Hi All,

Has anyone else sat down and attempted to put values to the different races? Whilst working out something to see what a "special" ability would be worth, I tried it and came up with the following:

STATISTICS

• What it would cost to purchase in the first place (i.e. 1 = 10XP, 2 = 30XP, etc)

STRAIN/WOUNDS

• Amount x 5

STARTING XP

• The listed XP

TALENT

• If an special ability mimics a talent, add 10 (or the lowest cost of the talent in the various trees)

SKILL

• If they get a bonus rank in a skill, add +5 for the first skill, add +10 for the second skill, etc

SPECIAL ABILITIES

• Varies but normally they replicate a talent or couple of talents in a tree. Use the cost of the approximate talent.

Try it out and let me know your thoughts or additions.

FYI - Humans and Sullustans (I've only done Age of Rebellion currently) seem to get jipped by about 5 points in this method.

You might be interested in this thread: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/133373-building-aliens/

And this one: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/98274-species-building/

FWIW, I use a similar method to eyeball whether a species is priced in the right ballpark. That said, no method I've seen proposed gives completely consistent species point values. It seems that a lot of the final XP for a species is left up to getting the "feel" right rather than worrying about every last point.

That said, I do it this way:

Attribute at 1 = 0 (it's default)

Attribute at 2 = 20

Attribute at 3 = 50 [20 + 30] (etc.)

Wound threshold over/under 10+Brawn = -5 or +5/point

Strain threshold over/under 10+Willpower = -5 or +5/point

Rank in a free, top-tier talent = 5

Rank in a skill = 10 (this will make Humans and Sullustans come out better, probably)

Situational special ability (e.g., amphibious) = 5

Natural attack = 10

Extra maneuver per turn (per Xexto) = 50 [only way to make Xexto's cost match other species]

Reliance on special atmosphere, etc. = -5

Other situational negative ability = -5

Ponderous (per Hutt) = -10 [may adjust when Lords of Nal Hutta comes out]

Primitive (per Dressellian) = -10

Silhouette 0 = 0 [doesn't seem to have much effect]

Silhouette 2 = -10 [no precedent yet, but seems to be more of a disadvantage than anything else]

Everything using this method comes out to within 20 points of everything else. For the species I do for the GMAC (see sig), I try to get things to this range and call it a day.

The closest I can get everything to is using the above method which gives around 405-410. I came in at the 55 point mark for the Xexto.

Short answer is that there's no "official" code to determine what species has what.

I can speak from doing playtesting for FFG that what you see in the released product is NOT always what was first written. It's really more of a case of the writer putting stats together and thinking "this looks good" before the playtesters get their hands on it and deciding if that's the case or if there's room for revision.

It's really just trial and error, and even after the playtesting and final editing, some species simply come out better than others.

Good to hear some insider-ish confirmation that the species and their starting XP are mostly just eyeballed. That said, I was pleased and heartened to see that everything really did fall within 20 points of everything else using the method I reverse engineered. That just means that some special abilities I might be estimating to be worth one value are published at a slightly different value—which, really, is not that big a deal. In other words, it just further bolsters my idea that FFG knows what it's doing.