In the other night's game my jedi character was fired upon while not having her lightsaber drawn, and was hit. But since the shooter rolled two threats it opened up the possibility for me to " immediately perform one free maneuver in response to the active character's check" so I asked the GM if that would let me use reflect to reduce the damage, and after a moment's thought he decided to go with it for this time, but we'd look it up later. It ended up being a cool move and my character was in a little better shape at the end of the fight but mattering very little in the scope of things, as she would have been have been below her threshold either way.

So, session over, I hit the books and page 211 of FaD informs us that you do indeed resolve threats (Step 4) before reducing damage (Step 5), and the word "immediately" certainly suggests that this maneuver is resolved before calculating damage. You could of course also argue that "in response" would mean "after the original action has been fully resolved", but that does seem a little bit forced. Turns out, that would be a moot point, since page 150 informs us that Reflect reduces damage at Step 3, before resolving threats (which turns out has quite an effect on how we've handled reflecting multiple hits, but I digress).

So, per RAW it wouldn't work. (Or would it?*)

But it got me thinking, is there any other maneuver you could do to affect an already rolled attack? My first thought was things like diving for cover or using things like Sidestep, but as they affect the dice pool and the dice have already been rolled they wouldn't affect the damage taken either way. Is there anything I'm missing here? Is there some kind of talent/maneuver that can increase your soak score that would be a worthwhile use of two threats?

Oh, and do you agree with the RAW or would you go with judgement call my GM made?

....

*You know what? This bugs me. Reflect is resolved immediately after Step 3, so logically that would mean between Step 3 and 4. Fine. You knock the damage down for the base attack, meaning that if the attacker decides to activate Linked, Blast or even Autofire, all hits, regardless of target, get their damage reduced if the original target used Reflect to reduce damage. It also means, that if someone is hit by auto-fire or blast when they were not the original target, they may not reflect per RAW, as Reflect is resolved after Step 3, but auto-fire and blast are resolved first at Step 4. Reflect also explicitly the states that it can only be used once per hit , despite earlier text suggesting that it would reduce damage across all hits resulting from a single attack. I am starting to suspect a typo here since the text states "after damage is calculated (but before soak is applied, so immediately after step 3" and damage is calculated at step 5. Resolving Reflect between step 4 and 5 instead of between 3 and 4 would make all this weirdness suddenly make sense.

It would however introduce the issue that if a successful hit scores enough damage to allow a crit, and reflect then kicks in to reduce the damage (with or without soak) to zero, advantages can't be spent to cause a crit, but honestly that seems like a lesser headache to deal with, as you are already supposed to know if you beat the targets soak score at Step 4 when spending advantage, despite strictly speaking not calculating it until Step 5.
I'm going to have send this one on to the Devs as well I think.

Got a partial reply from Sam Stewart:

Quote

Hello Joel,

Normally, the “free maneuver” still takes a maneuver’s worth of time (it is not “performed as an incidental” which would allow it to happen during the action). Your GM is more than welcome to allow you to pull out your lightsaber and reflect the attack because of the Threat the attack generated, but that falls under GM license, not something doable within the rules.

Hope that helps!

Sam Stewart

RPG Manager

Fantasy Flight Games

The information contained in this electronic message is privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient named above. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.

On Nov 13, 2017, at 3:06 PM, [email protected] wrote:

Rules Question:
In the other night's game my jedi character was fired upon while not having her lightsaber drawn, and was hit. But since the shooter rolled two threats it opened up the possibility for me to "immediately perform one free maneuver in response to the active character's check" so I asked the GM if that would let me use reflect to reduce the damage, and after a moment's thought he decided to go with it for this time, but we'd look it up later. So, session over, I hit the books and page 211 of FaD informs us that you do indeed resolve threats (Step 4) before reducing damage (Step 5), and the word "immediately" certainly suggests that this maneuver is resolved before calculating damage. You could of course also argue that "in response" would mean "after the original action has been fully resolved", but that does seem a little bit forced. Turns out, that would be a moot point, since page 150 informs us that Reflect reduces damage at Step 3, before resolving threats. So, per RAW it wouldn't work. Or would it? Reflect is resolved immediately after Step 3, so logically that would mean between Step 3 and 4. Fine. You knock the damage down for the base attack, meaning that if the attacker decides to activate Linked, Blast or even Auto-fire, all hits, regardless of target, get their damage reduced if the original target used Reflect to reduce damage. It also means, that if someone is hit by auto-fire or blast when they were not the original target, they may not reflect per RAW, as Reflect is resolved after Step 3, but auto-fire and blast are resolved first at Step 4. Reflect also explicitly the states that it can only be used once per hit, despite earlier text suggesting that it would reduce damage across all hits resulting from a single attack. I am starting to suspect a typo here since the text states "after damage is calculated (but before soak is applied, so immediately after step 3" and damage is calculated at step 5. Resolving Reflect between step 4 and 5 instead of between 3 and 4 would make all this weirdness suddenly make sense. It would however introduce the issue that if a successful hit scores enough damage to allow a crit, and reflect then kicks in to reduce the damage (with or without soak) to zero, advantages can't be spent to cause a crit, but honestly that seems like a lesser headache to deal with, as you are already supposed to know if you beat the targets soak score at Step 4 when spending advantage, despite strictly speaking not calculating it until Step 5. When should you resolve Reflect, and would spending threat to take free maneuver in order to draw your lightsaber qualify you to use it? And which would be the correct way to handle muliple hits from from Linked, Auto-fire or Blast with Linked? Reducing damage (and taking strain) once per hit or just once per attack, which would then apply to all hits from that attack?

This of course begs the question what happens when you have quick draw and do perform a maneuver as an incidental. Would the fact that you are allowed to use a maneuver out of turn in fact let your perform an incidental as an out of turn incidental?

Quick Draw, page 149: " Once per round on the character’s turn "

Nope. It appears not.

The Out of Turn Maneuver - You may use any kind of maneuver without the use of incidentials - So Draw/ put away something, Move, go prone, stand up, activate any device (computer/ door ect.), denfesive maneuver, Aim, Talents like sidestep, defensive stance, sometimes Force powers like Forcejump (if upgraded to the "maneuver Controll") or thnaks to special talents that allow the use of an action as an maneuver (mostly once per session!) - you may not use any incidentials that have to be used on your turn during an out of turn maneuver.

Out of Turn Incidential - Those are Talents that allow you to react during the enemys turns. Reflect, Parry, Mind over Matter ect. - Those are no Maneuvers and they don't need the 2 threats of an Enemy action to be activated.

Reflect and Parry: Those can be activate in response to any hit. If you are targeted by a Linked or autofire attack you'll need7 are allowed to activate parry/ reflect on each of that HITS but not more than ONE time per HIT!

Here an example how it works:

you are attacked by an Heavy Blaster Rifle with one sucess and sic advantages, The damage will be 11 and all advantages are use to hit you again (total hits 4), let say you have a Soak of 5 and Reflect Rank to.

First hit 11 Damage - use reflect? yes! rank 2 (reduction of 4) = 7 damage - 5 Soak = 2 wounds (you paid 3 Strain!)
second hit 11 Damage - use reflect again? yes! rank 2 = 7 damage - 5 Soak = 2 wounds (you paid 3 Strain again!)
third hit 11 Damage - use reflect again? NO! 11 damage - 5 Soak = 6 wounds
fourth hit 11 damage - use reflect? yes that hurted! rank 2 = 7 damage - 5 Soak = 2 wounds (you paid 3 Strain again!)

now the attack is resolved - you suffered a total of 12 Wounds and you suffered voluntary 9 Strain to activate reflect. (without reflect it would have been 24 Damage... a real life saver ^^).

You could NOT activate reflect more than once per hit so
NOT LIKE THIS: First hit 11 Damage - use reflect? yes! rank 2 (reduction of 4) = 7 damage - reflect again = 3 damage - 5 soak = 0 wounds (you paid 6 Strain!)...

12 hours ago, penpenpen said:

In the other night's game my jedi character was fired upon while not having her lightsaber drawn, and was hit. But since the shooter rolled two threats it opened up the possibility for me to " immediately perform one free maneuver in response to the active character's check" so I asked the GM if that would let me use reflect to reduce the damage, and after a moment's thought he decided to go with it for this time, but we'd look it up later.

In your Example, you would have been able to use reflect ether way (as long as you had the Lightsaber activated in the first place) since it is an out of turn incidental (if you have any ranks in it)

so you would have been able to do something else additonal.

If you hadn't the LS out yet, than it is nice of your GM to allow you to use the out of turn maneuver to draw it before damage resolving so you could use reflect as an out of turn incidental.

I'm at work at the moment, and don't have my books with me. But as a GM, I would have certainly allowed you to do what your GM did. To be honest, I don't delve into the rule mechanics in such granular detail - I'm much more a "Sounds cool. Do it" kind of GM. This scenario seems like a perfect time to showcase the Jedi "Sees things before they happen" idea - your character sensed the danger a fraction of a second before being hit. I might even have ruled it that in this particular example, the split-second foresight afforded by the Force allowed you to duck and roll, or dive behind cover, or simply dodge - the mechanical effect was still the same as Reflect, but the fluff would be more in line with what we often see in the movies or series'.

1 hour ago, Daronil said:

I'm at work at the moment, and don't have my books with me. But as a GM, I would have certainly allowed you to do what your GM did. To be honest, I don't delve into the rule mechanics in such granular detail - I'm much more a "Sounds cool. Do it" kind of GM. This scenario seems like a perfect time to showcase the Jedi "Sees things before they happen" idea - your character sensed the danger a fraction of a second before being hit. I might even have ruled it that in this particular example, the split-second foresight afforded by the Force allowed you to duck and roll, or dive behind cover, or simply dodge - the mechanical effect was still the same as Reflect, but the fluff would be more in line with what we often see in the movies or series'.

It's pretty much how we usually handle things. The rules delving is something I end up doing post-game, since I do some freelance work in RPG rules design and I have a history with tabletop war games. I guess I have developed a habit of reading things through thoroughly to make sense of things before delving into a discussion. You don't have to spend a lot of time in the wargaming community to loose faith in people's common sense regarding inconsistencies and loopholes in the rules.

I really don't have a problem with my GM ruling either way, but I find rules mechanics interesting, hence digging around in them that thoroughly. In the middle of a session though, I couldn't care less.

14 hours ago, Nightone said:

Reflect and Parry: Those can be activate in response to any hit. If you are targeted by a Linked or autofire attack you'll need7 are allowed to activate parry/ reflect on each of that HITS but not more than ONE time per HIT!

Here an example how it works:

you are attacked by an Heavy Blaster Rifle with one sucess and sic advantages, The damage will be 11 and all advantages are use to hit you again (total hits 4), let say you have a Soak of 5 and Reflect Rank to.

First hit 11 Damage - use reflect? yes! rank 2 (reduction of 4) = 7 damage - 5 Soak = 2 wounds (you paid 3 Strain!)
second hit 11 Damage - use reflect again? yes! rank 2 = 7 damage - 5 Soak = 2 wounds (you paid 3 Strain again!)
third hit 11 Damage - use reflect again? NO! 11 damage - 5 Soak = 6 wounds
fourth hit 11 damage - use reflect? yes that hurted! rank 2 = 7 damage - 5 Soak = 2 wounds (you paid 3 Strain again!)

now the attack is resolved - you suffered a total of 12 Wounds and you suffered voluntary 9 Strain to activate reflect. (without reflect it would have been 24 Damage... a real life saver ^^).

You could NOT activate reflect more than once per hit so
NOT LIKE THIS: First hit 11 Damage - use reflect? yes! rank 2 (reduction of 4) = 7 damage - reflect again = 3 damage - 5 soak = 0 wounds (you paid 6 Strain!)...

Pretty much how we've done before, and most likely will keep on doing it. Funnily enough, if you go strictly by the rules as written, this is technically wrong. I'm pretty sure it's what the devs intended, but it's not what they wrote (unless I've missed something. It's been known to happen).

RAW vs RAI

it happens sometimes ^^