I was surfing through older posts discussing ways to make personal-planetary scale engagements meaningful without Breach or grotesque weapons, and one suggestion was that critical hits could be allowed with a Triumph. I rather like that idea, but I don't want the criticals that result to be powerful by themselves. I am thinking of two solutions:

The first was that Vicious and Lethal Blows do not apply, and neither does the automatic crippling from disruptor weapons. This sounded good until so realized that it doesn't do anything in general, but crushes certain builds. I still think this would be nice for personal scale (the Droid Marauder can be scratched by weapons, but the assassin can't just instagib him), but becomes silly when applied to vehicles.

The second was more crunchy, but I think is better overall. When using a Triumph to make a critical hit through Soak/Armor, the target gains ranks in Durable equal to its silhouette and gains both the Unstoppable talent and Durable ranks equal to its rating if it possesses Massive. A Praetor then is only going to receive a critical hit from small fry if it has already been hit with three critical hits and rolls 92+. Given 5 proficiency dice and the three hits, that means a 3% chance to do something if they are in range to do it. But this would still leave ships vulnerable to Assassin builds.

So I might just combine the two with the houserule about allowing Triumph critical hits. I would love to get some feedback on this from those with more experience.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but Triumphs can always be used to trigger Criticals. No house rules needed.

EotE CRB pg.13, 1st paragraph.

"Secondly, each Triumph symbol can be used to trigger incredibly potent effects. Two common uses are to use a Triumph to automatically trigger a critical injury with a successful attack, or to activate a weapon's special quality..."

I think he wants to invent the whole system new by allowing Crits ONLY with a triumph, while giving some strange mathematics that everyone gets an extra durable...

my advise: WHY??? Are you to affraid of crits? They can pull up a total new way to narrate the story. And there are already pleanty of ways to migiate the out come:

1. if you are afraid of Critbuilds of your SCs, then give your Advaserys Durable on decent rank, or use the armor master (three strain to reduce the crit roll by soak x 10)

2. Only a hit that overcomes Soak may crit. so if your SCs you "weaker" but "high pierce" weapons just increase the Soak and/ or add cortosis weave to the armors. (Just remember if a player can get to 12 Soak a NSC can do so also and if needed even top it)

3. minions, minions, minions... if a minion squad is hit by a crit always only one member of it die instantly regardless of vicious, or extra triumphs/ advantages put into it. And to save your BBGs give them a squad, that way when ever he is hit instead of him getting hit, you may decided that one squad member dies (regardless of crits or total damage) or give them the Empereal Valor talent, (basicly the squad rule as an extra maneuver)

4. If you are afraid to one-hit your SCs with crit advaserys... don't use the advantages and triumphs to crit every time on them, but find more fun ways to use them, like terraforming the enviorment due to the impact and so on.

5. if it is really just because YOU don't like the crit ratings and mechanics then first of: talk to your Players, what do they think, are they unhappy with "too easy" or "too high" crits? Then you may change it to that only triumphs crit. But if it is just you, then you may should just roll with it as any change could ruin the whole fun for you SCs.

as you yourself already stated there a skill trees that preffer the "High-crit" over the "High-Raw-Damage" so why would you want to take those out of commision by making them less worth than the Nikto Marauder with an damage on his bare claws of 10?
or will that than be the next trouble like "there is so much damage how may I reduce it, so my players won't kill every BBg with 2 hits?" (we have pleanty of those complains seen on the board)

This system works with the narrativ, battle is meant to be fast and can be over rather soon especially in the beginning of the game, while the players have 2-4 Soak and 12- 16 Wounds.

therefore they only die on a crit roll of 140+ (at 140 theire time runs out and on 150 it is instand over) as long as you dont use vicious 5+ weapons against them all the time there should be no really danger to quick by getting 1-3 critticals. and when the players use those weapons to get rid of rivals rather quick, your Nemesis can have enougth decent counter measures to extend the battle even if hit and whenever your players do a "headshoot" and finish the battle more quickly than you expected just roll with it be happy for them and the probably good story they'll tell about the time they send of that hillarious Nemesis fly with one/ two shoots.

I'm confused by the topic. Are we talking about allowing crits on vehicles with personal scale weapons and that Triumphs would cause one regardless of Armor or what are we talking about? As pointed out a Triumph is already a crit regardless of personal or planetary scale, the only stipulation(s) being that Armor/Soak have to be exceeded and damage caused.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. It isn't about disallowing normal crits (those stay the same), but allowing Triumph criticals when you don't break the Soak/Armor. So the line of Rebels in the trench have a reason to be shooting at the approaching AT-ATs, even if they are unlikely to do much at all.

I'm not sure I'd allow a crit on a single triumph. They're not that rare if you get somebody with two or three skill ranks or a large minion group. You multiply that by a field of 50 soldiers (10 minion groups of 5) You'll start getting a lot of triumphs. Those walkers were nearly unstoppable, an army of footsoldiers shouldn't normally be able to take them down. It WAS futile. Possibly something extreme like a double crit.

57 minutes ago, RickAllison said:

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. It isn't about disallowing normal crits (those stay the same), but allowing Triumph criticals when you don't break the Soak/Armor. So the line of Rebels in the trench have a reason to be shooting at the approaching AT-ATs, even if they are unlikely to do much at all.

Yah, there's no way I'd allow that. That's way too many crits potentially. They would pile up crits on a target fast.

I do allow PCs to target things on the outside of vehicles, so in the case of AT-ATs, they can try and hit weapon turrets to try and damage them. That's still a fairly arduous process to even take out one weapon moving through the item damage rules, but it does provide a reason to engage targets with personal weapons.

2 hours ago, RickAllison said:

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. It isn't about disallowing normal crits (those stay the same), but allowing Triumph criticals when you don't break the Soak/Armor. So the line of Rebels in the trench have a reason to be shooting at the approaching AT-ATs, even if they are unlikely to do much at all.

I wouldn't do this either. A triumph can do other things to impede their progress though. Upgrade difficulties when shots dazzle the crew hitting the window. Grant bonuses to heavy weapon crews or allied vehicles. Start a landslide to block an approach. Not direct damage, but hindering.

And the Rebels at Hoth were there to buy time. The ones in the trenches were not expecting to do much damage to the walkers. They were there to attack light vehicles and dismounted troops. And to delay the assault for the transports to escape. Dying buys time.