Defensive fighting

OK, I *like* that UA doesn’t devote tons of complex rules to fighting. In fact, I love that a single roll determines whether you hit and how much damage it does, and that modifiers are kept to a minimum. The focus is properly on roleplaying, not rules. But unless I’m reading it wrong, it seems that in HTH combat a PC with a 50% skill has the same chance to hit another PC, whether the opponent has a 90% combat skill or a 30% combat skill. And that just doesn’t feel right. Dodge is total defense–what about something in between?

Am I misreading the rules? Or has somebody already come up with an elegant mod for this? If not, I’ve got an idea or two, but being a bit of a newcomer, I figure somebody else got there first and did it better than I.