Short Version: Have you ever let your PC's use a simple resilience check after combat to regain strain instead of a simple cool/discipline? Is it balanced? Should I let my PCs?

Long Version:

Upsides to allowing:
1. Further utility for resilience. Some might consider it a somewhat limited skill (though this is mostly on the GM to determine how much it comes up).
2. Thematically an argument could probably be made in some instances.
3. Simple to implement.

Downsides/Possible issues:
1. Allows the same skill to mitigate on the front end and heal on the back end. Basically allows them a second attempt to resist that stun damage they sustained from the failure on the first check.
2. You can already choose between two Attribute/Skill choices to heal strain. Adding a third seems too many, as everyone is bound to have 1 of the 3. (Maybe remove cool? leaving 1 mental and 1 physical? ie Allow Discipline and Resilience.)
3. Further de-incentivize “Big/Strong” Character from investing in “Mental” Attributes or skills. Essentially removes one of their downsides.
4. Separately keeping track of strain dealt by physical vs that done by mental would be a huge burden to the GM and/or player so it is not feasible to track for limiting resilience to heal only “physical” strain. Strain would still have to remain a single pool.

Any suggestions you can provide on either A.) how to better describe Strain to my Players to justify keeping RAW, or B) how allowing resilience to heal strain would or would not be balanced.

Much appreciated.

I would, and I think I will, allow it. Cool and Discipline are already some of the more powerful skills in the game. Resilience comes up probably the least. I threw some poisonous creatures at my PCs recently, but that's been about it.

I've actually adopted this as a house rule after playing in a couple of GM Chris' Skype games (spot earned as a backer reward from their GamerNationCon Kickstarters).

Given that Resilience isn't a skill that many folks invest heavily in, it's not super-unbalancing. Might be a bit of an issue if you've got a PC with a high Brawn (4 or more), ranks in Resilience, and the Enhance power with the Resilience Control upgrade and multiple Force dice, but that's a fairly specific combination that's not likely to show up in most games.

I don't see an issue. Lots of skills could use their utility enhanced.

I guess my games are a bit different. We've had a lot of use for Resilience. In addition to the healing of Criticals (which are fairly common), we use it to overcome environmental damage (cold, heat, radiation, extremes of pressure, poisons, pathogens, etc.).*

* Survival may allow you to recognize and avoid such hazards, but once exposed, we use Resilience.

6 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

... we use it to overcome environmental damage (cold, heat, radiation, extremes of pressure, poisons, pathogens, etc.).*

* Survival may allow you to recognize and avoid such hazards, but once exposed, we use Resilience.

Just to clarify when you say "overcome" do you mean the PC's get a resilience roll when exposed to said environmental damage, and if failed they take wounds or strain as appropriate?

4 hours ago, ThreeAM said:

Just to clarify when you say "overcome" do you mean the PC's get a resilience roll when exposed to said environmental damage, and if failed they take wounds or strain as appropriate?

Pretty much. It can go beyond W/S though. Sometimes it inflicts setback or other conditions. I started by patterning environmental conditions like Fear checks, but obviously based upon Resilience rather than Discipline.

Thanks for the input guys! Truthfully, I thought this would be much more controversial . It seems as though adding Resilience wouldn't change all that much.

Follow Up Question
If you allow Resilience, would you then remove Cool? (Allowing only Discipline and Resilience to recover strain), or just leave it.

Only if it doesn't punk someone who has thrown a buncha xp into raising their Cool, otherwise I'd be 'in addition to' personally.

I ran a "Monster Hunter" adventure on Sunday evening that had a ton of fear checks in them. Over the course of a seven day trek the party had to sleep outdoors in the heat and stinging insects. With the big bad ugly skulking around in the forest every day they had to pass a fear check. Also, they could not recover any strain or HP from natural rest because it was a very uncomfortable camping expedition. As a result I allowed the PCs to make one resilience check per day to recover strain with advantage and HP with success. They were also allowed to make one cool check per day to remove a setback die that was generated from fear.

Our pilot, who is a sixteen year old girl was so scared she had 5 setback dice from fear and two setback dice from the environment. The grizzled Mandalorian sat her down and had a good long chat with her. I said he could make a leadership check and every success would give her one bonus die per success. He rolled and got five success! So little Allie rolled 7 black dice, 5 blue dice, two green dice and two purple dice for her cool check to eliminate some fear. She rolled 7 success and 3 advantage which resulted in her losing all 5 fear dice and recovering some strain. The best part, though, was listening to this Mandalorian tell a little girl that everything was going to be alright and that he'd be there to protect her. Very heart warming session.

As long as it's not the brawn monster compensating his low willpower with high brawn, I'd allow it. Most fun I have had recently was when PCs went to jungle planet, and I made them make resilience checks regularly, because of heat and thinner atmosphere. Failed check gives setback to everything, and possibly strain. Groups brawn scores range from 1 to 2, and I have problems challenging them otherwise. So tangentially, resilience and other less used and less invested skill can be effective at least in higher XP games.

On 7/15/2017 at 2:14 AM, HappyDaze said:

I guess my games are a bit different. We've had a lot of use for Resilience. In addition to the healing of Criticals (which are fairly common), we use it to overcome environmental damage (cold, heat, radiation, extremes of pressure, poisons, pathogens, etc.).

I'm the same - we get Resilience, well, not all the time - but enough to make it useful. Slogging across the Dune Sea at noon? Resilience. Ship on fire and the engine room is full of smoke? Resilience. Go for a spacewalk without those little details like a "space suit"? Resilience.

I'd say it's appropriate when the strain suffered is from Resilience-type sources (heat, cold, poison, etc...). Sounds like a good house rule to me!

As an update some may find interesting.

Turns out the player who was making the argument for using resilience is a Gand (3 will, 1 free rank in discipline) with no ranks in Resilience (2 brawn, 0 resilience ranks). At first I was so confused! Why would they argue for something they clearly sucked at when they already had a decent discipline. But after speaking to the group I realized it was the players that were confused about the rules. This is because the Beginner Game has a misprint. After the first battle with the Gamorreans the book indicates players heal back strain equal to their ranks in Presence or Cool whichever is higher (bottom right, page 13). Even though I had read the actual rules (and the errata where this error is corrected), in the heat of the moment I read the Beginner game misprint which resulted in my group's confusion.

After discussion with the group to clarify the actual rules, I am still going to allow Resilience to heal strain, as it makes some thematic sense and so far it doesn't seem to be affecting the game too much.

Thanks all for your input!