I understand the flat difficulty in ranged attacks, because the target's agility can never be good enough to dodge fast-as-light flying plasma (unlike Dexterity helping AC against an arrow in DND).

But a flying fist is tremendously slower, and the target's abilities in combat should come into play. I am trying to reflect this in my game by replacing Brawl and Melee's 2 Difficulty with "the character's Coordination (Agility) skill." So a defender with Agility 3 and a rank in Coordination provides 2 ability dice and 1 big red skill die in difficulty. For someone untrained in Coordination, the difficulty to strike them is simply the target's Agility.

This is one more thing to remember/keep track of, so I understand why it's not in the rules - as they are now, they are simpler.

Instead of this, to reflect the target's martial arts training, I was thinking the target's difficulty should be their Brawl skill. Unfortunately this ignores their Agility. To complicate things EVEN MORE, we could set the target's brawl defense at their Agility score plus their Brawl training. Same for melee combat - Agility plus Melee ranks.

I'll let you know how it goes, and please, let me know what you think of this idea!

Thanks all.

Others have suggested making it an opposed Brawl check, rather than flat Diff.2, if that helps.

Personally I'm not completely convinced. Yeah, it's less "realistic", but it's **** fast.

I understand the flat difficulty in ranged attacks, because the target's agility can never be good enough to dodge fast-as-light flying plasma (unlike Dexterity helping AC against an arrow in DND).

But a flying fist is tremendously slower, and the target's abilities in combat should come into play. I am trying to reflect this in my game by replacing Brawl and Melee's 2 Difficulty with "the character's Coordination (Agility) skill." So a defender with Agility 3 and a rank in Coordination provides 2 ability dice and 1 big red skill die in difficulty. For someone untrained in Coordination, the difficulty to strike them is simply the target's Agility.

This is one more thing to remember/keep track of, so I understand why it's not in the rules - as they are now, they are simpler.

I'll let you know how it goes, and please, let me know what you think of this idea!

Thanks all.

Being agile and fast enough to dodge a punch doesn't translate into being smart and experienced enough to dodge one. Someone good at hand to hand combat will tailor their attacks to a target's perceived weaknesses. Remember Brawl doesn't just mean boxing. No matter how agile someone is, if they stand toe to toe with someone else that other person is going to be able to lay hands on them. So instead of punching possibly the brawler picks the agile guy or gal up and bangs their head into something, or pulls their shirt over their head and starts pounding them when they can't see. Brawling isn't in a ring and there are no rules.

Indeed. Personally, the idea that it's an apposed check would nerf brawl into obscurity. Absolutely no one would use it when it becomes clear that either ranged and melee are both much more playable attacks. Afterall, no one would want to use a skill where you do less damage and are less likely to do it. Problem with apposed skill checks is that combat can be immensely drawn out if the personal defences are too high.

That being said, the person's resistance to the brawl check is pretty much in their brawn. If they are an hardy, well built individual, then they can partly and struggle out of hits with more ease. A better condictioned body can take punishment more readily as a professional fighters body can move more dynamically and reduce the damage he takes by moving with the blows.

Though brawling combat is still very dynamic if you describe advantages as potencial grapple checks, swinging punches and occationally improvised attack checks "That as you twist his arm back and hold him in a submission hold, you hear him scream as he taps on the ground with his free hand, needless to say he takes 2 strain, and as a minon he passes out. There will be no round two for him!" or "You grab him by his head and slam him against the table, inflicting serious concussion in the form of a setback dice, and the amusement from a nearby drunkard."

The only time I would recommend using a brawl check, is that if you are trying to move a person into a clearly disadvantous postion, such as chucking them from a ledge. Though thats more for the PC's benifit rather then the minon since we have had one occation where a character had died from being chucked from a two story building. Though for NPC's, the laws of cool override that and it's best just do do an average check.

This is what I posted earlier.

Needless to say, doing this would mean not many would want to pick up a melee character since they would be largely unappealing compared to the options that are not affected. Because even with high agility, you never get to the extent where you dodge a punch without physical condictioning. Plus brawl isn't necessarilly a punch, but a shoulder badge, a tackle, a kick. Something that is not alway dodgeable in a dynamic situation

The thing is that by including Agility into the necessary attribute for a melee-fighter you force him to branch out to another attribute in order to keep up.

Considering how hard those points are to get it's very taxing to get a decent fighter.

Something similar is in Anima, where the difference in Dexterity and in Agility could result in boni for the one with the higher ones. Suddenly every fighter also had to be a world-class sprinter and magic-finger-mike to be a good swordsman. That got very ridiculous very fast.

I wonder if there is the necessity for houseruling this. Someone being a more challenging opponent will be able to create set-back dice against the character of a gamer - technically spoken. And I think this might be a solid or at least valid way of compensating the simple and straight rule of attacking against average difficulty ...

A more challenging opponent is already covered by the existing rules. A more challenging target will use Defensive Stance, Dodge, Hard Headed, etc.

I think the 2 challenge dice is a nice baseline...the GM has the option of altering the dice pool for a particularly challenging or easy opponent. Page 20 has some advice on this and you don't have to house rule anything.

I wonder if there is the necessity for houseruling this. Someone being a more challenging opponent will be able to create set-back dice against the character of a gamer - technically spoken. And I think this might be a solid or at least valid way of compensating the simple and straight rule of attacking against average difficulty ...

Agreed. I would adjust it with boost or setback dice rather than rebuild any wheels, myself.

No, it is Brawn not agility. the whole idea is to cause DAMAGE, not play tag

Besides the chopsocky wire fu martial arts, most "Brawls" are just pounding your opponent into submission, or getting a good hit in that knocks them out, or breaking something.

It is not what you see in movies like The Matrix, or the Bourne Series. where you do Wing Chung dummy techniques with block and strike combinations.

It is not what you see in movies like The Matrix, or the Bourne Series. where you do Wing Chung dummy techniques with block and strike combinations.

But Star Wars is a cinematic setting. Combat should resolve itself like you see in the movies rather than real life. Otherwise I'd be pretty messed up* by now ( so many body parts... ) .

* Shut up, Dougan.

Having a high Agility characteristic means you "have a good sense of balance, glexibility, and deft hands", EotE16. Nothing about bobbing and weaving.

That is represented with talents. The Defensive Stance (EotE134) and Dodge (EotE135) talents for melee attacks, and the Dodge (EotE135) and Sidestep (EotE142) talents for ranged attacks. Also, the Guarded Stance maneuver (EotE201) grants melee defense 1.

-EF

Im with 2P51, the game has a pile of methods to make a character more functional in melee.

If you convert melee into opposed rolls you end up with the problem of maxing the skill becoming far more important then taking good supporting talents, making wise roleplaying choices, effectively leveraging the environment, and making the most of the narrative rolling system.

The Boxer, the Samurai, the Ninja, they are all there in the system and work just fine as is (some would argue too good), you just need to learn how to apply it to a character in the universe, rather then just hurtling a statblock at the enemy like some kind of man-grenade.

It is not what you see in movies like The Matrix, or the Bourne Series. where you do Wing Chung dummy techniques with block and strike combinations.

But Star Wars is a cinematic setting. Combat should resolve itself like you see in the movies rather than real life. Otherwise I'd be pretty messed up* by now ( so many body parts... ) .

* Shut up, Dougan.

The movies (I'd like to believe) took the opponent's skill into account, the light saber fights weren't determined by who had the better initiative skill and swung first.

This is more of a general problem with the system than with brawl. It is very very hard to raise defense (other than soak, which isn't hard but requires very specific things) in this game. Yes, you can invest a ton of XP opening a combat career and digging down to the couple of abilities in the game that will give you a fairly negligible defense... but why would you when it is FAR cheaper to up your offense or initiative to go first?

There is little to no downside to melee combat in the game thanks to them wanting lightsabers to work. So while upping brawn gives you not only a combat boost but an utterly massive defense boost too doesn't make a lot of sense when agility (or anything else) does nothing for defense.

Although maybe hard to explain, it would be nice if brawn helped melee ability but ranged defense and agility helped ranged ability and melee defense. Oh well.

An unskilled opponent can already use Guarded Stance and add a setback die, I'd be loathe to see anything else by stats because that lessens the talents and the careers. Natural athletic ability is a great way to start but it is zero substitute for training and experience, that goes for the RL and RPGs imo. You can be a Russian ballerina and be graceful and agile beyond words and that does not translate into an able opponent in a hand to hand encounter.

An unskilled opponent can already use Guarded Stance and add a setback die, I'd be loathe to see anything else by stats because that lessens the talents and the careers. Natural athletic ability is a great way to start but it is zero substitute for training and experience, that goes for the RL and RPGs imo. You can be a Russian ballerina and be graceful and agile beyond words and that does not translate into an able opponent in a hand to hand encounter.

I actually saw a case of this sort of thing first hand several years back.

Guy 1 was very much into gymnastics, and was very quick and agile. Guy 2 was a middle-aged man who'd been an amateur boxer in his younger years. Guy 1 thought that Guy 2 was too slow and that his quickness and agility would allow him to simply evade anything Guy 2 threw at him. After about a minute, Guy 2 laid Guy 1 out with pretty impressive one-two combo, in spite of not being as quick/agile. Seeing as how Guy 1 didn't have any actual fighting experience, this made perfect sense, as he didn't have the acumen to anticipate precisely when Guy 2 would make his attacks, particularly if using short/quick jabs rather than farm boy* style haymakers.

As a counter-point, in a separate incident, Guy 2 had a "friendly bout" with Guy 3, who was a bit younger and had several years of karate under his belt. It was a far more even contest, as both Guy 2 and Guy 3 had learned defensive traits that enabled them to anticipate and either deflect or evade their opponent's attack, though Guy 2 had a rougher time of it as his training didn't really work that well against attacks aimed at the legs and knees, but that's a level of detail that's not really relevant to most RPGs.

*There was an instance I wound up in a bar fight with a farm boy. Telegraphed his punches a week in advance, but I've no doubt they would have hurt like blazes if they'd connected. I made a point to thank my Tai Chi instructor the next time I saw him after that.

This is all about game balance. Bandaids rarely work when you're affecting the scope of things Characteristics affect. Your proposal makes Agility even more an important stat than it already is and ranged combat even better than it already is.

Stop. No. Don't.

Combat has a time per turn that is still quite high. If a combat turn lasts 10 or more seconds the question probably isn't that you wouldn't get hit, but rather how many times and to what effect?

I think too there is a disjoint between how players perceive combat, there is a tendancy to view combat as a single attempt to hit or shot with a gun, not multiple attempts being made during the time each combat round goes for. As such the actual form of combat does not realise the expectation.

It is not what you see in movies like The Matrix, or the Bourne Series. where you do Wing Chung dummy techniques with block and strike combinations.

But Star Wars is a cinematic setting. Combat should resolve itself like you see in the movies rather than real life. Otherwise I'd be pretty messed up* by now ( so many body parts... ) .

* Shut up, Dougan.

IIRC in the star wars movies there wasn't much "Brawling". Beyond a few choking incidents, and Han playing with a Scout trooper. it was fairly simple straightfoward, whack, biff, done.

I always thought the set difficulty made combat much much smoother. Yes I know that the marauder can deal out some wicked damage once they get in close but that's their whole build, get in there take some hits and dish out bigger ones. You can argue all day about if agility would affect melee (or ranged attacks) but in the long and short of it don`t fix what ain't broke.

As for that cinimatic feel where two people with lightsabers duke it out for a long time I would imagine they were both going at each other as defensively as possible. When it comes to a single hit being very deadly you bet I`d fight with the goal of not getting hit back. So if both are fighting defensively they would be upgrading the difficulty of their own attacks plus the opponent upgrading the difficulty of attacking them with their own defense, equals alot of red and purple dice.

If you want in your campaign to have an epic duel to the death then I might see using an ability or skill as the resistance, but be prepared to sit around the table narrating for awhile, could take some serious time before anyone lands a blow.

If you let each die roll tell a story and not be the story, it all works fine.

It is not what you see in movies like The Matrix, or the Bourne Series. where you do Wing Chung dummy techniques with block and strike combinations.

But Star Wars is a cinematic setting. Combat should resolve itself like you see in the movies rather than real life. Otherwise I'd be pretty messed up* by now ( so many body parts... ) .

* Shut up, Dougan.

IIRC in the star wars movies there wasn't much "Brawling". Beyond a few choking incidents, and Han playing with a Scout trooper. it was fairly simple straightfoward, whack, biff, done.

Vader v Obi-Wan, Luke v Vader, Obi-Wan v Darth Maul, Qui-Gon v Darth Maul, Obi-Wan v Anakin, Yoda v Palpatine, Leia v Jabba. There were a few more that weren't just "lightsaber + minion = lightsaber".

Although for non-lightsaber brawling, yeah. Not a huge surprise since punching a robot or some guy in storm trooper armor would be dumb, and you'd never land a punch on the guys without armor since they were all Jedi, princesses or Han freaking Solo.

Didn't read the entire thread because I'm at work. But all I've got to say is it's up the GM. If you want to make it harder, just do it and give your reason if the players ask why.

Didn't read the entire thread because I'm at work. But all I've got to say is it's up the GM. If you want to make it harder, just do it and give your reason if the players ask why.

Well it's not the GM's game it's the groups game so if a majority see it as an issue then make the change, if not then leave it. This GM is a god paradigm is High School level thinking, time to grow up.