I'm about to start GMing an EDGE OF THE EMPIRE game for my online group. (Notes on the group at the end, for those who are concerned.) I've been lurking on Reddit and the FFG Forums for a while, to assess the collective wisdom on House Rules, and I've come up with a set of my own, particular to the needs of this campaign.

Would some experienced FFG GMs be willing to give me some constructive feedback on these? Thank you in advance!

Use the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook for general character creation, though you may access Careers, Specializations, Gear, Species, and so on from any other source that you prefer. An excellent (and growing) resource is the “FFG Star Wars RPG Index” found here: http://swrpg.viluppo.net/

Characteristics and Derived Attributes:

During character creation, and only at this time, and only with GM permission, you may lower characteristics below their normal starting value for your chosen species. Each time you lower a characteristic by one point, you gain an additional 5 starting XP.

Soak is equal to a character’s Brawn or Cunning rating (modified by gear and Talents as normal), and this choice must be made at character creation.

Choosing a starting ship:

This expanded list of starting ships combines the standard starting vehicles, with additions from the supplements. If the party chooses a ship worth less than 120,000 credits, you may spend the difference on modifications or additional vehicles (like speeder bikes or walkers).

- Coreillian Engineering YT-1300 Light Freighter (Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook pg. 264)

- Coreillian Engineering YT-2400 Light Freighter (Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook pg. 265)

- Coreillian Engineering YV-560 Light Freighter (Enter the Unknown pg. 66)

- Coreillian Engineering HT-2200 Medium Freighter (Far Horizons pg. 56)

- Gallofree Yards YKL-37r Nova Courier (Fly Casual pg. 56)

- Ghtroc Industries 720 Freighter (Enter the Unknown pg. 62)

- Lantillian Shipwrights GX-1 Short Hauler (Fly Casual pg. 56)

- Wayfarer Medium Transport (Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook pg. 263)

Obligation:

Given the variable party size for this campaign, players all start with a Rating 5 Obligation of his/her choice (pages 38-43 of the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook).

In addition, all players must take a Rating 5 Obligation (of any kind) that connects to your employer (Diving Belle’s Lightering, Portage, Ship-chandlers, Cargo, and Salvage). In exchange, you gain +1,000 starting credits that must be spent on goods related to your job at Diving Belle’s Salvage, or else are lost. You may still take on extra Obligation at character creation, for credits or XP, following the normal rules.

Experience:

In addition to bonuses granted by legendary actions and great achievements, XP is typically earned at a rate of 15XP per gaming session, divided hourly if necessary to the closest multiple of 5. (So someone who can only make it to the first half of a session gains 5XP, and someone who has to leave an hour or so early gains 10XP.)

Notes: I am a long-time GM (20 years since first running WEG Star Wars RPG), but my players range in experience from 2 decades to 2 months. We play on Roll20/Hangouts on three different continents and have a constantly rotating group based on who is available any given week. For the purposes of this campaign, the PCs are intra-galactic salvage workers (at least in name). Whoever can make it on a given week will play that session ("go out on the job"), and each "episode" of play will last literally as long as we play for. When time runs out in Real Life, the session (narratively) ends as well. ("Just as the drill breaks through the vault door, the alarms flare and your R2 droid alerts you to the immanent arrival of a massive Imperial security force. Time to flee!")

So each player has 10 starting obligation, can take another 10 obligation (since that's the base obligation) and starts with an additional 1,000 credits?

Further, they can pick the cheapest ship on your list, the GX1, and get an additional 35k in starting equipment. Alternatively, they can start with a 2200 and, in effect, get an extra 20k off the bat.

They get to customize their soak to cunning, if they like and they can become more SAD (Single Attribute Dependent) by dump-statting characteristics about which they don't care at the rate of 5xp per point (to a minimum of 1?). I'm assuming the extra starting XP they get from doing this they can apply to their stats, yes?

This combination gives the ability for a -very- dangerous and focused character.... With big gaps in the stats they drop to 1.

If this is what you're going for, then great. Though, I'd ask why not just start at Knight-level and leave the normal rules alone?

Everything looks fine, but I'm not sure that I like your houserule to soak. Brawn is great. Any character who focuses on Brawn is going to be scary and tough. However, it doesn't benefits very little outside of combat. Cunning has a huge benefit to a lot of skills and talents. Allowing another characteristic to apply to soak in place of Brawn takes a great deal of emphasis from it. It allows your non-combat focused characters to become quite tough, which could cause some balancing issues.

How much experience have you had with this system? If not a lot, I suggest putting the soak rule on the back burner and see how you feel about it after several sessions.

SO Not a Fan of the Stat and XP house rule.

Your going to have Marauder monsters just owning your game.

On the flip side, Cunning is the one of the most used Skill/Attributes. Imagine all you new Characters having minimum 4 green dice pools on at least half of their skills... Boring...

Also, I don't see how being cunning stops a blaster round???? Maybe a witty comment after the players ass hits the ground prevents the Coup-de-grace from the villain, that's about it.

When it comes to house rules, I want to hear what you are fixing by implementing the house rule. I see too many times house rules implemented because ..

1. The GM does not truly understand why a certain aspect works a certain way mechanically so he compensates by making up hokey rules.

2. The GM has a preconceived notion of how he wants something to work be-damned the rules.

OP here.

Just posted this a matter of hours ago, and already I see a bunch of constructive feedback. Thanks to all so far for giving me a bit to chew on, and keep the great advice coming!

Would some experienced FFG GMs be willing to give me some constructive feedback on these? Thank you in advance!

There's the occasional talk around here about the mechanics for lowering attributes from time to time, you might want to seek those out. I wouldn't do it myself, but it doesn't seem too game breaking. The rest of it, on the other hand - I'm not a fan of, especially the change to soak.

I guess my question to you is - what is broken about the game engine that is driving you to fix it?

I recommend playing EotE for a few sessions before adding any house rules. What might sound good in theory, might fall short in actual play. Imo, Soak is fine based off of just Brawn. Cunning-focused PCs have ways of avoiding damage other than Soak, including good RP backed by solid Social checks.

My friends and I rotate GM duties. So far we've played through 48 weekly sessions. In that time, we've only added 2 house rules to make the game more challenging and immersive.

1) If suffering from multiple crits, only one can be healed per week with a Medicine check. The others need natural rest and/or bacta to clear.

2) Non-Force Sensitives may only buy into FnD specializations if they can find someone who can actually teach them, as in an FnD PC with the specialization unlocked or a mentor found through an adventure.

I don’t like the section "Characteristics and Derived Attributes”. There is nothing there that makes sense to me.

The other sections look good to me.

Characteristics and Derived Attributes:

During character creation, and only at this time, and only with GM permission, you may lower characteristics below their normal starting value for your chosen species. Each time you lower a characteristic by one point, you gain an additional 5 starting XP.

Soak is equal to a character’s Brawn or Cunning rating (modified by gear and Talents as normal), and this choice must be made at character creation.

No. I think these are really bad changes to make. You're setting yourself up to have a group of extremely min/maxed characters. Which just sounds super boring to player or GM.

Choosing a starting ship:

This expanded list of starting ships combines the standard starting vehicles, with additions from the supplements. If the party chooses a ship worth less than 120,000 credits, you may spend the difference on modifications or additional vehicles (like speeder bikes or walkers).

I would amend this to only allow the surplus to be spent on modifications to that specific party ship. Otherwise, why not buy the cheapest ship, spend the surplus on cargo, then immediately sell the cargo to buy a lot of fancy gear. Just allows PCs to loophole around Obligations.

Obligation:

Given the variable party size for this campaign, players all start with a Rating 5 Obligation of his/her choice (pages 38-43 of the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook).

In addition, all players must take a Rating 5 Obligation (of any kind) that connects to your employer (Diving Belle’s Lightering, Portage, Ship-chandlers, Cargo, and Salvage). In exchange, you gain +1,000 starting credits that must be spent on goods related to your job at Diving Belle’s Salvage, or else are lost. You may still take on extra Obligation at character creation, for credits or XP, following the normal rules.

This seems like you're reinventing the wheel just to reinvent it and in the process making it more complicated. Seriously, if you want them to have more than the 3k credits they can already start with either just give it to them, or better yet make their first session a cake walk of a job that pays surprisingly well.

I think the goal for the Obligation is that all the players work for this company and he wants them to a) have obligation towards it, and b) have items that make sense for that profession. He could easily say everyone starts with 10, but 5 is towards the employer and the other 5 is player choice. Players can then take on additional obligation per the rules; then, separately, players get an extra 1000 credits but it must be spent on job related items or it is lost.

He just took those two restrictions and combined them.

A couple folks, both here and on /r/swrpg, asked for further explanation, so here goes:

1) Every one of these changes was inspired by a player/GM concern I read about here or on Reddit; that's why I wanted to compile these and bring them back to the folks who are more experienced with the system than I am. (That means you generous folks.)

2) I am asking about this stuff before I GM a few sessions precisely because I don't want to have to make my own rules on the fly. There have been thousands of people working with this game--many more than the number who designed/playtested it--who can attest to what does or does not need "fixing", or what is or is not "balanced" at this point. (See also: Scathing Tirade, Marauders, space combat Piloting checks, Autofire, etc.) I suspect you all are smarter than I am so I want your advice. My players are great RPers, only middling optimizers (on a good day, with a system they know well), and poor at adapting to rules changes in the middle of a game, so I want to run something great from the start.

3) I especially appreciate mechanical/balance concerns people have, and any fixes they can suggest. The "play style" or "group dynamics" stuff I can handle.

Thank you again to all the helpful thoughts. Looking forward to getting more.

1) Every one of these changes was inspired by a player/GM concern I read about here or on Reddit; that's why I wanted to compile these and bring them back to the folks who are more experienced with the system than I am. (That means you generous folks.)

I will in turn ask you the following:

1) How many of those posters on reddit have actually both played the game and have a firm understanding of the core mechanics?

2) How many of those same posters are used to playing d20/ Pathfinder that uses a standard array and forces you to have a "Dump Stat" for your class to focus else where?

3) In the Primary source material (Movies and Clone Wars), how many overly specialized characters do you see, outside of droids? How many characters (human or otherwise) are depicted with multiple characteristics that can be considered "below average" stats?

I get what you are tyring to do with the equipment, but it would be far easier for you and your players to just limit them to any a 5 point oblication to the company and any other 5 point one that they would like and provide them with "reasonable equipment" like EVA suits, Drills, Cutters, rebreathers, ect on their ship.

1) Every one of these changes was inspired by a player/GM concern I read about here or on Reddit; that's why I wanted to compile these and bring them back to the folks who are more experienced with the system than I am. (That means you generous folks.)

Take all the complaints you read on these forums or reddit or wherever else, with a grain of salt. I think there is something of a "unlearning" curve that comes with this system. And that creates a fair amount of grumbling in some circles. Are there a few places where the rules could probably use a bit of tightening up? Yeah absolutely, but character creation stuff is very balanced RAW. I think it is really easy for a group coming from d20 to throw that balance way out of whack with a bit of well intentioned tweaking. I strongly encourage you to try the system RAW before making major overhauls to the character creation mechanics.

1) How many of those posters on reddit have actually both played the game and have a firm understanding of the core mechanics?

2) How many of those same posters are used to playing d20/ Pathfinder that uses a standard array and forces you to have a "Dump Stat" for your class to focus else where?

Great questions, compadre. Precisely why I'm posting my own questions first.

As for your 3rd question: actually a bunch of characters have multiple areas of weakness. That's one of the things I love about the setting. My players traditionally like being able to play PCs who are weak in some areas, or very young, or very old. RAW, they can't play a member of a race that is one of those things.

Agree with most here, a lot of these are not necessary. Once you have played a while you'll see it.

I would specifically discourage the characteristic reduction. It goes against the basic concept of the SW setting that most sentients have a fair chance of doing a lot of different things. It also plays into that D&D trope #1 that, heck, if you're going to be a wizard, who needs Strength? Which is related to D&D trope #2, if a wizard needs to use Strength for something, the game is lost and you might as well write up a new character. This game isn't D&D and shouldn't be approached in the same way. My Diplomat player last night made an amazing shot and saved the party, even though he has 2 Agility and no skill: but an Accurate blaster, two manuevers to Aim, and a DP flip gave him what he needed to take down the Imperial probe droid.

That said, rules specific to your *campaign* should be fair game, and you might consider treating them separately. These aren't really house rules, they are campaign rules. If you want to offer a different range of ships or equipment, or insist the players have Obligation to a certain source because that's what the campaign centres around, by all means go for it. These kinds of things are just flavour, but don't threaten to unbalance the game or make things more difficult down the road to adjudicate.

I would say, although 2 is set as the "average", rolling only 2 Ability Dice is pretty underwhelming in the face hard difficulty (3 purple) So a player can say his Presence is his weak point, and if he keeps it where it is and shies away from training skills that use Presence, he'll be rolling pretty underwhelming Presence related checks.

There is a difference between "having a weakness" and being able to be considered significantly below average in a stat.

Luke is Head Strong and whiny but that does not translate into a Willpower of 1

Han is Very Self assured and cocky that does not translate into a Cunning of 1

Leia is never seen using a melee weapon that does not translate into a Brawn of 1

Chewie is a wookie of few words but that does not mean he has an intelligence of 1

3P0 on the other hand is show to be very fragile and not very athletic and would be able to justify having a Brawn and Dex of 1

This is basically a 5 point system, based on a human scale

1 - Significantly below standard

2 - Average

3 - Professional Level (about 1 in 10 or so)

4 - Extremely talented (about 1 in 100 or so)

5 - The best of the best (about 1 in 1000)

and not the 3 to 20 scale of d20/ Pathfinder where an 8 or 9 is slightly below the curve, 10 to 11 is average, 12 to 13 is slightly better and so on.

This is basically a 5 point system, based on a human scale

1 - Significantly below standard

2 - Average

3 - Professional Level (about 1 in 10 or so)

4 - Extremely talented (about 1 in 100 or so)

5 - The best of the best (about 1 in 1000)

I agree with the textual descriptions, but I disagree with the numerical comparatives. IMO, the numbers should be more like:

Professional should be about one in a thousand (1:1,000).

Extremely talented should be about one in a million (1:1,000,000).

The best of the best (on the planet) should be about one in a billion (1:1,000,000,000).

That would leave “Best in the galaxy” at one in a trillion. And we don’t even have a description for the level beyond that.

I don't get the need for an Obligation to the employer. Are they indentured servants? If the campaign centers around all the PCs working for the employer, the Obligation is superfluous unless they can't up and leave for some reason.

Alright, I'm fairly well convinced by the collective wisdom on toning down or eliminating most of these. Here's the one I'm stuck on:

Soak is equal to a character’s Brawn or Cunning rating (modified by gear and Talents as normal), and this choice must be made at character creation.

I feel fairly strongly that basing Soak off of Brawn (alone) is not only unrealistic (which is clear, but not the point) but, more importantly, against the tone of STAR WARS as I know it. (And it's the only rule in the books that immediately broke immersion for me; this game is that well-written that just this one thing stuck in my craw.)

No one in the films that I can think of takes a hit and feels it less (ie: has the damage reduced in potency, which is what Soak does) because they are strong. No one from the EU stuff that I know best experiences this. In a strangely realistic turn for the films, characters who survive wounds (or seem to suffer them less than they might) do so by dodging the main energy of the strike, moving quickly so they are only hit a glancing blow, using their situational and proprioceptive awareness to get out of the blast radius or to roll with a fall, and so on--not by being strong.

I DO think Brawn should add to Wound Threshold. I DO think it should add to Encumbrance allowance. I DO think it should be factored into handling the Cumbersome Weapon Quality. To those who say that it's imbalanced to take away the relevance of Brawn compared to other Characteristics, I would point out that Brawn seems to have more of an effect on derived attributes than any other Characteristic.

But I suggest Cunning as an alternative Characteristic for determining Soak because it represents short-term thinking, quick reactions, overall perception: the things that STAR WARS characters actually use to reduce the damage of shots that hit. (Sidenote: Some real life martial artists reduce the damage of shots that hit by simply willing themselves to fight through it. So maybe Willpower should be the alternate Soak stat--or are they simply trading for Strain? But those fighters are not widely considered skilled at defense, and I would rather be Willie Pep, Georgio Petrosyan, Sugar Ray Leonard, or Saenchai, who could still speak full sentences to their grandkids, than suffer like Muhammad Ali.)

I know I'm biased as a (RL) boxing coach, and I'm trying not to let that real life experience bias my perception of a make believe game. But it is driving me nuts that this system doesn't fully reflect the STAR WARS I know. So I'll happily hear a game balance reason for why I shouldn't allow Cunning--or maybe Willpower--to add to Soak. Otherwise that's the one I'm gonna have to hang on to, despite the furor.

Thanks again for the feedback, FFG forum folks.

Brawn is more than just strength though, it's toughness and fortitude. It's absolutely fitting to be the stat that lets you shrug off a blaster bolt. If you're going to say how many times do you see characters tough through blaster shots in the movies, you have be fair though: how many times in the movies or EU do main characters get hit by blasters at all? We don't see soak at work in the movies, we see lots of ranks in Dodge and Side Step.

I also think you don't understand what cunning represents in this game. From the CRB "Cunning reflects how crafty, devious, clever, and creative a character can be." I do not see how this helps you absorb a blaster bolt.

My suspicion is you're used to D&D where you have an Armor class based off of how hard you are to hit. That's what talents, cover, and some armors do in this game. Soak is damage reduction--how hard it is to hurt you once they hit you. It's best not to merge the two concepts when they're distinct.

1) Every one of these changes was inspired by a player/GM concern I read about here or on Reddit; that's why I wanted to compile these and bring them back to the folks who are more experienced with the system than I am. (That means you generous folks.)

Which brings us back to my question: what is it you are trying to fix? What - specifically - are your concerns about the game engine. What do you perceive as broken?

Never mind - found it.

No one in the films that I can think of takes a hit and feels it less (ie: has the damage reduced in potency, which is what Soak does) because they are strong. No one from the EU stuff that I know best experiences this. In a strangely realistic turn for the films, characters who survive wounds (or seem to suffer them less than they might) do so by dodging the main energy of the strike, moving quickly so they are only hit a glancing blow, using their situational and proprioceptive awareness to get out of the blast radius or to roll with a fall, and so on--not by being strong.

Okay, I think I see where you are getting hung up.

What the soak is, what the wounds are - they are not what you think they are. A successful attack roll, one that picks away at your wound threshhold is not a blaster bolt landing square in your chest. It is an abstract nickle and dime process, that wears your character down. When a blaster lands a square shot right to your chest? That's a crit.

Stepping outside of Star Wars for an example, consider the Truck Chase from Raiders. Indy is getting punched and kicked and dragged behind the truck and goes through the window - all of these things? These are slowly wearing away at his wound threshold.

However that one Nazi hanging off the trucks door? The one that shoots Indy in the arm? That gunshot is a crit. Actual, real damage to our hero.

Same thing with - oh, say, Die Hard. John McClaine gets exploded and punched and crashes through windows and dropped down airshafts for a whole bunch of slow chipping away at his wound threshold. Him and the glass shards in the feet? That's the crit.

That's the difference between the two, what the FFG engine brings to the table over D6 and its kin.

Agree with Desslok, it's really the crits that represent physical damage. Wounds should have been named "physical strain", as a complement to Strain which is "mental strain". The way I view it, if you take wounds, you haven't actually been hit yet, you're just really exerting yourself to avoid physical damage. You might jolt yourself or pull a muscle diving out of the way, which reflects why it takes longer to recover (1 per day without stimpacks), but it's nothing permanent.

Crits, on the other hand, linger and compound, as real physical damage would.

So in that sense, Brawn is the right stat for Soak. You pull fewer muscles, strain yourself less avoiding damage. Really, once you get hit badly (take a crit), your Brawn is not a factor. Only special Talents can reduce the effect of crits.

Alright, I'm fairly well convinced by the collective wisdom on toning down or eliminating most of these. Here's the one I'm stuck on:

Soak is equal to a character’s Brawn or Cunning rating (modified by gear and Talents as normal), and this choice must be made at character creation.

I feel fairly strongly that basing Soak off of Brawn (alone) is not only unrealistic (which is clear, but not the point) but, more importantly, against the tone of STAR WARS as I know it. (And it's the only rule in the books that immediately broke immersion for me; this game is that well-written that just this one thing stuck in my craw.)

No one in the films that I can think of takes a hit and feels it less (ie: has the damage reduced in potency, which is what Soak does) because they are strong. No one from the EU stuff that I know best experiences this. In a strangely realistic turn for the films, characters who survive wounds (or seem to suffer them less than they might) do so by dodging the main energy of the strike, moving quickly so they are only hit a glancing blow, using their situational and proprioceptive awareness to get out of the blast radius or to roll with a fall, and so on--not by being strong.

I DO think Brawn should add to Wound Threshold. I DO think it should add to Encumbrance allowance. I DO think it should be factored into handling the Cumbersome Weapon Quality. To those who say that it's imbalanced to take away the relevance of Brawn compared to other Characteristics, I would point out that Brawn seems to have more of an effect on derived attributes than any other Characteristic.

But I suggest Cunning as an alternative Characteristic for determining Soak because it represents short-term thinking, quick reactions, overall perception: the things that STAR WARS characters actually use to reduce the damage of shots that hit. (Sidenote: Some real life martial artists reduce the damage of shots that hit by simply willing themselves to fight through it. So maybe Willpower should be the alternate Soak stat--or are they simply trading for Strain? But those fighters are not widely considered skilled at defense, and I would rather be Willie Pep, Georgio Petrosyan, Sugar Ray Leonard, or Saenchai, who could still speak full sentences to their grandkids, than suffer like Muhammad Ali.)

I know I'm biased as a (RL) boxing coach, and I'm trying not to let that real life experience bias my perception of a make believe game. But it is driving me nuts that this system doesn't fully reflect the STAR WARS I know. So I'll happily hear a game balance reason for why I shouldn't allow Cunning--or maybe Willpower--to add to Soak. Otherwise that's the one I'm gonna have to hang on to, despite the furor.

Thanks again for the feedback, FFG forum folks.

If I were playing in your game, my Hutt entrepeneur, who is not agile or more strong then the standard of his species, will be a thank just because he is very cunning? You seriously think that make sense?

See I think Cunning comes in when a character comes up with clever ways to add setbacks which in turn makes a character harder to hit. The actual ability to soak is completely based on the endurance of the character.