hello everybody, hope you can help me. Recently acquired force and destiny corebook. I noticed Reflect talent: you suffer 3 strain to reduce damage 2 + ranks in talent. Is that not a little bit underpowered? Is there any other way to improve this (didn't read yet force powers so I don't know if there's one that can affect this?)

Reflect is a ranked talent. One rank is not terribly impressive, but highly experienced characters with Reflect 4+ can often take much of the sting out of ranged weapons, and Reflect (Supreme) reduces the cost to 1 Strain per use.

remember that this is often on top of soak, so if you have 4 soak , that's 7 damage (a heavy blaster shots base dmg) , with 4 ranks that's 10 dmg. Some characters can get 11 soak easily,(Armorer/protector) who can buy one more spec (soresu and get 4 ranks parry an reflect) or you can get 8 ranks parry in Soresu - Shicho etc.

Basically what they said. Yeah, with only one rank in it, it's not super awesome, but it's a ranked talent, which means it becomes way more effective after you've invested XP in a tree with several ranks of it.

Still, even at it's base level, being able to pay 3 strain to essentially have +3 soak (for all intents and purposes) is pretty sweet. You can easily recover strain with various rolls, using Advantage, so it's better to take the strain than the wounds. And it becomes more effective, and efficient as you rank it up.

I can assure you, as someone with probably more than a year of actual play experience using this Talent, it is not underpowered.

My Soresu has 3 ranks, Plus Improved Reflect. And has been at that level pretty much since beginning of play (we started at Knight Level, plus ~100 more xp). And she is the only member of our group who has never been knocked unconscious by blaster fire and that is 100% due to Reflect (and Force Sense upgrades).

You do not buy the Talent, and Boom!, you're suddenly Qui Gon and Obi Wan, wading through blaster fire never taking a scratch. You are (probably) not a Jedi, or even a Padawan. It is a build up. And you need to be able to upgrade your enemies Difficulty before the magic really starts, but it works. Damage still gets through, but it makes it manageable. And it definitely puts you head and shoulders above characters that do not have the capability.

Like many of the Ranked talents in this game, simply having one instance of that talent isn't going to be all that great.

Also, Parry and Reflect are both written with the system's design conceit that combat in this game is meant to be dangerous, such that there should never be a point where a PC feels well and truly invincible and impervious to harm. Many of the builds that have base soak values of 8 or higher in addition to wound thresholds in the 20s can be severely hampered by a critical injury, since all an attack needs is to just get a single point of damage through the target's soak and enough advantage (or a Triumph) to trigger the crit. So in that respect, while Parry and Reflect will extend your character's ability to weather combat, usually by two to four rounds, those talents were never meant to make a PC immune to damage.

Against weapons other than things with Breach or multiple ranks of Pierce, even one rank of Parry or Reflect can extend a character's ability to make it to the end of the combat quite dramatically, since it's a +3 bonus to your existing soak value, which against most weapons in the Ranged (Light) category is going to substantially curtail the damage you suffer from an attack.

Lastly, something to keep in mind is that the PCs in F&D were never meant to fully replicate what we see the Jedi Knights of film accomplish. So unless a PC has invested heavily in Parry and Reflect, they're not going to be able to stop all the damage from an attack

5 hours ago, emsquared said:

You do not buy the Talent, and Boom!, you're suddenly Qui Gon and Obi Wan, wading through blaster fire never taking a scratch. You are (probably) not a Jedi, or even a Padawan. It is a build up. And you need to be able to upgrade your enemies Difficulty before the magic really starts, but it works. Damage still gets through, but it makes it manageable. And it definitely puts you head and shoulders above characters that do not have the capability.

Fully agree.

I'm playing a Shien Expert, and between a rank in Side Step and Sense (duration+strength upgrade), being able to make use of Improved Reflect has proven quite effective in fights. I might take a few wounds from the heavier weapons like blaster carbines/rifles, but if Improved Reflect happens to proc, that tends to be very bad news for any minion groups we've faced. And I suspect it'll just get worse for the bad guys once I managed to purchase Djem So Deflection, making it even easier to close with my character's attackers if they successfully attack him.

Am playing a Protector/ soresu defender/ Armorer , currently have 4 ranks of Parry and 2 ranks of Reflect, with my soak of 6 gives me 12 damage reduction in melee or 10 at ranged. Most of the time its strain i run out of due to my ability to roll lots of threat or break even on advantage and threat, much to the amusement of my gm and fellow gamers. That said its stopped me being crit numerous times. Crits are bad, but some of those can't spend strain crits really hurt ?

6 hours ago, Aluthin77 said:

Am playing a Protector/ soresu defender/ Armorer , currently have 4 ranks of Parry and 2 ranks of Reflect, with my soak of 6 gives me 12 damage reduction in melee or 10 at ranged. Most of the time its strain i run out of due to my ability to roll lots of threat or break even on advantage and threat, much to the amusement of my gm and fellow gamers. That said its stopped me being crit numerous times. Crits are bad, but some of those can't spend strain crits really hurt ?

That (along with the potential threat that your shot might get bounced back into your face) is one reason why smart/cautious enemies will use stun setting when firing at lightsaber wielders.

I see, I have to rethink about this talent because the examples given obviously estate that my lack of faith in the talent was disturbing. Thank you all for your accurate answers!

10 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

That (along with the potential threat that your shot might get bounced back into your face) is one reason why smart/cautious enemies will use stun setting when firing at lightsaber wielders.

Stun can be Reflected.

I think I myself opined that it couldn't be, probably a year or more ago, and was met with a.) canon examples of Ashoka doing so in Clone Wars AND (more importantly) b.) the fact that there is absolutely nothing in the books that says it can't be.

10 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

That (along with the potential threat that your shot might get bounced back into your face) is one reason why smart/cautious enemies will use stun setting when firing at lightsaber wielders.

A smart/cautious person would use Stun on anybody, not just lightsaber people. Pretty much any "special trick" that all of the talents trees provide, use Strain as fuel. So you've got a pretty good bet, that no matter the target you are going up against, they are likely to have:

1. Low strain due to fueling talents.

2. Low strain due to being a tanky/meatshield type, and not investing much into Willpower (A not uncommon tendency for damage dealing character types, meaning a low threshold)

3. This isn't really a point FOR using strain weapons against Jedi, more an observation about why it might not be as good a plan, barring point number 1 above isn't in play.
Many Jedi types probably do have a decent Willpower, as that governs Discipline, which is the single most important skill pool when utilizing Force powers. (So they've probably made a point to make it at least a decent Willpower score, if not their max), So in truth, it might be better to stick to the most damaging type of attack you can with Jedi, if only at first, to drain their Strain, and THEN stun them. I base this on every "force user/jedi" type character I've made, has always had a higher strain threshold than Wound. So for that type character, it's actually the harder target to breach.

But non-Jedi types, your Bounty Hunters and Hired Guns and stuff, have very little need for a high Willpower, at least as far as skills relevant to their job are concerned. So it's probably their dump stat, or a close second to Intelligence as far as dumping goes. For THOSE type characters, yeah, Strain is probably ideal, if only because of the low threshold for it. Granted, a lot of those trees give them ranks in +Strain, but even with that, it's still probably going to be much lower than their Wound.

On 8/1/2017 at 7:46 AM, emsquared said:

Stun can be Reflected.

I think I myself opined that it couldn't be, probably a year or more ago, and was met with a.) canon examples of Ashoka doing so in Clone Wars AND (more importantly) b.) the fact that there is absolutely nothing in the books that says it can't be.

It certainly can be, but multiple canon sources would suggest that it's not eligible for Improved Reflect (aka redirecting). It just sorta "evaporates" into the air.

On 8/1/2017 at 10:46 AM, emsquared said:

Stun can be Reflected.

I think I myself opined that it couldn't be, probably a year or more ago, and was met with a.) canon examples of Ashoka doing so in Clone Wars AND (more importantly) b.) the fact that there is absolutely nothing in the books that says it can't be.

I think his point is less that it can or can't be Reflected, but more that using weapons set for stun inflicts strain damage, thus metagaming one's way to victory by forcing the person with Reflect to suffer strain damage on top of that incurred by using Reflect in the first place. To say nothing of it generally being much more difficult to recover lost strain than it is to recover lost wounds.

It's the sort of cheesy tactic that a GM more concerned with "winning" by defeating the players in combat encounters would employ, especially if used all the time by all the opponents that the PCs face. Especially if the GM equips their bad guys with weapons that deal stun damage from medium range or further, and then try to justify it by saying that it's "common anti-Jedi tactics" to use stun blasters or stun grenades or the like.

Yeah, you know all those soldiers from every Star Wars movie, book, and TV episode, ever. They always fire stun bolts at the Jedi.

I can't think of one instance where anyone uses a lethal blaster bolt against a Jedi with a lightsaber. Stun is the standard.

/sarcasm

23 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I think his point is less that it can or can't be Reflected, but more that using weapons set for stun inflicts strain damage, thus metagaming one's way to victory by forcing the person with Reflect to suffer strain damage on top of that incurred by using Reflect in the first place. To say nothing of it generally being much more difficult to recover lost strain than it is to recover lost wounds.

It's the sort of cheesy tactic that a GM more concerned with "winning" by defeating the players in combat encounters would employ, especially if used all the time by all the opponents that the PCs face. Especially if the GM equips their bad guys with weapons that deal stun damage from medium range or further, and then try to justify it by saying that it's "common anti-Jedi tactics" to use stun blasters or stun grenades or the like.

Yea, I actually got that thrust of his point after my second reading through of his post. Of course I had already rushed to respond by then >.<

6 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I think his point is less that it can or can't be Reflected, but more that using weapons set for stun inflicts strain damage, thus metagaming one's way to victory by forcing the person with Reflect to suffer strain damage on top of that incurred by using Reflect in the first place. To say nothing of it generally being much more difficult to recover lost strain than it is to recover lost wounds.

It's the sort of cheesy tactic that a GM more concerned with "winning" by defeating the players in combat encounters would employ, especially if used all the time by all the opponents that the PCs face. Especially if the GM equips their bad guys with weapons that deal stun damage from medium range or further, and then try to justify it by saying that it's "common anti-Jedi tactics" to use stun blasters or stun grenades or the like.

It's not really all that hard to recover Strain, particularly if you get the right Talents. Even without the right Talents, it's still easy to recover Strain through spending Advantages. This gives the guy laden with Strain the option of spending his Advantages to recover instead of spending them on critical hits, Linked, and other offensive uses. Some would consider this metagame, but this game is narrative and understanding the mechanics as they play out in the world can be helpful. In short, if you don't agree with this thinking, don't hate the player--hate the game.

Reflect also benefits from having an raised brawn indirectly; someone who is well conditioned physically might be able to take shots from multiple groups for a long time; as apposed to a brawn 1 character who's reflect would likely make up the lion's share of the soak and would crumple under serious fire otherwise. Having good physical conditioning goes a long way to providing a steady damage reduction.

E.g. reflect isn't an excuse to dump your brawn.

The main disadvantage with stun is that it requires the attacker to be in close range; so lord help them if they mess up. Though there are outliers to that rule.

We generally don't use a lot of stun weapons because we want to deal with the consquences of moral conflicts. Having an way to always knock someone out would remove the gravity of the situation.

47 minutes ago, LordBritish said:

We generally don't use a lot of stun weapons because we want to deal with the consquences of moral conflicts. Having an way to always knock someone out would remove the gravity of the situation.

You could put the moral conflict somewhere else. Congrats, you stunned the slavers, but what now, do you just let them lie there defenseless in the middle of the street? That sort of thing.

21 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

It's not really all that hard to recover Strain, particularly if you get the right Talents. Even without the right Talents, it's still easy to recover Strain through spending Advantages. This gives the guy laden with Strain the option of spending his Advantages to recover instead of spending them on critical hits, Linked, and other offensive uses. Some would consider this metagame, but this game is narrative and understanding the mechanics as they play out in the world can be helpful. In short, if you don't agree with this thinking, don't hate the player--hate the game.

So guessing you disallow stimpacks in your games then? Since using a stimpack to recover wounds is much faster and more efficient than rolling Cool/Discipline or relying on talents, some of which can require a considerable investment of XP to be truly valuable, it would stand to reason that recovering from wounds suffered is a far simpler task than recovering an equal amount of strain.

A PC that's at 9 wounds with a wound threshold of 15 can pop a stimpack to drop down to 4 wounds, and then either pop a second stimpack to recover the rest or be treated by an Easy difficulty Medicine check. And better yet, the stimpack can be done in the midst of battle.

Strain recover on other hand is either 1) an after-combat event that isn't always assured; no chance to catch your breath, no chance to recoup strain, 2) can only be done once per encounter (Second Wind), or 3) requires spending a Destiny Point which may not always be there and even then only recovers a few points (on average 3, maybe 4 if the PC has focused in that characteristic, 5 if they've really specialized in said characteristic). To say nothing of the skill check at the lower levels probably not getting you back more than 2 or 3 points of strain at best.

Seems pretty **** inefficient in comparison to popping a 25 credit item that has zero encumbrance that recovers far more wounds with no investment in XP or skill checks to utilize. At most using a stimpack costs two maneuvers, and that's if you're one of the GMs that rules drawing and using a stimpack count as two separate maneuvers as opposed to the general rule of a single maneuver to draw and use a stimpack.

On 8/2/2017 at 4:04 PM, awayputurwpn said:

Yeah, you know all those soldiers from every Star Wars movie, book, and TV episode, ever. They always fire stun bolts at the Jedi.

I can't think of one instance where anyone uses a lethal blaster bolt against a Jedi with a lightsaber. Stun is the standard.

/sarcasm

Yeah, you'd think that if stun weapons were super-effective against Jedi, then everybody would be using them in the various media.

That they don't puts it right back into "a GM who has his adversaries constantly using but strain-inflicting attacks vs. PCs with Parry/Reflect has grossly failed the D.B.A.D. guideline."

29 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

That they don't puts it right back into "a GM who has his adversaries constantly using but strain-inflicting attacks vs. PCs with Parry/Reflect has grossly failed the D.B.A.D. guideline."

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

...has grossly failed the D.B.A.D. guideline.

This from the guy that constantly fails to adhere to the Don't Be A Donovan guideline.

Oh you two. Kiss already.

On 2017-07-31 at 11:07 PM, HappyDaze said:

That (along with the potential threat that your shot might get bounced back into your face) is one reason why smart/cautious enemies will use stun setting when firing at lightsaber wielders.

It's worth watching the last arc of Clone Wars season 5, Ahsoka does plenty of Stun reflecting during one key (and awesome) chase.

Back to the OP, I agree with most that Reflect is definitely not underpowered, and seems to scale really well. As the PC progresses their skill level will increase, which means the dice pool should start to provide a larger pool of Advantages with which to recover Strain.