Skills

[Jex]

Melee Combat
Time Taken: One round.
Specializations: Specific type of melee weapon ?
swords, knives, axes, vibroblades, vibro-axes.
Melee combat is the "melee combat" skill used for
all hand-to-hand weapons (except lightsabers, which
is covered under the lightsaber skill). Melee weapons
include vibro-axes, force pikes, gaderffii sticks, clubs,
bayonets and even impromptu weapons like chairs
and blaster butts.

Melee Parry
Time Taken: One round.
Specializations: Type of melee weapon used ?lightsabers, knives, clubs, axes, vibroblades.
Melee parry is the "reaction skill" used if a character
has a melee weapon and is attacked by someone with
a melee combat, brawling or lightsaber attack. (Melee
parry can't be used to parry blaster attacks ? that's
dodge.)

Apparently, as by the rules, the melee parry refers to the weapon used by the character using melee parry not the weapon attacking them.

[Niil Spaar]

Whose problem?  Mine or yours?

[GM Craig]

So, that leaves a discrepancy. If I'm boxing someone who is unarmed, why can't they brawling parry my attacks with their martial arts moves? If I specialize in Brawling Parry: Martial Arts, how come I can't use those still to parry wrestling moves?

And from the other side of the coin, if I can specialize in a given weapon to melee parry with, and I can always use that weapon to melee parry, why would I bother with regular parry? Jex is never without a vibrosword, and he can readily get one if he ever looses his, so he effectively has a half-cost defensive skill for melee weapons.

The same thing is kind of bothering me about specializations in dodge. Blasters are far and away the most numerous weapons you will ever see, so taking a specialization in Dodge:Energy weapons is like saying all pips in dodge are half price.

******************************************

I'm considering a house rule disallowing all defensive specializations. That seems to me to be the only way to keep the base skill relevant, while resolving the inconsistencies.

Or, we could go the route of Lightsaber, and make the attack skill also include a defensive component.

I'm not sure how to deal with this, but I think I need to do something to keep things making sense.

Any thoughts?

[Jex]

I think maybe we are over thinking all this. If there is one conclusion I have after rereading all the write ups, is that despite our high die values, we still seem to be dragging at least 1 or 2 of us out of every scrape, and usually that is after emergency med-pac repairs. Each additional mook you add to the opposition essentially suppresses 1D of skill per round, if only temporarily.

Unless there is something I am missing, I don't think things have been too unbalanced, at least from our point of view.

You need to decide what flavour you want for the game, a bit more realism or a more heroic touch.

[Trax]

So, that leaves a discrepancy. If I'm boxing someone who is unarmed, why can't they brawling parry my attacks with their martial arts moves? If I specialize in Brawling Parry: Martial Arts, how come I can't use those still to parry wrestling moves?

Which is the basis for me posting the original question.  At least it's nice to know we're all confused by it now

The same thing is kind of bothering me about specializations in dodge. Blasters are far and away the most numerous weapons you will ever see, so taking a specialization in Dodge:Energy weapons is like saying all pips in dodge are half price.

True, but there's a better variation (I think) of things to dodge, grenades, slug throwers, dart guns etc.  Although one could make the argument that the energy weapon specialization could/should be broken down into hand held weapons and larger mounted ones.  Or something along those lines.

I'm considering a house rule disallowing all defensive specializations. That seems to me to be the only way to keep the base skill relevant, while resolving the inconsistencies.

Or, we could go the route of Lightsaber, and make the attack skill also include a defensive component.

I'm not sure how to deal with this, but I think I need to do something to keep things making sense.

Any thoughts?

I'm not keen on the idea of making the attack skill include a defensive component because in a way wouldn't the character be getting a 2 for 1 bonus?

[Jex]

So, that leaves a discrepancy. If I'm boxing someone who is unarmed, why can't they brawling parry my attacks with their martial arts moves? If I specialize in Brawling Parry: Martial Arts, how come I can't use those still to parry wrestling moves?

As far as I can see in the rules you can use your specializations, which then begs the question, what purpose do specializations have with the Brawling skills. Unless there is a mechanism to limit the application of specializations in specific circumstances, there is no difference between the base skill and the specialization.

Brawling parry. If someone attacks your character
(either with a brawling attack or when wielding a melee
weapon) and your character's unarmed, you use brawl-
ing parry to get out of the way or block the attack. (If
your character doesn't have brawling parry, you use
Dexterity.) If your character is using brawling parry in
defending against someone who is attacking with a
weapon or sharp natural tools, the attacker gets a +10
bonus modifier to his attack roll.

The rules also allow for Brawling Parry against Melee weapons. It is defined as avoiding or blocking an attack.

As far a Melee Skills, there is more of a built in limitation to the specializations in that you are specializing in different weapons, which have different characteristics defined (the brawling specializations do not have any variation of defined characteristics).

Just to mention, Jex did do one entire adventure without his vibroblade, it did not fit into the Imperial Officer disguise when we raided the hospital.

If we can come up with a simple mechanism to limit the scope of the specialization then we don't need to change the characters.

Personally I think this whole issue can be dealt with at the GM level with adventure planning, with the types of challenges we face, but at the same time I would not expect Craig to have to spend considerably more time prepping if there is a simpler approach.

[GM Craig]

OK.

Melee and brawling defensive specializations vary with the weapon you use to defend against the attack (whatever the attack is). Ranged defensive specializations vary according the weapon used to make the attack.

Someone could take a brawling parry: martial arts, and then use that specialization to defend against any brawling attack (or melee attack for that matter). Someone could take melee parry: vibroblade, and any time they have a vibroblade in their hand, they could use their specialization to defend against any melee or brawling attack, regardless of the weapon they are defending against.

Ranged dodges will depend on the weapon used to make the attack only.

That way all close-quarters defensive skills are consistent.

[Trax]

Sounds like the easiest fix to me.

And leads me to my next (much easier) question.  What's the cost to gain a specialization?  The book lumps regular skills and specializations together in it's description here;

Learning New Skills
Skills and Specializations. Characters can learn a new skill or specialization by paying enough Character Points to advance it one pip above the attribute.  There is no training time if the character "used the skill" in the last adventure (i.e., used the attribute when doing something that would be covered by the skill). Otherwise, use the normal rules for training time.

The reason I ask is the three areas I'd like to pick up specializations in, the base skill is above the attribute so I'm just looking for clarification.  Also, when you learn a specialization, you gain +1D above the base skill off the hop and then it goes up by pips like normal correct?

[GM Craig]

I believe you only get the 1D "bonus" for the specialization at character creation. Thereafter, you can take a new specialization simply by buying a pip.

[Trax]

Okay.  Does first specialization pip cost the number of cp in front of the D or half like it costs to improve them?

[GM Craig]

half, for a specialization

[Trax]

Can a whip be used to parry a melee or brawling attack?  My first thought is no but wanted to ask.

[GM Craig]

I'm going to say no, there's no defensive component to a whip.