Lightsaber + Dodge

[Lord Ben]

Can you make both a lightsaber parry roll and a dodge roll and apply whichever highest one you want to the attacks? Or once you choose a defense are you forced to keep it?

[RedFox]

This game, dodge doesn't work vs. melee attacks. It's strictly a ranged defense skill.
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[Lord Ben]

Sure, but lightsaber and dodge both work vs blasters so if a bunch of stormtroopers shoot can you roll both skills and pick whichever is highest as your defense?

[Error]

Why should you be able to have two chances...?

I think it's best as one or the other.

Technically, there's no reason why you couldn't dodge and use your lightsaber to parry all at once as long as you include penalties...but what's the point?
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[TheFamousTommyZ]

Well, say if you whiff your Lightsaber Parry, I could see you wanting to try to dodge instead...especially if the whiff in question was that the GM ruled that as a "complication" you dropped your saber...then I could see wanting to dodge.

But yeah, I would definitely keep laying multiaction penalties on, if I allowed it at all.

[Lord Ben]

Well, you make one roll only and that DIFF is applied to all attacks that round correct? So if the PC horribly botches the roll for LS or dodge they'd probably want a second try.

I haven't run into the situation yet as both Jedi in the group haven't used Lightsaber Combat yet and just got it last session. But I'm sure it'll come up.

Assume they have 8D dodge and 8D in lightsaber. They'd probaby want twol rolls and the one that's higher is going to be their defense.

[Error]

It may be just me, but I think you're cutting a lot of favors for your players (especially the Jedi) if you're going to allow them to make two defensive rolls and just use the higher of the two. That's a little broken.
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[Gry Sarth]

You have to think about the timing of these actions. The player was attacked, and decided to parry. If he rolls poorly, he can try to dodge, but the attack has already landed, so he can only dodge AFTER that first attack.

I don't know if you guys play it like that, but my group plays it that you can only make one action at a time. So everyone takes their first action, then everyone takes their 2nd and so on. It would be really unfair if someone could perform 3 action before the next guy in initiative can perform even one.

[Lord Ben]

Just to make sure I'm playing the game right you make one defensive action and that roll applies to the entire round right?

[Gry Sarth]

As I said before, it's all about timing. If all you do in a round is dodge, then that dodge will aplly to all attacks directed at you that round. Now if you dodge an attack, and then you attack someone, and THEN someone attacks you, then your previous dodge is no longer valid, because at that moment you're performing your attack action, and your dodge is in the past. You'd have to roll another dodge (w/ multiple action penalties) to avoid this new attack.

[RedFox]

[Gry Sarth]

I really don't like the idea of being able to re-roll a dodge, even if it takes multiple action penalties. If you botched a roll, you screwed up, that's it. You can't try to dodge a blaster bolt, realize you did a poor joob at it and try again before the bolt gets to you. It's all simultaneous.

It's good to have those awful rolls in the game, they spice things up. If you can just try again at -1D, you're bound to do a little better....

And yeah, I believe the official rules might say that the dodge is good for the entire round, and I think they also tell you to do all your actions, then it's the next guy's turn to do all his actions. The thing is I think this is very unrealistic, all the actions by everyone in a round happen semi-simultaneously, so you shouldn't be allowed to jump, fire, run, stab and dodge before the other guy even had a chance to draw his blaster. And as for the dodge not lasting the entire round, I believe my reasoning is clear in the above post. If you want your dodge to last the entire round, do a full dodge.

[beaumont sebos]

My interpretation of the rules are pretty much the same as your Gry. You get one reaction roll per attack. You can lightsaber parry and dodge in the same round, but it would have to be against different attacks and you would have multiple action penalties. Only way to make it last for the full round would be to "full" dodge or parry for the round.

The way you describe the sequence of actions is also how I interpret the rules. However, for my campaign we do the "do all of your actions during your turn" thing. It gets too confusing doing it the official way, especially once you get multiple force user with combat sense kicking. Ugh!

[Vanion]

I've tried the "all actions at once, before the next player acts" method and I find that it makes the players too powerful. I have a Barabel Shockboxer in my group. She has 8D+1 brawling. Unless I want to pile on restrictions on how many attacks she can preform in a round (which to me just makes a simple/fluid system a little more klunky)... with her 5D strength, she can usually take 3 or 4 NPCs out before they can even take a single action! Then... as her movement, she can end her turn by moving into cover or simply moving out of combat entirely.

The official "one action at a time" may make combat take longer, but it makes it more exciting for everyone and allows players to actually have to think about the order in which they want to preform their actions... adding a little bit of tactics to combat. I don't ask the players to "declare every action" at the start of a round, as the rulebook says, but I do require them to state how many actions they are going to preform.

This also keeps the player with the highest Dex (combat initiative (sp?)) from dominating every fight... since otherwise, that player would have been able to fire his blaster multiple times or preform multiple brawling attacks before anyone else could act.
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[RedFox]