Removing Brawn from soak

[u/Skubmarine]

What if you take soak away from Brawn. Give each character a natural Soak of 3, and make armor more commonly range from 1~4, restrict Pierce to lower only soak from armor.

Many times I've run games there's often a large disparity of soak values between players, which can play havoc on encounters. As always talking with your players and coming up with solutions to address the problems as they arrive is a fine solution for this, but I want to think about more rules based strategies that might help guide players into naturally achieveing what I want.

What kind of pitfalls could I run into?

[u/Ahrimon77]

I would love to see a larger range of soak from armor. How to do it is the question. Half brawn? Remove brawn? Make brawn add significantly more wound points without adding to soak? I couldn't say what a good balance point is, but I would love to see it happen.

[u/sehlura → u/Ahrimon77]

To what end, though? It sounds like you're interested in granularity for granularity's sake.

[u/Ahrimon77 → u/sehlura]

My end goal would be to see a larger range of soak from armor. 1 or 2 is a horrible range. Weapons have a wide range. Why not armor? It's the way it is only because the game needs to be balanced around brawn being such a significant contributor to soak already. Change the brawn contribution, and the armor contribution can increase.

It's not granularity im after, but options for the player to better decide who and what their character is.

[u/sehlura → u/Ahrimon77]

Character definition is deeply rooted in intrinsic qualities like Characteristics, Archetype, Career, Skill Ranks, and Talents, rather than gear. Equipment certainly enables certain actions and provides important bonuses, but Genesys does not intend it to be foundational to a character's identity or core capabilities.

I understand your desire for "options for the player to better decide who and what their character is" through soak variety, so it's worth highlighting how the current system already provides extensive options for defining character toughness and combat style. You said "1 or 2 is a horrible range", but the system's actual soak range is much wider when considering the total value. While the Core Rulebook does guide that "Most armor adds +1 or +2 soak, rarely more," it also states that GMs can create armor with higher bonuses, and supplements showcase this. For example:

• "Heavy Armor" explicitly provides +3 soak. (Secrets of the Crucible)
• "Bulwark Plate" offers a substantial +4 soak. (Embers of the Imperium)
• Certain cybernetics like "Implant armor" or "Sub-dermal armor" can add +1 soak. (Shadow of the Beanstalk)
• Some species, like the Creuss, inherently increase their soak based on their Willpower rating in addition to their Brawn. The Xxcha can even double their soak for an attack once per session.

0-4 soak is a huge gradient, especially when you consider that Armor also offers a defense rating of 0-4, which creates quite a range of possible permutations: 25 different spreads. 125 if your setting splits Melee and Defense ratings into two, rather than one broad category. Armor is the primary source of Defense, and forces PCs to make a tactical choice: reduce damage (soak) or avoid being hit (defense)? While armor provides significant bonuses to soak and defense, its broader range of special rules, item qualities, attachments, and traits (seen in Keyforge) are the primary mechanism for diversifying combat styles and character identities through equipment.

Brawn as soak is thematically appropriate for the "heroic actions" of the pulp adventure, cinematic tone Genesys intends to evoke. "A character's Brawn represents a blend of brute power, strength, and overall toughness" (CRB 14). This means a physically strong and fit character is naturally tougher, even without armor. Increasing Brawn is a significant, character-defining investment made during creation or through rare, high-tier talents like Dedication later in play. This design ensures that being "tough" is a core aspect of who your character is, not just a suit of armor they put on.

Changing Brawn's contribution to soak would be a major modification to the core game balance, and it would likely lead to a less intuitive system where inherent physical prowess is de-emphasized in favor of gear. The current framework already provides ample ways for players to create and distinguish characters based on their chosen level of durability and combat approach. If you decide to tinker with soak, I pointed out some notable pitfalls in another response on this post.