I'm curious if anyone allows close combat skills to directly influence characters' ability to defend themselves. And if so, how do you do it without "breaking" (or stalling) the system?

I get that a ranged attack doesn't (generally) take into account base agility or skill-based defenses since the attack moves so quickly. Talents can come into play (I'm looking at you, Obi-Wan), but I'm not concerned about those for purposes of this discussion. I'm concerned with the character's actual skill at getting out of the way of a close-up attack. So a ranged attack is against a fixed difficulty modified by boosts and setbacks to represent what the character did to put something else in the path of the attack or impede the attacker. It's hard to dodge a bullet.

Guarded stance doesn't care about skill and gives the same bonus regardless of any skill that might help you against close-up or ranged attacks, so that's off the table for discussion as well.

I get that the size of the dice pool and prolonging of combat are issues, but it seems that simply not allowing any skill that represents how well you move in battle to augment defense isn't so much presenting an alternative combat model as it is ignoring the inconvenient truth that skill in close combat isn't just about how well you attack. Opposing checks are actually closer to how close combatants are traditional depicted in fiction: they would generally allow a good fighter to seldom get hit except by one nearly as skilled. But opposing checks are a lot of dice and harder to "read".

Sorry this post turned from asking a question to just offering some semi-frustrated musings. I feel the flat 2 difficulty for landing a melee hit augmented only by talents and gear is an oversimplification, but I'm not sure how to fix it and keep combat interesting and fun.

You tried to exclude them, but I'm including them anyway: defensive talents are this system's form of active defense. That's all there is too it. Some system may tie defense to one or more skills, but this one does not.

19 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

You tried to exclude them, but I'm including them anyway: defensive talents are this system's form of active defense. That's all there is too it. Some system may tie defense to one or more skills, but this one does not.

That's exactly the source of my discomfort: you are one of the greatest warriors in the world (5 ranks of melee) and you're as easy to hit with a stick as a stableboy unless you spend XP on talents that have nothing to do with your melee skill.

My question is directed to those who try to factor skill into the defense. I'd like to read some thoughts on how that might work, not an argument for status quo. I already understand the arguments for status quo, and frankly will likely stick to the book anyway, after I give other perspectives some thought.

But being one of the greatest warriors in the world includes having those defensive talents. The Melee skill's purpose is to make you say, "I am good at hitting things with my weapon" not "I am good at melee combat". To be good at melee combat you need more than to just be able to hit your target.

23 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

You tried to exclude them, but I'm including them anyway: defensive talents are this system's form of active defense. That's all there is too it. Some system may tie defense to one or more skills, but this one does not.

1 minute ago, Hinklemar said:

But being one of the greatest warriors in the world includes having those defensive talents. The Melee skill's purpose is to make you say, "I am good at hitting things with my weapon" not "I am good at melee combat". To be good at melee combat you need more than to just be able to hit your target.

These. Both of these. Talents show how you are better than those who don't have them. Defensive talents showcase how bad-åss you are at defending yourself, not skill ranks.

I'm sure at one point or another, long before Genesys, opposed checks were considered for combat. On a pure numbers basis, making defense opposed probably does make a character more prone to not getting hit.

I imagine it also turns a combat encounter, that may last 4 rounds on average, into a nightmarish marathon. If you have 5 PCs and that many or more adversaries, than you have to roll an opposed check for every attack made, which also means you have to compare values and change the dice pools constantly.

4 minutes ago, Swordbreaker said:

I'm sure at one point or another, long before Genesys, opposed checks were considered for combat. On a pure numbers basis, making defense opposed probably does make a character more prone to not getting hit.

I imagine it also turns a combat encounter, that may last 4 rounds on average, into a nightmarish marathon. If you have 5 PCs and that many or more adversaries, than you have to roll an opposed check for every attack made, which also means you have to compare values and change the dice pools constantly.

Agreed. That's why I was looking for some ideas. I even toyed with stating that if you took a guarded stance, you could do an opposed check, but then for the low price of one setback die, everyone would take a guarded stance all the freakin' time if they're even halfway good at melee.

I'm just uncomfortable with the idea that "skill" in melee is solely how well you attack. That's absurd. But I guess that's how the system frames it and it's tough to change it.

Again, the main takeaway is that a true master would have both ranks in skill and the defensive talents. Its just that for balance purposes, it was decided unwise to make offense/defense key off the same thing.

41 minutes ago, Kommissar said:

Again, the main takeaway is that a true master would have both ranks in skill and the defensive talents. Its just that for balance purposes, it was decided unwise to make offense/defense key off the same thing.

I'm not arguing that a true master would be good at both attacking and defending. The fact that one is skill-based and progresses and the other is talent-based and ala carte is already a cause for some confusion. Why can't the same be said for social conflict, which IS represented by opposing skills? For that matter, it's not like the attacking doesn't have a bunch of talents as well.

Part of this is the naming of things and their categorization, and I guess I'm grumbling more than looking to change it. Genesys is at least further down the "right" path than d20 where combat skill isn't a skill at all and automatically progresses whereas all your other skills require point expenditure.

2 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

I'm sure at one point or another, long before Genesys, opposed checks were considered for combat.

I've believed this since Warhammer first came out using this system. I believe the first designer-testers realized how much it slowed down combat.

32 minutes ago, Dragonshadow said:

Why can't the same be said for social conflict, which IS represented by opposing skills? For that matter, it's not like the attacking doesn't have a bunch of talents as well.

Because social conflict is not nearly as common as combat. Because social conflict doesn't commonly involve everyone making attacks every round.

If you MUST use active defense, I would limit it to melee where it makes the most sense. No matter how good of a sniper you are it shouldn't make you able to dodge bullets.

Here is something to consider to speed things up. Use the opposed roll for melee only. Then, the person who caused the "engagement" makes the roll, BUT the results may actually lead to damage to the attacker. Success causes damage to your target, but with a net failure, you are actually damaged instead. This could help things move along a bit. Someone is getting damage no matter who initiated the roll.

50 minutes ago, Sturn said:

Here is something to consider to speed things up. Use the opposed roll for melee only. Then, the person who caused the "engagement" makes the roll, BUT the results may actually lead to damage to the attacker. Success causes damage to your target, but with a net failure, you are actually damaged instead. This could help things move along a bit. Someone is getting damage no matter who initiated the roll.

One might object that the dice are slightly in favour of the acting party.

4 hours ago, Dragonshadow said:

I'm not arguing that a true master would be good at both attacking and defending. The fact that one is skill-based and progresses and the other is talent-based and ala carte is already a cause for some confusion. Why can't the same be said for social conflict, which IS represented by opposing skills? For that matter, it's not like the attacking doesn't have a bunch of talents as well.

Part of this is the naming of things and their categorization, and I guess I'm grumbling more than looking to change it. Genesys is at least further down the "right" path than d20 where combat skill isn't a skill at all and automatically progresses whereas all your other skills require point expenditure.

In social conflict, you usually aren't rolling the same skills opposed to each other. In order to do well with that, one generally must have an array of skills. If combat was just opposed checks, you would too often see just one skill become overly important. The goal is to balance character advancement and prevent a single skill/characteristic from becoming too important.

Opposed checks would completely prevent any checks Succeeding with Advantage. You would either succeed with Threat or fail with Advantage. Triumph would become the only way to trigger weapon qualities and Crit, making for extremely bland combat.

Then you have the greatly increased chances of failure, Combat checks would become a series of failures. Combat would become much more about preventing passing out from Strain, Wounds would become much less important.

I personally like the way FFG divorces offense and defense. I agree that if you want “realistic “ opposed checks you would need two skills. Melee (offense) and Melee (defense).

IRL I have sparred with many different types of fighters and hitting someone is sooo much easier than not getting hit.

I have sparred big guys who couldn’t dodge a parked car but hitting them was like beating a brick wall. (High soak)

I have also fought with smaller people where had I landed a solid hit would have been done but it’s like trying to swat a fly out of the air with your bare hands. (Dodge and Defensive talents)

Alright, y'all have convinced me!

I wasn't too fond of the disconnect between combat skill and defense myself. Given that I'm running a fantasy game, I decided to make a couple of rules changes in order to better suit the thematics of the setting. In effect, I used the Perry model and decided to apply universally. Characters can spend 3 strain and reduce the incoming attack by damage equal to the calculation below. This way, skill is still a factor but it doesn't affect the underlying probability of the dice system. They're also talents that increase the efficacy of the below

Active Defenses

Avoid: 1/2 agility + coordination. Used for attacks from creatures with silhouettes of higher than 1, ranged attacks, and things that you would generally trying to dodge.

Parry: 1/2 agility plus melee or brawl. Used in melee with other arranged weapon or unarmed.

Block: 1/2 brawn plus resilience. Requires a shield. Can be used in melee and against physical ranged attacks.

Ward: used to reduce damage from magical attacks, Elementals, demons another appropriately magical sources of damage.

That Wars idea is very interesting, even outside your particular setting.

Ward

Tier 1

Activation: Active (Incidental out of turn)

Ranked: Yes

When your character suf a hit from a magic based combat check, after damage is calculated but before soak is applied (so immediately after Step 3 of Perform a Combat check, page 102), your character may suffer 3 strain to use this talent to reduce the damage of the hit by two plus their ranks in Ward. This talent can only be used once per hit.

Edit: definitely not something for every setting, but neither is Parry. Also the cost of it means it isn’t stepping on the toes of Barrier, especially since barrier works against all attacks.

On January 4, 2018 at 4:56 PM, Grimmerling said:

One might object that the dice are slightly in favour of the acting party.

This would actually make logical sense. In most cases, the attacker has the advantage. To reflect someone ultra-skilled in defense you could have a talent that allows the defender to be the "initiator" for the purpose of dice used.

4 hours ago, Chrislee66 said:

I wasn't too fond of the disconnect between combat skill and defense myself. Given that I'm running a fantasy game, I decided to make a couple of rules changes in order to better suit the thematics of the setting. In effect, I used the Perry model and decided to apply universally. Characters can spend 3 strain and reduce the incoming attack by damage equal to the calculation below. This way, skill is still a factor but it doesn't affect the underlying probability of the dice system. They're also talents that increase the efficacy of the below

Active Defenses

Avoid: 1/2 agility + coordination. Used for attacks from creatures with silhouettes of higher than 1, ranged attacks, and things that you would generally trying to dodge.

Parry: 1/2 agility plus melee or brawl. Used in melee with other arranged weapon or unarmed.

Block: 1/2 brawn plus resilience. Requires a shield. Can be used in melee and against physical ranged attacks.

Ward: used to reduce damage from magical attacks, Elementals, demons another appropriately magical sources of damage.

Can you throw this in a document or actually copy/paste the full rules change So? I'm very curios to see this spelled out including the related talents.

35 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

That Wars idea is very interesting, even outside your particular setting.

Ward

Tier 1

Activation: Active (Incidental out of turn)

Ranked: Yes

When your character suf a hit from a magic based combat check, after damage is calculated but before soak is applied (so immediately after Step 3 of Perform a Combat check, page 102), your character may suffer 3 strain to use this talent to reduce the damage of the hit by two plus their ranks in Ward. This talent can only be used once per hit.

Edit: definitely not something for every setting, but neither is Parry. Also the cost of it means it isn’t stepping on the toes of Barrier, especially since barrier works against all attacks.

Personally I think stepping on Barriers toes is a good thing. The system keeps saying magic should be harder than doing things without magic, but something like barrier has no mundane option. Ward fills that role.

/sub

20 minutes ago, Khaalis said:

Personally I think stepping on Barriers toes is a good thing. The system keeps saying magic should be harder than doing things without magic, but something like barrier has no mundane option. Ward fills that role.

I do agree. Ward would reduce damage more than barrier, but cost 3 Strain instead of 2 and only for a single hit. Combined it could get a bit crazy, but that takes an action and 5 Strain to stack.

Instead of going full-blown towards opposed rolls, you could also give a melee fighter +1 defense per 2 ranks in Melee. That would probably result in most fighters using the maximum 4 defense dice, but it would represent some skill.

Or give the difference of skill as bonus defense.

Just ideas

2 hours ago, Farnir said:

Instead of going full-blown towards opposed rolls, you could also give a melee fighter +1 defense per 2 ranks in Melee. That would probably result in most fighters using the maximum 4 defense dice, but it would represent some skill.

Or give the difference of skill as bonus defense.

Just ideas

Yeah, I love me a system that uses opposed rolls for combat - when it makes sense in the system. This system is simply NOT designed for it. Even the opposed Social Rolls are a bit forced IMHO and could be very cumbersome. This system isn't really set up to be that tactical. Its much more narrative for combat. That said I DO think you can step up the tactical mechanics a bit and I like the idea of linking Combat skill to Defense as a modifier. The question is, how much is appropriate?

Lets consider Defense sources.

• Defensive talent (Tier 4) = +1 to both melee and ranged defense.
• Defensive quality = +X to melee defense where X is its Defensive rating (the best is Defensive 1)
• Guarded Stance (maneuver) = +1 melee defense
• Cover = +1 ranged defense
• Spending 3 Advantage or 1 Triumph = +1 defense
• Best Fantasy armor (magic plate) = +2 defense

So with all that said, I think the best option if you want to implement High melee skill as a modifier is the following for a house rule:

• "If your character's Melee Skill Rating is higher than an adversary's, you gain +1 Melee Defense."

Personally, I almost like this better as Tier 1 Talent. something like "Better Meleer" or "Active Defense".

Its also important to keep in mind that Defense Rating is Capped at 4 (p105).

3 hours ago, Khaalis said:

So with all that said, I think the best option if you want to implement High melee skill as a modifier is the following for a house rule:

• "If your character's Melee Skill Rating is higher than an adversary's, you gain +1 Melee Defense."

I have this in my house rule document (it copy & pasted fine for me tell me if the symbols didn't transfer they are all Difficulty dice):

Replace the base Average ( dd ) difficulty with a chart based upon the target’s best of Melee or Brawl skill:

Skilled minion groups are considered Skill 1 for Difficulty regardless of numbers.