Clarification needed: Resilient Talent (Resistance)

In the Resistance Talent tree there is the Talent “Resilient” which can be taken up to three times (3 ranks).
It is stated as:

“When someone triggers an effect would require a Resistance test to avoid a status condition, the difficulty of the Resistance test to resist the negative effects is reduced by one step per rank of Resilient. This may reduce the difficulty to zero, removing the need for a test.”

I cannot find ANY effect that would cause a Status Condition that allows for a Resistance test to avoid it.
Status Conditions as Blinded, Burning, Staggered, etc. are caused by rolling Dark Symmetry Icons on the damage dice - and then they don’t allow any kind of “saving throw” by making a Resistance test.

Knockdown is different as this allows for a DX (X = number of DSI rolled) Athletics or Acrobatics test to avoid ending up prone. But prone is not a Status Condition.

When does this “Resilient” Talent actually apply?

Or if the rules text is faulty, does an official errata correction for this Talent exist?

Acquiring this Talent is quite an investment in XP, but when it never sees any use, because the situation when it would apply never occurs, then it is a wasted spot in the Talent tree.
This evening’s MC3 session one of our players who had let his character learn three ranks of “Resilient” was very disappointed when he was struck with a lot of Status Conditions this Talent was of no help at all against. - So we looked further into the core rulesbook and found no situation when a Status Condition could be avoided by making a Resistance test.

Note: this is different from the Restricted Action “Recover” to remove an ongoing Status Condition. This is not a roll to avoid this Condition in the first place, as the Condition is already in effect.

Maybe this Talent is intended to work on such a “Recover” action?

Anyway, our confusion about this Talent is great and clarification is needed. So, please help us clear this issue.

Core rule book pg. 161, the power Dark Curse causes a status condition that requires Resistance test. Along with several other Dark Gifts and powers in the creatures chapter.
Pg. 188 being inside a vehicle when it takes damage to it’s hull.
The Status effect rules all mention Environmental factors, which I take to mean anytime the GM find it appropriate to apply them(like burning) they can offer an out using Resistance test.

Those Dark Gift powers are quite the rare occurance compared to the abundance of weapon/damage qualities that cause Status Conditions. And the latter cannot be avoided initially - in the moment of suffering the damage - by making a Resistance test.

I wonder whether the intention of including this Talent was to make the Recover action easier?

As written, this Talent is next to useless. Especially if taken in all three ranks - expensive, but very, very rarely applicable.

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How strange! Another thing i’ve missed completely. From pure Instinct i let my PC roll resistance against most status effects. For example driving a truck that crashed into some obstacles. Everyone who failed the athletic test to hold tight gets some damage and a resistance test or gets dazed.

I’ve checked with the Fall of von Hölle where i know something of that kind happens. Although there the book says willpower test. So another point lost for the resilient talent… doesn’t seem right to me.

As you say, the rules explicitly state to prevent status condition and not recover from it.
While i would be cool to hit the condition automatically and allow the resilient talent to ease the recovery.
So what was the Devs intend and what would they say now, what feels more “balanced”?

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I would really like to hear some advice or clarification by the developers regarding the Resilient Talent.

Hey, @Modiphius-Nathan, would you know who might be able to shed some light on this? Or would it be @Modiphius-DevTeam? Cheers!

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The issue here, as I see it, is in defining Status Condition very narrowly and very strictly as “thing that weapons can do to you in combat”.

Weapons have specific rules for applying some of these effects, but they should not be considered to be the entirety of what are designated “status effects” (indeed, the section on status effects in the damage chapter doesn’t generally state how those effects are inflicted, merely what those effects do once they’re inflicted), and the talent can apply to any negative condition the character suffers which allows (or which the GM allows) a Resistance test to resist or avoid (such as those caused by environmental effects, Dark Symmetry spends, and similar ambient/non-weapon sources).

If it’s still an issue, then I suggest houseruling the talent’s effect, but having just spent a weekend working at UK Games Expo, I can’t think of a viable alternative right at the moment.

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