No Parry Can't afford it.

I'll deal another critical. Rolled 45+20=65, so your choice is between Slightly Dazed and Fearsome Wound. (I don't think I'd realized how good a talent Durable is! The aspect of choice means even 1 rank has a huge effect.)

With the last advantage, I heal myself to 4/14 strain.

We'll go ahead and suffer the Fearsome wound again. Good thing I'm not the Makashi user here!

Okay, I actually got some Success here to work with...that's a total of 10 damage. Parry?

Yeah, I'll parry. 7/14 strain, 2/16 wounds.

Gavin sensed a further opening in the Jedi's defenses. He struck downward with all his might, and the Jedi parried high, but Gavin's superior strength drove both sabers down towards the Gran's eye stalks. A quick twist saved him from permanent blindness, but that saber graze across the face had left a smoldering scar. The Jedi reeled momentarily, and Gavin resumed an opening stance, trying to feel out his opponent. His breathing was heavy, but he hoped that the wind would mask it.

"Have you had enough, Jedi?" His taunting made him sound much more confident than he felt.

2 Advantage spent for the critical injury of 33, which will stagger Hasal for one round.

I'm at 10 strain & 10 wounds...

Hasal catches himself against the wall with his left hand as Gavin circles him. I'm too off balance to do anything but defend myself , he thinks. Better at least do a good job of that .

He descends a step, angling so that the wall is in the way of Gavin's most natural line of attack. He breathes, trying to rally his confidence.

I take a guarded stance (bringing my Melee Defense to 2) and spend a Destiny Point to heal 5 strain with Intense Presence.

2/14 strain, 2/16 wounds

10 damage once more. Parry?

Ive been following this thread with interest but was wondering how the opposed skill check sidebar applies to this. Im going to drop the question for the o66 podcast special on it.

28 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

10 damage once more. Parry?

Yes--5 strain, 4 wounds.

(Looks like we've finally got ourselves a ballgame!)

Gavin pressed his Advantage. Sweeping his opponent's lightsaber down and out of the way, he raised his armored elbow sharply and smashed it into the side of the Jedi's head.

That was a maneuver to aim, and using the two Advantage to perform another critical injury. 14+10 means Off Balance, which will add a Setback die to Hasal's next skill check.

I'm still at 10/16 strain, 10/19 wounds.

32 minutes ago, syrath said:

Ive been following this thread with interest but was wondering how the opposed skill check sidebar applies to this. Im going to drop the question for the o66 podcast special on it.

A worthy question, but I would think that since you're already adding it to a skill check, the sidebar wouldn't apply, since it is talking specifically about Force powers that don't normally have skill checks attached to them (most aspects of Harm, Move, Misdirect, Influence, etc).

5 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

A worthy question, but I would think that since you're already adding it to a skill check, the sidebar wouldn't apply, since it is talking specifically about Force powers that don't normally have skill checks attached to them (most aspects of Harm, Move, Misdirect, Influence, etc).

The reason I thought of it was because I wondered how suppress would interact, but I suspect suppress would add failure to the combined (but not an opposed) skill check, and since this could cause the skill to fail the whole combined check could tumble down as a result , the only thing is that the check itself might not target the person using suppress, but surely suppress would work against it in some way or in this case is it the same argument for trying to get nobody's fool to work against scathing tirade.

Caught off guard, Hasal is pressed against the wall by the fury of Gavin's assault. Gavin's lightsaber scrapes down the length of Hasal's blade, singeing his fingers.

The Gran Jedi banishes the pain and throws himself back into the fight. Remembering how the shower of sparks seemed to blind Gavin earlier, he strikes repeatedly in front of the Jensaarai warrior's faceplate. Gavin defends himself ably, batting the blows aside, but his night vision systems are overloaded once more. Hasal crouches and thumps him in the gut with his pommel. He spins and passes Gavin, hoping that his steps were quiet enough that the blinded warrior will need a moment to realize that Hasal has moved behind him.

Only 7 damage, so the cortosis soaks it all. I activate Ebb to inflict 1 strain, putting me at 6/14 strain. Also activate Stun, for a total of 3 strain to Gavin . Then I use the remaining 6(!) advantage to add 3 setbacks to your next check .

9 minutes ago, syrath said:

The reason I thought of it was because I wondered how suppress would interact, but I suspect suppress would add failure to the combined (but not an opposed) skill check, and since this could cause the skill to fail the whole combined check could tumble down as a result , the only thing is that the check itself might not target the person using suppress, but surely suppress would work against it in some way or in this case is it the same argument for trying to get nobody's fool to work against scathing tirade.

Yeah, it seems like Suppress could hose Ebb pretty hard for the reason you say.

In general, there's an interesting question about whether or not Suppress adds failures to *every* combat check that involves rolling Force dice, since the rules suggest that such a check will count as a "Force power check."

Gavin stumbled blindly forward, groping the top of the observation wall with one hand while holding his lightsaber ready with the other. Then, as he began to see a big light blur instead of a big dark blur, he leapt atop the wall.

"This isn't over," he shouted at the Gran, and then fell backward off the wall.

I'll attempt to concede the fight at this time One maneuver to disengage, one to jump off the observation platform. Using my savior anti-grav chute to take no damage from the fall.

Hasal chased Gavin to the edge of the wall, then skidded to a halt at the edge as the Jensaarai went over.

He shook his head slowly, switching off his saber. "We will meet again, warrior," he said, sure that by now Gavin was too far away to hear his voice. "I hope by then the Force has opened your eyes."

This was a cool little competition. Thanks for suggesting it! Allow me to salute your sportsmanship and your writing skills--and especially your character-building skills. The one-sided dice rolls obscured how tough a matchup this really was for me--and my strain-inflicting build is surely one of the best types of build to take on an armored fighter like Gavin.

My post-game analysis:

Although one fight is a small sample size, especially one fight where the dice never once failed me, this does support my conjecture about the utility of Ebb/Flow's strain abilities in lightsaber combat, at least somewhat. Two hypotheticals to consider here:

(1) How much harder would the fight have been for Hasal if he didn't have Ebb/Flow?

(2) How much harder would it have been for Hasal if Gavin did have Ebb/Flow?

I think the answer to both questions is "Quite a bit harder." Especially in the case of question (2): imagine how the fight might have gone if Gavin had a steady source of extra strain-healing from Flow. He would've been able to maintain that Parry+Cortosis Weave wall for perhaps another turn or two, which might have made all the difference.

Relatedly, that pommel cap was the real MVP of the fight. That steady 2 strain to my enemy per turn was absolutely crucial. The combo with curved handle seems especially potent. And with mods, you can get that thing up to Stun 4! Brutal against any Parry-based fighter.

If I were re-building the character, I'd take it even one step further with a Superior Hilt Personalization, for another free advantage every turn.

1 hour ago, DaverWattra said:

imagine how the fight might have gone if Gavin had a steady source of extra strain-healing from Flow. He would've been able to maintain that Parry+Cortosis Weave wall for perhaps another turn or two, which might have made all the difference.

Relatedly, that pommel cap was the real MVP of the fight. That steady 2 strain to my enemy per turn was absolutely crucial. The combo with curved handle seems especially potent. And with mods, you can get that thing up to Stun 4! Brutal against any Parry-based fighter.

If I were re-building the character, I'd take it even one step further with a Superior Hilt Personalization, for another free advantage every turn.

The Ebb/Flow power definitely played an integral part in Gavin's defeat, especially combined with that blasted Stun quality of yours That racking up of strain proved to be too much for him.

The dice fell where they fell—it's the name of the game, and all—but I think that there were a few things that Gavin didn't have going for him. The Parry talents (and, by extension, most of the Shii-Cho Knight tree) were not entirely necessary, given his high Soak + Cortosis. And that 25-XP Imbue Item talent was a total lame duck in this fight—even had I been able to activate it after that critical injury, it would have rinsed my strain threshold. And thus, Gavin's Force Rating was useless to him.

Hasal's impressive number of ranks in Parry gave him an edge as well, and his Intense Presence basically meant that any time I spent a Destiny Point I was giving him 5 strain back no competition on that end. So as decent a fighter as Gavin was, I'm not sure that the fight would have gone much more differently even had I had more favorable rolls.

In hindsight, I'm thinking the fight might have gone different had I traded the Imbue Item talent for 20 XP into the Sense power for that single defensive upgrade. Matching a Force power with a Force power might have made the fight just a bit more equal...dice pool rolls notwithstanding If I could only make one change to my own character, that would probably be it. (If I were rebuilding, I'd probably rethink his Shii-Cho Knight Specialization altogether!)

The Suppress power was mentioned above—I did consider it when looking at my various builds (like I said, I built over half a dozen PCs!), but in the end I decided that using that power would be exceptionally lame for this fight, considering that we were testing Ebb/Flow, not trying to Suppress it But yes, Suppress would obviously be an adequate answer to Ebb (but not to the Flow part of the power, methinks).

At any rate, it was my pleasure! Lots of fun. Would love to do it again sometime. I've got some characters to choose from...

24 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

The Ebb/Flow power definitely played an integral part in Gavin's defeat, especially combined with that blasted Stun quality of yours That racking up of strain proved to be too much for him.

The dice fell where they fell—it's the name of the game, and all—but I think that there were a few things that Gavin didn't have going for him. The Parry talents (and, by extension, most of the Shii-Cho Knight tree) were not entirely necessary, given his high Soak + Cortosis. And that 25-XP Imbue Item talent was a total lame duck in this fight—even had I been able to activate it after that critical injury, it would have rinsed my strain threshold. And thus, Gavin's Force Rating was useless to him.

Hasal's impressive number of ranks in Parry gave him an edge as well, and his Intense Presence basically meant that any time I spent a Destiny Point I was giving him 5 strain back no competition on that end. So as decent a fighter as Gavin was, I'm not sure that the fight would have gone much more differently even had I had more favorable rolls.

In hindsight, I'm thinking the fight might have gone different had I traded the Imbue Item talent for 20 XP into the Sense power for that single defensive upgrade. Matching a Force power with a Force power might have made the fight just a bit more equal...dice pool rolls notwithstanding If I could only make one change to my own character, that would probably be it. (If I were rebuilding, I'd probably rethink his Shii-Cho Knight Specialization altogether!)

The Suppress power was mentioned above—I did consider it when looking at my various builds (like I said, I built over half a dozen PCs!), but in the end I decided that using that power would be exceptionally lame for this fight, considering that we were testing Ebb/Flow, not trying to Suppress it But yes, Suppress would obviously be an adequate answer to Ebb (but not to the Flow part of the power, methinks).

At any rate, it was my pleasure! Lots of fun. Would love to do it again sometime. I've got some characters to choose from...

I loved this and great fight with beautiful narration from both of you, sorry for adding in my own questions here and there.

One thing I was also unsure of ,but cannot find was the stacking of the setback dice. If I'm remembering correctly you can only select options like adding setback or a boost once. So if you want to pass 2 boost to someone the only way of doing it is to pay 1 adv for giving the next person a boost then spending 2 advantage for giving that specific person a boost. Not sure where Ive read that but if I find it Il let you know, so with 6 advantage ,you could have added melee defense 1 with three, add a setback with two and have one advantage left. It was also mentioned only recover strain could be selected multiple times. Im beginning to think it was in an order66 Q&A session though as I cant find the rule.

I made an account just to say how much fun I had watching this fight! I think it really showcased the variety of dueling styles in this game. Initially I thought the cortosis armor would give a heavy advantage to Gavin, but Hasal's combination of high Parry, strain recovery, and strain damage put him on top. I'd love to see more combats like this.

Great job both of you!

10 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

The dice fell where they fell—it's the name of the game, and all—but I think that there were a few things that Gavin didn't have going for him. The Parry talents (and, by extension, most of the Shii-Cho Knight tree) were not entirely necessary, given his high Soak + Cortosis.

I think you wanted at least 1 rank in Parry to shut out critical hits. At this XP level, it's not that hard to hit for 8+ damage, but it's very hard to hit for 11+ damage and still roll enough advantage/triumph for a crit. But given that you only really needed 1 or 2 ranks for that purpose, I agree that there were other options besides Shii-Cho. Armorer/Protector might have been a strong build. I like Protector at low XP levels because there's a pretty direct path to Dedication and Force Rating, with Stimpack Specialization along with way.

10 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

And that 25-XP Imbue Item talent was a total lame duck in this fight—even had I been able to activate it after that critical injury, it would have rinsed my strain threshold. And thus, Gavin's Force Rating was useless to him.

Yeah, against an enemy who doesn't attack your strain, that talent would've been a beast... but not so much against the Pommel Master

10 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

In hindsight, I'm thinking the fight might have gone different had I traded the Imbue Item talent for 20 XP into the Sense power for that single defensive upgrade.

That would've worked well with your Improved Parry, too... another talent you didn't really get to use. Another possibility, if you dropped some ranks of Parry, would be 45 points in Enhance for some extra Brawn. That would be nasty with your build. Or 20 points in Ebb/Flow...

10 hours ago, syrath said:

One thing I was also unsure of ,but cannot find was the stacking of the setback dice. If I'm remembering correctly you can only select options like adding setback or a boost once. So if you want to pass 2 boost to someone the only way of doing it is to pay 1 adv for giving the next person a boost then spending 2 advantage for giving that specific person a boost. Not sure where Ive read that but if I find it Il let you know, so with 6 advantage ,you could have added melee defense 1 with three, add a setback with two and have one advantage left. It was also mentioned only recover strain could be selected multiple times. Im beginning to think it was in an order66 Q&A session though as I cant find the rule.

Oh crap And here I was feeling proud that we did a good job hewing to the rules. They really need to make it easier for players to actually learn about the rules to this game. So much of it is folklore and obscure developer Q&As. They need a big official errata/FAQ... or a second edition.

10 hours ago, Rostek Horn said:

I'd love to see more combats like this.

I think someone (APW?) mentioned the possibility of a larger character-building and combat tournament on the forum. I can certainly imagine it working well with some organization. Players could perhaps be seeded into brackets based on some easy-to-compute demonstration of character power (how much damage can you do to a generic enemy in 5 rounds, subtracting damage received?).

You know APW, I wouldn't underestimate your chances of winning with the build you had. There were some scary things about Gavin--the cortosis obviously, but also the 4 yellow dice on attack. We only saw one triumph that whole fight, but you had a 30% chance of rolling one with each attack. My Resist Disarm talent eliminated some of the scariest possibilities, but you could still have been hitting with 9+ damage and a crit most turns of the fight with better rolls... and unlike you, a Fearsome Wound would've ruined my whole day.

One last observation: although Disciples of Harmony is a Consular sourcebook, from what we saw in this fight, the Makashi Duelist spec benefited much more from the equipment and Force power options in the book. I'm much more optimistic about Duelist as a strong lightsaber spec than I was before Ebb/Flow and that pommel cap came on the scene.

12 hours ago, Rostek Horn said:

I made an account just to say how much fun I had watching this fight! I think it really showcased the variety of dueling styles in this game. Initially I thought the cortosis armor would give a heavy advantage to Gavin, but Hasal's combination of high Parry, strain recovery, and strain damage put him on top. I'd love to see more combats like this.

Great job both of you!

Welcome to the forums! And thank you.

Seconded--this was incredible to watch, especially since my group hasn't done anything with FaD yet. I doubt FFG will do this, but the official forums for Burning Wheel has a sub-forum called The Arena specifically for threads like this: players make characters and fight it out over PbP to test builds, demonstrate various rules, etc.