The Brawn Characteristic and Species

By Archlyte, in Game Masters

Is the approach not anyway that the racial starting values represent the lowest of the lowest possible values for a race, meanwhile a 6 represents the highest possible value even the force can grant.
Anyone want to argue that a wookie has more strength than Master Windu who demolishes droids with his bare hands? Still a strength 3 wookie is basically a weakling.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11129/111293023/5942487-mace+vs+droids+1.gif

Now the scale is indeed a little small. Having 7 the absolute top maximum with cybernetics leaves indeed little room, but that is courtesy to the dice, characteristics and skill mechanics. If you fiddle here with the values, you are messing with the basic probability curves of the game.

@Absol197 The strongest Chadra-fan would be a force user in that case. :P

I think at some point it has to be hand waved. A Brawn 6 Human, Wookiee, and Rancor walk into a bar. The human cuts the line, tosses aside the bouncer, and walks in the door. The Wookiee scares off half the line, rips the door off its hinges and beats the bouncer with it. The Rancor causes pandemonium in the streets, makes the bouncer scream like a Porg, and creates its own door wherever it wants.

I also don't think that the starting stat array for a species is the minimum array for that species as NPCs . The species choices in the game are there as a balance on PC creation, and there are plenty of published NPCs who deviate from those arrays with stats under those minimums.

39 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

I also don't think that the starting stat array for a species is the minimum array for that species as NPCs . The species choices in the game are there as a balance on PC creation, and there are plenty of published NPCs who deviate from those arrays with stats under those minimums.

There are plenty PCs below the minimum values as well, gruesome injuries are fun. ^_^

On 2/9/2018 at 4:56 AM, whafrog said:

I think at some point it has to be hand waved. A Brawn 6 Human, Wookiee, and Rancor walk into a bar. The human cuts the line, tosses aside the bouncer, and walks in the door. The Wookiee scares off half the line, rips the door off its hinges and beats the bouncer with it. The Rancor causes pandemonium in the streets, makes the bouncer scream like a Porg, and creates its own door wherever it wants.

Also, if you think a character is throwing fists with someone outside of their weight class, we already have a mechanic in place for that. Toss in a black or two into the brawling roll and call it a day.

2 hours ago, Desslok said:

Also, if you think a character is throwing fists with someone outside of their weight class, we already have a mechanic in place for that. Toss in a black or two into the brawling roll and call it a day.

Because I don't know the mechanics well enough odds-wise, I tend to wonder if this is enough. Maybe it's just because I come from d20 and d100 games, but the addition of a black Die always feels like a minor adjustment (even though I realize it isn't through play experience and can be the difference).

There are a lot of creative ways you could handle the difference simply on the description side of things. I think the problem come when someone says that the language of numbers says that Wookiees are just the same as humans where strength is concerned if they both have a Brawn of 4.

You decide whether this bothers you, and if it does, then you have to choose if you are gonna treat that symptom: mechanically (caps, etc.), conversationally (just ignore the mechanics), Description (You pick up the object but the wookiee picks it up as well and seems to not be straining), or through modifiers (Black/Blue Die), etc.

On 2/15/2018 at 3:09 PM, Archlyte said:

but the addition of a black Die always feels like a minor adjustment

To give you an idea of the scale, two blacks is (more or less) like adding one more difficulty die. So yeah, that's not an insignificant penalty.

On 1/29/2018 at 9:02 AM, Stethemessiah said:

Perhaps a system, given that bas3 human is 2 and max 5, would be to say racial max should be base x2 +1.

So if your base is 1, max is 3. If base is 3, max is 7.

I always use base +3 as max.

Base of 5? Max of 8.
Base of 1? Max of 4.

That's how I do it.

12 hours ago, Desslok said:

To give you an idea of the scale, two blacks is (more or less) like adding one more difficulty die. So yeah, that's not an insignificant penalty.

Unless you're at my table, where black die seem to roll blanks about 75% of the time...

In looking through the NPCs in the books I noticed that a 3 for Brawn in trained humans is pretty easy to come by. In NPCs I will often want to raise characteristics over actually doing all the talents and what not but still give the NPC decent chances with the dice. This is another difficulty in representing the Brawn stat as anything but abstract.