I have a player that is going to be playing a FSE and was wondering if blaster fire deflection is available somehow in this book. I have skimmed through the force chapter but didn't see anything that caught my eye that it would be allowed. Am I missing something, or does it not exist (yet)? If it's not in there, has anyone made their own version yet? Thanks!

Here's how I'm going to do it.

If someone shoots a blaster at a force-sensitive wielding a lightsaber and using the Sense defensive power, and the blaster bolt rolls successfully hits the force user, but the attacker rolls a Despair, I'm going to spend that despair to deflect the bolt back at the attacker (or to any other target or thing that the force sensitive wants it to.) I'm also going to allow my FSE players to do the same if they have Defensive Sense and are using a lightsaber.

So, a Storm Trooper shoots at me and rolls enough successes to do exactly 10 damage. However, I'm a Forse Sensitive and I'm using the defensive Sense ongoing ability. He also rolled a despair, so I spend that despair to deflect the attack back at him, dealing the same damage that it would have dealt me (10). With 5 soak and 5 wounds, the Storm Trooper dies without me firing a shot (or swinging my saber!)

As for deflections that don't hit anything important, any unsuccessful shot against you if you're using a lightsaber and are force sensitive can be thematically deflected by your saber for coolness. But, to actually deal damage to dudes and hit them with it, I'm going to require the Sense Defense ongoing effect, a Despair, and a successful hit.

Not exactly, but the Sense power allows you to beef up your defenses, which can easily be interpreted as deflecting blaster fire.

Edit: Endrik said it better. Not sure if I would use that exact interpretation for returning the blaster fire, but it ain't a bad one.

Yeah, obviously it is just one way of doing it. I'm sure there are other ways, but this one seems pretty simple, so I'll probably do this. Some people would recommend making a special Force Power, but I wouldn't agree with that. Donovan Morningfire had blaster deflection as a talent in one of the Ways of the Force talent trees that I saw him have, but I'm probably not going to use that because I saw it as a little over complicated. I'll probably just swap that talent out for a more generic defensive talent like Side Step or Dodge or something.

And I'm not going to lie; I LOVE thinking of fun things to do with Despair and Triumph. Maybe my favorite part of the game tbh.

I tend to think Deflection ought to be a Talent.

Here's my own idea for a Lightsaber Deflection Talent.

This would be used in tandem with the Lightsaber skill (which would be a custom skill in Edge of the Empire). The rulebook states this skill is based off of Agility or Brawn.

Lightsaber Deflection - Active - 10 XP

Whenever you are targeted by a successful attack which utilizes the Ranged (Light) or Ranged (Heavy) skill in conjunction with a blaster weapon, suffer 2 strain to choose to deflect the attack. Make an opposed roll (Lightsaber vs. Ranged (Light) or Ranged (Heavy)). On a failure, you are unable to deflect the attack. On a success, you deflect the blaster bolt harmlessly away. May spend 2 Advantage to deflect the blaster bolt at a specific object within a range equal to the range of the weapon being used against you. May spend 1 Triumph to direct the blaster bolt back at a specific opponent within a range equal to the range of the weapon being used against you. The target is deemed to have suffered wounds equal to the base damage of the ranged weapon used.

I have a player that is going to be playing a FSE and was wondering if blaster fire deflection is available somehow in this book. I have skimmed through the force chapter but didn't see anything that caught my eye that it would be allowed. Am I missing something, or does it not exist (yet)? If it's not in there, has anyone made their own version yet? Thanks!

Not in the book.

Houserulers will provide a variety of approaches.

I tend to think Deflection ought to be a Talent.

Here's my own idea for a Lightsaber Deflection Talent.

This would be used in tandem with the Lightsaber skill (which would be a custom skill in Edge of the Empire). The rulebook states this skill is based off of Agility or Brawn.

Lightsaber Deflection - Active - 10 XP

Whenever you are targeted by a successful attack which utilizes the Ranged (Light) or Ranged (Heavy) skill in conjunction with a blaster weapon, suffer 2 strain to choose to deflect the attack. Make an opposed roll (Lightsaber vs. Ranged (Light) or Ranged (Heavy)). On a failure, you are unable to deflect the attack. On a success, you deflect the blaster bolt harmlessly away. May spend 2 Advantage to deflect the blaster bolt at a specific object within a range equal to the range of the weapon being used against you. May spend 1 Triumph to direct the blaster bolt back at a specific opponent within a range equal to the range of the weapon being used against you. The target is deemed to have suffered wounds equal to the base damage of the ranged weapon used.

That's similar to how DM did his, except it didn't require you to suffer strain, but you could only do it once per round, and additional successes on the check added to damage, and you didn't have to spend advantages to toss it away.

See, that works in my opinion, but it is unecessarily complicated, and collecting dice to make that opposed check each time you use it is going to be time consuming, and it will bog down the encounter. I considered using a system like that, but I don't want to for that exact reason. So, instead, I'm just going to use the despair system. It is simple and narrative, and I think that's what EotE exemplifies.

If someone shoots a blaster at a force-sensitive wielding a lightsaber and using the Sense defensive power, and the blaster bolt rolls successfully hits the force user, but the attacker rolls a Despair, I'm going to spend that despair to deflect the bolt back at the attacker (or to any other target or thing that the force sensitive wants it to.) I'm also going to allow my FSE players to do the same if they have Defensive Sense and are using a lightsaber.

The way the system is designed, if a character rolls a success, they are successful no matter what. When that comes to combat skills, to me it means that if you hit, you hit, threat doesn't change that and despair doesn't change that. If you don't hit and roll a despair? Then the GM can do whatever they want with your attack, but if you roll a successful check and Despair can only make some other bad thing happen (you also ran out of ammo, or you also damage some important structure, or you also hit one of your friends).

Just like how Triumph never allows you to hit if everything else about your check is a failure, Despair never allows you to miss if everything else about your check is a success, and letting someone have a power that makes that not true goes against the spirit of the system.

Not in the book but I'm also going to avoid house-ruling this if possible which I'm pretty sure my players will be behind. Last thing I want to do is house-rule this game into the ground only to change those rules and re-teach Force abilities every time a new core book or suppliment hits. Now, the examples above using Triumph and Despair...that's seems interesting. If the player wants to deflect a bolt narratively until there's an actual talent or ability, that seems like a cool workaround that won't mangle anything. It's doubtful I'll allow damage from it though. I need to give it some more thought. Or just wait until FaD comes out

Officially, the closest you'll see to "blaster deflection" is the Deflection weapon quality, which simply grants +1 ranged defense per rank possessed, but that's more "defense against blasters." Unofficially, there's been a number of different methods.

I currently have a 20 XP version of "Deflect Blasters" in my Jedi Initiate Force specialization that's a competitive check of Jedi's Lightsaber skill vs. attacker's combat skill against the same base difficulty, but it's strictly a once-per-round thing and doesn't have a straight-line approach to get. DarthGM adopted the same talent, but priced it at 25 XP for his Jedi Careers.

In an earlier version of my Ways of the Force, I simply had the "Deflect Blasters" provide a number of difficulty upgrades to the attacker's combat skill check equal to the Jedi's ranks in Lightsaber, and a redirected shot happening if the attacker rolled 2 Threat or a Despair. But that proved troublesome if stacked with other defensive abilities, namely Sense's 'danger sense' Control Upgrade, and could lead to odd situations where the Jedi got hit but still reflected the blaster shot (attacker rolled 1 or more successes, but also the required number of Threat or Despair to trigger the redirect).

Awayptyrwpn has a version (average cost of 15 XP) that's also a competitive check, but can be used multiple times per round at the cost of 2 Strain and a +1 to the Jedi's difficulty, but per the last version I checked, it requires quite a bit of maneuvering around the Jedi specialization trees to get. Even with the increased difficulty on the Jedi's part, I still think this is too potent as the Strain cost will eventually become a non-issue.

There's the "just spend a Despair" approach that Endrik put forth, but I think that's getting a bit too powerful, since it's granting the Jedi a free attack. Plus, it's something the player has zero control over. Some GMs have reported seeing boatloads of Despair results in the games they've run, where I've not seen anywhere that many in the games I've played or run since the Beta rulebook was released.

I prefer to keep blaster bolt redirection out of the players hands for now. That will come later.

I may create a special ability for an NPC nemesis to use against the players however, and the despair method may work for that (a PC that misses and rolls despair could have that bolt coming back at them).

There's the "just spend a Despair" approach that Endrik put forth, but I think that's getting a bit too powerful, since it's granting the Jedi a free attack. Plus, it's something the player has zero control over. Some GMs have reported seeing boatloads of Despair results in the games they've run, where I've not seen anywhere that many in the games I've played or run since the Beta rulebook was released.

Spending Despair to cause injury to allies is one of the options suggested for firing into a melee, so it's not unreasonable to use despair on a failed shot against a Jedi with their lightsaber out to cause the bolt to be reflected. You could even limit it so that the Jedi only is able to reflect shots if the despair on the attack is after the difficulty has been upgraded by spending a Destiny Point (which is one of the main ways attacks have a chance of getting despair anyway). Now this requires a Jedi to spend resources and have a bit of bad luck on the enemy's part (still requires a miss and a Despair), and the attack would do bare minimum damage.

If someone shoots a blaster at a force-sensitive wielding a lightsaber and using the Sense defensive power, and the blaster bolt rolls successfully hits the force user, but the attacker rolls a Despair, I'm going to spend that despair to deflect the bolt back at the attacker (or to any other target or thing that the force sensitive wants it to.) I'm also going to allow my FSE players to do the same if they have Defensive Sense and are using a lightsaber.

The way the system is designed, if a character rolls a success, they are successful no matter what. When that comes to combat skills, to me it means that if you hit, you hit, threat doesn't change that and despair doesn't change that. If you don't hit and roll a despair? Then the GM can do whatever they want with your attack, but if you roll a successful check and Despair can only make some other bad thing happen (you also ran out of ammo, or you also damage some important structure, or you also hit one of your friends).

Just like how Triumph never allows you to hit if everything else about your check is a failure, Despair never allows you to miss if everything else about your check is a success, and letting someone have a power that makes that not true goes against the spirit of the system.

If someone shoots a blaster at a force-sensitive wielding a lightsaber and using the Sense defensive power, and the blaster bolt rolls successfully hits the force user, but the attacker rolls a Despair, I'm going to spend that despair to deflect the bolt back at the attacker (or to any other target or thing that the force sensitive wants it to.) I'm also going to allow my FSE players to do the same if they have Defensive Sense and are using a lightsaber.

The way the system is designed, if a character rolls a success, they are successful no matter what. When that comes to combat skills, to me it means that if you hit, you hit, threat doesn't change that and despair doesn't change that. If you don't hit and roll a despair? Then the GM can do whatever they want with your attack, but if you roll a successful check and Despair can only make some other bad thing happen (you also ran out of ammo, or you also damage some important structure, or you also hit one of your friends).

Just like how Triumph never allows you to hit if everything else about your check is a failure, Despair never allows you to miss if everything else about your check is a success, and letting someone have a power that makes that not true goes against the spirit of the system.

"When using a thermal detonator, any despair result on the check means the detonator explodes prematurely. The wielder takes full damage from the weapon unless he can perform an additional maneuver to try to get clear; in this case, he only suffers the Blast damage."

There is no mention of this happening only on a Failure result check. Despair can really mess things up, yo.

Keep in mind that enemy NPCs that they fight will be able to utilize the same technique, obviously.

And I think it is honestly quite fair for that to be possible outcomes. I mean, let's take a look at all of the instances in the movie where Jedi and Sith were shot with blasters. How often did that not end well for the agressor? I'm pretty sure that one of the Comical Battle Droids in either the movies or in the Clone Wars series made a reference to this, telling his droid comrades not to shoot the jedi. Then they did, and got their blaster bolts right back in his face, and he said something along the lines of "I told you so." In very few instances is it a completely safe idea to shoot a jedi with small arms fire.

Obviously, I would not allow this ability against anything that used Gunnery, or against anything that wasn't a blaster or laser weapon, or anything that wouldn't make sense. Slugthrowers, Disrupters, Missiles, Heavy Repeaters, Starship Cannons, etc. would not be able to be reflected on despairs.

I would be using Failed checks that rolled despair for typical despair things, like them messing things up in the background by damaging things they want to protect, running out of ammo, etc.

I think the easiest way to do this is to allow Lightsaber weilding PCs with force abilities to take a defensive action that enables them to use their lightsaber skill as an opposed roll, complete with setbacks from various force feats.

Since there is no lightsaber skill yet, the check would by default be an opposed Brawn or Agility check as per the current rules for using a Lightsaber.

For example we'll use a Force Sensitive Exile with 4 Brawn an a Lightsaber and no skill. The Force Sensitive Exile is using on the defensive during his turn, so the difficulty for NPCs to hit him becomes 4 difficulty dice. For every skill rank that would be applied to the force user's skill, or for every Destiny Point used to upgrade the roll, add a Challenge Die.

If the NPC fails to hit, the lightsaber blocked the shot.

If the NPC rolling the attack ever rolls a despair they or another NPC get hit by the blaster shot instead. You might possibly even allow players to spend the threat the NPCs generate for effects as well adding to variety of results.

I'd say really deflecting bolts back at people is a bit outside the anticipated power level of EOTE. However I'd suggest the following:

Since the game seems to largely shun opposed combat checks (for speed and ease it seems) I'd suggest a tiered talent similar to those suggested above, except just upgrade ranged attacks against the jedi by one per rank. Despairs generated on these checks would be used to reflect the bolt back at the shooter.

I'd say you'd need to invent a new tree for these to fit in, and I'd probably throw this talent on there 3 times.

I hate the idea of bogging down combat with opposed rolls, so I would make it simple. Give lightsabers a deflection quality with a number of ranks equal to the lesser of the wielder's Lightsaber skill and Force rank. Any miss with a blaster(or whatever else the GM deems deflectable) is considered to have been intercepted by the lightsaber, and the defender can then spend a Destiny point to deflect it back at the attacker. A lightsaber wielder cannot use the deflection quality of a lightsaber while benefitting from cover.

This would make it simple and require a significant XP investment to be any good at it. I might want to adjust it after seeing it in play, but just from eyeballing it, it doesn't seem like it would grant too enormous an advantage(not within the scope of what is otherwise allowed in EotE anyway), but would scale to the point where you just really don't want to fire a blaster at a fully trained Jedi.

I'd say really deflecting bolts back at people is a bit outside the anticipated power level of EOTE. However I'd suggest the following:

Since the game seems to largely shun opposed combat checks (for speed and ease it seems) I'd suggest a tiered talent similar to those suggested above, except just upgrade ranged attacks against the jedi by one per rank. Despairs generated on these checks would be used to reflect the bolt back at the shooter.

I'd say you'd need to invent a new tree for these to fit in, and I'd probably throw this talent on there 3 times.

What you are suggesting is somewhat already in there with the Sense power ongoing effect that upgrades attacks coming at you. That would allow you to get up to two despairs, and you could potentially get more with other effects that could upgrade dice. But, as long as you were using the Sense power (which is truly how they are able to move fast enough to position the saber perfectly to deflect the high-speed blasts where they want) you could do what you also suggest, and deflect it back at people.

"When using a thermal detonator, any despair result on the check means the detonator explodes prematurely. The wielder takes full damage from the weapon unless he can perform an additional maneuver to try to get clear; in this case, he only suffers the Blast damage."

There is no mention of this happening only on a Failure result check. Despair can really mess things up, yo.

The game has statements like that, but they disagree with the entire basis of the dice system: You have successes and failures and then riders. The riders never swap the check from success or failure, they merely lay context over that. If a character rolls a success at all, their check is a success and any Threat or Despair apply a modifier to the success. If have a successful roll on an Athletics check to jump between two builds, you make it across, even if you roll a Despair. Sure the Despair might make you break your leg when you land, but you make it.

It's just like how the rules state that a character who rolls a Triumph on a failed check doesn't succeed, no matter what. Perhaps some other possibility is opened up for them, but they still failed.

Yeah Endrik is right my idea is the sense power. So change my vote to use the sense power with despairs meaning bolt reflected back

Isn't there already a control upgrade for the Sense power that let's a FSE "keep up" an ability to upgrade the difficulty of an attack that comes his way? Reflavor it as "deflection" if the FSE's got one of them laser swords. Reflection: Despair + failure = shooter takes base damage from his own weapon. No house rules required.

I like the Despair = deflect approach in the OP. The only downside is that this would only happen on a skilled combat check...meaning, it will only come up a small fraction of the time. Which is fine, but it would be fun if it happened a little more often. maybe a Despair OR Threats equal to Crit rating of the weapon.

I'm a complete newbie to this system so I'm very likely missing something but the Climatic Confrontations primer (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4210) has an example Forsaken Jedi Nemesis that includes a lightsaber with Deflect 2.

Was the Forsaken Jedi created with rules that didnt' make it into the core book?

Isn't there already a control upgrade for the Sense power that let's a FSE "keep up" an ability to upgrade the difficulty of an attack that comes his way? Reflavor it as "deflection" if the FSE's got one of them laser swords. Reflection: Despair + failure = shooter takes base damage from his own weapon. No house rules required.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm suggesting, except it would reflect on a success with a Despair, since that would actually hit you, but you would reflect it back. A Despair with failure would still cause the gun to run out or him to do something else really unfortunate, with my idea. Though you could have it reflect back at him either way honestly XD.

I'm a complete newbie to this system so I'm very likely missing something but the Climatic Confrontations primer (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4210) has an example Forsaken Jedi Nemesis that includes a lightsaber with Deflect 2.

Was the Forsaken Jedi created with rules that didnt' make it into the core book?

In the beta, Lightsabers had the Deflection quality, which gave them ranged defence while holding hit. They removed that because deflection is more of a thing that Force Users get from also using a lightsaber. They used some rules that will probably come from F&D involving a force user being really badass with a lightsaber, and kept that in because it is thematic and makes the encounter harder. However, Deflection only adds setback dice. This fact does make me inclined to maybe think about only causing the blast to be deflected on a failure. But I think I'll have to wait and see how it all pans out in an actual game.

I'm a complete newbie to this system so I'm very likely missing something but the Climatic Confrontations primer (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4210) has an example Forsaken Jedi Nemesis that includes a lightsaber with Deflect 2.

Was the Forsaken Jedi created with rules that didnt' make it into the core book?

In short, yes.

It's actually called out in the start of the Adversaries chapter that not all the NPCs have their various "special talents" noted in their write-ups, and that they specifically don't play by all the same rules as the PCs in EotE do. Granted, the Forsaken Jedi has their Melee/Ranged Defense values swapped based on their listing of Deflection and Defense.

Also, Jay Little and Sam Stewart both emphasized during their recent guest appearance on the Order 66 podcast that EotE wasn't designed in a vacuum, and was designed as simply one part of the greater whole. So odds are good that the FFG guys do have alpha-stage material for Jedi such as talents that grant things like Deflection and Defense to a lightsaber.

However, if you read Deflection, all it does is make it harder to shoot the person, with no ability to actually redirect a blaster shot back at a bad guy.