And thus it was that a 'new version' that is no longer fully compatible with the 'old version' begins...

Well, these are separate-but-compatible games, not compatible-but-separate games.

They all run on the same rules though - changing Encumbrance would make it not the same rules.

The purpose of the beta with AoR will be to ensure the careers, weapons and ships work fine, that the new Force career works fine, and that they work with EotE.

Changing how EC works for ships would not really be a rule change on the scale of "not the same rules".

They could easily clarify how EC works, and release a quick errata PDF for EotE starships with new EC values.

We complain about this topic because, compared to the rest of the rules, it's so totally borked and barely described/thought through- but it's hardly a major, or even MINOR part of the ruleset- it's at most an ancillary rule- one most players will play without anyway.

'Where AoR rules conflict with EotE rules, the AoR rule superceeds the EotE rule for all purposes'

There, still the same rules.

'Where AoR rules conflict with EotE rules, the AoR rule superceeds the EotE rule for all purposes'

There, still the same rules.

Except it still means searching through the minutiae of AoR for the changes, just like 40k, and FFG said that wouldn't happen.

I don't see them changing anything other than careers and new additions, they'll leave the majority of the rules alone.

In a way this is addressed by the rules. As a ship's encumbrance is on starship scale, it should be 10 times the amount of personal scale even though it does not state it directly in the text block. (pg. 224)

I have treated it to penalize players who try to do things without thinking first. Example: Player goes out and buys 5 gernades. He gets ready to go out and I ask him where he puts those grenades. He neglected to buy a bandolier or unitlity belt so the only logical thought he can come up with is in his pockets. I told him two can fit in pockets, the rest have to be carried by hand so they`ll impose their encumbrance on him and he couldn`t use his hands. He decided to leave the three in the ship. Later he got a bandolier and I said he could fit all 5 on the bandolier for 1 encumbrance. Otherwise even 5 grenades is a ton to carry when you`re dealing with only 7-10 encumbrance.

I look at it from the narrative. Could a reasonable character carry this much without being largely affected? Can I carry 2000 sheets of paper by hand without being affected? No I would atleast have some encumbrance trying to keep them all together. Would they be 200 encumbrance? No. Could I carry it all in the backpack without being affected? Yup, do it all the time (text books). Would it be 200 encumbrance? No I would put it at around 1-2.

If you get too pickey with the encumbrance rules you run into situations like this:

Bounty Hunter:

Heavy Armor: 3 encumb

Blaster Rifle: 4 encumb

Blaster Pistol: 1 encumb

Stimpac: 1 encumb

Grenade: 1 encumb

At minimums you`re looking at 10 encumbrance to create a decently equipped individual. Nevermind if you wanna have rope, or a heavier weapons load. Now I would let a person have most this equipment reasonably without a penalty. However the moment they try to do something like pickup a wounded fellow or grab another weapon I would say it pushes them over their max and they start taking the listed penalties.

As far as ship encumbrance is concerned I have no good answer. I would propose that the encumbrance be treated like a increment. Take the YT-1300 for example. 165 encumbrance at no penalty (I would only include cargo for this, unless players are being totally annoying. From 166-330 I would give it a single setback to handling. For every additional 165 (rounded up of course) I would toss another black die for handling. I would have a maximum of 5 increments (825). And that would mean the ship was stuffed to the gills, floor to ceiling of every availible area. Would get tricky with people as they strongly dislike being packed in giant piles on top of each other with limited air and bathrooms but if it were an emergency and people just packed in as tightly as possible for a short time the YT could probably hold quite a few. Again I think there is canon somewhere having 40+ people evacuating on the Falcon.

It would also lead credence to why Solo dropped the spice. If he were packed with that much spice he would have serious handling issues and would need to drop it to have a good chance of escaping through an asteroid field. I`ve driven/piloted/captained enough vehicles to tell you once you add almost any additional weight there is a change in handling. If you need to test this go to a local dirt track and set a time in your car, now do it again with your friend as co-pilot. They might only add 2-5% to the total weight but they throw the balance off.

So would everyone agree that the encumbrance is an increment and it maxes out at 5 with a black die for every increment above the first? Rules regarding the amount of encumbrance would still use the first increment at a base (like secret storage compartments and such). Passengers and crew are already accounted for in the ships listing.

If you get too pickey with the encumbrance rules you run into situations like this:

Bounty Hunter:

Heavy Armor: 3 encumb

Blaster Rifle: 4 encumb

Blaster Pistol: 1 encumb

Stimpac: 1 encumb

Grenade: 1 encumb

At minimums you`re looking at 10 encumbrance to create a decently equipped individual. Nevermind if you wanna have rope, or a heavier weapons load. Now I would let a person have most this equipment reasonably without a penalty. However the moment they try to do something like pickup a wounded fellow or grab another weapon I would say it pushes them over their max and they start taking the listed penalties.

I'm of the opinion that this is exactly the level of pickiness one should take for equipment regularly carried. Players should have to make the hard choices about what they can carry around normally otherwise you just end up with a videogame kind of inventory system. If you're in Hvy Armor and carrying a lot of stuff you should be at least slightly encumbered.

If you get too pickey with the encumbrance rules you run into situations like this:

Bounty Hunter:

Heavy Armor: 3 encumb

Blaster Rifle: 4 encumb

Blaster Pistol: 1 encumb

Stimpac: 1 encumb

Grenade: 1 encumb

At minimums you`re looking at 10 encumbrance to create a decently equipped individual. Nevermind if you wanna have rope, or a heavier weapons load. Now I would let a person have most this equipment reasonably without a penalty. However the moment they try to do something like pickup a wounded fellow or grab another weapon I would say it pushes them over their max and they start taking the listed penalties.

I'm of the opinion that this is exactly the level of pickiness one should take for equipment regularly carried. Players should have to make the hard choices about what they can carry around normally otherwise you just end up with a videogame kind of inventory system. If you're in Hvy Armor and carrying a lot of stuff you should be at least slightly encumbered.

I completely agree. This is also why backpacks and utility belts exist in the gear section.

I guess it wouldn`t be so bad for the heavy not to be able to jump . I think it only applies to a few skills like coordiation, and stealth anyways. Need to get back to my book to double check. Any thoughts on the ship encumbrance rules I suggested?

I guess it wouldn`t be so bad for the heavy not to be able to jump . I think it only applies to a few skills like coordiation, and stealth anyways. Need to get back to my book to double check. Any thoughts on the ship encumbrance rules I suggested?

It hasn't come up yet for my group but I'd probably go with a relative scale, using the numbers provided as a base, that makes sense at the time. My players aren't playing Merchant Wars so it's not likely going to be much of an issue, if it was we'd be playing Traveller. Actually now that I think of it if it came up and turned out to be important enough I'd go back to my old Traveller books and find a ship of comparable size and use the stats it has. GDW did a pretty good job of handling that kind of thing.

I guess it wouldn`t be so bad for the heavy not to be able to jump . I think it only applies to a few skills like coordiation, and stealth anyways. Need to get back to my book to double check. Any thoughts on the ship encumbrance rules I suggested?

I actually like the idea of the setback dice for going over the Encumbrance capactiy. I personally don't think I'd go all the way up to 5 times the base though for increments. I think 3 would be my max. I do agree that passengers and crew are not part of the encumbrance, as they are listed as a separate item in the ship's stat block. However, I would count any being over the total number of passengers and crew listed in scenarios like the one you describe where the Falcon was used to evacuate people (if I recall from the books, this happened in 'Vector Prime' when they were attempting to save as many people as they could from a planet the Vong were about to destroy).

As an aside, I've always assumed Han dropped the spice so if he was boarded, he wouldn't have illegal cargo on his ship.

I was thinking that ship encumbrance was just for the ship's cargo hold. Though this was probably just me being ignorant, it does provide an elegant solution. A ship could easily carry more stuff if you wanted to have crates of blasters in your crew quarters, galley, and engineering levels.

After reading this, I'm of the opinion that if you have to worry about your characters carrying loosely packed, incidental items to such a degree that the GM actually needs to track them, you have other issues at your table.

I'm a big fan of keeping things simple.

I was thinking that ship encumbrance was just for the ship's cargo hold. Though this was probably just me being ignorant, it does provide an elegant solution. A ship could easily carry more stuff if you wanted to have crates of blasters in your crew quarters, galley, and engineering levels.

I don't think this is ever stated in the rule book, but that's how I've been imagining it and how I intend to run it, should I ever need to dissect a ships storage capacity.

In a way this is addressed by the rules. As a ship's encumbrance is on starship scale, it should be 10 times the amount of personal scale even though it does not state it directly in the text block. (pg. 224)

The paragraph you refer to specifically states what stats are of increased value when dealing with planetary/vehicle scale vs personal scale. Encumbrance is not singled out, nor does it like the stats mentioned play a specific part in vehicle vs character combat.

While many support this notion, it is not presented nor specified in the rules. I also think it's a tad generous for the aratech speeder bike, silhouette 2 but still a vehicle, to have cargo space for 20 encumbrance worth of items. Or a cloakshape fighter, silhouette 3, to have 120 encumbrance capacity.

Anyway. Each to his own, I've made some house-rules regarding this based upon the suggestion under the encumbrance heading in the gears and equipment chapter. It's all in the crates and barrels.

After reading this, I'm of the opinion that if you have to worry about your characters carrying loosely packed, incidental items to such a degree that the GM actually needs to track them, you have other issues at your table.

I'm a big fan of keeping things simple.

Actually the way the rule is written is very simple, it doesn't ask you to concern yourself with incidental items unless you've got a lot of them, then it tells you how to handle them. Pretty strait forward.

Yeah, the only armors that actually matter are Laminate (only 1 enc) but HBA still adds 3. For your average character, that's almost half of what they can comfortably carry without belts or backpacks.

If it says reduce by three, reduce by three - An armour with Enc. 1 becomes -2.

In the sense of what Encumbrance is made out to be, what with Utility Belts and Backpacks increasing it, just chalk it up to having pockets and places to store things effectively.

I guess.

Yeah, the only armors that actually matter are Laminate (only 1 enc) but HBA still adds 3. For your average character, that's almost half of what they can comfortably carry without belts or backpacks.

If it says reduce by three, reduce by three - An armour with Enc. 1 becomes -2.

In the sense of what Encumbrance is made out to be, what with Utility Belts and Backpacks increasing it, just chalk it up to having pockets and places to store things effectively.

I guess.

While it doesn't specifically say something along the lines of "to a minimum of 0," I believe that is the intended effect. Since items like the utility belt and backpack don't have -1 and -4 encumbrance values, and instead have their effects listed in the descriptions, I don't think the intent of the lower encumbrance of worn armor is to reduce their values into the negative, giving you extra capacity.

Yeah, what he said ^^ (negative ENC for armor... good grief )

The paragraph you refer to specifically states what stats are of increased value when dealing with planetary/vehicle scale vs personal scale. Encumbrance is not singled out, nor does it like the stats mentioned play a specific part in vehicle vs character combat.

While many support this notion, it is not presented nor specified in the rules. I also think it's a tad generous for the aratech speeder bike, silhouette 2 but still a vehicle, to have cargo space for 20 encumbrance worth of items. Or a cloakshape fighter, silhouette 3, to have 120 encumbrance capacity.

Times 10 sounds fine for smaller vehicles, I may have to do some sort of increasing scale for larger ones.

Or just toss it and switch to the listed cargo capacities in the Wookiepedia....