I need your help understading Melee/Brawl combat rolls.

When a Player or NPC attacks, THE ONLY opposed dice they add is Two purple for an Average Difficulty to hit??

IS there any ohter modifiers the target gets to add to reduce the chance of being hit???

I just want to confirm im playing this right.

A few.

The Defensive quality of weapons like vibroswords (black die).

Dodge talent (upgrades purple to red).

Defensive Stance talent (upgrades...).

Melee Defence rating of armour or talents (black die/dice).

Guarded Stance manoeuver (black die).

Force Sensitive characters with the Sense powers get a nifty one (left column).

Ranks of melee defense will an add equal number of setback die.

The Defensive Stance and Dodge talents as well as the Force Sense power can upgrade the check a number of times.

I need your help understading Melee/Brawl combat rolls.

When a Player or NPC attacks, THE ONLY opposed dice they add is Two purple for an Average Difficulty to hit??

Yes, Two Purple is the BASE difficulty.

IS there any other modifiers the target gets to add to reduce the chance of being hit???

Yes, just like ranged combat (and every other check in the game for that matter) the difficulty can be modified by additional factors. If the target has defenses, talents (superior reflexes for example), higher ground/standing vs. prone, destiny point usage, and a dozen other things can modify the roll.

I really need to pay attention then.. In our first game.. MY minions were getting mauled in Melee by a Selonian Marauder PC....

I really need to pay attention then.. In our first game.. MY minions were getting mauled in Melee by a solrian Marauder PC....

Minions, yeah, will probably getting the crap kicked out of them in melee as they probably wouldn't have access to special talents.

Make it harder to close the gap to get to engaged range maybe?

I really need to pay attention then.. In our first game.. MY minions were getting mauled in Melee by a solrian Marauder PC....

Well they are minions, so that is kinda the point.

Even with Rival and Nemesis characters, without a high soak and/or defenses melee and unarmed combat usually won't last very long. But I think that' part of the design, they didn't want it to be excessively long unless the GM specifically planned it to be (and even then, when you start involving lightsabers....)

I agree about minions and possibly some rivals being weak in HTH...

But i wanted to be sure to take advantage of all the dice i can to make it more of a challenge.

Might be a moot point anyways if the melee/brawlers are Hired Guns - that Dangerous Covenant Signature Ability is down right deadly for minions and rivals, regardless of whatever skillcheck and destiny point requirement the talent will have.

But keep in mind that as the group gets more powerful and kills more enemies, if somebody in particular is sending those enemies, they can have a better idea of how powerful the group is. That means stronger enemies with more powerful weapons and tougher armor. But you could also just start slapping a few ranks in Adversary on some enemies, which upgrades any incoming attack.

EDIT: Also, it's probably easier to really challenge a Brawn-based character with stun damage.

I agree about minions and possibly some rivals being weak in HTH...

But i wanted to be sure to take advantage of all the dice i can to make it more of a challenge.

Well if the concern is the players beating up NPCs then don't forget the Adversary Talent, it effects all combat checks, Brawling included.

Ok so let me understand,

When a Talent/Ability/Quality says Upgrade.. IT chages a purple/Green to a Red/Yellow Die.

I was missing this.. as i was simply adding a Purple.. or a black.. Wow..

Increase difficulty: add a purple die.

Upgrade difficulty: convert a purple to a red.

When you want to make a task harder, use the first. When you want to make the results of the task more dangerous, use the second.

The nuance of the words and how used in the rules was confusing me, I was using increase and upgrade as inter changable.

Increase difficulty: add a purple die.

Upgrade difficulty: convert a purple to a red.

When you want to make a task harder, use the first. When you want to make the results of the task more dangerous, use the second.

I particularly like the "bold & underlined" (which I added). Going to add that to my GM book for easy reference. Don't think the book explained it quite as well.

Hi all,

Increase difficulty: add a purple die.

Upgrade difficulty: convert a purple to a red.

When you want to make a task harder, use the first. When you want to make the results of the task more dangerous, use the second.

I particularly like the "bold & underlined" (which I added). Going to add that to my GM book for easy reference. Don't think the book explained it quite as well.

Also if you have upgraded all the dice, and you have upgrades left, then you add an extra green/purple die, and then continue to upgrade.

Simon Burling