Greetings again everybody!

So I finally ran my first game of EotE and it turned me on to a major issue regarding rewards in the game; credits. It seems to me that turnover of currency is pretty high with ship repairs/upgrades, gear maintenance, and obligation, so I know it wouldn't be hard to keep the group's credit supply reasonable with setbacks happening against them in the game, however, it does raise the question of what appropriate credit rewards look like for low levels of play. I want to get it somewhat right so I don't have to be overly-frustrating with attacking their holdings.

Does anybody have a rule of thumb they go by when it comes to dishing out money at lower tiers of the game? I know it depends on the group, style, and what is happening in the story, but I am wondering in a general sense. I'd really like to get a baseline grip on what is appropriate.

If you want to use the "Knight Level" as a benchmark, characters will gain roughly 60 credits per XP earned in play.

Mostly it depends on the difficulty and length of the scenario. A one night smuggling run would be 500-1500 Credits for each player, plus bonus when there is an high danger of Space fights (since repairs can suck out all money within minutes)

I personally let them mostly find that much money as they need to keep the ship flying, having supplies to eat, and reinforce theire homebase a little bit. and then I reward them with items: Parts for the Lighsaberhilt there want to craft, or maybe the new Hyperdrive-engine they want so badly, a new armour, or the abillity to use someone workshop for a week, a holocron with some new informations they need, or even the possibility to get a new ship or starfighter or what ever they may dream of...

For bigger thinks they want but can´t pay for they get visited by some slimy underling of a crimelord that offers them what they want...and giving an obligation in return and so on.

If you want to use the "Knight Level" as a benchmark, characters will gain roughly 60 credits per XP earned in play.

Which is absurd as you end up with a 150 xp character who could be a master of his spec and poor as **** at the same time. It fine for a character start, but it is absurd as a guideline for credits.

Joker has already seen this, but I want to post it in the topic for reference anyway:

A few of the books have various pay scales depending on the jobs at hand to give you and your players a bit of a base line to work from.

In Dangerous Covenants (Page 91)

Bodyguard jobs range from 2,000 for a private job to 10,000 credits for a famous public figure

Demolition jobs range from 500 for an individual hire to 5,000 for an expert

Mercenary jobs range from 500 for an individual hire to 20,000 for a group rate

Specialist jobs range from 500 for an average specialist to 5,000 for an expert

For smuggling Fly Casual has expanded rules on astrogation and smuggling payouts

Depending on rarity, the payout could be between 5% to 50% of the cargo's value, depending on whether it is illegal or not, how promptly it is delivered, etc.

It also includes modifiers based on how fast/slow the job gets done, whether the destination is under imperial blockade, whether you can negotiate a better price, etc.

Far Horizons (starting on page 93), the Colonist sourcebook, also includes the wages for various jobs you would find in various colonies * It varies anywhere from 500 credits for unskilled labor or a single performance to 20,000 credits for a professional negotiation team

Special Modifications also has wages for various slicer/mechanic work

For a slicer, you could earn anywhere between 500 to 10,000 credits per job depending on the details of the job

For a mechanic, you could earn anywhere between 500 to 30,000 credits for the job depending on how dangerous it was, how much you had to repair, etc.

It never hurts to just look over the prices for various pieces of equipment that your party may be interested in and grab a quick judgement off of that.

( Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/swrpg/comments/4nf13u/credit_rewards_how_much/d43cwzb )

If you want to use the "Knight Level" as a benchmark, characters will gain roughly 60 credits per XP earned in play.

That's not how much they'll earn - that's how much they'll have left over for gear after spending most of their money on food, and lodging and/or their ship. The rate at which they earn has to take account the rate at which time passes. Even if they have no ship and are homeless they still need to eat and rations are Cr 5 per day per character (except for droids or characters in carbonite).

If you want to use the "Knight Level" as a benchmark, characters will gain roughly 60 credits per XP earned in play.

That's not how much they'll earn - that's how much they'll have left over for gear after spending most of their money on food, and lodging and/or their ship. The rate at which they earn has to take account the rate at which time passes. Even if they have no ship and are homeless they still need to eat and rations are Cr 5 per day per character (except for droids or characters in carbonite).

Seriously? Who writes this? Thousands of planets are starving while food is 5 credits per day and tech way more expensive than basic food is still avaible everywhere.

Personally I don't reward credits... they have to complete a job to get paid. As far as that goes, it doesn't all have to be paid in credits but that's a possibility too. Somewhere reasonable enough that the funds should hopefully exceed the cost of maintenence by a reasonable amount.

I think Happy Daze's suggestion is based on a suggested method in the FaD core, specifically targeting altruistic play groups, which is reasonable.

Some minor jiggering allowed me to use contemporary wages as a guide ($1 US @ 1 CREDIT). The spec splats include pay tables, and they're pretty much on par with my scale.

Depends on how far you are in your campaign and what you want them to be able to access

If you want to use the "Knight Level" as a benchmark, characters will gain roughly 60 credits per XP earned in play.

That's not how much they'll earn - that's how much they'll have left over for gear after spending most of their money on food, and lodging and/or their ship. The rate at which they earn has to take account the rate at which time passes. Even if they have no ship and are homeless they still need to eat and rations are Cr 5 per day per character (except for droids or characters in carbonite).

Seriously? Who writes this? Thousands of planets are starving while food is 5 credits per day and tech way more expensive than basic food is still avaible everywhere.

That's not accounting for the Rarity rules which note that "whether or not an item is available for purchase should never be solely a matter of rolling dice. Instead the needs of the plot make it partially the Game Master's decision." Therefore if people are really starving on thousands of planets it is because the GM has decided that this is the case.

Also - most of the more expensive tech is not consumable and food is. It's no different from people going hungry in an area after a natural disaster stops food imports but does not destroy all of the more expensive stuff people had before the disaster.

Seriously? Who writes this? Thousands of planets are starving while food is 5 credits per day and tech way more expensive than basic food is still avaible everywhere.

Well rations are 5 Credits each ration is worth one meal... I at least need two meals on a lazy day just to have my body move on properbly, on workdays I´ll need 3 meals, so it would take 15 credits... an if I had to eat each day just for each meal just an Emergencyration... I would puke a latest on the third or fourth day (which would inflict strain and setbacks)

So in order to keep the people healthy, you´ll need to get some more than just rations and so you´ll have to spend 20-30 Creds a day to have a good food supply (selfcooking, dubbled when going out for each meal)

And even if it would be only 5 creds a day, it would still be normal that there are a lot of planets/systems starving: just look at earth nowadays, whole continents are starving, while people in the "rich" countries are throwing away vegetables just because they don´t look the way they would sell good. and the 5 Credits would be here the same as going to eat one Burger-menu at McDonalds, BurgerKing, or whatever fastfood chain is near to you... While you have total accsess to it, people in the afrikaan savana wouldn´t have accsess.

The same applys to the planets in SW, just here the GM is decieding which planet have accsess to food.

e.g. While people on jakku seems to have a hard time getting foodrations, people in the citys of Tattooine seem to get quit along (even slaves are looking fine and healthy)

So the raritytable isn´t everything

As I see it, there are two ways to do it that work.

Option #1: keep track of all credits, costs, wages, etc.. This often comes up when you have a PC with a career where he can get better prices. Meticulous number-crunching is necessary and people often find themselves keeping their character's bank accounts more accurately than their real-life bank accounts! I thought accountants were boring? Downside with this option is getting bogged down in the details. Upside? Pacifies OCD-types.

Option #2: enjoy the game, guesstimate the rest. Give the PC's a set amount. Know the approximations and roughly estimate things. If they have a career where they can get more, then tell them they amount is 20% more than they would have gotten. They can feel proud. Does it really matter if the ship sold for 40,000cr or 42,000cr? Upside is that the game moves on and emphasizes fun. Downside is that the OCD-types will want to know every detail and where every credit went and you have to deal with them. Most GM's just tell "them" to figure it out and they nod their approval (not really wanting to get neck-deep in the numbers themselves).

Seriously? Who writes this? Thousands of planets are starving while food is 5 credits per day and tech way more expensive than basic food is still avaible everywhere.

Well rations are 5 Credits each ration is worth one meal... I at least need two meals on a lazy day just to have my body move on properbly, on workdays I´ll need 3 meals, so it would take 15 credits... an if I had to eat each day just for each meal just an Emergencyration... I would puke a latest on the third or fourth day (which would inflict strain and setbacks)

So in order to keep the people healthy, you´ll need to get some more than just rations and so you´ll have to spend 20-30 Creds a day to have a good food supply (selfcooking, dubbled when going out for each meal)

And even if it would be only 5 creds a day, it would still be normal that there are a lot of planets/systems starving: just look at earth nowadays, whole continents are starving, while people in the "rich" countries are throwing away vegetables just because they don´t look the way they would sell good. and the 5 Credits would be here the same as going to eat one Burger-menu at McDonalds, BurgerKing, or whatever fastfood chain is near to you... While you have total accsess to it, people in the afrikaan savana wouldn´t have accsess.

The same applys to the planets in SW, just here the GM is decieding which planet have accsess to food.

e.g. While people on jakku seems to have a hard time getting foodrations, people in the citys of Tattooine seem to get quit along (even slaves are looking fine and healthy)

So the raritytable isn´t everything

That would be legit if not a lot more expensive toys would be still not only freely avaible (that's rarity), but actually commonly used. You don't starve because you are poor when you run around more expensive and actually paid toys. Not buyed based on provider loans. And the slaves on Tatooine might look light they got enough food, but canonically they were actually starving quite often, and even more if you walk the streets of Ryloth. I guess hiring a dozen Kate Moss was to expensive to find someone who really looks like he is starving.

We had this discussion a few weeks ago I guess, and starvation is a general theme. And btw, if you believe that limited access is the issue for global starvation then I hate to break it to you, but it's still PRICE. Your $5 burger menu is to expensive for our slaves as we pay them only slave wages for their work. ;-)

The only access issue that is involved is access to money. If food is that cheap, but people are not poor enough than starvation makes no sense. If people are poor enough then we certainly don't see them that poor in canon. Now you could argue that the whole poor starving people theme in star wars makes no sense anyway and I would agree, but that is canon.

I'm fairly certain an episode in season 2 of Rebels dealt with a blockaded planet of people on the brink of starvation and in The Force Awakens, Rey's scavenger town brought things to their junkmaster to trade for food rations... so yeah... I agree starvation is a thing in Star Wars.

It makes sense mostly on the planets that don't really produce much in terms of consumables.

Why the planets that cannot produce life somehow have a breathable atmosphere is another subject entirely. (Tatooine, Jakku, I'm lookin' at you).

Why the planets that cannot produce life somehow have a breathable atmosphere is another subject entirely. (Tatooine, Jakku, I'm lookin' at you).

Maybe a bunch of space slugs belches and flatulence stuck to a mudball world and formed the atmosphere?

Seriously? Who writes this? Thousands of planets are starving while food is 5 credits per day and tech way more expensive than basic food is still avaible everywhere.

Well rations are 5 Credits each ration is worth one meal... I at least need two meals on a lazy day just to have my body move on properbly, on workdays I´ll need 3 meals, so it would take 15 credits... an if I had to eat each day just for each meal just an Emergencyration... I would puke a latest on the third or fourth day (which would inflict strain and setbacks)

But Imperial Army Field Rations (from EotE Dangerous Covenants) are only Cr 10 per week. If a week is seven days [1] than that is less than Cr 1.5 per day per food. These rations are supposed to be terrible, but they're better than starving. I think these are similar to the food Luke had on Dagobah that Yoda did not like.

[1]1 Wookiepedia does not list a canonical number of days in a week in Star Wars, merely that a week is more than a day but less than a month.

Also - where in the rules is it established that player characters need 3 meals per day?

Seriously? Who writes this? Thousands of planets are starving while food is 5 credits per day and tech way more expensive than basic food is still avaible everywhere.

Well rations are 5 Credits each ration is worth one meal... I at least need two meals on a lazy day just to have my body move on properbly, on workdays I´ll need 3 meals, so it would take 15 credits... an if I had to eat each day just for each meal just an Emergencyration... I would puke a latest on the third or fourth day (which would inflict strain and setbacks)

But Imperial Army Field Rations (from EotE Dangerous Covenants) are only Cr 10 per week. If a week is seven days [1] than that is less than Cr 1.5 per day per food. These rations are supposed to be terrible, but they're better than starving. I think these are similar to the food Luke had on Dagobah that Yoda did not like.

[1]1 Wookiepedia does not list a canonical number of days in a week in Star Wars, merely that a week is more than a day but less than a month.

Also - where in the rules is it established that player characters need 3 meals per day?

I used the ration of the CRB (don´t have DC yet).

Of course you can say that PCs only need one meal a day, a week, a year, or a melenia. (I bet you yourself need at least two to three meals a day, don´t you?)

As a manner of fact each individum will need Food, even more when ever they have to deal with exhausting situations.

And also as a manner of fact nearly each individal beeing will start to morne if he/she has to deal with the exactly same food each day, for each meal.

Even a starving population, that will be gratefull at first when you bring them the emergency rations, will start to morne after two weeks of that tastless nutrigens.

And yes it is not stated in the CRB or elsewhere how much a player need to eat before getting exhausted, it just common sense that the longer you have to deal with the same food, or even with only one meal a day while carring all that stuff (Armor, Heavyblasterrifle, backpacks full of fancy stuff).

some species can do better than Humans, some do even worse.

But in the end you can do what ever you want at your table, what ever works the best for you and your group.

You may make the meals just narrative moments without charging, (Hell if you want you could give them the Executor as a present an make Vader theire buttler... what ever works for you.)

for me it doesn´t add up when players don´t have to be concerned about theire next meal, and my players agree with me, so this works at my table.