Pressure Point + Shock Gloves Question

[IzualTheMighty 17]

I have a player excited about playing a Wookie Doctor and asked me about using Pressure Point in the Doctor Talent Tree along with Shock Gloves. If I am correct, the Stun (3) requires two Advantages to activate? And so if he uses Pressure Point his damage would be Brawl Check + Medicine Rank + 3 to the targets strain? My questions are these do stack correctly and that the Stun feature does require two advantage to activate and it is not passive? Thanks for any insight.

 

[Sinosaur 50]

Almost every weapon attribute requires to advantage to activate (excepting variations for a few, like crits, and passives). Stun is an active ability and does require two advantage to activate, providing 3 additional stun when used.

 

As a note about Pressure Point, from what I've read and heard about it, it is probably the most broken talent in the game right now because, as worded, it provides extra damage and ignores soak. Ignoring soak isn't that weird when you're fighting something with 3 or 4 soak, but there are enemies with soak around 10 and usually lower Strain Thresholds than Wound Thresholds. For example: against a Rancor, ignoring soak essentially adds 12 damage, and against a Hutt I believe it would essentially add 10 damage.

[Mortify 6]

As a note about Pressure Point, from what I've read and heard about it, it is probably the most broken talent in the game right now because, as worded, it provides extra damage and ignores soak. Ignoring soak isn't that weird when you're fighting something with 3 or 4 soak, but there are enemies with soak around 10 and usually lower Strain Thresholds than Wound Thresholds. For example: against a Rancor, ignoring soak essentially adds 12 damage, and against a Hutt I believe it would essentially add 10 damage.

 

But that's kind of the point isn't it? You aren't hitting someone in their fleshy-muscle soakable area. You are hitting them in a nerve cluster, effectively overriding their ability to deal with the pain. The talent is also placed in the doctor tree, requiring a fair few experience for anyone that wasn't planning on being a doctor in the first place (table below). It could probably stand to be a bit lower in the tree (reverse with anatomy lessons), but it still makes thematic sense. If your brawler wants to punch a rancor or a Hutt, I say let them. Hutt's are seldom alone, and seldom without a cadre of rifle wielding thugs with itchy trigger fingers just waiting to full-auto the party.

30 XP - minimum non-colonist cross-spec cost
5  XP - Grit
10 XP - Surgeon
10 XP - Resolve
15 XP - Pressure Point
------
70 XP  

[MrTact 12]

Can't comment on whether Pressure Point is broken, per se, but I do want to point out that the Pressure Point talent explicitly says "no weapons." So per RAW, you can't add shock gloves' damage to the amount of strain you dish out.

[IzualTheMighty 17]

The talent states "When making a Brawl check against a living opponent..." and there is no mention at all that weapons are excluded and Shock Gloves are a Brawn attack.

[Reydan 173]

I don't think I'd let people use brawl weapons with this talent... except for Shock Gloves.  They are literally gloves that zap people.  I don't think there's much way that that would prevent you from hitting their pressure points.

Also, this talent plus shock gloves just makes me think of the Equalists from Legend of Korra and they were pretty rad.  

[NforNyx 0]

Against someone who 

 

But that's kind of the point isn't it? You aren't hitting someone in their fleshy-muscle soakable area. You are hitting them in a nerve cluster, effectively overriding their ability to deal with the pain. The talent is also placed in the doctor tree, requiring a fair few experience for anyone that wasn't planning on being a doctor in the first place (table below). It could probably stand to be a bit lower in the tree (reverse with anatomy lessons), but it still makes thematic sense. If your brawler wants to punch a rancor or a Hutt, I say let them. Hutt's are seldom alone, and seldom without a cadre of rifle wielding thugs with itchy trigger fingers just waiting to full-auto the party.

Against someone who is lightly armored sure you can hit all the squishy bits you want. But it starts to make you wonder when you are going up against people in heavier armor. Armor is suppose to protect the squishy bits so they don't hurt. How ever my personal feelings on the talent is it needs to be house ruled or it an and probably will get out of hand very easy. If you don't mind your climactic battle between the heroes and the  bad guy getting insta gibbed because someone who is good at brawl is using a talent that i feel was 

intended to be used by someone who was not good with brawl so they could feel like they could contribute more than just jabbing people with stimpacks and waiting for them to get hurt again. I think it's something that should be house ruled and it does say no weapons probably in an attempt to make it less potent. (for good reason)

[Holzy 117]

The talent states "When making a Brawl check against a living opponent..." and there is no mention at all that weapons are excluded and Shock Gloves are a Brawn attack.

This is not correct. Check the full description of the talent, not simply the one on the talent tree, and it says: "These checks cannot be made with any weapons, but this strain damage is not reduced by soak."

[amrothe 155]

Pressure point is really good and I use it on my gadgeteer/doctor, but please understand how HARD it is to use melee/brawl when everyone seems to start at medium/long range and has blaster riffles. 

 

Yes it represents one of the few ways to bypass obscene soak, but then again a lightsaber will do far more damage and bypass soak.

 

 

Also for pressure point to really shine you need deadly accuracy a high brawn  and high brawl and medicine.  With everything maxed you can deal 16+ successes unsoakable.  that costs you probably 250xp + or you could you know get a missle tube and deal 20 damage or a lightsaber and do even more sick things.

 

 

And no weapons can be combined with pressure point. So there is that.

 

If you want to go pressure point and you think its awesome be aware that its main use is when you are disarmed or at a social function and you can surprise the hell out of people.

 

If you want to be able to do sick damage in melee thats unblockable check out the jedi armorer who has saber throw, falling avalanche, and a boat load of good armor talents, brawn being used for a ranged attack is kinda awesome.

 

And if you are worried about cortosis weave just remember when you win thats an extra 10k credits GM's are not going to throw tons of it at you.

[2P51 33,445]

 

The talent states "When making a Brawl check against a living opponent..." and there is no mention at all that weapons are excluded and Shock Gloves are a Brawn attack.

This is not correct. Check the full description of the talent, not simply the one on the talent tree, and it says: "These checks cannot be made with any weapons, but this strain damage is not reduced by soak."

 

You know this thread is 2 1/2 years old correct? and the guy you are quoting hasn't been online in 6 months....

[Lifer4700 396]

 

 

The talent states "When making a Brawl check against a living opponent..." and there is no mention at all that weapons are excluded and Shock Gloves are a Brawn attack.

This is not correct. Check the full description of the talent, not simply the one on the talent tree, and it says: "These checks cannot be made with any weapons, but this strain damage is not reduced by soak."

 

You know this thread is 2 1/2 years old correct? and the guy you are quoting hasn't been online in 6 months....

 

 

But don't let that stop you!

 

I, for one (an admitted semi-professional thread necromancer), am happy you made the correction to the inaccurate statement.  Regardless of how long that post had been sitting there, it is still as incorrect today as it was over two years ago.  It just so happens that one of my players is a doctor, has brawl, has shock gloves and boots, and is looking at getting Pressure Point.

 

(since we aren't allowed to have PDFs) I do my rule-searching here on the forums before I search my two-and-a-half foot tall stack of FFG books.

 

Necro on!

[Kilcannon 177]

I have a question can a player do two weapon fighting with pressure point being the 2nd weapon?  Obviously the 2nd weapon is an u armed attack which goes to a 2nd question.  Can a character do two weapon fighting with a melee weapon and an unarmed attack?

Edited January 16, 2019 by Kilcannon

[Tramp Graphics 2,328]

8 minutes ago, Kilcannon said:

I have a question can a player do two weapon fighting with pressure point being the 2nd weapon?  Obviously the 2nd weapon is an u armed attack which goes to a 2nd question.  Can a character do two weapon fighting with a melee weapon and an unarmed attack?

Yes. You can two-weapon fight with completely different weapons which use different skills. This includes, but is not limited to Brawl and Melee, Melee and Lightsaber, Lightsaber and Ranged Light, Ranged Light and Brawl, or any combination thereof. 

[Eoen 825]

17 minutes ago, Kilcannon said:

I have a question can a player do two weapon fighting with pressure point being the 2nd weapon?  Obviously the 2nd weapon is an u armed attack which goes to a 2nd question.  Can a character do two weapon fighting with a melee weapon and an unarmed attack?

Yes it's a combined check ie you use the lower skill and lower characteristic of the two weapons and up the difficulty to 3 purple. It's under the section called additional combat modifiers in the conflict and combat chapter in which-ever core book you have.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Eoen

[Kilcannon 177]

Thanks.  Was just making sure pressure point was considered an unarmed attack and not some unique attack that couldn't be combined.  So a brawl weapon and pressure point attack would work well together for 2 weapon fighting since same skill and same characteristic.  Just would be an increased difficulty for the 2 weapon fighting, but wouldn't benefit from paired.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Kilcannon

[Eoen 825]

@Kilcannon Pressure point long description says "When making a Brawl check against a living opponent"...

 

Doesn't seem to work on droids does it?

Edited January 16, 2019 by Eoen

[Kilcannon 177]

Yes.   Know that.  Like the weakness.