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 discussions sake, if wielding a lightsaber should lightsaber skill be allowed to increase the difficulty of incoming range attacks?

I dont see how giving a nemesis ranks in adversary is detrimental. Firstly it is meant to be generic way of giving them defense against the party while minimising the background work for the GM. The fact that it doesn't cost the NPC anything is neither here nor there , as they are fighting a party of opppnents, who need a 140 roll on a crit or double wound threshold to kill (whereas most NPCs are narratively toast at their own Wound Threshold). The whole idea of adversary is to give the opponent an appropriate difficulty to defeat for the group fighting it.

They are not supposed to be the bad equivalent of a PC who needs to track their wound and strain threshold encounter to encounter. PCs have access to a number of different defenses with a range of different costings. It also takes significantly longer to stat out a PC with the same equivalent xp to the Nemesis.

At the end of the day, the fact this NPC has their defensive costs hand waved shouldnt make any difference unless at the end of the encounter a PC has been significantly disdvantaged by, which if the GM did their job right shouldn't be the case. If the PC is in a bad way, it should be because the dice were against them or they made poor decisions, the NPC not paying 3 strain to apply a global defense shouldnt be one of the reasons why.

Edit - and one of the best defenses against melee or ranged isnt adversary but parry and reflect which do cost. (as an example take a look at the stats from either the adversary pack for hunters and force users or lords of nal hutta (page 65) for the Morgukai Adept, and compare it against a PC built to a similar specification using the Maurauder specialization , and you will find that they end up with +3 dmg (from feral strength) and 3 ranks of frenzied strike that the adept doesnt have.

I think I understand your desire to link difficulty with the target's skill, and your method seems logical and sensible. For me, though, I wouldn't use it just because I don't want to figure out variable difficulties for multiple combatants. If I have a fight with four PCs and half-a-dozen other combatants, all of whom might have different dice pools, I really don't want to work it out each time. I'd much rather roll against a flat 2 Difficulty. Perhaps the difference is only in my head, but it's there nonetheless.

Regarding the Adversary talent and Nemeses, my thoughts mirror Syrath's. A combat-focused Nemesis isn't meant to be a "fair fight" for a single PC, regardless of the combat style. I personally wouldn't allow wielding a lightsaber to increase the difficulty of incoming attacks outside of the narrative. Doing so would make talents like Reflect and its variants too powerful, in my opinion.

Whoops! Meant to post this last week when I originally saw this post but must have spaced it...

This topic comes up regularly. The TLDR from long time players is; There's nothing wrong with the vanilla Melee mechanics IF the GM understands and uses the tools he has at his disposal properly.

See recent thread for more:

The other thing to consider is that basing melee off of skill will quickly make melee fighters less useful, since they will not be hitting their opponents as quickly. It adds dramatically to the usefulness of ranged combat, which suffers from the same problem of offense advances quicker than defense. Why engage the Inquisitor in melee if my difficulty is going to be 3 red because he has 4 lightsaber? I can shoot him at short for 1 purple.

Skill-based defensive difficulty is a great idea, but this system isn't built for it. Instead we have the various talents the OP mentioned. Most of these cost Strain, again as the OP mentioned. What the OP did not mention are the various Strain management strategies that PCs can use to rapidly empty their Strain and stay in the fight (a high Presence Makashi Duelist with Intense Presence can Parry forever). Nemesis have Adversary which doesn't require Strain, but they also don't usually have the Strain recovery talents. Also, for those that haven't found a better way to recover Strain, there's the new fun of Ebb/Flow.

I look at the Adversary talent as a way to allow the NPC villain to compensate for having to fight multiple PC's at once. It gives them a chance to survive. If you want PC and NPC saber users to go one on one, then don't give them adversary, give it to them at a lesser value, or give them talents as you would a standard PC.

I don't want to keep up with the bookkeeping of all the assorted talents on a mass fight with badguys, but for a solo one on one duel, there's not rule saying you can't. Give them a few ranks of dodge and some parry and reflect.

Ranged Combat: range determines base difficulty

Melee Combat: always 2 purple for single weapon, 3 purple for dual.

Brawl combat: always 2 purple.

Why should lightsaber be different? It shouldn't.

The target's defense is the only thing that matters from the target besides Adversary.

(Why is starship combat different? Dunno - but with range based instead of size based, fighters get screwed.)

Note also, Adversary is fun to add to non-Nemesis units. Elite Stormtroopers? Give them Adversary 1, and they are suddenly much more survivable. Adversary 3, and they're bloody hard to kill.

See, the red die is worth an average of 0.75 Fails and 0.66 Threat, plus 0.08 Despair; purple is 0.50 Fails and 0.75 Threat... it's not a huge difference; you're almost always worse off if the GM gives you more purple than upping to reds. Still, It's better to up a green to yellow than to drop a red back to purple... (Yellow is 0.92 Success, 0.58 Adv, and 0.08 Triumph; Green is 0.63 Success, 0.63 Advantage)