OK, one of my players was re-reading the rules one night and had (possibly) an epiphany.

* Reflect states that damage is reduced directly after stage 3 "Perform a Combat Check". [pg. 150 F&D]

* A light blaster cannon does 4 base damage (planetary) plus successes.

* When planetary scale damage is applies to a personal scale target damage is treated as 10:1.

* Stage 6 is where damage is applied to soak and wounds

So.....light blaster successfully hits with 2 successes. Damage is calculated as 6 (planetary since it is from a planetary weapon). Character has Reflect 3 and chooses to activate (duh, right?) reducing the damage by 2 plus 1 per rank of Reflect for 5 total. Damage remaining is 1 (planetary). Assuming no a/T/t/D move on to applying damage in Stage 6 which means 10 wounds.....?

I know this has been highly debated for a while (do not recall if it has been sent to the Devs) and there are some that are sad that what we see in the movies and shows is problematic at reconstruction in game, but could it have been in the book the whole time?

We have been trying this out (trying to not do many house rules) and so far it has been surprisingly balanced still.

Just thought I'd bring it up (again, I know).

I don't believe that's how it works, the damage is multiplied as soon as it's calculated or in other words it's just easier to say the weapon does 4 when in reality it's 40 since tracking those larger numbers in ship combat would be more of a pain. Conclusion you'd reflect half of 1 planetary scale damage doing basically nothing and suffering the full salvo.

Those "large numbers" to truck would be just multiplies of 10. So, it literally would make no differences whatsoever to deal with. The argument from our bunny lord seems to not hold much water.

Jareth Valar, you seem to have a point based on the order of things. I am still not convinced if you are correct, why not send in the question of this topic to the devs yourself? It at least sounds plausible, reasonable to me, and I have nothing to as counter argument, even when was under a different assumption.

Question away.

Umm per the rules reflect is only useable on personal scale weapons..

So I looked up the full text of Reflect in the FaD core rulebook, page 150.

It cites "when the character suffers a hit from a Ranged (Light), Ranged (Heavy), or Gunnery combat check, and after damage is calculated (but before soak is applied)" Doesn't mention any kind of restriction as to whether the damage has to be character scale or vehicle scale, just that it has to be the result of a combat check using one of those three skills.

So for vehicle scale weapons, such as the light blaster cannon, you'd add your successes from the combat check and then immediately multiply the damage by 10, as that's part of the damage calculation. So with even just a single success, you're looking at 50 wounds' worth of damage. Meaning that Reflect is pretty much worthless as you'd need insane amounts of Reflect (far more than is even offered between all the books published thus far) to even put a dent in that much damage.

Now, as a possible house rule the GM could allow Reflect to be used prior to multiplying the damage, to replicate what we see Kanan and Ezra doing in SWRebels, but that's strictly a house rule. Of course, if even one point of vehicle-scale damage gets through the PC's use of Reflect, that's going to still be a lot of wounds. So in the above instance of a Gunnery combat check using light blaster cannon succeeding with a single success and the PC has Reflect 2, under this house rule the PC would stop 4 points of the light blaster cannon's damage, leaving 1 point of vehicle scale damage to get through, which would then translate to 10 wounds.

11 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Those "large numbers" to truck would be just multiplies of 10. So, it literally would make no differences whatsoever to deal with. The argument from our bunny lord seems to not hold much water.

Jareth Valar, you seem to have a point based on the order of things. I am still not convinced if you are correct, why not send in the question of this topic to the devs yourself? It at least sounds plausible, reasonable to me, and I have nothing to as counter argument, even when was under a different assumption.

It holds plenty, why bother tacking on an extra 0 to everything if it's unnecessary? It's simply just to say it does this, shooting with most personal scale is pretty meaningless, etc.

I don't see where in the rules anyone would gain the misconception that this would work, it doesn't make sense thematically nor mechanically and seems like just a poor attempt at munchkinining. You calculate damage, then soak and reflect is a form of soak, ergo you're reflecting planetary scale damage with personal scale soak.

Oh, I'm not sure it's correct either. I've been multiplying damage immediately after damage has been calculated as well. One of my players just brought it up (funny enough, not the force user) as what it seema like due to the order of things.

One argument brought up was that the weapon does its damage, in the example above 6 (4 +2 successes). That is its damage, not 60. I'm AFB right now, but iirc it states that if a character is hit by a planetary scale weapon each point does/counts as 10 wounds (with a +50 on the critical roll at gm discretion).

If that is the case, and I think/hope it is, it seems to imply that the damage isn't multiplied until you soak it.

As I said, it seems a plausible reading (hence the Dev question). Enough so we are trying it out.

3 hours ago, Dark Bunny Lord said:

It holds plenty, why bother tacking on an extra 0 to everything if it's unnecessary? It's simply just to say it does this, shooting with most personal scale is pretty meaningless, etc.

I don't see where in the rules anyone would gain the misconception that this would work, it doesn't make sense thematically nor mechanically and seems like just a poor attempt at munchkinining. You calculate damage, then soak and reflect is a form of soak, ergo you're reflecting planetary scale damage with personal scale soak.

The reason I mentioned this was the fact that Reflect specifically mentions the order in which you calculate it. It's before advantage, threat AND soak/wounds. If we're just another firm of soak it would be handled just like it.

As for "doesn't fit thematically", that's a matter for debate. In the non movie canon (clone wars and rebels) there are many, many scenes in which the main characters (and supporting iirc) are reflecting planetary scale weapons. And is not because they're such high power either, I don't think Ezra has more than a few ranks of reflect.

4 hours ago, Dark Bunny Lord said:

It holds plenty, why bother tacking on an extra 0 to everything if it's unnecessary? It's simply just to say it does this, shooting with most personal scale is pretty meaningless, etc.

I don't see where in the rules anyone would gain the misconception that this would work, it doesn't make sense thematically nor mechanically and seems like just a poor attempt at munchkinining. You calculate damage, then soak and reflect is a form of soak, ergo you're reflecting planetary scale damage with personal scale soak.

What does one extra zero matters if there is an infinitive number of zero's behind the numbers anyway, 10 damage, 1,0 damage, who cares as long as you deal with simple addition of numbers within the same digit. ;-)

BTW, just calling it wrong several times is rather redundant, especial when spread over several posts.

I haven't dove into the RAW parsing here, but I'd allow it with the flip of a Destiny Point for sure.

Probably worth mentioning that we didn't start seeing Kanan and Ezra deflecting laser blasts from TIEs and Imperial Walkers until well after the FaD rules had been written and released as a Beta.

So based upon the information available at the time, Reflect didn't really need to account for protecting against vehicle-scale weaponry. Closest we got in the films was Luke defending against the blaster cannon from an Imperial speeder bike in RotJ, but FFG covered themselves there (quite possibly in advance) by having said blaster cannon deal damage at personal scale instead of vehicle scale.

Personally, I'm a little leery about allowing the effects of Reflect to be applied prior to the damage of a vehicle scale weapon being multiplied by ten, mostly as FFG seems to have put a fair degree of effort into preventing the Jedi crowd from completely dominating the game. While Reflect in and of itself may not seem to bad, there's also Improved Reflect to account for, and having a PC now suddenly able to redirect attacks from a vehicle-scale weapon gives them an incredible boost in combat ability.

33 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Probably worth mentioning that we didn't start seeing Kanan and Ezra deflecting laser blasts from TIEs and Imperial Walkers until well after the FaD rules had been written and released as a Beta.

So based upon the information available at the time, Reflect didn't really need to account for protecting against vehicle-scale weaponry. Closest we got in the films was Luke defending against the blaster cannon from an Imperial speeder bike in RotJ, but FFG covered themselves there (quite possibly in advance) by having said blaster cannon deal damage at personal scale instead of vehicle scale.

Personally, I'm a little leery about allowing the effects of Reflect to be applied prior to the damage of a vehicle scale weapon being multiplied by ten, mostly as FFG seems to have put a fair degree of effort into preventing the Jedi crowd from completely dominating the game. While Reflect in and of itself may not seem to bad, there's also Improved Reflect to account for, and having a PC now suddenly able to redirect attacks from a vehicle-scale weapon gives them an incredible boost in combat ability.

Honestly, if I'm having a planetary scale weapon shooting at a PC, I'm trying to use that to get them to do something (move on from the area, hide in that cave, flee, etc.), I'm not actually trying to have a combat between Personal and Planetary weapons, cuz it's probably not gonna be very fun.

So towards that actual narrative purpose, if a PC got up the pluck to try and stare whatever it is down, I'd let them get their kicks in with Reflect for a DP. You only got so many DP though, and once those Planetarys start getting thru (or they know they're out of meal tickets), they're not gonna hang out.

[EDIT] The problem would then be you've made powerful Personal scale weapons (15 damage or whatever) a more deadly weapon than planetary.

51 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Personally, I'm a little leery about allowing the effects of Reflect to be applied prior to the damage of a vehicle scale weapon being multiplied by ten, mostly as FFG seems to have put a fair degree of effort into preventing the Jedi crowd from completely dominating the game. While Reflect in and of itself may not seem to bad, there's also Improved Reflect to account for, and having a PC now suddenly able to redirect attacks from a vehicle-scale weapon gives them an incredible boost in combat ability.

I think this kinda sums the issue.

IF you allow the reflecting of vehicle weapons as a hard mechanic, then you end up going weird places where the players are standing on the hull of their star ship bouncing turbo laser shots...

Probably better to just say the Jedi in question were using various other talents and abilities that made them harder to hit and the vehicle just rolled a miss in a really narrative fashion...

56 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Closest we got in the films was Luke defending against the blaster cannon from an Imperial speeder bike in RotJ

I vaguely remember Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon deflecting shots from one of those hover-Segways the battle droids rode in Phantom Menace, during their arrival on Naboo.

Just now, Stan Fresh said:

I vaguely remember Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon deflecting shots from one of those hover-Segways the battle droids rode in Phantom Menace, during their arrival on Naboo.

Have we gotten STAP stats yet though?

I mean it's possible they'll have a light blaster cannon, but more like it'll come with a weapon more akin to a repeating blaster or linked blaster rifle or something...

Absolutely. The guns on those things weren't that impressive.

I suspect the STAPs would have weapons on par with those of the Imperial speeder bikes, though possibly with Linked to account for their being two of them. The Trade Federation was infamous for doing things as cheaply as possible, and there's not really much need to put vehicle-grade firepower on a one-droid recon sled, especially when the droid in question was built as inexpensively as possible.

Ghostofman,

Yeah, that's kind of my thinking too regarding Kanan and Ezra using their lightsabers to project the Ghost from enemy vehicle fire. Probably a case of GM Filoni (who in general seems pretty easy-going about things so long as it's either really cool or helps tell a good story) saying "sure, I'll let you guys each give the Imps a setback die on their combat checks as a result of using your lightsabers to protect the ship from the enemy vehicles."

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Ghostofman,

Yeah, that's kind of my thinking too regarding Kanan and Ezra using their lightsabers to project the Ghost from enemy vehicle fire. Probably a case of GM Filoni (who in general seems pretty easy-going about things so long as it's either really cool or helps tell a good story) saying "sure, I'll let you guys each give the Imps a setback die on their combat checks as a result of using your lightsabers to protect the ship from the enemy vehicles."

Totally unrelated note, but I was watching Rebels extras ont he blu-rays and it's bothering me.

Do we have a pic of GM Filoni without a hat on? I'm trying to figure out if he's just a hat guy, or if he's just a bald...

17 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Totally unrelated note, but I was watching Rebels extras ont he blu-rays and it's bothering me.

Do we have a pic of GM Filoni without a hat on? I'm trying to figure out if he's just a hat guy, or if he's just a bald...

From all that I've heard, he's a hat guy. I think one of the few times he's removed his hat was to try on the Clone Trooper helmet that was made for him by 501st members. Want to say there was another special instance that had to do with recording the audio for Rebels, can't can remember exactly what it was.

14 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

What does one extra zero matters if there is an infinitive number of zero's behind the numbers anyway, 10 damage, 1,0 damage, who cares as long as you deal with simple addition of numbers within the same digit. ;-)

BTW, just calling it wrong several times is rather redundant, especial when spread over several posts.

2 posts is several? Ok. Pretty sure I said more than "no it's wrong" to.

Im just saying I don't see anywhere in the RAW that would take place before damage is calculated. Before soak sure but that seems to just place it between calculate and soak not before calculate.

This said the reasoning I think is simple in that if it was applied before increase you start to get players abusing it and entirely outclassing non-force users. I agree with an above poster saying in certain thematic situations allowing a DP flip but otherwise I'd be on a hard no.

Just noticed this thread, and considering we watched Ezra bat away a shot or two from TIE fighters in "Zero Hour", I was wondering about a house rule to account for it. I'm not experienced enough with the game to decide if this is unbalancing or not, so I was hoping for some advice.

My thought is that in the instance of using Reflect with planetary scale weapons, the player could flip a destiny point to allow them to apply Reflect to the PS weapon, and any remaining damage after the use of Reflect would be applied as normal (ie: x10).

Thoughts?

Personally, I'm not a fan of how Reflect works in this game. I get that this is a game and the Devs don't want Jedi characters to run away and be unstoppable, but Reflect should intercept the shot in full regardless of damage dealt (on the personal scale only). The limiting factor is the Strain cost. At 3 per Reflect, there are only so many shots that can be reflected before one gets through.

1 hour ago, Woobyluv said:

Personally, I'm not a fan of how Reflect works in this game. I get that this is a game and the Devs don't want Jedi characters to run away and be unstoppable, but Reflect should intercept the shot in full regardless of damage dealt (on the personal scale only). The limiting factor is the Strain cost. At 3 per Reflect, there are only so many shots that can be reflected before one gets through.

Isn't that the point, though? Bob the Jedi is good, and can deflect a lot of shots, but sooner or later he's going to miss and go down. Ki-Adi-Mundi deflected quite a few from a bunch of clones, but eventually they got through, and he was a Jedi Master.