The way I see it is this... the average person is a minion more or less... sure there are a lot that are Rivals and Nemesis level, but most are minions. What makes our Heroes Heroes is that they actually DO something to rise above the rest.

In my group, we started at the RAW character creation. I've given more XP than normally given out (according to RAW) to get them skilled up a little faster and I've set up the first few sessions to actually get the gear they need . It's up to the GM to make sure the party has what they need and keep power levels in check (internal to party and external)... this just takes practice and a GM that can back off if needed or increase pressure as needed. Remember it's a game, so if the GM needs to back up and fix something, they can do it if necessary... Part of the fun to me anyway is that my lowly character changes over the course of the game... my thoughts when I created the character may not be the same as when I've played for six months

I don't entirely like Obligation. In my game, we have Faction Ratings that work better for most things. Understand that Obligation is actually a story teller's tool and helps keep things moving, but it should not railroad the characters or dictate the action every time they get together. It helps determine where they party can turn to sell/buy stuff or do other things... but it should not be used to totally screw the players.

Okay, there's a few solutions to this.

You can grant additional experience. That's allowed. There's certain amounts that are set aside for character development at different levels.

For instance, Knight level play would be +400.

As GM, you can grant players as much (or as little) experience as you want. I tend to grant exp for good role-playing, end of session, and end of a campaign.

Further, you can outfit the crew with anything you feel necessary. Give them a ship with a small armory on-board to start with if you feel necessary. Give them a job with a nice payout to pad their wallets.

As for the relevance; the players are as awesome as you allow them to be. Scale difficulty UP as they advance in order to keep the challenge present, but don't make them out to be strong-arms when you can set them to freeing a mining camp from a local thug or intercepting a slave ship to save the daughter of some species leader.

Make them feel like the heroes and their skill levels won't matter.

@Dupre: I definitely appreciate that Obligation, from a storyteller's perspective, is a narrative tool that should be used carefully. But from a player's perspective, isn't it basically a flaw that I'm forced to take, and that I'm forced to take more of if I want my character to be slightly less feeble out of the box?

@Serif: My understanding was that you can't buy attributes with straight-up XP after character generation; that you could only increase attributes by buying the Dedication talent from the final tier of a specialization talent tree. So I'm not sure how much it fixes the issue to give out more XP on a session-to-session basis. Given the costs of adding new specializations and of opening new tiers in the trees, realistically I can't imagine PCs getting the opportunity to buy more than one or two Dedication talents, ever.

@Serif: My understanding was that you can't buy attributes with straight-up XP after character generation; that you could only increase attributes by buying the Dedication talent from the final tier of a specialization talent tree. So I'm not sure how much it fixes the issue to give out more XP on a session-to-session basis. Given the costs of adding new specializations and of opening new tiers in the trees, realistically I can't imagine PCs getting the opportunity to buy more than one or two Dedication talents, ever.

You are putting FAR too much focus on the Characteristics.

Yeah, rolling 5 yellows feels amazing. But I could roll 6 die for a lot less exp cost than getting my Characteristics up to 6.

If you have two players create characters and tell one to focus on buying Characteristics with his start up and the other to focus on Skills, the player that speced skills is going to have the advantage at the start. The one who picked Characteristics is going to TAKE the advantage later on, but you're looking at at least 10 games where they gain the same amount of experience (unless you are SUPER liberal with experience) before that happens.

What you are looking for is a team of characters that are Gods. And that's just boring.

Even in the movies, the characters have weaknesses. Han is heavy into Negotiation, mid range in Coercion, exceptional in Space Piloting, pretty well off in Light Weaponry, Gunnery, and Streetwise as well as several other skills.

But his Brawn is definitely no higher than 2, he's pretty rubbish with any melee and Charm, and although he has a lot of street smarts, he would NOT be the diplomat of the group.

Even one of the most iconic characters in the series is incapable of filling all roles.

This is why our players run in a group. They work together in order to succeed.

Because having 6 in each Characteristic is dreadfully boring.

@Dupre: I definitely appreciate that Obligation, from a storyteller's perspective, is a narrative tool that should be used carefully. But from a player's perspective, isn't it basically a flaw that I'm forced to take, and that I'm forced to take more of if I want my character to be slightly less feeble out of the box?

I don't see it as a flaw. I see it more as part of the back-story.

As to taking more if you want to be less "feeble" out of the box... for an extra 5 obligation, you get either 5XP or 1000 credits. I personally don't see that 5XP as being all that much. 1000 credits however gets you some more items that might be useful. If you take 10 extra oblgation, you get 10XP or 2500 credits (don't have book in front of me but I believe that's right numbers). Yes, they might help some, but to be honest, not that much. So taking more obligation than necessary is not really needed.

If this was a level-based game , character creation from RAW is like a level 1 character. Yes, you may have more gear, but not that much more. In this game, I don't expect my players to account for EVERY single little thing... You have to scrimp, save, and earn the money to get more gear, or take it from people that tried to stop you. (Please note, I do not condone murder-hobos) Alternatively you can give extra XP/Credits out of the gate... that's up to the group as a whole.

I guess what I ultimately see is that it's the GM's job to give you a few slow balls out of the gate to get the money and gear to get started. Easy quests out of the gate are the norm. As you level up, so should the challenge... by the time you get 20 hours under your belt, you should have some decent gear to get by... you won't be rich, but you'll have basic armor and weapons.

@Serif: My understanding was that you can't buy attributes with straight-up XP after character generation; that you could only increase attributes by buying the Dedication talent from the final tier of a specialization talent tree. So I'm not sure how much it fixes the issue to give out more XP on a session-to-session basis. Given the costs of adding new specializations and of opening new tiers in the trees, realistically I can't imagine PCs getting the opportunity to buy more than one or two Dedication talents, ever.

You are putting FAR too much focus on the Characteristics.

I have to agree with Serif here.

I find that about half my players boosted their characteristics, and half went with skills/specializations. It all depends on what they want to do. Half rolled 3 ability dice for a lot of things because of a lack of skills, and others rolled 1 or 2 yellow because they left characteristic at two, but bought level 2 skills (or from character creation). These players had a lot more yellow dice at the start because of that.

To be honest, until late in game, most people aren't going to have more than 3 or 4 ranks in a skill anyway as it is very expensive to raise them. I have one that raised computers to 4, so unless he REALLY has a lot of things going against him, he is almost certain to have a success, even though his int is only 2.

@Serif: I don't think I'm placing undue emphasis on attributes. I'm looking at Rival-level adversaries for comparison, since they're supposed to be inferior to most PCs. Most of the Rivals listed in the main book have a couple of 3s and a 4, which is actually likely to be superior , not inferior, to most beginning PCs.

So no, I'm not looking for teams of gods who are throwing five yellow dice on everything, and have 6 in every attribute.

@Serif: I don't think I'm placing undue emphasis on attributes. I'm looking at Rival-level adversaries for comparison, since they're supposed to be inferior to most PCs. Most of the Rivals listed in the main book have a couple of 3s and a 4, which is actually likely to be superior , not inferior, to most beginning PCs.

So no, I'm not looking for teams of gods who are throwing five yellow dice on everything, and have 6 in every attribute.

Looking at page 390

Rivals have a couple of distinct draw backs that make them weaker:

1) Rivals suffer Critical Injuries normally - but when he suffers more than his wound threshold, he can be killed outright

2) Rivals cannot suffer strain , they get a number of wounds instead. This essentially means they can't take a second maneuver without hurting themselves... threats hurt because they can't take strain... etc...

Note that in the description text, it says they are generally less skilled than the PCs and seldom possesses skills of more than two ranks in any one skill.

@Serif: I don't think I'm placing undue emphasis on attributes. I'm looking at Rival-level adversaries for comparison, since they're supposed to be inferior to most PCs. Most of the Rivals listed in the main book have a couple of 3s and a 4, which is actually likely to be superior , not inferior, to most beginning PCs.

So no, I'm not looking for teams of gods who are throwing five yellow dice on everything, and have 6 in every attribute.

Rivals are only inferior after awhile. Rivals are more or less equal at first, if not a bit more powerful.

But there's only one of them.

Against, like, at least 3 players.

They become a nuisance later on. My Knight level Sith character deals with Rivals with GREAT ease.

Nemesis' replace them later on.

For the record, Darth **** That Guy can deal with Nemesis level enemies with great ease as well. >.<

Hey there, good to hear from another player who has been around since the WEG days.

So... I'm going to start with your comment about starting gear / credits.

I just so happen to have my WEG 2nd Edition book in front of me and as I'm looking through it, it seems that the starting equipment varies quite a bit based on what template the player chooses at the start. But that said, a player in the WEG system might start as the following:

Outlaw: heavy blaster pistol and 1,000 credits.

Bounty Hunter: heavy blaster pistol, hold out blaster, thermal detonator, 2 knives, protective vest, jet pack, two medpacks, 1,000 credits

Kid: two bottles of fizzyglug, candy, small stone, string, 25 credits

Mon Calamari: Blaster pistol, comlink, uniform, 1,000 credits

Pirate: Flashy clothes, blaster pistol, saber, comlink, vac suit

Wookiee: Bowcaster, 500 credits

So what we see there is a ton of variety that I liked in terms of helping out at the start by adding flavor to the characters.

Wizards of the Coast was similar in that there was a lot of variety, I won't list them all, but for comparison's sake I'll list "Trandoshan Outlaw" which falls somewhere along the bounty hunter/outlaw spectrum.

That template starts with 500 credits, a blaster pistol, vibroblade, and "the clothes on your back" so no armor.

Also, the human slicer starts with: 900 credits, hold out blaster, comlink, datapad, computer tool kit (ordinary quality)

In the Fantasy Flight version everyone starts with 500 credits worth of gear and up to 100 credits worth of pocket change with the option to 2,500 more credits for additional obligation.

So while the FF base version is fairly skimpy on supplies, with the additional obligation credits it is possible to outfit a character in line with some of the mid to low range templates from the WEG version.

I will add here that the WEG version ends the section on PC gear with the following:

“You (the player) can ask for more equipment, but be warned that most gamesmasters will attach a few strings – nothing comes for free!” To me, this sounds like WEG’s way of saying something similar to what FF is doing with obligation.

So that said, as a GM I haven’t felt the need to modify the startup rules, I just tell my PCs to take additional obligation and I don’t come down on them too hard on the consequences of obligation. But the #1 rule of GMing is to do whatever is going to provide the most enjoyable experience for your players. You have a valid concern about the amount of starting gear. As a GM I personally haven’t found it game breaking, but if you do feel free to give your PCs a little extra boost.

Now on to character stats…

I agree that there are some weaknesses to the FF system, mainly that you can’t upgrade attributes after character creation. I wish you could upgrade your base stats without meandering your way through the talent tree, but it is what it is.

That said, one thing I like about the FF system over WEG or Wizards is that it seems like the gap between starting scrub players and elite Boba Fett like epic enemies is narrower. There is still a gap. You are still likely to lose a straight fight. But in the WEG version if Boba Fett showed up it was like a 99% chance he would one shot you. In FF it seems like if Boba Fett shows up there is a 95% chance you will lose, but only like a 20% chance he will one shot you.

Also, with defense against attacks dictated by a range (or melee difficulty) with only blue or black dice added or dice upgrades for special defensive abilities, it means that Joe Blow my new bounty hunter has a fighting chance to actually clip Boba Fett. I’m not going to kill him, but I might hit him and do a little bit of damage.

So the play style is different, but I haven’t found it to be broken. When I created my character (which I haven’t played because I’m too busy GMing), I wanted an elite ace pilot. I dumped almost all of my XP into agility, took a couple of my base career skills in the Ace specialization from AoR, chose a Sullustan because it gave me a +1 to agility and also sort of was a fun species, and I ended up with something like this:

Brawn 2

Agility 5

Intel. 2

Cun. 2

Will 2

Pres 2

Skills: Astrogation 1, Mechanics 1, Piloting Space 2, Gunnery 2, Ranged Light 1

Equipment: Blaster Pistol (400 credits), heavy clothing (50 credits) +1 soak, comlink (25 credits), glow rod (10 credits)

So for less than 500 credits I have a gun, and “armor” that gives me +1 to soak, and some gear.

I did take the extra obligation for increased XP to up my skills. I dumped most of that into agility for piloting and shooting. Then I bumped my cunning up to 2 because Sullustans start with 1 I believe. This left me with a character who rolls a ton of dice when shooting or piloting, and can go toe to toe with some of the best in the galaxy in the cockpit. On the street he is a little dense and could be tricked, but that is what a character is all about, having strengths and weaknesses.

All that said, back in the Wizards day after Phantom Menace was released my friends and I couldn’t wait to play Jedi so we would sometimes start with characters at level 7 instead of 1 so we could jump into the Jedi knight level. There is nothing saying that you guys can’t do something like that if it will make the session more fun. That is the key, do whatever is going to make the game the most fun for your group. I don’t think the game is broken to the point that it is impossible to start at level 1 and work your way up. Others may disagree, but if you don’t like something don’t worry about changing it as long as your players are ok with it.

Rivals have a couple of distinct draw backs that make them weaker:

@Dupre: That was kind of my point. They're game-mechanically crippled to make them inferior. Attribute-wise, they're far from. So what does that tell us about beginning PCs attributes?

Rivals are only inferior after awhile. Rivals are more or less equal at first, if not a bit more powerful.

But there's only one of them.

Against, like, at least 3 players.

@Serif: Not sure where you're getting the first part of that. I'm looking at EotE page 390 -- I don't see anywhere that Rivals are supposed to be equal-or-superior at first, and become inferior as time goes on. Also, I'm not sure what Rivals running solo has to do with anything. According to what I'm reading, they're still supposed to be inferior to a PC, but if that's the case it's only because of a special rules contrivance.

So that said, as a GM I haven’t felt the need to modify the startup rules, I just tell my PCs to take additional obligation and I don’t come down on them too hard on the consequences of obligation. But the #1 rule of GMing is to do whatever is going to provide the most enjoyable experience for your players. You have a valid concern about the amount of starting gear. As a GM I personally haven’t found it game breaking, but if you do feel free to give your PCs a little extra boost.

@mibrogueone: Thanks. I'll just note again that I hate having to house-rule my way around this kind of thing. I agree with you that "broken" is a pretty strong word, and I try to be careful about throwing it around -- I don't want to indict the whole system. But I do kind of have an expectation that starting characters should be able to have the gear to function in their profession out of the box, without a lot of tradeoffs. To run with Dupre's first-level character analogy, a first-level thief should be able to walk into the world with a shortsword and leather armor and thieves' tools without going into hock to a crime lord, and if he can't, that's a problem.

As to your other point, about advancement -- yeah, if there were some way of improving attributes without meandering all the way down a talent tree to get a single point increase, I wouldn't have as much of a concern. And as I said to Serif, I'm certainly not interested in a party full of uber-characters. I guess what I'm afraid of is that the typical EotE character is either as super-specialized as your pilot, or a slightly-above average generalist with nothing to recommend him.

Unfortunately -- and please, I beg you, correct me if I am mistaken -- it seems like EotE simulates the latter, not the former. Even if a starting PC blows his entire XP allowance on attributes, he's looking at being merely above average for his species in a couple of respects, while having only the rudiments of skill in his profession. And if he spends on skills and talents rather than attributes, he's buying some short-term competence at the expense of long-term potential. Bottom line: starting PCs seem like putzes, not heroes, and even aspiring to the level of a supporting-cast character like a Lando Calrissian seems like an unthinkably distant goal.

So, welcome to the FFG Star Wars game! Once you understand it a bit better, I think you’ll like it more than previous versions from other companies.

First off, everything is based on attributes, so everyone can basically do everything, it’s more a matter of how good they are at doing it as compared to someone else. My Wookiee Marauder can try to modify his weapons, but with only a 2 Intellect and nothing additional in the Mechanics skill, he’s not likely to be very good at it — just two green dice. But in this game a "2" in some attribute is considered "Average" in general, and probably "Average" for your species — unless your race happens to be particularly good or bad in this specific area.

Those two green dice that my Wookiee would be rolling would compare against two purple dice for an "Average" difficulty. Given the way the dice are balanced in terms of what is rolled, I would have a slightly better than 50/50 shot of successfully doing whatever it is that I wanted. But with just two ranks of Mechanics skill, I’m now rolling two yellow dice against those two purple dice, and I’m much more likely to be successful — at least if the task is deemed to be of "Average" difficulty.

So, in this game, you really do want to put as much of your XP into attributes as you can. And my experience has been that I was always just 5 or 10 XP short of being able to increase the attributes I really wanted to increase to the level I wanted to go. So, now that Obligation thing comes into play — and how much Obligation will my GM let me take in order to get the XP I want?

My Wookiee Marauder has a 5 Brawn. With a 2 Brawn being "Average", at 5 Brawn you would be considered to be one of the strongest individuals in the Galaxy. He is "Average" for his species in every other respect, but when it comes to ripping the arms off of people and droids, he’s really, really good at it. And that’s before you consider his Brawl skill.

There are a few creatures that have higher Brawn, but any other person who was stronger than my Wookiee must have already been a really, really strong individual before they started and either gotten Dedication to take them to a Brawn of 6, or maybe a cybernetic modification, or perhaps both.

In another game, I’m playing an LE-series repair droid. The way we statted him up, he’s got a 4 Intellect and a 3 Agility. He’s not the smartest droid in the Galaxy, but he would be in the "Genius" category. The 3 Agility makes him a decent backup pilot (if need be), and makes him a decent ranged combat character (if need be). But he’s really almost all about the Intellect. That makes him naturally really good at Mechanics, Computers, and the other kinds of technical things that I believe an LE-series repair droid should be good at.

And as a droid, it’s easier to get upgrades just by paying money for them.

So, you start by putting as much XP as you can into the attributes, knowing that everyone can naturally do just about everything, and it’s all a matter of who is better at what.

Over time, as you gain XP your skills slowly improve, and you gain Talents that give you abilities that you had not previously had, and you can become one of those Heroes.

But if you compare Rivals against PCs, my understanding is that Rivals are designed to be roughly as strong as PCs (maybe some are stronger than starting PCs, but you probably won’t run into them for a while), and my concept is that your PC was someone else’s Rival, up until the moment that you chose to play them.

I think that the devs set creation up for us to be just below the heros in the movies

Lando's info from JoY: Br 2, Ag 3, Int 3, Cu 4, Wil 3, Pr 4

Skills: Charm 3, Cool 2, Deception 4, Discipline 2, Core Worlds 1, Underworld 2 and so on

It looks like the Devs built him with 300 to maybe 500 xp, and since he is an NPC he will probably not be getting more xp unless the GM does it to make him harder. The adversary list shows him as power level 565 and my lowest character as power level 124, thats off a character generator with GM tools that i found online, don't know how accurate it is tho.

centerfire, have you tried playing it?

In my experience the game is designed to allow characters of any level of experience to have fun, exciting adventures that can feel epic in scope.

@progressions: No, not yet. I'm still in the process of digesting the rules.

As an experiment, I sat down and created a human Bounty Hunter/Gadgeteer character. Here's what I came up with:

Br 3, Ag 3, Int 2, Cu 3, Wi 2, Pre 2

Skills: Brawl 1, Mechanics 1, Negotiation 1, Perception 1, Piloting (Space) 1, Ranged (Light) 2, Ranged (Heavy) 1, Stealth 1, Streetwise 1, Vigilance 1

Obligation: +5 (for 1000 extra credits)

Gear: Armored Clothing, Blaster Pistol, Comlink, Binders, Utility Belt, Extra Reloads

That character feels pretty sorry to me. About the only thing he's truly competent at is shooting his blaster pistol; everything else he's just meh at, and he had to increase his Obligation -- and give the GM greater license to screw with him -- just to buy some middling armor. Whether he'd be able to take the "Journeyman Hunter" Rival (EotE, p. 400) in a straight fight is debatable: he has a few more skills and unlike the Rival can take strain, but the Rival has significantly better equipment.

Am I missing something?

I'd really recommend you try playing it. Run through the Beginner Game "Escape from Mos Schuuta" and see how it goes.

The narrative aspect of this game really means that the numbers on your character sheet are just a small part of the overall experience and you can have a great time playing big, incredible adventures even with beginner characters.

@progressions: Um. I started this thread because I was hoping someone would explain how it's possible to have a great time playing big, incredible adventures with beginning characters. I'm trying to decide whether I want to play the game, and telling me to play it in order to find out if I want to play it is not particularly helpful. :-)

If the narrative aspect of the game will somehow make it so my Bounty Hunter will feel like the professional I want to play, rather than the borderline-competent thug with a gun that his stats describe, I want to understand how. I'm all ears -- er, eyes -- seriously!

When you look at the raw numbers you are not truly understanding what is going on. the Die mechanic is an entirely new animal for you that will not behave how you think till you play it. this is not a pass fail mechanic. It is a pass with possible good or possibly bad things happening on the side. If you get a triumph really interesting good things happen. If you get a despair really interesting bad things could happen. And yes you could end up with a success. Despair and triumph all in the same roll. So you do what you set out to do and depending on the narrative really interesting good and bad things happen too.

You really need to play the game with a GM to really see how it works. I am sure someone here would be happy to run you through a short one shot via roll20 or something if you don't have someone local.

I also recommend listening to the Order66 podcast It will help you a lot. Also look for Skill Monkey podcast. which will go through a bunch of skills and what the various results could mean.

@Daeglan: I am wary of special pleading, but I will give Order66 a listen.

Not special pleading. Just pointing out the numbers do not mean much till you actually play a game. When you are looking at the numbers you are seeing small numbers and assuming wimps. But that really does not tell the whole story. In fact it really does not tell the story at all till you see how the mechanics work. Especially when you also work in the talents. The numbers just don't work the way you think.

@Daeglan: Well, my experimental Bounty Hunter, upthread, couldn't afford any talents to start with. :-)

That may be, Try the system. It is really the only way to get a feel for what is possible. Try the die mechanic. the worst that could happen is you spent a little time trying it out and don't like it. But we can tell you it is great all day long and the power level is fine. But until you actually see the system in action you won't see what we are talking about and why the power level is fine.

It has all the fly by the seat of your pants that WEG had. But with less of the power level problems WEG had when characters became unbeatable at higher levels.

@progressions: Um. I started this thread because I was hoping someone would explain how it's possible to have a great time playing big, incredible adventures with beginning characters. I'm trying to decide whether I want to play the game, and telling me to play it in order to find out if I want to play it is not particularly helpful. :-)

If the narrative aspect of the game will somehow make it so my Bounty Hunter will feel like the professional I want to play, rather than the borderline-competent thug with a gun that his stats describe, I want to understand how. I'm all ears -- er, eyes -- seriously!

Hi centerfire, I think I can help you out here.

You will not be able to play a "big" adventure with beginning characters. Beginning characters are intended to be a bunch of scoundrels just trying to survive in the dangerous Outer Rim.

They are certainly not heroes. In fact, they are probably wanted, and on the run due to Obligations.

But 2 things makes this situation nevertheless great fun to play:

• It is a very interesting challenge and very satisfying for a player to overcome these odds and survive!
• There is great potential in these starting characters and, in time, they will be able to challenge even a Jedi!

Now some tips for your players how to build characters that can achieve both of the above (survive, and become very powerful):

1. Spend as much starting XP on Characteristic as possible .
2. Take on as much Obligation as the GM will allow , and use it mostly for XP to boost Characteristics.
3. The only reason to taking on Obligation for cash is to buy a weapon (e.g. blaster Rifle - 900 CR)
4. Each member of the group should be a specialist in something differen t. The most important roles are:: ranged attack, close combat, pilot, slicer, engineer, doctor, and "face -man" (*).
5. There are more important roles than PCs, so each PC should try to fulfill at least two . This way you also have "back-up" in some roles.

(1), (2) and (3) are to ensure that your characters can become as power as possible later.

(4) and (5) are to ensure that the characters survive the first adventures.

(*) There are 2 types of face-man one based on Presence, good at Charm and Negotiation, and one based on Cunning, good at Deception and Streetwise. Both are important.

For quickly creating powerful characters keep the following in mind:

• Boost your specialized skills to at least 4 ranks.
• Climb the Talent trees as directly as possible to achieve Dedication.
• Favor the Talents that give you a permanent improvement: +1 Strain, +2 Wound, +1 Soak, etc.
• Look for other possibilities besides Dedication to boost Characteristics: this includes Cybernetics and an Armor attachment which boosts Brawn.

Now some tips for you as GM, assuming you want the PCs to advance quickly to the level where they can play an important role in the galaxy:

1. Allow PCs to take about 15 or 20 Obligation initially , this means they will be stressed, but they are on the run anyway, so it makes sense. The extra Obligation allows them to boost their initial Characteristics so they can build characters that will be powerful later.
2. Give the players good opportunities initially to "work off" the obligation relatively quickly, for example: if they kill the Hutt that lent them the money, then no more Debt Obligation. This will be satisfying for the players.
3. Allow characters to scavenge and sell stuff, but make them role-play the process, e.g. fix up broken equipment, remove registration from Storm Trooper blaster rifles, use Streetwise to find buyers of contraband, use Negotiation to determine the price, etc.
4. Allocate about 30/40 XP per session (assuming a session is about 3 or 4 hours play time). Don't just hand it out for anything, but rather for achieving certain goals and objectives (2 for "good behavior", 5 for minor goal, 10 for completing a quest, and so on).
5. Add bonus XP for good play : for example, playing according to Motivation (usually 5 XP) and for good role-playing (usually 2 XP).

Your characters need about 600 XP before they can challenge a Jedi Knight, so at 50 XP per sessions it will take about 12 sessions to reach this level.

This may seem like a long time to wait before you can play they types of adventures you are thinking of now. However, I am sure the players will find the journey to that point very rewarding!!

And I believe that is what makes the game so great!

I would like to add that having a rank of 3 in an attribute is vastly superior to having a 2 in an attribute in this system.

It is not marginally better it is a heck of a lot better due to the dice mechanic. There is a reason there is a cap at 6 when it comes to attributes.

And I too want to echo the sentiment that this is a game that needs to be played in order to be understood as it plays so vastly different that looking at it with other RPG's in mind actually won't work.

I disagree with Jabberwookie's statement (not his enthousiasm) that "You will not be able to play a "big" adventure with beginning characters", you can and (should you want to) you will. Heck, the first written module for EotE (Beyond the Rim) is a big adventure that puts you up against hordes of enemies of many difficulty levels, it has you perform high level social encounters in the 3rd session and gives you epic chase scenes and exploring dangerous planets in the second.