My D6 System: Defensive Skills

In the original Star Wars RPG, every attack skill pretty much had a separate skill that was used to defend against it. Brawling had Brawl Parry. Melee had Melee Parry. Blaster had Dodge. The more I got into playing the game, the less some of this made sense to me. Ultimately, I did away with the 'parry' skills, making Brawl and Melee skills used for both attack and defense. Dodge remained, of course—but this situation still didn't satisfy me entirely.

The Dodge skill was the major point of contention here. Why SHOULDN'T you be able to Dodge a Brawl or Melee attack? Well, there was ONE reason for it—if you made Dodge the only defense skill then it would cause problems with game balance (people could dump all their points into Dodge and become untouchable). So what I came up with is the following:

Ranged attacks (Blasters, Arrows, Grenades, etc.) are avoided using the Dodge skill.

Melee attacks (Lightsabers, clubs) are avoided using the Melee Skill (to parry) OR the Dodge skill. However,  in this case, the Dodge skill roll is penalized -1D. The reasoning for this is because of the close-up nature of melee combat—less room to maneuver and 'dodge' in, etc.

Brawl attacks are avoided using the Brawl skill or Dodge skill (again at -1D as above). Brawl attacks can also be parried with Melee weapons—at the full level of the defender's Melee skill. The difference here is that a successful Melee defense versus a Brawl attack means that the Brawler is actually damaged by the Melee weapon (hit as they were trying to come in for the attack). 

SPECIAL CASES:

In my game, use of the Lightsaber Combat Force power seems to be different than I have read about in other campaigns. I have been allowing a Force user to take one defensive 'parry' that can work against both hand-to-hand (Brawl and Melee) and Ranged (Blaster, etc.) attacks. A Jedi rolls both Sense and Melee (what I use for Lightsaber attacks) as his/her Defense for the round (minus any multiple-action penalties, of course). Versus Brawl/Melee attacks, the two numbers are added together. Versus ranged attacks, only the Sense roll is used. In essence, I see the skill almost as 'raising a shield' versus all incoming attacks. Since the Jedi's actions are guided by the force in this instance (no physical perception or reactions could allow them to catch blaster bolts) I feel this is justified. While in theory, it may seem as though it makes Jedi invincible, once again this has not proven to be the case. In many cases, versus ranged attacks, most of my Jedi still spend an additional action to dodge (since in many cases, their Dodge skill is higher than their Sense—and even when it isn't, they find that Dodge is often necessary versus area-effect attacks and the like).