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@Eldath!!!

Seconded. I love the group, this game, and the users of this group. I am tired of logging on the Forum to see this topic keep getting renewed and updated.

The OP has made up his mind and is going with a rule set he sees fit. It does not matter if any of us agree with him or not. The only people that it should matter are his players. If the players don't like it, then it should be left up to them to determine what they want to do about it. I have many more opinions on this topic and my feelings about these changes to the riules, but I am sure that not many here want to read my thoughts, and I know the OP does not want to. (No disrespect intended.)

For the love of The Maker, please stop updating this DEAD topic!!!! I want to log on read new stuff!!

You know... nobody is forcing you to read this thread... (No disrespect intended.)

Yeah, just really tired of seeing this as "hot" and the top of the list. You have made it pretty clear that you are not really here for anyone's opinion unless it is what you want to hear. People can keep trying to change your mind, but it will not happen. So why should this still be discussed further.

We can keep playing I'm right your wrong, or your more "righter" than me...it won't get anyone anywhere.

The Tauntaun is dead, let's quit beating even more to death.

@mouthymerc

Prove it. You make a whole lot of claims there, but nothing to support it.

You know the difference between paying 100 XP for +2 Force, and climbing a tree for 100xp to get +1 Force? For the Healer (just picking the first one), he gets a Healing Trance, healing 1 additional strain as a Physician, gaining +1 strain threshold with Grit, Ability to spend a destiny point to heal additional wounds equal to Knowledge (Xenology), and reduce the Force power by 1 from an opponent, with of course the +1 Force. The Healer made out better in the deal.

And it's not that my players didn't take advantage... they did. 40 for the first force point, 60 more for the 2nd... that got taken. There was no way to "come out with a much higher Force Rating" (proof you're totally not reading my posts), especially since they can NOT go up various trees... I made it perfectly clear multiple times in this thread that the ONLY force specialization they get is their first one. Hence the -absolute maximum cap- of Force 4 (of which only one player can ever attain). And the guy with Force 4 "potential" spent 100 of his 160 on Force, so only got to raise 2 attriutes to 3 from 2.

All you people are seeing are the advantages, not the disadvantages. You're not weighing things here... you see a beacon and attack it with no consideration for all the penalties acquired.

And YES, for the upteenth time... the objective WAS a power boost. I have 6 players with 1k+ xp characters that I want to move to a "game update" without giving them their 1k XP. I totally planned that these players, who have no reason or desire to switch to the game update, to have some sort of edge to make it interesting and desirable. I'm not starting some new game here with new players. And if you know anything at all about gamers, just switching to a new game at the GM's discretion can be a group-killer.

Why the frak do I have to keep justifying myself to you types? There are 2 things to know. I house ruled the char-gen (and ONLY the char-gen), and if you think my House Rule is broken, you are wrong. That's all you have to know. There is no "balance skew" since you're neither taking into account the negatives, or the fact that we could just keep playing the 1k xp Beta EotE. I want my people in the updated game with the "fixed" rules, and as a GM I used the appropriate tools to encourage and excite them about the switch over. I could really care less about your broken opinion on my game.

Yeah, just really tired of seeing this as "hot" and the top of the list.

Then stop looking and quit de-railing.

That is so fraking awesome that you made some house rules that you love. You do not have to prove anything to anyone, and no one here is asking for proof. If you and your players are having fun, then that is all the proof and reassurance you need. What other people on here have to say about thier opinions are great, first admentment and all...but their opinions will not change your mind, nor can you convince anyone here that your idea is that great.

If you and your players are having fun, that is the one and only thing that matters.

No one is asking you to keep talking about this. No one is asking you to keep reading all the comments on the thread.

Why the frak do I have to keep justifying myself to you types?

You don't. You started a topic and people are invested in it.

They are baffled by the fact that you seem to think your way of playing is the right one and are seriously wondering how it is that could actually work, I know I am.

I am also equally curious to find out since when Utrecht is found in Belgium.

@R2Builder

As long as people are stating that my system is broken, I will defend it. Commenting that you just wish I'd shut up (instead of just shutting up yourself and letting the thread die), while tagging along some derogatory implications is just annoying. If you want to leave a discussion, then leave it. Posting on it keeps it alive. I don't want the discussion to end because people are still under the delusion that my 160pts is somehow broken, so I continue it.

@DanteRotterdam

If you want to see how it can work, just make a character with my house rules (320xp, max of 160 in characteristics and force, force buyable at new level times 20xp).

Utrecht is my home now, moved from Kortrijk. Guess I should change the country too now.

Let me be straight, I understand how building such a character would work that isn't too hard. I am baffled by how it would work in a game and I think everyone is. Because, as others have pointed out, there should be no need for such extreme levels in a game at all and wonder what challenges you typically throw at the party.

I am also equally curious to find out since when Utrecht is found in Belgium.

It's a house rule.

And it's awesome.

Consular/Sage would allow for a Force Rating of 5 with the your purchase of Force Rating above and beyond the specs. One spec. Something that would take about 2-3 specs and a rather substantial investment of xp otherwise. The designers specifically built things this way to avoid Force users gaining too much ability over the non-Force users. Force powers are more utilitarian and this creates the same issues as in previous versions where the Force users become superhuman and overshadow other characters.

While talents are good, it is the powers that are really sought bey Force users. The above character with the Move tree invested in would be monstrous.

And as I said, since a power boost is what you're looking for, you have it. Just don't expect support for it since a majority of people are enjoying the game for its mostly balanced rules.

*tap* *tap* Is this thing on?

So you've never actually said what exactly is your point of dissatisfaction with the game engine is (and I mean the Gold version, not the Beta). So, I'll ask for the third time - why? At what point does the engine break down so badly that you had to extensively rewrite it?

Why the frak do I have to keep justifying myself to you types?

You don't. Why do you think you do? Your "one righteous man against an army" shtick is getting a bit old. I'm not sure why you're so sold on your method given that the collective experience here is far greater than what you could achieve in your bubble.

There is no "balance skew" since you're neither taking into account the negatives, or the fact that we could just keep playing the 1k xp Beta EotE.

Or you could just do chargen normally and give them 1000 XP in the new system. I'm sure those who want a higher FR or higher characteristics will find a way to get them.

Just to be clearer.

Human Consular/Sage

Brawn: 2

Agility: 2

Intellect: 3

Cunning: 2

Willpower: 3

Presence: 2

Wound Threshold: 12

Strain Threshold: 14

Soak: 2

Skills: Cool 2, Discipline 2, Vigilance 1, Lightsaber 1, Knowledge [Lore] 2

Talents: Force rating x2, Grit 1, Kill with Kindness 1, Knowledge Specialization 1, Pre-Emptive Avoidance, Researcher 1, Smooth Talker 1

Force Rating: 5 (3+2 purchased)

Powers: Move (Magnitude 2, Strength 4, Range 3, Control [Hurl], Control [Pull])

• Didn't bother with equipment as yet.
• Can't remember if your 320/160 xp was inclusive of species original xp. If not wheee more xp.

Or you could just do chargen normally and give them 1000 XP in the new system. I'm sure those who want a higher FR or higher characteristics will find a way to get them.

Mind you, I’m nowhere near the book, so these numbers are rough approximations – but for about 665 points, assuming that you go human with max Obligation for Experience, you can get 4 specs and a couple of Force Trees, fast track your way down to the Characteristic Boost and wind up with 4,4,4,4,2,2 in attributes. Throw another 50 points at a Force tree, another 125-ish to fast track to the bottom and bam – two force Die.

That’s a goodamned tyrannosaurus rex. And no rewriting of the rules necessary.

He wants more powerful initial characters. Fine if it works for him.

As noted, he could have had them rebuild with the xp they had and they'd have some buff characters with the rules as they are. Especially if the Force users rebuilt using F&D careers/specs. Wouldn't need to Frankenstein it.

Let me be straight, I understand how building such a character would work that isn't too hard. I am baffled by how it would work in a game and I think everyone is. Because, as others have pointed out, there should be no need for such extreme levels in a game at all and wonder what challenges you typically throw at the party.

What "extreme levels"? They get at best a +1 to a characteristic, +1 to Force, or if more than +1 it's at the cost of their other characteristics making blaring weak spots. What would be challenging to a base character that isn't a challenge to them with either one additional characteristic or one additional Force?

@mouthymerc

Yes, look at that character (the ONLY specialization btw who can get to Force 5). Far below average characteristics, but the ability to "Move" easily. Now, do the same thing but with 1k xp (which whafrog suggested) and see what the characters would look like. He'd still have Force 5, still have Move (just maxxed out), with far more Talents and Skills and -much- higher Characteristics.

It's not like I didn't consider just letting them re-spend their XP. My concern, as I've stated before, was that they'd have a lot of Talents that they'd not use, forget they have, mis-use, etc... you have to learn the system. So, I opted for a much simpler, yet still enticing alternative. They'll learn their talents as they gain them, one per-game on average... start out far weaker than a straight switch-over, and yet not feel like they've started from scratch all over again.

I really wanted to limit the number of starting talents, which has to be learned in-game to be effective really. I wanted to remove the lack of skills/talents that most people get from putting all their starting xp into characteristics. I wanted to make it interesting to change systems. I've done all of these things. Nothing is "broken", nothing is "skewed". Their characteristics are much lower than the previous game, skills obviously much lower as well as are Talents. The only real advantage they got, and the one thing that convinced them it'd be ok to change over, was the actual ability to use Force, and as I've also stated repeatedly, my group obviously had a HUGE interest in playing Force characters since 4 of the 6 took Exile at some point in the last game, and all 6 quickly jumped at the chance to play a Force character in this game, which was not a requisite at all.

Hopefully we can get this train-wreck to more than 42 pages so we can beat our record!

Before some Moderator takes pity on it and mercy-kills it.

Remember this?

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/92295-dave-filoni-says-stormtroopers-suck/

It's not like I didn't consider just letting them re-spend their XP. My concern, as I've stated before, was that they'd have a lot of Talents that they'd not use, forget they have, mis-use, etc... you have to learn the system.

I'm not sure I understand this part: if you've been playing the beta all along, all the characters presumably have lots of Talents already, and all the players should be quite familiar with them, IOW they have already learned the system. Or did I miss something there?

He has me on ignore, doesnt he?

It's not like I didn't consider just letting them re-spend their XP. My concern, as I've stated before, was that they'd have a lot of Talents that they'd not use, forget they have, mis-use, etc... you have to learn the system.

I'm not sure I understand this part: if you've been playing the beta all along, all the characters presumably have lots of Talents already, and all the players should be quite familiar with them, IOW they have already learned the system. Or did I miss something there?

Didn't miss a thing, they're playing different Classes/Specs now with different Talents. It's still a learning process.

*tap* *tap* Is this thing on?

So you've never actually said what exactly is your point of dissatisfaction with the game engine is (and I mean the Gold version, not the Beta). So, I'll ask for the third time - why? At what point does the engine break down so badly that you had to extensively rewrite it?

"Extensively rewrite" doesn't mean what you think it means. Engine not even rewritten, just some extra XP at CharGen and ways to spend it.

I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out why you guys don't understand where I'm coming from when it suddenly clicked. Amongst all you rules-lawyers, there's no empathy being felt. As such, I've come up with a way of helping... putting you in the shoes of my players.

Imagine if you will.... the year is 2012, the month is August. Your GM tells you he just got a copy of Star Wars Edge of the empire - Beta! He's so excited that he's already made the Star Wars Edge of the Empire Facebook page (yes, I'm the admin of that page). You make characters and start playing. Every 2 weeks you get together and play, even moving to Skype when your GM has to move for work. You've accumulated 1,110 xp in total, have become a force to be reckoned with, having started as a lowly Thief/Exile. Your starting 100xp were spent on Exile and getting your Agility and Cunning to 3. Within the first 2 months you've maxxed out your Move power, and begin climbing up that Force Rating tree. By the end of the 3rd month 200 of your xp has already gone into trying to get things to move with your mind (which it never does when you need it to) Now, years later (in-game) you're the best Slicer in the game and a very decent Mechanic on the ship. You've had a Brain Implant done, nearly completed the Slicer tree (everything except one Grit and Mental Fortress), have all but rejected your Force background because you nearly killed a kid with how your GM described him right after a dark force point was spent. You've become as attached to the character as one can with 18 months of playing twice a month.

Your GM, in an equal amount of excitement tells you that not only is there a new Star Wars game out that requires re-working the character completely, but there's also a "Force and Destiny" book out that will let you actually USE the Move you've so excitedly built up for. You'll have to change classes, start over and dump more than 36 games out the window. What does your GM do to make that not such a huge deal?

Admittedly, there are a LOT of ways to handle it. However, I know my players, they've been my players since 1997. I could indeed have done something like 100/250 and had them struggle their way up the trees to get Force enough to make it worth it. Alternately, I could give them a way of getting some Force early on and let them start with the ability to use Force decently with a chance to improve that a bit more through tree advancement. Truth is, if I see that they are really into it, I may even let them climb multiple trees for that force boost (though I think 3 to 4 is good enough and do think Force and Destiny are broken at higher levels). I've even modified one tree already, replacing the last Parry on Shii-Cho Knight with Force Rating, just so he could get a +1 Force Rating through advancement.

Point being, nothing is broke (+1 isn't breaking, even +2 isn't breaking if it's creating weak spots elsewhere). It works perfectly for my group, and fixes at the same time, issues I see with the CharGen system. The only justifiable argument against it, is that it is broken... but that argument has to come with some evidence showing how it is broken. And honestly, that'll take a lot of evidence to offset the granting them a +1 Force over what they currently have anyhows.

EDIT: I guess I was typing when you posted and addressed a few things. I'm not going to edit though...too much work.

You might want to avoid characterizing everybody as "rules-lawyers" though. You have no idea what we are, and we're not all the same. Half the time we don't agree amongst ourselves So the backlash you're getting is because of your own belligerence, not our lack of "empathy".

It's not like I didn't consider just letting them re-spend their XP. My concern, as I've stated before, was that they'd have a lot of Talents that they'd not use, forget they have, mis-use, etc... you have to learn the system.

I'm not sure I understand this part: if you've been playing the beta all along, all the characters presumably have lots of Talents already, and all the players should be quite familiar with them, IOW they have already learned the system. Or did I miss something there?

Didn't miss a thing, they're playing different Classes/Specs now with different Talents. It's still a learning process.

So all new characters, but the players know the system? At 1000XP, they'd better...unless they're like my group and require endless hand-holding. So is this a case of "let's retire these characters and start new ones, but let's not start as n00bs"?

The heart of it seems to be how to give them a perk without making them pore through endless Talent lists. If they aren't building those Talents lists through organic play it's easy to forget them. There are the same issues if you start D&D at, say, 10th level...all those friggin' Feats to choose and remember!

I do think it's easier in this system though, because the spec trees guide you along, plus some Talents are more essential for higher level play, especially the defensive ones like Dodge, etc. Otherwise you'll need to do a lot of rescaling the opposition to tone down their damage output while increasing their soak or wounds, because your PCs will have higher damage output (higher characteristics), and lower capacity to handle it (fewer ranks in Toughness, Grit, defense, etc). IOW, they can dish it out, but can't take it

To avoid having to rescale the system, I still think the simplest solution is to just do normal chargen and give them extra XP...maybe not 1000, but a couple hundred at least. That can't be too overwhelming as far as Talents go. Or let them fill out their original spec entirely and give them an extra 100 to spend. Surely they can remember the contents of one spec.

For characteristics, at most you might consider allowing a free push from characteristic 3 to 4. For a human that takes Obligation and spends all chargen XP on characteristics, that's 4,3,3,3,2,2, which isn't too overbearing. I'd cap it at 4 though, because I disagree with you that high dice pools work very well. "Average" tasks become boring, combat lacks tension.

I can't say I understand what you're doing that makes such a high Force rating necessary. But if they need it to buffer penalties you're imposing then why not just grant everyone +1 FR at chargen and leave it at that? Those who spend their way through their Talent trees can hit extra FR as needed.

Your GM, in an equal amount of excitement tells you that not only is there a new Star Wars game out that requires re-working the character completely, but there's also a "Force and Destiny" book out that will let you actually USE the Move you've so excitedly built up for. You'll have to change classes, start over and dump more than 36 games out the window. What does your GM do to make that not such a huge deal?

So they *are* keeping the same character? Why do they have to rework anything or start over? Why not continue from where they are with new specs?

For characteristics, at most you might consider allowing a free push from characteristic 3 to 4. For a human that takes Obligation and spends all chargen XP on characteristics, that's 4,3,3,3,2,2, which isn't too overbearing. I'd cap it at 4 though, because I disagree with you that high dice pools work very well. "Average" tasks become boring, combat lacks tension.

I can't say I understand what you're doing that makes such a high Force rating necessary. But if they need it to buffer penalties you're imposing then why not just grant everyone +1 FR at chargen and leave it at that? Those who spend their way through their Talent trees can hit extra FR as needed.

Those are the same stats that they get with my system. (That and I avoid the use of Obligation as I prefer to control my games without random selections). They can get, at best with my system: 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2 (70+30+30+30=160)

The reason I don't just "give" them Force is because I didn't know if they'd all play Force Careers from the start. It was their choice to either get 4,3,3,3,2,2 or a point of Force and much lower characteristics. It was fairer my way, in my humble opinion.

Your GM, in an equal amount of excitement tells you that not only is there a new Star Wars game out that requires re-working the character completely, but there's also a "Force and Destiny" book out that will let you actually USE the Move you've so excitedly built up for. You'll have to change classes, start over and dump more than 36 games out the window. What does your GM do to make that not such a huge deal?

So they *are* keeping the same character? Why do they have to rework anything or start over? Why not continue from where they are with new specs?

No, they all chose a career out of the Force and Destiny book. We have a Protector/Pilot, a Shii-Cho Knight, a Shadow, a Pathfinder, an Advisor, and a Hunter now.

Start over because things have changed... we have one character with a Surveillance skill of 6. Trees are shaped differently. Start over is just better and less confusing in the long run with less chance of someone feeling they got screwed more than others.

See, there’s where your issue lies: a character is more than just a pile of numbers on a sheet. It’s background, personality, family, debts owed, lovers, rivals and his home. Yeah it’s cool to roll dice, but that’s secondary (perhaps tertiary) to everything else that makes up the character.

Also, getting attached to a pile of numbers is foolish when the game is a living, evolving thing. When the AoR beta came out, I thought that the Quartermaster would be a great fit for my Politico, a princess that suddenly became thrust into the rough life of a freighter captain. It simulated what I saw her doing – becoming a businessman – well.

But then the colonist book was announced, and I asked everyone if they were cool with me going Quartermaster, but dropping it and going with Entrepreneur if it was a better fit with what I had in mind. The book dropped, it was perfect for what I wanted and I took the respec. Again, concept trumped numbers.

And last – why would you get attached to a pile of numbers in a Beta? I guess they’ve never played an MMORPG during the final days of the Public Betas? You play a couple of classes, you go “Hey, I like this Half Ork Warrior Netrunner! And the character design looks pretty cool too!” . . . . And then the devs wipe the servers, you start over and you find that the cool cape you got at level 20 has been turned into a trench coat.

That’s how betas work. Everyone should have been prepared for “Hey, bug fixes are coming and the sheet you have in front of you may not be the final product”. And that gets back to the first point: characters are more than a sum of numbers.

The easy fix? They take whatever Experience they’ve spent, and just rebuild their characters. Give them the opportunity to swap out their Quatermaster trees for Entrepreneur and get their spreadsheet closer to what the concept of the character is.