4 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I disagree that it's too big a bonus. And no, swapping the values to add more Wounds does not balance it out. They're not known for being extra "healthy" more so than having a natural hard armor , and if you look at all hard armors, they typically have a + 2 Soak. Most of the species curently published that might have a bonus to Soak are reptilian, with scales, not a chitinous shell . A chitinous shell is much harder than reptilian scales.

And yet having metal parts and a metal shell is worth only Enduring 1 (+1 soak). +2 soak is way, way, WAY too much.

Edit: And WT is not just a measure of how healthy you are. It's also a measure of how much punishment you can take before you go down, which can be a reflection of of how their shell helps absorb blows. Granted +2 WT is pretty light for an exoskeleton, but this is FFG star wars where the game is built around what works not what is 100% realisticly defined by physics with a slavish worship of RAW. That's SAGA.

2 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

And yet having metal parts and a metal shell is worth only Enduring 1 (+1 soak). +2 soak is way, way, WAY too much.

If you're referring to a droid's chassis, that's light sheet metal, not armor. Krevaaki have heavy chitinous armor not thin scales. So, yes, a +2 Enduring is wholly appropriate.

Just now, Tramp Graphics said:

If you're referring to a droid's chassis, that's light sheet metal, not armor. Krevaaki have heavy chitinous armor not thin scales. So, yes, a +2 Enduring is wholly appropriate.

Light sheet metal is as tough or tougher than bone (chitin). We're talking star wars metals not tin foil. But, as usual, I'll just agree to disagree with your viewpoint.

30 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

Light sheet metal is as tough or tougher than bone (chitin). We're talking star wars metals not tin foil. But, as usual, I'll just agree to disagree with your viewpoint.

That depends upon how thick it is and the type of metal. Thin, one or two millimeter thick sheet steel can easily be pierced by even a light weapon that could never pierce inch thick chiton or bone. So don't say that sheet metal is absolutely stronger than chiton. Now, if you were talking in the range of quarter inch thick plate steel, that would be different, but not thin sheet metal.

Oh boy it's a Tramp Graphics argument thread ?

Tramp, can you provide an actual source (see, I can bold things obnoxiously too!) on wounds being a measure of how "healthy" someone is? The book just mentions it's a measure of "the number of wounds - physical damage - a character can withstand before getting knocked out". That's a pretty broad definition!

34 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

That depends upon how thick it is and the type of metal. Thin, one or two millimeter thick sheet steel can easily be pierced by even a light weapon that could never pierce inch thick chiton or bone. So don't say that sheet metal is absolutely stronger than chiton. Now, if you were talking in the range of quarter inch thick plate steel, that would be different, but not thin sheet metal.

I think that you are overestimating the exoskeleton. An inch thick of bone surrounding a humanoid sized creature would weigh upwards of 100 to 200lbs in itself I would imagine. Granted we are talking space wizards here, but any exoskeleton on a humanoid creature would have to be relatively thin in order for that creature to remain mobile without requiring it to be super strong.

1 hour ago, Tom Cruise said:

Oh boy it's a Tramp Graphics argument thread ?

Tramp, can you provide an actual source (see, I can bold things obnoxiously too!) on wounds being a measure of how "healthy" someone is? The book just mentions it's a measure of "the number of wounds - physical damage - a character can withstand before getting knocked out". That's a pretty broad definition!

I stopped feeding the trolls/munchkin. Some people just don't want to accept reality.

8 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I disagree. Wounds are a measure of how "healthy" a character is, not how "tough" they are, nor how hard it is to hurt them.

You can disagree, but you'd be wrong, of course. Easily demonstrated by the fact that the game designers chose to name the ubiquitous "gain +2 wound threshold"-Talent Toughened . See, the designers themselves think that having a higher wound threshold means a character is tougher, i.e. wounds are obviously a measure of how tough a character is.

+2 soak is obviously too strong from a balance perspective. The only way I could see it would be if it also carried a ban on wearing armor that grants soak on top, or at least would not stack with any soak from worn armor.

Not to mention that D20 is a mess where armour usually just makes you harder to hit and does not grant damage reduction (which would kind of make sense against conventional cold weapons, but those are not the only weapons/methods of attack in the system, are they?), and where people could survive obnoxiously high falls.

These guys probably should just get 1 Melee Defense.

9 hours ago, Arctanaar said:

Not to mention that D20 is a mess where armour usually just makes you harder to hit and does not grant damage reduction (which would kind of make sense against conventional cold weapons, but those are not the only weapons/methods of attack in the system, are they?), and where people could survive obnoxiously high falls.

These guys probably should just get 1 Melee Defense.

Under the RCRB rules, they used Damage Reduction for armor instead. Why they went back to a Defense bonus is beyond me, and one of the reasons why I boycotted SAGA ed. And, that +2 listed was a Damage Reduction , not a Defense bonus.

16 hours ago, Franigo said:

You can disagree, but you'd be wrong, of course. Easily demonstrated by the fact that the game designers chose to name the ubiquitous "gain +2 wound threshold"-Talent Toughened . See, the designers themselves think that having a higher wound threshold means a character is tougher, i.e. wounds are obviously a measure of how tough a character is.

+2 soak is obviously too strong from a balance perspective. The only way I could see it would be if it also carried a ban on wearing armor that grants soak on top, or at least would not stack with any soak from worn armor.

For the record, given the Krevaaki's physiology and morphology, I highly doubt that they would be able to wear actual armor. The only Krevaaki we see in the fiction all wear robes .

9 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Under the RCRB rules, they used Damage Reduction for armor instead. Why they went back to a Defense bonus is beyond me, and one of the reasons why I boycotted SAGA ed. And, that +2 listed was a Damage Reduction , not a Defense bonus.

And I didn't say that it was not a DR increase.

However, you are trying to justify giving them +2 Soak by saying that they had what is effectively +2 DR in a different system that, as far as I remember, has very little in common with FFG SW. Imagine if I built Krevaaki in GURPS, giving them, say, +6 DR, and then came here and said that because of that they should start with 6 ranks of Enduring. Also, how many times did one have to attack a single character at level 5 in that system to get them down to 0 HP (of course, this value is going to vary between various methods of attack and various possible characters being attacked)? Are you sure you don't want to consider the differences between the systems when you convert species' stats?

13 hours ago, Arctanaar said:

And I didn't say that it was not a DR increase.

However, you are trying to justify giving them +2 Soak by saying that they had what is effectively +2 DR in a different system that, as far as I remember, has very little in common with FFG SW. Imagine if I built Krevaaki in GURPS, giving them, say, +6 DR, and then came here and said that because of that they should start with 6 ranks of Enduring. Also, how many times did one have to attack a single character at level 5 in that system to get them down to 0 HP (of course, this value is going to vary between various methods of attack and various possible characters being attacked)? Are you sure you don't want to consider the differences between the systems when you convert species' stats?

The differences between Damage Reduction and Soak are minuscule at best, to the point of being practically nonexistent. The point is that Krevaaki have a hard, rigid exoskeleton , not thin scales , like a reptile. And, given that you can use chiton from large arthropods to make heavy battle armor, also supports this. Scales provide some species with an Soak 1 (on top of their Brawn stat), it stands to reason then that species with thick, rigid plates all over their bodies, should therefore have Soak 2.

@Tramp Graphics Do those heavy battle armor pieces from a player character species?

Just now, TheShard said:

@Tramp Graphics Do those heavy battle armor pieces from a player character species?

Does it matter? I think not. What matters is the size of the creature in question, not if they're sentient.

So the answer is no. No somethings much bigger with much thicker hide/chitten. In fact let's guys what creature? Let's look at those stats.

You've never actually played this game and have no idea what valence in this systemn is.

You don't understand This is a game partied for fun not a literal interpretation of anything. It requires compromise because being accurate to something isn't as important as fun and playable.

Do any player species have soak 2 to start?

A leather jacket is soak 1, heavy battle armor is soak 2. Are you saying that you think that their exoskeleton is equal to heavy battle armor? Do the krevaaki weigh upwards of 400 to 500 pounds with all of that inch thick exoskeleton that you seem to think that they have?

You know what else has an exoskeleton? A crab. And I can stab through that with a fork.

1 minute ago, TheShard said:

So the answer is no. No somethings much bigger with much thicker hide/chitten. In fact let's guys what creature? Let's look at those stats.

You've never actually played this game and have no idea what valence in this systemn is.

You don't understand This is a game partied for fun not a literal interpretation of anything. It requires compromise because being accurate to something isn't as important as fun and playable.

Do any player species have soak 2 to start?

Do any Player species yet released have thick, hard chitonous plate armor covering their entire bodies ? That is what you have to consider. And you balance that out by lowering their XP an appropriate amount.

Now, for the record, page 90 of keeping the Peace specifically gives the example of using a large creature's natural armor to make segmented armor (Soak 2). In the example given it's Krayt Dragon scales , which, given the fact that Kryat Dragons re absolutely colossal , are about 1/4" thick (and also made of chiton), which is roughly the same thickness as the hard plates of Krevaaki, based upon the images we see of them.

That is natural Segmented armor . Without question, that is worth a Soak of 2. Therefore, it doesn't matter if any other PC races have had Enduring 2 or not. whereas

3 minutes ago, Ahrimon said:

A leather jacket is soak 1, heavy battle armor is soak 2. Are you saying that you think that their exoskeleton is equal to heavy battle armor? Do the krevaaki weigh upwards of 400 to 500 pounds with all of that inch thick exoskeleton that you seem to think that they have?

You know what else has an exoskeleton? A crab. And I can stab through that with a fork.

A crab is't nearly 2 meters tall. And leather is not nearly as protective as hard plates.

I don't believe that is as hard as a kryat Dragon. Sorry, don't buy that at all.

Hard armor isn't a defining trait, nothing in their appearances in any of the story mention or focus on having super duper natural armor. So its not important enough to weigh the mechanical stats that much.

Shistivan's have claws, probably more significantly than nikto, however you get zero benefit. What about wookie climbing claws?

29 minutes ago, TheShard said:

I don't believe that is as hard as a kryat Dragon. Sorry, don't buy that at all.

Hard armor isn't a defining trait, nothing in their appearances in any of the story mention or focus on having super duper natural armor. So its not important enough to weigh the mechanical stats that much.

Shistivan's have claws, probably more significantly than nikto, however you get zero benefit. What about wookie climbing claws?

What about them? Wookiees are culturally forbidden from using them anyway. And I disagree as to whether Krevaaki chition is as hard as Krayt Dragon scales. It's also more of a matter of is it as durable as the duraplast plastic which makes up segmented armor; armor which does give a Soak of 2. A Soak of 2 is a pittance . Armor in this game is weak , and that was deliberate, not for game balance reasons, but to speed up combat .

8 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Do any Player species yet released have thick, hard chitonous plate armor covering their entire bodies ? That is what you have to consider. And you balance that out by lowering their XP an appropriate amount.

Now, for the record, page 90 of keeping the Peace specifically gives the example of using a large creature's natural armor to make segmented armor (Soak 2). In the example given it's Krayt Dragon scales , which, given the fact that Kryat Dragons re absolutely colossal , are about 1/4" thick (and also made of chiton), which is roughly the same thickness as the hard plates of Krevaaki, based upon the images we see of them.

That is natural Segmented armor . Without question, that is worth a Soak of 2. Therefore, it doesn't matter if any other PC races have had Enduring 2 or not.

Yet, you don't provide sources regarding how thick and hard the armour is. Also, are thickness and hardness the only things that matter when it comes to armour?

8 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

A crab is't nearly 2 meters tall. And leather is not nearly as protective as hard plates.

Meaning that Krevaaki are going to have a problem with how much that natural armour is going to weigh, so they probably either have even less protection than crabs, or they have a lot of muscle mass to be able to move and should probably have 3/2/2/2/3/1 or 3/1/2/2/3/1.

Also, regarding your earlier post:

9 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The differences between Damage Reduction and Soak are minuscule at best, to the point of being practically nonexistent.

You do consider the mean time to down a character in both system (under various analogous conditions, of course), and not only how Soak and DR themselves work, right?

Also,

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiton
2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitin

Guys, I want to convert Thor from the Marvel Heroic RPG into this game. He has d10 Superhuman Durability and should therefore get 10 soak. That's legit, right?

Also, he has d12 Godlike Strength. That's a 12 in Brawn for sure, isn't it?

It'll be balanced, just reduce xp

Is there an official species with a natural armor, to use this ability as template?

Everyone seems to talk about the armor, but what about multiple arms? Just copy+paste the ability from the Basilisk species?

20 minutes ago, kingpin000 said:

Is there an official species with a natural armor, to use this ability as template?

Everyone seems to talk about the armor, but what about multiple arms? Just copy+paste the ability from the Basilisk species?

Krevaaki typically only use two of their tentacles as arms. The rest support their weight like legs.

Instead of granting soak, why not granting Defense 1 as natural armor? The extra Soak could be handled over 3 Brawn at the begining (it would also represent the extra strength by the tentacles).