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Brawling , a DEXTERITY Skill?
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes. So it comes back to specific strength conditioning. Explosive strength is the kind of strength that allows a limb to be accelerated very quickly. Explosive strength must be trained for. It requires a different kind of training than raw maximal strength.

This speed is a product of strength (A=F/M). The arguments we are making for quickness in a fight comes down to the semantics of where individuals draw the line for how much athletic prowess is represented by strength versus dexterity. I'd say it's 100% covered by strength (based on skill descriptions). While covers skills which require the use of objects (has nothing to do with "speed" as I see it). That's the only diffierence.

What do you suppose is a good way to represent the ability to deal damage for a high strength, low dex character?
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 7:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Yes. So it comes back to specific strength conditioning. Explosive strength is the kind of strength that allows a limb to be accelerated very quickly. Explosive strength must be trained for. It requires a different kind of training than raw maximal strength.

This speed is a product of strength (A=F/M). The arguments we are making for quickness in a fight comes down to the semantics of where individuals draw the line for how much athletic prowess is represented by strength versus dexterity. I'd say it's 100% covered by strength (based on skill descriptions). While covers skills which require the use of objects (has nothing to do with "speed" as I see it). That's the only diffierence.

What do you suppose is a good way to represent the ability to deal damage for a high strength, low dex character?



If a low DEX Character has a high strenght but his Brawling Skill under dex, he trains he s fight mobility, his speed, quickness by raising the skill.
His strength is already high so he will not loose anything, and damage will be calculated normally

Look at melee Combat, this is under DEX, it is a to hit skill, for melee.
I would say that the body mechanics of a brawler with knuckle dusters is very much the same as one with a knife, speed and quickness giving a chance to land blows that then deal damage.

So why would Melee Combat reasonably NOT be under strength then, since like Brawling it depends on Damage output.?
It is placed in DEX becuse of the need to actually be able to land hits, this is a quickness /speed aspect and placed under the skill that most closely represents mobility and movement.


Give an untrained weight lifter a sword, he is very strong, how does his strenght alone give him the needed mobility, the quickness in footwork needed etc etc?
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Darklighter79
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mamatried wrote:


If a low DEX Character has a high strenght but his Brawling Skill under dex, he trains he s fight mobility, his speed, quickness by raising the skill.
His strength is already high so he will not loose anything, and damage will be calculated normally


I agree. And the only difference is, as a low dex character, he has to train harder to get his speed than a naturally talented (high dex) opponent.

And, at the end, skill is the final factor determining the speed and accuracy. Hence a chubby 2D dex, 4D str character with 12D in brawling/martial arts will be waay faster in attacking and blocking while in combat against 4D dex 7D brawling/martial arts.

Here's an example (of "did you buy a carrot?" punch)
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Mamatried
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's an example (of "did you buy a carrot?" punch)

Fantasitc Move by the way......I LOVE Jackie Chan!!!!!!!!
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 7:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Another things to consider is, the brawling skill was not originally meant to be martial arts. It is just street fighting/barroom brawling. Although I want brawling to stay a Strength skill, I think of martial arts as advanced skill(s), and Dexterity is definitely a factor.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
In either case, there could be a "rest" mechanic to allow for the recuperation of available actions/rounds during the fight.

Something I suggested in my Lightsaber Combat write-up was to allow characters fighting defensively to conserve their Stamina. What I'm thinking w/r/t your suggestion here is to allow Melee Parry or Brawling Parry rolls (whichever sort of combat is occurring) to count for "half" a round (or action, if you prefer g's version). So a character who has a Stamina limit of 12 rounds, but chooses to roll only Reaction skills, only loses .5 Stamina per round instead of 1 Stamina.
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Another things to consider is, the brawling skill was not originally meant to be martial arts. It is just street fighting/barroom brawling. Although I want brawling to stay a Strength skill, I think of martial arts as advanced skill(s), and Dexterity is definitely a factor.

At what point was Martial Arts introduced? I'd say that Brawling was originally the catch-all for all forms of unarmed combat, including martial arts, and that it wasn't until later that martial arts as a separate, superior skill was introduced. The first specific rule I recall was under the Noghri stats in the Thrawn Trilogy sourcebooks, with the first general rule for all characters being published in Rules of Engagement.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
At what point was Martial Arts introduced? I'd say that Brawling was originally the catch-all for all forms of unarmed combat, including martial arts, and that it wasn't until later that martial arts as a separate, superior skill was introduced. The first specific rule I recall was under the Noghri stats in the Thrawn Trilogy sourcebooks, with the first general rule for all characters being published in Rules of Engagement.

I am referring to the original intention of the game as created. Your premise assumes that the skill set was created to cover everything and then they later fine tuned it with narrower skills. The fact that that later happened does not at all mean that was the spirit of the original design. The spirit of 1e was, 'Here's what you need to make stories in this world.' The CT this game was based on did not have anything that would considered 'martial arts' outside of lightsaber duels in the two sequels. The game just provided the bare bones by having an unarmed combat skill, a mundane armed melee combat, and a lightsaber skill. If brawling had been intended to also include martial arts, it would have been called a more general 'unarmed combat.' It was called brawling, which evokes bar room fisticuffs. The spirit of the original game is not at all accounting for future rules expansions and updates down the road. It seems readily apparent to me that the game creators felt the 1e core is all you would ever need to play the game, and that the only unarmed combat you really needed for the game was brawling.

And if you want to invoke creator intentions, let's not lose sight of the fact that the brawling skill was put in the Strength attribute in the first place. Dexterity is also involved in unarmed combat so it could have gone either way, but Strength won out for them over Dexterity, which is another indicator that they were not originally envisioning high-dexterity martial arts for brawling. The fact that the game was popular and did get updated a few times (and RoE did eventually add martial arts as a specialization to brawling) doesn't invalidate my statement about the original intention of the brawling skill. I just do not see that they were in any way concerned about martial arts when they created this game and named the skill brawling.

My 2e solution honors the original intention of brawling and allows for martial arts by having them be advanced skills that can have Strength and Dexterity both as attribute prerequisites. That way Strength and Dexterity are both important.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 1:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, but if you had intended to make a martial artist character under 1E, one of the very first things you would do is give it a lot of dice in Brawling, since there weren't any other options. 1E was very heavy on generalist skills like Technology, so it doesn't track with me that the one skill they had that covered unarmed combat was deliberately intended to exclude more formalized forms of unarmed combat on general principle.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Technology is actually more narrow in scope than its 2e counterpart, value. Technology was value but only for technology. In 2e, the skill was logically expanded to include non-technological products and services, which warranted the skill to be renamed. I do not feel value is too broad, so I did not feel technology was too broad in my 1e days (and I admit I never thought of generalizing it in the way 2e did. 2e also added a new skill, business. I personally feel that and value are too focused for my game so combined them into one skill.) WEG could have done what they did with technology/value by generalizing the name and scope of brawling to account for martial arts by calling it "unarmed combat" in 2e, but they didn't.

There were no unarmed "martial arts" portrayed in the CT. I didn't say WEG deliberately excluded martial arts, and I doubt that happened. They weren't thinking about martial arts because there was no burning need for the game to have that. They envisioned "brawling" occurring in the game so called the skill that.

Yes, if a 1e player wanted to make a martial artist PC, they could just pump up brawling and other applicable skills to represent it, or the GM could create martial arts rules. The fact that the the game allows for GMs to make these choices about their game doesn't mean the creators ever intended brawling to include martial arts. And even if they did, they still put brawling under Strength so that intention is very explicit.

There are gaps in the skills set. The blaster skill was not intended for non-blaster tech energy weapons. They certainly exist in SW but WEG didn't feel it was necessary to include them in the skill set. Non-repulsorlift flying vehicles surely exist in SW, but WEG didn't feel it was needed to include piloting or repairing them in the skill set. Aquatic vehicles do exist, but WEG didn't feel it was necessary to include them. Non-hyperspace navigation exists, but WEG didn't include that in the skill set. For missing things most GMs tend to add new skills for them, rather than expanding the scope of existing skills and renaming them as necessary. I do both.

I'm not sure what the resistance is to my statement about brawling not being originally intended to include martial arts. We can do whatever we want in our games, original intentions be damned. My game goes well beyond the original intentions in many, many ways. If a GM wants to move brawling to Dexterity and change its name to "unarmed combat" to better account for martial arts, I fully support them doing that.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
Another things to consider is, the brawling skill was not originally meant to be martial arts. It is just street fighting/barroom brawling. Although I want brawling to stay a Strength skill, I think of martial arts as advanced skill(s), and Dexterity is definitely a factor.


I think the problem was in the fact that when hearing term "brawling" one initially associates it with crude thug street fighting/ballroom. In SW sourcebook explains "Brawling is the >>melee combat<< skill used for fighting hand-to-hand without any weapons". It's a very broad and general term. A basis for various specializations (as per RAW) like boxing or martial arts.

I used that example cause I needed some character with what seemed to be a low dex not because of all this MA flashy choreography. The last punch seemed like

Other examples with low dex that come to mind:

Mike Tyson vs Donnie Yen
The Last Boy Scout

Whether it under dex or str, it does not really matter as the skill itself defines both speed and accuracy. If it is a fight at 2D/3D skill it may be represented as a simple street fight. But with high levels...

Switched my skill dice pool scene

By the way:

Commoners vs MMA

It clearly shows how the "stamina rule" would work.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 3:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
I'm not sure what the resistance is to my statement about brawling not being originally intended to include martial arts.

We've discussed elsewhere how WEG didn't always choose the best / most inclusive skill names: things like Capital Ship Piloting, or Con. Often, the description of the skills themselves are somewhat at odds with the impression given by the WEG-chosen name. It's the same with Brawling. It may conjure up mental images of a sort of rough, untrained barfighting style, but the actual text of the 1E skill reads thus:
    "This combat skill is used when a character fights another hand-to-hand without any weapons." -WEG Star Wars RPG 1E, pg. 42
There is nothing in that text that specifically excludes more formal martial arts training. I think it's far more likely that WEG simply chose poorly (again) when naming a skill, and that the actual intent of the skill is better defined by the text as written, not the connotations of the chosen Skill name.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

1e didn't have specializations. I referred to 'meant' with respect to the original intention, which was when the game was created for the 1e core. Martial arts was later lumped in with brawling, and maybe they didn't want to bother changing the skill name to generalize it like they did with technology to value.

Yes, the brawling definition is general unarmed combat, but it is named brawling. I certainly do agree that several skills in the game, including in 2e, should be renamed to more accurately reflect the scope of what I want them to cover, and as GMs we are all free to do so (and encouraged to for the betterment of each of our games), regardless of WEG intentions.

Most of you started with 2e. I started with 1e core which I read in November of 1987 and started running the game in 1988. The spirit of the original game is, 'Here is everything you need to run a Star Wars game.' Con was also intentionally given that name because it builds a false confidence and takes advantage of it. Later, the game was updated beyond the original creation of it.

But there seems to be a hyper-focus on my statement of original WEG intention. That was not stated as an argument GMs against moving brawling to Dexterity or renaming it generally. Go for it. I also support GMs keeping the skill's original name and including martial arts with it. Whatever works for you. My statement was just the simple fact that brawling did not originally include martial arts, and that the game was straightforward and said what it meant at the time. Martial arts was simply not vital for using the game to create new stories that take place in the SWU, but of course the game is versatile enough to add that (which it later did).

This seems like a petty thing to argue about. If you still disagree and think you have a better grasp on the original spirit of 1e than I do, we can just agree to disagree and move on. Ultimately, author intention doesn't matter since we are all free to do whatever we want.
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, I'm late to this party, but I'm DEFINITELY in the camp of DEX needs to be reeled in....NOT added too and STR is EASILY (along with KNO and TECH) the far and away Attribute most likely to be lowest on the highest percentage of Characters I've seen in almost any system I've ever played....

I think a massive part of it is people's conception of what DEX means vice what STR means......

For whatever reason, most people have a VERY BROAD understanding of what DEX can mean for a PC in a role-playing game....it can cover everything from shooting a gun to picking a pocket to throwing something with accuracy to sometimes driving/flying a vehicle to sometimes performing surgery.....

Yet the vast majority of people I know automatically think high STR means you look like Conan/He-Man/She-Hulk/insert massive person with massive muscles here....

Why can't STR be as broad in scope as DEX? Somebody earlier brought up Brandon Lee and Dolph Lundgren and I see many examples of fighters of various weights being mentioned. In a system as abstract as d6 (and really, almost ANY game system out there).....in my opinion it's perfectly fair to stat out two PCs based off of Brandon Lee (or his father) and Dolph Lundgren equally with high STR scores. You can think of it as "Physical Conditioning" or some other term if you like....but the point stands....they could both be 4D STR characters and one is 5'8" and 150 lbs of ripped muscle while the other is the more traditional 6'5", 270 lb Defensive End looking dude.....both work.

I mean hell.....the MECH stat governs shooting Cannons, Driving a Car, Flying a Plane and Riding a Horse.......I like to think I'm a decent Driver....but I sure as hell don't think that's gonna help me much if I have to do any of the other 3 things if my life depended on it. Smile
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 2:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Matt_76 wrote:

Why can't STR be as broad in scope as DEX? Somebody earlier brought up Brandon Lee and Dolph Lundgren and I see many examples of fighters of various weights being mentioned. In a system as abstract as d6 (and really, almost ANY game system out there).....in my opinion it's perfectly fair to stat out two PCs based off of Brandon Lee (or his father) and Dolph Lundgren equally with high STR scores.


I agree with this. I'd also note that lots of Olympic athletes would have fairly high Strength scores, as Jumping, Climbing, Swimming, and Stamina are all on Strength, not just Lifting.

Marathon runners, for example, probably have a pretty high Strength. Sure, they've put a lot of points in Stamina, and it's possible to become a marathon runner through just training. Simone Biles? We think about her Acrobatics score, but she's also able to jump incredibly high to go along with that. If you say "Well, those people just trained a lot", it's no doubt true... but you could say the same of powerlifters just putting a lot in Lifting.
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