So this post doesn't pertain to lightsaber combat alone but rather the mechanics of an engaged check as a whole.

I've been DMing using the Star Wars Roleplaying games since Edge of the Empire first came out. Most of the time because melee took largely a back seat to the action going on around and unless built properly (my best friend built a wookie with 24 WT 18 ST and a soak of 8 w/ armor that could obliterate everything.) it was not generally as useful as being able to fight at range so the problem I've been having went largely undetected. Now that I've been running with Force and Destiny for the last 2 years some glaring issues have arisen with the way difficulty is handled. Namely on the PC side of things. The difficulty is always 2P by default and never reflects character skill or ability. I do acknowledge that yes, there are a number of talents that allow one to add setback dice (Defensive Training) or upgrade the check while suffering strain (Dodge, Defensive Stance, and Side Step), and there are a number of talents that allow you to negate damage a la Parry and Reflect. In my opinion I feel that a large expenditure of experience points has to go into these talents to get the most use out of them (barring parry and reflect unless you want to counter attack), and when approaching a battle with knight-level+ enemies they are largely rendered useless (except for parry and reflect) by the fact that the enemy is rolling far more dice than you can counter with upgrades, so you use them just to hope for despairs and threat rather than actually stopping the attack.

For example: NPC has lightsaber 4, and characteristic 5. PC has lightsaber 4 characteristic 5 as well. On paper this seems fine at first until you add in the Adversary trait which allows the NPC to upgrade the check directed at him for free, meanwhile the player has to suffer strain to gain the same effect, and then further spends strain to negate damage if the attack goes through, leading to a large expenditure of resources to keep going while the NPC can quite contemptuously bat the player around spending strain on extra maneuvers and upgrading his attack rather than having to use it defensively.

Has anyone else had an issue like this pertaining to melee combats or am I the only one? If so, what have you done to try and patch it with house rules?

I am thinking about having the player's skill with whatever weapon he is wielding allow him to upgrade the check a number of times equal to his ranks in said skill. For example: If wielding a vibrosword with 2 ranks in melee he would upgrade incoming melee check difficulties by 2 to reflect his training and ability with a blade. The same player has lightsaber 4 but does not benefit from this since he is wielding a vibrosword. Brawl is also included as part of this discussion making it a highly defensive skill. Minions won't benefit from this set of rules, and NPCs with the Adversary Talent will use which ever is higher for engaged checks. Thoughts? Also for discussion sake, if wielding a lightsaber should lightsaber skill be allowed to increase the difficulty of incoming range attacks?

Problem with using the target's skill to set the difficulty of a Melee, Brawl, or Lightsaber check is that it become exponentially more difficult to hit a target that's a skilled fighter, which in turn makes combats between melee combatants drag out, which in turn makes the game session drag.

Combat in this game is meant to be dangerous (dying is incredibly difficult for PCs and Nemeses due to needing a really high critical injury result, but being pushed over your wound threshold isn't that difficult) and fairly fast-paced, much like we see with combats in the films, especially since SWFFG combat rounds aren't meant to be the handful of seconds that the majority of other RPGs default to; with the general average length of a combat round being held as about roughly one minute of in-game time. Thus, a combat check isn't one attack, but is indeed a number of attacks, with the dice roll representing the total sum of the attacker's efforts.

The PCs, especially in a FaD game, have access to various talents to make themselves more difficult to hit, be it Defensive Training to boost their melee defense to Defensive Stance and Dodge to upgrade the difficulty of such attacks. There's also the Sense power, which for 40 XP enables a PC to upgrade the difficulty of any two attacks made against them twice; in a lightsaber duel (which tend to be one-on-one affairs), upgrading your foe's combat difficulty twice isn't something to be overlooked, especially if you can stake it with other defensive talents like the ones I just mentioned.

Also, having 5 ranks in a characteristic is a BIG DEAL. It means the character in question is at the near-pinnacle of what can be accomplished with that trait, and so shouldn't be showing up on a routine basis.