quick question and I apologize if this question has already been answered.

so i am about to run my first combat sessions and I wanted to have an adversary who primarily uses shock gloves. so i decided to do some playtesting with one of my PC's, and I set up a "non-cannon" narrative where she was going to kidnap a guy with a bounty on his head. to summarize she got into a fight with some thugs, and one of these thugs, out of anger, threw his blaster to the floor and went to attack the PC with his fists. in my mind, i thought this would start a cool melee fight. instead, on the PC's next turn she just decided to run away from the fight to pursue her bounty. I then learned that there was no punishment for exiting engaged range, unlike in D&D.

now after reading this post, I understand that giving any PC or NPC a free attack is to much power in this system.

so then how should I go about making it so PC's can't just run away from melee fights, but that I'm not giving the characters use primarily melee to much power?

Talent "Grapple" You can grapple (maneuver) once per turn, enemy need now to spend 2 maneuvers to leave engaged range.

Maybe house rule, that a melee character with free hands, can grapple someone with 2/3/4 advantages on a combat check?

Or trigger it by threat/despair, which would circumvent the two maneuvers per turn limit.

Knock them the F out with the first hit. Works the same way in real life as RPGs...

Understand anything you give an opponent that's OTT your PCs will be justified in complaining about, but remember you get to bolt as well from them....

On 1/20/2019 at 10:30 AM, PirateRegailer said:

so then how should I go about making it so PC's can't just run away from melee fights, but that I'm not giving the characters use primarily melee to much power?

It requires a maneuver to disengage from an opponent, and this 'movement' only changes the character's relative position from said opponent from Engaged to Short. You cannot change your range to anything else. Any further movement would require a second maneuver.

Bickering foot chases while being shot at is a staple of Star Wars since the beginning. Why change it with tactical-miniature-game zones of control?

On 1/20/2019 at 11:30 AM, PirateRegailer said:

I then learned that there was no punishment for exiting engaged range, this game is unlike in D&D.

The above is a valuable lesson. Just because one game does x doesn't mean all games should. There are plenty of things in D&D I don't want in Star Wars, and there are a lot of things in FFG's SW that I don't want in other games too,

Not to mention opp attacks in D&D become pathetic. By 8th level with my pally I didn't try to avoid or even care about them, I'd just walk away. Hit me, dont hit me, it was no real penalty in and of itself.

As mentioned, it only moves you to short range. So nothing stops the baddie from chasing you, or just picking up his blaster and taking a 1 purple die attack on you.

I second the advice above. There are also narrative solutions. Perhaps the fight takes place in a confined space where nothing is farther than Short range from anything else. Perhaps the brawl dude has challenged the PC to a duel of fisticuffs for the honor of his liege lord, and the PC has to accept for plot reasons. Maybe the PCs are visiting a world like Alderaan that forbids weapons, so they only have their fists to rely on. In other words, if this is a big plot point for you, stack the deck so that the PCs will roll with it.

1 hour ago, SavageBob said:

.....Perhaps the fight takes place in a confined space.....snip

Alternatively you could use the chase rules (provided there's space to run, like shooting on the run, also the enemy won't pull a ranged weapon) at the start of the turn, so you know that turn, what's the range, how are you relatively positioned to each other.

Just remember that, if you want to make it more risky to disengage from melee guy, you should probably make it correspondingly more risky to move into engagement with gun guy. A free melee attack at someone's fleeing back balanced by a free shot into someone's approaching face gets ugly on both ends. Far better I think to drop both and stick to the rules as written.

Could just add threats or adv to moving in or out of range but seems like needless book keeping.

Why would you want to penalize someone for breaking engagement?

IRL retreating from a hazard usually works brilliantly.

If I have to tie this to D&D, I have to admit, one of the stupidest D&D rules out there is that a combatant can suffer an opportunity attack by breaking melee. That' s just silly.

45 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

Why would you want to penalize someone for breaking engagement?

IRL retreating from a hazard usually works brilliantly.

If I have to tie this to D&D, I have to admit, one of the stupidest D&D rules out there is that a combatant can suffer an opportunity attack by breaking melee. That' s just silly.

It's just a game mechanic, attached to a fantasy setting it makes sense as a way to encourage sword fights to play out and archers to stay at arm's length. But people like to try and carry it over to make melee more viable in modern settings as well. In some settings I can get it, gotta have Deadpool able to use his swords.

The Grapple talent is usually a melee fighter's best chance at not getting blasted in the face, but annoyingly, it is only really available to unarmed fighters (Martial Artist, Steel Hand Adept, and strangely I think Archeologist?). Your best bet might be making disengaging unattractive in a situation: Sure you move away and get a good free shot, but the allies of melee-guy are now also in short-range and don't have to upgrade for shooting into melee. Oh, and the melee guy also happens to be wearing a shield gauntlet and has deflective armor, so roll those 3 setback. These options work well for both PCs and NPCs who want to keep the other side engaged. Especially nice when you can't do the "elevator scene" excuse to simply declare that you can't get out of Engaged range at all.

Honestly if I'm good at shooting I probably wouldn't even bother disengaging, 1 purple, big whoop.

It's just like D&D, once I was like 8th level I didn't give a F, one hit? I've got a 21 AC and 90 HP, take your opp attack, phhhtttttt! There's too many that place way too much value on opp attacks.

Shooting while engaged is still 2 purple, but yeah it’s not a big deal.

32 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Shooting while engaged is still 2 purple, but yeah it’s not a big deal.

or 3p with Ranged (Heavy)

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

Honestly if I'm good at shooting I probably wouldn't even bother disengaging, 1 purple, big whoop.

It's just like D&D, once I was like 8th level I didn't give a F, one hit? I've got a 21 AC and 90 HP, take your opp attack, phhhtttttt! There's too many that place way too much value on opp attacks.

Well, it matter when you're using a Gunnery weapon. Always bring a heavy repeating blaster to a knife fight (when you can't manage to go Planetary Scale), because only fools fight fair.😁

Shoulda pointed out I don't bother with Range Heavy or Gunnery when I play. Too many good pistols, and grenades, and most combat is quickly medium or less range.

I don't see too much personal use of Gunnery weapons, but rifles and carbines have always been very popular in my games. The heavy blaster rifle is also popular for the "heavies" (even if not a Heavy by spec) looking for non-Restricted, man-portable Auto-fire.

Even with Range Heavy, it's easy to add some attachments that mitigate the difficuly and add Accuracy. Standard blaster rifle with 3 Accuracy, -1 Difficulty for engaged, plus Aim, 5 Boost dice. I still would just stand there and shoot karate kid in his junk...

Knockdown and Ensnare item qualities can help to keep them engaged.

On 1/20/2019 at 11:30 AM, PirateRegailer said:

so i am about to run my first combat sessions

Don't worry about changing anything yet just run combat RAW. Get used to how the system is supposed to work then if something stands out as being off for you explore House Ruling. The truth is if you're coming from a D&D background, like most of us did , a lot of this combat system is going to feel off until you get used to it. The biggest thing is remembering that unlike D&D this is a narrative system where each combat "attack" roll isn't actually a single attack but the result of the Character's action within the scene, which is why the dice results can be more than just damage (see spending Advantages/Triumphs etc. and how they can affect other things within in the environment). The combat system once you grok it can be really fun but first you have to "Unlearn what you have learned..."

I really recommend that you listen to Skill Monkey's FFG Star Wars podcast, they are invaluable on how to build and read dice pools, plus their kind of fun...
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/skill-monkey/id735255014?mt=2