The rules indicate that:

"Any time a character wishes to distract an opponent through guile -- even within the context of a physical confrontation -- he may make use of Deception"

Understand Deception can even be used in combat situation, especially melee I guess. However, I have not seen any good examples or guidance from the book how this can be managed mechanically, where all factors in combat taken into account, plus Deception in addition.

If any of you have some good "best practices" I would appreciate any suggestions.

Had a PC in a prior campaign that used Deception in combat on a fairly regular basis to upgrade the ability of the next combat check made that targeted the affected NPC, essentially distracting the NPC so that the PC (or more often somebody else) would have an easier time getting past their defenses. Advantages were used to give setback dice to the attacker's own combat checks (distracted and/or enraged ala classic Spider-Man banter), while threats could be used to inflict strain on the PC or give the NPC boost dice on combat checks targeting the PC.

An example: Pick up a piece of debris and throw it at an enemy in cover while making a Deception check. If you succeed, that enemy believes you threw a grenade and jumps aside, stepping out from behind cover. With additional successes you can affect additional enemies at engaged range, and with Advantage you can extend the range.

The only thing to keep in mind when using non-combat skills in this fashion is that you not make them more powerful than existing talents that do more or less the same thing. Like using Coercion in combat to infllict strain on opponents should never be more effective than Scathing Tirade, for example.

Also bear in mind that any time you use a skill it is an action, so you can't do that and shoot, for example.

I would certainly allow somebody to use deception or coercion to add a black to an apponents roll or a blue to an ally. Deception can be as simple as a "Oh My God, there's a Rancor sneaking up behind you" or much more convoluted. Usually unless you have a talent, it does take an action, which helps keep the skill use from stepping on the toes of most talents, which can be done as maneuvers. I doubt I'd let them infict strain, as that would step on Scathing Tirade, which is an action (unless you have the improved version.) You'd also want to take a look at the distracting behavior and disarming smile talents which can produce similar effects.

2 minutes ago, Split Light said:

I would certainly allow somebody to use deception or coercion to add a black to an apponents roll or a blue to an ally. Deception can be as simple as a "Oh My God, there's a Rancor sneaking up behind you" or much more convoluted. Usually unless you have a talent, it does take an action, which helps keep the skill use from stepping on the toes of most talents, which can be done as maneuvers. I doubt I'd let them infict strain, as that would step on Scathing Tirade, which is an action (unless you have the improved version.) You'd also want to take a look at the distracting behavior and disarming smile talents which can produce similar effects.

The leftmost Control upgrade on Influence adds successes to your social checks, so that would make this a very good strategy for some Force-user PCs, too (and it would inflict Strain, I think, per the basic power).

29 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

The leftmost Control upgrade on Influence adds successes to your social checks, so that would make this a very good strategy for some Force-user PCs, too (and it would inflict Strain, I think, per the basic power).

You would not be able to combine it with basic power; that is a discrete use of the Influence Power.

7 minutes ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

You would not be able to combine it with basic power; that is a discrete use of the Influence Power.

Ah, gotcha. That's always confused me now Control upgrades aren't always upgrades so much as discrete powers.

Ive got a player in my campaign making liberal use of deception in combat, has no combat skills to speak of, but did manage to lash a make shift table (that was originally planned for setting up an impromptu bar) to the ankle of a Nexu, hilarity ensued especially as I had said that movement caused it strain after that pa rt and it killed itself chasing a player.

Although Skill Monkey is using an escape as the example, this episode give some great ideas on how to use alternate skills during an encounter.

http://www.madadventurers.com/skill-monkey-run-away/

3 hours ago, SavageBob said:

Ah, gotcha. That's always confused me now Control upgrades aren't always upgrades so much as discrete powers.

It depends upon the Control upgrade. For instance, the Bind movement upgrade is added to the base Bind power, it doesn't replace it. This was clarified by Sam Stewart.

Thanks for the ideas...

Many of above assumes that in combat I roll Deception instead of combat skill (Melee for example) in my turn, then give Boost / Setback dice to others. However, this can by done simply by attacking (using advantages/threats of the Melee roll), and I also have the chance to hit the opponent, other than giving Boost / Setback dice. This only has advantage if I am crap at combat but have much better deception.

I am focusing more on those cases where I have decent combat skill and Deception comparable to that, so simply replacing the skill does not give any advantage. For example, when dueling with a sword (Melee), one can go and attack straight (has decent Melee but no Deception), while the other one (having similar Melee skill and Deception as well) can use tricks to attack: throwing / kicking sand on the opponent, initiate fake attacks then surprise slash from another direction, etc. How would you handle these situations? My guess, it can be similar to aim maneuver: It gives flat benefit of 1 boost die. In case of combat tricks, one would spend the same maneuver, and some benefit based on Deception skill..., but question what would be appropriate.

Of course, agree that it should give less benefits than any talent of the relevant field, however more than simply using the aim maneuver, which anyone can do.

I'm not sure you can (with the exceptions of some actions that can be downgraded to a manouver) use two skills in a round, so I'd just say no if I was GMing. Can just use Melee and narrate the deceptive style.

Essentially there are talents (usually expensive ones) that do allow benefit of another skill, so an xp cost, and which do things such as "spent 1 destiny point to add damage equal to ranks in X skill to one hit of a particular attack type".

If you allow use of a second skill, as a maneuver, why stop at Deception, allow if for any skill, but then, why better than Aim? Seems to be just wanting to increase character power with no cost for a specific character otherwise.

As others have pointed out, although talking is an incidental, taking the time to properly use Deception is an action. So unless you somehow gain a second action during your own turn (and AFAIK there is no way to so thus far, at least not with Deception). Allowing someone to Decieve and Attack in the same turn is a bit OP, however having someone use a Deception check in place of a combat check and allowing some damage as a result is fine in my book. Sort of "hey look Rancor" and allowing them to narrate that they take some shots at them causing some strain damage (which for non-nemesis is actual damage).

I agree with Syrath and Darzil; using two skills in a single round would be overpowered. But I am curious about the OP's suggestion that a deceptive player might play dirty tricks, like kicking sand at an opponent, etc. while still taking a swing. What do folks think about that kind of thing? Treat it as a maneuver, let the player roll a normal attack, and give the opponent a single setback on their turn? Or would that be too overpowering?

I wouldn't have an issue with a house rule allowing that as a maneuver, it's pretty much like an anti-aim. However, need to make sure that it doesn't stack from other characters, probably, as that could make things unbalanced. (4 characters with 1 boost each with aim vs 1 character with 4 setback dice if this stacked)

Though quite honestly, just mechanically call it aim, and then use 2 advantage to add the setback, and narratively call it throwing sand etc.

Or if the player is really really keen on it, just replace a (GM's choice) 20 or 25xp talent in their appropriate tree with - Dirty Trick Fighting: "spend 1 destiny point to add damage equal to ranks in Deception to one hit using Melee"

4 minutes ago, Darzil said:

I wouldn't have an issue with a house rule allowing that as a maneuver, it's pretty much like an anti-aim. However, need to make sure that it doesn't stack from other characters, probably, as that could make things unbalanced. (4 characters with 1 boost each with aim vs 1 character with 4 setback dice if this stacked)

Though quite honestly, just mechanically call it aim, and then use 2 advantage to add the setback, and narratively call it throwing sand etc.

Or if the player is really really keen on it, just replace a (GM's choice) 20 or 25xp talent in their appropriate tree with - Dirty Trick Fighting: "spend 1 destiny point to add damage equal to ranks in Deception to one hit using Melee"

Yeah, that's my main concern: Is an anti-aim maneuver (adding a setback to one enemy) overpowered compared to the aim maneuver (gaining a boost die on the PC's attack)? I could see the argument that it is, since Aim just makes the bad guy go down faster, while a an anti-aim would make the NPC do less damage and, therefore, may throw off the healing economy due to the PCs taking less damage.

4 hours ago, SavageBob said:

I agree with Syrath and Darzil; using two skills in a single round would be overpowered. But I am curious about the OP's suggestion that a deceptive player might play dirty tricks, like kicking sand at an opponent, etc. while still taking a swing. What do folks think about that kind of thing? Treat it as a maneuver, let the player roll a normal attack, and give the opponent a single setback on their turn? Or would that be too overpowering?

This was my idea, only you use one roll to resolve it, deception and not combat, success causes you to succeed, with extra success /and or advantage going towards causing damage in some way, the player can narrate this as throwing sand in their eyes, or firing off a few shots with a blaster while they are decieved etc. Doesnt really matter how it is narrated if the result is the same, the damage could have come from a bird dropping a hammer (as long as that fits the narrative at the time).

While the system is pretty fast I wouldnt be happy with a player making multiple rolls in their turn when one will do fine.

It's a fine line between skill and magic spell using social skills to inflict mechanical effects in combat, and one I would tread gingerly. I think the devs solution in making tiered Talents like Scathing Tirade in specific specs is the way to address that capability without becoming OP. I wouldn't just allow something like that as a throwdown Maneuver though.

Now that I think about it, the Guarded Stance maneuver gives your opponent a setback for attacks against you, but it also penalizes you by giving you a setback on your attack that round. The sand-in-the-face thing could be treated as a reskinned version of this, with the setback on the sand-thrower justified by him having to split his attention between attacking and using dirty tricks.

It gives a Setback against Melee attacks and imposes a Setback on "any" combat checks you make.

17 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

It gives a Setback against Melee attacks and imposes a Setback on "any" combat checks you make.

Exactly. So call it "throwing sand" and you can still justify it as having exactly that effect for different narrative reasons.

I allow pretty much any skill to be used to increase the difficulty. There needs to be a narrative reason, but I figure it this way: increasing difficulty is pretty much your best bet at making things harder for your enemy. Upgrading difficulty is the worst, by some metrics, while adding setback is pretty good.

So that's pretty huge, but it also requires a character to spend his action and succeed. If you want players to use an option, it needs to be a good one. Any time you shoot a blaster, you stand a good chance of giving your enemy setback dice or upgrading their difficulty. But you also shoot them. To make a Deception (or Coordination, or whatever) check worth it, it needs to do something that a Melee or Ranged check generally can't do. In most situations, it's still probably not as good as just blasting the guy, but it has its place. You can still use triumphs to upgrade difficulty, and advantage to impose setback dice, or perhaps to spread the difficulty increase to other enemies.

The way I've been running it, a simple success increases difficulty by one, three successes increase it by two, and five successes increase it by three. I've started to suspect that makes it too good, but my players are all pretty combat-capable, so it hasn't been used a lot yet.

A Coercion check on its own can cause strain damage that bypasses soak on it's own without scathing tirade starting at 1 dmg for 3 success and adding one each 2 success thereafter. Unlike Scathing Tirade it has to target one opponent and unlike Tirade it increases the dmg depending on success (Tirade only increases dmg on advantage rolled)

What would people think about using Deception in place of a character's attack skill? I'm just musing here, so I haven't thought it all through. But what I'm imagining is a character with some kind of Melee weapon who attempts some kind of ridiculous flourish in order to distract and disorient their foe. Rather than attack with Brawn + Melee, maybe they attack with Brawn + Deception, but you don't add successes to the damage? I realize that this could make non-combat specializations become decidedly more "combaty", but it's something I think I'll mull over for a while.