I only have the Beginner Game, this may be more clarified in the core book, but I have a question about taking cover.

The BG rulebook lists under maneuvers "interacting with environment" with a sidebar about "Taking Cover" It says that you can spend a maneuver to "take cover" (say by tipping a table on it's side), that any ranged attacks against you add a setback die to attack rolls. My question is, on the next turn, do you have to spend another maneuver to maintain said cover, or do you continue to benefit as long as you don't move from behind it?

Assuming there isn't any maneuvering from the other faction to try and negate your cover I would say that it remains effective.

My two cents would be no, once you're in cover, if you don't move then you remain in cover. I see cover as a binary state that, once you enter it, remains the same until something you do changes that state.

Agreed. The phrase is "taking cover". If you already have cover, you do not need to take it.

Further agreed. Unless something has happened to either move the PC, or to the cover itself, the PC is still in cover.

An enemy attack can spend advantage to remove you from cover. So there is that. Otherwise, you're still in cover.

Also keep in mind that various defenses DO NOT stack, so having armor that gives you one set back die in defense and getting a single setback die of cover do not stack. You simply get one or the other, meaning only one setback die. If on the other hand you have 2 setback die for superior cover and armor that gives you one set back die of defense, you only get the large of the 2, which would be the 2 setbacks from the superior cover. This was clarified in the order 66 podcast episode 14 by Sam Stewart and was a surprise to me also.

... Really? I thought that defenses from different sources do stack? I don't htink that makes alot of sense either. Jumping behind a bar would make me harder to hit, regardless of the armor I'm wearing....

truely and was the way i had been working it also, but according to Sam, they did this in an effort to reduce the number of dice being rolled in one pool.

I am curious about this though since in this vein taking cover is no longer the best option like it normally would be. If you have a setback from armor then the best move is to stand and take aim most likely instead of finding cover.

But this does kind of make sense too, because behind a bar, blaster bolts would be hitting the bar more often than hitting your armor.

Theres a chance I misunderstood him, but i doubt it. If someone wants to clarify after listening to it, please do

I think it was same type things do not stack - so wearing laminate armour gives you a defence (set back) die, being concealed gives you a defence die. So if you are behind a bar and standing shooting it would give you a defence die - this counts as the same as your armour so you only get one die. Which is fair enough otherwise you need to start micro managing stuff about where the hits hit etc etc. If you are behind superior cover and shooting then its a bonus.

BUT if you are hiding behind the cover you are also concealed which then gives you your armour bonus and a die for the concealment. I see this as they are not quite sure about where to shoot, then if they are lucky the bar and armour help as well.

... I'll listen to the podcast and see what they have to say about it. honestly this is something I'm inclined to ignore, it makes too many sticky situations.

Like would a stormtrooper then ever go for cover? Mechanically no, unless it was superior. Which could make a certain kind of sense, but doesn't given that the armor description says it wouldn't stop a direct blaster hit. Many times in the movies the STs were using cover. I'll withold judgement.

Personally, in my games, if it would make sense for you to get defense dice from multiple sources, I'm going to give it to them. For that reason, I'm allowing Heavy Armor and Personal Shield Generators stack, since that would make sense. I mean, if you are shooting a heavily armored droid with a shield generator that his hiding behind a bar table in pitch darkness, it is completely conceivable to need to shoot through 5+setback dice. I mean, if you can manage to hit him through the darkness and the cover, you'd still need to get lucky enough to punch through the shield and the armor itself to get to the actual droidy bits.

... I'll listen to the podcast and see what they have to say about it. honestly this is something I'm inclined to ignore, it makes too many sticky situations.

Like would a stormtrooper then ever go for cover? Mechanically no, unless it was superior. Which could make a certain kind of sense, but doesn't given that the armor description says it wouldn't stop a direct blaster hit. Many times in the movies the STs were using cover. I'll withold judgement.

Well, don't forget that Laminate armor (which is Stormtrooper armor) does NOT provide a defense bonus. It ONLY gives you +2 soak. The only armors that give you defense are Heavy Battle Armor, Armored Clothing, and the Personal Deflector Shield. So, if you were going by those rules, the stormtroopers would benefit greatly from cover.

But, I don't see why a bounty hunter shouldn't be able to benefit from it too. I mean, they wouldn't need it as much because of their heavy armor and their existing setback die, but you can never have too many setback die on incoming attacks.

... Really? I thought that defenses from different sources do stack? I don't htink that makes alot of sense either. Jumping behind a bar would make me harder to hit, regardless of the armor I'm wearing....

I thought so to, based upon an answer I got from Sam about defenses a while back. But it would seem the only thing that would "stack" are instances that say "+1 to defense" such as the Sixth Sense and Superior Reflexes talents for the Force-Sensitive Exile. So if it just says "provides Defense of a set number", then they don't stack.

I'd like to hear your opinions aftre hearing it from the podcast. To help, the section where they discuss this is right at the end at the 2:40.00 mark, somewhere around there.

I'd like to hear your opinions aftre hearing it from the podcast. To help, the section where they discuss this is right at the end at the 2:40.00 mark, somewhere around there.

I listened to the show live, and while I was a bit surprised, it does make sense from the design angle of keeping the dice pools from getting unwieldy or having players try to metagame and stack as many defense bonuses as they can (something I've seen quite enough of in D&D 3.X thanks).

By changing it so that the defense boost from armor doesn't stack with the bonus from cover, it also helps keep combats from dragging out due to one side not being able to hit the other due to having 3 or more setback dice on each attack roll, something that's quite problematic for freshly-created characters, and more so if those characters aren't combat-focused builds. Someone only rolling 3 ability dice against a bounty hunter in armored clothing that's behind cover at Medium Range is rolling vs. 2 difficulty and 2 setback dice, which means they're probably going to miss most of the time or simply wind up with both failure and threat, and that tends to get aggravating for a player.

If they only have 3 ability dice and they're fighting that bounty hunter like that, they should probably re-adjust their strategy (i.e. run away.)

Or, they should mitigate that by moving in to close range and trying to destroy the cover or flush him out of it.

Or, they could engage him in melee. There are plenty of ways to negate those bonuses. You just have to have your players think .

The reason I asked is that it seemed to me that it's possible that a "maneuver" could be required each turn, to represent the effort of ducking behind cover as you're shot at, and popping back up to fire your own weapon. But having it static also makes sense.

There are a couple of threads out there on this now: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/87139-taking-cover-and-aiming/

In any case I posted this remark in the other one on why I think the rule (that you take the higher defense and don't stack) makes sense for this system:

"Something to keep in mind for any RPG system is it's scale (range of results) and granularity (how much you can divide results). In this system adding or subtracting a Difficulty or Setback die is a significant change (scale) and there is no lesser value addition or subtraction mechanism (granularity). The Devs believe the advantage given for being behind cover and armor of the same value is not significant enough to warrant another die and there is no further division available, so the value remains the same.

I tend to agree and think with play it'll will prove to be the right choice.

You could if you wanted create a lesser die that has half the potential successes or failures and add one of those as an "in-between" die (adding to the granularity of the system) or you could say that having both armor and cover of the same value negates an Advantage, but well, you can see how things could get out of control."

I could see how things could get out of control, but thematically, I'm not a big fan of them not stacking. I mean, you can't honestly say that shooting at a heavily armored bounty hunter with defense 1 hiding behind a crate should be no harder than shooting at a naked man behind the same crate. If you bypass the crate, the naked man is in trouble. Should the same be the case for the bounty hunter? I don't think so, because that heavy armor needs to be dealt with too.

I'll let people try to shoot them, but it just doesn't make sense to trivialize the option of gaining defense by other means. Sure, I wouldn't have to take cover as a bounty hunter, but if I want to, I should be rewarded for it. It just makes sense to me. I just don't like making the environment/player choices that make tons of sense not do anything.

Especially, I think, because there are ways to negate the cover bonuses, or even the armor bonuses. I believe Precise Aim is the talent that can straight up cancel either one, and excess advantages could be used to destroy the cover or flush them out of it, at least. If nothing else, I intend on using sensible defense stacking as to give people who take these talents more time to shine.