As I've pointed out in a previous thread, Side Step and Defensive Stance are bad enough that they aren't really worth using. The benefit is not that great unless you have a huge number of ranks (since upgrading dice does less to keep you from getting hit or critted than adding black dice), and the price is high: you spend strain *and* a valuable maneuver. Most of the time I'd rather spend a maneuver taking a guarded stance than using Defensive Stance.

Here's how I would house rule them in order to make them worthwhile:

Quote

Side Step: Once per encounter, you may take the Side Step maneuver, spending Strain up to your ranks in Side Step. Until the end of the encounter, the difficulty of ranged attacks against you is upgraded a number of times equal to the strain spent.

And same for Defensive Stance except with melee attacks.

I think this change makes Side Step and Defensive Stance about on a par with Dodge in terms of usefulness. Thoughts?

What about making it cost 1 action per turn, and ditch the strain? That way you could use your action, with a few ranks in Sidestep, to make attacking you inadvisable. Making it 1/encounter and it lasts til the end of the encounter makes it way too powerful.

23 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

What about making it cost 1 action per turn, and ditch the strain? That way you could use your action, with a few ranks in Sidestep, to make attacking you inadvisable. Making it 1/encounter and it lasts til the end of the encounter makes it way too powerful.

I don't see why that makes it too powerful. Compare it to the Sense effect where you commit a Force die to get two upgrades. And that one works against both ranged and melee attacks.

Making it cost an action would make it even worse IMO. The strain isn't as big a deal as the maneuver cost. On the other hand, making the cost 1 maneuver per turn, with no strain cost, would make it about as good as taking a guarded stance. (Upgrading a die is slightly less beneficial than gaining a black die, but you don't pay the cost of 1 black to your attack.) But using a talent should be a lot better than using a maneuver that doesn't require a talent.

Sidestep and defensive stance upgrade up to an infinite number of attacks against you. Sense only upgrades 2 twice. A second rank of sidestep upgrades every rsnged attack twice till your next turn. Sense runs out after 2 (and only when you have all the upgrades). Sense maxes out wt 2 upgrades , sidestep and defensive stance can rack up tp 4 /5 or more upgrades. So if you have sidestep 5 you can upgrade every ranged attack at you 5 times for an entire round or even 2 (if you go first slot on a round and last on the next). I dont think that this is underpowered given the number of sidestep or defensive stance ranks you can stack.

Dodge works against all attacks but only works on one hit but can keep working until you run out of strain.

Each defensive talent has it's advantages, yes, even the much maligned force protection, my fav is baleful gaze , but its no use after medium range. Coordination dodge is good but does nothing to counter advantages rolled or causing threat or despair (something that all upgrades are good at).

In short they all have their uses.

Side Step and Defensive Stance are only subpar talents if you've got a single rank and you never face more than one attack aimed at your character. I've had a Smuggler/Scoundrel PC in a group that lived and breathed by that spec's two ranks of Side Step to help avoid getting blasted during fights, or at the very least cut down on the amount of damage coming their way.

In addition, for a Shien Expert that one rank of Side Step can combo nicely with Sense (especially if you've gotten both the Duration and Strength Upgrades) to make sure that you can bank those uses of Sense for the important attacks, or drastically improve the chances of a successful attack having the requisite threat/despair to let you use Improved Reflect. Soresu Defender can do the same with Defensive Stance to proc their Improved Parry along with the various setback dice they're generating with Defensive Circle.

As others have noted, both Side Step and Defensive Stance are talents that get better with the more ranks you have, in addition to working against all attacks that target you. Which if you're openly brandishing a lightsaber and the GM is doing their job, you should have a decent number attacks coming your way, likely more than Sense alone could cover.

7 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

I don't see why that makes it too powerful. Compare it to the Sense effect where you commit a Force die to get two upgrades. And that one works against both ranged and melee attacks.

Making it cost an action would make it even worse IMO. The strain isn't as big a deal as the maneuver cost. On the other hand, making the cost 1 maneuver per turn, with no strain cost, would make it about as good as taking a guarded stance. (Upgrading a die is slightly less beneficial than gaining a black die, but you don't pay the cost of 1 black to your attack.) But using a talent should be a lot better than using a maneuver that doesn't require a talent.

I did take the Sense power into consideration this ain't my first rodeo. The Sense defensive upgrade effect 1) requires an action to activate, 2) only works against one attack per round—or two if you have the Duration upgrade, and 3) requires a significant XP investment in a specific Force power to get there. The talent you're wanting to change is found in talent trees as you navigate them, and you would just pick it up on your way through the tree. You're also not committing anything beyond a bit of easily recoverable strain, leaving your Force Rating (if any) free for activating Force powers. It's my opinion, based on years of play and system tweaking, that your proposed upgrade to the Sidestep talent is simply overpowered. Moreover, it's an unprecedented mechanic design.

I do agree, a maneuver + strain is often not worth the price of admission, but Sidestep as written is still a situationally useful talent. Consider that one needn't choose between Sidestep or taking cover; he could choose both by performing two maneuvers.

The hack I proposed changes the function of a talent by making it a "total defense" sort of thing, like the dodge action in D&D. Got rid of the strain business because I dislike extra bookkeeping. That is where the balance lies; an action for a lack of strain suffered. It's a choice that one makes every round; like the choice to commit a Force die, or the choice to Gain the Advantage on an enemy starfighter pilot; rather than an encounter-long buff enacted by a throwaway maneuver at the beginning of the encounter for a handful of strain.

Anyway...those are my thoughts that you asked for

I think what a lot of probability analysis systems miss is that Upgrading a Difficulty to a Challenge significantly increases the likelihood of multiple results on a single die (something like +30%). The weight of a Despair is also often ignored, it essentially equates to infinite Threat.

As was pointed out earlier there are times where a defensive character wants to actually be hit, and is more interested in Threat & Despair. Other times they want to do EVERYTHING to avoid being hit, high defence is good but if you can also upgrade the difficulty 3 or more times then it's even better.

Being shot at from close range is such a trivial task that throwing 2 upgrades at it has a decent effect, add 2 Setback from defense and it's even better.

Any way, onto your house rules.

The idea of it lasting the entire encounter is way over powered. A Sense user has to give up an entire rank of Force Rating to maintain that, limiting any other Force related abilities. Perhaps simply reducing the amount of strain suffered to always be 1 would sweeten the deal enough for you.

I think it was Monte Cook that suggested this litmus test for whether or not an ability was overpowered.

1) Is the ability something that everyone would want? In the case of your proposed change, hell yes. I would base many of my career and spec choices simply on whether or not it has these two talents.

2) If I have the ability, will I use it every single time I can? Again, hell yes. At the cost of a maneuver and a strain, there are no circumstances ever where I would not use this ability the very first round of combat. The Sense upgrade doesn't have that. Even Dodge, Parry and Reflect don't have that.

On 6/5/2017 at 6:36 PM, syrath said:

Sidestep and defensive stance upgrade up to an infinite number of attacks against you. Sense only upgrades 2 twice. A second rank of sidestep upgrades every rsnged attack twice till your next turn. Sense runs out after 2 (and only when you have all the upgrades). Sense maxes out wt 2 upgrades , sidestep and defensive stance can rack up tp 4 /5 or more upgrades. So if you have sidestep 5 you can upgrade every ranged attack at you 5 times for an entire round or even 2 (if you go first slot on a round and last on the next). I dont think that this is underpowered given the number of sidestep or defensive stance ranks you can stack.

Seems underpowered for the amount of total XP you'd have to spend to get 4 or 5 ranks, though.

15 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

As was pointed out earlier there are times where a defensive character wants to actually be hit, and is more interested in Threat & Despair. Other times they want to do EVERYTHING to avoid being hit, high defence is good but if you can also upgrade the difficulty 3 or more times then it's even better.

Upgrading dice reduces the odds of threat (unless you're upgrading so many times that you're adding purple dice). It does add despair to the mix, but red dice are skewed in favor of failures rather than threats. The expected amount of threat from a red die is less than that of a purple die.

8 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

1) Is the ability something that everyone would want? In the case of your proposed change, hell yes. I would base many of my career and spec choices simply on whether or not it has these two talents.

Interesting. I was thinking this was the minimum amount of improvement it would take to make me want to spend XP on these talents.

8 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

2) If I have the ability, will I use it every single time I can? Again, hell yes. At the cost of a maneuver and a strain, there are no circumstances ever where I would not use this ability the very first round of combat. The Sense upgrade doesn't have that. Even Dodge, Parry and Reflect don't have that.

On the contrary, I think it's still worse than Parry and Reflect (which you do want to use every single time IMO except in weird circumstances or when you're running low on strain). Also, there are plenty of talents that you want to use every single turn that you can use them--True Aim? Intuitive Shot? All the talents that add Force dice to your lightsaber attacks (Draw Closer, Hawkbat Swoop, etc)?

I felt my proposed house rule was the minimum change that would make it worth it to me to use a maneuver on these talents, when I could aim or take a guarded stance instead.

Upgrading dice is not bad, don't get me wrong, but the cost of a maneuver is too much to pay for that unless you accumulate 3 or more ranks--and who's going to want to be stuck with a dud talent for the time it takes to complete a whole talent tree and move on to another one to get that third rank? You have to base your whole build around ranking up these talents just to make them barely good enough to be worth using. Dodge is a fine talent, Side Step and especially Defensive Stance are incredibly bad.

Think of it this way: giving NPCs the Adversary talent is not game-breaking. Far from it; a couple ranks of Adversary doesn't make that huge an impact in my experience. It isn't nothing, but it isn't huge. If Adversary were in the talent trees available to PCs, it would be considered strong, but not a must-buy by any means. And my house ruled versions of these talents are still far inferior to Adversary ranks.

My houserule fix to sidestep and defensive stance, if I were inclined to make one, would to let them be activated with an incidental. That would put them on part with dodge imho

33 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

My houserule fix to sidestep and defensive stance, if I were inclined to make one, would to let them be activated with an incidental. That would put them on part with dodge imho

Not bad. Not bad at all. I might like this better than my fix.

1 hour ago, DaverWattra said:

Not bad. Not bad at all. I might like this better than my fix.

Note that I said "incidental" NOT "out of turn incidental" so you still have to pay the strain up front before you know if you'll get attacked. That keeps the current "flavor" of the talents, i.e. as being proactive rather than reactive.

I think that you are under rating those talents. That the defend against every single attack is a big benefit. Making them incidentals makes them too strong IMO.

I would suggest just removing the strain costs. Sure, they get powerful, but so long as they still take a maneuver, they are a choice since there are a lot of other things that maneuver could have been used for in combat.

11 hours ago, Ahrimon said:

I think that you are under rating those talents. That the defend against every single attack is a big benefit. Making them incidentals makes them too strong IMO.

They don't defend against every single attack, though. Only attacks in one category. And the amount of defense they add is small unless you really stock up on ranks.

10 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

I would suggest just removing the strain costs. Sure, they get powerful, but so long as they still take a maneuver, they are a choice since there are a lot of other things that maneuver could have been used for in combat.

For side step this would be usable, but only barely. For defensive stance I would rather just take a guarded stance, unless I had 3+ ranks.

I guess 2 ranks would also make it better than guarded stance, but only barely.

It really boosts the benefits gained from flipping a Destiny Point for defense too, especially 2 ranks of either talent since it increases the dice pool on most combat checks from CC to DCC

@DaverWattra, by making it a pure numbers game of red < purple + black, you are continuing to discount the chance of Despair coming into play (which never happens on a purple or black die) while also discounting the way that upgrading works. For example, a single rank in Sidestep will give a fully-upgraded difficulty pool (say, 2 reds) an additional purple die. That's way better than a black die, even by numerical standards.

Since each rank in Sidestep either dramatically increases your chances of rolling a Despair or gives you an additional Purple die, perhaps you should rethink your mathematical premise?

I concur. There's only a slight difference in the additional chance of rolling a failure between upgrading difficulty and adding a setback, and the added chance of rolling a despair makes up for that difference. Despairs can have pretty powerful effects, after all, from depriving your opponent of their best weapon to altering the state of the encounter in a way that significantly benefits you.

Even if you want to argue that you need at least two ranks before it's really worth it, that's not an uncommon situation for ranked talents. Knowledge Specialization and Smooth Talker are both pretty marginal with only one rank, and so is Brace. Parry and Reflect both fall under this as well, as spending three strain to prevent three wounds is a pretty lousy deal (and utterly pointless against stun weapons). One could even make the argument that this applies to Toughened and Grit, as a slight nudge to your thresholds is unlikely to make much of a difference.

An upgrade from purple to red gives a decrease in rolling success of about 4% , when it adds a purple its about 8% , the red has a higher chance of also adding threat and as others point out also add in an increased chance of despair. Each defensive talent has it's advantages. I still do not see where side step and defensive stance are so bad that they are not balanced.

Sense has limits of how many upgrades and how many attacks it covers, for many situations it will be adequate. It can be suppressed, you can get hit more than twice and this can be used to advantage by the bad guys , since you do not have a choice of when it works, it is the first two attacks, end of. So two minion groups throw an attack at you followed by the BBEG and you dont upgrade the third attack.

Dodge , great but each rank you use costs strain so for the same as sense you have to spend 4 strain to upgrade 2 attacks twice each. If they concentrate fire on you you will strain yourself out in no time. It's advantage is that you choose when to trigger it, so if you have someone who has 2 green on the attack you can skip the upgrades to wait for the BBEG.

Side Step, works on every attack until your next round that is coming in form ranged attacks , all for the same strain cost of one dodge but costs the maneuver. To me this is a fair trade off, however its disadvantage is that it doesnt work at all on melee, and that it can be turned off with triumph or enough advantage

Defensive Stance same as above but only works on melee not ranged

Baleful Gaze , costs a destiny point and a couple of conflcit (plus an additional 1 per game just for knowing the talent) but only works out to medium range.

Ive mentioned some of this earlier but given that if you got attacked twice from range would cost 4 strain (2 ranks of talent) for dodge , sidestep only costs 2 and a maneuver so the more you get hit the more you saved in comparison with dodge , I dont see anyone complain that dodge is rubhish and thst the strain cost is too high, so I think this is a fair costing when compared with Dodge.

if you have the choice (infiltrator is the perfect example as they get dodge and defensive stance) then so much the better because they stack as well, you can trigger both ranks of defensive stance and also use dodge on top of it for 4 upgrades on those checks you really want to mess with.

I think the biggest problem is the limitation on type of attack. Those with sidestep dont want to get into melee , likewise those with defensive stance dont want to get caught at range., Again I fine with this. It depends on your game, but if these defensive talents arent enough to work for the players then perhaps the answer is to throw opponents at you who are less skilled so that the encounters are more balanced, because to me the only reason they dont work is if the players are dying or getting the bejeebers kicked out them in combat as a result of taking the talents, or the GM is spending advantage to nullify the defense all the time, so that the players arent getting much time out them, or the players are getting caught out tactically and those with sidestep are getting caught in melee and vice versa.

The prohibitive cost of sidestep and defensive stance is the maneuver, because it either means you can't attack or can't move without spending 2 strain (or 2 advantage) so the real cost, for most builds is ranks + 2 strain, and you commit to spending that on your turn, i.e. before you know you will be attacked with the particular attack type, they also work against a single attack type, but they work against all (possibly zero) attacks until your next turn.

Dodge cost is 1 strain per rank, you pay it *after* a attack is declared again you, i.e. you get to see the incoming dice pool, and it works against both attack types.

The proposed houserule, which I am not advocating as "go do this" but "if you feel the need to do something, try this"

Sidestep/defensive stance still work against a single attack type, you still have to pay the cost before you know if you are going to be attacked with the particular attack type (i.e. are likely wasting strain on attacks that never come or not using the talent at least some of the times you would gave liked to use it if you knew you were going to be attacked), but the cost is now only strain = ranks, instead of strain = ranks + 2. I think that puts sidestep on equal footing with dodge in terms of usefulness. but I am not saying sidestep NEEDS to be on equal footing with dodge in terms of usefulness.

Now i'm sure someone will say the "real strain cost of sidestep as written is equal to ranks because you don'the have to speed 2 strain to take a maneuver" however if you weren't going to spend a maneuver on something else then effectively gaining (via the proposed house rule) a maneuver provides zero benefit in that particular circumstance. I.e. either the raw cost really is ranks +2 strain or the house rule didn't provide a benefit in the particular circumstance.

Moreover the opportunity cost of maneuver is really higher than just 2 strain, because in some circumstances you will want to take 2 strain to double move and attack (i.e. when a melee guy wants to get up close and personal with a ranged guy) and spending a maneuver to activate sidestep will prevent that, and in case you're about to say after you've gotten up close and personal with a ranged guy sidestep doesn't matter, yeah it does because being engaged with a ranged light combatant just makes their difficulty equal to yours (2 purple) and they can spend a maneuver to step back into short range decrease the difficulty to 1 purple and then shoot you, and recall that you have to activate sidestep on your turn, before he attacked you... so in that situation raw forces you to choose between letting him attack you first at 1 red difficulty (presuming 1 rank of sidestep) or you attacking him first, but then leave yourself open to a 1 purple difficulty with a weapon that will likely deal more damage than you just dealt to him.

The point is, in a vacuum, as in without the context of raw ranged light attack difficulty at engaged vs. Short range vs, the melee attack difficulty, an ignoring that ranged weapons tend to do more damage than melee weapons (other than lightsabers)... then I would agree that reducing the activation cost of sidestep from a maneuver to an IN TURN incidental might make sidestep a bit stronger than dodge, but because these rules interact in a way that is detrimental to melee guys.

My preferred fix to that problem is that ranged light engage diffifulty = short range difficulty = 2. Ranged heavy engaged difficulty = short ranged difficulty = 3.

You could have it work like the much-maligned Force Protection. Activating any number of ranks takes a maneuver and costs 1 Strain (not 1 Strain per rank). On subsequent turns, spend 1 Strain as an incidental to maintain the effect.

Which is extremely powerful if the person has multiple ranks , if it were per rank I'd say this is the best suggestion but still overpowered, but for 1 strain with 5 ranks per turn makes this more powerful than baleful gaze which costs a DP per use along with other disadvantages,

I'm wondering how much of the mentality behind some considering these two talents to be sub-par comes from players feeling like they have to be contributing 100% all of the time. In other games I've seen first hand and read about numerous incidents where players would struggle with their turn in the game because they felt like they had to squeeze every ounce of capability out of their character every single turn. So not using an available action is seen as a horrible waste and they are letting the other players down. Using the wrong action, or an action that doesn't contribute the right way can be seen that way too. I've read posters in this game and others claim that if you aren't 100% then you are a liability. An example from a fantasy role playing game is that it's usually more efficient to attack and eliminate the threat than it is to heal someone and keep all of your allies going. In FFG's SW I've seen posters complain that if you don't have a 4 characteristic you aren't capable of meaningful contribution. All of this underlies the mentality of 100% effectiveness.

Could it also be that another part of this is the mentality that everything has be balanced. Where some players feel that "cheated" or "robbed" or "gimped" if they take ability A but ability B is more effective? All of these talents have situational uses and all of them have pros and cons. But, combined with the thoughts above, the idea that a con that lessens your combat output could be seen as making the talent completely undesirable to a player. It has nothing to do with it's effectiveness, but that the particular con of that ability is viewed in a more negative light than the others.

It's interesting to think about. And unfortunately the answers are entirely subjective. Personally, I don't think that the talents need to be changed. They each have their situational use and each have their pros and cons.

Really, is a maneuver really that much of an expense, I even see it thematically - side step, you stand still keeping an eye out on the people shooting you and side-stepping the shots dodge ball style, whereas defensive stance you lock yourself in stance both of these seem to infer giving up movement.