How would you model Luke's fight with the rancor in Edge of the Empire?

Luke doesn't have any weapons so he's not literally fighting the beast until he depletes its wound pool, he just has a clever idea and gets lucky on his toss of the rock.

It's probably not something you'd want to do all the time, but it seems like a good way to reward a player having a fun idea to get out of a tough situation.

Would you have him make a skill check to see if he tosses the rock accurately and at the right time to bring the door crashing down on the rancor?

Possibly having him make a perception check prior to that, to detect the existence of the door and its switch?

Keep in mind, just prior to the fight, Luke clearly displays force talents. In the book of RotJ, it's clear that he's reading the animal's feelings, and has great sympathy for it. So he has at least committed Force Sense of some description to combat. Keep in mind, the Rancor is also dealing with a Gamorrean as well, and at least according to the book, the Gamorrean gets off a shot with the pistol that Luke had grabbed but dropped in the chute.

Chances are the Rancor tried some sort of grab/grapple attack, which Luke then successfully broke with several advantage. The door may have come from a successful perception roll, but the pitching of the skull was force-assisted with at least one Triumph involved.

Luke tries to hide as the Rancor munches down the Gamorrean, but he fails an opposed Stealth vs. Perception roll. He also gets a Despair, which means the Rancor grabs him. Luke swings at the Rancor with the bone but does no damage due to the Rancor's soak value, but he generates multiple Advantage and jams the bone in the Rancor's mouth. As he drops he tries to escape, but runs into the bars. He makes a Perception roll to spot another weapon and succeeds, noticing the skull on the ground. He generates more Advantage and notices the portcullis controls on the wall. He then picks up a skull from the floor and throws it with a Ranged (light), generating a Triumph that causes the portcullis to drop on the Rancor, killing it.

Luke tries to hide as the Rancor munches down the Gamorrean, but he fails an opposed Stealth vs. Perception roll. He also gets a Despair, which means the Rancor grabs him. Luke swings at the Rancor with the bone but does no damage due to the Rancor's soak value, but he generates multiple Advantage and jams the bone in the Rancor's mouth. As he drops he tries to escape, but runs into the bars. He makes a Perception roll to spot another weapon and succeeds, noticing the skull on the ground. He generates more Advantage and notices the portcullis controls on the wall. He then picks up a skull from the floor and throws it with a Ranged (light), generating a Triumph that causes the portcullis to drop on the Rancor, killing it.

I want that guy rolling for me at the craps table

Luke tries to hide as the Rancor munches down the Gamorrean, but he fails an opposed Stealth vs. Perception roll. He also gets a Despair, which means the Rancor grabs him. Luke swings at the Rancor with the bone but does no damage due to the Rancor's soak value, but he generates multiple Advantage and jams the bone in the Rancor's mouth. As he drops he tries to escape, but runs into the bars. He makes a Perception roll to spot another weapon and succeeds, noticing the skull on the ground. He generates more Advantage and notices the portcullis controls on the wall. He then picks up a skull from the floor and throws it with a Ranged (light), generating a Triumph that causes the portcullis to drop on the Rancor, killing it.

I want that guy rolling for me at the craps table

You have to keep in mind that Star Wars wasn't really filmed from a screenplay but in fact was just the most epic RPG Sci-Fantasy homebrew game ever.

You have to keep in mind that Star Wars wasn't really filmed from a screenplay but in fact was just the most epic RPG Sci-Fantasy homebrew game ever.

And thus, we have Darth & Droids:

http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0001.html

Chances are the Rancor tried some sort of grab/grapple attack, which Luke then successfully broke with several advantage.

Agreed.

The door may have come from a successful perception roll, but the pitching of the skull was force-assisted with at least one Triumph involved.

He then picks up a skull from the floor and throws it with a Ranged (light), generating a Triumph that causes the portcullis to drop on the Rancor, killing it.

Disagreed.

Banking on a Triumph is a poor way to model a system. I wouldn't look at that scene and conclude that, and I definitely would not then take the next natural step to plan to put my players in similar inescapable situations with the expectation that they'll eventually roll a Triumph. I'd instead expect Advantage, at most.

Ultimately, I think it was just narrative. Luke doesn't have to be a compilation of better stats. Maybe he was just played by a very creative and descriptive player that used narrative well, along with having a GM that also used narrative well?

There's a reason that FFG did not publish any iconic stat blocks, imho.

I think it was skipped not to save space, but rather to not throw fuel onto the fire of these kinds of discussions.

Gamers use iconic stat blocks for three purposes:

1. To disagree with the stat block, citing examples from the fictional works portraying the iconic that serve to illustrate a shortfall or overabundance of any particular statted out feature. This leads to, ahem, discussions in places like this regarding those disagreements. Not particularly productive.

2. To compare themselves to a heroic icon and subsequently try to use that comparison as grounds for arguing with the GM.

3. To look up an iconic baddie to see if they could defeat it in battle. Again, pointless. Once they do this, the players usually become troublesome as well. "I could kill Darth Vader with these stats! You'd better treat me with that level of deadliness GM, and I had better be able to ignore all minor threats in the game from now on GM, because I'm as good as, or good enough to ice, DARTH VADER!" It's at that point, that in old systems, many players would already be completely disregarding blasters in the hands of peons as dangerous. In old systems, if the pary of Han, Chewie, Leia, and company were surrounded by a legion on the forest moon of Endor and were at basically full health, the players probably would not wait for the Ewok attack, they would just engage the enemy, avoiding at most the walkers, and striking everything else down with impunity. Heck, they wouldn't have surrendered to one officer and maybe a dozen stormtroopers inside the bunker in the first place! They'd just roll initiative and throw down until the GM's endless waves wore them down to the point that they would decide to be captured rather than killed.

There's just no reason to publish iconic stat blocks because all it does is creates discord in the community and opens up your system to additional, and unneeded, criticism. Also, in the hands of those that look at RPGs as systems of crunch and mechanics first and story (unless it's their own) second, it just creates problems at the table in my experience.

I never said he was banking on a Triumph. The player (assuming there was a player, of course) might have intended to damage the controls and drop the portcullis with the Rancor on the other side. Since he got a Triumph, it dropped on the Rancor's head instead.

Ultimately, I think it was just narrative. Luke doesn't have to be a compilation of better stats. Maybe he was just played by a very creative and descriptive player that used narrative well, along with having a GM that also used narrative well?

I agree, for the most part, but I can foresee a situation like that as a GM where if I had a PC I might drop them in a pit with a rancor, not really expecting they'll literally fight the rancor to death, but to give them a number of possibilities for adventurous narrative.

I like the suggestion above that the PC might be trying to close the door with the rancor on the other side, but gets lucky and kills it--plus there could also be destiny points at play the PC could use to improve their rolls, right? (I'm just learning the game, not really an expert on how those work yet.)

I love the narrative aspect of this game, how it takes itself seriously as a collaborative story versus just a collection of numbers and stats, and I love hearing people's ideas for how to use advantage, triumphs, threats and despair to create cool options for the players.

I've been thinking of many different narrative encounters. I think the Rancor fight in RotJ is a good example where directly fighting doesn't do much. I think that is also why in RotF

A good tactic if he knew that he would never win in a direct confrontation. Another good example of narrative encounters from the original trilogy is the entire Deathstar situation. When Han, Luke, Chewy, Obiwan and the Droids are trying to get in and out of the Deathstar. This is a good collection of narrative encounters that are resolved through non combat or minimal combat. Sure any situation could resort to violence, but sometimes it's better to avoid it to make things easier later.

AIRC in the KotOR rancor fight basically you have two real options. Either stealth past it and hope the force is with you, or trick the rancor into eating a grenade. You'll get rofl-stomped if you try to fight that thing head on (ignore the fact that in that game, a few levels later you can stand toe-to-toe with a rancor without breaking a sweat.).

A lot of fun narrative encounters could be modeled off of such fights, where player imagination, terrain interaction, and skill rolls will win the day, not standing there shooting at someone while they shoot at you until one of you is dead. I've been playing a lot of Mark of the Ninja lately. For those unfamiliar, it is a PC game where you are a ninja sneaking around, having to avoid guards, and traps by completing puzzles or assassinating guards.

Some non-combat encounters I was considering adding;

• A prison sequence should the PCs ever get captured by a faction, where all their equipment is taken. They have to figure out how to escape the prison by using the environment creatively.
• Reversely they have to sneak into a heavily guarded complex for one reason or another and they need to do it without being spotted, or the alarm being raised.
• The party is challenged to a starship race, maybe someone gets the idea to sabotage a ship or two to give them an advantage, but must do so without anyone noticing?
• PCs have to negotiate with a band of ruthless pirates that have disabled their ship.

Just a couple quick ideas off the top of my head for some non-combat encounters.