"Answered by Sam Stewart :

We are currently re-evaluating how personal scale defense works in the game, and may have a more comprehensive answer in the future. So at this point, we cannot answer your question."

Has this been settled?

Hypothetical case:

Armored Robes (Defense 1)

Cortosis Shield (Defensive 2, Deflection 2)

Currently RAW the character would end with 2 Ranged and 2 Melee Defense, right? In the same FAQ they were not stacking Defensive properties with the Armored Robe's base Defense.

Link to the FAQ (Under "General Combat Questions"): https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/108101-ffg-developer-answered-questions/

Thanks for your time.

Correct different sources don’t stack and the max defence is 4

That's not correct. The latest errata clarifies this. Sources of Defense break down into two categories, those that stack and those that don't. Sources that provide a static Defense value, such as armour, cover etc, don't stack. Sources that increase Defense, such as equipment with Defensive, do stack. So, in the example case, Armored Robes and a Cortosis Shield would provide 3 Melee and 3 Ranged Defense, not 2 of each.

I was responding to the original posters example...

5 hours ago, Dafydd said:

That's not correct. The latest errata clarifies this. Sources of Defense break down into two categories, those that stack and those that don't. Sources that provide a static Defense value, such as armour, cover etc, don't stack. Sources that increase Defense, such as equipment with Defensive, do stack. So, in the example case, Armored Robes and a Cortosis Shield would provide 3 Melee and 3 Ranged Defense, not 2 of each.

Could you provide me a link for the correction? This is a game changer!

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/f4/f8/f4f8ca5f-12c8-4960-84ca-dccde66fa743/eote_errata_v20.pdf

Thank you for the errata guys, my group completely missed it.

2 hours ago, Random Bystander said:

I was responding to the original posters example...

Watch out, by the new rules my example is 3/3, not 2/2. The shield DOES stack with the Armor.

Interesting- haven’t got the book by my hand currently- what’s the exact wording on the shield?

1 hour ago, Random Bystander said:

Interesting- haven’t got the book by my hand currently- what’s the exact wording on the shield?

It's a melee weapon with Defensive 2 and Deflect 2.

Disagree - looking at the book it just has stats of defence and deflection so these do not stack on top of other defence / deflection items

it specifically needs to say adds to

but that’s just my opinion

20 minutes ago, Random Bystander said:

Disagree - looking at the book it just has stats of defence and deflection so these do not stack on top of other defence / deflection items

it specifically needs to say adds to

but that’s just my opinion

The errata specifically said that atributes that say "increase defense" do stack.

And from the book, Defensive reads as: "A character wielding a weapon with the Defensive quality increases his melee defense by the weapon’s Defensive rating."

Shields (and defensive/deflective weapons) definitely stack with armour/cover etc. the rules come from Genesys and FFG developed a module for GenCon that had a pre gen character with armour and a shield that stacked.

So a character can carry a Cortosis shield (Defensive 2, Deflection 2), an Ancient Sword (Defensive 1), and wear a Kormondian Half Vest (Defense 1) to have 4 melee and 3 Ranged Defence right from the start. Make it a Guard Shoto with training emitter and you can have 4 Ranged and Melee Defence!

Obviosly it’s not for every character, but at least there are ways to make cover work better for you now. And at least the limit of 4 is there to keep players reasonable.