Hey guys,

Long time RPG player / GM, first time caller Edge of the Empire user. My groups first game is this Sunday, so I would think a lot of questions may be coming from me over the next few weeks.

So before we get to the questions I have from a preliminary test run with my buddy, I just want to take a moment to compliment this system from what I know of it so far. You can feel free to skip this section if you're just here to help.

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Compliment Section:

First, I like the "no level" system. I'm not going to call it a throwback to the West End Game D6 Star Wars System, but it certainly does bring that feel of years and years ago back to the table. I also like that it allows for anybody to kind of . . . "jump in" and still be effective.

I'm certainly intrigued by the "no mat" idea. It's been a while since an RPG has been less tactical and more narrative, and my hats off to FFG for that approach. I can't wait to see what my players and I bring to the table to tell the story.

On that note, I appreciate more than anything how this game is 66% DM story, 33% player story. I like how the creativity of my players can really come into play. I like that when I, as the GM, roll Threats, that the players get to choose and narrate what happens to my guy. I like how the players roll against themselves so I can't get blamed (I'm known for critting players and other such GM things that drive them nuts that are truly out of my control).

I am absolutely in love with the weapon / armor Attachment / Mod system. It's a fantastic "credit sink" that will keep the players intrigued and working towards that "perfect weapon" or "perfect armor". It's a great system for allowing for some level of "loot". ("Sure, the fallen foe has a modified Blaster Pistol that has a +1 damage attachment, Accurate +1, and the other two mod slots have been damaged by his previous attempts already." I won't be doing this too often, but it is still an option.) I really can't state how giddy I am about this.

Now, I'm not overly wild about the Starship system. It's not horrible, but the issue is is that I was in love with the Saga Edition Starship Shield system. The idea that it negates damage, and when the Threshold is beat, it lowers by 5 was fantastic. It really gave my players the drama and excitement of "SHIELDS ARE GOING DOWN!" (I even had one player who was purely land based combat, so his sole job on the ship was being that guy that sits there going "Shields are at 95% and holding!" "Captain, shields are at 38%!" It was fantastic!) and them racing around to try to raise them. The shield system isn't BAD in this, but it's nothing as special as Saga Edition was. Feel free to give me your thoughts on this little side note.

End Compliment Section

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Question #1: Must you use 2 consecutive maneuvers to go from Medium to Long range? Or can you use one maneuver one round, then finish it NEXT round and be at Long range?

Question #2: My player was at Long Range since he had the Talent that gave him +2 Damage at that range. However, he rolled a Despair and his rifle ran out of ammo. The badguy then shot at him and got 2 Advantages, I used it to give him a Disadvantage die "on his next check.". Do these stack?

I ask because next round he used Maneuver + Action to get to Medium range. Was shot again and got 2 Advantages, again giving him another Disadvantage die. Next round he used a Maneuver to get from Medium to Short, then another Maneuver to get from Short to Engaged. I shot him again (and succeeded with the increased purple dice using a Ranged (Heavy) weapon) and rolled ANOTHER 2 Advantages, giving him ANOTHER Disadvantage die. When it was finally his turn to attack, he had accrued 3 Disadvantage dice.

The text says "Add (Disadvantage) to target's next check", it doesn't give a deadline or not. But wow, was my player annoyed at that. :|

Question #3: Any tips for "balancing" combat? I don't need it to be a perfect equation like 4E offers, but a good guideline would do wonders. My player defeated a Rival, then lost against a Nemesis, then lost against the next Rival, then TORE through three Minions, then lost against another Rival.

In the first adventure, I'm thinking of starting with a 3 Minion battle (vs. 3 PC's), then a Rival + 2 Minions (vs. 6 PC's), then a Nemesis + 2 Minions (vs. 6 PC's). I have NO clue if this is a good idea, bad idea, or what.

I feel as if I'm forgetting one . . . but I'm sure it'll come to me. Thank you so much in advance! Can't wait to check out the Forums and explore this game further.

1) my understanding is they do not have to be consecutive.

2) while under RAW it does say that, my general rule is next check until the end of the next round. Since he had advantage on the PC I would of used that to force the PC to make an athletics check to change range bands while under that overwhelming fire.

3) combat is as balanced as the GM designs the encounters to be and the player uses tactics and advantage on rolls well. Keep in mind a player shouldn't be fighting nemesis solo, you need a crew.

Just my thoughts.

Welcome to the game, hope you continue to like it. Agree about the starship rules, but I fully expect them to revisit starship combat at a later date. And the "shields are holding" drama is replaced by other mechanics, eg: shifting shield coverage, critical hits, etc.

Q1: you can spend 1 Manuever in consecutive rounds and be at Long range in two rounds. It's just a bit more to track.

Q2: I think they stack...after all, it's his "next check". The player shouldn't be annoyed...narratively, the character is being rattled by three shots in a row, leaping and dancing to avoid what he can, it's no surprise when he finally arrives where he wants to shoot from, he's disoriented or a bit panicked from the chaos.

Q3: I think everybody is still struggling a bit with that. Take it slow, err on the side of leniency until you get a grasp on it. The nice thing is, even if you mess up, it's pretty hard to actually kill the PCs unless you specifically put that in the narrative. There is no "countdown to death" once you go over your wound threshold like in other systems (the exceptions to this are very high on the critical chart). Instead, if you end up with a TPK, capture them and give them a chance to bust out.

Thanks, the both of you.

Also, very good points on question 3, Whafrog. I forgot about death being not as imminent just because someone goes below their Wound Threshold.

. . . also . . . I read your entire post in his voice:

So that helped.

OH! I do have one more question.

Shooting someone with a Blaster! Let's say a Blaster does 6 damage (AFB), if I roll 1 success, it does 6 damage. If I roll 2 successes, it does 7 damage, ETC.

I get that concept. I like it. However, I've been reading the forums and noticing a lot of people saying that the 1 initial success is +1 damage. Are they wrong or did I read the book wrong?

(e.x. In the "Lightsabers are OP" post, someone said "If you decked out a character for 11 Soak, a Lightsaber reduces Soak by 10, plus the 1 soak for the 1 Success, so a single hit will do the full 11 damage to you." and nobody corrected him on this.

I've seen other examples of people in the forums saying "X Damage +1 for the success")

A weapon does X damage + successes. You always add successes.

But . . . I could have sworn . . . the . . . because then . . . .

. . .

. . .

. . . huh . . .

youtube.com/watch?v=s4O-_pLoynk&t=0m27s

Yes it is really weird you never do base damage. So a blaster with base damage of 6 will never do 6 damage. 0 successes if a miss (failure) and 1 success is 6+1=7 damage.

I'm glad it's the way it is, because otherwise you always have to subtract...minor, but irritating.

Mind you, that "+1" rule is what allows blaster carbines or blaster rifles to one-shot stormtroopers under these rules: if you're hitting at all, you're dealing 10 damage before soak, and the 5 points leftover after soak (Brawn 3 + laminate armor-granted 2) is exactly enough to drop a normal stormtrooper, or a stormtrooper sergeant in three hits -- or less depending on just how high you rolled.

I don't recall anything about "the 1 soak for the 1 Success" though, and with lightsabers it's more that the lightsaber ignores 10 points of Soak (not reducing it), so I would think that that's how much damage a lightsaber would do against a character decked out for Soak 11.

Question #3: Any tips for "balancing" combat? I don't need it to be a perfect equation like 4E offers, but a good guideline would do wonders. My player defeated a Rival, then lost against a Nemesis, then lost against the next Rival, then TORE through three Minions, then lost against another Rival.

In the first adventure, I'm thinking of starting with a 3 Minion battle (vs. 3 PC's), then a Rival + 2 Minions (vs. 6 PC's), then a Nemesis + 2 Minions (vs. 6 PC's). I have NO clue if this is a good idea, bad idea, or what.

One example I like to give is the possibility of resizing minion groups on the fly, because minions in a group make one attack per group, not per individual, and because a group's skill ranks are equal to group size minus 1 -- Minions have no skill ranks when acting individually, while the group's skill ranks max out at six members (5 ranks); at that or lower, every Minion downed is one less skill rank, while more than six members is essentially a buffer against "losing skill ranks to attrition"... think ablative armor.

Therefore, a four-stormtrooper group will attack only one PC per round at Ranged (Heavy) 3, two pairs can attack two PCs per round at Ranged Heavy 1 each, a trio and an individual stormtrooper can attack two PCs per round (the trio with Ranged (Heavy) 2 and the individual stormtrooper with Agility 3), and a pair and two individual stormtroopers can attack three PCs (the pair with Ranged (Heavy) 1, the individual two stormtroopers with Agility 3) per round.

In contrast, a stormtrooper sergeant is like a three-stormtrooper minion group (Wound Threshold and skills besides Leadership) as a single character but even better. That being thanks to Adversary 1 and Tactical Direction, the former of which upgrades the difficulty of combat checks against him once, the latter of which lets him 'direct' one stormtrooper minion group within medium range, granting the group an immediate free maneuver or a boost die added to their next check... think of that in terms of how you apportion Rivals and Minions.

Keep in mind that you can reuse the stat blocks of some of the existing NPCs under whatever names you want them to stand in for, particularly Minions -- and sometimes even use differing stat blocks for "nominally the same sort of adversaries" depending on the intended "threat level". For example, if the players happen upon Imperial Army infantry and you don't have the Age of Rebellion beta or finalized core rulebook? They're Planetary Defense Force Troopers with the serial numbers filed off. If the players instead happen on Army vehicle crew? They're renamed Imperial Naval Troopers (don't tell the Navy!). And so on...

One of the better pieces of advice I've seen on "envisioning" the combat is abandoning the notion that one attack (or one attack roll) equals one pull of the trigger, or one swing or thrust of a melee weapon.

Hi and welcome to the game. These are my practices…

1) Like old people’s bathroom habits… it depends (haha)…. I don’t see a reason why a player couldn’t (medium range attack then maneuver the first round, then maneuver and attack the second round being in long range for said second attack). However, if I have a player specifically establish his characters whereabouts as being on the far side of medium range (my non-coms do this pretty often), then I let them jump to long in one maneuver. Doc loves that "zone".

Technically speaking though, the rule is a way to give weight to the range bands, and in that I stick to it if there isn’t a logic supporting otherwise.

2) Unless the disadvantage is the result of a crit wound, they only apply to that round… i.e. until the NPC/player that dealt the disadvantage goes the following round. Basically it's supposed to apply to one set of actions and then vanish.

If the second disadvantage came from a second attack, or a second (third etc…) attacker they would then stack.

3) That depends on your players and the classes they play, also group size. If you have a large (5/6) group, or a group of gun bunnys , then up the anti for the combat, as they are going to plow through it. If you’re dealing with a smaller group, with diverse classes, not so much. Remember (and remind your players): fighting the stormtroopers is but one method of defeating them, sneaking past them, conning your way through them, distracting them, etc… are all viable methods to the same objective. The important thing is getting around them, regardless of how the players accomplish this. The Xp isn’t set up for methods/kill count, it’s set up for point A to point B in story.

I would recommend for starters, don’t worry about any of it, tell a good story. Get used to the system, get your players used to adding input to the game (it is kinda unique that they are encouraged to “help” the GM, and sometimes takes some getting used to. Get them to diversify their advantages and disadvantages when they are explaining what happened to cause them. Concentrate on that for the first few games You can’t really look at this like a fantasy game, there isn’t really a “tank” etc… if you approach it as such, you’re going to have a hard time getting any of your players to play anything but combatants, and the game is so much more fun when you have multiple skill sets in a party. Even as a GM it allows you more diversity in setting up your challenges, which in turn makes the world more organic.

Use what makes sense to you, and your group.

Also, have fun!

Hope it helps,

Sham

Oh! I remembered one of my other questions!

Guided Quality. So . . . do you choose to fire the missiles and then PRAY you get 3 Advantages to enable Guided? Or is there some kind of LOCK ON you can do?

It seems awfully weird that it's Spray and Pray when so much drama could be had from "They're locking onto us!"

Why can't that be narrative?

Why can't that be narrative?

It can be, but assuming the missile just comes in and hits, it's not much. With "Guided", they have an entire round to run around the ship, redirect shield direction, and brace for impact.

I'm just asking because it seems like the Guided quality wouldn't pop up very often for something that could provide a lot of fun for the group.

Also, additional question: If on the loop around you roll another triple Advantage, does the missile continue to stay on target?

Yup. As long as you keeping missing and rolling enough advantages (something my group is constantly doing) that missle keeps going "it's coming back at us"

Mind you, that "+1" rule is what allows blaster carbines or blaster rifles to one-shot stormtroopers under these rules: if you're hitting at all, you're dealing 10 damage before soak, and the 5 points leftover after soak (Brawn 3 + laminate armor-granted 2) is exactly enough to drop a normal stormtrooper, or a stormtrooper sergeant in three hits -- or less depending on just how high you rolled.

Not quite. You need to exceed the target's WT to drop them. For a stormtrooper with WT 5, that means doing 6+ damage beyond soak.