6 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

If you want your attack and counter attack in a single roll, opposed rolls are not the way to go, but instead a competitive check should be a good base, which is basically like opposed checks work mostly in different systems anyway.

For the line of sight thing: Cover is cover, taking a maneuver and adding defense depending on the quality of cover. Yous still peak out shoot, get back to cover, etc … that is why you spend a maneuver for it. You don't get out of line of sight with cover.
If you want to move out of sight, you are naturally not able to shoot either. This might be still advantageous if you want to make a medicine check for example anyway and it can force opponents to spend a maneuver to flank you or chase you to get line of sight for their ranged attacks again … or they just throw a grenade. Either way, imho LOS != taking cover in this system. Furthermore getting out of line of sight is harder than it sounds, because the round are long, smaller movements within a turn are to be expeded even without spending a maneuver and when you spend maneuvers to move you can cover rather larger distances without trouble as well. On top are there force powers, talents and gear that all can make you even more mobile. So relying on line of sight for defense not a safe bet anyway.

In this case we are not doing attacks and counter attacks in the same roll. The idea is to use an opposed check to represent incoming fire, or opponents combat skill, to prevent the movement. Actual damage in this step is very rare, and occurs only on a Despair roll. The use of the opposed check is intended to mostly balance out against similarly matched skills with a bias towards success, with some extra strain from rolled Threat.

For line of sight, I leave that to my players. If they shot the previous round, then typically they are at best able to take cover (rather than allowing 1 movement to go to the corner, shoot, and one movement to retreat half way down the adjoining hallway to avoid being shot), so basic rule of thumb is that if you shot, you can be shot. Some exceptions to this are made depending on the narrative (such as shooing and then running away, starting a chase, etc), or if the player was badly wounded I may made an exception as their motivation is to get out of combat, rather than trying to exploit the turn based combat system.

11 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

If you want your attack and counter attack in a single roll, opposed rolls are not the way to go, but instead a competitive check should be a good base, which is basically like opposed checks work mostly in different systems anyway.

For the line of sight thing: Cover is cover, taking a maneuver and adding defense depending on the quality of cover. Yous still peak out shoot, get back to cover, etc … that is why you spend a maneuver for it. You don't get out of line of sight with cover.
If you want to move out of sight, you are naturally not able to shoot either. This might be still advantageous if you want to make a medicine check for example anyway and it can force opponents to spend a maneuver to flank you or chase you to get line of sight for their ranged attacks again … or they just throw a grenade. Either way, imho LOS != taking cover in this system. Furthermore getting out of line of sight is harder than it sounds, because the round are long, smaller movements within a turn are to be expeded even without spending a maneuver and when you spend maneuvers to move you can cover rather larger distances without trouble as well. On top are there force powers, talents and gear that all can make you even more mobile. So relying on line of sight for defense not a safe bet anyway.

Yeah that was my experience, the opposed roll in this game doesn't seem to play out like the competitive roll at all. I think it's because of the effect of failures I would imagine.

I think your LoS ideas make sense and constitute a good guideline: that being out of LoS is essentially being out of the fight (if I take your meaning). But if a grenade or movement can negate LoS, then that says that it is actually something that prevents attack enough that it must be circumvented to attack effectively. I think many systems use a fractional sort of cover system for this purpose. How much of the character's body is exposed to fire given their amount of cover? The Setback dice provide a bit of a deterrent, but the players always see a black added as their cheese still very much in the wind, and will try to describe themselves safe, preferably while still being able to attack on their turn.

"I duck behind the thick Ferrocrete wall, aim around it and shoot, and duck right back." Is the usual form of this problem that I see.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

Yeah that was my experience, the opposed roll in this game doesn't seem to play out like the competitive roll at all. I think it's because of the effect of failures I would imagine.

I think your LoS ideas make sense and constitute a good guideline: that being out of LoS is essentially being out of the fight (if I take your meaning). But if a grenade or movement can negate LoS, then that says that it is actually something that prevents attack enough that it must be circumvented to attack effectively. I think many systems use a fractional sort of cover system for this purpose. How much of the character's body is exposed to fire given their amount of cover? The Setback dice provide a bit of a deterrent, but the players always see a black added as their cheese still very much in the wind, and will try to describe themselves safe, preferably while still being able to attack on their turn.

"I duck behind the thick Ferrocrete wall, aim around it and shoot, and duck right back." Is the usual form of this problem that I see.

Yeah.. I am always fighting a bit of a war with the mechanics between trying to narrate an ongoing conflict, vs the stop time turn order of combat.

The book itself states that a 'shot' is not a single press of a trigger, but is instead choosing to continuously fire down a corridor for the next minute or so (ie killing multiple minions in a single round).

This usually conflicts with stop time mechanics with multiple actions, like moving around a corner, sprinting a distance of 5 or so meters, punching someone in the face, and then running back around the corner.

2 hours ago, Archlyte said:

"I duck behind the thick Ferrocrete wall, aim around it and shoot, and duck right back." Is the usual form of this problem that I see.

And the base of the system is that this is just taking cover, because you are not shooting just once at all those minions. Shooting and than running away seems fine. But than you don't get your cover bonus when someone following nor can you attack in your next turn without spending a maneuver to get back into the action if nobody is following. So it is in general expensive and risky compared to just taking cover.

All imho.

7 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

And the base of the system is that this is just taking cover, because you are not shooting just once at all those minions. Shooting and than running away seems fine. But than you don't get your cover bonus when someone following nor can you attack in your next turn without spending a maneuver to get back into the action if nobody is following. So it is in general expensive and risky compared to just taking cover.

All imho.

Oh yeah I agree. I like that you state it that way because it makes sense. So It's a bit of a weird one because moving within one Range Band (In the same range band) costs a maneuver if I'm not mistaken. And IWE costs a maneuver. LoS may be a factor of distance, in which case it may be all about movement. Very cool. Just requires knowing the distance of things at least in a narrative sense.

9 hours ago, Silidus said:

Yeah.. I am always fighting a bit of a war with the mechanics between trying to narrate an ongoing conflict, vs the stop time turn order of combat.

The book itself states that a 'shot' is not a single press of a trigger, but is instead choosing to continuously fire down a corridor for the next minute or so (ie killing multiple minions in a single round).

This usually conflicts with stop time mechanics with multiple actions, like moving around a corner, sprinting a distance of 5 or so meters, punching someone in the face, and then running back around the corner.

Man you said it. They really introduced an abstraction of an abstraction with this way of doing it lol. I really had to adopt a mindset that while it isn't a single shot...it can be. The time, just like the range, is something that I consider to be somewhat elastic based on the needs of the moment. The fact that a Triumph/Despair could cause some dramatic Rube Goldberg type thing to go on in the environment means that sometimes it has to be described as a process rather than an instant. But things like Han Solo and Greedo happen so fast that single attacks must be possible too.

There is of course always the old chestnut of the attack that hits or check that works being the only "effective" one in a series, but I find that players don't seem to find that as satisfying as thinking of these attacks as singular. And Ammo counts is on the side of those smaller volumes of fire, although you can make the case that Ammo only counts for the mechanics and doesn't represent actual magazine capacity or rate of reload.

To kind of get back on topic I'm thinking of how the opposed check thing can be used specifically with attempting to use the Interact With Environment Maneuver, meaning that cover is in an area being denied by enemy fire. Coordination, Athletics, etc. could be used in the way you stated in the OP to make that a more difficult endeavor.

Btw. Terrain can count as impassable and if it does movement does require an action and a check. Nothing speaks against to use advantages on a check to declare an area as impassable terrain.

Now doing something like this should be expensive, because it stops movement a lot better than some of rhe suggestions we already have in those tables for spending advantages, but it certainly seems in the spirit of the game. On top there are a few ways like force jump or the racers parcour talents to get around still.

And if there is stuff in the environment that can be used, things might become actually even rather cheap. Blocking a hallway by shooting down a large chandelier sounds like an rather easy thing to do while shooting mainly at the bad guys. Luring them first under it at the other hand is stuff that triumphs are made of.

A bit of a segway on the topic, but I think still relevant.

How do people handle close combat checks?

Base difficulty is 2 purple...ok.. fine for fighting minions.

Against rivals and nemesis you get the adversary upgrades. Good to go, that works.

But what about incoming attacks? Its 2 purple..unless you have some awesome defence talents. But what doesn't influence any of these rolls is your skill in melee, brawl or lightsabre. If you have a Jedi with 3 ranks of glowstick surely they have to count for something? And for lightsabre duels? What do you do? Are there rules for dueling opponents?

As you've noted, the way the system is designed, offence is largely determined by skills, defence by talents/force powers.

If you add skills into defence, then you tilt the system towards drawn out combat, which it has been designed to avoid.

Not saying you can't do it as a house rule, but bear in mind that you also change the balance of ranged vs melee considerably if difficulty is affected by skill for one but not the other.

47 minutes ago, Funk Fu master said:

If you have a Jedi with 3 ranks of glowstick surely they have to count for something?

Nope. They count for nothing, because this is a system with talent trees and almost everything which makes a character really good at something is in those trees. In the case of lightsaber all those defensive talents like parry, like defensive stance, like dodge, like circle of shelter, etc are all in those talent trees.
Raw skill means very little in this system. My ace can take out an imperial star destroyer. Solo. In an X-Wing. But he has yet to spend more than 100 xp into skills. He still got about 800 xp into talents. ;-)

The system is heavily centered around talents. You may like or dislike this fact, but it certainly is the core of this system. Now you could change the system very easily to a complete talentless, classless and levelless system as well. But than FFG will be pretty depressed, because 95% of their expansions become useless, while the game might actually become more narrative and roleplay centric, easier to use as well, less nerdy, etc

But it would come down to be just one CRB and maybe fluff text expansions which basically are just wookieepedia articles. °_^

17 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Nope. They count for nothing, because this is a system with talent trees and almost everything which makes a character really good at something is in those trees. In the case of lightsaber all those defensive talents like parry, like defensive stance, like dodge, like circle of shelter, etc are all in those talent trees.
Raw skill means very little in this system. My ace can take out an imperial star destroyer. Solo. In an X-Wing. But he has yet to spend more than 100 xp into skills. He still got about 800 xp into talents. ;-)

The system is heavily centered around talents. You may like or dislike this fact, but it certainly is the core of this system. Now you could change the system very easily to a complete talentless, classless and levelless system as well. But than FFG will be pretty depressed, because 95% of their expansions become useless, while the game might actually become more narrative and roleplay centric, easier to use as well, less nerdy, etc

But it would come down to be just one CRB and maybe fluff text expansions which basically are just wookieepedia articles. °_^

This is an interesting break down SEA, and it explains why I felt the need to put a soft cap on XP at 400 as my house rule XP system. I'm guessing the reason that skills tend to no be as important is because the Characteristics are designed to stay relatively low which keeps the dice pools from being crazy and super contrasted between starting characters and very experienced characters, whereas the XP investment in Talents/Powers is really where you need to focus if you want D&D-like progression.

I wish the opposed checks were more useful for combat in which two opponents are clearly fighting each other in direct opposition. It makes less sense to use Opposed checks against a foe the Character isn't aware of or focused on, which could make ambushes and sniping more powerful if a system of opposed combat checks was implemented. There is also the inherent improbability of dodging ranged attacks, which would be the only real basis I could see (besides lightsabers) for opposing a ranged attack (Coordination vs. Ranged-Light, etc). At longer ranges it's probably doable given the low velocity of blaster bolts, but at short to medium maybe it's not something I would see as likely to happen.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=mythbusters+star+wars+dodge&view=detail&mid=827A6F1D29B9CFF7B657827A6F1D29B9CFF7B657&FORM=VIRE

A 400xp cap means just that everyone "should" start with something like two fours and puts even more emphasis on talents, especially for force users who need the force rating. Well, I guess the force users need as well at least 100xp get some basic force powers and specialize in one force power, which leaves them with even less reason to spend anything on skills.

Currently some specs have good reasons to boost their skills, stuff like medicine, computers, mechanics is stuff that profits significantly from skill checks, because talents don't do the work for you there AND they have talents which get the better the higher your skill.

´Besides, unless you reduced the XP per session significantly, you will hit that cap of 400 super fast. That's just a few month into a campaign. And at short range you dodge blasters, by doding at what they are pointing and by going in further. At longer ranges the slow speed of blaster fire would theoretical make them dodgeable aswell, but as mentioned in other topics, long-range blaster fire is faster ;-)

14 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

A 400xp cap means just that everyone "should" start with something like two fours and puts even more emphasis on talents, especially for force users who need the force rating. Well, I guess the force users need as well at least 100xp get some basic force powers and specialize in one force power, which leaves them with even less reason to spend anything on skills.

Currently some specs have good reasons to boost their skills, stuff like medicine, computers, mechanics is stuff that profits significantly from skill checks, because talents don't do the work for you there AND they have talents which get the better the higher your skill.

´Besides, unless you reduced the XP per session significantly, you will hit that cap of 400 super fast. That's just a few month into a campaign. And at short range you dodge blasters, by doding at what they are pointing and by going in further. At longer ranges the slow speed of blaster fire would theoretical make them dodgeable aswell, but as mentioned in other topics, long-range blaster fire is faster ;-)

lol I did forget about people saying that. I just have a hard time picturing the blaster bolt that is now at 2200 fps when in the movies I don't remember blaster rifles firing like that

Also SEA I am after a power range that is somewhat independent of the rules' assumptions. I don't alter the Characteristics rules (Stats) and I don't have a hard cap at 400, I just have XP slow to a trickle after that so they still have some very slow progression and can work toward goals they might have. I also give them those first 400 XP to use as they want and I incentivize taking the smaller XP amounts to start through Life Path and sometimes Age stuff for a character that starts with higher XP. Essentially the Players pay themselves a nominal amount of XP after every game for no life path inclusion, or they can come up with a major event and explanation that explains their new ability level but have to choose an aspect of that which I can use as hooks, a character secret, a new Obligation, etc..

The main reason for this is that I like the range of success and failure as it is in those lower ranges of power (100-400 XP) and I come from games that generally don't have a lot of (or zero) Progression. I play in the GCW era so no real substantial Force-using stuff comes up. If I ran a game in Old Republic Era I would maybe have to re-think the XP thing.

I also don't encourage builds. I will provide a galaxy that represents a certain take as far as power levels, and the players will be fine in that relative range of ability.

But I do appreciate your input and explanations, they are very helpful. I trust your take on these things.

On 1/23/2018 at 5:23 AM, Silidus said:

This makes actual 'attacks back' fairly rare, and allows for some variation in the result (success with despair, moved in but took a blaster bolt), failure with successes (back behind cover in time to make a snappy remark about "that was a bad idea", stress regained), etc.

Well, I'm absolutely stealing the "snappy remark" idea. If the player wants to recover strain, his character has to say something Star Warsy.