Melee Combat/Parry....same?

[DoubtBreak]

Something else to consider about the Melee Combat and Melee Parry skills, is that characters who don't specialize in something (like a vibroknife or electrostaff), become proficient in all weapons. That's a single skill the covers everything: staff, sword, chain-whip, broken bottle, power lance, warhammer, pointy stick, and so on. Normal people simply don't learn everything all at once, so splitting the "all weapons" combat skill into 2 skills makes some sense: if you want to know how to fight with everything, you have to pay twice as many character points as you do for other skills.

Both skills - Melee Combat and Melee Parry can be specialized by a single type of weapon being used. (See: Second Edition Revised & Expanded, page 39-40) If a character is learning to fight with just one type of weapon they can specialize in both skills, reducing the cost for each one by half (well, slightly more than half, since fractions round up). Which is more or less the same as learning just 1 skill for a single weapon.

As for why they split Brawling and Brawling Parry, I'm at a loss. I'm inclined to agree that in unarmed combat, superior strength gives an edge to attacking, and superior dexterity gives an edge to defending. Ultimately, though, that's just an opinion. And it doesn't account for why a character has to pay double for unarmed combat.

[Camero]

Maybe another way to deal with the Melee / Melee Parry dilemma would be to allow those who specialize in a specific weapon (by means of at least somewhat formal training at some point in their past) can use that skill as both attack and parry - but they don't get the 1/2 cost advance bonus, maybe you could even charge them the double Advanced skill cost if it will work for both...

And IMO Brawling / Brawling Parry probably should be kept separate. This is where I have more training so my idea is biased by my experiences - you've seen it too, boxers don't even really learn to Parry but Wing Chun Kung Fu or the like are incredible at Parry - it depends on the type of brawling you do. I guess the specialization idea of this works well too, specialize in Martial Arts and use it for both but at the cost of an Advanced skill. If you don't learn a specific brawling style through training then you got the trial and error of the 2 separate skills.

Someone mentioned a 'close combat dodge' earlier, and while I like the idea, I think Brawling Parry envolves a lot of dodging and redirecting already and that I properly trained (and properly penalized with additional difficulty) empty handed person can get inside and block an attack of someone with a melee weapon - not easy but do-able. But then again if someone just want to jump out of the way of every punch and vibrosword swipe then maybe that new skill is a good diversification of Dodge....
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[Raiz]

Most of the community finds the parry meaningless as a seperate skill. In my local gaming zone none supported the old idea of seperate parry skills so here comes our house rule.

- There are no such skills as melee parry or brawling parry.
- Brawling skill has a "block" specialization.
- Melee skill has a "parry" specialization.

So if you want your characters to ve better at defense rather to offense you specialize in that style just like you specialize with kicks or punches in the brawling skill.

And for those ideas that the seperate skills are there in terms of game balance, to give players more places to spend their character points my point remains still.

There are already LOTS of skills in SWd6. Try not to focus to the combative parts, this is a roleplaying game. My character has about 30 different skills and only 4 of them are personal combative skills.

and do not forget the lightsabre. It is harder to use comparing to any other known weapon. It has a very special and long training and even lightsabre does NOT have seperate attacking and blocking skills.

[garhkal]

I don't find it meaningless... I actually like the seperate skills, though i do feel both brawl and melee parry could be combined into one close in combat parry skill..
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[Pel]

Our group combined melee and brawling with their respective parry skills years ago with great success. We also use dodge to get of the way of anything we don't want to parry. That's worked well as it keeps everything simple and free-flowing.
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[Akari]

In terms of specialization there is one slight mistake in your post. While it is true that you can spcialize your Melee Combat skill to a weapon, say knife, according to the rules you can only specialize your Melee Parry skill to defend *against* a certain weapon. So if you specialized it to work against vibro-blades, you would still have to use the base value when defending against vibro-axes. However, it wouldnt make a differens if you were wielding a club, a knife or length of chain.

This specialization rule in my opinion makes absolutely totally no sense at all, but may be important from a game-balance point of view.
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[Raiz]

Since there are no parry or block skills in our mod, we use them as specializations for brawling and melee. Therefore everyone can specialize his attack over certain weapons like the old rules. In addition if they want to be defensive they can specialize at parrying or blocking. Therefore you can either boost your offensive or defensive side with only 1 skill. Simpler and more effective. If yu do not specialize you can both make attacks and defend with the same skill.

[DoubtBreak]

[garhkal]

To me it would make sense for it to be the type of weapon USED by the defender...
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[Pel]

I'm unaware of any further expansion on parrying specializations in later editions or supplements.

I'm quite certain that parrying specialization was intended for use by the defending player. That's how I've always read it.
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[DoubtBreak]

[Vartax]

The main reason I can see why they are seperated is to keep the game balance. If all a person had to raise was brawling such in the example it wouldn't take too long in character point to only raise that skill. I've played with characters in all the years I've played who have power gamed this way. Yes for a video game it could be considered a great attribute, but in gaming for tabletop it is a horrible one. No if a character has to split his character point in two areas 5D for Brawling and 5D brawling parry then his is not as powerful and is more functional in a game. Granted, the lightsaber skill is the exception to this rule, and that is something that would need to be discussed in the house rules part of the form.

[garhkal]

Which makes me wonder why there was not a lightsaber attack/defense skill split..
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[Vartax]

More than likely due to jedi having three extra skills they have to raise that no-one else does... And if they misbehave dark points are given aplenty!!

[Effex Seven]

I like the parries as seperate skills. It lets you distinguish between offensive or defensive fighting styles. And it's a good way to keep the combat monsters in check.

I think a Lightsaber Parry is a great idea.

EDIT: The new D6 Space has brawling under Agility. And no parries.