Also, jesus, new character XP penalties are so so so sucky.

My PCs get to keep 75% of the XP of their previous character if they make a new one without their former character dying. I introduced the measure to discourage constantly switching characters, since some players literally had a list of future "Alts" to try (I have the full list in my face all the time when I open OggDude's excellent editor). Also, when you get into reallllly high XP territory, it's very tempting to get all creative and go crazy in the editor since you have so much room for variation. The downside is how it derails the narrative (constantly having to introduce new characters because the players want to "try" a new one) and oozes of a weird opportunistic metagame/minmax feel. If a player switches for the right reasons, I will adjust his XP level in time very subtly and it evens out. If a character dies (which has not happened yet) they will get to keep almost all XP since it's not a voluntary choice.

When our Presense 6, Charm 5, Force Rating 5, Seer/Makashi Duelist/Niman Disciple/Advisor makes a Charm check with all five Force dice added, plus various talents, as a GM I often feel like I can't justify raising the social challenges that high. I use diverse skills, which encourages spreading out skill points, but the fact remains that the "charmer" rarely fails to do the thing even in the most unlikely circumstances. But I tend to be more wary of a PC being able to single-handedly kill 84 Stormtroopers in one action or down multiple TIE fighters using personal scale weapons. I've never had the same problems with Mechanics, Computer or Medicine. Stealth is more of a thorny one, us having a PC with AGI 7, Stealth 5, Master of Shadows, Optical Camouflage on armor and a looted Personal Stealth field, despite all those having been acquired very legitimately, this can sometimes give me headaches.

Honest to God, it sounds to me like you need to start up a new campaign with brand new, zero-XP characters as soon as possible. At the stage you describe your characters to be at there's very little challenge left.

And what about the enjoyment of playing a starting character and seeing him grow? When you let your players roll up new ones constantly with full XP, there really is little point to it. Starting with a maximized character makes him very boring to play very quickly. I say it again, start over with something fresh.

OK, I did some math and made a Klatooinian test character.

Brawn 3, Agility 7. Put Brawn at 3 and Agility at 4 at character creation. Picked up 2 ranks of Dedication, putting Agility at a 6. Acquired a cybernetic arm increasing Agility to a 7.

He has 5 ranks in Ranged (Heavy). He took a free rank in Ranged (Heavy) for being a Klatooinian and started as a Mercenary Soldier, taking another rank in Ranged (Heavy) from his bonus career skills. He paid XP for the other 3 ranks.

He has taken the Gunner (Ace), Sharpshooter (Soldier), and Gambler (Smuggler) specializations post character creation. He has the following talents (relevant to the combo):

-Jury-Rigged rank 1 (choosing Auto Fire on his Heavy Blaster Rifle)
-True Aim rank 6 (2 ranks from Mercenary Soldier, 2 from Gunner, and 2 from Sharpshooter)
-Double or Nothing
-Improved Double or Nothing

His gun is a Heavy Blaster Rifle with Superior, Bantha's Eye, and an Augmented Spin Barrel (including all possible mods). The gun has a base damage of 14, Accurate 1, Pierce 1, generates 2 advantages on a hit, and only needs 1 advantage to trigger Auto-Fire.

He has spent 595 XP, plus the 100 XP from character creation. 30 XP from character creation went towards talents and/or skill ranks rather than characteristics. He spent no other XP on skill ranks outside of Ranged (Heavy). He only bought talents that were needed to connect to the talents mentioned above. Both uses of Dedication were already connected to talents mentioned above and needed no additional XP expenditure aside from the 25 for the talent itself.


On a medium range attack with the Heavy Blaster Rifle, assuming he True Aimed, and then regular aimed, his dice pool would be:

9 yellows and 3 blues.

Assuming he activates both Auto-Fire and Double or Nothing, he is rolling 4 purples against a normal enemy, no defense or adversary.

Using the EotE Google Hangouts dice roller (because I only own 4 sets of dice, which gives me 8 yellows), I rolled 25 times.



First roll: 3 success (not counting triumph), 8 advantage, 2 triumph becomes 6 success (double them), 20 advantage (add in superior and bantha's eye, then double), 2 triumph. This means 22 damage 22 times, or 484 damage.

9, 3, 2 = 18, 10, 2 = 34 damage 12 times = 408
4, 6, 1 = 8, 16, 1 = 23 damage 17 times = 391
5, 2, 1 = 10, 8, 1 = 25 damage 9 times = 225
6, 3, 0 = 12, 10, 0 = 26 damage 10 times = 260
7, 3, 2 = 14, 10, 2 = 30 damage 12 times = 360
9, 4, 1 = 18, 12, 1 = 33 damage 13 times = 429
5, 6, 1 = 10, 16, 1 = 25 damage 17 times = 425
8, 8, 0 = 16, 20, 0 = 30 damage 20 times = 600
4, 2, 2 = 8, 8, 2 = 24 damage 10 times = 240
10, 3, 1 = 20, 10, 1 = 35 damage 11 times = 385
4, 3, 0 = 8, 10, 0 = 22 damage 10 times = 220
6, 6, 0 = 12, 16, 0 = 26 damage 16 times = 416
9, 0, 1 = 18, 4, 1 = 33 damage 5 times = 165
6, 5, 1 = 12, 14, 1 = 27 damage 15 times = 405
5, 12, 0 = 10, 28, 0, = 24 damage 28 times = 672!!!!!
5, 8, 1 = 10, 20, 1 = 25 damage 21 times = 525
3, 0, 2 = 6, 4, 2 = 22 damage 6 times = 132
4, 5, 0 = 8, 14, 0 = 22 damage 14 times = 308
6, 4, 0 = 12, 12, 0 = 26 damage 12 times = 312
7, 4, 0 = 14, 12, 0 = 28 damage 12 times = 336
6, 1, 0 = 12, 6, 0 = 26 damage 6 times = 156
7, 3, 1 = 14, 10, 1 = 29 damage 11 times = 319
7, 6, 0 = 14, 16, 0 = 28 damage 16 times = 448
0, 6, 1 = 0, 16, 1 = 15 damage 17 times = 255

Just some random notes...

Note: I think an argument could be made that the Bantha's Eye advantage is added after the opportunity to double the results. It is only added on a successful check, which means you would need to cancel results before you know if you can add the extra advantage.

Note: Conversely, the advantage from Superior is added to all checks, and would be part of your pool from the start, allowing it to be doubled.

Note: Triumphs do not add a success symbol. They can simply be counted as a success. The success they grant would not be doubled unless you had Supreme Double or Nothing to double the entire Triumph. I did not double anything from the Triumph results above.

Note: 95 XP could be saved if I did not go for the 2 ranks of True Aim in the Sharpshooter tree as there is nothing else there needed for this combo.

Note: Gunner has a rank of Dedication next to a rank of True Aim, and then a rank of Jury-Rigged next to that Dedication, removing the need for the Gadgeteer specialization entirely.

Note: This character started with a Brawn of 3, so Burly from the Heavy tree was not needed to avoid the penalty from Cumbersome.


First, I think Double or Nothing should only apply to results from the physical dice, not things that add results to the dice pool. However, as currently written there is no distinction. It just says to double the number of symbols you have after canceling results. If you limit it to results showing on the dice, that removes 2 triggers of Auto-Fire from every example above.

Secondly, perhaps a good alteration to Auto-Fire is that each selected target past the first increases the difficulty one more time. I don't know if this has ever been suggested before, but that could help limit the room clearing ability, though it would still punish one enemy easily. Perhaps a possible house rule for your table.

So the player likes to make combat PCs - why not indulge them?

Generally this is to the detriment of the rest of the party. The GM is given the following sorts of no-win options:

1) start an arms race - the NPCs are given equivalent talents/missile tubes/e-webs in which case the PCs similarly are shredded

2) reduce the number of combat scenes, which generally tends to irritate the killbot PC player because he/she feels useless out of their massacre-fest element

3) devolve the campaign into a nonsensical shooting gallery where the PC mows down all adversaries

As the GM, or another player in the group, I simply don't enjoy this style of min-maxing, as I feel the GM is required to cater to this PC.

I can relate. One of my players is the 11 year old son of my best friend and long term roleplay-buddy. The kid doesn't put anything into social skills; he just wants to be the ultimate killbot Trandoshan. I just got done running The Jewel of Yavin and he was unfortunately bored for part of it. As usual, he managed to murder someone (I forget exactly who) and the Wing Guard went on alert trying to locate him. That sparked some fun for the kid as he had to make a deal with Vorse Tabarith (the mob boss) to get his criminal record deleted in exchange for a favor. At this point I'm jumping all around the table, GMing actions for the other players who were setting up the heist from the bank and talking to bidders to try to get them to bid higher when the auction began. Anyway, the to make a long story short Vorse's favor was that he wanted the kid's character to kill Elaiza. I won't drop any spoilers; let's just say he didn't complete the task. Winging that whole side plot kept the kid in the game having a good time but as a GM it's sometimes hard to effectively include a killer character.

All I can suggest is try to get your player(s) to put some XP into social skills. Give him a chance to shine in a negotiation or skullduggery situation. Once he learns these skills have merit he may change his way. Note that I said "may", there are no guarantees here.

OK, I did some math and made a Klatooinian test character.

I think you made your point with a bullet. I've got a player looking into cybernetics now so he can continue his reign of terror. I took a cue from West End Games Star Wars and have him roll discipline when he's tempted. Sometimes he fails the check because he doesn't put points into it. When that happens he succumbs to the dark side and immediately takes the quick and easy path, eliminating any obstacles. He knows that if he strays too far into darkness I'll have to take his character (WEG style) and have him become a future villain.

It's a tactic to keep in mind that may help the pacify the situation you're having with this player.

With the base difficulties so low and the relative damage so high, combat (wounds-wise) can be absurdly lethal for non-combat characters and for combat-focused characters the absurdity reaches plaid levels.

Another alternative is to provide combat-related checks that aren't actual combat -- shooting competitions, arm-wrestling, brawling, etc. This will give the combat characters something on which to focus instead of murdering people.

OK, I did some math and made a Klatooinian test character.

I think you made your point with a bullet. I've got a player looking into cybernetics now so he can continue his reign of terror. I took a cue from West End Games Star Wars and have him roll discipline when he's tempted. Sometimes he fails the check because he doesn't put points into it. When that happens he succumbs to the dark side and immediately takes the quick and easy path, eliminating any obstacles. He knows that if he strays too far into darkness I'll have to take his character (WEG style) and have him become a future villain.

It's a tactic to keep in mind that may help the pacify the situation you're having with this player.

My point was simply an exercise to see how little XP is needed (~500 minimum to get Double or Nothing involved), and to also see how much damage is done. The original post only provided one example. I wanted to see how common the 400+ damage was (about 40% of the time based on 25 rolls). I also wanted to make sure the combo was completely legal per RAW (it is, with only some hazyness as to whether the advantages provided by weapon mods are affected by Double or Nothing).

In essence, I wasn't really trying to make a point. I was just trying to wrap my head around the thing and provide some facts to help people decide were this to come up at their table.

I think it is important to note that the WORST rolls did either ~25 damage 6 times, or 30+ damage 5 times. That is instant kill to 5 or 6 run of the mill adversaries.

It would also be interesting to me to see how this combo would fare against various amounts of defense and ranks in Adversary. For example, what if it had to roll against 9 red dice at medium range (Adversary 14)? What would the difference be between no Adversary and Adversary 5? Etc. We all know adding a purple has more statistical significance than changing a purple to a red, and a pool that starts with 4 purples needs at least 5 upgrades to start adding dice.

But against regular mooks? Yeah, its just hilarious how much damage is being dished out.

Well, according to my calculations, the damage from Autofire does go down somehow exponentially the more negative dice there are, since total damage is a factor of net successes x number of extra hits [net advantages halved, undivided, or multiplied by two]. So the appropriate counter seems to involve sprinkling a Nemesis with Adversary 3+ in solid cover/high defense armor among the usual grunts whenever a big fight breaks out. Unless the PC notices who the Nemesis is, if he tries to shoot the whole group he has to oppose the highest dice pool. It's a bit cheap, but handy.

Thanks to these forums, I am thankfully aware of this -before- starting my games. I have the following written up in my pre-campaign packet to clip autofire (I think the issue has more to do w/ autofire and less to do w/ jury rigged). My objective was to make it work pretty much the same if you only activated the quality once, while quickly eating up advantage if you tried to spam it.

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Thanks to these forums, I am thankfully aware of this -before- starting my games. I have the following written up in my pre-campaign packet to clip autofire (I think the issue has more to do w/ autofire and less to do w/ jury rigged). My objective was to make it work pretty much the same if you only activated the quality once, while quickly eating up advantage if you tried to spam it.

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Jury Rigged: If used to reduce the Advantage cost of a critical injury or weapon quality, the reduced cost applies to only the first triggering of the effect each turn.

Auto-fire: The advantage cost to trigger Auto-fire is adjusted as follows. Auto-fire requires a base of two advantage to trigger an extra hit. Each extra hit on a target requires extra advantage equal to the number of times the target has been hit (including the first).

Example: On a successful attack, the attacker could spend 3 advantage to hit the same target again (2 base advantage plus 1 advantage for already being hit once), or 2 advantage to hit another selected target (2 base advantage plus 0 advantage because they have not been hit this attack). If this was an extraordinarily advantageous attack, the attacker could hit the primary target a 3rd time for 4 advantage (2 base plus 2 advantage from the two hits already taken), costing a total of 7 advantage.

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This curbs the ability to land successive hits on one target, while maintaining the written cost for hitting multiple targets.

I think that adjustment to Auto-Fire is too restrictive. 25 rolls is obviously a small sample size, but rolling 9 proficiency dice against 4 purples only netted 7+ advantage 3 times. I can only imagine the odds plummet in a more reasonable dice pool. I rarely see Auto-Fire triggered more than 2-3 times as is in games where the weapons and talents are not min/maxed to take advantage of it. You are basically ensuring it will never be triggered more than once.

I would try playing it as is, and tweak it if your players seem to be trying to exploit it.

Thanks to these forums, I am thankfully aware of this -before- starting my games. I have the following written up in my pre-campaign packet to clip autofire (I think the issue has more to do w/ autofire and less to do w/ jury rigged). My objective was to make it work pretty much the same if you only activated the quality once, while quickly eating up advantage if you tried to spam it.

------

Jury Rigged: If used to reduce the Advantage cost of a critical injury or weapon quality, the reduced cost applies to only the first triggering of the effect each turn.

Auto-fire: The advantage cost to trigger Auto-fire is adjusted as follows. Auto-fire requires a base of two advantage to trigger an extra hit. Each extra hit on a target requires extra advantage equal to the number of times the target has been hit (including the first).

Example: On a successful attack, the attacker could spend 3 advantage to hit the same target again (2 base advantage plus 1 advantage for already being hit once), or 2 advantage to hit another selected target (2 base advantage plus 0 advantage because they have not been hit this attack). If this was an extraordinarily advantageous attack, the attacker could hit the primary target a 3rd time for 4 advantage (2 base plus 2 advantage from the two hits already taken), costing a total of 7 advantage.

----

This curbs the ability to land successive hits on one target, while maintaining the written cost for hitting multiple targets.

I think that adjustment to Auto-Fire is too restrictive. 25 rolls is obviously a small sample size, but rolling 9 proficiency dice against 4 purples only netted 7+ advantage 3 times. I can only imagine the odds plummet in a more reasonable dice pool. I rarely see Auto-Fire triggered more than 2-3 times as is in games where the weapons and talents are not min/maxed to take advantage of it. You are basically ensuring it will never be triggered more than once.

I would try playing it as is, and tweak it if your players seem to be trying to exploit it.

I would suggest limiting it not based upon advantages, but rather based upon Brawn or Agility (whichever is lower). This will provide a hard, but expandable, limit to triggering it. Also the issue is not generally with respect to single-target damage that the major problem lies. This allows room clearing and severly disrupts the action economy -- thus allowing the entire party to single-target focus the one standing enemy while the rest of them get wasted due to autofire.

I would suggest limiting it not based upon advantages, but rather based upon Brawn or Agility (whichever is lower). This will provide a hard, but expandable, limit to triggering it. Also the issue is not generally with respect to single-target damage that the major problem lies. This allows room clearing and severly disrupts the action economy -- thus allowing the entire party to single-target focus the one standing enemy while the rest of them get wasted due to autofire.

Not a bad idea, how about ranks in resilience to encourage skill breadth?

I would suggest limiting it not based upon advantages, but rather based upon Brawn or Agility (whichever is lower). This will provide a hard, but expandable, limit to triggering it. Also the issue is not generally with respect to single-target damage that the major problem lies. This allows room clearing and severly disrupts the action economy -- thus allowing the entire party to single-target focus the one standing enemy while the rest of them get wasted due to autofire.

Not a bad idea, how about ranks in resilience to encourage skill breadth?

I can see how that could be argued. However, I think the actual physical stat makes more sense (either Brawn or Agility, whatever combination or specific attribute the GM prefers). Brawn to physically maintain control of the weapon as it goes on its automatic rampage, and Agility to direct that rampage to the particular targets desired.

for skill breadth we can go for ranks in perception or vigilance, which rule how aware of his/her surroundings the character is.

Having read this thread start to finish: I like the idea of a new game with new PCs. You've gotten to the point where this game breaks.

Don't remove autofire, don't get rid of jury rigged, but maybe quit GMing. At a 1000xp game, it sounds like you've done your time and pulled your share, lol. I'd say, "Grats guys, you win star wars! The end!"

I'm fairly certain that even if we restarted the game entirely, it's more my player's mindset of character optimization, inherited from d20, that is to put under scrutiny than a strict matter of xp. Sure at 300 xp you don't get to see the same heights in dice pools as you see around 1000 xp, where many more combos start to appear, but it's only a matter of time with powergamers.

I haven't found a solution just yet, but I'm thinking of pausing the game for a change of pace a few weeks, and then come back to Star Wars. We've had 38 sessions in a row, we started at Knight Level (+150xp) and I gave around 23 xp per session (on average, incl. roleplay, quest xp, etc.), which might be a bit much.

I have a spin-off scenario in mind, which might help "continue" the campaign with different characters if the "main" group becomes unmanageable.

Edit: I started a thread on that very topic: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/138642-am-i-doing-it-wrong-i-find-high-xp-characters-not-that-much-of-a-problem/

I'm fairly certain that even if we restarted the game entirely, it's more my player's mindset of character optimization , inherited from d20, that is to put under scrutiny than a strict matter of xp. Sure at 300 xp you don't get to see the same heights in dice pools as you see around 1000 xp, where many more combos start to appear, but it's only a matter of time with powergamers.

This is absolutely the truth. It may take them some time to relax and unlearn that mindset.

Well I made this combo.

I used 700ish XP and went more well rounded, dabbling in some social and utility skills. The character is a Quarren, only has 1 rank of True Aim, and does not yet have Improved Double or Nothing, so only advantages are doubled.

I was regularly clearing large scale Encounters in one or two rolls. The build is tough on strain, and the extra difficulty dice are noticeable, but it still wrecks stuff.

I kinda dislike playing it because every attack becomes a bookkeeping chore. Base pool + upgrades from talents + upgrades from Destiny + upgrades from Allies + applicable boosts. Then base difficulty + increased difficulty from talents + upgrades + defenses, etc.

Then after you roll, you have to track spending 20 advantage, and only 10 of it is physically on the table.

Wrapped up the campaign I made this character for tonight.

I finally got one massive roll and did 26 damage (deadly accuracy + point blank), followed by 30 auto-fire hits of 19 each. I obliterated the big bad.

Any player who makes a character by power gaming has never been back to my table. Either they are not invited or when they see narative or story that doesn't let them use their power gaming they just didn't return. I have a player now who just doesn't want to play FFG because it doesn't allow them to just win. They said if I go back to Saga where their lightsaber had +18 and did massive damage they would come back.

This thread makes me kind of sad, because it's a shame to see a system really geared towards providing a narrative experience and having it devolve into "Yeah I roll the dice and autofire everything", ad infinitum.

Half the fun of getting a ton of advantage or threat or whatever is the kind of ludicrous situations you can come up with, like environmental effects drastically altering the odds, or actually narrating why another player gets to add a boost die to his next action because of something wacky happening to that stormtrooper as a result of a wild ricochet. I can't imagine just being like "I guess I got six advantage... six extra shots with my blaster I guess." It sounds so boring.

I finally got one massive roll and did 26 damage (deadly accuracy + point blank), followed by 30 auto-fire hits of 19 each. I obliterated the big bad.

But how many Infinite Backpacks do you have?

Anyway, you are a bad person and should feel bad

But honestly, this game is very easy to break - because it kind of assumes you want to be playing pulp sci-fi rather than Diablo. Y'know - chases, setbacks, surprises, plot twists, unbelievable coincidences, moral lessons, awkward romantic situations with hot aliens, etc.

Anyway, if we're bragging, my GMPC for the explorer game now has 1300 XP and could be outfought by any starting Droid Marauder.

Beat that.

If a GM and a player don't see the same game style or at least a compromised game style they should not play in the same game. The player should find a min maxing game or play a video game on challenge level easy and call it a day.

As a GM we are the employees in the game. We are working to create, working to organize, working to run a fun game for our employer the players. I'm not gonna worK for an employer that does not pay me enough or offer benefits that I want or need. So if a player disrupts my job I tell them I can no longer work for them. Good news if you have multiple employers then you don't go on unemployment, but just work for the ones who offer the most.

Wrapped up the campaign I made this character for tonight.

I finally got one massive roll and did 26 damage (deadly accuracy + point blank)

On your next character you can buy a missile launcher (for Damage 20 and Breach 1), or a speeder bike with an autoblaster (for damage 30 and auto fire), or with a Blaster Cannon Light (for damage 40) from the very beginning; so you don't need to wait all the way until you hit 1000 xp to do this amount of damage.

I finally got one massive roll and did 26 damage (deadly accuracy + point blank), followed by 30 auto-fire hits of 19 each. I obliterated the big bad.

But how many Infinite Backpacks do you have?

Anyway, you are a bad person and should feel bad

But honestly, this game is very easy to break - because it kind of assumes you want to be playing pulp sci-fi rather than Diablo. Y'know - chases, setbacks, surprises, plot twists, unbelievable coincidences, moral lessons, awkward romantic situations with hot aliens, etc.

Anyway, if we're bragging, my GMPC for the explorer game now has 1300 XP and could be outfought by any starting Droid Marauder.

Beat that.

I played this character in 5 sessions, 4 of which involved combat. The 5th session was the final session of the entire campaign.

It was essentially an experiment in a perfect environment (high level game, set end point, standard of rollplay over roleplay already established). Theory crafting is fun, but I wanted to see it in action and provide actual feedback based on my experiences.

The funny thing is that the tables are turning now. I'm set to run the next campaign, but this GM (who plans to ay) has already told me he is making an almost pure social character. Which is great!

I've played and GMd a lot of this system over the last year and half and I am certainly one that realizes how easily this game can breakdown mechanically when the focus is taken off the narrative. I don't need any reminders here, though I do appreciate the concern .