Lightsaber Combat as an Advanced Skill

[krysallokard]

I've been toying with the idea of making Lightsaber Combat an advanced skill based off the Melee Combat skill. I would still considered the normal bonuses for Sense and Control skills as well. I just wasn't sure how that might affect the outcome of skill roll and such, or just the costs of advancement.

Any thoughts?

[vong]

how would lightsaber combat differ from Lightsaber.

Personally i cant see any difference, so that would mean its just free bonuses for Lightsaber...
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[Pel]

If you replace Lightsaber with the Lightsaber Combat Advanced skill, would you then lower the difficulty number to offset the increased CP cost? Seems like making it an Advanced Skill might make it far more difficult to increase, thus presenting more opportunities for Jedi to maim themselves.
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[vong]

but you add your add the A skill when you use the pre-req. so once a jedi gets to 5D, instead of spending 5 CP to get 5D+1, he spends 2 to get a total of 6D when doing lightsaber combat..
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[krysallokard]

[garhkal]

If i was to go this route, i would do away with the LS skill, and just have the LS combat (A) skill... And yes, i would lower the diff for 'fraking one's self up), but only say, by half...
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[Pel]

[cunning_kindred]

I'm new around here but I thought I'd comment since I actually did this in my campaign. I've since moved onto a more radical change in the rules but it did work very well. Melee combat and melee parry were used for lightsabers just like any other weapon. You could purchased (A) Lightsaber Combat at the normal cost when you had 5D in both. Your dice code could be split between the two as you saw fit. But:

For each 1D you could purchase special moves (similar to the martial arts moves). To use a move though you had to use only the (A) Lightsaber Combat skill. You could also choose to substitute your advanced skill for both attack and parry without splitting up the dice but this is only useful because of the next bit.

The important part, though, was that you now could purchase the Force Power: Lightsaber Combat. Before you had the specialization you could not use the Force to augment your Lightsaber abilities with the Force. With the power you could add your Sense to your Lightsaber Combat skill but only when you used the skill alone (not when it was added to Melee Weapons or Melee Parry) and you added Control to your damage (up to a maximum amount equal to your rating in the advanced skill).

Under these rules, even someone with high Control and Sense could not become a Lightsaber master just by buying Lightsaber Combat power. Instead you needed to learn the advanced skill to become a master but could still learn to use a Lightsaber in the old fashioned way but than you would never be able to augment you prowess with the Force.

[krysallokard]

This is an interesting spin on that. I might have to considered this...

[garhkal]

Agreed. That is an interesting twist...

Might have to make a variation of this for spec force martial arts.
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[cunning_kindred]

I actually made this rules change after introducing a sword based martial arts for a Jedi off-shoot tradition (It was not as cliche as it might at first sound). I was already using martial arts as an advanced skill so it was natural this would be. I created a power that was essentially what I've already described but for this martial art and this got me thinking that the Jedi's own martial arts would probably be better off using the same rules.

In the end I had three martial arts: Lightsaber Combat, Sha'zu Kesa (the blade martial art), unarmed martial arts. All required 5D in both the appropriate attack and parry skill.

I eventually created a new Force Power called martial combat that allowed a Force user to augment whatever martial arts the character used. The Jedi had to specify which martial arts skill was being augmented. He added his Sense to the martial arts skill when attacking and could use certain martial arts powers that only Force Users could purchase, usually using his control or martial arts skill (whichever was lower) to determine the effect.

Lightsaber combat included Augment Damage (later known as Form VII strike - when the Forms appeared in the movies) which allowed you to add your control or martial arts, whichever was lower, to damage with a lightsaber. Sha'zu Kesa (a Force using tradition's martial arts) had several but the important one was substitute Sha'zu Kesa or Control for your weapon's body rating in order to resist damage when you parried blaster fire with a sword. unarmed martial arts didn't belong to a force using tradition and so had no Force-based moves to exploit this option but you could still augment base attack rolls with the power.

I probably would have invented other martial arts (I was working on Teras Kasi at one point) but, as I said, I moved onto a more complete revision of the rules that completely changed the Force system (so it wasn't needed).

I should probably also point out that I allowed anyone to parry baster fire (something I know some peope disagree with) but at -3D penalty and there was a move in Lightsaber Combat and Sha'zu Kesa that allowed the user to negate this penalty. It wasn't a part of the base Force Power - you had to purchase it.

[Whill]

I haven't worked out all the details yet, but in my revised game system Lightsaber is defintely an advanced skill with Melee as the primary prerequisite. I think this more truly represents the rarity of this skill. Melee attacks with the lightsaber will be made with the melee skill and the lightsaber skill dice as a bonus (as medicine is a bonus to first aid). Unskilled use should have a penalty and greater chance of hurting yourself. Simple non-combat uses like Han cutting open the belly of a tauntaun will not be too difficult for unskilled users, but using it in combat will not be too wise. I think having the advanced skill should mean it will be very rare to hurt yourself, maybe only a very bad failure with a 1 on the wild die.
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[schnarre]

[Rerun941]

Here's my take:

Lightsaber as Advanced Skill:
Must have Melee Combat and Melee Parry at 5D.
Must spend 5 Character Points to gain the first 1D in Lightsaber (A)
The first 1D in Lightsaber (A) grants one special move (see Rules of Engagement).
Improving Lightsaber (A) costs twice the number in front of the D to improve one pip.
For each +1D increase in Lightsaber (A), the player may select another special move.

When using Melee Combat to wield a lightsaber, players may add any amount of Lightsaber (A) to your Melee Combat roll. If the difficulty is missed by more than 10, the character has injured himself. Players may never add Lightsaber (A) dice to the damage rolls. The player may not use any special moves when using Melee Combat to attack or defend with a lightsaber.

Lightsaber Combat Force Power
Characters must have 1D in Lightsaber (A) before they can use the Lightsaber Combat Force Power. After activating the Lightsaber Combat Force Power, the player rolls only the Lightsaber (A) skill dice and may add Sense skill dice to the attack roll. On a successful hit, the player may increase or decrease the amount of damage with their Control skill dice. When using the lightsaber this way, the player may use any special moves in addition to basic attack/parry rolls. Character will not injure themselves except on a critical failure (1 on the Wild Die) at the GM’s discretion.
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