So I typically go over books I buy and look for loopholes and combos.

The gadgeteer aside from having a great defensive talent list has two talents of intimidation

reducing the dificulty of coercen checks by up to two levels for 2 strain (This is incorrect

I made a mistake and intimidation is actually reducing potential challenge dice into difficulty dice,

which will rarely if at all come up in Scathing Tirade Checks) Gadgeteer is no longer part of the combo

The Politico talen tree has Scathing Tirade which allows you to make an average coercen check to deal 1 strain to (success number of enemies) and to increase the strain by 1 for each advantage rolled

Supreme Tirade lets you do this for a maneuver so you could potentially do it 3 times a turn

by spending 3 strain.

Admittedly its 9 strain for 3 rolls that are basically unopposed since difficulty is simple and getting to this point in the talent tree means you are already removing 2 setback dice.

A reasonably high presence/coercion character will decimate 99% of the creatures in the game without Nobodys fool/resolve(s)

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Now combine this with a politico/mercenary soldier with supreme Inspiring rhetoric and

improved field commander and you are healing a ton of strain with 2x inspiring rhetoric manuvers and allowing a 4th use of Scathing tirade for the gadgeteer/politico

I guess that while I like the idea of talking someone into submission Its the 4 times a round you can use the same skill which is largely unopposed that bugs me

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If you want icing on this cheese throw in Force sensative exile for overwhelm emotions/sense emotions and of course the awesome coercion boosting (left control) power in the influence tree adding even more advantage for strain with each use of control.

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As proposed errata I would suggest the following

1. Intimidation reduces coercion to a minimum difficulty of easy

2. Talents that can be made into manuvers may only be used once a round

3. Force Power Tree Influence (left control) can only be used once a round

Yeah and just exactly how xp do you need to get all that. Why not just have a group of politicos with a merc soldier all doing tirade and the soldier doing improved field commander with 4 presence and 8 politicos thats 24 scathing tirades in one round with a much lower xp group.

I think any Gm would apply reason in that scenario there is no way one character can track that much talking so the politicos would make themselves ineffective in the attempt. For the talent to work you have to be able to hear what is being said. After all the idea is that the dressing down is giving you stress.

I obviously need to look into it a bit more, but you may be looking over a few things.

A. You can only take so many actions a round. You can only perform 2 manuevers a round, and while that will take out minions easily, so will shooting them. Everything else is going to take a couple rounds.

B. Don't some of those require rather short ranges to be effective, thus putting you in a dangerous position. Goody, you talked down 1 stormtrooper, but those other 4 are taking shots at you from short range.

C. To tie all that together, you're going to need a fair amount of XP. If you devote yourself to getting this set up as soon as possible, your other skills/abilities will suffer making you a far easier target, and rather focused on one attack.

D. Adversaries will upgrade the difficulty which means higher chance of failure, and potential negative effects for yourself. "Looks like you strained your vocal cords, you've lost your voice for a week."

E. I don't think that rancor will care how much you yell at him, he's still going to eat you.

It's not a bad combo, and it is potent in certain situations, but there are a few downsides to the entire plan. A similar amount of points into a damage dealing melee/heavy ranged character will likely result in a character that is just as effective.

I obviously need to look into it a bit more, but you may be looking over a few things.

A. You can only take so many actions a round. You can only perform 2 manuevers a round, and while that will take out minions easily, so will shooting them. Everything else is going to take a couple rounds.

The mercenary soldier talent field commander allow extra maneuvers without counting towards.the 2 maneuver limit, allowing up to 3 per round and still allowing an action for 2 strain, or 3 maneuver if you drop the action.

I don't believe coercion checks count as combat checks so advesary would not affect them. See page 204 (eg no combat skill no combat check) The tirade affects 1 enemy per success with no limit on an unopposed roll the extra strain comes from advantage. Yes it is a close range attack but can affect tons of targets.

I see no reason why It couldnt confuse a rancor and defeat him by having him wander off after all his strain is only 15 seems much easier then going through a 12 soak and 40 wounds.

Yes the more people doing this in the party the sicker it gets.

As for how much XP it costs to do this

It sort of builds up in stages it takes 30 xp for the second specilization

5 for the first intimidation in gadgeteer and a whopping 120xp for the second intimidation

In politico you can start with 15xp for basic scathing tirade and 60xp for supreme scathing tirade

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This is a trick that gets better as you level but starts out really good.

As a GM my BS alarms would go off like crazy. I would never allow this in my game no matter how much it says so in the rules. Story trumphs everything. If something the players come up with sounds unrealistic within the boundaries of a star wars setting then its a no go. Its the GM`s responsibility to disallow stuff like this unless you want your game to be broken.

My players try to find loopholes like this all the time, and it probably wont be long till they catch up on this one. I`ll be ready

Yeah as I said the whole idea of this is that its supposed to be someone irate , telling you offcausing strain. If you have that many attempts in the round then it just wont work, because someone/something that is being affected by it just couldnt keep track of that much info. You could also argue since scathing tirade is actually an action that is downgraded to a maneuver that the limit is 2 per round, One only as a maneuver and another as an action, upgradeable to three only on a triumph on an improved field commander check (for an additional action , rather than a maneuver). The fact that it starts as an action only implies that there is some kind of time factor involved , so there is only so much you can compress into a round.

I haven't read the book so this is just musing and probably completely wrong. Anyway, wouldn't you need to actually be saying something to coerce them? I would be asking the player for what he's saying with each maneuver and if it wasn't sufficiently different then I don't think it would have any further impact. I don't know if a Rancor could understand enough to be effected either. Talking a bunch of stormtroopers to their strain threshold while they are actively shooting at you just seems off.

Imo also, the fact that it causes strain damage, that makes it a combat ability

Edit with regards to the rancor, it would bepossible,in much the same way you can intimidate an animal, however as a Gm the upgraded dice and setback dice could very well lead to an attempt actually having the reverse effect as the threats cause the intimidator to get lots of strain and the despair rolls leading to the rancor having a lunchtime that just happened to be a bit bit noisier.

Agreed about the rancor, but as a GM, I could see myself deciding that a wild rancor wouldn't feel any intimidation to a tiny human yelling at me. Depends on the exact circumstances, otherwise I'd probably rule like you suggested

In the rules as written its not a combat ability and I am pointing out that is one of the reasons its overpowered.

The second reason is that it doesnt take into account the target its a simple check against anyone without the Nobody's fool trait.

If you don't have it there are no opposition dice rolled. Sure you as a GM can upgrade dice but you are starting from 0, you can certainly. Force a dsicipline check as well as in any encounter with a scary thing. But usually its suggested GM's add setback dice not d8-d12's and as mentioned 2 setback dice are automatically removed by the build.

Can someone point out what Scathing Tirade (and/or Coercion) being/not being a "combat ability" means in this case?

Well, you've proved it. This combo breaks the game. Saves me the trouble of continuing to play it. Thanks

Oh I think its a great game and it took me a bit to find this one, a slight errata as I posted here would solve the problem. And there are certainly ways to deal with it as a gamemaster.

The reason why it matters if Scathing Tirade is a combat ability or not is because of the NPC talent advesary, which only upgrades the difficulty of combat checks, or attacks.

On page 204 it lists the combat skills as, brawl, gunnery, melee, ranged light, ranged heavy.

Coercion is not on the list.

Now the interesting thing is that Coercion as a skill does pretty much the same thing as Scathing tirade but it is instead opposed by the subjects willpower and discipline. The fact that Scathing tirade does not have the same balancing makes it so overpowered

Edited response

The exact text of Advesary on 132 is Upgrade the Difficulty of any combat Check targeting the character once per rank of Advesary.

The exact text of a combat check on 204 reads "A player makes a combat check when he uses a combat skill to attack"

Note that it specifies it upgrades combat abilities , you correctly pointed out combat skills. Any roll that uses dice is an ability check if it is used in combat against an opponent it is a combat ability. As a GM there is scope in the game where you can even rule that a particular combatant (esp nemesis) can ignore certain abilities, if it serves the story.

OK, so to any given target you can use it to cause 1 Strain plus 1 more per Advantage. That's pretty effective, but the guy running his mouth off is likely to get shot in the face after trying this trick once. The issue only comes in with it being able to be done as a Maneuver (and potentially more than once per turn).

Oh I think its a great game and it took me a bit to find this one, a slight errata as I posted here would solve the problem. And there are certainly ways to deal with it as a gamemaster.

The reason why it matters if Scathing Tirade is a combat ability or not is because of the NPC talent advesary, which only upgrades the difficulty of combat checks, or attacks.

On page 204 it lists the combat skills as, brawl, gunnery, melee, ranged light, ranged heavy.

Coercion is not on the list.

Now the interesting thing is that Coercion as a skill does pretty much the same thing as Scathing tirade but it is instead opposed by the subjects willpower and discipline. The fact that Scathing tirade does not have the same balancing makes it so overpowered

There's nothing I can find that says a 'combat check' is the same thing as a 'combat skill'. I'd say a 'combat check' is any check made during a combat encounter.

please see edited post I point out where its listed

Yes but where does it say combat ABILITIES not SKILLS are brawl, gunnery, ranged etc.

An ability can be a talent a skill etc and yes using coercion against a Nemesis in such a way as to cause damage is going to incur penalty. After all you are using the ability during combat as an offensive maneuver/action.

Edit Page 26 under Talents 'each talent is a distinct special ability' If you want define abilities as just being skills go ahead and apply it that way,but in my games im just leaving talents as abilities also (as well as force powers, which in the right circumstance I will also class as combat abilities, otherwise a newbie FSE might just force choke vader.)

I think you are geting the words mixed up abilities don't exist in the game there are ability dice but I am sure that is not what you are refering to.

I think you are asking me why is the use of certain talents is considered a combat check while other uses of talents are not.

To answer this you have to look at the talent and if it has one of the combat skills that you roll then it is a combat check. For instance.

The Talent Pressure point in the doctor tree on 65 Specifies that it can be used when making a brawl check against an opponent... etc.

Thus the use of this talent would be part of a combat check.

Another example of something you might think of as a combat check is Precise AIm it; however it has no roll associated with it nor does it have a combat skill associated with it. Therefore you select the manuver and it happens without making any checks or rolling any dice even though it has the effect of lowering an enemies defense.

So to determine wether a talent is going to be a combat check you just have to determine if it has an associated combat skill if not it follows the rules for skills unless otherwise specified in the talent.

Thats up tou if you want to read it that way but Imo a combat ability is an ability thats meant to be used in combat. Otherwise all the force powers work as well on nemesis characters as they do on minions etc.

On page 26 they describe talents as abilities ask yourself this - Is Scathing Tirade meant to be a social skill , or is it meant to be used in combat. ?

If its a social skill then it can be opposed as per the coercion skill description. However scathing tirade is not a skill its a talent that happens to use the coercion skill. Think of it like intimidation, or taunt it is used in combat to throw your opponent off balance (which is symolised by a loss in strain)

If you apply your thinking that combat ability=the 5 combat skills then its not just a game breaking combo you have found but a whole.lot of game breaking force powers and talents that can basically ignore how powerful your opponent is and bring them down. As I said one lucky roll from a rookie force sensitive exile could bring down the most powerful enemies in the game. This then breaks the game entirely.

Once again I ask where does it say that a combat ability involves only the 5 combat skills.

Edit just.to.clarify I dont really care how you want to define a combat ability, me im just going with an ability that yoi use in combat. It is IMO not limited tothe combat skills, because if you apply your thinking the game is very broken indeed.

There are no combat abilities in the game again there are Talents, Skills and Force Powers thats it. There are no force talents or powers that deal damage except Move see below.

The only force power that is considered an Attack is in Move The first control power which the game lists specifically as an attack and states that it is resolved as a ranged attack etc.

The influence power's right control is a dsicipline v discipline check and this is not considered an attack.

There is no way for a neophyte force user to bring down the most powerful enemies in the game.

Keep in mind that on 204 the terms Combat check and Attack can be used interchangably so advesary would affect the Force power Move when used to deal damage above.

Right now the only power I see that deals stress damage and is not a combat check is Scathing Tirade, which is why I am bringing it up.

Scathing Tirade is a social skill but as written it is not an opposed skill it is written as an average skill check. This is what I think is broken. It bypasses advesary and is not opposed so your opponent doesnt matter.

Another way of looking at it, us that if you apply my thinking then the game isnt broken.

There are no combat abilities in the game again there are Talents, Skills and Force Powers thats it. There are no force talents or powers that deal damage except Move see below.

The only force power that is considered an Attack is in Move The first control power which the game lists specifically as an attack and states that it is resolved as a ranged attack etc.

The influence power's right control is a dsicipline v discipline check and this is not considered an attack.

There is no way for a neophyte force user to bring down the most powerful enemies in the game.

Keep in mind that on 204 the terms Combat check and Attack can be used interchangably so advesary would affect the Force power Move when used to deal damage above.

Right now the only power I see that deals stress damage and is not a combat check is Scathing Tirade, which is why I am bringing it up.

Scathing Tirade is a social skill but as written it is not an opposed skill it is written as an average skill check. This is what I think is broken. It bypasses advesary and is not opposed so your opponent doesnt matter.

Notice that Scathing Tirade takes an "Action" (or with additional ranks a "Maneuver"). Actions and maneuvers only occur during structured gameplay. Structured gameplay is used almost entirely for combat except in very rare corner cases. It is very clear this is intended to be use in combat and thus is subject to Adversary..

Basically any roll during a combat situation that negatively affects an opponent is a combat check. If you attempt to use the Influence force power during combat to stress an enemy that is a combat check. If you attempt to use Scathing Tirade that is a combat check. If you attempt to shoot them with a blaster that is a combat check. Yes combat skills are defined but nothing in the RAW declares that a talent must used one of those skills to be a combat check. You are the one making that requirement up to fit your concusion. If not then please site page number and paragraph so I can look up where it is explicitly stated that combat checks are only checks that utilize combat skills.

Also the GM is always encouraged to add setback dice based on conditions. For a rancor vs. Scathing Tirade I would rule one setback for the creature not being able to understand what you are saying, one for the creature being highly aggressive, one for the creature being too stupid to feel threatened, etc...

This talent does not need errata. One would have to be trying to pull one over on the GM in order to apply this talent as you are.

Patient Wolf

Page 204 makes it very clear the difference between skill checks and combat checks read the entire page carefully the section begining performing a skill check and then performing a combat check. You will see that Scathing Tirade is a coercion skill check made against a static value of average and you don't even have to pick targets till after you succeed and see how many targets you affect.

Also the fact of it being affected by advesary is really not the only reason its broken its also because it is not an opposed check. Its an Average check against anyone regardless of their willpower + discipline.

After you have read the page please comment further