Just an idea, and probably not even a good one…

I've been playing a fair bit of Edge of the Empire/Any FFG Star Wars rpg (FaD and AoR) with my kids and we've had lots of fun. Sometimes we use IA figures... but then I just end up wishing we were playing a new IA campaign... So I was thinking of tweaking/complicating IA and simplifying EotE to meet in the middle and coming up with a simple RPG version of IA. We love making our own characters and it would be fun to do it with IA. Also, sometimes it would be fun to keep developing the characters beyond max XP that is given in a campaign. We’d also like more RPG type rolls, like rolling to sneak into a building, or rolling to coerce someone to do what you want, or rolling to hack a terminal or something. We’d like to keep the combat stuff from IA (more or less) but add a bit more on the roll playing side. Here are some ideas:

MORE STATS: I'm thinking you'd have to add more than just Strength (the fist thing), intellect?/mechanics? (the wrench) and perception (the eyeball). Speed sort of both cover agility but not sure what else could or would need to be added. We’d steer clear of Knowledge checks and Lore and try to only have stats for the most commonly used rolls.

SPENDING XP: I guess with XP you could buy abilities similar to the ones the current IA characters have or upgrade the dice you roll for strength/perception/mechanics checks. I suppose you could buy basic improvements with XP like +1 damage or +1 evade etc. but there would have to be a cap on it, like max plus 1 or something (You wouldn’t want a character with inherent +4 damage running around… you’d hardly even need to roll!)

PROFESSIONS/TRAITS: Maybe there would be some simple professions to choose from like Spy (this would enable you to get Mak type cards) or Brawler (this would enable you to get Biv or Garkhaan type xp cards...). Not sure about this. EotE has pretty cool profession trees. Maybe we could come up with a simple tree of things to spend XP on corresponding to some traits.

DICE: I really like how EotE uses the dice to drive not just success or failure but also advantage and disadvantage. Typically in IA for RPG type rolls it is just a target number of surges to see if the door is opened or the Toydarian is scared (in the app) or if there is success at whatever. Usually damage is ignored. BUT, perhaps the dice could be used in a similar way to EotE dice with damage being success and surges being advantage. Then the defense dice would be used depending on the difficulty of the task (blocks being failures and evades being disadvantages). I know the dice weren’t designed this way so probably it wouldn’t work… just an idea.

Also, you could spend XP to upgrade (color of dice your character rolls on Stealth checks or whatever) or increase number of dice rolled.

Anyway, this probably ends up making IA too complicated (and worse) and EotE to simple (and worse) so it likely won’t work, but wanted to hear if anyone had similar thoughts of bringing in more RPG aspects and Character design into IA…

The complicated thing here is you're going to the Edge forum and expecting them to know the baseline mechanics of Imperial Assault by using it as your starting point for merging the system.

You listed out what you like and don't like from the two, but maybe it would work best by sticking to one column and talk about the things you don't like about it and wishing were more like the other.

So for simplicity, since this is the EotE forum lets start with Edge as your base line.

Can you explain a little bit about what is too complicated about the system and you wish was more like Imperial Assault. From there, we can see if we can come up with a compromise.

@kaosoe has a point. I don’t play any of the strategy games, but I play the rpg with my son. The narrative system is pretty flexible, allowing you to make it simpler or more complex by just calling for fewer or more checks (single roll resolutions might fit the bill for you)? We use the 3.75” action figures, and sometimes just act things out narratively, though the dice system is great fun.

Since you and your kids already know the RPG rules, why bother tweaking the system when you just could "translate" the IA campaigns into EotE adventures? Would also be a good opportunity to play out some of the background story and the cards.