Going into this exercise, I understand that there may be no readily available answer to this question.

And yeah, I'm still a novice at this game, but we recently ran into my first melee fight (I was undarmed and the opfor was armed).

So I was surprised that the opposed roll was just 2 purple (Average), because I assumed in reading the rules that these checks would be opposed skill rolls.

Any thoughts?

An opposed check for that would be constantly far more difficult than just shooting someone, so it creates imbalance.

It would also bog down combat because one PCs dice pool will vary from the next and then in turn become even more different when compared with various adversaries.

Yes, it was intentional. The game favours offence over defense to keep things moving. Otherwise the game can bog down and become static. That said, there are lots of talents, equipment, and tactics available to boost your defense: gaining cover; having armour with a defensive quality; the Dodge talent; the Sense Commit upgrade; etc. NPCs have access to a generic talent called "Adversary" which upgrades any incoming attacks by the Adversary amount.

So on the surface it seems odd, but it works well mechanically.

I believe, initially, Melee checks were in fact opposed. However, they soon realized that this exacerbated the already large gap between melee and ranged combat, making Ranged far superior.

Now, while this is realistic, it's not especially fun to play, nor fitting with the setting as presented, so I can understand why they decided to do away with it.

Also in case you haven't' seen it yet, the Parry talent allows you to take some strain and reduce damage. It appears in FaD, but is not a force talent, so anyone can use it, and the tree it appears in most actaully has only a few, mostly avoidable, force talents so if you really want to go melee heavy, but not force heavy, you can do it and only have to "waste" a few XP.

Going into this exercise, I understand that there may be no readily available answer to this question.

And yeah, I'm still a novice at this game, but we recently ran into my first melee fight (I was undarmed and the opfor was armed).

So I was surprised that the opposed roll was just 2 purple (Average), because I assumed in reading the rules that these checks would be opposed skill rolls.

Any thoughts?

Basically because we have counter-strikes as talents, massive defensive talents via parry, dodge and defensive stance, plus a huge defensive bonus talent and several smaller ones on top. The whole idea is that you negate hits with your parry talent and not just counter your opponent with just your swordsmanship. It simply is a system which aligns better with the talent based core-mechanics of the game. The damage of the weapons, especially of the melee weapons is very high anyway, so a few "he hits, I parry, I hit, he parries" - series are fine and align as well nicely with the strain system.

I have plenty of systems which used opposed rolls for melee combat too, which works usually great and is a solid choice and brings on to some realism as fencing is all about those parry-repost series and dealing with the whole attack, counter-attack, counter-counter-attack, … etc series is indeed a solid and quick way to deal with melee.

Plus that increases the value of the stat & skill. There's plenty of systems where Agility is both used for ranged attacks and ranged defence- the end result is it becomes a god stat. Making Brawn a defensive stat against melee would make it even more important. Not a god stat, but still...

Do a little thought experiment on your own. If you are not a melee/ brawl character to begin with (based on your OP), we can make the following assumptions:

1) Your Brawn is probably 2 or less

2) You have little to no ranks in Brawl/ melee

Experiment 1: Your character

Based on your description, I am going to assume the following, that you have a Brawn of 2 and a no melee or Brawl skill. This would mean that your opponent would be rolling vs an opposed pool of 2P anyhow.

Experiment 2: Maruader

We will assume a starting Marauder with a 3 STR and 2 Melee vs a similarly statted NPC. They would each be rolling YYG vs RRP which would be very long drawn out combat and not really be suitable for a melee monster. Even against a Storm Trooper Minion group they would be rolling against a 3 Brawn + Melee skill of group size -1. My minion groups usually start at 4 to 6 strong.

With a 4 strong group, the marauder would be a YYG vs RRR or more, which is unlikely to result in a minion death while they would be rolling a minimum of YYY vs RRP which is likely to whittle him down bit by bit

Not very heroic the Big Bad Human sword fighter being taken down by 4 Stormtroopers

Infact, the roll being opposed penalizes non-combat characters much more than it would reward melee combat monsters.

Defensive Stance allows you to upgrade all incoming melee checks until your next turn. Dodge is an incidental the target of an attack can use to upgrade the attack. Parry is an incidental you can use to reduce damage.

So, in a way, melee attacks are opposed, you just have to actually activate the abilities that oppose them.

I agree with pirate; it would severely slow down combat. The standardised difficulty works well enough though. There are plenty of talents out there that allow players and GMs to make tactical changes to the static difficulty.

I home rule grappling as an opposed check. If successful no damage is done, but the grappled character is restrained; they can't take any actions except to attempt to reverse or release the grapple or make a Brawl attack (with the difficulty upgraded to represent how they are being restrained) in an attempt to get some punches in while they are held down. The grappler can also make easier brawl checks to Choke out or pummel the grappled character in their hands. The situation actually leads to all kinds of fun stuff too; people shooting into two characters grappling have their difficulty upgraded, with despair/lots of disadvantage meaning they shoot the character they didn't want to shoot. Gives Brawlers some more fun things to do in a fight if they want to get up close.

I agree with pirate; it would severely slow down combat. The standardised difficulty works well enough though. There are plenty of talents out there that allow players and GMs to make tactical changes to the static difficulty.

I home rule grappling as an opposed check. If successful no damage is done, but the grappled character is restrained; they can't take any actions except to attempt to reverse or release the grapple or make a Brawl attack (with the difficulty upgraded to represent how they are being restrained) in an attempt to get some punches in while they are held down. The grappler can also make easier brawl checks to Choke out or pummel the grappled character in their hands. The situation actually leads to all kinds of fun stuff too; people shooting into two characters grappling have their difficulty upgraded, with despair/lots of disadvantage meaning they shoot the character they didn't want to shoot. Gives Brawlers some more fun things to do in a fight if they want to get up close.

Grapple is covered by use of advantages in combat. I woild suggest listening to the martial arts skill monkey episode. Why re-invent the wheel. Brawl using strain dmg and advantages fornthe narrative results of grappling works very well.

As everyone is saying: there are talents to make incoming melee/brawl checks harder. I understand that, at face value, this might not be a satisfying answer, so I'll use my procrastination time to try to spin it from a different perspective.

There are some areas of the game where skill only implies general competence. A big one that comes up frequently is piloting, because it's the most obvious mechanically - someone with a high piloting skill will be good at keeping their ship safe when flying through dangerous terrain (when Piloting rolls generally come up), because they are adept at moving their vessel well and at great speeds. But someone with a high piloting skill isn't necessarily a good dogfighter... they're just pretty good at maneuvering their ship. It's a common complaint of the space combat rules - piloting doesn't seem to be important or useful. However, to be a great dogfighter, you need to be a real pilot, not just someone with a few skill ranks; in short, you need to be someone with the Pilot/Starfighter Ace/Hotshot Specs, someone for whom dancing ships through combat is their lifeblood. This gap in "general skill behind the controls" and "great at dogfights" is made of talents - Punch It, Koiogran Turn, Correllian Sendoff, etc.

In the same way, consider this: your Brawl skill is your ability to throw a solid hit / your Melee skill is your general familiarity with how to cause damage with a particular weapon. Someone with a high Brawn can muscle their way through a powerful blow; someone with a good Brawl/Melee might know proper technique, be skilled at looking for an opening, or have knowledge of the right places to target to cause damage. This is the difference between, say, trying to throw your fist at someone's face as hard as you can and having proper punching technique coupled with knowing where to find the solar plexus, or knowing that groin muscles are thin and the pelvis is not strong from a top-to-bottom direction, and thus can be shattered by a decently placed blow. In that way, someone with ranks in those combat skills (even, sometimes, lower Brawn characters) are better at offense. That said, knowing those things doesn't make you a martial artist necessarily - it might just mean you know a guy who told you how to hurt people, or you've just figured out how to throw a good punch. A Joe Schmo with a high Brawl is an experienced street fighter: "tough", able to give a hit as good as they take. A martial artist knows how to avoid hits. They have talents - special skills/techniques/abilities that set them apart from people who aren't well-trained fighters. They have Dodge, Defensive Stance, Parry, and similar talents. They focus on the entire discipline of close quarters combat, not just how to hurt someone. So it is, in this game, that a high Brawl skill doesn't make you a martial artist/well-trained fighter/experienced combatant; in that way, you need more than basic knowledge of how to hurt someone to avoid getting hurt yourself.

It's harder to spot other places, but it's all over the game. A high Medicine skill doesn't necessarily make you a doctor or a medic... just a dude who knows a thing or two about how to patch people up. Having a high Leadership doesn't make you a battlefield commander, just a lady who is good at motivating people. It seems like the game differentiates (at least in some cases) between people who are good at a specific task and people who have the whole skillset. A Skill represents your ability to do that task, and it can be picked up by anyone - an accountant can learn first aid, a journalist can be good at getting people to work together, a yoga instructor can take piloting lessons - but the Specializations and Talents that a character can pick up define areas of expertise. In this case, the ability to leverage strength, talent, and knowledge to cause damage to someone is a specific task (and, as a martial artist in real life, I can say that it's probably the easiest subset of fighting knowledge to pick up and utilize in a pinch), but to actually avoid damage requires more than some basic knowledge of fighting - it requires expertise .

At least, that's my thought....

Plus, like everyone else has said, it's just so much simpler .

This system makes a very important assumption: everyone is trying their best all the time.

So example time:

There is a reason a manoeuvre is required to Disengage an opponent but not a friendly character. That manoeuvre is the representation of the effort and time you need to commit to getting away from a hostile being, without exerting yourself (suffering Strain, something Minions simply can't do) it takes you an entire turn if you want to act as well.

The person who is an EXPERT at grappling, the pro wrestler so to speak, has a special Talent called Grapple. It currently appears only in the Warden Specialisation from Keeping the Peace. For one manoeuvre you can force all Engaged opponents to require 2 manoeuvres to Disengage.

There are many of these examples right throughout the system, from pilots being harder to shoot down, heavies hitting harder with big guns, to scholars simply finding information faster than others. Talents are what distinguishes an expert from a master, it's the last 5% that makes them always come out on top.

In the case of Melee everyone is always doing their best to dodge, just as they are when being shot at... but some are simply masters of defensive combat, they stand head and shoulders above the rest. They use their Advantage and Triumph to gain the upper hand, their opponents Threat and Despair to find a weakness in their defence. They have ranks in Dodge, Defensive Stance, Parry, Supreme Parry, perhaps Sense, and even Defensive Training or a defensive weapon. Improved Parry and Counter Strike are the ways they retaliate harder than anyone else.

The way I see it is that cinematic martial arts actually has it roots in cultural martial arts. Martial arts themselves are broken down to three basic styles cultural (karate/ aikido / kung fu etc) sport or competitive (tae kwon do, kick boxing etc) and finally you have combative martial arts (probably the best example that is commonly known is krav maga). It is the latter of these that are the most effective in life or death combat. Even competition martial arts are geared round safety and protecting the fighters from serious harm.

Krav maga and the modern day combatives which were predominantly developed from the Shanghai Municipal Police training from the early 1900s set the ground work for the combative training. There is a good reason for this , as in life or death situations the heart rate you are fighting at stops you from being able to use complex muscle movements used in cultural or competitive martial arts, however this is not cinematic in the Star Wars sense. If you want realism go study up modern or world war II combatives as they are the only proven hand to hand techniques that work in life or death aituations, that are trained to special forces around the world, used for millenia, however formalised by the Shanghai Municipal Police.

Star Wars and cinematic Martial Arts however look good on screen and the brawl skill helps cover this. There is always the age old conversation that is based on the agile martial artist vs the strong martial artist. What you have to remember is tha Brawn isnt just strength but is also constitution and fitness. You can argue that you need as much agility to swing a two handed sword accurately as it does a punch, perhaps even more so. As such you can approximate brawn to strength and fitness and your brawl skill and talents to your accuracy and training, Jet Li / Donnie Yen etc did not become what they are by being agile, they did so by being fit and well trained. This equates directly to Brawn and skill ranks.

Imagine any cinematic martial artist, they can be improved by being fitter/stronger or they can improve by being better trained. The style , whether it is cultural / competitive or combative doesn't matter only their strength /fitness / and training do. Even in styles like Aikido strength and fitness will make you better at using your trained techniques.

Anyway rant over

The way I see it is that cinematic martial arts actually has it roots in cultural martial arts. Martial arts themselves are broken down to three basic styles cultural (karate/ aikido / kung fu etc) sport or competitive (tae kwon do, kick boxing etc) and finally you have combative martial arts (probably the best example that is commonly known is krav maga). It is the latter of these that are the most effective in life or death combat. Even competition martial arts are geared round safety and protecting the fighters from serious harm.

Krav maga and the modern day combatives which were predominantly developed from the Shanghai Municipal Police training from the early 1900s set the ground work for the combative training. There is a good reason for this , as in life or death situations the heart rate you are fighting at stops you from being able to use complex muscle movements used in cultural or competitive martial arts, however this is not cinematic in the Star Wars sense. If you want realism go study up modern or world war II combatives as they are the only proven hand to hand techniques that work in life or death aituations, that are trained to special forces around the world, used for millenia, however formalised by the Shanghai Municipal Police.

Star Wars and cinematic Martial Arts however look good on screen and the brawl skill helps cover this. There is always the age old conversation that is based on the agile martial artist vs the strong martial artist. What you have to remember is tha Brawn isnt just strength but is also constitution and fitness. You can argue that you need as much agility to swing a two handed sword accurately as it does a punch, perhaps even more so. As such you can approximate brawn to strength and fitness and your brawl skill and talents to your accuracy and training, Jet Li / Donnie Yen etc did not become what they are by being agile, they did so by being fit and well trained. This equates directly to Brawn and skill ranks.

Imagine any cinematic martial artist, they can be improved by being fitter/stronger or they can improve by being better trained. The style , whether it is cultural / competitive or combative doesn't matter only their strength /fitness / and training do. Even in styles like Aikido strength and fitness will make you better at using your trained techniques.

Anyway rant over

The way I see it is that cinematic martial arts actually has it roots in cultural martial arts. Martial arts themselves are broken down to three basic styles cultural (karate/ aikido / kung fu etc) sport or competitive (tae kwon do, kick boxing etc) and finally you have combative martial arts (probably the best example that is commonly known is krav maga). It is the latter of these that are the most effective in life or death combat. Even competition martial arts are geared round safety and protecting the fighters from serious harm.

Krav maga and the modern day combatives which were predominantly developed from the Shanghai Municipal Police training from the early 1900s set the ground work for the combative training. There is a good reason for this , as in life or death situations the heart rate you are fighting at stops you from being able to use complex muscle movements used in cultural or competitive martial arts, however this is not cinematic in the Star Wars sense. If you want realism go study up modern or world war II combatives as they are the only proven hand to hand techniques that work in life or death aituations, that are trained to special forces around the world, used for millenia, however formalised by the Shanghai Municipal Police.

Star Wars and cinematic Martial Arts however look good on screen and the brawl skill helps cover this. There is always the age old conversation that is based on the agile martial artist vs the strong martial artist. What you have to remember is tha Brawn isnt just strength but is also constitution and fitness. You can argue that you need as much agility to swing a two handed sword accurately as it does a punch, perhaps even more so. As such you can approximate brawn to strength and fitness and your brawl skill and talents to your accuracy and training, Jet Li / Donnie Yen etc did not become what they are by being agile, they did so by being fit and well trained. This equates directly to Brawn and skill ranks.

Imagine any cinematic martial artist, they can be improved by being fitter/stronger or they can improve by being better trained. The style , whether it is cultural / competitive or combative doesn't matter only their strength /fitness / and training do. Even in styles like Aikido strength and fitness will make you better at using your trained techniques.

Anyway rant over

Well, I'd like to insert a small protestation that the karate I've trained in, while a "cultural" style, is quite combative and has already served more than once to help me out of a bind and, in a more general sense, an urge to differentiate between "stylized" cultural martial arts and "traditional" cultural martial arts - one being fluffy, ritual based complexity and the other being a crisp collection of concepts that can be pointed to and explained.... but that feels like it would probably derail the topic.

At any rate, the point isn't whether Brawn or Agility is more important for a martial artist, or even what martial arts are effective in real sitations; the point is why Melee and Brawl attacks aren't opposed by the opponent's skill at fighting, thus my hypothesis that Skill and Talents combine into an overall combat system and that Skill alone isn't going to do much for defense.

As to RichardBuxton's thought (forgot to multiquote, drat), I have to say it seems like a good response to the OP, so I'll lend what weight I can to agreeing with it: everyone is doing their best. Without special training in defending oneself (available in the form of talents), the rank average "best" is Average difficulty. I'm sure there's granularity in there somewhere, but it's at a smaller level than the difficulty scale of Simple/Easy/Average/Hard/Formidable that we see in the system and, like a lot of important but grainy details, is smoothed out by the system.

I think the primary issue is that the combat system is designed to be progressive generally; you don't want characters locked in a duel for 10+ rounds generally speaking, having melee be apposed checks would draw out the combat to silly lengths.

To me, while skill ranks offer the most efficient understanding, it is actually the talent ranks, dodge, defensive stance and the like that reflects a broader understanding. Indenia Jones knows how to throw a punch but I wouldn't say he was especially good at taking them, he's just naturally tough.

Basically

Attributes reflect natural affinity

Skills reflect training

Talents reflect hard experience.

My PC for example uses Atuari striker, but had previously gone through assassin which meant that he already had a broad awareness of how to deal with assailants; he knew the anatomy of most species, how to inflict damage (lethal blows) and deflect attacks (dodge). Thus reflects a more practical, direct style then a fresh padawan/knight who picked up the form another tree.

The way I see it is that cinematic martial arts actually has it roots in cultural martial arts. Martial arts themselves are broken down to three basic styles cultural (karate/ aikido / kung fu etc) sport or competitive (tae kwon do, kick boxing etc) and finally you have combative martial arts (probably the best example that is commonly known is krav maga). It is the latter of these that are the most effective in life or death combat. Even competition martial arts are geared round safety and protecting the fighters from serious harm.

Krav maga and the modern day combatives which were predominantly developed from the Shanghai Municipal Police training from the early 1900s set the ground work for the combative training. There is a good reason for this , as in life or death situations the heart rate you are fighting at stops you from being able to use complex muscle movements used in cultural or competitive martial arts, however this is not cinematic in the Star Wars sense. If you want realism go study up modern or world war II combatives as they are the only proven hand to hand techniques that work in life or death aituations, that are trained to special forces around the world, used for millenia, however formalised by the Shanghai Municipal Police.

Star Wars and cinematic Martial Arts however look good on screen and the brawl skill helps cover this. There is always the age old conversation that is based on the agile martial artist vs the strong martial artist. What you have to remember is tha Brawn isnt just strength but is also constitution and fitness. You can argue that you need as much agility to swing a two handed sword accurately as it does a punch, perhaps even more so. As such you can approximate brawn to strength and fitness and your brawl skill and talents to your accuracy and training, Jet Li / Donnie Yen etc did not become what they are by being agile, they did so by being fit and well trained. This equates directly to Brawn and skill ranks.

Imagine any cinematic martial artist, they can be improved by being fitter/stronger or they can improve by being better trained. The style , whether it is cultural / competitive or combative doesn't matter only their strength /fitness / and training do. Even in styles like Aikido strength and fitness will make you better at using your trained techniques.

Anyway rant over

Well, I'd like to insert a small protestation that the karate I've trained in, while a "cultural" style, is quite combative and has already served more than once to help me out of a bind and, in a more general sense, an urge to differentiate between "stylized" cultural martial arts and "traditional" cultural martial arts - one being fluffy, ritual based complexity and the other being a crisp collection of concepts that can be pointed to and explained.... but that feels like it would probably derail the topic.

At any rate, the point isn't whether Brawn or Agility is more important for a martial artist, or even what martial arts are effective in real sitations; the point is why Melee and Brawl attacks aren't opposed by the opponent's skill at fighting, thus my hypothesis that Skill and Talents combine into an overall combat system and that Skill alone isn't going to do much for defense.

As to RichardBuxton's thought (forgot to multiquote, drat), I have to say it seems like a good response to the OP, so I'll lend what weight I can to agreeing with it: everyone is doing their best. Without special training in defending oneself (available in the form of talents), the rank average "best" is Average difficulty. I'm sure there's granularity in there somewhere, but it's at a smaller level than the difficulty scale of Simple/Easy/Average/Hard/Formidable that we see in the system and, like a lot of important but grainy details, is smoothed out by the system.

Thank you everyone!

I really appreciate your insights.

I don't have time right now to "like" all your posts, but please understand that I really like all your posts.

Yes you guessed correctly, that the character I play has a default Brawn of 2 and 0 skill ranks in either Brawling or Melee weapons. I haven't had a need to study the melee rules in depth and because I can usually deal with all of my threats with a Heavy Blaster Pistol, I have little motivation or desire to invest in Brawling or Melee.

I have a little experience with other melee systems and so I am familiar with the overly simplified systems like the "Thaco chop, roll damage" type systems and I've played with GUPRS which DOES involve lots of lengthy fights with very few hits among the super skilled combatants.

And yes, believe me when I tell you that I'm using every defensive posture or capability possible in SW-RPG. It's one of the very good reasons, I walk away from most fights unscathed.

eg:

GM: "Wait, Mark. You're character is defensive, behind cover, and cowering like a sissy?"

Mark: "Yes! And I'm prone now. That's three black die! Can I get a fourth black die for cowering like a sissy?"

GM: [scowel] "NO! Billy bob. You're character is in the open so the storm trooper shoots at you."

[Edit note: The last two lines didn't save the first time through.]

also, remeber that you are not locked in combat and do not take attacks of opprotunity when leaving. So if the bad guy engages you in H2H, you can simply suffer the attack then happily walk away on your next attack and shoot them.

also, remeber that you are not locked in combat and do not take attacks of opprotunity when leaving. So if the bad guy engages you in H2H, you can simply suffer the attack then happily walk away on your next attack and shoot them.

Still takes a maneuver to engage or disengage, which is separate from actually moving in a significant way which would take another maneuver.

also, remeber that you are not locked in combat and do not take attacks of opprotunity when leaving. So if the bad guy engages you in H2H, you can simply suffer the attack then happily walk away on your next attack and shoot them.

Still takes a maneuver to engage or disengage, which is separate from actually moving in a significant way which would take another maneuver.

The talent which makes all maneuvers cost extra strain is super good as well. What was it, crippling blows or something?