It seems at a glance that playing a Size 0 PC (certain races in the Unofficial Species Guide or an Astromech, for example) has nothing but up-side. Why is that? What is the basic reasons behind giving them only benefits and no penalties for being small? Anyone know?

We considered reducing encumberance threshold somehow to compensate. I mean, the average jawa can carry 86% (6/7ths) as much as a human. Or heck, 75% (3/4ths) as much as the average wookiee. This does not sit well with us.

Anyone else have ideas/suggestions/examples of their own?

Well, I'll understand if you prefer for penalties to be mechanical, but it seems to me that a lot of this can be dealt with on a roleplaying/story level. A Silhouette 0 character may find that it just isn't all that convenient being 0.96 meters tall in a galaxy built for 1.8-meter beings. The player of a Silhouette 0 character might also think about how high the character's Brawn really needs to be.

Maybe they can't use two-handed weapons? So no vibroaxes, blaster rifles, etc.

I have proposed to my group to introduce encumbrance multipliers to simulate strength of small and large creatures purely for carrying purposes.

0 = x 0.5

1 = x 1

2 = x 2

3 = x 4

5 = x 8

etc.

I have proposed to my group to introduce encumbrance multipliers to simulate strength of small and large creatures purely for carrying purposes.

0 = x 0.5

1 = x 1

2 = x 2

3 = x 4

5 = x 8

etc.

Makes sense.

I have proposed to my group to introduce encumbrance multipliers to simulate strength of small and large creatures purely for carrying purposes.

0 = x 0.5

1 = x 1

2 = x 2

3 = x 4

5 = x 8

etc.

Clean and simple

I have proposed to my group to introduce encumbrance multipliers to simulate strength of small and large creatures purely for carrying purposes.

0 = x 0.5

1 = x 1

2 = x 2

3 = x 4

5 = x 8

etc.

If you apply the same modifiers to vehicles and starships, it could help deal with the issue of too-light encumbrance capacities as well.

Although it's a little bit more math-y, a formula I came up with was: 3+(2*Size)+Brawn. So Silhouette 1 stays baseline at 5+. Size 0 lowers to 3+. Size 2 gets a base 7+, etc...

This keeps things a tad bit more linear than pure exponential increases. Using this, a Size 3 beastie with a Brawn of 5 could comfortably carry around 14 Enc (that basically 3 human-size people on its back) indefinitely.

Another simple solution:

Characters with a silhouette of 0 who wish to increase their Brawn must do so by spending the standard amount of XP plus an additional 10 XP.

[Example: Wicket the Ewok (with a silhouette of 0) has a Brawn rating of 1. He wishes to increase his Brawn rating to 2. This normally costs 20 XP (10 x the rank purchased). For Wicket, it will instead cost 30 XP (20 + 10). Similarly if Wicket wanted to further increase his Brawn rating to 3, it would cost an additional 40 XP (30 + 10).]

For larger pack animals or riding animals, just use good judgement. If it seems like the animal can carry it, then you're good.

For size 0 characters, add +1 cumbersome as a racial trait. Everything adds +1 cumbersome making it less likely that the smaller creature would be able to handle it unless they had some amazing strength.

Give them a base 1 brawn and don't toy with it any more. The lower starting brawn and +1 cumbersome trait would make things clean and simple. A brawn 3 ewok is just as strong as a brawn 3 human. They can carry as much and do as much damage. It's just a lot harder for an ewok to get to brawn 3 (50xp vs 30xp).

If you really want to gum up the works, have the DM throw a setback die at things based on size. Firing a quad laser turret of a space ship would be much like a child driving a car. Repairing a droid or providing medical care isn't size dependant.

I haven't spent much time looking over the unofficial species guide, so I'm not sure if this idea complicates other races in some way, but it seems like it would make it pretty quick and simple. No math, no complications, no charts, no minutiae.

Mr. Fibble and kmanweiss have the right of it. Step away from the numbers and let the narrative handle size issues.

Mr. Fibble and kmanweiss have the right of it. Step away from the numbers and let the narrative handle size issues.

This isn't an issue of narrative though, it *is* an issue of numbers... a Jawa, should not be capable of lifting/carrying as much as a Wookie, regardless of XP spent. It just doesn't make sense from either a narrative sense or a continuity sense. At least imo.

True. After all, one ewok couldn't even carry C3PO. They had to team up just to lift him. Yet Chewie ran around carrying him no problem...

I imagine Chewy has a brawn of 4 though, while Wicket had a brawn of 1. The numbers you need are already in the game, we don't need complicated math formulas. Do you think Luke could have carried C3PO like Chewy did? At the same pace and speed?

If you had some freakishly strong, steroid using, winner of 'Endor's strongest Ewok' contestant, I bet he could carry C3PO just fine.

Or better yet, if you, as the GM really has a problem with a strong Ewok carrying a broken down protocol droid, you could say that it has a cumbersome quality of 3, and use the cumbersome racial trait that I suggested for all small races and bing bang boom, he can drag it around, but he aint gonna do much else. Or just say that the bundle of droid parts is just to unweildy of a person with your frame to carry.

The narrative does just fine. Sure, you could still build a freakishly strong Ewok, but who in there right mind is going to? Build the character from a narrative standpoint and you don't have an issue. Brawn 1 is average for ewok. A 2 is abnormaly strong for an ewok. A 3 is almost unheard of.

A player character (regardless of silhouette) is measured on par with any other player character. 2 brawn is 2 brawn. 2 int is 2 int. Just because an average Gamorrean has an Int of 1 doesn't mean we should restrict the possibility of a scientific, professor Gamorrean that teaches at the University of Coruscant. Is a scrawny Givin any more likely to be able to carry C3PO than a Jawa?

What is with the urge of people to add the annoying minutiae of D20 into this game? What's next? A new version of the autfire/multifire/multiweapon combat chart? This game is brilliant for the fact that it flows much smoother than D20. Lets not complicate it with D20 like rules.

Simple things and GM narrative based descisions can handle this and many other issues without gumming up the system with rules that drag the gameplay to a halt.

Simple things and GM narrative based descisions can handle this and many other issues without gumming up the system with rules that drag the gameplay to a halt.

So rather than a pre-determined houserule to account for the house-ruled existence of small PCs, you want to drag the game to a halt repeatedly during play every time the GM needs to decide whether to throw SB at the little guy or argue what he can or can't do on the fly?

I see...

As for cursing the fact that d20 rules minutia may find its way into this "narrative playset", why did they bother to let jawas, ewoks and astromechs get a bonus to attacks and defense against wampas at all? Hmm?

I'm not fighting against house rules, just offering up a simple one. I'm advocating for simplicity.

Brawn 1 and a +1 cumbersome racial trait. No math, no formulas, no charts. It works in gameplay and narratively.

Your average jawa can already carry less than your average wookie. However if your above average jawa lifts weights every day and drinks protien shakes so that he is able to dead lift as much as the average wookie....then why can't he carry as much stuff?

If a small race put in the time and effort to raise their brawn to that degree, why wouldnt they be equal in that department? Do you need special rules for knowledge based checks for races that are dumber than a bag of rocks on average? Should all Cathar take 2 setback dice for knowledge checks because they are dumb on average?

I get it, size is an issue. But that is where the +1 cumbersome trait comes into play. A repeating blaster rifle is going to be harder for a Jawa to use than a wookie (on average). But if that jawa is abnormaly strong, and gets enough upgrades to that blaster, maybe he'll be able to use it proficiently. He'd be a funny looking turret for sure, but it could be possible. As for the setback die for size...why is that any harder for the GM than a setback die due to weather or combat or anything else? If a wookie PC was trying to fight in a hut made for and by ewoks, I'd give him a setback die due to size. It's going to be hard for him to move and swing his weapons. It's an environmental condition that causes a setback.

And why is how much he can carry so important, but using stuff built for people twice his height isn't a concern for you? Piloting vehicles made for people much larger is challenging....I believe an ewok in ROTJ demonstrated that. He just barely made that piloting check, probably due to that setback die...and looks like he rolled a few threat. If you make any special rules or not for race size, I'd hope you'd keep his/her size in mind for checks using equipment not built for them.

Look, I'm not trying to fight, just suggesting a solution and backing it up. If you don't like it, don't use it. No skin off my back.

But my original issue was never about a jawa pumping up his Brawn to 3, or other silliness. Its that a Brawn 1 jawa can effortlessly carry around 75% as much as an average (Brawn 3) wookiee. 75%! That is silly to me.

There appears to be a bit of confusion here.

Silhouettes only come into play with "Planetary Scale" combat, "Planetary Scale" essentially being any combat that involves vehicles. Difficulty to hit in Planetary Scale combat is the only time difficulty is determined by Silhouette.

Combat between characters happens on "Character Scale", where difficulty to hit is only determined by "range" and not by Silhouette. Therefore a Silhouette 0 character has no inherit advantage against a Silhouette 1 character in combat.

For example, say you have a Silhouette 0 Ewok vs. An Imperial Pilot in a TIE fighter:

If the Pilot tried to shoot the Ewok with his TIE fighter's Laser Canons would face a Daunting Difficulty to hit the Ewok (4 Difficulty Dice).

If the Pilot where to land the TIE fighter, get out and shoot at the Ewok from Short Range his difficulty would only be Easy (1 Difficulty Die) because character scale encounter difficulties are determined by range bands.

But my original issue was never about a jawa pumping up his Brawn to 3, or other silliness. Its that a Brawn 1 jawa can effortlessly carry around 75% as much as an average (Brawn 3) wookiee. 75%! That is silly to me.

Considering how little characters can actually carry, I don't consider that a problem. Dropping the Jawa's encumbrance further when the character doesn't really have any likely to appear benefit for their size is a bit much.

C3PO probably only has a brawn of 1, so he weighs 6 Enc.

Chewie has a brawn of at least 3, though it could be higher. But for the sake of this, we'll say he only has 3.

His natural threshold is 8. He had a Utility Belt (bandolier, in his case.) He also had a backpack to carry 3PO. That adds an extra 5 to his Enc. threshold, to a total of 13.

A bowcaster weighs 5. 3P0 is 6. Chewie holds both with 11 Enc, with two to spare before he starts taking penalties.

An ewok's brawn would be 1. Given the fact that they carried C3PO in a chair (let's say Enc 3 or 4,) it wouldn't be possible for one ewok to carry him without harsh penalties. They were also exalting him on high, so they wanted him to be lofted above everyone else.


Instead of nerfing their carrying capacity, you could just add an Enc. point or two if they are carrying things that are much larger than they are. If they are carrying a Sillhouette 1 dude, maybe increase it by one, since they are so much shorter. I don't think that you need to do much more than that.

There are no size 0 races in the core rules at the moment, right?

I don't think it is unlikely that a standard special ability of such a race in later books will address this concern.

I'm wanting to run a Pit Droid, who after getting sucked through a pod racer engine has gone on to become a supper computer wiz\astrogator.

But my original issue was never about a jawa pumping up his Brawn to 3, or other silliness. Its that a Brawn 1 jawa can effortlessly carry around 75% as much as an average (Brawn 3) wookiee. 75%! That is silly to me.

Any more silly than a human sized alien with 1 brawn carrying 75% as much as a brawn 3 wookie? 1 Brawn is 1 Brawn. Your problem sounds like it's more about encumbrance limits of brawn than silhouette.

Why the weird scale of encumbrance limits? If the limits were more diverse you'd force characters to up their brawn in all character builds. Want a human that carries an aresenal? Gonna need to spend all his xp on brawn. Want a character that can serve as a doctor and a mechanic, he's going to need huge brawn. A brawn 1 character would be forced to carry a light blaster pistol and nothing else....or the wookie with 3 brawn could carry a baker's dozen of bowcasters and a bushel of force pikes without breaking a sweat.