Several Beginner Questions

By OgreBane99, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Posted at

Hi everyone, I'm a frequent prowler here but haven't posted much. I've ran the Beginner game for my group of five players and am about to start a main campaign now. I have a series of questions that have come up amongst my group.

1. Medicine Checks. As far as I've seen, all skill checks list "additional successes" for what's accomplished. Medicine lists "each success". So, does this mean that you don't cancel out successes with failures for the total amount of wounds healed, as long as the check is successful? i.e. If a players rolls 4 successes and 2 failures and 2 advantage, would he heal 4 wounds and 2 strain? 1 wound and 2 strain? Or 2 wounds and 2 strain?

2. Piloting (both planetary and space) mention using extra successes to "deduce a way that his vehicle could be modified". I'm curious how people have applied that in a game. I'm totally lost.

3. A number of skills, such as Astrogation, list that extra successes can make skill checks go faster. But, as far as I've been able to find, time to complete checks is never listed. So far I've just ruled that it takes a round to complete most skill checks that have come up... but how would completing something faster than a round be helpful?

4. The Force power "Sense" first control upgrade lists that you can commit a force die to upgrade an attack targeting the force user. Could this apply to a force user flying a starship? Seems that, RAW wise, it wouldn't... but it would make sense why Anakin and Luke were such awesome pilots. ;-)

5. Obligation. I think I like it... but it seems very vague to me. That may be intentional, and I get it. I'm just curious how people have used Obligation in their games so far... maybe some examples of it coming up in play. Should it be very bad to the activated player? Something minor and easy to solve? Also... that starting values seem a bit off to me. My group of 5 players (which it lists as 10 starting obligation) will most likely all take the 10 extra obligation for xp... meaning the group will have a STARTING obligation of 100, right? That seems... bad.

6. Combats have gone pretty quick and stream lined. My only question is suggestions on encounter size. One rival per PC? Group of 3 or 4 minions = a rival NPC?

7. NPC xp. That problem with a lack of straight forward levels for PCs and NPCs, it's hard to deduce a challenge to the party. Has anyone come up with an NPC building system using xp? Or are most people just winging it, like I've been doing?

8. Personal scale damage to vehicles. I just want to make sure I understand this so I can blow up my PC's speeder bikes. 10 personal scale damage = 1 vehicle scale damage, right? So, in order to do 1 damage to a speeder bike with a heavy blaster, I'd have to deal 10+ damage with a blaster rifle right? 20 damage on personal scale = 2 damage on a vehicle? How does armor interact with that?

Thank you in advance for any help here. Looking VERY forward to starting my campaign!

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4. The upgrade you're seeing would be how they were so good at not getting hit... as for piloting awesomeness, this one's a bit "meta"/out-of-book, but the Force power Enhance in the Age of Rebellion beta book has a Control upgrade allowing its use with Piloting (Planetary) and Piloting (Space) (the latter requires the former); it may be that that's how they were such good starfighter pilots. Alternately, if you were building Anakin and Luke Skywalker as PCs, they would have bought into the Pilot specialization and gone at least somewhat into its talent tree.

6. One rival per PC may be a bit much, considering that stats-wise they resemble "low-level"/starting characters but with access to NPC-exclusive Talents like Adversary and NPC-exclusive Abilities like Tactical Direction, so I'd base the encounter size on the player count, though one Rival per four Minions sounds like a sound building block if you're comfortable with a single four-Minion group being able to attack a single target as if they had three ranks in their combat skills, although as discussed elsewhere the rules seem to allow ad hoc resizing of groups on the fly, i.e. splitting up that group into two groups who each make their own attacks at Ranged (Heavy) 1, or a single stormtrooper with no ranks and a trio making its attack at Ranged (Heavy) 2.

7. I'd just wing it with Minions and Rivals, since Minions have noticeably lower Wound Threshold than players (one Trandoshan player character with starting Brawn = three stormtroopers), no skill ranks unless acting in groups, and no Talents or non-species Abilities. Rivals in contrast have regular Wound Thresholds, some skill ranks, and maybe a Talent and an Ability. The thing is that the above aren't the only NPC-exclusive items (the Forsaken Jedi Nemesis has a Lightsaber skill which otherwise doesn't exist in EotE) so you're going to have to do some "eyeballing"/guesstimating even if you were to try and use XP-based NPC generation.

Posted at

1. Always, always, always cancel success/failures and threats/advantages for any skill check, including combat, medicine, anything. Cancelling the dice and taking the NET result is ALWAYS implied, regardless of what the wording says.

2. Not sure on this one. I suppose it could be similar to the way Advantages can be used in combat that says "notice a detail in battle that can be helpful" (paraphrase). It's basically a narrative way for the players to come up with something interesting after rolling some advantage like, "oh hey, there's a red barrel sitting over there that will explode if we shoot it."

3. "Faster" in this sense is mostly narrative. Here's a quick example. Let's say you're in a ship and there are TIE fighters appraoching, but they're still too far away to shoot you. An astrogation check will let the players jump to hyperspace. If they succeed with no threat, maybe it takes a round for the hyperdrive to engage (entirely up to the GM on how long this takes). If you succeed with a lot of successes or advantages, maybe you jump to hyperspace right then and there. If you succeed but generate threat, maybe it takes 3 rounds to jump. Again, entirely up to the GM on a case by case basis. I'ts nostly a narrative thing designed to create tension in a scene. However, if time is not of the essence (you're not being chased or pursued, or you don't have a deadline to make a delivery), then cutting down time on an Astrogation check is usually meaningless.

4. I would rule, yes. You could easily argue that even in a ship, the force user's influence can have a positive effect. Especially if he's piloting. Now, someone may argue that the character himself isn't being targetting, the ship is. And even if hit, the force user isn't taking damage. Thus, the power would have no effect. I'd see what other feedback people may have on this one.


5. I recommend looking up other threads regarding Obligation. It's too large a topic to discuss here. There are TONS of uses anywhere from major plot hooks, entire adventures, or simply suffereing 2 strain if someone mentions the phrase "Bounty Hunter". And yes, if a large group takes enough extra obligation, there will be a large group obligation. That is the point. I don't have the table in front of me, but 5 players is 10 obligation each for starting? If so, then sure, they run the risk of having 100 or more of obligation. The challenge for the GM is coming up with ways to use the obligation. Again, look up other threads on this forum about Obligation.

6. It can be anything you want it to be. There are no set rules here. If players are yawning their way through fights, add more minions or rivals even if teh adventure you're using doesn't call for it. The beginner box gives statements like "one minion group per PC", but those are not "rules". Merely suggestions on how to scale fights. If you want harder, add more, if you want easier, add less. This will most likely require some experimentation.

7. Good question. This will probably come with experience and experimentation. I haven't done this, so I cant comment.

8. Yes, that is right. I suppose if damage is 1:10, I'd say armor may be the same. 2 armor would be 20 soak. This may make it impossible to damage even a speeder, but I suppose it should be hard to do so. Others may have a different idea on this.

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#3 A frequent guideline I've seen on these boards (that I tend to run with) is it takes 6 rounds to get the coordinates set up. Each extra success* over the first reduces that by 1 round.

I actually like that it's not fixed because so far each "escape" has been done under different conditions with different problems. I use the 6 rounds as a baseline and wiggle from there.

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* and as always, this means "net successes"

Edited by whafrog