So I just bought the beginners box and started reading through the books in order, and came across some very weird formulations regarding engaged range difficulties.

I then tried to look it up in the rulebook, but that just added to the confusion.

So in the adventure book it states that attacking in engaged range has 2 difficulty die for brawl, melee and ranged(light) weapons. Then there's a full stop, and it says "add 2 difficulty dice". Without any further explanation to what and why adds those 2 dice.

Looking at the rulebook it then says that engaged range is a 1 difficulty attack with modifiers for weapon, under it it then says ranged(light) adds 1 difficulty, but that's the only example.. There's nothing for vibroweapons, clubs or the like..

So what IS the difficulty for using brawl and melee weapons in engaged range, and what about ranged(light).. What about Ranged(medium) if any such exists (haven't read end to end yet)..

My guess is that combat in engaged range is 2 difficulty - no matter if you brawl, melee or shoot a light weapon.. For a heavy weapon it's 5 difficulty, and for anything in between it's 4 difficulty.

Melee or Brawl is always 2 difficulty, and must be conducted at engaged range. (core rulebook, page 132, Step 2: assemble the dice pool, second paragraph)

Ranged attacks in bands other than engaged basically gain 1 difficulty for each range. 1 for close/short, 2 for medium, 3 for long, and 4 for extreme. (core rulebook, page 132, table 6-1)

Ranged in engaged is tricky, because it's a range band within a range band, but let's break it down. Table 6-1 tells us engaged gets 1 plus additional modifiers depending on weapon used. Keep in mind that the table itself is called Ranged Attack Difficulties. that means the entire table is disregarded for melee attacks - they are always difficulty 2. Now, on page 135, we find table 6-4, the ranged attack difficulty. This table explains the weapon modifiers hinted at in table 6-1. Engaged with a ranged light weapon (pistols, etc.) give you one additional difficulty die. So a pistol attack against a target you are engaged with is 2 difficulty - same as melee. Engaged with a ranged heavy weapon (rifles) give you two additional difficulty. That means it's the same as taking a shot from medium distance - the big rifle makes it hard to shoot at someone who is withing fisticuffs range. Ranged Gunnery attacks can not be made against engaged targets - think of Luke cutting down the gunners on Jabba's sail barge, there is no way they could hit him with those weapons.

One additional note, and the thing that gives melee the edge in melee, is a small blurb at the bottom of the left hand column of page 136, telling us that if a character makes a ranged attack while engaged, everyone he is engaged with gets one boost die to their next brawl/melee attacks against that character. This gives melee an edge against people who want to run in with a blaster pistol and put it in your gut

Hope that clears things up for you

Thanks for the reply, even though you seem to take for granted I have the beta rulebook and not just the Beginner game rulebook.. Mine only has 48 pages ..

So to sum it up.

Melee/brawl vs. melee/brawl in engaged range is always 2 difficulty with any melee weapon (so far)..

Melee/brawl vs. ranged of any type in engaged range is 2 difficulty.

ranged vs. melee/brawl in engaged range is 2 for light weapons, 3 for medium weapons and 4 for large weapons? And the melee/brawl opponent gets a boost die on next attack.

I hope the final version always gives the melee'er a blue die when attacking someone wielding a gun, regardless if the one with the gun tried to shoot or not.. Makes more sense, and is easier to keep track of.. Hard to block a vibroaxe swing with a hold-out blaster ..

And it seems like "attack of oppertunity" doesn't exist in this system.

blaznee said:

Close. Ranged (light) 2 difficulty, Ranged (heavy) 3 difficulty, Gunnery can't. It's divided by the skill that is needed to use the weapon, not the weapon itself. For some examples, the light weapons includes pistols, heavy includes rifles, and gunnery includes the tripod mounted heavy repeater.

Where do mediums fall then? 3 difficulty?

blaznee said:

There are no mediums.

blaznee said:

In ranged vs melee combat you look at the skill used not the weapon's range. If it uses Ranged (light) then it is 2 difficulty. If it uses Ranged (heavy) it's 3 difficulty. If it uses Gunnery you can not attack a target that is engaged. Those are the only 3 ranged weapon skills.

Example:

A PC is engaged with an enermy and wants to attack for their action they has no weapons that are Melee or Brawl except their fists and they know fists won't effect the enemy so they use their Blaster Pistol (Light Ranged) . They have Agility 3 and 1 rank in the Light Ranged Skill, their dice pool will be 2 Green Ability Dice, 1 Yellow Proficency Die, now for its difficuly he gets 2 Purple Difficulty Dice (1 for being in the Engaged Range Band and another for using the Light Ranged Skill)

The next PC is engaged with a different enermy and wants to attack for their action they also have no weapons that are Melee or Brawl except their fists and again they know fists won't effect the enemy so they use their Blaster Rifle (Heavy Ranged) . They also have Agility 3 and 1 rank in the Heavy Ranged Skill, their dice pool will be 2 Green Ability Dice, 1 Yellow Proficency Die, now for its difficuly he gets 3 Purple Difficulty Dice (1 for being in the Engaged Range Band and another 2 for using the Heavy Ranged Skill)

The last PC is too engaged with an enermy and wants to attack for their action they too also have no weapons that are Melee or Brawl except their fists and like their friends they know fists won't effect the enemy so they use their Heavy Repeating Blaster (Gunnery) . Because the Heavy Tepeating Blaster requires the Gunnery skill to be used it cannot be used to attack at the Engaged Range Band

I hope this helps everyone and that I myself have read the Ranged Attack Difficulty table on Pg17 from the Beginners Rulebook right

So why does the chart on page 17 of the Beginner Box rulebook list engaged as difficulty 1 plus additional modifiers depending on weapon used? Wouldn't it be less confusing to say "2 plus 1 additional die if using ranged (heavy)"?

From what I can tell, the beginner box rules were based off of the beta rules around the 3rd or 4th erata update (out of 11), so there are a couple discrepancies and changes to wording. In addition, the beta/begginner set doesn't seem to have gotten the full pass for readibility that the full release will.

From my experience running the game what has been said above seems to be what was intended and is the general agreement among players on the forums as it's the most balanced.

Somebody posted some reference sheets at one point for the beta and although there is some extraneous information for the begginner set, they are still very helpful, and in particular my group used the combat reference quite a bit.