There’s also a bunch that need one extra 10xp talent to get to Dedication, making it 85xp minimum. So it seems that FFG have roughly made 1/4 to 1/3 of trees a direct path.

While a 200ish xp PC is not nothing, it doesnt really feel like a supreme epic level character either. Considering how easy it is to get, it's kind of weird that no NPCs are given a 6. While I havent checked every single adventure, I haven't seen anyone except a hutt with sixes, including jedi masters, emperor's hands etc (let me know if I'm missing something), which makes me feel like there's a disconnect between the rules and the setting. An the simplest way, to me, of fixing that would be to severly limit sixes and generally capping at five.

Other solutions:

* A pc only gets one six. The dedication needed to stay at peak level isn't possible for more than one stat. Doesn't really adress the issue much though.

* Going from five to six reauires two dedications. If you really want to go for it, you can. But it'll cost you.

19 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

While a 200ish xp PC is not nothing, it doesnt really feel like a supreme epic level character either.

Yeah, but why are you assuming that everyone is so mono-focused as to rush to the Dedication to the exclusion of all else. Or if your players are stupid enough to do that, why are you not punching them in the intelligence or the cunning or making them get into a fight with their zero skills? Or shoot their cybernetics with droid guns? Or use one of the previously mentioned mechanics already in the game?

Even better than house ruling that rush to six, why not go "Please don't do that"?

And if the player has a concept, who goes "Man, I really want to play a roided up Twi'lek that's jacked as ****" why are you not working with them to get there in the story?

It's your table, you do as you wish. But you asked for opinions, and my opinion is that this is dumb. It's a solution in search of a problem.

On 3/10/2018 at 12:14 PM, penpenpen said:

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?

I'm with you with having a Brawn above 6 for some creatures. The new "Allies and Adversaries" book states Vader at 5 (a man who can pick fully grown med up one handed) and the Rancor at 6 (a monster which is probably 10 times the size of a person, if not more) I see the issues with raising Brawn - Soak becomes huge and Wounds are more but isnt that the point for big scary things? Shouldn't Vaders Brawn be 6 with his cybernetic suit? Shouldn't the Rancor have a Brawn of at least 8 or 9? Its huge! Capable of eating its way through squads of infantry. A truly terrifying monster.

9 hours ago, mwknowles said:

I see the issues with raising Brawn - Soak becomes huge and Wounds are more but isnt that the point for big scary things? Shouldn't Vaders Brawn be 6 with his cybernetic suit? Shouldn't the Rancor have a Brawn of at least 8 or 9? Its huge! Capable of eating its way through squads of infantry. A truly terrifying monster.

Soak and Wounds aren't the issue. The increase is going to be relatively small and less than what you probably want to handwave in anyway, no the issue of a creature with Brawn 8-9 is that will roll and obscene number of dice for Brawn based checks, breaking the system.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but rancors don't really seem to be very precise fighters, nimble climbers etc. 5-6 brawn would be plenty with arbitrary increases to soak and wounds, based on the creatures silhouette. If you try to apply the rules in a strictly simulationist manner where bigger and stronger always equal better brawn score, you are going to break the system the minute you introduce anything the size of a horse or larger.