Except that is exactly not what the book says. I'm not debating this, RAW, Wounds are physical damage in this game.

Without medical intervention they are not easily recovered. Whether it's medicine, stimpacks, or bacta tanks. Simple recovery is 1 Wound per each night of rest, that does not represent simple exhaustion and the recovery from it.

22 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I don't agree with that at all, suffering Wounds is suffering physical hits. The RAW support this.

AoR p. 229

20 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Except that it isnt really. As it is temporary "damage" that a stimulant "heals". It does not behave like real damage. It behaves more like physical fatigue.

It's still getting physically hit. The difference is that they're only "flesh wounds" , not serious ones. But even flesh wounds can add up to serious damage if you take enough of them.

Yeah, I think my Truck Chase example stands up to RAW. Indy getting knocked about = wounds. Indy getting shot in the arm = Crit.

I dont consider a stim pack medical attention really. And wounds recover with time easily. Crits require some kind of check to recover.

On the setback issue. The only time there should not be a setback is if you are doing something in optimal situation. That should be kinda rare. Lighting bad? Setback, slippery? Setback. The GM should be considering how is this not an optimal situation?

This is what makes those specializations better. They can ignore the bad situation.

The "Raiders" truck chase is an excellent example of how damage works in this system.

Are stimpacks traditionally Star Wars? Eh, no, but I don't mind them as this is a game and can't ever be a 1 to 1 analogue of the movies. Something's gotta give. If they bug you, simply reflavor them as a "Shake Off" maneuver with the same mechanical effect. The 25cr cost won't have a long term effect if you drop stimpacks as a physical item.

Stimpacks vs. Medicine checks always seemed balanced to me, especially after gnarly combats. My players may use two stimpacks (5 & 4 wounds recovered) and by the end, the doctor will easily heal more wounds than 3. And if they just jab all of their last three to get six back, they're in for a rude awakening the next time any combat comes up.

As for Setback dice and related talents, this is definitely part of the GM learning curve. It took me a while to get comfortable with using Setbacks liberally. Because of that, my players avoided the talents. But once I learned to balance the use of Difficulty vs Setback, they instantly bought them and now revel in how easily they toss those black dice back at me.

A simple trick that may help your GM: Every time they set a difficulty, remove one purple and add two blacks. Then, narratively justify why those blacks are there. Doing this made those player talents worthwhile and forced me to create more creative scenarios.

Example: Slicing a security terminal to get a map of the facility. Seems pretty hard. So... Hard difficulty. But... it's just finding a map; that's pretty average, actually. Ah, but it's Average with two Setbacks. Well, you're short on time and the siren you set off outside is distracting. Oh, right, you have two ranks of Bypass Security. Hand those dice back, you mega-hero you.