Has anyone played with raising the hard cap on stats? The idea that cybernetics is the only way to break that limit seems...weird. Even force powers like Enhance cap at 6. Neither I nor my players are concerned about big dice pools and we all pretty much agree that "rolling lots of dice" is half the fun of any game. But my bigger concern and question is how well the game itsself handles it? I homebrew a lot of my villains building them just like characters and I find the cap sometimes gets in the way. Sure, having multiple 6's makes them more robust, but still somehow...limited. I get why there is a cap (as D&D 5E would argue: bounded accuracy) and I've played in systems without hard caps (that were both awesome and horrible), but I'm kinda curious about anyone's experience with it?

Do "munchkin" players go lop their limbs off when they want an extra point? How does the game hold up with someone with a single 7, multiple 7s, multiple people with 7's?

If you've raised the stat cap, or played a game with a raised stat cap, did people actually try to hit it? Did the game hold up?

What about a softer limit increase, like letting Enhance increase up to 7? Maybe just a simple "It can only get you 1 higher than your cap, so with cybers, 8").
-I'd rather not have anyone feel like they can't progress their character concept (even its as simply as being The Hulk) without turning their PC into sushi.
-Since this would be considered an "enhancement effect" I'd probably rule it wouldn't stack with stims.

I suppose I could allow for "genetic engineering" to function the same as cybernetics (bumping a 6 to a 7 or increasing your cap to 7 for when you want to get it up there down the road), some downtime for procurement, "install" and adjusting to your new abilities with some sci-fi mumbo-jumbo about how the body just can't handle any more than that. (the Force is magic of course!) Which would also fit well with the "evil scientists and genetic experimentation" questline I've got going on in my game.

I'm not at all worried about my characters having really high scores. I've dealt with those kinds of games for decades. 100 soldiers with average stats will still carve through a team of Jedi with a 7 brawn and +5 cortosis armor simply by sheer volume of attacks. In fact I almost killed my ~800xp party of 5 last week with 12 minions and one tactically-minded adversary 2(who had party-equivelent stats, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2). Or ya know, I'll blow them up in space. As far as I'm concerned PCs are the exception, as are the challenges they may face. I'm really only concerned with how well the system holds up, and what sort of experiences others have had?

The odds get a bit ridiculous after 5 dice, and even with 5 dice it's sometimes ridiculous, depending on the task. It's just overkill, especially with combat, especially at short range. I don't know if you play D&D, but a 3 die differential between positive and negative pools roughly equates to a +10-15; 4 dice is +15-20. I'm pretty liberal with boosts and setback, so the pools aren't exactly limited. Throw in talents that remove setback, and the PCs will have few challenges they can't succeed at.

It's not so much about how many stormtroopers they can mow down, but how they handle other tasks. If their Intellect is 7 they'll be an awesome Mechanic...but also an awesome hacker, doctor, and general know it all. There won't be anything they won't know. If their Agility is 7, their shooting will probably kill something every shot, maybe even an entire minion group. But their Piloting will also be incredible, almost nothing they can't fly through. So to make it interesting they'll have to be skating around supernovas on a constant basis, but that's got to have upgrades to reflect the added dangers and...

...this is just subjective, but the more dice in the pools, the wilder the swings. I had a player roll over a dozen dice once, and all the positives had values (including a couple of Triumphs), while the negative dice came up with a single Threat (all the rest were blank). The player was thrilled, but it could have easily been the reverse. Because to make it interesting I have to up the ante, and that increases the odds that the narrative axis will be amazing or devastating. Triumphs and Despairs should mean something, but it's just more work to make them mean something special when they come fast and furious.

I don't mind working with extremes that happen once or twice a game, but you'll be dealing with it on a constant basis.

All that said, it's worth trying out just to know. Nothing beats experimenting with it yourself.

After all their experience with Star Wars, FFG lowered the characteristic cap for Genesys:

"No characteristic can be increased higher than 5, either in character creation or in gameplay."

They also limited Dedication to only work once per characteristic.

The reasoning is that going above 5 proficiency dice causes the results get a bit wonky.

1 hour ago, salamar_dree said:

After all their experience with Star Wars, FFG lowered the characteristic cap for Genesys:

"No characteristic can be increased higher than 5, either in character creation or in gameplay."

They also limited Dedication to only work once per characteristic.

The reasoning is that going above 5 proficiency dice causes the results get a bit wonky.

That's fine to me conceptually IF and that's a big "if", the system forces you to start lower. Like, if we translate these numbers to a d20 system, +5 is like having a 20 in any stat. But the d20 system also allowed you to start with negative modifiers. So going from -1 to +2 was quite the move (it also took you two points to get 1 movement, increasing the time and investment required). But with this system (and I am not familiar with Genesys, Terminator or otherwise) starting at 2, it's (again in d20 talk) like having 14's across the board, making movement upward much less impressive. But being able to build a character now with a 4 in at least 1 stat, if not 2, really makes me conceptualize only getting one more(or as it stands, 2 more) increase as much less impressive. If a character's "starting scores" were say, 0 across the board and a "high score" was 2, I'd buy into a lower system. And I absolutely don't like the idea of Dedication being a once-per-stat deal.

I don't mind if skills (as opposed to stats) take a "tier" approach in that each level represents an actual level of training and honestly even if you can't get your skills higher than 5 (though personally I'd like to see some kind of skill capstone system added when thats the case), I don't see why stats need to be similarly limited. 5 yellow, hard cap, I can buy that. But there should then be something attached to that 5th die. If you're the skilled of the skilled, the game should recognize that. On that note, I'd be more accepting of stat caps if the system did something to recognize that you're the best of the best.

Some discussion with my players has resulted in the conclusion that FFG may have been better served to have designed the game as though there were 0-9(or 1-10) ranks to everything, but then left those numbers only for monsters and epic foes and such and only made 1-6 available to the player. That way if there is need for something or someone to have a +7 or a +8, the game has already been designed to handle it, be it an exception or on a regular basis. But I find that a lot of RPGs either seem uninterested or unwilling to properly test and manage "high level/high power" gameplay.

From my perspective, if your game falls apart after Point X, you need to address why that is, not just prevent the game from ever getting there. Because the cracks will still appear at Point X-1.

55 minutes ago, False God said:

From my perspective, if your game falls apart after Point X, you need to address why that is, not just prevent the game from ever getting there. Because the cracks will still appear at Point X-1.

Um...why? Most people play perfectly exciting and satisfying games with a cap of 5. 6s and stuff are reserved for things like Rancors. The game isn't "broken" if you lift the cap, but it does get a) a bit boring because the tone shifts to a "gods vs mortals" game; and b) a bit wonky with the results. The game also isn't broken because you, out of hundreds of players who've marched through these forums, wanna do it different.

1 hour ago, False God said:

But I find that a lot of RPGs either seem uninterested or unwilling to properly test and manage "high level/high power" gameplay.

Probably because demand is low. I've been on here since the beta, and this has come up only a few times. Also, that's just not the Star Wars feel. A campaign would have to go on for years to get a PC that is a Yoda or Palpatine equivalent, but the actual stories of Star Wars are about people who couldn't dream of facing these adversaries head on.

The game is also not about just the dice. XP spent on Talents is often much more useful, and each career has signature abilities, all of which is hard to quantify if you're just looking at the power curve of dice pools.

Anyway, the FFG police aren't going to show up to stop you lifting the cap, so just do it. Arguing about whether they should have done X or Y is kind of pointless now that the product is in limbo. The Genesys game is the successor mechanically, but as noted the cap is even lower.

I concur with @whafrog on the matter of low demand. Highest level I've seen anyone want to play at is 1,000 bonus EXP at CharGen. In my longest-running campaign, I don't expect the players to get higher than maybe six/seven hundred.

As for the actual question of raising Characteristics:

I dislike when PCs get Characteristics above 5. It gets pretty absurd. I generally don't raise a Characteristic past 4 (with one exception) unless using an enhancement like Cybernetics or Enhance, or else having just run out of ideas, which takes a long time.

When a Characteristic is above 4, the character is absurdly good at even things he is untrained in. Enhance or Cybernetics can get you that "god mode" in my opinion. I like the potential for Failure, or a weakness that comes with the absurd power.

Further, having a high cap encourages players to try to get to that cap, which means they'll be narrowly built. In my experience (though there has been an exception), this leads to less interesting characters and characters who are nearly useless in anything except what they were purpose built for and have no useful supporting skills because they are not supported by boosted Characteristics.

Generally, here's the pattern in which I build Characteristics and would suggest to my players: First Dedication: 433 (If starting with 43 or 333), second Dedication: 443/4333, third Dedication: 4433, fourth Dedication: 4443 or 44333.

If you've gotten to the fourth dedication, you're probably somewhere around 1,200 XP.

In fact, knowing that Genesys lowered the cap to 5 kinda makes me want to introduce that rule. It's been knocking around in my head for a while, but I didn't realize there was precedent for it. I might also add that you can't spend more than 50 XP on a specific Characteristic at CharGen. That means you could raise a 1 to 3, but you could only raise any other characteristic once. So no Humans with 43 builds, no Wookiees with 5 Brawn at CharGen.

There are some statblocks in the game that use Characteristics above 6: All are creatures. The Fambaa comes to mind, I believe it has a Brawn of 7, and it's Silhouette 4.
If your character can arm-wrestle a Rancor (6) and be favored to win, I think you've gone too far.

For building NPCs, I prefer to give them narrative or gear advantages rather than just pumping up their stats to absurd degrees. Giving them a Willpower of 8 is just eyerolling in my opinion because they are too powerful to even make sense.

My suggestion for building NPCs is to build them like the official statblocks, not like PCs. Building them like PCs is a lot of wasted effort and unnecessary time in my experience. Just give them what you want them to have, regardless of spec trees or whatever. Keep the selection of talents lean, allowing you to run them easily and quickly.

1 hour ago, False God said:

From my perspective, if your game falls apart after Point X, you need to address why that is, not just prevent the game from ever getting there. Because the cracks will still appear at Point X-1.

Not exactly. There's such a thing as a bridge too far. Besides, it's actually X-2. It just brings it more under control, bringing the maximum number of Proficiency/Ability dice (before any upgrades) into par with the maximum number of Challenge/Difficulty dice. That gives you a roughly 55/45 chance of succeeding at the most difficult possible task before adding Boost and Setback, if I remember my numbers right.

That pretty effectively brings the bloat to heel. The only reason we don't see 5 as incredibly powerful is because you can reach it at CharGen and the cap is 7.

Addressing why that is is a simple matter of odds in this case. You have to twist the rules or throw your PCs into absurd situations time and again in order to challenge them at such a high level.

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

Um...why? Most people play perfectly exciting and satisfying games with a cap of 5. 6s and stuff are reserved for things like Rancors. The game isn't "broken" if you lift the cap, but it does get a) a bit boring because the tone shifts to a "gods vs mortals" game; and b) a bit wonky with the results. The game also isn't broken because you, out of hundreds of players who've marched through these forums, wanna do it different.

Woah there, I'm not saying the game is broken. Salamar suggested the Devs think the game breaks down, hence their decision to lower it in their other game. In fact it was my initial question "Does the game get broken if I do this?" which is why I was looking for any experience with players with 7's or games with 7's (as a regular number, like maybe the party got maimed a lot but had a lot of credits) or if anyone had raised the cap, or heck, not realized there was a cap before people ran their scores up. If the Devs think the game breaks down after 5, then that should be analyzed, rather than saying "Oh lets just stop at 5." It's like when asking why your car doesn't handle high-speed corners, deciding not to address "Is it too tall?", "Is the wheelbase too narrow?", "Does the front end need more flexibility?" and just saying "Well lets put a governor in it so it can't go over 60." The Devs may very well have done all that and be, ultimately, saying "Putting a governor in is the only real solution, everything else is simply not fiesable." Which is fine, again I'm really only looking for a "Why does it break down?" instead of a taking "It does." At face value.

As for "gods and mortals" eh, tone is a matter of table taste. There are Star Wars stories about average folks doing average things and there are stories about epic high sci-fantasy adventures with people with impossible skills and incredible talents. Not all games need to fall into some average range of average Star Warsy-ness.

1 hour ago, whafrog said:

Probably because demand is low. I've been on here since the beta, and this has come up only a few times. Also, that's just not the Star Wars feel. A campaign would have to go on for years to get a PC that is a Yoda or Palpatine equivalent, but the actual stories of Star Wars are about people who couldn't dream of facing these adversaries head on.

I'm gonna stick a big bold "in your opinion" on that. What you consider the "Star Wars feel" is not what I do, clearly, and that's totes cool. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm asking for experiences. And playing for years in a single game with the same characters? My group totally does that. We've been at it a year(weekly ~6hr sessions) and we just passed 1k XP(starting at Knight level), hence why some of these questions are popping up now. And yes I totally agree demand is low. My annoyance stems from systems including "high level" options, but failing to test them. If its included it should be tested. Not including them is a fine answer(as the Devs apparently chose to do with Genesys), I'd just like a little more of "Why?" and some experiences is all.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I concur with @whafrog on the matter of low demand. Highest level I've seen anyone want to play at is 1,000 bonus EXP at CharGen. In my longest-running campaign, I don't expect the players to get higher than maybe six/seven hundred.

Really? As above, we just passed 1k after ~1yr of weekly play (roughly 20-30xp a session). I haven't felt any expression of "I feel like I have too much XP.", if anything my players want to keep going. I don't usually like to start "high level", but I do like to play through it.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

As for the actual question of raising Characteristics:

I dislike when PCs get Characteristics above 5. It gets pretty absurd. I generally don't raise a Characteristic past 4 (with one exception) unless using an enhancement like Cybernetics or Enhance, or else having just run out of ideas, which takes a long time.

When a Characteristic is above 4, the character is absurdly good at even things he is untrained in. Enhance or Cybernetics can get you that "god mode" in my opinion. I like the potential for Failure, or a weakness that comes with the absurd power.

Further, having a high cap encourages players to try to get to that cap, which means they'll be narrowly built. In my experience (though there has been an exception), this leads to less interesting characters and characters who are nearly useless in anything except what they were purpose built for and have no useful supporting skills because they are not supported by boosted Characteristics.

Generally, here's the pattern in which I build Characteristics and would suggest to my players: First Dedication: 433 (If starting with 43 or 333), second Dedication: 443/4333, third Dedication: 4433, fourth Dedication: 4443 or 44333.

If you've gotten to the fourth dedication, you're probably somewhere around 1,200 XP.

In fact, knowing that Genesys lowered the cap to 5 kinda makes me want to introduce that rule. It's been knocking around in my head for a while, but I didn't realize there was precedent for it. I might also add that you can't spend more than 50 XP on a specific Characteristic at CharGen. That means you could raise a 1 to 3, but you could only raise any other characteristic once. So no Humans with 43 builds, no Wookiees with 5 Brawn at CharGen.

Thank you.

Honestly I have much the same feeling and have experienced as much in play. I'm not sure if it's good to see this feeling confirmed or not. I asked the question but didn't state this because I didn't want to poison the well with my experiences. Maybe I was doing something wrong. I dunno.

When I first read the rules years ago, I thought ability scores were capped at 3 during character creation, which next go-around I may implement. Giving people a lower starting ceiling makes advancement more meaningful (IMO). I feel like the character creation system of cheap ability score bumps as opposed to having to dig down to a Dedication encourages maxing out stats, and I would much rather see people buy trees and abilities (hence my houserule of "you can buy a stat bump for 100xp"). Hmmm, perhaps even eliminating buying ability score improvements entirely would accomplish the "low level play" feel better...hmmmm....

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

For building NPCs, I prefer to give them narrative or gear advantages rather than just pumping up their stats to absurd degrees. Giving them a Willpower of 8 is just eyerolling in my opinion because they are too powerful to even make sense.

My suggestion for building NPCs is to build them like the official statblocks, not like PCs. Building them like PCs is a lot of wasted effort and unnecessary time in my experience. Just give them what you want them to have, regardless of spec trees or whatever. Keep the selection of talents lean, allowing you to run them easily and quickly.

I'm sure this is just me and how I function, but I find the reverse to be true for myself. Building humanoid NPCs like they were PCs helps me understand how they function far better than just giving them 6 Parry. Sorta fills in some of the why do they have 6 Parry in my mind. It also gives me a separate guide to how powerful they are because I can see the XP and compare it to the players. Is this NPC as experienced, but less specialized? More experienced and more specialized? It also allows me to treat of them as more well rounded characters who have a wide range of skills. This is not an argument of how it should be done, just a statement of how I think about things.

Built a couple of 7k XP Sith Lords(this was the average number that came up among them after building them and adding it back up, not a target number) this way for example, they're silly powerful don't get me wrong, but I didn't have to stick Adversary or Nemesis on them to make them more difficult to fight, they use Parry/Reflect/Dodge/etc... just like everyone else. I didn't even break the stat cap for them (no cybernetics either), in fact some of them have surprisingly low stats in certain areas.

On the more reasonable level, I built some ~1600xp Mandalorians who are tough and skilled but far from impossible opponents.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Not exactly. There's such a thing as a bridge too far. Besides, it's actually X-2. It just brings it more under control, bringing the maximum number of Proficiency/Ability dice (before any upgrades) into par with the maximum number of Challenge/Difficulty dice. That gives you a roughly 55/45 chance of succeeding at the most difficult possible task before adding Boost and Setback, if I remember my numbers right.

That pretty effectively brings the bloat to heel. The only reason we don't see 5 as incredibly powerful is because you can reach it at CharGen and the cap is 7.

Addressing why that is is a simple matter of odds in this case. You have to twist the rules or throw your PCs into absurd situations time and again in order to challenge them at such a high level.

I mean....they wouldn't be the party if getting into absurd situations wasn't their jam. Average people getting into average situations with average solutions sounds resoundingly underwhelming IMO.

Ultimately after this discussion I probably won't raise the stat cap. I'll leave cybernetics as the breaker and add in "genetic modification" to satisfy my "please don't cut your limbs off for stats" desires. But the idea that some body modification is required to break 6 sounds fine. I'll also likely allow Enhance or Stims to do the same temporarily, or cap +1. Not certain on that yet.

Skills are fine capped at 5 since they're more styled as tiers of expertise, but I might make some capstone abilities for them to represent high mastery in that skill.

2 minutes ago, False God said:

When I first read the rules years ago, I thought ability scores were capped at 3 during character creation, which next go-around I may implement. Giving people a lower starting ceiling makes advancement more meaningful (IMO). I feel like the character creation system of cheap ability score bumps as opposed to having to dig down to a Dedication encourages maxing out stats, and I would much rather see people buy trees and abilities (hence my houserule of "you can buy a stat bump for 100xp").

I would not suggest capping starting Characteristics at 3, because some species start at 3 and would then be unable to raise the Characteristic at all. If you institute a cap, I'd suggest either my own proposal or else the more common limitation of not raising a Characteristic by more than 1 at CharGen.

4 minutes ago, False God said:

I'm sure this is just me and how I function, but I find the reverse to be true for myself. Building humanoid NPCs like they were PCs helps me understand how they function far better than just giving them 6 Parry. Sorta fills in some of the why do they have 6 Parry in my mind. It also gives me a separate guide to how powerful they are because I can see the XP and compare it to the players. Is this NPC as experienced, but less specialized? More experienced and more specialized? It also allows me to treat of them as more well rounded characters who have a wide range of skills. This is not an argument of how it should be done, just a statement of how I think about things.

Built a couple of 7k XP Sith Lords(this was the average number that came up among them after building them and adding it back up, not a target number) this way for example, they're silly powerful don't get me wrong, but I didn't have to stick Adversary or Nemesis on them to make them more difficult to fight, they use Parry/Reflect/Dodge/etc... just like everyone else. I didn't even break the stat cap for them (no cybernetics either), in fact some of them have surprisingly low stats in certain areas.

On the more reasonable level, I built some ~1600xp Mandalorians who are tough and skilled but far from impossible opponents.

Fair enough. I've got my own idiosyncrasies. Not telling you how to do things, just some suggestions:

I've seen the pros you mention, but I don't think XP level is actually that great a power meter (I've tried). What I often do when building a big Nemesis is to look at specializations that would make sense and comb through, picking specific talents. In a way, it's like building through a tree, except you drop the talents that aren't essential.

Adversary is supposed to replace talents like Dodge, Side Step, and Defensive Stance. For Nemeses, action economy is very important since they don't have a few other PCs backing them up. I think the passive upgrades are a good way of getting the benefit of the talents without the Maneuver and/or Strain cost. It also allows more consistent chances to trigger Improved versions of Parry and Reflect.

9 minutes ago, False God said:

I mean....they wouldn't be the party if getting into absurd situations wasn't their jam. Average people getting into average situations with average solutions sounds resoundingly underwhelming IMO.

Ultimately after this discussion I probably won't raise the stat cap. I'll leave cybernetics as the breaker and add in "genetic modification" to satisfy my "please don't cut your limbs off for stats" desires. But the idea that some body modification is required to break 6 sounds fine. I'll also likely allow Enhance or Stims to do the same temporarily, or cap +1. Not certain on that yet.

Skills are fine capped at 5 since they're more styled as tiers of expertise, but I might make some capstone abilities for them to represent high mastery in that skill.

Most of the time, they just aren't going to run into absurd difficulties. If they are raiding the Imperial base, they might face a Daunting Computers/Skulduggery check to hack a secure door, but most checks aren't going to get above Hard. Extremely, extremely high difficulties are and should be very rare. What sort of situations do you run into that have them facing Daunting and Formidable checks on a regular basis?

As for "capstone abilities" those are talents and Signature Abilities. You don't need to add anything extra at the top of what already exists, in my opinion.

A Characteristic of 1 is "below average". 2 is average. From a "D&D" perspective, 10 is average.

As for "broken", Characteristics aren't broken above 5, but they do make things very unpredictable.

I have a player that can boost as high as 7 in a few characteristics for an encounter. Makes it hard to judge how to challenge him.

In another game, there's a character with a 6 Agility. He rarely misses with his rifle, but when he does, the result is often 10 Advantage, which becomes difficult to deal with.

I would prefer the cap to be lower.

In your own game, there's nothing from stopping you from running it with no cap, but as been pointed out, should any PC be as strong as a Rancor? Even with cybernetics?

7 minutes ago, salamar_dree said:

In your own game, there's nothing from stopping you from running it with no cap, but as been pointed out, should any PC be as strong as a Rancor? Even with cybernetics?

I'm of two minds about being "as strong as a Rancor" 1) Being as strong as a Rancor in sheer ability to lift and carry, a clear no to me. In that regard the Rancor should have a Brawn of 20+. 2) Being as able to leverage their strength to successfully attack an opponent as the Rancor, that can be a yes . Maybe not always a yes depending on circumstances, but enough times that I can feel it is fine. As an aside Role Master (my favorite system) had a rule for Throw Weight, where exceptionally large beings did vast amounts of damage due to their weight if they hit, but it didn't help them to hit. The Rancor is sort of like this as its Claw attack does 10 damage (I'd think it should maybe be higher) representing the impact of its size when it does hit.

20 minutes ago, salamar_dree said:

A Characteristic of 1 is "below average". 2 is average. From a "D&D" perspective, 10 is average.

As for "broken", Characteristics aren't broken above 5, but they do make things very unpredictable.

I have a player that can boost as high as 7 in a few characteristics for an encounter. Makes it hard to judge how to challenge him.

In another game, there's a character with a 6 Agility. He rarely misses with his rifle, but when he does, the result is often 10 Advantage, which becomes difficult to deal with.

I would prefer the cap to be lower.

In your own game, there's nothing from stopping you from running it with no cap, but as been pointed out, should any PC be as strong as a Rancor? Even with cybernetics?

I don't like monsters that are limited to PC caps. Monsters are monsters. It's one thing to say a Sith Lord can only get to 6 or 7, because their body is still functionally a Sil 1 humanoid body. I think an important element that could be included here is the Silhouette as a form of modifier. IMO, 6 Brawn on a Sil 1 creature is not the same as 6 Brawn on a Sil 2 creature. These monsters are literally 12+ feet tall, with arms the size of trees and hands that can hold an entire Sil 1 creature in their grasp. Their 6 Brawn is not your 6 Brawn. IMO, a Rancor's 6 Brawn should be treated like a Sil 1 Brawn 12 (or maybe a 9 to keep this from scaling too quickly). Either adding automatic successes/advantages based on the increase (to keep from rolling more dice) or something to represent the clearly disparate scales of strength.

37 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I would not suggest capping starting Characteristics at 3, because some species start at 3 and would then be unable to raise the Characteristic at all. If you institute a cap, I'd suggest either my own proposal or else the more common limitation of not raising a Characteristic by more than 1 at CharGen.

Eh, that doesn't bother me, but I'll see. This game will probably last for at least another year if not more, so unless my group pushes to start a new, low-level game, I've got time to fiddle with it.

39 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Fair enough. I've got my own idiosyncrasies. Not telling you how to do things, just some suggestions:

I've seen the pros you mention, but I don't think XP level is actually that great a power meter (I've tried). What I often do when building a big Nemesis is to look at specializations that would make sense and comb through, picking specific talents. In a way, it's like building through a tree, except you drop the talents that aren't essential.

Adversary is supposed to replace talents like Dodge, Side Step, and Defensive Stance. For Nemeses, action economy is very important since they don't have a few other PCs backing them up. I think the passive upgrades are a good way of getting the benefit of the talents without the Maneuver and/or Strain cost. It also allows more consistent chances to trigger Improved versions of Parry and Reflect.

I guess I like the maneuver/strain cost as a way for the bad-guy to gauge how they're handling the fight. Can they keep going? Do they have strain to spare? How fast are the characters forcing them to burn through it? How many "rounds" do they forsee themselves left in the fight? Also I've noticed that unlike hard pass/fail systems like D&D with AC, a lot of low-grade enemies can really work wonders. I never leave a villain alone in a fight, the action economy is just too brutal on them with a party of 4-6, even with Adversary ranks. If a smart enemy finds themselves alone and outnumbered, they're likely to retreat.

44 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Most of the time, they just aren't going to run into absurd difficulties. If they are raiding the Imperial base, they might face a Daunting Computers/Skulduggery check to hack a secure door, but most checks aren't going to get above Hard. Extremely, extremely high difficulties are and should be very rare. What sort of situations do you run into that have them facing Daunting and Formidable checks on a regular basis?

As for "capstone abilities" those are talents and Signature Abilities. You don't need to add anything extra at the top of what already exists, in my opinion.

Before I answer, point of note: I almost never run easy difficulty checks, they're almost never a challenge and I find even asking my players, particularly at this point around 1k xp, to be a waste of everyone's time. So functionally everything is bumped up once for my checks, and I will often include 1-2 red in situations where there is a risk of "if this goes wrong, it goes wrong in the most horrible of ways". I would say the majority of my checks for them run in the Average to Daunting range. Formidable is rare, but every once in a while they'll say "Is there a chance I would have heard about this really obscure piece of information that would be totally helpful right now?" and I'll throw a Formidable check at them. I'd say knowledge checks are where this shows up the most actually, conversely, knowledge checks almost never get challenge dice.

Eh, the repetition of talents makes them feel mundane, and my beef with Signature Abilities requires an entirely different thread.

40 minutes ago, False God said:

Eh, that doesn't bother me, but I'll see. This game will probably last for at least another year if not more, so unless my group pushes to start a new, low-level game, I've got time to fiddle with it.

I think it should bother you, because it forces them to build broadly, but likely too broadly. It also means they get no actual Characteristic advantage over other species, as they can all be built up to the same level. With a standard 322221, 100 XP species, you end up with 333321 or 333322, unless you choose to not build to the max. It also means that you can have a Wookiee Marauder and a Twi'lek Marauder, both at 3 Brawn, meaning the Wookiee gets no actual advantage for being more naturally strong.

45 minutes ago, False God said:

I guess I like the maneuver/strain cost as a way for the bad-guy to gauge how they're handling the fight. Can they keep going? Do they have strain to spare? How fast are the characters forcing them to burn through it? How many "rounds" do they forsee themselves left in the fight? Also I've noticed that unlike hard pass/fail systems like D&D with AC, a lot of low-grade enemies can really work wonders. I never leave a villain alone in a fight, the action economy is just too brutal on them with a party of 4-6, even with Adversary ranks. If a smart enemy finds themselves alone and outnumbered, they're likely to retreat.

Yes, they should always have support. But I think you are needlessly hamstringing them, which means that you have to buff them elsewhere in order to compensate. Allowing them the greater flexibility of ranks in Adversary makes bookkeeping easier for you and boosts the challenge level without having to buff their offense or give them ridiculous amounts of defense. It also allows them to occasionally get a free hit on opponents with Improved Parry/Reflect, something that makes them a much bigger threat. In a turn, if they use Parry twice and Side Step 2 as a second Maneuver (likely), they've just burned 10 Strain. With Adversary 2, they only burn 6 Strain. As you increase ranks in the talent or in Adversary, it becomes an even more stark difference.

Regarding animals, one way to handle "arm-wrestling a Rancor" (aside from saying "no") would be to take (sil-1)squared and add that to the Brawn score for Athletics etc. checks. Not "to hit" rolls, but damage/Encumbrance Threshold calculations and brute strength tests. So a Sil 2 Dowutin adds 1 (2-1=1, 1squared=1), a Sil 3 Rancor adds 4 (3-1=2, 2squared is 4), and a Sil 4 Fambaa adds 9 (4-1=3, 3squared is 9).

So a Brawn 4 Dowutin would be be rolling 5 Ability dice, a Brawn 6 Rancor would be rolling 10, and a Sil 4 Fambaa would be rolling 16.

Not sure this would be worth houseruling, but I found it interesting.

13 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Regarding animals, one way to handle "arm-wrestling a Rancor" (aside from saying "no") would be to take (sil-1)squared and add that to the Brawn score for Athletics etc. checks. Not "to hit" rolls, but damage/Encumbrance Threshold calculations and brute strength tests. So a Sil 2 Dowutin adds 1 (2-1=1, 1squared=1), a Sil 3 Rancor adds 4 (3-1=2, 2squared is 4), and a Sil 4 Fambaa adds 9 (4-1=3, 3squared is 9).

So a Brawn 4 Dowutin would be be rolling 5 Ability dice, a Brawn 6 Rancor would be rolling 10, and a Sil 4 Fambaa would be rolling 16.

Not sure this would be worth houseruling, but I found it interesting.

I just ran a bunch of dice rolls (yay apps) and even if its as silly (and simple) as rolling 10 brawn dice and 2 proficiency dice vs 3 difficulty(2 melee, 1 for the size difference) and 3 melee defense, the rancor almost always wins. It doesn't always win by huge margins, sometimes 2 to 4. But it almost always wins. Functionally though, I'm not sure if this is bad . Even the extremes on the wins are +8, if we add that to the base 15 damage from the claws that's 23. Seems impressive, and against someone who wasn't designed as a Rancor Wrestler I'm really okay with the near one-shot. But say, parry to remove say, 6, and Mr McBrawny soaks 9 (3 armor, 7 brawn 'cause cybers and the Rancor stats do not appear to bypass soak), that's over half the damage, down to 9. Which frankly, is one heck of a hit....but IMO, not unreasonable coming from a rancor. McBrawny has near on 30 wounds (assuming 5 toughened, 29) so that hit HURT, but it didn't take him out. Granted someone who isn't McBrawny the Rancor Wrestler is going to absolutely eat that hit to the face....but...again I wouldn't say that's unreasonable .

Now granted this stat block says it's a Sil 3, so I'm off by 6 dice. But the point is you get hit by a rancor it HURTS.

Maybe a system of diminishing returns based on Sil? Since Sil 3*6=18 brawn. Maybe it loses a cumulative 2 dice per Sil, representing that a certain portion of its brawn is permanently dedicated to simply keeping its body functioning, so Sil 2 is +4, Sil 3 is +8, sil 4 +10. I mean, at a sil 4 monster you're basically fighting a living starship, if it doesn't absolutely mash your puny bones when it hits...well...

12 minutes ago, False God said:

I just ran a bunch of dice rolls (yay apps) and even if its as silly (and simple) as rolling 10 brawn dice and 2 proficiency dice vs 3 difficulty(2 melee, 1 for the size difference) and 3 melee defense, the rancor almost always wins. It doesn't always win by huge margins, sometimes 2 to 4. But it almost always wins. Functionally though, I'm not sure if this is bad . Even the extremes on the wins are +8, if we add that to the base 15 damage from the claws that's 23. Seems impressive, and against someone who wasn't designed as a Rancor Wrestler I'm really okay with the near one-shot. But say, parry to remove say, 6, and Mr McBrawny soaks 9 (3 armor, 7 brawn 'cause cybers and the Rancor stats do not appear to bypass soak), that's over half the damage, down to 9. Which frankly, is one heck of a hit....but IMO, not unreasonable coming from a rancor. McBrawny has near on 30 wounds (assuming 5 toughened, 29) so that hit HURT, but it didn't take him out. Granted someone who isn't McBrawny the Rancor Wrestler is going to absolutely eat that hit to the face....but...again I wouldn't say that's unreasonable .

Now granted this stat block says it's a Sil 3, so I'm off by 6 dice. But the point is you get hit by a rancor it HURTS.

Maybe a system of diminishing returns based on Sil? Since Sil 3*6=18 brawn. Maybe it loses a cumulative 2 dice per Sil, representing that a certain portion of its brawn is permanently dedicated to simply keeping its body functioning, so Sil 2 is +4, Sil 3 is +8, sil 4 +10. I mean, at a sil 4 monster you're basically fighting a living starship, if it doesn't absolutely mash your puny bones when it hits...well...

I'm not talking about rolling 10 Brawn dice on attack rolls, I'm saying you'd use the (sil-1)squared to calculate damage and stuff, or use it for strictly brute strength rolls.
When I say "arm-wrestling a Rancor" it's a joking way of saying beating a Rancor in a straight brute strength contest.

So for trying to smack a target, the Rancor would roll Brawn: Brawl against the difficulty and Melee Defense. But in a hypothetical situation of arm-wrestling the Rancor, then it'd roll 10 Ability dice, upgraded appropriately, against the 6 Brawn (upgraded appropriately) of our Rancor wrestler. Now if the Rancor wrestler was a Dowutin (sil 2) it'd be 7 Ability upgraded according to ranks in Athletics.

I actually kinda like this.

As for calculating damage, it wouldn't be on top of the base damage of the animals' attacks, it would just be presumed that it was factored in already. The Rancor already does 15 base damage, well above Brawn+(sil-1)squared.

By the way, cybernetics providing +1 Brawn do not actually increase your Soak because they do not increase your Brawn. Instead, they provide +1 Brawn. I know it sounds like splitting hairs, but it is an important distinction. The cybernetic isn't permanent and can be shut down. When that happens, you lose the +1 bonus. That wouldn't affect your Soak.
Otherwise the Strength Enhancing System (armor attachment) would provide +1 Soak since it also provides +1 Brawn.

38 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

By the way, cybernetics providing +1 Brawn do not actually increase your Soak because they do not increase your Brawn. Instead, they provide +1 Brawn. I know it sounds like splitting hairs, but it is an important distinction. The cybernetic isn't permanent and can be shut down. When that happens, you lose the +1 bonus. That wouldn't affect your Soak.
Otherwise the Strength Enhancing System (armor attachment) would provide +1 Soak since it also provides +1 Brawn.

Huh, did not know that. There are odd points where the game splits hairs and points where it just glosses over. It makes sense in a "the game wants to be technical about this" sort of way. I could live with a fluctuating brawn/soak bonus, but would probably want to have the strength enhancing system eat up another hard point.

39 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I'm not talking about rolling 10 Brawn dice on attack rolls, I'm saying you'd use the (sil-1)squared to calculate damage and stuff, or use it for strictly brute strength rolls.
When I say "arm-wrestling a Rancor" it's a joking way of saying beating a Rancor in a straight brute strength contest.

So for trying to smack a target, the Rancor would roll Brawn: Brawl against the difficulty and Melee Defense. But in a hypothetical situation of arm-wrestling the Rancor, then it'd roll 10 Ability dice, upgraded appropriately, against the 6 Brawn (upgraded appropriately) of our Rancor wrestler. Now if the Rancor wrestler was a Dowutin (sil 2) it'd be 7 Ability upgraded according to ranks in Athletics.

I actually kinda like this.

As for calculating damage, it wouldn't be on top of the base damage of the animals' attacks, it would just be presumed that it was factored in already. The Rancor already does 15 base damage, well above Brawn+(sil-1)squared.

Right good point, opposed checks and melee attacks are not the same.

Hmmm... If you bring the Rancor's damage down by it's size, it's 5, it's obviously a brawler, so its not surprising it has higher-than-usual raw damage. Hmmm, fractions, Sil 1 against Sil 3 sounds like it could be a simple 1/3, and that's the reverse damage modifier. Sil 2 v Sil 3, 2/3. Sil 3 v. Sil 3. 3/3 or 1/1. Even as a fairly linear system, treating damage as X higher or lower based on the Sil difference up or down seems fairly straight-forward. Now, granted the Rancor has 12 soak, so a Sil 1 creature would need to deal 39 damage, or preferably have some kind of pierce/breach to bypass.

1 hour ago, False God said:

Hmmm... If you bring the Rancor's damage down by it's size, it's 5, it's obviously a brawler, so its not surprising it has higher-than-usual raw damage. Hmmm, fractions, Sil 1 against Sil 3 sounds like it could be a simple 1/3, and that's the reverse damage modifier. Sil 2 v Sil 3, 2/3. Sil 3 v. Sil 3. 3/3 or 1/1. Even as a fairly linear system, treating damage as X higher or lower based on the Sil difference up or down seems fairly straight-forward. Now, granted the Rancor has 12 soak, so a Sil 1 creature would need to deal 39 damage, or preferably have some kind of pierce/breach to bypass.

I'm not saying to adjust the current damage stats at all. I think they are fine the way they are.

What I'm saying is that normally, to calculate Brawl/Melee damage, you take the character's Brawn and add the weapon. I'm saying add (sil-1)squared to Brawn for the purposes of calculating damage. That would mean a Dowutin with Brawn 4 would be dealing 5 base damage (4+[Sil-1]squared=5). So when building a new creature of sil 3, you'd add 4 to Brawn before calculating the weapon's damage.

So, for example, let's build a Rocnar: Sil 3, 611221. We'll give it a decent Brawl of 3, and now we need to give it a weapon. Let's go with Meaty Fists. First that's the Brawn (6), then the Sil adjustment (4), so it's at 10 base damage. Now let's say the fists do +3 damage, and that gives us a base damage of 13.

On 12/5/2020 at 2:05 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Regarding animals, one way to handle "arm-wrestling a Rancor" (aside from saying "no") would be to take (sil-1)squared and add that to the Brawn score for Athletics etc. checks. Not "to hit" rolls, but damage/Encumbrance Threshold calculations and brute strength tests. So a Sil 2 Dowutin adds 1 (2-1=1, 1squared=1), a Sil 3 Rancor adds 4 (3-1=2, 2squared is 4), and a Sil 4 Fambaa adds 9 (4-1=3, 3squared is 9).

So a Brawn 4 Dowutin would be be rolling 5 Ability dice, a Brawn 6 Rancor would be rolling 10, and a Sil 4 Fambaa would be rolling 16.

Not sure this would be worth houseruling, but I found it interesting.

Using your formula, Silhouette 2 beings and Silhouette 0 beings are both stronger than Silhouette 1 beings. I do not think this is your intended result.

3 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Using your formula, Silhouette 2 beings and Silhouette 0 beings are both stronger than Silhouette 1 beings. I do not think this is your intended result.

I intended it for Sil 2, but I should have stated "Sil-1 to a minimum of 0" instead of just "Sil-1."

@P-47 Thunderbolt

I'm interested in the fact that Genesys decided to lower the attributes to a max of 5. This combined with the houserule of raising starting attributes by a maximum of 1 seems at first glance to be an effective game balancer.

Currently I have a couple PC's that over-excell in some area's, like Agility. Which ultimately means my Ranged-Heavy gunner is also an apparent genius at Gunnery, Lightsaber (Ataru) and Piloting.

Some of which seems rather unrealistic. I'm seriously considering adding some caps and boundries for my next campaign. Thoughts?

17 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

@P-47 Thunderbolt

I'm interested in the fact that Genesys decided to lower the attributes to a max of 5. This combined with the houserule of raising starting attributes by a maximum of 1 seems at first glance to be an effective game balancer.

Currently I have a couple PC's that over-excell in some area's, like Agility. Which ultimately means my Ranged-Heavy gunner is also an apparent genius at Gunnery, Lightsaber (Ataru) and Piloting.

Some of which seems rather unrealistic. I'm seriously considering adding some caps and boundries for my next campaign. Thoughts?

Yeah, capping attributes at 5 is something I would encourage, and I'd suggest limiting it to 50 XP max expenditure on a single Characteristic at CharGen, as it still allows someone with a species that has a 1 to raise that 1 to a 3, allowing them to play a species who otherwise might not get to play a certain role. A Weequay Doctor, for instance.

I could see an argument for capping non-career skills at a certain number of Ability dice. So if your Ranged (Heavy) gunner has an Agility of 5, maybe it's capped to 3 for Lightsaber or Piloting as long as they are non-career skills. That cap should probably be either 3 or 4, and I'm not sure which is a better choice.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Yeah, capping attributes at 5 is something I would encourage, and I'd suggest limiting it to 50 XP max expenditure on a single Characteristic at CharGen, as it still allows someone with a species that has a 1 to raise that 1 to a 3, allowing them to play a species who otherwise might not get to play a certain role. A Weequay Doctor, for instance.

I could see an argument for capping non-career skills at a certain number of Ability dice. So if your Ranged (Heavy) gunner has an Agility of 5, maybe it's capped to 3 for Lightsaber or Piloting as long as they are non-career skills. That cap should probably be either 3 or 4, and I'm not sure which is a better choice.

Do you see any issues this may cause through extended play?

I'm sure its tough to say without play-testing though.

Edit: I also like the idea of Dedication only being allowed to be used once on an attribute.

1 hour ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Do you see any issues this may cause through extended play?

I'm sure its tough to say without play-testing though.

Edit: I also like the idea of Dedication only being allowed to be used once on an attribute.

I do not, as I don't see what it could break. It's not exploitable because it limits how much they can do. I would add the caveat that if they put ranks into the skill, maybe they lose the penalty even if it is still a non-career skill because they have invested in using the skill.

I don't think you should limit Dedication. It sounds good in some cases, but it could also hamstring you if you got the crit that permanently reduces your Characteristic. For example, you start at 3, pick up Dedication to push up to 4, then you get that crit. Now the only way to get back up to 4 is to start chopping yourself up. I say don't put a limit on Dedication, and not just because of that edge case.

On 12/5/2020 at 3:42 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I'm not saying to adjust the current damage stats at all. I think they are fine the way they are.

What I'm saying is that normally, to calculate Brawl/Melee damage, you take the character's Brawn and add the weapon. I'm saying add (sil-1)squared to Brawn for the purposes of calculating damage. That would mean a Dowutin with Brawn 4 would be dealing 5 base damage (4+[Sil-1]squared=5). So when building a new creature of sil 3, you'd add 4 to Brawn before calculating the weapon's damage.

So, for example, let's build a Rocnar: Sil 3, 611221. We'll give it a decent Brawl of 3, and now we need to give it a weapon. Let's go with Meaty Fists. First that's the Brawn (6), then the Sil adjustment (4), so it's at 10 base damage. Now let's say the fists do +3 damage, and that gives us a base damage of 13.

Oh sorry, my hmmm... is more an indication of me thinking out loud. I wasn't suggesting adjusting the damage, I was noting that you could build your "monster" as a simple Sil 1 creature, and then size it up as necessary, using the new Sil as a multiplier for the original base damage to find the new base damage, rather than any more complex math. If the "base damage" cap is 5(or 6, or whatever so long as its in line with whatever else is going on), and use that as a gague for how "focused" the base creature, we get a good idea of what kind of creature we're running as well.

----

Harkening back to my original post, although I'm keeping the cap at 6 (with cybers, GMOs and temporary enhancements breaking that to 7 and that being the full stop hard cap), I decided to add a 6th "capstone" rank to skills. Something simple, something sweet, not skill specific.

50xp: Character may purchase one capstone ability effect to add to any one skill they have as a class skill and have 5 ranks in. This capstone is treated as a rank in this skill so upgrades checks in this skill by 1, in addition to one other effect chosen at purchase:

Success: Once per day a character may choose to auto-succeed on a skill check in this skill as though they had generated 1 success and nothing else. They generate no advantage, threat, despair, triumph or additional successes through this effect, and successes, threats, advantages and despairs cannot be added to this check by other effects.

Ambition: May upgrade checks they make with this skill by an additional 1.

Artisan: May add 1 Triumph to all checks they make in this skill.

Performance: Once per day, before the outcome of a check is determined, the character may add 3 successes or 3 advantages to a check made in this skill.

Aptitude: Add 3 boost die to all checks you make with this skill, but you cannot benefit from assistance when making checks in this skill. However when assisting others with this skill, you grant them 3 boost dice instead of 1, but they cannot benefit from any other assistance.*
*I allow multiple people to assist on checks, but restrict assistance to those who have at least 1 rank in the matching skill.

I have some players who like the surety of success, and others who like randomness. I tried to keep them both in mind, though I would have liked to come up with a 6th idea to keep with the 6-6-6 theme. I know some folks would rather keep things lower, but I already have players with a couple skills at 5 ranks, and honestly, they pass almost everything anyway, so none of this really changes anything for me. It just gives them a cool capstone to their skill.

13 minutes ago, False God said:

Success: Once per day a character may choose to auto-succeed on a skill check in this skill as though they had generated 1 success and nothing else. They generate no advantage, threat, despair, triumph or additional successes through this effect, and successes, threats, advantages and despairs cannot be added to this check by other effects.

Ambition: May upgrade checks they make with this skill by an additional 1.

Artisan: May add 1 Triumph to all checks they make in this skill.

Performance: Once per day, before the outcome of a check is determined, the character may add 3 successes or 3 advantages to a check made in this skill.

Aptitude: Add 3 boost die to all checks you make with this skill, but you cannot benefit from assistance when making checks in this skill. However when assisting others with this skill, you grant them 3 boost dice instead of 1, but they cannot benefit from any other assistance.*
*I allow multiple people to assist on checks, but restrict assistance to those who have at least 1 rank in the matching skill.

First off, I don't think the capstone ability should also count as a skill rank. 50 XP is only 20 past what a sixth skill rank would cost, and even once I've nerfed them, they are still far more powerful than 20 XP is worth. These are far more powerful than the top-tier talents.

Success: I'd suggest making it cost something: Strain equal to difficulty (or maybe just equal to difficulty upgrades) or a Destiny Point. Other than that, it's good.

Ambition: Okay. Uninspiring, but not bad. Don't really have any suggestions here. It's a pretty minor passive once they get to that level and isn't quite as good as a skill rank.

Artisan: NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. THAT IS RIDICULOUSLY BROKEN. Ahem. 'scuse me. Perhaps require a Destiny Point, otherwise I'd suggest dropping it entirely.

Performance: I'd change it to once per session. It's easier that way and more in-line with RAW.

Aptitude: I don't think you should do this. Giving them multiple Boosts just means they'll be even more brokenly good at it. You sure you want an Auto-Fire character rolling YYYYYGBBB minimum (Once you add True Aim 2, we're talking YYYYYYGBBBB) every time? I'd suggest changing it to adding 3 once per session, but allowing them to add a Boost when assisting with that skill, in addition to any other effects of Assistance.

Sixth: It'll take more work, but I'd suggest looking at each skill individually and tailoring one to each skill (I can provide feedback if you'd like). I'd suggest that you discuss with your players which skills they'd be interested in, that way you can apply yourself more judiciously.