I am running a Force and destiny game during the rebellion era, and I have a character that has a cortorsis staff that can be used to block lightsabers, but he is not a force user. How would he be able to parry the attacks of a lightsaber.

Mechanically, parry is only a FaD talent. Narratively, taking a guarded or defensive stance, defense on your weapon, etc add to the difficulty of the attack made against you and if it fails you can narratively describe it as you wish.

You can take force user specializations, you just cannot use the force talents unless you have a force rating of 1+. Parry and reflect I believe are not force talents but they do require a lightsaber.

A small addition: reflect is a force talent, while parry is not.

A small addition: reflect is a force talent, while parry is not.

Correct, and to further add to that, Parry can be used with both Melee and Lightsaber weapons.

And for any non force user wanting to be good at Parry Makashi Duelest is definitely the specialisation you want to pick up. You will have to spend 10xp on a Talent that you can't use, but after that you will get a huge selection of great talents to utilise for Melee combat.

Edit: you can even learn to use a Lightsaber, but only ever with Brawn.

And for any non force user wanting to be good at Parry Makashi Duelest is definitely the specialisation you want to pick up. You will have to spend 10xp on a Talent that you can't use, but after that you will get a huge selection of great talents to utilise for Melee combat.

Edit: you can even learn to use a Lightsaber, but only ever with Brawn.

For sn all around yes, but when talking about purely for Parry Makashi rules the roost.

thanks for the heads up I'll let my player know what to do.

I am running a Force and destiny game during the rebellion era, and I have a character that has a cortorsis staff that can be used to block lightsabers, but he is not a force user. How would he be able to parry the attacks of a lightsaber.

Guarded Stance and in particular the Defensive Stance talent would be how most PCs would "parry" a lightsaber. So is adding ranks of Defensive to one's weapon.

Don't get hung upon the word "parry" into thinking that you need that specific talent to "parry" an attack. Anytime the attacker fails to hit you with a Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber combat check, the end result can be described as having "parried" the attack without ever invoking the Parry talent. After all, there are arms swinging that lightsaber, and using your staff to push the incoming blow aside (narrative description of the opponent failing to succeed on the combat check) counts as a "parry" of the attack.

Same holds true for "parrying" a Brawl or Melee attack with a lightsaber; doing so doesn't mean that the attacker's weapon (or fist if unarmed) was literally halted by the lightsaber. Instead it can mean that the attacker pulled back at the last second rather than risk getting tagged by an energy blade that's known to cleave through most personal scale items and beings with alarming ease.