I have just picked up my Edge of the Empire books and are skimming them now (and it looks great!).

But something bothered me about the races. Is it true that humans, gands ect can be as strong as a wookies (they all have 6 as max brawn)? I know that the wookies gets a bonus when hurt – but I had hoped the races would be more different from each other in Edge of the Empire. But I guess that FFG made the races pretty similar to avoid any PC feeling “cheated” with his character.

I think the characteristics are supposed to be vague approximates in a way. 2 is average, 1 is poor, 3 or 4 are very exceptional, and values of 5 or 6 are absolutely rare and extraordinary.

I do feel that Wookiee Rage and their free rank in Brawl makes up for this.

But yeah, even a Rancor doesn't have a Brawn characteristic higher than 6, if I'm not mistaken.

The other purpose of this is to cut down on the sheer number of dice you will need at any given time, I'm sure.

That said, I feel the Species are sufficiently different. They start out with different default values in their characteristics, wound and strain thresholds, and starting XP. They also each have their own special abilities. For example Twi'leks have a passive ability to remove any Setbacks due to hot or arid environments, while Trandoshans get a unique claw attack when Brawling.

I wonder if the design paradigm for characteristics are not absolute quantifiers, but instead are relative quantifiers.

Thus in absolute terms a Brawn 6 Wookie is stronger than a Brawn 6 Human, but not as strong as a Brawn 6 Rancor. Each is stronger than a Brawn 5 member of their own species.

A Brawn 6 Human is able to more efficiently and efficaciously apply his strength than a Brawn 5 Wookie, even if the Wookie is stronger in absolute terms.

I think the characteristics are supposed to be vague approximates in a way. 2 is average, 1 is poor, 3 or 4 are very exceptional, and values of 5 or 6 are absolutely rare and extraordinary.

I do feel that Wookiee Rage and their free rank in Brawl makes up for this.

But yeah, even a Rancor doesn't have a Brawn characteristic higher than 6, if I'm not mistaken.

The CAPTIVE Rancor has a Brawn of 6 in the core book.

I have just picked up my Edge of the Empire books and are skimming them now (and it looks great!).

But something bothered me about the races. Is it true that humans, gands ect can be as strong as a wookies (they all have 6 as max brawn)? I know that the wookies gets a bonus when hurt – but I had hoped the races would be more different from each other in Edge of the Empire. But I guess that FFG made the races pretty similar to avoid any PC feeling “cheated” with his character.

Sorry, I cannot look at your post without your avatar instantly driving me insane.

A Strength 5 human would be a world class powerlifter.

Getting to Str 6...

Well, starting with a 5 is 30+40+50=120 points - a human with +10 obligation, and all other stats at 2's, and starting only with class and specialty skill ranks.

Getting a Wookie to Str 5 is 40+50=90 points - all his starting allotment.

Captive rancor has 6 brawn but much larger silhouette, they covered it in the order 66 podcast.

In reading the books, other humanoids can be as strong as wookiees. In Tales of the Bounty hunters, the Trandoshan Bossk was noted as being equally strong as the wookiees he hunted. Wookiee start out higher, but massive focus on brawn could make someone equal to a Wookiee.

Why is this strange? A truly freakishly strong human can be as strong as a freakishly strong Wookie.

The average wookie is stronger than an average human, but that dosent mean that all wookies are stronger than all humans

its an abstract game mechanic designed to roughly approximate a relative and difficult to quantify characteristic.

Ultimately there will be tradeoffs (lack of absolute descriptive power) in favor of other benefits (not having to roll 200 dice) and as always the GM has ultimate say so. So be careful whom you arm wrestle.

Picture it as a percentile of their capacity for strength. Wookies can reach 100% (6). Humans can reach 100% strength (6). Rancors can reach 100% strength (6). No one can reach 150% (7) unless, of course, they reach 100% and also have cybernetics. But that's pretty much it.

Plus, think of how many dice sets you'd need if you could reach 10 or 15 brawn just because you were a rancor.