I’ve been on an RPG hiatus for a little while and am getting back into it Star Wars. I have many fond memories of this game.

in any case, way back in the beta of EotE, combat rolls were opposed. The attacker used their brawl/melee/shooting attack skill and the difficulty was set by the defender’s opposed brawl/melee/coordination skill. I can see that there are drawbacks to this as combat can come to a little more of a standstill, but that duel between to skilled lightsaber wielders that is at a standstill feels like Star Wars.

Does anyone house rule opposed combat rolls? Do you drop or modify any talents when you do this?

First off, I don't. For combat check difficulties I use the system as is, RAW.

If I were to change this to an opposed check (whatever the skills used), there are a lot of things to worry about indeed.

How would you incorporate Defense? Is it still an extra setback die per point of Defense on top of (likely, with rivals and nemesis level opponents) adding Challenge dice into the mix, greatly enhancing the chances for despairs and such? Or would you drop Defense (and adjust armor cost, talents that affect Defense like Sixth Sense, and many more) altogether?

What would the statistical change be to talents like Parry and Deflect? Will they suddenly become more powerful due to an increased chance to get threat symbols?

Will such a change (especially that "standstill" you mentioned) affect your narrative? Will your combats now start to feel more ike a Hit-or-Miss-system like Dungeons and Dragons? Currently, an Average Lightsaber combat check resulting in a successful hit with two threat converted into 2 Strain might be narrated as " You make a wide attack, and the dark jedi smashes it aside with a wide grin. Your attempts to hit me are feeble, jedi . That last word is spat out with all the hatred you might feel from a spoken word. You swing again and again, growing tired as each blow that is blocked saps the strength of you (1 Strain). Then, in an unguarded moment, you let your own defense down, and the dark jedi laughs out loud when he squarely punches you in the face (1 Strain). But then, much to his surprise, you twist around, veering with the force and direction of the blow to your face, and your lightsaber makes a low, wide arc, slicing below his deadly weapon with an angry sounding buzzing, and into his side (10 wounds to enemy). " That was just one combat check worth of storytelling, including a minor description of that cinematic standstill as well. I know this storytelling can come from any difficulty, but keeping this sort of storytelling up, while the amount of misses goes up and extra despairs come around the corner might start to get tedious, round after round, after round.

Speaking of such, you can narrate a drawn-out combat, or you can diceroll a drawn-out combat. Which would you prefer?

Mind you, I don't say I dislike the idea of opposed rolls entirely. I can see their appeal, considering a skilled fencer can parry and riposte based on skill, and not be hit simply because everybody is hit based on the same chance. I can see why any fast character with great Agility and a good Coordination might have that split second extra to duck and dive when he notices he is being fired at. It's just that the game rules aren't designed around that idea. They might have been in the Beta, which I missed. If you have the beta rules, are there any indications that stuff like Defense and Parry/Deflect were done differently? Were there any significant changes in the talent trees that might affect your character's chances to avoid being hit... actively ?

Yeah, I second everything @Xcapobl said. I have a couple points on game mechanics and balance to add to that though: Brawl and Melee are often of questionable usefulness already due to often lower damage, higher difficulty, and the need to Engage (very satisfying way of dispatching an enemy, though). Making it an opposed check increases the difficulty dramatically. Parry also already covers much of the back-and-forth, and making it opposed makes it practically impossible to land a hit on a skilled character, and if they have Improved Parry, then you really are screwed.

Thanks for the reply. Definitely food for thought. One suggestion I saw was using the opposed skill ranks to set the difficulty of the defense. This would still keep adversary relevant by adding upgrade dice, still leave the attacker at an advantage, still incorporate defense. I think it would also make skilled opponents a little more difficult to quickly wipe as the pc achieve more xp and become absolute badasses.

Oppsed rolls would also make dodge and sidestep way more powerful as they stack on the base roll.

This whole system is predicated average melee checks and range based difficulties with talents that make you harder to hit. IE talents represent your skilled defense

As others have said, don't make combat checks be opposed. One, it slows down combat significantly, and can make fights against really skilled opponents take way longer than they really should. Some of the game's designers have even said that during the very early stages of developing the system (alpha playtesting of Edge of the Empire), they had tried using opposed checks for melee combat, and it was frankly not worth the hassle as it made such combats drag on way more than what they wanted out of this system.

Making them opposed also makes defensive talents/abilities such as Adversary, Dodge, Defensive Stance, Side Step and the defense control upgrade from Sense a whole lot better, since the target would not only get the benefit of those talents, but also of their skill. If anything, the Adversary talent was created so that the GM would have a way for NPCs to be "skilled" in avoiding attacks without creating excess complications and thus keeping the speed of the encounter from grinding down against highly-capable opponents.

5 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

--- to add to that though: Brawl and Melee are often of questionable usefulness already due to often lower damage, ---

I have my doubts about Melee. A Brawn-monster with a vibro axe and a couple of talents to boost damage makes short work of most minion groups, quite a few rivals, and maybe even a few nemesis... es (what is that plural form anyways?)

Lightsaber is way out there, though, as it is supposedly rare to have something that cancels the lightsaber (weapon) Breach quality.

In one of our sessions, though, the characters entered the underground illegal fighting cages. On the black floor, anything was allowed, even deadly weapons. Two of the characters chose the white floor arenas, however, and that meant non-lethal fist fights against unarmored opponents, and of course lower stakes for any bets. Even with meager skill against an Average Difficulty of 2 purples, Brawn damage against Brawn Soak values meant that any Strain suffered by the opponent was almost totally dependent on the amount of successes, plus or minus 1 point for a Brawn to Brawn difference. That session, though it was a welcome interlude after two or three sessions without any significant combat, did turn into dicerolling a drawn-out fist fight. Now imagine scoring even less successes, as the opponent (with a bit of skill ranks in Brawl here and there) starts to add more and more Challenge dice into the mix, and then using talents to lower damage and success rates even further.

So in short, I don't think all Melee attackers suffer from low damage and making combats drawn-out in the bad way, but as far as Brawl is concerned, I had a session before all this Corona stuff happened that also concurrs with @P-47 Thunderbolt . Perhaps there are a few ways to boost Brawl output. However, I have seen many RPG systems with different genres that have this inherent problem. Hand-to-hand combat takes a serious backburner to modern ranged weaponry. Who takes a fist to a nuke-fight anyways?

12 hours ago, yoink101 said:

I’ve been on an RPG hiatus for a little while and am getting back into it Star Wars. I have many fond memories of this game.

in any case, way back in the beta of EotE, combat rolls were opposed. The attacker used their brawl/melee/shooting attack skill and the difficulty was set by the defender’s opposed brawl/melee/coordination skill. I can see that there are drawbacks to this as combat can come to a little more of a standstill, but that duel between to skilled lightsaber wielders that is at a standstill feels like Star Wars.

Does anyone house rule opposed combat rolls? Do you drop or modify any talents when you do this?

With the exception of ranged attacks I oppose checks for nemesis and pvp etc. Maked things more epic and sometimes messy but always fun. Makes the players far more hesitant to just engage someone.

8 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

I have my doubts about Melee. A Brawn-monster with a vibro axe and a couple of talents to boost damage makes short work of most minion groups, quite a few rivals, and maybe even a few nemesis... es (what is that plural form anyways?)

Nemeses.

If someone tries to be good at Melee, they can be. However, they have to be pretty dedicated to being good at it. Any schmo who's got a half-decent Agility and a couple ranks in Ranged (Heavy) can put out serious damage with a heavy blaster rifle and no talents, but it takes at least a few talents to get good damage for Melee/Brawl.

Vibro-ax+Augmented Vibromotor+Superior+Marauder+Brawn 4+Strength Enhancing System=base damage of 12, crit 2 with Pierce 2 and Vicious 3
Heavy blaster rifle+65 earned XP=(against a single target) 13 damage, crit 3 and they don't have to burn strain to use their "upgrade attack" talent or to get in range.

11 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

In one of our sessions, though, the characters entered the underground illegal fighting cages. On the black floor, anything was allowed, even deadly weapons. Two of the characters chose the white floor arenas, however, and that meant non-lethal fist fights against unarmored opponents, and of course lower stakes for any bets. Even with meager skill against an Average Difficulty of 2 purples, Brawn damage against Brawn Soak values meant that any Strain suffered by the opponent was almost totally dependent on the amount of successes, plus or minus 1 point for a Brawn to Brawn difference. That session, though it was a welcome interlude after two or three sessions without any significant combat, did turn into dicerolling a drawn-out fist fight. Now imagine scoring even less successes, as the opponent (with a bit of skill ranks in Brawl here and there) starts to add more and more Challenge dice into the mix, and then using talents to lower damage and success rates even further.

So in short, I don't think all Melee attackers suffer from low damage and making combats drawn-out in the bad way, but as far as Brawl is concerned, I had a session before all this Corona stuff happened that also concurrs with @P-47 Thunderbolt . Perhaps there are a few ways to boost Brawl output. However, I have seen many RPG systems with different genres that have this inherent problem. Hand-to-hand combat takes a serious backburner to modern ranged weaponry. Who takes a fist to a nuke-fight anyways?

I agree with the above. My main point was as refers to Brawl, although Melee still has its limitations. Unless you're bringing a knife to a fist fight, most of the time it's better to just leave your vibroknife at home.
Some Brawl weapons can make it worthwhile, but unarmed combat is pretty pointless. A houserule suggestion would be for strain-inflicting Brawl attacks to ignore Soak, or at least ignore armor. If you put, say, a stormtrooper minion in the ring with a YYG brawler, it'll take 3 success to even deal 1 point of wounds or strain. You're better off just knocking the guy on his butt and disengaging so they have to burn strain standing, engaging, and attacking. Or just run around in circles so they have to burn strain to keep up.

Brawling being inferior to fighting with ranged weapons does make sense, it would just be nice if it was a bit more useful.

The last time I tried to run an unarmed brawl (inside a cantina), it devolved into "Hmm... what class of improvised weapon is that serving tray?" after about half a round. The only guy able to get anything done was the Brawn 5 Elom, and it still took a while.

23 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If someone tries to be good at Melee, they can be. However, they have to be pretty dedicated to being good at it. Any schmo who's got a half-decent Agility and a couple ranks in Ranged (Heavy) can put out serious damage with a heavy blaster rifle and no talents, but it takes at least a few talents to get good damage for Melee/Brawl.

Ayup. THe XP dump required to make brawling feasible is pretty big.