Hello Testers,

This thread is stickied for the purpose of posting feedback and comments concerning combat, specifically non-vehicle/starship combat. Thanks, everyone!

It's not terribly clear what the maneuver cost is to engage/disengage on pg. 131. I'm inferring that moving from close to engaged costs a maneuver, but disengaging… It says it costs a maneuver to disengage, "lest you suffer a penalty for doing so.". So, what's the penalty? And does this mean I have to spend two maneuvers to go from engaged to close without penalty? And again, if I don't spend that extra maneuver, what's the penalty?

You are definitely correct that moving from close to engaged costs a maneuver. P. 131 says, "If a target is already within close range of a character, the character can perform a maneuver to engage that target."

Based solely on my understanding from WFRP 3ed, which could also be wrong, I believe the way it works is this.

• Once you are engaged with a target you have to spend a maneuver to disengage.
• Once you spend that one maneuver you are disengaged from the target, and all other characters (or potentially objects) the target is engaged with.
• You are now in close range to the target and all other characters (or objects) the target is engaged with.

That being said, it does look like there might be some other penalty in Edge of the Empire instead of the maneuver. Potentially, this could include suffering two stress, since that usually lets you take an additional maneuver (but no more than two total per turn).

Hopefully, that will answer your question at the table, but I agree, the rules in the final edition could be more clear.

Someone please chime in if you have another opinion on how this works.

Page 84, Melee (Brawn), last paragraph reads: "Unless the opponent is incapable of resisting, Melee is an opposed check."

Page 132, Step 2: Assemble the Dice Pool, 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence reads: "Melee attack difficulties are always Average (2 Difficulty Dice)."

Which of these is correct?

Page 149, Starship and Vehicle Weapons, Range, 3rd Sentence reads: "Unlike in personal combat, the differences in distance between range bands at starship scale are so great that starships cannot attack targets beyond their range band."

Where are the rules for attacking beyond your weapon's range band in personal combat? Is this limited to certain Talents (like Sniper Shot)?

GM Chris said:

I asked this myself in the Proofreading thread. I thnk the answer must be that you are not allowed to move away from an enemy with whom you are engaged, period, unless you use a disengage maneuver. Where other games punish such an acrtion with attacks of opportunity, Edge of the Empire flat out disallows it. The text that reads "without some penalty…" is the rationale that explains why the character must spend the maneuver (because the character does not wan tto expose himself or herself to harm and turn away from an enemy.)

I am pretty sure this is how it worked in WFRP3E, though it has been awhile since i read those rules.

Rule change suggestion:

T he least damage that any successful attack can do is 1 point, regardless of soak.

In the current rules, it is possible for a character to soak all of the damage inflicted by an attack, reducing the damage dealt to zero. It's just my opinion, but I like the notion of a David and Goliath conflict wherein a weaker combatant can chip away at a more powerful adversary through persistence and cleverness. I believe this fits the theme of the underdog Rebels taking on the Empire and the general concept of heroes in Star Wars facing tough odds more often than not.

Also, it enforces a certain amount of risk in any encounter, no matter how weak the opposition. After all, even the Ewoks were able to take out a bunch of armored Stormtroopers, eventually.

Venthrac said:

Actually…I like the idea of being able to soak ALL the damage. The reason is that, while, yes, it means that sometimes, you are not going to inflict damage, it also means that, sometimes, you are not going to be hurt. If you get to the point where damage is rolled, and they make their soak roll, and fail to soak 1 point, since it is nowhere assured they will soak all the damage, you are still getting your "david verses Goliath" or "bunch of ewoks wearing down Storm troopers" scenarios. It just means that you are not inflicting critical wounds on them every time you hit. However, once you get that first injury, things start going downhill from there…

Of course, you could also say "Any Attack that all damage from is soaked, inflicts 1 point of Strain"

Going back to what bbarlow mentioned about the combat skill descriptions referencing opposed checks and the actual combat chapter having set difficulties, I found this a bit confusing as well. My thought was that melee skills should be opposed by other melee skills and ranged attacks having a static difficulty based on the range of the attack. Thoughts?

dirklancer said:

Yes, this seems quite an important difference (opposed check vs flat average difficulty).

dirklancer said:

Melee skills being opposed by melee skills only makes sense to me if both combatants are armed with melee weapons. But what if a character who is armed with a melee weapon attacks an unarmed target? Would Melee be opposed by Brawl in that instance? I think it would have to be, because it would be inappropriate to call upon the Melee skill of a character that ins't holding any kind of melee weapon. And that in turn opens up a weird situation where a Brawling expert would make it hard for a melee-armed attacker to hit him, even though conceptually, he is trying to parry a sword with his fists.

No, I think making Melee attacks a fixed average difficulty is the much better way to go.

But the static difficulty also doesn't account for a skilled melee combatant in parrying attacks, so someone who is an expert in hand-to-hand combat is just as easy to hit as someone with no training at all. That doesn't make sense to me, and the lighsaber duels of the movies are an example of a contest of skill. As for and unarmed combatant blocking an armed attacker, there is a mention under the Brawl and Melee skills about it being harder to block armed attacks while armed, but there is no specific rule.

It is easy to look only at the default dice pool when evaluating combat effectiveness.

For ranged combat, the static difficulty refers to how difficult it is, in general, for an attacker to hit a target of roughly human size at a given distance. For close combat, the static difficulty refers to how difficult it is, in general, to strike an engaged target who is reasonably attempting to protect themselves. Those are the most basic, default situations. However, keep in mind that few skill checks happen in a complete vacuum.

The target may have special talents, armor, or defenses that make it more challenging to engage them in combat. They may be wielding a weapon with the Defensive trait. They may be dodging, assisted by someone else, or behind cover. And the target has the opportunity to spend a Destiny Point to make the incoming attack more difficult.

If nothing else, facing an opponent with one or more obvious situational advantages (epsecially if they have been narrated as such) is an encounter tailor-made for adding setback dice to the attacker's pool. The opponent is a skilled melee combatant? Well, that may introduce one setback die to the attack pool. He is extremely skilled? Or knows the attacker's weapon style and can predict his movements? Then the situation may even warrant two or more setback dice!

The starting difficulty indicates a general, universal level of challenge. The subsequent die upgrades, setback dice, and other modifiers look at how this particular skill check is distinct from that universal default.

Had our first session today, and a situation arose where characters used the guns on their starship to blast a squad of Stormtroopers. The concern immediately arose that the guns on the ship did only marginally more damage than a blaster rifle, and could still be soaked. Even though the guns on say, a Ghtroc aren't the advanced turbolasers of a Star Destroyer, they are still designed to burn through shields and puncture hulls in ship to ship combat. I get that the damage listed is generally for that scale of combat, but what happens when you cross over?

I know the old WEG version would scale down damage from personal weapons attacking ships, and scale up damage for ship weapons attacking people. Did we just miss that in the rules? If not I think that should be addressed, as the issue popped up in the second combat we ever dealt with.

lowdog said:

The sidebar on page 146 details the scaling damage issue as follows:

2nd paragraph, 1st sentence, "When dealing with a vessel's weapons, armor, and hull integrity, every point is equal to ten points of the equivalent characteristic in the personal scale."

3rd paragraph, 4th sentence, "…the GM should feel free to add +50 to the resulting Critical Injury."

So vehicle weapons in fact do significantly more damage to characters.

I'm curious as to what defines a successful hit to allow causing a Critical Injury. Clearly, at least one net Success must be made. But must a wound actually be taken? If all the damage is soaked by Armor, is a Critical Injury possible? By the character's soak value? Initially, i assumed it meant a Wound was needed, but now I'm not sure.

For a large part, this question is based off of a throwaway comment in the Ships and Vehicles Chapter, of all places:

p. 161 "Remember, an attack also has to deal damage to deal a Critical Hit, which is important to remember when firing small arms at something using armor, not soak."

Clearly, this is speaking of vehicle damage but the differentiation between armor and soak is interesting, and not mentioned elsewhere.

Everywhere I've seen Critical injuries mentioned, they can be triggered only after a "Successful Hit",but this isn't specifically defined anywhere. The terminology would hint at a roll with a net Success, but is this the intent?

ynnen said:

Nothing in the combat chapter indicates that it operates on the same narrative level as skill checks, though. You have recommendations for cover, but on the whole the game is heavily slated towards offense (which makes the David and Goliath suggestion above all the more galling - do you WANT characters to drop like flies?).

If anything, I'd honestly suggest that a starting character's base general Defense equals Agility and may be further modified by Talents, similar to how Brawn is important to Soak. Right now Brawn seems to have a definitive edge in derived statistics, and speaking from a WHFRP standpoint, the low Defense problem inherent to that game hasn't been solved .

ynnen said:

Soooo…. I'm still not clear on whether Combat Skills are Opposed checks, or Simple checks. The example of a Simple Check - slicing a security terminal - mentions using Boost and Setback dice too, depending on circumstances.

If the Skill descriptions are correct for the Combat Skills, and they are opposed checks, then wouldn't that mean that in addition to the static difficulties mentioned in the Combat chapter, a target engaged in Melee would possibly add its Brawn and Melee skill dice to the attackers attack roll, and a sentient being targeted by a Ranged attack would potentially add its Agility and Vigilance or Perception or Cool skill dice to that combat check - in a similar fashion to the Sneaking example given for Opposed Checks (p.21)?

Or, is the reference to "opposed checks" in the Combat Skills descriptions referring to the "…maneuvers a character makes and specific combat situational modifiers as described…", as in the attackers target can actively do things to add in setback die, as opposed to the security terminal in the Simple Check example, which cannot actively oppose the PCs?

I definitely think this needs clarification.

Also, a detailed Combat Example would be awesome! We get detailed examples about Skill Checks in the intro sections, but nowhere are there any combat examples! There should be at least one continual situation broken up into smaller example excerpts, walking the reader through all the different steps of Combat, to help insure clarity.

theDevilofWormwood said:

Yes please

I can't find any reference to Brawn being added to melee/brawl damage. Based on WFRP its seems to work this way and close combat weapons have +x damage, but where does it say so in the book? (I'm sure I might simply be overlooking that part of the text but I'm curious).

theDevilofWormwood said:

Yes, this.

I think a comabt example would be excellent. We tested the combat briefly last week, and it actually worked out pretty well using the rules in the combat chapter. It does seem to favor the attacker if he or she has moderate skill, and proper defense requires a little more planning and a bit of luck for the defender. I am actually ok with that, and re-reading the section on skills I think the lines in the combat skills about it being an opposed check is an artifact from a previous version of the rules. I know there are lots of instances like that, as well as unfinished or unclear rules, but that is part of it being a beta. But I would be curious if using opposed checks would make a significant impact on how combat plays out, or even RedBaron's suggestion of some base Defense dice derived from Agility or maybe from a skill. I am sure when the Jedi book comes out in 2015 <sigh> there will be more detailed rules on lightsaber duels and the final version of this book will have it cleared up, but some definitive answers on whole simple/opposed combat difficulty would be good in the meantime.

dirklancer said:

I'm going to sit down tonight and do a two mock combats - one using simple combat checks, and the other using opposed checks - to see how much of a difference it makes, and which feels better to me.

It just seems wrong to me that a combatant's skill in Melee (or Brawl) doesn't affect his opponents chances to hit at all… o_O

theDevilofWormwood said:

Except that Jay has already stated that it does effect it. Its a narrative system, so, if you're attacking a skilled fighter, you're going to get setback dice. And if you're attacking an exceptional fighter, or one who knows how you fight, you're stepping it up to 2 or more, likely.

I think part of the issue is that the writer's of the book assumed people would think of a narrative system like that--its not all about the specifics, but instead about what you can improvise and suggest to make narrative sense. But most people who haven't played more indie games might not be familiar with that sort of concept, so I definitely think it needs to be spelled out.