Just keep in mind that character development in this game is very fluid, much more so than, say, D&D. A character might default to X for a bit...until they drop 20XP on a new talent and start doing Y, or get their Ranged Light up to 4 skill ranks and start firing two pistols, or splurge on a whole new talent tree...

IOW, the first sessions are less definitive than you might be used to, and further sessions continue to refine, and redefine.

This is very interesting to hear. It makes sense since you spend XP as you like rather than leveling up. We've played a good amount of old school Deadlands which was similar.

You can make an "optimal" character with out focusing on characteristics.The games difficulty curve isn't as steep as in other games, and the price for "failure" isn't as harsh. Since you can win while failing and lose will succeeding being "optimal" isn't that hard. The problem ultimately is a matter of perception. People who don't feel spend on characteristics at the beginning perceive themselves as less powerful than those who do. And something I've noticed in these discussions is that people are attempting to mitigate bad player decisions due to mostly impatience. Doesn't make sense to me personally but overall I don't think the difference in power is too bad. If I recall the last time this came up correctly, someone did the numbers on the differences in success between someone who didn't buy up characteristics and someone who did and in the long run the differences in success wasn't that large.

Thus "optimal" is kinda relative and I think the issue is bigger in most people heads than it is in actual play.

This is a good point. I'm sure we'll have fun whichever way we go, I just have a couple of friends who can get really taken out of the game if they feel like they're underpowered compared to the group. Other games we've played with XP spending like this have never had this kind of restriction(Deadlands, WoD) so I wanted to make sure we allowed people options while keeping character progression fluid and without allowing people to make a more powerful character than the system was designed for(spending more on characteristics that would have been allowed under standard rules).

I do think that some people will cling to something like this to explain not having fun, even if it's untrue.

I am leaning toward playing RAW and seeing how it goes, maybe get 1 player to not max out characteristics and see how it really is different.

This game though if you up one stat to 5 they will only stand out as over achievers if you as the GM feed them a steady stream of encounters and checks that cater to that. If you vary your encounter design, invariably the hyper specialized will either end up doing poorly at the majority of checks, or will realize as they sit there bored their design was a mistake. That's why I encourage being cross specialized and have taken to conducting demo rolls to highlight a build's inadequacies before someone commits.

Keep in mind that spending all of your XP on characteristics may not actually be optimal if you're planning on heavily specializing. What good does it do to raise your Presence when you're the tank and the party already has a face? Was that XP worth the boost for the occasional social check you end up making or would it have been a better decision to spend those points on skills and talents that fit your character's intended role?

In my experience, some players will want to specialize from the beginning while others may want to diversify. Neither approach is wrong, both work under this system, and in both cases the characters are "optimized" for what the player intends. I think that Kael pretty much nailed it. As long as the players know the deal during character creation, neither approach "shafts" anyone.

So some will have to just max a stat out at 5 for proper min-maxing? Noted!

This game though if you up one stat to 5 they will only stand out as over achievers if you as the GM feed them a steady stream of encounters and checks that cater to that. If you vary your encounter design, invariably the hyper specialized will either end up doing poorly at the majority of checks, or will realize as they sit there bored their design was a mistake. That's why I encourage being cross specialized and have taken to conducting demo rolls to highlight a build's inadequacies before someone commits.

We have a problem with this in our current Pathfinder game. One player went 1000% combat and then just looks at his phone bored when non-combat stuff is happening.

A 5 is a min-maxed character? I guess in the literal definition of the words, but not to the point of breaking this game. Hitting a 5 expends most or all starting XP (and I think is sometimes not feasible), and leaves 5 exploitable weak points to bust them in. It's like skipping leg day.

I'm not actually sure now what your 'free characteristic buy' idea actually is . Are you saying that a PC will be able to freely buy characteristics for what they cost at character creation (10 x Rank) or they can do that, but never spend more than their starting XP?

A 5 is a min-maxed character? I guess in the literal definition of the words, but not to the point of breaking this game. Hitting a 5 expends most or all starting XP (and I think is sometimes not feasible), and leaves 5 exploitable weak points to bust them in. It's like skipping leg day.

I'm not actually sure now what your 'free characteristic buy' idea actually is . Are you saying that a PC will be able to freely buy characteristics for what they cost at character creation (10 x Rank) or they can do that, but never spend more than their starting XP?

The 5 bad stats is the min part of min-maxing.

I never said "free" characteristic buy. It was in my original post. What you said is correct. For the life of the character, they can buy characteristic at the cost at creation, but never spend more on them total than their starting XP. This way they always have a character that could have been created legally.

This game though if you up one stat to 5 they will only stand out as over achievers if you as the GM feed them a steady stream of encounters and checks that cater to that. If you vary your encounter design, invariably the hyper specialized will either end up doing poorly at the majority of checks, or will realize as they sit there bored their design was a mistake. That's why I encourage being cross specialized and have taken to conducting demo rolls to highlight a build's inadequacies before someone commits.

We have a problem with this in our current Pathfinder game. One player went 1000% combat and then just looks at his phone bored when non-combat stuff is happening.

At the end of the day though if someone wants to focus like that what are you going to do? Tell them no? I am no fan of that. I would prefer to put the effort into making encounters that don't involve combat but are just as fun to encourage them to branch out. I've run sessions where guns were never drawn and everyone had plenty of fun.

In this game there is enough variance in skills and characteristics that even a combat heavy PC can be shown they need to spread the love. Initiative based on Willpower and Presence, Perception based on Cunning. If you craft combat encounters in a way where winning initiative is more important than shooting or hitting hard, the folly of a 5 Agility/Brawn will start to peek through. If you set up a lot of ambush situations or tripwires, or whatever, having a lousy Cunning and being poor at Perception will become an issue. The point is there are enough checks very much related to combat which don't use Agility/Brawn, that it's easy enough to show even Joe Gun they had best not put all their eggs in one basket. A demo roll to spot a tripwire or ambush will demonstrate to the combat power gamer they aren't served by having a crummy Cunning/Perception. A quick scenario where winning initiative is critical will show a crummy Willpower/Presence-Cool/Vigilance is a bad idea.

Keep in mind that spending all of your XP on characteristics may not actually be optimal if you're planning on heavily specializing. What good does it do to raise your Presence when you're the tank and the party already has a face? Was that XP worth the boost for the occasional social check you end up making or would it have been a better decision to spend those points on skills and talents that fit your character's intended role?

I'm thinking this really doesn't have much to do with player style, and more to do with GM style. If you're the kind of GM who actually lets the Face do all the Face stuff, and the Heavy do all the Heavy stuff, etc, then the players will think specialization (and its companion, the old canard of "balanced party") is the way to go. If you're the kind of GM who mixes things up, then the players will respond by cross-specializing.

It's worth noting too that few specs are "all Face" or "all Heavy" or whatever. The smuggler is great at Charm, and the Enforcer is great at Coercion...and sometimes a session requires a good-cop/bad-cop routine. Technicians can start out good at Mechanics and be decent brawlers, or good at Computers and be decently sneaky, but good at both takes a lot of XP...meanwhile the Demolitionist might cover one or the other technical skill.

To the OP: I'd strongly suggest you're overthinking it. Per your OP, you have exactly one session under your belt. Run the game RAW/RAI for a few sessions before you decide what you want to change. There's nothing wrong with letting the players respec their characters, you're not locked in.

eclecticgamer, I'm pretty much with you. I'm very, very sick of the "zero to hero" arc that's assumed in most RPGs, with the implicit idea that the players have to "earn their fun" by putting in a good few sessions with rubbish characters before they can get to the interesting stuff. Now, EotE isn't as bad as some games in this regard, but it's still there. There's also the fact that a lot of the fun rules for the characters lie in the Talents, so you want PCs to get a lot of talents (and some extra skill points) as fast as possible.

I just went with what seemed to be the most obvious route to me. We gave the players an extra 150-200XP to spend on each character after initial generation but before first play, then don't give out quite so much as play progresses. The amounts depend on your taste. The extra XP can only be spent as per the rules, so characters are initially generated with precious few skills or Talents, but pick up a load with the bonus XPs.

It's what I did, and it worked for us. YSWMV, just my opinion, feel free to do what you want at your table, and all that.

Whatever you end up doing, have fun, and don't be afraid to change your mind if you get a better idea later.

Neil.

eclecticgamer, I'm pretty much with you. I'm very, very sick of the "zero to hero" arc that's assumed in most RPGs, with the implicit idea that the players have to "earn their fun" by putting in a good few sessions with rubbish characters before they can get to the interesting stuff. Now, EotE isn't as bad as some games in this regard, but it's still there. There's also the fact that a lot of the fun rules for the characters lie in the Talents, so you want PCs to get a lot of talents (and some extra skill points) as fast as possible.

I just went with what seemed to be the most obvious route to me. We gave the players an extra 150-200XP to spend on each character after initial generation but before first play, then don't give out quite so much as play progresses. The amounts depend on your taste. The extra XP can only be spent as per the rules, so characters are initially generated with precious few skills or Talents, but pick up a load with the bonus XPs.

It's what I did, and it worked for us. YSWMV, just my opinion, feel free to do what you want at your table, and all that.

Whatever you end up doing, have fun, and don't be afraid to change your mind if you get a better idea later.

Neil.

I feel like we have different problems actually. It sounds like your issue is that characters are not powerful enough to start, you want them to be more like fully fledged heroes.

My problem is more about forcing players into a single "optimal" path and leaving them with fewer character options.

To the OP: I'd strongly suggest you're overthinking it. Per your OP, you have exactly one session under your belt. Run the game RAW/RAI for a few sessions before you decide what you want to change. There's nothing wrong with letting the players respec their characters, you're not locked in.

I'm totally with you. You'll notice that my suggestion is essentially, "allow multiple respecs along the way" with an implicit, "if they're necessary".

I tried to read through it all, so I apologize if this was already said.

But the thing about character development in this game is that it stays balanced throughout because of how the characteristics and the skills are related to each other. Take for example Brawn and Melee ... having 3 Brawn with 2 Melee will be the same dice pool as 2 Brawn and 3 Melee (2 Yellow and 1 Green) so depending on how the players want to develop their characters, it will all balance out. However, let me note, that in the early stages the players with higher characteristics will seem to be stronger in some encounters, I think the key for the GM is to involve the other players when developing the adventure (or modifying an existing one) so that players who purchased certain skills or talents are also included. Since a player who really upped a characteristic or two at creation will certainly be lacking in another characteristic as well as many skills, this should be possible with some advance preparation of the encounters your group will run into.

I'm not saying it will be easy to please everyone (or even easy to put together), but it's something to consider.

My problem is more about forcing players into a single "optimal" path and leaving them with fewer character options.

So, my first character in the FFG version of SWRPG was a Wookiee Marauder, with a 5 Brawn. He could do melee real well. And not much else. But I had fun roleplaying him.

And, over time, I developed his skills in talents in various areas so that melee was not the only thing he was good at.

He was still the party Tank, so he knew that it was his job to get up close and personal with whatever the biggest and baddest enemy there was on the field, and go to town on him with his melee weapons, and keep him from doing super-nasty ranged damage to everyone else.

Meanwhile, it was up to the Klatooinian Heavy in the group to do his own super-nasty ranged damage to all the other enemies on the field. And we had lots of other guys who were pretty good at blasters, even if they weren’t as deadly as the Heavy.

There was even this time where we met the BBEG for this one scenario, in his office, surrounded by his goons. Since he was the guy who had hired us before we realized that he was actually the BBEG, we figured we might be able to bluff our way in and then take him down by surprise. We got in okay, but they were well aware of what we had been doing, and they actually had the drop on us — their weapons were already drawn. Initiative time came, and we got all our slots (but one) before they got any of their slots. And there wasn’t an enemy left standing by the time my Wookiee got to draw his weapons — nobody left to kill. Cue “sad Wookiee sound”.

IMO, the key is to have fun roleplaying. To have fun with your friends. To have fun in the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. To have fun.

If you can do that, then the exact “build” you have for your character is no longer relevant. The “best build” is the one that helps best get you into character and to have the most fun, not the one with the points spent in a mathematically perfect optimal pattern.

In fact, I would argue that there really isn’t a single best mathematically perfect optimal pattern, if everyone plays according to RAW and RAI, and the game system is intentionally designed that way.

I think the best option for you is really to just not start at 0 Awarded XP. Do character creation as normal (yes, while emphasizing characteristic upgrades). Then, once this is done, just give each player an additional 50XP or so. They can only spend this XP on Skills, Talents, or new Specializations. This allows the player to pick some additional skills to start and further define their characters but leaves the game balance alone.

Thats all fair and nice, but what if one of my player wants to start the game with a few talents, should he feel shafted because he did not follow "conventional wisdom"? Or how the game is " intended" to ve played?

Phooey on this hypothetical player. Two sessions and he'll be swimming in talents.

You can also hand out more XP each session if you want characters to be able to diversify sooner, as well as encourage them to have a rough roadmap of their characters so they stay excited about "the next big thing"

Thats all fair and nice, but what if one of my player wants to start the game with a few talents, should he feel shafted because he did not follow "conventional wisdom"? Or how the game is " intended" to ve played?

Phooey on this hypothetical player. Two sessions and he'll be swimming in talents.

Probably, but thats beside the point.

I feel this whole "how the game is supposed to be played/has been designed" to be a little arbitrary. I like the idea of restricting characteristic purchases, not sure why we need to restrict it solely to starting XP. We could always just restrict it to a total amount equal to starting XP, and voila.

After a few sessions, characters who wanted to first focus on chars are on par with those who wanted skills, talents or specialization. Nobody has regrets because "he did not went how its supposed to be played".

What's wrong with arbitrary? There are arbitrary things everywhere.

There is one thing to remember about character creation: skills have a cap, characteristics don't. From personal experience, starting characteristics with upgrades doesn't work that well when tackling a hard difficulty. Scrape along, break even, but success only occasionally can be a major downer, even for this system.

Some have said that they are fine without raising the characteristics (seriously, can somebody track down that thread down?).

This whole issue is rendered null with enough time and xp. I still say it's a matter of patience, or lack thereof, and not an issue with game design.

Thats all fair and nice, but what if one of my player wants to start the game with a few talents, should he feel shafted because he did not follow "conventional wisdom"? Or how the game is " intended" to ve played?

Phooey on this hypothetical player. Two sessions and he'll be swimming in talents.

Probably, but thats beside the point.

I feel this whole "how the game is supposed to be played/has been designed" to be a little arbitrary. I like the idea of restricting characteristic purchases, not sure why we need to restrict it solely to starting XP. We could always just restrict it to a total amount equal to starting XP, and voila.

After a few sessions, characters who wanted to first focus on chars are on par with those who wanted skills, talents or specialization. Nobody has regrets because "he did not went how its supposed to be played".

It's not arbitrary though. Every game out there has a game design philosphy. Every game. You're not going to find one that isn't designed a certian way to faciliate a particular playstyle. Dungeons and Dragons is designed and meant to be played in a way that is radically different from Shadowrun. But most of us see no point in changing the rules because people are basically impatient. More so after you explain to people how it works. House ruling because a mechanic doesn't work is one thing. House ruling because a player can't be bothered to wait even one session to gain an ability that ..... in all honesty isn't going to be all that powerful ..... is just ..... odd. RPG's is all about waiting. And yet somehow it's a big deal that people have to wait one session to raise a skill or buy some talents?

Some have said that they are fine without raising the characteristics (seriously, can somebody track down that thread down?).

Which thread? The mega one that got locked? With all the nice math to show that this problem wasn't really a problem? I think I have the link here

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/187594-characteristic-modification-after-character-creation/

If not I'm not sure what thread your referencing.

No, there was one before that (I think?) where somebody bragged about how they had a player that went with starting characteristics and was having just as much or more fun than a player that didn't.

Hmmmm that one I don't recall sadly

There are no absolutes in this game. A PC should consider weighting their initial expenditures towards stats, however, there are some specs that have particularly good low hanging fruit in their Talent trees, or quite good skills. It would boil down to specifics to a certain extent. I think my first question for the next one of these threads will be how much the OP has played and how many xp have been awarded.

The game can be played whether you buy up attributes at chargen or not. The book actually references the fact that you can only buy them at chargen with XP. If you choose to ignore such advice that is on you and not the game. That being said, I see no great disparity between characters that do buy them up and others that do not. Especially after gameplay. You can always offer a respec to those that really feel hurt if you so choose. But between buying talents to the dedication talents and buying up skills, getting better dice pools is relatively straight forward. Not to mention the boons granted by the talents you pick up on the way.