Spinning this off into it's own thread, so not to clutter things up over there (and it's been something I've been wanting to ask for a while now anyway):

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

For non-humans, I've become a fan of leaving their weakness at a 1.

So my brand new(ish) punk rocker twi'lek, I boosted up all her other attributes to 3s and 4s, stuff that a gunslinger thief would have. But as these things work out, I've got none left for raising my feeble 1 to a 2. Okay, I've always been one to play to a concept instead of maximizing the meta game, lets see how this 1 in her strength works out.

As it works out, it's been . . . interesting. Especially considering that she's got a very short fuse and is likely to throw fists at the first sign of anger. During some down time last game, the characters were talking about getting up for a morning workout, Van - not being a morning person - grumply agreed. . . and then failed a <><> difficulty for doing chin-ups. Turning the gravity down in the bay, she tried again against a <> . . . and failed. Yeah, that set her off on a good mood for the day.

And of course I'm coming from a character that had a 3 in strength, so I'm constantly overestimating the cool stuff I can do. Jump that gap between buildings? Not a problem - until I fall two stories to the alley below. Jump onto the hood of a moving speeder? Nope, just slid right off!

Anyway, the long story short - what do you guys think of playing to a race's weaknesses? To those that have played with low attributes more than three games, is this folly or fun?

As noted "over there", I've enjoyed it. Soon we'll be starting a campaign where my PC is a Weequay bruiser, but also the team medic. After chargen he only has 1 skill rank, so that's a single yellow die. With a DP that's YG dice, and a med-pack provides a boost, so... presumably he'll have no trouble pinning down his screaming patients while he "fixes" them...

The long term goal is to build up selected skills, like Medicine and Knowledge Underworld, just to provide the story arc of rising to the challenge despite his worm-like intellect.

I have never played a human and never bumped the 1 on any character. I absolutely love having something I’m bad at to give the character a feeling of depth. If there’s a single skill I want tied to that characteristic then I’ll probably put 3 ranks in it early on to over come the short fall.

It's been enjoyable in my experience. Had a friend who basically played a halfling barbarian in a Legend of 5 Rings game, and he would always remind himself to not overthink it, and just let his dumb side guide his character, because he had a low Int score. I remember him saying once "I'm overthinking this...Fek wouldn't do this, Fek would just grab a chair and hit this guy over the head...so that's what I do!" *cue bar fight that was awesome to take part in*

So yeah if you play it right, it can be very entertaining.

I think a flaw makes for a better character and having a 1 in a stat can be a lot of fun when you do somehow pass that 4 purple resilience with your 1 green. Also may sues who are perfect at everything are the most boring characters to play alongside.

On the other hand, Characters with a 1 in some characteristic are often a result of hyperspecialization. Even at 500 XP, the well-rounded characters aren’t all that overpowered.

I GM for a game where all 3 of my players have a 1 in Charisma which is hilarious because of the characters they play.

One is a chiss demolitionist/merc whose always rolling leadership checks to try and convince people to follow him and create his own army of minions to overthrow the empirical leaders. So far he’s on good terms with people but his only follower is a one-legged former slave named stumpy.

The other plays a ex-imperial operative (assasin) who’s faborite thing to do is “move to seduce.” So far he’s only managed to successfully woo an imperial NCO by pulling off a miracle charm roll against her consisting of (YBPPRS).

The third only uses intimidation when just bashing the person over the head isn’t an option.

Yeah, their all a bunch of seductive-murder-hobos who actively try to derail the story.

Always keep the 1!

14 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

If there’s a single skill I want tied to that characteristic then I’ll probably put 3 ranks in it early on to over come the short fall.

She has one rank of brawling, so at least I get the chance of getting a triumph every once in a while. Even tho it's not a class skill, I might pony up the XP tax and throw another rank or two in there. Not much, but enough to make her completely not useless when she punches someone.

6 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

So yeah if you play it right, it can be very entertaining.

But man, I tell you - that native soak of 1 really burns. Especially coming from my Mechanic with a surprisingly high soak of 5 or so.

5 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

On the other hand, Characters with a 1 in some characteristic are often a result of hyperspecialization.

I'm Away From Sheet, so I'm going by memory here - but I think she has a 3 in agility, 4 in cunning, the native 3 for presence, 2s in the other two and of course the 1 in strength - so she's not all that specialized.

10 minutes ago, Desslok said:

But man, I tell you - that native soak of 1 really burns. Especially coming from my Mechanic with a surprisingly high soak of 5 or so.

Yep, which is why a wimpy person with a Brawn 1 shouldn't be acting like they're built like the Rock, and trying to get into combat They should be running like a good comic relief type character in an action flick (usually the only protagonists with a Brawn 1), and finding other ways to do stuff.

Plus Brawn isn't the only stat you can roleplay at 1, and it's, in my opinion, certainly not the one with the most potential for fun.

3 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Yep, which is why a wimpy person with a Brawn 1 shouldn't be acting like they're built like the Rock, and trying to get into combat

True, but you try telling her that. With her temper, I suspect she is going to get her *** beat. A lot.

Which I suppose in it's own way is its own comic relief. "Oh god, Vandessa is getting in that wookiees' face again. You want to go get the band-aids or should I?"

Fortunately I'm working my way up the gunslinger tree and she has plenty of dexterity to go around, so I wont be completely ineffectual in combat - just when it comes to the barroom brawl.

Just now, Desslok said:

True, but you try telling her that. With her temper, I suspect she is going to get her *** beat. A lot.

Well then you know what she needs?

2 hours ago, Desslok said:

I think she has a 3 in agility, 4 in cunning, the native 3 for presence, 2s in the other two and of course the 1 in strength - so she's not all that specialized

I get that. However, I’ve seen more than characters who have that 1 because they spent their Character Creation XP getting Intellect 5.

1 hour ago, Yaccarus said:

I get that. However, I’ve seen more than characters who have that 1 because they spent their Character Creation XP getting Intellect 5.

I guess, but I've seen only 1 PC in the 4 campaigns we've run start with a 5 in anything. Most of our players really want a 4-3-3-2-2-1 (not assigned to any particular characteristic) to be well-rounded. Assuming a 3-2-2-2-2-1, that's 100 XP.

1 hour ago, Yaccarus said:

I get that. However, I’ve seen more than characters who have that 1 because they spent their Character Creation XP getting Intellect 5.

That’s because standard min/maxing practice is to keep the one. I’m NOT saying that keeping the one is necessarily min/maxing! However, the concept of a dump stat is nothing new. So, viable? Of course it is. It can be a sound mechanical decision as well as a good roleplaying one.

The droid marauder in our game is 5 brawn, 1 everything else. It's an extremely boring character.

Seeing as a 1 in a characteristic can easily be compensated for by ranks in skills, I don't see the problem at all.

Plus, droids basically seem designed to have several dump stats. The scaling of the xp cost for buying characteristics for PCs strongly encourages droid PCs to excel in some characteristics and be utterly awful in others; if you want a solid base statline of all 2s and a couple of 3s and perhaps a 4, droids are a very suboptimal choice.

For example, with starting XP + 10 Xp for obligation, a Human can have the statline 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2 (0 XP left), or 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2 (20 XP left).

Droids in general have inferior characteristic scores compared to other species. A beginner droid can't even afford 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, not to mention the awesome 1, 2, 4, 4, 2, 2 that Neimoidians can have. But it can have 4, 4, 1, 1, 1, 1, with the 4s being any characteristics they desire. That's pretty cool, make it two very different characteristics like Brawn and Presence and it could be really fun to play. They could also do 5, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1., if one wants to be even more hyper-focused.

A 1 in a Characteristic is entirely fine and can be fun to RP. After my Wookiee Mechanic got himself mind-controlled for a turn leading to him blasting the **** out of one of his Twi'Lek friends with his autofire bowcaster, you better believe I got his Discipline to 5 - sadly he never got to beat the **** out of an Inquisitor with his bare hands after shrugging off another attempt to screw with his mind before the campaign died... (turns out a Mechanic/Marauder is a deadly combination with a weaponized wrench).

6 hours ago, Silim said:

turns out a Mechanic/Marauder is a deadly combination with a weaponized wrench

My Mechanic/Outlaw Tech was goddamned brutal and she wasnt especially built for combat. I can't imagine how much damage she could have unleashed if I threw Marauder in the mix.

The two spreads I usually go for are 3/3/3/3/2/2 (requiring an extra 10 XP from duty or obligation) or 4/3/3/2/2/1.

I tend to prefer the latter because having a 4 tends to make you pretty reliable all around.

I’ve also played a Mirialan, and went with a 4/3/2/2/2/2 spread. I tend to just feel vulnerable, unless I’m playing to that core characteristic. She’s a Warrior/Starfighter Ace, with 4 in Agility, 3 in Cunning. So unless I’m slinging a blaster or flying the Starship, I’m actually not all that useful. In fact, I think I’ve only rolled one proficiency die so far, on a cool check, because we haven’t actually gotten off-planet yet (Play by post moves slow). I’m basically relying on raw agility and cunning until we can get the hyperdrive we need.

On the flip side, the Twi’lek Quartermaster in the game I run just took a Vibrosword crit that permently reduced her Willpower. Her Stat Spread right now is:

Br: 1 Ag: 2 Int: 3 Cun: 4 Wil: 1 Pres: 4.

I’m looking forward to seeing how she plays that out. She’s great, right up until the team needs to go loud, and then she’s going to completely crack under the pressure. And don’t ask her to do any strenuous physical activity.

It's limiting but not crippling, in my experience. Except for combat skills. Due to the NEED for crits, yellows are far more important than general rules, so being limited to 1 yellow really hurts. (Tho' a couple talents allow upgrading, so you might be able to get two...)

On 4/26/2018 at 9:01 PM, Desslok said:

My Mechanic/Outlaw Tech was goddamned brutal and she wasnt especially built for combat. I can't imagine how much damage she could have unleashed if I threw Marauder in the mix.

Nothing quite like eventually having 4-5 Brawn, 4-5 Intellect, multiple ranks of Enduring, heavy engineer armor, and then taking a Disruptor Rifle shot to the chest without getting a scratch.

Been playing my Bothan Politico for over a year now, weekly games and I can say as many have before, KEEP THE 1. I think it really defines your character and is always a good laugh when my 1 in brawn always making life interesting for the group.

It also forces you to be creative... oh I have to jump over this canyon... I ain’t gonna try that with my one green in athletics ? So I’ll get the trandoshan marauder to throw me over haha

Edit: Yea.... after that much time and XP still haven’t upgraded athletics or resilience

I'm really looking forward to playing a socially awkward (presence 1) doctor character I've made. I'm thinking brilliant doctor, but a horrible bedside manner, and maybe a bit on the autism spectrum.

On 4/25/2018 at 12:59 PM, ArchAngel3535 said:

Yeah, their all a bunch of seductive-murder-hobos who actively try to derail the story.

So a typical set of players then.