I've been lurking in this forum for a while now, lapping up everyone's advice and ideas. My first campaign as a GM is 6 sessions in a doing pretty well. My only problem so far is trying to make Brawl work.

The party have managed to get into a couple of bar fights and fist fights with mainly minions and rivals. My problem is that even the squishy characters are able to easily soak most Brawl damage (3 or 4 damage is easily soaked by the party's face who only has 3 Soak). I don't want to kill my players in a bar fight, but I would like them to at least take some bruises.

So far I have handled it by allowing Stun Damage inflicted with Brawl attacks to negate Soak but I don't feel like this is the best solution. Has anyone else come up with a better way to deal with Brawling?

Have the enemy have brawl weapons. Brass knuckles can go a long way. Also remember that extra success increase the dmg by one per success. So give boost dice to the NPCs when the PCs turn their back on an enemy. Now, don't overuse this as it will make players very frustrated if you do it every round, but it will teach them to be careful with how they narrate.

Don't forget about improvisational melee weapons either. A large one like a shovel or a pool cue would do +3 damage.

Use opponents that are beefier. 3 or 4 damage means a 2 Brawn with only a couple succesesses. Those are sissy pants fighters. Group minions, use Rivals with some muscles. Trigger Knockdowns and Disorients.

As the pirate said: minions. Even a group of five average bar patrons with the Brawl skill get a dice pool of YYYG, which should be plenty to get through 3 or 4 soak. Toss in a rival or two with YYYG themselves (3 Brawn and 4 ranks, or 4 Brawn and 3 ranks) sporting knuckle dusters or even just a chair, and you're good. And don't forget to Aim. Even minions can Aim, if they don't use their maneuver to move.

Just trying to be a problem solver without ever being a GM so just take my advice with a grain of salt.

When I visualize a fight in this situation, I'm not striking where I see "armor". I'm going to strike vulnerable areas (I.e. face, groin, exposed limbs, etc...). So maybe taking armor out of the soak value will help. Just a thought.

It's not clear from the OP, but are the characters wearing armour? If so, nobody is going to start a fight unless they mean business, and they won't be Brawling. If you want a real bar fight, make the characters leave their weapons and exoskeletons in the hotel room...or in the locker at the top of the stairs ala Serenity.

Pretty much repeating what the others here have, said, but hopefully the fact that it's being said so much will help!

Your PCs should really have a soak of any higher than 1 + Brawn, meaning their wearing basic protection like heavy clothes or something. No random bar patron is going to pick on the guy wearing full heavy body armor and carrying a blaster rifle with his fists.

Also, even an average patron should be doing a minimum of 3 damage - 2 for their Brawn, 1 for the success they rolled when they hit. A minion group of a couple of pub-crawlers should be able to get two or three successes just from the base dice pool they roll with good regularity, meaning a damage range of 4 to 5. Sure, it's not going to be a one-hit knockout, but it doesn't have to be!

Also, remember boosts! Minions can aim for a Boost; in a bar things are usually pretty tight, with tables and chairs and the, you know, bar , so maybe give all attackers a Boost because the tight quarters make it hard to dodge. If an attack hits but doesn't deal damage because of soak, use two Advantage to activate Knockdown, and now you get another Boost because the character's on the floor and you can kick him! Another thing you can do if the attack misses is use Advantage to give that Minion group a Boost for next attack (maybe because they surrounded the poor PC).

With a dice pool of PP A BBBB on their second attack, you can be sure that that minion group is going to be putting some serious hurt on the PC if nothing else intervenes!

But also, you need to remember - a bar scuffle isn't usually supposed to knock the PCs out. It's supposed to show how tough they are that they were outnumbered three-to-one and they were only a little bloodied up!

I agree with the above regarding minion groups and boost dice. An average bar brawler probably has Brawn 3. Add a couple successes and he's taking damage. Now if its a "friendly" bar brawl, don't forget that Brawl can do stun damage at the attacker's choice. Most bar brawlers aren't aiming for a murder charge.

And if you get a triumph, trigger a critical. Knock those teeth out!

I think armor will still work in a brawl. In general, the system assumes that one will attempt to avoid or circumvent the armor. One of the quirks of role playing is that gear is on a character sheet and assumed to always be on, or always carried. It's been mentioned in other threads, most places in Star Wars, particularly Outer Rim worlds, don't bat an eye at someone wearing a pistol holster, but walking around with a rifle (or bigger weapon) will cause suspicion. Did the scene involve social encounters before the fight broke out? Unless the face was going for "intimidating" the other players hanging around in armor could easily throw setbacks into trying to gain the other guy's trust. That's also a good time to flip some destiny points to upgrade dice.

I try to talk to the players about situations where I don't think they'd be carrying their full gear list. As part of this, I also try to include encounters where they are either required to check their weapons, or leave their armor off, let them worry about it through the scene, and then nothing bad happens. If you throw in a fight every time they go somewhere unarmed or unarmored, they'll do everything they can to "stay prepared."

I am just about to GM my first Edge of the Empire campaign, and the PCs will be starting in a bar, so the ideas here will be really helpful. Thanks.

Thanks for the input. Sorry for taking so long to come back to my own thread I took a lot of the advice offered here on board and the next brawl turned out to be much more "entertaining". Rivals made much more effective brawlers. As new GM I wasn't fully up on the way triggering qualities such as knockdown and disorient. Equpped with that knowledge, the next brawl was very educational for me and the players. Rivals teaming up started putting players on the floor and beating them. This gave the players a practical lesson in how to use qualities. After they took a couple of knocks they wised up and started working together making good use of knockdowns and improvised weapons. Good times were had by all (except the cantina owner).

On the subtopic that emerged here, I rule that PCs don't wear armour while hanging out in cantinas or while in between jobs. it looks pretty sketchy to walk down the street in full combat armour with a blaster rifle in your hands. I go by different planets have different laws or rules on carrying weapons and being geared up for a fight. Most frontier type worlds wont bat an eyelid at someone in full battle armour with a blaster rifle, whereas more on more civilised worlds blasters and weapons are more strictly regulated.

On the subtopic that emerged here, I rule that PCs don't wear armour while hanging out in cantinas or while in between jobs. it looks pretty sketchy to walk down the street in full combat armour with a blaster rifle in your hands.

This is why Armored Clothing and Catch Vests are so popular. They’re not likely to draw much attention, but they do provide a decent amount of protection. Maybe not as good as Heavy Battle Armor, but against Blasters a Catch Vest is actually every bit as good as Laminate Armor (both have Soak 2, but no added Defense).

I go by different planets have different laws or rules on carrying weapons and being geared up for a fight. Most frontier type worlds wont bat an eyelid at someone in full battle armour with a blaster rifle, whereas more on more civilised worlds blasters and weapons are more strictly regulated.

Absolutely. The “fringier” parts of town in the Outer Rim are going to have totally different rules than a nice establishment on Coruscant.