Sorry if these questions are too basic, but I have never heard a clear answer on the topic.
My questions:
1) Do Defensive/Deflection qualities for armors and weapons stack?
2) What about dual-wielded weapons, such as a Defensive Lightsaber and an Energy Buckler?
3) Finally, do ranks of Defensive Training stack with the Defensive quality of the wielded weapon, or do you just pick the highest?
Thanks so much!
1: As of yet, no. However, the devs are considering changing that.
2: No. the full text on Defensive Training specifically says that it replaces any inherentDefensive trait the weapon may have.
This is a complicated issue, as there has been a fair amount of contradiction and confusion.
Thank you both for such quick replies! I really appreciate it!
To answer dual wielding passive abilities would be allowed but to use active abilities only if you are able to strike, however you create the dice pool from your primary weapon based on dual wielding rules. What does this mean if both weapons have defensive.
So if you have a defensive 1 in your primary and defensive 2 in your secondary and had 1 rank of defensive training, technically from the two weapons you get only defensive 2 because you can use one or the other as even with the original rules a higher rank of the same ability doesnt stack. Now what becomes interesting here is that going by RAW the talent Defensive Training replaces your weapons defensive ranks so in the above example you would have melee defense 1 only. The talent replaces the ranks in defensive that the weapon (so now both would technically be classed as one) has so if you had better it just got worse as a result of your talent, it might notbe RAI but it is RAW. It would be different if it was worded you can replace, but it definitely says it DOES replace.
Personally though I'd rule that the highest works here regardless of that, if you think RAW is xorrect fair enough, ultimately its down to how your GM reads the talent. To me in this case , why would you use a talent that makes you worse than the weapons natural ability, it just doesnt make sense, but sometimes things are rules as written. If you wanted clarification on this you can always ask the devs , Im going to drop a question about it just to check.
just to confirm that I got an answer if you have Defensive Training 1 , it would override Defensive 2 on a weapon.
1 hour ago, syrath said:just to confirm that I got an answer if you have Defensive Training 1 , it would override Defensive 2 on a weapon.
The full description of the talent itself states this on page 141, and makes it pretty clear any inherent Defensive ranks are overruled by the talent.
2 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:The full description of the talent itself states this on page 141, and makes it pretty clear any inherent Defensive ranks are overruled by the talent.
Yeah I realise this, but it is hard to think that training can make you worse off than an innate property of a weapon, although I know that it is quite possible. Example someone holding the shield that has both defensive and deflection (from nexus of power iirc) all of a sudden loses effectiveness because their training makes them worse at using an item to defend themselves, that just plain doesn't make sense, however I know the wording of these talents are quite literal, hence why I mentioned it and asked the question.
In the corebooks, it clearly states that you take the highest value for defence you can, but they do not stack. However, for talents that grant a flat increase, they would add.
1 hour ago, BipolarJuice said:In the corebooks, it clearly states that you take the highest value for defence you can, but they do not stack. However, for talents that grant a flat increase, they would add.
The talent though, which trumps general rules, states that the defensive value on any weapons gets replaced by the fixed value of the defensive now provided by the player to that weapon, it all comes down to the wording, if the talent was worded so as to give you a choice (it can, for example) , instead it just says it replaces the defensive rating of the weapon and gives the weapon a new defensive rating based on the talent instead.
9 hours ago, syrath said:Yeah I realise this, but it is hard to think that training can make you worse off than an innate property of a weapon, although I know that it is quite possible. Example someone holding the shield that has both defensive and deflection (from nexus of power iirc) all of a sudden loses effectiveness because their training makes them worse at using an item to defend themselves, that just plain doesn't make sense, however I know the wording of these talents are quite literal, hence why I mentioned it and asked the question.
It was probably worded exactly that way to prevent PCs from taking a few ranks of Defensive Training (you can gain 3 if you go Shii-Cho Knight + Niman Disciple) and then applying it to a Melee weapon that had ranks of Defensive (vibroswords, lightsaber pikes, shields) to get really nutty melee defense scores.
You always have the option to not use a Talent that you know, even passive ones like Durable.
2 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:You always have the option to not use a Talent that you know, even passive ones like Durable.
While that is a common sense attitude, I gotta ask if you have a rules quote for that? In the interest of warding off hardcore RAW arguments.
Check check the Dev answered thread. The specific question was on Durable, but it covers all talents in general.
Well the dev answered question is that if you have defensive 2 , and defensive training 1 , you have defensive 1, not that it will come up often.
3 minutes ago, syrath said:Well the dev answered question is that if you have defensive 2 , and defensive training 1 , you have defensive 1, not that it will come up often.
The developers have entered into the era of GW-level of consistency. Ask them anything and you need to do it two more times to get the best of three. Add to this that they can't get us a true errata for AoR and that the other is hopelessly out of date, and it's very clear they don't have any real concern for clearing up how their material plays (or fails to play).
Or, the GM can put their adult pants on and simply decide for themselves how certain things work at their table. As long as you and the players are having fun, the exact way any part of the rules is meant to work is irrelevant. Jay Little, the founding father of the system, even said that a good GM could throw out 90% of the rules as they were written and still have a fun game.
I've had a number of questions crop up with the rules over the years, and more often than not simply decided, "this is how it works at my table," even if that decision goes against the latest dev answer/ruling (case in point, stacking of armor defense and Defensive/Deflection). And I'm sure there are GMs that run things in a way that I don't personally agree with, but since I'm not a player at their table, my opinion carries about as much weight as any other poster here that's not an actual member of that specific group; that is to say, none whatsoever.
Personally I've found that about the only time the "exact way something works within the rules" really matters is on message board discussions when a bunch of strangers are debating back and forth about the subject. About the only time the GM should really be worried is if the confusion over the rules is spoiling the fun of the game, either for the group as a whole or just a portion of it.
FFG have made it very clear that they're happy leaving decisions about rules to the GM. They may tell you their intended rule, but that could change in a week.
On 6/23/2017 at 9:10 PM, Richardbuxton said:FFG have made it very clear that they're happy leaving decisions about rules to the GM. They may tell you their intended rule, but that could change in a week.
Indeed. A lot of Sam's answers include words to the effect of "if that's how you want to run it, go for it."