In September, I received the Beginner's Box Set for my birthday. I played it and had a blast. I down loaded The Long Arm of the Hutt and the crew of the Krayt Fang lives on with a cargo bay full of Hutt Markers. I received the Core Book, GM Screen and Beyond the Rim book. The characteristics are too expensive. The Minons and Rivals have better characteristics. Only during character creation and gaining the Dedication Talent can characteristics be improved. A Wookie starts with a Brawn of 3. What utter balderdash, If skills, talents and specialization can be increased, why not characteristics. If I am missing something, please share your feedback, opinions and ideas.

Peace, Gentlebeings

Nope you are not missing anything, I think. If you want better characteristics buy them up at character creation. After that it comes down to Dedication and cybernetics. What seems to be your issue?

That's how it works. If it didn't you'd have a group of Asgardians for players after about 3 sessions.

I just think reasonable growth in a characteristic, isn't a unrealistic possibility. It's not an issue nor a desire to lead a group of Asgardians through the galaxy. If using cybernetics to improve a character's brawn instead of growth and expierence,then what is the difference? Both ways require some form of effort and cost.

Peace Gentlebeings

It's perfectly possible to spend points in order to gain two advanced stats at character creation. A pair of 4s is possible for many of the races, a human can have a 5 in whatever they like. A pair of 4s pretty much insures a character is rock solid at their initial career and spec. By the end of that spec tree, which might only be 75xp, you can bump an attribute by one. That's plenty good.

If you have players able to just bump up stats there is essentially no reason to bother with skills and talents, as their dice pools will be huge regardless of skill. Take the human, if you start with a 4 and a 3 in something and 2s the rest, for 120xp you're 3s in everything, for 200 more, you have 4s across the board. That's the price of essentially one spec tree. You'd be a prodigy in everything you do.

I just think reasonable growth in a characteristic, isn't a unrealistic possibility. It's not an issue nor a desire to lead a group of Asgardians through the galaxy. If using cybernetics to improve a character's brawn instead of growth and expierence,then what is the difference? Both ways require some form of effort and cost.

Peace Gentlebeings

That growth is already covered by the Dedication talent, which as a ranked talent can be taken multiple times to increase a Characteristic up to the system maximum of 6.

A large part of why the system doesn't let you increase Characteristics after character creation is that adding an extra Ability die to the dice pool offers a much greater chance of success than simply upgrading a die (which at earlier levels is what skill ranks will generally do). As the PCs gain more experience, their key skills will frequently eclipse the base Characteristic.

I've often seen that a 3 in your main Characteristics is more than sufficient unless you're playing a specialist character that really only does one thing (but does it well), and having a 5 at Character Creation makes the PC very one-dimensional, as they have little XP left for things like talents or skills.

Hello.

Thematically argued: your character evolves through childhood, youth into adulthood, which takes years of bodily and intellectual development. This results in your values ranging from 1 through 3, maybe 4s or a single 5 in exceptional cases.

Now you play a handful of adventures and recieve your XP. If you were able to raise your characteristics, this would mean you could change the base.values in as short a time as a few months, if not just weeks, and a single characteristic would be raised by 20 up to 100 percent depending on where you would start - 20℅ from 5>6 up to 100℅ from 1>2 ...

So my argument here is: considering the ingame time spend gaming it is by no means reasonable for a character to raise his chartacteristics.

Best wishes.

Mad

I actually like the way Dedication works. And that high stats actually mean something in this system. Even your Lukes and Hans won't have maxed out every stat. Having a 6 in a stat really gives a massive boost to all the skills with green dice alone.

Heck, even if you take Mr Solo, an experienced adventurer by the time of the first movie. And assume he'd maxed out his stats at character creation, and has Dedication from all three smuggler specialisations and maybe Recruit from AoR, and possibly another career, and he'd look something like this:

Bra 3, Agi 4, Int 3, Will 2, Cun 5, Pre 4. Nice, but hardly superhuman.

It's perfectly possible to spend points in order to gain two advanced stats at character creation. A pair of 4s is possible for many of the races, a human can have a 5 in whatever they like. A pair of 4s pretty much insures a character is rock solid at their initial career and spec. By the end of that spec tree, which might only be 75xp, you can bump an attribute by one. That's plenty good.

If you have players able to just bump up stats there is essentially no reason to bother with skills and talents, as their dice pools will be huge regardless of skill. Take the human, if you start with a 4 and a 3 in something and 2s the rest, for 120xp you're 3s in everything, for 200 more, you have 4s across the board. That's the price of essentially one spec tree. You'd be a prodigy in everything you do.

That's not necessarily true. If your group size is such that characters cannot take the +10 Obligation for +10 XP, then some of the high end starting characteristics are more limited.

I actually like the way Dedication works. And that high stats actually mean something in this system. Even your Lukes and Hans won't have maxed out every stat. Having a 6 in a stat really gives a massive boost to all the skills with green dice alone.

Best wishes.

Mad

It's perfectly possible to spend points in order to gain two advanced stats at character creation. A pair of 4s is possible for many of the races, a human can have a 5 in whatever they like. A pair of 4s pretty much insures a character is rock solid at their initial career and spec. By the end of that spec tree, which might only be 75xp, you can bump an attribute by one. That's plenty good.

If you have players able to just bump up stats there is essentially no reason to bother with skills and talents, as their dice pools will be huge regardless of skill. Take the human, if you start with a 4 and a 3 in something and 2s the rest, for 120xp you're 3s in everything, for 200 more, you have 4s across the board. That's the price of essentially one spec tree. You'd be a prodigy in everything you do.

That's not necessarily true. If your group size is such that characters cannot take the +10 Obligation for +10 XP, then some of the high end starting characteristics are more limited.

How is my prefacing the statement with 'perfectly possible' make it "not necessarily true"?

Besides: this is not D&D ...XD

If using cybernetics to improve a character's brawn instead of growth and expierence,then what is the difference? Both ways require some form of effort and cost.

I personally have a huge social aversion for characters with cybernetics. Replacing a damaged limb seems acceptable, but losing a healthy one just for an upgrade would be frowned upon, I think. The only doctors willing to do that kind of surgery would be the kind of back-street chop-shop butcher you wouldn't want putting you under the anesthetic anyway. Or someone crazy like Cratala in 'Beyond the Rim'. And then you'd wake up to find she'd replaced your head with that of a cyber-nexu or something

This isn't Shadowrun. Droids upgrading their bodies seems fine, but I think other species would regard cyberware with distaste. As a girl, I remember there was a character called Vance in one of the early Marvel comics - he was a heavily-cybered bounty hunter and everyone (including himself) seemed to find him monstrous.

Thanks for all the feedback. I was looking for this information. When I played the smuggler in the Beginner Game, I tried to build one with the Core Book. A human with 3 in Agility, 3 in Cunning and 3 in Presense. After spending 90 experience on characteristics with little left for skills, talents and specialization. My thinking was if he stayed at 3's for the rest of his "life", I would get by fine. I was looking to build an uber smuggler just one that would survive the Kessel run.

Peace Gentlebeings

All of my players maxed stats to begin with. Humans can get 3/3/3/3/2/2, which is a really nice all-rounder statline and you can then build on that with Dedication.

Bear in mind that CharGen is the ONLY time you can spend XP on stats. I have found that XP is plentiful in the game, so you can buy skills and talents fairly swiftly if you are playing regularly.

So spending all your beginning XP on stats seems to be the generally accepted 'best option', if you want a long-term character.

But hey, I don't think EoE is a game you necessarily have to min/max anyway.

You get your career and associated spec at no cost during chargen. You shouldn't need to buy it. Were you trying to buy another spec? All that being said, those chars for the BB are not exact.

That's "I wasn't looking to build an uber smuggler just one that would survive the Kessel run."

Peace Gentlebeings

I personally have a huge social aversion for characters with cybernetics. Replacing a damaged limb seems acceptable, but losing a healthy one just for an upgrade would be frowned upon, I think. The only doctors willing to do that kind of surgery would be the kind of back-street chop-shop type you wouldn't want putting you under the anesthetic anyway. Or someone crazy like Cratala in 'Beyond the Rim'. And then you'd wake up to find she'd replaced your head with that of a cyber-nexu or something

This isn't Shadowrun. Droids upgrading their bodies seems fine, but I think other species would regard cyberware with distaste. As a girl, I remember there was a character called Vance in one of the early Marvel comics - he was a heavily-cybered bounty hunter and everyone (including himself) seemed to find him monstrous.

When we'd discussed lopping off healthy limbs for mechanical replacements, I think the word I used was "icky". Monstrous might be a better word for it.

BTW, you made me google Shadworun.

"Shadowrun is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in a near-future fictional universe in which cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy and crime, with occasional elements of conspiracy fiction, horror and detective fiction."

I apologize for going off topic but... OMG... THAT SOUNDS AMAZING!!!!

The beauty of RPGs vs., say, computer games is that it's very easy to change the rules if you don't like. I'd say if you don't care for a specific aspect of the game, just play it differently.

You get your career and associated spec at no cost during chargen. You shouldn't need to buy it. Were you trying to buy another spec? All that being said, those chars for the BB are not exact.

I think someone said the PCs in the beginner game had extra XP as if they'd had a few sessions under their belts?

But hey, I don't think EoE is a game you necessarily have to min/max anyway.

+1

I personally have a huge social aversion for characters with cybernetics. Replacing a damaged limb seems acceptable, but losing a healthy one just for an upgrade would be frowned upon, I think. The only doctors willing to do that kind of surgery would be the kind of back-street chop-shop type you wouldn't want putting you under the anesthetic anyway. Or someone crazy like Cratala in 'Beyond the Rim'. And then you'd wake up to find she'd replaced your head with that of a cyber-nexu or something

This isn't Shadowrun. Droids upgrading their bodies seems fine, but I think other species would regard cyberware with distaste. As a girl, I remember there was a character called Vance in one of the early Marvel comics - he was a heavily-cybered bounty hunter and everyone (including himself) seemed to find him monstrous.

When we'd discussed lopping off healthy limbs for mechanical replacements, I think the word I used was "icky". Monstrous might be a better word for it.

BTW, you made me google Shadworun.

"Shadowrun is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in a near-future fictional universe in which cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy and crime, with occasional elements of conspiracy fiction, horror and detective fiction."

I apologize for going off topic but... OMG... THAT SOUNDS AMAZING!!!!

Shadowrun was amazing - we played it to death back in the early 90's. I prefer 1st edition, and didn't like 3rd. There's a new edition out now that I'm trying to get my head around.

You should give it a try, Haley - some of my best role-playing moments came in Shadowrun. The mix of magic and technology and the strong ecological theme was very innovative for its time.

The beauty of RPGs vs., say, computer games is that it's very easy to change the rules if you don't like. I'd say if you don't care for a specific aspect of the game, just play it differently.

Yes, but you do it at your peril.

Allow characters to spend XP on stats would, in my opinion, unbalance things very badly, very quickly. YMMV.

OT

BTW, you made me google Shadworun.

...

I apologize for going off topic but... OMG... THAT SOUNDS AMAZING!!!!

@Maelora: I am kind of surprised to find someone on the interwebsszzZZ to actually speak in a positive way of SR 1st ed. This is my favorite edition...

I know before I played I had a concern over attributes and the way it 'looked' to me. Then I played and realized a great deal of what goes on just relies on getting a single success, and I realized many of the checks and play wasn't going to be that big a hurdle.