1 hour ago, WolfRider said:

No failure means not hitting the target.

Since the beginning of this thread some people seems to be unable to understand that a successful attack doesn't equal with doing damages but it equals with the possibility to inflict damages. Because of soak and / or talent like Parry / Reflect that can negate all damages done by the weapon.

That's why making deflecting hit part of Defence doesn't make sense and contradicts how the rules work for damaging a target.

No it doesn't. Think about it Armor deflecting an attack away removing the ability to do damage is exactly the epitomy of armor causing the failure of an attack.

3 hours ago, penpenpen said:

I think the sticking point is that he's been pissed about it since AD&D so he has to admit to getting it wrong for 30+ years...

Not that he'd admit to being wrong two seconds ago.

He's certainly very emotionally invested in this topic - he skipped an entire edition of Star Wars RPG (Saga, still a very fine one in my opinion) purely because armor was more focused on being "missed" than reducing damage taken. Why he didn't also skip this edition for the same reason, I don't know.

I can certainly understand where he's coming from - I have very similar issues with Reflect/Parry and these boards are full of people tweaking rules that don't sit right with them - but I'm puzzling out why he can't just present things as his preference (with all the rationale he's thrown into it) and go from there and let others do the same in peace.

1 minute ago, Jedi Ronin said:

He's certainly very emotionally invested in this topic - he skipped an entire edition of Star Wars RPG (Saga, still a very fine one in my opinion) purely because armor was more focused on being "missed" than reducing damage taken. Why he didn't also skip this edition for the same reason, I don't know.

I can certainly understand where he's coming from - I have very similar issues with Reflect/Parry and these boards are full of people tweaking rules that don't sit right with them - but I'm puzzling out why he can't just present things as his preference (with all the rationale he's thrown into it) and go from there and let others do the same in peace.

Funnily enough, I think SAGA handled armor the best, from a narrative standpoint. Once you had a few levels under your belt, armor became more of hindrance than a help, unless you were focused on being an "armor guy". So in the context of the rules, it made perfect sense for some people to run around in their shirtsleeves and ball gowns next to people in full battle armor, just like we see in the movies.

FFG has a so-so approach to this, with armor giving rather minor benefits, and being rather generous with what counts as armor. ( "A vest and a shirt, that looks like heavy clothing to me!" )

17 hours ago, penpenpen said:

You know what? Since you're so dead certain on the intent of writers, why don't you shoot off an honestly worded question to the devs to prove us all wrong. I've seen Sam Stewart answer crazier stuff.

16 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Because then he would find out he is wrong. Cant risk that....

16 hours ago, Daeglan said:

You know we have pointed out multiple places where it is ckear miss does not mean did not touch the targer. Now go ask the question to the devs if you are sure.

Yes, it does mean that the attack does not touch the target. That's what the very definition of the word " miss " means.

16 hours ago, Sturn said:

Show me in the rules of this system, not a dictionary quote, the definition of a "hit". Page number and book please where it actually says, "a hit is...…".

I showed you the definition of a combat check from the rules*. It didn't use the word hit once although I completely agree in common gaming terms you can call a successful attack a "hit". I spoke of the references to "hit" you are speaking of. You failed to reference that in your reply for some reason. If you missed it, "hit" is just generic terminology in place of saying "success at a combat check" repeatedly. It's easier to say, "you hit" then "you successfully affected the target". Everyone should know what a hit means after learning the rules of this system.

Are you denying that "hit" is not a generic term in RPG's through the years that may mean, many, many different things depending on the system you are playing? In all of them "hit" or "miss" means the target was affected somehow or not. For how they were affected, you would have to check each system.

Nowhere in this system is there a statement that says something like, "a miss is a failed attack with the added caveat that this must mean the silhouette of the target was not struck and you are not allowed to explain, even in this narrative system, that the target was struck but the blow was deflected without affect......please ignore the description of armor defense we didn't really mean it". That's nowhere in there.

*Edit: Before you reply, what I'm referring to is the actual description of a combat check, as in a check for a success or failure on an attack roll. Yes I know the word "hit" is used in short hand elsewhere when applying criticals, etc.

It's not shorthand, nor is the word "miss". Both have explicit ramifications on the outcome of an action that I will point out below.

6 hours ago, WolfRider said:

No failure means not hitting the target.

Since the beginning of this thread some people seems to be unable to understand that a successful attack doesn't equal with doing damages but it equals with the possibility to inflict damages. Because of soak and / or talent like Parry / Reflect that can negate all damages done by the weapon.

That's why making deflecting hit part of Defence doesn't make sense and contradicts how the rules work for damaging a target.

Thank you.

4 hours ago, penpenpen said:

" Defense rating represents the abilities of shields, armor, or other defensive systems to deflect attacks entirely, or absorb or lessen incoming blows."

Defense rating doesn't necessarily means you miss, it can mean the blow was lessened, absorbed or deflected entirely. You or Tramp have yet to refute that quote.

You can have the opinion that this is a poor rules mechanic that doesn't make sense. You can not argue that RAW states that a failed attack unequivocally, with no exceptions whatsoever means that the attack misses without resorting to "alternative facts", ie lying through your teeth.

Except that, the only way a Defense rating can mean that the blow was "lessened", "absorbed", or "deflected" by armor , is if the attack itself results in a hit , and that means at least one Net Success , by RAW . If the attack fails to get at least one Net Success, it is a complete miss .

4 hours ago, Daeglan said:

No it doesn't. Think about it Armor deflecting an attack away removing the ability to do damage is exactly the epitomy of armor causing the failure of an attack.

Yes, it does mean the attack misses . That's the heart of the issue. By your reasoning, that would mean certain weapon qualities ( Guided ), that requires a miss on a combat check, won't activate if the result of the failure is due to armor deflecting the attack , or in the case of Blast , where the Advantage Cost is different depending upon whether the attack hits or misses . This is because for armor to deflect an attack, the attack must actually hit in the first place . Armor can't deflect an attack that doesn't strike the wearer. In the case of both Guided and Blast , Whether or not the quality activates, or how many Advantages it requires to activate the quality, are determined upon whether or not the attack hits the target or misses the target, not simply a matter of if the attack was " Successful " or " Failed ". And, when it comes to rules , and law , this is a very important distinction. So, either Success always equals Hit and Fail always equals Miss, as I and @WolfRider contend, or @Daeglan is correct and a Failure does not always mean miss, which creates a huge mess when trying to determine the effects of these two qualities in particular.

Here's a prime example:

You're shooting at a Mandalorian wearing full Mandalorian armor ( Defense 1 ). It's misty outside ( +1 Ranged Defense ), and he's lying Prone ( Add one Setback to your Ranged attack . You're attacking with a guided micro-missile. have a 2 in Agility and one rank in Ranged Light (YG) and he's at medium range (PP). This gives you an dice pool of YGPPSSS. For sake of argument, you roll one Success and one Triumph on your ability and Proficiency dice respectively, one Failure on one of the Difficulty dice and one Failure on one of the Setback dice, totaling two Failures . These cancel out the Successes, which results in the attack failing . By RAW , Guided can only be activated if the attack misses . It can't be activated if the attack is deflected. The wording here is explicit. Guided only activates if the attack misses .

If you follow @Daeglan 's view that a "failed" Combat Check does not necessarily miss, then you must be able to keep track of each and every source of Setback dice in order to determine whether of not the failed attack was due to the armor deflecting the hit or the attack missed completely as a result of his lying prone or the mist obscuring him. In the example above you have three distinct sources of Setback dice, any one of which could have been the source of the final Failure symbol which made the combat check fail. You don't know . Did the attack bounce off his armor? If that's the case, Guided can't activate because that quality only activates on a miss , not on a deflected hit . Did the shot fly over his head because he was lying prone? if so, then Guided activates. Did the mist obscure him, causing you to miss? If so, once again, Guided can activate because the attack missed.

By contrast, if you follow my view, and that of @WolfRider , that a failed Combat check is always a complete miss , then it doesn't matter the source of the failures that caused the failed combat check. The attack missed , no contact was made , and thus, Guided can activate.

The same is true with Blast. In the example above, swap out the microrocket with a grenade, with the ranged attack being YGGGPPSSS, with the result being two Successes, and two Advantages on the positive dice, and one Failure on the Difficulty dice and one Failure on one of the Setback dice, cancelling out the two Successes. Once again, the source of the Setback that resulted in Failure becomes important if you take @Daeglan 's view that a failed attack doesn't necessarily miss. This is because, if the attack hits, but bounces off the armor, it should only cost two Advantages to activate Blast , which means he takes the Blast damage. However, if the attack misses , as a result of either of the other two sources of Setback, it costs three Advantages to activate Blast . That means you have to know if the Failure was because of the armor (meaning the attack hit but bounced off), if it was because he was lying prone, or if it was because of the mist (either of which means that the attack missed completely ). And that will determine whether or not you have enough Advantages to activate Blast or not . However, if you read the rules as I and @WolfRider , the attack itself misses completely, regardless of the source of the Setback die which rolled the deciding Failure. The Grenade landed without hitting the target, thus requiring three Advantages to activate Blast, and, since you only have two, you can't activate it, and thus, the Mando takes no damage.

Now, Did the attack miss completely or did it deflect off the Mandalorian's armor?

In either scenario, if you follow @Daeglan 's viewpoint, that "Failure does not necessarily miss" you need to be able to keep track of what the source of each Setback die is, and thus, which Setback die was the specific one that rolled the determining Failure symbol . However, determining which Setback die was the source of that Failure is an impossible task because they're all the same and they're all mixed together in the dice pool . You have three Setback dice any one of which could be from the armor, mist, or him lying Prone. There is no way to distinguish which is which. By contrast, if you accept that Failure on a combat check is always a miss , that no contact was made, that no hit is possible, then it doesn't matter what Setback die resulted in the determining Failure. The attack missed, no contact was made, it did not hit the Mandalorian. Therefore, Guided can be activated, or it costs three Advantages to activate Blast instead of two . This is why it is vitally important to understand that yes, a Success on an attack roll is always a literal hit and Failure on an attack roll is always a literal miss .

11 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

In either scenario, if you follow @Daeglan 's viewpoint, that "Failure does not necessarily miss" you need to be able to keep track of what the source of each Setback die is, and thus, which Setback die was the specific one that rolled the determining Failure symbol . However, determining which Setback die was the source of that Failure is an impossible task because they're all the same and they're all mixed together in the dice pool . You have three Setback dice any one of which could be from the armor, mist, or him lying Prone. There is no way to distinguish which is which. By contrast, if you accept that Failure on a combat check is always a miss , that no contact was made, that no hit is possible, then it doesn't matter what Setback die resulted in the determining Failure. The attack missed, no contact was made, it did not hit the Mandalorian. Therefore, Guided can be activated, or it costs three Advantages to activate Blast instead of two . This is why it is vitally important to understand that yes, a Success on an attack roll is always a literal hit and Failure on an attack roll is always a literal miss .

Why? by that logic we would need to keep track of every set back for every roll. because apparently we are incapable of narrating results with out knowing specifically what each die did. Tramp you are being silly and trying to cram more detail into a system intentionally loosey goosey.

14 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Why? by that logic we would need to keep track of every set back for every roll. because apparently we are incapable of narrating results with out knowing specifically what each die did. Tramp you are being silly and trying to cram more detail into a system intentionally loosey goosey.

No, I'm not being silly. I'm proving a point. The rules are very explicit about what allows the activation of these two qualities in particular, or the Advantage cost to activate that quality. Guided requires an attack to miss in order to activate. Blast costs more Advantages to activate if the attack misses . The wording is very explicit . And, that has very specific ramifications, not just narratively , but also mechanically . IF we accept your view that a Failed attack is not always a miss in the literal sense, then it creates a huge boondoggle of trying to establish the source of each failure on the Setback dice to determine whether or not the failure resulted from a deflection, or was a complete miss. That is an impossible task. Therefore, you must accept that a Failure on an attack roll is always a complete miss mechancially, and narratively, otherwise you open up a huge Pandora's box . Thus, either a Failed attack roll always misses, or you have to somehow keep track of the source of each and every Setback die to determine what caused the attack to fail. You cannot have it both ways. By RAW , a failed attack roll always misses completely. No hit, no contact. Narratively, mechanically. A failed Combat Check is a miss . It is not a deflected hit. It is a complete miss.

1 minute ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, I'm not being silly. I'm proving a point. The rules are very explicit about what allows the activation of these two qualities in particular, or the Advantage cost to activate that quality. Guided requires an attack to miss in order to activate. Blast costs more Advantages to activate if the attack misses . The wording is very explicit . And, that has very specific ramifications, not just narratively , but also mechanically . IF we accept your view that a Failed attack is not always a miss in the literal sense, then it creates a huge boondoggle of trying to establish the source of each failure on the Setback dice to determine whether or not the failure resulted from a deflection, or was a complete miss. That is an impossible task. Therefore, you must accept that a Failure on an attack roll is always a complete miss mechancially, and narratively, otherwise you open up a huge Pandora's box . Thus, either a Failed attack roll always misses, or you have to somehow keep track of the source of each and every Setback die to determine what caused the attack to fail. You cannot have it both ways. By RAW , a failed attack roll always misses completely. No hit, no contact. Narratively, mechanically. A failed Combat Check is a miss . It is not a deflected hit. It is a complete miss.

They literally mean you need to have a failure with enough advantage to activate guided. That failure can come from your armors defense. which would imply in some cases the missile skipped off your armor. You keep ignoring what defines a miss.

13 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

They literally mean you need to have a failure with enough advantage to activate guided. That failure can come from your armors defense. which would imply in some cases the missile skipped off your armor. You keep ignoring what defines a miss.

Which means literally , a Failure is always a miss . What defines a miss, by definition , is

Quote

miss1

/mis/

verb

1.

fail to hit , reach , or come into contact with (something aimed at).

"a laser-guided bomb had missed its target"

If you succeed in any one of those, you do not miss. If you succeed in hitting your target, you did not miss . If you succeed in reaching your target, you did not miss. If you succeed in coming into contact with your target, you did not miss .

A miss is defined by not hitting, by not making contact. That is what it means to miss. Failure on an attack roll means you miss . It does not mean it hits but bounces off. It means the attack never even touches the target. That is what a Failed attack roll means. A failed attack roll is a miss .

On 2/6/2020 at 7:50 AM, Jedi Ronin said:

Tramp you're free to impose whatever limitations on yourself you wish. I get it that it's all logical and reasonable to you - and I understand your reasoning - but the system simply does not state what you are saying. You keep quoting resolving a skill check for success/failure (especially with a combat check) and quoting weapon qualities mechanics but what you have never done is quote any rules regarding the narration. Those rules are very simple and come with absolutely no restrictions depending on the players to do what seems best to them. You are doing what seems best to you and by RAW other players do the same even if it's not according to your preferences. That's my point - you can't quote a section of the book that actually says your approach is THE approach. You may be able to point out the logic of it but that doesn't preclude others from using a different rational approach within RAW. Don't quote the resolving and attack check rules and hit/miss rules at me again - I know them and they don't say what you claim. Sure, that's the lynchpin of your logic which is fine for you but no one else is beholden to that within RAW.

On 2/5/2020 at 4:06 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

As for the limitations, just what's in RAW. namely, you can't activate weapon qualities (except the two previously mentioned), you can't Crit, you can't spend the Advantages/Triumphs on any effect that requires a successful hit. So, adding Setbacks to your opponent, or adding Boosts to your allies, is perfectly fine.

On 2/5/2020 at 6:03 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

Yes, it is RAW. And it is certainly RAI .

Going back to this there is no definition of something that "requires" a successful hit except for the weapon quality rules which is not a narrative description rule. The section on narrative description simply says one thing: there are thousands of possibilities and combinations and go for it. Nothing about requirements and prerequisites and all of that. You're piling on Setback/Downgrades and handing out Boost/Upgrades you get to decide what that means - no requirements, no prerequisites except for the basic social contract with gaming. That's it. Nothing added to it.

The designers clearly meant this to be as unencumbered as possible otherwise they would have said something about it and not - as you claim about RAI - hide their real intent in a rules section chapters later on weapon qualities and resolving combat checks and despite what you say if the real RAW was meant to be the crunchy part in weapon qualities crunch and combat check resolution crunch they would have said so. They did lay out the rules for narrative description and the fact you have not quoted them is very telling because if they indicated even RAI as you claim you'd have quoted them. The actual text on narrating results imposes no limitations and you might think it reasonable to read in all the limitations you are reading into it but that's not what's written and it's also not what anyone else here reads into it.

Wrong @Tramp Graphics . Go ahead and quote the rule book on narration and show us where it says what you say.

16 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Which means literally , a Failure is always a miss . What defines a miss, by definition , is

If you succeed in any one of those, you do not miss. If you succeed in hitting your target, you did not miss . If you succeed in reaching your target, you did not miss. If you succeed in coming into contact with your target, you did not miss .

A miss is defined by not hitting, by not making contact. That is what it means to miss. Failure on an attack roll means you miss . It does not mean it hits but bounces off. It means the attack never even touches the target. That is what a Failed attack roll means. A failed attack roll is a miss .

Funny how what you claim is no where in the book...

2 minutes ago, Jedi Ronin said:

Wrong @Tramp Graphics . Go ahead and quote the rule book on narration and show us where it says what you say.

No, I am not wrong here. Going by @Daeglan ‘s assertion, that a failed attack roll doesn’t necessarily miss in the literal sense, means having to track each and every source of Setback and determining which caused the attack to fail, in order to determine whether you can activate the Guided quality or if it costs two or three Advantages to activate Blast. This is an impossible task, as I noted above. You cannot have it both ways. Either a failed attack always misses or you must know the source of the Failure in order to determine whether it was a miss or a deflected hit. It’s one or the other, it cannot be both. The RAW establishes that a Failure is always a miss . It establishes that Success is always a hit. Failure never hits and Success never misses.

1 minute ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, I am not wrong here. Going by @Daeglan ‘s assertion, that a failed attack roll doesn’t necessarily miss in the literal sense, means having to track each and every source of Setback and determining which caused the attack to fail, in order to determine whether you can activate the Guided quality or if it costs two or three Advantages to activate Blast. This is an impossible task, as I noted above. You cannot have it both ways. Either a failed attack always misses or you must know the source of the Failure in order to determine whether it was a miss or a deflected hit. It’s one or the other, it cannot be both. The RAW establishes that a Failure is always a miss . It establishes that Success is always a hit. Failure never hits and Success never misses.

Ok, I take it you concede them.

Just now, Tramp Graphics said:

No, I am not wrong here. Going by @Daeglan ‘s assertion, that a failed attack roll doesn’t necessarily miss in the literal sense, means having to track each and every source of Setback and determining which caused the attack to fail, in order to determine whether you can activate the Guided quality or if it costs two or three Advantages to activate Blast. This is an impossible task, as I noted above. You cannot have it both ways. Either a failed attack always misses or you must know the source of the Failure in order to determine whether it was a miss or a deflected hit. It’s one or the other, it cannot be both. The RAW establishes that a Failure is always a miss . It establishes that Success is always a hit. Failure never hits and Success never misses.

Show me where in the book it says what you claim.

@Tramp Graphics This is really astounding (though I guess not really) but you seem to have zero understanding of how this system was designed and meant to be used and how it's described in the core rule books that are not in the super cruncy rules sections of the book. This is how dice pools work, this is how narrating results work. It's a fundamental part of the system. You add dice to the pool, then you roll, THEN THE PLAYERS DECIDE WHAT IT MEANS NARRATIVELY TO THE ACTION AND THE STORY.

You do realize that in a narrative system everything is about context, right? Rolls are all about what situations are going on, and in the case of setbacks added because of armor... it's literally because of the armor that the attack is failing. The 'narrative' of the armor is that it makes the attack fail - an attack's intention, of course, is to damage the opponent in this system - because the armor prevents damage to you.

It's not that hard to understand, it's not that hard to grasp narratively. Everyone else can, why can't you?

1 minute ago, StarkJunior said:

You do realize that in a narrative system everything is about context, right? Rolls are all about what situations are going on, and in the case of setbacks added because of armor... it's literally because of the armor that the attack is failing. The 'narrative' of the armor is that it makes the attack fail - an attack's intention, of course, is to damage the opponent in this system - because the armor prevents damage to you.

It's not that hard to understand, it's not that hard to grasp narratively. Everyone else can, why can't you?

He knows this, it's the core reason he doesn't like armor in this system: armor can add Failures which means you got "missed". It's fine with me he doesn't like it and things Soak is a better option but for whatever reason we have to agree that the other rules of the system insist on his prefernence "actually" being correct. I think that's it - he's convinced himself that rules really mean something they don't so everything makes sense in his head as some unified perfect whole and we're puncturing that.

@Tramp Graphics

Another example that fails the Tramp test: You are the target of a successful Lightsaber check and you use Parry and negate all of the damage - but apparently you have to narrate it as having been actually hit by their lightsaber but taking no damage, you can't narrate that as a parry that caused their blade to totally miss you.

He should just house rule it and concede this point, or play a different game then, honestly. This isn't a simulationist game, and frankly, few modern systems are.

14 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Going by @Daeglan ‘s assertion, that a failed attack roll doesn’t necessarily miss in the literal sense, means having to track each and every source of Setback and determining which caused the attack to fail, in order to determine whether you can activate the Guided quality or if it costs two or three Advantages to activate Blast.

Not really. But, being a narrative system, you could most certainly add flavor to playing out the check by generally knowing what the various boots and setbacks were included for.

GM: “The Squad of stormtroopers is firing at you.” (Rolls attack, including setback for your armor’s defense rating, which comes up a failure, with a failure on a setback die) “A flurry of red blaster bolts sails your way! True to the stereotype of Imperial marksmanship, you’re unscathed, most shots missing you, with a glancing blow here and there zinging harmlessly off the armor these troops wish was protecting them.”

1 minute ago, Jedi Ronin said:

@Tramp Graphics

Another example that fails the Tramp test: You are the target of a successful Lightsaber check and you use Parry and negate all of the damage - but apparently you have to narrate it as having been actually hit by their lightsaber but taking no damage, you can't narrate that as a parry that caused their blade to totally miss you.

He said, "Well, you're 'holding' the lightsaber so it's still part of YOU, so therefore it DID hit YOU."

Moving goal posts and stretching logic to support his points.

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Funny how what you claim is no where in the book...

Yes it is, not in that exact wording, but yes it is. It is there in its repeated use of the term “hit” regarding successful combat checks, and “miss” being used for failed combat checks. It is there because without that understanding, the rules for Guided, Blast, and other potential talents and item qualities open a huge Pandora’s box of trying to figure out what the source of the Failure is.

1 minute ago, Jedi Ronin said:

@Tramp Graphics This is really astounding (though I guess not really) but you seem to have zero understanding of how this system was designed and meant to be used and how it's described in the core rule books that are not in the super cruncy rules sections of the book. This is how dice pools work, this is how narrating results work. It's a fundamental part of the system. You add dice to the pool, then you rool, THEN THE PLAYERS DECIDE WHAT IT MEANS NARRATIVELY TO THE ACTION AND THE STORY.

Wrong. Not in the case of the attack failing. Not when such a failure determines the Advantage cost to activate a weapon quality or even if that quality can even be activated . Those are determined by the GM. That means the GM and Player would need to be able to determine each and every source of the Failures rolled, and which Setback die resulted in the attack failing.

4 minutes ago, StarkJunior said:

You do realize that in a narrative system everything is about context, right? Rolls are all about what situations are going on, and in the case of setbacks added because of armor... it's literally because of the armor that the attack is failing. The 'narrative' of the armor is that it makes the attack fail - an attack's intention, of course, is to damage the opponent in this system - because the armor prevents damage to you.

It's not that hard to understand, it's not that hard to grasp narratively. Everyone else can, why can't you?

Then how do you handle the scenario I presented above with the Mandalorian benefiting from three Setback dice, one each from three different sources, but only one contributing to the attack failing? Which source caused the failure? Did the attack hit and get deflected, or did it miss entirely? That determines whether you can activate Guided or whether Blast costs two or three Advantages. Which is it?

Just now, Nytwyng said:

Not really. But, being a narrative system, you could most certainly add flavor to playing out the check by generally knowing what the various boots and setbacks were included for.

GM: “The Squad of stormtroopers is firing at you.” (Rolls attack, including setback for your armor’s defense rating, which comes up a failure, with a failure on a setback die) “A flurry of red blaster bolts sails your way! True to the stereotype of Imperial marksmanship, you’re unscathed, most shots missing you, with a glancing blow here and there singing harmlessly off the armor these troops wish was protecting them.”

I don't think @Tramp Graphics has thought this through completely. In this thread he's said that you cannot narrate adding Setback/Downgrades from failed checks to opponents as involving actually touching them in any way. But you could spend and narrate the same thing as them just losing their balance, dropping their weapon and falling over of their own accord. Or maybe he's even more restrictive on what narrative description can be attached to Setback/Downgrades/Boost/Upgrades....

3 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Not really. But, being a narrative system, you could most certainly add flavor to playing out the check by generally knowing what the various boots and setbacks were included for.

GM: “The Squad of stormtroopers is firing at you.” (Rolls attack, including setback for your armor’s defense rating, which comes up a failure, with a failure on a setback die) “A flurry of red blaster bolts sails your way! True to the stereotype of Imperial marksmanship, you’re unscathed, most shots missing you, with a glancing blow here and there singing harmlessly off the armor these troops wish was protecting them.”

Nope, that doesn’t work because only one of the sources of Setback caused the attack to fail, not all three.

2 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Yes it is, not in that exact wording, but yes it is. It is there in its repeated use of the term “hit” regarding successful combat checks, and “miss” being used for failed combat checks. It is there because without that understanding, the rules for Guided, Blast, and other potential talents and item qualities open a huge Pandora’s box of trying to figure out what the source of the Failure is.

Wrong. Not in the case of the attack failing. Not when such a failure determines the Advantage cost to activate a weapon quality or even if that quality can even be activated . Those are determined by the GM. That means the GM and Player would need to be able to determine each and every source of the Failures rolled, and which Setback die resulted in the attack failing.

Then how do you handle the scenario I presented above with the Mandalorian benefiting from three Setback dice, one each from three different sources, but only one contributing to the attack failing? Which source caused the failure? Did the attack hit and get deflected, or did it miss entirely? That determines whether you can activate Guided or whether Blast costs two or three Advantages. Which is it?

Pick one that seems the most fun narratively and - in the words of Steve Winwood - roll with it, baby.

2 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Nope, that doesn’t work because only one of the sources of Setback caused the attack to fail, not all three.

And...?