Sorry if this has been brought up before, probably has, but my network is preventing me from getting a successful search through the forums.

Is it feasible to allow Agility to be used in place of Brawn for Brawl?

I'm thinking along the lines of species such as the Noghri who are physically small, and I'd never expect to see one with near a Wookiee's strength, but still have the ability to do serious hand to hand damage with their martial arts, Stava. I'm basing this off of Donovan Morningfire's and others (I apologize for not naming names here) Species Menagerie where Noghri are more agile than brawny.

Thoughts? I'm thinking it's valid, but I wanted to make sure I'm not leaning too far off base and into the realm of munchkinism. Plus, I look at a person like Jet Li vs someone like Kimbo Slice. Two very proficient fighters with very different styles.

E

The quick answer here is that if you want to allow it in your campaign, go for it. The longer answer provides some options:

1. Just allow it as a house rule.

2. Create a different skill, such as Martial Arts, that uses Agility instead of Brawn.

3. Design a talent that lets a character use Agility instead of Brawn with Brawl. This option does raise the question of how much such a talent would cost.

What does everyone else think?

-Nate

Just allowing Agility + Brawl begins to put too much emphasis on Agility as a combat-related Characteristic; it's already tied to ranged attacks, which are far mroe common in Star Wars unless you happen to be a Jedi (even Wookiees in the films relied more on ranged combat than melee).

I know there's been a few folks dabbling with a Martial Artitst universal specialization, with one of the homebrew talents being common to them is the ability to use Agility in place of Brawn for attack rolls. But since it's another specialization, that might be construed as too costly since you'd have to pay 20 XP just to acquire that spec, and then however many more XP to pick up said talent.

Of the options that Nate presented, I think the 2nd one (unique skill) is probably the best, as this way it involves a cost to the character (have to be a separate skill that's not a career skill for anyone) while still having a significant edge in that they don't need quite as much focus on Brawn and thus enabling them to have a decent dice pool for both ranged and hand-to-hand attacks.

But as was also mentioned in the dupe thread for this topic, being a highly proficient martial artist would also be reflected in a high Brawl rank, and not just their Brawn or Agility. So going by RAW, a fragile speedster type (like Jet Li) might only have a Brawn of only 2, but he's got 4 or 5 ranks in Brawl, which the PC describes as using speed and agility instead of raw brute force. I can see the temptation to link Brawl to Agility, particularly if playing a species that has a high starting Agility (such as Rodians or Noghri), but I don't think it should be done without some sort of trade-off.

I hate it when we end up with two or more threads because of multiple postings error.

MrBaldwin said:

This is a good point. As is the point of making Agility too good. If you want to show someone who is trained well in hand to hand, invest more into Brawl. Unless you plan to differentiate between combat skills of Martial Arts and Brawl beyond the characteristic tied to them, there really isn't much of a point.

For the talent I made for one of my attempted martial arts specialisations the tying of Agility to Brawl only had to do with the dice-pool - damage would still be based on Brawn.

I can understand the skepticism for adding agility to yet another combat skill, but frankly I'm not sure its such a big deal, its not like its Dex in d20 and it wouldn't turn it into one either. Especially if the base brawl damage is still based off of Brawn. Which was my approach with the talent. I also made the talent cheap (5 xp), because simply not everyone is going to take it - so it should be optional, but also available at the start of the new universal specialisation. A brawn focused character would never take it. He would be better off without it, still better off than the agility focused character which would still have a lower Brawn, therefore lower damage, unless rolling really well with his agility-based pool. Arguably this approach isn't very nice for the agility based fighter, but I think its fair enough for jazz.

Adding a new skill for the same niche - i.e. a Martial Arts skill which basically does that same as Brawl except tied to Agility seems pointless. Unless there are some mechanical differences… I mean I could see a Martial Arts skill as a sort of advanced skill, requiring Brawl at a certain rank and all - but that takes us beyond the philosophy of the game and its elegant simplicity… and what would such a skill do? (advanced or not).

In my opinion the nimble fighter does not exist apart from movies and cartoons. Guys, give a look to any of the Martial Arts world champions, google it and tell me then they have Brawl 2!

Jaqui Chan

Bruce Lee

Jet Li

Yepesnopes said:

Only 2 ranks in the Brawl skill? Definitely not.

Only a Brawn Characteristic of only 2? That I'll grant you, but I wouldn't put it much higher than a 3, as these guys are built more for speed than for the kind of raw brute force that guys like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Dolph Lundgren are built for. But at the same time, being as physically well-defined doesn't always mean a person is remarkably strong or resilient, so it's kind of a mixed bag.

It should be noted that Brawn encompasses more than just brute strength in EotE. Having a high Brawn doesn't necessarily need to translate as being inordinately strong. It can also be described as being particularly resilient, something that many well-trained martial artist are perceived to be. So keeping Brawl with Brawn works if you want it to.

Also, and quoting Warhammer 3 entry for Strength, a high value of sterngth does not necessarily mean raw muscle, it may mean that the character knows how most efectively use his strength.

Cheers,

Yepes

Thanks for all the replies, sorry for that double post, sometimes my computer network doesn't like to do anything right.

I think I'll stick with RAW and keep Brawn and Brawl connected. The arguments for Brawn meaning more than strength swung me.

That does lead to the next issue: If I have Brawn 3 and Brawl 2, that would give me GYY (using colors) for a dice pool. Uping my Brawl by 1 would push me to YYY. What happens when I learn another rank? I get YYYG. But what then? Would I never be able to get more Proficiency dice as long as my Brawn remained only 3? YYYG, YYYGG, YYYGGG, and so on? That's a lot of green dice. Is that correct?

E

Basically, yes. With Brawn 3 and Brawl 5 you'd have YYYGG.

ejacobs said:

I think you could get more proficiency dice from other upgrades, like destiny points. And you could always take the talents that let you raise your brawn.