I'm playing my first Edge of Empire game in a few weeks, and I'm currently working on my character sheet. My role in the party is being the big guy/tank, and it seems pretty straightforward. One thing that's bugging me is looking at armor.

Based on what I have for credits, I can go padded armor or armored clothing easily and I'm not sure which is better for my character. The prices seem to suggest that defense is more useful than soak, but I'm not sure if it's more useful universally, or if a more tank-y character would get more mileage out of the higher soak or what. Normally I wouldn't stress it, but I'm playing one of the only combat focused characters in the party, so I want to make sure that I can carry the rest of the group when the **** hits the fan.

Soak will "only" reduce the number of wounds taken, reliably.

But, failures can sometimes cancel damage overall, and threats might hinder crits or nasty active qualities.

Wounds aren't ever going to kill you. Crits, on the other hand,...

Neither. Running away from, or just plain avoiding combat is the best way of preventing damage. This is EotE, combat is just one of many ways to deal with a situation

Soak is consistent and can be estmated easier. Defense is more multi faceted by reducing damage, causing failure and preventing crits/weapon effects.....maybe.

Between padded armour and armoured clothing? My experience is that it depends on how your character fights: if you are going to be taking cover then the padded armour is better since you'll get the defense from cover which doesn't stack with the defense from armour. If you are not going to be sticking to cover then the armoured clothing is probably more suited to you, such as a melee character for instance.

Another thing to consider though is that the reason why armoured clothing may cost more is because it still looks like clothing (and requires a roll for someone to realise its not just clothing) whereas the padded armour is clearly armour, though this then depends on if your GM is going to have NPCs react to such things.

Another thing to consider though is that the reason why armoured clothing may cost more is because it still looks like clothing (and requires a roll for someone to realise its not just clothing) whereas the padded armour is clearly armour, though this then depends on if your GM is going to have NPCs react to such things.

Seconded. This isn't D&D - adventurers in full plate with a broadsword don't just wander into a tavern without drawing attention to themselves. If you're wearing armour, people are going to assume you're either a) military or b) looking for trouble, which is going to affect how they react to you. Now, having said that, that 500 credits extra you get for your starting character if you went with Padded Armour could be well-spent elsewhere...like on a much better weapon that prevents anyone from shooting with you in the first place...

As to soak vs defence...it depends on what you're coming up against. If fights are going to be against slugthrower-wielding Tuskan Raiders, or wild animals of some sort, or anything else that might cause a lot of damage but is unlikely to crit, then soak is your friend - reducing damage by 1 every single turn, guaranteed, is a massive deal, and could easily save your bacon. On the other hand if you're going up against assassins or snipers (which rely on crits more than damage dealt), or if you expect to meet with a lot of enemies holding heavy weapons, explosives or lightsabers (which ignore soak), then defence is the way to go. Obviously having both is good too, which is why Armoured Clothing is so expensive.

TL;DR - 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other.

The wearing of armor by civilians in fringe locations is commonly seen in Star Wars. They even say that Padded Armor is comfortable and wearing it doesn't attract too much attention.

Personally, I lean heavily towards Soak. A setback die has a 1 in 3 chance of generating a Failure and a 1 in 3 chance of generating a Threat, so 33% chance of reducing damage or advantages by one. While a Failure on a setback die could theoretically force a miss, attack difficulties are so low relative to offensive dice pools that it's difficult to get people to miss you very often, so I prefer the reliable reduction in damage taken. I suppose if you were playing a sniper or other character that regularly attacks from Long+ range, the setback on top of the higher difficulty might have more impact.

Or if you're already a shield-using Vanguard with two ranks of Moving Target and Sixth Sense (Ranged Defense 5). Even then, you'll probably still get shot by any fairly competent shooter that takes a maneuver or two to Aim.

Droid Bodyguard. Seriously.

If your long-term role is going to be the meatshield, you'll need to think bigger than what you're wearing. You won't always have the benefit of your gear, and even when you do, you'll discover pretty quickly that a point of soak or defence isn't enough to stop a determined force or foe. (PCs can die pretty easily in this system. It's a simple factor of how easy it is to hit someone in ranged combat.)

Droids Bodyguards have access to two ranks of Enduring (after some XP), which is 2 Soak before anything else is considered.

Bodyguards also have access to a large number of defensive talents, like Side Step and Defensive Stance (and when both are upgraded to 2 ranks, they are absolutely incredible).

If you start off with a relatively modest 3 Brawn and wear 2 soak armor, and make a bee-line for the specialization's Enduring talent, you could be looking at a soak of 7 before even coming off the assembly line. That means nothing short of a killer shot from a Heavy Blaster Pistol or a Heavy Ranged weapon is going to even tickle you.

Mind you, at creation, you won't be good at much else. But if your goal is to absorb fire, this is a good start.

My players know the pure combat math favors Defense over Soak, but the real reason they tell me they want high Def armor is our cardinal rule with this system:

More dice = More fun.

My players know the pure combat math favors Defense over Soak, but the real reason they tell me they want high Def armor is our cardinal rule with this system:

More dice = More fun.

Good advice!

Consistency it is hard to ignore going for the higher soak, another option to bear in mind is that if you are fighting breach or high pierce weapons defense iis king.

For those arguing that defense is good against assassins relying on crits, remember that assassins can ignore defense via the Precise Aim talent.

Soak is more reliable, barring being attacked with weapons that have Pierce or, Heaven forbid, Breach.

Defense is much more of a variable. You could randomly cause an incoming attack to miss, or you could randomly do nothing at all to the attack.

Really, though, this sort of thing comes to what sort of character is it? Is it a tough guy, or more wily? You describe him as being the tank in the group. I'd say Soak fits the bill more.

Defense is better in every way not taking hits means you don't take damage and can't be Crit. However Soak determines how long you can afford to be in a fight high soak characters tend to be good at tanking hits for a while. But all will fall after a while. Now if your built to have brawn as your main stat and your DM is nice enough to give you cotorsis (after a very long while) then you basically have to shot at with heavy artillery to start being killed. All in all the best offense is a good defense.

Soak is also awesome against auto fire. Someone who hits you 4 times for 8 damage each but you have a soak of 7. That's only 4 wounds.

I haven't figured out if you need to exceed soak and inflict a wound to do a crit. Reading the rules on soak, wounds, and crits doesn't specify so I assume you can crit without inflicting a wound.

There are some uses of a Triumph in combat that state, "When dealing damage to a target..." that wouldn't work if your soak absorbed the damage.

You can use a Triumph or 3 Advantages to negate all defenses for a round, which is a vulnerability for a person relying on defense.

Soak is awful against an opponent who knows Pressure Points because no matter how much you have, it's all ignored.

^ Just some thoughts on defense vs. soak.

Defense is better in every way not taking hits means you don't take damage and can't be Crit. However Soak determines how long you can afford to be in a fight high soak characters tend to be good at tanking hits for a while. But all will fall after a while. Now if your built to have brawn as your main stat and your DM is nice enough to give you cotorsis (after a very long while) then you basically have to shot at with heavy artillery to start being killed. All in all the best offense is a good defense.

I'd disagree, at least on the first point. A defense die only has a 33% chance of generating a failure (thus reducing damage by 1, like Soak would). So, on average you absorb 0.33 damage per Defense per hit, while you absorb 1 per Soak. The tradeoff is, of course, that 33% chance at the Threat to interfere with them critting. And then there's that sweet 1/8 where you get both. I'd call it a wash, really.

Breach, Pierce, and Precise Aim all negate either Defense or Soak (Edit: as noted by Atama, Defense can also be negated with enough Advantage). There are multiple ways to bypass both Soak and Defense and it's hard to definitively say "bypassing Defense/Soak is more common." It's also worth noting that most weapons that come with Breach (and thus negate most soak) also have a Crit rating of 1, meaning that the difference of a single threat is less pronounced. Call it a wash here too.

Soak is stackable from multiple sources (Brawn, armor, Talents) while Defense just uses the highest value. Soak wins this one.

Soak is only applied to a successful hit, literal damage control. Defense can cause a narrow hit to become a narrow miss instead. Chalk up one for Defense.

Overall? I'd call it pretty well balanced both ways. Narratively, I see defense as avoiding damage while Soak is...well, soaking damage. If you're going for "The Big Guy," Soak probably fits the theme a bit better.

I haven't figured out if you need to exceed soak and inflict a wound to do a crit. Reading the rules on soak, wounds, and crits doesn't specify so I assume you can crit without inflicting a wound.

There are some uses of a Triumph in combat that state, "When dealing damage to a target..." that wouldn't work if your soak absorbed the damage.

When spending a Triumph in combat, the wording reads: "Inflict a Critical Injury with a successful attack that deals damage past soak (Advantage cost may vary)." So yes, I believe you need to inflict damage (Wound) to crit.

I appreciate all the input I've gotten so far. It's really helping me to figure out what I'm doing here.

That having been said, just a few notes about our campaign.

We're using the edge system to run a game in a different sci-fi setting. So we're all humans, unfortunately. Second, my career and specialization are already picked: Hired Gun Marauder. I grabbed a pair of blast knuckles from Dangerous covenants and I'm going to falcon punch everything out of existence. The gm gave us some extra starting money to reflect the fact that we're all part of an official military and would have access to better gear. Which is why I can afford this stuff. Between my obligation and that I've got 2000 creds. Stats are 4 brawn and 3 will, with 2's in everything else, apart from a voluntarily lowered intelligence (My character had no formal education and grew up in the slums). So while all of the suggestions which contradict these are great and very helpful, they don't quite relate to my individual case.

I'm leaning towards soak mainly because He's supposed to be a huge scary dude who can wade through lasers to punch people in the face with his boom-fists, but that's also why what Flintlock Jazz said sounds compelling. If he's rarely going to be in cover, maybe I should go for something that's gonna give me the defense I'm not otherwise going to have, especially considering that my tree has enduring, and I'll be able to get my soak up to 7 or 8 anyway.

I haven't figured out if you need to exceed soak and inflict a wound to do a crit. Reading the rules on soak, wounds, and crits doesn't specify so I assume you can crit without inflicting a wound.

There are some uses of a Triumph in combat that state, "When dealing damage to a target..." that wouldn't work if your soak absorbed the damage.

When spending a Triumph in combat, the wording reads: "Inflict a Critical Injury with a successful attack that deals damage past soak (Advantage cost may vary)." So yes, I believe you need to inflict damage (Wound) to crit.

So in theory, enough soak could prevent crits just as well if not better than defense. You can roll as many Advantages or Triumphs as you want but if your hit bounces off then you can't crit.

So in theory, enough soak could prevent crits just as well if not better than defense. You can roll as many Advantages or Triumphs as you want but if your hit bounces off then you can't crit.

Only insofar as the Triumph is being used ineffectually (that is to say, against Soak that is higher than Damage). Nothing preventing the spending of a Triumph to impose different effects if you anticipate no damage being done. (Do also keep in mind the effect Successes have on base damage: any advantage above the base Success inflicts another damage. This can quickly add up and have a big effect on both Soak and the presence of a Triumph.)

I've had many situations where I rolled a Triumph yet missed my target. It sort of felt like winning $10 in the lottery. You may have to get creative to come up with something useful (or at least as useful as getting a crit would have been). Hitting someone and doing no damage is effectively the same as missing your target when it comes to spending a Triumph in an attack. Any effects that require hitting the target also specify dealing damage.

And yes, I know that successes increase damage, so that if you used a 6 damage blaster on a 7 soak target, you can inflict a wound with 2 successes. Which is why I stated that you'd need "enough soak". How much soak is enough, that's situational.

I also know that if you have 10 soak and laugh at everything barely or not-at-all harming you, your GM is likely to extinguish that feeling of invincibility somehow. Piercing weapons, attacks that ignore soak, situations that require you to remove armor, etc.

In most life or death situations the order of best defense goes like this (upgrading difficulty dice which adds a die) (upgrading difficulty dice which adds a challenge die) (setback dice) and lastly soak.

The odds of soak being high enough to save you from a crit are incredibly low. You would need to either be focusd on deflect/parry and have a very high soak 8+ to reliably avoid crits. The upgrades and setback give you a better chance to not be critted either by missing or by reducing advantage enough or granting a despair.

As far as wounds go oh well, you are not going to die from wounds only from crits.

A lot of people knock defense because they don't understand how real damage occurs in the game, but the full answer is if you have to pick choose defense first soak second.

A gadgeteer in a custom made Suit of armor of battle armor moded and jury rigged for defense 3 and improved armor master for defense 4 will greatly annoy anyone shooting at him. A few ranks in dodge from assassin and a +1 defense from force sensative exile along with upgrade sense can turn a point blank

shot from 1 purple difficulty to red red purple with 5 setback dice. Even if your soak was 5 you're going to remain relatively unscathed most of the time and are extremely unlikely to get crit.

1 setback might not look like much but when you start stacking them (which admittedly is hard to do) it really gets good.

Conversely if you really want to make a soak character and try to never get crit go for a base 4 brawn jedi armorer with cybernetics/dedication to take you to 7 brawn and a suit that gives you 4 soak (crafted and superior mod) armor master and implant armor to give you a base 13 soak. Then load up on defelct/parry from soresu defender for being untouchable.

Stats are 4 brawn and 3 will, with 2's in everything else, apart from a voluntarily lowered intelligence (My character had no formal education and grew up in the slums).

You don't need to lower your intelligence to reflect lack of formal education, for that there is the skill Knowledge: Education, which you can leave at 0 to reflect that part of your charcter. Lowering intelligence means that he's mentally disabled or something along that line (intelligence 1 is a stat for beasts, i don't think *any* race has that as dump stat). Especially because someone growing up in the slums would have nothing in Knowledge: education but could have a decent amount of Knowledge: Underworld if he has interacted with the criminal world. Both skill are keyed to Intelligence.

As for the soak vs defence, i think that soak is always good, because if something removes or isn't stopped by defence it still has to deal with soak (except for stun damage).