7 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

I believe both times were Harrison Ford ad-libbing. This is from ancient memory

I believe that on a long enough timeline, an actor or actress will eventually claim to have ad-libbed every single line.

2 hours ago, Kestin said:

Of course... my math also suggests that rolling 12 Proficiency dice yields a Triumph 100% of the time, which means I'm either doing stats wrong (which is highly possible, though shameful, given my profession) or it tells you something about relying too hard on numbers.

It will average 1 triumph per roll which is where you get your 100% from, but sometimes you'll get more or less, so the chance of getting at least 1 triumph is 100% minus the chance of not getting one 12 times = 1 - (11/12)^12 = 0.648 = 64.8%.

6 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

I believe that on a long enough timeline, an actor or actress will eventually claim to have ad-libbed every single line.

Starting with a 4 is NOT a requirement for being good. In fact the 3 3 3 3 2 2 split is really the power split because it creates a floor for you that will help you throughout the campaign.

If you take all the correct gear and bonuses/implants and go with 2 brawn 2 agility 3 in all others you can get implants to get you to 3 brawn 3 agility 4 intelligence 3 cunning 3 presence and 3 willpower. spending your first 75 xp to get to dedication in an easy spec like gadgeteer and throwing on some armor with brawn enhancement mod can get you

brawn 4 agility 4 intelligence 4 cunning 3 presence 3 willpower 3

Yes it takes careful building/playing but high and balanced stats require much less skill expenditure to be good at most things and exceptionally good at a few things.

One of the strongest groups is a well rounded human gadgeteer, human cyber tech, Pantorian Entrepeneur with (2 2 2 3 3 4 split) and a Human Sentinel Artisan.

This group is capable of making the finest gear in the galaxy and selling it at a premium and buying the components cheaply.

Might not be everyones cup of tea but man is it strong.

Personally I'd might take 4 before few 3s, if game would be more pulp than more serious themed. But if I'd actually want a multidimensional character, I'd take 3s. From optimization point of view 4 is better than few 3s, but from roleplaying standpoint maybe not. IMO from GM's point of view, too optimized characters (e.g. with Attribute 6) are effing boring. They succeeds what ever they does, or they are only one who ever could succeed with test done with that stat. I have a pilot PC with AGI 6 and good skill, and he always succeeds with few advantages. It is boring.

IMO, in game attribute 4 is good. It still gives fair change to failure, and there is potential to become better.

17 hours ago, amrothe said:

Starting with a 4 is NOT a requirement for being good. In fact the 3 3 3 3 2 2 split is really the power split because it creates a floor for you that will help you throughout the campaign.

If you take all the correct gear and bonuses/implants and go with 2 brawn 2 agility 3 in all others you can get implants to get you to 3 brawn 3 agility 4 intelligence 3 cunning 3 presence and 3 willpower. spending your first 75 xp to get to dedication in an easy spec like gadgeteer and throwing on some armor with brawn enhancement mod can get you

brawn 4 agility 4 intelligence 4 cunning 3 presence 3 willpower 3

Yes it takes careful building/playing but high and balanced stats require much less skill expenditure to be good at most things and exceptionally good at a few things.

One of the strongest groups is a well rounded human gadgeteer, human cyber tech, Pantorian Entrepeneur with (2 2 2 3 3 4 split) and a Human Sentinel Artisan.

This group is capable of making the finest gear in the galaxy and selling it at a premium and buying the components cheaply.

Might not be everyones cup of tea but man is it strong.

You are presenting a rather extreme example that wouldn't come up very often. To be fine, players would have to be...

Fine with removing limbs for cybernetics (something that is considered an abomination in universe)

Would have to be fairly well loaded (which admitively, isn't too hard if the players have some ambition.) to buy all this kit, rather then natural skils out of the starting date.

It requires a very exact set of party members, and Entrepeneur is kinda cheating since it's one of the few talkers that can pay off knowledge checks and always roll 5 attribute dice on checks they can prepare for (Though roleplaying a trandosian talker is the most fun I've had in a PC. XD.)

I don't think it's so much that a character needs a 4 to be good, but they need a 4 to be a cut above the grade. In starting party, being well rounded all round isn't as good because every party member has so much overlap. There are also some careers that require a player to be quite good at their craft as a requirement; hackers require a high int/skil for competive checks vs other slicers. Pilots need high skill because flying at speed is really difficult. Talkers need high talk and skill because every check they make is securing a deal of some description that makes or breaks certain deals.

A player doesn't need to cover every single role mind you, it's alright not to have a survivalist on a conman campiagn and piloting becomes less of a issue if the campiagn is planet bound, just the 4 threes means that for a time, that member is deciding just above average. I don't go swashbucking to be just average. I got the rest of my life to be subpar in! XD

So far my mostly 3's ewok marshal with a Lancer has shot his enemies hand and made him drop the weapon the rolled a triumph on a coercion check to make him cry.

That's pretty f'n badass to me...

Having all 3's means you can be everyone's backup... Sure your not the star but when the face misses, or the expert shot flubs well there you are to save the day and pick up the pieces...

Having all 3's forces you to rp yourself to get blue dice, find the high ground, set a trap etc.

8 minutes ago, TheShard said:

So far my mostly 3's ewok marshal with a Lancer has shot his enemies hand and made him drop the weapon the rolled a triumph on a coercion check to make him cry.

That's pretty f'n badass to me...

Having all 3's means you can be everyone's backup... Sure your not the star but when the face misses, or the expert shot flubs well there you are to save the day and pick up the pieces...

Having all 3's forces you to rp yourself to get blue dice, find the high ground, set a trap etc.

Aye, no problems there because you are compensating with other means. Either with skill ranks or high quality equipment or just solid planning, the ever present number 2. My main argument is everyone taking 4 3's isn't the best idea, it's good to have some specialists.

For sure a whole party of 3's is probably no bueno....

Of course my example was extreme any power optimized group will be extreme, but the party worked quite well and were enjoyable high end arms dealers in a game of corporate espionage, reverse engineering stolen military prototypes, and inventing new tech. Nothing like having an inquistor seek out your jedi artisan for a new suit of armor.....

Taking 3/3/3/3 is like being a bard in D&D 3.5. You go in planning on being the generalist but end up being fairly sucky at everything. Once every few sessions something comes up that you are halfway decent at and you're so thrilled that the rest of the group doesn't have the heart to tell you that the rogue could have done it better.

I think the main issue is that most groups don't split their parties too often. Which makes sense given how much harder it is to keep a split group engaged. If a group never splits, a larger portion of the encounters will get resolved by the person with the best dice pool. Or just as often, with the person with the largest characteristic being assisted by the person with the most ranks. The end result is that rather that 4-6 individuals, the party often functions as a single individual composed of the highest characteristics and skill ranks of the group. In those situations, a player with 3/3/3/3 isn't likely to contribute to the group whole very often. This is aggravated by the fact that it is very possible to look at a groups makeup and create a character that can cover 2ndary roles while still being reasonably focused. It is virtually impossible, for example for a Ranged Combat focused character to not be able to cover for the pilot or for a focused doctor to not be able to cover for the groups mechanic. These overlaps happen naturally so often that the 3/3/3/3 is seldom more than the backup to the backup.

In my experience, you can usually look at a group of 4 people and immediately see what very small holes might need filling. Then when you build your character, all you have to do is give those missing roles some slight consideration in your build. Everyone always tries to play off the 3/3/3/3 as being the character that swoops in and saves the day when the focused characters drop the ball, but let's not forget that there are only six characteristics and no one here is suggestion a group of 5/2/1/1/1/1 droids. A group of 4 players with 4/3 are very likely to have someone with at least a 3 in any given characteristic. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for the 3/3/3/3 to shine. Plus, if there is a glaring whole, and nobody has Cunning for example, then the party would likely be better served by the player just building a 4/3 character with a 4 or 3 in Cunning.

I suppose there are situations where a party is A) very small (2-3 people) B) Heavily Share Characteristic focuses ( nobody has >2 in 3 or 4 of the characteristics) or C) the GM is fond of splitting the party, that a 3/3/3/3 character might shine, but those are exceedingly rare.

As a GM in star wars you should be really splitting the party quite a lot. It is Not D&D. Watch the movies how often are the characters clumped together the whole movie? No obi wan is disabeling the tractor beam the droids are on comms but not with the group. And Chewy Han and Luke are off trying to save the princess. Look at the scene in jedi where they infiltrate jabba's lair and everyone is separate and doing their own thing then it comes together.

If you run the game as blob party with different stats that glomp together then yes everyone can be good one trick ponies and have enough tricks to win, its wierd to me to even think thats how people run this.

16 minutes ago, amrothe said:

As a GM in star wars you should be really splitting the party quite a lot. It is Not D&D. Watch the movies how often are the characters clumped together the whole movie? No obi wan is disabeling the tractor beam the droids are on comms but not with the group. And Chewy Han and Luke are off trying to save the princess. Look at the scene in jedi where they infiltrate jabba's lair and everyone is separate and doing their own thing then it comes together.

If you run the game as blob party with different stats that glomp together then yes everyone can be good one trick ponies and have enough tricks to win, its wierd to me to even think thats how people run this.

We are going to have to agree to disagree on this. I understand that splitting the party is very Star Wars, but I seldom find that it is very good for the health of a game. Splitting the party just gives the party and excuse to disengage. Even with experienced, more mature players, I find that I get a LOT more people on their phones or doodling during split party situations. I don't blame them really. It's human nature to care more about things that directly affect you.

I know, if you are a good enough GM, you will always have a 3 way split group where each group's actions affects the other players encounters. And my hats off to you if you can make that happen more than once during any given play session. It has been my experience that even when you do manage to split the party, the party usually splits in such a way that each group maximizes their usefulness for a given goal.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to split the party and then throw stuff against them that they aren't good at. I do this all the time and I think it's a great way to encourage players to diversify their character builds. I just haven't found that when these situations occur that I'd rather have a 3/3/3/3 character. A smart 4/3 character can be built with enough versatility that an unexpected check shouldn't crush them.

A 4 3 2 2 2 2 build hardly makes you a one-trick pony.

17 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

Splitting the party just gives the party and excuse to disengage.

Give them something to engage with.

Ask them for suggestions how NPC advantages and threats, etc play out.

Let them use light side points even if their characters aren't present in the scene.

Have them play an enemy or allied NPC or group of minions. Give them an xp bonus or light side point for it.

During structured time shift between locations every round. Rapid fire combat action. Faster, more intense.

Spend dark side points during one group's turn that will affect the other group when they act again. Like revealing that this half-built battlestation is fully operational and about to shoot on your friends.

Have them be in radio communication when they're split. Especially during an impromptu stealth mission.

Have them able to see each other but not immediately cooperate. Maybe they're spread out on s large battlefield. Maybe one of them is being lowered into a death trap and the other is forced to watch from the villain's throne room.

Hrm I typically run with 3 3's and 3 2's so I can have some additional talents and skills. Generally works out well for me. Not superior in a lot of areas but I spend less time with nothing to do...whereas I find that with characters that have a 4 and one 3 tend to spend at least a little more time on the sidelines now and again and I get bored easily so....8D

That explains your rationale for Wendi's build: boredom aversion.

Stan Fresh those are some of the tatics I also have players not in the encounter run familiar npcs where everyone knows the personality and they have fun with it. We do comms almost all the time when split.

432222 is not a one trick pony in and of itself but you are still rolling 2 dice on 4 out of 6 abilities. And if your 4 and 3 are both like 4 agi 3 brawn then yeah you are going to have trouble in a lot of encounters solo. 4 agi 3 int is a lot better or 4 agi 3 presence.

Often times I like to split to emphasize versatility and to have the fun of watching non optimized players talk their way through encounters. Stealing from firefly I loved watching Jayne Cobb impersonate a med team member and trying to remember his one line again and again.

Yep. Take away all the challenges the heroes of a good story aren't made to match, and you're left with almost no story at all.

My group sometimes experiences 5 way splits between 6 people. We don't all engage in that period but considering how our sessions can run for up to 7 hours the short breaks are fairly welcome as it's difficult to maintain character for extended periods of time. Especially during heists when everyone "should" be setting up little things, some adventures, like the jewel of yavin, has so many little things to do that it's essential that the party delegates otherwise the party will never accomplish things quickly enough.

16 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Give them something to engage with.

Ask them for suggestions how NPC advantages and threats, etc play out.

Let them use light side points even if their characters aren't present in the scene.

Have them play an enemy or allied NPC or group of minions. Give them an xp bonus or light side point for it.

During structured time shift between locations every round. Rapid fire combat action. Faster, more intense.

Spend dark side points during one group's turn that will affect the other group when they act again. Like revealing that this half-built battlestation is fully operational and about to shoot on your friends.

Have them be in radio communication when they're split. Especially during an impromptu stealth mission.

Have them able to see each other but not immediately cooperate. Maybe they're spread out on s large battlefield. Maybe one of them is being lowered into a death trap and the other is forced to watch from the villain's throne room.

I appreciate the tips, although I've been GMing for the better part of 25 years and I still think what you suggest isn't a sustainable game structure for many groups. Even if it was, I'm still not sure how much that improves the viability of the 3/3/3/3 character. 2 players with complimentary 4/3 stats and skills are still going to be able to cover almost anything that's appropriate because players almost always split in a way that makes sense for the mission. The two sneaky guys, one combat focus and one slicer go to deactivate the shield while the demolitionist creates a diversion and the melee character and face rescue the prisoner or whatever. In that situation, at best a 3/3/3/3 who splits off with a group is going to be giving up effectiveness in their primary goal in order to be more versatile. I'm not saying that isn't useful, I'm just saying that it's usually not needed.

This is all splitting hairs really. I mean in the end we are talking about a 10% chance of success and some GMing philosophy. A GM could certainly structure a game to make 3/3/3/3 more playable and even advantageous. I just don't think that the average game is structured that way. Perhaps it's just sample size, I've only played in about a half dozen games (not counting the ones I've GM'ed) and they were never very generalist friendly. It could also be my personality. I would despise being a pilot focused character who wasn't as good of a pilot as the gunslinger who only has a single rank in piloting. I have seen this happen in my games and it was very frustrating to the player who thought he'd be happy with a 3 agility.

Since the OP was interested in player a combat specialization I think it's fair to say that he was interested in being good at combat. Combat is by far the easiest place for a generalist to get outshined by a focused character. When he runs up and deals 7-8 dmg (YYY vs PP) while the ranged heavy is AF'ing for 12 (x2) he may feel differently about his choice. Particularly since, unlike most melee characters, he likely only has 1 or 2 soak on the ranged player.

9 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

players almost always split in a way that makes sense for the mission.

That's why you give them reasons not to.

10 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

I would despise being a pilot focused character who wasn't as good of a pilot as the gunslinger who only has a single rank in piloting. I have seen this happen in my games and it was very frustrating to the player who thought he'd be happy with a 3 agility.

A pilot-focused character has talents that remove setbacks from piloting checks, a gunslinger doesn't. Give them both the same amount of setbacks, and the gunslinger won't be doing so well anymore.

When the discussion about a game boils down to involved calculations of odds I start to walk away from a game...ie Math is not fun for me and games are meant to be fun...

Just now, Stan Fresh said:

That's why you give them reasons not to.

A pilot-focused character has talents that remove setbacks from piloting checks, a gunslinger doesn't. Give them both the same amount of setbacks, and the gunslinger won't be doing so well anymore.

Let's assume you have two lowish xp characters, the pilot has skilled jockey YYY piloting. The gunslinger has YGGG (he got a free rank of piloting as a career skill or something). You have a ship with a -1 handling and you need to make a difficulty 3 piloting check. In that stacked case, the pilot has only a 3% higher chance of success than the gunslinger and a lower chance of getting net advantage. If the gunslinger decided to go ham and start with a 5 agility they are going to outperform the pilot even if he has two ranks of skilled jockey and you up the check to 2 setback dice. The point is, that even good talents and prof. dice don't always do enough to make up for a lower characteristic. Keep in mind that in this example that being a good pilot cost the gunslinger almost nothing.

In my actual game, we were playing knight level and had an Ataru Striker (with enhance to Agility) who was constantly showing up our pilot. His 6 agl +1 forcedice +1 skill rank meant it was usually best for him to pilot while the pilot player made a skilled assist. Granted, the Ataru Striker was a hyper focused agility character but starting with a 5 characteristic isn't all that uncommon.

From a purely mathematical, optimization point of view, the main issue with generalist character is that green dice are way more powerful than yellow dice. Since Yellow dice occur when skills and characteristics overlap, a character with a 5 and a lot of 1 is going to have more green dice in their 5 pool (obviously) but will also get more bang for their buck off xp invested into skill ranks on their 1 characteristics as each beyond the first will be granting new green dice rather than just upgrading. That lets a low characteristic character close the gap quicker on their off characteristic skills then it does for a 3/3/3/3 to close the gap on their high characteristic skills. This isn't true with all archetypes of course, as triumphs are disproportionately useful for some skills than others (I'd rather my doctor had YYY over YGGG for example), but it's true enough for most.

But of course that's getting into an old argument that has been argued to death around the forums.

1 minute ago, GandofGand said:

When the discussion about a game boils down to involved calculations of odds I start to walk away from a game...ie Math is not fun for me and games are meant to be fun...

Math is fun to me, but I get what you're saying. When I discuss math, I do it as a way to apply logic to the feelings people get when playing a game. When you are playing a character who feels less successful than everyone else, it's usually because you are subconsciously recognizing a statistical trend even if you don't recognize it as such. Now in a game like D&D I don't usually need to discuss math because it's pretty obvious. You have +2 more bonus to hit than me.

In this game, the dice math is a lot harder and people regularly have misconceptions about how different dice are balanced. People generally think that upgrade dice are better than they are and that boost and setback have a lower impact than they do, for example. People also tend to think that many of the dice are symmetrical when they are not. All of these misconceptions can lead to people making character creation/development choices that aren't doing what they think they are doing. They build a pilot with a pool of YYY and can't understand why they aren't succeeding as much as they'd like. You can tell them they should have a higher agility, but if they are overvaluing the effect of proficiency dice and talents it might be hard to persuade them. Math allows you to show the odds behind the rolls and help people to understand why the character is performing they way it is.