The current system allows small gains between sessions providing progress an advancement. If you were able to increase characteristics with a huge cost people would be all over the boards whining about why it costs so much.

Plus, who wants to play 8-10 sessions to save up for a +1 to a characteristic. It has been proven time and time again in tabletop and video games small progression advancement is much better and preferred by players at large.

That being said it's your game and if you want to have the ability to buy +1 characteristic I would do a flat fee of 100 or 150 experience. If you do a cost multiplier most likely all you get is everyone buying up their low characteristics and everyone will be clones of each other. Having players with a 1 & 2 characteristics is important to player diversification. If you make it easier to raise the 1 & 2's you will lose that.

So what do you think of buying into a second tree. Put down a foundation cost. Say Luke as he went from Bush Pilot to Jedi Knight or Han went from imperial academy pilot to smuggler/gunslinger/etc etc? Your thoguhts please

Buying into a second/third/fourth, etc tree is expected and encouraged. It's the first thing my son did with his game-earned XP. If nothing else it makes skill development cheaper for the career skills that come with the tree.

In any case, I'm not sure why you're more interested in the end game than just enjoying the stories you can have even with starting characters. One of the groups I play with doesn't even care about character development, they're just enjoying the mayhem and madness they can already engage in. They're not trying to be Han or Luke.

yes untouchable characters is not practical but you example of the difference in your example of the dice and skill is not that much as you showed the upper limit. So is all the facets contained in the talent trees that differentiate between the mediocre and the great?

I didn't show the upper limit, the upper limit is a dice pool of 6 with 5 skill ranks (YYYYYG). But even the difference I showed is huge. It may not look like it, but just do the math. Having a single yellow die is a game-shifter, 1/12th of the time you will get an awesome result. Having 3 yellow dice is a game-changer, you've tripled your chances of getting a triumph, not to mention lots more successes and advantages.

And like I said, that's just skills. Yes, all the facets in the talent trees make a big difference.

It doesn't sound like you've played at all. If you had, all this stuff would be self-explanatory. Talents boosting your wounds, strain, removing setback dice, adding defense…it all adds up. It will make a lot more sense to you if you play through a few games. If you get the beginner box, it has an adventure designed to reveal all the basics of the rules without having to fiddle with character development, so when you finally read through the character development and see all the options the benefits will be more obvious.

My group and I were a bit concerned by this rule, especially with the XP hit some races end up taking when compared to Humans, so I implemented a simple house rule that allows three Characteristic to be raised once, each, leaving the maximum at 6.

Even with that on the table, they group has been more focused on raising their Talents instead, and putting the Charactistic increase in the "After I do this awesome thing!" category. It also helps that my group is rather story driven; playing FATE and Marvel Heroic has helped with that, so they don't really raise things unless they have a story specific reason for it (which is why I allow the traits to be raised in the first place).

So what do you think of buying into a second tree. Put down a foundation cost. Say Luke as he went from Bush Pilot to Jedi Knight or Han went from imperial academy pilot to smuggler/gunslinger/etc etc? Your thoguhts please

Buying into a second/third/fourth, etc tree is expected and encouraged. It's the first thing my son did with his game-earned XP. If nothing else it makes skill development cheaper for the career skills that come with the tree.

In any case, I'm not sure why you're more interested in the end game than just enjoying the stories you can have even with starting characters. One of the groups I play with doesn't even care about character development, they're just enjoying the mayhem and madness they can already engage in. They're not trying to be Han or Luke.

I am looking at the game with foresight and trying to anticipate what can and can't be done. I have been gming Star Wars RPG for over 25 years. I have two kids I am getting into it and I intent to run more adventures at a local store so with that in mind i look at the game with that perspective as i rattle it and see what comes lose. I am happy you have indulged me and help clarify my concerns. I want to use this game in its entirety and not bastardize it and bring the great source material to another system. I hope this lets you know where i'm coming from:) Ty again.

I don't ever see the reason for players to be able to increase characteristics outside of character creation. Like some others said, that forces people to make some hard choices in character gen.

Besides, allowing characters to raise characteristics outside of character gen just diminishes the power of the Dedication talent. If a character wants to raise their characteristics, that is the only way. And, its not like you can't take multiple specializations and get the Dedication talent multiple times. That option is there for the taking.

yes untouchable characters is not practical but you example of the difference in your example of the dice and skill is not that much as you showed the upper limit. So is all the facets contained in the talent trees that differentiate between the mediocre and the great?

I didn't show the upper limit, the upper limit is a dice pool of 6 with 5 skill ranks (YYYYYG). But even the difference I showed is huge. It may not look like it, but just do the math. Having a single yellow die is a game-shifter, 1/12th of the time you will get an awesome result. Having 3 yellow dice is a game-changer, you've tripled your chances of getting a triumph, not to mention lots more successes and advantages.

And like I said, that's just skills. Yes, all the facets in the talent trees make a big difference.

It doesn't sound like you've played at all. If you had, all this stuff would be self-explanatory. Talents boosting your wounds, strain, removing setback dice, adding defense…it all adds up. It will make a lot more sense to you if you play through a few games. If you get the beginner box, it has an adventure designed to reveal all the basics of the rules without having to fiddle with character development, so when you finally read through the character development and see all the options the benefits will be more obvious.

I have ran half of the well layed out beginning boxed set adventure. So far its well received and i have the beta rules with the core rulebook expected tomorrow. I know it may sounds like I'm jumping the gun with some of these questions as I am still pouring through the rules. But as i see concerns i just wanted to air them and prevail upon more rule experienced players/gms for their opinions.

I hope this lets you know where i'm coming from:) Ty again.

Thanks. I wasn't trying to shut you down, they're good questions. I guess I wasn't sure how to put your fears to rest if you think YYYGG is not that much different from YGG. It's major, and it will show up that way in the game. It's not just hitting more often or succeeding at daunting tasks, it's advantages that trigger criticals or weapon qualities, and plenty of other effects.

yes untouchable characters is not practical but you example of the difference in your example of the dice and skill is not that much as you showed the upper limit. So is all the facets contained in the talent trees that differentiate between the mediocre and the great?

I didn't show the upper limit, the upper limit is a dice pool of 6 with 5 skill ranks (YYYYYG). But even the difference I showed is huge. It may not look like it, but just do the math. Having a single yellow die is a game-shifter, 1/12th of the time you will get an awesome result. Having 3 yellow dice is a game-changer, you've tripled your chances of getting a triumph, not to mention lots more successes and advantages.

And like I said, that's just skills. Yes, all the facets in the talent trees make a big difference.

It doesn't sound like you've played at all. If you had, all this stuff would be self-explanatory. Talents boosting your wounds, strain, removing setback dice, adding defense…it all adds up. It will make a lot more sense to you if you play through a few games. If you get the beginner box, it has an adventure designed to reveal all the basics of the rules without having to fiddle with character development, so when you finally read through the character development and see all the options the benefits will be more obvious.

I have ran half of the well layed out beginning boxed set adventure. So far its well received and i have the beta rules with the core rulebook expected tomorrow. I know it may sounds like I'm jumping the gun with some of these questions as I am still pouring through the rules. But as i see concerns i just wanted to air them and prevail upon more rule experienced players/gms for their opinions.

Well, might want to search the forums for them... your concerns have been brought up quite a few times, even back in the beta. So, this isn't a new thing that you've discovered.

In my group I've got a couple of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplayers and they are very happy that the problem of enormous dicepools of that game has been fixed with upgraded dice and harder restrictions on increasing characteristics.

You do raise characteristics with xp - by buying a dedication talent.