Ok so looking at the XP amounts for the Archetypes, and the Archetype building guide in the rulebook, the values don't seem to add up. So starting with a base of 100 XP:

Average Human (P36):

Abilities: +10 XP

1 additional skill at rank 1: -5 XP

Ready for Anything: -5 XP

Starting Experience: 100 (110 given in rulebook)

Labourer (P37):

+2 Wound Threshold: -5 XP

-2 Strain Threshold: +15 XP

Tough as Nails: -5 XP

Starting Experience: 105 (100 given in book)

Intellectual (P38):

-2 Wound Threshold: +5 XP

+2 Strain Threshold: -15 XP

Brilliant!: -5 XP

Starting Experience: 85 (100 given in book)

Aristocrat (P39):

Forceful Personality trait: -5 XP

Starting Experience: 95 (100 given in book)

FFG seem to have done a poor job of following their own guidelines in this book in general. Gear prices don't remotely match up to their gear creation guidelines.

One thing to keep in mind is that the various 5XP abilities are part of the 'base cost'. It's assumed you get one skill rank and one 5XP ability in addition to the 100 starting XP and the 3/2/2/2/2/1 characteristic array. Ready for anything, tough as nails, brilliant!, and forceful personality should not impact your final cost.

That aside, @Tom Cruise is right: they do a poor job of following their own guidelines. So when you use the archetypes in play, either accept they're not balanced with anything you come up with, or you will need to recreate them yourself to price them accordingly.

1 hour ago, c__beck said:

One thing to keep in mind is that the various 5XP abilities are part of the 'base cost'. It's assumed you get one skill rank and one 5XP ability in addition to the 100 starting XP and the 3/2/2/2/2/1 characteristic array. Ready for anything, tough as nails, brilliant!, and forceful personality should not impact your final cost.

According to p192 its very clearly established that you get a single rank in a skill as your special ability, and no other 5XP abilities:

"When building a species, you should start with four of your six characteristics (your choice) with a value of “2,” one with a value of “1,” and one with a value of “3.” Your wound and strain thresholds should be at “10+Brawn” and “10+Willpower,” respectively. Your starting experience is set to 100 XP. Finally, your special ability is one rank in one skill."

The specific Species have a much better grasp of this costings:

On page 193 it says, " Other unique rules are the hardest to price out. Generally, they should be about the power level of a Tier 1 talent (see page 196). "

I took that to mean that they started with the equivalent of a tier 1 talent. I guess I read that wrong. Good catch, @Justindoodler !

The book also says that the skill point the Archetypes have should cost 5 XP unless it’s a skill asssociated with the characteristic they start with a rating of 3, in which case it should cost 10 XP. All things considered they’re a bit of a mess :-/

I really like Genesys, but so far the Archetypes are proving troubling to me. I am sure future books will deal with them in a better way but as a toolkit game, they have really messed up.

I'm curious what your intention is with this thread? Are you just wishing to vent or looking for help? We are not the developers so any reasoning we could offer would just be guesswork.

The archetypes seem about par for the course when I compare them to species in Star Wars, so I'm not sure what sort of responses you are looking for here.

Just chewing the fat. I can post this in the FAQ, but I was just observing that the values don't add up as written.

It makes sense that they don't add up for a variety of reasons.

First, the Average Human is based off of the Human species from Star Wars, which did start at 110 xp. This average human loses a rank in a skill but gains Ready for Anything. Even so, as the base Average Human, the starting XP probably makes sense to keep it at 110, as a legacy artifact from Star Wars.

Aside from that, you're never going to find exact, precise adherence to guidelines. First, this isn't GURPs, or Hero System. It's not designed to be a strict chart that all characters and designs must rigidly adhere to. The guidelines are just that; guidelines. They're to get you within the ball park of how much it should cost, but it's still up to the designer to make final adjustments. 105xp for the Laborer is just a little too good, so they pulled 5xp. Likewise, they likely judged that the Intellectual and the Aristocrat aren't quite as compelling with their abilities and starting XP, so they got tapped up to 100 starting xp. That's what you have to do when you're designing; look at not only the numbers but also the compelling reasons to play them. If something's too good, even if the raw numbers say it's balanced, you will have to tone it down. If something isn't good enough, even with the raw numbers saying how much such a set of abilities should cost, you'll need to bump it up.

If you want game design to be a series of 100% infallible charts, you're going to be severely disappointed.

In my years of playing Star Wars, I've discovered that it is pretty hard to tell the difference when the PCs have various levels of XP*. So perhaps that is why I am not phased by the breakdown given in the OP. As Phil said, as long as you are in the same ball park, I think you'll find that it doesn't matter once you get to the table.

*It's more noticable when you are in a situation that one player has optimized for while others did not. But hey, that's not unique to GeneSys/SWRPG

1 hour ago, DarthGM said:

First, the Average Human is based off of the Human species from Star Wars, which did start at 110 xp. This average human loses a rank in a skill but gains Ready for Anything. Even so, as the base Average Human, the starting XP probably makes sense to keep it at 110, as a legacy artifact from Star Wars.

Looking at the species from Edge of Empire, most gain:

One Characteristic at 3, one at 1, and the rest at 2

One skill at Rank 1

Possibly an additional special ability or threshold bonus worth 5 XP.

Starting Experience of 100 XP

I appreciate that its not an exact science, but I think the Archetypes seem to follow those costings. If you treat Strain threshold increases or decreases as you do Wound Thresholds (like they do with Talents such as Grit), the costs are actually spot on. Average Human scrapes an extra 5 XP but thats not enough to seriously worry about and can be considered an adjustment considering the number of Average Humans out there.

Average Human (P36):

Abilities: +10 XP

2 skills at rank 1: -0 XP

Ready for Anything: -5 XP

Starting Experience: 105 (110 given in rulebook)

Labourer (P37):

+2 Wound Threshold: -5 XP

-2 Strain Threshold: +5 XP

Tough as Nails: 0 XP

Starting Experience: 100 (100 given in book)

Intellectual (P38):

-2 Wound Threshold: +5 XP

+2 Strain Threshold: -5 XP

Brilliant!: 0 XP

Starting Experience: 100 (100 given in book)

Aristocrat (P39):

Forceful Personality trait: 0 XP

Starting Experience: 100 (100 given in book)