I'm still not convinced. I guess my newbie colors are showing as far as GMing goes, but I'm not tied down to all of the calculations that so many seem to cling to so desperately. This system is far more forgiving when you try to relax a little and allow yourself to bend the rules from time to time. My PCs aren't anywhere near 600 XP yet, but if I found they were blazing through things I would simply find ways to make it more difficult without making it unfair or taking away any of their fun.

I know you're pretty set on using your modifications, and that's fine. It's your table, it's your game, you do what you like and I hope it works the way you like. Everyone has their own playstyle, and as long as you and your PCs are having a good time, that's the important thing.

Nope, I'll have to disagree with you - Star Wars - as in the ability to plug and play any story into the setting - is wildly adaptable and flexible. Samurai flicks? Not a problem. Spaghetti western? Done. Space opera? Duh. WWII movie? Done and done. Die Hard is completely representational of the typical death of a thousand cuts that wear a PC down, a great example of plot armor.

It is with no doubt a good and flexible system, but it is oriented towards heroic, awesomness, gun fights, space chases... Star Wars. Of course, with some work, one could create mechanics to adapt the system to other settings feeling, like CoC did with BRP.

I always find the whole "Wookie Marauder Must be Challenged" a complete strange thing. A player that takes such a character isn't wanting combat to be a challenge he wants to snooze through and win. So throw a couple of large minion groups at him and give him exactly what he seems to want, then throw a few more groups into the mix that will keep the other players happy and you have a win for everyone.

If you have 5 players throwing 2 groups of 5 minions at the wookie and 4 groups of 3 at the others will give everyone a blast, the wookie gets to show off and everyone else gets to be saved by him, maybe. You don't have to tell the players anything more than there are 22 Stormtroopers in the room and they are not happy for being disturbed.

If the player just wants combat, and when you throw other things into the mix then you have he has a problem. Because he is going to bored all the time. But that is a problem of his own making not yours, he can solve the problem by re-rolling a more suitable character for playing a game he will enjoy.

I'm still not convinced. I guess my newbie colors are showing as far as GMing goes, but I'm not tied down to all of the calculations that so many seem to cling to so desperately. This system is far more forgiving when you try to relax a little and allow yourself to bend the rules from time to time. My PCs aren't anywhere near 600 XP yet, but if I found they were blazing through things I would simply find ways to make it more difficult without making it unfair or taking away any of their fun.

I know you're pretty set on using your modifications, and that's fine. It's your table, it's your game, you do what you like and I hope it works the way you like. Everyone has their own playstyle, and as long as you and your PCs are having a good time, that's the important thing.

I totally understand how to relax and bend the rules.. It really may not seem that way but I'm really not focused on rules and getting them right all the time, but I like to be consistant, I never fudge the dice, I roll openly and don't use a gm screen (apart for as a table lookup) so players if they are so inclined can read my notes upside down... they would only be cheating them selves if they did so.....

My mods are to build a firm foundation on which I can blather about ... if someone comes up with something cool... i'll let them break the rules a bit.. but rule of cool only works once, max twice... but again straying into GM style and narratively working around issues in the system, I want to try to fix them

Hi nobble!

Maybe I missed a post but, can you make me please a summary about the main reasons for your changes? Also wanted to ask if you have considered rules from the other books.

Thanks!

Here there are a few interesting House Rules (not just my own ones XD)

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/106434-house-rules/page-7#entry1326306

Interesting houserules.

Im thinking of implementing some of them myself.

Did you playtest them? How did it go?

I have a new game where we just started. However, having quite a few experience in DMing, i noticed some glaring points in the rules system that you have addressed.

Im talking about the soak and dice bloat problems and i'm thinking to solve the problem before it becomes apparent.

I'm also hesitant i might break some balance, as i do not yet fully understand the system's inner workings.

Here's my comments and a few things i'd like to discuss, and my take on some houserules. You might want to discuss them, ignore them, comment them or whatever

I'm not going to even read the modification to talent trees, as i'm not familiar with the basic ones yet. I plan to address any problems i see as i go on. My players know full well that i'm going to fix and balance things during the course of the game. I spotted some early problems already, but not acted upon them yet (move power, too much soak on some talent trees).

Skills and attributes:

I like the exponential cost you are using. I'm seriously considering a modified version of this.

I would probably change it a bit so non-class skills are not so hard to level up: i want everyone to level what they want, not what the class says. Also, it might lead players to try and buy specializations just to have new career skills.

Your progression says:

Mine would be like this (non-formula based at the moment, will need to change)

Level 1: 5(10)

Level 2: 15(20)

Level 3: 30(35)

Level 4: 50(60)

Level 5: possibly on a special case scenario. Like needing to spend XP AND perform a special impressive task with your level 4 skills.

What do you say? I think 100+ xp for a single level is too much, but so is 25 too little for being a master at something.

This encourages to spread out xp as you get very serious diminishing returns on great skills levels.

However, this also promotes spending xp in talent trees. I'm worried having too many talents might lead to people forgetting about them.

Attributes cannot be raised with XP so i'm not commenting on them. Chargen i'm leaving as it is, but not attributes above 4. (possibly above 3)

I'm also thinking that even through dedication, no attributes can be raised above 5. I don't like superhuman games.

Combat

This is the really interesting part for me.

Brawn removed from soak -- yes, absolutely. This i like very much. I ran on the beginning encounters where players had pistol and opponents had 5 soak. **** it was boring. I want battles to be over quickly and deadly. You are not even dying at 0 wounds, so....

I like the + difficulty from cover. I think cover should be essential to fighting. However i'm worried melees will have difficulties and combat might become too static. Currently i'm freely giving 2 blacks for most solid cover that is around, not one.

I also dont like how having armor that gives +1 defense, basically says that you no longer can benefit from +1 cover. I'm changing that, too. Armor or not, cover is cover.

I'm also worried that by removing soak from brawn, combat might become too lethal. It probably need a counterchange to level the table against RAW. I was thinking each point of brawn gives 2 wounds, instead of 1, but no soak.

What about cover giving temporary Soak, instead?

1 soak for normal cover (a small pillar, a table), 2 soak for solid cover (a big rock, a wall), 3 soak for extreme cover (fortified positions, arrow slits). Might or might not also give setback dice (if it does, only 1 for any type of cover).

Melee fighters will need assistance, probably. You are down 1-2 soak if you go melee. If you are using vibroweapons, tough call. Do not bring knives to a shootout. If you are using lightsabers however, im thinking of granting it +1 soak while ignited, as you take cover behind it. I know there's talents for that, but i feel it might be needed.

Also, basic lightsabers currently do little (6-8) damage unupgraded, ignoring soak. If soak is less present, lightsabers need more damage.

The new maneuvers... i'm not sure.

For now, i'm not implementing them as people still need to learn the basic maneuvers. Might think about them later.

Things in thinking:

No attributes above 5, ever. No superhumans.

Total cover -- under current rules, there's no such things as total cover that completely breaks line of sight. I want this, as i want players to be able to play the scene where they "wait out the rescue ship" as the duck behind cover.

Probably i'd do something like this: if you are behind cover for one full round (that is, you do not shoot (from the covered side, at least) nor move from the cover you had last round) you can be completely hidden from sight. Feel free to do medical checks or call for support while they cannot hit you. Until your cover is destroyed. Also, you can use total cover from one side and shoot to the other side; a good tactical maneuver.

If anything I find it interesting the different experience that others have with the game. With the player characters at 600+ xp someone is considering such drastic changes for their perceived issues, yet many others who have been playing since the EotE beta that are not having such issues. Too often I see people come on with house rules that are created to fix issues of their own interpretation of the game. I don't know if that is the case here now as information is limited, but it is still interesting even if I don't agree with it.

I'm with mouthy. I would love to know the concrete reasons too to try to help more precissely as much as I can.

Some "problems" from Edge are just fixed with some comprehension of the concepts instead mechanics, of course, you will be able to change everything you want but first explain a bit more please and let "forumers" help you mate.

If anything I find it interesting the different experience that others have with the game. With the player characters at 600+ xp someone is considering such drastic changes for their perceived issues, yet many others who have been playing since the EotE beta that are not having such issues. Too often I see people come on with house rules that are created to fix issues of their own interpretation of the game. I don't know if that is the case here now as information is limited, but it is still interesting even if I don't agree with it.

I completely agree with you on this... I'm surprised to see people making drastic changes to the game with little or no game time (Madeiner). At first, I also wanted to change a few things, but I decided to work with the system RAW and it works really good once you get the hang of it. My biggest grip was with the space combat system, I'm still working on making it work RAW.

My group is sitting at 545xp right now (earned XP + starting char gen XP) and the highest attribute is 4 and biggest dice pool is YYYG. I have no problem with soak, damage, dice pools and the like.... my players know I'll throw at them anything that could challenge any skill they might have or not. But they also know I'll put encounters where their character can shine, that will target his particular demeanor.

All the suggestions by Madeiner are mind bogging to me... why remove brawn from soak to add more later with cover and lightsabers ?? What is the trouble with full cover ?? If a character is sitting behind huge slab and not moving from it, not even to shoot (he's using a computer or ****), then my NPCs will have to move to have a line of sight.... don't invent rules for everything when you can just go with logic.

From what I can see... you guys are creating problems by your interpretation of the rules and, instead of changing how you interpret the rules, you are changing the rules themselves. You should work at the root of the problem, not add another layer to cover it up.

- Your powergamer players have too big dice pools ? Talk with them or challenge them in other ways.

- Your player have too much XP and have raised everything too high ? Reset and give them less XP.

- You gave your players soak 3 armor (with their brawn 4, 2x Enduring Talent, and 1x Armor master) for a total of 9 soak ? Stop making up uber armors and use RAW... most armors have only 1 soak ; the soak 2 armors are usually restricted or they look badass and can't be hidden.

Anyway... like many have said before, you look pretty decided on making these changes....

Your table, your problems, your solutions....

My advice stays the same : The rules don't cause problems, it's how you use them.

Mostly agree JP_JP, but sometimes rules can cause the problems, not just the "how do you use them". That's the reason why I want to know whats on the post creator mind, to understand is is a failure of interpretations or simply if the rules doesn't fit his style so well.

I'm with mouthy. I would love to know the concrete reasons too to try to help more precissely as much as I can.

Some "problems" from Edge are just fixed with some comprehension of the concepts instead mechanics, of course, you will be able to change everything you want but first explain a bit more please and let "forumers" help you mate.

I'm not sure if you were answering to me or to the OP

In case it was to me:

It's not about fixing "problems". I just view published system as building blocks on which to improve upon.

I see things that can be made better, i just try to.

Sometimes i adjust just for the sake of making something better. I don't like that a wookie can reach 10 soak and ignore small weapons fire, so i want to change that, even if i have no wookie in the party.

I read about how people say "hey, but if its a shot in the the belly, no soak need apply, and slap a +50 critical on it". That's just not how i like things to be, unfortunately.

My current gripes with combat are these:

- soak is too high; small weapons fire can become useless and that's not star wars to me. Nobody must be able to stand stand up in the middle of a plaza while 100 people are firing light blasters and completely ignore all damage, without resorting to special rules.

- cover is not useful enough; it needs to be more important.

- combat needs to be faster (might be related to my party current weapon setups; dam7 blasters vs soak 3-5 enemies with 8-13 wounds is not the balance point i want.

- i fear dice bloat with high skills/attribute and i want to stop it before players reach it and i have to make them rebuild characters under new rules. This is however a long way ahead, we've only played a few sessions.

Also, there is something extremely important to consider for me: i don't run games that last a few sessions.

My campaigns last... a long time. Usually with the same characters barrying deaths.

I need a system that can work at 100 xp, and 3000 xp.

My current D&D/Pathfinder campaign has been going on for the last 10 years of weekly sessions.

The houserules list we've built is.... well, quite long.

Not exactly to you, it was for the post owner, but your are welcome too XD

I mostly agree with points 1,2 and 4.

Is some ocasions Soak mechanics seems to high, but also I have to understand that movies/series are almost impossible to emulate because "heroes use to have GM's benditions on movies/series" XD

Some things like stimpacks are just "game mechanics" that you never see in SW, but helps to the game itself. As I said, its almost impossible to emulate SW because sometimes, scrypt is awful and incoherent XD

But, yes, considering both situations, Soak seems to high. In SW armor seems more much paper than metal.

The second one, cover. Character behind a wall (unless you are a Stormtrooper XD) are almost invencible. Not the same effect on Edge, but again, its almost impossible to emulate that.

About point 3, well, I personally believe that game are pretty fast enough in general, but of course, I respect your point of view. Remember that "rounds" aren't 6 secs, are a variable amount of time between 1-5 min probably, or also "the best to gest a cool scene" XD

And the last point, big dice pools. I have a player that sometimes rolls about 4-6 dices + 6 Force Rating... but he still fail sometimes XDD

But yes, general sensation is that game begins to "fail" with 6 dices. The rest is just fine. Even the fifth one.

Hope I helped!

The second one, cover. Character behind a wall (unless you are a Stormtrooper XD) are almost invencible. Not the same effect on Edge, but again, its almost impossible to emulate that.

Nearly impossible? With the current game mechanics yes! Sure. But that is what game designers do. I can imagine someone designing an abstract combat system where being covered, or holding an advantage position, is the most important part of the combat, more than having the biggest gun (as it is in the current system). You can already see something along those lines in the Burning wheel combat system, where having the advantage position is crucial to win a skirmish.

Thank you all for your replies, mega busy tonight so I'll reply more fully tomorrow morning .. to the people still staying I see no need for this.. thank you for your opinion, but do you feel you may be clogging the thread now with the same opinion quoted over and over..

to everyone else I'll read over your excellent replies.. thank you again

Yepes you are absolutelly right. A too strict interpretation of the rules on a "cinematic style game" can be the problem itself.

But also, the game is enough good and have an awesome potential that let you put your own mods to "fit" better on some scenes.

In general therms, the minimal score I would give to Edge is 90/100

Hi nobble!

Maybe I missed a post but, can you make me please a summary about the main reasons for your changes? Also wanted to ask if you have considered rules from the other books.

Thanks!

Here there are a few interesting House Rules (not just my own ones XD)

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/106434-house-rules/page-7#entry1326306

Hi I've been playing this game since the original beta, running the EOTE beginner game about 8 times now, I am currently running a campaign that only meet 3 times a year, but we do large sessions about 12-14 hours. My other group is on hiatus but we did about a year meeting every week (only had 2 or 3 missing sessions, when i was out of the country) so they have about 600xp post character gen. Starting up again when I've finished the One Ring Game I'm running (a game that actually does a brilliant job of replicating its setting), and I've finished tweaking with this system so it no longer grates on me..

Over this time I have noticed that at the beginning every game was awesome, it really had that sweet spot of danger, combat misses and peril. As time progressed and the characters got more experienced, damage went up. dice pools when up, soak went really high and they were missing less, as were the bad guys, damage to most was a lot and people were going down very quickly having only acted once.. maybe twice.. initiative became more and more important.. and who ever went first won the combats.. the dice pool bloat got a little unmanageable..

The whole soak mechanic grated on me, as not very star wars-y, plus some of my players complained about the talents as the were mostly pointless roadbumps to get to dedication... the layouts of the talent trees seems bizarre and illogical and just punished some specs with no reason. Slicer and Mechanic especially have these issues with only one path through the whole tree.. soo it is just one long road bump... on the other hand some were laid out well with talents, leading to improved talents and finally master talents..

Then you have the issue with the stalker talent... why is this talent alone in all 'Bonus to 2 skills' talent that it gives a boost dice and not remove a set back dice like all the others do (apart for inventor and that does other stuff as well)... All other boost dice giving talents only give them under specific circumstances...

There seems to be no rhyme and reason for this ...

Why does Brawn not only increase your wound threshold, but also your soak.. so high soak has a double dip effect of stop you taking damage but also increase the amount you can take prior to detrimental effects... Why does brawn give you WAY more soak than armour that is designed to stop the damage... this puts too much onus on brawn and leads to situations where systematically you can have character ignore small arms fire (lets not go into the narratively here I'm talking pure system)

Why does combat not effectively recreate Star Wars.... why does space combat not take into account the skill of a pilot (one roll, gain the advantage, that hotshots can ignore)...

The long and short of it is

This is a brilliant system the narrative dice mechanic I love, I love loads and loads of it.. it just has niggles and I want to fix them so I love the system more..

Interesting houserules.

Im thinking of implementing some of them myself.

Did you playtest them? How did it go?

Skills and attributes:

I like the exponential cost you are using. I'm seriously considering a modified version of this.

Level 1: 5(10)

Level 2: 15(20)

Level 3: 30(35)

Level 4: 50(60)

Level 5: possibly on a special case scenario. Like needing to spend XP AND perform a special impressive task with your level 4 skills.

Attributes cannot be raised with XP so i'm not commenting on them. Chargen i'm leaving as it is, but not attributes above 4. (possibly above 3)

I'm also thinking that even through dedication, no attributes can be raised above 5. I don't like superhuman games.

Combat

This is the really interesting part for me.

Brawn removed from soak -- yes, absolutely. This i like very much. I ran on the beginning encounters where players had pistol and opponents had 5 soak. **** it was boring. I want battles to be over quickly and deadly. You are not even dying at 0 wounds, so....

I like the + difficulty from cover. I think cover should be essential to fighting. However i'm worried melees will have difficulties and combat might become too static. Currently i'm freely giving 2 blacks for most solid cover that is around, not one.

I also dont like how having armor that gives +1 defense, basically says that you no longer can benefit from +1 cover. I'm changing that, too. Armor or not, cover is cover.

I'm also worried that by removing soak from brawn, combat might become too lethal. It probably need a counterchange to level the table against RAW. I was thinking each point of brawn gives 2 wounds, instead of 1, but no soak.

What about cover giving temporary Soak, instead?

1 soak for normal cover (a small pillar, a table), 2 soak for solid cover (a big rock, a wall), 3 soak for extreme cover (fortified positions, arrow slits). Might or might not also give setback dice (if it does, only 1 for any type of cover).

Melee fighters will need assistance, probably. You are down 1-2 soak if you go melee. If you are using vibroweapons, tough call. Do not bring knives to a shootout. If you are using lightsabers however, im thinking of granting it +1 soak while ignited, as you take cover behind it. I know there's talents for that, but i feel it might be needed.

Also, basic lightsabers currently do little (6-8) damage unupgraded, ignoring soak. If soak is less present, lightsabers need more damage.

The new maneuvers... i'm not sure.

For now, i'm not implementing them as people still need to learn the basic maneuvers. Might think about them later.

Things in thinking:

No attributes above 5, ever. No superhumans.

Total cover -- under current rules, there's no such things as total cover that completely breaks line of sight. I want this, as i want players to be able to play the scene where they "wait out the rescue ship" as the duck behind cover.

Probably i'd do something like this: if you are behind cover for one full round (that is, you do not shoot (from the covered side, at least) nor move from the cover you had last round) you can be completely hidden from sight. Feel free to do medical checks or call for support while they cannot hit you. Until your cover is destroyed. Also, you can use total cover from one side and shoot to the other side; a good tactical maneuver.

Not play-tested as yet, but will be soon

I'm not 100% sure about the skill costs, they may be too high, currently testing them with a couple of my old groups. I don't want to completely stop people getting high skills, but I want it to cost, hopefully boosting the 'value' of talents

I like the idea of gm ok for the higher skills, but basically any change/advancement is with the GM say-so, but it is nice to pre-warn players they may not get / be able to buy an upgrade.

For attribute increases I removed dedication completely, as it cheapened the talents, and players seem to rush through the tree to get to dedication. Also some trees the 'path' to dedication was 90ish exp others (slicer) was close to 180exp.. this is a little inexplicable...

Removing Brawn from soak I feel is needed, but I'm not sure if it will mean that too much damage creeps through, and players have a chance of being one shotted, which is never fun..

i like the cover giving soak, and I feel this would work for thinner cover than could be shot through.. need to think that through, at the moment I still prefer the increase in difficulty to shoot someone in cover..

Engaged combatants do not have cover from each over, so we may need something else here to bridge the short fall.. again needs playtesting... but I don't feel giving soak because someone has a lightsabre is the best way to do this

Total Cover as i believe someone else mentioned is definitely a common sense rule..

From what I can see... you guys are creating problems by your interpretation of the rules and, instead of changing how you interpret the rules, you are changing the rules themselves. You should work at the root of the problem, not add another layer to cover it up.

- Your powergamer players have too big dice pools ? Talk with them or challenge them in other ways.

- Your player have too much XP and have raised everything too high ? Reset and give them less XP.

- You gave your players soak 3 armor (with their brawn 4, 2x Enduring Talent, and 1x Armor master) for a total of 9 soak ? Stop making up uber armors and use RAW... most armors have only 1 soak ; the soak 2 armors are usually restricted or they look badass and can't be hidden.

Anyway... like many have said before, you look pretty decided on making these changes....

Your table, your problems, your solutions....

My advice stays the same : The rules don't cause problems, it's how you use them.

Rules cause problems if they do not recreate the setting they are meant to be simulating.. these rules currently do not do this... high soak is too good, too effective in this system

I didn't give my players anything, they earn everything through long play sessions and searching for items.. .the wookie's earned 1 Brawn from dedication to take him to 5 brawn (6 with force powers), he bought the 2 points of enduring and padded armour takes him to 10 soak..

Your advice is good though, rule do not cause problems it is how you implement them, which is why I am trying to make my changes to the system easy to use and not requiring huge/any changes to existing material

Thank you all once again...

(I'm glad I didn't mention my Tree-less Talent systems I'm working on in the background )

Ok, I think that I got it. I'll try to help as so much as I can. Before start commenting your houserules one by one I want to make a mention to the "Soak problem".

Videogames and roleplayingames must have (or use to) different mechanics from movies/series because almost everything has a plot explanation instead a mechanics one.

In VG and Tabletop RPG you need medpacks, stimpacks, health potions, magic healing powers to continue progressing because you don't have the "plot protection".

One of the Edge "weak points" is also one of his strongest properties (always from my point of view): The Dice Pool.

5 Yellow dices means: 10 Successes, 10 Advantages, 5 Triumphs, and also, nothing. In the other side, difficulties aren't (in general) so high enough to compensate that. For example, most combat difficulties that we see in movies/series went from 1 up to 3 dices, no more. The usual uses to be 2. You can add there up to 2 Setbacks and maybe a few Challenges/Upgrades.

Also, positive dices use to be stronger than negative ones.

http://maxmahem.net/wp/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-die-probabilities/

So, Soak is a mesure to "compensate that". Almost everytime you are shot, even with 3 useless minions without the group skill (2 Agi) have more possibilities to hit your char on Short, or even Medium range, that you to evade. Now equip those useless 2 Agi minions with Heavy Pistols or Blaster rifles. Probably you will die in two or three rounds if you don't eliminate them. Initiative is vital there.Of course, you can have Dodge, Cover, or other maneuvers, but hit% still to high for a pack of so weak minions.

So, if "defense" doesn't exists you have two options there: Big Wounds pool and Soak the damage. Because they have choosen that "no d12 Barbarian with 200HP" in our games, Soak is the other option to compensate that.

Sorry for long explains and I'll try to focus now on your rules XD

- Character Generation:

Long therm games take us to big dice pools (this not always asure you the success but gives high chances). So the "caps" can be ok, always based on the lenght idea of your game. I have a game that started on the year 1.999 so... I as you guessed I don't use to common XP rules XD

So, adapt those rules based on your game lenght projection.

- Skills and Attributes:

The same as Character Generation BUT, about I would suggest to you to that don't let purchase Attributes and just let follow the trees. If you use the trees mechanics, don't let purchase stats, this will help to progress as the character advances. Also take in consideration the "scale of power" that you want on your games. Are you players just strong rebel/scumm/force guys or they can beat Palpatine and Vader together?

In some games, I don't follow the tree progression rules, I just use them as reference, but I use the "pick what you need and justify it" option.

- Combat:

This options can slow down a bit the combat. Also, instead creating "complex rules" or new talents try something easier. Just increase all base difficulties (at least in combat) by 1. Most of your problems, probably, will be solved. After that, consider that if Soak (Brawn) has to exist and what you will do with other game mechanics like stimpacks.

If do you want to add some extra "protection/evasion" variables, try to use fixed values like "Add a Failure/Threat to the pool". Maybe this will work better for you. But use this with caution because can be a really powerful option.

Also I would to comments that Sam once explained me that "true damage" on Edge were Criticals, not Wounds instead. So, don't necessarely see wounds as "I'm lossing pieces of my body" XD

About the trees, no opinion there.

Take care and I hope that I helped a bit mate

(I'm glad I didn't mention my Tree-less Talent systems I'm working on in the background )

In case you're interested, I came up with this a while back. It's quick and dirty, but simple.

Toughness and Grit cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25

Enduring and Durable cost: 10, 20, 25

Ranked Talents cost: 5, 15, 25XP (max of 3)

Non-ranked Talents cost: 15

Non-ranked Talents with an Improved/Supreme cost: 10, 20, 25

Dedication or Force Rating cost: 25, and for each you must have at least 5 other Talents, at least one of which is another 25XP Talent

In general therms, the minimal score I would give to Edge is 90/100

You can rate the game here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/productforums.php

I would not give the game a mark above 75 or 80, but I am very picky. There are few rpgs I would rate them above 80.

Thanks Yepesnopes!

There are a few things that I would like to change or adapt on Edge, but up to the moment, is the best system I ever played and I'm really happy with it

Sometimes I can seem pretty critical with Edge, but, it's because I like it and I would like to see how it grows thanks to future updates or to the people's houserules

Ok, I think that I got it. I'll try to help as so much as I can. Before start commenting your houserules one by one I want to make a mention to the "Soak problem".

Videogames and roleplayingames must have (or use to) different mechanics from movies/series because almost everything has a plot explanation instead a mechanics one.

In VG and Tabletop RPG you need medpacks, stimpacks, health potions, magic healing powers to continue progressing because you don't have the "plot protection".

One of the Edge "weak points" is also one of his strongest properties (always from my point of view): The Dice Pool.

5 Yellow dices means: 10 Successes, 10 Advantages, 5 Triumphs, and also, nothing. In the other side, difficulties aren't (in general) so high enough to compensate that. For example, most combat difficulties that we see in movies/series went from 1 up to 3 dices, no more. The usual uses to be 2. You can add there up to 2 Setbacks and maybe a few Challenges/Upgrades.

Also, positive dices use to be stronger than negative ones.

http://maxmahem.net/wp/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-die-probabilities/

So, Soak is a mesure to "compensate that". Almost everytime you are shot, even with 3 useless minions without the group skill (2 Agi) have more possibilities to hit your char on Short, or even Medium range, that you to evade. Now equip those useless 2 Agi minions with Heavy Pistols or Blaster rifles. Probably you will die in two or three rounds if you don't eliminate them. Initiative is vital there.Of course, you can have Dodge, Cover, or other maneuvers, but hit% still to high for a pack of so weak minions.

So, if "defense" doesn't exists you have two options there: Big Wounds pool and Soak the damage. Because they have choosen that "no d12 Barbarian with 200HP" in our games, Soak is the other option to compensate that.

Sorry for long explains and I'll try to focus now on your rules XD

- Character Generation:

Long therm games take us to big dice pools (this not always asure you the success but gives high chances). So the "caps" can be ok, always based on the lenght idea of your game. I have a game that started on the year 1.999 so... I as you guessed I don't use to common XP rules XD

So, adapt those rules based on your game lenght projection.

- Skills and Attributes:

The same as Character Generation BUT, about I would suggest to you to that don't let purchase Attributes and just let follow the trees. If you use the trees mechanics, don't let purchase stats, this will help to progress as the character advances. Also take in consideration the "scale of power" that you want on your games. Are you players just strong rebel/scumm/force guys or they can beat Palpatine and Vader together?

In some games, I don't follow the tree progression rules, I just use them as reference, but I use the "pick what you need and justify it" option.

- Combat:

This options can slow down a bit the combat. Also, instead creating "complex rules" or new talents try something easier. Just increase all base difficulties (at least in combat) by 1. Most of your problems, probably, will be solved. After that, consider that if Soak (Brawn) has to exist and what you will do with other game mechanics like stimpacks.

If do you want to add some extra "protection/evasion" variables, try to use fixed values like "Add a Failure/Threat to the pool". Maybe this will work better for you. But use this with caution because can be a really powerful option.

Also I would to comments that Sam once explained me that "true damage" on Edge were Criticals, not Wounds instead. So, don't necessarely see wounds as "I'm lossing pieces of my body" XD

About the trees, no opinion there.

Take care and I hope that I helped a bit mate

also don'tforget to give the bad guys the adversary talemt. and as they get more powerful mor bad uys are going to have it. Minions are going to be tougher. Also increase the number in groups. instead of capping minion groups at 5-upgrade attack skill by 4. increase the group to 7 or 10. Now the minions keep that high dice pool for longer and are dangerous. Things like this are why soak gets high. That wookiee marauder needs that high soak to survive.

Go give a listen to the NPC deli episode of the order 66 podcast. They discuss in detail building NPC threats. I think that advic will help handle things better.

Right, I use to forgot the Adversary talent. Also about minion packs, If too bigger dice pools worry you try to do something.

Build packs of 3 or 4 minions MAX, but, instead do more upgrades, add damage per minion (up to 5) this will help you to ignore the "Soak" problem a bit and, of course, add more Wounds to the minion pool.

I am derailing the thread and this has probably been discussed but the problem I have is not mechanical but philosophical. What does it mean to have a brawn based soak when we are dealing with blasters, which shoot high energy particles at 3000+ degrees? Our bodies are like paper against such thing.

Honestly, even nowadays if you don't have a bulletproof vest and you are shot, your brawn will do nearly to nothing, the bullet will tear your muscles and destroy any organ it finds along its way.

If the system would be more abstract, and instead of wounds and strain, characters would have one single item called... Resistance, Endurance, Grit or something like this, which would measure the character's ability to sustain pain and weariness during a fight, then I think it could be justified some sort of Brawn + Willpower based soak. In its current form, where brawn purely absorbs physical damage... I just don't see it. A decent game mechanics? Sure. A coherent one? Hardly.

What it means is that it's a game which abstracts a LOT of things in order to make a few numbers that can be used to play Star Wars for a few hours a week without too much hassle.

Yep, always remember that, without using this as an excuse, the game focus more on "cinematic action" than realism, and even sometimes, simulate some concrete scenes from SW universe.