I have been thinking about how this characteristic defines the physicality of characters in the game. Disclaimer: I know that this is meant to be an abstract, narrative game.

But I have been thinking that there is not enough difference in stats between the muscular strength and mass of a Wookiee v. a Human vs. Chadra Fan for my taste. I feel like they made 2 the average stat for humans because the whole Characteristic system is set up to reflect and be relative to Human capability.

I also feel like Star Wars tends to deal with humans on a homogenous physiology of being either adults or children, not other big variations. I think this is because there are aliens to portray those big guy and little guy tropes. In a setting with so much physical variety, the average human standard is a psychological anchor point for perception. I don't really go in for genetic alteration or other weird sci-fi stuff for humans in Star Wars, so I tend to be dealing in the same trope: average adult humans.

I wish that the species had been given some abilities to compensate for the difference in obvious muscular capability. I came up with some Abilities as house rules:

Hulking: The Species/Droid possesses larger size and/or muscle density. In contests involving the Brawn Characteristic, opponents who face the character suffer an automatic inclusion of a Challenge die to the check. When the character attempts a test of strength (Athletics) the difficulty of the check is downgraded by 1 (to a minimum of Easy, 1 Difficulty die).

Light Frame: The Species/Droid has a smaller frame and lighter musculature in relation to humans and human-like species. This means that in tests of strength (Athletics) the character suffers an automatic upgrade of the difficulty of the check for their small size.

I also feel I like having Human Brawn and Wookiee(Trandoshan, Herglic, Besalisk, etc.) Brawn be the same for the purposes of combat and checks, but different in descriptive comparison. I don't think that a human is ever gong to really get to the same level of strength as a 7.5 ft. tall arboreal simian that climbs 1000 ft. trees. A strong man competition guy with a very overwrought musculature and strength is still not as strong as a Gorilla from what I have read. Even a guy like this is just getting there in the realm of some of these aliens as far as pure strength... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafþór_Júlíus_Björnsson . So if a player really wants a man-mountain type character I would think that's doable, but he is going to be kind of a one-trick pony because of the dedication it takes to be that big and to have actual useful strength from strength training and not just from body building. Even still, given a wookiee of the same dedication and drive, the wook will be way stronger.

What do you guys think about this stat if anything? I imagine most will jut say that they don't, and that's cool, but for those who are more sim-minded how do you like to consider Brawn? Or Agility for that matter?

They did compensate. Wookiees start out with the ability to withstand 30% more physical damage than a human before losing consciousness, and 50% higher base Soak before they even suffer damage.

1 minute ago, 2P51 said:

They did compensate. Wookiees start out with the ability to withstand 30% more physical damage than a human before losing consciousness, and 50% higher base Soak before they even suffer damage.

Yeah I like that and think it's a great way to differentiate. I just like the idea of keeping human strength more or less in that range to help with the feel of things. I also think it helps explain why Jedi can tackle some physically larger foes in hand to hand. Thanks for bringing up that point though because I do think it speaks to the power considerations.

16 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

They did compensate. Wookiees start out with the ability to withstand 30% more physical damage than a human before losing consciousness, and 50% higher base Soak before they even suffer damage.

Of course, along that line of thinking, Wookiees also have a glass jaw when hit for Strain damage, whether from a punch or a blaster set to stun.

They don't have as big a Strain pool, but they still have 50% more resistance to Strain damage as well since Soak applies to Strain damage also without some additional feature that by passes it. So 25% less base Strain, but still 50% more defense against taking it.

3 hours ago, 2P51 said:

They don't have as big a Strain pool, but they still have 50% more resistance to Strain damage as well since Soak applies to Strain damage also without some additional feature that by passes it. So 25% less base Strain, but still 50% more defense against taking it.

It's only 50% more if both are naked. If both wear heavy clothing, then the Wookiee's Soak advantage has been cut to +33%. With more protective gear, like padded armor, the Wookiee's Soak advantage drops to +25%. And this assumes that the Wookiee is wearing as much protective clothing as a human, which is a stretch since most setting sources show that Wookiees tend to be rather minimalist about clothing.

This was one of the things which made me hesitant to try the system, but I haven't had a problem with it.

Now what I personally think is an even bigger issue is that characteristic caps are absolute and not relative to species average; so the strongest Chadra-Fan in the galaxy is just as strong as the strongest Wookiee in the galaxy.

If anything, I would manage each characteristic’s cap based on species stas:

Starting value of 1 —> max of 2

Starting value of 2 —> max of 4

Starting value of 3 —> max of 6

41 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

If anything, I would manage each characteristic’s cap based on species stas:

That's essentially what I did, but I just went with 3 over racial starting value (except for droids, which I limit at 3 above character starting value (though still limited to 6).

20 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

If anything, I would manage each characteristic’s cap based on species stas:

Starting value of 1 —> max of 2

Starting value of 2 —> max of 4

Starting value of 3 —> max of 6

And for that one species (Drall) with a starting Intellect 4? Can they go as high as 8?

Oh yeah... umm... sure?

20 hours ago, Vorzakk said:

This was one of the things which made me hesitant to try the system, but I haven't had a problem with it.

Now what I personally think is an even bigger issue is that characteristic caps are absolute and not relative to species average; so the strongest Chadra-Fan in the galaxy is just as strong as the strongest Wookiee in the galaxy.

Yeah I had a discussion with my players about this and we agreed that the characteristics have to be considered based on the creature. They are mechanically relevant to each other but narratively different I guess. The only mechanical changes being the way I modified the roll difficulties for Hulking, Light Frame. I loved your point.

12 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

And for that one species (Drall) with a starting Intellect 4? Can they go as high as 8?

Happy, if I could piggy back a bit here: I was thinking about how this problem mainly is about Brawn and maybe Agility, so I really hadn't considered using these sort of differences for Intellect, Cunning, Willpower, or Presence. Especially considering how important Intellect is.

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.

On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 12:02 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 like the thought of a max for the stat. I would probably just allow only 3 for Human Brawn as max. I don't really see the need for gigantic hyper-muscled Humans in this setting. I think that Human physiology needs to stay somewhat fragile and the system makes it hard to die (unless you are playing high xp games and have things like Disruptors in the mix). I would say that a really, really strong chadra fan or jawa might have at most a 2 in Brawn, but probably they would be at 1. I would only have the larger and more physically dense species get up as far as 4+ in Brawn.

I think these rules are great, but they do seem to have a power creep and militarism creep problem for my tastes.

I actually would enjoy seeing the Savage Opress of the chadra fan race, a hulking beast with brawn 6. Or the general grieves of the chadra fans … gaining wookie strength by abandoning all else, including it's own soul and becoming more machine than chadra fan … don't really see the issue.

Also, these extreme outliers are just that. They're rare, and the cost of boosting stats makes it prohibitively expensive at character gen, which bar those rare talent tree boosts, is the only time you can up them.

9 hours ago, Stethemessiah said:

Also, these extreme outliers are just that. They're rare, and the cost of boosting stats makes it prohibitively expensive at character gen, which bar those rare talent tree boosts, is the only time you can up them.

Which is a strength of the game in my opinion. I guess maybe the way it I viewed is the important thing for me. If a normal adult human is 2, then how would you describe (visually and in capability ) a human with max? And I am not talking about a Force enhanced human. How would you explain that contrast in descriptive terms?

On 1/27/2018 at 8:07 PM, Yaccarus said:

If anything, I would manage each characteristic’s cap based on species stas:

Starting value of 1 —> max of 2

Starting value of 2 —> max of 4

Starting value of 3 —> max of 6

Ugh, no. This means that there is no such thing as a tough Twi'lek, or a strong-willed Wookiee. If anything, just adjust the max up or down by one. So someone determined to make a Brawny Twi'lek can at least get to 4.

Yeah, I don't think that limiting the caps in that manner is quite right. I might suggest a compromise: the Brawn cap for species of Silhouette 0 is 5, not 6. Done, the strongest Chadra-Fan can no longer be as strong as the strongest Wookiee.

I generally think of the different characteristic ratings as standard deviations from the average, as so:

Characteristic 1: The character is somewhere between -2 and -1 standard deviation from the human average.

Characteristic 2: The character is around human average, between -1 and +1 standard deviation. Most characters are probably on the higher end, while Rivals, and especially Minions, are on the lower end, but it doesn't make any mechanical difference.

Characteristic 3: The character is above average, but not exceptional, between +1 and +2 standard deviations from human average.

Characteristic 4: The character is exceptional with this characteristic, between +2 and +3 standard deviations. This means that they might be in the 98th or 99th percentile for the characteristic, when measured for humans.

Characteristic 5: The character is incredible at the characteristic, the equivalent of genius-level for a characteristic like Intellect. They're between +3 and +4 standard deviations, meaning percentile-wise they're likely sporting a lot of decimal nines.

Characteristic 6: The highest a humanoid creature of Silhouette 1 is physically capable of being, and super-human ability. If measurement is needed, +4 to +5 standard deviations.

The thing here is that, since the measurement is based off of human, an above average but not exceptional Wookiee will have a Brawn of 4, which is something most humans would consider frightening. Most humans, even in cities of millions, probably have not encountered anyone with a 5 Brawn, but for Wookiees, while it's uncommon, they probably know someone who has a Brawn that high.

That's why I think Silhouette is a good way to restrict this, if you really feel it needs restriction. If the idea is that a 6 Brawn is the maximum a Silhouette 1 humanoid can practically achieve, being a Silhouette smaller would reduce that by 1.

Just my thoughts.

On 1/27/2018 at 8:07 PM, Yaccarus said:

If anything, I would manage each characteristic’s cap based on species stas:

Starting value of 1 —> max of 2

Starting value of 2 —> max of 4

Starting value of 3 —> max of 6

That's a terrible idea. If I want a utterly jacked Schwarzenegger Jawa, and I'm willing to sink the not insignificant amount of points to raise the attribute, get several trees and buy all the way to the dedications, why shouldn't I be allowed to?

Characteristic caps, if you want to use them, should not preclude spending all your staring xp (+10) in one stat. If I want to get my Twi'lek from 1 to 4, I can easily do that with starting xp. The cap should be 5, in that case, as the limit most species can reach is 1 higher than what they can start with (a Wookiee can get to 5 Brawn, and can raise it 6, for example).

You could also go with the rule from Genesys that states you can only use Dedication once per Ability -- that should keep the "weaker" species from getting too jacked, if that's a concern.

It's not an issue limited to Brawn. Brawn 1 accounts for everything from kittens to Twileks, Intellect 1 accounts for everything from worms to Weequay, and each increment accounts for a pretty broad spectrum that isn't necessarily reflected in the mechanical results. I might agree that an average Brawn 3 Wookiee would be able to throw an average Brawn 2 Human around the room, but the mechanics to represent this are limited by the shallow scale. It gets even muddier when you account for skills, because your Brawn 1 Twilek martial artist master will probably chew up a Brawn 3 no skill Wookiee. But on the whole, the game works really well, I don't know if it's worth it to add bandaids. In my experience, there are few contexts that require looking only at an specific attribute in question, you can almost always account for the impact of skill in the situation.

I think a max is simpler to implement than additional racial features or abilities. If you get into the latter then it's just more rules to remember at the table, rather than just looking at your character sheet. Humans maxing at 4 (eg: the Mountain from Game of Thrones) would be plenty IMHO, no reason that couldn't be a house rule.

However, if you did want to add minimal crunch, in straight attribute-vs-attribute contests you might just add boost dice to the one side, if you feel the situation calls for it. If you had a Brawn 4 Human vs a Brawn 4 Wookiee, both with 2 ranks in Brawl having it out in a sumo match, I could see tossing the Wookiee a boost die.

On ‎2‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 12:07 PM, whafrog said:

It's not an issue limited to Brawn. Brawn 1 accounts for everything from kittens to Twileks, Intellect 1 accounts for everything from worms to Weequay, and each increment accounts for a pretty broad spectrum that isn't necessarily reflected in the mechanical results. I might agree that an average Brawn 3 Wookiee would be able to throw an average Brawn 2 Human around the room, but the mechanics to represent this are limited by the shallow scale. It gets even muddier when you account for skills, because your Brawn 1 Twilek martial artist master will probably chew up a Brawn 3 no skill Wookiee. But on the whole, the game works really well, I don't know if it's worth it to add bandaids. In my experience, there are few contexts that require looking only at an specific attribute in question, you can almost always account for the impact of skill in the situation.

I think a max is simpler to implement than additional racial features or abilities. If you get into the latter then it's just more rules to remember at the table, rather than just looking at your character sheet. Humans maxing at 4 (eg: the Mountain from Game of Thrones) would be plenty IMHO, no reason that couldn't be a house rule.

However, if you did want to add minimal crunch, in straight attribute-vs-attribute contests you might just add boost dice to the one side, if you feel the situation calls for it. If you had a Brawn 4 Human vs a Brawn 4 Wookiee, both with 2 ranks in Brawl having it out in a sumo match, I could see tossing the Wookiee a boost die.

I think that is a reasonable solution. I do think that the game is pretty well designed and I will say that on it's own I don't find the RAW to be really bad in this department, but I think because I want to describe Wookiees a certain way it helps if I have mechanics to back it up. The wookiee is really strong is always sneered at the moment they find out the Wookiee has a 4 lol. And you are absolutely right when you point out that there is a shallow scale to work with. I think that the Narrative Dice are great because they add peripheral results as an option, so I was thinking that by making Wookiee Brawn fundamentally different from Human Brawn I could keep it's success in many things controlled by RAW, but also get my mechanically-backed description. That was my issue in summary. I could just hand wave it I guess. "No, you can't lift the Girder off of the girl but the Wookiee does it."

I guess results and approach can also vary. So the human uses careful positioning and exact lift where the Wookiee of same strength lifts casually with one arm.

(thinking of princess bride - “I don’t even exercise “)