I never did insult you. I did say

"My problem with the post is where he says aiming and shooting is, so I am going to change the rules to penalize the player with True Aim to limit it him from doing it so much. Sorry this is just lazy Gming and IMHO poor GMing."

I never said you were a bad GM or a bad person. I did say IF that is your reasoning THEN...

I have never had anyone use this talent in my games yet, so I am interested in seeing why people think it is broke. I did state that I am only going with the ECRB, as all my other books are crossing the Atlantic right now. I still don't see how Two True Aims is a problem. I am staring to see how 3-6 true Aims can be a problem.

Liloki, my intent was not to insult you and make you upset.

-R2builder

Well, your initial reply did try to call me a bad GM based on the assumption that I was nerfing the player's character build mid-gameplay without any consideration/dicussion with said player.

Both of your replies carried the message of "Nothing wrong with True Aim, if you think so that's because you're a lazy/bad GM who can't challenge your players enough to do other things."

Given that you admit to not having any in-game experience with that Talent, perhaps it would have been better for you to start your responses with "why do you think this is broken? just b/c it's causing a repetitive gameplay decision?" instead of "it's not unbalanced, you're probably just bad at this."

Let's just both move forward.

Another one!

We are considering to use "Force Leap" as Commit. We are studying it yet.

I think the only house rules my group uses (aside from on the spot rules decisions) are the seemingly common treatment of null rolls and some open interpretation of the Sense power.

For null rolls (those that generate no success or failure), we usually allow a reroll with the expenditure of time or require a new approach to the problem. This is due to the seemingly common mistake that a lack of success does not/should not create an intrinsic failure (which it apparently does). In combat, a null roll is still a miss, but elsewhere else, we narrate the result based on the situation.

For Sense, a situation came up in our last session where we basically entered a dark site cave. The GM was feeding me very basic info about sensing a disturbance in the Force by virtue of being a Force user, but also allowed me to use Sense to gain a little more info about the situation, despite the nature of the encounter not specifically being about a living entity or its thoughts/emotions. This was done because there wasn't really another way to handle it and it created an in-game way for me to investigate the situation rather than either handing me everything or simply not telling me anything (investigating made it more interesting).

In a prior EoE game though, the GM was quick to house rule everything and anything, citing that the game was too easy and wasn't written properly. He hastily increased difficulties in combat, handwaved rules, and actively punished players for doing things like taking Aim maneuvers, accusing use of cheating the system. What this meant was that I, as a player, couldn't read the rulebook and form strategies or understand what my character was capable of doing, since the GM had his own rules he was using and would just pull the rug out from under me whenever I tried ot do anything anyways.

As I grow older, I become less and less interested in house rules. For me, this isn't about RAW vs. not RAW. This isn't about making the game yours or whether designers are perfect or not. For me, changing a game's rules is about fault-finding and the butterfly effect. Instead of spending all of the effort in finding the faults of a game and trying to fix it, I prefer to just play the game. If there is something that isn't working, there are ways to work within the system to make it work without dramatically changing things and investing in fault-finding. I also recognize that after spending some years working in policy development and longer tweaking games and creating house rules, that changing things creates unexpected and increasing changes elsewhere in the game. The butterfly effect is a real thing and few seem to understand how it can destroy a game.

In the earlier example of the GM who changed combat difficulties and other rules, all this did was make the game harder for non-combat characters and escalate the game for combat characters. Those who could dumped into combat skills and abilities and those who couldn't were left behind. This escalated the game, since the GM then needed to create harder and more dangerous encounters to counter the more dangerous combat spec'ed characters, who were only made like that to counter the house rule that the GM made to make combat harder in the first place. And when I started to take Aim maneuvers to try and stay in the game, the GM pounced on me like a wild animal and escalated the game even further. All the GM got from increasing the difficulty of combat rolls was a nuclear arms race and further escalation that required him to make combat even harder as he pushed back. If he didn't do any of this, he could have simply scaled the difficulty of encounters and the tasks that were against us, rather than having to change the rules and then scale up the encounters against us in order to compensate when we tried to survive.

The same thing happened with me years ago with Deadlands, where we originally disregarded stun checks because it was an added complexity that we were having trouble dealing with. Not using with made combats very lethal and drawn out, yet trying to reintroduce them somehow makes combats even more dangerous because we weren't used to the rules. And don't get me started on D&D 3rd edition, where not one single GM I played with knew the rules. Every table had wildly different house rules, such that one player's experience at one table would actually destroy another table's game. To this day, I have no idea how to play D&D, and my group is still hesitant to touch some multi-book games due to all the house rules and third party material that were caked onto D&D. All this did was take options away from the players and confuse GMs.

So I prefer to spend my efforts learning to play the games I play as they are presented, not fault-find and try and fix problems that really don't exist, or problems that are only going to get worse if I try and "fix them." That's my take and that's what I advocate to new players and old. It's also easier to join a game with a new group if you know the rules as printed than if you only know a GM's house rules, because you may not even know they are house rules.

My updated, and in use, list of House Rules that one of the main goals is fit on canon

- Discarded Hyperdrive class and the security one and added max jump and comms range. "Plot Speed" .

- Lightsaber: Breach X (Can cut any known material).

- Doesn't exist Cortosis because there isn't a known existence of a non-energy/magic based material that can resist lightsabers. (Exceptions: Zillo beast and "Magik" weapons)

- Ion Rarity is now 8+ and starships/vehicles with ion weapons isn't a "common" thing.

- Separation between Vehicle scale x5 (or light armored) and Starship scale x10 (or heavy armored).

- Stat modifications: AT-ST → HT 8

- Force Support: Each additional user let exchange 1 generated pip [LS ↔ DS]. The general cooperation rules still apply.

- Improved Evasive Manouvers: Speed 5+ → 2 Upgrades Difficulty, 2 Downgrades Attack

- In the space, if the target computer fails, the used difficulty to hit is the higher one from Silhouette or Distance.

- Shields

Have a value called Shield X: Add X Failures to the attackers roll if the base damage is the same or below the Shield Power value. If attacker weapons base damage is superior, Shields are used as normal rules (Setbacks).

- ALTERNATIVE: Character creation is based on NPC construction with the "pick up what you need tou build your character" idea.

I always give Stormtroopers a disadvantage dice when firing projectile based weapons. xD

Just playing now but here's what the GM does:

-Rescaled the vehicle damage rules such that 5 points of personal damage equal 1 point of vehicle damage, not 10. This makes the E-Web match the auto-blaster and makes things like missile launchers and thermal detonators a threat to starfighters. Thermal detonators destroy starfighters in the Clone Wars show.

-Swapped out the range bands for a grid. Makes combat much more straightforward.

-When making a dice pool, the player rolls the good dice and the GM rolls the bad dice. We started doing this because we lacked enough dice but I kinda prefer it this way.

-Our GM doesn't use the [minion]/[rival]/[nemesis] classification. At least not how it's written. An NPC will be treated as one of the three depending on the situation and narrative needs. Sometimes Stormtroopers are minions, sometimes they are rivals. Maybe this is how the rule is supposed to work but I'm not sure.

Thermal detonators are already a threat to vehicles. they have breach1 they ignore the first point of armor. Most small vehicles do not have much armor.

I think the only house rules my group uses (aside from on the spot rules decisions) are the seemingly common treatment of null rolls and some open interpretation of the Sense power.

For null rolls (those that generate no success or failure), we usually allow a reroll with the expenditure of time or require a new approach to the problem. This is due to the seemingly common mistake that a lack of success does not/should not create an intrinsic failure (which it apparently does). In combat, a null roll is still a miss, but elsewhere else, we narrate the result based on the situation.

For Sense, a situation came up in our last session where we basically entered a dark site cave. The GM was feeding me very basic info about sensing a disturbance in the Force by virtue of being a Force user, but also allowed me to use Sense to gain a little more info about the situation, despite the nature of the encounter not specifically being about a living entity or its thoughts/emotions. This was done because there wasn't really another way to handle it and it created an in-game way for me to investigate the situation rather than either handing me everything or simply not telling me anything (investigating made it more interesting).

In a prior EoE game though, the GM was quick to house rule everything and anything, citing that the game was too easy and wasn't written properly. He hastily increased difficulties in combat, handwaved rules, and actively punished players for doing things like taking Aim maneuvers, accusing use of cheating the system. What this meant was that I, as a player, couldn't read the rulebook and form strategies or understand what my character was capable of doing, since the GM had his own rules he was using and would just pull the rug out from under me whenever I tried ot do anything anyways.

As I grow older, I become less and less interested in house rules. For me, this isn't about RAW vs. not RAW. This isn't about making the game yours or whether designers are perfect or not. For me, changing a game's rules is about fault-finding and the butterfly effect. Instead of spending all of the effort in finding the faults of a game and trying to fix it, I prefer to just play the game. If there is something that isn't working, there are ways to work within the system to make it work without dramatically changing things and investing in fault-finding. I also recognize that after spending some years working in policy development and longer tweaking games and creating house rules, that changing things creates unexpected and increasing changes elsewhere in the game. The butterfly effect is a real thing and few seem to understand how it can destroy a game.

In the earlier example of the GM who changed combat difficulties and other rules, all this did was make the game harder for non-combat characters and escalate the game for combat characters. Those who could dumped into combat skills and abilities and those who couldn't were left behind. This escalated the game, since the GM then needed to create harder and more dangerous encounters to counter the more dangerous combat spec'ed characters, who were only made like that to counter the house rule that the GM made to make combat harder in the first place. And when I started to take Aim maneuvers to try and stay in the game, the GM pounced on me like a wild animal and escalated the game even further. All the GM got from increasing the difficulty of combat rolls was a nuclear arms race and further escalation that required him to make combat even harder as he pushed back. If he didn't do any of this, he could have simply scaled the difficulty of encounters and the tasks that were against us, rather than having to change the rules and then scale up the encounters against us in order to compensate when we tried to survive.

The same thing happened with me years ago with Deadlands, where we originally disregarded stun checks because it was an added complexity that we were having trouble dealing with. Not using with made combats very lethal and drawn out, yet trying to reintroduce them somehow makes combats even more dangerous because we weren't used to the rules. And don't get me started on D&D 3rd edition, where not one single GM I played with knew the rules. Every table had wildly different house rules, such that one player's experience at one table would actually destroy another table's game. To this day, I have no idea how to play D&D, and my group is still hesitant to touch some multi-book games due to all the house rules and third party material that were caked onto D&D. All this did was take options away from the players and confuse GMs.

So I prefer to spend my efforts learning to play the games I play as they are presented, not fault-find and try and fix problems that really don't exist, or problems that are only going to get worse if I try and "fix them." That's my take and that's what I advocate to new players and old. It's also easier to join a game with a new group if you know the rules as printed than if you only know a GM's house rules, because you may not even know they are house rules.

A null roll is a failure per the rules. You need an uncancelled success for it to be a success. Just FYI

Resurrecting it like a dead Sith Lord!

Ok, we have all but two Career books out now; Bounty Hunter and Smuggler.

Has anyone allowed a Career to take another's Signature Ability (SA)?

One of players is a Bounty Hunter and was thinking of going into the Hired Gun and eventually get that SA. I don't really see a problem with that, but I was wondering if anyone has done this or see potential problems that I don't.

I was talkng with my player, and I also suggested that if/when the Bounty Hunter Career book comes out, he can change the SA to the Bounty Hunter and drop the Hired Gun SA.

Thoughts?

...

Ok, we have all but two Career books out now; Bounty Hunter and Smuggler.

Has anyone allowed a Career to take another's Signature Ability (SA)?

...

I personally would not allow it, since I play RAW unless a situation arises where it is at the GM's discretion. Allowing him to take a Hired Gun SA is up to you since it's your game; however, I would not allow him to switch back to a Bounty Hunter SA once the book comes out. If I were you, I'd tell him to make a decision and stick with it: take a SA now or wait.

What happens though if the player waits until the book comes out, and your player still prefers the Hired Gun SA? Will you still allow him to take it ouver the Bounty Hunter SA? If the answer is yes, then you're planning to set the precedent that PCs can take SA's from any career. In that case, you should just make the house rule now, so it is fair to all players, present and future.

I still would do it RAW though to avoid the potentional unknown and unintended consequences of our actions.

Thanks Domingo. I too like to play RAW.

On the other side though, it is not fair that other careers are getting to take their SA and Smugglers and Bounty Hunters can not yet.

Our "original" understanding of the SA was that you just had to reach the bottom of one of the Spec Trees to take the SA, not actually be that Career too. So after we found that out, it was a bit bit disheartening to us.

I can not see the harm in doing this, and this is the only player to show any interest in the SA right now too. I am still on the fence. Thanks for your input and advice!

I myself am waiting for the Smuggling book & the Ace book. I am also in a conundrum as to which SA I will use. My question is could a Smuggler Pilot take the SA of the Ace Pilot since the Talent tree is EXACTLY THE SAME! This is where I am at w/ my PC.

I myself am waiting for the Smuggling book & the Ace book. I am also in a conundrum as to which SA I will use. My question is could a Smuggler Pilot take the SA of the Ace Pilot since the Talent tree is EXACTLY THE SAME! This is where I am at w/ my PC.

Answer would be "no", as the Smuggler/Pilot's base career is Smuggler, where the Ace/Pilot took Ace as their base career.

We eliminated Non Class Skills. We still pick a career and specs for the free starting skills but we do not charge extra for buying skills in another field. And this leads into the next house rule. I don't know if we have had an instance where someone got a talent that gave them more class skills. In that case, as a GM I would just say they have the talent much like other permanent non ranked talents.

We threw out the cost for buying a new spec. Instead, PCs qualify for a new spec by buying two of the four spec skills up to level 2. This give the feeling of training into the spec or Unlocking access to it through skill use. This does mean that you can wind up qualifying for more than one spec but to my group this doesn't mean much since spreading your talents between many specs just means you are being more of a Jack of all Trades instead of a specialist. I did add in that the original spec they chose must also have two level 2s before they buy into a new spec. This let's anyone reverse engineer their character without needing to know which spec was first (since there are no non-class skills).

We also said that Talents that remove setback will grant boost dice if there are no setbacks to remove.

How is this working out for your games? The one aspect of FFG system that I never liked was the cost of specializations. I was thinking of making them only cost 10xp for career and 20xp for non career and taking out the universal specializations. If a player wants 5 specializations to make their character the way they want I am completely ok with that. I do agree there should be minimal cost to it, but not as much as they were doing.

- ALTERNATIVE: Character creation is based on NPC construction with the "pick up what you need tou build your character" idea.

So when creating characters they can just buy any talent they want from any talent tree?

Well, I use that rule for really concrete situations/characters.

I let player pick what they need to build up the char. I try to respect as much as I can XP values, and also, tree structures, but isn't the main goal. I also apply this rules for character progression.

We have an aproximate idea about how many XP are needed and the amount "earned" or what tasks must fullfil the character to achieve that talent.

In a game that I play with two more people, one of them uses common rules and the other one this "free-pick" ones. Test it, I liked the results

Looking for some guidance people.

Considering that in my games I use Lightsabers as Breach X (ignore everything, no matters the value) and that Cortosis attribute (and derivates) doesn't exist, would you recommend me to reduce lightsaber damage by 1 or 2 points?

Thanks!

Honestly, I don't think it will matter. Having breach higher than 1 only really matters when attacking vehicles, and given the 10x effect, a couple damage points won't change how much damage they do (which will be 1 pt).

Well, what damage rating are you currently using for lightsabers?

if you're using the over-powered versions from EotE and AoR, then that's half your problem. Though as Quicksilver noted, Breach greater than 1 generally doesn't have an impact on non-vehicular opponents.

Frankly, the basic lightsaber from the Force and Destiny Beta is a far more sensible weapon, though having Breach still makes it very effective.

Also, from what I recall Josep, you've got PCs with over a 1000 XP, at which point any weapon is going to be pretty devastating in the hands of a PC that's rolling at least 5 positive dice and over half of them being proficiency dice; even a dinky light blaster pistol is probably going to be able to take out a couple of stormtrooper minions per shot (one from damage, the second from a crit).

Yep, I'm using the 6+ Damage version lightsaber.

A usual Soak can be easily 3 or 4. A Blaster weapon does above 7+ damage (- Soak) = Above 3 or 4. A lightsaber will do 6+ (in both cases consider that you still have to add +1-3 from dice rolls). Yep, in my cases there are tons of Proficency, but I'm looking for a "general concept".

So, even consider those general numbers, would you consider to reduce by 1 (or 2) the lightsaber damage? The true power of the lightsaber apart from "you can get some extra protection" (and extra coolness XD) is that you can surpass any known non-energy based material, but this doesn't necessary mean that it has to be a destructive weapons refering to damage numbers.

Opinions?

Agree with Quicksilver, altering damage doesn't matter. If you're thinking to do this for "balance" reasons, there's no real need. The times that Breach X will matter in the story can't be weighed against all the other times the lightsaber causes damage...there's no real algorithm for that.

I won't reduce the damage, but I won't give it breach X neither. I will explain my point of view.

A lightsaber with breach 1 can already cut through everything (as long as you get rid of cortosis attribute and by-products). I mean, within the narrative, you and your players can describe how the lightsaber cuts through a wall, thick door etc. In a similar style as Qui Gon does aboard thee Trade Federation ship

The only thing you have to rule as a GM is, ok, it will take you that amount of time to cut through.

On the ohter hand, if you give a lightsaber Breach X it means that in a combat situation and within the time frame of a combat round it can damage anything, which I don't feel it is correct. For example, give Breach X to your lightsaber and a PC can inflict a critical hit on a huge AT-AT, giving him the chance to one-shoot such a vehicle, which I don't feel it is right.

Briefly, in my opinion breach it is not equal to "beign able to cut through everything", that is done through the narrative of the lightsaber. If you want your lightsabers to be more efficient in combat, and for example completely ignore the soak of a rancor or an airspeeder, then raise its quality to breach 2, but I won't go higher. Unless of course, you think that character wielding a lightsaber should be able to potentially one-shot anything with one cut of a lightsaber.

I liked your argumentation, but still bring me some doubts.

http://www.starwars.com/tv-shows/clone-wars/the-lost-one here, Dooku slices the saber with no efforts causing a critical damage (probably) destroying the ships engines of a freighter with an armor of, at least 2 or more.

Also, in other scenes from Clone Wars we can see the confederation tanks, and also the super confederation tank, that where nearly immune to heavy fire, sliced easily by lightsabers again. Probably those tanks armor would be 4 or more, so... http://www.starwars.com/tv-shows/clone-wars/weapons-factory Here the Supertanks

Based on those scenes, you will treat that tanks as "cinematic" or "scenario items"? Personally I see no so much problem in score critical hits on AT-AT's, because seems that lightsaber are capable of that.

As said on another post, only energy based, magik based and Zillo Beast are nearly immune or highly resistant to lightsabers.

Suggestions?

Based on those scenes, you will treat that tanks as "cinematic" or "scenario items"? Personally I see no so much problem in score critical hits on AT-AT's, because seems that lightsaber are capable of that.

If you like to reproduce this scenes, then go ahead with Breach X, it fits perfectly. I mean it.

But also know that I am the wrong guy regarding talking about what happens in the EU. I don't like most of the EU saving The Thrawn Trilogy. Specially I don't like the turn that Jedis took there with things like Luke being a demi-god. I like more the old, more mystic monk like view of the Jedis given in the movies, than the lighsaber wielding-ninja-ubercool view of the jedis that permeates the EU.

Said that, and going back to the post, if you want to reproduce scenes where Jedis cut through tanks, then I find giving Breach X to the lightsaber is a good approach, and then, I won't reduce its damage, 6 as a starting base is fine.

Thank you so much Yepes! I also considered some scenes like those that just are "Triumphs" or "Despairs". Thanks to that mechanics we can sometimes forgot numbers.

By the way, and again, thanks