My group will start with the beginner's game and then work its way through the first adventure books. Now, without spoilers, how much should I prepare for combat. I haven't played eote in a campaign yet and am used to wfrp 2nd and 3rd edition which had quite a lot of combat in it. If you weren't prepared stat/skill wise you had a hard time. No spoilers please.

Heavy may not be a good word, but it is called Star "Wars".......

Yeah, the combat is certainly there. It's just not (necessarily) the primary resolution of conflict, like it is in D&D, as an example.

Several books have rules in them for running slicing and social encounters like combat, which can be great if your group isn't combat-heavy. Special Modifications has the slicing rules, and I believe Far Horizons talks about running social encounters in structured time. (But I think Desperate Allies , the Age of Rebellion book for Diplomats, actually quantifies it.) In addition, Fly Casual has rules for one-on-one showdowns, which can be good if you want to have a gunfight resolve quickly. It can be adapted to other situations with a little imagination.

However, the good news—at least, the neutral news—is that prepping for any type of encounter will generally give you what you need for the others. If you have a stat block for an NPC, it will include both combat and non-combat skills. The only things that will require forethought is if you want to give the NPC talents that increase their effectiveness in combat (or in social, or slicing, etc.). Otherwise, depending on your group, it's pretty easy to modify skill rolls on the fly, and you can quietly add a rank or two of Adversary if you need your bad guy to survive more than a couple rounds.

1 hour ago, CaptainRaspberry said:

Yeah, the combat is certainly there. It's just not (necessarily) the primary resolution of conflict, like it is in D&D, as an example.

Several books have rules in them for running slicing and social encounters like combat, which can be great if your group isn't combat-heavy. Special Modifications has the slicing rules, and I believe Far Horizons talks about running social encounters in structured time. (But I think Desperate Allies , the Age of Rebellion book for Diplomats, actually quantifies it.) In addition, Fly Casual has rules for one-on-one showdowns, which can be good if you want to have a gunfight resolve quickly. It can be adapted to other situations with a little imagination.

However, the good news—at least, the neutral news—is that prepping for any type of encounter will generally give you what you need for the others. If you have a stat block for an NPC, it will include both combat and non-combat skills. The only things that will require forethought is if you want to give the NPC talents that increase their effectiveness in combat (or in social, or slicing, etc.). Otherwise, depending on your group, it's pretty easy to modify skill rolls on the fly, and you can quietly add a rank or two of Adversary if you need your bad guy to survive more than a couple rounds.

That was what I was wondering about. I come from warhammer fantasy roleplay 3rd edition where a bit to many things were settled with combat. Where one didn't even have a chance to use social skills or the like. But it's good to know in eote they adjusted this so you can more easily use skills to overcome an encounter.

I wouldn't worry too much about it until you actually start encountering combat and find yourself doing poorly. The system gives you EXP to spend after each session so you can adjust your spending as you need to based on well, your experience

My advice is unless you are experiencing a lot of combat right away wait to buy Combat skills, just pick a weapon Skill you're likely to use a lot, get it up to a couple of Yellow dice and wait until you start missing more than hitting before upping it more. Every group has the Combat Monster ™ and unless you are that person spend your EXP on other useful stuff because frankly it's more fun to be better at a lot of useful stuff than a one trick pony, at least that's my opinion.

2 hours ago, yindaka said:

That was what I was wondering about. I come from warhammer fantasy roleplay 3rd edition where a bit to many things were settled with combat. Where one didn't even have a chance to use social skills or the like. But it's good to know in eote they adjusted this so you can more easily use skills to overcome an encounter.

If you start with a beginner box, and get the PDF download that continues it, you'll have at least 3-5 gaming sessions to figure out how it works.

But in general, combat might be frequent, but it also tends to be short. Trying to have a standoff is a quick way to incapacitation (and crits). Like any good Star Wars movie or show, unless it's an epic duel, combats tend to be running fights. Characters that decide to make a stand are probably on a one-way trip.