Hello. I remember one day in the old forum someone talked about a house rule for melee combat. It was more for lightsaber duels but it was something like this :
You can “commit” up to half your rank in lightsaber or melee skill and then you opponent will then upgrade his melee check by that same amount. This is in effect untill the end of your next turn.
I like the idea, but I can’t remember the exact rule, and I would like to have something more accurate. Maybe “You can commit up to half your ranks in Lightsaber or Melee skill as a maneuver, then all Melee Combat checks against you are upgraded by that same amount. The maneuver last untill the end of your next round.”
This would replace the Guarded Stance wich is not really usefull as it is, a single black dice is not really very defensive :p
It’s wildly unbalanced compared to talents and other effects that already exist in-game, and has compatibility issues with mechanics introduced in Force and Destiny, which I’m guessing are more recent developments.
Side Step and Defensive Stance allow you to spend a Maneuver and suffer Strain to Upgrade the difficulty of ranged and melee attacks (respectively) a number of times up to your ranks, which will usually hover around 2 for a moderately built character.
3 Advantage on an attack allow you to gain +1 Melee or Ranged Defense, which is functionally similar to Guarded Stance, but without the drawback.
By Upgrading the difficulty, you markedly increase the chance for a Despair, which can result in a “free hit” through Improved Parry.
The shoe also fits on the other foot. Let’s say you have an enemy with Adversary 2 and Lightsaber 4. Adversary 2 already makes it two Challenge dice. The 2 upgrades from Lightsaber add another Challenge die. That can also happen if you give the enemy Defensive Stance, but that would require 2-4 Strain every round, rather than 0-2, which creates a much greater opportunity cost due to the need for Parry and Reflect.
HI. Thank you P47 Thunderbolt for your reply! I totally agree with you that it is unbalanced with the 2 talents Side Step and Defensive Stance… but I have 2 problems on the other hand… let me explain and if you have some time I would have your point of view on them
1 First, the specialization talent tree system. With this system, my 2 players have almost no chance to get any of those talents, unless they spend a ridiculous amount of Xp. For exemple they are both Jedi and one of them has 3 specializations, 2 from career Jedi (Padawan and Knight) and 1 universal (Ataru Striker). Yes it is home rule that any lightsaber form is universal. The only 2 specialisations that offer Defensive Stance is Soresu Defender and Shien Expert. The easiest way would be to acquire the spec. Soresu Defender for 40xp (Form 3 so universal for my table) and then 5xp for the talent. To get the talent from Shien Expert is way too expensive as Defensive Stance is down the tree at 20xp (that would require 90xp!)
For Side Step it is the same problem, the talent is only available from Shien Expert, Hunter or Death Watch Warrior… same problem.
The only way to avoid this issue would be the Genesis system that has no specialization system, you just buy talents you like… but that would be too of a great gameplay change.
2 Second problem is the issue my players have with the talents Improved Parry and Improved Reflect. They just have almost no chance to trigger them. The difficulty to hit my players (melee or ranged) is never upgraded because they have no talents to do that and they have of course no Adversary level. The only way I find to upgrade the difficulty is via a triumph or despair on a combat check they make or against them. So the issue is that they find those talents useless. And most important we don’t have the Starwars feeling of the movies or tv shows were Jedi reflect a huge amount of blaster shots.
In 2 games since they have the talents they never managed to trigger a single Improved Parry/Reflect :-/
You said that upgrading the difficulty will have more chance to trigger those “free hits”, that’s true but consider that on the other hand they commit ranks from their lightsaber skill, that means they will have less chance to succeed in their attack and they will have less yellow dice to roll triumph, that sound a fair trade no ?
Thank you for taking a look at my post and maybe give me some feedback based on that. I already thought about some modification to balance the issue you mentionned.
rdit : Yes I have only the Force and Destiny core rulebook and Rise of the Separatists
For your first issue, I think you’re misunderstanding a rule: You are not locked into only buying Specializations within your career. You can buy ANY Specialization. However, non-Career/Universal Specializations cost an additional 10 XP.
For your second issue, again, that’s a matter of using Side Step, Defensive Stance, Dodge, and Destiny Points. Additionally, against targets of lesser skill, it is plausible to trigger the talents with 3 Threat by stacking Defense and other Setback, and sometimes you’ll just get lucky. As for your argument about Jedi reflecting large amounts of blaster bolts, they only sometimes manage to reflect those bolts back into their opponents, and those who we see doing that on a regular basis would count as very high-XP characters. This game doesn’t fully lean into the fantasy of blaster bolt-reflecting Jedi for simple reasons of game balance. They have to keep the Force users on a relatively similar power scale with non-Force users, so frequent “extra hits” and too much damage reduction would break that balance.
Let’s take a look at the saber form specs:
Soresu has Defensive Stance x2 and Improved Parry, along with Improved Reflect.
Makashi has Feint x2 to upgrade opponents’ rolls and Improved Parry.
Ataru has Dodge x2 and Improved Parry.
Shii-Cho has Improved Parry, but the only defensive bonus is Defensive Training x1 (Defense per rank)
Shien has Side Step x1 and Improved Reflect, along with x1 Defensive Stance.
As you can see, only Shii-Cho does not provide upgrade support for their Improved talent. Soresu doesn’t have native support for Improved Reflect, but it has substantial support for Improved Parry.
Other specs:
Sentinel: Shadow has 2x Side Step, which would complement Improved Reflect.
Seeker: Hunter has 2x Dodge, which complement both.
Mystic: Seer has 1x Dodge, which complements both, but isn’t much, and is deep in the tree.
All specs referenced are from the Core, not including any supplemental books.
“Committing” skill ranks is an interesting concept, one not present in the game. It’s a novel solution, and works fairly well when looked at from an isolated perspective. It carries innate trade-offs and is more useful in some situations than others, in which it could prove a liability. However, when taken holistically within the system, it cheapens the aforementioned talents, turning a special ability into something anyone can do, and only shifts the cost from Strain to skill ranks. In many ways, that’s an upgrade, because Strain is also what you use to trigger Parry/Reflect. It is better than Side Step and Defensive Stance because it applies to both types of attacks, and it’s better than Dodge because it applies to all attacks, not just one.
In your first post, you mention it only applying to defensive attacks, but to be consistent, I would argue it should apply to all checks. Otherwise, it undermines your own argument about the insufficiency of Side Step/Defensive Stance since it doesn’t help with Ranged attacks, while unfairly supplanting Defensive Stance and leaving its counterpart untouched. It also provides a significant buff to melee defense, which is already more powerful and advantageous than ranged defense.
Thanks for the feedback, that’s good to have another perspective.
I know you can buy any specialization, but non-career cost an extra 10Xp wich is even worst. By the way a universal spec. is considered career according the F&D corebook, that’s why I consider all forms universal. My point was that you always need to spend an insane amount of Xp just for a specific talent.
I completly agree that commiting skill ranks seems interesting but as stated in my first post it is completly unbalanced. If I look on your feedback :
“turning a special ability into something anyone can do” - As you commit half your skill ranks, you need at least 2 ranks in the skill to perform the maneuver, so only fairly trained people would have access to it. And as there is only 5 ranks in skills, you would only have a maximum of 2 upgrades.
2 ranks in the skill → commit 1 rank to upgrade attacks made against you once
4 ranks in the skill → commit 2 ranks to upgrade attacks made against you twice
“only shift the cost from strain to skill ranks” - Maybe add a strain cost as well then, even if I would prefer not because remember that my initial objective was to replace the Guarded Stance maneuver.
“It is better than SS/DS because it applies to both types of attacks” - No this would just replace the Guarded Stance and apply only for melee attacks the same way. In my previous message I just gave you an exemple of one of my players that bought Improved Parry and Reflect, but never managed to trigger it. This would not change anything for range and the system would remain the same and only very high-XP characters would reflect bolts on a regular basis as you mentionned.
I am not sure any of my 2 players will have Defensive Stance anyday, because none of them were really interested in Soresu Defender or Shien Expert, so I understand that the problem is maybe just for me and my game. For now they both has 3 ranks in Lightsaber, and have a Brawn stat of 3, that would give them 2 options.
Guarded Stance maneuver or not. They can commit a single rank of skill and would make their attack with YYG instead of YYY dice. But they would defend against melee attacks with RP instead of PP dice (one upgrade).
There is one really important point here we need to mention. The guarded Stance works untill the END of your next turn, while the Defensive Stance works until the START of your next turn. This means that even if you attack first and then spend your maneuver to perform the Guarded Stance, next turn you would still have the downside of the commited rank for your attack. And yes you can cumulate both if you have the talent DS and want to go full defense as they are both maneuvers.
1 maneuver for Guarded Stance. A second maneuver for Defensive Stance. Cost you 1 Strain if you have it level 1. You upgrade melee attacks twice against you.
Or, 1 normal Attack and then 1 maneuver Guarded Stance, plus a second maneuver (2 Strain) for Defensive Stance (1 Strain level 1). Cost you 3 Strain but you made an attack and now your skill is reduced untill end of your next turn but you upgrade melee attacks twice against you.
As a side note, I think that would help as well some Rival characters survive a little more by playing on the defensive style without killing themself. Using talents like the one we talked all use Strain and Rivals just build wounds instead…
Let’s talk underlying philosophies for a moment.
There are two main reasons to add or revise a rule: To improve the base game, or to enhance the enjoyment of a particular table.
If you want to change Guarded Stance so that they can trade ranks for upgrades on attacks against them because you think your players will enjoy it, go ahead. That’s within your purview as a GM, and how you play the game doesn’t affect anyone else. I’m not telling you you shouldn’t, I’m looking at it from the first perspective, that of gauging whether it improves the base game.
Quick correction, when I said “non-career/universal,” what I meant was “specs that are neither career nor universal,” not “specs that are either non-career or universal.” In retrospect, I realized that was very poorly conveyed. When you say that Universal specs are considered as career, I want to clarify that they are only treated as career specs in the sense that there is no non-career penalty. They cannot be chosen as a starting specialization.
The 2 upgrades thing is a good limiting factor, but my point about “everyone can do it” is that “anyone who cares enough about Lightsaber combat for it to matter” can do it. Someone who builds their character and invests XP to get enough tools to successfully use the Improved talents now has no advantage over someone who just put a lot of ranks into Lightsaber.
I explained in the next paragraph why I treated it as applying to both. Your primary argument is that it is too hard to activate Improved Parry and Improved Reflect, but your solution only affects one side of that equation and leaves the other untouched. As I then went on to say, and will now elaborate, a melee character defending against melee attacks is already where he wants to be. A melee character defending against ranged attacks is in a much stickier situation. If either should be buffed, it should be the character defending against Ranged attacks.
My argument for the RAW is that the tools exist for anyone willing to spend the XP to get them, same as for any other niche, and they’re within the trees that need them. If you want to argue that the tools are too expensive, that’s a different discussion. But I disagree with bypassing those tools because it cheapens the investment for those who make it and makes the trees who are good at it less special. If you feel like things cost too much, you can also increase how much XP you give your players. You control the pace of PC development.
If they have Parry/Reflect, they need a Strain threshold. If you’re just talking about Side Step/Defensive Stance, no NPCs as far as I am aware have those talents because they use Adversary instead. Further, those with Improved Parry are going to be Nemeses already. Rivals should only very rarely be built with Strain-consuming talents, and those should not be frequent-use talents.
Finally, some math:
A Proficiency die will, on average, generate 0.75 Success, while an Ability die will generate 0.625 Success. Sacrificing two Proficiency dice for Ability dice causes a net change of 0.25 Success per roll. This means that 75% of the time, it will not have any impact on your total success, and an even larger percentage of the time, it will not have any impact on whether you succeed or not.
(Advantage goes from 0.67x2 to 0.625x2, an even more negligible change).
The only substantial difference between a Proficiency and an Ability is the potential for Triumph, which does not directly affect your DPS.
A Difficulty die will, on average, generate 0.5 Failure, while a Challenge die will generate 0.75 Failure. Upgrading two Difficulty dice means that 50% of the time, you will have an impact on the total Failure, and a much smaller fraction of the time, it will make the attack miss. This is rather marginal, except that it has twice the chance of shifting a pass/fail than the shift from Proficiency to Ability. However, this is not the main kicker.
Two Challenge dice have a (11x11/12x12=0.84) 16% (1 in 6.25) chance of generating a Despair, which gives you an extra hit.
TL;DR: Swapping two offensive upgrades for two defensive upgrades is almost always mathematically advantageous. It gives a slight edge in one-on-one DPS, while also allowing you to score the occasional free hit. Its only actual cost is the Maneuver, but compared to the competing talents, it simply loses the Strain cost and XP investment.
Yes we agree on universal specialization
I agree as well that switching Difficulty dice for Challenge dice is way more advantageous than switching Proficiency dice to Ability dice.
As you said I think my issue is that my two players chose specs and careers that have none of those talents (DS and SS), and that would in fact represent a huge Xp investment to get them now. I guess that even if they have Parry and Reflect level 2 or 3, they have a feeling they lack defensive choices apart from the guarded stance wich give a poor black die.
I think rules will stay RAW and I will try to orient them toward those talents, maybe giving more Xp. I thought about allowing them to swap 1 or 2 talents in their spec. tree, because going full pyramidal system like Genesis would be to much of a change.
I will look into it…
Thank you for your feedback and your messages, that really help to have another point of view
Other defensive options include boosting their Defense. Armor rarely gives more than 1, but there are various attachments or items which give additional Defense, and some Lightsaber Hilts/Crystals also gives bonuses to Defense. Some rare talents (Sixth Sense, for example) also give a direct buff to Defense.
