Has anyone that has actually run a live combat run into issues with a lack of active defenses to help mitigate incoming damage?  It seems like the whole Opposed check thing needs to be cleared up in a major way, or targeted players need to have a couple reactive defenses they can use along the Dodge/Parry/Block paradigm.  Dodge being a talent available to three careers seems sort of goofy to me seeing as everyone in the galaxy can attempt to disarm a bomb or reprogram a droid or fly a space ship but they can't shift their bulk out of the way once a round.

Callidon said:

Every time an action roll fails, it's essentially a dodge. The Dodge Talent is just being a bit better at it.

 I have actually ran one game and was very impressed by the combat mechanics.  I agree that the Opposed check thing needs to be cleared up but I ran it with the Average static difficulty and I thought it worked well.  

A couple of things I did find off was the damage of the flame thrower I personally thought it was too high and it seemed like some of the other weapons weren't high enough.  I know it is a tough balance but I just want to point it out.  

My group really liked the intiative system.

As for soak and defense.  They really seem to make since as is, as one of the other posters put it Star Wars is shoot first and pray that your opponent doesn't hit you back.  The more you add to these the more you will bring the lethality out of the game.

Over all I think this game is an awesome cross between d20 Star Wars and d6.  I am really looking forward to its release next year.

I would say that it has to be Opposed for Brawl/Melee, as that keeps it open for Jedi fights to be feel really awesome when you drop quite a few dice and view all the dice as attacks and blocks and parries.

But, I would also say that it needs to be -at least- Difficulty 2. So, if a character has Brawn 1 and no Melee or Brawl skill, it should still require a Difficulty 2 check.

I too ran it with static difficulty for both ranged and melee/brawl and it worked really well so far.

I'm thinking Jedi/Sith combat will have lots of talents giving upgrades, increasing difficulty, etc. If I go opposed now that means I'm using purple/red for competent fighters not counting any possible talents.

The only real close combat spec we're seeing now is Marauder with high soak/wound and damage output. I'm sure we're gonna see more specs, e.g. a rebel agent trained in martial arts and finally force traditions combat specs.

The Forsaken Jedi in Adversaries is already using Dodge 2. If we go with opposed rolls anyone attacking him will get 5 red dice to the attack pool. Question is do we want that? I'm not sure, so I'm sticking with static + modifiers. 

Wulfherr said:

Well, in a way there already is a means to do just that.  Looking at the Sense power upgrades, if you're willing to put two dice worth of your Force Rating aside for the ongoing effects, at maximum benefit you can increase the attacker's difficulty by three dice and give yourself an upgrade to your own attack roll (possibly even more upgrades if the Sense tree is expanded further in later books).  That alone mimics what Prequel Trilogy Swordmaster Nick Gillard said about lightsaber battles, that they are essentially chess played at 100 miles per hour and every move is check mate.

Tried with 2 (non force user) "combat characters" freshly made (against each other) and 2 (non force user) "combat characters" experienced (300 XP) against each other.

Fixed difficulty (2 for melee and derived from distance for ranged combat), modified by talents and equipment.

The "green" characters missed each other much more than the "experienced" characters.

Then we made experienced characters taking some levels of the Dodge talent.

Result: less overall maneuvers (Advantages were spent mainly to recover Stress), but the number of hits were reduced.

Naturally this talent looses much of his "punch" against more than one opponent (too much Stress!).

It's worth noting that with all the conversation about opposed checks, the ranged skills also advertise that they are opposed checks, so take that for what you will. It may denote the presence of defense die, but opposed rolls were previously defined as being derived from character stats. 

On a different note, I found on pg 84 under the Ranged Heavy section, the part that says.

• Characters armed with a Ranged Heavy weapon are unable to parry a melee attack, unless the weapon has a melee attachment.

The Ranged Light section only mentions that the free hand can have a melee weapon for defense purposes. I am being led to assume, then, that a player being attacked gets some semblance of defense bonus if armed with a melee weapon.

I would like to know the significance of being able to parry. I feel like the simplest way to resolve this is the use of boost/setback dice. With little thought to balance, these are my initial suggestions:

If a melee PC attacks a ranged NPC the difficulty is base 2. If a melee PC attacks a brawling NPC it is an opposed check with one boost to reflect the PC's advantage. If a melee PC attacks an NPC with a melee weapon it is an opposed check.

The caveat is that, depending on the character, it might actually be harder to hit a ranged character than a brawling character. With my proposed rule, a 1 brawn/0 Brawl droid would get better defense just by pulling out a gun. Doesn't make much sense.

Regarding Melee and Brawl attacks; bear in mind game designer Jay Little said during the "Order 66 Podcast" live play session at GenCon that all Melee attacks have a Difficulty of 2, so I suspect the opposed roll mentioned earlier in the book is a holdover from an earlier edition.  My group went with it as a static Difficulty of 2 with Boost and Setback die used accordingly, and the system appeared to work fine and we hand no issues with it.  It was cinematic and quick with characters delivering a couple of quick strikes that would put mooks out of commission.

Thinking about it a little more I suspect that may have been the reason for the rule change.  Using a Difficulty 2, both unarmed and melee combat moves fast and after two to three blows there is usually some resolution.  While I'm sure opposed checks would work just fine my concern would be that melee and unarmed combat could take many, many rounds to resolve.  Combat in Star Wars is fast and furious and with the exception of lightsaber duels most fights with hand held weapons or fists are settled quickly.

Yancy

 There seems to be some confusion in the text about whether brawling deals damage as strain or wounds.  In the skill desription, it states it deals damage as strain.  However in other locations (e.g. the description of the pressure point talent) it seems to imply brawl deals wound damage, unless other factors are involved.  

Lookin for confirmation its strain, and under what conditions a character can choose to deal wound damage with brawl.

Thanks!

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Given that the skill section seems to have been slightly outdated (and fixed per the Week One update), I'm thinking the skill description about unarmed attacks only dealing strain damage might be old data, and there is the intent that you can deal wound damage with unarmed attacks.  After all, people have been beaten to death by unarmed assailants in real life, and most people would wind up with critical injuries as a result of being subjected to a single kick from a black-belt level Karate practitioner or a a punch from a heavyweight boxer.

Then again, there is the sidebar on page 137 that says an unarmed Brawl attack just deals strain damage.

As for the Pressure Point talent, I think the two main points there are 1) cannot be used with Brawl weapons, and 2) you add your ranks in Medicine to the damage total.  It also adds the reminder that strain damage isn't reduced by soak, which if true makes unarmed attacks a viable option (surprisingly enough) against heavily armored or durable targets (i.e. have a high Soak value).

Hi Testers,

The week 1 update states that no combat checks are opposed. As for unarmed attacks, you should consult page 137. Just wanted to help clear things up. 

Thanks!

FFG_Sam Stewart said:

Thank you for the response.

Though as a suggestion, the text on Pressure Point (pg97) in the Talents section should probably be updated to reflect that unarmed attacks never deal wound damage in the first place.  Thinking it should revised to better jive with the text on page 45, which cites that you get to replace your Brawn with your ranks in Medicine when determining how much strain is dealt with an unarmed attack.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Thanks for the clarification, Sam.  That was exactly what I was looking for.

@Donovan: You don't replace brawn with medicine, you simply deal strain equal to the damage plus ranks in medicine, and ignoring soak, and you can't use brawl weapons.

I just had questions for PG: 136 Two-Weapon Combat.

Reads: When attacking with two weapons, the character must have either two Ranged (light) weapons or two one-handed melee weapons. Having one of each ensures that the character could use either weapon as the need arises, but not both at once.

After reading that, my biggest question is why can't I use both types of weapons at once? One of the greatest parts of Deathwatch was that you could and I don't see why you can't in this instance. I understand that the second attack automatically succeeds based on an activation from the initial roll. I see no reason why it would be out of the realm of possibilities that a person with two-swords can have two-attacks, but if you replace that sword with a light ranged weapon it would be amazingly too difficult for him to achieve at point blank range.

My fix would be that when using two weapons of different skill types that you use the same rules as before (no heavy weapons or anything) but you use the lowest stat combination for your initial attack. This makes sure that characters are keeping these skills balanced since they are using them both kind of together. Example would be if you were attempting your attack with a hold out blaster and vibrosword and your character has characteristics that are even, you could use either one.