Hey there, scoundrels and miscreants. I'm extremely new to this Star Wars system, and I don't have full access to the book. (My roommate has a copy, which I have fairly good access to, but not total.) My question, as should be obvious from the subject, is whether or not there is a way to emulate the features of the "weapon finesse" ability from other games. All of the melee attacks appear to be Brawn based, without much regard for more "precision" based styles. This is fine for the most part, but it leaves a little to be desired if you are looking to create a quick-stepping vibrorapier-wielding pirate captain, instead of a more "hulk smash!" sort of combatant.

TL;DR version:

Do any talents allow use of Agility for the Brawl/Melee skills instead of Brawn? Still using Brawn to compute damage, of course.

Nope.

The only melee weapon that gives the option of using Agility instead of Brawn is the lightsaber. Everything else, you're stuck using Brawn.

However, if you had a player that REALLY wanted to do it, and gave you a compelling reason, and was using a weapon that could feasibly be used with a more dextrous combat style, feel free to make a custom Finesse melee weapon skill that works with certain weapons. I plan on doing that with smaller melee weapons/brawl checks if people really want it.

Appreciate the quick answers, guys.

In regards to house-ruling things... I wonder if it would be easier to work in a custom skill, or just tag certain weapons as using player choice of Brawn or Agility. Either way, I'll consult with our soon-to-be GM on the matter and see what we can bang out.

Again, thanks!

I would probably just tag certain weapons as finesse weapons and allow either brawn or agility as the stat. That is basically what they have done with the lightsaber.

This question did occur to me as well when I was thinking about including noghri.

Appreciate the quick answers, guys.

In regards to house-ruling things... I wonder if it would be easier to work in a custom skill, or just tag certain weapons as using player choice of Brawn or Agility. Either way, I'll consult with our soon-to-be GM on the matter and see what we can bang out.

Again, thanks!

Custom skill would probably be easiest, but you run into the possible issue of players wanting to be able to buy it without paying the non-career skill cost.

For the custom skill, I'd keep the list of weapons pretty small to avoid making the Melee skill totally obsolete. Pretty much anything that in D&D/d20 would count as a "light weapon" could be used with Finesse, but anything bigger requires Melee.

You don't have to have Brawn 6 in order to be a viable melee combatant. A Brawn 2, Brawling 2 setup is plenty dandy for dealing out death and dismemberment right out of the gate. Spending some XP as you play and advance on furthering your Brawling, and taking talents like Soft Spot, Deadly Accuracy, Lethal Blows, Sidestep and Dodge and picking up a mono-edge superior quality vibroblade will help turn you into Errol Flynn.

YMMV of course.

Honestly, I see things like "weapon finesse" enabling a player to have an uber-stat to control all their combat actions. That particular player could then dump all his points into agility, thus negating a need to put points into brawn for any other reason but wounds and a few select skills.

Well, having Agility-focused melee combatants means having squishier melee combatants, so if they want to put themselves at a greater danger for flavor and cool thematic combat, I'm totally down for that.

And I also wouldn't make them spend non-career cost if they got Melee as a normal career skill, probably. If an assassin wanted to exchange melee for the finesse thing, I'd be fine with that.

Honestly, I see things like "weapon finesse" enabling a player to have an uber-stat to control all their combat actions. That particular player could then dump all his points into agility, thus negating a need to put points into brawn for any other reason but wounds and a few select skills.

Brawn governs melee weapon damage, soak, wounds, and encumberance, besides brawn skills. Making a character that forgoes that to have a higher agility seems legit to me, especially considering how comparatively fewer things Agility keeps track of.

Plus, this opens up the much-greater potential of having someone use a pistol and a sword together and not having to split between two characteristics as much...

I wouldn't have a problem with agility/weapon finesse so long as it required a talent or two to get there. In D20 you had to use up a precious Feat, this would be similar.

I wouldn't have a problem with agility/weapon finesse so long as it required a talent or two to get there. In D20 you had to use up a precious Feat, this would be similar.

required a Feat and was limited on what weapons could take advantage of it.

I'd just make it a passive Item Quality. Make it read something like this:

Finesse (Passive)

Melee Weapons with Finesse are light, balanced weapons, allowing the wielder to use their Agility Characteristic rather than Brawn when performing combat checks. Finesse can only be added to Melee weapons with an Encumbrance of one (1) or less.

Or something similar. That way it's not about the character at all, but about the quality of the weapon. Add an increased rarity for Finesse weapons, and you're golden.

I'd just make it a passive Item Quality. Make it read something like this:

Finesse (Passive)

Melee Weapons with Finesse are light, balanced weapons, allowing the wielder to use their Agility Characteristic rather than Brawn when performing combat checks. Finesse can only be added to Melee weapons with an Encumbrance of one (1) or less.

Or something similar. That way it's not about the character at all, but about the quality of the weapon. Add an increased rarity for Finesse weapons, and you're golden.

THIS.

If you're going to do it at all.

It drove home to me (hearing Sam Stewart and Jay Little talk about it on the last episode of the Order 66 Podcast) how much the designers actively wanted to prevent there ever being a "god stat" in this game; whether it be a Skill or a Characteristic.

It's all about character diversification and party diversification.

A party needs both melee and ranged combatants. Hence... a party will need characters with high Brawn, and others with high Agility. "Finessing" numerous melee weapons in the book has the potential to break that design intent.

Having said all that... I think a good GM could handle it. And I know I'd probably allow it if a dedicated player wanted it for the right reasons. And WERE I to do it... I'd to it EXACTLY as Simon Fix suggests.

Simply add a new "Finesse" quality to melee weapons that can be wielded 1-handed, and have an Encumbrance of 1 or less.

When you look at how the system does these kinds of things (like with lightsabers), your ability to use a dagger with Agility has nothing to do with training, but with the weapon. Some fighters instinctively go with those kinds of styles, y'know?

When you look at how the system does these kinds of things (like with lightsabers), your ability to use a dagger with Agility has nothing to do with training, but with the weapon. Some fighters instinctively go with those kinds of styles, y'know?

That's actually what made me wonder in the first place actually. I saw the entry for the Lightsaber and its choice of stat, and found it odd that a weapon that was already so powerful was also given a free pass on which ability score to use, when the only argument for doing so applied equally to unarmed/ light melee weapons as well, and they were left in the cold.

If it's a heartstopper just add a new skill. The book even "grants" the GM the power to create new skills as they see fit, for the "if it ain't raw, it ain't valid" crowd. I think switching Brawling up for a character to run on agility is problematic, regardless of whether it's a per weapon or per character thing. Mostly because it muddies the waters needlessly. Ted your Brawling runs off of Agility sometimes but only when you are using a certain kind of weapon. Gary, your Brawling skill works as written unless you decide that further down the line you want your skill to sometimes work on Agility too....

To me, if a character feels like their dreams and aspirations for a character are going to be puppy-coffined in the skill list as written, give them:

Dueling (Agi) ; Any weapon of Encumbrance 1 may be wielded with flare and pinache. Jab jab Glokta!

I would still tie damage to strength with weapons, but using Dexterity instead of Brawn for specific weapons might not be a bad idea for melee weapon skills. Maybe there is a Rapier or a Light Foil someone could use.

I would still tie damage to strength with weapons, but using Dexterity instead of Brawn for specific weapons might not be a bad idea for melee weapon skills. Maybe there is a Rapier or a Light Foil someone could use.

Even with Weapon Finesse, damage is still tied to strength. It's not really that bad in EotE, you're probably only going to be losing one or two points of damage and your weapons will have a base damage. The player is already going to be getting a boost of one or two dice if they've got any reason to favor Agility over Brawn in the first place.

I was never sure how to do this, but the melee weapons with 1 encumbrance can be used with AGI instead is, in my opinion, perfect. Anything larger kinda needs to be wielded with some degree of strength because it just weighs too much.

I could see Lightfoils and Vibro-Rapiers (if they perhaps had encumberence of 2 or so) could be used with Agility or Strength as a bonus, due to their specific make.

Now, the real thing we need to figure out is how we can use our Brawn for guns... CHUCK THAT ****

I have considered using Brawn for bow casters. The theory being they are big and bulky and require strength to wield properly. In my 4e D&D Star Wars hack I had strength as the attack stat for bow casters.

But, probably not.

That's already accounted for with their Cumbersome quality.

That's already accounted for with their Cumbersome quality.

Yep, love that property.

I designed another similar quality that acts as the flip side of Cumbersome. I called in Unwieldy, and I made it for my idea of the Double-Sided Vibrosword. Instead of increasing the difficulty for a low brawn, it upgrades the difficulty for a low agility . I liked this more, since the weapons aren't heavy or tough to swing; they are dangerous. Upgrading the difficulty means that someone with a low agility get Challenge dice, and challenge dice mean despair, and despair means...

bah, wrong thread.

I feel a lot of this argument is based off of the players idea of their character being more about finesse, and feeling this system is not allowing them to express it. And I think that problem stems from the D20 GM mindset where anything your character does requires a roll. But the unique parts of the system allows all that description to be put in for your character as a narrative while still keeping the integrity of raw. For example;

This system allows weapons such as vibroknives, rapiers, and the like to have a ridiculously small crit requirement. This is an Insta kill on minions. How hard is it to generate 1 success with 3 advantage? In game terms that character killed three minions in one turn. Now, as skill monkey would suggest how they are dispatched is all in the narrative; which for a finesse character could be a myriad of encounters that we always see in action movies. It's the hero that knows exactly where to hit while not getting hit. However when that hero meets a nemesis, crits wont help them(player) there balancing it for those encounters.

Another aspect of fitness centric characters are there movements. Which is where I would allow coordination checks to be used to gain advantages for actions. Very similar to how showdowns and shootouts work on page 85 in the fly casual sourcebook for smugglers.

The final argument I've been presented has been a unique finesse weapon. Something nobody has seen, or an exotic weapon that is very hard to manage. To that I say that's narrative. Pick the closest weapon in the book that it represents it and reskin it.

All these options keeps the game simple, encourages creativity, discourages min/maxing, and let's Jedi be the unique little snowflakes that they are. These are just my opinions and how I would run it in my games.