Disclaimer: This is more of a thought experiment so please give feedback that is constructive, thank you

There was at one point a thread in which someone said as a GM they used Opposed Checks for lightsaber duels or something to that effect. I was thinking that Opposed checks for all melee that isn't with Minions might be the way to go. My thinking here is that RAW Melee is in the same You Go/I Go resolution as a lot of other games, and promotes Character-in-a-vacuum like descriptions. The dice themselves vary this up a bit but I was wondering why Melee isn't handled like a simultaneous exchange. PC vs PC, PC vs Rival, PC vs NPC would be the cases I am concerned with and so I was thinking it could go like this:

PC Initiative Slot A

RIVAL Initiative Slot B

A: PC Attacker has 1 Y 2 G for Melee and gets 1 Boost from Friendly PC from their roll. Rival Defender has 1Y 2G for Melee and this becomes 1 R 2 P

B: RIVAL Attacker gets 1 Y 2 G for Melee for roll opposed by PC with 1 R 2 P .

The first thing I can see happening from this is that because the negative dice weigh so heavy there will be less hits.

Another thing is that the melee characters will be at a disadvantage compared to Ranged characters as a whole. I prefer this to exemplify the fact that guns are superior, and for my game I don't mind the inequality between the two character concepts.

What are some of the problems with this type of resolution, and I am especially concerned about how it would affect Lightsaber characters. Thanks for any help.

Higher difficulty means less success, more threat, less damage, which are all more negatives to what is already considered inferior (melee being inferior because it requires engagement to the opponent, whereas ranged is always at least 2 range bands [all ranged weapons go to at least short range]).

Consider that melee already has a built in difficulty increase, in that you have a minimum of 2 difficulty with every melee combat check. Ranged can go down to 1 difficulty at Short range.

Also I am not seeing how the structure of a combat round changes in your example. You mention you don't like it being back and forth turns but this example seems to indicate that it's the same style of combat round. What am I missing?

1 hour ago, GroggyGolem said:

Higher difficulty means less success, more threat, less damage, which are all more negatives to what is already considered inferior (melee being inferior because it requires engagement to the opponent, whereas ranged is always at least 2 range bands [all ranged weapons go to at least short range]).

Consider that melee already has a built in difficulty increase, in that you have a minimum of 2 difficulty with every melee combat check. Ranged can go down to 1 difficulty at Short range.

Also I am not seeing how the structure of a combat round changes in your example. You mention you don't like it being back and forth turns but this example seems to indicate that it's the same style of combat round. What am I missing?

Yes you are right Golem, and I forgot to talk about that. In one variation of this the dice actually go against each other and the winner of that contest does damage to the other guy even if it's not his turn. So in my example above PC Attacker in A loses the roll and the Rival gets a net Failures of the PC to account for a Reverse Success and the Attacker is subject to an attack. Again I have not tested this much so I am looking for preliminary thoughts.

1 hour ago, Archlyte said:

Yes you are right Golem, and I forgot to talk about that. In one variation of this the dice actually go against each other and the winner of that contest does damage to the other guy even if it's not his turn. So in my example above PC Attacker in A loses the roll and the Rival gets a net Failures of the PC to account for a Reverse Success and the Attacker is subject to an attack. Again I have not tested this much so I am looking for preliminary thoughts.

How would this work with talents such as parry and reflect? Would it enter into ranged combat as well if a person has reflect and a light-saber? Also wouldn't this introduce the aspect of tree chopping combat when it's two melee beasts going against each other?

This idea comes up regularly (I admit I initially thought it might work too), but the result is static and ineffective because all successes and narrative results are reduced...actually, the Advantage/Threat axis will go negative very quickly, which means even hits have bad consequences.

One narrative aspect you're not accounting for is how much flavour is available in the combat Talents. Dodging, Sense upgrades, etc can all be used to add dynamism to a scene.

But the more important narrative aspect is that this is not really about the combat mechanics, it's about framing the scene and "what's at stake" for the PCs. The players will (or should) respond to this. If the fight is static it's because there's no inclination for anyone to go anywhere, and the player has no motivation to use their maneuvers, strain, and other resources to change the scene.

The movies are constantly in motion. Think about the E1 Maul fight, it rages across a hangar, catwalks, and ends up in a missile silo (and that's only for two of the "PCs", the others have their own dynamic scenes). People fall, get lost, seem trapped, discover (or create) shortcuts, have to catch up with their friends, etc. So the first question is "what is the scene about?" Something as simple as a change in location (PCs must get from A to B, find the bomb, evade pursuit) can make the players simply decide to be more dynamic in their choices rather than slugging it out in an "I Aim twice and whack him again" fest. Even just luring them with better terrain can help.

When I run NPCs, they have a mission. If the players don't take charge with dynamic choices, I move the NPCs and force it. I also tend to not run more than a couple of turns of combat at a time, interspersed with other skill checks suitable to "chases". Combat, with its bean-counting aspect, is probably the most tedious part of the game (any game really). Breaking a "fight" up into a string of smaller scenes allows the players to be more creative in how they approach a problem. It also has a side effect of encouraging them to be good at a few things, rather than awesome with a vibroblade and useless with anything else.

Just some thoughts...

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

This idea comes up regularly (I admit I initially thought it might work too), but the result is static and ineffective because all successes and narrative results are reduced...actually, the Advantage/Threat axis will go negative very quickly, which means even hits have bad consequences.

One narrative aspect you're not accounting for is how much flavour is available in the combat Talents. Dodging, Sense upgrades, etc can all be used to add dynamism to a scene.

But the more important narrative aspect is that this is not really about the combat mechanics, it's about framing the scene and "what's at stake" for the PCs. The players will (or should) respond to this. If the fight is static it's because there's no inclination for anyone to go anywhere, and the player has no motivation to use their maneuvers, strain, and other resources to change the scene.

The movies are constantly in motion. Think about the E1 Maul fight, it rages across a hangar, catwalks, and ends up in a missile silo (and that's only for two of the "PCs", the others have their own dynamic scenes). People fall, get lost, seem trapped, discover (or create) shortcuts, have to catch up with their friends, etc. So the first question is "what is the scene about?" Something as simple as a change in location (PCs must get from A to B, find the bomb, evade pursuit) can make the players simply decide to be more dynamic in their choices rather than slugging it out in an "I Aim twice and whack him again" fest. Even just luring them with better terrain can help.

When I run NPCs, they have a mission. If the players don't take charge with dynamic choices, I move the NPCs and force it. I also tend to not run more than a couple of turns of combat at a time, interspersed with other skill checks suitable to "chases". Combat, with its bean-counting aspect, is probably the most tedious part of the game (any game really). Breaking a "fight" up into a string of smaller scenes allows the players to be more creative in how they approach a problem. It also has a side effect of encouraging them to be good at a few things, rather than awesome with a vibroblade and useless with anything else.

Just some thoughts...

Thank you Whafrog and Darth Revenant for this input. I had considered the negative propensity of the dice but not the effect on the scene, and you are right that is an important consideration. I also didn't think about Reflect as that is a special case situation and Parry, but as Active Out of Turn Incidentals I also didn't think there was much to deal with there.

Besides the already raised points, I'd like to talk about the "guns are superior" idea. In real life, sure, they are, but in Star Wars...? Not really. You can argue over lightsabers not being "true melee" weapons till the cows come home (I've seen that in multiple other places), but its still iconic to Star Wars. To those who enjoy the EU, it is also just as iconic and "Star Wars" to see an unarmed Echani take down an entire squad of soldiers with calculated lightning-fast reflexes, or a Mandalorian in heavy combat armor that shrugs off blaster fire before going to town with a Vibrosword on some very unlucky foes.

Basically this idea denies a big part of the SW mythos, or at least makes it incredibly hard to achieve properly. Becoming good enough to do either of the things I described for non-glowstick users already costs a lot of EXP (and credits potentially) to achieve - guns ARE superior because of how strong they are out of the gate. Melee fighting requires a lot of investment to get as good, but can become even better than guns, which is very SW and pulp Sci-fi in general.

There is also Enfys Nest, who goes for Melee quite heavily and kicks various asses. She hardly seems to have any problems with fighting people who use guns, using a shield to block and deflect their shots and then her halebard to kick asses and take names.

On 6/1/2018 at 4:32 PM, Archlyte said:

My thinking here is that RAW Melee is in the same You Go/I Go resolution as a lot of other games, and promotes Character-in-a-vacuum like descriptions. The dice themselves vary this up a bit but I was wondering why Melee isn't handled like a simultaneous exchange.

Hey Archlyte, others have spoken about the issue I would have with this arrangement - that it simply drags things out.

I'd like to specifically address your comment above, however, as I think there is a simpler solution for your issue.

The crb is fairly explicit that combat does represent simultaneous combat. Each roll of the dice for an attack represents and exchange of blows, or gunfire, or a tussle, or any scenario you can dream up. This is also evident from the manner in which results are translated: threats can incur stress or penalties that are the result of that exchange, or of something tangential to it. It all comes down to your interpretation of the dice.

Say you roll an attack, resulting in 1 Success and 3 threat. Depending on the damage dealt (does it push them over their WT?), those successes might be your character inflicting relatively minor injuries (perhaps you leap across the table, wielding you weapon like a maniac, dishing out a flurry of blows they can barely defend.) or you might have dealt a serious blow (you take them by surprise and find a way past their guard). Notice, already, that this is an exchange, though you the player so far have all the agency. However, there is threat! 3 threat might be narrated to say, cause you to lose your balance as you leap from the table (inflict strain - 1 threat) and your opponent redoubled their efforts, taking advantage of your stumble, forcing you back into the tables edge (suffer 1 setback - 2 threat).

This is also why the Adversary talent exists. To represent the increased danger an adversary poses, combat checks are upgraded. This introduces the possibility of Despair, which can signify significant action from the opponent - knocking you prone, damaging your weapon etc.

I think if you consider an attack action (or really any action) as not just a single act but a prolonged attempt with all parties engaged in constant movement, you should be able to get the affect you are aiming for without any changes to the rules.

I used to run Lightsaber duels like this, and while it was fun for a while, I realized that I soft nerfed almost every defensive talent , and made shooting them to be the easier option if any of my players thought to try it (they didn't, they really enjoy the concept of lightsaber dueling.) But for everyone else (NPCs) it was getting easier to pull an Indiana Jones on my Jedi wannabes. Also resulted in everyone just dumping their XP into Lightsaber, which, while creating a fun feeling of learn or die , didn't really make sense to me in-universe.

I recomend only using opposed combat checks for special occasions, as they can be fun if you don't overdue it.

12 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

There is also Enfys Nest, who goes for Melee quite heavily and kicks various asses. She hardly seems to have any problems with fighting people who use guns, using a shield to block and deflect their shots and then her halebard to kick asses and take names.

Yeah and I am leery of having too many people who can face blaster fire without taking cover or using a lightsaber. I know for the movie they needed her to be like that but I don't see non-Jedi blocking blaster bolts with any regularity. So your point is a good one but I don't like the idea of people shooting and others standing their ground with a melee weapon.

4 hours ago, Dayham said:

I used to run Lightsaber duels like this, and while it was fun for a while, I realized that I soft nerfed almost every defensive talent , and made shooting them to be the easier option if any of my players thought to try it (they didn't, they really enjoy the concept of lightsaber dueling.) But for everyone else (NPCs) it was getting easier to pull an Indiana Jones on my Jedi wannabes. Also resulted in everyone just dumping their XP into Lightsaber, which, while creating a fun feeling of learn or die , didn't really make sense to me in-universe.

I recomend only using opposed combat checks for special occasions, as they can be fun if you don't overdue it.

Thank you for this and I think that these are serious considerations. I notice that depicting the SW Universe often falls into this thing of how much does it depend on guns. I remember the stunt/fight coordinator on the first movie saying how surprised he was about guys being able to go up against guns with swords, and that these heroes with the laser swords must really be something. I think that Indiana Jones thing is a perfect example.

Bad Guy is amazing with his sword, but doesn't have the distance advantage. Dead.

I am probably not going to use this house rule but I am still playing with it because it intrigues me, and as a possible way of using it to do epic duels.

50 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Yeah and I am leery of having too many people who can face blaster fire without taking cover or using a lightsaber. I know for the movie they needed her to be like that but I don't see non-Jedi blocking blaster bolts with any regularity. So your point is a good one but I don't like the idea of people shooting and others standing their ground with a melee weapon. 

Well previously having a shield was as good as having decent armour or getting into cover. Now a shield with +2 deflect and a armour with +2 defense to ranged will cap out your defensive stat. So no real need for cover then. Add in talents like dodge and sixth sense and there are various ways to be a hard to hit melee combatant. Narratively they don't really have to stand their ground either, they move around, use the terrain to their advantage and so on. Your round, and any hits it results in, can be narrated as several hits or smaller actions.

9 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

Well previously having a shield was as good as having decent armour or getting into cover. Now a shield with +2 deflect and a armour with +2 defense to ranged will cap out your defensive stat. So no real need for cover then. Add in talents like dodge and sixth sense and there are various ways to be a hard to hit melee combatant. Narratively they don't really have to stand their ground either, they move around, use the terrain to their advantage and so on. Your round, and any hits it results in, can be narrated as several hits or smaller actions.

I love the idea of moving around and using the environment, that to me is essential. I don't really have a group that tries to "solve" such problems and will only do something like have a shield like that as a special gimmick for a scene and wouldn't do it again. I'm lucky to have people who don't do Called Shot Head every attack because it has a mechanical effect that is the equivalent of catching the golden snitch.

Even with really good armor I don't think it's in the theme of the setting to have characters bouncing blaster bolts off their armor without a care. Having said that, for a traditional play style adhering strictly RAW and using all available equipment I agree with you 100% and I think you are right.

On ‎6‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 6:54 AM, SanguineAngel said:

Hey Archlyte, others have spoken about the issue I would have with this arrangement - that it simply drags things out.

I'd like to specifically address your comment above, however, as I think there is a simpler solution for your issue.

The crb is fairly explicit that combat does represent simultaneous combat. Each roll of the dice for an attack represents and exchange of blows, or gunfire, or a tussle, or any scenario you can dream up. This is also evident from the manner in which results are translated: threats can incur stress or penalties that are the result of that exchange, or of something tangential to it. It all comes down to your interpretation of the dice.

Say you roll an attack, resulting in 1 Success and 3 threat. Depending on the damage dealt (does it push them over their WT?), those successes might be your character inflicting relatively minor injuries (perhaps you leap across the table, wielding you weapon like a maniac, dishing out a flurry of blows they can barely defend.) or you might have dealt a serious blow (you take them by surprise and find a way past their guard). Notice, already, that this is an exchange, though you the player so far have all the agency. However, there is threat! 3 threat might be narrated to say, cause you to lose your balance as you leap from the table (inflict strain - 1 threat) and your opponent redoubled their efforts, taking advantage of your stumble, forcing you back into the tables edge (suffer 1 setback - 2 threat).

This is also why the Adversary talent exists. To represent the increased danger an adversary poses, combat checks are upgraded. This introduces the possibility of Despair, which can signify significant action from the opponent - knocking you prone, damaging your weapon etc.

I think if you consider an attack action (or really any action) as not just a single act but a prolonged attempt with all parties engaged in constant movement, you should be able to get the affect you are aiming for without any changes to the rules.

I think this really sold me on the thing. To be clear, I mean that you changed my mind. I know that's not supposed to happen but there it is Thanks, what great points!

My concern is that there a numerous talents (and force powers) that upgrade the difficulty of incoming attacks or add setback dice to the attacker's pool. In addition, there are adversary dice for difficult opponents. In that sense, abstractly speaking, the dice pool includes the "opposed roll" in the form of negative dice. My gut tells me, without serious rebalancing work, this would introduce both an un-fun ratio of failure to success as well as far more threats and despairs than would be desireable.

1 hour ago, Vondy said:

My concern is that there a numerous talents (and force powers) that upgrade the difficulty of incoming attacks or add setback dice to the attacker's pool. In addition, there are adversary dice for difficult opponents. In that sense, abstractly speaking, the dice pool includes the "opposed roll" in the form of negative dice. My gut tells me, without serious rebalancing work, this would introduce both an un-fun ratio of failure to success as well as far more threats and despairs than would be desireable.

And you are right, although I wish you weren't lol. You would basically have to have both sides rolling the positive dice and then you still have the problems of negatives so it's a big wash. It might work if you made both rolls normal but simultaneous but then your symbol counting is bloated.

I like to play with RAW, even though I respect it in most cases. But this experiment was a failure, though I really appreciate all the input.

SanguineAngle had it right, the way to get it to feel like I want is with description.

4 hours ago, Archlyte said:

And you are right, although I wish you weren't lol. You would basically have to have both sides rolling the positive dice and then you still have the problems of negatives so it's a big wash. It might work if you made both rolls normal but simultaneous but then your symbol counting is bloated.

I like to play with RAW, even though I respect it in most cases. But this experiment was a failure, though I really appreciate all the input.

SanguineAngle had it right, the way to get it to feel like I want is with description.

I wouldn't call it a "failure". Any experiment you learn something from is not a failure (from a certain point of view).

That being said, I think this would work well with One-Check Combat Resolution optional rule in EotE core, pg 323- using melee vs melee rather than melee vs 2 purps.