Hello Once again my Ship Chasers, Hunters, and Imperial COMPNOR Undercover Agents.

As the title Implies, I have not found anything related to AoO's in EotE, Essentialy If a Melee was engaged with a Gunnery. What is stopping him from just Spending one maneuver to disengage from Engaged and Open fire at 1 Difficulty Dice on the Poor Soul....

Thoughts?

Generally, nothing. This is why ranged combat is superior to hand-to-hand.

As above, but if you're in melee against a cat with a vibroaxe, and you're sporting a pistol, odds are there isn't going to be much left of you to step away.

I'm the opposite of HappyDaze on this... I find hand to hand to be the superior fighting style, if they can get in there. That's the trick... getting in. Once there they can lock you down pretty quickly.

I don't think a blaster pistol vs. a vibro-ax is a fair comparison. That's like comparing a heavy blaster rifle to a vibroknife, and IMO, a heavy blaster rifle > vibro-ax.

Beyond that, getting away from Engaged is so easy that there isn't really any way to lock someone down other than taking them out of the fight.

For base comparison, consider a holdout blaster vs. vibroknife. Unless your Brawn is 3+, the holdout does better Damage even considering the Pierce 2. Of course, with the vibroknife you've got better options for Critical Hits if you get a good roll. The guy with the holdout will often be going against Difficulty 1 while the guy with the vibroknife will always be going for Difficulty 2.

So, unless your Brawn is above average (3+) and you have greater skill to overcome the higher Difficulty, ranged will always be a better option.

UUmmm, what about never bring a knife to gun fight?

There ARE attacks of opportunity... they are just handled narratively.

Saying something is "just handled narratively" isn't really an answer nine times out of ten, it's a dodge to whatever issue the question is raising.

Or just a flippant answer to a ridiculous issue.

Attacks of opportunity were, in my opinion, one of the worst game elements to come out of d20. They slowed down and over complicated

elements of combat.

Back to handling it narritively, well It IS a valid way of explaining moving away from an opponent - if you generate some threat on an attack, after you back away, the opponent can spend it in various ways to emulate an attack of opportunity, without complication.

So, I feel, while my previous post was done mostly in jest, it is a valid viewpoint and not a 'dodge'.

The ability to spend advantage/triumph and threat/despair to affect the action means participants can move about the stage (regain advantage when someone moves away), inflict strain (not damage, but the close calls of combat at close range), knock a weapon from hand, or drop someone prone, or more. There are no attacks of opportunity, but there are opportunities to affect combat.

These last two posts have been excellent for expressing how the narrative mechanics can be used for this sort of thing, They are much better than the too common use of the word "narratively" that gets thrown around these boards so much that its unhelpful at best.

Sorry, the forums dropped while I was in the midst of writing a more detailed post.... here is what the whole post was supposed to say.

I'm the opposite of HD. I find melee superior to gun play IF the melee can get you engaged. That's the whole trick to it... getting into engaged in the first place.

Free actions don't really exist in EtoE, as far as combat goes. So disengaging costs your maneuver action and would only place the gunner just on the edge of short- closer to engaged side. Unless she converted her action to a second maneuver, and ran a greater distance (without an attack). From there the weapon used by the melee combatant could have "reach" (not a mechanic, but a story element), and thus hinder/negate the disengagement, much like using a vibro spear. The melee also get bonuses (blues) to hit you if you're using a ranged weapon, and if engaged, the shooter incurs extra difficulty dice on the attack. Kinda makes sense, or jedi, and their wands, would be useless.

The majority of the melee weapons, at least in the core book, have debuffs they toss.... disorient, sunder, stun, in addition to talents of the wielder like knockdown (and Thor help you if they are Ithorian).

While it is plausible, in fact I'd strongly encourage running as first objective in such a case, the melee combatant is actually geared to keep you locked up. So, I guess it would come down to how fast can the gunner run, and who got initiative. It wouldn't be as easy to run and gun them as it appears on paper.

This all assumes 2 player characters... NPCs in this game vary widely, and said tactic is a bit more sound if used against them.

Saying something is "just handled narratively" isn't really an answer nine times out of ten, it's a dodge to whatever issue the question is raising.

Forgive my ignorance here, but isn't that the point of a narrative system?
Why have hand to hand weapons, at all? Why have a marauder class?

And I said pistols because they are the better of the gun options when it comes to shooting engaged. Rifles have worse stats, and bigs are impossible.

again, my .02,

I take the phrase "attack of opportunity" to refer to the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition mechanic of the same name. If that's what you mean, then no, there is not an equivalent rule hard-coded into the rules for EotE in which a character gets a free attack against an enemy with whom he is engaged because said enemy tried to move away or diverted his concentration by making a ranged attack, casting a spell or some similar action.

The equivalent penalty in EotE is the restriction that a character must first use the Move maneuver to disengage from an enemy with whom he is engaged before he can move to any other location.

Not every game has to have D&D mechanics, just saying.

Saying something is "just handled narratively" isn't really an answer nine times out of ten, it's a dodge to whatever issue the question is raising.

Forgive my ignorance here, but isn't that the point of a narrative system?

Why have hand to hand weapons, at all? Why have a marauder class?

And I said pistols because they are the better of the gun options when it comes to shooting engaged. Rifles have worse stats, and bigs are impossible.

again, my .02,

The point to having a system is to use the system, whereas most of the time when people on these boards say "handle it narratively" they mean to just handwave it outside of a system.

As far as pistols vs. rifles - it doesn't matter. One maneuver and the guy is shooting you with Difficulty 1. If he can't get that maneuver for some reason he might have the higher Difficulty, but with a forearm grip using a blaster rifle in Engaged is no worse than a pistol and hits considerably harder.

Just saying it is a narrative system is not terribly helpful. Giving examples of how to use the narrative system in the case of the question is more helpful.

secret OP forearm grip!

The equivalent penalty in EotE is the restriction that a character must first use the Move maneuver to disengage from an enemy with whom he is engaged before he can move to any other location.

As far as penalties go, it's very minor.

Vibro-axe.

Jetpack.

Sunder.

Profit.

Not every game has to have D&D mechanics, just saying.

I didn't choose the D&D life; the D&D life chose me! Excuse me while I go twerk now. YOLO forever....

EDIT...I forgot SWAG for life.

Saying something is "just handled narratively" isn't really an answer nine times out of ten, it's a dodge to whatever issue the question is raising.

Forgive my ignorance here, but isn't that the point of a narrative system?

Why have hand to hand weapons, at all? Why have a marauder class?

And I said pistols because they are the better of the gun options when it comes to shooting engaged. Rifles have worse stats, and bigs are impossible.

again, my .02,

The point to having a system is to use the system, whereas most of the time when people on these boards say "handle it narratively" they mean to just handwave it outside of a system.

As far as pistols vs. rifles - it doesn't matter. One maneuver and the guy is shooting you with Difficulty 1. If he can't get that maneuver for some reason he might have the higher Difficulty, but with a forearm grip using a blaster rifle in Engaged is no worse than a pistol and hits considerably harder.

Touche (wee funky squiggle on the e, that I don't have any clue how to type) on the forearm grip... hadn't crossed my mind as I don't have any players that currently use them. Good catch!

Sorry for the miss communication on "narrative", I didn't mean to insinuate a "hand-wave". Myself, I try to invoke as much story into the characters, as I can, so when my trando marauder is going to town on someone with the "mace of doom", I take into account his reach vs' that of a bothan or human, or anyone under 7 foot for that matter. Thus when an enemy ducks out of "engaged" and only goes to just out of reach (just into the next range band/ order 66 podcast had a developer explain this, not sure what episode, but I give credit where it's due). I account for the 7 foot trando's arm span/weapon length. They may be out of engaged for them, but not for him. Just kinda gives the PC a bit more beef, against some NPCs, not that I saw any rule or anything on the matter. Of course this would all change if it were two PCs going at it, or an adversary.

No this Is all very helpful everyone! This answered my question as well as other questions that Started rising up from it, The narrative effect is Still something I'm getting used to (Due to Mucho Grande Pathfinder DM'ing and Star Wars d20(Wretched.))

So Thank you all! Especially from Shamrock and Samophlange, Giving insight and how to provide a little bit more of a Gameplay effect yet throwing in the possible dangers of such Attacks because of Reach, Armspan, or possible Advantage's and Threats(etc).

While I do agree that not every D&D mechanic will be in Every RPG and such, there Is something that we Players and Dm's have had to deal with such things for quite a while. While testing combat, and Ideas between The Players, they had a Duel and this is a problem they came too(One being melee and the other a Focused Heavy Gunner)

Thanks again everyone!