Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beta (FFG)

[Sarone]

Hey all, I have bougth the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beta book today and was wondering if anyone has done so as well.

What are your thoughts on it?

[king.com]

I thought Dark Heresy was lethal....then theres Star Wars....

[Sarone]

I thought Dark Heresy was lethal....then theres Star Wars....

Yeah. That was my first thought.

What I do like is that it is essentially a levelless system.

Boosts and increases are based on participation as well as how well the group completes their objectives and missions.

No need to worry about power creep, since Mr. Stormtrooper that was a threat in Session #1 will still be a threat at #20.

PROBLEMS:

I'll definetely be sending Fantasy Flight Games an email saying, "Leave the Grim, Dark Future with the 40K and Games Workshop crowd." I do not like, and in fact absolutely hate, lethal systems. It might take me a day to come up with a character, but this is not Extreme Lethal Dungeon at a convention, and I DO NOT want to waste my time making characters that won't last a session, let alone a story arc.

Being complicated with the dice/buy new dice. Chart is nice, but again, back to the Dark Heresy reference.

Character Generation doesn't seem complicated, but depending on how many players and the over all theme to the group, it can get unwieldy or skewed toward power gamers. Not enjoyable.

I also think that it is a bad sign that character creation is this easy.

Resources don't seem cover alot of gear, thereby encouraging people to take more obligations. Depending on the GM, this is can be an issue, or can help motivate a story. Problem is, I do not have much faith in APs and Modules published by Fantasy Flight Games that they'll be at most Hazardous.

I am not a fan that they are making Jedi and full force users the equivelant of Space Marines.

I'll be honest, from my end, it looks good, but needs alot more refinement.

[king.com]

Yeah. That was my first thought.

What I do like is that it is essentially a levelless system.

Boosts and increases are based on participation as well as how well the group completes their objectives and missions.

No need to worry about power creep, since Mr. Stormtrooper that was a threat in Session #1 will still be a threat at #20.


I disagree here, the way rolls are determined you end up geetting to add a bunch of dice to your opponents negative dice pool when your increasing skills and armour, along with your straight better weaponry as you advance, much like the dark heresy system, you end up negating the kind of mooks thrown at you as a brand spanking rank 1 character versus a rank 9 character. The system's levelling seems very familiar with the tree system from Dark Heresy, simply with far fewer options on each table and allowing you to jump down the tree far more quickly.




PROBLEMS:

I'll definetely be sending Fantasy Flight Games an email saying, "Leave the Grim, Dark Future with the 40K and Games Workshop crowd." I do not like, and in fact absolutely hate, lethal systems. It might take me a day to come up with a character, but this is not Extreme Lethal Dungeon at a convention, and I DO NOT want to waste my time making characters that won't last a session, let alone a story arc.


As a tip, that kind of phrasing is a signal for the person read to start the 'thank you for your feedback' response, and ignore the rest of the email.

Lethal systems are not bad, they exist to develop a systme that forces a player to avoid combat at all costs. This is really what I think they are trying to do with this book. Your smugglers, your job is to AVOID trouble. Really cool idea and combat being super dangerous is fine. You have the light side/dark side point system to mess with the balance so its an interest mix, though something which could go extremely badly with a poor GM. What Star Wars then layers on top is a passive defense system. You cannot choose to 'dodge' an attack but simply have to modify your wounds by the damage inflicted based on a bunch of rolls. This is great for a wargame as it speeds up play but generally creates unsatisfactory feedback in an rpg.



Being complicated with the dice/buy new dice. Chart is nice, but again, back to the Dark Heresy reference.


Im not sure what you mean by Dark Heresy having custom dice? Do you mean Warhammer Fantasy? I dont mind it personally but yea its a pretty pointless system to have outside of a boardgame when a regular d6 and d8 seems to work fine.



Character Generation doesn't seem complicated, but depending on how many players and the over all theme to the group, it can get unwieldy or skewed toward power gamers. Not enjoyable.


The character creation system is very very broken. There is virtually no reason to not take as a many obligations as you can as it A) makes you more powerful and B) gives more story time to your character.

You should ALWAYS level your stats and ignore your skills as you can easy level those up with gameplay XP. Its wierd and I dont know the reasoning behind this.



I also think that it is a bad sign that character creation is this easy.


Could you explain this one? Easy character creation is good no?



Resources don't seem cover alot of gear, thereby encouraging people to take more obligations. Depending on the GM, this is can be an issue, or can help motivate a story. Problem is, I do not have much faith in APs and Modules published by Fantasy Flight Games that they'll be at most Hazardous.


The entire system seems designed for a game running purely on character based stories. So you have a smuggler who took the 'Debt' obligation so you do the obvious 'Jabba the Hutt is after me!' plot. The GM creates a session or two following this plot the players get to play along with and then you roll the dice once it is resolved. This roll determines who is next to have their story told. Maybe the Bounty Hunter with a grudge against the Empire get the next scenario about them. A rotating GM system may even work nicely here.

Regardless this is not a game I really want to run, being the GM of the group. I like my character development as much as anyone but the way the obligation system is setup seems to override the campaign's plot. Theres not a hell of a lot of motivation for me to plan individual characters and their own unique stories constantly.



I am not a fan that they are making Jedi and full force users the equivelant of Space Marines.

I'll be honest, from my end, it looks good, but needs alot more refinement.

The Jedi being the super powerful game changers who make virtually everyone inconsequencial when it comes to anything except when there is a sith showing up where the jedi and the sith have to go dual while everyone else does something else? Yea I got no problem with the rules simply developing them as an entirely seperate entity.

[Sarone]

That's one other review. Any one else seen the new RPG?

[Siegel]

The entire system seems designed for a game running purely on character based stories. So you have a smuggler who took the 'Debt' obligation so you do the obvious 'Jabba the Hutt is after me!' plot. The GM creates a session or two following this plot the players get to play along with and then you roll the dice once it is resolved. This roll determines who is next to have their story told. Maybe the Bounty Hunter with a grudge against the Empire get the next scenario about them. A rotating GM system may even work nicely here.

Regardless this is not a game I really want to run, being the GM of the group. I like my character development as much as anyone but the way the obligation system is setup seems to override the campaign's plot. Theres not a hell of a lot of motivation for me to plan individual characters and their own unique stories constantly.

There is no campaign plot and you don't need to have one! Why does there have to be one?

[Seatbelt]

What are you talking about, no campaign plot?


ANH: First session is R2 and 3P0 trying to get the DS plans to Obi-wan. Second the dice come up Obi-wan's obligation to help Leia. Third session comes up Luke's obligation to help someone in distress. Fourth session is Leia's obligation to fight the empire.

Etc etc. Tying the obligations into an overarching plot is just another facet of cooperative story telling.

[m457ersp00k]

I am actually an avid Dark Heresy player, and fan. The lethality of it makes the game more entertaining, when a player can no longer march their character into a bar guns blazing and march back out with as little as a scratch it makes it more fun. Lethality is a great concept, exactly as was stated - Storm troopers, while horrid shots, can now be a threat a level 1 and level 20, you didn't suddenly become impervious to blasters at level 12 or something. Some players won't like lethality, but it does add a more "believable" aspect to the game.

Fantasy Flight has a good idea of what they are doing when it comes to their system concept, but the beta is designed to be just that - a beta. My retail kit should be waiting for me when I get home, I'll be busting it open and reading it cover to cover. I will be back for sure as soon as I have further educated myself.

[mohdri]

Keep in mind this is still beta. Updates are being released weekly. Those with tangible comments/complaints, post some of this over on their boards. Who knows, they might actually listen.

Just as a side, they do have a pretty nice dice app (for for both android and iOs) for 5 bucks. It's got dice for the RPG, the new miniatures game, and a regular set of numerical (d4, d6, etc) dice.

[Hopeless]

Ordered a copy hope to test it out in a week or so with luck.

Anyone noticed Fantasy Flight is advertising their version of the red box for their new Star Wars game?

Edge of the Empire Beginner's box, looks interesting might be worth picking up have any of you heard about it?

Here take a look for yourself (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=224&enmi=Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Beginner Game)

Okay the game I'm thinking about running to test this is a remake of the very first game I played in the Star Wars campaign from west end games.

The Characters were;

A Smuggler,
An Engineer ( this was mine so npc unless one wants to play him),
A Rebel Pilot,
An Alderaanian Gambler
and a Scout.

They're pretty much all human but if I get the book in plenty of time I might be able to let them create their own if necessary but for timing purposes I think this might be the best unless I use whatever pre-gens they provide instead.

I could run the game they portrayed in those audio podcasts I suppose.

The first game I mentioned involved us being in a bar and stormtroopers burst in opening fire as the were after the Rebel Pilot of course because we were nearby we got framed as being rebel "terrorists" as well ending up fleeing aboard our freighter only to be caught and imprisoned on a Victory class Star Destroyer (well all bar the rebel pilot who had his own ship... well I can correct that mistake this time!:smallwink:), we had a trainee interrogator who the gambler outwitted and my character reprogrammed the ship's fighter launcher so after we left the fighters' they tried to launch blew up disabling the star destroyer at least long enough for us to jump out:smallamused:.

I figure this time have the fight in the cantina and then they race to the spaceport however the rebel pilot discovers the base ship along with all of the hidden fighters have been impounded due to a traitor (who remains unknown at this time good for an obligation perhaps?:smallwink:) and he has to escape on the freighter along with the gambler who'll be escaping some gambling debts...:(His obligation:smallwink:)

Escape off world and try to jump clear but take damage forcing a landing in another system where we learn who the gambler owes and to avoid getting killed take up a mission to deliver a cargo to the figure mentioned in the podcast.(I figure the damaged ship would be the smuggler's obligation with the engineer an npc unless one of the others buys his own copy!:smallwink:)

The Rebel Pilot uses the time to contact his people but not only do they think he's the traitor:smalleek: but the real traitor is plotting to secure the only threat to "his" identity by means of sending a mercenary team to the delivery (they're the pre-gens from the podcast) as a local contact arranges for the local imperial garrison to larn of the exchange leading to them making the delivery waiting to get the chit so they can leave, the people the spice is for turn up and start a fight with their contact and the empire sends a sortie to sort things out.

Could go several different ways but given what i know about the players I can see the gambler trying to make off with some if not all of the spice if not what they're given to take back to Black Sun... well back then I didn't know about them, no time like the present isn't it?!:smallbiggrin:

They could rescue the boss and then escape the imperials but have the mercenary group as an ongoing enemy as well as having them be in the black books of both the empire and the rebellion... lucky they're on the fringes of imperial space isn't it?:smallbiggrin:

[Sarone]

Don't over complicate the story. The PCs will barely have enough experience to boost their characteristics and get a skill or talent. Taking on Stormtroopers migt be a death sentence for them.

[Hopeless]

Don't over complicate the story. The PCs will barely have enough experience to boost their characteristics and get a skill or talent. Taking on Stormtroopers migt be a death sentence for them.

So Cantina scene first then the chase to the spaceport, have the Rebel Pilot learn whats happened to his ship and friends, the Gambler learn he's being hunted by his creditors and the smuggler has to get to his ship...

Need a subplot for the fourth character who wasn't involved the first time round...

Leave the rest for a sequel!

Character Possibilities:
EXPLORER/Scout and the Fringer, SMUGGLER/Pilot and the Scoundrel and the TECHNICIAN/Mechanic

[Sarone]

So Cantina scene first then the chase to the spaceport, have the Rebel Pilot learn whats happened to his ship and friends, the Gambler learn he's being hunted by his creditors and the smuggler has to get to his ship...

Need a subplot for the fourth character who wasn't involved the first time round...

Leave the rest for a sequel!

Character Possibilities:
EXPLORER/Scout and the Fringer, SMUGGLER/Pilot and the Scoundrel and the TECHNICIAN/Mechanic

Have the fourth character be a member of the local rebel cell.

[Hopeless]

Have the fourth character be a member of the local rebel cell.

Originally when this particular player first joined in her character was the traitor, hmm well it does work after a fashion!:smallwink:

[Hopeless]

Got my copy now I'm off to study it!

Wish me luck!

[Xaragos]

Kudos for pointing this one out. I had no idea there was another SW RPG system in development. I am still a fan of SAGA, but it will be interesting to see where this one is going.

[Hopeless]

Kudos for pointing this one out. I had no idea there was another SW RPG system in development. I am still a fan of SAGA, but it will be interesting to see where this one is going.

Might want to check out the Order 66 podcast then, they've been holding the line where Saga edition star wars is concerned (and got me initially interested with their Commander Cody bit where he tells the listeners that General Kenobi said "Goodbye"!) and they've been playing and reviewing this new game even an actual play or two! (One at GenCon and another with some friends of theirs).

[Hopeless]

Ran the scenario in the back of the book.

took the eight pre-gens I created but they decided to create their own and had a bit of trouble understanding me when I explained how it worked.

Funnily the Gurps specialist took to the reference sheet detailing how to convert normal dice to the new system like a duck to water!

I was getting threats and failures mixed up which didn't help!

So my players went for;

Droid Outlaw Tech with an obligation to his former owners,

Female Bothan pilot who either has a bounty placed on her by her family or her entire family has a bounty on all their heads!
I gave her the option of owning her own ship in return for an additional Debt Obligation which she agreed to. That was because it was the hook for the adventure in the back of the book

Human male Mercenary Soldier whose obligation is why I'm checking with him on whetehr to make him a Mandalorian

and a Human male Scoundrel whose apparently a modified version of his original character and kept me guessing as to whether he was a force user or not, though having the obligation of Debt and a motivation of greed leaves me wondering if he's going Sith once that third book comes out!

Having been trying to get them to explain their obligations in a manner they prefer but thats a work still inprogress (ie they haven't replied!)

Because this adventure is in the back of the SW Edge of the Empire Beta book I figure those of you who don't want the details spoiled shouldn't read the following spoiler;
So game started off on Tattooine and they've arrived to pick up a cargo for one of the Hutts only for some Tusken Raiders to launch an attack which the players managed to escape after the mercenary killed one of the Raiders and caused a rockfall on the rest allowing the Scoundrel to maneuver the repulsorsled aboard the lift and head up to the top where the ship is docked.

The mercenary passed an athletics check to scramble up before it passed beyond reach but the scoundrel noticed one of the crates had been hit.

So they got the droid to check it over and carry out the medical checks to keep the live cargo alive and unharmed but also asleep.

They head on to Na Shadhaa (I know I'm getting the name wrong, I'll check later!) and find their destination has apparently been firebombed, they dock nearby and meet a twi'lek foreman who although agreeing to reduce the docking fees also ups the cost for refuelling and recharging so they end up paying about 500 more than they should! (A success with a few too many threats...)

The scoundrel finds out about Greentop and that someone inside the Hutts' organisation is thought responsible but with the wounded sent to a bacta medical centre he finds out very little otherwise.
The droid discovers their contact at Greentop is at the medical centre and they manage to find out her surname so a couple of them can pay her a visit.

They also learn another of the Hutt's lieutenant's is also in the medical centre but when they manage to talk to their Mon Calamari contact she reveals the lieutenant was picked up the Hutt's underlings and she believes him responsible for the fire.

Giving them directions where to find their missing employer they head out on a airspeeder and eventually reach the location eventually forcing their droid compatriot to clamber down to unlock the security gate allowing them to descend inside the outlawed tech shop.

The scoundrel thought he spotted someone following them but when they descend he realises 3 armed airspeeders' come after them he points this out causing the mercenary soldier to try and shoot the lock on the gate above them thinking it should close the gate but can't find a suitable target as the droid succeeds in shutting the gates but not before two of the airspeeders plunge past them and the third is crushed in the closing gate sending two of its passengers into the water below.

The mercenary soldier decides to shoot down one of the remaining airspeeders and does so unfortunately it careers onto the landing platform at the heart of the massive underground water tank and takes out most of the waiting speeders as well as some of their defensive weapon batteries.

The other airspeeder touched down and the Rodian in a burst of insanity tries to ram them off the platform ending up side by side next to them.
The leader of the attackers comes with inches of killing the mercenary soldier after he and the scoundrel shoot at him first!
(I'd forgotten about the soak rules so he took 13 damage before I realised my mistake and reduced it down accordingly but it was still a critical hit but I forgot about that until the following round!)

The droid having kept out of sight on the floor of the airspeeder popped up to take a shot but after both the scoundrel and the soldier were wounded the rodian decided to try and fly the airspeeder clear but because they were still jammed together she brought them up with her until they separated suddenly causing their airspeeder's engine to splutter smoke before crashing back down again.
Their foe's airspeeder was left on its side next to one edge of the platform and they heard at least one of their attackers had already fallen into the water below.
The scoundrel and the soldier rushed out of their airspeeder and pushed the other airspeeder off the platform sending whoever remaining on the other side or within down into the water.

(Resulting from a triumph and a couple of threats if I remember properly)

The hutt asked to be escorted back to their ship and taken offworld to a suitable location where he could accept the cargo they were carrying and so they attached a rear cab to their airspeeder which required a couple of mechanics checks before they were able to take off.

Heading back out the Rodian managed to dodge some remaining airspeeders outside before reaching the spaceport and unloading the hutt inside their ship.

Whilst the scoundrel's player was busy the Pilot made her Perception check and noticed she had outpaced a couple of starfighters that was now heading their way so she quickly headed to the ship's cockpit and lifted off with the help of the droid's R2 assitant whom plotted the astrogation details as she managed to outpace the pursuing fighters (4 very successful rolls that kept their pursuers from even reaching extreme range on their ship!) and the jumped to Nal Hutta to dock with their Hutt employer's own ship.

Thanks to a successful negotiation roll the Rodian got to reduce her debt from 25,000 credits down to 20,000 credits and the others got to share a 5000 credit reward as the Hutt took his cargo off their hands.

The Hutt then made an offer to the group about picking up a glitterstim package off of Dantooine and he'd pay half the seller's payment so they could take it offworld and sell it keeping half of the profits.

(He'd give them 5000 credits which along with the reward he gave them would cover the 10000 credits cost with the delivery expected to gain them at least 50000 credits with only half to be pay to the Hutt of course!)

Funnily they were a little wary of accepting so I'll see what they think the next time we meet up.

Oh they got 15xp each with an extra 1 going to the scoundrel and the soldier for some roleplaying ideas they came up with, I also gave an extra 5 to the rodian pilot because of the obligation reduction which got a query from the Scoundrel's player since the Rodian was the only one to accept the Debt in the first place why should she get an extra 5xp when she had already received a reward by having her debt reduced anyway.

Well that one I need to think on, let me know what you think about this!

[heroicraptor]

So how's it going so far?

[Hopeless]

So how's it going so far?

Oh that's right I forgot about their new enemies!

Do NOT read if you're a player in this game!
Master Hunter Tor Cordol: Almost drowned in the water tank when he barely managed to unbelt himself from the overturned airspeeder losing his prized heavy blaster rifle in the process.
Now has focused his emnity on the PCs especially the droid who was the only one of the PCs to actually hurt him!

Need a name for his Journeyman...

Sinasu's former Lieutenant Pon: Fled after the PCs defeated Cordol's mercenaries and is unaware that they didn't tell Sinasu of his betrayal even if the only evidence is the suspicions of the Mon Calamari contact Lanni.
Helped Cordol get out of the Techtank base and is trying to usurp Sinasu's remaining resources on Nar Shaddaa albeit limited to Greentop for the present as Naoko and Sinasu are concentrating on each other than dealing with him.

When the PCs fled the system Walter (Scoundrel PC) broadcasted a fake transmission drawing the attention of an Imperial customs ship with the likelihood the Empire might be taking a closer look at the PCs and their ship in the near future...

Was thinking of using the playtest adventure used at GenCon and listened on the Order 66 podcast as the next adventure but given their evident uncertainty I was thinking of having the next adventure be a set up where bountyhunters come after the Rodian pilot and maybe, just maybe have them lose the ship in an ambush forcing them to pull a die hard in a ruin, still needs more thought though!

[heroicraptor]

>.> I was actually more curious about how well the rules system works...

[Hopeless]

>.> I was actually more curious about how well the rules system works...

The one player I expected problems with actually took to it like a duck in water!:smallbiggrin:

Admittedly he used normal dice but he was handling it far better than me!:smallredface:

Otherwise it was fine, I'm actually prepping a scenario of my own whilst getting to know the system better for hopefully the next session if they're game

[Looshkin]

I have tracked you down, Hopeless - was curious about your comments re the forums! Fair warning, don't forget to avoid spoilers.

Re the system, it seems fairly straighforward. Basic skill mechanic is simple, if a little clumsy to my mind. Haven't seen enough assisted actions to have that nailed yet, may steal the rulebook briefly next time, that may be fiddly. I do like the way it tracks success/fail and advantage/disadvantage separately (ie you could end out getting a square hit on the bad guy but leave yourself exposed to return fire from his friend, or magnificantly fail to hit the bad guy by falling on your face and being hidden from return fire). There's a relatively finite set of skills to use, so lends itself to a cinematic style, no point trying to get hung up over fine detail as the system won't do it. It has the annoyingly popular skill tree mechanic rather like an MMO to add a little variety (which I personally loathe, but whatever floats your boat).

Two big points - it's fiddly as hell if you don't have the proper dice (there's a conversion chart for normal pip dice but it's pinfully slow to use), and I reckon combat is likely to be highly lethal, so not for the hack-and-slash players.

[ThiagoMartell]

Wait, they are SELLING a beta version? So you PAY THEM to playtest THEIR game?!

[Hopeless]

I have tracked you down, Hopeless - was curious about your comments re the forums! Fair warning, don't forget to avoid spoilers.
Re the system, it seems fairly straighforward. Basic skill mechanic is simple, if a little clumsy to my mind. Haven't seen enough assisted actions to have that nailed yet, may steal the rulebook briefly next time, that may be fiddly. I do like the way it tracks success/fail and advantage/disadvantage separately (ie you could end out getting a square hit on the bad guy but leave yourself exposed to return fire from his friend, or magnificantly fail to hit the bad guy by falling on your face and being hidden from return fire). There's a relatively finite set of skills to use, so lends itself to a cinematic style, no point trying to get hung up over fine detail as the system won't do it. It has the annoyingly popular skill tree mechanic rather like an MMO to add a little variety (which I personally loathe, but whatever floats your boat).
Two big points - it's fiddly as hell if you don't have the proper dice (there's a conversion chart for normal pip dice but it's pinfully slow to use), and I reckon combat is likely to be highly lethal, so not for the hack-and-slash players.

Sounds like I need a second copy!

[Hopeless]

Right the last time i did this I was kicked out and lost the entire message even though i tried to backtrack so forgive me if this is done under several edits, okay?

Okay here goes!

I was wondering about how to handle the Force Powers of the new system and something caught my eye.

Okay I had a bit of inspiration this morning (and yes I had a bad feeling about this too:smallbiggrin:!)

There was an argument or rather tepid discussion on how to create a Jedi under the new rules (well tepid does sound better than an argument doesn't it?) and I asked about having the Force Rating being treated as a Characteristic which has already been talked about (I just haven't been on the fantasy flight forum long enough to find it!:smallredface:).

The thing is as it stands you start off with a Force Rating of 1 after spending 20xp (or 30 if its the third career speciality you purchased for your character) to become Force Sensitive after which you spend 10xp to gain each of the Force Basic Powers (covered by Influence, Sense and Move) with upgrades then becoming available to buy if you have the spare xp along with the talents covered by the Force Exile Talent Tree.

Now my idea is this due to having played the west end games version of star wars I was wondering about swapping the Influence, Move and Sense Talent Trees for the Alter, Control and Sense Force Skills.

Currently the only way to increase your Force Rating is either through the purchasing of the Force Rating or Dedication talent both of which allow for a +1 increase making a maximum Force Rating of 3 under the Edge of the Empire Beta rules with the remaining Force Powers being at 10 each before using regular Talent purchasing rules for the upgrades.

My suggestion is to treat Force Rating and the Force Skills (Alter, Control and Sense) the same as characteristics with the one proviso that by becoming Force Sensitive you gain 1 free skill rank in ONE of the three Force skills gaining one power of your choice from the list of the chosen Force Skill ONLY.

To gain a Force Power covered by 2 or more Force Skills you would have to increase every one involved by 1 to gain that specific Force Power.

The new restriction is that to improve your Force Rating or Force Skill any further you would need some kind of teaching device (Holocron, Force Artefact perhaps even some written works or carved instructions in a tomb) or even better an actual Teacher (and best of all more than one!!!)

However either of these can only increase your Force Rating or your Force Skill to an absolute limit of one less than their score so no matter what there will always be one force power you can't learn from them

[Hopeless]

Okay just to make sure my message isn't garbled I chose to add my examples in this message rather than edit any further on my earlier response.

So since I have access to early edition of weg star wars rpg's specifically the Star wars sourcebook I'm going to try and give examples of my suggestion from above.

So just for estimation Darth Vader has a Force Rating of 6, his Force Skills are Alter of 4, Control of 5 and Sense of 6 since he has fallen to the darkside I'm going to estimate he has Darkside points of at least 7 since I believe if you gain Darkside greater than your Force Rating you become an npc character as per original weg rules!

Lets say he gets annoyed at an admiral for alerting the rebel's too early at the start of the empire strikes back so being able to see the admiral even though he's on another star destroyer he acts to choke him so gets his Force Rating in ability dice which his Alter skill upgrades 4 to proficiency dice.
However because he's being violent he gets to use his Darkside points which upgrade the remaining 2 ability dice to proficiency dice but also adds the excess darkside points in to 4 extra Boost Dice.

The base difficulty since he's operating at exteme range is add 4 difficulty dice to the roll and the target gets to add their Brawn of 2 and Resilience of 1 so adds 1 extra difficulty and a Challenge die to the roll so every success on this roll adds to Vader's Force Rating for damage purposes so say after rolling 6 proficiency dice, 4 boost dice, 5 difficulty dice and a single challenge dice he gets a triumph, four successes and say two threat he does 10 damage to the unfortunate admiral who inevitably incites Vader's anger with his response to Vader's accusation so gets to roll again the next round even if he didn't want to thereby killing the admiral just showing using the darkside is never safe and should be discouraged after all why else did you think Padme died?
Its not as if Anakin wanted to kill her, he simply lost control (Well I assumed he didn't want to kill her, anyway...:smallbiggrin:).

[Hopeless]

Sorry regarding Darkside and Lightside points.

Just as indicated Darkside points are used in violent actions or evil acts only, lightside points can be used to boost good acts or healing and recovering and more importantly can counter darkside points of an opponent which is why and how you get those incredible fight scenes between Jedi and Sith and why Jedi are so great at defence which is lightside as you aren't trying to harm anyone, oh it does help if you deflect energy attacks that you don't use them to hurt another living thing since droids can be repaired (there aren't many living things (ie Durge) who can survive being beheaded for example!).

Anyway just for your amusement;

Yoda has an estimated Force Rating of 7 with Force Skills of Alter at 3, Control at 7 and Sense at 6, I could lower the Force Rating by 1 to increase all of these skills by 1 but this sounds more accurate.

Obi-Wan Kenobi has a Force Rating of 6 with Force Skills of Alter at 2, Control at 6 and Sense at 6 could do the same as above but it also sounds about right.

Oh and finally Luke Skywalker as of the Battle of Yavin has a Force Rating of 1 with Force Skills of Control at 2 and Sense at 1, hmm certainly fits the Edge of the Empire power level doesn't it?:smallsmile:

Oh and I'm not even going to guess how many lightside points they have! (Or Force Points if you have a later update on the Star Wars classic characters handy!).

Finally Ben uses Affect Mind on some Stormtroopers to insure he, Luke and the Droid's pass a checkpoint unmolested and undetected, since that power is covered by all three Force Skills he gets his Force Rating of 6 in ability dice and upgrades them by the lowest of the three relevant Force Skills which in this case is Alter of 2 so he upgrades 2 of his Force Rating ability dice to Proficiency dice and adds two difficulty dice to represent the Stormtroopers Willpower which as minions means they only get to upgrade 1 die per additonal Stormtrooper present so as far as I recall there were only two so upgrades one of the difficulty dice to a Challenge die meaning he rolls 4 Ability Dice, 2 Proficiency Dice, 1 Difficulty Dice and 1 Challenge Dice and needs 2 successes to persuade the Stormtroopers that these really aren't the droids they're looking for!

(Yes I think there might have been more but if there's three both difficulty dice upgrade to Challenge dice and every extra Stormtrooper after that should add a setback dice (and would require 1 extra success per extra stormtrooper although a triumph would be handy!), it could be argued this could include a Negotiation or Coerce skill in this dice pool along with whatever Talents cover those skills!:smalleek:)

Anyway let me know what you think!

[Hopeless]

Oh and if the player of Walter Slovotsky is reading this the change would mean you'd start off with say Sense at 1 and only need to spend 20xp to gain 1 in both Control and Alter to select Affect Mind as your (only) force power with distance between you and your target as extra difficulty dice to their base Willpower upgraded by Discipline if they're not minions and if they are use difficulty dice equal to the higher of those two characteristic or skill.

So say you have a Force Rating of 1 and the above all at 1 you get a single Proficiency roll against a probably 2 difficulty dice of a human minion at touching distance or 3 at close range and can use any successes from that to improve a regular skill check or apply a simple suggestion and no give me all your money is not a simple suggestion but I'd accept Give me your sandwich and I am your dog! :smallbiggrin:

And you can bet if your tutor dies and either you're responsible or they're feeling grouchy they will be sticking around as force ghosts to comment on your actions so be prepared to buy them some hot dogs!!!:smallcool::smallwink:

Oh I am so loving those clips from Star Wars Detours!!!

[Hopeless]

Latest updates include renaming the Resilience Talent as Enduring and Droids get it as a bonus Talent (Each time its picked the user gains +1 to their soak value) didn't even notice as I originally assumed they meant the skill but I guess the name change was to insure no one else makes that mistake.

The entry for Skill Training has been reverted to what was originally in the Beta book.

Some encumbrance changes for various vehicles.

Force Sensitive non-career specialization has been relabelled a universal specialization and some changes to the Force Move Power.

Apparently the Influence Basic Force Power only does Strain damage and I thought it actually helped a Coerce, Deceit or Negotiation check!

So any reactions from any of you reading this thread?

[king.com]

So, I still havn't seen a reason to not take as many obligations at character creation as possible.

Additionally the way the skill checks work you really want to be min maxing fairly badly to maximise the amount and type of dice you get.

Question to you Hopeless, how have you found the passive-defence for combat?

[Hopeless]

So, I still havn't seen a reason to not take as many obligations at character creation as possible.

Additionally the way the skill checks work you really want to be min maxing fairly badly to maximise the amount and type of dice you get.

Question to you Hopeless, how have you found the passive-defence for combat?

I actually missed the rules for Defence but figured out Soak before a player got his character hospitalised by the heavy blaster rifle wielding foe in the adventure I ran.

Made a point of rereading and am still going through the book although that reference sheet they released is a big help!

I made up some starting equipment for the characters which in retrospect was a bad idea since those that went for the extra obligation spent them on skills, characteristics and so on so far only one player has even bothered explaining their obligation and motivation with the Rodian Pilot yet to explain whether her character's family has placed a bounty on her head or there's a bounty on every member of her family!

Made the mistake of offering her a second obligation to explain their debt to the Hutt from the adventure when had I double checked the character's obligations I could have assigned that to the Scoundrel who took Debt at 20!

I suspect the reason for extra obligation is to give the players a chance to get enough equipment rather than bolster their abilities, looking forward to the next release the Edge of the Empire Beginner box set that might even be out by christmas which should at least have its own set of custom dice and some extra ideas for adventure design!

Oh and I better introduce those characters shouldn't I?

Tasha the Rodian Female Pilot
Mender the Droid Technician
Temple the Human Male Scoundrel
Dah'Lak the Human Male Mercenary Soldier (and yes he did mean it that way!)

[NX_Phoenix]

I'm have to preface this with the disclaimer that I do not actually have a copy of the beta and the following information is from an interview with the developers on the Order 66 podcast (Episode 163).

There were a few reasons you wouldn't want too much obligation. First, if your party's total Obligation is greater than 100 you do not spend experience until the total is below that. The idea is that the collective stress from having that much over your party's collective heads prevents you from focusing on improving. The second issue is that before a session the GM rolls against the group's total obligation to see if someone's comes into play and the character whose obligation is selected gets a penalty to their strain threshold (mental defense). The rest of the party also gets a lesser penalty to their strain threshold for having to deal with his or her problems spilling over onto the group.

On top of those there is the fact that the GM is encouraged to use these varied obligations to put pressure on the players and ramp up the pressure the longer the obligation isn't dealt with. (e.g. Jabba first sends Greedo after Han for his debt and Han blows him away. Later, at the beginning of ESB, Han has a full bounty on his head and Boba Fett shows up to collect.) As mentioned, this does depend on the GM actually using the obligations against the players, similar to disadvantages in point buy systems.

[Hopeless]

I'm have to preface this with the disclaimer that I do not actually have a copy of the beta and the following information is from an interview with the developers on the Order 66 podcast (Episode 163).

There were a few reasons you wouldn't want too much obligation. First, if your party's total Obligation is greater than 100 you do not spend experience until the total is below that. The idea is that the collective stress from having that much over your party's collective heads prevents you from focusing on improving. The second issue is that before a session the GM rolls against the group's total obligation to see if someone's comes into play and the character whose obligation is selected gets a penalty to their strain threshold (mental defense). The rest of the party also gets a lesser penalty to their strain threshold for having to deal with his or her problems spilling over onto the group.

On top of those there is the fact that the GM is encouraged to use these varied obligations to put pressure on the players and ramp up the pressure the longer the obligation isn't dealt with. (e.g. Jabba first sends Greedo after Han for his debt and Han blows him away. Later, at the beginning of ESB, Han has a full bounty on his head and Boba Fett shows up to collect.) As mentioned, this does depend on the GM actually using the obligations against the players, similar to disadvantages in point buy systems.

Agreed i made a point of telling them that as they were either deciding or rolling their obligation and motivation, even went as far as explaining what i read that if it came up the recipient would take strain and his fellow PCs would take 1 each to account for being involved albeit unwittingly since until it was revealed they wouldn't know it had come up.

Which is why I'm trying to get them to explain their obligation and motivation better and why I regret giving a player an extra obligation (halving their existing one so they could either start off with 1 at 10 or 2 at 5 with the option to increase 1 by 10 or both by 5) and no more than that since if they all chose to increase their obligation it would total out at 80.

[king.com]

I'm have to preface this with the disclaimer that I do not actually have a copy of the beta and the following information is from an interview with the developers on the Order 66 podcast (Episode 163).

There were a few reasons you wouldn't want too much obligation. First, if your party's total Obligation is greater than 100 you do not spend experience until the total is below that. The idea is that the collective stress from having that much over your party's collective heads prevents you from focusing on improving. The second issue is that before a session the GM rolls against the group's total obligation to see if someone's comes into play and the character whose obligation is selected gets a penalty to their strain threshold (mental defense). The rest of the party also gets a lesser penalty to their strain threshold for having to deal with his or her problems spilling over onto the group.

On top of those there is the fact that the GM is encouraged to use these varied obligations to put pressure on the players and ramp up the pressure the longer the obligation isn't dealt with. (e.g. Jabba first sends Greedo after Han for his debt and Han blows him away. Later, at the beginning of ESB, Han has a full bounty on his head and Boba Fett shows up to collect.) As mentioned, this does depend on the GM actually using the obligations against the players, similar to disadvantages in point buy systems.

These dont seem to be anywhere need enough of a penalty to matter. Not able to spend XP until it drops? No problem, keep playing the game and rack up XP and then spend it all at once. Your still gaining xp you just dont get to spend it.

The stress issue seems like something everyone is going to be subject to constantly regardless so its often just a simple aspect of the system everyone is dealing with.

The roll before the game to see whos comes up is not just stress its more story about your character. The system is literally designed so that taking an obligation means the game focuses more heavily on your character AND you get more skills/gear to boot.

Normally disadvantages are fairly limited, you get a little bit more xp for a massive downside (like the Enemy talent in the 40K games). This is a minor talent problem that comes in the form of making your character more important AND you get more stuff.

[Hopeless]

These dont seem to be anywhere need enough of a penalty to matter. Not able to spend XP until it drops? No problem, keep playing the game and rack up XP and then spend it all at once. Your still gaining xp you just dont get to spend it.

The stress issue seems like something everyone is going to be subject to constantly regardless so its often just a simple aspect of the system everyone is dealing with.

The roll before the game to see whos comes up is not just stress its more story about your character. The system is literally designed so that taking an obligation means the game focuses more heavily on your character AND you get more skills/gear to boot.

Normally disadvantages are fairly limited, you get a little bit more xp for a massive downside (like the Enemy talent in the 40K games). This is a minor talent problem that comes in the form of making your character more important AND you get more stuff.

I'd just turn it in to two chances of an obligation turning up.

So for example from what I recall of my player's character obligations they are;
Please note my players haven't confirmed the nature of their obligations and the below is intended only as an example and if any of those players are reading this feel free to explain what your obligation is!
Rodian Pilot: Bounty by Family (5), Debt: Sinasu the Hutt (10)
Droid Technician: Favour: Family (20) since he hasn’t elaborated he’s been assigned by the Rodian Pilot’s family to look after her
Human Mercenary Soldier: Love: Family (5), Criminal: Freedom (5) also hasn’t elaborated so say he’s a Mandalorian whose been outcasted from his clan and seeks to regain his former status but out in the Outer Rim he’s still considered a criminal by the Empire
and
Human Scoundrel: Debt: Greed (20) Also hasn’t explained but I assume he’s from an Alderaanian family whom have certain goals in mind for him and to make sure he obeys his accounts have been seized leaving him with little means of paying for his outstanding debts resulting in his current exodus to the Outer Rim.

So total of 55, however what if…
Rodian Pilot: Wanted: Family have bought the debt from Sinasu and employed bounty hunters to recover both her and their property (the ship) which has upgraded the original Bounty to 20.
Droid Technician: Actually belongs to the Rodian’s family he has gained a second obligation of Secret: Rodian’s family has reprogrammed it to betray the group by disabling the ship and securing its mistress once a signal has been received which keeps the original Favour: Family (20) and adds Secret: Programmed to Betray (10).
Mercenary Soldier: Contacted by his clan he has been led to believe if he betrays his comrades he will be accepted back into his clan, however he discovered this was a lie and in the resulting fight killed the liar earning a Bounty on himself from his unit thus Love:Mandalorian Clan remains at (5), Bounty: For killing a Mandalorian Bounty Hunter (10) and Criminal: Mandalorian Outcast (5)
Human Male Scoundrel; Debt: Greed (20) changed to Suspected Jedi (10), Bounty: Family wants him returned for an arranged marriage (10) and Enemy: Cordal, Mercenary Unit (10)
For a total now of 100 but instead of freezing their xp instead its shifted so that when a roll is made;
01-30: Droid Technician/01-20: Rodian Pilot
21-30: Mandalorian Soldier
31-60: Human Scoundrel/ 31-40: Mandalorian Soldier
61+ None of these
So a roll of 20 or less means both the droid and the rodian’s obligations are involved they’d take 2 strain each and the others 1 apiece, 21-30 means instead of the Rodian it would be the Mandalorian instead and above 30 but below 61 means instead of the droid the Scoundrel would be effected but in a way that involves their obligations in some way and 61 or greater none of the obligations come into play.
This works best if there’s a link between their obligations but could easily be changed to;
01-10: Droid only
11-20: Droid & Rodian
21-30: Rodian only
31-40: Droid & Mandalorian only
41-50: Mandalorian only
51-60: Mandalorian & Scoundrel
61-80: Scoundrel only
81+ None of them.

Does that sound better?

[Looshkin]

Well, much to reply to -

Hopeless - I'd be very wary of swapping out the Force mechanic without playtesting the rules as is. They may well be broken (I reserve judgement until trying though), but at least there has been an attempt to balance them against the rest of the rules. I see a number of problems with subbing in the WEG rules, including that 1 EotE force point is more representative of 1 die of WEG ability (ie three powers not one), that there is then no mechanic to buy individual powers in EotE, and it doesn't fit with the talent tree model. Am sure it could be made to work, but does the current mechanic need fixing, and would it be worth the effort of a wholesale replacement rather than a patch?

Ah, so there is some motivation to not spamming Obligations. This is news, but as mentioned, still not a huge deterrent. The system is weighted towards min-maxing, certainly (I believe that investing heavily in stats would be the way for munchkins to go, skills look cheap to improve later). Possibly the potential stress 'damage' could impact survival, as could deferring spending XP. Still doesn't seem like a big.

Personally, I went in heavy on Obligations for backstory, and to offset the deliberately inefficient and stunted Force powers, which as it happens appear not to work as advertised. Wouldn't change this with the new info, the penalty just isn't enough to scare me, and gives potential plot hooks aplenty. (Hopeless - you did get the details for the Obligation/Motivation, admittedly subtly but I was trying to keep it secret from the other players, as someone who shall remain nameless read out notes passed to him aloud, I'll forward on far less subtle info at some point. Very short version is he ripped off his father who had ripped off Imperials, then lost the money).

And Hopeless again - you should have warned about spoilers! Given that my Force powers are as minimal as it's posible to get, and you didn't even let me use them when I tried, sticking me with a suspected Jedi notice is pretty rough! Love the phrase of 'cordial enemies', by the way, I strongly suspect that this will be adopted into my Obligation details for sheer enjoyment of the phrase.

And finally, yes, a publisher that has made folks pay to playtest their game. Impressive. Most impressive.

[Hopeless]

Well, much to reply to -

Hopeless - I'd be very wary of swapping out the Force mechanic without playtesting the rules as is. They may well be broken (I reserve judgement until trying though), but at least there has been an attempt to balance them against the rest of the rules. I see a number of problems with subbing in the WEG rules, including that 1 EotE force point is more representative of 1 die of WEG ability (ie three powers not one), that there is then no mechanic to buy individual powers in EotE, and it doesn't fit with the talent tree model. Am sure it could be made to work, but does the current mechanic need fixing, and would it be worth the effort of a wholesale replacement rather than a patch?

Ah, so there is some motivation to not spamming Obligations. This is news, but as mentioned, still not a huge deterrent. The system is weighted towards min-maxing, certainly (I believe that investing heavily in stats would be the way for munchkins to go, skills look cheap to improve later). Possibly the potential stress 'damage' could impact survival, as could deferring spending XP. Still doesn't seem like a big.

Personally, I went in heavy on Obligations for backstory, and to offset the deliberately inefficient and stunted Force powers, which as it happens appear not to work as advertised. Wouldn't change this with the new info, the penalty just isn't enough to scare me, and gives potential plot hooks aplenty. (Hopeless - you did get the details for the Obligation/Motivation, admittedly subtly but I was trying to keep it secret from the other players, as someone who shall remain nameless read out notes passed to him aloud, I'll forward on far less subtle info at some point. Very short version is he ripped off his father who had ripped off Imperials, then lost the money).

And Hopeless again - you should have warned about spoilers! Given that my Force powers are as minimal as it's posible to get, and you didn't even let me use them when I tried, sticking me with a suspected Jedi notice is pretty rough! Love the phrase of 'cordial enemies', by the way, I strongly suspect that this will be adopted into my Obligation details for sheer enjoyment of the phrase.

And finally, yes, a publisher that has made folks pay to playtest their game. Impressive. Most impressive.

Apologies but hopefully you're the only one who actually bothers to look on this (and if not Paul, Ian be sure to post your viewpoint since it sounds like I'm having more success getting feedback here than the emails I sent directly!:smallbiggrin:) but nothing is written in stone after all no plan survives contact with a group of PCs!:smallwink:

Anyway I'll try and stick to mechanics from now on!

[Hopeless]

Alternative modifications to the Influence Force Power.

As it stands the force wielder rolls a single force die and if at least lightside point is rolled they can inflict 1 strain on anyone within close range (please correct me on that if wrong).

My alteration is that if this is being used in conjunction with an actual skill relevant to manipulating the emotions of another then the basic power counts as 1 skill die and the force rating upgrades this to a proficiency die to add to the die pool of the skill being used.

So what do you think?

Usable?

[Seatbelt]

They really make you pay for the beta? Do they plan to send you the finished core rulebook + stuff later? Or were you really ...silly... enough to shell out %30 bucks for an unfinished book?

[Sarone]

Paizo did the same thing when they were doing the Beta for the Pathfinder Rendition. Way I see, they could have placed it in PDF (might have been a better idea), but then players still would have printed it out anyway.

I don't mind, since it also provides a ruleset not limited to levels.

[Hopeless]

Paizo did the same thing when they were doing the Beta for the Pathfinder Rendition. Way I see, they could have placed it in PDF (might have been a better idea), but then players still would have printed it out anyway.

I don't mind, since it also provides a ruleset not limited to levels.

Apparently due to Lucasarts their licence doesn't cover making pdfs of any of their new star wars game I believe they did give out free copies to anyone who attended their GenCon presentation of the beta as well as announce what their three planned books are going to be about.

Now whether they try this Beta release for their second and third book, well I guess its a wait and see!

[Seatbelt]

But then you have to buy the book twice...?

[Hopeless]

But then you have to buy the book twice...?

Ah but if you keep up to date with the updates that Beta book is all you need with the subsequent 2 other books the first dealing with the Empire and Rebellion and the last dealing with the Force specifically.

You should be able to run games with the Beta and only need the updates if you feel them necessary, the real pain is the dice which have yet to be released however they are planning on a beginner box set which will have dice, pregenerated characters, adventures, etc but no character generation rules though.

I actually waited until I could listen to some actual plays which was interesting enough to make me want to buy the Beta to see for myself and have to admit to want to run more games!

There's nothing that says you can't wait for the final product next year but with this thread we can at least discuss it and share ideas and given its only been recently released over here we have a lot of ground to cover!

[Seatbelt]

Oh I see. So I can pay to have this useless book and use the update documents on my computer instead. That makes much more sense. :smallconfused:


I mean I love Star Wars too. I own almost every Saga book printed (I can't be bothered with Legacy and I can't find a couple others). I think this new system sounds cool. I think its great that they are letting people monkey with all the nuts and bolts of their stuff long before the actual book is out. I think the minis game uses some really excellent ideas and I'm excited for the card game. But I think its preposterous that each mini is $15 bucks, and I think its exploitative to sell consumers an unfinished product (under the guise of 'playtesting'), and then make them buy the finished product again a year later.