PROTECTION
Protection in star wars includes all means that prevent full damage to health points. Protection can come in many forms, but there are two that first and foremost come to mind: Armor and Shields. While Armor provides some Damage Reduction (DR), Armor does not protect you from all damage types. Nor do shields. There are however some DR that reduces damage taken from everything, like Jedi Guardian's Force Barrier.
Damage ReductionDamage Reduction or shortly DR, is applied when target receives damage to health points. Sometimes DR is calculated in percent and sometimes in points. When used as percentage, if DR is not at 100% the target will receive damage. For example if damaged target has 10% DR and is damaged by 10 points, target will receive 9 points of damage instead. When used as points, if DR is 10, and damage is 10 or less, target will not receive damage. If DR is 10 and damage is 12, target will receive 2 points of damage.
e.g.
A creature with damage reduction 10/silver:
is struck with a weapon for 5 points of damage.
if the weapon is not made of silver, all the damage is completely ignored.
If the weapon is made of silver, the creature receives the full 5 points of damage.
is struck with a weapon for 17 points of damage.
if the weapon is not made of silver, the creature receives 7 (17-10) points of damage.
If the weapon is made of silver, the creature receives the full 17 points of damage.
Damage Reduction is applied against:
Physical Damage
Kinetic Damage
Elemental Damage
Nature Damage
Bolts Damage
Damage that can ignore Armor DR:
Lightsaber Damage (Plasma Damage)
Poison Damage
Dark Energy Damage
Light Energy Damage
ShieldShield is calculated in points only (Shield Points SP), and is seen as "bonus health/hit points" that must be destroyed before target can receive damage on health. Shields come as hand devices and require active hand to use. By default shields give 5 shield points per character level. Shields will regenerate by 50% every 5 rounds if target that has the shield did not receive any damage in meantime. There are ways to speed up shield regeneration that can also be called healing shield points, and increase the amount of shield points.
Shield protects the user from all damage except:
Dark Energy Damage
Light Energy Damage