Dawn of Rebellion Sourcebook

By Blackbird888, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

3 minutes ago, Randy G said:

Has this been confirmed as the intent? Or has it been clarified to apply to only one hit?

No, it hasn't been confirmed. Does someone care to ask the devs about it? I unfortunately missed the opportunity to ask during the Order 66 interview.

On 4/3/2018 at 1:21 AM, BeingofMortis said:

Do the Gigorans need a vocorder to speak Basic? :unsure:

Gigorans need a vocoder to be able to express themselves in pretty much any language other than their own. They can learn to understand other languages, but not to vocalize them.

@BeingofMortis

@nameless ronin

DoR page 94, in the Gigoran language entry:

"However, many Gigorans learn to speak or at least understand Basic if taken off their homeworld."

Question on the Formation Tactics and Targeted Firepower talents in the Imperial Cadet tree. Does it specify what range scale those talents work at? Based on the skill list, I would imagine they should be good for both personal and planetary scale, but just wanted to make sure, especially if you could potentially use them for a formation of capital ships all flying in short range of each other (I am imagining a Shipwright/Imperial Academy Cadet who can do amazing things with a small flotilla of silhouette 5 frigates). Thanks!

On a related note, Commodore/Ship Captain seems like an insanely powerful combo. Man, I can't wait for a capital ship-themed campaign! Fire Control + Supreme Pride and Joy = *drool* :-)

4 hours ago, AeroEng42 said:

Question on the Formation Tactics and Targeted Firepower talents in the Imperial Cadet tree. Does it specify what range scale those talents work at? Based on the skill list, I would imagine they should be good for both personal and planetary scale, but just wanted to make sure, especially if you could potentially use them for a formation of capital ships all flying in short range of each other (I am imagining a Shipwright/Imperial Academy Cadet who can do amazing things with a small flotilla of silhouette 5 frigates). Thanks!

Devs confirmed on order 66 that it works at all scales

Thanks! Must have missed it, sorry for asking it again.

Who is this in this pic? I have been scratching my head trying to work it out...

Edited by Andreievitch

Hmm, question/idea on Prepare to be Boarded!

The text for it specifies that the target surrenders the ship if exceeding strain threshold. How would that extend to rivals and minions? By RAW, any strain they take is applied to wounds and they don't actually *have* a ST. So either they are immediately over threshold given that it doesn't exist (which would be hillarious, as every Rival-level captain immediately surrenders their ship) or you need to instead go over their WT.


Overall, this talent seems to be pretty difficult to apply, since you're never going to roll enough success and triumph to beat an average ST of 12, or am I missing something?

It seems like a finishing blow for a social encounter. You wear the opponent down first then end the encounter by taking their ship

Minions and rivals don’t have to die when they exceed their wound threshold, it’s just the normal thing. So I would say that yes, I would treat Wounds as Strain

Edited by Richardbuxton

Well, I've finally managed to read Dawn of Rebellion and I'm not too impressed. Will I use several things from the book? Yes. Do I like it? Kinda. But I still think that it's the worst Star Wars sourcebook puplished by FFG yet. It's still a decent book, mind you.

(Edit: The other books have just raised the bar pretty high /Edit)

I don't really like (or need) official stats for named characters. I always thought that FFG hit it on the nail with their usage of official characters like Lando in Jewel of Yavin and Vader in that one Age of Rebellion adventure. But I can always use the stats for my own NPCs. But seriously, statting Thrawn without giving him an Intelligence rank of 6 and Vader without 7 Brawn (6+cybernetics)? After all, these two characters would be my go to examples for peak performance for these two characteristics.
Still, I think that the space and pages could have been used far better. Vader gets only Adversary 4 when your standard run of the mill Force and Destiny Inquisitor gets Adversary 3?

Why are there no Lasats? No fully statted Bo-Rifles including things like price and rarity? No Pelta-class frigates?

The Retired Clone Trooper Spec? Just why? Why not name it War Veteran? After all, all these talents and skills would fit perfectly for an old CIS battle droid or a War Veteran of a local conflict on a random Outer Rim planet as well. Why the restriction to members of the human species? Why does it get 6 career skills and not 4 (or Force Rating 1) like every single other specialization? I agree that these 6 skills are important for a War Veteran, but there could have been a talent to grant 2 of the 6 skills (like the talents of the Recruit spec).
So far, all the specs have established a formula. In my opinion, deviating from that formula needs a reason. And I see no reason why the Retired Clone Trooper as it is needs to be an exception.
(Same topic: Why name it Imperial Acady Cadet and not just Military Academy Cadet? After all, a graduate from a local military academy would get the same skills and talents.)
So far, there has been exactly one talent (Inspire Rebellion) and zero specs that make a direct reference to a certain timeline or conflict. You could for example run an Age of Rebellion game without any change at all in the Clone Wars or the Old Republic era even if the default setting is the Galactic Civil War, the specs and talents would remain the same. Why deviate from that formula now? I see no good reason for it.

What I expected from Dawn of Rebellion : The same thing that the reginal sourcebooks delivered. A good mixture of canon material (like stuff from Rogue One and Rebels), legends material (like Cracken's Rebel cell on Contruum), some obscure canon and legends mentions greatly expanded (like the office of the different Fulcrum agents) and some completely new things and planets (like Force and Destiny's Weik). Informations about different important organisations and their structure simialr to the different Hutt Clans in Lords of Nal Hutta, referencing canon organisations, legends organisations and new organisations. Rules and Informations how to run an independent Rebel cell. After all, smuggling jobs won't differ much between the Dark Times and the Civil War Era and force users are hunted the same way no matter the time period, but running a Rebel cell would differ greatly from running an Alliance unit.

As a meta-mechanic, Duty doesn't really fit for an independent Rebel cell (after all, the PCs will propably either lead the cell from the start or be the cell). And who would give them their duty rewards? On the other hand, obligation doesn't really fit either. Of course, both meta-mechanics could be changed to fit a Rebel Cell campaign, but Dawn of Rebellion would have been the perfect place to introduce a new meta-mechanic to run Rebel cells (maybe mixing some aspects from Desperate Allies' base building rules with a form of mass combat rules and Duty?) And DoR would have been the chance to introduce a few new Universal specs interacting with that new mechanic as well.

So all in all I can only say: Sorry, FFG, but you've dropped the ball with this book.

(Hey, it's still gorgeous, there are lots of useful bits in it and it's a nice read, but it could have been so much more).

Edited by FeBommel
10 minutes ago, FeBommel said:

Why are there no Lasats? No fully statted Bo-Rifles including things like price and rarity? No Pelta-class frigates?

Per the book's lead dev, Tim Huckleberry, and two of the writers on the Order 66 podcast the answers to these are as follows:

1) Rebels was still in production as the book was written. With that in mind, as far as they were concerned, there was one Lasat out and about in the galaxy, so not a player option.

2) Rebels was still in production as the book was written. With that in mind, as far as they were concerned, there were two bo-rifles out in use in the galaxy, so not a player option.

3) Available book space. An extensive list was made at the outset of characters, items, ships, etc that they wanted to include. Space constraints led to many different items on that "wish list" being crossed off. The Pelta was specifically called out as one of them. Some of these could potentially turn up in other, thematically appropriate books.

23 minutes ago, FeBommel said:

Well, I've finally managed to read Dawn of Rebellion and I'm not too impressed. Will I use several things from the book? Yes. Do I like it? Kinda. But I still think that it's the worst Star Wars sourcebook puplished by FFG yet. It's still a decent book, mind you.

I don't really like (or need) official stats for named characters. I always thought that FFG hit it on the nail with their usage of official characters like Lando in Jewel of Yavin and Vader in that one Age of Rebellion adventure. But I can always use the stats for my own NPCs. But seriously, statting Thrawn without giving him an Intelligence rank of 6 and Vader without 7 Brawn (6+cybernetics)? After all, these two characters would be my go to examples for peak performance for these two characteristics.
Still, I think that the space and pages could have been used far better. Vader gets only Adversary 4 when your standard run of the mill Force and Destiny Inquisitor gets Adversary 3?

Why are there no Lasats? No fully statted Bo-Rifles including things like price and rarity? No Pelta-class frigates?

The Retired Clone Trooper Spec? Just why? Why not name it War Veteran? After all, all these talents and skills would fit perfectly for an old CIS battle droid or a War Veteran of a local conflict on a random Outer Rim planet as well. Why the restriction to members of the human species? Why does it get 6 career skills and not 4 (or Force Rating 1) like every single other specialization? I agree that these 6 skills are important for a War Veteran, but there could have been a talent to grant 2 of the 6 skills (like the talents of the Recruit spec).
So far, all the specs have established a formula. In my opinion, deviating from that formula needs a reason. And I see no reason why the Retired Clone Trooper as it is needs to be an exception.
(Same topic: Why name it Imperial Acady Cadet and not just Military Academy Cadet? After all, a graduate from a local military academy would get the same skills and talents.)
So far, there has been exactly one talent (Inspire Rebellion) and zero specs that make a direct reference to a certain timeline or conflict. You could for example run an Age of Rebellion game without any change at all in the Clone Wars or the Old Republic era even if the default setting is the Galactic Civil War, the specs and talents would remain the same. Why deviate from that formula now? I see no good reason for it.

What I expected from Dawn of Rebellion : The same thing that the reginal sourcebooks delivered. A good mixture of canon material (like stuff from Rogue One and Rebels), legends material (like Cracken's Rebel cell on Contruum), some obscure canon and legends mentions greatly expanded (like the office of the different Fulcrum agents) and some completely new things and planets (like Force and Destiny's Weik). Informations about different important organisations and their structure simialr to the different Hutt Clans in Lords of Nal Hutta, referencing canon organisations, legends organisations and new organisations. Rules and Informations how to run an independent Rebel cell. After all, smuggling jobs won't differ much between the Dark Times and the Civil War Era and force users are hunted the same way no matter the time period, but running a Rebel cell would differ greatly from running an Alliance unit.

As a meta-mechanic, Duty doesn't really fit for an independent Rebel cell (after all, the PCs will propably either lead the cell from the start or be the cell). And who would give them their duty rewards? On the other hand, obligation doesn't really fit either. Of course, both meta-mechanics could be changed to fit a Rebel Cell campaign, but Dawn of Rebellion would have been the perfect place to introduce a new meta-mechanic to run Rebel cells (maybe mixing some aspects from Desperate Allies' base building rules with a form of mass combat rules and Duty?) And DoR would have been the chance to introduce a few new Universal specs interacting with that new mechanic as well.

So all in all I can only say: Sorry, FFG, but you've dropped the ball with this book.

(Hey, it's still gorgeous, there are lots of useful bits in it and it's a nice read, but it could have been so much more).

To each their own but I would like to point out a few things that you might want to consider.

- This isn’t a region book, it’s an era book, and therefore it has specific content for the time period.

- Are there things that might have been better additions, like the Lasat? Sure, but they made a conscious choice to stay true to the fact that there are almost as many confirmed Lasat as Yoda’s people in the galaxy. Imagine if players started starting out Lasat to play with, it essentially guts that element of the lore. (As far as I know but I haven’t finished Rebels)

- the characters that have been statted out are specifically not their final form. Remember, this is at the Dawn of the Rebellion... so Thrawn and Vader and such should evolve in strength as your players do. This gives them room to grow and to feature throughout the campaign.

Just my my two cents.

Edited by Khazadune

@Nytwyng

Ah, 1) and 2) would explain the Lasat and Bo-Rifle complaint. Thank you. I haven't listened to that episode yet. And I don't really miss Lasats, Bo-Rifles or Peltas that much. After all, it would be easy to stat them myself or to take a similar stat block and to simply change the name.

But 3) doesn't really count in my mind. Available book space is not a real argument in my opinion when half a page gets wasted on a ship stat block for the Death Star that boils down to: "Use it as a narrative tool or environment, not as an actual ship" (Now, that or a similar sentence would have been nice). Some Infos concerning the Death Star would have been perfectly fine but the actual stat block? And a few NPC stat blocks less would not have hurt anyone... (that's at least my personal opinion)

Of course, book space is limited. In my dream version of DoR, that space would have been allocated differently.

@Khazadune

I understand your point, but so far most of the books (like the different Core Rulebooks) could be considered Civil War era books and still, they are quite setting agnostic. Something as simple as a spec name is no real reason for a complaint, that's true. But I see that as an example for the general problems I have with the book. The book somehow gives me the wrong vibe (hard to explain, I know) in contrast to FFG's other Star Wars publications or Genesys. I've never thought for example that NPC stats for specific named NPCs would be important for this system (or important enough to show up in an official book).

A small question (not as criticsm, but because I'm genuinely curious). Would you run someone as Vader in your campaign as an evolving NPC? So far, I've thought of him as a force of nature. When I'm thinking about including Vader in my campaign, it's either time to run for the PCs (run with at least three exclamation marks), capture time, time for a TPK, the campaign's end (either good or bad) or time to bury canon once and for all because a certain black-clad cyborg is now lying dead on the floor and a group of PCs is busy celebrating and doing their very best to increase the galaxy wide rarity of Corellian Whisky...

Edit: And there's my other complaint: the lack of era specific content (especially concerning Rebel Cells), rules and GM tipps. The GM tipps in the book are useful and I like that chapter but I had hoped for more, especially concerning questions and situations unique to the Dark Times era.

Edited by FeBommel
7 minutes ago, FeBommel said:

@Nytwyng

Ah, 1) and 2) would explain the Lasat and Bo-Rifle complaint. Thank you. I haven't listened to that episode yet. And I don't really miss Lasats, Bo-Rifles or Peltas that much. After all, it would be easy to stat them myself or to take a similar stat block and to simply change the name.

Well, the bo-rifles appear as equipment in the NPC blocks for Zeb and Kallus, so all that's REALLY missing is price, rarity, and hard points. As for the Lasat, there are PC species specs in the Rancor Publishing Group's Spark of Rebellion sourcebook covering Rebels season 1.

9 minutes ago, FeBommel said:

But 3) doesn't really count in my mind. Available book space is not a real argument in my mind when half a page gets wasted on a ship stat block for the Death Star that boils down to: "Use it as a narrative tool or environment, not as an acutal ship". Some Infos concerning the Death Star would have been perfectly fine but the acutal stat block? And a few NPC stat blocks less would not have hurt anyone... (that's at least my personal opinion)

Of course, book space is limited. In my dream version of DoR, that space would have been allocated differently.

For what it's worth, I think I remember them acknowledging that they made their decisions knowing that everything left out would be something that someone would prefer over something else that made it in. I can certainly understand where you're coming from. While I enjoy having the opportunity to use some of the generalized "name" character specs as a baseline, the time settings of the campaigns I run preclude using moth of them. I got the impression that most of the cuts made were consciously done with the idea of including them down the line. (Assuming more era books, the Pelta, for example, is a shoo-in for a Clone Wars/Prequel era book. While Phoenix Home specifically was significant in Rebels, the baseline Pelta was seen more frequently in Clone Wars.)

Quote

(Assuming more era books, the Pelta, for example, is a shoo-in for a Clone Wars/Prequel era book. While Phoenix Home specifically was significant in Rebels, the baseline Pelta was seen more frequently in Clone Wars.)

Ah, you're right - the Pelta would be perfect for a Clone Wars era book (together with the ARC-170, the Eta-starfigher, the Republic Nu-class attack shuttle, the Venator and Acclamator Star Destroyers and the various CIS ships). The Pelta was mainly used as a medical frigate, so it could maybe even be fitting for Unlimited Power.

And yes, I understand that some people love official NPC stats. It's just that I'm not one of them. The strange thing is that I'm actually running a game in the Dark times era (a few years before Rogue One, roughly simultaneous to the Rebels show) and I don't think that Dawn of Rebellion will have much of an impact on the game which is kind of ... strange. For example, after reading Lords of Nal Hutta, I've had lots of ideas for my group concerning adventures in Hutt space and I'm still waiting to run a campaign in the Corellian sector one day, only because I've read Suns of Fortune. Dawn of Rebellion doesn't really give me that vibe and that makes me a bit sad.

Edit: I will propably use TIE Strikers and Death Troopers, but I've already created and used my own versions of them, so while having official stats is nice, I didn't really need them that much.

Edited by FeBommel
9 minutes ago, FeBommel said:

@Khazadune

I understand your point, but so far most of the books (like the different Core Rulebooks) could be considered Civil War era books and still, they are pretty setting agnostic. Something as simple as a spec name is no real reason for a complaint, that's true. But I see that as an example for the general problems I have with the book. The book somehow gives me the wrong vibe (hard to explain, I know) in contrast to FFG's other Star Wars publications or Genesys. I've never thought for example that NPC stats for specific named NPCs would be important for this system (or important enough to show up in an official book).

A small question (not as criticsm, but because I'm genuinely curious). Would you run someone as Vader in your campaign as an evolving NPC? So far, I've thought of him as a force of nature. When I'm thinking about including Vader in my campaign, it's either time to run for the PCs (run with at least three exclamation marks), capture time, time for a TPK, the campaign's end (either good or bad) or time to bury canon once and for all because a certain black-clad cyborg is now lying dead on the floor and a group of PCs is busy celebrating and doing their very best to increase the galaxy wide rarity of Corellian Whisky...

Edit: And there's my other complaint: the lack of era specific content (especially concerning Rebel Cells), rules and GM tipps. The GM tipps in the book are useful and I like that chapter but I had hoped for more, especially concerning questions and situations unique to the Dark Times era.

I didn't take it as criticism, I'm generally a pretty accepting guy when it comes to things on these forums and reserve my rage for year long book delays.... anyways....

(Now before I begin I should say that I like playing within the established universe but without interacting directly with lore figures in any canon breaking way.)

I think my players would be more upset with me if I were to just say "Vader shows up, you all die." "Vader shows up, you gang up on him and end time as we know it." Neither approach is a good one. Should players fear big bad? Sure. But just as Luke grows on his journey to eventually face Vader, why can't PC's? (****, he is defeated in his TIE Advanced by Han...)

It doesn't have to be the lore figure of Vader.. maybe you reskin Vader's stat block to be another villain to accomplish the same journey. Think about it this way. Would you not use Thrawn in a campaign as an Evolving menace? Would you have the Inquisitors hunt your party? Could you use these stats outside of mortal combat? Sure. Maybe you are trying to lie to X big bad? Shouldn't you have some measure for what that would entail? What if you are a squadron commander reporting to Thrawn and you are secretly working for the Rebel Alliance and trying to hide your true loyalties.

The beauty of having the stats is that its a starting point for possibilities. Looking at it as if a GM is gonna have a grand melee involving these characters is a very limited view of what is possible, and probably the worst possible application of that.

Mmh, that's a good point. I haven't really used official lore NPCs in my campaign yet (Well, Bail Organa is an allied NPC but I haven't given him any stats yet and Cassian Andor was mentioned once or twice).

Using them as a starting point to build my own NPC stat blocks for the lore NPCs once I need them? Well, I'm planning to do exactly that, but I will propably change so much that starting from the official stat block would not give me much of an advantage over starting from scratch.

Using the stat blocks for my own NPCs? Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do. But I would not have needed so many of them. As I've said, I had hoped for other contents and themes in DoR than we've got. (Edit: After all, there will be lots of possibilities to introduce new generic NPCs in other sourcebooks as well, but we propably won't get a second Dark Times era book)

Edit: As I've said, DoR is neither bad nor useless, but I had hoped for something differently.

Edited by FeBommel
1 minute ago, FeBommel said:

Mmh, that's a good point. I haven't really used official lore NPCs in my campaign yet (Well, Bail Organa is an allied NPC but I haven't given him any stats yet and Cassian Andor was mentioned once or twice).

Using them as a starting point to build my own NPC stat blocks for the lore NPCs once I need them? Well, I'm planning to do exactly that, but I will propably change so much that starting from the official stat block would not give me much of an advantage over starting from scratch.

Using the stat blocks for my own NPCs? Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do. But I would not have needed so many of them. As I've said, I had hoped for other contents and themes in DoR than we've got.

Yeah, I know. I can see how some of the content isn't for every party. I think I was so enamored with this book because it tried to delve into so many different areas that it covered a huge swath with its few pages. It gives me hope that a future Clone Wars era book will give me enough detail to allow me to live out my dream of actually having a campaign set in that time period.

41 minutes ago, Khazadune said:

Yeah, I know. I can see how some of the content isn't for every party. I think I was so enamored with this book because it tried to delve into so many different areas that it covered a huge swath with its few pages. It gives me hope that a future Clone Wars era book will give me enough detail to allow me to live out my dream of actually having a campaign set in that time period.

I on the other hand hope that a Clone Wars era book won't be similar to Dawn of Rebellion. But to each their own.

I don't need any named NPCs (generic NPCs for specific locations are perfectly fine) - I'd rather have tipps for GMs to make their own NPCs that fit in the particular era of the book.

Honestly, I don't really need any short texts about stuff that was a major feature in a TV show as well. I have propably already seen that episode. I already know about that plot hook. If not, then I bet that there will be a long wookiepedia article about it including pictures directly from the series to show my players. What I want is either new stuff (like Weik), old stuff greatly expanded (either delving deeper into some major features or exploring some smaller tidbits and obscure mentions of the show/book/comic/whatever), examples how to include legends stuff in the new canon, new GM tipps how to run a campaign in that setting, infos about important themes and genres specific to that era and especially new rule sub-systems dealing with stuff particular for that setting (like for example a new meta-mechanic for Rebel cells).

Edit: Lords of Nal Hutta or Suns of Fortune worked so well for me because they took all these Lore tidbits from lots of different sources and forged them together, filled gaps with their own creations, created new information and filled the books to the brim with plot hooks. If I need infos about Hutt space, I won't open wookiepedia, I will open my copy of Lords of Nal Hutta. If a Clone Wars era books manages that, I'll be perfectly happy.

As an example, for Dawn of Rebellion I had hoped for lots of pages filled with infos about different Rebel cells. Yes, there are infos about some of these cells but I would have liked to know about more of them to introduce some of them to my players (the ones that fit to best for the campaign that I'm running). I already know about Phoenix squadron and Saw Guerra's militia (as most people who have seen the TV-series). What about other Rebel cells? How are they structured? What kind of problems do these other cells have? How could I introduce my PCs to these other cells? What about some plot-hooks concerning these other cells?

Maybe books like DoR are not written for people like me but rather for people who haven't seen much of the show (which would be perfectly fine)- I honestly think that DoR as it is would be very, very useful for these people. But I have watched most of the shows and read a few canon books - most of the info presented in DoR is not new for me and it's not that complicated that I would loose track.

Edited by FeBommel
On 4/9/2018 at 6:33 PM, FeBommel said:

WSo far, there has been exactly one talent (Inspire Rebellion) and zero specs that make a direct reference to a certain timeline or conflict. You could for example run an Age of Rebellion game without any change at all in the Clone Wars or the Old Republic era even if the default setting is the Galactic Civil War, the specs and talents would remain the same. Why deviate from that formula now? I see no good reason for it.

This is a book that itself deviated from FFG's set formula for products (it's cross-line) and the very essence of the book is that it is era-specific stuff, so this argument has me scratching my head. That's not to say that I like how much of DoR was done, but it does follow what is says it is.

Nytwing quote:

1) Rebels was still in production as the book was written. With that in mind, as far as they were concerned, there was one Lasat out and about in the galaxy, so not a player option.

2) Rebels was still in production as the book was written. With that in mind, as far as they were concerned, there were two bo-rifles out in use in the galaxy, so not a player option.

... but as GM, it's MY campaign set in a fictional universe. Did the devs not think that players/GMs may WANT those game mechanics. It begs belief for me that they throw the cartoon... sorry, animated feature character in but not it's associated lore. TBH I think it's a d*** move on the devs part.. ok we can make up our own I suppose but it still seems like a cop-out.

EDIT: Bo rifle stats are in Zeb's equipment... I'd make it rare(ish) highly expensive due to the Honor Guard thingy... sorted. I had to check because when the book arrived I flicked through the book, saw the SW:R stats,,, so it went straight on the shelf :( Haven't actually read the book yet...oh well, Waiting for Ultimate Power and Knights of Fate... maybe they'll be a bit better.

Edited by ExpandingUniverse
2 hours ago, ExpandingUniverse said:

... but as GM, it's MY campaign set in a fictional universe. Did the devs not think that players/GMs may WANT those game mechanics. It begs belief for me that they throw the cartoon... sorry, animated feature character in but not it's associated lore. TBH I think it's a d*** move on the devs part.. ok we can make up our own I suppose but it still seems like a cop-out.

EDIT: Bo rifle stats are in Zeb's equipment... I'd make it rare(ish) highly expensive due to the Honor Guard thingy... sorted. I had to check because when the book arrived I flicked through the book, saw the SW:R stats,,, so it went straight on the shelf :( Haven't actually read the book yet...oh well, Waiting for Ultimate Power and Knights of Fate... maybe they'll be a bit better.

They specifically stated that they knew there was interest in the species and gear options, and gave their reasoning for not including them as player options. I’d have liked to see them, as well, but can also understand and accept their reasoning for not including them.

To quote comedian Steven Wright: You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? ;)

@Happy Daze: Mmh, yes, I'm getting where you're coming from. I still don't know why they built the Retired Clone Trooper the way they did, after all the spec would fit perfectly for a Scrapped CIS Battle Droid as well, a character concept that would fit perfectly into the timeframe.

Edit: But it is as it is, I'm simply going to house rule that one spec.

Concerning the various NPCs, I'm hoping for a more Genesys-like approach for further era books. More open ended, no (or almost no) lore or other npc stats but tipps to build your own NPCs fitting for various organizations during that era. For example, some infos about a few talents that most ISB agents would have, the typical force powers of an Inquisitor during the Dark Times or how small scale local crime bosses would typically run their buisness in that age. That way, it would be easy to build your own lore and/or self-made NPCs as a GM but it would cost way less book space. For example, I propably won't need stats for Admiral Konstantine or Thrawn (and even if I would need them, I would need to adapt their official stats to the needs of my particular campaign first), but it would be very useful to know which special talents (maybe including one or two new special NPC-only talents) could be used to create the typical impression of an Imperial admiral. So I'm hoping for a toolbox approach for further era books.

Edited by FeBommel
On 4/11/2018 at 12:53 PM, Nytwyng said:

They specifically stated that they knew there was interest in the species and gear options, and gave their reasoning for not including them as player options. I’d have liked to see them, as well, but can also understand and accept their reasoning for not including them.

To quote comedian Steven Wright: You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? ;)

We've discussed this on and off at gaming night.. the point I raise is that we don't know how much FFG's hands are tied when it comes to splat n stuff... WEG churned A LOT of stuff out and maybe FFG don't want to rewrite the splat 'Now With FFG SW Stats' ...

For all we know they may send stuff off and Lucas/Disney say 'Nah, sorry! Write something else like (insert current canon here)' :lol:

26 minutes ago, ExpandingUniverse said:

We've discussed this on and off at gaming night.. the point I raise is that we don't know how much FFG's hands are tied when it comes to splat n stuff... WEG churned A LOT of stuff out and maybe FFG don't want to rewrite the splat 'Now With FFG SW Stats' ...

For all we know they may send stuff off and Lucas/Disney say 'Nah, sorry! Write something else like (insert current canon here)' :lol:

Heck, that happened as far back as Heir to the Empire. “No Sith (species).” So, Noghri. “No crazed Obi-Wan clone.” So, Joruus C’Baoth. :lol: