Fair enough. It's still 18 points of strain in one hit... all of which ignores soak.

(CAPCOM voice)

K.O. !!

I've been getting Shock Gloves completely wrong, BTW. I thought the listed damage replaced the Brawn part of the damage and the Stun notation was just a reminder that this couldn't do actual Wounds, just Strain.

Weird the assumptions we make, eh?

Pressure Point can't be used with any weapons - including Shock Gloves.

Fair enough. It's still 18 points of strain in one hit... all of which ignores soak.

Abusive, but not unfixable. Rule that only the Medic Ranks bit is unsoakable. JD.

(I agree that this isn't RAW or RAI, but that shouldn't stop anyone.)

That relies on 2 stats at 5 and 2 skills at 4 and spending a destiny point. (It would only 13 with activating anatomy lessons)

So with about 500 exp focused on it brawl can be kinda good.

Or you could just use a force pike.

That relies on 2 stats at 5 and 2 skills at 4 and spending a destiny point.

So with about 500 exp focused on it brawl can be kinda good.

I think it's entirely reasonable to say that only the ranks in Medicine ignores strain. If I were writing the errata, that's how I'd do it. With that little caveat it's perfectly balanced... although even without it, a weapon set on autofire or a pair of balanced hilt, superior vibro-swords in the hands of people with a 5 in Agility or Brawn respectively will still win the day far more often. The talent is there to be the equivalent of a Vulcan nerve pinch; the party Doctor in my game is building toward this talent, and she'll be using Well Rounded to pick up Brawl. I'm honestly not worried about balance issues, and I look forward to said Doctor contributing to combat with more than just Stim Application and the occasional blaster attack (she's made like two of those in the last 5+ months).

That relies on 2 stats at 5 and 2 skills at 4 and spending a destiny point.

So with about 500 exp focused on it brawl can be kinda good.

If your definition of kinda good is being able slap down pretty much anyone with one barehanded hit, I'd hate to see your idea of overpowered.

"kinda good" is exaggeration (or understatement, rather) for effect. This ploy crops up with fair frequency on these boards and I haven't seen it help someone make their point yet. (That's not a dig, it's just me assuming everyone here is engaged in conversation, rather than arguing for argument's sake.)

(Wow, that sounds passive-aggressive. I was aiming for sincere. )

On the other hand, 500 points focused into one niche isn't really over powered, it's getting exactly what you paid for.

Personally, I'd be bored out of my mind with such a one-note character, but then I have no doubt that this was a hypothetical construction rather than a build anyone was actually going to play.

I don't know if there are possibly different versions of these rules but my core rulebook precise quote.

"When making a Brawl check against a living opponent, the character may choose to forgo dealing damage as wounds, instead dealing the equivalent damage as strain, plus additional strain equal to his ranks in Medicine. These checks cannot be made with any weapons, but this strain damage is not reduced by soak."

That pretty clearly means to me you add Medicine to your total damage, which is all strain, and soak is not applied to the hit.

Good catch, 2P51. We've been debating the text on the Talent Tree, but the full descriptive text in the Talents chapter makes it obvious. All the strain ignores soak.

And again I say its one of the most easily abused Talents in the game. I almost never hear of anyone using it that hasn't also stacked on Feral Strength and/or Deadly Accuracy.

Huh, I guess I had not thought of that, I am actually going Solider: Medic into Doctor, to become the galaxies foremost medical expert. I was really only planing on taking it because my character does not kill people. Here I thought it wasn't all that great!

I'd swap it's location with Master Doctor in the tree. I'd make it a maneuver instead of an incidental and I'd say it costs 1 strain per rank of Medicine applied to the attack. That forces someone to commit fully to the Doctor specialization, and in addition limits the talents that can be stacked with it along with forcing the character to pay a strain price in kind for using it.

I'd like to see Pressure Point just add Pierce X (X = ranks of Medicine) to unarmed Brawl attacks doing Strain damage. Now it's still useful without automatically punching through rancors.

I'd like to see Pressure Point just add Pierce X (X = ranks of Medicine) to unarmed Brawl attacks doing Strain damage. Now it's still useful without automatically punching through rancors.

Not bad. If the talent becomes problematic that's exactly what I'd do (I like a lot of your ideas in general). As is, I'll just interpret the shorthand version on the tree as meaning only the Medicine ranks ignore soak. I prefer to stick with the RAW to keep players from wanting to do things like swap career skills or buy Force Sensitivity without buying Force Sensitive Exile (both of which have been suggested to me).

Sounds good (very good), but your players better yell "PIERCING TOUCH!" with every attack.

As a houserule you could change it from ignoring soak to having pierce equal to medicine. Although I really don't see how your medicine training lets you bypass armor in the first place, or really, why armor is so worthless in this game compared to having a decent brawn. Who'd have though lifting weights would make you more resistant to being shot in the face than wearing power armor and a force shield?

I think the main problem with it is due to the fact that brawn is also your soak and your wounds. If you make a 7 brawn pressure point monster you've simultaneously maxed out your defenses against any other sort of attack.

The damage you can put out with pressure point is not exactly good compared to a 7 agility auto-fire monster, at least on low soak targets, but an agility build is a glass cannon.

A Rodian with base 100 spent on agility and ranged heavy, 125 spent in mercenary soldier (true aim x2, dedication) and 60 in ranged heavy and cybernetics, so about 10 sessions in would be rolling 7 yellow and 2 blue, at short range against 2 purple would average around 3 hits each for 16 damage. Of course a 10 soak pressure point monster would take that and then one-shot the rodian, but anyone else would probably have gotten taken down.

I don't know if there are possibly different versions of these rules but my core rulebook precise quote.

"When making a Brawl check against a living opponent, the character may choose to forgo dealing damage as wounds, instead dealing the equivalent damage as strain, plus additional strain equal to his ranks in Medicine. These checks cannot be made with any weapons, but this strain damage is not reduced by soak."

That pretty clearly means to me you add Medicine to your total damage, which is all strain, and soak is not applied to the hit.

Well, I stand corrected. Although based on just the paragraph I saw I'm pretty sure my interpretation was correct...

I'd like to see Pressure Point just add Pierce X (X = ranks of Medicine) to unarmed Brawl attacks doing Strain damage. Now it's still useful without automatically punching through rancors.

Really like this idea.

If the talent were interpreted such that "only the Medicine ranks ignore soak", I don't understand how this differs from just pure bonus damage (and thus seems extraneous). Unless there's something rules-y stating that soak double-dips when bonus damage is included, I would never have considered this possible interpretation. Heh.

I don't believe any of my players are gunning for this combination, but I would allow them to do so, so long as it was roleplayed and developed during play. I might also require Xenobiology checks for anatomical knowledge of various species and/or creatures.

I might also send Nemesis NPCs against them who have done the same thing.

With Pressure Point you will be ignoring soak with your Brawl strain damage. And look at shock gloves (which are Brawl attacks). With a good brawl skill you can active Stun 3 one or more times (all avoiding soak). This can add up. It's a good attack with Aim (or double Aim) and after your teammates have passed you a few Boost dice. Some rivals are easier to take down by doing strain + pressure point becasue their strain is lower and/or their soak is high.

One problem with Brawl is closing range can get you torn up and you can get hit by ranged teammate fire once engaged. But do remember if you are engaged with the attacker ranged attacks against you upgrade and if you attacked them they add a Setback die.

You can't activate the stun on gloves more than once.

Did I miss something? Where does it say can only be activated once? Page number would be helpful to show my other players, we use it when we have the Advantage and do not want to kill but subdue.

or really, why armor is so worthless in this game compared to having a decent brawn. Who'd have though lifting weights would make you more resistant to being shot in the face than wearing power armor and a force shield?

The game is trying to simulate the films more than it's trying to simulate reality. It's much more about what a character can do than what their gear can.

In A New Hope, Luke and Han dress up as stormtroopers (gaining Laminate armour), but ditch it as soon as they can. Okay, it'd reek by that point, but walking around the Death Star in their civvies didn't make them stand out any less. I'm actually surprised there aren't some Talents that increase your defence when you aren't wearing armour to encourage this behaviour. (Call them "Heroic Presence" or "Agile Defence" or "Too Pretty to Die" or whatever.)

They sort of have this already built into the system by having Armor and Cover not stack. It makes having one or two Defence from Cover or Improved Cover equal to light or heavy Armor rather than having PCs in armor getting more defence. This keeps armor from being a "must have" and simulates the films well, where none of the main characters ever wear armor (they do use cover though). This may seem unrealistic but it allows Player's to create a Han or Luke etc. and be able to do what they did in the films without feeling it necessary to shove them into heavy armor just to survive combat. It also make sense within the scale and granularity of the system that they don't stack so it's not a serious stretch of the imagination (this is my opinion though not everyone agrees and it's been argued to death in other threads - let's not do that here please).

In A New Hope, Luke and Han dress up as stormtroopers (gaining Laminate armour), but ditch it as soon as they can. Okay, it'd reek by that point, but walking around the Death Star in their civvies didn't make them stand out any less. I'm actually surprised there aren't some Talents that increase your defence when you aren't wearing armour to encourage this behaviour.

They sort of have this already built into the system by having Armor and Cover not stack. It makes having one or two Defence from Cover or Improved Cover equal to light or heavy Armor rather than having PCs in armor getting more defence. This keeps armor from being a "must have" and simulates the films well, where none of the main characters ever wear armor (they do use cover though). This may seem unrealistic but it allows Player's to create a Han or Luke etc. and be able to do what they did in the films without feeling it necessary to shove them into heavy armor just to survive combat. It also make sense within the scale and granularity of the system that they don't stack so it's not a serious stretch of the imagination (this is my opinion though not everyone agrees and it's been argued to death in other threads - let's not do that here please).

Engaged fighting and ranged fighting should not be "balanced" the same because by definition closing to engaged is often dangerous and takes time. While other characters are blasting with rifles with their nice talents and attachments and mods from a covered position you can get torn up or waste time or get left behind. And either way you become the main target.

And once you are engaged you can (and will) get hit by your teammates. I know. I play one.

Just some thoughts in case you have not actually played one of these characters.

Also, I cannot find in the rulebook or FAQ where it says that you cannot use Stun multiple times. Some qualities explicitly say they can be used more than once (Sunder) so maybe the assumption is that if it does not say that you cannot, but that's a big assumption.

or really, why armor is so worthless in this game compared to having a decent brawn. Who'd have though lifting weights would make you more resistant to being shot in the face than wearing power armor and a force shield?

The game is trying to simulate the films more than it's trying to simulate reality. It's much more about what a character can do than what their gear can.

In A New Hope, Luke and Han dress up as stormtroopers (gaining Laminate armour), but ditch it as soon as they can. Okay, it'd reek by that point, but walking around the Death Star in their civvies didn't make them stand out any less. I'm actually surprised there aren't some Talents that increase your defence when you aren't wearing armour to encourage this behaviour. (Call them "Heroic Presence" or "Agile Defence" or "Too Pretty to Die" or whatever.)

Luke and party were never hit. They weren't soaking damage. They weren't taking multiple blaster hits and stim packing. I don't think they were particularly trying to simulate the movie, nor do I think they should have tried to.

Engaged fighting and ranged fighting should not be "balanced" the same because by definition closing to engaged is often dangerous and takes time. While other characters are blasting with rifles with their nice talents and attachments and mods from a covered position you can get torn up or waste time or get left behind. And either way you become the main target.

And once you are engaged you can (and will) get hit by your teammates. I know. I play one.

Just some thoughts in case you have not actually played one of these characters.

Also, I cannot find in the rulebook or FAQ where it says that you cannot use Stun multiple times. Some qualities explicitly say they can be used more than once (Sunder) so maybe the assumption is that if it does not say that you cannot, but that's a big assumption.

It's pretty trivial to engage. The majority of non-vehicle combat usually starts at short or at most medium range anyway. And getting hit by your friends is pretty unlikely. 1 in 12 normally. Assuming they're even attacking the same target as you, which pretty much means you're only down to the last guy anyway so you're just mopping things up.

You can't activate it twice because it doesn't say you can like Auto-Fire does. You can't spend advantage to activate anything multiple times, recovering strain being the primary exception. See table on page 206.

that makes shock gloves very pointless. why have them. 3 stun is not going to KO somebody with a hand shake, so the game mechanics makes the flaver text not possible. use weighted gloves (game effect use brass knuckles table) get better use then shock gloves, or am i missing something?