I have a jedi with the improved parry skill, but everytime i go into combat the npc just move out of engaged range then blast me down in the open. Thereby unable to use the skill.
Is there something mechanically in the rules to prevent this otherwise these skills from the tree are useless.
Range combat seems more superior as able to gain cover.
Improved Parry is to be used against melee attacks, which must by definition be made from within Engaged range (with a couple exceptions).
Improved Reflect is useful against ranged attacks.
my opinion was that Improved parry was a waste of a skill as enemy would just pull to short range and attack. There seems to be no counter to this
That’s called kiting and it’s a pretty common thing many games deal with. Some games have an attack of opportunity or reactionary strike mechanic for this, but Star Wars doesn’t.
There are ways to deal with it, though; immobilize the opponent with an Ensnare weapon, the Grapple talent, as well as some Critical Injuries IIRC.
The thing is, Parry is a defensive talent, not an offensive one. It’s evident that there aren’t many melee-wielding enemies in your game, which of course isn’t going to make Parry that useful. F&D is where most of the melee enemies will be, as it somewhat assumes that many F&D characters are going to be using lightsabers or swords.
What you’re missing, and Swordbreaker alluded to, is that Improved Parry may only be triggered when the character suffers a hit from a Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber check. After using Parry—which may only be used on said attacks—the character may spend Despair or 3 Threat to inflict an automatic hit.
There are one or two melee weapons with a range of Short.
Note: You spend Despair/Threat as the last step of the Action. The character may not spend a Maneuver between making the attack and spending Despair/Threat.
I know I am being a necromancer to this thread but I think the initial problem is that enemies can move out of a melee engagement and then draw a ranged weapon and fire from short range. We had this problem too but we house rules that a melee engaged enemy has to make a successful attack roll to be able to go out of engaged distance into short distance. That’s a mechanic from a German roleplay game that works well with Genesys.
It’s an interesting approach.
I don’t like D&D, but one of the things it does well is opportunity attacks. I find FFG’s disengagement system uninspiring because there is so little cost to it. There are several cool attachments or talents that improve ranged combat at Engaged range, but they aren’t useful because there’s so seldom any reason to stay within Engaged range when you aren’t a melee combatant.
For my uses, I haven’t houseruled anything. I let the PCs do their thing, and sometimes I have NPCs behave suboptimally for the sake of the narrative.
In your houserule, does the character have to spend an Action, or is it just that the Maneuver requires a check? How do you handle failure and narrative results?
It requires an action: attack to disentangle. No damage is rolled if successful but you can drive the foe back far enough to draw a weapon and start blasting or flee
The rest is up to the story dice. Maybe you disentangle but you drop your melee weapon then if the opponent presses on you are in a disadvantage
Edit 2: I have a look at the dark heresy rules but I can’t remember this was handled there. I took Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) 4.1 rules for this homebrew rule.
That’s very interesting. The requirement of an Action is pretty severe, especially because you can’t make a follow-up attack. It essentially cedes the initiative to the opponent, who can then reengage and put you right back where you started. How does it work for a character who is already wielding a Ranged weapon?
I might add to that houserule that a Triumph on a combat check at Engaged range could be used to spend a Maneuver to disengage (different from a free Maneuver), and that a Triumph on a Disengage check could let you deal damage in addition to disengaging.