22 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

Isn't the case in English ? English being a foreign language for me, I've always thought to hit an to touch were more or less synonymous when used for combat situations.

They arent. A hit implies more force transfered than a touch.

1 hour ago, Jegergryte said:

Tramp. Remind me again why armour shouldn't have defence (as represented by setback dice), as supposedly supported (when selectively reading) in the rules...?

Better yet. Make a model or chart, to show how all of this is connected and makes sense to you.

I do this partly I jest, but also because I'd seriously like to see what you see. Not by way of convoluted sentences with bolded words and tautological reasoning, but transparently and clearly.

Defense, as a rule adds Setback dice which, by their very nature can cause a check to fail if the total number of Failures manages to cancel out all net Successes on the dice. For a Combat Check, this results in a Miss, by RAW. The RAW requires that a Combat Check must be Successful for it to hit . Otherwise it is a miss, by RAW. Armor cannot make an attack actually miss . It can only absorb or deflect damage from an attack that physically hits the target. Based upon the wording of the Armor Defense rule, the Defense granted by armor is not intended to cause a miss, but simply reflects the armor deflecting damage , primarily by canceling out one or more extra Net Successes that would otherwise increase the damage done, or potentially cause some other effect as a result of Threats rolled. However, it still mechanically has the potential to cause the Combat Check to miss which is something that armor is physically incapable of doing since it can only deflect damage from attacks that actually hit it.

7 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Defense, as a rule adds Setback dice which, by their very nature can cause a check to fail if the total number of Failures manages to cancel out all net Successes on the dice. For a Combat Check, this results in a Miss, by RAW. The RAW requires that a Combat Check must be Successful for it to hit . Otherwise it is a miss, by RAW. Armor cannot make an attack actually miss . It can only absorb or deflect damage from an attack that physically hits the target. Based upon the wording of the Armor Defense rule, the Defense granted by armor is not intended to cause a miss, but simply reflects the armor deflecting damage , primarily by canceling out one or more extra Net Successes that would otherwise increase the damage done, or potentially cause some other effect as a result of Threats rolled. However, it still mechanically has the potential to cause the Combat Check to miss which is something that armor is physically incapable of doing since it can only deflect damage from attacks that actually hit it.

Oh, I know I’m going to regret this....

“Hit” and “miss” aren’t anywhere in there. Just that the check must generate more successes than failures to be successful, then how to add damage to a successful attack.

A failed attack does not necessarily “miss,” particularly when the dice pool includes one or more setback die due to armor’s defense rating, which can lead to a failure.

Now, I feel dirty.

11 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Oh, I know I’m going to regret this....

“Hit” and “miss” aren’t anywhere in there. Just that the check must generate more successes than failures to be successful, then how to add damage to a successful attack.

A failed attack does not necessarily “miss,” particularly when the dice pool includes one or more setback die due to armor’s defense rating, which can lead to a failure.

Now, I feel dirty.

It is in the RAW. It’s there earlier in the book. This includes the rules covering the Linked weapon quality, Auto-fire, and Base Damage, among others. It’s also covered in further down in the section on resolving Advantage and Triumph all of which I have previously quoted. So, yes, the RAW does specifically require a Combat Check to be a Success for it to hit. When I have more time I’ll go get through and re-quote them for you again.

36 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Defense, as a rule adds Setback dice which, by their very nature can cause a check to fail if the total number of Failures manages to cancel out all net Successes on the dice. For a Combat Check, this results in a Miss, by RAW. The RAW requires that a Combat Check must be Successful for it to hit . Otherwise it is a miss, by RAW. Armor cannot make an attack actually miss . It can only absorb or deflect damage from an attack that physically hits the target. Based upon the wording of the Armor Defense rule, the Defense granted by armor is not intended to cause a miss, but simply reflects the armor deflecting damage , primarily by canceling out one or more extra Net Successes that would otherwise increase the damage done, or potentially cause some other effect as a result of Threats rolled. However, it still mechanically has the potential to cause the Combat Check to miss which is something that armor is physically incapable of doing since it can only deflect damage from attacks that actually hit it.

Oh my.

Nope. I don't buy your story, narrative or interpretation, call it what you will. It's too simple, rigid, and pointless (and selective). It's creative, I'll give you that, but I don't buy or agree with your premises, particularly since it basically hinges on whether armour can deflect, and whether to "deflect" is to cause a miss, or failure, or unsuccessful attack, or not. I don't really care about anyone's (claim to) expertise in this, we're talking space opera and about a game. It works well, it works as designed and intended. The setback die may be suboptimal in your opinion, but I find it to be just the right tool for the job. It is the best solution in and for this game.

You attention to detail and wording is laudable, but it has sent you down the proverbial rabbit hole. A pointless journey, unless one learns from it.

45 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

It is in the RAW. It’s there earlier in the book. This includes the rules covering the Linked weapon quality, Auto-fire, and Base Damage, among others. It’s also covered in further down in the section on resolving Advantage and Triumph all of which I have previously quoted. So, yes, the RAW does specifically require a Combat Check to be a Success for it to hit. When I have more time I’ll go get through and re-quote them for you again.

You mean the common shorthand that has never meant what you think it means? I mean basic D&D specified a miss does not necessarily mean contact was not made.

6 hours ago, Jegergryte said:

Oh my.

Nope. I don't buy your story, narrative or interpretation, call it what you will. It's too simple, rigid, and pointless (and selective). It's creative, I'll give you that, but I don't buy or agree with your premises, particularly since it basically hinges on whether armour can deflect, and whether to "deflect" is to cause a miss, or failure, or unsuccessful attack, or not. I don't really care about anyone's (claim to) expertise in this, we're talking space opera and about a game. It works well, it works as designed and intended. The setback die may be suboptimal in your opinion, but I find it to be just the right tool for the job. It is the best solution in and for this game.

You attention to detail and wording is laudable, but it has sent you down the proverbial rabbit hole. A pointless journey, unless one learns from it.

Deflect, by definition means

Quote

de·flect

/dəˈflekt/

Learn to pronounce

verb

cause (something) to change direction by interposing something; turn aside from a straight course.

"the bullet was deflected harmlessly into the ceiling"

Similar:

turn aside/away

divert

avert

sidetrack

distract

draw away

block

parry

stop

fend off

stave off

(of an object) change direction after hitting something .

"the ball deflected off his body"

Similar:

To change direction after hitting something , to cause to turn away. That is what deflecting is. Armor deflects Damage from an attack that hits it. It doesn’t magically make an attack miss entirely before the attack even comes near the target. The rules for Armor Defense on page 178 bare this out when it says:

Quote

The armor’s Defense adds Setback equal to the Defense Rating directly to the attacker’s dice pool. This reflects the armor’s ability to deflect damage away from the wearer.

Armor Defense is intended to deflect damage , not prevent an attack from hitting.

Further, as I mentioned in my last post, on page 165, under Base Damage, it says:

Quote

The base damage the weapon inflicts. This is the minimum damage inflicted if the attack with this weapon hits . Each net Success generated during the attack check adds one point of damage to this base damage.

This is Virtually identica l to what page 210 says under Pool Results and Deal Damage . The only difference being exchanging “If the check is successful ,” to “If the attack with this weapon hits ”. The underlying meaning is the same.

Under Resolve Advantage and Triumph it also says:

Quote

Remember, a Critical Injury can only be triggered upon a successful hit that deals damage that exceeds the target’s Soak value.”

Under Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries, it further says:

Quote

If the character suffers damage from multiple hits, in an attack, he applies his Soak value to each hit individually.

Auto-fire and Linked also explicitly require that an attack succeed for it to hit .

Simply put, the rules are clear, a hit is a type of Success .

I didn't want to get into this, but Tramp, you're conflating the game term "miss," used as a convenient short-hand for a failed combat check (both to reduce cognitive load for learning rules as well as save page space when a term needs to be used many times in rapid succession), with the English word "miss," which would mean to fail to make contact with a target.

This is reasonable: they're the exact same word, after all. But when effects, weapon qualities, abilities, talents, and general rules say "on a miss..." they are using the game term. This is just like the game term "wound," which is not a literal wound, the literal wounds a character suffers within the fiction of the game world are recognized through the "critical injury" game mechanic.

Similarly, there is a game term "hit" that means, "one instance of applying a weapon's base damage, plus any net successes, to the target." Again, this shorthand is used in order to reduce complicated jargon and save page space in an already over-large book.

These game terms are not intended to be definitively descriptive of the events occurring within the story. A "hit" (game term) does not necessarily need to be a "hit" (English word for impact with the target). Similarly, a "miss" (game term) can still be a "hit" (English word); how this happens is the hit (English word) is a glancing strike, diffused by armor or other impediments, or otherwise rendered soft enough to not affect game stats. This is how armor can turn a hit/hit (game term/English word) into a miss/hit (game term/English word). The blaster bolt still impacted the character, but because of the armor, the target took no damage and none of the weapons other properties could be leveraged.

Now, is this explicitly spelled out in the book? No. Is it potentially confusing? Absolutely. This thread is proof enough of that. But it's important to remember that just because something isn't capitalized doesn't mean it isn't a game term ("wound" and "wounds" are never capitalized, for instance), and game terms don't perfectly reflect the events in the story (a character with wounds has the in-game status "wounded," but as discussed above may not actually have physical wounds on their body unless they also have a critical injury).

Words can have different meanings in different contexts, and while playing an RPG, we're constantly working in two different contexts at once - the context of game mechanics to manage player abilities and game integrity, and also the context of events happening within a fictional world where those game mechanics are meaningless. Now yes, oftentimes the game terms used are chosen to make those two contexts as similar as possible as often as possible, but it's impossible for them to be 100% consistent 100% of the time.

1 hour ago, Absol197 said:

I didn't want to get into this, but Tramp, you're conflating the game term "miss," used as a convenient short-hand for a failed combat check (both to reduce cognitive load for learning rules as well as save page space when a term needs to be used many times in rapid succession), with the English word "miss," which would mean to fail to make contact with a target.

This is reasonable: they're the exact same word, after all. But when effects, weapon qualities, abilities, talents, and general rules say "on a miss..." they are using the game term. This is just like the game term "wound," which is not a literal wound, the literal wounds a character suffers within the fiction of the game world are recognized through the "critical injury" game mechanic.

Similarly, there is a game term "hit" that means, "one instance of applying a weapon's base damage, plus any net successes, to the target." Again, this shorthand is used in order to reduce complicated jargon and save page space in an already over-large book.

These game terms are not intended to be definitively descriptive of the events occurring within the story. A "hit" (game term) does not necessarily need to be a "hit" (English word for impact with the target). Similarly, a "miss" (game term) can still be a "hit" (English word); how this happens is the hit (English word) is a glancing strike, diffused by armor or other impediments, or otherwise rendered soft enough to not affect game stats. This is how armor can turn a hit/hit (game term/English word) into a miss/hit (game term/English word). The blaster bolt still impacted the character, but because of the armor, the target took no damage and none of the weapons other properties could be leveraged.

Now, is this explicitly spelled out in the book? No. Is it potentially confusing? Absolutely. This thread is proof enough of that. But it's important to remember that just because something isn't capitalized doesn't mean it isn't a game term ("wound" and "wounds" are never capitalized, for instance), and game terms don't perfectly reflect the events in the story (a character with wounds has the in-game status "wounded," but as discussed above may not actually have physical wounds on their body unless they also have a critical injury).

Words can have different meanings in different contexts, and while playing an RPG, we're constantly working in two different contexts at once - the context of game mechanics to manage player abilities and game integrity, and also the context of events happening within a fictional world where those game mechanics are meaningless. Now yes, oftentimes the game terms used are chosen to make those two contexts as similar as possible as often as possible, but it's impossible for them to be 100% consistent 100% of the time.

@Absol197 , I respectfully disagree. I’m not “conflating” anything. The “game term” is no less literal in meaning. I have played many RPGs over the years, and in the vast majority of them, a hit is just that, it’s a physical hit. A miss is a miss. There is no confusion, no play of words to obfuscate things. The words mean exactly what they say. The language of this game as well is specific and does not obfuscate terms. A physical hit requires a Successful attack. A failed attack misses, literally. This is born out by the Guided quality, which specifically allows a projectile with that quality to make a second attempt to hit its target after it misses . If the rules allowed a failed attack to “hit”, then there is no way to adjudicate what actually constitutes hitting a given target and what didn’t. The rules are clear: for an attack to physically hit the target, the Combat Check must succeed. A failed attack misses literally . A failed Combat Check cannot be considered a hit under any circumstances. To do otherwise undermines everything regarding proper adjudication of the Combat. A Success must be required for an attack to be considered a hit. A Failure must be considered a complete miss. And that is what the rules say: a hit requires the Combat Check to be successful, otherwise it misses, no contact is made, and no effect is imposed upon the target, with the sole exception of Blast effects, which, by their very nature (and per RAW) are area effects.

I'll drop my two cents here. I read the first post and that's about it, as I don't want to go through 41 pages of forums on soak and defense.

I should note that these are just my rules and interpretations, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Soak is how burly, fortified, resilence, etc, the person is, and as such, the damage done to a target needs to exceed their soak to inflict any real damage. For narrative purposes, though, taking a blaster shot to the chest in full durasteel is still going to sting badly, at the very least, but no lethal damage would have been done. A failed hit for me more often then not is a miss in my book (though I have exceptions, especially if the target is large.), and a successful hit that doesn't bypass the soak value is a hit that just didn't do enough damage to change anything.

• Wanted to give a quick example of the exception to, "hitting," on a failed check. If somebody, for whatever reason wanted to take a sniper rifle, and start to fire at the star destroyer sitting in the air at extreme range above the sky scraper they're on, sure they can do it. It'll be a fairly difficult check just due to the distance though, but the target is still technically in range. No way it's getting past the soak/armor though.
• That's an extreme example, but the same could be applied to many other encounters. I once had my players fight a rancor statue that was possessed by Nightsister magic, and they chose to stay at a fairly close range to it, so it's hard to write it off as them missing the giant beast infront of them with every missed shot due to adversary. Whenever they hit him, but didn't bypass the soak I described how the area that was hit, "quickly turned to stone as it was hit, letting off a few small chunks of dust and a pebble or two before reverting back to flesh."
• I also would recommend allowing your players to, "hit," on a failed check if only to make them feel better. If your players are unlucky enough and you keep describing how bad they are, well, they're gonna feel bad. Chalk the failure up to their opponents skills, and not the lack of their own.

Defense is, depending on the source of it, how quickly the character can react to that type of incoming damage, or how prepared they are equipment wise for said damage (IE: having a reflective material on their armor for ranged defense, or having very thick vambraces for blocking an incoming vibroblade). A failed hit due to defense can be chalked up to the gear or reactions of the target doing their jobs as intended, and a successful hit (that meets soak for the sake of clarity) is simply a hit bypassed these defenses, be it through luck or skill of the attacker. A good example being attacking the neck of a Mandalorian warrior, where there's usually no armor. You could argue then, "why does soak matter then if they hit the soft part, shouldn't soak be on the metal????" and to that I say, "if the attack meets the requirements the target takes damage no matter what, and you're just adding flavor or being narrative at this point.".

While I would definitely say soak is much more reliable than defense, I don't think turning defense into more soak is the greatest of ideas for the following reasons:

1. A high soak can quickly become overpowered. Good on your PC's if they're tough as nails and it takes a rancor to deal any damage to them, but it'll make scaling combat encounters for the party as a whole more difficult if their soak isn't similar to one anothers.
2. Adding a Threat can be just as, if not more useful, as adding a Failure to a combat check. Maybe that's the last shot to come out of that gun for the rest of the fight, or the blade just dulled itself on your armor.
3. There are many talents, qualities advantage rewards that are built around ignoring defense or soak, and that would then render those useless, or stronger.
   1. An example being pierce/breach: With their 1 defense being turned into soak ontop of the 4 they already had. That turns that armor piercing grenade into a much deadlier foe when defense might have just allowed them to dodge the attack altogether.
   2. Another being the party encountering something that should have a 3 in melee defense, but is now turned into soak. Maybe you wanted to encourage your party to stay as far away from it as possible by not touching its ranged defense (though you can still do this by making the adversary pretty scary in terms of its own melee attacks), but you now just make it just as difficult for ranged attackers to hurt it as the melee attackers. This also then makes it harder for the ranged attackers to help the melee attackers by spending three advantage they might not have much use for by negating their defense for the next round.
4. I feel that it removes a characters characteristics (not the mechanical kind, but the narrative kind) and flavoring. Your quick, get in get out, character shouldn't be able to take a hit and brush it off easily, as they aren't burly, they're quick and want to avoid getting hit in the first place.

2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Auto-fire and Linked also explicitly require that an attack succeed for it to hit .

I understand that this exact conversation isn't the topic, but I wanted to comment on it nonetheless. So I ask, why? Why do you have to succeed on the shot previous to hit another shot? Isn't the point of Auto-fire and Linked weapons that you have multiple chances to hit them?

Why if someone's using a minigun (say a Z-6) does it matter that the first hit lands? It's raining plasma on them and that's still many more chances to hit. One can very easily rule that they just need to add the extra difficulty (in the case of multiple weapons and auto-fire) and spend two advantage to hit multiple times or the enemy dodges the incoming fire (or they just go flying everywhere).

Same applies to Linked, and I actually think it's abit hypocritical to require the first shot to hit in order to even attempt the next for Linked especially. A turbo laser with Linked 1 (with this modifier due to it having two barrels) might hit its first shot, but then miss the second. But if it misses the first shot, then the second shot just doesn't come out or automatically misses? Shouldn't it get a chance, what if the second shot were to hit (meaning it's just the first scenario but flipped). Remember, Linked implies that multiple shots are being fired at once (IE, both barrels of the turbo laser firing. Auto-fire is simply rapid fire, hence the increased difficulty of using it).

I get that this is the games ruling, but I just feel that it's not a good ruling and wanted to comment on it since I saw you bring it up.

8 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

1. Deflect, by definition means [rambling]

2. To change direction after hitting something , to cause to turn away. That is what deflecting is. Armor deflects Damage from an attack that hits it. It doesn’t magically make an attack miss entirely before the attack even comes near the target. The rules for Armor Defense on page 178 bare this out when it says:

3. Armor Defense is intended to deflect damage , not prevent an attack from hitting.

4. Simply put, the rules are clear, a hit is a type of Success .

1. Resorting to dictionaries are we? Without actually referencing what dictionary you're citing? Tsk tsk, I expected more from you Tramp. Using dictionaries like this doesn't serve the function you think it does.

2. Uhm. I see. You're confused about meaning content and the flexibility of language, wanting it to mean one thing and one thing alone, as if words and language aren't flexible and malleable tools used to signify various more or less significant symbols. Yeah. I do not adhere to this kind of narrow-minded reading of words - it is luckily more than specific words that create meaning, it is the context too (usually a large collection of variables, many of which are unknowns). There's no wordplay or obfuscation involved in understanding the term "hit" in a RPG to include both causing damage and to not cause damage (stopped by armour or magical power or whatever), it's just normal use of language. There should be no confusion here for anyone who's read a young adult fiction book, a textbook, and a magazine. So Absol197 is correct, you're conflating things, there's no point denying it, you may disagree, but Absol197 is right in this observation, because all evidence (i.e. your posts) point to this conclusion.

3. Well, the setback dice from defence can do both, and it works quite well, and it is how you narrate and interpret the dice result that matters, not whether selected words on selected pages could be interpreted wildly to make a rhetorical point, and (quite efficiently) troll a forum, resulting in 40+ pages of meaningless rambling filled with arbitrary words in bold 😁

4. That is one way to interpret and understand it, but clearly not the only way. You must have come to understand that, if you actually read and understood any responses ... I believe you did, but sometimes it seems you didn't, despite quoting them, as meaning and points are lost in your replies, because you keep repeating the same nonsense over and over again (even when its not relevant to the quotes you include). A deflected glancing blow can also be a hit, but stemming from an unsuccessful roll. Sure, you wouldn't see it that way (because of your peculiar idiosyncrasies when it comes to language and reading), but you do understand that other's can and will? Right? And them doing so, does not mean they are wrong, just that they read and understand the rules differently from you, because they take the whole game and act of playing the game into account.

I mean, why do you think so many people disagree with your interpretations?

2 hours ago, Jegergryte said:

I mean, why do you think so many people disagree with your interpretations?

I want to believe that it's because he loves us and wants us to have something to be mad at that isn't the 'rona.

55 minutes ago, BrickSteelhead said:

I want to believe that it's because he loves us and wants us to have something to be mad at that isn't the 'rona.

If he hadn’t displayed this behavior long before, I’d salute his noble sacrifice. 🤣

I find it ironic that the definition Tramp pulled up used "The bullet deflected harmlessly into the ceiling" as the example sentence.

5 hours ago, Broopa said:

Same applies to Linked, and I actually think it's abit hypocritical to require the first shot to hit in order to even attempt the next for Linked especially. A turbo laser with Linked 1 (with this modifier due to it having two barrels) might hit its first shot, but then miss the second. But if it misses the first shot, then the second shot just doesn't come out or automatically misses? Shouldn't it get a chance, what if the second shot were to hit (meaning it's just the first scenario but flipped). Remember, Linked implies that multiple shots are being fired at once (IE, both barrels of the turbo laser firing. Auto-fire is simply rapid fire, hence the increased difficulty of using it).

For Auto-Fire, it is simply to give it a semblance of balance. Without the requirement to hit, you'd deal damage just about every time you fire.

As for Linked, I just want to reiterate that it's two bolt flying together and no second check is attempted. All you do is spend 2 Advantage for an automatic hit as long as your check was successful. This represents multiple barrels firing simultaneously.

6 hours ago, Broopa said:

I understand that this exact conversation isn't the topic, but I wanted to comment on it nonetheless. So I ask, why? Why do you have to succeed on the shot previous to hit another shot? Isn't the point of Auto-fire and Linked weapons that you have multiple chances to hit them?

Why if someone's using a minigun (say a Z-6) does it matter that the first hit lands? It's raining plasma on them and that's still many more chances to hit. One can very easily rule that they just need to add the extra difficulty (in the case of multiple weapons and auto-fire) and spend two advantage to hit multiple times or the enemy dodges the incoming fire (or they just go flying everywhere).

Same applies to Linked, and I actually think it's abit hypocritical to require the first shot to hit in order to even attempt the next for Linked especially. A turbo laser with Linked 1 (with this modifier due to it having two barrels) might hit its first shot, but then miss the second. But if it misses the first shot, then the second shot just doesn't come out or automatically misses? Shouldn't it get a chance, what if the second shot were to hit (meaning it's just the first scenario but flipped). Remember, Linked implies that multiple shots are being fired at once (IE, both barrels of the turbo laser firing. Auto-fire is simply rapid fire, hence the increased difficulty of using it).

I get that this is the games ruling, but I just feel that it's not a good ruling and wanted to comment on it since I saw you bring it up.

Read the rule on the Auto-fire and Linked weapon Qualities as with almost all active weapon qualities (except Blast and Guided, which can be triggered on a miss) Auto-fire and Linked both can only be triggered if the Combat Check succeeds, if the attack hits . This is stated flat out on page 161 of the F&D core rules, where it states:

Quote

Active qualities require two Advantages to activate unless otherwise stated in their description. Active item qualities on weapons can only trigger on a successful attack, unless specified otherwise.

That is the rule. What these two weapon qualities then allow is for the weapon to hit more than once per attack roll, by spending the required number of Advantage to gain additional hits on top of the initial hit.

5 hours ago, Jegergryte said:

1. Resorting to dictionaries are we? Without actually referencing what dictionary you're citing? Tsk tsk, I expected more from you Tramp. Using dictionaries like this doesn't serve the function you think it does.

2. Uhm. I see. You're confused about meaning content and the flexibility of language, wanting it to mean one thing and one thing alone, as if words and language aren't flexible and malleable tools used to signify various more or less significant symbols. Yeah. I do not adhere to this kind of narrow-minded reading of words - it is luckily more than specific words that create meaning, it is the context too (usually a large collection of variables, many of which are unknowns). There's no wordplay or obfuscation involved in understanding the term "hit" in a RPG to include both causing damage and to not cause damage (stopped by armour or magical power or whatever), it's just normal use of language. There should be no confusion here for anyone who's read a young adult fiction book, a textbook, and a magazine. So Absol197 is correct, you're conflating things, there's no point denying it, you may disagree, but Absol197 is right in this observation, because all evidence (i.e. your posts) point to this conclusion.

3. Well, the setback dice from defence can do both, and it works quite well, and it is how you narrate and interpret the dice result that matters, not whether selected words on selected pages could be interpreted wildly to make a rhetorical point, and (quite efficiently) troll a forum, resulting in 40+ pages of meaningless rambling filled with arbitrary words in bold 😁

4. That is one way to interpret and understand it, but clearly not the only way. You must have come to understand that, if you actually read and understood any responses ... I believe you did, but sometimes it seems you didn't, despite quoting them, as meaning and points are lost in your replies, because you keep repeating the same nonsense over and over again (even when its not relevant to the quotes you include). A deflected glancing blow can also be a hit, but stemming from an unsuccessful roll. Sure, you wouldn't see it that way (because of your peculiar idiosyncrasies when it comes to language and reading), but you do understand that other's can and will? Right? And them doing so, does not mean they are wrong, just that they read and understand the rules differently from you, because they take the whole game and act of playing the game into account.

I mean, why do you think so many people disagree with your interpretations?

Just type in Deflect in Google. There’s also the Webster’s online dictionary definition , the Cambridge dictionary definition , there, also Deflection (Physics) , which is what we’re talking about regarding armor deflecting damage. To quote:

Quote

A deflection , in physics , refers to the change in an object's velocity as a consequence of contact ( collision ) with a surface or the influence of a field .

Armor does not create some sort of “field” around the wearer that influences the incoming attack to cause it to miss. Armor deflects the attack when the attack collides with the armor . The attack has to strike the armor for deflection to occur; it has to hit . That requires a Success on the Combat Check by RAW.

Energy shields can deflect attacks through the “influence of a field”, because that is exactly what an energy shield is; it’s an energy field surrounding the target that influences incoming attacks to turn them aside. Armor is a physical object worn. The attack has to collide with the armor for the armor to deflect it. Armor cannot influence the incoming attack from a distance in order to cause the attack to miss entirely. The attack has to hit in order to be deflected. That is basic physics .

8 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Read the rule on the Auto-fire and Linked weapon Qualities as with almost all active weapon qualities (except Blast and Guided, which can be triggered on a miss) Auto-fire and Linked both can only be triggered if the Combat Check succeeds, if the attack hits . This is stated flat out on page 161 of the F&D core rules, where it states:

That is the rule. What these two weapon qualities then allow is for the weapon to hit more than once per attack roll, by spending the required number of Advantage to gain additional hits on top of the initial hit.

And, just like you're saying about Defense, he was saying he doesn't like that rule

23 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I find it ironic that the definition Tramp pulled up used "The bullet deflected harmlessly into the ceiling" as the example sentence.

For Auto-Fire, it is simply to give it a semblance of balance. Without the requirement to hit, you'd deal damage just about every time you fire.

As for Linked, I just want to reiterate that it's two bolt flying together and no second check is attempted. All you do is spend 2 Advantage for an automatic hit as long as your check was successful. This represents multiple barrels firing simultaneously.

There’s nothing ironic about it, and I didn’t choose that example sentence. It was included in the definition. But let’s look at that sentence: "The bullet deflected harmlessly into the ceiling.” What did the bullet deflect off of? A suit of armor, the corner of a wall, or other cover? What matters is that the bullet bounced off of something and was thus deflected upwards, and did no damage to the intended target. If it was the intended target’s armor that the bullet defected off of, the shot still hit the target. It just did no damage. This fits with the description of Armor Defense, which, “ reflects armor’s ability to deflect damage away from the wearer’s body.”

2 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

What did the bullet deflect off of? A suit of armor, the corner of a wall, or other cover? What matters is that the bullet bounced off of something and was thus deflected upwards, and did no damage to the intended target. If it was the intended target’s armor that the bullet defected off of, the shot still hit the target. It just did no damage. This fits with the description of Armor Defense, which, “ reflects armor’s ability to deflect damage away from the wearer’s body.”

Wait a second, did you just agree with us? That's what we've been saying all along!

@Tramp Graphics why you ignore my question to you? You quote the entire thing, and you don't even have a witty, smart, or constructive answer. Just redirecting me to Google is lazy, particularly for you, and I don't care for your "this is what we're talking about" nonsense. You keep ignoring substantial and critical questions, that actually cover what we are discussing.

51 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Read the rule on the Auto-fire and Linked weapon Qualities as with almost all active weapon qualities (except Blast and Guided, which can be triggered on a miss) Auto-fire and Linked both can only be triggered if the Combat Check succeeds, if the attack hits . This is stated flat out on page 161 of the F&D core rules, where it states:

51 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

That is the rule. What these two weapon qualities then allow is for the weapon to hit more than once per attack roll, by spending the required number of Advantage to gain additional hits on top of the initial hit.

Yes. In order for these qualities to inflict additional damage, they first must be involved in a successful attack roll. A successful attack roll is defined in the book as shown in the image I posted previously.

This does not alter the fact that armor with a Defense rating adds one or more Setback die/dice to the dice pool, which can impact whether or not the attack roll succeeds or fails. Which leads us to...

51 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Armor does not create some sort of “field” around the wearer that influences the incoming attack to cause it to miss. Armor deflects the attack when the attack collides with the armor . The attack has to strike the armor for deflection to occur; it has to hit . That requires a Success on the Combat Check by RAW.

You’re getting sooooo close to a lightbulb moment. Of course armor doesn’t make attacks magically veer off. (That’s what we’ve been saying all along.) But, some does add Setback(s) which can lead to a failed attack roll. When insisting that all failed attack rolls absolutely, positively cannot, under any circumstances, make contact with their target, how, exactly, do you account for failed attack rolls due to failures on the Setback die/dice added because of armor’s Defense rating? That sounds a lot like insisting that the armor created some sort of “field” around the wearer that influences the incoming attack, causing it to miss.

17 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Wait a second, did you just agree with us? That's what we've been saying all along!

No, it isn’t. Especially not @Daeglan , who insists that a failed attack roll can still count as a hit. The rules specifically say that a hit requires a Successful attack roll. It also states that even on a successful attack there is the potential that said attack may do no damage as a result of Soak and/or Defense reducing the damage to zero .

Armor has the potential to reduce the damage from a successful hit to zero by soaking it, along with any armor Defense value reducing the number of net Successes . If the total damage is less than the Soak as a result, then the damage was deflected harmlessly, however, that still allows for weapon qualities like Auto-fire, Linked, Knockdown to be triggered. If the attack roll completely fails , if the attack misses , these qualities cannot be triggered and the attack has absolutely no potential effect whatsoever on the target.

By contrast, things like cover, energy shields, etc can cause an attack to be deflected well before it can even reach the intended target. Other forms of Defense can hide or obscure the target making it harder to hit. Armor has to actually be successfully hit in order for it to deflect the damage. It cannot prevent the attack from actually hitting the target in the first place. So the issue is not whether the attack was effective, but whether it actually lands in the first place . The RAW requires that a Combat Check be a Success for the attack to land, for it to hit . That is the rule. That is covered in multiple passages in the book including the ones I mentioned above. The example of the bullet, might cover any number of scenarios. If it was some form of cover that deflected the bullet, then it means that the bullet didn’t even reach the target. In game terms, the Setbacks provided by the cover cancelled out all the Successes on the dice, resulting in a miss. If it’s the armor that deflected the bullet, it means that the armor’s Defense value of the armor reduced the number of additional Net Successes enough to reduce the total damage to below the target’s Soak value , resulting in no damage being taken. Thus, the bullet deflects off the armor “harmlessly”.

If the Combat Check as a whole failed, the bullet would simply pass by the target harmlessly without bouncing off the armor, or even making any other sort of contact at all. It’s a miss , not a deflection . That’s the difference.