So, I've have been playing the ffg narrative for about a year now. I recently been listening to a pathfinder podcast and really been enjoying it (Treacherous, I know) and really like the confirm system when it comes critical hits. One of my biggest complaints when it come to FFG narrative dice system is that there is very little you can do to dodge or avoid taking damage. I like the idea of doing a follow up check to see if an ability is activated or is successful.

Here are some house rules that I've been spit balling in my head:

The basic idea is that you do an action that affects you opponents dice, you have to do an follow up roll to see how successful you were at doing said action. You would still take the penalty for doing said action, regardless of the follow up roll. Standard difficulty would be average.

For Parry, you have to do a coordination check to see how successful you were at deflecting the opponents blows. For a standard success, the normal affect would apply. If you get 3 or more successes/a triumph, the your dice is upgraded by 1 for the incoming attack. If you failed, you would not get the bonus of parry. If you rolled 3 threat or a despair, the attack roll coming in would be upgraded.

Same would go for Reflect, maybe using discipline instead, as said with Parry.

For dodge, it would be an athletics check to see how well you dodged.

Not sure what other follow up checks we could do, but this would give players a reason to upgrade certain perks like coordination or discipline and use them often.

I would love to hear different suggestions or ways this kind of system could be implanted into this game.

I don't see how this is a take on narrative play at all.

But if you're going to do something like this, just make [the thing the target does in defense] a part of the attack roll.

On 12/12/2020 at 1:53 AM, micheldebruyn said:

I don't see how this is a take on narrative play at all.

But if you're going to do something like this, just make [the thing the target does in defense] a part of the attack roll.

In a way, it already is so. Partially, and under specific conditions.

If my character is targeted by a combat check, and I have the Dodge Talent, I can use it and alter that combat check by upgrading it's difficulty. A Guarded Stance maneuver increases, at a cost, my melee Defense, which is a setback die to my attackers' melee combat checks.

Now, combining your idea and what I believe @97Starvipper asks for in the examples, I would say, replace the standard difficulty for combat checks with skills and attributes, making them an opposed roll instead of a static combat check. Match combat skills against combat skills, for example. For Melee, don't use standard Difficulty Average ( 2purple ) , but use the opponent's Melee instead. Match Brawl against Brawl, and Lightsaber against Lightsaber skills, for example. Mind you, this emphasizes those attributes (Brawl, possibly Agility with a couple of Talents like Ataru Technique) and skills even more, and they become ever more important to have. Also, this might as well cause combats to last longer on average.

As for ranged combat, perhaps use Coordination to replace the difficulty for Ranged (Light) - as these are generally short-range light weapons which you can see coming, and Vigilance for Ranged (Heavy) - them being weapons you really need to be able to see at range. Use setback dice for ranged modifiers.

@97Starvipper I wouldn't change any of this personally, but this might be a way for you to introduce less static difficulties in combat and allow for more skilled or talented individuals to be able to last longer in a fight.

27 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

Now, combining your idea and what I believe @97Starvipper asks for in the examples, I would say, replace the standard difficulty for combat checks with skills and attributes, making them an opposed roll instead of a static combat check.

Back when playing the original Warhammer version of this narrative system, I experimented with this. I also had the players rolling the opposed roll as the defender, instead of me rolling the attacker. I actually think this was the intention of the original designers of this narrative system. I went away from it though. Way too many opposed rolls going on. It slowed things down made players even harder to put down.

27 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

As for ranged combat, perhaps use Coordination to replace the difficulty for Ranged (Light) - as these are generally short-range light weapons which you can see coming, and Vigilance for Ranged (Heavy) - them being weapons you really need to be able to see at range. Use setback dice for ranged modifiers.

If someone uses an opposed system, I would only use it for melee and brawl most of the time. Realistically, you really can't dodge a bullet. Perhaps only use it against thrown weapons? Or against bows/crossbows IF you have a shield?

1 hour ago, Sturn said:

Back when playing the original Warhammer version of this narrative system...

Huh. Didn't know that. So that's why this game has a list of criticals that you roll on with a D100, I guess.

39 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

Huh. Didn't know that. So that's why this game has a list of criticals that you roll on with a D100, I guess.

Yep, the dice system, Strain, Wounds, Initiative, combat system, all started in FFG's version of Warhammer. BUT, they tried to shoe horn in the character creation system of previous Warhammer RPGs. When it was rehashed for Star Wars, the only truly new thing was a new character creation system actually made for their narrative rules.

Still loved the new dice system though. Imagine my excitement when my favorite RPG system announced they were going to do it for Star Wars, my favorite movie setting.

What are you trying to improve by changing things?

Adversary ranks and difficulty are all meant to represent the "enemies" trying to thwart the player's attempt to interact with them.

If a player character doesn't have Dodge or something like that (if they are on the receiving end of an attack or skill check), then it's really the fault of their build or more appropriately something that their character isn't meant to do.

For example - I don't expect a diplomat character to run around dodging attack left and right, but they should have some kind of ability to remove setback dice and the like.

2 hours ago, SuperWookie said:

For example - I don't expect a diplomat character to run around dodging attack left and right

But don't be surprised when specializations go against expectations--for a counter-example, Ambassador (a Diplomat spec) has two ranks of Dodge along with Sixth Sense, so they can run around dodging attacks left and right. 😉