Hi all,

I know this has been brought up a ton before, but before you click away, hear me entirely out.

Increasing characteristics can only be done during character creation, with the XP given for your species.

A powergamer that knows there will be 10+ sessions to gain XP (using arguably out-of-character knowledge) will see that this is the case, hear that developers suggest increasing characteristics at character creation, and use all of their starting experience to upgrade their characteristics and use future XP for skills and talents.

A roleplayer interested in enjoying the game and creating a well rounded character may increase one characteristic, but will mostly upgrade skills that fit their character idea during character creation, and use further xp to increase skills and talents.

I love EotE and how amazingly balanced it is, however, this is the sole case in which the game becomes a little bit unbalanced. And this happens in every other RPG I've played, the DnD powergamer is leaps above the DnD roleplayer in terms of power.

6 sessions in, the powergamer has 4 agility and 3 ranks in ranged (light) and plenty of room for improvement in the skill (GYYY), while the roleplayer has 2 agility and 5 ranks in ranged (light) GGGYY and cannot become any better at it (unless he wants to become part robot, which kills his character concept).

Now this is the only unbalanced part of the game - not knowing or not planning characteristics at character creation.

I would like to suggest - and I'd love to hear feedback - that throughout the campaign, a character may upgrade characteristics up to the maximum allowable at character creation . Not indefinitely racing to get all 5's in all characteristics, just allow anyone throughout the game to upgrade their characteristics as if they knew at character creation what the powergamer knew about characteristics.

What this means is that the roleplayed human at 6 sessions in can upgrade his characteristics as if he had powergamed at the first session, essentially evening the playing field between a powergamer and roleplayer. The roleplayer would be able to upgrade his characteristic to be that of the powergamer's.

E.g. Powergamed human takes 3,4,2,2,2,2,2, (spending 100xp on characteristics) and roleplayed human goes 2,3,2,2,2,2 (spending 30xp on characteristics). Later on in the game, 6 sessions in, the roleplayed human can still use 70xp that he's earned in the game to go towards characteristics. He can't upgrade characteristics past that. He can't spend 500xp to upgrade all his characteristics, he can just upgrade his characteristics throughout the game as if he knew that he should have done it during character creation .

This still keeps the roleplay aspect to the game, as characteristics aren't changing by very much but do show with a little hard work you can improve yourself a little bit, but crucially , it balances the game between a powergamer and a roleplayer.

This would be the first RPG I have seen that would be able to do that - balance the game between a powergamer and a roleplayer, and I'm excited that while this is still new we may be able to help to make it so balanced.

Let me know what you guys think, I'd love to hear good points against this idea.

EDIT: Clarifiation:

The term Powergamer is used as a term here for someone who knows that starting XP should be spent on characcteristics, while a roleplayer is used as a term for someone who does not. I'm sorry I chose those words, I should have labeled them A and B.

Also see this post for more clarification:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187594-characteristic-modification-after-character-creation/?p=1786148

EDIT:

Here are the dice roll probabilities:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187594-characteristic-modification-after-character-creation/?p=1797905

And here is the math showing the difference in success rate:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187594-characteristic-modification-after-character-creation/?p=1798257

Players can already get multiple levels of Dedication to up their Attributes, they just need to buy into new Specializations and work they're way up the Tree. If a way to do something already exists within the RAW there is no need for a House Rule.

Powergamers loose out in the early parts of the game by missing out on Force Powers, Talents and Skills, but gain them back over time. Those that choose to buy some Skills etc. rather than spend all there EXP on Attributes go the other route. The thing to remember is that either way is effective because the truth of the matter is that 3's in anything is generally enough to shine pretty bright in this system, 4's are great but rarely required, and 5+'s are mostly overkill.

Also keep in mind that as the GM just as you can vary results of Skll checks if the PC doesn't have a level in a particular Skill. A Success should always lead to a positive result but there is no rule that says you have to give the same positive result to someone who is unskilled but has a high Attribute as someone who has actually training.

Let me know what you guys think, I'd love to hear good points against this idea.

Same as what FuriousGreg said: It's not needed.

Additionally, if it had been seen as a need for the game, the devs would have included it as an option.

What you've described as "power gaming" really just isn't that unbalanced in what, in my mind, is a typical game (more on that below). IMO, your described 'power gamer' is losing more from spending 100 xp on his attributes than he's gaining. It's just opportunity cost.

Now, Given the order you've listed them in, I assume your powergamer is making a combat machine. If all you're running is combat encounters, then yes, it could be potentially unbalanced. This is largely due to what, in my opinion, is a relatively foolish design decision regarding skills, but this isn't the point of the thread from what I can tell.

If all you're running is combat encounters, then you may be 'doing it wrong.' Again, in my opinion, the game is intended to be more inclusive of other more narrative encounters (social, survival, etc.).

Regardless, it comes down to what your table needs. If your role-playing character is woefully unhappy with their attribute choices, let her buy the attributes with XP, or just re-create the character. Just don't let it get abused.

tl;dr To me the rule seems unneccesary, but my opinion (or anyone else's, for that matter) means little if it's absence is detrimental to your game in practice .

I don't know why you call "spending on characteristics" power gaming. First, it's what the rules recommend. Second, it's not exactly a massive "power upgrade" to take, say, three 3s as characteristics rather than leave them at the baseline. A focus on skills is more "power gamey" to me, because your options become extremely narrow and focussed. Plus it plays into the old D&D mindset of having a party of people who are only monolithically capable. SW doesn't feel like that to me...even Leia can weld stuff.

I also think it seems there's better solutions to your conundrum.

Running the numbers I don't see the powergamer as being all that better with his blaster then the non powergamer. Proficiency dice are better, but not that much better.

Have you considered analyzing the rest of each character and designing encounters around their respective strengths and weaknesses? I mean they can't both be gunfighters right?

Also if the powergamer is being sufficiently disruptive with his handguns you can get really nasty if you like: Put the party neck deep in trouble so they can't just back out. Use an opponent that's a Rival or better with "Imperial Valor" and a rank or two in Adversary. Equip him with a weapon like a fusion cutter, beamdrill, vibro axe, or lightsaber. Pair him with a couple good sized minion groups for ablative wounds. When the Rival goes in and attacks.... instead of activating crits... activate Sunder and kill the players weapon. All those ranged light skill points become worthless until his pistol is fixed or replaced.

As I said though, that's a rather specific encounter build, and not a nice thing to do so the players will likely feel picked on.

Perhaps grant 30 - 50 XP after character creation. Tell your players that the XP they get for character creation really should be spent on characteristics, but the little extra you are giving them can go towards skills, talents, or Force powers. The idea is to put everyone on an even level with their characteristics, but still give the players some XP to play with for the fun stuff.

I'm going to go in the not needed camp.

Yes, power gamers will generally put everything into attributes. I'm a serious role player in my games, but I also put it all into attributes. You occasionally have to make a sacrifice to keep a character more viable. Any starting character is going to be lacking things that are part of your core concept. You just use your imagination and except that there will be holes until you get a bit of exp under your belt. Assuming you have a half decent GM, they will know that you are going to be lacking skills that your character "should" have, and cut you some slack until you get some experience.

My super street savvy street rat of streetyness in a past game didn't actually have streetwise to start. I just shrugged and faked it. All the characters knew he was super street savvy and just played along until he got the actual skill.

If both are focused on stats then they're both powergamers imo. A role player isn't concerned with an optimum dice pool and stat breakdowns or matching the powergamer, if they are, then they're a powergamer also. They don't sit at the table and treat it as a success/failure test, they're there to play and fleshing out a character to them is about the way they play their character, not how successful they are with the dice.

The role player example you gave will also have accessed talents sooner than they power gamer like Deadly Accuracy, which with a 5 skill, will put their damage ahead of the power gamer. Also having spent more xp sooner on other talents they will have accessed other things like Lethal Blows making their crits deadlier, and any number of other talents that buff them both offensively and defensively sooner than the power gamer. There is also a critical that can impact Agility negatively, the role player with the higher skill will be more dismissive of that crit result sooner, as with a 5 skill their dice pool never gets smaller.

I disagree in your example that the power gamer has any real advantage at all except maybe a slight edge on success rate. Both builds in the same tree will off set one another, one through raw characteristic the other by achieving more useful talents sooner.

*shrug* - Skills come easy, stats not so much. I don't see it as powergaming to sink all your starting points into attributes since A) you already get six-ish skills (depending on race and if you're a Jedi) and B) 20 points at the end of your first session will buy you a ton of 1 and 2 dice in skills. Meanwhile your first +1 for attributes is at least 75 points away, with 95 for your second +1.

So yeah, grab those attributes while the grabbing is good and piffle to the "But you're powergaming!" crowd!

So basically FFG is advocating 'Power gaming' by telling us to focus starting xp on characteristics then?

I strongly disagree that adding to your chaacteristics at the only time possible is power gaming especially as they designed the game to work as such.

Another option for the GM is to allow the players to re-spec their characters. If things aren’t working out as they had hoped and it’s because they put the wrong points into the wrong things, then the GM could choose to let them go back to the beginning and re-spec according to the standard character generation rules, and then re-apply the XP earned after generation to the powers and talents and skills, etc….

But so long as the two extremes aren’t too far out-of-whack, it is my belief that the GM could design the encounters to better challenge them in appropriate ways. So, the powergamer might face a stronger/deadlier opponent, while the roleplayer might face an opponent that is less deadly. And likewise in skills-oriented areas where the roleplayer might normally fare better — they face the more talented/skilled opposition, while the other players face less talented/skilled opponents.

I don't understand why you feel that spending most of your starting xp is "power gaming". I once spend most of my starting xp to build a Gand Politico.

The power game label in probably not a good one to use. Not taking advantage of buying stats when you can at the beginning is just not terribly cost effective. You invariably will come up short doing a lot of tasks if you have sub par stats, and that ground can only be made up realistically at that point by buying skills.

Awesome discussion! I'm glad I'm hearing some other voices in the conversation!

I made this post then walked away and forgot about it - I'm going to slowly make my way through all of these comments and reply to each.

First of all, let me say thank you so much for your feedback! All of this is great and it's nice to have a sounding board for me thinking through some possible house rules for this game.

Secondly, I'm using the words "powergamer" and "roleplayer" as ways to describe two ways of playing - one where the player knows the game well and knows that they should put all their points into characteristics, and a second that does not know the game as well, and is not planning ahead as well (and doesn't know that they should put their points into characteristics).

So let me summarize the points being made against this idea:


1. The developers tell us to put points into attributes, so it's not powergaming at all. It's the only time, it's designed to work that way by FFG, and the next time you can do it is 75xp into a talent tree for dedication, so do it now. Serious roleplayers also put their starting XP into characteristics.

I don't mean to bring about the associations of munchkin-ing or min-maxing when you put your starting XP into characteristics, just that if you do, you know something that another player may not, until it's a few sessions in and too late to change their character.

All I want to do is help those players who didn't know this curcial bit of information.

For convention's sake, powergamer refers to the player that knew to put points into characteristics, and the roleplayer refers to the one who didn't.

2. Roleplayers can just take talents in dedication to increase their characteristics if they need it.

Yes, however that it a 75xp-95xp cost away, whereas the player that knew to put points into characteristics doesn't need to drudge through 4 or more talents in the talent trees to get at it, and already has a higher characteristic (and the powergamer can also get into the talent tree to get their characterstic even higher).



3. Powergamers lose out early game for not putting points into force powers, talents, and skills. The roleplayer example will also have accessed talents sooner than the power gamer, which are really powerful.

I'm arguing a heavy characteristics vs. heavy skills player. The heavy talent player is a third option that I hadn't fully considered as it's much harder to quantify, but will defintely be worse off on skill checks than both heavy characteristisc player and heavy skills player. The heavy talent player will probably make up for it in some ways, but I'm not sure how to quantify that.

Also, below, powergamers (charcteristics focused players) have a higher success chance than roleplayers(skill focused players) at level 1.



4. This only is important in combat heavy games (aka maxing agility/brawn), and this doesnt affect more social games

This is important for all skill checks, both social and combat - I would argue even more non-combat, as taking 4 3s as a human gives a higher success chance in many more skills than putting those points into skills (as seen below).



5. It's not much better to take three 3s as characteristics rather than leave them at the baseline. Points into skills is more power-gamey than points into characteristics

Let's take a "powergamed" human character that spent all his starting XP to get as many 3s in characteristics as possible, and compare it to a "roleplayed" human character that spent all of the starting XP on skills.

The powergamer will get 3 ability dice (GGG) in his important skills, while the roleplayer will get 2 proficency dice (YY) on his important skills.

Ability die (d8) have 4 one success sides (4 * 1 * 1/8) and 1 two success side (1 * 2 * 1/8) gives an expected value of successes per roll at 0.75 per die, for a total of 2.25 average successes for the powergamer per skill check.

Proficiency die (d12) have 6 one success sides (6 * 1 * 1/12) and 2 two success sides (2 * 2 * 1/12) which gives an expected value of successes of 0.8333 per die, for a total of 1.666 average successes for the roleplayer per skill check.

Add in the fact that the powergamer will get a few free skill points in some of those skills means the powergamer gets 2.333 average successes per skill check.

So the powergamer is not giving anything up in the beginning, they are in fact, more powerful than a player who doesn't know to upgrade characteristics at character creation. There may theoretically be a point in the middle where the skill player has better chances of success, but later on, the powergamer has better characteristics and so will end up with better chances of success.

(Math done by a friend in real life with whom I had this conversation)

Add to this that your dice pool is made up of the minimum and maximum of your skill and characteristic, and our roleplayer maxes out at GGGYY while the powergamer can have GGYY or GGGYY with plenty of room to grow.

Brawn of 2, Melee of 5 = GGGYY - Can't get any better
Brawn of 5, Melee of 2 = GGGYY - Plenty of upward mobility

So if a player doesn't put points into characteristics, then they will do poorly BOTH at the early game, as well as at the late game.

-----

So, I hope this helps clear up the change I'm suggesting, Let me know if i didn't actually put up your argument correctly or argued against something in the wrong way.

Thanks and I hope to hear more feedback!

-JJrodny

EDIT: Ability Dice have 3 sides with 1 success and 1 side with 2 successes giving an expected value of 0.625 instead of 0.75, which means for three dice its 2.08333 expected successes

This feels like an exploit, thus is probably an exploit. Shouldn't be done.

One could make an effective but narrowly-focused character at the start, spending points in skills and talents to all-but-guarantee success in a niche (a "one-shot" character) and later spend plentiful earned XP to get the full 120XP ability retconned investment as though one had made a "campaign" character all along.

I need to correct a mistake you often made Jrodny

a brawn 2, melee 5 character will roll YYYG dice pool, not YYGGG

At the end it depend of the character concept. If you want to play a big brute that can cleave someone with a vibro axe without much training, it would look like the brawn 5, melee 2 character. But if you want to play a fragile master assassin that can slice a throat in a single move will look like a brawn 2, melee 5 character.

The difference is the big brute, because he is naturally tough, will also be good at wounding someone with his fist or resist the hot temperature of Ryloth. The assassin is only good a killing you with a melee weapon. It's really depend of your concept.

What's wrong with power gaming? Assuming this is power gaming (and it's not) what's wrong with it? Some people have natural talents (higher attributes). Other people are more skilled at things (higher skills). That's life. This game reflects that variation between natural talent and training very well. Labeling buying up your attributes at character generation as power gaming, despite the fact that the book actually says DO THIS and then labeling skill buying as role playing (which it isn't btw) is just a way to prejudiced people against buying up attributes. It serves no real purpose.

Besides the guy who bought up his attributes ..... that power gamer ...... for all any of us know he's the better role player. Nothing about buying attributes has anything to do with ones ability to actually role play.

I'd like to start by saying that this topic would bear *much* more weight if you had identified an issue in play, and then came to discuss solutions (general or specific) for an issue of balance that had actually demonstrated to exist . This type of proposal came up tons during the EotE beta, but then no-one who was actually playing the game actually seemed care . Frankly that, should be telling.

Basically, this seems like a solution in search of a problem.

Additional thoughts on your responses:

Secondly, I'm using the words "powergamer" and "roleplayer" as ways to describe two ways of playing - one where the player knows the game well and knows that they should put all their points into characteristics, and a second that does not know the game as well, and is not planning ahead as well (and doesn't know that they should put their points into characteristics).

This is not true for every case, and I would even argue that it's not true for *most* cases. This statement *heavily* depends on the spec (in terms of available talents) and skills involved. Lots of talents add boost dice to skills, and the boost die is actually obscenely powerful when you quantify its symbol distribution (e.g. it's way more effective to add a boost die to a pool than to upgrade an ability die to a proficiency die).

I found the math you've presented here difficult to follow, especially since I'm not clear why you're comparing YY to GGG. I think this has to do with the fact that your math was produced by someone else. When I get home tonight, I'll produce the math that demonstrates my point and post it. Even within what you've written, the difference in the results is less than a success (2.25 - 1.66 = .6 successes) which is barely noticeable in practice. Additionally your "role player's" results are producing Triumphs (at an average rate of 1 per 6 rolls) which can be extremely valuable, albeit exceptionally difficult to quantify.

In reference to combat, my comment was in respect to a game/campaign that ends up being almost *exclusively* combat oriented, in which case the behavior you've described becomes unbalancing.

I'll add more later.

tl;dr: I don't think I can summarize my response more succinctly than "Solution looking for a problem."

I need to correct a mistake you often made Jrodny

a brawn 2, melee 5 character will roll YYYG dice pool, not YYGGG

No, Brawn 2/Melee 5 characters will roll YYGGG for their skill. That's correct.

The rule is dice equal to the larger of the skill/attribute pair, upgrade # of times equal to the lower value.

Actually not sure where you're even getting YYYG, that would a 3 upgraded four times, or vice versa.

I think you are making a mountain over a mole hill. If you are doing something that the rules recommend not doing and calling it role playing and calling some one who follows the recommendation a power gamer....That is just silly. There is a system for raising attributes after character generation already in place. Use that. Trying to fix a non problem is going to break more things than fix.

a brawn 2, melee 5 character will roll YYYG dice pool, not YYGGG

Where in the book does it say that?

The bottom of page 16 of the beta book says:

"The player compares his ranks of skill training and the linked characteristic's rating. The higher value between the two determines how many Ability dice are added to the skill check's dice pool. Then the player upgrades a number of those Ability dice into Proficiency dice based on the lower of those two values."

So it would be 5 ability dice (GGGGG) for brawn of 5, then a skill of two means we upgrade two of the Ability dice to Proficiency dice (GGGYY). And we'd get YYGGG for both Brawn 5 Skill 2 or Skill 5 brawn 2.

* EDIT Lethal dose beat me to it

Thanks for the input!

What's wrong with power gaming? Assuming this is power gaming (and it's not) what's wrong with it? Some people have natural talents (higher attributes). Other people are more skilled at things (higher skills). That's life. This game reflects that variation between natural talent and training very well. Labeling buying up your attributes at character generation as power gaming, despite the fact that the book actually says DO THIS and then labeling skill buying as role playing (which it isn't btw) is just a way to prejudiced people against buying up attributes. It serves no real purpose.

Besides the guy who bought up his attributes ..... that power gamer ...... for all any of us know he's the better role player. Nothing about buying attributes has anything to do with ones ability to actually role play.

Secondly, I'm using the words "powergamer" and "roleplayer" as ways to describe two ways of playing - one where the player knows the game well and knows that they should put all their points into characteristics, and a second that does not know the game as well, and is not planning ahead as well (and doesn't know that they should put their points into characteristics).

So let me summarize the points being made against this idea:


1. The developers tell us to put points into attributes, so it's not powergaming at all. It's the only time, it's designed to work that way by FFG, and the next time you can do it is 75xp into a talent tree for dedication, so do it now. Serious roleplayers also put their starting XP into characteristics.

I don't mean to bring about the associations of munchkin-ing or min-maxing when you put your starting XP into characteristics, just that if you do, you know something that another player may not, until it's a few sessions in and too late to change their character.

All I want to do is help those players who didn't know this curcial bit of information.

For convention's sake, powergamer refers to the player that knew to put points into characteristics, and the roleplayer refers to the one who didn't.

"Some people have natural talents (higher attributes). Other people are more skilled at things (higher skills). That's life. This game reflects that variation between natural talent and training very well."

But a player who does not upgrade characteristics at character creation necessarily is worse off in the beginning (see math above), and at the end because the 2s in characteristic limit them to only two yellow proficiency dice throughout the game. So they are worse off, and this makes the game unbalanced against those that don't know to put XP into characteristics

This feels like an exploit, thus is probably an exploit. Shouldn't be done.

Great point,

Based on my experience with this system and others, this gain tends to be very minor. Now, if you actually find this to be a problem, the solution should be relatively simple: simply let the "roleplayer" respec (i.e. re-create their character with the number of XP they have) once. By the time they're noticing, it should be clear how they can improve their character. Limiting it to one-time-only is merely to avoid abuse.

And I think this may be the solution - allow newbie players to respec as if they did so during character creation. I like this and it would balance the playing field between a newbie and a expert.

What I don't like about a lot of RPGs is this below: expert players naturally create better characters:

How is this a problem? Based on your definitions ("Power gamer" = well-informed player; "Role-player" = poorly-informed/novice player), this seems a tautology: The better informed player is the better informed player , and the player who better understands the system will *always* be able to create more effective characters.

And I think this allowing a respec or allowing players to upgrade their characteristics up to what they could have during character creation is the way to absolutely balance the game between a novice and an expert.

Thanks for the input!

I'd like to start by saying that this topic would bear *much* more weight if you had identified an issue in play, and then came to discuss solutions (general or specific) for an issue of balance that had actually demonstrated to exist . This type of proposal came up tons during the EotE beta, but then no-one who was actually playing the game actually seemed care . Frankly that, should be telling.

Good point, I'm bringing it up because it has happened at our table, where some players knew to upgrade their characteristics while others didn't. The players that didn't put their points into skills and are necessarily gimped at only two proficiency dice for every skill in the long run. That means less triumphs and less probability of successes.

Add to that the math and we see that these characters are gimped in the early and late game, which seems unbalanced.