I was pondering pulling from d20 sources for my EotE game. d20 is an open source rulesystem, and there has been, in the past, considerable effort put forth into creating Star Wars content for d20 (like two versions of a great game).

I was pondering how to convert from d20, maybe writing a guide, so I'll just leave my musings here for discussion. Since there's no hard and fast conversion set that I'm aware of, much of this will be rough estimates, and won't be perfect, but it's something to work from.

It occured to me how to roughly convert characteristics from d20 to EotE, see below.

d20 uses statistics, and each has a charactersitc option in EotE, roughly (not exact) as follows:

Strength > Brawn

Constitution > Brawn

Dexterity > Agility

Intelligence > Intellect

Wisdom > Willpower (sort of) and Cunning (sort of) (Wisdom skills in d20 are somewhat represented by Willpower and Cunning in EotE.

Charisma > Presence

d20 stats on characters are usually between 8 and 18. If 8 is below average, then 18 is pretty much the maximum for a starting character. 10 is usually considered average.

If d20 stats are average at 10, then in EotE, they're average at 2. The conversion is pretty simple really. d20 gives you modifiers based on your corresponding stat to things, and the thing that surprised me was how well those modifiers work in EotE when determining how much in a characteristic something should have.

A stat at 8-9 gives a -1 modifier to corresponding checks

10-11 gives +0

12-13 gives +1

14-15 gives +2

16-17 gives +3

18-19 gives +4

Let's stop there. If 10 is usually the base rank of characteristic from which d20 is operating, then in EotE, it's 2.

Just add the corresponding modifiers in d20 to the number 2 in EotE.

If in d20, something has a Strength of 15, just take that +2, add it to your base characteristic rank of 2, and that gives you 4 ranks of a Characteristic.

I'll continue to add more if I find myself inspired to do so.

If I use the above chart to create the Massassi species as a player option (the mutated, red-scaled descendants of the once proud Trueblood sith race), based on previously published material, I roughly get the following.

I'll use an existing, strong, burly, reptillian, scaled EotE playable race for a template for Wound and Strain threshold and starting xp, the Trandoshan.

Brawn: 4 (yes, the Massassi were REALLY strong), Agility 2, Intellect 1, Cunning 1, Willpower 1, Cunning 1. Wound Threshold: 12 + Brawn, Strain Threshold: 9 + Willpower, Starting Experience: 90 XP (I'd actually reduce this to 80xp, cuz the Massassi get other cool stuff).

My previously published material also states that the Massassi were skilled trackers, so beginning the game with 1 rank in Survival like the Rodians sounds good, and they start with one rank in Expert tracker. My old material also says that Massassi were great at Dodging so lets give them a free rank of Side Step.

For funsies, I'll do one more, this time, the Kaminoans, because I love those creepy, semi-aquatic, long-necked war profiteers.

My old material gives them bonuses to Intelligence and penalties to Wisdom, so:

Brawn 2, Agility 2, Intellect 3, Cunning 1, Willpower 2, Presence 2, (we'll use Human wound and strain, because why not?) Wound Threshold: 10 + Brawn, Strain Threshold 10 + Willpower, Starting XP: 100 (as usual, this is kind of arbitrary at this point, but maybe give them 90 xp because of the multiple, additional cool things they have).

Old source also gives them a Skill Focus Feat on Treat Injury skill checks. Now we don't really have an EotE equivalent of Feats (talents kind of take their place), but basically that means they're supposed to be pretty darn good at Treat Injury checks. But we do have the Medicine skill, so instead of making some crazy house rule up, let's just give them Medicine as a bonus career skill that they will begin with one free skill rank in.

Finally, old source says that Kaminoans are resistant to diseases and poisons and such (they should be after all of that biochemical weapons testing), so let's just give them a free rank in Resilience and call it good.

That's all for now friends!

Skills!

The open source d20 system only has so many, based on the game you're pulling your info from, skills change from time to time. Now I'm no copyright violator, so I won't get into game-specific ones (namely ones from other Star Wars games), but the skills that other Star Wars games put in are not terribly hard to find an EotE equivalent for (duh). Of course, each skill from d20 corresponds to a stat, but I already posted about that. Now the hardest nut for me to crack on skills is figuring out how many ranks in each from d20 correspond to how many ranks in EotE, like for converting NPC stat blocks. But basically, for a class (career) skill, you could have 4 more ranks in it higher than your character's level, and 2 ranks higher in a non-class skill. Use your judgement. My best guess is that 5 ranks in a d20 skill is roughly equivalent to about 1 rank in EotE.

Here's my go at converting open source d20 skills to EotE ones:

Climb > Athletics
Jump > Athletics
Swim > Athletics
Balance > Coordination
Escape Artist > Skullduggery
Hide > Stealth
Move Silently > Stealth
Open Lock > Skullduggery
Ride >Survival (I guess for animals, we use speeders)
Sleight of Hand > Skullduggery
Tumble > Athletics (roughly) or Coordination (kind of)
Use Rope > Climb
Concentration > Discipline
Appraise > Negotiation
Craft > Mechanics
Decipher Script > Lore
Disable Device > Skullduggery
Forgery > Deception (arguably)
Knowledge (something) > We have 6, pick one
Psicraft (not really applicable) > Discipline
Search > Perception
Spellcraft (not reallly applicable) > Discipline
Autohypnosis > What? (Discipline)
Control Shape > Nope
Heal > Medicine
Listen > Perception
Profession > Nope (Mechanics, if you must)
Sense Motive > Discipline
Spot > Perception
Survival > can you guess?
Bluff > Deception
Diplomacy > Negotiation
Disguise > Deception
Gather Information > dependant on circumstance, but usually Streetwise, possibly Computers
Handle Animal > Survival
Intimidate > Coercion (that wasn't so hard)
Perform > Charm
Use Magic Device > Nope (or use Knowledge: Lore)
Use Psionic Device > Nope (or use Knowledge: Lore)

Dem Massassi one stats.

Although I have nothing against an initial stat of 4, I don't think that was the original intention of the designers. According to your conversion a wookiee will also have to start with Brawn 4, which was not what the designers had in mind since they thought 3 was good enough.

You will have to tweak a bit your conversion system to make it compatible with the official species.

Cheers,

Yepes

Although I have nothing against an initial stat of 4, I don't think that was the original intention of the designers. According to your conversion a wookiee will also have to start with Brawn 4, which was not what the designers had in mind since they thought 3 was good enough.

You will have to tweak a bit your conversion system to make it compatible with the official species.

Cheers,

Yepes

This is a fair point. Their d20 Strength bonuses are the same as wookies. It's not perfect, and it never will be. The GM will need to arbritrate.

But it could be argued the other way too, Rodians still ended up with one stat up and one stat down in EotE, same as wookies, but rodians did not have +4 to the d20 stat at character creation. So you have to make a call, right or wrong (which as GM, there really isn't any such thing, you're always right as GM).

My call with the Massasai was that their Alchemical transformation by one of the most powerful Sith Lords to ever live left them stronger than wookies, another tradeoff here might be to go with 80xp if that makes it easier to swallow.

One thing to note, also is that increasing a Characteristic by 1 for every 2 in a d20 game will not work. In EotE, a character is MAXED at 5, or is it 6? Anyway, this would only equate to a 16 or 18 in d20, and we all know that d20 stats can get into the 20s pretty easily and sometimes even 30...

Designing a game is all about building a series of systems that follow a set array of patterns. If you're looking for patterns in D20, you're going to be pulling your hair out because they're all over the place and they don't really behave the same way in one system to another.

EotE is different. There is a pretty consistent pattern in all the system designs. This is what makes this a better system in my opinion.

That being said, I think you should try to balance these new Races from the philosophical edict of the EotE system, rather than converting directly from D20. In other words, look at the patterns already designed for existing races. They all follow the same pattern. If the lore of the race doesn't necessarily say that it is particularly strong in a specific attribute (such as Brawn or Cunning) then leave it at a 2. If it does - raise it to 3. Keep it in line with the pattern, and don't compare it to how strong you think it might be compared to another race with similar strengths. A 3 as a base attribute means that the race is notably great in this area. You should not raise this notable feature beyond a 3 because that breaks the pattern already set by the designers. Screwing with the pattern is what is going to screw up the balance of the game.

Lastly, remember all the patterns. A 3 in one attribute, usually means there is a 1 in something else. Again, use the lore of the race to determine which attribute might be a weak point. Also, another pattern is that the race might receive 1 or 2 special traits - like a Wookie Rage ability or something. Keep that in mind as it is also another pattern that is mechanically sound, but allows the class to be unique.

I ran a clone wars SAGA game for two years before switching over to Edge of the Empire last month. My five players had more than twenty five characters between them. They didn't want to "abondon" all the time they had invested into devloping these character's personalities ,motivations, and accomplishments just because I wanted to switch game systems. In the end they all picked ten characters they wanted to see go from the clone wars to the galactic civil war.

When it came time to "convert" said character's to Edge of the Empire from SAGA rather than converting it stat for stat, number for mumber, etc I just went with an amount of XP based on the character's level in SAGA and spent the XP on what felt right for the character. I can't find my XP per level chart thing I made a month ago but it that was based on what a charcter had gained on each level (a feat, a talent, a bonus feat, characteristic increase, etc,....) A level 16 character had around 300 xp to spend (after spend starting XP so around 400 altogether). Some characters actually still had a little extra XP to spend after I felt I had finished "translating" them over to Edge. The extra XP worked for my group to represent the characters downtime during the 15 year gap between the two campaigns.

Overall it worked out pretty well considering there isnt really an equvilant for many of the things from SAGA in Edge of the Empire. However the characters feel just as capable in Edge of the Empire of doing things as they did in SAGA (shooting, flying, talking, etc). You kinda gotta go with what feels right and what works at your table, that being said my players didn't

convert any of their Jedi or Sith characters over to Edge because it's not possible to "translate" them yet.