7 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Yes, according to the rules as written , particularly when you read the full text for the Parry and Reflect talents, both of which begin with "When the character suffers a hit ..." Also, Circle of Shelter also begins with, "When an ally suffers a hit from a Combat Check..." These talents do not say "suffer from a successful combat check". They say "suffers a hit" . A successful Combat check is a hit . A failed Combat check is a miss . That is RAW .

I'm being none of the above. I am being truthful, and honest. Advantages/Threats and Triumphs/Despairs do not inherently change the binary outcome of success or failure, hit or miss. That binary element is still there. And it is something all RPGs have. Advantages/Threats, Triumphs/Despairs are narrative elements which enhance the binary outcome of success or failure, they do not replace that binary outcome. The binary outcome of success or failure, hit or miss, is still there. Yes, with Advantages or Triumphs, you could have a boon even if you failed in your attempted task, but the attempted task is still a failure . The same with a Threat or Despair on a successful task attempt. Yes, something bad also occurs, but the attempted task itself was successful . Success, Fail; Hit or Miss; that's a binary outcome. And that is the most important factor in any game: determining if a task attempt succeeds or fails.

You're also wrong about D&D, Crit is not a third state. Crit is short-hand for Critical success or even Critical failure (If you rolled a natural 1). In other words, it's still included in the binary Success/Failure state.

Again, the only way your argument makes sense is by grossly and dishonestly misrepresenting and oversimplifying the facts.

Die rolls in RPGs, at last as we've discussed them, are simple mechanical systems with a number of outcomes. A die roll in D&D tends to have three outcomes (I'm a few editions behind so I'm a bit rusty). If 11+ is a success, 1-10 is result #1, 11-19 is result #2 and 20 is result #3. These are the only three results that the roll will give you. Critical success is a success, but it's a different kind of success, and therefore a different state.

In Star Wars, the result of the die roll is different for every symbol you roll. 2 success + 2 advantage is mechanically different from 2 success + 3 advantage or 2 success + 2 threat. Even if you ignore advantage/threat, 2 successes is a different result from 3 successes for the most part. You can simplify it down simply calling it pass/fail, and that simplification of the system could be called binary, but that does not mean the system is. If you're going to argue the attributes of something based on a simplification, I'm looking forward to seeing you arguing that the world is two-dimensional because maps are.

Not that I'd be the least bit surprised if you did turn out to be a flat earther. It seems like something right up your alley.

Also, I had a vision of your pants being on fire for some reason. I feel that this has some kind of symbolic meaning, but I just can't put my finger on what that would be...

1 hour ago, RickInVA said:

OK, a question involving a real world hypothetical scenario.

Say that we have two tanks. One has flat armor and one has sloped armor. When hit by a particular AT gun, in controlled conditions, the flat armor tank is always destroyed. With the sloped armor tank 40% of the time the AT round deflects off harmlessly (for the sake of the hypothetical causing no damage or other effect), and the other 60% of the time the tank is destroyed.

To me the "all or nothing" benefit of the sloped armor would be Defense. As we are performing the test under controlled conditions there cannot, per the hypo, be better or worse hits on the tank. Therefore the benefit of the sloped armor cannot be Soak as the same net damage cannot sometimes destroy the tank and sometimes not.

So if my character has one wound left, and an attacking weapon will do at least 6 wounds if it hits, and my soak is otherwise 4, I have to think about what is the intent of the thing providing Defense. Is it meant to be like the sloped armor, i.e something that has the possibility to preserve me from harm, or is it meant to only (but beneficially) reduce the effect of being hit? If the intent is the former then it provides Defense, if the latter Soak.

Now a lot of the argument seems to be, as it relates to Defense, that "armor doesn't work that way". Aside from just disagreeing, even if I agreed with the premise I would have to amend it to be, "armor up to and including that produced in 2020 on Earth doesn't work that way." Considering that people at one time thought your heath was dependent on the your "humours", or that if you traveled 60 miles per hour your head would explode, I don't feel that applying 2020 physics to the Star Wars universe provides any useful guidance. It seems to me that if the game designer of the armor in question wanted it to have the ability to possibly completely negate damage then the game method was to provide it with Defense. No comparison with anything that exists in the real world is useful. If you had a suit of whatever Imperial Armor to do tests on, then OK, but no one does, so I feel we simply have to respect the intent of the designer, even if we don't yet have technology available to replicate that effect.

Eloquent, logical and well thought out.

You must be new here.

18 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

Eloquent, logical and well thought out.

You must be new here.

Also what i have been trying to hammer through his skull for pages. But then @penpenpen tramp lies to about things

3 hours ago, RickInVA said:

Say that we have two tanks. One has flat armor and one has sloped armor. When hit by a particular AT gun, in controlled conditions, the flat armor tank is always destroyed. With the sloped armor tank 40% of the time the AT round deflects off harmlessly (for the sake of the hypothetical causing no damage or other effect), and the other 60% of the time the tank is destroyed.

BLOCK OF TEXT FOLLOWING...I HAD AN FFG EPIPHANY

This got me thinking of soft vs. hard armors. I wear soft armor everyday when I work, and a combination of soft and hard armors a couple days a month on average. There is a huge difference between the two.

Soft "Kevlar" armor with a 3A rating is the current standard for police. It bends. It's the stuff police wear under clothing on patrol and sometimes in a tactical vest on the outside of clothing. I know if I ever took a round in it that didn't penetrate, it's never going to bounce off. If the round doesn't penetrate, I'm still going to get some massive bruising and possibly some fractures. That's Soak to me. For kinetic weapons a more realistic house rule might even include taking perhaps 1/2 of the Soaked damage in Strain or something like that.

Now the hard stuff. Helmets have the same 3A rating as the soft armor, but it's obviously hard Kevlar. My tactical vest covers most of my upper body in the soft 3A, but it also has two extremely thick and heavy hardened rifle "plates", front and back. This stuff will stop most rifle rounds. I've seen tests done on the helmets and the rifle plates either in-person or on video since every 5 years I have to decide what to purchase for our tactical teams. A direct hit on the hard stuff that somehow did penetrate is still slowing the bullet down. That would be Soak in game terms. But, as RickInVa mentioned above, an angled hit will often glance off the armor. Even the lighter made hard helmet can glance stuff off (taking a chunk with it) if it is not a direct hit. In fact I guess I do wear hard armor daily since I also have a thinner hardened chest plate in a pocket on the front of my daily soft armor. I've advised police to put a soft piece of armor over the hard plate due to non-penetrating rounds on the hard plate having a tendency to bounce up the slope of your chest piece and send the fragments up under your chin. A soft armor trauma plate over the top is there to catch the fragments so they don't deflect up into you. So getting to the point, the hard stuff makes me think of a Defense die. At the right angle, the deflection would not cause any "wounds", maybe just knock you around a bit depending on the speed of the round and the angle. But, a solid straight on hit that doesn't penetrate can still cause some bruising underneath. So, sometimes it Soaks, sometimes it deflects.

I've always thought the bonus die was thrown in to help differentiate armor without adding too much Soak to the high end. I still believe that, but the bonus die actually helps model the reflective nature of hardened armor much better. The designers, either by genius design or accident, may have realistically modelled hardened armor by giving it both a Soak and a Bonus die due to its sometimes reflective nature. I used to be just for Soak in armor, but that's pretty darn awesome now that I've considered that. Soft armor should have Soak only. Hard armors should have a combination of Soak and Defense representing its nature of soaking up direct strikes, but sometimes reflecting the more common angled hit.

5 hours ago, Sturn said:

BLOCK OF TEXT FOLLOWING...I HAD AN FFG EPIPHANY

This got me thinking of soft vs. hard armors. I wear soft armor everyday when I work, and a combination of soft and hard armors a couple days a month on average. There is a huge difference between the two.

Soft "Kevlar" armor with a 3A rating is the current standard for police. It bends. It's the stuff police wear under clothing on patrol and sometimes in a tactical vest on the outside of clothing. I know if I ever took a round in it that didn't penetrate, it's never going to bounce off. If the round doesn't penetrate, I'm still going to get some massive bruising and possibly some fractures. That's Soak to me. For kinetic weapons a more realistic house rule might even include taking perhaps 1/2 of the Soaked damage in Strain or something like that.

Now the hard stuff. Helmets have the same 3A rating as the soft armor, but it's obviously hard Kevlar. My tactical vest covers most of my upper body in the soft 3A, but it also has two extremely thick and heavy hardened rifle "plates", front and back. This stuff will stop most rifle rounds. I've seen tests done on the helmets and the rifle plates either in-person or on video since every 5 years I have to decide what to purchase for our tactical teams. A direct hit on the hard stuff that somehow did penetrate is still slowing the bullet down. That would be Soak in game terms. But, as RickInVa mentioned above, an angled hit will often glance off the armor. Even the lighter made hard helmet can glance stuff off (taking a chunk with it) if it is not a direct hit. In fact I guess I do wear hard armor daily since I also have a thinner hardened chest plate in a pocket on the front of my daily soft armor. I've advised police to put a soft piece of armor over the hard plate due to non-penetrating rounds on the hard plate having a tendency to bounce up the slope of your chest piece and send the fragments up under your chin. A soft armor trauma plate over the top is there to catch the fragments so they don't deflect up into you. So getting to the point, the hard stuff makes me think of a Defense die. At the right angle, the deflection would not cause any "wounds", maybe just knock you around a bit depending on the speed of the round and the angle. But, a solid straight on hit that doesn't penetrate can still cause some bruising underneath. So, sometimes it Soaks, sometimes it deflects.

I've always thought the bonus die was thrown in to help differentiate armor without adding too much Soak to the high end. I still believe that, but the bonus die actually helps model the reflective nature of hardened armor much better. The designers, either by genius design or accident, may have realistically modelled hardened armor by giving it both a Soak and a Bonus die due to its sometimes reflective nature. I used to be just for Soak in armor, but that's pretty darn awesome now that I've considered that. Soft armor should have Soak only. Hard armors should have a combination of Soak and Defense representing its nature of soaking up direct strikes, but sometimes reflecting the more common angled hit.

Exactly.

10 hours ago, penpenpen said:

Again, the only way your argument makes sense is by grossly and dishonestly misrepresenting and oversimplifying the facts.

Die rolls in RPGs, at last as we've discussed them, are simple mechanical systems with a number of outcomes. A die roll in D&D tends to have three outcomes (I'm a few editions behind so I'm a bit rusty). If 11+ is a success, 1-10 is result #1, 11-19 is result #2 and 20 is result #3. These are the only three results that the roll will give you. Critical success is a success, but it's a different kind of success, and therefore a different state.

In Star Wars, the result of the die roll is different for every symbol you roll. 2 success + 2 advantage is mechanically different from 2 success + 3 advantage or 2 success + 2 threat. Even if you ignore advantage/threat, 2 successes is a different result from 3 successes for the most part. You can simplify it down simply calling it pass/fail, and that simplification of the system could be called binary, but that does not mean the system is. If you're going to argue the attributes of something based on a simplification, I'm looking forward to seeing you arguing that the world is two-dimensional because maps are.

Not that I'd be the least bit surprised if you did turn out to be a flat earther. It seems like something right up your alley.

Also, I had a vision of your pants being on fire for some reason. I feel that this has some kind of symbolic meaning, but I just can't put my finger on what that would be...

Pathfinder 2E even has four states - Critical Failure, Failure, Success, Critical Success.

2 hours ago, StarkJunior said:

Pathfinder 2E even has four states - Critical Failure, Failure, Success, Critical Success.

What I like to call bi-binary system (pronounced "bibi-nary" to make it, and me, sound more ridiculous and stupid).

On 1/19/2020 at 4:47 PM, Sturn said:

So you found a hit reference in talents in later releases. That doesn't change what is described in the actual description of an attack roll in the rules-as-written. It is describing damage being applied or not. When you read over the attack rules description which is the best source of what we are discussing, didn't find the word, "hit", then moved on to trying to find this word somewhere else, what was the attack roll rules describing? Was it describing a hit or a successful application of damage?

It's describing a hit. This is because things like Soak, Reflect, and Parry can potentially reduce the damage done to zero even with net successes on the attack roll. As such, those attacks wouldn't be a "succesful application of damage". They would be a successful hit, however, which in turn would allow for the application of weapon qualities, such as Knock Down or Concussive , both of which require the target to be struck to have any effect.

On 1/19/2020 at 10:25 PM, RickInVA said:

OK, a question involving a real world hypothetical scenario.

Say that we have two tanks. One has flat armor and one has sloped armor. When hit by a particular AT gun, in controlled conditions, the flat armor tank is always destroyed. With the sloped armor tank 40% of the time the AT round deflects off harmlessly (for the sake of the hypothetical causing no damage or other effect), and the other 60% of the time the tank is destroyed.

To me the "all or nothing" benefit of the sloped armor would be Defense. As we are performing the test under controlled conditions there cannot, per the hypo, be better or worse hits on the tank. Therefore the benefit of the sloped armor cannot be Soak as the same net damage cannot sometimes destroy the tank and sometimes not.

So if my character has one wound left, and an attacking weapon will do at least 6 wounds if it hits, and my soak is otherwise 4, I have to think about what is the intent of the thing providing Defense. Is it meant to be like the sloped armor, i.e something that has the possibility to preserve me from harm, or is it meant to only (but beneficially) reduce the effect of being hit? If the intent is the former then it provides Defense, if the latter Soak.

Now a lot of the argument seems to be, as it relates to Defense, that "armor doesn't work that way". Aside from just disagreeing, even if I agreed with the premise I would have to amend it to be, "armor up to and including that produced in 2020 on Earth doesn't work that way." Considering that people at one time thought your heath was dependent on the your "humours", or that if you traveled 60 miles per hour your head would explode, I don't feel that applying 2020 physics to the Star Wars universe provides any useful guidance. It seems to me that if the game designer of the armor in question wanted it to have the ability to possibly completely negate damage then the game method was to provide it with Defense. No comparison with anything that exists in the real world is useful. If you had a suit of whatever Imperial Armor to do tests on, then OK, but no one does, so I feel we simply have to respect the intent of the designer, even if we don't yet have technology available to replicate that effect.

Except that Sloped armor isn't all or nothing, as pointed out in the article I linked to. Full deflection is only one possible outcome. The other advantage of sloped armor is the amount of armor the round has to penetrate increases vs if it hit head on, even though the actual plate thickness remains constant. By angling the plate in relation to the attack, the round must travel through more material in order to completely penetrate the armor. That is Soak, not Defense. It's not all or nothing. And, even with a deflection, it's still not all or nothing. The armor takes damage. as stated here:

Quote

The final effect is that of deflection, deforming and ricochet of a projectile. When it hits a plate under a steep angle, its path might be curved, causing it to move through more armour – or it might bounce off entirely. Also it can be bent, reducing its penetration . However, these effects are strongly dependent on the precise armour materials used and the qualities of the projectile hitting it: sloping might even lead to a better penetration. Shaped charge warheads may fail to penetrate and even detonate when striking armour at a highly oblique angle .

Ergo, even deflecting an attack is not all or nothing. It's still damage reduction, not Defense. Defense is preventing a hit entirely, It's making a target harder to actually hit .

On 1/20/2020 at 12:09 AM, penpenpen said:

Again, the only way your argument makes sense is by grossly and dishonestly misrepresenting and oversimplifying the facts.

Die rolls in RPGs, at last as we've discussed them, are simple mechanical systems with a number of outcomes. A die roll in D&D tends to have three outcomes (I'm a few editions behind so I'm a bit rusty). If 11+ is a success, 1-10 is result #1, 11-19 is result #2 and 20 is result #3. These are the only three results that the roll will give you. Critical success is a success, but it's a different kind of success, and therefore a different state.

In Star Wars, the result of the die roll is different for every symbol you roll. 2 success + 2 advantage is mechanically different from 2 success + 3 advantage or 2 success + 2 threat. Even if you ignore advantage/threat, 2 successes is a different result from 3 successes for the most part. You can simplify it down simply calling it pass/fail, and that simplification of the system could be called binary, but that does not mean the system is. If you're going to argue the attributes of something based on a simplification, I'm looking forward to seeing you arguing that the world is two-dimensional because maps are.

Not that I'd be the least bit surprised if you did turn out to be a flat earther. It seems like something right up your alley.

Also, I had a vision of your pants being on fire for some reason. I feel that this has some kind of symbolic meaning, but I just can't put my finger on what that would be...

There's nothing dishonest about it. And as for "oversimplifying". There's nothing " over " about it either. The simpler the explanation the better. In other words, you are overcomplicating matters. Always follow the KISS rule. Keep it Simple Stupid. Follow that rule and you never go wrong.

As for D&D, they also have a "fourth" outcome, which is part of the failure: A Critical failure , AKA a Fumble . Most RPGs have a similar mechanic. However, both the Critical Success and Critical Failure, are still, at their hearts, successes or failures. It's ultimately, still a binary outcome-Success or Failure, hit or miss. Criticals just compound the effect of that success or failure.

On 1/20/2020 at 1:40 AM, Sturn said:

BLOCK OF TEXT FOLLOWING...I HAD AN FFG EPIPHANY

This got me thinking of soft vs. hard armors. I wear soft armor everyday when I work, and a combination of soft and hard armors a couple days a month on average. There is a huge difference between the two.

Soft "Kevlar" armor with a 3A rating is the current standard for police. It bends. It's the stuff police wear under clothing on patrol and sometimes in a tactical vest on the outside of clothing. I know if I ever took a round in it that didn't penetrate, it's never going to bounce off. If the round doesn't penetrate, I'm still going to get some massive bruising and possibly some fractures. That's Soak to me. For kinetic weapons a more realistic house rule might even include taking perhaps 1/2 of the Soaked damage in Strain or something like that.

Now the hard stuff. Helmets have the same 3A rating as the soft armor, but it's obviously hard Kevlar. My tactical vest covers most of my upper body in the soft 3A, but it also has two extremely thick and heavy hardened rifle "plates", front and back. This stuff will stop most rifle rounds. I've seen tests done on the helmets and the rifle plates either in-person or on video since every 5 years I have to decide what to purchase for our tactical teams. A direct hit on the hard stuff that somehow did penetrate is still slowing the bullet down. That would be Soak in game terms. But, as RickInVa mentioned above, an angled hit will often glance off the armor. Even the lighter made hard helmet can glance stuff off (taking a chunk with it) if it is not a direct hit. In fact I guess I do wear hard armor daily since I also have a thinner hardened chest plate in a pocket on the front of my daily soft armor. I've advised police to put a soft piece of armor over the hard plate due to non-penetrating rounds on the hard plate having a tendency to bounce up the slope of your chest piece and send the fragments up under your chin. A soft armor trauma plate over the top is there to catch the fragments so they don't deflect up into you. So getting to the point, the hard stuff makes me think of a Defense die. At the right angle, the deflection would not cause any "wounds", maybe just knock you around a bit depending on the speed of the round and the angle. But, a solid straight on hit that doesn't penetrate can still cause some bruising underneath. So, sometimes it Soaks, sometimes it deflects.

I've always thought the bonus die was thrown in to help differentiate armor without adding too much Soak to the high end. I still believe that, but the bonus die actually helps model the reflective nature of hardened armor much better. The designers, either by genius design or accident, may have realistically modelled hardened armor by giving it both a Soak and a Bonus die due to its sometimes reflective nature. I used to be just for Soak in armor, but that's pretty darn awesome now that I've considered that. Soft armor should have Soak only. Hard armors should have a combination of Soak and Defense representing its nature of soaking up direct strikes, but sometimes reflecting the more common angled hit.

Deflecting is still Soak. All Soak is is the reduction of damage . That includes both absorbing damage, and deflecting it. A deflected hit is still a successful hit. It can still knock down a target, it can still cause a concussion. It can still knock a target back. NO matter what, the target is still successfully hit. Any damage reduced, be it through absorption or deflection, is still Soak. It's still Damage Reduction, it's still Stopping Power. It's still a measure of how much damage can the armor prevent from injuring the target. It's not preventing the target from being successfully hit. It's simply reducing the damage done. As noted above in the linked article on Sloped Armor (and this applies to curved armor as well), A deflection can curve the hit, so that it takes longer to penetrate, or it could bounce off. Both are still successful hits. And in either case, they can still cause bruising. I know this from my time in the SCA seeing the heavy fighters after combat practice or after a battle, removing their hard plate armor, and seeing the bruises underneath from here they go hit, even though the rattan swords were deflected by the armor plates. So don't try and tell me that a deflected attack is a failed attack. Deflection is not preventing a hit. Deflection is just another form of damage reduction . It's just another way to describe Soak .

32 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

There's nothing dishonest about it. And as for "oversimplifying". There's nothing " over " about it either. The simpler the explanation the better. In other words, you are overcomplicating matters. Always follow the KISS rule. Keep it Simple Stupid. Follow that rule and you never go wrong.

As for D&D, they also have a "fourth" outcome, which is part of the failure: A Critical failure , AKA a Fumble . Most RPGs have a similar mechanic. However, both the Critical Success and Critical Failure, are still, at their hearts, successes or failures. It's ultimately, still a binary outcome-Success or Failure, hit or miss. Criticals just compound the effect of that success or failure.

Buddy, it's not that, though. It's not binary.

In PF2E, for example there are actually four different outcomes for certain actions depending on whether you get a Critical Success, Success, Failure, or Critical Failure. And that's just baseline, there are certain class features, class feats, and general/skill feats that further modify the possible outcomes. So, that's not binary, because EACH ONE has a different explicit outcome and mechanical effect, and four =/= binary.

For example, certain builds of fighter at a certain point ALWAYS hit, even on a failure - they just do the minimum die damage. So, by your stance, fighters never actually fail because even on a failure they hit and do damage... which goes against the system, because it's still a failure per rules.

Another example, this time from a spell -

That's four different outcomes, based on a roll. Not binary.

Stop moving the goal posts to support your stance.

9 minutes ago, StarkJunior said:

Buddy, it's not that, though. It's not binary.

In PF2E, for example there are actually four different outcomes for certain actions depending on whether you get a Critical Success, Success, Failure, or Critical Failure. And that's just baseline, there are certain class features, class feats, and general/skill feats that further modify the possible outcomes. So, that's not binary, because EACH ONE has a different explicit outcome and mechanical effect, and four =/= binary.

For example, certain builds of fighter at a certain point ALWAYS hit, even on a failure - they just do the minimum die damage. So, by your stance, fighters never actually fail because even on a failure they hit and do damage... which goes against the system, because it's still a failure per rules.

Another example, this time from a spell -

That's four different outcomes, based on a roll. Not binary.

Stop moving the goal posts to support your stance.

Yes, but Critical successes and Critical failures, are, at their heart , still Successes or Failures. They just compound the effects of a Success or Failure.

6 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Yes, but Critical successes and Critical failures, are, at their heart , still Successes or Failures. They just compound the effects of a Success or Failure.

No, they are distinct. Distinct outcomes for each roll, explicitly differently mechanical effects is NOT binary. It's not 'this outcome' or 'this outcome'. "Success" and "Failure" in PF2E is just a starting point, they aren't the end-all-be-all, because there are varying degrees of each within those categories, to the point where you can even shift what the system considers the point that bridges into success or failure or upgrade/downgrade something to another degree.

And, again, according to your definition a fighter who fails and still actually does hit and do damage narratively doesn't actually fail, but he does per the rules... so which is it? Where are you moving the posts now? And even 'succeeding' on some rules you can STILL be hit and receive damage... so is that a failure, too?

Some systems even have like 4 or 5 different effects based on what the d20 itself showed before any modifiers are added... which isn't binary.

35 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

It's describing a hit. This is because things like Soak, Reflect, and Parry can potentially reduce the damage done to zero even with net successes on the attack roll. As such, those attacks wouldn't be a "succesful application of damage". They would be a successful hit, however, which in turn would allow for the application of weapon qualities, such as Knock Down or Concussive , both of which require the target to be struck to have any effect.

Except that Sloped armor isn't all or nothing, as pointed out in the article I linked to. Full deflection is only one possible outcome. The other advantage of sloped armor is the amount of armor the round has to penetrate increases vs if it hit head on, even though the actual plate thickness remains constant. By angling the plate in relation to the attack, the round must travel through more material in order to completely penetrate the armor. That is Soak, not Defense. It's not all or nothing. And, even with a deflection, it's still not all or nothing. The armor takes damage. as stated here:

Ergo, even deflecting an attack is not all or nothing. It's still damage reduction, not Defense. Defense is preventing a hit entirely, It's making a target harder to actually hit .

There's nothing dishonest about it. And as for "oversimplifying". There's nothing " over " about it either. The simpler the explanation the better. In other words, you are overcomplicating matters. Always follow the KISS rule. Keep it Simple Stupid. Follow that rule and you never go wrong.

As for D&D, they also have a "fourth" outcome, which is part of the failure: A Critical failure , AKA a Fumble . Most RPGs have a similar mechanic. However, both the Critical Success and Critical Failure, are still, at their hearts, successes or failures. It's ultimately, still a binary outcome-Success or Failure, hit or miss. Criticals just compound the effect of that success or failure.

Deflecting is still Soak. All Soak is is the reduction of damage . That includes both absorbing damage, and deflecting it. A deflected hit is still a successful hit. It can still knock down a target, it can still cause a concussion. It can still knock a target back. NO matter what, the target is still successfully hit. Any damage reduced, be it through absorption or deflection, is still Soak. It's still Damage Reduction, it's still Stopping Power. It's still a measure of how much damage can the armor prevent from injuring the target. It's not preventing the target from being successfully hit. It's simply reducing the damage done. As noted above in the linked article on Sloped Armor (and this applies to curved armor as well), A deflection can curve the hit, so that it takes longer to penetrate, or it could bounce off. Both are still successful hits. And in either case, they can still cause bruising. I know this from my time in the SCA seeing the heavy fighters after combat practice or after a battle, removing their hard plate armor, and seeing the bruises underneath from here they go hit, even though the rattan swords were deflected by the armor plates. So don't try and tell me that a deflected attack is a failed attack. Deflection is not preventing a hit. Deflection is just another form of damage reduction . It's just another way to describe Soak .

you have already been proven wrong. Your refusal to except that is on you.

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

you have already been proven wrong. Your refusal to except that is on you.

No, I haven't been " proven " anything. You saying so doesn't make it so.

Ok then show us where in the combat rules it says anything about hitting.

Okay Tramp, simple question:

If I punch at you and just barely graze your ear, did I hit, or did I miss?

I don't want a long, drawn out answer. You ought to be able to answer this is one or two sentences at the outside.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

Ok then show us where in the combat rules it says anything about hitting.

Already did, particularly with the Parry and Reflect , as well as Circle of Shelter talents. Those are in the CRB .

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Okay Tramp, simple question:

If I punch at you and just barely graze your ear, did I hit, or did I miss?

I don't want a long, drawn out answer. You ought to be able to answer this is one or two sentences at the outside.

You hit.

Just now, Tramp Graphics said:

You hit.

And yet I do no damage? How can that be?

3 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

And yet I do no damage? How can that be?

Because...

Just now, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

And yet I do no damage? How can that be?

Soak . A hit doesn't need to do damage. It needs to make contact. A paper cut doesn't really do any real "damage" either, though it hurts like heck. And those are typically caused by grazes. The same with scrapes . They're all grazes . All of them are minor damage at best, but they're all successful hits . If I walk past you and bump my arm against your arm, that's not going to cause any damage, but it might knock you down. It still hits you. If I did that deliberately, that's an "attack", it would call for a combat check. Even against an unarmored target, it's likely do do little to no actual damage. But it still hits, and could potentially knock you down. It's a successful attack. It's a hit. It doesn't have to do any damage.

For another example, when you grapple with someone, you need to make contact. A grapple doesn't inherently cause damage, but you still need to hit the target in order to get a hold of it . Your arms and hands strike the target and grab it. That's a hit.

6 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Soak . A hit doesn't need to do damage. It needs to make contact. A paper cut doesn't really do any real "damage" either, though it hurts like heck. And those are typically caused by grazes. The same with scrapes . They're all grazes . All of them are minor damage at best, but they're all successful hits . If I walk past you and bump my arm against your arm, that's not going to cause any damage, but it might knock you down. It still hits you. If I did that deliberately, that's an "attack", it would call for a combat check. Even against an unarmored target, it's likely do do little to no actual damage. But it still hits, and could potentially knock you down. It's a successful attack. It's a hit. It doesn't have to do any damage.

For another example, when you grapple with someone, you need to make contact. A grapple doesn't inherently cause damage, but you still need to hit the target in order to get a hold of it . Your arms and hands strike the target and grab it. That's a hit.

What if I have Brawn 5, and you have Soak 1. Then what? By RAW, I'd do 5 damage to you with one success.

My argument has never been that the attack didn't hit. My argument was that it can make physical contact, and yet not manage to do anything. If I graze your ear, I made physical contact, and yet didn't manage to do anything to you.

Just now, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

What if I have Brawn 5, and you have Soak 1. Then what? By RAW, I'd do 5 damage to you with one success.

My argument has never been that the attack didn't hit. My argument was that it can make physical contact, and yet not manage to do anything. If I graze your ear, I made physical contact, and yet didn't manage to do anything to you.

The potential to cause damage is there, as is the potential for other effects . There is also the option of deliberately not causing damage, but if the other party doesn't want to to touch him, it still requires a combat check; you still need to "hit" him.

And, really, the only characters likely to have a Soak of 1, are weaklings with a Brawn of 1. And, a hit by a guy with a Brawn of 5, against a person with a Brawn of 1, would do 4 damage, not 5, and that can be chalked up to former's strength, or, by the inherent fragility of the latter character. For example, before she pased away, My grandmother would often get severe bruises from just grazing a table, or some other object, simply because her skin was so frail (she was 89 when she died). So I don't see the issue here. Damage or no damage, if it's a successful combat check, you make contact , as such, it's still a hit.

Also remember, that there are some weapons that only do a single point of wound damage. After Soak, they do no actual damage . However, these weapons do still cause their other effects (such as injecting drugs or poisons). Even a light graze with such a weapon can inflict the poison or drug against the target. As such, a graze is still a hit.

12 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The potential to cause damage is there, as is the potential for other effects . There is also the option of deliberately not causing damage, but if the other party doesn't want to to touch him, it still requires a combat check; you still need to "hit" him.

But what if I wanted to cause damage?

12 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

And, really, the only characters likely to have a Soak of 1, are weaklings with a Brawn of 1. And, a hit by a guy with a Brawn of 5, against a person with a Brawn of 1, would do 4 damage, not 5, and that can be chalked up to former's strength, or, by the inherent fragility of the latter character.

No, it would do 5 damage because you need 1 success. A Twi'lek man in his prime could very well have a Brawn of 1, simply because he hasn't invested in increasing that. That said, I picked one Brawn for the dramatic difference. It could very well be a 5 Brawn character (as long as they aren't wearing armor).

14 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Also remember, that there are some weapons that only do a single point of wound damage. After Soak, they do no actual damage . However, these weapons do still cause their other effects (such as injecting drugs or poisons). Even a light graze with such a weapon can inflict the poison or drug against the target. As such, a graze is still a hit.

What about a graze that goes off the shoulder plate of a set of Mandalorian armor? 1 net success, add 1 Failure from the Defense Setback, and all of a sudden, you can't trigger those qualities because it glanced off armor, and you can't poison armor. Ta-da!

Sometimes it may not apply perfectly, but the only thing I can think of is Ensnare.

He still hasn't addressed my fighter example.

8 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

But what if I wanted to cause damage?

No, it would do 5 damage because you need 1 success. A Twi'lek man in his prime could very well have a Brawn of 1, simply because he hasn't invested in increasing that. That said, I picked one Brawn for the dramatic difference. It could very well be a 5 Brawn character (as long as they aren't wearing armor).

What about a graze that goes off the shoulder plate of a set of Mandalorian armor? 1 net success, add 1 Failure from the Defense Setback, and all of a sudden, you can't trigger those qualities because it glanced off armor, and you can't poison armor. Ta-da!

Sometimes it may not apply perfectly, but the only thing I can think of is Ensnare.

The same thing. It's still a hit. Luke only "grazed" Vader when he struck him in the shoulder in ESB, yet Vader still cried out in pain. The armor took most, if not all, of the actual damage though.

In the case of wanting to cause damage, if you roll only a single net success, you hit the target, but only just enough to do the absolute minimum damage.

2 hours ago, StarkJunior said:

No, they are distinct. Distinct outcomes for each roll, explicitly differently mechanical effects is NOT binary. It's not 'this outcome' or 'this outcome'. "Success" and "Failure" in PF2E is just a starting point, they aren't the end-all-be-all, because there are varying degrees of each within those categories, to the point where you can even shift what the system considers the point that bridges into success or failure or upgrade/downgrade something to another degree.

And, again, according to your definition a fighter who fails and still actually does hit and do damage narratively doesn't actually fail, but he does per the rules... so which is it? Where are you moving the posts now? And even 'succeeding' on some rules you can STILL be hit and receive damage... so is that a failure, too?

Some systems even have like 4 or 5 different effects based on what the d20 itself showed before any modifiers are added... which isn't binary.

1 minute ago, StarkJunior said:

He still hasn't addressed my fighter example.

A character who fails in an attack does not hit his target at all . Period. He misses him. A failure never makes contact. A failure is a miss , a success is a hit. You can't do damage on a failed attack, narratively or otherwise, because a failed attack is a miss . In order to do damage, you must first make contact, you must successfully hit the target. That means rolling at least one net success . The only way a miss is going to cause damage is with an area effect weapon, in other words, the Blast quality.

1 minute ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The same thing. It's still a hit. Luke only "grazed" Vader when he struck him in the shoulder in ESB, yet Vader still cried out in pain. The armor took most, if not all, of the actual damage though.

So?

(On a side note: Lightsaber combat mechanics are pretty broken given how deadly lightsabers actually are, so I would say that that was a narration of a direct hit. The idea of Lightsabers glancing off of something doesn't make sense unless that something has the Cortosis quality. Unless Vader's armor has the Cortosis quality, his armor absorbed none of the damage from that strike.)

5 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

In the case of wanting to cause damage, if you roll only a single net success, you hit the target, but only just enough to do the absolute minimum damage.

And with 5 Brawn (and Feral Strength 2 for good measure), even 1 Success is a lot of damage.