...Sorry about the title, I just couldn't resist.

Anyway, the Draw Closer talent says it can be used against a target within medium range. Firstly, does this mean it can be used against enemies who are within the medium range band only, or those within the medium and all closer range bands? Secondly, if the latter is the case, can it be used against an enemy one is already engaged with simply as a means to add the force die to one's attack?

Thanks.

Edit: I suppose the question equally applies to the Hawk Bat Swoop talent and its Short Range restriction.

Yes to the latter. Draw Closer can be used against engaged opponents.

If the talent could only used at medium range, it would have said "at medium range." But "within" means "within."

Commissar not sure if heresy!!! Will have to keep extra bolt shell on hand.

Yes to the latter. Draw Closer can be used against engaged opponents.

If the talent could only used at medium range, it would have said "at medium range." But "within" means "within."

Thanks very much. It's the sort of thing that could be considered a little cheesy, so I just wanted to make sure.

Commissar not sure if heresy!!! Will have to keep extra bolt shell on hand.

No heresy here. Definitely not worshipping the Ruinous Powers in any way. No siree bob. *Whistles innocently*

Curious about how this talent is balanced. Couldn't a Niman disciple just use Draw Closer for their attack every turn, basically ensuring a hit and vastly increasing their lightsaber damage if they have a good Force Rating?

...Sorry about the title, I just couldn't resist.

Anyway, the Draw Closer talent says it can be used against a target within medium range. Firstly, does this mean it can be used against enemies who are within the medium range band only, or those within the medium and all closer range bands? Secondly, if the latter is the case, can it be used against an enemy one is already engaged with simply as a means to add the force die to one's attack?

Thanks.

Edit: I suppose the question equally applies to the Hawk Bat Swoop talent and its Short Range restriction.

It can be used against any target within Medium range, not just exclusively medium range. This question has been answer by the Dev's in the Developer Answered Questions thread.

Curious about how this talent is balanced. Couldn't a Niman disciple just use Draw Closer for their attack every turn, basically ensuring a hit and vastly increasing their lightsaber damage if they have a good Force Rating

The answer is a player who has invested XP into Draw Closer, Lightsaber skill, Willpower, and Force Rating is going to be really good at melee combat.

Most of the special lightsaber talents have some really good stuff at the bottom of the tree. Makashi can reuse its crit effect booster, which does require hits. But lightsabers can get cheap crit activations easily, so making those devastating can cut a tough opponent down to size. Shien can spam Disruptive and add a bunch of fails to the opposing attacks. Ataru's bottom ability is saber throw, which seems a lot less effective than Draw, but they do have the ability to add linked. Warrior has its multiple target attack. Soresu is kind of the odd one out, since its main active powers are a taunt and defense booster instead of some kind of offensive power, but the combination seems to provide some obvious value (on top of the other tanky stuff in their tree).

It does seem more reliable than many of the other similar talents, but its peak effectiveness doesn't necessarily seem as great as some of the other ones.

Most of the special lightsaber talents have some really good stuff at the bottom of the tree. Makashi can reuse its crit effect booster, which does require hits. But lightsabers can get cheap crit activations easily, so making those devastating can cut a tough opponent down to size. Shien can spam Disruptive and add a bunch of fails to the opposing attacks. Ataru's bottom ability is saber throw, which seems a lot less effective than Draw, but they do have the ability to add linked. Warrior has its multiple target attack. Soresu is kind of the odd one out, since its main active powers are a taunt and defense booster instead of some kind of offensive power, but the combination seems to provide some obvious value (on top of the other tanky stuff in their tree).

It does seem more reliable than many of the other similar talents, but its peak effectiveness doesn't necessarily seem as great as some of the other ones.

Soresu gets to block every melee hit for 1 strain until the opponent rolls three threat or a despair then gets a free auto hit. Each round they cannot attack while doing this, freeing up there action to do something non combative, for example straining them every round with influence, this has the by product of stopping them using any strain filled boosts.

Ataru has Hawk Bat Swoop and Saber Swarm. HBS lets you jump into engaged and add your force pips as advantage. Saber Swarm can be combined with Hawk Bat Swoop.

Thinking more about it, it seems fairly balanced to me if you require a Discipline check resisted by the defender's Athletics or something, like you would if the PC was pushing them around with Move.

Because Jury Rigged requires a contested roll to make autofire a single advantage right?

Or True Aim requires a contested roll to give multiple upgrades and a bonus die right?

There is nothing wrong or imbalancing about the talent there are far worse cheaper and quicker to get talents...

Thinking more about it, it seems fairly balanced to me if you require a Discipline check resisted by the defender's Athletics or something, like you would if the PC was pushing them around with Move.

That would make the talent suck. Draw Closer and Force Assault are kind of the only two "Holy Crap" talents that Niman Disciple gets. These abilities are supposed to be a little over-the-top, and frankly, all Draw Closer does is add successes and close Range bands. Yes, it's powerful, but I'm much more intimidated by the Advantage-spamming buzzsaw called the Ataru Striker, or the nasty crits and endless Strain of the Makashi Duelist.

Thinking more about it, it seems fairly balanced to me if you require a Discipline check resisted by the defender's Athletics or something, like you would if the PC was pushing them around with Move.

My challenge to you would be to define what "balance" are trying to achieve here. There are far more powerful combat talents and combos than Draw Closer. At best all you are doing is adding +1 damage per force pip you roll with Draw Closer being used while at engaged range. That doesn't really sound so bad.

Good points. It's probably no better than Hawkbat swoop, and might even be weaker. Excited to see how it plays.

The concern mainly arose because I'm switching a high-level game I'm GMing over from Saga Edition rules, so the PCs are beginning with 1,000 XP, and the Niman master in the group has Force Rating 4. He's going to be doing some serious damage with that lightsaber.

Good points. It's probably no better than Hawkbat swoop, and might even be weaker. Excited to see how it plays.

The concern mainly arose because I'm switching a high-level game I'm GMing over from Saga Edition rules, so the PCs are beginning with 1,000 XP, and the Niman master in the group has Force Rating 4. He's going to be doing some serious damage with that lightsaber.

Just make sure you aren't letting them spend all that XP on attributes. If you haven't already done so, I'd have them make the characters using the at start rules, and then give them an extra 1000XP to spend.

For sure, they only received the standard starting XP for characteristics.

Good points. It's probably no better than Hawkbat swoop, and might even be weaker. Excited to see how it plays.

The concern mainly arose because I'm switching a high-level game I'm GMing over from Saga Edition rules, so the PCs are beginning with 1,000 XP, and the Niman master in the group has Force Rating 4. He's going to be doing some serious damage with that lightsaber.

He's going to hit nice and solid. The Ataru Striker, on the other hand, will occasionally be hitting four times on a single roll (Saber Swarm, assuming FR 3, plus 3-6 extra Advantage from HBS). If he has enough Advantage left over, some or all of those could inflict Crits. Pretty sure rolling 4 crits at +0, +10, +20 and +30 is going to ruin anyone's day.

Good points. It's probably no better than Hawkbat swoop, and might even be weaker. Excited to see how it plays.

The concern mainly arose because I'm switching a high-level game I'm GMing over from Saga Edition rules, so the PCs are beginning with 1,000 XP, and the Niman master in the group has Force Rating 4. He's going to be doing some serious damage with that lightsaber.

He's going to hit nice and solid. The Ataru Striker, on the other hand, will occasionally be hitting four times on a single roll (Saber Swarm, assuming FR 3, plus 3-6 extra Advantage from HBS). If he has enough Advantage left over, some or all of those could inflict Crits. Pretty sure rolling 4 crits at +0, +10, +20 and +30 is going to ruin anyone's day.

Just being able to hit at least 3 times with a Damage 6/Breach 1 weapon is going to run pretty much anyone's day. Even with only one success on the combat check, that's 7 damage per hit that effectively ignores soak, for a total of 21 damage. There ain't much that's still going to be able to fight after that kind of damage. And even if the target has Parry, they're still having to blow through a lot of strain to avoid getting murderized in one round... at which point the Ataru Striker can just make a fresh attempt to murderize on the following round.

Good points. It's probably no better than Hawkbat swoop, and might even be weaker.

No 'might' about it, really. Take someone who manages a successful Lightsaber check by a margin of 1 success (not a tall order if you have a decent Attribute+Lightsaber skill) and rolls 4 Force Die on the check, for a total of 4 pips.

The Niman user adds 4 damage to the roll. Not bad, but pretty straightforward, right?

The Ataru user adds 4 advantage to the roll. All sorts of options present themselves. First off, they can straight up heal Strain, and could have done this even WITHOUT succeeding on the roll. This is critical when you're burning 3 or more strain every turn to try to Parry. Second, if they're using a double-bladed saber (which synergizes well with a high agility, the stat used by Ataru) or using Saber Swarm (another Ataru talent), they'll be able to activate 1 or more ranks in Linked for 2 advantage apiece. That's +7 damage per 2 Advantage, minimum (6 lightsaber base +1 success). Assuming Linked 1, the Ataru user can then crit twice, the second time at +10. If you're targeting a minion group, they're falling like flies at this point. And if you have more ranks in linked, you can skip the crits and just go for another hit.

When people talk about mix-maxed lightsaber builds, it's always Ataru, not Niman, that gets the prize. Niman will lets you make a solid hit, add a little bit of damage, and close distance. Ataru turns you into a lightsaber Cuisinart.

That is probably the correct way to think about it. The only wrinkle is that Niman lets you turn misses into hits. Because of the way the dice are designed, failed rolls are more likely to show a bunch of advantage results. So the Niman master will also have more critical hit chances than a typical saber attacker, and also they will do very consistent damage, almost never missing.

And another piece of the puzzle is that Niman grants a Force Rating. Is an Ataru fighter with FR 2 better than a Niman fighter with FR 3? That's the relevant comparison to make. Not to say the Niman master is clearly better, but it's a closer thing than it seems at first.

Because of the way the dice are designed, failed rolls are more likely to show a bunch of advantage results.

While that's true, so is the reverse (successful rolls are more likely to have less advantage). Overall, it's pretty much a wash in that regard. What matters is what you can do with the results of a successful roll. Niman will grant you a single hit and crit, and that's about it. You're absolutely right in that it's consistent damage, but its not game breaking or imbalanced. Heck, I'd argue that neither is Ataru, there's certainly ways to handle the Lightsaber Cuisinart. But I certainly wouldn't sweat a player specializing in Niman very much.

Is an Ataru fighter with FR 2 better than a Niman fighter with FR 3?

Well, let's briefly crunch some numbers.

We'll assume a 4 in the main lightsaber stat and 2 ranks in Lightsaber skill. That's pretty standard for a starting character's main skill. For the opposition, we'll assume the standard 2 purple melee defense dice and 1 setback (could be environmental, armor, ranks in defensive, you name it.)

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=2&ability=2&difficulty=2&setback=1

The base chance of success for this roll is 73%, while the odds of getting at least 1 net advantage are 55%. Right off the bat, we can see the Ataru Striker has the advantage: his force die provide the more scarce resource.

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=2&ability=2&difficulty=2&setback=1&force=2

Now, with 2 force die, the odds of getting at least 1 pip (aka at least 1 advantage) is 66%. The odds of getting 2+ is about 45%. That's pretty game-changing, and of course does not account for the fact that you can tap the dark side pips are if you really need that last advantage for another Linked. Let's see what we get with THREE force die:

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=2&ability=2&challenge=2&difficulty=2&setback=1&force=3

Now it's up to 80% chance of a pip, with a potential for 6 max instead of 4. If this was an Ataru user, that would be a huge upgrade because 2 advantage can mean the difference between linking or not linking (or linking for the 2nd time...). For Niman...that means 2 extra damage.

I'm not saying Niman sucks or anything. It's probably the second best lightsaber spec in terms of offense. It's just not really anything that actively requires a GM to balance around it. The base odds on any Lightsaber check are so in favor of the wielder that stacking the odds further doesn't really do much other than help you not miss if you fluff a roll or add a little damage on top of a success.

Or, to put it another way...a Niman user needs 6 pips to do 6 extra damage to an enemy. An Ataru user needs 2 pips to do 7 extra damage to an enemy. And that's assuming that their lightsaber has no damage mods and they have no skills or talents that add damage to the roll.

OK, I'm convinced. Very helpful stats! I really enjoy the probability aspect of this game. It has a lot of interesting nuances.

Me too! It really does. I hope you game goes well, it sounds like it'll be a lot of fun!

Quick further question... you mentioned ways of countering Ataru, did you have anything in particular in mind?