Trying to work out details for these two species, as I haven't seen anything appropriate for them yet. So far what I've got is:

*Echani*

Wound (10); Strain (10); Brawn (2); Agility (3); Intellect (2); Cunning (2); Willpower (2); Presence (1); Starting XP (95)

Skills:

All Echani begin the game with the Echani Martial Arts (Ag) as a career skill. Echani Martial Arts may be used for any Lightsaber, Brawl, or Melee ability checks. May not use Echani Martial Arts while equipping an item with the Cumbersome effect. If Echani Martial arts would both override a default skill, the player may choose which to apply.

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*Miraluka*

Wound (10); Strain (11); Brawn (2); Agility (2); Intellect (2); Cunning (1); Willpower (3); Presence (2); Starting XP (100)

Special Abilities:

All Miraluka begin the game with Farsight Basic Power , without regard to their force rating. They always benefit from the ability, and do not need to spend a force point to activate Farsight Basic Power. Any costs required to use upgrades to Farsight Basic Power must be paid when those upgraded effects are used.

Curious if either of these seems off, or if there are better alternatives that I may have missed out there.

They're both overpowered a bit.

With the Echani, you've essentially given them three skills that they can train by only training one skill, gave it a negative that doesn't generally apply to those skills, and didn't charge them much in the way of XP for it.

With the Miraluka, you've given them a Force Power without exacting the cost of a Force Power and made it always active... again without charging them much in the way of XP to gain that ability.

Eh, I'd swap that Echani Martial Arts to a choice between a rank in Brawl or a rank in Melee.

As for the Miraluka, I'd permit them to have sense basic power, instead of farsight and the ability to use it with a functional +1 force rating (allowing them to use it better than anyone else, and to use it without being a 'force sensitive' mechanically, lower their exp to 90.

Echani would be much simpler if they got a free rank in Coordination and 1 combat skill with 90xp

Miraluka could instead have "your characters vision is unaffected by environmental factors such as dark, rain or fog up to Medium range. Anything beyond medium is subject to the normal penalties." and definitely a 95xp character

Hmm. The way they set up species stats does make it hard to tell what's comparable.

For Echani, starting from Humans, I figured that 95XP and one skill that could hot swap for three would be comparable to 110XP and two free skills.

Basically the goal is to get them off a brawn skill for melee, as they're not a brawn species, but still a premier melee one. Maybe just having Echani Martial Arts modify brawl, melee, and lightsaber to fall under Agility rather than Brawn? That way they would need to train the proper number of skills, but would have a benefit in characteristic specialization. But making a Brawn Echani just feels gross. It's like if all of a Gammorean's preferred skills called for intelligence, or showering. Just doesn't jive.

15 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

Miraluka could instead have "your character can only see up to Medium range, but is unaffected by environmental factors such as dark, rain, fog. Anything beyond medium is subject to the normal penalties." and definitely a 95xp character

This is why a person asks for feedback

I forgot to type out, because I'm silly and often forget every detail must be typed no matter how obvious you think it is, because it isn't. Miraluka are blind, they don't have eyes, so this quote is actually better than what I intended.

" All Miraluka are permanently blind, and begin the game with Farsight Basic Power , without regard to their force rating. They always benefit from the ability, and do not need to spend a force point to activate Farsight Basic Power. Any costs required to use upgrades to Farsight Basic Power must be paid when those upgraded effects are used. Miraluka cannot use vision enhancements outside of force abilities. "

Corrections in bold. Without eyes, cybernetic implants are not useful. Additionally electro and macro-binoculars wouldn't help either. A non-force using Miraluka would not be able to see past medium range at all, as that is the basic power's limit, and force sensitive Miraluka would need to roll force to extend their range.

2 minutes ago, Reylan Mass said:

A non-force using Miraluka

That would be an oxymoron, the entire species is force sensitive by evolutionary necessity.

I actually screwed up the way i wrote that, and have fixed it. The other species in this system that have essentially got force powers for species abilities still don't actually have those force powers, they have some ability that they can use without needing the force at all. Ihats why i think the Miraluka will have an ability not tied to a force power.

The Iktotchi have precognition, not the foresee power

Echani would be much simpler if they got a free rank in Coordination and 1 combat skill with 90xp

Miraluka could instead have "your characters vision is unaffected by environmental factors such as dark, rain or fog up to Medium range. Anything beyond medium is subject to the normal penalties." and definitely a 95xp character

Perhaps this would be better

" your characters vision is unaffected by environmental factors such as dark, rain or fog up to Medium range. Once per round you may suffer 3 strain to see up to extreme range for the remainder of the round"

Just now, BipolarJuice said:

That would be an oxymoron, the entire species is force sensitive by evolutionary necessity.

Sort of, but not really. Some joined the Luka, some the Jedi, and some were just people who saw through the force. The couldn't use the force in the way you would expect a force sensitive to, but they could still see with it. I think of it like a species that can see in infared may not be able to manipulate heat.

But in this context I just meant through mechanics, meaning one that didn't have a force rating vs one that did.

26 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

The Iktotchi have precognition, not the foresee power

Perhaps this would be better

" your characters vision is unaffected by environmental factors such as dark, rain or fog up to Medium range. Once per round you may suffer 3 strain to see up to extreme range for the remainder of the round"

Personally seems weak, if you are keeping to blindness. Doesn't really fit if you aren't. In your Iktotchi example they got a version of the power with no magnitude restriction (at GM's activation) and the control upgrade on triumph. With this version of farsight they have to use 1/4th their default strain to be able to shoot most blaster rifles at their max range. If they aren't blind, and can see without the power past medium range, with restrictions, then they're not Miriluka.

I think I just care less about the fact it's a basic force power, and see that as a reasonable draw to counter the disadvantages. I understand where you're coming from, I just think we're going to disagree on the philosophy of giving species inherent force abilities. Though it seems were close on magnitude of effect.

3 Strain may be too much, 2 or even 1 could be right. But my intention is to suggest an option that fits within FFG's established guidelines. The difference between your and my version is minuscule, yours should be fine.

This is what I've used for Miraluka:

Brawn 2, Agility 1, Intellect 3, Cunning 2, Willpower 2, Presence 2. Wound threshold = 10 + Brawn. Strain threshold = 10 + Willpower. 90 XP.

Begins with 1 rank in Discipline.

Force Sight: Despite being physically blind, Miraluka are capable of seeing through the Force. They may see normally at up to short range, and can ignore the effects of total darkness. However, at the GM's discretion, anything that disrupts the Force or use of the Force may temporarily disable this ability.

This is based on the Farsight power in Savage Spirits, but has it's range reduced to short and doesn't cost anything to activate. This way, a Miraluka PC can still purchase Farsight and gain benefits from it, if they desire.

I love how every time someone makes Miraluka they always go with some complex and OP force power option instead of just giving them the ability to see and ignore setbacks caused by poor visibility and concealment...

3 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

3 Strain may be too much, 2 or even 1 could be right. But my intention is to suggest an option that fits within FFG's established guidelines. The difference between your and my version is minuscule, yours should be fine.

If magnitude seems correct, it's usually not too difficult to convince a GM to roll with the implementation.

Anyway thanks for the back and forth, still trying to get a feel for the system. Talking about what you can and can't do in a system is the way I usually try to figure it out.

32 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

This is what I've used for Miraluka:

Brawn 2, Agility 1, Intellect 3, Cunning 2, Willpower 2, Presence 2. Wound threshold = 10 + Brawn. Strain threshold = 10 + Willpower. 90 XP.

Begins with 1 rank in Discipline.

Force Sight: Despite being physically blind, Miraluka are capable of seeing through the Force. They may see normally at up to short range, and can ignore the effects of total darkness. However, at the GM's discretion, anything that disrupts the Force or use of the Force may temporarily disable this ability.

This is based on the Farsight power in Savage Spirits, but has it's range reduced to short and doesn't cost anything to activate. This way, a Miraluka PC can still purchase Farsight and gain benefits from it, if they desire.

Interesting, and how do they manage not being able to interact with things past short range? Is it not usually too much of an issue?

2 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

I love how every time someone makes Miraluka they always go with some complex and OP force power option instead of just giving them the ability to see and ignore setbacks caused by poor visibility and concealment...

This will be useful. And interesting.

What is the complex part? What's the part that's overpowered? Why is the lack of ability to see past medium range without investment in the force power not a good balancing factor? Why would the inability to man a gunner or sensor station on a ship (without investment in the power and a -very- good force roll) not a decent balancing factor?

This is interesting. I thought that the Miraluka would be the closest to balanced without going over, but people really value the initial buy in to the force power a lot more than I expected. A lot more than other 10xp buys, that's for sure.

For Echani, I'd suggest using the Mandalorian Humans from Friends Like These as a baseline, giving them 2's in all Characteristics, +1 to wound threshold, and a bonus skill rank in either Brawl or Melee (perhaps with the option to start with 3 ranks in the chosen skill not unlike Corellian Humans in Suns of Fortune), and 105 starting XP.

10 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

For Echani, I'd suggest using the Mandalorian Humans from Friends Like These as a baseline, giving them 2's in all Characteristics, +1 to wound threshold, and a bonus skill rank in either Brawl or Melee (perhaps with the option to start with 3 ranks in the chosen skill not unlike Corellian Humans in Suns of Fortune), and 105 starting XP.

All 2s surprises me. For a species that's culturally agility focused and tends to be remarkably similar looking to others of the species, especially family members, it seemed like a good chance to avoid the all 2s template and to avoid making them a human offshoot.

It also seems really odd to have them run off brawn as a combat stat. Optimally brawn would probably be better, even in the first version that was a 3 in 1 stat as it also has influence on wound, but maybe I'm trying to make them too different from what else is there.

2 hours ago, Reylan Mass said:

What is the complex part? What's the part that's overpowered? Why is the lack of ability to see past medium range without investment in the force power not a good balancing factor? Why would the inability to man a gunner or sensor station on a ship (without investment in the power and a -very- good force roll) not a decent balancing factor?

This is interesting. I thought that the Miraluka would be the closest to balanced without going over, but people really value the initial buy in to the force power a lot more than I expected. A lot more than other 10xp buys, that's for sure.

Your proposal isn't as bad as the usual ideas, which range from giving out free force powers to free FRs and specs, to unique and silly limitations and restrictions.

Limiting the range on a Miralukas sight is just an unnecessary restriction though. I get the fluff reason, but not the mechanics in practice. It's too easy for the Miraluka player to get in an unnecessary bad spot where they feel worthless simply because the problem is beyond their visual range. Not to mention certain Careers and Specs become totally worthless (sorry, no asassin, sharpshooter, driver, podracer, scout... For you! You can't see far enough! Haha!) Unless you pay a silly premium in the form of a force power and force activations... Yeah, not cool.

By comparison you've got several species already that get bonuses for poor visual conditions, so carrying that over to Miralukas and just saying it's because The Force instead of Special Eyes would match fairly well. To add "the force" part just say it's technically a Miraluka only force talent (talent, not power) that doesn't require an FR to use, but otherwise is affected by things that would affect force talents (shrouding, ysalamiri,ect).

The exact application can be tweaked depending on what you want the final product to be. So like "can 'see' normally, but may ignore setbacks caused by poor visual conditions and concealment at Personal Short range" might work.

But the bottom line is from a gameplay perspective you don't want to apply Special restrictions on what is essentially basic functions, like ordinary vision. Remember this system takes a pretty Hardline and conservative view of the force and it's use, so requiring Farsight or something just to allow a player to safely operate certain equipment and vehicles is a pretty serious gut punch.

6 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Limiting the range on a Miralukas sight is just an unnecessary restriction though. I get the fluff reason, but not the mechanics in practice. It's too easy for the Miraluka player to get in an unnecessary bad spot where they feel worthless simply because the problem is beyond their visual range. Not to mention certain Careers and Specs become totally worthless (sorry, no asassin, sharpshooter, driver, podracer, scout... For you! You can't see far enough! Haha!) Unless you pay a silly premium in the form of a force power and force activations... Yeah, not cool.

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But the bottom line is from a gameplay perspective you don't want to apply Special restrictions on what is essentially basic functions, like ordinary vision. Remember this system takes a pretty Hardline and conservative view of the force and it's use, so requiring Farsight or something just to allow a player to safely operate certain equipment and vehicles is a pretty serious gut punch.

One of the things I'm attempting to so with this is get a feel for the system as much as to fill un-filled space in the species list, so stuff like this is helpful.

Let me ask then, should every species have equal access to everything? Is it actually a bad thing that a Miraluka assassin or gunner is unlikely or disadvantaged?

My thought process may need to be adjusted, and this may help. Kind of goes to what I was saying with the Echani. Seeing something different would be nice, even if it's not optimal. Echani should not be brawn-centric for example, even though it would be optimal to double dip into that stat for both your offense and defense. Madalorian with fewer skill choices, or Brawl corellian are both mechanically sound options, but feel boring and like they don't *give* anything for making that selection that couldn't get from a different selection.

I'm a fan of high highs, and low lows as long as they're both impacting, but that may not be appropriate in this context. Do things tend to need to be constrained a bit more in this system?

3 hours ago, Reylan Mass said:

All 2s surprises me. For a species that's culturally agility focused and tends to be remarkably similar looking to others of the species, especially family members, it seemed like a good chance to avoid the all 2s template and to avoid making them a human offshoot.

It also seems really odd to have them run off brawn as a combat stat. Optimally brawn would probably be better, even in the first version that was a 3 in 1 stat as it also has influence on wound, but maybe I'm trying to make them too different from what else is there.

2's are the baseline for Humans, and if the difference is primarily cultural, as it is with Mandos and Corellians, then 2's makes sense.

Guess it boils down to how far removed from baseline Humans you honestly think the Echani are. Personally, I see their agility as more a result of training (i.e. they spent XP to increase their Agility).

There's also the issue of letting what's going to probably be a combat-centric species getting away with using Presence as their dump-stat, since they're very unlikely to take much in the away of Presence-based skills apart from Cool, and that's only if they're worried about ambushes or aren't too fussed about the extra XP cost for a non-career skill.

1 hour ago, Reylan Mass said:

One of the things I'm attempting to so with this is get a feel for the system as much as to fill un-filled space in the species list, so stuff like this is helpful.

Let me ask then, should every species have equal access to everything? Is it actually a bad thing that a Miraluka assassin or gunner is unlikely or disadvantaged?

My thought process may need to be adjusted, and this may help. Kind of goes to what I was saying with the Echani. Seeing something different would be nice, even if it's not optimal. Echani should not be brawn-centric for example, even though it would be optimal to double dip into that stat for both your offense and defense. Madalorian with fewer skill choices, or Brawl corellian are both mechanically sound options, but feel boring and like they don't *give* anything for making that selection that couldn't get from a different selection.

I'm a fan of high highs, and low lows as long as they're both impacting, but that may not be appropriate in this context. Do things tend to need to be constrained a bit more in this system?

Everyone will have thier own certain point of view, but I like to look at it like this:

Games like D&D are evolved from a wargame, so high highs and low lows work there because the tactical rock/paper/scissors concept you see in a wargame is also present in most D20 games. Just as a 40k army should include certain specialist units to deal with specific targets your opponent may bring, a D&D party needs certain roles filled, and not having them can mean trouble. An all Fighter party is going in accepting there's a big risk.

FFGs system is more of a movie simulator, focused on creating a cool narrative that the system happens to support. A "Fluffy" character in this system can actually work pretty well when you make it work in the narrative because the bonuses and such will still be able to apply. So like you can have an entire party of pilots, or diplomats, or Jedi, and still make it work pretty well most of the time, especially if the narrative supports you and you make the narrative support you.

So

Different species should be better at certain things than others, but not to the point where one is a no-brainer, or another is a near total failure. So like making a species that can't see past Personal Medium range is not gonna work with any spec that relies on long range sight, closing off entire careers to them, not to mention potentially disrupting the narrative to a rather dangerous point.

I'm'm thinking about a saga edition gripe where a GM had a bunch of sniper's pinning down a crew of Jedi players that didn't have any long range weapons, and how it ended up a slog with the players just throwing rocks for an hour. Imagine that, but with a player or two that can't even see where the shots are coming from. Not fun.

On the other hand a species that isn't optimal, but can still make it work if they want too, even at creation, better supports the narrative concept and the idea of the quirky characters that make the setting attractive. So like a Drall Soldier:Heavy or Weequay Hired Gun Demolitionist aren't the best build, but can still be viable enough to make it work, allowing that rule of cool.

So you can have that Drall whip out an FC-1 Flechette launcher and fire rolling 2 success, a triumph and three threat and describe him filling that group of troopers full of tiny metal darts while also being blown backwards into the wall by the recoil of his own gun.

Likewise you have to be careful of forced redundancy. So like there was a long conversation a while back about making Clonetroopers a species. One thing that came up a lot was people wanting to give them the Recruit spec as a species trait. While that's got some merit for people wanting to play a clone pilot, or clone ninja, allowing a quick and easy dip into the kind of basic combat training all clones should have, when you apply Recruit to like Solder:Commando it becomes super redundant. That actually makes it a penalty for a commando wanting to Branch out later in his career. So instead making the species trait provide a slight discount on the Purchase of Recruit provides and encourages that skill access, while not seriously penalizing a player that doesn't want to go that route...

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

2's are the baseline for Humans, and if the difference is primarily cultural, as it is with Mandos and Corellians, then 2's makes sense.

Guess it boils down to how far removed from baseline Humans you honestly think the Echani are. Personally, I see their agility as more a result of training (i.e. they spent XP to increase their Agility).

There's also the issue of letting what's going to probably be a combat-centric species getting away with using Presence as their dump-stat, since they're very unlikely to take much in the away of Presence-based skills apart from Cool, and that's only if they're worried about ambushes or aren't too fussed about the extra XP cost for a non-career skill.

Lore-wise they're not really comparable to Manalorians or Corellians. Genetic modification is likely what created them as a distinct group, unlike the others which were more cultural with genetic cohesion with baseline humanity. They also have their own sub-species. Which while near-human, is also non-human. Thyrsians. Of course lore is weird lately, I mean the very first Rakkataki ever shown ended up getting changed to being from Dathomir, so things may change, but at the moment I don't think baseline human works.

1 hour ago, Ghostofman said:

........Stuff

Interesting perspectives can't say I agree with all of it, but it's definitely a perspective to keep in mind

So, I spent some time converting my saga Zeltron bounty hunter over to this system, and after decided to see if I got any insight from this thought experiment here. So I played around and updated these two species based on the over-arching philosophy that I've seen here.

I still do think that Echani should be treated as further from humans than mandalorians, more like the implementation of arkanians in the USM. So their stats are unchanged, but Echani martial arts would be modified to simply allow them to substitute Ag in for Brawn when making a brawl, melee, or lightsaber skill check as long as they are not equipping an item with the Cumbersome effect.

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As for Miraluka their stats would be the same as well. Their special ability would be:

Inherent Force Sight: Naturally blind Miraluka see through the force. They do not suffer penalties due to environment to see, but cannot bolster their sight with equipment or cybernetics. Miraluka may take 1 strain to enhance their vision by one range band.

33 minutes ago, Reylan Mass said:

I still do think that Echani should be treated as further from humans than mandalorians, more like the implementation of arkanians in the USM. So their stats are unchanged, but Echani martial arts would be modified to simply allow them to substitute Ag in for Brawn when making a brawl, melee, or lightsaber skill check as long as they are not equipping an item with the Cumbersome effect .

Hmm, see, there's a slight problem here. Although not as bad as other games, Agility is probably the closest to a dominating stat the game actually has. I definitely see how linking every single combat skill to Agility could be problematic, and it would be one of those go-to species for any combat build, because you can min-max with Agility and Brawn, and be best at using all the weapons.

Seeing as we recently got Martial Artist and it didn't include a means to swap Brawn for Agility when brawling, I doubt we will ever see such a thing, let alone apply it to Melee and Lightsaber simultaneously. There is probably a good reason for this.

The closest you might approach to this is the Martial Grace talent, which may be your best choice. There are only two instances where a species begins with a non-ranked talent, so maybe you could instead just give the Echani Martial Grace at an appropriate XP decrease.

4 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

Although not as bad as other games, Agility is probably the closest to a dominating stat the game actually has.

Well, then I may have improved my insight on the system, but still don't have it quite down yet, as I figured brawn was the dominating stat from the appearance.

As it's tied to both mitigation and damage, I assumed it functioned like Agility/Dexterity often did in other games giving offense and defense making it the dominant single stat.

Why is it agility is seen as a dominating stat? Is it the skill spread it has, or simply because it governs ranged which can become out of hand in some systems?

It's not really that bad compared to some systems. In combat, this system generally favors ranged over melee, and thus Agility over Brawn. A low-Brawn, high Agility character with the right build and weapons can do comparable damage as reliably as a focused melee build, but can also spread damage out among multiple targets, whereas a melee build has to focus on one at a time.

Your proposition would make building a combat character that can easily switch between ranged and melee much, much easier.

The developers don't shy from allowing players to switch up using characteristics and skills, but they've noticeably left the combat skills alone. The exception is lightsaber, but that is only under specific circumstances, and is not easily accessed by all characters.