Is it common for PCs to use skill checks in Combat to try and generate extra boost dice? Say using Charm to try and distract an enemy, or Perception/Knowledge skill to find a weak spot, or even something more esoteric like Discipline to refocus before charging into the fray.

Beyond the boost dice generated by Advantage, how do GM's handle successful checks like this? An extra boost/setback die where it's appropriate (like a setback die for the next turn as the target is distracted, or a boost die for the character's next attack in the perception case)? How many dice? Looking for interesting suggestions to make combat more than just move/attack (and yes, I know narrative descriptions help with that :) ).

Or am I just barking up the wrong tree?

In general, spending your action on any of that isn’t a good idea, since that’s a round where you can’t attack.

If you do use your action on something else, that sort of thing is generally either mandatory (GM forces you to make a fear check for example) or handled by talents (Distracting Behavior, for example).

19 minutes ago, swammeyjoe said:

Is it common for PCs to use skill checks in Combat to try and generate extra boost dice? Say using Charm to try and distract an enemy, or Perception/Knowledge skill to find a weak spot, or even something more esoteric like Discipline to refocus before charging into the fray.

Beyond the boost dice generated by Advantage, how do GM's handle successful checks like this? An extra boost/setback die where it's appropriate (like a setback die for the next turn as the target is distracted, or a boost die for the character's next attack in the perception case)? How many dice? Looking for interesting suggestions to make combat more than just move/attack (and yes, I know narrative descriptions help with that ).

Or am I just barking up the wrong tree?

Distracting can easily be handled by the Assist Maneuver imo.

Knowledge checks for finding a weak spot would be fine. How much help would depend on the roll, I'd let them hand out Boosts/Upgrades based on the results of a roll just like a combat check.

The Discipline check seems a little, meh, imo, I can spend 2 Maneuvers, Aimx2, and still shoot as my Action. I personally wouldn't waste the Action meditating or giving myself a pep talk.

Definitely not barking up the wrong tree.

I would highly encourage any such actions taken by PCs in this manner. It makes combat far more dynamic and interesting In fact, for a low agility support character who's wielding a holdout blaster, it may be far more effective than just shooting. I'm away from books, but there are several classes built around this idea (charmer, analyst, performer all come to mind)

The biggest thing about setting difficultly is to make sure you're not making a check easier than a bought talent. Ie, make the check for a "generic" Distracting Behavior at least 1 difficulty dice harder than the talent and consider upgrading for the chance of despair if appropriate. That way you're not making the talent a waste of XP.

Yeah, I guess attacking might be the right call if you've got a combat heavy character, but even beyond narrative considerations, for a non-combat character, if you can pass along 2-4 boost dice (can you pass 2 via advantage? I know you can't do the individual spends more than once but there are two different options for granting boost dice) that's a ~15-30% success chance increase. And if you can stack that with the Assist maneuver and roll well, you're looking at a nice handful of boost dice.

Maybe I'm trying to think about this too hard, but if you've got poor combat skills it might be significantly easier to make a non-combat check, especially if the target has defense and/or good enough soak that you're weak pistol shot wouldn't do much in the first place.

Just now, oneeyedmatt87 said:

The biggest thing about setting difficultly is to make sure you're not making a check easier than a bought talent. Ie, make the check for a "generic" Distracting Behavior at least 1 difficulty dice harder than the talent and consider upgrading for the chance of despair if appropriate. That way you're not making the talent a waste of XP.

This is great advice too, thanks. I'll have to look through those talent trees for inspiration.

2 minutes ago, swammeyjoe said:

Yeah, I guess attacking might be the right call if you've got a combat heavy character, but even beyond narrative considerations, for a non-combat character, if you can pass along 2-4 boost dice (can you pass 2 via advantage? I know you can't do the individual spends more than once but there are two different options for granting boost dice) that's a ~15-30% success chance increase. And if you can stack that with the Assist maneuver and roll well, you're looking at a nice handful of boost dice.

Maybe I'm trying to think about this too hard, but if you've got poor combat skills it might be significantly easier to make a non-combat check, especially if the target has defense and/or good enough soak that you're weak pistol shot wouldn't do much in the first place.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for PCs that intentionally make characters that completely suck at combat. To me if you are choosing a life where violence is a likely scenario and you choose to suck at it, that's on you.

In a semi-related topic, I find the assist maneuver is greatly under utilized in my games. But then again, no one in my group has played a Togruta, and their ability is super juicy.

25 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I don't have a lot of sympathy for PCs that intentionally make characters that completely suck at combat. To me if you are choosing a life where violence is a likely scenario and you choose to suck at it, that's on you.

I'll disagree there. There are plenty of viable, fun character options who don't focus or even need to be good at combat to contribute to a campaign. Doctors, scientists, mechanics, gamblers(Lando!), classic "face" types/politicians, astromechs and protocol droids are all mechanically supported characters, so they shouldn't be punished for playing a weaker combatant. Unless the game was known from Session 0 to be a combat heavy or military game, and even then it'd present an interesting challenge to RP.

I'm approaching this from a PC type perspective, but as a GM there are also tons of games where combat doesn't have to be priority. Heist games (inspired by Leverage or the Scoundrels book), inciting rebellion either from the Empire or as part of a syndicate, investigation games (my bread and butter as a GM), force users discovering their powers. There are a lot of campaign frameworks that don't require the entire group to be combat focused.

All of which gets back to the question at hand, that I was wondering what other GMs did to encourage creative non-attack actions in combat. Seems like boost dice are a good start.

1 hour ago, Yaccarus said:

In general, spending your action on any of that isn’t a good idea, since that’s a round where you can’t attack.

If you do use your action on something else, that sort of thing is generally either mandatory (GM forces you to make a fear check for example) or handled by talents (Distracting Behavior, for example).

This assumes you are playing a character who attacks, which not everyone does.

OT: Yes plenty of people do that kind of thing, when they are playing some of the more non-combat oriented careers, that are designed to be support. They will utilize other checks to boost their allies (the combat monkies who only know how to shoot things), or to hinder the enemy, or to change the nature of the environment they are fighting in (removing environmental penalties due to something the GM introduced, like a flooding chamber or whatever).

Now if you mean "Do people frequently try and use a non-combat skill in one round, only to give themselves a boost in the second round" I don't see that as much really, but if you have a terrible combat dice pool, it's not unreasonable to try and bolster it in a subsequent round, by doing some really good roll before hand. In fact it's kind of cinematic in a lot of ways. The clever fighter who spends most of the fight avoiding the badguy, shite-talking him to get him flustered, and then when he's off balance, pop out for their one good attack and make it count. So it's technically an option, but most players I know don't think along those lines. All they think about is the application of wounds as quickly as possible until their foe is dead at their feet, and they see any action not working towards that goal as anathema.

16 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Now if you mean "Do people frequently try and use a non-combat skill in one round, only to give themselves a boost in the second round" I don't see that as much really, but if you have a terrible combat dice pool, it's not unreasonable to try and bolster it in a subsequent round, by doing some really good roll before hand. In fact it's kind of cinematic in a lot of ways. The clever fighter who spends most of the fight avoiding the badguy, shite-talking him to get him flustered, and then when he's off balance, pop out for their one good attack and make it count. So it's technically an option, but most players I know don't think along those lines. All they think about is the application of wounds as quickly as possible until their foe is dead at their feet, and they see any action not working towards that goal as anathema.

Cool. Yeah I mostly meant as "set-up" for a heavier hitter, with the occasional "super-aim" or whatever you want to call it to get their own boost for next turn.

11 minutes ago, swammeyjoe said:

Cool. Yeah I mostly meant as "set-up" for a heavier hitter, with the occasional "super-aim" or whatever you want to call it to get their own boost for next turn.

Yeah, technically that is possible, but it's probably not the most practical use of their action in my opinion. If their attack pool is so bad they need that kind of boost, they should probably just be doing something else. To use your Charm example, if they are that good at Charm, compared to fighting, they've probably invested into multiple Charm related talents, like Scathing Tirade, and they should be doing stuff like that, instead of shooting.

And if they want to fight, then they should probably be investing in combat skills/talents to the point where buffing an attack with a different, previous check, would be kind of irrelevant? But yeah, technically it is possible. Though it would require a lot to give it to themselves. Remember, 1 advantage lets you pass on a boost to the next ally in the action roster to give it to whoever you want (including yourself), you have to spend 2 advantage to do that, so the cost:benefit ratio would require you to have a REALLY good boosting roll, and if it's that good, you should be doing something with THAT result now , like Charming 3 of his minion henchman to leave the fight "I'm not getting paid enough for this!". Which in the end, is the same result as shooting them, as they are no longer in the fight.

1 hour ago, swammeyjoe said:

I'll disagree there. There are plenty of viable, fun character options who don't focus or even need to be good at combat to contribute to a campaign. Doctors, scientists, mechanics, gamblers(Lando!), classic "face" types/politicians, astromechs and protocol droids are all mechanically supported characters, so they shouldn't be punished for playing a weaker combatant. Unless the game was known from Session 0 to be a combat heavy or military game, and even then it'd present an interesting challenge to RP.

I'm approaching this from a PC type perspective, but as a GM there are also tons of games where combat doesn't have to be priority. Heist games (inspired by Leverage or the Scoundrels book), inciting rebellion either from the Empire or as part of a syndicate, investigation games (my bread and butter as a GM), force users discovering their powers. There are a lot of campaign frameworks that don't require the entire group to be combat focused.

All of which gets back to the question at hand, that I was wondering what other GMs did to encourage creative non-attack actions in combat. Seems like boost dice are a good start.

They shouldn't be rewarded with scripted meta game options either. Combat is combat. The GM should be making things for the non combat focused players to do, not essentially telling the combat focused characters that their efforts are pointless because the tap dancer in the group is going to be just as relevant in a gun fight.

By your logic the karate man in the group should be able to judo flip critical injuries and be just as relevant in surgery, and the heavy weapons expert should be able to positively influence card games with anti tank rockets.

22 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

and the heavy weapons expert should be able to positively influence card games with anti tank rockets.

"Positively" being the operative word; there are very few things which cannot be influenced with rockets.

I would venture that a big dude fiddling with a rocket launcher would go a long way toward intimidating and distracting a table full of poker players.

Except neither one of your examples are what the OP is suggesting. The suggestion is that people should be able to use non combat skills and directly have as positive or useful an impact in a combat scenario even though they have no actual investment in being relevant in combat. My counter point is by that logic I should be able to shoot a rocket into a poker game and have as equal an opportunity to positively influence the outcome of the hand of cards.

2 hours ago, kaosoe said:

In a semi-related topic, I find the assist maneuver is greatly under utilized in my games.

Really? Man, my group does it ALL the time. Sure it's just a blue (or that swapping the attribute thing), but if it can be justified at the moment, we'll usually take it.

Mind you, right now we're at just 120 earned points, so we're still stumbling over "Wow, I only have two greens to roll. Go me." a lot.

11 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Except neither one of your examples are what the OP is suggesting. The suggestion is that people should be able to use non combat skills and directly have as positive or useful an impact in a combat scenario even though they have no actual investment in being relevant in combat. My counter point is by that logic I should be able to shoot a rocket into a poker game and have as equal an opportunity to positively influence the outcome of the hand of cards.

Nope. I've gotta disagree with you there, and it seems several others do as well. Non-combat centered characters can and do influence combat encounters, and can do so positively. Creating distractions for the enemy, scouting, acting as lookouts, etc. There are a lot of things a non-combat oriented character can do to enhance a combat encounter, and even improve their own combat effectiveness, should the need arise for them to fight directly.

9 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Non-combat centered characters can and do influence combat encounters, and can do so positively.

My engineer was pretty good swinging her Gaffi stick when the need arose, but she was aces at controlling the battlefield. That Grand Inquisitor menacing the group in the Star Destroyer hanger bay is significantly less intimidating once you drop a TIE fighter from the launching racks onto his minions and push him out into space with the flight control docking assist tractor beams.

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

They shouldn't be rewarded with scripted meta game options either. Combat is combat. The GM should be making things for the non combat focused players to do, not essentially telling the combat focused characters that their efforts are pointless because the tap dancer in the group is going to be just as relevant in a gun fight.

By your logic the karate man in the group should be able to judo flip critical injuries and be just as relevant in surgery, and the heavy weapons expert should be able to positively influence card games with anti tank rockets.

Nah, the karate guy could maybeeeeee grant a boost dice to a medical check if they had high Brawl and the injuries were very specifically caused by the same style of combat. I'd make him make some sort of intellect or cunning check though.

The heavy weapons expert could easily use coercion or similar if they were hanging around at the table with a big gun, most likely granting setback dice.

As for the first paragraph, I disagree and feel that all characters should have relevant things they can do during most if not all scenes. It can be narratively relevant (picking lock, slicing, convincing an NPC) or more directly linked to combat. The tap dancer could move in and feint/distract to give the combat monster an edge. The astromech could Jack in and change the gravity. Etc, etc.

Have you ever played Fate? My feelings on this are heavily influenced by those rules. You can have a group of a social butterfly, hacker, scholar and combat monster and they could each contribute to winning the fight. Social character can distract/rattle, hacker can influence the environment/knock stuff over, scholar types can find weakpoints, and they'd all give a free single use +2 bonus against the target. Then the combat monster could take his +6 total bonus and really bring the pain

The use of Advantage by itself gets mostly there, but my plan/hope was that skill checks could be used to generate a couple extra boost dice each, letting the play style my group is familiar with work.

23 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

My counter point is by that logic I should be able to shoot a rocket into a poker game and have as equal an opportunity to positively influence the outcome of the hand of cards.

Your logic is really silly then.

If your only definition of "positive effect" is "i shot them", then no it wouldn't help. But that's a very narrow and simple concept of "positive effect". I could go into tons of examples of stores and films where an action scene included people who weren't shooting rockets or guns and they were instrumental to the protagonists winning the situation, but I'm not going to, because that's an exhaustive list, and I can just point to modern entertainment and just say "pick an action flick at random and it will probably have 3 examples of this very thing, they're called the supporting cast."

And not every action that could cause harm, requires using a Ranged/Melee/Brawl/Gunnery check. A PC can use Computers to slice some bit of electronics nearby to overload something, causing damage. A mechanic could use Bad Motivator and literally shut down an enemy vehicle, drastically altering the battle without firing a shot. An analyst can "do the math" of the battle, and give out boosts to allies left and right, upgrading checks, etc. All stuff that have a positive effect on the combat situation.

To add to what @KungFuFerret said, as someone who served in the military as a communications specialist, not a combat soldier, the people in "Support" roles in a combat are just as, if not more important , than the combat soldier in winning a battle.

1 minute ago, KungFuFerret said:

A mechanic could use Bad Motivator and literally shut down an enemy vehicle, drastically altering the battle without firing a shot.

I cant count the number of times I've denied reinforcements to the enemy by Bad Motivatoring a turbolift full of Stormtroopers or shut down a gun on a tank that would have murdered the entire team before they could get under cover. Of every talent in the books, that one is hands down my favorite.

Control of the battlefield is Sun Tzu 101.

Clearly I don't agree with you all. I see no point in having separate skills in all of your examples, frankly all one would need is 5 ranks in Breathing, and then be able to spin up relevance regardless of the situation.

12 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Clearly I don't agree with you all. I see no point in having separate skills in all of your examples, frankly all one would need is 5 ranks in Breathing, and then be able to spin up relevance regardless of the situation.

Man you really just love being confrontational and contrary don't you? Because that's just silly and you know it.