16 hours ago, Wisconsen said:

I like the idea of it. Something I've toyed with using as a house rule is changing cover from defense to soak then adding Soft and Hard cover. with Soft cover being soak X, and Hard cover being soak Z (where Z is > X) and hard cover also giving a setback to attacks you make when you are in it. I haven't play tested it, and i'm not sure i am going to as i like to stay pretty close to RAW for myself and my group (shared universe setting with 2 GMs and 20 players atm, so staying close to RAW for consistency is a big thing for us).

Cover just kinda sticks in my craw a bit, 1 setback just doesn't really feel very meaty as i think cover should. I've also toyed with the idea of cover increasing or upgrading difficulty, however as above i haven't played tested it for the same reasons.

there are 2 levels of cover. half cover is 1 setback full cover is 2 setback and total cover you cant be shot at.

28 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

Depends how much you award. The main issue with the proposed rule, imo, is the quantity of soak being awarded. Awarding 1 or 2 is a lot different than 4 or 5.

When I'm GMing I find that characters that are built for extreme soak ratings are much more problematic than characters with parry or reflect, because when someone negates all incoming damage with soak absolutely nothing happens, the only way for conventional enemies to counter them is to throw weapons at them that shred any character who doesn't have that kind of armor in a single turn. With Parry/Reflect on the other hand attacks do matter, the pressure stays on.

When you're dealing with crafted armor and high brawn it's fairly easy for someone to get to 10 soak. If they grab classes like Gunner that have multiple ranks of Enduring, and find the cash for subdermal armor these kinds of characters can get up to 15 or more soak. Personally I don't like this at all, because precisely because soaking an attack in full creates a perfect outcome where you lose nothing at all the system encourages soak stacking, while a system like Parry is a nice option to have on a character, but it has diminishing returns. At some point the strain you take becomes the limiting factor more so than the damage you can stop.

I prefer systems that give people other defensive options that have limitations to systems that make soak stacking to invulnerability easier. Even just 1-2 points of extra soak make a huge difference in whether a character is being slowly worn down by enemy fire, or if they can simply ignore it. As long as a character is taking 2-3 damage per hit the game still works, because a round or two of concentrated enemy fire would still down them. Once they take 0 you have a problem. With Parry/Reflect providing the extra damage absorption you don't have that problem because they always take strain.

10 minutes ago, Aetrion said:

When I'm GMing I find that characters that are built for extreme soak ratings are much more problematic than characters with parry or reflect, because when someone negates all incoming damage with soak absolutely nothing happens, the only way for conventional enemies to counter them is to throw weapons at them that shred any character who doesn't have that kind of armor in a single turn. With Parry/Reflect on the other hand attacks do matter, the pressure stays on.

When you're dealing with crafted armor and high brawn it's fairly easy for someone to get to 10 soak. If they grab classes like Gunner that have multiple ranks of Enduring, and find the cash for subdermal armor these kinds of characters can get up to 15 or more soak. Personally I don't like this at all, because precisely because soaking an attack in full creates a perfect outcome where you lose nothing at all the system encourages soak stacking, while a system like Parry is a nice option to have on a character, but it has diminishing returns. At some point the strain you take becomes the limiting factor more so than the damage you can stop.

I prefer systems that give people other defensive options that have limitations to systems that make soak stacking to invulnerability easier. Even just 1-2 points of extra soak make a huge difference in whether a character is being slowly worn down by enemy fire, or if they can simply ignore it. As long as a character is taking 2-3 damage per hit the game still works, because a round or two of concentrated enemy fire would still down them. Once they take 0 you have a problem. With Parry/Reflect providing the extra damage absorption you don't have that problem because they always take strain.

If high soak rating is a concern why are you proposing a mechanic that allows for an astronomic amount of extra soak? I get that you're forcing them to trade off strain, but doing that just allows players to treat WT as ST up til the point that it's inconvenient, effectively doubling their wounds. Plus, anyone with a 2+ cunning is talking less strain than they do damage which amounts to the same thing as Soak. Plus, have you considered how this rule would interact with stun weapons? It's basically giving everyone free soak vs stun equal to their Cunning -1. Sorry if this comes off as jerky, but it sounds like you might not have considered all the implications of such a rule. When it comes right down to it, the fact that its symmetrical is going to keep it from being too busted. Although character dedicated to Cunning with gain a huge boost. It will however result in significantly extending your combat encounters and slowing the pacing of your games.

As I've said before, I could see something like this working with a small group of low brawn characters, adding needed survivability but I would be very hesitant to institute is carte blanche.

I find all these arguments kind of silly because this mechanic already exists for the most part if you're playing F&D and it's more balanced than any other defensive mechanic in the game as far as I'm concerned. I don't see anyone going on and on about how broken Soresu Defenders are.

I don't see your point about stun weapons, you get the same damage reduction at the same cost. It's the exact same as Parry/Reflect against stun, which again, nobody is complaining about.

1 hour ago, Aetrion said:

I find all these arguments kind of silly because this mechanic already exists for the most part if you're playing F&D and it's more balanced than any other defensive mechanic in the game as far as I'm concerned. I don't see anyone going on and on about how broken Soresu Defenders are.

I don't see your point about stun weapons, you get the same damage reduction at the same cost. It's the exact same as Parry/Reflect against stun, which again, nobody is complaining about.

That does not address the concern. also the Parry and reflect mechanics require the expenditure of XP to be able to do it. So no the argument is not silly. It needs to be addressed.

1 hour ago, Aetrion said:

I find all these arguments kind of silly because this mechanic already exists for the most part if you're playing F&D and it's more balanced than any other defensive mechanic in the game as far as I'm concerned. I don't see anyone going on and on about how broken Soresu Defenders are.

I don't see your point about stun weapons, you get the same damage reduction at the same cost. It's the exact same as Parry/Reflect against stun, which again, nobody is complaining about.

If you're going to say people's opinions are silly, you shouldn't have posted your houserule.

People are entitled to their opinions, but if they criticize a house rule that applies a mechanic from the game to another part of the game by saying it's too powerful then they should be able to explain why it isn't too powerful in the part of the game where it officially shows up.

If they don't want me interrogating their arguments then they shouldn't have posted their criticism.

Which in no way has anything to do with my point to you that it doesn't entitle you to belittle their opinions.

People have presented you with plenty of examples as to why you're proposal is imbalanced and unreasonable. I'm done.

"You're not entitled to belittle people's opinion. Your proposal is unreasonable!" - Hypocrite

All I did was point out that my proposal is entirely based on an existing mechanic in the game that nobody is criticizing, when all the reasons why my idea is supposedly "unbalanced and unreasonable" apply 1 to 1 to that mechanic as well.

But hey, can't expect people to argue in good faith around here. Instead of addressing my point we just jump to "You're mean, so I'm right".

15 minutes ago, Aetrion said:

People are entitled to their opinions, but if they criticize a house rule that applies a mechanic from the game to another part of the game by saying it's too powerful then they should be able to explain why it isn't too powerful in the part of the game where it officially shows up.

If they don't want me interrogating their arguments then they shouldn't have posted their criticism.

On principle I agree. In this particular case? Slade gave pretty good reasons why he does not like it and he most certainly is correct that your cover mechanic is heavily favored to cunning characters AND does help those heavy soak characters as well and that type of character is supposed to be another approach to parry/reflect tanks.

What Slade did not gave was actual math to proof and examples to proof his points, which is maybe better, because I am not 100% sure how this plays out in actual gameplay, it certainly changes the game into a cover shooter, but I am not sure if this is a bad thing mechanically.
I stand by that it is not very star war like, the PCs are main characters, they are the guys who run around without cover and usually do just fine, unlike the minions. ;-)

And btw, it's not like a few people in the forum did not walked around and pointed out how OP those soresu defenders become once they reach about 800 xp, there was even a whole topic dedicated the op'ness of high soak with high parry/reflect, was about an defender/armorer maybe with a dash protector on top iirc.

Try it out, but I would be a little scared from high cunning characters, especially shien expert guardians and force healers. Alas, the best counter against cover is just spending a maneuver to move into a position against that cover does not apply, which makes the whole thing far less powerful than some people in this topic imply. Imagine you could remove the reflect option which just a good maneuver ;-)

The solution to cover is explosives. The more boom the merrier. "Hide from that, buckethead!"

11 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

On principle I agree. In this particular case? Slade gave pretty good reasons why he does not like it and he most certainly is correct that your cover mechanic is heavily favored to cunning characters AND does help those heavy soak characters as well and that type of character is supposed to be another approach to parry/reflect tanks.

What Slade did not gave was actual math to proof and examples to proof his points, which is maybe better, because I am not 100% sure how this plays out in actual gameplay, it certainly changes the game into a cover shooter, but I am not sure if this is a bad thing mechanically.
I stand by that it is not very star war like, the PCs are main characters, they are the guys who run around without cover and usually do just fine, unlike the minions. ;-)

And btw, it's not like a few people in the forum did not walked around and pointed out how OP those soresu defenders become once they reach about 800 xp, there was even a whole topic dedicated the op'ness of high soak with high parry/reflect, was about an defender/armorer maybe with a dash protector on top iirc.

Try it out, but I would be a little scared from high cunning characters, especially shien expert guardians and force healers. Alas, the best counter against cover is just spending a maneuver to move into a position against that cover does not apply, which makes the whole thing far less powerful than some people in this topic imply. Imagine you could remove the reflect option which just a good maneuver ;-)

I just question this progression of criticisms. First he says he doesn't like that it costs strain and says he'd rather it add more soak. I explain that stacking straight soak tends to break the game because it has the potential to make enemy attacks completely ineffective. Parry/Reflect don't have that problem, because even if you take zero damage as a result you at the very least take some strain. Then he says that he thinks the amount of damage reduction with this mechanic is too high.

The whole point of the mechanic is that the strain cost makes it so that there is no such thing as having so much damage reduction that getting hit has no cost at all.

And as you rightly point out there are tons of ways of circumventing cover. Simply engaging the target negates their cover, spending advantage knocks them out of cover, and blasts should ignore cover. It's the same as dealing with a high parry/reflect Jedi. Just bring an under-barrel flame projector and you can roast them like marsh mellows. (Unless they have 10 soak, but then, again, the problem is with soak, not reflect)

I don't like it because it is basically a free version of reflect. Which costs XP normally. It also does not feel star wars.

22 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

I don't like it because it is basically a free version of reflect. Which costs XP normally.

Fair criticism, but it does have significant downsides, like having to spend an extra maneuver every time you move to get the benefit, and being able to break cover pretty easily. I also wrote that this one has to be used when you're targeted, not when you're hit, so it's somewhat less effective, because you have to activate it before you even know whether or not you are hit, which means you can waste the strain if you want to play it safe with every attack. It is more effective against autofire because it applies to every hit when the attack does go through. Autofire kind of needed a counterplay.

As for how "Star Wars" it feels, I guess it kind of depends on what you want to play. If you're playing a scenario like Rogue One where you're playing rebel commandos and you go up against a ton of enemy emplacements and autofire weapons I feel that having a strong cover mechanic is very appropriate. Being pinned down under fire was heavily featured as a storytelling device in that movie. It also stops the game from just turning into rocket tag when you're playing with military hardware instead of blaster pistols.

Just now, Aetrion said:

Fair criticism, but it does have significant downsides, like having to spend an extra maneuver every time you move to get the benefit, and being able to break cover pretty easily. I also wrote that this one has to be used when you're targeted, not when you're hit, so it's somewhat less effective, because you have to activate it before you even know whether or not you are hit, which means you can waste the strain if you want to play it safe with every attack. It is more effective against autofire because it applies to every hit when the attack does go through.

As for how "Star Wars" it feels, I guess it kind of depends on what you want to play. If you're playing a scenario like Rogue One where you're playing rebel commandos and you go up against a ton of enemy emplacements and autofire weapons I feel that having a strong cover mechanic is very appropriate. Being pinned down under fire was heavily featured as a storytelling device in that movie. It also stops the game from just turning into rocket tag when you're playing with military hardware instead of blaster pistols.

Yeah that is not really a downside. It certainly is still WAY better than reflect in that it is free. If you want to have a stronger cover mechanic make the current system stronger. Do not give everyone free jedi powers.

What's not really a downside? I think those are all pretty big downsides.

Reflect isn't free, but it isn't exactly a huge investment either, because if you're a lightsaber wielder of any kind there is a good chance you'll pass through a few reflect nodes on the way to your dedication and master technique no matter what. It's only if you want really high ranks that it turns from just grabbing them as you're building up other stuff to spending XP specifically going after them. At that junction having a super powerful cover maneuver would also carry a significant cost, since you need dedications to max Cunning, and spending dedications always includes a significant opportunity cost on top of having to earn them.

Again you are not addressing the complaints. Spending a single maneuver to get bonus soak until you move is not really a downside. You also still have not addressed the other valid complaints like giving a pretty big soak bonus to high cunning characters. Then there is the problem of combining this with a lightsaber users. Especially a Shien user...Your solution is a problem not a solution. Make the existing cover mechanic stronger. This is not a good solution.

12 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Again you are not addressing the complaints. Spending a single maneuver to get bonus soak until you move is not really a downside. You also still have not addressed the other valid complaints like giving a pretty big soak bonus to high cunning characters. Then there is the problem of combining this with a lightsaber users. Especially a Shien user...Your solution is a problem not a solution. Make the existing cover mechanic stronger. This is not a good solution.

Lightsaber users lose basically their offensive power when they want to use cover additional to their reflect, while reflect keeps you mobile, this is actually a huge advantage of reflect. And the cover can be flanked with a single maneuver as well. So you make the problems sound bigger than they are, even when there are issues with that solution. As I said, I would recommend playtesting it.

12 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Again you are not addressing the complaints. Spending a single maneuver to get bonus soak until you move is not really a downside. You also still have not addressed the other valid complaints like giving a pretty big soak bonus to high cunning characters. Then there is the problem of combining this with a lightsaber users. Especially a Shien user...Your solution is a problem not a solution. Make the existing cover mechanic stronger. This is not a good solution.

You're ignoring how the system is supposed to be used in your criticism. You're complaining that cover is too powerful because you just assume two parties in conflict simply stand across from each other exchanging fire until one side is dead. If that's how you want to play the game this alternate mechanic is not for you, because it will just slow the fights to a crawl. This is an alternate mechanic meant for people who want more strategic fights, where if enemies have cover you start working out ways to get them out of cover. Throw grenades, flank them, charge them, coordinate attacks to destroy their cover.

A good interplay between defensive and offensive tactics should mean that you adapt to what your opponent is doing to counter it. Regardless of how you improve the cover mechanic, the ultimate goal should be that you take cover to force your opponent to adapt and find ways to work around your cover, rather than simply continuing to fire at you. Defensive mechanics that don't make your opponent change their tactics accomplish nothing than making fights longer, but there are tons of ways to deal with cover.

Allow me to clarify a couple of points. First, I don't feel like the combat needs more defensive options. I feel like combats are plenty long enough from a pacing perspective and I feel that players are generally plenty durable for my taste. The reason I suggested that you allow cover to apply a small soak benefit is because your house rule suggests that you are looking for more defensive options to your games. Again, I'm not saying the name needs it, but I can respect that some GM's may feel it does, particularly if they have smaller low brawn groups they like throwing into heavy combat situations.

When I saw your house rule I said to myself, "Hey, that's a fairly complicated rule that skews heavily in favor of high cunning characters and offers an overly large benefit. Wouldn't it it just be far simpler and more balanced to just have cover provide some soak?". While I don't use cover soak as a standard rule in my games, I have found it useful to represent things like firing through a wall or door so I thought it was worth suggesting as an alternative to your rule.

As for my points about your house rule, lets cover some of them systematically. (I'm about to use some bullet points here which I hate but I feel are required for clarity)

- Your house rule provides a Strain to Wound conversion mechanic that is accessible by everyone. Even if this was a even exchange (3 for 3) this would be a significant advantage to Specs that normally don't have have access to this type of mechanic. At the same time this would devalue the classes that do. Trading strain for wounds is a key feature of several of the defensive Specializations and giving their feature to everyone for no xp cost might be frustrating to them. A Soresu Defender with 3 cunning would have very little impious to take Reflect for example. Of course, since this is a house rule, its possible that this isn't relevant in your game because of your groups makeup.

- Your house rule provides too much soak. Not only does your system allow for a strain to wound conversion but it also provides soak in the form of a less than 1 to 1 conversion. A player starting with a greater than 1 Cunning is going to prevent more damage than they take in strain. For a high cunning character they could be the equivalent of gaining as much as 3-4 extra soak. In your criticism of my "cover provides 1-2 soak" suggestion, you states how powerful even a single point of soak can be. I found this opinion incongruous with the house rule you presented as it provides anyone with at least 2 Cunning the equivalent of 1 soak. Granted unlike a flat bonus to soak this benefit couldn't be sustained indefinitely, but given that most players aren't hit more than 3 times in a given encounter, I suspect it will be functionally the same.

- If everyone can convert wounds to strain it will slow down combat. How can this not be true? Assuming that both sides of a fight take advantage of cover, your house rule effectively doubles both player and non-minion NPC wound threshold (assuming the average WT and ST are similar). This is of course the bare minimum as we have discussed before, the rule also provides further damage mitigation by converting damage to strain in a less than 1 to 1 ratio, which would have the effect of further extending combat. As with the first point, it is worth noting that since this is just a personal house rule, it is possible that extending combat is exactly what your group wants. Certainly a smaller group of 2-3 players isn't really going to feel the pacing change as much as a group of 5-6.

- This system is complex. Granted this isn't significantly more complex than Parry or Reflect, but those are talents. In general, mechanics that everyone can use should be kept simple. Judging from all the cheat sheets and index cards my players use to keep track of their various abilities, I'm never a fan of adding more complexity in the form of house rules. Again, maybe your group is different. I have two players who are new to roleplaying and 3 new to SWRPG. Perhaps I would feel differently if I had a veteran group.

- Your house rule doesn't make sense from a flavor perspective. Strain is suppose to represent mental or physical stress. With other talents that convert wounds to strain there is a certain amount of intrinsic logic. With dodge you are diving out of the way, with parry your catching an incoming attack on your blade, etc. Perhaps it's just my lack of imagination, but I don't see what about utilizing cover would result in large levels of mental or physical stress.

That about sums it up. It's not that your house rule is horrible. It's just that it's a rule that wouldn't be healthy to apply to the majority of groups out there. It is certainly 100% possible that your house rule will work out fine for your group, but it's far from a perfectly balanced, right for everyone kind of rule.

3 hours ago, Aetrion said:

You're ignoring how the system is supposed to be used in your criticism. You're complaining that cover is too powerful because you just assume two parties in conflict simply stand across from each other exchanging fire until one side is dead. If that's how you want to play the game this alternate mechanic is not for you, because it will just slow the fights to a crawl. This is an alternate mechanic meant for people who want more strategic fights, where if enemies have cover you start working out ways to get them out of cover. Throw grenades, flank them, charge them, coordinate attacks to destroy their cover.

A good interplay between defensive and offensive tactics should mean that you adapt to what your opponent is doing to counter it. Regardless of how you improve the cover mechanic, the ultimate goal should be that you take cover to force your opponent to adapt and find ways to work around your cover, rather than simply continuing to fire at you. Defensive mechanics that don't make your opponent change their tactics accomplish nothing than making fights longer, but there are tons of ways to deal with cover.

No I am not. You have yet to address any of the complaints several people have put forth.

Simply saying over and over that I'm not addressing your concerns while quoting posts where I am just makes you look like a troll.

Bottom line is, don't like it, don't use it.

At basic level I like this. But I'm a little sceptical how it works in practice. Few points: Minions cannot voluntarily take strain, so they cannot use this version at all. How does that affect game, is it a problem? (Making exception for cover is possible solution, how does it affect?) Though, thinking about what purpose of minion level NPC is (should be) make me think it is not at all absolutely necessary for them to be able to use cover. AFAIK they are often meant to be more like a speed bump than huge challenge.

14 hours ago, Aetrion said:

Simply saying over and over that I'm not addressing your concerns while quoting posts where I am just makes you look like a troll.

Bottom line is, don't like it, don't use it.

except in none of your posts do you actually address the concerns with anything more than it is not a problem. That is not addressing the concern. You may think it is. It is not however anything more than saying it is not a problem. I have yet to see where you say anything about the fact that your system is a huge boon to high cunning characters. You have not actually addressed the fact that this is basically a free version of reflect everyone gets. Saying it has a cost because it take a maneuver to get into cover. That is not really a cost. it is an extremely cheap cost. So cheap that it makes reflect have little value. And you have not addressed any of the concerns SladeWilson brought up. What I see is a bunch of you saying everything is fine.

Because your constant complaining about "muh concerns" simply doesn't mean anything, your concerns are subjective. It's an alternate mechanic for people who want cover to be a very strong tactical option that can counter ranged attacks extremely well if it isn't circumvented in some way , if you aren't one of those people then this isn't for you, pure and simple.

I mean why are you complaining? Because you want me to change it? When it comes to houserules and alternate mechanics there is an unlimited possible number, so there is no reason to change it. Just create your own that you're happy with instead.

Complaining that it's too easily accessible or provides too much damage reduction is entirely a subjective opinion. My whole reason for proposing it is that I think there should be a powerful damage reduction mechanic that everyone can use. That's also a matter of taste entirely, but then I'm not trying to tell people who prefer it the way it is that they need to change their minds because I have concerns about the system as it is originally written.

Complaining that it slows down the game is also subjective. Slower simply isn't always bad. If a conflict resolves in a single turn and initiative winds up deciding who wins then it's definitely going too fast. The fact that all good defenses are gated behind serious XP investment and so many of them can reduce attacks to zero damage makes this game extremely prone to having such vastly divergent survivability from one character to the next that it becomes a real burden for the GM to create encounters that are neither too long nor too short.