Advanced Lightsaber Combat?

[CRMcNeill]

When taken as a whole, there’s a lot of conflicting information as to exactly how lightsaber combat (and force assisted combat in general) actually works. Some accounts suggest that it increases your strength and speed, as well as boosting your reflexes. The films and live action tv don’t really support that, though; it mostly just looks like really skilled swordsmanship and martial arts (albeit augmented by precognition through the Force).

My current theory involves getting rid of Lightsaber Combat as a distinct power and folding the pertinent abilities into an expanded version of Combat Sense. However, I prefer not to throw out aspects of the RAW and lore if I can at all help it, so I’ve been considering an advanced combat power - tentatively called Empowered Combat or Enhanced Combat - that adds the physical boosting of Strength and Dexterity to the precognitive enhancement of Combat Sense for a limited time (I’m thinking of including the # of rounds limitation from Combat Sense to keep it somewhat limited). Prerequisite would include my rewritten Combat Sense, Enhance Attribute and Concentration.

Not much beyond that at the moment, but I wanted to at least get the concept in writing.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

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[cunning_kindred]

You could consider modelling the powers on the divide that the Ta-Ree spells in the Endgame books of the Darkstryder rules use. They have a Battle Mastery spell that adds its rating to attack rolls and an Energy Blade spell that lets them empower a melee weapon so that you can treat its damage die as the spell's dice code and parry blasters with it.

Perhaps you could have a Combat Mastery power that uses Control and Sense and allows you to add Control to attack rolls and Sense to parry and dodge rolls. And then have an Alter power that specifically lets you add Alter to the damage with a lightsaber by directly augmenting the blade. That way lightsaber are still better than other weapons for Jedi and Sith but other Force users can still get some enhancements with their combat.

I think back before we brought a FOR attribute into the game, my own group dabbled in a breakdown along these lines but I can't really remember how well it worked out for us. I think we kept Combat Sense as well, though.
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[pakman]

Great topic. I too had given this a lot of thought - and after tweaking and playtesting....

I got wordy....so added TLDR version...

TLDR Version:
I renamed lightsaber combat to be "Force Combat", no longer tied to lightsabers, and requires a Control 2D, and Sense 3D to use, and requires learning one of several Force Power discipline trees in my house rules.

I kept Combat sense - and made it more defense, and only requires Sense 2D.

The longer version....

Thinking About the Lightsaber Power
When I was working on my force power overhaul - I was considering similar thing - eventually I decided to keep a "force enhanced combat" power - for two reasons;

I knew it needed Sense - as that what allowed, as pointed out - the precogniative abilities, deflecting basters etc.

But I also wanted a "control" component - since "it controls your actions..." kind of thing.

100% logical? Not really - but worked for me.

I knew I wanted a power that was a mix of these two elements, and could help in combat....

where as Combat Sense I saw as more a defensive or generic ability - not always linked to lightsabers (or any weapon) AND it was only sense based ...to me.

My Force Power Advanced Skills
So, as part of the overhaul, instead of having a complex pre-requisite system that made the best flowchart go crazy if you mapped it out - I arranged the force abilities into groups, and within those groups, had multiple ranks.

The groups then turned into the Advanced Skills(A) - and the force abilities are arranged in tiers (I call them Ranks) with access based on the Advanced Skill Rank (1D, 2D etc.) and any specific requirements (like needing a Control of 3D etc.).
(yes, this is reminiscent of how the martial arts are presented, and a few other things in later d6 documents - basically like skill/talent trees etc.).

I have ...nine of them, which are thematically based (Energy Control(A), Enhance Body(A), Enhance Senses(A), Telekinesis(A)etc.). Each with a bunch of force techniques (previously known as powers....) under them.

Back to The Powers....er...Techniques
Because there is a whole lot more than just jedi - I renamed the Lightsaber Combat to a what I call "Force Combat". Mechanically - it does kind of the same thing - using it gives both as small offensive and defensive bonus in combat. Side note; as part of my rebalancing and power scaling - Sense adds to Defense, Control adds to offense - there is damage boost - but that is a different topic).

this "Force Combat" - kind of like your (CRM) Empowered combat etc.
(it also helps with reflecting blaster bolts if holding an object that can do that...but again, keeping it simple here).

My Force Combat (although, I like empowered combat....) is accessible on a few different of my Force Power Advanced Skill lists, its rank based on the theme of the Advanced Skill. It is concentration based, but is only counts as one action, as all my powers were reworded to only be one roll for simplification.

So, with Combat sense being only a "sense" thing - it is on the Advanced Skill Enhance Senses(A). It lasts six rounds, but can be extended by taking Fatigue (I tweaking the core Exhaustion rules - and many force powers tie to them) instead of character points in the main rules.

So to sum up....
I tweaked it a bit, renamed it Force Combat and it has the prerequisite of learning a specific force power (list or tree) if you will. The Advanced Skill has a requirement of Control 2D, and Sense 2D.
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[cunning_kindred]

[CRMcNeill]

@pakman

Recommended Reading: Revenge of the Sith novel adaptation. Matthew Stover does a stellar job depicting the mutual give-and-take of using just Sense in combat.

I haven't really nailed down my concept for Combat Sense because it's hugely dependent on some other concepts that I haven't fleshed out, but it's tied in with my rework of Dodge and combining the two Parry skills into Defense. The tl;dr of the difference between the two is whether or not the user's senses and reflexes are sufficient to allow them to react to an attack. Brawling, Melee and Thrown Weapons would be countered by Defense, while bullets, blaster bolts and the like are moving too fast to be sensed and reacted to, so they are countered with Dodge. One facet of my reworked Combat Sense would be to allow a Force user to use Defense against "fast" attacks, since the Force augments their reflexes and allows them to react to them. Combat Sense would also generate a bonus that (at either a +1 per 2 or +1 per 3 rate of Success) would be stacked with their pertinent combat skills.

For the Force Augmented Combat, I'm thinking of using the above (at higher Difficulty), but adding Control as a Dice Pool that can be added to the combat skills and/or the damage roll. I'm also thinking of giving it the three-round limit from the RAW version of Combat Sense in an effort to keep it from being abused. I see it more as a "supercharged combat" that's used in short bursts for hero moments.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index