What I'm getting from your argument is still that overpowered, to use your words "extreme", tactics available to players don't need to be errated out because the dm is fully capable of being heavyhanded and punitive, to use your words "extreme", to counter their actions. If this style of game balancing works for you and your group, then by all means, feel free to continue to do so. However, in my group, such actions by the player, and then counter actions by the dm, would only lead to tension and hurt feelings. I would prefer to resolve the issue by balancing the ability to be more in line with other options available to players. I simply disagree with your style of dming/playing. Wouldn't it be possible to errata this issue for people like me, and your group can continue using the old rules? Or you could houserule new, extreme versions of abilities the dm will then have to ratchet up his adventures to counter? Frankly, it feels like a vicious arms race I'd rather avoid with my group.

That is not my preferred style of gaming. I do have friends that like that style of gaming and I participate in their more power gaming style games as they participate in my more storytelling style games. Both are legitimate. Because in your group this would cause tensions and hurt feelings you feel it needs to be changed for everyone. Apparently you do have players that would fully abuse this and then get butt hurt if the GM responds within the rules accordingly. Because of this you feel the game needs to be errataed to cater to your group's issues though 99% of the players won't have an issue.

Also you keep using the words heavy handed and punitive which are subjective terms which you have no right to define for others. Some would not find using the setbacks as I have suggested either heavy handed or punitive. Also what is heavy handed or punitive would depend on the game. What is heavy handed in one style of game would not be in another.

Just to chime in. I agree that the ability is strong but I don’t think that it is overpowered. Anyone who has taken a biology class with a monotone professor can tell you that it is possible to knock an opponent down to 0 strain with words alone. But with only being able to focus on one or two guys a turn and the amount of experience that is needed to be sunk into this path it isn’t overpowered. A soldier with a blaster on stun and using a spread barrel could do something similar. Plus that character would be a one trick pony.

Now because of the power of the character I would suggest GMs and player to sit down and discuss if this character would throw off the power dynamic of the campaign or not. I dislike having the talent errataed only because if it is the style of character you want to play and the GM and other players are ok with it then you should be able to play it without the FAQ saying that you can't because someone else abused it and ruined your fun.

I think it's silly to errata "problems" that haven't cropped up in any game. I could understand if this were someone complaining of an issue that appeared naturally through play, but this is purely theory.

Houserule it if you want, but asking the developers to change the core game because of something that could happen, but won't is a bit much.

syrath, that is how I have been operating on how the power works. I just did 3 rolls of http://game2.com/eote/?#proficiency=5&ability=1&boost=1&difficulty=2&force=2 , and got 4 successes, 3 advantage, 2 ls points on the first roll, 3/5/4 on the second, and 3/3/1 on the third. Therefore, the first roll could do 1 strain to 4 seperate targets in short range, and 5 more strain spread out or focused as I see fit, the second roll could do 1 strain to 3 seperate targets, 9 more spread out or focused, and the third roll could do 1 strain to 3 seperate targets, 4 more spread out. So I could hit 1 target for 21 strain that is unsoakable with that, and dent a few others.

And a blaster roll using the same dice does how much damage exactly,

Superior blaster carbine with forearm grip mods/ accurate and point blank, augmented spin barrel (+3 dmg +1 bonus dice, )

Talents (gadgeteer)

Jury rigged 2 (+2 dmg)

Point blank (+1dmg)

Tinkerer

Assasin

Quick Strike(+1 bonus dice)

Targetted blow (+6 dmg)

Deadly accuracy (+5 dmg)

Merc soldier talents

Point blank 2 +2 dmg

True aim 2 +2 bonus dice + 2 upgrade

Outlaw tech

Jury rigged 2 (+ 2 dmg)

FSE

Force sense (+2 upgrade)

Intense focus+1 upgrade

Touch of fate 2 bonus dice

So +22 bonus dmg, 6 bonus dice, 5 proficiency,1 ability,+6 upgrades(8 proficieny, 6 bonus, 1 ability, 1 difficulty

The roll I just did on the dice app gave 9 success, 1 triumph 2 advantage for 43 dmg and a crit with pierce 1,however what did that just prove. Hitting someone with a lightsaber is lethal also

Edit I could have added more but it just gets ridiculous.At that level of cross classed ability hes going to one hit everything on a personal scale, and probably can use a blaster to destroy a starship. With a disruptor rifle the min dmg would be 33 dmg which way over any soak, and it would have about+100 on the crit roll. This level of ability is just plain stupid though

My approach is that I don't think it's a game-breaking combo and if it should ever come up in a game I will deal with it, but I won't worry about it until then.

I'd recommend everyone do the same but feel free to play however you like. If you think it's broken, by all means take whatever action you find appropriate.

Another interesting aside is the question on Intimidating downgrading the difficulty of a check.

Forgive me for more explinations but downgrading difficulty is different from downgrading dice

For instance intense focus allows you to upgrade the ability of your skill check once. This turns an ability die into a proficiency die

But talents like Master Doctor say you can decrease the dificulty of the next medicine check to a minimum of easy. (the difficulty marker is right in the talent)

So downgrading or upgrading a difficulty check would seem to follow the chart on page 17 and affect the base difficulty dice rolled.

downgrading or upgrading dice is very different and follows the rules on page 21

This coincidentally is what makes skills like Defensive stance and Dodge so powerful as they add 1 difficulty die per strain spent up to the levels of those talens you have. Where mere defense only adds puny setback dice.

So you see intimidating x2 does in fact work to lower the difficulty to simple for scathing tirade checks this means no base difficulty dice.

The benefit and brokenness of the build comes from having no base negative dice to the check. As well as the check being completely unopposed Yes Scathing Tirade is powerful as written but when combined with this you at top end are looking at rolling 5 proficiency dice and 1 ability die before force exile cheese and dealing damage that bypasses nearly every form of defense in the game.

Sure there are many other powerful combos in the game but none effect 1 target per success.

And yes Pressure Point Brawler is one I was going to post but at least he has to face advesary/defensive stance.

And yes Auto fire is extremely powerful especially with Jury Rigging but people noticied this in other threads so I didn't post it here. No one had mentioned this.

Honestly although I am getting a lot of strain myself from trying to fix the game a bit. I am going to try and post a lot of the unbalanced options I see and a way to make the game more playable.

PS I would never play a character like this I just have the ability to notice broken combos and suggest work arounds.

A lot of what I have done is game explaining and I attirbute this to the rules being less clear then they could be. I will endeavor to make some of them more clear in another post

On the side-topic of whether the check required for Scathing Tirade is a 'combat check' (for purposes of determining whether the Adversary talent comes into play), I stand by my earlier statement that a 'combat check' is *any* check made *during combat*. I'll also go further to make the point that not every combat involves blasters and physical damage.

Some examples:

• A shouting match in the Senate chamber where the various politicians are attempting to persuade neutrals to take their side and bully antis into submission is still 'combat' for the purpose of a gaming session regardless of whether a blaster pistol makes an appearance.
• An interrogation scene where the cops are trying to wear down a character to make them confess (whether they've done anything wrong or not) is, likewise, 'combat' for the purpose of a gaming session.
• A calm negotiation between a character and a merchant for a discount? Probably not.
• Turn it into a shouting match where the loser is left thinking, "WTF just happened there?!" That's 'combat', too.
• Going to a competition at the local shooting range where the goal is to put a precise hole in the center of a target 20 meters down range? That's probably *not* 'combat', even though you're using a 'combat skill'.

Yes but ask yourself if a combat check is a logical resolution mechanism for a shouting match or an interrogation scene

Wouldn't it be more logical as an opposed skill check where People are using negotiation, or coercion versus discipline or cool.

And using the resolution mechanics found on page 24

The opposed checks are amazingly good for resolving this sort of situation and of course the character you are targeting actually matters.

Unlike scathing tirade which is at a flat difficulty no matter who you use it on. One of my fixes is to make scathing tirade an opposed check that alone would fix much of the abuse.

Limiting every talent making an action into a manuver to once per round really fixes a problem and makes the build managable.

Another interesting aside is the question on Intimidating downgrading the difficulty of a check.

Forgive me for more explinations but downgrading difficulty is different from downgrading dice

For instance intense focus allows you to upgrade the ability of your skill check once. This turns an ability die into a proficiency die

But talents like Master Doctor say you can decrease the dificulty of the next medicine check to a minimum of easy. (the difficulty marker is right in the talent)

So downgrading or upgrading a difficulty check would seem to follow the chart on page 17 and affect the base difficulty dice rolled.

downgrading or upgrading dice is very different and follows the rules on page 21

This coincidentally is what makes skills like Defensive stance and Dodge so powerful as they add 1 difficulty die per strain spent up to the levels of those talens you have. Where mere defense only adds puny setback dice.

So you see intimidating x2 does in fact work to lower the difficulty to simple for scathing tirade checks this means no base difficulty dice.

The benefit and brokenness of the build comes from having no base negative dice to the check. As well as the check being completely unopposed Yes Scathing Tirade is powerful as written but when combined with this you at top end are looking at rolling 5 proficiency dice and 1 ability die before force exile cheese and dealing damage that bypasses nearly every form of defense in the game.

Sure there are many other powerful combos in the game but none effect 1 target per success.

And yes Pressure Point Brawler is one I was going to post but at least he has to face advesary/defensive stance.

And yes Auto fire is extremely powerful especially with Jury Rigging but people noticied this in other threads so I didn't post it here. No one had mentioned this.

Honestly although I am getting a lot of strain myself from trying to fix the game a bit. I am going to try and post a lot of the unbalanced options I see and a way to make the game more playable.

PS I would never play a character like this I just have the ability to notice broken combos and suggest work arounds.

A lot of what I have done is game explaining and I attirbute this to the rules being less clear then they could be. I will endeavor to make some of them more clear in another post

You are completely wrong. Defensive Stance and Dodge upgrade one purple difficulty die into a red challenge die. They do not add another purple die. Intimidating does not reduce the number of difficulty dice to zero base difficulty. It downgrades red challenge dice back to purple. Perhaps your misunderstanding of this part of the system is what is leading you to believe it is broken. Upgrading and downgrading ALWAYS refer to changing between green and yellow or purple and red. It NEVER has to do with changing the base number of dice involved.

note: caps are for emphasis not for shouting

Patient I can tell how poorly written the rules are from your disagreement with me on this point.

Lets take a look at Page 21 the section Increase, Upgrade, or Add

For more information look at 22 Upgrade versus increase

Modifying the Difficulty is one option this can be an increase or decrease and changing the difficulty changes the number of D8's in the challenge.

Upgrading dice is turning a D8 into a D12 or if there are no D8's adding another d8 and then potentially upgrading it if more upgrades remain see Page 21 upgrading dice

Adding dice is always D6's boost or setback dice.

I understand that this is very confusing and the developers choice of putting these sections in black boxes is obscure and frustrating but if you read closly you will understand the difference between

increasing difficulity: adding more D8s

Upgrading Dice: turning D8's into D12's

and Adding setback dice. D6

as well as decreasing difficulty

downgrading dice

and adding boost dice

When you have read the above pages please comment back

Page 22 "Downgrading more difficulty dice than available: There may be situations where a player needs to downgrade Proficiency dice into Abilitiy dice or Challenge dice into difficulty dice. If all the potential dice are already in their downgraded form further downgrades are ignored."

This is not the same for upgrading dice. You can do more upgrades than you have base dice but you can't do more downgrades. Spelled out explicitly on page 22. You cannot downgrade below the base difficulty. Intimidating cannot ever lower Scathing Tirade below an average check.

I think he is saying it allows you to downgrade the base difficulty rather than downgrade the dice. Honestly, reading it it does sound like it is to remove purple dice. Given the fact that having challenge dice in a dice pool is rare in the first place, I have to agree it does feel like they want us to lower the difficulty from Average to Simple

I apologize here in my haste I didn't read through the two bad examples of defensive stance and dodge.

The terms increase and decrease refer to difficulty and the number of D8's

The terms upgrade or downgrade refer to difficulty dice and whether they become d12's or are removed.

So you are correct and I am wrong regarding Defensive Stance and Dodge and Intimidating

Where master Doctor actually decreases the difficulty of the action.

So intimidating isn't any good at all in scathing tirade you will still have to face the two difficulty dice.

Sorry it really is confusing. Especially when they don't put the words upgrading downgrading dice and just say

upgrading and downgrading difficulty.

However I can admit when I am wrong.

Icebear when I read the intimidating skill I tend to agree thats what it meant. it seems really really useless now that I look at it since downgrading dice at the base does nothing and very few things make challenge dice.

Ive just recieved confirmation that the OPs interpretation on scathing tirade being a non combat ability is correct(from the developers), The GM still has the abilty to downgrade its effectiveness if overused (ie there is only so much you could do before it loses its original strain damage for example). So I was wrong here.

They did state that it is working exactly as intended and it would be quite legitimate to create a build that did exactly as the OP stated. Given the XP to create the build you could create a weapon based character that is just as , if not more so effective, so in effect it's no more 'broken' than another similarly tricked out character.

Icebear when I read the intimidating skill I tend to agree thats what it meant. it seems really really useless now that I look at it since downgrading dice at the base does nothing and very few things make challenge dice.

Except for the fact that Coercion, more often than not, is going to be targeting an NPC, and if that NPC has any ranks in Cool, boom, there are your Challenge Dice.

The roll made for Scathing Tirade is the exception, not the norm.

Excellent point

yeah I was so focused on Scathing Tirade I forgot the norm Intimidating is great just not for this build. I guess it does save 6 strain a turn so you can keep it up longer =)

Anyhow I learned a lot from posting here and I definately have a better understanding of the mechanics for when I run this at Arisia this year in boston ma

Greetings!

I have a suggested house rule (I know--not an official fix, please read on):

If the Scathing Tirade seems too powerful, change the Difficulty from Average to that of the NPC with the highest Discipline.

After all, Coercion is normally opposed by Discipline. In a group of individuals, the one with the highest Discipline would definitely impact the morale of those with him/her. Therefore, you could feel completely justified in using that.

Another possibility is using the Average Difficulty for most cases, but let the players know in advance that a Nemesis will "defend" vs. Scathing Tirade using their Discipline.

I also just thought about the possibility of a PC having Scathing Tirade used against them !

Allowing them to roll the check using Discipline opposed by the Scathing Tirade user's Coercion would really empower the players!

Just suggestions to keep the game fun!

Sincerely,

salamar_dree

It just goes to show you why disturbing the peace (scathing tirade) is probably taken just as seriously by the Empire as hitting someone with your fists.

Zenoth16, I agree with your professor comparison, it is very apt, and can definitely be the flavor someone tries to go for with this ability. I would simply add that in your example, it is usually the duration of the boredom that is so troublesome, not a triple shot of it in one go. Your discussion of players and dm discussing the matter maturely is of course also excellent.

Doc the Weasel, I think the point of errata is to head off problems when possible, fix them when they aren't caught. Several recalls are done before any accidents occur in commercial products every year. Getting ahead of issues is often preferable to fixxing them after the fact.

syrath, the destructive capabilities of an autofire blaster focused player is well known and has been discussed in the thread before. My retort would be that your posted build requires substantially more xp and money than the scathing tirade build. In addition, you would have to cope with the issue of being perceived as armed, and the legality of your weapon/attachments/mods. Also, you have to deal with soak, which, granted, probably isn't a huge issue at the high end of the build. Finally, you can only use this abilitiy violently. A triple Scathing Tirade can resolve combat disputes, political disputes, economic disputes, etc. etc. It bypasses soak, can be done while unarmed, and can resolve more situations, less violently, which sets it apart from just strong blastering.

progressions, I think that is a perfectly reasonable stance to take as an individual. Every individual dm and group can resolve it as they see fit, if at all. I just think the forums can strive for more beyond that, and if an issue can be pointed out as inbalanced and resolved by errata, what better place than the forums of that game.

syrath, while I'm disappointed to hear their stance on this issue, I can accept it. I simply hope that none of my players ever attempt this, and if they do, we can resolve it as a group, maturely. I wish they would take a more direct approach to the problem, but they can steward their game however they see fit.

salamar_dree, excellent suggestions all, and well in keeping with the theme of the thread. Thank you for your input.

amrothe, please keep posting these kind of things and bring them to everyone's attention. There has been alot of great discussion in this thread. Several rules were clarified, and many suggestions to resolve the power imbalance in scathing tirade were made, some good, some not so good. I think the majority of this thread has taken away excellent suggestions to resolve any possible issues that could crop up from this power in a mature fashion that is amicable to all involved. Good show.

The build I was putting together was just prove apoint ,you could do 5 less damage with a holdout blaster and still be able to blow holes in a starship with the chosen feats, in fact with sufficient presence and leadership (not even maxed) , you can use just improved field commander and everyone gets 3 maneuvers and an action or 2 maneuvers and 2 actions each round (strain permitting) which when combined with many of the other feats can produce a lot of 'overpowered results'.

Im satisfied though that I got an official answer about it, and that the feat does work in such a way that it could be abused, however and imquoting the developers here (and I hope Sam Stewart does not mind)

The key part being the last section here which is one of the things i mentioned in one of my earlier posts about th GM having latitude to rule cetain things when common sense prevails. I did notice one thing Sam mentioned , which interested me and that is that it requires you to be able to hear and understand , a gm could just simply rule that in the heat of a blaster fight you couldnt hear anything or the adversary just gets fed up and uses a dark side point to produce a set of ear plugs to just prevent any further strain damage. This comment could also be taken to mean that it wont work on creatures like rancors whatsoever which makes the tactic importantly situational , you could take down a group of stormtroopers but a simple animal would be immune, or an alien/droid that doesnt understand basic. Im happy enough to accept that many of my ideas were wrong, im also happy enough that although powerful its not 'game breaking' either.

Thanks to Sam Stewart for the quick answers and explanations, its dedication like that , that makes a game like this so good. They might not get involved but it also shows that they follow ..he forums and listen to the fans also.

That is straight from the horse's mouth, so that settles that. I don't agree with that method of resolution, and feel more errata in these cases is always better, to prevent it from even being a debate, but what he says goes. Cheers.