So echani are pretty much my favorite race and I would like to translate them into the game.

Echani

Brawn 2

Agility 2

Intelligence 2

Cunning 2

Willpower 2

Presence 2

WT 10+ Brawn

ST 10+Willpower

XP 110

Character starts with 1 free rank in brawl, brawl may not be bought above 2 during character creation

All echani are trained to anticipate combat from an early age and thus Echani gain 1 rank in the Dodge talent

Racial restriction Echani are uncomfortable in heavy armors and increase the difficulty of all combat checks they make when wearing

armor over an encumberance of 4

An echani may pay 10xp at character creation to permenant buy off this penalty.

Wouldnt that mean someone could start with 2-all stats, 2 free combat ranks and 100xp with no drawbacks?

Isnt that just plain better than a human?

This is a very good start.

Dodge is a pretty good talent, and I'm suspect of including it in the stat.

At the least drop the starting XP down to 100.

well humans get 110xp and don't have to buy off any restrictions and get 2 free skills at rank 1.

echani get 110xp but have to buy off a pretty hefty armor restriction and get only 1 free skill which is brawl (probably the least powerful of the combat skills)

dodge seemed the best way to represent a race who communicates in combat and seems to anticipate enemy attacks. it is also a 5 point talent in Assassin and Infiltrator.

Honestly I'd suggest just treating the Echani as being Humans, and use one of their non-career skill ranks to buy a rank in Brawl if it's not already a career skill.

Dodge is probably a little powerful. How about "Echani Martial Arts: After making a Brawl attack, gain Defensive 1 until your next turn."

Edited in response to excellent comments below.

Dodge is probably a little powerful. How about "Echani Martial Arts: Brawl attacks gain Defensive 1."

I guess the question is "how many specs get Dodge as a Row 1 talent?" in terms of judging if Dodge is too much. That was largely the metric that Cyril and I used to determine what talents to dole out to many of the species we covered in the USM. If the talent was commonly found in the first row of multiple specializations, then it was probably good to hand out a free rank to.

Personally, I'd say a free rank in Melee Defense (which is about what your suggestion equates to) could be just as bad if not worse. After all, even with the "Brawl attacks only" restriction you're still getting into a degree of metagaming and/or bookkeeping in terms of tracking when the Echani PC is or isn't using empty-hand attacks.

Defensive 1 essentially means +1 melee defense or a 25 point talent which is very powerful and requires no activation cost.

Dodge 1 is found at 5 points in 2 specs assassin and infiltrator so it is not that common but it is also not so rare.

The reason I am pushing so hard for dodge is because they tend to predict enemy attacks before they happen without the force and dodge is the only talent in the game that seems to approprately account for that.

The other big Echani thing is that unlike the mandolorians they perferred to wear light armors so as not to restrict there fluid combat styles. I view the armor restriction as a serious penalty as a regular character can put on heavy battle armor whereas an echani cannot.

The advantage of heavy battle armor is either an extra defense and several HP over a padded armor or an extra soak and several hp over armored clothing.

In balance I think being able to raise 4 stats to 3 and getting dodge with the armor penalty balances out and if you are buying off the penalty then you will at most have 3 stats at 3 and be at a disadvantage.

I guess the real question here is what kind of game are you running. If the game is heavily personal combat focused then dodge may be more useful then in a game where you are a dog fighting rebel X/Y wing squad and skilled jockey becomes the skill thats used every session.

In my game anything that affects mechanics rolls seems to be the most powerful as repairing the ship after your 1 free roll to repair is very time consuming and pricey.

When I break it down as different from the human template I basically say point wise choosing any 2 skills vs brawl and dodge as coming out equal, but the armor restriction balances out the op combat aspect of the class,

I really don't see the Armor restriction as that balancing. A race that doesn't want to wear heavy armor can't mechanically wear heavy armor. Yeah .... big penalty there .....It's not really a penalty if the race were already disinclined to not do it anyway. I think Donovan is right in that they are more or less humans who focus on Brawl.

Honestly amrothe, I wonder if maybe you're too invested in making this a thing. As the old writer's adage goes, sometimes you have to be ready to kill your darlings.

That and I did say that what amounts to a free point in Melee Defense was as bad if not worse than a free rank in Dodge.

Though I do like Col. Orange's suggestion of having it be a special effect of a successful Brawl attack. Dodge is good vs. melee and ranged attacks. Since the Legends lore on the Echani has then focused on close-quarters fighting, instead have it so that they only have to spend 1 Advantage instead of 3 to gain +1 to Melee Defense until the start of their next turn when making a successful Brawl or Melee attack check. This way, it's not "always on" and the PC does have to devote a resource (Advantage) in addition to being successful in hitting the target.

Well what about using defensive stance instead of dodge, I think that could also represent dropping into one of the echani forms that gives a bit more melee defense.

It's another one that is a 5 point talent in at least some trees.

I think defensive stance is less powerful then adding defensive quality to brawl.

So echani are pretty much my favorite race and I would like to translate them into the game.

Right there all alarm bells went off. Creating stats for something you have a strong opinion on is usually a bad idea.

If one of my players wanted to play an Echani I would be inclined to give them the Corellian treatment: Standard human stats without the two non-career skills, but with 1 rank of brawl, and can train Brawl up to 3 ranks at character generation. Simple and enough to set them apart from humans, but definitely not unbalanced.

I am strongly of the opinion that if someone loves a race/career/whatever he will want to play it for the character, not the in-game mechanics. If they decide not to play it because the in-game mechanics are not to their liking perhaps they should consider that it was not the race/career/whatever they liked but the mechanical benefits they thought they would get.

How about make the Echani Warrior a specialization with its own talents?

I remember KOTOR 2, which allowed you to add your Wis bonus to your defense. In Perhaps we could do something similar; giving the ability of making Cunning a better defensive stat?

Because making ALL echani warriors would suggest the Echani dont have a varied population. There should be Echani intellectuals, doctors, pilots, etc..

I really like the idea of species talent trees and I hope they will put out something like that. The hutt talent tree would be interesting to see too.

I think the correlean human treatment but with brawl would make sense too

Well what about using defensive stance instead of dodge, I think that could also represent dropping into one of the echani forms that gives a bit more melee defense.

It's another one that is a 5 point talent in at least some trees.

I think defensive stance is less powerful then adding defensive quality to brawl.

Brawl Skill takes into account any form of hand to hand combat so a free rank in it represents inane training well enough. However what I would suggest is to give them the ability to change one Advantage into a Success on Initiative rolls, this would represent enhanced defensive training well without being too powerful.

Greg I think you solved the problem for me. A high initative can thematically mean that the character detects the ambush or shoots first even if the other person wanted to act first.

So this is a great way to portray the echani being aware of their opponents intentions in combat.

I think rather then create a new talent or give them a rank in rapid reaction I'll have add echani add a boost die to initative checks due to the defensive training all echani receive. I think a boost die is strictly less good then rapid reaction and about the same as converting an adantage to a success.

I think that people will still choose humans for versatility of being able to pick any 2 skills they want vs a boost die on initative and having to take brawl, what do you guys think?

So the modified template will be

Echani

Brawn 2

Agility 2

Intelligence 2

Cunning 2

Willpower 2

Presence 2

WT 10+ Brawn

ST 10+Willpower

XP 110

Character starts with 1 free rank in brawl, brawl may not be bought above 2 during character creation

All echani are trained to anticipate combat from an early age and thus Echani gain a boost die on all initative checks

Echani

Brawn 2

Agility 2

Intelligence 2

Cunning 2

Willpower 2

Presence 2

WT 10+ Brawn

ST 10+Willpower

XP 110

Character starts with 1 free rank in brawl, brawl may not be bought above 2 during character creation

All echani are trained to anticipate combat from an early age and thus Echani gain a boost die on all initative checks

This looks good to me.

Maybe replace Dodge with a different talent. Seems a bit powerful from the get-go

Maybe replace Dodge with a different talent. Seems a bit powerful from the get-go

It got replaced with a Boost die to Initiative.