Is there somewhere some rule to cover when a character spend his/her action actively defending himself in melee combat?

There is the Guard stance that add a black die but it is a manoeuvre, not an action. I am taking about full blown defense.

Genesys doesn't really use a mechanic like that. The closest is Defensive Stance, Side Step, and Dodge, all talents, as well as the guarded stance maneuvers, and taking cover.

There is a Talent in Star Wars that is an Action that upgrades the Attacks against the user. Since it's an Action, it must be done on the Player's turn, NOT an Out of Turn Incidental like Dodge or Parry. I think the name of it is Defensive Stance.

So they removed the Guarded Stance maneuver in Genesys then?

7 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

So they removed the Guarded Stance maneuver in Genesys then?

Reread the first post.

3 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

Reread the first post.

Derp. Thanks. Glad it wasn't removed.

There's always been an active defense.....it's called kill the F out of the @$$hole trying to hurt you.....

3 hours ago, ApocalypseZero said:

There is a Talent in Star Wars that is an Action that upgrades the Attacks against the user. Since it's an Action, it must be done on the Player's turn, NOT an Out of Turn Incidental like Dodge or Parry. I think the name of it is Defensive Stance.

No, Defensive Stance is a Maneuver.

You are correct otherwise in that it still has to be done on the character's turn, unless they use 2 Threat generated by an opponent to take a free out-of-turn maneuver.

1 hour ago, DarthGM said:

No, Defensive Stance is a Maneuver.

You are correct otherwise in that it still has to be done on the character's turn, unless they use 2 Threat generated by an opponent to take a free out-of-turn maneuver.

Defensive Circle was the Talent I was thinking of. I specifically remembered a defensive Talent that was an Action. It might only be one Talent, but gives us an idea on how to Create A Talent to create more "Active Defense" options. There might be another Talent or Two in Star Wars like this as well (Actions, instead of Maneuvers). Also, some Talents are not "Out of Turn", like Side Step, so they must be done on the player's turn.

Ah yes, that one is an action

Alright. I've looked at my old edition of Warhammer RPG 3rd edition and I think the solution is to come up with some new talents:

First draft

Talent: Block

Pre-requisite: Brawn 3 & Equipped with a shield

As an action, you use your shield to defend yourself against harm. Until your next turn, you may after you are targeted by a Melee /Ranged Attack suffer 1 strain to add one Setback dice to the attacker action’s dice pool and increase your Soak by 1.

Talent: Dodge

Pre-requisite: Agility 3 & not encumbered

As an action, you use your speed and agility to avoid harm. Until your next turn, you may after you are targeted by a Melee /Ranged Attack suffer 1 strain to add one Setback dice to the attacker action’s dice pool.

If your attacker misses and scores two threats or more, you cover some ground. You may disengage yourself or if you are not engaged reduce the distance to your opponent by one increment as a free manoeuvre.

Talent: Parry

Pre-requisite: Melee (Light) 3 & Equipped with a light weapon

As an action, you use your weapon to parry your foe's attack. Until your next turn, you may after you are targeted by a Melee Attack suffer 1 strain to add one Setback dice to the attacker action’s dice pool.

If your attacker misses and scores two threats or more, you open his guard to your riposte. Add one Boost dice to your next Melee Attack against this opponent during your next action.

What do you think ? Shouldbe Tier 1 talents, right ? Yes they add a setback die which is typically Tier 2 but they cost an Action And a Strain to use which is a lot.

Talent: Improved Block

Pre-requisite: Brawn 4 & Equipped with a shield

As an action, you use your shield to defend yourself against harm. Until your next turn, you may after you are targeted by a Melee /Ranged Attack suffer 1 strain to add one Setback dice to the attacker action’s dice pool and increase your Soak by 1. You may suffer an additional strain to upgrade the Setback dice to a Difficulty dice.

Talent: Improved Dodge

Pre-requisite: Agility 4 & not encumbered

As an action, you use your speed and agility to avoid harm. Until your next turn, you may after you are targeted by a Melee /Ranged Attack suffer 1 strain to add one Setback dice to the attacker action’s dice pool. You may suffer an additional strain to upgrade the Setback dice to a Difficulty dice.

If your attacker misses and scores two threats or more, you cover some ground. You may disengage yourself or or if you are not engaged reduce the distance to your opponent by one increment as a free manoeuvre.

Talent: Improved Parry

Pre-requisite: Melee (Light) 4 & Equipped with a light weapon

As an action, you use your weapon to parry your foe's attack. Until your next turn, you may after you are targeted by a Melee Attack suffer 1 strain to add one Setback dice to the attacker action’s dice pool. You may suffer an additional strain to upgrade the Setback dice to a Difficulty dice.

If your attacker misses and scores two threats or more, you open his guard to your riposte. Add one Boost dice to your next Melee Attack against this opponent during your next action.

2 hours ago, Tabulazero said:

Talent: Block

Talent: Dodge

Talent: Parry

What do you think ? Shouldbe Tier 1 talents, right ?

There are already several defensive talents: Parry, Defensive Stance, Side Step, and Dodge.

Parry directly reduces damage, while the others all focus on upgrading the difficulty of being hit.

I see dodge, but not duck, dive, dip, and dodge...

See, I just let the player come up with some kind of action and say how that will increase the difficulty to be hit. If you're in a sword fight and you want to talk trash, maybe Coercion. If you're diving and flipping to cover, Athletics or Acrobatics. A success increases the difficulty by one, advantage might add extra setback. Play it by ear, you know?

Oh, and you want to help keep your whole team from getting shot?

12 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

There are already several defensive talents: Parry, Defensive Stance, Side Step, and Dodge.

Parry directly reduces damage, while the others all focus on upgrading the difficulty of being hit.

Yes but they are all Incidental / Out of turn... They do not count as an action with the exception of Side step. Basically what I am trying to do is put the player in front of an interesting choice: do I use my action to attack and inflict damage or do I use it to defend myself.

I also dislike the notion of Parry as reducing damage. If it hard to represent it in the context of the story. I suppose you can say "You block his axe with your sword but you are not strong enough to block entirely the blow". I had alway envisaged Parry as an all or nothing action: You parry the blow or you do not. There is no try.

I have basically a problem as to how you represent "Soak" in narrative terms. Does Soak mean " you simply shrug it off" or is it something more ?

With only a handful of exceptions, actions are the realm of skill checks. Most other things you can do in a turn are maneuvers. Defense is not generally tied with skills, and does not generally require performing an action.

What you're looking for is already in the game--trading your free action for a second maneuver, then using those maneuvers to act in a defensive manner, such taking cover, moving out of the range of your enemy's weapon, or triggering a talent.

Maneuvers are valuable in the game, as you have one free maneuver, and the ability to perform a second with a cost. Managing that economy can by tricky. Generally, if you are attacking, you're not leaving it easy to perform defensive maneuvers. The reverse is also true.

Also, Side Step has a typo, and should properly be a maneuver, the same with Defensive Stance.

You are right. I had not noticed that all Action Talents are actually Skill checks or Skill check related.

Can you for exemple cumulate Defensive Stance and Guarded Stance ?

The description for Defensive Stance is found on page 75. In short, it is a talent, and is the melee equivalent to Side Step (which, again, has a type and should be a maneuver).

Taking a guarded stance is found on page 98. In short, it adds a black die to melee attacks targeting you. The ranged equivalent would probably be dropping prone (described on page 100).

I should also point out about Parry: remember, performing attacks is not simply shooting at your target once, or slashing at them once, or throwing a single punch. That would be boring, and doesn't mesh with the narrative stance this game takes. Instead, it is an attack, and can described as a short combat engagement, or a series of slashes and stabs, several punches, or a few bursts from an assault rifle, and so on. Activating Parry (the talent) can represent blocking some of those individual slashes and stabs, but not all of them. Mechanically, it is represented by a flat amount of damage being reduced.

But why does the game differentiate mechanically between Soak and Wounds ?

Why not simply add a metric ton of Wounds and get rid of Soak ? Wouldn't it be simpler ?

Critical injuries can only be activated on a successful check that deals damage , which means even 1 wound is enough to inflict a potentially debilitating injury; if an opponent rolls a triumph, they can also do so even if the only deal strain damage. Soaking up damage, neutralizing it altogether with Parry, or causing an attack to fail are the safest ways to protect oneself from critical injuries.

48 minutes ago, Tabulazero said:

But why does the game differentiate mechanically between Soak and Wounds ?

Why not simply add a metric ton of Wounds and get rid of Soak ? Wouldn't it be simpler ?

The d20 approach is you're a stack of hit points and 100% efficient until you reach 0 HP. On the one hand, the d20 rulebook says HP is more than just physical damage, it's also strain and luck and blah blah blah. But then your strain and luck and whatever else HP represents is healed as "wounds" anyway, and naturally recovers slowly as if it was all meat damage anyway.

Star Wars, Genesys, and really most narrative-heavier games make wounds feel more like wounds. Soak is hitting the armor. Wound damage is what gets through the armor. Particularly in a system that makes hitting the target fairly easy, there needs to be a way of reducing the inbound damage. d20 uses AC to abstract what missed you entirely or bounced off your armor as a generic and bland "miss"

Also, having soak means you don't have to heal ad nauseum to restore the metric ton of HP. The amount soaked on three or four attacks is already healed.

Also, as you gain talents, skills, and characteristics, your wound count doesn't increase to absurd levels like it does in d20. A human being has a fairly tight range of HP whether you're scrawny or a body builder, and you really don't want to get hit, even if it's just by a goblin swinging a dogslicer.