I have been thinking about all of the rules discussions and all of the nuances that we keep haggling over and I figured it might be useful to post a rules hierarchy for edge of the empire, by this I mean which source is currently the most accurate. So lets start at the top and work our way down until you find a current answer;

0) The GMs common sense - as informed by player common sense - as informed by the current version of a rule/skill/talent etc

1) Core Rulebook - this will supersede all previous versions of the rules.

2) Lead developer question response

3) Developer question response

4) Week 11 Beta update - this supersedes all previous beta updates and the beginner rules

5) Beginner Game Rulebook

6) Beginner Game Adventure

7) Beta updates 1 to 10 - I might be wrong about this as the beginner game might have been sent to printer before week 10?

8) Beta Rulebook

9) Message boards, forums and podcasts without developer input etc

10) anyone else that hasn't read the rules

And a good rule of thumb is that although descriptions of rules/skills/talents etc can be brief, they do describe all that is necessary to apply them in the game, see 0) above.

lupex said:

So we'd have something new to quibble over? Just use the most recent rules that you can, and let the GM at each table make rulings as fits their table. That's probably all the discussion that needs to occur about "hierarchy". It's not like we're arguing over levels of authenticity of holy texts or something.

As far as talents go, just be sure to read the full descriptions (pp 88-100) before making any judgements. The text in the talent trees is usually incomplete for brevity.

-WJL

EDIT: As a postscript, theres's absolutely no need to pay any attention to Beta patches before the final one. Everything in weeks 1-10 is represented in the final file, unless it was redacted/changed/removed in a later edit. The final file is the comprehensive culmination of everything in the prior updates.

I'd put it this way:

Note that the beginner game is off to the side… it's probably based upon the Week 5 or 6 updates, due to layout time. It's almost certainly pre-Week 8, due to missing changes. Plus, it intentionally does some things different - most notably: critical hits, only one pilot skill… It's a good cross check, but not what I'd consider authoritative to the game.

Suplements go off to the side - if they are like most games, some parts will expand the core rules' content… but in general, won't replace it.

The pre-Week 11 updates are all included or superseeded in Week 11 - they can be thoroughly ignored. And note that even the undone changes are logged in Week 11… The only reason to look at the Week 1-10 stuff is to do historical research.

I agree about the pre-week 11 beta updates, I don't know why I bothered adding them in the list, doh!

As for the beginner game, I think it is a good cross check as you can look up wording for talents and skills etc as the writers of the beginner game seem to have found the words to do really good summaries of the rules, it also does a much better job of describing the dice mechanics. Its also handy to have the beginner game rulebook at the table for players to look up thier talents, weapon abilities etc, of course I still have to check these against the beta update but there are not that many differences.

Sorry to step in and maybe this has nothing to do with it but I posted over on the Beginner Game Forum and asked how far back is the beginner game rules from week 11 update?

I just orered it so obviously I will have to make the update rules changes.

Daalrak said:

I think it's really hard to know, for the reasons Aramis cited above. It sounds like the beginners box ( disclaimer : I don't own it and have not put hands on it) does something things intentionally different than what we'll see in the full game for simplicity. This means it's gonna be tricky to tease out which discrepancies between the BB and the final product are intentional, and which are due to changes that came after the BB was submitted to the printers.

I think the easiest solution is probably just to read through the Final Beta update, and when you find a rule in the BB that conflicts with the update, use the update's rules. I think the best solution is probably to read the Final Beta update, and allow the GM to decide which version of the rules to use. Since the updates were all comprehensive, you only need the final beta update.

Obviously I can't say which rules are going to have major impact on the BB, since I don't own it. BUT! One of the rules I remember seeing mentioned that was inconsistent between the Beta update and the BB was the advantage cost to activate autofire (AF). It was and is my opinion that the original cost to activate AF made that mechanic so good it was game breaking. I don't know how many AF weapons are in the BB, but I strongly recommend that you use the update rules (2 adv to activate) and not the published rules (1 adv to activate). I found this was a major improvement to the game, and very glad they finally made the change.

-WJL

Daalrak said:

The big differences I've noticed are the stats on vibro-weapons (the final update generally gave them Crit Rating 2, with the vibro-knife also picking up an extra rank of Pierce), the rules on Autofire and Blast weapon qualities, and the removal of Improved Body Guard, Toughened only providing a +1 boost to Wound Threshold instead of a +2. The rules on Critical Hits are vastly different, and while it's possible that the BegBox version will be what EotE final book uses, it's not a guarentee. Adversary also isn't present, but that might be intentional rather a design oversight.

There probably are other smaller differences, but I've not made it a point to comb through the BegBox rulebook to see what updates got missed or not.