13 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

I can see the GM's rationale--the dev ruling on strain and advantage does create an incentive for players to trump up opportunities for gratuitous skill rolls just to recover strain. At least in structured encounters the action limit prevents this. So I could see prohibiting it outside structured encounters.

I've seen Players try to use this tactic, and GMs try to use this excuse as to how the system is broken, and both are just as much crap as not allowing Advantage to be spent on Strain in the first place.

The GM is the arbiter of the game.

The Player doesn't decide when to roll the dice (they can lobby for it, yes), the GM can always say, "No there is no roll required for that. It doesn't have any chance of failure OR it doesn't have any dramatic effect on the story. No roll." And since the GM generally sets the Difficulty of non-combat checks, they're fully capable of making any legitimate check challenging/at risk of not only not gaining Advantage, but indeed Disadvantage and possibly Strain loss.

So, no, this is not a valid reason to not allow the RAW expenditure of Advantage in non-combat.

2 minutes ago, Dark Star said:

What is a 'light side paragon' and how do I get it? I'm being about as 'light side' as I can be.

Assuming your game is using the Morality rules, check out p. 53 of F&D. If your Morality is at 90 or higher, you gain +2 strain threshold.

3 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

Assuming your game is using the Morality rules, check out p. 53 of F&D. If your Morality is at 90 or higher, you gain +2 strain threshold.

Cool. I'm at about 75-80 at the moment. I should get there in another 2-3 sessions.

Just now, Dark Star said:

Cool. I'm at about 75-80 at the moment. I should get there in another 2-3 sessions.

Awesome. At 80 you get +1 ST.

8 minutes ago, emsquared said:

I've seen Players try to use this tactic, and GMs try to use this excuse as to how the system is broken, and both are just as much crap as not allowing Advantage to be spent on Strain in the first place.

The GM is the arbiter of the game.

The Player doesn't decide when to roll the dice (they can lobby for it, yes), the GM can always say, "No there is no roll required for that. It doesn't have any chance of failure OR it doesn't have any dramatic effect on the story. No roll." And since the GM generally sets the Difficulty of non-combat checks, they're fully capable of making any legitimate check challenging/at risk of not only not gaining Advantage, but indeed Disadvantage and possibly Strain loss.

So, no, this is not a valid reason to not allow the RAW expenditure of Advantage in non-combat.

The question came up when, during a recovery roll, I got four advantages but zero successes and I said that heals 4 strain, right? GM said no, it says success heal strain. I argued it was just a normal roll so I could spend advantages as normal, right? He said no, that table is only for in combat. He pointed out that all the other skill roles describe how advantage can be spent on them and said since this doesn't describe how advantages can be spent, advantages can't be spent.

If someone can provide a link to where exactly the official rules guys say in writing that advantage can be spent at anytime to recover strain, that'd be amazingly useful.

I just want to point out, I don't think the GM is being mean or targeting my character specifically in any way. He's making his rulings in good faith. I think the system is boning me, not my GM.

1 minute ago, Dark Star said:

I just want to point out, I don't think the GM is being mean or targeting my character specifically in any way. He's making his rulings in good faith. I think the system is boning me, not my GM.

In a sense, you are right about that. One of the weird things about this system is that many (most?) of the detailed rules exist only in the form of informal errata in the "Dev Answered Questions" thread on the EotE forum (which is where you will find the answers you seek). So the system does make it difficult for GMs to learn the "RAW" unless they follow this forum religiously. In that sense, the system is boning you by not providing the rules to your GM in an easy-to-find way.

14 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

many (most?) of the detailed rules exist only in the form of informal errata in the "Dev Answered Questions" thread on the EotE forum (which is where you will find the answers you seek).

Thanks DaverWattra, you've been a big help.

Oh boy, that's a big 14 page thread! I'm not sure I can be bothered trawling through all that. Is there a search function I can utilise?

Found it! I'll show my GM this and see what he says.

Ok, nowhere in the description of the Perception skill does it say that you can spend advantage to regain strain. It is listed as an option on Page 212 in Table 6-2 Spending Advantage and Triumph in Combat. But, that scenario did not have the characters in a combat encounter at that time. Since you have printed that in the Core Rulebook, It has been suggested that any of the options on Table 6-2 are available for any skill check you make.

Question:

Is that your intention, or are those options only supposed to be used in combat encounters?

When you are in starship combat, can you still spend extra Advantage to recover Strain? I originally thought no, because it doesn't appear as an option on chart 7-6 on page 243. But, now I question that.

Answer:

Yes, you can spend Advantage to recover strain in any situation.

Follow-up Question:

So, just to clarify, Advantage from any skill check can be spent to recover strain, but none of the other options from Table 6-2 are available when performing a skill check that is not a combat check.

Follow-up Answer:

Those other options are available when they make sense given the situation.

1 hour ago, Dark Star said:

The question came up when, during a recovery roll, I got four advantages but zero successes and I said that heals 4 strain, right? GM said no, it says success heal strain. I argued it was just a normal roll so I could spend advantages as normal, right? He said no, that table is only for in combat. He pointed out that all the other skill roles describe how advantage can be spent on them and said since this doesn't describe how advantages can be spent, advantages can't be spent.

If someone can provide a link to where exactly the official rules guys say in writing that advantage can be spent at anytime to recover strain, that'd be amazingly useful.

I think the recovery roll rules are unclear. My group has decided that you have to have at least one success to recover any strain, but on a success, any successes and advantages may be spent to recover strain.

12 minutes ago, TheSapient said:

I think the recovery roll rules are unclear. My group has decided that you have to have at least one success to recover any strain, but on a success, any successes and advantages may be spent to recover strain.

On the Strain recovery rolls, I do not allow Advantages to recover Strain because that is what Successes are specifically used for with this roll. However, Advantages and Triumphs can be used to Upgrade or apply Boosts to friends that are recovering alongside you. Sometimes your Cool/Discipline rubs off on them (or theirs on you). Just remember to save the rubbing off for when the camera isn't on you...it worked for Kainen and Hera!

I mean strain is supposed to be the mechanic that checks your ability to dominate combat. Parry/Reflect can give you insane survivability without having to sink points in the worst general skill stat, Brawn.

Be glad the GM isn't throwing around knockout grenades!

Anyway, you can also get Supreme Parry/Reflect which basically let you tank forever, and there are the talents that let you flip a Destiny Token to recover strain equal to [Stat]. Once you have those it seems almost impossible to run out of strain short of getting blasted by strain damage.

46 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

On the Strain recovery rolls, I do not allow Advantages to recover Strain because that is what Successes are specifically used for with this roll. However, Advantages and Triumphs can be used to Upgrade or apply Boosts to friends that are recovering alongside you. Sometimes your Cool/Discipline rubs off on them (or theirs on you). Just remember to save the rubbing off for when the camera isn't on you...it worked for Kainen and Hera!

I don't like this idea at all. First, if it's all happening at the same time, how do you decide who goes first; because it'd suck to be them. Second, If I can spend it to make my friends feel better, why can't I spend it to make myself feel better? Finally, it'd feel very meta-gamey if all my friends rolled first and gave all their boosts to me, like some sort of group reiki session. It just feels easier and better to let me spend my own advantage rather than go through the rigmarole of daisy-chaining a bunch of advantages together.

1 hour ago, TyrisFlare said:

Anyway, you can also get Supreme Parry/Reflect which basically let you tank forever, and there are the talents that let you flip a Destiny Token to recover strain equal to [Stat]. Once you have those it seems almost impossible to run out of strain short of getting blasted by strain damage.

Unless I'm getting it wrong, the supreme parry/reflect stops you from attacking? That's actually a better deal for the stormtroopers. Yes, it reduces the damage I take (but I could still take some) but it completely cancels out any damage I could deal. It effectively just neutralises me in combat, which is a super boring mechanic for me as a player, as I then have no agency in the fight. I just stand there, not rolling any dice, watching people attack me and hoping they don't roll high. I'd rather be actively doing something than passively doing nothing.

It has tactical uses. If your GM lets you use it in the first round before you have acted (he should, so it gets more mileage imo), then you can delay your first turn and use it quite a bit. You can also use your turns to protect party members with Bodyguard or the one that lets them use your Parry/Reflect (forget the name). I had a player who went nuts on getting as many P/R ranks as possible and basically just leapt around making everyone else almost invincible and doing all his damage via threats and despairs.

Anyway to me your complaint basically sounds like: Jedi aren't gods who can soak infinite blaster fire while also doing tons of damage. Strain is supposed to be a limiting factor.* If you don't like that mechanic - or don't want to tank another way like I described - maybe just make a full offense Ataru character and mow through everything? Or play a Colossus Brawn character and have so much soak you don't even need to spend strain on P/R.

*edit: In a lot of lightsaber duels, strain (or crits) will decide the fight before wounds. I personally think this is fine. The duelists are going at it until one of them gets too tired to keep up his defenses, at which point his opponent finishes him off.

31 minutes ago, Dark Star said:

I don't like this idea at all. First, if it's all happening at the same time, how do you decide who goes first; because it'd suck to be them. Second, If I can spend it to make my friends feel better, why can't I spend it to make myself feel better? Finally, it'd feel very meta-gamey if all my friends rolled first and gave all their boosts to me, like some sort of group reiki session. It just feels easier and better to let me spend my own advantage rather than go through the rigmarole of daisy-chaining a bunch of advantages together.

If it matters to you, at our table "any and all checks" means "any and all checks". Including recovery checks.

We also tend to target Strain pretty heavily in non-combat encounters (social, exploration, infiltration, mechanical/slicing, etc. - it's one of the great strengths of this system to be able to make non-combat as high-stakes as combat), so to not allow this would make doing anything at all in the game world a bad idea. Because doing anything at all (of consequence) in the gameworld can Strain you.

2 minutes ago, TyrisFlare said:

Anyway to me your complaint basically sounds like: Jedi aren't gods who can soak infinite blaster fire while also doing tons of damage.

Nope, that is not my complaint at all. I'm totally fine with the strain costs and damage I receive during combat, that all feels balanced to me. My issue is with recovering from all that after combat. Compared to other characters it just seems disproportionately harder for jedi than non-jedi. My non-jedi companions can get just as roughed up in a fight (and do just as much damage blasters) but can recover so much easier for the next encounter than I can. Yes, they use some strain for some of their abilities but the do not rely on strain anywhere near as much as I do. I understand the need to 'balance' jedi against non-jedi, my complaint is that this feels unbalanced and penalises jedi too harshly.

25 minutes ago, Dark Star said:

Unless I'm getting it wrong, the supreme parry/reflect stops you from attacking? That's actually a better deal for the stormtroopers. Yes, it reduces the damage I take (but I could still take some) but it completely cancels out any damage I could deal. It effectively just neutralises me in combat, which is a super boring mechanic for me as a player, as I then have no agency in the fight. I just stand their, not rolling any dice, watching people attack me and hoping they don't roll high. I'd rather be actively doing something than passively doing nothing.

It's supposed to be used together with Strategic form from Soresu defender. With it you make a hard, so 3 purple, lightsaber int check against someone, which forces them to attack you. Basically it works as a MMO taunt. Advantages can be used to recover strain. Since you haven't made a combat check you now parry for 1 strain. This way you can tie up the enemies heavy hitter while your team clears out the rest.

Guardian is pretty much focused on 1v1 control of combat. Makashi is if you want to be offensive 1v1 and Shii Cho is for when you want to jump into a minion group and swing around like a madman.

6 minutes ago, emsquared said:

We also tend to target Strain pretty heavily in non-combat encounters (social, exploration, infiltration, mechanical/slicing, etc. - it's one of the great strengths of this system to be able to make non-combat as high-stakes as combat), so to not allow this would make doing anything at all in the game world a bad idea. Because doing anything at all (of consequence) in the gameworld can Strain you.

You see, that's what I thought. We've incurred strain out of combat and that's always felt right, given the circumstances.

2 minutes ago, Darth Revenant said:

It's supposed to be used together with Strategic form from Soresu defender. With it you make a hard, so 3 purple, lightsaber int check against someone, which forces them to attack you. Basically it works as a MMO taunt. Advantages can be used to recover strain. Since you haven't made a combat check you now parry for 1 strain. This way you can tie up the enemies heavy hitter while your team clears out the rest.

Guardian is pretty much focused on 1v1 control of combat. Makashi is if you want to be offensive 1v1 and Shii Cho is for when you want to jump into a minion group and swing around like a madman.

That's actually good advice, I'll look into that. Thanks.

1 hour ago, Dark Star said:

I don't like this idea at all. First, if it's all happening at the same time, how do you decide who goes first; because it'd suck to be them. Second, If I can spend it to make my friends feel better, why can't I spend it to make myself feel better? Finally, it'd feel very meta-gamey if all my friends rolled first and gave all their boosts to me, like some sort of group reiki session. It just feels easier and better to let me spend my own advantage rather than go through the rigmarole of daisy-chaining a bunch of advantages together.

If it's all happening at the same time, then the players can choose to go in any order they want, just like with player slots in initiative.

You can see it as a session, or you can see it as groups being stronger than the sum of the parts.

If you don't like metagamey, then narrative games are going to hurt your sensibilities sooner or later. This one is pretty mild by comparison.

1 hour ago, Dark Star said:

Unless I'm getting it wrong, the supreme parry/reflect stops you from attacking? That's actually a better deal for the stormtroopers. Yes, it reduces the damage I take (but I could still take some) but it completely cancels out any damage I could deal. It effectively just neutralises me in combat, which is a super boring mechanic for me as a player, as I then have no agency in the fight. I just stand there, not rolling any dice, watching people attack me and hoping they don't roll high. I'd rather be actively doing something than passively doing nothing.

Actually the best way to use Supreme Parry/Reflect is with Force Powers and Improved Parry/Reflect.

Use your Force Powers for your Action (instead of doing nothing) to create cover for yourself, and/or allies, to create difficult terrain, to Misdirect, to Influence, to Grip/prevent enemy Actions, etc. while using your hopefully stacked Defensive Pool (my Soresu could manage RRPBBB when she need, if I remember correctly, via Sense Upgrades, Destiny/Triumph expenditure, and 'saber mods and things) to generate Threat and trigger your Improved Talent - thereby having offense - while being a "controller wizard" (to use a D&D term) and completely own the battlefield.

1 hour ago, Dark Star said:

Unless I'm getting it wrong, the supreme parry/reflect stops you from attacking? That's actually a better deal for the stormtroopers. Yes, it reduces the damage I take (but I could still take some) but it completely cancels out any damage I could deal. It effectively just neutralises me in combat, which is a super boring mechanic for me as a player, as I then have no agency in the fight. I just stand there, not rolling any dice, watching people attack me and hoping they don't roll high. I'd rather be actively doing something than passively doing nothing.

Ah, but if your GM is going to be very precise on Tables 6-2 and 6-3 only applying in combat, then surely he needs to rely upon the RAW for what a "combat check" is. It is specifically an attack, with Brawl, Gunnery, Lightsaber, Ranged - Heavy or Ranged - Light. Force powers that do not explicitly call out a combat check or combine with one of those skills being used as an attack are therefore not "combat checks": Bind, Battle Meditation, Force Leap, Force Move other than directly smashing for damage ... even Harm RAW isn't a combat check. Medicine checks, Mechanics checks, taunts, etc. There's lots of things you can do in combat that isn't an attack.

I really like Bind for this. You take an early initiative slot Round 1, use Bind to keep melee's at a distance, so they have to do nothing or shoot at you. And if they shoot at you and generate threat - reflect that back at them. Then take the last possible slot in Round 2, swing your lightsaber. Round 3, take early initiative slot and Bind again, etc.

Force Leap is also nice for this if the groups are at some distance. Early Leap next to them, reflect/parry for single strain, then swing late in Turn 2, early turn 3 Force Leap back to your friends, etc.

1 hour ago, Dark Star said:

That's actually good advice, I'll look into that. Thanks.

The other thing you can combine with Supreme Parry is to buy up the Influence power and use it to inflict strain on your enemies with your action. That's not an attack! Requires a pretty high FR, though, so this is mostly a strategy for high-XP characters.

5 hours ago, Dark Star said:

What is a 'light side paragon' and how do I get it? I'm being about as 'light side' as I can be.

5 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

Assuming your game is using the Morality rules, check out p. 53 of F&D. If your Morality is at 90 or higher, you gain +2 strain threshold.

5 hours ago, Dark Star said:

Cool. I'm at about 75-80 at the moment. I should get there in another 2-3 sessions.

5 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

Awesome. At 80 you get +1 ST.

To add to what @DaverWattra said, the minimum Morality for Light Side Paragon is 71 Morality. Once you get above 70 Morality, you are considered a Light Side Paragon.