Well said, Ink. That's a point that can't be stated enough.

I would be curious to see how your test plays out, Devil. I still lean towards the idea of opposed rolls modified by tactics and circumstances for close combat and static difficulty modified by circumstances for ranged combat, but if it bogs down play then I would keep the simpler system.

And other narrative systems use opposed rolls for combat modified by luck, favorable and unfavorable circumstances, etc., and that mechanic seems to work fine while keeping the narrative style intact, so I don't see why trying it for this system is such a big deal. The idea of narrative systems is to emphasize storytelling and creativity above more tactical gameplay, and someone having a slight boon based on pure skill doesn't necessarily discount bonuses from good tactical thinking and pure luck.

Found it. It's stated under improvised weapons that like all melee weapons they add Brawn to damage. I guess this needs to be made clear somewhere else too.

Inksplat said:

It's not just an indie game thing - Edge of the Empire is a mix of narrative and hard game mechanics. Setback dice already come into play with the (woefully underpowered) Defense mechanic. If Setback dice, or additional Difficulty dice other than upgrades garnered from dark side expenditures, also come into play relative to the opponent you're facing, that absolutely needs to be spelled out . Moreover, it needs to have guidelines provided so that GMs can properly adjudicate an encounter's strength.

TheRedBaron said:

I completely agree.

TheRedBaron said:

I'll chime in and say that the Defense mechanic is balanced carefully so as to prevent combats form bogging down into lengthy contests of attrition. Generally speaking, if most attacks are successful and everyone's taking damage (either to Strain or Wounds), the battle will move at a brisk pace toward its resolution and create a sense of suspense and danger. I vastly prefer this to combats where defense is roughly equal to offense, and many attacks get canceled out or have their damage mitigated so much as to be minimal, or ther eis so much healing that hte damage gets erased quickly. This was my issue with D&D4E's combat system as well. In that game, combats can last for a long time because there are so many defensive options.

I don't know if you have much experience with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3E, but Defense in that game was handled exactly the same way and I thought it worked out very well there. It made a difference, for certain, just not enough of one to render most attacks harmless. It bought you time, but didn't alleviate the pressure.

Given all of that, I'd agree Defense is underpowered, but rather than woefully underpowered I would say it's appropriately underpowered.

Just my own experiences of course. Your mileage may vary.

For those of us that have played WFRP3 it's one of those things where we've got ideas on how it all plays out. Currently, this game doesn't have anything to help guide people into a mindset of "oh this type of situation should upgrade a difficulty to a challenge" or "this type of skill/ability disparity is going to add a drawback die." I agree with TheRedBaron, that this version of Star Wars needs to (at least by final release time) come up with a healthy range of suggestions and/or examples on building a combat skill dice pool. Then, it will be easy enough for GMs to extrapolate their own combat scenarios "this is kind of like that one example, so we'll add a difficulty and a drawback" and roll on.

Inksplat said:

But are there rules/guidelines for this? What is a "skilled fighter"? Are the PCs considered "skilled fighters" when attacked by NPCs? Or if fighting each other? Honestly, I kinda assumed that the reference to "skilled fighters" just meant the GM using Destiny Points on important NPCs, or an NPC having particular talents to make them tougher in a fight. Not randomly assigning setback dice because you feel this guy is good at parrying, but that guy with the same attribute/skill isn't.

But yes, this definitely needs further outlining if that's really the point.

Venthrac said:

In my experience, in Warhammer 3ed a Rank 1 character would hit a dangerous opponent (for his Rank) roughly 60% of times.

A Rank 3 character would hit a dangerous opponent (for his Rank) roughly 90% of times.

My problem with Defense (in both games) is that it seems to loose effectiveness over time (with characters gaining experience).

Something I kind of noticed just reading through the rules: Soak? Is not going to matter much. Let us say you have a bounty Hunter with a Brawn of 6, the +2 Soak Talent, and the heaviest armour(Soak 2, defense 2) and armour implant(soak 1): you are dealing with a MAX soak of 11. Melee attacks add the brawn of the attacker to their damage, plus all attacks add the extra successes to their damage value. This actually means that it is likely with a good shot from a strong weapon(or a weapon that has been modified with some specials, like, say, Breach 1), that all that effort to get up his soak is meaningless.

However, this DOES represent the setting fairly well. Look at how easily stormtroopers in their heavy armour were taken down. Now look at how the heroes did their best to NOT get hit, and, frankly, didn't even bother with relatively ineffective armour. I hate to say it, but the movies pretty much showed us how the setting works: Hit first! Pray the people shooting at you miss! Frankly, I expect the combat system to be lethal…because the combat in the movies certainly was.

All that said, I definately agree that some solid examples of combat would be useful. One thing from one of the iterations of the d20 game was where they took a fight scene from one of the movies, and broke it down into the mechanics of the system. I would love to see that again.

sakieh said:

The one I remember that did that was Saga Edition's example of the battle at the sarlaac pit, which was an awesome example, and really sold me on Saga. Until I got bored with d20. I'll still use the hell out of the sources in it, of course.

Anyhoo, on the matter of Defense: missing your attack roll is frustrating. I don't know how much I can emphasize that without sounding like an ass, so let's just say it a personal opinion. 60% to 90% after just a couple ranks is a big leap, but about the range I'd like it to be, maybe capping around 80% or so, but not worth complaining in my mind.

But our movie heroes don't get hit THAT much, right? Well, that's the melee difficulty, right? Still waiting on my book, so I may be off (I feel like I've said that one a few times… oh hey, that cat again?) Ranged attacks sound like there is more purple dice difference, perhaps.

On the other hand, getting HIT isn't the funnest thing either, especially if it's book keepy (again, personal opinion). So what's a fun way to mix a balance between HITting opponents, and NOT getting HIT. What are some of yer alternatives? I like this thing here where Jay Little said to add in black/blue minor dice, and I'll be doing that, I'm sure. But I've also seen some systems that take a more active role in defense, literally making it an action. I think D&D 5e -- no, their new minis game from WotC allows someone in cover to negate their next action to also negate a ranged attack on them, simulating the character ducking behind cover, and it makes sure both parties are active choice makers, it's fast, and it uses your resources (yer next action, bro -- that's something).

I was thinking about a few options to suggest for those who feel Defense is a bit weak as presented.

Option 1: Give a base Defense value based on the character's Agility, maybe one Defense at Agility 3 and 2 at 6. This would be an inherent bonus, but it could also require the character to take a special maneuver to gain the extra bonus. You could also link the bonus to specific skills, such as gaining a +1 melee defense if your Melee or Brawl skill was at 3 ranks, although bonuses from different skills would not stack. Maybe even a bonus for ranged defense based on ranged skills or Perception if you think it needs a boost too.

Option 2: Make an actual Defense skill, not tied to one particular attribute, and not a skill for any career or specialization so it would always be treated as a non-career skill and it would always cost an extra 5 XP per rank. Each rank grants you a +1 bonus to either melee defense or ranged defense, to a maximum of +3 in either, and you must take a maneuver to gain a bonus, although you can not gain bonuses to both types of defense at once from the skill.

I think for ease of play, simple rolls instead of opposed does make more sense the more I think about it. But I can see as you progress, Defense doesn't seem to match the progression of other traits and unless you build your character a specific way, you really don't get many options to increase it as you progress.

One other thing I noticed that the book doesn't address: the advantages a melee weapon wielding attacker has over an unarmed defender. Its mentioned in both combat skills but there is no specific rule. What about an attacker armed with a melee weapon who is engaged with an unarmed target can upgrade one attack die when attacking and one difficulty die when defending against that target?

Venthrac said:

I don't have a huge amount of experience with WHFRP, but one of the most frequent complaints I've heard was echoed by a poster above - Defense doesn't scale very well. Doing a few playtests with Edge of the Empire, I think it's got the same problem.

I should clarify that my problem isn't entirely with Defense itself, it's with the lack of narrative guidelines for scaling up Difficulty dice and the relative scarcity of Defense itself. If PCs had a static Defense stat (Agility at chargen is what I threw around above, but even a stat of 1 would make a difference), or if cover provided a more robust defense, or if high Athletics or Melee on the part of the defender caused the attacker's Difficulty die to upgrade to a Challenge die, I'd feel a lot better. As it is, the system still has the flaws of WHFRP, and that's not really going away.

I'm fine with primacy of offense in Star Wars, and if further playtests say it's not a serious issue I'll be fine with it. I'm just saying that as of right now, it's a problem, and there's zero narrative advice applied to the combat system.

This is kind of disconnected from everything else, but it wasn't particularly clear:

How exactly do weapon ranges work? Looking at starship combat, its at least clear in that those weapons cannot fire beyond their listed range, but I see no equivalent wording in personal combat.

KommissarK said:

I believe that some weapons cannot fire past a certain range (close, etc.) and it affects the accuracy of your attack by adding Difficulty Dice.

I think the range on a ranged weapon is intended to be its effective range, and thus, beyond that range it is ineffective. Sure, you can fire at something beyond its effective range, but it won't hit.

Need to check my WFRP3E rules to see how its done there.

KommissarK said:

I ran my first game last night and we had a similar question come up.

1) Range Weapons have an "Effective Range" but nowhere, that I could find, explains what happens if you attack at closer ranges or longer ranges. Except, that if you fire into "Engaged" enemies.

2) The melee contradiction: on one page it says it's an opposed roll and on another it says that it's always Average Difficulty . We tried both methods and found that the opposed roll's work best for us. In my opinion, FFG has made many efforts for this system to be interactive between players and between players and GM and opposed rolls fit that model more than static difficulties.

I just realized something which also ties to the discussion of lightsabers, deadliness and the way the fights can be visualised.

I reread the combat chapter and noticed that rounds last "for roughly a minute or so". That means thats a series of punches/slashes in close combat and a series of shots being exchanged in ranged combat. That also leaves a lot of freedom to narrate how exactly various maneuvers happen and what threats/advantages and triumphs/despairs actually cause.

The moment I read it I thought I'm going back to AD&D2nd, but the more I think about I'm starting to like it. I'm probably gonna rule it's between 30s to 1 min depending on situation.

Also in close combat I can see successes being literally blows and slashes and failures being blocks and dodges, with net successes being those that connect or are near misses, scratches and such depending on wielded weapon and its damage.

Wulfherr said:

Okay, actually, that is brilliant! I love it!!! I will definitely think about using this for the narrative in my game. It'll probably take a bit of getting used to though, as I've been conditioned by years of gaming D&D to think " 1 roll = 1 action ", but I really like your thought.

Also, I don't see why that can't be a way to interperet ranged combat as well. Successes are hits while failures are misses and dodges/ducking behind cover. Using that as a narrative tool really gets the blaster bolts flying!

Oh, yeah! I guess melee was just the first thing I thought about, but absolutely I can now see the hail of bolts on a good roll!

Regarding weapon range: the bit about spaceships not being able to fire beyond their effective ranges, unlike in personal scale, is in reference to the fact that Assassins and Merc Soldiers get Sniper Shot, which increases the Range and Difficulty by +1. So, if you allow all characters to do that innately, you're taking away 2 Talents from the Assassin, and 1 from the Merc Soldier.

Has anyone that has actually run a live combat run into issues with a lack of active defenses to help mitigate incoming damage? It seems like the whole Opposed check thing needs to be cleared up in a major way, or targeted players need to have a couple reactive defenses they can use along the Dodge/Parry/Block paradigm. Dodge being a talent available to three careers seems sort of goofy to me seeing as everyone in the galaxy can attempt to disarm a bomb or reprogram a droid or fly a space ship but they can't shift their bulk out of the way once a round.

Callidon said:

Every time an action roll fails, it's essentially a dodge. The Dodge Talent is just being a bit better at it.

I have actually ran one game and was very impressed by the combat mechanics. I agree that the Opposed check thing needs to be cleared up but I ran it with the Average static difficulty and I thought it worked well.

A couple of things I did find off was the damage of the flame thrower I personally thought it was too high and it seemed like some of the other weapons weren't high enough. I know it is a tough balance but I just want to point it out.

My group really liked the intiative system.

As for soak and defense. They really seem to make since as is, as one of the other posters put it Star Wars is shoot first and pray that your opponent doesn't hit you back. The more you add to these the more you will bring the lethality out of the game.

Over all I think this game is an awesome cross between d20 Star Wars and d6. I am really looking forward to its release next year.

I would say that it has to be Opposed for Brawl/Melee, as that keeps it open for Jedi fights to be feel really awesome when you drop quite a few dice and view all the dice as attacks and blocks and parries.

But, I would also say that it needs to be -at least- Difficulty 2. So, if a character has Brawn 1 and no Melee or Brawl skill, it should still require a Difficulty 2 check.