Hey guys! I've been peeking around the forum for about a week, but this is my first post. I'm running a new game in about a week, but I had a couple quick questions for people who've run game. I'll post the questions themselves before the tl;dr context.

Are character creation rules underpowered? Do I need to take steps to balance a team without a dedicated doctor?

Let me put things in context. I've roleplayed regularly for years, but the majority of this has been free-form play with a group of close friends. I'm also about five sessions into an online (voice chat) EotE game run by one of those afforementioned friends. It's following character creation and is running pretty smoothly. I'm also scheduled to start running a face-to-face EotE game with some friends in about a week and a half. I haven't actually run a game that requires dice rolls since I was in middle school (about a decade and a half ago), but they're highly experienced players. I've run a couple of sessions with combinations of these people in Shadowrun and Unknown Armies, so I can speak to the fact that they know their way around a book and know how to properly roleplay. It's a team of 4, and some of them seem to lean towards min/maxing their characters, albeit not in an unhealthy way. I have the first couple of adventures planned as well as setting information and a distinct blueprint of the larger "season". I'm happy and excited with what I have in mind, and I know these guys trust my narrative skill.

Anyway, I've sent these guys off to make characters in the interim with the assumption that we'll look them over, make adjustments, and figure out how they work together at the start of the first session. The players are concerned that the rules are excessively harsh to starting characters. So far the general makeup seems to be a disgraced Imperial politico, a tech droid, a gand bounty hunter, and another combat-oriented character who's species and spec are still up in the air. They say they've run some dice rolls, and they're getting two-shotted by rival level threats. I made it clear that since they're starting characters, they aren't going to have to look at facing against an equivalent team of rivals. They still seem concerned. They've told me that droids are underpowered but that the player really wants to play one. I pointed out that droids seem to be built for highly specialized roles, and that their capacity for absurdly high characteristic breakdowns makes them powerhouses in the long-term. They seem concerned that the starting credits aren't enough to get the gear they want. Either they can't afford to use the additional obligation to buy their equipment (because they've already sunk too much obligation into XP bonuses), or the credits even with those circumstances flat out isn't enough. I'm a bit sympathetic to this. I know my doctor needed the highest obligation/credit bonus possible to get the equipment he needed, and while he had some left over, he also wasn't shopping for the more expensive weapons and armor. The droid can't afford a gun because he can't afford to spend the obligation on credits. The gand wants a chemical sprayer (adapted from the flame thrower but with poison effects). I thought it was a cool idea and we negotiated on a cost of 1200 with doses costing 25 a piece, but that doesn't leave him with enough money to get armor or other accessories. The unnamed third mercenary apparently can't afford armor. I don't have any worries about the fourth guy. He's a trooper and a pro who will make the systems work for what he wants. They've also expressed to me that the last few games they've played together have been low level and they're sick of starting at nothing.

I'm of two minds about it. I want to make my characters happy, and I know they have expectations they want for this game. On the other hand, it's my first time properly GMing in a long time, and I'm worried about game balance. Based on the distribution of characters, it seems like the game will veer towards combat, and I don't want the characters to mow through everything in front of them. I know the game can work with starting characters, but that might not be the game they want. I don't think they'd be intentionally malicious, but is there a chance they're passively leveraging their experience to gain an upper hand in this game?

They've asked for an extra 1000 starting credits at creation or slight bonuses to experience (either in the terms of extra experience or to boost one ability up to 3. I flatly vetoed the latter). For people who have played a combat heavy game before, is their perception that starting combat characters are at a disadvantage fair? Should I concede to their requests, or am I setting a dangerous precedent by kowtowing? I know kit has a major effect on gameplay, but I also know any starting boosts to credits will largely be negated a few sessions in as they start getting paid for their missions. I also worry, will this credits bonus give an unfair advantage to these three characters vs. the politico who likely doesn't need handfuls of money? If I go this route, should I give him experience to compensate?

I'm wondering if I should adjust the difficulty of the game to match their desires to play non-standard starting characters. My initial impression, following their concerns, is to play a session or two with starting level and see how it works out for everyone. The setting I have in mind is one where the Empire is approaching its centennial celebrations, where rumors of the Emperor's death or ill health is causing power plays amongst the political elite that's spilling into the outer rim, and where the idea of a galactic rebellion is nascent. I was planning on having the characters start out as low level smugglers/bounty hunters with opportunities to develop their own cartel. But their concerns have made me think that I should adjust the level of the game (either from the start, or with a time jump after the first couple sessions), raising the difficulty by having them continually under the run from the high burden of obligations or press-ganged into service as a sort of Imperial Suicide Squad.

More briefly, I'm concerned about their lack of a medic. The group I'm playing in right now is running swimmingly, but it's also incredibly well balanced. We have a combat beast, a pilot who also has decent skills in combat, an all things tech droid, and my doctor who seconds as the team's face. It works well, but I know those medic skills have pulled us out of the fire a few times.

Should I compensate, perhaps with the addition of an NPC medic droid? Or should they be okay without one?

**** that was long. I thank anyone who manages to read this, much less provide input.

The game is balanced just fine, you don't NEED a doctor, and all your assumptions about the game and how it "should" work are all correct.

Your players just have the jitters. Honestly it sounds like they are coming from another system like D20 and are expecting a dungeon crawl. As I'm sure you noticed, this system's combat is faster, so of course a lot of Rivals can 2-shot a player, because it's abnormal for combat to last more then about 5 turns anyway. Also I'm guessing the "test rolls" they are running are fairly flat ♦♦ checks. Without those ■ and ◙ of course things are going to feel easy. So be ready to encourage the players to use cover, spend Triumph to generate environmental effects, sped Dpoints to upgrade rolls, and Advantage to boost their buddies.

Check The List that D20Radio published a while back, and maybe even have your players take a look at it. While not every combat encounter will follow the list... most either will, or will have the flexibility to easily incorporate it's points should the players try to leverage them. That should kinda say a lot about how the game's combat encounters work. No standing in an empty well lit room hitting a hobgoblin with your sword until he stops getting back up.

It also might be wise for you to tip them off that you'll be running a story driven campaign and going in with balanced characters will probably yield better long term results. It gets laughable when the Min/Maxed combat team ends up trying to negotiate with a Hutt crime boss.

Stick to your guns and go with RAW for starters so everyone can learn the system. You can always reward more XP and credits tomorrow. If the players get shot up you can insert some stimpacks as lootables and that'll usually solve most problems.

If they really feel underpowered after an adventure or two, once everyone "gets" the system, you can always go back and run it at "Knight" level.

Agree with Ghost, stick to your guns. But at the same time, make sure their first encounters aren't overwhelming, and slowly ratchet that up.

One thing I did after watching my players struggle with characteristic allocation, is to "strongly suggest" a four 3s approach. If you're a human, and you take extra Obligation to get 10XP, you can boost four of the characteristics to a 3. Most of the other species can be handled similarly, or they can go with three 3s and some useful Talents or Skill ranks. This makes for some very well-rounded characters, and I think my players are happier now. That said, if they do that, you'll want to ease into conflict slowly. Skill checks that they "should" be able to pass would be in the Easy to Average range (one or two purples), with Hard (PPP) being the outlier. Once they built up their skills you can start introducing Daunting checks, or being more liberal with the setback dice.

They say they've run some dice rolls, and they're getting two-shotted by rival level threats.

They should back off with that. They really know nothing about the system yet (no insult intended), and it will take a few sessions to change their mindset from what is clearly a D&D-type game. This just works differently, and learning how to leverage the Advantage/Threat axis is critical. Also, it will take a while to understand how the Talents affect the game, they probably haven't been able to consider any of it.

And as Ghost said, yes, two-shots are common. This is not a game where you can usually just stand and take it as you whittle down 100HP, which fits the flavour of the game and setting...Han and Luke were always on the run, and most of the time the game mechanics enforce a chase or a "calculated retreat" approach.

If you're that concerned about it, give them the opportunity to loot stimpacks off of their opponents. That will provide them 'instant' healing within the context of the game and, as that's the primary method people get healed without a doctor, it makes sense that their opponents would have stimpacks.

On the actual combat note, don't have anyone with blaster rifles or anything heavier shooting at them until they've had a chance to get some decent XP and gear upgrades -- starting characters are really equipment deficient, even if they spend their obligation/duty/morality on extra credits. Rather than two-shotting characters, NPCs with rifles can one-shot even combat focused characters if they roll well enough.

Lastly, emphasize to the party that there are ways of playing other than running up to the enemy and shooting the heck out of them. While it may be a combat-focused campaign, there's still the option of sneaking around and running away.

There is a perfectly sensible option to get more starting credits; tell them to just take away 5XP back from the character creation obligation and add 1000 credits. Honestly in the groups that I have seen start it is probably most common for them to use the obligation for credits than XP, unless it is making the vital difference between upping a characteristic or not.

This is not supposed to be an easy decision. It's supposed to be a choice, not a gimme.

The players are concerned that the rules are excessively harsh to starting characters.

Not any more than any other system. Yes, being a starting character sucks, regardless of what engine you play under. Tell them that within 2 or 3 games, they'll be getting great stuff.

So far the general makeup seems to be a disgraced Imperial politico, a tech droid, a gand bounty hunter, and another combat-oriented character who's species and spec are still up in the air.

So far seems like a pretty solid mix. That Politico is slow to pay off, but is great in the long run.

They say they've run some dice rolls, and they're getting two-shotted by rival level threats.

Already covered by the others, but yeah - combats are short and intense. Besides, the important part of the game - how you interact with the bad guys and the environment - is what makes the game interesting. Die rolling is just boring.

They seem concerned that the starting credits aren't enough to get the gear they want.

Yes, starting cash can be slim. However, that's up to the GM - you can shower them with money in the course of the first few games as you see fit. But I've done three groups up from zero now, and money balances out pretty quick.

They've also expressed to me that the last few games they've played together have been low level and they're sick of starting at nothing.

Well, there's no reason you couldn't start them out at Knight Level - a more advanced starting point for characters. 100 more points, some extra starting cash, everyone is happy. It's not going to have that huge an impact on your game long term.

Well, there's no reason you couldn't start them out at Knight Level - a more advanced starting point for characters. 100 more points, some extra starting cash, everyone is happy. It's not going to have that huge an impact on your game long term.

The best reason not to is the players won't understand the value of what they're getting. I considered this with my group, and decided if they don't even understand the dice system, they aren't going to understand the value of, say, the Gearhead Talent. What I did instead was basically double up on the XP in the first 6 sessions. Narratively it represented them spending years after their initial careers kind of sitting on their laurels, and only the recent events were "reminding" them what they used to know. Now that we're approaching 200XP they are starting to understand how all the dice and skills and talents interplay.

Of course they all gave me pouty faces when I told them I was bringing XP back into a more reasonable line, especially as a couple are closing in on Dedication

Great advice guys. All I really needed was some reassurance, but that combat checklist is going to be a huge boon. Their most recent experience is with Unknown Armies and Game of Thrones which is a bit odd, because those don't strike me as dungeon diving games, but after some back and forth they all seem to have settled into the system and started coming up with creative ways to build the characters they want and plan for the future. I think a large part of it was just them pushing against me to see how much I'd budge.

I've considered boosting their experience levels, but I think the best way to handle it will be to reconsider the level of game after the first couple of sessions. That will give them a chance to get a feel for the game's systems, and I can find a narrative place around then to do a time jump, validating that added experience.

It looks like we'll be playing a week from next Sunday. I'll probably let everyone know how it turned out and have a whole new list of concerns.

So far seems like a pretty solid mix. That Politico is slow to pay off, but is great in the long run.

I've seen that in action! I started as a doctor in the game I'm playing in now, and it took me a few sessions to make him competent in his primary role, but now that I'm developing his social acumen, he's really paying off dividends for the crew. I'll likely be giving him a second spec as a politico after another session or two.

One last thing here....you should impress on them just how difficult it is to raise stats in the game. Meaning that character generation is the time to do it. I've found that having just one extra green dice is just SO much better than having a bunch of yellow upgrades due to bought skills. In a 2 purple difficulty check for example, compare 1 green 1 yellow vs 3 greens. Even with one dice upgraded to a yellow, they still have only about a 50% chance of coming out on top if they're rolling the same number of dice. Dice advantage is HUGE.

And also don't forget to remind them to abuse the heck out of the force counters and getting blue dice whenever they get the chance, give them printouts of all the stuff they can do with their advantage symbols. The game is meant to be very fluid with destiny, with light and dark side points shifting back and forth constantly. A key thing about this game is that it's not just strictly probability based, the success/advantage difficulty/threat system allows a lot of leeway on just how well you succeeded, even giving you a chance to salvage a little bit of the situation when you fail.

Example: One of your players shoots at a stormtrooper....and misses because his failures cancel out his successes. But guess what, while they didn't succeed, they do have 2 advantage that wasn't canceled out.

Now, ordinarily in most game systems such as DnD, you moved, you shoot, and now you're stuck in the open about to be blasted. Not so with this system. 2 advantage can be spent for a free maneuver. So your character spends their two advantage to dive back into cover, and now that storm trooper doesn't have nearly as easy of a time shooting back.