Lightsaber Skill

[Rimmer]

Any reason why the Lightsaber skill is easier to learn than melee combat ?

Lightsaber is only one skill which covers both offense and defense while melee combat is split into two skills, which obviously take twice as long to improve.

Easy enough fix with a house rule, making Lightsaber a Specialty of both Melee skills, one for offense and one for defence i guess.

Opinions ?

[ZzaphodD]

[garhkal]

Personally i feel it should have been split.. 1 skill for LS attack, one for defense.. like how blaster/dodge, or melee/melee parry are seperate.
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[Lostboy]

There was a house rule i encountered that was an alternate rule for the lightsaber combat force power. Instead of adding your Sense to the roll you have 1/2 your sense dice to ignore MAPs for lightsaber combat. eg sense 6d = 3 free MAPs.

This seemed to help balance things out quite a bit.

[Rimmer]

Its not really the Sense skill that bugs me, its how Melee skills are split over two skills yet lightsaber is only one skill, meaning it is only takes half the skill points to learn.

Just a thought, but "Lightsaber" could be an advanced skill of both Melee Combat and Melee Parry ?

[Esoomian]

As ZzaphodD pointed out the cost to advance lightsaber is the same as advancing a specalization of melee and melee parry, it's just got the narrow focus factored into the cost already.

Jedi are supposed to just be better than other character types once they get enough experience. If you want diverse Jedi just use a few ion grenades and have their lightsaber's shut down for a while.
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[Rimmer]

Think I may go the Advanced skill route and see how that goes.

[Esoomian]

Do a search, a couple of people have already suggested/trailed using lightsaber combat as an advanced rule.

I think it was in the house rules section.

Here are some threads you might be interested in
De-powering Lightsaber Combat

Lightsaber Parry

And finally Lightsaber Combat as an Advanced Skill
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Don't waste money on expensive binoculars.

Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.

[schnarre]

...I didn't mind Lightsaber being 1 skill for a simple reason: base difficulty "to hit", before any other mods, is Heroic Difficulty--while most Melee Weapons are Easy-Moderate Difficulty. With a weapon set easier to use than a Lightsaber the 2 separate skills made sense, as well as allowing more customizing: a Fencing expert may focus more on his Melee Parry, for example, while a wielder of a Vibroaxe would focus more on his Melee Combat skill (as it's not really a weapon geared for parrying).

...*thinks Lightsabers are often over-rated*
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[garhkal]

How do you get that?? Several melee weapons are difficult (15-20), such as the Ft knife, Coyn'skar (very diff for the disarm function), Iridonian Zhaboka Double-Bladed Fighting Pike (at diff), Rantok (diff), Scitroc (diff), Sat’skar(diff, or very diff for 1 handed use), Feeorin Double Vibroblade (Diff)
Yalandross PowerMasters Jengardin Millenial Warrior Double-Bladed Vibroblade (Diff, or heroic single handed), Holowan mechanicals Electrostaff (diff).

The regular lightsaber is diff (20), the short one moderate (15), all others are also diff...
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[ZzaphodD]

My reason for one skill for both attack and defence: simplicity.

Same reason merged starfighter piloting with space transports into starship piloting. Brawling is one skill under STR, as is Melee under Dex. Comp Prog./Repair is one skill, Droid Prog./Repair the same.

Realistic? No, but then again its Star Wars. I prefer to have my characters less limited and more able to do different things without putting CPs into a myriad of skills.
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[cheshire]

[jmanski]

[garhkal]

Some of them iirc you can thwak yourself..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Darth Ginzain]

I think they listed it as a seperate skill for clarity and to make it more unique. It technically should be a melee combat/parry specilization requiring you to spend CP to raise both. At the end of the day though, the cost is the same since raising a specilization costs half cp times the two different skills. So yes, it is cheaper to raise lightsaber then melee combat and melee parry, but it costs the same as raising melee combat:force pike and melee parry:force pike.