In one of the Bond movies, when someone (maybe Q?) mentions how something works on the average person he responds something to the effect of, "I don't meet many average people in this business."

I wouldn't look at the game's rules to try and decide this sort of thing for me. In fact, the game rules say that you shouldn't be rolling for mundane, average stuff so the game mechanics aren't really set up to reflect this. Parallel parking is a challenge for some people in real life but that wouldn't make me yank out dice and tell a player to roll when he parked his landspeeder. The average person just does his average things without needing to roll. He parallel parks... unless its important that he doesn't. He might never imagine that a lock is "average to pick" because, to him, it isn't. To an adventurer, though, it's a different story... and THAT is the story we're telling.

A very fine point and I guess that`s why we have the Simple difficulty.

However, when I play my Superhero game(Justice Guild of Ankh-Morpork) using Truth and Justice and the PDQ system the book encourages you to roll as little as possible and only when there is a considerable risk of failure with real consequence and it is important. And if the challenge are lower than your Quality, it`s always an automatic success. This fits the freeform, improv philosophy of that system and especially the superhero setting.

In Star Wars FFG however, I feel they incourage you to roll the dice a lot more, since they are narrative tools in the system and because failure and threats are fun too and take the story in unexpected directions. I`m not saying you should roll for mundane stuff like parking or taking off if there aren`t story reasons or some risk or threatening element involved of course:p

GGPP has an overall probability of at least one success of about 43.5%, according to the dice roll simulator at <http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#ability=2&difficulty=2>.

The decimals change everytime I hit the generate button, and I don`t change the dice pool... ?

Edit: I like the link you posted, but does it show how likely it is to have a + number of successes after failures have been cancelled out or just how likely it is that a success will show up on the dice at all?

The decimals change everytime I hit the generate button, and I don`t change the dice pool… ?

It’s a Monte Carlo simulation, so they roll the dice something like 1000 times and see how often the numbers come up which way. So, there’s always going to be minor variations from one to the next, even if you don’t change the pool. But those should only be minor variations.

Edit: I like the link you posted, but does it show how likely it is to have a + number of successes after failures have been cancelled out or just how likely it is that a success will show up on the dice at all?

It’s all netted out for you. So, if you roll two Success and one Failure, that’s one Net Success.

The fact that ties between Success and Failure means Failure is what causes GGPP to be less than 50% probability of getting at least one net Success.

The decimals change everytime I hit the generate button, and I don`t change the dice pool… ?

It’s a Monte Carlo simulation, so they roll the dice something like 1000 times and see how often the numbers come up which way. So, there’s always going to be minor variations from one to the next, even if you don’t change the pool. But those should only be minor variations.

Edit: I like the link you posted, but does it show how likely it is to have a + number of successes after failures have been cancelled out or just how likely it is that a success will show up on the dice at all?

It’s all netted out for you. So, if you roll two Success and one Failure, that’s one Net Success.

The fact that ties between Success and Failure means Failure is what causes GGPP to be less than 50% probability of getting at least one net Success.

So 43% net successes means you fail 57% of the time... I got confused by the next symbol on the top line, failure, because it has 28% behind it. So is it 43% net Success, 28% net Failure and the rest is Draw(also Fail..)?

I feel bad at this:p ...

So 43% net successes means you fail 57% of the time... I got confused by the next symbol on the top line, failure, because it has 28% behind it. So is it 43% net Success, 28% net Failure and the rest is Draw(also Fail..)?

Correct:

~43% One or more net Success

~28% One or more net Failure

~29% No net Success or Failure (i.e., also failure)

= 100%

I feel bad at this:p ...

It’s definitely a little confusing, at least until you understand what numbers mean what.

So, using Litheon’s Dice Probability Generator (the code is at <https://github.com/Neolitheon/EotE-Dice-Probability>), we can do this a different way:

$ ruby dicecalculator.rb -D:AADD

++++RESULTS for Dice Pool: AADD++++

Total Chance of Success: 43.51%

Total Chance of Advantage: 28.56%

Total Chance of Threat: 43.53%

Total Chance of Failure Symbol: 28.59%

+++++++++++++++

Or, we can look for certain targets:

$ ruby dicecalculator.rb -D:AADD -T:SA

++++RESULTS for Dice Pool: AADD++++

Total Chance of Success: 43.51%

Total Chance of Advantage: 28.56%

Total Chance of Threat: 43.53%

Total Chance of Failure Symbol: 28.59%

Total Chance of Reaching Target (SA): 4.61%

+++++++++++++++

The advantage to Litheon’s program is that it is not a Monte Carlo simulator, it is actually calculating the precise probabilities, to the precision displayed. Moreover, because it gives us the ability to select targets, we can check things like “You need X Successes and Y Advantage, based on a dice pool of XYZZY…”.

I am just going to keep it very simple here. Anytime that you have three or more Proficiency/Ability dice in your pool means your pretty good.

In a way I am still kind of bummed out that you don't have "Ability Dice", and "Skill Dice", instead you take the higher of the two, and those are your green dice, then the lower number, be it Skill Training, or Ability, you turn into Yellow dice. So if I have a 3 Ability, and Two Ranks of a skill, that will give me 2 Y and 1 G. At the same time someone can have a 2 Ability and Three Ranks in the skill and have the exact same pool, 2 Y 1 G. I feel that many don't understand this. (I am not saying here on the forum, well maybe some, but I mean people I have gamed with...)

So in short, the average difficulty in the game is well...Average. 2 Purple dice. Most of the time a lot of PC's will be rolling either 1Y 1G or three or more dice. So to me, when is someone good at something?... When they have three or more dice to the skill roll. But then again, 2 yellow dice ain't bad either. So I would start with at the 2 Yellow, or 3 dice or more idea!

You all need to go take your mathematical hi-jinks somewhere else! Ain't nobody got time for that!

In a way I am still kind of bummed out that you don't have "Ability Dice", and "Skill Dice", instead you take the higher of the two, and those are your green dice, then the lower number, be it Skill Training, or Ability, you turn into Yellow dice. So if I have a 3 Ability, and Two Ranks of a skill, that will give me 2 Y and 1 G. At the same time someone can have a 2 Ability and Three Ranks in the skill and have the exact same pool, 2 Y 1 G. I feel that many don't understand this. (I am not saying here on the forum, well maybe some, but I mean people I have gamed with...)

I have never gotten the impression that anyone didn`t get it. Higher number of Characteristic and Skills tells you how many dice, the lowest number of the two tells you how many are upgraded to proficiency dice. Simple and straight forward.

I am glad they did it this way, it makes sense and keeps it balanced and easy. Highest number, lowest number, that`s it.

You all need to go take your mathematical hi-jinks somewhere else! Ain't nobody got time for that!

Hehe, yea, I kind of agree But it`s nice to know that average fails or succeeds more or less than half of the time. But yea, no reason to get more into it than that.

Greens is natural talent, Yellows is imtimate knowledge/training.

1 is exceptionally inapt. Beyond trival tests this character just doesn't have any appitude for this section. My characters willpower is 1, so his composure breaks quite easily under stress.

2 is distinctly average.

3 is good, the person shows broad adaptiablity in skills of this area.

4 is gifted, this character is a real natural in skills of this area.

5 and 6 is exceptionally talented, the top 0.1% of a given population, even if untrained in an area the character's broad training is enough to improvise effective situations. Hacker doing surgery? Broadly speaking he picks up a mannal, researchs the area he's meant to be treating and manages to improvise a solution.

0 ranks is no training

1 Rank shows old knowledge or a fleeting famlarity with this area; or an initive.

2 Ranks shows basic training; this person, if he lacked talent, would probably be employed for a basic job, or a basic instructor.

3 Ranks is your average professional, these people could be paid good money for this talent.

4 Is Professional, if you were a scientist you would be leading in your field. People would recongise that you are skilled and defer to your experience.

5 Is legendary, if you were an ace pilot legends would spread about how you outflew vader once. You're knowledge in this skill is as instinctive as waving an arm.


Combine the two descriptions, you have where your character is. Wedge in the first movie was probably a hero merely by surviving, but by the Return of the Jedi, he had truly become a pilot to match his reputation.

Greens is natural talent, Yellows is imtimate knowledge/training.

Greens can be the result of Skill training too, if you have a higher number of Skill Ranks than the related Characteristic number.

In a way I am still kind of bummed out that you don't have "Ability Dice", and "Skill Dice", instead you take the higher of the two, and those are your green dice, then the lower number, be it Skill Training, or Ability, you turn into Yellow dice. So if I have a 3 Ability, and Two Ranks of a skill, that will give me 2 Y and 1 G. At the same time someone can have a 2 Ability and Three Ranks in the skill and have the exact same pool, 2 Y 1 G. I feel that many don't understand this. (I am not saying here on the forum, well maybe some, but I mean people I have gamed with...)

I have never gotten the impression that anyone didn`t get it.

Do you have that impression now?

I seem to remember the math saying that adding a green die gives you a higher chance for success than converting a green to yellow. So YGG is better than YY if you are just charting success/failure.

My opinion is that 3 dice is good, not great, but good. 4 dice is gifted, 5 is superior, 6 is amazing, 7 is best of the best.

If Y are less than half of the pool, their technique is unrefined -- either through poor schooling or physical limitations.

I seem to remember the math saying that adding a green die gives you a higher chance for success than converting a green to yellow. So YGG is better than YY if you are just charting success/failure.

This is true. The reverse is true for upgrading vs increasing difficulty.

I seem to remember the math saying that adding a green die gives you a higher chance for success than converting a green to yellow. So YGG is better than YY if you are just charting success/failure.

This is true. The reverse is true for upgrading vs increasing difficulty.

In fact, converting a P -> R actually increases the likelihood of success, while increasing the likelihood of threats (and adding the possibility of a despair).

My mistake, I re-ran the numbers and it looks like I was wrong.

To me, "good at a skill" means being able to do Hard stuff regularly, or Average stuff in adverse conditions. So YYY or YYGG at least.

Fair enough. So starting characters are never good at any skills after character creation if they don`t have at least 4 in a characteristic then? or even later if they mostly focus on talents? Or in skills where you have one in the characteristic you will never really be any good.. Tough system! Nothing wrong with that, the system sure makes you feel like a regular guy in a gritty world if you fail at average tasks and challenges a lot of the time. Failing can be fun too, so it`s all good I guess.

Yes. You aren't "good" at things right out of character creation. Just like any other game. Why? If you were good at something then there is no room for growth. It just seems weirder in this system than in D&D because how the Challenges are set up by the GM differ so much. In D&D a 1st level character will only see low difficulty numbers to roll over while a 20th level character will see high numbers. However, the question of "what is average" is asked while keeping in mind the character's level. The FFG Star Wars games do not have levels, so there is no standard for what is an "average" difficulty for a 1st or 20th level character. What comes out of these discussions is, "what is average over the life of a character" which is a much different question than "what is average for a starting character."

To get a good answer, you first need to define what you mean by average. Do you want to know what is an average difficulty for a beginning character or one with months of experience behind them? Also, how do we define average success? 50% rate success against an "average difficulty" roll of two purples? 75% success rate? Personally, I don't think 50% is good enough of a success rate for an average roll against an average difficulty in a game like Star Wars where threats and despair flavor the results so much. You aren't an average student if you score 50% on a test in school.

Personally, I don't start feeling confident in rolling dice until I have at least one more die than the difficulty. So, for an "average" difficulty of two purples I'd want to be rolling three dice (the more yellows the better). This gives me above a 50% chance of success, but as mentioned above, I want to answer more than 50% of those test questions correctly. Perhaps I should call this a "heroic average" or something to define that I expect better results than 50% for something a normal untrained person would find to be "average" difficulty.

As for when I think a skill is good, at least four dice with at least two yellows but I'd prefer at least three. Yes, I do feel that pure training (or ability) alone is not enough. I feel to be "good" at something you need both. In this I agree with Whafrog, as quoted above, but I'd prefer at least one more die than he listed for my weighted "heroic average." Maybe I'm setting the bar high, but that's what I expect out of heroic characters.

By the way, I do believe they mention what each skill rank means somewhere in the books. The one I always remember is that two ranks is like college training. Sure, that may seem like a lot, but it really isn't. Gaining experiences on the job build upon the college education and give you those extra skill ranks to be actually good at something.

My opinion is that 3 dice is good, not great, but good. 4 dice is gifted, 5 is superior, 6 is amazing, 7 is best of the best.

If Y are less than half of the pool, their technique is unrefined -- either through poor schooling or physical limitations.

How you getting 7 dice when maximum skill level is 5 and attribute level is 6?

Without some serious 'upgrades' that depend on Talents and very specific situations?

Yes. You aren't "good" at things right out of character creation. Just like any other game. Why? If you were good at something then there is no room for growth.

This is only true in some systems. Many systems aren`t about gaining power and many don`t even have experience points. In some systems your character can get "broader", but won`t grow much in power. In some systems you can start out strong or weak and it doesn`t matter, because those games are more about narrative influence and/or control than power. EotE is in many ways a narrative game, but with some crunch and power development thrown into it.

In D&D you grow and grow and have an insane power growth ratio. That wouldn`t fit the EotE gameplay and style at all and the system has a pretty defined power treshold. I think it`s quite possible to start out being good at at least a couple of skills in this game.

My opinion is that 3 dice is good, not great, but good. 4 dice is gifted, 5 is superior, 6 is amazing, 7 is best of the best.

If Y are less than half of the pool, their technique is unrefined -- either through poor schooling or physical limitations.

How you getting 7 dice when maximum skill level is 5 and attribute level is 6?

Without some serious 'upgrades' that depend on Talents and very specific situations?

Cybernetics.

The Dice system of EotE is realy interessting. I have the feeling, that it is chosen exactly so difficult that the normal player doesn't care about mathematics of success anymore and just thinks "uh, shiny colored dices" and is happy with that. Thats realy a good thing so peole focus more on roleplaying.

I never got deep into the dice chancec either, but what i did is I calculated the "average success/dispair per dice". You just count the success/dispair symbols and devide them throu the number of sides the dice has (6, 8 or 12 if I remember correctly). This gave me a good overview of how powerfull dices are. There were some interessting results, unfortunatly i don't have the sheet with me right now, but maybe I find it this evening then I post you some of my thoughts.

Two things I remember: First, having an extra dice is better than upgrading one (ok, lets Ignore the Triumph thing for that, that can sometimes rock and sometimes... its just a success with cooler fluff), so GGG>GY. Second, the dices are unsymetric, so a green was better than a purple, and if u upgrade them, If i remember correctly, the bad dices got worse then the good ones become better. But the blues beat the blacks.

To the original question: I would consider some good when he throws 4 dices. 4 dices are realy strong, if there are upgraded, sure they are even better, but from my table experience, 4 dices do the realy hard things, like high difficulty stuffs(you magaed to fligh throu an asteroid field with WHAT speed?) , or attack rolls when the players go crazy "OHHH 4 successes and 6 advantages, uh thats 11 Damage and 2 crits, he knocks at least 3 stormtroopers out with one blaster shot!"