Lightsabers are deadly. We all know this, as they should be. It is very typical to see a quick death in a lightsaber duel using standard RAW in Force and Destiny. Combat lasts typically no longer than a few rounds. This is fine for those who just want to move on with the game, but I personally feel that using combat RAW and lightsabers leaves me wanting.

Obi-wan vs. Vader, Yoda vs. Palpatine, Luke vs. Vader, Anakin vs. Obi-wan….these are all cinematic climaxes to the plot. Are they all practical and realistic? absolutely not, but what the lightsaber duel represents is the externalization of an inner conflict of some sort. They are more than sweet action scenes where you get to see Jedi-fu. To me, two or three rounds is not enough to grant satisfaction. It doesn’t really even allow you enough time to be creative with the combat narrative.

The combat RAW works perfectly fine for combat outside of lightsaber duels, in my opinion. Nobody wants random firefights lasting 12 rounds, or even a match of fisticuffs. But a lightsaber duel should represent something more substantial. Below is my house rules for lightsaber duels. Note that I say duel, not combat. These rules shouldn’t be applied to every fight that involves lightsabers. A quick skirmish with Dark Side acolytes guarding a Sith ship should probably be treated with standard combat RAW since it’s not overly personal or dramatic. These rules should be used to face the Sith lord who has been manipulating events for months.

• RAW for initiative.

• You may use your maneuver to perform a non-combat action in order to gain boost die or to impose a setback die to the opponent for the next attack. Perhaps the Ataru striker wishes to leap over the Makashi duelist and swipe at his head. A successful Athletics or Coordination skill check could grant the Ataru striker a boost dice to his attack roll. Maybe the Makashi duelists notices his opponents inclination towards reckless attacks, with a successful Vigilance roll he can find an opening to exploit granting him a boost die to his next attack. This spices the combat up, allows those involved to get creative and cinematic letting them add appropriate style and flavor to their lightsaber sequences.

• If a successful attack with a lightsaber in a duel is scored, you inflict strain equal to the number of uncancelled successes and advantages rolled. Advantages can be used as normal besides scoring a critical hit. You may activate lightsaber qualities, talents or even use them to recover strain. This means the rolling player must decide to attempt a “second wind” type situation where you recover some strain or utilize the advantages to press your attack in some fashion. This represents the constant parries and dodges that you see in a cinematic lightsaber duel. Each “hit” represents a block or parry by the defender, the strain imposed a representative of the physical exertion required for the defense. These are considered “missed” attacks for purposes of talents that affect melee attacks.

• If a Triumph is scored, apply lightsaber damage as normal as a RAW attack. This represents an actual hit has been scored with the lightsaber blade. The attack has breached the opponent's defenses and struck the opponent. As we know, most characters cannot take more than two hits with light saber. These are considered “hits” for purposes of talents that affect melee attacks.

• If a fighter is reduced to 0 strain the attacker may immediately follow up with a RAW lightsaber attack to represent the final blow with 0 difficulty dice. It would seem silly if a fighter went down due to him blocking a swing after all.

• These rules can work with multiple combatants as well. Simply give a boost die to attack for every ally engaged with the opponent on an attack roll. I recomend only allowing a max of four combatants engaging a single enemy, one for each flank, front and behind.

I have yet to use these rules in the field, but have tested them enough to say that they do not immediately appear broken. They seemingly work fine with any melee talent I have came acrossed. I have found that combat using these rules last just long enough to be enjoyable and engaging without becoming a war of attrition. I present these rules to the collective to get constructive feedback on them. I would like to know if any glaring issues can be seen. Keep in mind the purpose of these house rules when considering them. Do they do the job I am hoping they do? or do they bog the game down with unnecessary complexities.

Thanks for reading, look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I have actually done something similar when my Gadgeter Rodian fought his first inquistor. The two compared ability checks to one another with unblocked successes counting as strain damage, the main differences were that advantage couldn't be used to inflict strain damage under any circumstances, and had to be used for climatic effect, and whoevers strain ran out first simply was defeated.

The duel in particlar took place in a reactor set to overload during a prison raid, most of the squad had been captured by an inquistor and thus the remaining PC's and several squads of commandos were tasked with freeing all the prisoners of war held. Tobin and a member of the Daitooeen rangers had been distached to take care of it, since to our knowledge there was no imperial presence left in that part of the station. There, above us was a Inquistor, a bald chap talking to the General whom had been touring the prison when it was attack. Locking eyes the inquisitor dropped down, gave a monolog of how "Was it by chance that you raided the hidden escape route and cut us off? Hm, trivial. In any case that artefact in your procession is wasted in one so weak in the force, so I will kill you to take it and the ship as compensation for the inconvenience."

Started off with a furious exchange of Lightsaber blows that Tobin immediately had the upper hand in, even with sense enhancing his defence rating to gain an extra purple the intial barrage took off a entire third of his strain theshold. The battle continued as they collapsed walkways with precise blows, until the inquisitor lost his blade in the melee and the Rodian had both. Overcompediant he attacked with both only to be punched in the stomach and disarmed of his own blade.

A moment passed as they held one another's blade, then the Rodian dropped his and back peddled, whipping out a lightning arc gun and barraged the sith with arcs of energy that disarmed him of his prize, yet the Inquistor pushed through and kicked him over the ledge onto the platform below, the rifle falling to the reactor floor far below. Then a breif segment of frantic fist fighting broke out which the Inquistor had a firm advantage, leaving the Rodian with one strain point remaining as he pummeled and cast back against the reactor's casing. Despite the futility of the geasture, he drew his duelling pistol and fired.

The blast caught the inquistor square in the chest and with a scream he tumbled down below, landing next to a vent that summarily opened and burnt his face off.

Perhaps my writing doesn't do it justice, but everyone was on the edge of their seats for that one. And that was how Tobin Stryder survived his first run-in with the inquisition. He has killed one other since then and wounded one fellow with a curious faceplate. Though that inquisitor did escape with the Jewel of Yavin after taking that grevious wound.

A lot of people have suggested homebrew rules get "longer, more satisfying duels", and generally, I'm of the viewpoint that the people who want something longer than three rounds played D20 Star Wars, which were lame, repetitive slug fests. Interestingly, you mention "inner conflict", but you're just putting out homebrew rules for the combat itself, which has nothing to do with inner conflict. All your rules achieve are longer, more drawn out battles that exclude players that don't use lightsabers, and render useless all hard earned lightsaber talents. Whether you're a player with a lightsaber or not, your rules take away player fun.

If you just use the rules as written and savor the narration (treat a round of a duel as say, two minutes of dueling), it works great. Narrate the Advantage and Threat to the fullest, and enjoy telling the story. The dice themselves don't create personal drama - the narration of the results does. And if the duel is just the set piece for the deep inner conflict, like Luke and Vader on the second Death Star, then play it as social rolls. Neither wants to kill the other unless they have to, so neither is mechanically attacking, though they are swinging back and forth within the narrative.

All of this is, of course, opinion. If your players like what you've written up, more power to you.

Part of the reason why my duel occured was at the time it was firmly in Edge territory; there were no established lightsaber machanic then

The other thing, that I can never stress enough, is to force the party to spilt. Give them too much to do together, force events to happen at the same time. Otherwise you will get situations where the party encounters your big bad and just hoses him down via gunfire. Basically happened in one of the campiagns, where a lone force user stood between the entire party and the door to negosate for an artifact, blocking our escape. That person almost died from one person taking a very big dislike to her and to me felt like one of the most awkward, forced sections of that campiagn. So basically, if you know an encounter with a major PC is coming up and the party is having to do something quickly, make them divide the task and the moment will come naturally.

In my particlar case, most of the party was still saving prisoners from the last of the resistance, and was about to breach a imperial research centre. We had to be in two places at once thus the scene was set for a duel organically. Players would be less welcoming if it was slapped right in the middle of a party since the typical response is to "open fire."

The players are not (even supposed to be) the Jedi Masters of the duels you reference. If you were playing PCs who were of the "experience level" that those characters are; 100s and 100s and 100s of XP, by FFG reckoning, I think you would get the epic duels you envision.

I don't think this is a real problem, I think light saber fights are just short and brutal for those who are inexperienced with them and the Force.

Of course you should do what is right for you and your table, but look upon this with some perspective too. What will this do to the game when you hit that 500 XP mark? With the Soak, Defense and healing capabilities they'll have by then, it's gonna turn duels into a game no one can win.

Part of the reason why my duel occured was at the time it was firmly in Edge territory; there were no established lightsaber machanic then

The other thing, that I can never stress enough, is to force the party to spilt. Give them too much to do together, force events to happen at the same time. Otherwise you will get situations where the party encounters your big bad and just hoses him down via gunfire. Basically happened in one of the campiagns, where a lone force user stood between the entire party and the door to negosate for an artifact, blocking our escape. That person almost died from one person taking a very big dislike to her and to me felt like one of the most awkward, forced sections of that campiagn. So basically, if you know an encounter with a major PC is coming up and the party is having to do something quickly, make them divide the task and the moment will come naturally.

In my particlar case, most of the party was still saving prisoners from the last of the resistance, and was about to breach a imperial research centre. We had to be in two places at once thus the scene was set for a duel organically. Players would be less welcoming if it was slapped right in the middle of a party since the typical response is to "open fire."

Fair enough. Especially with just Edge of the Empire. Now that Parry and Lightsaber Form Trees are a thing, it's not terribly necessary.

The best house rule set I saw for lightsaber duels back then was akin to the fighter combat's Gain the Advantage system. It let it go back and forth and escalate until someone got hit and lost a limb.

Long time ago i faced same problem with old D6 WEG system, where lightsaber are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more lethal and a single lightsaber hit strike can obliterate every opponent, Jedi/Sith opponent too

so i made a more complex system based on "lot of action to keep difficult and cinematic just hitting opponent"

basically was based on:

- a serie of special action/maneuvers based on duelist's lightsaber style

- each maneuver got vantage/advantage on attack or defense against specific maneuver

- each dueler choose one attack and one defense maneuver

- in initiative order, each one of the combatant complete his action with bonus/malus based on wich attack he selected vs defense selected by opponent

it's a more complex system my player enjoyed; a single one sith vs one jedi fight could go for even an hour, so can't be used for standard confrontation but only for special cinematic option like Vader vs Obi-Wan

unlickily, is for D6 WEG; even worse, is in italian so i don't think could be of some use for you, but you can adapt the concept.

(i based mine on one i found on internet, made by Travis Stout, here )

however you can do a much simpler way in a complete narrative situation, where everyone describes his actions based on the advantages/threats rolled, and then you can give a setback or bonus dice based on the circonstance, narration and/or manuever/action/talents selected

Better LS duels?

Use RAW and slap in the quick-draw showdown guidelines from Fly Casual. It makes for an interesting start of the duel. For more interesting duels, keep your NPCs moving, that makes the players have to move. Give you NPCs jetpacks, speeders (unarmed unless you want to turn them into paste) or Enhance as a manoeuvre to flip around. Give them various alternative attacks, not just the one weapon or skill. Let them have both melee/brawl/lightsaber and a ranged attack, be it flamethrower, blaster, saber throw, unleash, bind or move. Move is also a great way of moving the PCs around the battlefield also, just for the sake of it, have one of your nemeses have the extra initiative slot ability... that means you can attack, enhance leap away, then on the next slot (barring being engaged again) you can scathing tirade your players, enhance the NPC to another location or just spend a manoeuvre to aim or something for the next, inevitable attack.

Duels become fun when people are creative. Players can be creative, but they do sometimes require a nudge, or boot to the face, to step away from the double-aim-attack-fest...

Also, give your NPCs high Cool and/or Vigilance to win initiative, that means they can at least do one thing before they're sabred to death. I had two mando nemeses give my glowstick toting monkeys a difficult fight last night by giving them both melee and ranged attacks, and speeders. I could've gone the jetpack route, but I thought speeders were cooler, particularly since it ended up as a chase across Concordia. My version of Concordia has lots of valleys, ravines, canyons and crap like that. So two guys with vibro daggers, heavy blasters and some good characteristics did pose a good challenge... the look in my players eyes when I pick up four proficiency dice... and an ability die priceless.

JegerGryte's two posts are probably the best advice in this thread about how to make a lightsaber duel feel more cinematic as opposed to a hack-fest.

It's been said repeatedly, but this is a narrative system, so both players and GM are going to have to approach something as climactic and cinematic as a one-on-one lightsaber duel from that angle. For the GM, set the stage so that it's an interesting location for the duel. There's a reason the saber battle at the end of Episode I is generally seen as the highlight of the film, and part of that has to do with the location which keeps the fight interesting and moving (even if some of the layout decisions were questionable). Same with the Bespin duel in ESB, which changed locations three times before ending. The saber fight in RotJ wasn't quite as dynamic, but it also wasn't just a flat bit of terrain.

Somewhere in the forum's history, Desslok did a pretty solid breakdown of the various saber battles from the films (glossing over the "old man fight" in ANH since that was the weakest of the lot), and many of them only occur within the space of a few rounds before concluding.

I think your rules complicate combat more than it needs to be and doesn't really achieve what you're looking for. I think the easiest way to get what you want is to just use the narrative structure. Also what happens when people "disengage" from the duel? Do they suddenly start taking wound damage? If so why? Also what then happens for PC's not engaged in the duel. They dispatch their opponents in a matter of rounds and then what ..... sit there and wait?

Overall if you want longer duels just describe them that way. A single hit can represent a flurry of strikes. Keep in mind each combat round is roughly 1 minute. What do you think happens in that 1 minute? Just a single swing (all of 3 seconds) and then they just sit there waiting for that minute to run out before swinging again? Nope. There's a series of swings, and strikes, and parries, and taunting and a whole bunch of stuff going on.

If your duels are wanting try spicing up the location. Change the NPC strategy. Just don't stand there waiting to be hammered by the NPC's. Strike then move out of range making them come to him. Add environmental hazards that need to be overcome too. Or that can be used to the PC's advantage.

Yeah, with the actual force and destiny rules in play, it's possible to have duels last for 3/4 rounds as apposed to 2, or even one on a particularly lucky blow.

That being said, I could see it happening very occasionally. But not sure I would narrate a entire battle that way.

Did I mention spilt the party? I would never have a entire party featured in a single climatic battle unless they were perfectly fine to have multiple combatants on the other side. Or if they did likely the combants objective probably won't be victory, but some other win condition that they can only achieve by stalling the clock/getting away.

Another important thing I've just thought about is to give an objective to either party that doesn't involve beating the tar out of the other side. Stormtroopers are closing in, the combatant/party is waiting for his shuttle to finish it's flight check, or a twist is that the force user is looking to intercept another objective/make a getaway, or inquisitor has a demo team rigging up the hyperdrive of the crippled battle station, ready to die with the party in the name of the emperor, forcing the party to either kill him quickly or have one team hold him off.

What about the Guardian Signature Ability Tree: Fated Duel on page 35 of “Keeping the Peace”?

What about the Guardian Signature Ability Tree: Fated Duel on page 35 of “Keeping the Peace”?

It's good! And it does much cooler things as you build the ability up with various upgrades regarding the use of Destiny Points to reduce Critical results and such.