Notice on page 204 every single skill mentioned under the "Perform a skill check" are those that have no negative impact ont he enemy. Also notice that under "Perform a combat check" it says you perform a combat check when you use a combat skill to attack a target." You are reading this as "You perform a combat check when AND ONLY WHEN you use a combat skill to attack a target."

It is quite obvious that the developers could not think of and include every way that each skill could be used to harm enemies and thus specifically call out those uses as combat checks. They assume some common sense on the part of players. For example, in a factory an individual might try to use computer to make a robotic arm hit an opponent or a conveyor belt to suddently begin moving tripping his target. In this example the character is not using any of the combat skills but is still making an attack. The way you are reading the text Adversary would not apply to these obviously combat activities.

Your argument reminds me of those on the Pathfinder boards that argue that since the RAW for the "Dead" condition does not state specifically you are unable to make actions you can continue to do so when dead. A little common sense goes a long way.

Forgot to include a response about the difficulty being simply an averge check. This does not make the Talent in any way broken. As I pointed out the GM is always encouraged to include setback dice as appropriate. In combat situations there will likely always be conditions that affect the check.

Well in my defense it does say you perform a combat check when you use a combat skill to attack a target and then lists the combat skills.

Let's say for example that you are right and scathing tyrade is a combat check. Well we know its range we know its difficulty (both are listed in the talent)

Lets go through the steps

1. Declare an attck and select targets (well scathing tirade doesn't require you to choose targets until after you roll and

then you choose 1 target per success)

hmm doesnt seem to make much sense but lets continue

2. Assemble the dice pool well thats easy in the above example you assemble your dice pool the difficulty gets reduced to simple so you don't have any negative dice. Since you haven't picked any targets no one will affect your dice pool. The GM may modify the dice pool of course

Still pretty wierd result since you havent picked a target

3. Pool results and deal damamge

So based on scathing tirade we finally have successes and can assign targets based on them. So 5 successes 5 targets.

Scathing tirade here deals 1 strain to each target

4. Resolve advantage/triumph

So here is where you deal 1 strain per advantage to any target you hit

5. resolve threat/despair

Shrug no challenge dice and -2 setback dice means not much to do here

6. Reduce damage etc

Hmm no damage in this step

And now we see why considering scathing tirade a combat check makes no sense

Now where was it that specifies that only combat skills are combat abilitirs again. Ive read and reread page 204 and it isnt there. As I said if you apply your poorly thought out logic then more than this combo is breaking the game. All force powers would not be combat skills. Please feel free to quote the rulebook.

Last post before bed. Once again you argue that since they listed the general and most common steps of a combat and didn't list every specific possible scenario that may deviate from the norm that any deviation is thereby excluded.

However, step 2 is finally a valid argument for excluding the Adversary effect since no target has been chosen when the roll is made and you can't retroactively upgrade dice. Which makes the entire question of whether it is a combat check moot. So while we still disagree on that point it doesn't matter anymore.

Part of your problem lies in undervaluing step 5 just because 2 setback dice are removed as if there are never ever more than two setback dice added (which at least in my games is not the case). Add to this the fact that it is short range and you are heavily invested in mental rather than physical characteristics.

So in the end you have still not provided evidence that it is broken. All you have shown is that in games with inexperienced GMs who don't make appropriate use of the setback dice an unscrupulous player can try to abuse it.

Nothing is gamebreaking if it can be countered by earplugs.

Where this game completely flies off the rails is vehicles. You could crash a landspeeder into a group of minions too. It's easier to obtain than all those talents. Anyone can do it, too.

BOOM, GAME BROKEN! Oh yeah, that just happened. Take that developers.

I didn´t read all posts but how does the talent "intimidate" influence the whole topic? "Intimidate" only downgrades the difficulty from red dice to purple and is not reducing the difficulty, right?

The talent "Intimidating" is useless with Scathing Tirade since when you downgrade a dice pool, you only convert red dices to purple dices, you cannot remove purple dices if you have to red dices to downgrade.

Let's say you start with the Politico career ; you'll have to spend 75xp to get to Supreme Scathing Tirade (to make it a manoeuver instead of an action), but only 55 to get Improved Scathing Tirade, or even just 15 to get Scathing Tirade.

For argument's sake, we'll just start with the basic Scathing Tirade.

Now if you want it to be "gamebreaking", you need to get the Force-Sensitive Exile tree (20xp) and go down the Influence Power tree to get the 3rd line Control Upgrade (30xp) that let's you add your Force Rating of white dices to the pool, where each circle allows you to add either a succes or advantage.

If you have built your character to be a single-trick character, you can have this combo early in your character life, after a few game sessions totaling 65 xp. At that point, your character could have 4 ranks in Willpower and only 1 rank in Coercion (since its only a bonus career skill).

So your dice pool would be 1 Yellow, 3 Greens, 1 White and 2 Purples. On average, you could have 2 sucess and 3 advantages on such a check. So you could split up a total of 5 strain on two targets that are in short range. That's really far from gamebreaking, since those 2 guys would probably blast your head off on their action that turn.

If you want it to be very powerfull, you really need to invest massively down the Force-Sensitive Exile (120xp) to get Sense Emotions (Overwhelm Emotions isn't worth it) and increase your Force Rating to 2. You'd also need to increase your Coercion skill rank to at least 3 (25xp). So for 145xp more (total of 230xp) , you'd have 3 Yellows, 2 Whites, 1 Green, 1 Blue and 2 Purples has your dice pool. Let's say (for argument's sake) you would roll an average of 3 sucess, 3 circles and 3 advantages with that dice pool, that means you could split up 9 strain on 3 ennemies ; Not bad, but not gamebreaking.

As gamemaster, I would not allow Scathing Tirade to be used more then once per turn.... you do need to talk to your opponent enough to scare him. I'd also give my player blue or black dices to modify his dice pool if he said (roleplay) something convincing or lame.

That combo is a nice trick and it might be worth taking, but I would not invest all my experience points just to get that combo off since it's not that gamebreaking.... have a one-trick character would be boring and generally useless for everything else in the game.

just my 2 cents...

amrothe, you have found something I've also discovered, but consciously chose to avoid due to the overpoweredness of it. I think your analysis of the raw is entirely correct. I think any or all of the errata you have suggested would help to correct the problem and I hope the developers of the game do something similar.

As I'm sure you've noticed, there is a very hostile attitude to raw and crunch arguments on this forum. Whenever someone brings up a rules questions, people here trip over each other to say "I would never allow this into my game", "if my players tried this I'd have a rancor eat them" etc. etc. While this is an rpg, and they are more than welcome to their houserules in their home game, I for one appreciate you bringing to our attention an issue that raw is outside the power norms of the game. Please ignore these people's attempts to shout you down or invalidate your factual statements with how "they run their game". Sorry if people take offense to this, I'm just a dyed in the wool min-maxer, and while I would never run a character like this, I like finding such issues, and, if possible, finding raw solutions or making errata suggestions, and not just hand waving it away with oppressive houserules, something I find tiresomely common on this board. Thank you for your time.

2 ranks of Intimidating lower the default difficulty to simple. 6 Willpower, 5 Coercion, Sense Emotion, Force Rating of 2, and Influence Control Upgrade means you can roll 5 yellow, 1 green, 1 blue, 2 white twice as a manuver and once as an action at a cost of 10 strain to yourself. That is a mean amount of unsoakable strain.

http://game2.com/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=5&ability=1&boost=1&force=2

Click generate. Shows probability.

Once again "Intimidating" does not lower the difficulty (meaning: remove purple dice), it does downgrade the difficulty (meaning: replace red dice with purple dice). "Intimidating" does absolutly nothing if you have no red dices in the dice pool.

Mormacar, you are completely correct. I reread the section on upgrading/downgrading dice, and while surplus dice upgrades result in new green dice being added and possibly upgraded to yellow, the same does not hold true to removing purple dice when no red dice are remaining. I stand corrected. While this does adds two purple dice to each check, it also cuts the strain requirements of the build by 6, as well as cut the xp cost by a large margain. It is still highly effective and in need of errata.

amrothe, you have found something I've also discovered, but consciously chose to avoid due to the overpoweredness of it. I think your analysis of the raw is entirely correct. I think any or all of the errata you have suggested would help to correct the problem and I hope the developers of the game do something similar.

As I'm sure you've noticed, there is a very hostile attitude to raw and crunch arguments on this forum. Whenever someone brings up a rules questions, people here trip over each other to say "I would never allow this into my game", "if my players tried this I'd have a rancor eat them" etc. etc. While this is an rpg, and they are more than welcome to their houserules in their home game, I for one appreciate you bringing to our attention an issue that raw is outside the power norms of the game. Please ignore these people's attempts to shout you down or invalidate your factual statements with how "they run their game". Sorry if people take offense to this, I'm just a dyed in the wool min-maxer, and while I would never run a character like this, I like finding such issues, and, if possible, finding raw solutions or making errata suggestions, and not just hand waving it away with oppressive houserules, something I find tiresomely common on this board. Thank you for your time.

Andre, there is no hostility but some frustration when people demand that because the rules don't list every permutation and possibility of how something might be used that everything not listed is automatically excluded. That is one of the reasons I love EotE and hate d20, because you end up with overly complicated rules with lots of unintended consequences trying to cover every possible detail. I am in Pathfinder and Saga games right now and the game simply bogs at the table due to having to look through rules scattered through multiple books to be sure things are being done RAW.

The reason I challenged the argument about this being a combat check is because the OP had stated that any combat check must involve one of the combat skills. However, I can think of uses of non-combat skills that can be used in ways that make them combat checks. One example I gave was of an astromech using the robotic arms in a factory to hit people. He may not be using a combat skill but is using his skill to attack and therefore it is a combat check and subject to Adversary. If we went by the OPs reasoning Adversary would not apply. As soon as he made a valid argument for why Adversary does not apply (because no target is chosen at the time of the roll) I accepted that argument

Also, while others may have, in my posts I never handwaved and said "I would not allow" or "I would have a rancor eat them." I stated several times how setback dice would apply to show this is not overpowered in any way by RAW. This was simply dismisssed as you are dismissing that now.

If the players want to simply take a set of skills to achieve maximum power in a narrow effect that is fine but it is not handwaving, abusive or punative in some way for the GM to maximize his effectiveness as well by utilizing his tools, setback and challenge dice, in the most effecient way possible. You seem to be suggesting that to do so, however, would be the GM going beyond RAW to shut down a RAW ability.

You are admittedly a dyed in the wool min-maxer. Which is fine but you seem to suggest that it is beyond RAW for the GM to min-max in returen. In otherwords you want to be able to twist the interpretation of this power to allow you to do something but are then arguing those who disagree with your interpretation are out of line and simply trying to "shout you down". No one is trying to shout the OP down. It is simply fact that both of you are making arguments from silence about the rules to make this seem overpowered.

Nowhere in your lengthy post did you acutally make an argument why this is overpowered. You simply spouted ad hominems claiming handwaving, shouting down, and houseruling.

2 ranks of Intimidating lower the default difficulty to simple. 6 Willpower, 5 Coercion, Sense Emotion, Force Rating of 2, and Influence Control Upgrade means you can roll 5 yellow, 1 green, 1 blue, 2 white twice as a manuver and once as an action at a cost of 10 strain to yourself. That is a mean amount of unsoakable strain.

You do realise that you need advantages to inflict more then one strain on the same target... If you roll 10 succes and no advantages against a single ennemy, you deal only 1 strain...

According to the dice roll app that you linked, you'd probably get somthing around 4 succes, 4 advantages, 1 triumph and 2 white pip. With such a roll, you'd get your nemesis to suffer 7 unsoakable strain, and 4 of his minions to suffer 1 strain. You could also have one of his minions surrender.

I do agree that if you can use it 3 times in one round, it would probably be really overpowered. But I would not allow it, even if it's not RAW. I mean, only Austin Powers can use his physique to impress the girl-bots and blow them up with his super overpowered sex appeal.... and you're not Austin Powers

Anyway... if you allow it 3 times in one round, it's gonna be OP.... but for it to be that powerfull, you also need an insane amount of XP. At that point, your nemesis (and maybe more then 1 or 2 in the same group) should also be quite powerfull.

I really dont feel like this is an issue.

I mean... get 6 Brawn, 5 Brawl, 5 Medecine and Pressure Point from the Doctor talent tree and it's also quite powerfull... you could even add to that the Enhance power from AoR and get 2 Whites to add to your roll.

There are lots of ways to make overpowered combos in this book....

You should not try to find them all... but make a character that you like and play him the way you like...

On a side note... and I know you wont like it...

For my group, we've made a houserule that you can't raise a skill that you haven't used in the game unless it can be explained in some other plausible way.

It spices things up a bit when the 0 Coerce Rank dude tries to intimidate the waitress to get some info

Cheers !

Piratewolf, I don't think using Scathing Tirade as a manuver twice and an action once qualifies as "every permutation and possibility of how something might be used", it seems a pretty obvious use.

You said "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.", "Your argument reminds me of those on the Pathfinder boards that argue that since the RAW for the "Dead" condition does not state specifically you are unable to make actions you can continue to do so when dead. A little common sense goes a long way.", and "All you have shown is that in games with inexperienced GMs who don't make appropriate use of the setback dice an unscrupulous player can try to abuse it.". All hostile and insulting comments, that aren't really called for.

He came to this thread with a legitimate problem, and instead of suggestions about or support for his errata ideas, on the whole he has received abuse or dismissal. I don't think having rancors eat the character or have all your enemies wear earplugs, as others have suggested, or piling half a dozen or more setback dice on a player with each convoluted circumstance one can dream of as you have suggested are meaningful or constructive suggestions.

As for not proving it is overpowered, I think rolling 5 yellow, 1 green, 1 blue, 2 white, and 2 purple dice, 3 times a round, where each success is a 1 strain to a different enemy, and each advantage and lightside force point is an additional strain, all going past soak, is mathematically shown to be overpowered by this http://game2.com/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=5&ability=1&boost=1&difficulty=2&force=2 .

All he did was bring this issue to our attention, and he faces ridicule and recriminations instead of actual discussion of possible changes to make the skill balanced, for the most part.

JP_JP, I do understand about how Scathing Tirade works. I also agree that using it three times a round is overpowered, and it should be errated to not be possible. That was the original intention of the thread I believe. I do also know about pressure point and its power, but scathing tirade, with its currently allowed 3 times per a turn cap, and ability to effect droids, makes it more powerful imo.

I also agree with not making overpowered characters, and just making fun characters that are enjoyable to play. That doesn't mean that we should ignore or not try to get errated overpowered aspects of the game.

To the contrary, I like that houserule alot. I don't see how it would correct the issue this build has, perhaps delay it, but not correct it, but it is a very cute rule which probably makes for a lot of great stories, which is the reason we all play rpgs in the end.

GMs as per RAW are encouraged to add setback die. As a result the GM could easily add setback die (or maybe 2) for every use of Scathing Tirade after the first use in a round. So if you used it three times you're adding 4 set back dice to the pool.

http://game2.com/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=5&ability=1&boost=1&difficulty=2&setback=4&force=2

Personally I just see this as a way for non-combat or even pacifist characters to build up some damage along the lines of the Hired Gun or Bounty Hunter trees.

Also from an RP stance, certain species (such as Droids) are immune to certain Force effects, wouldn't the Nemesis get smart and just send in some assassin droids who have no emotions to get hurt or use Snipers who, from Extreme range would just target the Politico at the start of a fight?

Piratewolf, I don't think using Scathing Tirade as a manuver twice and an action once qualifies as "every permutation and possibility of how something might be used", it seems a pretty obvious use.

You said "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.", "Your argument reminds me of those on the Pathfinder boards that argue that since the RAW for the "Dead" condition does not state specifically you are unable to make actions you can continue to do so when dead. A little common sense goes a long way.", and "All you have shown is that in games with inexperienced GMs who don't make appropriate use of the setback dice an unscrupulous player can try to abuse it.". All hostile and insulting comments, that aren't really called for.

He came to this thread with a legitimate problem, and instead of suggestions about or support for his errata ideas, on the whole he has received abuse or dismissal. I don't think having rancors eat the character or have all your enemies wear earplugs, as others have suggested, or piling half a dozen or more setback dice on a player with each convoluted circumstance one can dream of as you have suggested are meaningful or constructive suggestions.

As for not proving it is overpowered, I think rolling 5 yellow, 1 green, 1 blue, 2 white, and 2 purple dice, 3 times a round, where each success is a 1 strain to a different enemy, and each advantage and lightside force point is an additional strain, all going past soak, is mathematically shown to be overpowered by this http://game2.com/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=5&ability=1&boost=1&difficulty=2&force=2 .

All he did was bring this issue to our attention, and he faces ridicule and recriminations instead of actual discussion of possible changes to make the skill balanced, for the most part.

Using the Talent as a maneuver twice is fine. That is not what I was talking about as far as "every permutation" I was talking about his insistence that combat checks must use combat skills argument. About his argument that setback dice don't even matter because by the time this can be used two can be removed. Which is arguing that only two setback dice can be applied since the book doesn't mention the addition of more than two.

I did not even begin posting until the arguments had gone back and forth with the OP simply continuing to make the same unproven allegation over and over. The fact is the power doesn't need errata and his original argument, that the use of this ability does not count as a combat check, was incorrect and to continually make that argument despite all evidence presented to the contrary can only be held if you are trying to pull something. The comment about the "Dead" condition in Pathfinder was not meant to be an insult but to show how ridiculous it gets when you try to argue that things not specifically mentioned by the rules are therefore excluded. The OP simply would not accept that some uses of skills that are not technically combat skills can be used in combat checks in some circumstances.

I have not suggest a rancor eat him. The bit about the rancor was in response to someone who proposed a scenario (I'm not sure if was the OP or not) in which this could make a rancor run away. I listed the number of setbacks that would legitimately apply to trying to use this on a rancor.

Furthermore, you say " piling half a dozen or more setback dice on a player with each convoluted circumstance one can dream of as you have suggested are meaningful or constructive suggestions." You are arguing that a player can pile on a dozen or more convoluted effects but the GM should not then think about every possible hindrance. This is a simple Tu Quoque fallacy. The rules don't list every possible condition that may hinder each particular talent and skill for this very reason. It is not unreasonable to assume that not understanding the tirade would be a setback. It is not unreasonable that after the first use people are starting to tune you out causing more setback.

He brought the issue to our attention. There were repeated arguments that it does not really need errata which he ignored and repeated his same arguments. He was asked to cite in the rules where his claim was explicitly stated since that was the burden of proof he set for others.

As far as proving it is overpowered. You also noted earlier how much strain you are going to cause to yourself which is going to almost knock you yourself out in one round to pull this off. Yes you may inflict quite a bit of strain on all enemies in close range. The the one at medium is going to use one maneuver to move to short, click to stun and drop you where you stand. This is too circumstantial to need errata. I don't mind errata being added for things that really and truly require it but this is just not such a case.

Nashable, sure, a GM can penalize the politico with massive amounts of setback dice. Raw Sense emotions won't work on Droids, so they will lose the blue dice, and the GM can make Droids immune to Scathing Tirade because they want to. Snipers at extreme range works on a lot of characters. Against Melee characters, you can have 10 guys with heavy blaster rifles on a roof with no ladder and have no cover for the melee person. But aren't all these solutions different flavors of "Rocks fall, you die"? They all seem like really aggressive dm tactics that will do nothing but leave a bad taste in the mouth of the player and lead to tension in the group. Why not fix the problem at its source, the talent, instead of passive aggressively punishing the player?

Personally, I don't think anyone is being overly harsh. I find people here tend to have a different mindset when it comes to this game than a lot of the more "crunch" intensive games - they tend to be more about the story than the rules. Honestly, when I saw how these rules were more narrative than crunch I knew there were going to be potential abuse issues. That's one of the reasons the D&D/Pathfinder ruleset turned into the way it is; they felt they had to spell everything out so that GM rulings were consistent across the board rather than letting the GM and his group decide on how they would handle it. Personally, if someone made this build in my group I would be like JP_JP. I would request that whomever is doing this roleplay (loosely, I know the player is not the character and doesn't have the actual communication ability of the character) how exactly he is causing them strain with each maneuver. If he is essentially doing the same thing over and over, I might rule that the subsequent attempts have no effect (or setback die, or upgrade, etc); directing Yo Mama jokes at a bunch of stormtroopers would have diminishing returns . Yes, that's not in the RAW but until there is errata it's my game and my game table and if it's impacting everyone's enjoyment then it will be addressed. Obviously I would have a good discussion with the player with this build to make sure he's ok with it and if not find a compromise. Also, once the shooting started, the enemies are probably not paying as much attention nor care as much about what is being said, so again, maybe no effect, challenge dice, etc.

Anyway, it is good that this thread is here as it lets GMs be aware of the issue and, more importantly FFG (I would even make sure to send this thread url to Customer Service) so they can release errata (whenever that comes) so we can all work with the same RAW. Until that time, I will do what I always do whenever my group finds something that is unbalancing for our tastes - make a ruling after group discussion, note it, and try to be consistent in the future.

Piratewolf, so wait, do you believe that Scathing Tirade is a combat check and has adversary apply to it or not? "The fact is the power doesn't need errata and his original argument, that the use of this ability does not count as a combat check, was incorrect and to continually make that argument despite all evidence presented to the contrary can only be held if you are trying to pull something." implies you do, but "However, step 2 is finally a valid argument for excluding the Adversary effect since no target has been chosen when the roll is made and you can't retroactively upgrade dice. Which makes the entire question of whether it is a combat check moot." implies you don't.

I didn't ascribe the rancor eating to you in any comment I made.

He brought it to your attention and repeatedly proved his assertions, short of Intimidation lowering the check to simple difficulty. You can not agree with his facts, but that doesn't make him wrong.

Actually, without Intimidation, it doesn't take a lot of strain to do this. 2 strain to perform it as a manuver twice, and 2 strain to do two manuvers. Only 4 total. Of course, you can also recoup this strain during the acts. I just did 5 test rolls of 3 Scathing Tirade attacks, and got results of 7/14/15/16/20 unsoakable single target strain, with 3 strain to 2+ other targets each time as well. You can also do 4 less strain damage, and recover the four strain you took to accomplish this. That can drop all but a select few enemies in one round.

Yes, that's not in the RAW but until there is errata it's my game and my game table and if it's impacting everyone's enjoyment then it will be addressed.

Actually that is exactly RAW. The GM adding setback dice as he feels appropriate based on circumstances. The individual circumstances are not listed but are left up to GM discretion. I think your example is a very applicable and appropriate stance. You as the GM assessed the situation and added dice as you felt conditions warranted.

Well said Icebear.

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

Gadzooks! I've been using this skill wrong (well, the flip side of the skill, the one that adds strain to your friends)! I thought you could only target one friend/enemy, not an area effect that got everyone in range. Curse you, new game system!