I have a question for how people interpret the Durable talent. If I have 3 ranks of the Durable talent, in what way can I use it? There are several examples where higher crits are less severe than lower ones, and of course different situations favor different crit severities. Durable says "The character may reduce a Critical Injury result he suffers by 10 per rank of Durable, to a minimum of one." If I have 1 rank in Durable, then get shot by a heavy blaster rifle and a 90 crit rolled against me (Compromised), I obviously don't want to lower the result to 80 (Overpowered), and get trucked by that heavy blaster rifle again. Now, if like in the initial example, I have 3 ranks of Durable, are my choices take the 90 (Compromised) or take a 60 (Agonizing Wound) OR is each rank of Durable a distinct entity I can choose to utilize or not, meaning I can take the 90 (Compromised), 80 (Overpowered), 70 (Scattered Senses), or 60 (Agonizing Wound)?

The latter interpretation is more powerful, but also the one I lean towards, because if I spend xp to rank up in Durable, and then get screwed the next session I play because the crit I suffer and the crit I suffer -20 are both less desirable than the crit I suffer -10, the one I could have gotten before spending xp, I'd feel really bad. I can also see people leaning towards the less powerful all or nothing interpretation. I feel the RAW is kinda nebulous and can be read both ways, so I'm looking for other people's opinions.

Please positive and respectful responses only, if you feel the need to call me a munchkin, min-maxer, or some other insulting term, or describe to me in detail how none of your players would dare bring this cheese to your table, and you certainly wouldn't allow it if they did, don't bother posting. Take your negative attitude to another thread. Thank you to anyone who chips in with their opinion. Cheers!

Durable's a passive talent, so it takes place automatically. And it works as written, simply reducing the critical injury result by 10 per rank. Unfortunately, you don't get to choose when the talent takes place, since it's passive. Not really sure where you're seeing how RAW is nebulous as the RAW is pretty clear.

So in the example you gave, you'd suffer the Agonizing Wound critical effect whether you wanted to or not, as the talent doesn't require player action to activate, in effect being active all the time. Though I'd say the Comprised is worse since it affects all skill checks until the encounter's end, where the Agonizing Wound only impacts Brawn & Agility checks for the same duration. The Slightly Disoriented adds a setback die to all rolls, again for the rest of the encounter, and Scattered Senses denies you any and all boost dice for the rest of fight.

Though looking at the critical injury chart, the higher the result, the worse off you are, so Durable looks pretty good since it turns the injury into a less severe one, particularly if you have several ranks of it. It's even more helpful against weapons with a several ranks of Vicious, such as the vibro-ax or disruptor rifle.

However, if you really want to institute a house-rule that whether to use Durable or not is optional and the player can choose how much of it to apply, you're free to do so. Just keep in mind that it's a house-rule, one that other GMs won't necessarily share.

I have to disagree with you Donovan. The RAW says "The character may reduce a Critical Injury result he suffers by 10 per rank of Durable, to a minimum of one.", bolded emphasis mine. I believe RAW, the player who has Durable can choose to use it or not, my question is if they may choose to use each rank of Durable, and thus control their critical injury somewhat, or if using it is an all ranks or none proposition. In this, the RAW is vague, in my opinion.

To me, it reads that you may reduce a critical by (10xRank). So I read it as all or nothing. You enter take the 90 crit or the 60 crit if you have 3 ranks I it.

-EF

Well. I guess there are arguments for both interpretation, either a total reduction equal to the sum of ranks, or as you lean towards, a reduction based on choice.

I guess it's open enough for interpretation. Although, since it says "may reduce ... per rank" I'd assume that your interpretation is fine. It does not state that "the critical is reduced by the total number of ranks x10" ... semantics sure, but the "may" could imply choice, just like with the defensive talents, you don't have to use all ranks to gain all upgrades, you might want to save the strain. Same here really.

This might just be my poor luck, but I have had Durable 1 for a while now, and have been Temporarily Lamed twice and Compromised twice, all four times I chose not to use Durable to "Downgrade" my crits to Maimed and Overpowered respectively. At the Brink, Winded, Scattered Senses, Head Ringer, Bowled Over, and Off Balance are all also, in most circumstances I can think of, less severe than the critical injury ten lower than them.

Don't want to disagree with ya Dono, but the rule on both the talent trees and pg 135 say "may" and not "must." As a passive talent it just means it doesn't require activation through the use of an action or maneuver or something.

So it does look like the player can decide if they want to suffer a higher ranked,but less inconvenient injury instead of a lower ranked inconvenient injury. I suspect it would be a rare occurrence, but I could see a situation where the player might want to say, take the Off-balance result over the Sudden Jolt result.

I do interpret is as an all or nothing call, so if you've got two ranks in Durable you can reduce the crit result by 20, or not at all.

Well. I guess there are arguments for both interpretation, either a total reduction equal to the sum of ranks, or as you lean towards, a reduction based on choice.

I guess it's open enough for interpretation. Although, since it says "may reduce ... per rank" I'd assume that your interpretation is fine. It does not state that "the critical is reduced by the total number of ranks x10" ... semantics sure, but the "may" could imply choice, just like with the defensive talents, you don't have to use all ranks to gain all upgrades, you might want to save the strain. Same here really.

I guess I should have explained why I think the way I do, huh? I voted for all or nothing because it makes play go by faster. You have two choices, no matter how many ranks you have. In the OPs example, he has three ranks, which could mean up to 4 options: 90, 80, 70, 60 on the crit table. Choosing between 4 options takes a lot longer than two options.

So my vote is for expediency above granularity.

-EF

Sure, the "you" I refer to in my post is Andrekeller, I had to delay posting due to work-related issues, not you or your interpretation, sorry for the misunderstanding.

I do agree with your (now it's EldritchFire ) reasoning, it makes sense, but it also makes sense to let the player choose. Of course speed above granularity is as good an argument as any.

Also Dono's point about active versus passive talents is a good argument for having to use the total, something I overlooked when comparing to defensive talents, which are active and have a cost, durable doesn't (?) - I'm afb.

Another reason to use the total is that it makes it more likely that the severity goes down that way, so it becomes easier to heal, whereas the immediate effect might be less desirable from a player's/character's point of view in combat, it's easier to remove later. So all in all the wound is less severe, which I guess is the point of the talent.

I agree that EldritchFire's speed argument is a very good one. I still personally lean to my player choosing how many ranks they want to apply, but his argument is very compelling.

I also see the point about lowering the crit results simply to have an easier time healing injuries, but I've found mitigating the crits mid fight to be far mor important than the difficulty of treating them after. All four times I declined to downgrade my crit from Compromised or Temporarily Lamed to Overpowered or Maimed, if I had done otherwise, would have led to a tpk or capture. It doesn't much matter if you are healing a daunting vs hard critical injury if you are dead, haha!

Sure. Still, the point of the talent, I'd think, is to reduce the severity of the wound, rather than pick the least unfavourable effect. I mean, it's open to interpretation, but it makes slightly more sense, doesn't it? From a suspension-of-disbelief-point-of-view at least... it's a smaller wound, a wound easier to heal... You become durable, your body can take a pounding, you resist severe wounds better than your average Joe... sure, this doesn't make the talent as "useful" if the focus is encounter/challenge/combat/system focused, but it is definitely useful. Either way.

I mean, an easier medicine check for the medic during combat to remove a critical injury, isn't that preferable too?

I understand the flavor you are going for, but I also think the flavor could go a durable guy is taking hits to locations or situations he can handle better, i.e. a melee fighter taking an injury to their off hand to get in a main hand strike, or a shooter taking a shot to the leg while rolling into a better firing solution. Basically, taking hits in ways they know they can deal with, not necessarily always taking the mechanically least severe injury. As I've shown, in combat, the severity of a crits impact on a player by no means is directly connected to its severity as the game views it via number.

Per your medicine check in combat, honestly, we've never done it. The game is way too lethal to ever justify it in my experience. I'd rather the medic take a 2 agility, 0 ranks in combat shot then put themselves in danger healing an ally, so they can be downed again later in the turn and take a crit + 10. Other groups may have different experiences however.

This might just be my poor luck, but I have had Durable 1 for a while now, and have been Temporarily Lamed twice and Compromised twice, all four times I chose not to use Durable to "Downgrade" my crits to Maimed and Overpowered respectively. At the Brink, Winded, Scattered Senses, Head Ringer, Bowled Over, and Off Balance are all also, in most circumstances I can think of, less severe than the critical injury ten lower than them.

I can definitely see where you'd want to not reduce crits - some of the ones in the middle are absolutely brutal, "Overpowered" being one of them - it has, more than once, caused a double-crit on players. "Maimed" is similar, at least for my players. We've danced around that one a few times, and they've always been relieved when they've suffered "Temporarily Lame" or "Horrific Injury."

That said, "may" has a good argument, but does it really make sense, in-game, to be choosing when this boost applies? What sort of knowledge or ability would give a character the foresight to say "oh, I want this injury to actually be a little 'worse'?" If you're playing strictly mechanically, sure, it makes sense, but it's a bit of metagaming on the player's part - there's no reason their character should want to have a higher-rank critical (the real problem lies in the critical chart not having clearly worse injuries as you go higher up, but that's a different story).

Edit: You sort've addressed this in the post above, so I'd rephrase - how does a character know the order of the crit chart or what a "worse" or "lesser" injury entails?

My main gripe is a player being punished by an ability they have. It really rubs me the wrong way when someone spends xp on a beneficial ability, then gets screwed when they use it. As you've said, the real culprit here is the uneven critical injury chart, but I don't think that is being changed. What I'm mostly getting at is that you could view Durable as either a Terminator type or John McClane type. The Terminator is exceedingly difficult to damage, where John McClane simply won't stop and be put down by injuries he sustains, despite being a normal man.

It makes perfect sense for me for characters to "know" the crit chart internally. If the Durable person is in a fight and gets a 22 crit rolled on them (Off-Balance), they choose not to downgrade it with Durable, grit their teeth as the attack finds flesh, take the setback die to their next attack, and take down their opponent. The idea of them being forced to dropp their weapon (Sudden Jolt) because they took the Durable talent, kind off sucks frankly. I don't view the talent as purely mechanical in that in ONLY lowers crit numbers. It gives the Durable person the option to grit their teeth, fight through the pain, and take the critical injury that they can deal with most effectively during a life or death situation. Think John McClane running through the glass barefoot! That was a hell of a critical injury, but he grinned and took the pain, because he knew it was the way out of the situation he was in.

Hah, that last example works perfectly actually. John McClane runs through the glass, sustaining a crit roll of 112 (Temporarily Lame), but since he has the Durable talent, it gets lowered to Maimed, his leg comes off, and he gets killed, end of movie!

Still, as has been pointed out, this is a Passive talent, not Active, which would imply no choice in the matter, as opposed to Active talents.

I do not think it makes perfect sense that someone, when receiving a crit, can choose and pick, or as you put it ""know" the crit chart internally" it moves over into meta-gaming ballcourt... I'd be willing to let the choice be possible, but the player would have to declare, before the crit was rolled how many ranks he would use (before knowing the result). Crits are meant to be sudden, deadly, dangerous and have consequences, making it into a menu for the players to pick and choose? Meh, it makes it nigh on inconsequential in the long run then... it becomes a boring event, something criticals should not be IMNSHO. Well, ok, another tweak then, it works against one critical per turn, and you get to use it as an Active talent instead of as a Passive.

I don't agree that Passive skills imply no choice. Several don't, such as Barrage, Armor Master, or Bacta Specialist, but others, like Confidence and Durable, go out of their way to have may listed.

I hear what your saying in your second paragraph, I just respectfully disagree. I like the idea of the Durable talent being always useful to the player who spend xp to get it, and don't like the idea of it forcing the player into worse situations than if they didn't have the talent in the first place. The flavor works for me and maintains the talent as a worthwhile positive expenditure of xp, which is important to me.

I hear what your saying in your second paragraph, I just respectfully disagree. I like the idea of the Durable talent being always useful to the player who spend xp to get it, and don't like the idea of it forcing the player into worse situations than if they didn't have the talent in the first place. The flavor works for me and maintains the talent as a worthwhile positive expenditure of xp, which is important to me.

Ultimately, it's your choice in your game - so keep that in mind as I disagree with you here.

Crit rolls are random, one way or another - they're designed to evoke the random nature of injury in activity. Most of the time, the Durable talent will benefit the player (and it will always keep the player farther away from the ultimate critical - death). If you give the Durable talent a "choice" aspect as well, you start to undermine the random nature of the injury. (And after all, choosing to apply "being durable" as a trait makes about as much sense as choosing to be hurt more ever would.)

Yes, there are times where you may wish that you didn't have the Durable talent, but that's no different than cases in a game where a player is happier that they had a 111 on a critical roll instead of a 101 - it's a random occurrence. Like Jegergryte, I think you're giving too much of a "meta" ability to the player in regards to something that is truly supposed to be random.

I respect your argument. How does one send the developers a question? I see it mentioned often in other threads, but am unsure. Disregard, figured it out myself. Thanks again for all the constructive and respectful comments. A lot of good arguments in this thread.

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Personally, I am in the "You get a choice - it does say MAY - but it's all or nothing (just easier)" camp

Sure, if you want the option to use it or not, I will give you that option right before I roll. When I am figuring out the modifiers. Aftetwards though, that option is no longer available.

Isn't that kind of pointless? Or is that your intent?

Just looking at usage of terminology, I'm not sure that it's a choice. The language used in EotE and AoR is, frankly, sloppy and a little inconsistent (I'm speaking as a professional editor and writer), and a bit passive at times. The word "may' is often used in conditional circumstances, and I don't think the intention is to imply choice, but rather to provide a softer tone:

"When condition X is met, you may do Y" = "When condition met, do Y"... but the former sounds "nicer."

For example, looking at the "remove setback dice abilities, most state "Remove" or "The character removes" (no "may" included). However, the Twi'lek description of Heat Resistance reads "When making skill checks, you may remove [setback] imposed due to arid or hot environmental conditions." I don't interpret that as optional, just conditional.

Durable is phrased similarly (When X, do Y). Although there are some passive abilities that involve a decision, in most cases, there is related terminology (eg, "may choose to" or "may voluntarily").

Got an answer from Sam Stewart, gotta love the responsiveness of these guys!

My e-mail:

"How do multiple ranks of the talent Durable work? I notice the talent says may, so I assume you can use it as a choice, and choose not to use it. If I have 3 ranks of Durable, and am critted with a result of 90, what happens?

A: Durable isn't an option and I suffer the crit result of a roll of 60.

B: Durable is an option and I may suffer the crit result of a roll of 90 or 60.

C: Durable is an option, and each rank may be activated or not discreetly, and I may suffer a crit result of 90, 80, 70, or 60.

Thank you very much for your time. I've been enjoying playing this game you have worked so hard to create."

His response:

Probably the best tack - ask the question directly. Glad you got a quick and succinct response - and you were pretty close to the mark, too! Thanks for getting that clarified.