HappyDaze, if your adversaries are sufficiently skilled in their attacks, they'll be able to generate enough strain removal with Advantages to keep pace with the PCs. If you're currently having problems now, considering bumping up NPC attack skills.

Often the bad guy goes from 0 Strain to exceeding threshold before they get to take an action. Two or three PCs will usually pounce on one baddie when the initiative allows. They are aware that Strain can be brought down by Advantages, but they also know that someone that can't take and action doesn't generate Advantages. It's more metagaming, but the idea of grouping fire does make sense too, so it's only convenient that there's another metagame perk here.

I re-read through the topic, and I didn't see a reference to the (also meta gaming reality) fact that only Nemesis-level enemies and characters incur strain. However, I am in A very loud environment at the moment. Minions and Rivals don't, so choosing stun damage to these opponents wouldn't make a difference. Maybe tailor the encounters to ensure that the Nemesis stays at Medium or even long range, using either minions or rivals to prevent them from getting close to their target with a stun weapon. There are ways around it.

To me the Stun Metagame rests with the Doctor talent Pressure Point. With this you ignore soak and can do a minimum of 19 Stun damage not including using a Destiny Point. You can also "dual wield" your fists for another 19+ damage to add insult to injury.

I would not allow a player to "dual wield fists with shock gloves" I see them as something they are already wearing on both hands and won't apply more than once. I would allow holding a knife and shock gloves, but not dual shock gloves in my game. So far it hasn't been suggested in my game but I would shut that down immediately. I MIGHT allow the player to grab ahold of two people, one with each hand but I would likely make him split the damage and say that his power source isn't strong enough to give full power to two targets.

*snip*

If the players are using stun then killing the unconscious enemies, have there be repercussions.

*snip*

just have NPCs start having enough resolve talents that the net effect of doing stun is no different than doing wounds. I would also start making encounters where they dont really want to get into short range if they can help it.

As it is currently in my game, there was a captured NPC that I didn't intend for them to capture but I just went with it anyways because of the good rolls. That particular NPC was taken down with shock gloves. So was another and they want to interogate them both. I claimed that the NPC's were shocked so hard that their hearts stopped, they were on so many drugs that they couldn't take the strain. The doctor fought hard to bring them back from death. One of them stayed dead while the other managed to be brought back because of INCREDIBLE ROLLS!! So I allowed him to survive to be questioned.

In that situation though, the townfolk hate the NPC's very much and want them dead so someone slitting the guys throat wouldn't bother anyone. In fact, the town people are threatening the group to give him over but our passivist doctor refuses.

If it ever caught on to them to just stun the heck out of everything and slit everyones throats, I would have the town see them as possible ruthless thugs that they don't want any part of and make it clear to the group that they can't keep doing that by having people pick up arms against them.

HappyDaze, if your adversaries are sufficiently skilled in their attacks, they'll be able to generate enough strain removal with Advantages to keep pace with the PCs. If you're currently having problems now, considering bumping up NPC attack skills.

I alter stats a bit on enemies sometimes during play. Some enemies with no strain threshold I give them some leeway sort of like extra wound threshold. The players don't know how much threshold someone has so you an always make up some sort of fake piece of technology that makes them more resilient to strain without telling the players. I certainly won't allow my players to just faceroll everything and they have a blast.

I would not allow a player to "dual wield fists with shock gloves" I see them as something they are already wearing on both hands and won't apply more than once. I would allow holding a knife and shock gloves, but not dual shock gloves in my game. So far it hasn't been suggested in my game but I would shut that down immediately. I MIGHT allow the player to grab ahold of two people, one with each hand but I would likely make him split the damage and say that his power source isn't strong enough to give full power to two targets.

To me the Stun Metagame rests with the Doctor talent Pressure Point. With this you ignore soak and can do a minimum of 19 Stun damage not including using a Destiny Point. You can also "dual wield" your fists for another 19+ damage to add insult to injury.

*snip*

If the players are using stun then killing the unconscious enemies, have there be repercussions.

*snip*

just have NPCs start having enough resolve talents that the net effect of doing stun is no different than doing wounds. I would also start making encounters where they dont really want to get into short range if they can help it.

As it is currently in my game, there was a captured NPC that I didn't intend for them to capture but I just went with it anyways because of the good rolls. That particular NPC was taken down with shock gloves. So was another and they want to interogate them both. I claimed that the NPC's were shocked so hard that their hearts stopped, they were on so many drugs that they couldn't take the strain. The doctor fought hard to bring them back from death. One of them stayed dead while the other managed to be brought back because of INCREDIBLE ROLLS!! So I allowed him to survive to be questioned.

In that situation though, the townfolk hate the NPC's very much and want them dead so someone slitting the guys throat wouldn't bother anyone. In fact, the town people are threatening the group to give him over but our passivist doctor refuses.

If it ever caught on to them to just stun the heck out of everything and slit everyones throats, I would have the town see them as possible ruthless thugs that they don't want any part of and make it clear to the group that they can't keep doing that by having people pick up arms against them.

HappyDaze, if your adversaries are sufficiently skilled in their attacks, they'll be able to generate enough strain removal with Advantages to keep pace with the PCs. If you're currently having problems now, considering bumping up NPC attack skills.

I alter stats a bit on enemies sometimes during play. Some enemies with no strain threshold I give them some leeway sort of like extra wound threshold. The players don't know how much threshold someone has so you an always make up some sort of fake piece of technology that makes them more resilient to strain without telling the players. I certainly won't allow my players to just faceroll everything and they have a blast.

You can't use Pressure Point with a weapon. Shock Gloves are considered a weapon. Also why couldn't you you dual wield your fists? Boxers and Martial Artists do all the time.

The character I was referring to uses no weapons just their bare fists, feet, elbows, knees etc. and yea that character can do 19+ strain damage ignoring soak. Like I said it's laughably broke.

The character I was referring to uses no weapons just their bare fists, feet, elbows, knees etc. and yea that character can do 19+ strain damage ignoring soak. Like I said it's laughably broke.

I'm having a flashback to Street Fighter II where you have to break a car with your hands and feet.

With regard to dual wielding fists , personally I wouldnt allow that. One simple reason, when fighting with a melee weapon you tend to only fight with one, however when have you seen a boxer or other form of martial artist fight with only one hand. I would assume that fighting without a weapon already assumes you are dual wielding, so you could not use a second attack like you normally do, like when you dual wield melee weapons.

In fact on page 210 it states that you may opt to carry a ranged(light) or one handed meleeweapon in each hand, so rules as written you cannot dual wield fists, brawl weapons however are included in this description so 2 shock gloves would be allowed. Although it does say the gm has the final word, but the fact that it mentions brawl weapons in the first place should allow them.

With regard to dual wielding fists , personally I wouldnt allow that. One simple reason, when fighting with a melee weapon you tend to only fight with one, however when have you seen a boxer or other form of martial artist fight with only one hand.

Jet Li has fought in some scenes with one hand. He keeps his other hand in his pocket.

Dual wielding with fists is total cheese. The combat mechanics in this game are abstract. When shooting, you're shooting a flurry of shots, not just once. Same with melee, your turn consists of feints, parries, counters, and connections. They probably included the dual-wielding mechanics to cater to the d20 cheese players of yore, but it was a mistake IMHO because it's a) ripe for abuse, as in this case, b) it inserts too much specificity into an abstract system, c) using two weapons is hard to do.

At most for the untrained, dual wielding should have offered a boost die, with opponents also getting a boost die due to the character's focus on offence. There could also be a Talents to get more out of it, say a gunslinger tree, so that at least you have to pay for your cheese before you can use it.

Dual wielding, page 210, says "When attacking with two weapons, the character must be wielding two weapons that can each be reasonably held and wielded in one hand". I think a fist qualifies for that. Your fist is a +0 damage, Crit 5, Disorient 1, Knockdown, Stun Setting weapon in this game. The cost for dual-wielding is +1 purple die. I don't see any problem with dual-wielding fists. In the corner case of Pressure Point, which I believe is broken and discourage my players from taking, dual-wielding fists makes it significantly better, but I believe the problem there is Pressure Point, not dual-wielding fists. Just my two cents.

What if you think about the dual wielding fists as using your fists and your feet?

What if you think about the dual wielding fists as using your fists and your feet?

That's the way we play it. Basically it's autofire. Every 2 advantages allows for another attack.

What if you think about the dual wielding fists as using your fists and your feet?

That's missing the point. All this is already factored into the Brawl skill. If you connect, you narratively explain that you send the other guy flying with a left-right combo to the face followed by a kick to the solar plexus. Everything else is dealt with that way, why not this?

It should be the same with melee. A wookiee is wielding a vibro-axe? Okay, he does 9 points damage..."the weight of it and the power behind it crushing through the stormtrooper's armour". A Duro is wielding two light sticks? Okay, he does 9 points damage..."the flurry of blows finds gaps in the armour and leaves the stormtrooper's helmet ringing." Any bonuses (e.g.: defensive) would be part of the weapon quality.

Note there is only one Brawl skill, only one Melee skill. You don't get penalized for unfamiliar weapons or styles of fighting because it's an abstract game. By catering to the "dual-wielding" crowd, they destroyed the abstract narrative, encouraged meta-gaming.

Ranged shouldn't even give a bonus, unless maybe the character takes some expensive Talents to train with it. I wouldn't have too much problem with it at that point, if it cost significantly.

Jet Li has fought in some scenes with one hand. He keeps his other hand in his pocket.

So Jet Li got a couple of setback dice, but he's so good it didn't matter. He doesn't add attacks because he has all his limbs, he suffers difficulties when he can't use all of them.

I was thinking of it on the way to work, it could be argued that brawl involves the use of any particular part of the body to cause the damage, its not like usingg a single fist therefor it could be rules that it is effectively a two handed weapon, you cannot wield it in one hand. This got me to thinking about shock gloves. . Technically it is not described as 'shock glove' but is deliberately plural (in fact in the beginner game brawl weapon is listed as fists ie plural), so shock gloves are also 2 handed as well. This is how I would certainly rule it ymmv.

So what you are saying is that it's a non-issue.

Not really. My Doctor is pretty darn impressive with just 3 brawn 2 ranks in medicine and 1 rank in brawl. I'm currently just in the Doctor tree with no plans on going Gadgeteer or Marauder. 5+ damage that ignores soak is great. Most things only have 9-13 soak so even for me it's not uncommon for me to 1-2 round something. It just seems very good for a non combat oriented character.

Lol. The your GM is not giving you tough enough encounters. If you are that strong all the rivals and homies should be Adversary talent 2+ Which counters that. It seems in your game the players are the only things growing with power.

What if you think about the dual wielding fists as using your fists and your feet?

That's the way we play it. Basically it's autofire. Every 2 advantages allows for another attack.

Yes when you house rule things it is very easy to break the system. I hope the GM is smart enough to use the broken house rules against the players too.

BTW, sorry for the hijack, HappyDaze...

It is such a shame that people feel the need to play the game such that it requires threads like this. I took to playing this game because it seemed to encourage role playing amongst players rather than encouraging people to make and break the combat rules. If someone wanted to abuse the system so that they choose to use stun in situations where people would normally not do so as to take advantage of rules, ie to powergame, ultimately I would let them but I would penalise them in the one way the rules does allow this.

Actually, to be more accurate I would penalise them by not awarding bonus reward xp for good roleplaying and I would point this out to them early my reasons for not applying this bonus. Those that then play the game right get a bonus, when they get 50 more xp than the other players over the matter of a few games perhaps then that would encourage role playing once more. If it were bad enough I would make the majority of xp awarded for RP. Thisis how I would run it as power gamers reduce the fun for me, and after all Im also a player and entitled to fun also.

If however you are happy enough to play with players that are power gamers then the adventures would have to be tailored to provide them with that challenge so I would make the enemies do the same back so as to make it fun, but still provide at least some risk for them otherwise you might as well just forget about rolling and just allow them just to win every combat by default.

Using stun should be used when they want to stun, if they want to kill using stun, that pretty much makes no sense from a role playing point of view. Never in any film have I seen the good guys stun someone then kill them. So I would also point out that if they do that I would add obligation to them for their actions since in killing a helpless foe they are in effect acting evil. If they were force sensitive then I would also be looking at any kind of dark side penalty that you may have ruled.

Really though its down to how you and your players how you want to play, I want my players to role play and be, in the main good guys, not necessarily law abiding though.

In the end it's a narrative game. The more narrative a game, the more it is vulnerable to exploitation by non-narrative gamers. At least that's the experience I have had.

Luckily, the narrative GM can easily pull it back on track.

Make a stunned enemy recover sooner and catch the PC's by surprise with a blaster shot, require extra targeting/aiming at armored foes, use the short range requirement against them, and loads of other ways to make the narrative and not the metagaming important again.

(and honestly, looking at the enemies in the book, the vast majority are not much disadvantaged by the use of stun against them anyway.)

..Shock gloves...autofire...I'm sorry but no... just no... it's stated in the book under Unarmed combat that brawl weapons do not function like normal weapons they simply modify the attack by applying extra effects, extra damage, and altered crit rating depending on which weapon you use so it's all just one attack. There is no autofire affect unless you somehow got a brawl weapon that has it or an ability like it and there is no dual wield unless you're using a regular weapon in conjunction such as a pistol or a melee weapon. There's a reason it says shock gloves not shock glove and brass knuckles which don't get an additional plural because they already are plural.

..Shock gloves...autofire...I'm sorry but no... just no... it's stated in the book under Unarmed combat that brawl weapons do not function like normal weapons they simply modify the attack by applying extra effects, extra damage, and altered crit rating depending on which weapon you use so it's all just one attack. There is no autofire affect unless you somehow got a brawl weapon that has it or an ability like it and there is no dual wield unless you're using a regular weapon in conjunction such as a pistol or a melee weapon. There's a reason it says shock gloves not shock glove and brass knuckles which don't get an additional plural because they already are plural.

..Shock gloves...autofire...I'm sorry but no... just no... it's stated in the book under Unarmed combat that brawl weapons do not function like normal weapons they simply modify the attack by applying extra effects, extra damage, and altered crit rating depending on which weapon you use so it's all just one attack. There is no autofire affect unless you somehow got a brawl weapon that has it or an ability like it and there is no dual wield unless you're using a regular weapon in conjunction such as a pistol or a melee weapon. There's a reason it says shock gloves not shock glove and brass knuckles which don't get an additional plural because they already are plural.

I haven't looked closely at shock gloves, but brass knuckles is certainly only for one hand and there's no reason that you couldn't get a second set for your other hand.

Sounds fine to me. Jury-rig one for the reduced difficulty on dual-wielding, jury-rig the other for improved damage! If you can do it with blasters, why not Brawl weapons?

For what it's worth:

I wouldn't allow "dual wielding" when brawling.

As Grimmshade and many others have pointed out there's a lot of viable tactics to deal with this.

A bit heavier armour should remove the option for using pressure points.

Using blaster rifles means that the range will be at least medium if not long. Btw, are you always having your fights in doors/within short range?

A larger number of stunned and then executed people should have people asking questions about serial killers.

Give the NPCs missions where they can't shoot their way to the goal.

Have someone higher up the food chain - through obligation - make it clear that he/she do not need the extra heat brought on by the groups activites and that they need to fight with their head from now on or else....

A body stunned and shot again with lethal isn't going to attract any more attention than a body shot twice with lethal.

Just picked up the core rulebook last night, and I'm still reading through it, so bear with me here.

Most combatant types, especially at high XP, will have a FAR higher WT than ST.

How does this situation arise?

I'm missing something, since the rules for Wound Threshold on page 31 say

increases in a character's Brawn rating do not increase his Wound Threshold

and goes on to say improvements are purchased with Toughened. Same for Stun Threshold and Willpower.

If it's because the Toughened talent says "Gain +2 Wound Threshold", why not just change it to say "+1 Wound Threshold" so the talent is on par with Grit?

If stim packs are a problem, either reduce their effectiveness, add a drawback to them (they penalize a character because he's all hopped up on painkillers), or get rid of them entirely.

Dual wielding shock gloves aside, there seems to be two issues at large here:

1) That the PCs will 'win' the encounter by stunning their enemies, then mop up by murdering everyone.

2) That stun, in many situations, is the superior mechanical option.

For the first issue, if it's a problem at all, you probably have to sit down with your players and discuss what kind of tone of game they are looking for. Murdering defeated enemies is generally unnecessary, and never particular heroic, so maybe there's some disconnect between the game the GM is running and the game the players want (or are used to).

Of course, if you are running a "murderous bastards" game, it might be entirely appropriate behaviour.

As for the second issue, I don't know if I have a lot to add. While it's true that the strain thresholds generally seem lower, it's both easier to heal strain on the fly, and the stun setting on weapons is not without drawbacks, so I don't know how much of an advantage it would be.

If I was playing a character who carried a stun blaster because he didn't want to kill anyone, and got in front of a GM who accused me of gaming the system, I'd be pretty upset. Stun settings should be a legit and valid non-lethal choice.