Why no stats for the main characters?

[Josep Maria 685]

So, my player with a char with 2.600 XP is Half-Solo XD

 

Remember that NPC's doesn't follow the character creation rules.

Again, I'm pro stats too, but take a look about what they did with Lando and Lobot and tell me if this is enough to you.

 

Also, some of the archetypes are like "low-heroes". Upgrade their stats and add extra talents (4 Dodges instead 2 for example), attributes like stats, wound/strain and you will got "Heroes".

 

Enhanced Jedi-in-hiding is Obi-Wan from Ep IV. Boba is an improved Bounty Hunter... and so on. Also, more Adversary makes miracles too. Vader? An Inquisitor with even higher stats (based on the book description from the first pages) with more FR and Adversary 4.

 

By the way, you can always pick the "insta-kill" Vader version XD

Edited March 19, 2015 by Josep Maria

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

For the heroes of the films, you either build as PCs leaving them bloated bags of XP that people are going to generally disagree with anyway, or you build them as NPCs with a bloated stat block that people are going to generally disagree with anyway.

 

Stating them up is pretty much a lose-lose situation for FFG, and one of the complaints leveled at WEG and WotC was wasting space on stat blocks for the movie characters, few of which were likely to see use in a game anyway and not likely to be used as anything more than a means for certain players to compare/contrast just how "uber" builds to the write-ups.

 

Admittedly, while it'd be cool to see how various PCs of mine in this system would measure up to the movie iconics, I do agree that FFG can put that limited page space to far better use, which thus far they have.  Maybe towards the end of the product line, we'll see something that has stat blocks (most likely of the NPC variety) for Luke,Vader, and company, but that time frame is likely many years off.  Particularly as they've re-up'd the license for quite some time, according to reports from the GAMA Trade Fair.

[Kshatriya 1,199]

Pilot, HotShot (Han's Flying), Scoundrel (being kicked outta Academy), Gunslinger (Han's a really good shot), Gunner (also good with that gunnery on the falcon), Gambler )only some talents, not fully taken, but h had to win the Falcon), Rigger (And I still think after fully fleshing this tree out, that the Falcon is misrepresented by the stats! It needs 4 more HP!

I dispute a lot of this considering you don't need to go into certain Specs just to be good at certain dice rolls - this build seems to presume otherwise. 

[Josep Maria 685]

Correct, not everything are talents or tree specs, sometimes just skill ranks will do the thing... Zhu LI XD

[Lordbiscuit 566]

Again; I am of the opinon that most people grossly overestimate the amount of exp a character has earnt: TBH a vast majority of the characters are just merely good at what they do; Han Solo was an Ex-Imperial Pilot as a backstory (E.g. He has a lot of ranks in pilot) is a smuggler who lives rough on the rim (Ranks in using a blaster pistol, scoudral career. Quite cunning, as he is shown to be extremely resourceful, easpically in empire strikes back.) with a quick trigger finger. He has a highly customised ship. To me that sounds like only two career trees; Scoundral and Rigger/Ace. A player character can quite easily build a character with the capability of Han Solo within the first 200/300 points or so. If that.

 

Chewie is a Machanic Primarily, he's always fixing stuff on the falcon. His better then average brawn is just due to being a wookie, but he's still good with a bowcaster. His willpower is weak (as exhibited by his exceedingly short fuse). Quite simply; he's an expect machanic with possibly a rank in a shooting class.

 

Luke is a Pilot that develops interest in the force and goes in a completely new direction, Laya is a talker with decent rank investment, as is CP30 (Who has 1 on everything but int and pressence) and R2D2 is a computer expert who fixes stuff. Lando is a charmer with Ranks in talker and pilot ranks. The movies is basically a game using edge level characters at knight level.

 

 

Of course, it is also possible to repersent characters with over 2k exp points but what I am saying is that you don't have to in order to recreate the characters in the movie; just you tend to keep them away so the party isn't tied down to following the canon story all that strictly. Ranks are perfectly capable of emulating their level of experience without breaking the bank.

[Amanal 2,557]

Again; I am of the opinon that most people grossly overestimate the amount of exp a character has earnt: TBH a vast majority of the characters are just merely good at what they do; Han Solo was an Ex-Imperial Pilot as a backstory (E.g. He has a lot of ranks in pilot) is a smuggler who lives rough on the rim (Ranks in using a blaster pistol, scoudral career. Quite cunning, as he is shown to be extremely resourceful, easpically in empire strikes back.) with a quick trigger finger. He has a highly customised ship. To me that sounds like only two career trees; Scoundral and Rigger/Ace. A player character can quite easily build a character with the capability of Han Solo within the first 200/300 points or so. If that.

 

 

George and his gang played for 10 weeks 12 hours a day, that translates to a lot of XP at 5/hour. Even though they only played once every 5 years or so. 18k earned xp + role playing bonus. Even if George was a bit tidy on the XP they would have had a few to spend.

 

I also beleive that the Darth Vader, Obi Wan and Yodi and perhaps a few other guys managed to play in the lead in campaign and scored some bonus xp for the start of the campaign proper.

[LordBritish 1,016]

Again; I am of the opinon that most people grossly overestimate the amount of exp a character has earnt: TBH a vast majority of the characters are just merely good at what they do; Han Solo was an Ex-Imperial Pilot as a backstory (E.g. He has a lot of ranks in pilot) is a smuggler who lives rough on the rim (Ranks in using a blaster pistol, scoudral career. Quite cunning, as he is shown to be extremely resourceful, easpically in empire strikes back.) with a quick trigger finger. He has a highly customised ship. To me that sounds like only two career trees; Scoundral and Rigger/Ace. A player character can quite easily build a character with the capability of Han Solo within the first 200/300 points or so. If that.

 

 

George and his gang played for 10 weeks 12 hours a day, that translates to a lot of XP at 5/hour. Even though they only played once every 5 years or so. 18k earned xp + role playing bonus. Even if George was a bit tidy on the XP they would have had a few to spend.

 

I also beleive that the Darth Vader, Obi Wan and Yodi and perhaps a few other guys managed to play in the lead in campaign and scored some bonus xp for the start of the campaign proper.

I wasn't disputing how they would get exp, but rather why so much exp is necessary to represent said characters. I had the impression that it was a journey of fairly ordenary (well, at least as ordenary as a princess, a moisture farmer, two smugglers and two droids could be.) individuals to heros. I am just stating the alternative hypothesis that they don't require that much exp, and that the main reason we don't play with them is because some silly sod would off one of them given half a chance. Xd

[kaosoe 7,573]

I agree completely with LordBritish. We love these heroes and sometimes build them up in our minds versus what we actually see. That's why I am glad we don't have stats for them. What stats I imagine Luke or Han to have, would not be the same as what another person might imagine.

Edited March 20, 2015 by kaosoe

[theclash24 137]

Darth Vadar stats: if you're a PC and make a challenge against Darth Vadar you lose.

There does that help?

[Robin Graves 6,054]

Or you loose a hand and gain an estranged father.

 

What? Did you think Luke was the only one?

[Gigerstreak 234]

Darth Vadar stats: if you're a PC and make a challenge against Darth Vadar you lose.

There does that help?

I was foolish enough to have Vader (as Anakin attacking the temple) walk up to the PCs in the Jedi Temple as they were escaping with the younglings. One PC was willing to sacrifice himself to save everyone. Vader went to toss him aside with Move but I gave the PC the benefit of the doubt and actually rolled his discipline. Well.... as it turned out the PC had a 5 Willpower and 3 discipline. With some destiny in there, he managed to use a Triumph/Despair effectively. He went sailing into the Turbolift but Anakin also got knocked backward off of his feet. It was a funny "Ouch... Did I win?" but it allowed them to escape with the younglings and that PC to earn Obligation 5 (Nemesis-Anakin/Vader). This goes to show, if you  allow your PCs to even roll VS. a Movie Villain, they can always pull off something. In this case it just upped the tension, but how would you Stat Vader to handle an autofire murderhobo?

[i.jenkinson 54]

 

Also your players are supposed to be the heros. Not the movie character. You want to make them do what you think they would be.

 

 

This is the best argument I have seen. In our just post Endor AoR we have bumped into some of the main characters but in ways that didn't need dice rolling just roleplaying. Having a meeting with Senator Organa-Solo while Han, Lando and Chewie were playing cards was cool but just a side scene to our own story.

 

Plus I am in the if it has stats you can kill it camp. The best thing White Wolf did at the end of Vampire:TM was to just say that some NPC's were just so above any characters power level that if the players went toe to toe they will loose. That's Vader. He will cut down any PC in melee, out Force any PC and have the 501st and Imperial Navy to take out an entire Rebel Army. Best to leave any encounter with him as a narrative scene and not a dice rolling scene.

[Kshatriya 1,199]

 how would you Stat Vader to handle an autofire murderhobo?

 

Fiat-level-strength Protect (from F&D).

[knasserII 2,557]

Lord British has said much of what I would say. I don't see why most of the characters from the movies should be "gods amongst men" as an earlier poster termed them. Han is pretty low-level as far as I can see. Chewie does pretty much nothing in the movies that indicates competence. Mainly he rips out bits of the Falcon whilst Han tells him it should be the other way around. Other characters vary. Jedi masters from the PT are obviously high level as is Vader and the Emperor and Luke must be by implication. But many of the others are not. So I don't get why others make them so.

There's a clear division on this issue. Some people repeat "If it has stats my players will kill it" like some mantra, others just don't see the canon characters as sacrosanct. So the players get one over on Lando? Good for them. If you don't want the players killing Vader don't put them up against Vader is the perfect solution, not make Vader just GM fiat of "if you oppose Vader you die". I have statted up Ahsoka as an adult version and I've done a half-attempt at Vader. He's currently generated as a PC and around the 6-7,000XP mark which I will use as a base for generating the NPC version.

I have promised my group that at the end of the campaign they can, if they wish, try to take on Vader. I don't fancy their chances but I will play Vader fair, with no compromises. They may die, they may will win, they may die but succeed in holding him off or frustrating his plans thus winning their goals even if it's a sacrifice to do so, but either way it will be an epic and exciting battle.

I've said this before and I've never heard a counter-argument that satisfied me: if FFG include stats for characters that is useful for those that want them, but can be ignored by those that don't. If FFG do NOT include stats for the characters, then there is no choice for either. And to those that say it "wastes space", well there are far more egregious examples than that.

[whafrog 10,384]

I think the "if it has stats it can be killed" argument carries more weight in this game than others.  It's not really about whether or not to introduce a canon character (and therefore avoid their death), it's a shortcut phrase to encapsulate the issue of scaling.

 

I barely got to play WEG, but it didn't seem very lethal, and once you got some experience there were multiple ways you could avoid being incapacitated.  A character like Vader seemed to have an immense amount of resources to draw on to avoid being bothered much by feeble PCs

 

In the D20 incarnations, the game scale is pretty much fixed into character development, where you're basically immune to things 5 levels or more lower.  The side effect of this fixed scale is that it's easier to give a nemesis his or her due weight, so making Darth Vader level 20 tells everyone how good he is and what range you need to be in to challenge him.

 

But as we all know, stormtroopers in this game are always dangerous...not necessarily lethal, but incapacitating at least.  This means the same holds true for PCs against any iconic character or creature...a rancor vs PCs is like a PC vs stormtroopers.  So scaling is much more difficult in this game.  There are fewer resources (like WEG's Character Points or Force Points) to draw on at any one time...flipping a DP is pretty small by comparison.  Pretty much the only reliable resource is to find a way to soak damage (wound or strain), because defence upgrades and attack setbacks aren't as reliable.

 

Add to that, given the various ways GMs allocate experience, plus the various ways players can build their characters (whether going for breadth or depth), assigning a specific build to a canon character will make almost no one happy.  I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take long for somebody to tell how their fresh-out-of-chargen characters took on Vader and won.

[Jegergryte 1,978]

Correct, not everything are talents or tree specs, sometimes just skill ranks will do the thing... Zhu LI XD

Just because, and I'm sorry:

[Josep Maria 685]

Lethal/Incapacitating Stormtroopers = Non-canon XD

 

One of the Edge's major complications is the low varation between "ranks of character evolution" due to the small values of the mechanics (up to 6 or 7 dices max). Of course that 4 is powerful than 2, but,every dice has probabilities of become "nothing" on dice results. There aren't "fixed values" like BA or AC (d20), just variables (dices). In some cases differences between 2 characters, a mid and a low "level" chars can be not so much significative (talking about dices). And, yes, I'm aware about dice upgrades differences probabilities http://maxmahem.net/wp/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-die-probabilities/

 

Still considering those percentages and some talents that can be pretty useful (most of them add/reduce difficulties or upgrade/downgrade dices) but again, just more variables and not "fixed values".

 

4 Stormtroopers are 3 yellow dice (can add 1 Boost for Lieutenant/Aim if you wish) and a moderate advanced character is easily the same amount of dices. So, on "mid-high levels there isn't a "clear" difference between characters. Recently the newest talents like Unrelentic Skeptic add some "auto results" on dice pools like Failures in this case.

 

I want to have in consideration an optional rule from GM section that, unless is a crucial or really cinematic roll, difficulties are ignored if ranks are equal or superior to difficulty itself and you achieve it with just 1 Success but with no rolls required and spending just a Movement.

 

Backing again to stat or not stat. With people on Edge, as I commented, there is some conception problem with mid/high level chars. For example I created a Vader (pre F&D's Parry/Reflect) with above 5 or 6 Proficencies on combat, about 4 Challenges and 4 Setbacks to get hit and above 25-28 Wounds/Strain... only resisted about 2-3 rounds XD

 

With Parry/Reflect (and Inquisitor no-strain rules) I'm sure that the combat would be pretty different from the actual I had, but, forgeting about Vader and other killing machines, other chars from the movies, doesn't need to have necessarelly full trees and skills. Lando adaptation for that scene (JoY) was a pretty awesome interpretation, no more skills or talents where needed there, and if someone wanted anything else, there was the base to mod, adapt it, or just ignore him.

 

So, the problem itself from my point of view aren't the stats, the real problem is recreate high levels chars/NPC's that make enough difference with non-high level ones because just add more Wounds or Adversay talent, isn't enough. In those cases, auto results would be a pretty good sollution.

 

EDIT Jegergryte: XDD

Edited March 23, 2015 by Josep Maria

[Atraangelis 301]

In this case it just upped the tension, but how would you Stat Vader to handle an autofire murderhobo?

I would have Vader put his left hand up as half a dozen blaster rounds bounced off it from the murder hobo.. then i would take his toy with my right!

done..

[Gigerstreak 234]

You opened Pandora's box daddystabz XD

 

Until the moment we only have seen Lando, Lobot and "Vader". Lando and Lobot are pretty good versions focused on the Bespin quest. Vader stats where so simple like "he moves twice per round, if he catches you and still have a movement... you loose or die if you confron him" XDD I love those stats XDD

 

Above the stats, yes, I would want them too, but the idea of having only stats for a precise moment or encounter, stills a great idea. I like it too

 

EDIT: I would also like to add that there are some posts on the forums like "You build the Characters..." this can also help you

Where did you see the stats for "Vader"?

[Josep Maria 685]

Is an adventure were you have to scape from an Imperial assault, don't remember the name sorry. Based on your results, you will have more rounds to scape from Vader. His "stats" were: He moves twice per round, if he arrives to the players and still have one move left, they are captured (or killed if they attack Vader). The best Vader "stats" I ever seen XD

[Gigerstreak 234]

Is an adventure were you have to scape from an Imperial assault, don't remember the name sorry. Based on your results, you will have more rounds to scape from Vader. His "stats" were: He moves twice per round, if he arrives to the players and still have one move left, they are captured (or killed if they attack Vader). The best Vader "stats" I ever seen XD

Hrmm... I have scoured my books (I have all of them) and can't seem to find it. This would have been great during my session before last. Darn. Thank you for telling me. If you remember where it came from please hit me up!

[agentc13 36]

Hrmm... I have scoured my books (I have all of them) and can't seem to find it. This would have been great during my session before last. Darn. Thank you for telling me. If you remember where it came from please hit me up!

It's from "Rescue at Glare Peak" the Rebellion Day adventure from 2014. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/7/18/rebellion-day/

Not available yet unless you somehow got it from a store that hosted it.

Edited March 24, 2015 by agentc13

[Gigerstreak 234]

That would explain it. I was busy getting married when that happened. Figures  . Oh well, she is worth it.

[Jedi Ronin 1,588]

I'd like to see the movie characters stats as NPCs as a good reference for GMs to see how the designers and writers see and use the game.

 

But the stats in the core books are generic blocks for types of characters.  You'll get a "crime lord", or "Emperor's Hand", etc but you're not getting a specific named Emperor's Hand (unless I missed something).

 

The value of having a move character stat block is that it can be used - even if only as a guide to creating other similar NPCs - but it doesn't force GMs to use them or stick to them.  The cost is it takes up space.

[Amanal 2,557]

I'd like to see the movie characters stats as NPCs as a good reference for GMs to see how the designers and writers see and use the game.

 

I would rather that they have a chat to Wil Wheaton and run him and a few folks through a session and have that put on Tabletop.