Hi All,

Some talents make mention that you remove a certain number of setback dice ( I don't have the core book with me right now but a number of talents mention this), my question is, Why would there be setback dice when using these particular skills in the first place? Wouldn't it make more sense if the talents removed a certain number of difficulty dice instead?

Is there something I'm missing here..?

any insight is greatly appreciated.

thanks!

Difficulty dice are considered to be - I think Little or some other victim of the Order 66 podcast called it "agnostic" difficulty. This is the difficulty of the task: regardless of weather, stress and so on, basically how difficult is it to lift that door to get through, when only considering the weight of the door? That is not going to change really. Now heavy gravity, windy weather, resistance in the opening mechanism, people shooting at you and that sprained ankle is going to add setback dice to that check... these can then be removed due to various talents in various cases.

That's the general idea at least. So even an average check of two dice, could include 3 setback dice easily if slippery, windy and dark... although I'd probably only add 1 or 2 for such conditions... for instance trying to picking a lock with poor equipment, in darkness and with people shooting and screaming at you, that could give you a setback die or two, ignore one from the bypass security talent... so then its 0 or 1.

The setback dice are added from "outside negative influence" on the skill roll, and the talent removes one or more of those dice.

I hope i have understood this correctly.

Example: You are trying to slice a computer for an average difficulty, but you are also under enemy fire and the only thing that stands in the way from you and the blastershot comming at you are your friends, that gives setback dice.

Example: You try to swin underwater down through a cave enterance, but there are lots of seaweed and the darkness of the cave pales the darkness of outer space; setback dice.

You are foraging for food and water in the deserts of Tatooine, guess what, it's really warm, dry and it's a sandstorm around you, i guess that qualifies for both some really hard diff and some setback dice.

E.g. If you have that talent, you dont have to worry about one or more setbacks when using that particular skill.

Wouldn't it make more sense if the talents removed a certain number of difficulty dice instead?

I don't think so. Makes more sense removing setback dices .

Removing difficulty dice would be too advantageous as these types of talents are ranked and can be purchased 2-3 times. Plus, these talents usually are nested in the first or second row of the tree.

That's exactly the question a GM should ask himself when preparing the adventure. The question also applies to boost dice. You could think of some on the fly but a little preparation never hurts.

Hope this helps.

In the games I've run (Beta phase, so my experience could be innacurrate these days), there aren't that many situations where setback dice aren't already part of a dice pool when a Talent or species trait applies (like a Twi'lekk's ability to ignore due to arid/hot environments). There are certain conditions / situations where dice are sort of assumed or explicity intended to be in a pool. I think some of the confusion may stem from the way dice pool construction is described. The example pools don't (if memory serves, AFB at the moment) include situations that would necessarily warrant setback dice. Therefore, a talent saying that a character could remove or ignore in a certain situation could raise the question of...why would I pay XP for something that will allow me to remove a thing that isn't there?

I'm wondering why the talents don't add boost dice instead of removing setback dice?

I'm wondering why the talents don't add boost dice instead of removing setback dice?

Some do add boost dice. Things like the Stalker talent for example.

To at least try to keep the dice pool from being extremely large?

I remember thinking about it too - but one thing is that a boost die is better than a setback die is bad. The setback die have only 2 failure and 2 threat symbol, whereas the boost die have 2 success and 4 advantage symbols. Slight difference

The setback dices that these talents allow you to ignore aren't listed in the skill descriptions. They're situational or environmental.

Here is an example from the "Long Arm of the Hutt" adventure where the Bypass Security talent might apply:

That's just one example.

The addition of these talents seems to encourage the GM to liberally add setback dice. I GM mostly d20 style games, and I am used to having a DC that is often set in stone. These talents would be useless if I kept that mindset, thus the GM should be thinking of how the current situation is hampering the check.

One nice side effect of this is to add to the immersion of the game, by having the GM explain the reason for the setback dice and thus painting a better picture of the situation. I guess the worst thing that can happen is that when someone has this talent, the GM could decide that it not worth his/her time to describe the details that the player can then ignore. Best to describe the added details to add the immersion and then remind the player to ignore/remove the die.

Difficulty dice are considered to be ... the difficulty of the task: regardless of weather, stress and so on, basically how difficult is it to lift that door to get through, when only considering the weight of the door?

This makes sense to me. Also, it seems to me that without actually training or boosting the underlying attribute, this difficulty isn't going to change, or the speed at which you can it isn't going to change, or...IOW, given a task and ability, one is only going to be so competent with it. Skill training and/or attribute boosts are the only way to get better.

But maybe you've learned that when you pop the top on a security lock, you keep it covered so that dust and rain doesn't get in. Or you've learned to feel how the mechanism works, so seeing everything is less important. This task familiarity doesn't mean you can do the task any faster, but you're less put off by less than optimal conditions.