I'd allow it, particularly if you don't have the Enter the Unknown supplement, which includes new items that can increase one's Encumbrance by around 4. As a matter of fact, there's a side-pouch capable of holding Encumbrance 2, so your player is quite alright doing that.

I just received a question from one of my players asking if he could start the game with 2 utility belts; one around his waist, the other over his shoulder and across his chest (like a bandolier). I don't see anything in the book that says he can't do it, but I'm not sure if he's supposed to increase his encumbrance like that. Any suggestions?

I'd allow it. It's not like he couldn't get the exact same effect for the exact same price by buying a backpack. There's nothing that would prevent someone from wearing both a bandolier *and* a belt. The same character could probably get away with wearing a back pack at the same time, too.

If they wanted to describe their character's outfit as being full of pockets with tools/gear strapped on at various points, I'd probably even let them get away with 3-4 'utility belts'. (The classic throwing-dagger thief arrangement.)

Of course, there's limits to what I'd accept. For example: I'd just raise my eyebrow, and ask the player to describe the arrangement if he wanted to buy a jet-pack, 3 backpacks, and 4 utility belts.

Hehe, good point. I went ahead and sent him a message that he was free to buy a 2nd one. Turns out he discovered that Modular Backpack from Enter the Unknown, and dropped the idea of using 2 utility belts.

Thanks for the tips, though.

I'd say there's no problem with allowing a PC to have two utility belts, particularly if you as the GM re-skin one of them to be more of a bandoleer such as the one Chewie wore than an actual "across the waist" belt.

Equipment in this game, particularly that in the core rulebook, was written to be more of "general category" than a hard-coded example. Prime case in point are the weapons, as each of those is a generic type rather than a specific make & model. The book may list some examples of specific make & model, but again those are suggestions, particularly for those folks that want to look up a given item on Wookieepedia.

The way i use stimpacks and extra reloads are as follows.

Stimpacks: A stimpack has 5 uses before being emptied and required to be filled or repurchased.

Since each use in the same day reduces the healing by 1,this makes the player's decide to use it sparingly.

Extra reloads: I treat extra reloads as having one power pack(ammo) per weapon carried,not owned.

So if a character is carrying a heavy blaster pistol,a blaster rifle and a hold out blaster, then the extra reloads would

cover one power pack(ammo) for each of those weapons.This seems fair due to the fact you dont run out of ammo

unless a despair comes up and the situation calls for such misfortune.It takes a maneuver to access the extra reload

and an action to use it.

.

That's a good way to do it, and I think I'll adopt that for Extra Reloads (especially since it's also supposed to cover power packs for stuff like datapads and electronic binoculars). That said, I require stimpacks to be individually purchased, and I'm strict about players remembering to shop for them on their own; the party Doctor gets a little jealous when people handle their own healing, I've noticed lol.

I allow stimpacks to be purchased (and readied/drawn) in disposable 5-dose applicators sold for 125 credits. It fits the picture in the book.

I allow stimpacks to be purchased (and readied/drawn) in disposable 5-dose applicators sold for 125 credits. It fits the picture in the book.

That makes perfect sense. I do the same thing with medpacs; instead of the "one stimpack per encounter" rule, I just note that each box has 5, and tell the player that I'll let them know when the other supplies are starting to run out and another 400 credits needs to be spent.

Incidentally, due to that same picture of stimpacks, the party Doctor in my group dual wields the applicator gun with a blaster pistol, treating it the same a combined check with two different skills; she does this for both stimpacks and the Stim Application talent. (It was her idea, and I didn't see any reason why the RAW wouldn't allow it.)

Another overlooked piece of equipment are the backpacks and utility belts.

Although there is not really a detailed description of either, but the increase of encumbrance is always a plus.

The backpack allows a increase of 4 pts to encumbrance while the utility belt allows a 1 pt increase.

That's a total of 5 increase, meaning that those characters wishing to carry a bit more should look into both of these items.

Remember that a characters encumbrance is a base of Brawn +5.

So with the backpack and utility belt, this total will increase.

I just wanted to point this out since i know both are often overlooked.

I'm not sure where the issue with Extra Reloads comes up. I don't treat them as some nebulous number. You buy it once and you have 1 extra magazine or power pack or whatever. If you use your one Extra Reload during an encounter because the GM spent Threat to make you run out of ammo, and the GM does so again, well looks like you need to get creative or buy another Extra Reload to carry around. They're not exactly pricy.

This came up during our playthrough of the Escape from Mos Shuuta scenario. The player was playing Oskara, and was going on the image of her on how she looked and what she wore. Their plan was to confront Trex, but the player didn't want Trex to recognize Oskara (given their history as Bounty Hunters). So the player asked if he could go find a shop that would sell him a helmet with a closed visor. How am I supposed to handle something like that? Giving them a free helmet (because of the lack of stats) seems to go against the nature of a shop.

Shopping is one of the most enjoyable things in an RPG (at least, to me), because you finally get to spend your hard earned cash on new gadgets and whatnot. So what are my options? Give them cosmetic items for free (=/= shopping), or charge them for statless items?

In this instance, I would've made the PC sweat a little and have Trex make a check to recognize the PC with the helmet giving Trex a Setback die. I wouldn't spend Destiny for Trex, but the player spending Destiny for a Challenge seems very appropriate.

Never give them something for free if the players could spend money on it (Keeping the Players Hungry). Even the act of rolling dice to haggle the price down, or up gets them engaged; bonus points if you two end up roleplaying the whole thing out.

If the player never asks what the mechanical benefits are, then don't complicate things and let it go. In your example above, maybe the only thing the player was concerned about was hiding his/her identity and not what sort of defense value a helmet brings.

Light systems like this usually assume everything targets the main body, so if one of my PCs had lost the helmet to his Laminate Armor, I wouldn't automatically let that affect his armor's soak value, but I'd allowed called shots to his head in order to ignore it. Likewise, if he had some environmental modification to his armor, I wouldn't allow him to benefit from that while his helmet was missing.

Now, how would I handle someone just buying a helmet? Like someone said above, he could have whatever visual/aural/vocal mods on the helmet (magnification, commlink, voice modulation, etc.), plus armor soak for any head shots. Called shots to the head are way too rare for me to consider that as a buying point for just a helmet, but everyone's different.