So I have a player that has his heart set on getting a Barab Ingot for his lightsaber crystal. In my opinion this is a very overpowered crystal with the Burn property because it can be added an additional 2 times with mods giving it up to Burn 3.

So if the base damage is done, plus a single uncancelled success on the first hit that would be 8+1=9. (AFB)

The next 3 rounds each would hit that enemy for the base damage of the weapon ignoring soak (if that's correct).

Round 1: 8+1
Round 2: 8 (burn)
Round 3: 8 (burn)

Round 4: 8 (burn)

Grand total after a single successful blow during a single round = 33 points of damage!!!

Is this accurate, or is soak still involved with Burn? Would you remove the option for the additional modifications of Burn?

I believe soak is applied to Burn.

I believe soak is applied to Burn.

Normally, I think that would be true. However, in this case, I believe that the weapon also has Breach, which means that the Burn would probably ignore any Soak that the target is likely to have — even with just Breach 1.

IIRC, Burn deals the initial damage again, so Soak would be applied.

Yeah, fairly certain that things like Breach and Pierce would only be applied to the damage from the initial attack, not the subsequent damage that Burn inflicts, as that's now a separate effect.

So against a target with a soak value of 5, the Burn quality on a Barab Ingot crystal would 3 damage for however many rounds the Burn quality lasts. It'd be pretty brutal against minion groups, since it's auto-damage and they don't have high individual wound thresholds, but much less so against a major Nemesis or even a combat-focused Rival.

And putting out the fire is not that hard, its also one of the more expensive crystals with a minimum crit rating of 3, so it is effective at some things, but less so at others;

8 damage a round, soak applied each time, not that bad and i would keep it that way its a specific and different effect...

Now about setting your opponent on fire and watching them burn... sounds very Dark Sider to me, conflict for inflicting unnecessary pain/torture could be a common occurrence.

Not much different then a rifle with an under-slung flame thrower, and that also has blast

Aye, the key thing it has a nasty bit of kick, key focus on the word nasty. Burning people to death is different to just cutting them, otherwise I don't consider that much more powerful then, say, auto maiming someone on a double triumph

Straight from our beloved Answers of the developers thread:

Burn and Soak

Question asked by 2P51 :

Does soak apply to Burn effect?

Answered by Sam Stewart

Soak does apply to burn

So as long as the enemy has any decent soak it´s not that hard to handle burn.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Burn effect can be cut short. Per EotE Core page 155: "A victim might be able to stop the damage by rolling around on the ground and making an Agility check as an action. This is an Average Coordination check on hard surfaces such as the hall of a spaceship, or an Easy Coordination check on grass or soft ground. Jumping into a body of water stops the damage immediately. Both situations assume the flame is from actual combustion rather than a chemical reaction. With the latter, there is usually little the victim can do."

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Burn effect can be cut short. Per EotE Core page 155: "A victim might be able to stop the damage by rolling around on the ground and making an Agility check as an action. This is an Average Coordination check on hard surfaces such as the hall of a spaceship, or an Easy Coordination check on grass or soft ground. Jumping into a body of water stops the damage immediately. Both situations assume the flame is from actual combustion rather than a chemical reaction. With the latter, there is usually little the victim can do."

no offense to the writers but combustion IS a chemical reaction, I know they meant something like an acid but still...

BTW the definition of a "detonation wave" is "a chemically reacting shock wave" i.e. combustion plus shockwave = detonation wave. So not all sudden releases of energy (like rupturing a battery with high energy density in a sci-fi setting) is an actual explosion even though the damaging effect may be similar.

I think that what they meant was that it was "assuming the flame is from an aerobic combustion" or such, but they didn't want to science-up Star Wars.

I believe soak is applied to Burn.

Normally, I think that would be true. However, in this case, I believe that the weapon also has Breach, which means that the Burn would probably ignore any Soak that the target is likely to have — even with just Breach 1.

That's exactly what I thought too, that the breach quality applied to the burns after-effects...however...

Yeah, fairly certain that things like Breach and Pierce would only be applied to the damage from the initial attack, not the subsequent damage that Burn inflicts, as that's now a separate effect.

So against a target with a soak value of 5, the Burn quality on a Barab Ingot crystal would 3 damage for however many rounds the Burn quality lasts. It'd be pretty brutal against minion groups, since it's auto-damage and they don't have high individual wound thresholds, but much less so against a major Nemesis or even a combat-focused Rival.

...this makes more sense than my original thought...

Straight from our beloved Answers of the developers thread:

Burn and Soak

Question asked by 2P51 :

Does soak apply to Burn effect?

Answered by Sam Stewart

Soak does apply to burn

So as long as the enemy has any decent soak it´s not that hard to handle burn.

Thanks for finding this! This is the definite reference for burn-type issues!

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Burn effect can be cut short. Per EotE Core page 155: "A victim might be able to stop the damage by rolling around on the ground and making an Agility check as an action. This is an Average Coordination check on hard surfaces such as the hall of a spaceship, or an Easy Coordination check on grass or soft ground. Jumping into a body of water stops the damage immediately. Both situations assume the flame is from actual combustion rather than a chemical reaction. With the latter, there is usually little the victim can do."

I did realize this as well after I went back and re-read the burn quality description. I think this would be easy enough to take care of if he starts using it on people.

And putting out the fire is not that hard, its also one of the more expensive crystals with a minimum crit rating of 3, so it is effective at some things, but less so at others;

8 damage a round, soak applied each time, not that bad and i would keep it that way its a specific and different effect...

Now about setting your opponent on fire and watching them burn... sounds very Dark Sider to me, conflict for inflicting unnecessary pain/torture could be a common occurrence.

I like the idea of giving out conflict for using it and knowingly setting people on fire, my only hesitation would be that I think he might fall to the dark side too quickly if that were the case since his build is more of a fighter. He is already very close to falling and will be part of one of my next sessions if he dips below 29, (I think he is around mid-30's) but I don't know if he will ever be able to get back to the light side if he needs to use his lightsaber in some situations and then has conflict up the wazoo for it.

Nothing prevents him playing a Dark Sider, it's one of the true marvels of this system!

Nothing prevents him playing a Dark Sider, it's one of the true marvels of this system!

While that's true, it wouldn't work out very well with my group since they are all light side who strictly adhere to the Jedi code and not harming others. Falling to the Dark side is fine, but he would have to start working back towards the light otherwise the group would separate and that wouldn't end up well. If he was always dealt conflict when using his lightsaber, then it would be hard to go back to the Light.

I probably wouldn't give conflict every attack, but 1 for an encounter would be fine, especially if its combat that was avoidable.

Why would the Force consider burning to be worse than other forms of harm over time (like bleeding out or dying of suffocation)?

Oh I don't for a minute think leaving a maimed bleeding out opponent to be any worse, that's definitely worth some conflict. I just thought it important to highlight that burning your foes alive is a really nasty thing to do.

Now on the conflict side of things this is an active ability, you need to spend 2 Advantage to trigger it. The Player doesn't "have" to hold his Lightsaber to their opponents clothing until it bursts into flames, same as they don't "have" to inflict a critical injury. They certainly can "choose" to, and that's probably worth conflict.

What do you think HappyDaze? Am I wrong with this and burning someone who's aggressively attacking you is actually ok with the Force? Obviously I'm not talking about using this as a torture device, that's obvious conflict, but in the heat of battle.

I'm not sure that it's a good idea to set a precedent that Burn = Conflict because then you'll have to ask if inflicting a Critical Injury = Conflict, and so on. Killing is killing (even if this game has removed killing as a "must happen" event for taking out your opponent), so does the nature of the tool used really matter?

I don't think you should hand out conflict for abilitys. Yes the PLAYER can choose that those advantages of the narrative dice can be seen as that an Critical injuri, burn, knockdown or blast is activated,

BUT

It is not the players CHARACTER that choose that his weapon will now set the clothes of his victim on fire!

Since we assume that the force leads the players' CHARACTER to his kyber crystal, we also have to asume that the force wanted this character to have a krystal that by "accident and/or luck" can set the enemy aflame.

We have do diverse the PLAYERS narative and technical deciscions and the CHARACTER doing, it the same as with the Intime knowledge of a CHARACTER and the offtime knowledge of the PLAYER.

Also remember you have to roll ADVANTAGES to activate any ability: if you are handing out conflict for nearly all abilitys that use those Advantages they would become DISADVANTAGES,

the next step will be that the players will start to use there advantages only on Boostdice and strain recovery... and than the game will get quite boring...

For conflict follow the chart in the FnD Corebook: hand it out when the characters are attacking without provocation, or are going to torture them. BUT not just for activate abilitys VIA ADVANTAGES.

Also remember you have to roll ADVANTAGES to activate any ability: if you are handing out conflict for nearly all abilitys that use those Advantages they would become DISADVANTAGES,

It's only a disadvantage if the player doesn't want Conflict. Some players want their characters to go full dark side.

Yep, both of you have cleared up why I was thinking about it wrong. Deliberately using the Burn to inflict extra pain for torture is conflict worth. But just using it in normal combat is ok.

Yep, both of you have cleared up why I was thinking about it wrong. Deliberately using the Burn to inflict extra pain for torture is conflict worth. But just using it in normal combat is ok.

I'm still stuck on the other side of the fence. I think deliberately choosing a weapon that causes excessive harm (even in the heat of combat) is still conflict worthy.

As a real world precedent, flamethrowers are currently prohibited as weapons of war during.

With that being said, I will fully concede that what works at my table may not work for others. So in the end, YMMV.

A weapon that "causes excessive harm" in this game is one with Vicious, so should modifying lightsabers to have Vicious cause Conflict every time you inflict a critical injury? I think not, but do what feels best for you.