So, I read this article: https://illuminatinggames.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/star-wars-age-of-rebellion-a-deep-dive-on-dice-probabilities/

And I noticed few interesting things BASED on dice probablity/analysis there. Please kindly correct me if I am wrong of course:

1. True Aim as a talent is not really worth vs getting Dedication or buying next skill rank. If you are focusing on one type of weapons (Light, Heavy, Gunnery etc.) True Aim won't do much vs just upgrading your characteristic or skill. Once you are maxed out - True Aim allows you to bypass that max. But otherwise it seems not worth it, unless you want to be "all around" with few type of weapons.

2. Dodge, Defense Stance, Side Step seems totally not worth over increasing Defense by 1. Adding a black die to the pool is much more impactful to the probability of success and to the probability of the attacker advantage (leading to crits) than turning a purple into a red. With that in mind a talent like "Improved Armor Master" which raises your defense for 0 strain cost is better than multi ranks in defensive talents. And it's passive and doesn't cost manouver. Dodge is only better in cases where it will add additional dice to the pool, but that usually would mean ~3 ranks in dodge and 3 strain a use. Improved Armor Maste doesn't cost any strain for the same effect.

3. You are more likely to get triumph than 3 advantages, making triumph better for using quality of weapons like two-weapon combat, linked etc.

4. High Characteristic is much better than high skill. So for example Pilot 3, Agility 2 will do pretty much as well as Agility 3 character.

Probably an experienced person can get much more out of this article because they already played a lot but this is what I have noticed from it.

If you have time, please kindly read article and let me know if you have any more observations.

For 1, 2, and 4: A may be better than B, but that doesn't matter, because you're eventually going to have both A and B anyway.

7 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

For 1, 2, and 4: A may be better than B, but that doesn't matter, because you're eventually going to have both A and B anyway.

That is of course correct (hence why True Aim is worth once you max your main skill) but that is kind of important in considering what to take first. For example it seems pointless to waste xp on second/third spec and true aim ranks if instead for less XP you can max out your combat skill and rush to dedication.

Same with defense, instead of fishing new ranks in defensive talents, it's better to get Improved Armor Master or at least Jury Rigg your armor for extra defense point vs ranged (more common than melee).

So it's more like "don't waste early xp/time on things you don't yet need".

For 2, these are the main abilities that cause an opponent to roll Despairs. Adding setback will certainly assist in threats but if you want their attack to go in your favor, you need despairs and that comes from upgrades.

#4 is behind arguably the biggest misconception of new players and GMs, and FFG would do well in future publications to emphasize the power of Characteristics.

That said, even though (I recall) that article's author cautions against scene- ending Triumph results, if Triumphs are properly valued, their immunity to cancellation and potential for scene- altering effects expands the calculation somewhat beyond success and failure.

2 hours ago, Benny89 said:

Probably an experienced person can get much more out of this article because they already played a lot but this is what I have noticed from it.

It was really useful to read when it came out and has informed my GMing and scaling efforts ever since. You're not wrong about most of it, but might be overlooking/discounting other effects.

The basic mechanic can be distilled down to: more dice is better. Seems obvious, but with all the effort spent in the rules on upgrades and downgrades, a new player would be forgiven from thinking that they would have more impact on the success/fail axis. However, they have a bigger impact on the narrative axis, and that is something that new players often discount or ignore.

If you're scaling an encounter, and want the PC's chance of success to be roughly 50/50, then on average they need to bring 1 more positive die to the pool than are in the negative pool. The least wonky example is 3 positive (green) and 2 negative (purple). The average result of this is either success + threat, or failure + advantage. If you upgrade a positive die, you're only very slightly increasing the odds of success (because instead of one blank face 1:8, the blank face is now 1:12) but you're more likely to generate advantage, so the average result shifts to success + (nothing) or failure + (more advantages). Given how many effects can be triggered with advantages, if you have the option to upgrade, take it.

If you're someone who min/maxes, then your strategy would be to increase your dice pool asap. Definitely take Dedication over anything else, use the normal Aim maneuver as much as possible, get a weapon that is "Accurate", etc. Spend XP on skill ranks next because even though they are "upgrades", they are permanent and don't require Strain to get there.

3 hours ago, Benny89 said:

3. You are more likely to get triumph than 3 advantages, making triumph better for using quality of weapons like two-weapon combat, linked etc.

I'm not sure what this means. Anything need 3A for you can use a Triumph to get. Two-weapon combat requires a difficulty *increase* which means if you're shooting two pistols at medium range, your difficulty is PPP instead of PP. Triumph or Advantage doesn't really enter into it.

3 hours ago, Benny89 said:

2. Dodge, Defense Stance, Side Step seems totally not worth over increasing Defense by 1.

The only one of those types of Talents I'd want isn't a Talent, but the Sense Force power. That's worth it because it's kind of "free".

2 hours ago, wilsch said:

#4 is behind arguably the biggest misconception of new players and GMs, and FFG would do well in future publications to emphasize the power of Characteristics.

That said, even though (I recall) that article's author cautions against scene- ending Triumph results, if Triumphs are properly valued, their immunity to cancellation and potential for scene- altering effects expands the calculation somewhat beyond success and failure.

I have one player who is a Min/Maxer and loves to go all out in character creation by creating characters that are basically designed to be overpowered and break the game. He looks up forum posts and Reddit post on how to do it. I haven't encouraged him to buy up his Characteristics in character creation because it would strain/break the game. For all my other players I encourage it and that gives everyone a level playing field.

6 hours ago, Varlie said:

For 2, these are the main abilities that cause an opponent to roll Despairs. Adding setback will certainly assist in threats but if you want their attack to go in your favor, you need despairs and that comes from upgrades.

Could you elaborate on that please? Author of article says that 1 Defense has more negative impact on enemy combat check than ranks of Dodge/Side Step. 3 ranks of Dodge seems to be equal but they cost 3 strain vs strain-free additional defense value.

1 hour ago, Benny89 said:

Could you elaborate on that please? Author of article says that 1 Defense has more negative impact on enemy combat check than ranks of Dodge/Side Step. 3 ranks of Dodge seems to be equal but they cost 3 strain vs strain-free additional defense value.

a despair cant be cancelled and has a value a bit more than 3 threat. For example it can be used to allow you to hit a target with improved reflect. drop their weapon, fall prone...things like that. a setback will never do that.

13 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

a despair cant be cancelled and has a value a bit more than 3 threat. For example it can be used to allow you to hit a target with improved reflect. drop their weapon, fall prone...things like that. a setback will never do that.

Ok, but what about character without deflect, just simple range-combat character. No Force stuff. Is 3x Dodge worth over Improved Armor Master?

3 hours ago, Benny89 said:

Ok, but what about character without deflect, just simple range-combat character. No Force stuff. Is 3x Dodge worth over Improved Armor Master?

Is having an opponant fall prone or drop their weapon, or run out of ammo, be standing next to a fuel canister worth it?

Despairs are a chance to have creative things go wrong

Also nothing says you can have both defense and difficulty upgrades on a persons attack.

12 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Also nothing says you can have both defense and difficulty upgrades on a persons attack.

Correct, but that would required me to go 2 more specs just to geth both, while what I was thinking is grabbing second spec (after my main spec Gunslinger) that will give me some additional defense (so either stack 2 more Dodge ranks or just go for AM or IAM) so my third spec could be Gambler to use Double or Nothing. I don't want to invest early into 2 specs just for defenses, one should be enough I hope.

17 hours ago, Benny89 said:

Could you elaborate on that please? Author of article says that 1 Defense has more negative impact on enemy combat check than ranks of Dodge/Side Step. 3 ranks of Dodge seems to be equal but they cost 3 strain vs strain-free additional defense value.

The thing is that the author is only really looking at pure success/failure and other obvious mechanical effects from the rolls like crits. This system makes more use of narrative effects that can have a much larger impact than can be easily quantified on a spreadsheet. So while the information on that isn't statistically incorrect, the author does seem to write off the impact it can have.

Triumphs and Despairs allow the player and GM to inject larger ongoing occurrences into the Encounter. So like say you have an opponent shooting at you with a Disruptor rifle. You certainly don't want him to hit you, so all the defense the Author points out are indeed valid... but... as Daeglan points out, if that character rolls a despair while shooting, you can say his Disruptor ran out of juice. If the GM didn't give the opponent extra ammo (which he probably didn't since a disruptor isn't really a prolonged-combat kinda weapon) then that Disruptor is now a paperweight. The entire scenario has now changed. If the opponent didn't' have a backup weapon or other reliable source of attack he's probably effectively removed from the encounter. Even if he does have a backup, it's probably a ranged Light weapon, which the character is probably less proficient in and will do less damage to the players.

And it can get a lot bigger to. So like a Despair might make a clear cold day into a blizzard, Adding +2 setback to all checks for cold, and an additional +1 Setback to all vision-based checks. That's pretty game-changing unless everyone remembered cold-weather and image enhancement gear.

And not to mention narrative chains. So like you might use an Advantage to establish there's a log to take cover behind, and do so. A later roll targeting you generates results, and now the log is one fire, and a threat to you. So you push it so it rolls down the hill, injuring the stormtroopers and trips up the walker with the results of that. That entire sequence was possible because you rolled an advantage and wanted cover, where a simple success would have never generated the log.

So yeah, if I'm worried solely about not getting hit, then the setback and upgrade difference isn't that huge; a fraction of a percent. But if you aren't considering the impact of Triumphs and Despairs beyond what's on the sample tables, then you're not really factoring in everything.

That's the trouble numbers-guys have with this system. It's easy to run the math and figure out the flip of a coin, but it's hard to work out how a butterfly flapping it's wings can result in cancelled ball game on the other side of the planet, even if the math can support it. The narrative... uh... finds a way.

2 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

The thing is that the author is only really looking at pure success/failure and other obvious mechanical effects from the rolls like crits. This system makes more use of narrative effects that can have a much larger impact than can be easily quantified on a spreadsheet. So while the information on that isn't statistically incorrect, the author does seem to write off the impact it can have.

Triumphs and Despairs allow the player and GM to inject larger ongoing occurrences into the Encounter. So like say you have an opponent shooting at you with a Disruptor rifle. You certainly don't want him to hit you, so all the defense the Author points out are indeed valid... but... as Daeglan points out, if that character rolls a despair while shooting, you can say his Disruptor ran out of juice. If the GM didn't give the opponent extra ammo (which he probably didn't since a disruptor isn't really a prolonged-combat kinda weapon) then that Disruptor is now a paperweight. The entire scenario has now changed. If the opponent didn't' have a backup weapon or other reliable source of attack he's probably effectively removed from the encounter. Even if he does have a backup, it's probably a ranged Light weapon, which the character is probably less proficient in and will do less damage to the players.

And it can get a lot bigger to. So like a Despair might make a clear cold day into a blizzard, Adding +2 setback to all checks for cold, and an additional +1 Setback to all vision-based checks. That's pretty game-changing unless everyone remembered cold-weather and image enhancement gear.

And not to mention narrative chains. So like you might use an Advantage to establish there's a log to take cover behind, and do so. A later roll targeting you generates results, and now the log is one fire, and a threat to you. So you push it so it rolls down the hill, injuring the stormtroopers and trips up the walker with the results of that. That entire sequence was possible because you rolled an advantage and wanted cover, where a simple success would have never generated the log.

So yeah, if I'm worried solely about not getting hit, then the setback and upgrade difference isn't that huge; a fraction of a percent. But if you aren't considering the impact of Triumphs and Despairs beyond what's on the sample tables, then you're not really factoring in everything.

That's the trouble numbers-guys have with this system. It's easy to run the math and figure out the flip of a coin, but it's hard to work out how a butterfly flapping it's wings can result in cancelled ball game on the other side of the planet, even if the math can support it. The narrative... uh... finds a way.

Ok, thank you, I see what you mean. Seems like stacking Dodge is not as pointless as I thought.

Hm, I did some basic tests with dice and with Gambler. Having 3x Second Chances + Double or Nothing (not supreme).

I did tests using Gunslinger/Sharpshooter vs Gunslinger/Gambler. Agility 5 + Ranged (Light) 3 for the sake of testings.

What came out from just my rolling around is that 3x Second Chances resulted in much better results overall than 2 ranks in True Aim. Could be just luck, as I am not math-guy but that combined with Double or Nothing resulted in pretty much save success ratio, but overall way more a advantages (and few more triumphs) which led to more ways to use second weapon, Linked or (if you aim that way) Auto-Fire.

So is it me or Gambler seems like little bit too good spec overall for every type of character? Even for combat I have to say I would take Second Chances + double or nothing over True Aims. Missing Sniper Shots though

Is anyone here who knows how to "math and probablity" and could do a proper comparsion between 2x/3x True Aim and Second Chances + Double or Nothing? I wonder what math would say in terms of which one benefits combat character more overall.

1 hour ago, Benny89 said:

Is anyone here who knows how to "math and probablity" and could do a proper comparsion between 2x/3x True Aim and Second Chances + Double or Nothing? I wonder what math would say in terms of which one benefits combat character more overall.

I went back and re-read the text for those Talents, and I think you're missing a few important things. You can use True Aim as a Maneuver, and you get the benefits of Aim as well as the upgrade, so you get a Boost die as well. Plus you can still spend 2 Strain and Aim again (a second Maneuver) for another Boost. You can do this every round.

Second Chances only works once per encounter . That's not that useful imho. It could save your skin at a pivotal moment (especially with the third rank), but it's not something to make a combat build around.

Double or Nothing costs 2 Strain. One of the most common ways to recover Strain is Advantages so I think it's a pretty useless Talent. The increase in difficulty will soak up Advantages generated, and you may end up netting the same amount...and now you're down 2 Strain. A "typical" roll might be YYGG vs RP, and you might normally generate 1S + 1A. With Double or Nothing, that's YYGG vs RPP, so you might normally generate 1S + 1T or 1F + 1A...not exactly helpful. I would only use it if my PC was bringing at least 3 dice more than the base difficulty (reduced to 2 because of the increase), and the stakes in the game were very high.

So for consistent combat effectiveness, True Aim wins hands down . Those Boost die + upgrades become an Advantage/Triumph engine. The other stuff is flavour, interesting in some contexts but easily forgettable. I doubt you'd ever miss not having them.

As for getting someone to calculate the probabilities, I doubt anybody is going to take you up on it, unless they see a master's thesis in there somewhere. Quoting from the article you linked to:

"In fact, a major appeal of the Star Wars system is that dice pools are so intuitive to construct but the probability curves they produce are so complicated as to be essentially incalculable ."

Every die you add increases the complexity, and yet on average it somehow distills down to something you intuitively expect. You can easily do what you want with D20, there's only one probability curve to calculate (it's actually not even a curve, but a line) and modifiers just slide the average up and down. But in this game, even a single die is several times more complicated than a D20, because there are 3 times more symbols, and sometimes a face has double symbols.

7 hours ago, Benny89 said:

Hm, I did some basic tests with dice and with Gambler. Having 3x Second Chances + Double or Nothing (not supreme).

I did tests using Gunslinger/Sharpshooter vs Gunslinger/Gambler. Agility 5 + Ranged (Light) 3 for the sake of testings.

What came out from just my rolling around is that 3x Second Chances resulted in much better results overall than 2 ranks in True Aim. Could be just luck, as I am not math-guy but that combined with Double or Nothing resulted in pretty much save success ratio, but overall way more a advantages (and few more triumphs) which led to more ways to use second weapon, Linked or (if you aim that way) Auto-Fire.

So is it me or Gambler seems like little bit too good spec overall for every type of character? Even for combat I have to say I would take Second Chances + double or nothing over True Aims. Missing Sniper Shots though

Is anyone here who knows how to "math and probablity" and could do a proper comparsion between 2x/3x True Aim and Second Chances + Double or Nothing? I wonder what math would say in terms of which one benefits combat character more overall.

You're not wrong in that Gambler is borderline broken.

8 hours ago, whafrog said:

I

Double or Nothing costs 2 Strain. One of the most common ways to recover Strain is Advantages so I think it's a pretty useless Talent. The increase in difficulty will soak up Advantages generated, and you may end up netting the same amount...and now you're down 2 Strain. A "typical" roll might be YYGG vs RP, and you might normally generate 1S + 1A. With Double or Nothing, that's YYGG vs RPP, so you might normally generate 1S + 1T or 1F + 1A...not exactly helpful. I would only use it if my PC was bringing at least 3 dice more than the base difficulty (reduced to 2 because of the increase), and the stakes in the game were very high.

But if I can double the amount of advantages (and later Triumphs) - I can recover more strain if I have left overs. Even if I get only 2 adv + 1 triumph, Supreme Double or Nothing means 4 adv + 2 Triumps. So If I have double blasters with Bantha + Supreme on main and 2x Linked 1 on both = that means I can use second pistol (5 adv + 2 triumps left), use both linked from triumphs (5 adv left) and recover 5 strain at the end (2 strain to avoid difficulty of second pistol, 2 strain for double or nothing).

2 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

You're not wrong in that Gambler is borderline broken.

Interesting you are saying it's broken while from @whafrog post above it would seem it doesn't do much for combat.

1 hour ago, Benny89 said:

But if I can double the amount of advantages (and later Triumphs) -

Key word is "if". The increase in difficulty makes that less likely because it either sucks away success or advantages or both. You can't do a crit if you fail, so to me it's a double-whammy. At low levels of skill, you would never use Double or Nothing unless you were desperate and you really need advantages for some weird reason. At high levels of skill, it would only be worth it for tasks that are initially Easy or Average...and again, only if you really needed Advantages for some reason. Remember, you need 2A on top of whatever "double" you generate just to break even. It's a very niche, last-ditch ability.

1 hour ago, Benny89 said:

Even if I get only 2 adv + 1 triumph, Supreme Double or Nothing means 4 adv + 2 Triumps

Again, "if". Even if your dice pool has at least 3 yellows, and that's still only going to get you a single Triumph in about 1:4 rolls. That's 3 out of 4 with no Triumph, which isn't great odds to pin combat on, especially if the difficulty is increased. The Supreme version is only effective if you are maxing the yellow dice in your pool, which is why skill ranks and True Aim are useful.

If I was building the character arc, it would be True Aim for the consistency. As you already know, adding a die to the pool is the most effective thing you can do, and the effect of those Boost dice add up. If you then want to follow the Double-or-Nothing chain, at least at that point you have the upgrades from True Aim to increase your odds of generating enough Advantages and Triumphs to make it worth it.

8 hours ago, whafrog said:

Key word is "if". The increase in difficulty makes that less likely because it either sucks away success or advantages or both. You can't do a crit if you fail, so to me it's a double-whammy. At low levels of skill, you would never use Double or Nothing unless you were desperate and you really need advantages for some weird reason. At high levels of skill, it would only be worth it for tasks that are initially Easy or Average...and again, only if you really needed Advantages for some reason. Remember, you need 2A on top of whatever "double" you generate just to break even. It's a very niche, last-ditch ability.

Again, "if". Even if your dice pool has at least 3 yellows, and that's still only going to get you a single Triumph in about 1:4 rolls. That's 3 out of 4 with no Triumph, which isn't great odds to pin combat on, especially if the difficulty is increased. The Supreme version is only effective if you are maxing the yellow dice in your pool, which is why skill ranks and True Aim are useful.

If I was building the character arc, it would be True Aim for the consistency. As you already know, adding a die to the pool is the most effective thing you can do, and the effect of those Boost dice add up. If you then want to follow the Double-or-Nothing chain, at least at that point you have the upgrades from True Aim to increase your odds of generating enough Advantages and Triumphs to make it worth it.

Ok, I understand what you are saying. Depends a lot on dice pool. For example a Gunslinger/Assassin with Agility 5 and Range (Light) 4 + 3x Quick Strike + Aim manouver will have dice pool of: YYYYGBBBB for combat check. I think that is quite a big dice pool (especially all that Blues). One Blue has 3 sides with Advantage (one double Advantage). That means that one Blue has 50% chance of getting Advantage, or 16,7% chance of getting double advantage.

A Gunslinger/Scoundler in same scenario can have YYYYG, BBBBB (4x Quick Strike + Aim). ****, if we say he shots from gun with Accurate 2, suddenly our dice pool is YYYYG, BBBBBBB. Even with 2 purple, 1 red and 1 setback it's a pretty high chance for advantages and triumphs imo. And 2-3 blues that did not give us advantage - we can use Second Chances to reroll them (50% chance to get Advantage on each).

I might be wrong but if you can get such big dice pool, Double or Nothing seems like a a good investment.

Isn't a rule, from Genesys but true for SW FFG too, that says 4 boost dice and 4 setback dice maximum in a single dice pool ?

1 hour ago, WolfRider said:

Isn't a rule, from Genesys but true for SW FFG too, that says 4 boost dice and 4 setback dice maximum in a single dice pool ?

We are playing EotE and sticking to rules there. Genesys is different system so there should be no mixing rules from different systems. Dice system might be the same, but it's not Star Wars. Same as Pathfinder is not DnD.

So sticking to Star Wars FFG, EotE corebook:

I just reread "Modifying a Dice Pool" in EotE corebook, page 20 and there is not mention about maximum amount of Boost/Setbacks.

It says "If more than one of these advantages/disadvantages are applicable, the GM may add multiple Setback/Boost dice to the dice pool" .

"As a general rule, one Boost die is added to the dice pool for each bonus that would help character succeed, and one Setback die is added for each disadvantage or obstacle impending success" . Again, there is no mention on maxium numbers of them. Same in "building a basic dice pool" chapter - nothing about that. Same in "The Dice" chapter.

So unless dice chapters don't cover maximum number of dice and it's mentioned somehwere further into book - RAW by EotE corebook - there is no maximum from what I see.

Which also makes sense, because otherwise things like Quick Strike wouldn't matter because anyone could substitute those with modding their weapon for Accurate 2. So no limit for Boosts allows certain talents to shine vs specializations that do not have them. Because otherwise Superior + Bantha Sigth + Accurate 2 would be enough for everything. No aiming manouver required, no Quick Strike talents needed. I don't think that is how it should work, making certain things inferior/useless along the line.

It makes sense to cap Defense (see EotE Errata), but I'd just as soon not cap Boost/Setback, particularly because then some things just loose their weight. For Example: What's the point of getting any Boost onto your next slicing check when you've already got your opponent's full signature?