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Some time ago I outlined my plans to stress test the current edition of the Star Wars Roleplaying Game at high XP levels. Since then, several members of my home group have had periods of what we simply call murder-work, so our testing has not been as comprehensive as originally imagined. But we’ve done a bit of stress testing and are able to add some more anecdotal data, so this post serves three purposes. First, a heads up that yes, this is still a thing on my radar. Second, to report back on what I’ve observed. Finally, to outline the next round.
We played a little bit of 600 Earned XP Edge of the Empire as outlined in my previous post. Players made characters with 600 Earned XP and 15,000 Credits worth of equipment. Characters were to be Edge of the Empire characters complete with obligations and suitable for the kind of star-hopping adventures that form the default play experience of the game and set just after Return of the Jedi. I braced myself for some seriously tricked out PCs. What happened next surprised me.
Four of my players were able to make characters. To summarize, we had: a carefree smuggler that rejects the notion “there is no such thing as luck,” a Force-sensitive archaeologist coerced into Jerec’s servitude, a former bodyguard of Jabba now on the run from the Hutts for sticking back at Jabba’s Palace during the Skirmish at Carkoon, and finally the Jeremy Clarkson expy Jer’emi Darksun out of favor with the Imperial Broadcasting Company and relegated to recording his own show. Sure, some cortosis armor was purchased, but so were droids, holocording equipment, clothing, jewelry, and many more pieces of equipment purchased more for flavor than statistics. In short, a colorful cast that I would love to have at my table.
Don’t get me wrong, these characters were backed by some powerful mechanics. In particular the bodyguard combined ~ 10 Soak with Cortosis and Unmatched Protection to tank multiple missile tube hits in one encounter. You don’t get to 600 XP without picking up some capabilities, and GMs need to plan for that, but I’m still encouraged to see a focus on character and flavor first with mechanics coming second maintained for this exercise. These players are very bought into the narrative system, but many of them also enjoy number crunching powerful characters in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game so I dare say the Star Wars Roleplaying Game has done something to encourage character over character optimization.
Like a number of you reading this, I had the opportunity to run in Keith Kappel’s ~ 2000 XP Force and Destiny game. Players took on the role of Jedi Council members on an epic adventure to stop a nefarious Separatist threat. I played Obi-Wan Kenobi, a nearly maxed Soresu Defender and Niman Disciple with a wide spectrum of skills and several maxed or nearly maxed Force powers. The other players were similarly powerful, including a ~ 2200 XP Yoda capable of amazing feats of Force wizardry through Force Rating 5 and hearty Discipline.
But even with all the above, we were still challenged. Sure, massive minion groups were dispatched by Sarlacc Sweeps and Force Move and Rivals dropped in but a few lightsaber swings, but none of that stopped Asajj Ventress from knocking me to exactly my Wound Threshold. Despite Obi-Wan’s considerable defensive powers, I was still stacking up the Strain tanking so many hits. When it came to the climax, the group was still meaningfully threatened by Dooku and his retinue of antagonists. At least in that adventure, the game had scaled extremely well. I attribute this largely to very slow Wound and Strain progression, limited ranks of Parry and Reflect, and substantial XP sinks in terms of Force powers, skill ranks, and utility talents. It could be argued that a home campaign PC would not be so broad, but at least anecdotal evidence from my Sith campaign suggests PCs value being useful in a variety of ways. After all, would a character feel like a Jedi Master without ranks in Lore and Negotiate?
These experiences have cemented my view that Force users at high levels will be balanced by their wide range of options. What remains is a high level test of more focused characters. My next bound will be to go ahead with the 800 XP Age of Rebellion test. I’ll instruct my players to put a bit more focus on optimization while still retaining strong characterization. Without costly Force powers to invest in, and with a more narrow character concepts (expert sniper instead of Monk-Samurai-Negotiator-General) I expect to see greater potential for imbalanced combinations emerging.
My last post on the topic stimulated some interesting and detailed replies. I’d love to hear more about everyone’s experiences at higher XP levels. Do you agree about Force users being the easiest to scale up? Have any high-XP horror stories? Be sure to let us know. In the meantime, I have some more testing to do.
Christopher Hunt
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