Am I right in thinking that there will be an expanded list of Antagonists in the final product? Will there also be additional stats provided for races OUTSIDE of the 8 player options? I noticed that source material included information about Hutts and the like, and provided non-PC race option stats within the core book is something that previous RPG lines have done.

Furthermore, do we know what plans are in place for SWR materials besides the three core books? I noticed the GM Screen, but has FFG hinted at anything else?

According to a recent announcement page , there are only going to be eight species in the final product. However, according to the Table of Contents , pages 388-415 are dedicated to adversaries, so we should be expecting a bit more of those in the final product than we got in the Beta (pages 195-206).

No word yet (as far as I know) about any expansions or products that are planned, apart from the three core books.

Well, 28 pages compared to the original 11 does suggest more antagonists. But I'd also imagine that a fair bit of those pages will be taken up with added "fluff" text that was omitted from the beta book.

Personally I'm hoping that the increased page count for adversaries is due to less condensed but more user-friendly stat blocks (dice pool graphics and better organization). More along the lines of those in the beginner game. As it stands I've found the stat blocks in the Beta book to be nearly useless for reference in-play.

The 8 race limitation is the real sticking point for me, and it will REALLY be a problem with a couple of my regular players. Star Wars is a world with so many races, I can't just limit my NPC interactions to those 8. For that matter, I'll have a real hard time with my players being limited to those 8. After years of West End Games 8 races just doesn't do it.

I'll almost certainly just end up making stuff up. For NPC's that's not a big deal, as if they're a bit out of balance I can adjust on the fly. For PC's that can be a bit more of an issue. PC's need to stay balanced. That said we'll probably still end up making up races until such time as supplemental materials come out.

I agreed with you guys that 8 species seemed a bit on the low side.

Until I realized that they've made it incredibly easy to make your own. There are 6 (wookies and trandoshans are basically the same template) or so templates you can easily adapt to any number of species, just by looking at their attribute spread/special abilities/bonus skills.

Rodians can easily be adapted to any other "predator" species such as Barabels, Shistavanen, or what have you. The rest follow similar guidelines.

I agree it isn't perfect, as it would be nice to have all the fluffy bits for the species as well, but most of that kind of info is available on the net anway with a little research. I've told my players that they can go scan through wookiepedia's races if they want to find their particular favorite, and we'll convert it and make it work somehow.

The bottom line is that species seem to have approx 240-250 XP baseline, that is then spent on special abilities, starting attributes and bonus skills. This assumes every species starts with at least 1 in each of the six attributes. The only real difficulty might be giving an XP value for some of the stranger species special abilities, and this is also where the species get "unique" as some bonuses can be worth a lot more then others depending on the build. But so long as you're within the 240-250 xp range I think you're not going to be making any gamebreaking species…

Bladehate said:

I think you've got it right here. For the most part I'll just "reskin" existing species, and maybe tweak a bit. I'll allow races to be made up wholesale with the caveat that if I discover it's overpowered later, it'll have to be paired down.

There exists already quite a good product for alternate species over at the GSA the Species Menagerie by our (i.e. the community's) very own Donovan Morningfire and other contributors. Its about 50 additional species for those not happy with the limitation of the Beta - and apparently the up coming the Core book.

It's well worth a look see, I've used some of these - although my players for the time being stay human, but I'm sure this will change over time. Characters all die eventually… The few ones tested work well for now. More testing I assume will only be appreciated.

I've read Morningfire's work, and it's great. I was more curious to know how many species the game developers intend on throwing out by their own designs, as it may suggest future sourcebooks and materials.

We can only speculate…

The developers posted rarely even during the beta-test. Not that I blame them, they've got their work cut out for the next couple of years.

Even in the beta book, the NPCs weren't 'limited' to the 8 races. The NPCs includes Aqualish, Gamorrean, Mon Calamari, Barabel, Defel, Sullustan, and a Hutt. I feel like there was a Quarren, too, but I couldn't find it on a quick scan.

So there's already at least 7 more races already in the game, even they aren't worked up as player character templates.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Very true!

LethalDose said:

While those are fine for NPCs, there is the issue of these not being "worked up" for usage as PC races. And for most of them, there's no mechanical difference between being a Aqualish, a Barabel, a Gamorrean, or a Sullustan. Mon Cal and Defel have an Abilities entry that separates them a bit, but that's it. Cyril and I used what few mechanical tidbits there were for the Unofficial Species Menagerie, and we wound up having to create a lot of it from scratch.

And while some folks might be fine and peachy with coming up with their own versions, not everyone is, and some GMs, new and veteran alike, prefer to keep anyone's homebrew material as far from their gaming table as possible no matter who wrote it.

I am kinda saddened that FFG won't be going past the initial 8 in the corebook. I doubt we'll see anything like WotC's Alien Anthology supplements for their OCR/RCR product line, but rather a handful of new PC-ready/viable races in each supplement. And I'd be greatly surpised if we don't get at least a handful of new races in the Age of Rebellion and Force & Destiny books; probably safe to figure that Droids, Twi'leks, and Wookies are going to show up in at least one of those other corebooks, with Humans appearing in both.

Depending on what is planned and what is allowed additional races in an online supplement at the time of the core's release. Maybe we will something along those lines.

Just wanted to give a big thumbs up to you guys that created the menagerie.

While I don't always 100% agree with how you worked it up, its a superior product for an unofficial document.

Also, while I may not always agree with your take on a species, it does provide a really good starting place for tweaks and fixes. My players have all been very enthusiastic and appreciative of the quality of work you guys did.

I have it on my ipad so I can instantly find a specific species and show them a pic (for example when describing NPCs). Eventually the more common species wont need the picture reference, but its a very nice resource to have on hand for swift identification for my players.

So thanks a ton for that link!

Donovan Morningfire said:

My comment was largely aimed at Split Light's comment:

Split Light said:

-WJL