The shield gauntlet that lets you use Reflect with it (even though it's a Brawl and not a Lightsaber weapon) inspired me a bit. Say I want to do a Captain America type, in terms of combat and physical prowess. The superhuman athletic feats are obvious - Athletics and Coordination, backed with Enhance, and maybe some Sense.

The one issue I have is that the shield gauntlet only works with Reflect, but not with Parry, as you need a Melee or Lightsaber weapon for the latter, and the gauntlet is neither. And that seems a bit narratively odd to me - you can reflect blaster bolts, but you can't parry a punch someone throws at you? Just how does that work?

Are there any alternatives to the shield gauntlet? It doesn't have to be a shield. Maybe go with a heavily-modded lightsaber with one of the more unusual crystals, and re-flavor it as some kind of stun baton?

Bounty Hunter Martial Artist spec gets Unarmed Parry, which lets you use parry with brawl weapons.

And now I kind of want to play Wonder Woman in Star Wars...

8 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Bounty Hunter Martial Artist spec gets Unarmed Parry, which lets you use parry with brawl weapons.

I'll have to check that out. I vaguely remember some discussion about whether it works with brawl weapons or not. Does it directly say so in the talent description? I might be misremembering.

8 hours ago, RickAllison said:

And now I kind of want to play Wonder Woman in Star Wars...

Oooh, that works, too. You're not gonna reach her god-tier physical abilities, but the concept itself is doable.

Energy Buckler in the Guardian sourcebook springs to mind; it has both defensive and deflection.

Granted, it can run out of power, but until a despair comes up, it's a very nice bit of kit.

In a game I ran, there was a serious bruiser of a character with Heavy Battle Armour, an Energy Buckler and a pike-hilted saber, who's overall visual effect was "jedi hoplite", and who had a faintly ridiculous base defence.

From the same sourcebook, the Sith Shield is a nice physical object - it doesn't have a 'thrown' profile, but it's rather more effective for punching people with, plus it has a nice 'anger supercharge' option.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

In a game I ran, there was a serious bruiser of a character with Heavy Battle Armour, an Energy Buckler and a pike-hilted saber, who's overall visual effect was "jedi hoplite", and who had a faintly ridiculous base defence.

Considering the amount of attention a character so equipped is likely to draw, he'll need every bit of that Defense.

Oh, he does. He's learned to his cost that Star Wars RPGs do not support people 'walking through gunfire' very well.

8 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

I'll have to check that out. I vaguely remember some discussion about whether it works with brawl weapons or not. Does it directly say so in the talent description? I might be misremembering.

As i recall, that limitation is specifically referring to the talent Precision Strike. The one that lets you choose the type of critical injury you inflict on someone if/when you crit. THAT talent, the devs have stated has to be absolutely unarmed. Which I found odd, for things like glove weapons, as they wouldn't impede your hand abilities at all. But *shrugs*.

To the best of my knowledge, that Martial Artist talent about parry does indeed work with brawl weapons, but you might want to double check another source on that one.

It probably was Precision Strike, that sounds right.

Though I've been thinking about just relying on the defense from a different shield type and not using reflect and Parry at all but invest more in Sense.

You could always just equip the shield gauntlet in one hand, and use a cortosis shield (or any other available shield) in the other hand and narrate that he's using only the shield to parry/reflect.

1 hour ago, KungFuFerret said:

As i recall, that limitation is specifically referring to the talent Precision Strike. The one that lets you choose the type of critical injury you inflict on someone if/when you crit. THAT talent, the devs have stated has to be absolutely unarmed. Which I found odd, for things like glove weapons, as they wouldn't impede your hand abilities at all. But *shrugs*.

To the best of my knowledge, that Martial Artist talent about parry does indeed work with brawl weapons, but you might want to double check another source on that one.

According to the book, the basic Precision Strike can be used with Melee/Brawl/Lightsaber weapons, Improved Precision Strike is Melee/Brawl, but the supreme version lists "unarmed."

And there is good reason why the Supreme Precision Strike (and not the others) was restricted. Get a lucky strike on Darth Vader? He is now staggered for the entire encounter. Or you blinded him so now he has one more prosthetic to get. Or you permanently reduce one of his characteristics.

I think those last few parts are really why the Supreme option is so restricted. The Easy and Medium crits are temporary and getting them healed means they effectively never happened. The Hard crits, though, are permanent or utterly debilitating. Enough encounters with an advanced martial artist and any character could eventually be reduced to nothing.

A semi-related question, but do prosthetics that only restore your original functions count toward your cybernetic limit? Because if they do then I'm not sure that Vader would even have enough Brawn to get new eyes. He has four limbs and his lungs replaced at least, so he would need at least 6 Brawn to qualify for a set of new eyes if prosthetics count against the cybernetic limit. Considering that he already has great Agility and Intellect for piloting and mechanics, and he relies on Shien which is Cunning, I am guessing that he is average for Brawn.

50 minutes ago, RickAllison said:

And there is good reason why the Supreme Precision Strike (and not the others) was restricted. Get a lucky strike on Darth Vader? He is now staggered for the entire encounter. Or you blinded him so now he has one more prosthetic to get. Or you permanently reduce one of his characteristics.

I think those last few parts are really why the Supreme option is so restricted. The Easy and Medium crits are temporary and getting them healed means they effectively never happened. The Hard crits, though, are permanent or utterly debilitating. Enough encounters with an advanced martial artist and any character could eventually be reduced to nothing.

A semi-related question, but do prosthetics that only restore your original functions count toward your cybernetic limit? Because if they do then I'm not sure that Vader would even have enough Brawn to get new eyes. He has four limbs and his lungs replaced at least, so he would need at least 6 Brawn to qualify for a set of new eyes if prosthetics count against the cybernetic limit. Considering that he already has great Agility and Intellect for piloting and mechanics, and he relies on Shien which is Cunning, I am guessing that he is average for Brawn.

Does DARTH VADER use shien, or was that just Anakin Skywalker?

I ask, because annie's acrobatic fighting style is significantly different in the prequels than darth vader's more defensive/ominous style.

Kyuzo War shield from forged in battle

2 hours ago, RickAllison said:

A semi-related question, but do prosthetics that only restore your original functions count toward your cybernetic limit? Because if they do then I'm not sure that Vader would even have enough Brawn to get new eyes. He has four limbs and his lungs replaced at least, so he would need at least 6 Brawn to qualify for a set of new eyes if prosthetics count against the cybernetic limit. Considering that he already has great Agility and Intellect for piloting and mechanics, and he relies on Shien which is Cunning, I am guessing that he is average for Brawn.

Reminds me of a question I had, which was as the second arm and first leg don't give you any bonuses, do they count against Cybernetic limit / cost?

I f the answer is yes, I can see some logic, as arm + legs is the only way to increase a characteristic by 2, so it would effectively be (usually) 1 cybernetic/10k for the first +1, and 2 cybernetic/20k for the second +1.

Of course no is also a good answer.

The other Vader trick is that if the limbs give +Brawn that also increases Cybernetic cap (and maybe he has some Cybertech talents!)

There is a ranked talent that increases the number of Cybernetics you can have. Plus there's a Cybernetic that increases the cap. I think from memory a Brawn 7 Human could have 13 Cybernetics installed and functional with others shut down

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

Does DARTH VADER use shien, or was that just Anakin Skywalker?

I ask, because annie's acrobatic fighting style is significantly different in the prequels than darth vader's more defensive/ominous style.

Vader still uses Shien, just a more deliberate and less acrobatic form. You can really see it at the end of Rogue One with his Djem So deflections. Remember that the term "Shien" covers roughly a sixth of lightsaber styles (Juyo, the seventh, is comparatively rare) and so the fifth form can range from the whirling dervish Ahsoka to the stalwart Vader. Both Qui-Gon/early Obi-Wan and Yoda use Ataru, but they use very different expressions of the form as a reflection of the wielder.

On 8/1/2017 at 0:15 AM, Stan Fresh said:

I'll have to check that out. I vaguely remember some discussion about whether it works with brawl weapons or not. Does it directly say so in the talent description? I might be misremembering.

It says "unarmed." IIRC the developer that they had on the O66 podcast (was it Max?) said that he'd probably allow all the unarmed talents in the Martial Artist to work with a species that had natural weapons like the Trandoshan, but I don't remember if he said anything about the Unarmed Parry and actual Brawl weapons.

I should give it another listen.

2 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

It says "unarmed." IIRC the developer that they had on the O66 podcast (was it Max?) said that he'd probably allow all the unarmed talents in the Martial Artist to work with a species that had natural weapons like the Trandoshan, but I don't remember if he said anything about the Unarmed Parry and actual Brawl weapons.

I should give it another listen.

I recall. They said Unarmed Parry would work if the character could reasonably say they had a hand free, so you could even wield it with a melee weapon.

Only Iron Body and Supreme Precision Strike are specifically unarmed.

5 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

I recall. They said Unarmed Parry would work if the character could reasonably say they had a hand free, so you could even wield it with a melee weapon.

Only Iron Body and Supreme Precision Strike are specifically unarmed.

But what if you're wearing Cortosis Gauntlets, for example? Is your hand "free" in that case?

I believe cortosis gauntlets was the specific example that was asked about.

I have a character in one of my games loosely based off Captain America. He is a Consular Niman Disciple/Sage for leadership, wielding a training Saber and an Energy Buckler. I use the move power to throw the shield if needed, and my GM still lets me trigger the concussive quality of the shield if it hits and generates enough advantage.

Warleader would be another great career for a Captain America with a blaster pistol, shield gauntlet, and a Kyuzo war shield. You could cross-spec into martial artist, or maybe better yet, Warden, if you want to go for more of a brawler. But if you want your Captain America to wield a pistol/submachine gun, a Commander spec with Coordinated Assault would be great too.

On 8/1/2017 at 10:12 AM, KungFuFerret said:

As i recall, that limitation is specifically referring to the talent Precision Strike. The one that lets you choose the type of critical injury you inflict on someone if/when you crit. THAT talent, the devs have stated has to be absolutely unarmed. Which I found odd, for things like glove weapons, as they wouldn't impede your hand abilities at all. But *shrugs*.

To the best of my knowledge, that Martial Artist talent about parry does indeed work with brawl weapons, but you might want to double check another source on that one.

supreme precision strike has to be absolutely unarmed

improved precision strike can either be melee or unarmed (which I would rule includes brawl weapons as one or the other)

precision strike can be lightsaber, melee or unarmed (which I would rule includes brawl weapons)

19 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

supreme precision strike has to be absolutely unarmed

improved precision strike can either be melee or unarmed (which I would rule includes brawl weapons as one or the other)

precision strike can be lightsaber, melee or unarmed (which I would rule includes brawl weapons)

No need to call a GM fiat. The Precison Strike & Improved Precision Strike talents specifically allow for a "Brawl Weapon," which of course would include your hands or feet.

But yes you have to be completelty unarmed for Supreme Precision Strike.