So, I've been thinking a lot about characteristics, in particular when they reach 6 and even 7.

Looking through the NPC sections of the core books and most max out at 4. 5 seems limited to the best of the best and those with inhuman abilities (wookie brawn, for instance). 6 seems limited to Hutts and Rancors. I don't think I've even seen a 7.

Yet, without too much trouble, pretty much any character could reach a 6 in their chosen stat no later than their second tree, possibly at less than 200 earned XP. And cybernetics (and for some reason only cybernetics) can push this to a 7.

Now, this means a pretty laser focused character, and might not come up that often, but still, that is pretty extreme, so I started thinking about dealing with it.

In the campaign i run, I asked one player to hold off a bit when his character hit a 5 (in agility). As 6 is pretty much superhuman I wanted to have a discussion first about why his character would/could reach such levels of physical perfection. For now, I've simply capped their stats at 5 (no one else is even close) while I think this through.

As I've been fiddling with RPGs for a long time, my go to solution in these cases is to make a house rule, som my first draft is this:

PCs characteristics may not be raised with starting XP or Dedication above their species' starting value +3.

Suddenly those 3's and 1's becomes alot more important. Maybe too important. Feel free to chime in. Personally I think it would be a good thing if your choice of species mattered more, but getting capped at 4 might feel fairly crippling.

Two species need special consideration here. Capping all droids at all 4's would cripple them pretty horrible, so I considering exempting droids from this rule entirely, capping all their stats at 6 as normal.
The Drall are currently the only species that start out with a 4. I'm considering capping them at 6 as the rest, or perhaps letting them go to 7 intellect (but not increasing it beyond that, even with force/cybernetics, see below)

But there are more ways to increase characteristics, most notably force powers (like enhance) and cybernetics. Maybe these should be able to increase the characteristic one further, to starting value +4 maximum. The same cap could apply for brawn-increasing power armor. Or I could just keep the species' caps. Or cap it all at 6, regardless of species.

But this brings me to my sub-topic, namely, why is cybernetics the only thing in the rules that can get your stats beyond 6? Surely, a robotic exoskeleton should be able to do the same, or what essentially amounts to super powers? It's a weird little quirk of the systems that just bugs the crap out of me, especially since 6 is pretty damned over the top already. throwing the possibility of 7 into the mix just makes it weirder to relate to.

Thoughts? Opinions? Cookies?

As you know, I like these ideas a lot. Especially because the rules system gives the impression that 6s should be extremely rare , as almost no NPC ever (not even final bosses in campaign books) have a 6 in anything, yet PCs can often get a 6 after only two talent trees. That bugs me to no end.

I also think increasing the importance of species choice a bit is really cool, and limiting starting score 1 to a 4 max isn't too crippling - you can always compensate by increasing your skill instead. Humans might need some compensation though, but I dunno... Perhaps humans simply doesn't have to be able to get 6s at all. 5 is absolutely good enough. 6s are insane. I actually think the game would just be better off with the entire scale capped at 5.

I put a restriction on my group that stats can only be raised to 4 until they have 400 earned exp, then they can buy a 5. If they get to 800 earned exp then they can go to 6.

After the new book show the top of the line stats are 4 it made me want to put this limit. It also helps encourage my players to increase skills versus just rushing to dedication on new trees.

In my upcoming campaign, I will be applying the Genesys version of the Dedication Talent which states that it can only be applied to a particular characteristic only once. We’ll see how that goes.

The cap is where it is because according to Jay Little and the Devs the mechanics start to break down at about 7 dice. Which is why difficulty caps at about 5 dices.

7 hours ago, Daeglan said:

The cap is where it is because according to Jay Little and the Devs the mechanics start to break down at about 7 dice. Which is why difficulty caps at about 5 dices.

Yeah... I'm gonna go with a cap of Species +3 (normally 5), and absolute cap of 6 which can be reached by any boosts (cybernetics, power armor, enhance etc).

Genesys just put a hard cap of 5, along with the already mentioned 1 Dedication per characteristic. Honestly I think 5 is plenty and anything beyond that becomes annoying, especially for combat skills. “Why has that Nemesis got Adversary 4?” ... “because meat head has an Agility of 7 with their 5 ranks in Heavy and the Superior Rifle they keep True Aiming with...”

Honestly I feel lucky not to have that problem player, but from years of seeing posts about it 7 dice plus boost is definitely too much.

On 3/10/2018 at 5:14 AM, penpenpen said:

But this brings me to my sub-topic, namely, why is cybernetics the only thing in the rules that can get your stats beyond 6? Surely, a robotic exoskeleton should be able to do the same, or what essentially amounts to super powers?

A robotic exoskeleton wouldn’t increase your stats, it would give a bonus to them or outright replace them. It’d be a piece of gear or even a vehicle, not something that’s part of you (because that would be cybernetics). Nothing in the rules prevents this, but I don’t immediately recall such items showing up in the movies - presumably because their function can be handled better by droids, if you want to give them a stat normal bodies can’t handle.

1 hour ago, nameless ronin said:

A robotic exoskeleton wouldn’t increase your stats, it would give a bonus to them or outright replace them. It’d be a piece of gear or even a vehicle, not something that’s part of you (because that would be cybernetics). Nothing in the rules prevents this, but I don’t immediately recall such items showing up in the movies - presumably because their function can be handled better by droids, if you want to give them a stat normal bodies can’t handle.

The thing is, they're already in the rules. Sure, we haven't seen them much inte the movies, but they were introduced way back in WEG's d6 Star Wars RPG, and thus pops up inte lore every now and then.

FFG has included them as the Strength Enhancing System attachment and several types powered armor all of which nets you a +1 to brawn, but in contrast to single cybernetic arm, can't bump it to 7.

1 minute ago, penpenpen said:

The thing is, they're already in the rules. Sure, we haven't seen them much inte the movies, but they were introduced way back in WEG's d6 Star Wars RPG, and thus pops up inte lore every now and then.

FFG has included them as the Strength Enhancing System attachment and several types powered armor all of which nets you a +1 to brawn, but in contrast to single cybernetic arm, can't bump it to 7.

Which doesn’t have to be implausible. Powered armor that can move too fast or take too much weight would be dangerous to the user. It could just be a built-in safety precaution.

However, where does it say that an SES attachment can’t bump your Brawn to 7 while wearing the armor? It’s not like your Brawn actually becomes 7, because if that were the case your Wound Treshold and Soak values would go up too.

1 minute ago, nameless ronin said:

Which doesn’t have to be implausible. Powered armor that can move too fast or take too much weight would be dangerous to the user. It could just be a built-in safety precaution.

However, where does it say that an SES attachment can’t bump your Brawn to 7 while wearing the armor? It’s not like your Brawn actually becomes 7, because if that were the case your Wound Treshold and Soak values would go up too.

The rules state:
"During the course of play, no characteristic can be increased higher than 6."

Then the rules specifically for cybernetics notes the exception:
"The combination of XP-purchased increases and the increases provided by cybernetics can improve a character's skill or characteristic one step above the normal maximum (seven for characteristics, six for skills)."

This exception does not exist for anything else. The rules for the SES only states:
"Increases wearer's Brawn by one point while wearing this armor. This does not increase soak or wound threshold."

I do agree with your point on having a limit to how much a power armor should be able to increase your brawn before it gets dangerous to use, but I feel that should apply as much to, or even more than, to a cybernetic limb attached to your your fleshy bits as it does to a mechanical exoskeleton enclosing said fleshy bits.

7 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

The rules for the SES only states:

"Increases wearer's Brawn by one point while wearing this armor. This does not increase soak or wound threshold."

See, for me that’s just shorthand for “while wearing this armor, for the purpose of every mechanic or rule that references Brawn, except Soak or Wound Threshold, your Brawn is counted as one higher”. Your Brawn isn’t actually higher, unlike with a cybernetic enhancement, since your armor isn’t part of you (unlike that cybernetic arm).

2 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Genesys just put a hard cap of 5, along with the already mentioned 1 Dedication per characteristic. Honestly I think 5 is plenty and anything beyond that becomes annoying, especially for combat skills. “Why has that Nemesis got Adversary 4?” ... “because meat head has an Agility of 7 with their 5 ranks in Heavy and the Superior Rifle they keep True Aiming with...”

Honestly I feel lucky not to have that problem player, but from years of seeing posts about it 7 dice plus boost is definitely too much.

While I like the cap of 5, I'm not as sold on limiting every stat to a single upgrade, as it pretty much locks you into the relative array of characteristics you started with, and I like to have the possibility (if only in theory) of changing my character's focus as the campaign progresses. That said, with Genesys switching from trees to the pyramid, I understand why they had to limit it somehow.

An alternative idea to limit dedication (for Star Wars) could be to replacing the cost of buying the talent with the cost of increasing the Characteristic at character creation. So increasing to 2 would be slightly cheaper, 3 slighty more expensive and the cost increases rather drastically from there. I'm assuming that dedication costs 25xp in every tree, but if there's an talent tree where it's cheaper, a discount could be made in that case. For Genesys, you'd need an extra limit, so maybe the normal cost for dedication + the cost of increasing that characteristic, but in turn, opening up for the possibility of eventually hitting all fives (and joining Domino squad!), if that's something you want.

3 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

See, for me that’s just shorthand for “while wearing this armor, for the purpose of every mechanic or rule that references Brawn, except Soak or Wound Threshold, your Brawn is counted as one higher”. Your Brawn isn’t actually higher, unlike with a cybernetic enhancement, since your armor isn’t part of you (unlike that cybernetic arm).

That's a fair interpretation, although I don't agree with it. Still, it's kind of beside the point as my main gripe is why a single cybernetic limb can push the limit of the body to such a radical degree (beyond 6) at all. To me, it seems less plausible than doing it with a full body exoskeleton or space magic (enhance), not more, or even equal.

Also, considering the way Star Wars treats cybernetics (the lingering ominous shot on Anakin's arm at his wedding, the disdain in Obi-Wan's voice as he says "more machine than man", Luke's horrified expression as he stares as Vader's severed wrist, and then his own prosthetic) it feels kind of weird having them as the sole way of pushing beyond to such an obviously powerful thing as a seven in a characteristic, in a way confirming the superiority of technology to "natural" abilities and the force, saying "Don't trust your feelings! Turn on the targeting computer!".

But that's more a gut feeling and opinion than an argument.

9 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

That's a fair interpretation, although I don't agree with it. Still, it's kind of beside the point as my main gripe is why a single cybernetic limb can push the limit of the body to such a radical degree (beyond 6) at all. To me, it seems less plausible than doing it with a full body exoskeleton or space magic (enhance), not more, or even equal.

Also, considering the way Star Wars treats cybernetics (the lingering ominous shot on Anakin's arm at his wedding, the disdain in Obi-Wan's voice as he says "more machine than man", Luke's horrified expression as he stares as Vader's severed wrist, and then his own prosthetic) it feels kind of weird having them as the sole way of pushing beyond to such an obviously powerful thing as a seven in a characteristic, in a way confirming the superiority of technology to "natural" abilities and the force, saying "Don't trust your feelings! Turn on the targeting computer!".

But that's more a gut feeling and opinion than an argument.

Well, yes. I mean, you interpret something one way and then argue it doesn’t make sense. If you changed your interpretation cybernetics would not be the only way to get past 6 in a characteristic, even if only in a technical sense.

The SES attachment doesn’t mention the ‘can’t go beyond 6’ clause, btw, unlike every other mechanic that lets you up a characteristic.

13 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Well, yes. I mean, you interpret something one way and then argue it doesn’t make sense. If you changed your interpretation cybernetics would not be the only way to get past 6 in a characteristic, even if only in a technical sense.

The SES attachment doesn’t mention the ‘can’t go beyond 6’ clause, btw, unlike every other mechanic that lets you up a characteristic.

Yeah, I figure since they mention that you can't go above 6 early in the book, in the part about characteristics, that's a core concept of Characteristics that applies until explicitly contradicted. If they mention it again for things like Dedication, I figure that's a reminder, not a note that it applies in just this particular case.

Of course, there is an argument to be made that since power armor doesn't actually increase the brawn score as much as as add a +1 to it. But in that case, a cyborg in power armor should be able to go to brawn 8 (or 7+1, if you prefer). And I don't think anyone wants that.

18 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

Yeah, I figure since they mention that you can't go above 6 early in the book, in the part about characteristics, that's a core concept of Characteristics that applies until explicitly contradicted. If they mention it again for things like Dedication, I figure that's a reminder, not a note that it applies in just this particular case.

Of course, there is an argument to be made that since power armor doesn't actually increase the brawn score as much as as add a +1 to it. But in that case, a cyborg in power armor should be able to go to brawn 8 (or 7+1, if you prefer). And I don't think anyone wants that.

Honestly, to get to that requires a pretty hefty investment. I don’t think it would be more problematic than say, a Presence 6 Mystic with maxed-out Charm and a well-developed Influence Force Power, or a Sharpshooter with the most tricked-out heavy ranged weapon known to man and the right talents, or any other heavily optimized high XP character. Is Brawn 8 (but only 7 with regards to Soak and Wounds) dramatically better than Brawn 7? I doubt it.

38 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Honestly, to get to that requires a pretty hefty investment. I don’t think it would be more problematic than say, a Presence 6 Mystic with maxed-out Charm and a well-developed Influence Force Power, or a Sharpshooter with the most tricked-out heavy ranged weapon known to man and the right talents, or any other heavily optimized high XP character. Is Brawn 8 (but only 7 with regards to Soak and Wounds) dramatically better than Brawn 7? I doubt it.

The thing is, difficulty is set to cap out at 5. If you want to do something harder than that, it's considered to be downright impossible, meaning you need to spend a destiny point to even try, but if you do, you still roll against difficulty 5. Getting your stats up to 7 or 8 pretty much makes it so there essentially are two difficulties. Impossible (when you are out of destiny points) and shades of easy.

Even it doesn't break the system, I'd start to feel that it breaks the setting. Brawn 6 is what a rancor has. Granted, the rancor can still be stronger due to talents, abilities etc, a humanoid PC running around with 7 or 8 would stretch my ability to interpret what the numbers mean in the setting past the breaking point. NPCs hardly have stats above 4, and 4 means that they're damned good. 5 is top tier. 5 is Vader. 5 is Maul. 6 is limited to the monstrously inhuman (I can only recall seeing it on Hutt Crime bosses). If you then stack 2 more levels on top of that, it defies description.

I ran a very long campaign with some very good players. At least half had a 6 in their primary characteristic. Dedication was always more important than skills (3 ranks is pretty darn good). They were not problem players, but it was an effect of a long campaign with a lot of XP.

The reason why I’m limiting Dedication to one time per characteristic is that it’s simplest method to achieve the effect I want. I’m not tracking XP limits. I’m not changing to the tier system (which wouldn't work well with the way the trees progress along paths).

If a PC wants that 6 in whatever, he’ll need to start with a 5. That’s a significant investment and a conscious choice. For example, a Wookie may be able to start with a 5 Brawn, but that means a starting Willpower of 1, which can never be higher than a 2. You make the call, but live with the consequences.

30 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

The thing is, difficulty is set to cap out at 5. If you want to do something harder than that, it's considered to be downright impossible, meaning you need to spend a destiny point to even try, but if you do, you still roll against difficulty 5. Getting your stats up to 7 or 8 pretty much makes it so there essentially are two difficulties. Impossible (when you are out of destiny points) and shades of easy.

Even it doesn't break the system, I'd start to feel that it breaks the setting. Brawn 6 is what a rancor has. Granted, the rancor can still be stronger due to talents, abilities etc, a humanoid PC running around with 7 or 8 would stretch my ability to interpret what the numbers mean in the setting past the breaking point. NPCs hardly have stats above 4, and 4 means that they're damned good. 5 is top tier. 5 is Vader. 5 is Maul. 6 is limited to the monstrously inhuman (I can only recall seeing it on Hutt Crime bosses). If you then stack 2 more levels on top of that, it defies description.

I hear you, but then I wouldn’t wonder about why cybernetics is the only thing that lets you get past the cap of 6 - I’d wonder why it allows it in the first place.

I think the underlying problem is really one of granularity. If 6 is the maximum that should only be reached by extreme individuals, why start most races with a 3, which they can easily by up to a 4, and depending on their talent tree might be able to raise to 5 with as little as 100 XP (I assume that’s the cheapest Dedication available, haven’t checked everything)? Why is it possible for the average race to get to that cap of 6 for 140 XP and no more than 10k credits?

I think it would work better if for instance everything was doubled, except of course the effects of mechanics that let you increase characteristics, and you got half the number of your rank in dice (with some benefit or other for odd ranks). Cap of 12, best stat normally a 6. Allow spending XP on characteristics after character creation, but impose certain restrictions (no more than a certain percentage of your XP on characteristics, for instance, or make it 50% more expensive after char creation, lots of options).

Right now it feels to easy to max out characteristics. It’s too cheap compared to some of the other things you can spend XP on, and it doesn’t take enough steps or investment to get to the cap.

I'm going to just say what I said before when this came up before: 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 at the start, spend the not insignificant amount of points to get several trees and buy all the way to the dedications - and not raising other skills or buying other talents along the way - why shouldn't I be allowed to?

12 Ability dice swings in the results far too much, your ending up with a minimum difficulty of 8 to challenge the character at all, making for 20 dice to cancel at a minimum. With the very roughly 50% pass/fail of the dice you get some really messed up results that becomes plain annoying. No, a cap of 5 is great, 6 is ok, 7 is borderline too much.

2 hours ago, Desslok said:

I'm going to just say what I said before when this came up before: 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 at the start, spend the not insignificant amount of points to get several trees and buy all the way to the dedications - and not raising other skills or buying other talents along the way - why shouldn't I be allowed to?

Because a jawa able to wrestle a rancor breaks logic, common sense and the suspension of disbelief, even in Star Wars. If you want an utterly jacked Schwarzenegger jawa, you can. It's just that since a jawa is like three feet tall, that still only means Brawn 4. He might be the strongest jawa in the galaxy, but he's still limited by being a jawa.

Of course, if you want your jawa to be physics-defyingly, superhumanly (superjawanly?) strong and wrestle rancors with his super strength, you still can, but that requires actual super powers. Like Enhance. Which I'd let you bump yourself up to 6 with.

Wait, do we even have jawa stats? I'm just going to assume a starting Brawn of 1.

3 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

12 Ability dice swings in the results far too much, your ending up with a minimum difficulty of 8 to challenge the character at all, making for 20 dice to cancel at a minimum. With the very roughly 50% pass/fail of the dice you get some really messed up results that becomes plain annoying. No, a cap of 5 is great, 6 is ok, 7 is borderline too much.

Please note I said to use half the number of ability dice, with some kind of benefit for odd numbers (so rounded down). In practice the dice pools would remain more or less the same size, but the characteristics’ range would go up.

So if you’re halving the Characteristic for dice pools, their major purpose, then what is the benefit of doubling? I fear I’m kind of lost here