigate damage beyond just their soak. Also people get scared when they see some rando wielding a death sword and using space magic.

Another factor into how much you can keep up parry/reflect lies in how many rounds a combat goes for. A combat that only lasts 1 round means there's only as many chances you will get hit as there are enemies that attack. That chance is multiplied by the number of rounds the combat takes if it goes longer, factoring in such changes as when an NPC is defeated. So say there's 2 rival hitmen and a minion group of thugs attacking the party. Total of 3 potential attacks against your character. If the combat lasts 5 rounds, that's a potential 15 attacks against your character. Say though that the minion group is defeated by round 3. That would be a total of 13 potential attacks against your character.

Of course you're probably not doing this sort of math in the moment of a heated battle but it's good to think about outside of one. The longer you stay in a fight or the more enemies there are, the less likely you are to remain unscathed. If the gm is running it well enough, combat shouldn't always be just a combat. There should be objectives either for the PCs or the NPCs to make the combat more of an obstacle towards the end goal.

In our games we made a change to Reflect (not to Parry). It gives Failures instead damage reduction, the rest of Reflect mechanics are the same.

You can't Reflect a lot of time (unless you have some Talents or recover Strain of course).

On 7/11/2016 at 7:30 PM, Reddicediaries5 said:

Also, how do you manage parry and reflect? Inflicting strain means very limited deflection, most jedi can use this power very frequently.

Ebb/Flow my friend. Ebb/Flow. You'll kiss all your strain problems goodbye.

7 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

Ebb/Flow my friend. Ebb/Flow. You'll kiss all your strain problems goodbye.

Well the PC on my table will disagree but foremost due to his bad dice luck... 3 out of 4 forcedice showing up black every time... while he want to be a LS paragon ^^

That or the Gm is a smart@ss and starts to use Strain damaging means against the PC... (checking my bag: stun grenades... check, sleeppacks... check... heavy Autofire blasterrifle with stun setting... check)

On 1/15/2018 at 8:06 AM, Josep Maria said:

In our games we made a change to Reflect (not to Parry). It gives Failures instead damage reduction, the rest of Reflect mechanics are the same.

You can Reflect a lot of time (unless you have some Talents or recover Strain of course).

One of my fav house rules.

On 2018-01-15 at 4:06 PM, Josep Maria said:

In our games we made a change to Reflect (not to Parry). It gives Failures instead damage reduction, the rest of Reflect mechanics are the same.

I like it, but it makes it ridiculously good compated to coordination dodge, which is powered by destiny points rather than mere strain. Especially considering how easily available reflect is. Maybe one Failure for every rank?

Also, you'd have to put the decision to use Reflect before the check rather than after, to be fair.

I used this houserule to emule SW universe as much as I can. When I houserule I don't take balance as consideration. Force uses to be better.

You still spend lots of Strain, and with our version it's a "all or nothing" compared with the normal Reflect. If you don't evade you receive full damage, and blasters and gunnery do lot of damage XD

27 minutes ago, Josep Maria said:

I used this houserule to emule SW universe as much as I can. When I houserule I don't take balance as consideration. Force uses to be better.

You still spend lots of Strain, and with our version it's a "all or nothing" compared with the normal Reflect. If you don't evade you receive full damage, and blasters and gunnery do lot of damage XD

I see where you're coming from regarding balance, and to a point I agree. The thing is that I value balance between players, as I wouldn't want anyone to feel shafted for picking an inferior spec. Case in point our current capaign includes two lightsaber fighters and one non force sensitive martial artist, the latter using coordination dodge. Just telling that player that "force users are better" would kinda suck. But in an all Jedi party, go nuts.

Also, adding failures would still reduce damage by cancelling successes though, unless you've house ruled that too.

About balance, well, I hope and wish some maturity from my players (I don't always achieve it XD). So my players doesn't use to bother just because one of them is stronger.

In our games we focus on building a story, a cooperative story, between players and me. We aren't doing any competition. In one of my last games one 2600 XP player played with another 780XP one. The higher level player eventually was a Jedi XD

We don't use to care about if you can kill a rancor with one hit or twenty, just in the construction of the story. Off course, there are scenes where while "Padme confronts de stupid battle droids, Qui-Gon and Obi fights the Sith". Everyone has a role on the game, no need to have the same amount of XP or Talents.

Balance is betwen focus on tempos and their stories, not for how many wampas can beat before die XD

About Reflect the idea is, if as a consequence of the Failures you reduce Success to 0, then it fails, if not, it fully hits (I always forgot that part sorry XD). About "fairness and balance" as said. Reflect on movies is REALLY powerful (and apparently easy and intuitive) but not infalible. This way also you can Reflect fire from Vehicles like in Rebels and CW.

As I said, personally I don't care (in general therms) about balance between players. First goal, create and epic story, second one, mantain universe "coherence".

And yes, tell your players that "Force users USE to be better" XD If I had a strong FU in my group I would be happy as a player, but also worried for the Inquisitor that is coming to hunt him/us XD

The thing is … it does not really seem to be true. Force users with tons of XP and training seem to be better, sure. But Jango Fett had no trouble gunning down jedi's left and right. Boba Fett had no trouble to make them run for the life. Clone Trooper minions had no trouble to kill about 10,000 jedi on their own.

Now at the other hand, that rule change to parry and reflect does not change that either. Jedi still fall to autofire rather quickly, jedi still die to explosives and blast weapons and jedi still die to snipers who just go with tons of success and overcome them just fine. And they are actually still in trouble against something like a martial artist as well as those have access to unarmed parry and the ability to perma stagger.

So I say: More power to you.

Though mechanically I think you broke the game, because the narrative dice results in melee combat would end up always based around disarming your target first and finishing him off afterwards. Once you reach your sweet little 4 ranks of parry in Soretsu or combine Niman with Arbiter or whatever your parry/reflect become more an an impenetrable shield, which becomes especially problematic with circle of shelter. The game is build around the idea that players and GMs are telling the stories of the dice, but with that chance to parry and reflect those stories become rather boring imho. So while working from a lore and world building perspective, nds might be not best suited for the result.

Yep, I'm aware that FU can be beaten but everyone BUT you are considering that (probably) the best Bounty Hunter against not so renamed Jedis, Windu had not so much problems with no-head Jango XD

About Clone Troopers vs Jedi, well, tons of teories there but surprise/traition + big number is a good ally yes XD

About autofire, yes, you are absolutelly right, I forgot that option, but well, I want them more resistant, not invulnerable as I said. Also explosives and snipers, as Bane in person said "there is no merit on taking a Jedi out with a Sniper, do it melee" XD

And also we seen in so many moments that Jedi can be beaten with melee (not only for elite bounties), also by "normal slavers" and so on. So, Jedi seem to have really good advanteges gainst low, mid and mid - high ranged level, but "nothing special" (apart that his weapon is almost unstoppable on melee XD) at close combat.

About the last part of your exposition I don't get it, Can you try to explain it a bit different please? Thanks!

Yeah, while everyone forgets that Jango just killed a council member and jedi master a minute before. Meanwhile Windu was considered the most powerful of them all and Jango rolled plenty of despairs on top.

Anyway, the last part is about how making reflect/parry such a powerful core function of a jedi's defense means that most encounters will become about removing that core defense mechanic, especially in melee combat. Which means that spending advantages to disarm your target or damage his lightsaber becomes the default way to handle things. Gets a little boring fast when it becomes the only thing people spend advantages / threads / triumphs for.

It's actively working against the variety of possible outcomes from the narrative dice and thus working directly against the most fundamental core mechanic of the game.

Hmm... interesting. I would discuss it with my players. I still believe that gives more advantages than disavantages but we will consider it, thanks

The clone troopers did not kill 10,000 jedi. Droids whittled that down considerably. Many fell to the darkside during the war. Then the Clones mopped the rest up with vader at the temple.