I don't see #'s 3 and 4 being any different at short or medium range. If he is going to have better dice at short range, he is likely going to have better dice at medium range as well.

The difference comes from an older thread where someone ran the probability. Adding dice yielded better results then upgrading dice. So something like adversary 2 will have a more noticeable effect on success and advantage totals at short range (where it adds dice) then it will at medium range (where it upgrades dice). Its one of those little details that makes a big difference when crits and special qualities need to activate.

There is also no rule stating it can't be done in 1 maneuver. All it states is "it takes a maneuver to inject..." It stands to reason that if you can draw a energy cell and install it in a weapon in one maneuver, you can do the same with a stim. Unless it's in a backpack or something like that. As it stands to reason if the extra cell is in a locked box and in a backpack that's in a sack, you couldn't load the weapon in 1 maneuver even though the rule in the book says you could.

I'm perfectly willing to believe a medical procedure takes longer than putting magazine A into slot B. Heck, if all it takes is hitting a syringe, why not have it cost an incidental, just wear a fannypack that will inject you when you give the voice command.

There is also no rule stating it can't be done in 1 maneuver. All it states is "it takes a maneuver to inject..." It stands to reason that if you can draw a energy cell and install it in a weapon in one maneuver, you can do the same with a stim. Unless it's in a backpack or something like that. As it stands to reason if the extra cell is in a locked box and in a backpack that's in a sack, you couldn't load the weapon in 1 maneuver even though the rule in the book says you could.

I'm perfectly willing to believe a medical procedure takes longer than putting magazine A into slot B. Heck, if all it takes is hitting a syringe, why not have it cost an incidental, just wear a fannypack that will inject you when you give the voice command.

it is a syringe. That is the whole point of the STM pack being a flat heal rate that gets reduced with usage. It's just an injection. The use of the medical pack and skill check is an action. The rule book states it's a maneuver to inject.

Yes, one Maneuver to inject. However, that has to follow putting it in your hands in the first place - which also costs one Maneuver (unless using Quick Draw once per turn).

Reloading weapons is given a specific rule that it only takes one Maneuver, and that's to interact with the weapon held - you'd still need to spend an Manuever to draw a slung weapon prior to reloading it. This is because the Extra Reloads (which are not consumable) are almost like an accessory to your weapons since you never draw them individually.

There is also no rule stating it can't be done in 1 maneuver. All it states is "it takes a maneuver to inject..." It stands to reason that if you can draw a energy cell and install it in a weapon in one maneuver, you can do the same with a stim. Unless it's in a backpack or something like that. As it stands to reason if the extra cell is in a locked box and in a backpack that's in a sack, you couldn't load the weapon in 1 maneuver even though the rule in the book says you could.

I'm perfectly willing to believe a medical procedure takes longer than putting magazine A into slot B. Heck, if all it takes is hitting a syringe, why not have it cost an incidental, just wear a fannypack that will inject you when you give the voice command.

it is a syringe. That is the whole point of the STM pack being a flat heal rate that gets reduced with usage. It's just an injection. The use of the medical pack and skill check is an action. The rule book states it's a maneuver to inject.

Yes, one Maneuver to inject. However, that has to follow putting it in your hands in the first place - which also costs one Maneuver (unless using Quick Draw once per turn).

Reloading weapons is given a specific rule that it only takes one Maneuver, and that's to interact with the weapon held - you'd still need to spend an Manuever to draw a slung weapon prior to reloading it. This is because the Extra Reloads (which are not consumable) are almost like an accessory to your weapons since you never draw them individually.

What makes you think they are NOT consumable. They are reloads of ammo or battery packs and cost 25 credits each. There is nothing I can see that indicates at all they are not consumable.

There is also no rule stating it can't be done in 1 maneuver. All it states is "it takes a maneuver to inject..." It stands to reason that if you can draw a energy cell and install it in a weapon in one maneuver, you can do the same with a stim. Unless it's in a backpack or something like that. As it stands to reason if the extra cell is in a locked box and in a backpack that's in a sack, you couldn't load the weapon in 1 maneuver even though the rule in the book says you could.

I'm perfectly willing to believe a medical procedure takes longer than putting magazine A into slot B. Heck, if all it takes is hitting a syringe, why not have it cost an incidental, just wear a fannypack that will inject you when you give the voice command.

it is a syringe. That is the whole point of the STM pack being a flat heal rate that gets reduced with usage. It's just an injection. The use of the medical pack and skill check is an action. The rule book states it's a maneuver to inject.

Yes, one Maneuver to inject. However, that has to follow putting it in your hands in the first place - which also costs one Maneuver (unless using Quick Draw once per turn).

Reloading weapons is given a specific rule that it only takes one Maneuver, and that's to interact with the weapon held - you'd still need to spend an Manuever to draw a slung weapon prior to reloading it. This is because the Extra Reloads (which are not consumable) are almost like an accessory to your weapons since you never draw them individually.

What makes you think they are NOT consumable. They are reloads of ammo or battery packs and cost 25 credits each. There is nothing I can see that indicates at all they are not consumable.

There's an entire thread on this. Read it over and decide for yourself.

And that's just a simple changing of the Nemesis. I haven't even spent destiny points, or made it a speeder chase, or added rain, or fleeing civilians, or additional Minions and Rivals, or basic NPC tactics or anything else.

And again... nothing that you've named is any drawback what so ever to stun. In fact fleeing civilians pretty much dictate you must use stun.

I tend ramble so ok,try it this way:

1) Its only good against nemeses with lower strain then wound threshold, which is going to be some specific ones, but not all, and not Minions and Rivals. So less then 1/3 of opponents, probably less then once per session/adventure.

2)You (typically) will have to be a short range, which is not always hard to get to but more or that later.

3) The kind of nemesis lvl characters which fit this category will tend to be combat characters and will have plenty of soak, defenses, and combat skills and talents, and snazzy weapons important because...

4) At short range, against their defenses and adversary ranks they will have an easier time generating success and advantages then you, allowing them to regenerate strain, activate crits and special effects like auto fire, and otherwise cut you to bits. By extension melee and brawling nemeses will be able to move right into engagement range and do their thing.

5) Even after defeating the nemesis, unless you strain-killed him before he could act (unlikely) you'll be injured, which will suck if you have to fight another enemy later. If the nemesis survived and escaped, the he's just regaining his strain, and you're injured, so you better hope he's not mad about it and will just be back in a couple hours.

6) Encounters are usually a lot more complex then a simple shoot out with one guy. When fighting a nemesis you'll also have to contend with the two minion groups he's got backing him up and the pair of rivals in the airspeeder with the light repeating blaster circling overhead. Stunning one guy and hoping you'll have time to execute him in a scenario like that is probably more of a gamble then just shooting him on lethal setting up front.

1) It's still no worse in the situations it's not better. Stun grenades are just flat out better than frag.

2) This is like saying light sabers suck because they aren't long range. The game is MADE for them to not suck.

3) An argument for stun. The more points they've spent the more likely they are to have much higher wounds than strain since you buy wounds at +2 but strain at +1.

4) They get more advantages, you get more successes, there is no drawback here. And yes, the melee ones will simply close to short range, so having stun gloves rather than a heavy blaster is a good thing... sounds more like you're arguing FOR stun, not against it.

5) Stimpacks means it's often harder to recover strain out of combat than wounds. Again, it is more like you're arguing FOR stun, not against it.

6) Yes, encounters are complicated, which is why having good stun options so you aren't killing those hapless dock workers who are just defending themselves against some crazy smuggler who started shooting at his boss for no reason.

Assuming you're ignoring the moral problems with executing captives, an argument against stun I made earlier that nobody's yet answered is that a heavy blaster rifle with autofire will take down anybody faster and from farther away than shooting to stun.

Of course, this argument doesn't apply to those using ranged (light) weapons.

In support of GhostofMan, I think what he's been trying to say is that if it's always easy for you to get to short range to use Stun, without suffering punishment for doing so, the combats you're experiencing are far too linear.

Just a note, npcs do not buy wounds and strain thresholds. They are assigned them. If this stun action is a concern or becomes one, it is a simple fix to increase the nemesis' strain threshold. Hasn't been an issue so far for me, but if I found my players were taking out opponents with too much ease for whatever reason, I would just make adjustments to the npcs in order to keep them challenging.

In support of GhostofMan, I think what he's been trying to say is that if it's always easy for you to get to short range to use Stun, without suffering punishment for doing so, the combats you're experiencing are far too linear.

Sort of, the balancing of stun is through a lot of small counters as opposed to one big one. Range is one of those small counters and range matters from both the giving and receiving perspective.

Add up all the little counters and stunning can, from time to time, provide an edge. Generally speaking though while there won't always be a huge mechanical drawback, there will rarely be any mechanical edge that will allow a stunner to consistently drop opponents faster then someone with the same stats and gear using lethal shots.

The whole conundrum of the benefits of stunning first, asking questions later, and executing everyone after that is a whole other can of worms.

Just a note, npcs do not buy wounds and strain thresholds. They are assigned them. If this stun action is a concern or becomes one, it is a simple fix to increase the nemesis' strain threshold. Hasn't been an issue so far for me, but if I found my players were taking out opponents with too much ease for whatever reason, I would just make adjustments to the npcs in order to keep them challenging.

People start to scratch their head when the nemesis wookie has 30 strain but only 20 wounds. I like to build NPCs using the PC rules so that players don't go WTF. We already find the minion rules very immersion breaking. We have to be very clear on the fact that minions are present, otherwise there are some weird surprises. The fact that minions start flopping over 5 at a time from a whack of the vibro sword when the rival right beside them is not only unhurt but would have sucked up the hit no problem needs to be made obvious.

Shrug. Whatever works for you. Npcs don't follow character creation rules unless you want them to. If you don't like giving a higher strain threshold then give them the ability to take half damage from stun weapons and reconcile it in whatever why works best for you. And maybe your people have trouble reconciling minions, rivals and nemesis, not everyone does. Of someone is going to exploit the system I can do it better as GM. This isn't an issue for the most part, but if it becomes one it can be adjusted for.

People start to scratch their head when the nemesis wookie has 30 strain but only 20 wounds. I like to build NPCs using the PC rules so that players don't go WTF. We already find the minion rules very immersion breaking. We have to be very clear on the fact that minions are present, otherwise there are some weird surprises. The fact that minions start flopping over 5 at a time from a whack of the vibro sword when the rival right beside them is not only unhurt but would have sucked up the hit no problem needs to be made obvious.

your players struggle with immersion due to minion rules, but are comfortable playing meta and stunning everything with shock gloves?

People start to scratch their head when the nemesis wookie has 30 strain but only 20 wounds. I like to build NPCs using the PC rules so that players don't go WTF. We already find the minion rules very immersion breaking. We have to be very clear on the fact that minions are present, otherwise there are some weird surprises. The fact that minions start flopping over 5 at a time from a whack of the vibro sword when the rival right beside them is not only unhurt but would have sucked up the hit no problem needs to be made obvious.

there's no problem in letting your players know that opponents are minions. one roll of the dice does not equal one swing of the vibro axe. narrative. it is designed to speed up play and make player characters capable of heroic feats.

your players struggle with immersion due to minion rules, but are comfortable playing meta and stunning everything with shock gloves?

It is consistent that a shock glove is powerful when the best weapon in the universe is a sword and rushing headlong at someone who is shooting at you works 100% of the time such that you never get hit until after you've gotten right up to them and hit them first...

It is somewhat less believable when you swing your sword and someone on the other side of the hanger falls over dead. Yeah, I get that, as a GM, you can't let minions not be engaged with each other or weird stuff results. I'm not particularly happy with the minion rules from either side of the GM screen.

I don't feel the minion rules make players feel capable of heroic feats. It usually makes them feel like they're kicking puppies. Splashing your way through the yard trash in an MMO or a Diablo clone is anything but heroic. It's the boss fight that lasts more than one pull of the trigger that feels heroic. The trash feels like work.

Just a note, npcs do not buy wounds and strain thresholds. They are assigned them. If this stun action is a concern or becomes one, it is a simple fix to increase the nemesis' strain threshold. Hasn't been an issue so far for me, but if I found my players were taking out opponents with too much ease for whatever reason, I would just make adjustments to the npcs in order to keep them challenging.

People start to scratch their head when the nemesis wookie has 30 strain but only 20 wounds. I like to build NPCs using the PC rules so that players don't go WTF. We already find the minion rules very immersion breaking. We have to be very clear on the fact that minions are present, otherwise there are some weird surprises. The fact that minions start flopping over 5 at a time from a whack of the vibro sword when the rival right beside them is not only unhurt but would have sucked up the hit no problem needs to be made obvious.

Also in case you didn't know minions don't have to operate in groups. They aren't as scary independently, but you won't have the problems you mentioned about meleeing a guy across the room.

Just a note, npcs do not buy wounds and strain thresholds. They are assigned them. If this stun action is a concern or becomes one, it is a simple fix to increase the nemesis' strain threshold. Hasn't been an issue so far for me, but if I found my players were taking out opponents with too much ease for whatever reason, I would just make adjustments to the npcs in order to keep them challenging.

People start to scratch their head when the nemesis wookie has 30 strain but only 20 wounds. I like to build NPCs using the PC rules so that players don't go WTF. We already find the minion rules very immersion breaking. We have to be very clear on the fact that minions are present, otherwise there are some weird surprises. The fact that minions start flopping over 5 at a time from a whack of the vibro sword when the rival right beside them is not only unhurt but would have sucked up the hit no problem needs to be made obvious.

Man I wish you'd brought this up earlier. If you are building NPCs using PC rules and avoiding the use of minions, that changes things. So now I know that, yes, in your games I would not be surprised to find stun to be better then lethal often enough that you might need to take some kind of action.

Also in case you didn't know minions don't have to operate in groups. They aren't as scary independently, but you won't have the problems you mentioned about meleeing a guy across the room.

Minions suffer at both extremes, with 1 they have 0 skill, so tend to just bog down combat with fairly pointless rolls unless they have pretty high abilities for some reason, so not having them in groups is bad. Having them surrender or trip and fall off a gantry when the PCs reduce a group down to 1 or 2 is often the best option. At the other end a group of 8+ minions can put out a pretty serious bit of damage even with low abilities and if you make the mistake of not rolling behind a GM screen and cheating you can 1-shot a PC on a good roll.

If minions don't work for you as is, then build them in a way that does. Treat them all as rivals or whatever works for you. The system may work for many others, but nothing says you have to use it as it is. That's why I enjoy systems that allow you to build npcs as you need and why I do so in systems that don't anyways.

I typically use minions in groups of 2 to 4. I also don't use any type of map for the purpose of showing the position of the enemies and PC's. This allows me a lot of room for descriptions of the action and changing stuff on the fly to fit the descriptions. With the minion groups they are usually either engaged with each other or in relatively short range of each other.

It should also be remembered that in EotE that 1 roll of the dice does not equal one pull of the trigger. This should also be thought of as 1 roll of the dice does not equal one swing of the sword. That is why i keep the minions in a group close together. If PC engages them in melee and does enough damage to take them all out its not described as you killed one and the rest dropped dead, its described as the PC taken one guy down, performing awesome moves to take the others down.

Minions should be slaughtered making the players feel like big **** heroes.

Minions should be slaughtered making the players feel like big **** heroes.

I agree, but I get where Union is coming from. Some players don't want to be big **** heroes, they want to be average Joes in big **** situations. Its a matter of taste.

That's what threw him on the stun thing. If he's not using minions, then he's probably using a lot more rivals and nemeses. Add in that he's also creating those rivals and nemeses using PC rules. Those seemingly small adjustments have a ripple effect across the systems overall mechanics when it comes to balancing out stun,giving his points supporting the excessive use of stun more weight.

So for him, stun is probably causing balance issues. For someone like me who uses minions and rivals often, and nemeses only a handful of times across an entire campaign, stuns advantages over lethal damage are story points,not mechanical bonuses.

Man, stun is not over powered. Have all your players run around with Missile Tubes. They will never want to use stun setting again.

Missile Tubes have a range of Extreme and are guided. They do 20 base damage with a Blast 10. They will tear the encounters up. They can just lay down a fan pattern of fire from the Missile Tubes and leave nothing behind.

Man, stun is not over powered. Have all your players run around with Missile Tubes. They will never want to use stun setting again.

Missile Tubes have a range of Extreme and are guided. They do 20 base damage with a Blast 10. They will tear the encounters up. They can just lay down a fan pattern of fire from the Missile Tubes and leave nothing behind.

Can I build a naked, narcoleptic Bothan Outlaw Tech and have him invent a gatling version? (inc. crank handle) That way finding a parking space will never be a problem.

Minions should be slaughtered making the players feel like big **** heroes.

No, they make them feel like farmers scything wheat. Either that or they're cartoon characters toppling the storm troopers like Bugs Bunny with a magic bowling ball. The book uses elite soldiers, storm troopers, as example minions which is a huge mistake. Even by "Return of the Jedi" a single storm trooper was still a threat to the heroes* and they'd run from them, not just blithely charge in blasters blazing knowing the troopers had no chance at all.

* Yeah, okay, but not an Ewok with a stick. **** you toy sales.

Something to keep in mind is that Minions taken out are not necessarily dead just out of the fight. Minions and some others treat Strain as wounds so they can be dead but can also be unconscious or dying or whatever.

A Minion-group of 4 Stormtroopers (half a standard squad) is dangerous, even to PCs.

A white-room example:

This doesn't solve the story issue of sending two squads of Stormtroopers to threaten 4 (or so) PCs, but it should make PCs think twice about tangling with Stormies (or other opponents). Especially as this is just a white-room example, and doesn't account for bonuses provided by superior positioning, tactics, being led by a Stormtrooper Sergeant, or being a veteran unit.

A Minion-group of 4 Stormtroopers (half a standard squad) is dangerous, even to PCs.

A white-room example:

3 Proficiency dice at medium range, even with 1 Defense, means that the Stormies will hit 2/3rds of the time. No defense makes it closer to 3/4ths, or still 2/3rds at long range.

With even a single remaining success, the Stormies are dishing out 10 points of damage. Admittedly, a Marauder soaks a lot of this, and has enough WT to take a couple such hits, but not every PC is going to be built like that.

Then, consider that the Stormie Group has a 1-in-5 chance of Triumph, and thus a Critical Injury inflicted on a PC.

This doesn't solve the story issue of sending two squads of Stormtroopers to threaten 4 (or so) PCs, but it should make PCs think twice about tangling with Stormies (or other opponents). Especially as this is just a white-room example, and doesn't account for bonuses provided by superior positioning, tactics, being led by a Stormtrooper Sergeant, or being a veteran unit.

They get one shot. They have a 2/3 of hitting. If they hit, they will cost a stim pack. A party will then wipe them out.

If the PCs rolled higher on the initiative or managed to shoot first, the troopers wouldn't even survive to shoot.

A character with a little experience and a decent weapon wouldn't even need the help of the party. They could all be surfing the holonet while he wipes them out solo.

Nothing about that says elite to me.

The situation wouldn't be much different if there were 2 groups of 4 troopers. On the other hand, if it was 8 troopers, they'd go first and would most likely crit and possibly down a party member.

The problem is that making something a minion strips a lot of identity from it and true minions, like a moisture farmer with a stick, benefit from numbers in exactly the same way that an elite storm trooper would. 9 small furry teddy bears with sticks could probably annihilate 3 storm troopers with heavy blasters*.

* Dammit, that actually happened. But everyone other than Lucas thought it was dumb then, and it's still dumb.

If you think that using stun is too powerfull, just give more ranks of Resolve to your NPCs... a great tool...

Also... you can't crit with the stun setting.... (yeah you can, but it's at the discretion of the GM and has many options for the crit)

A good crit roll can change the outcome of a matchup... or at least make it more challenging....

There are always options available to make encounters challenging and fun... if your players find a loophole to exploit, there is always a way to burst their bubble A GM has the universe at his disposal... just use your imagination...

Stun setting abuse.... humm... send assassin droids!
Lightsaber madness.... humm... cortosis armor! .... or even better ... a public place with cameras
Defense stacked jedi (sense power)... humm... multiple small minions packs to drain his 2 bonus defense upgrades.

Enjoy the ride