Star Wars Roleplaying Game

Fantasy Flight Games had their own attempt at producing a Star Wars roleplaying game, it's actually pretty good.

A very unique form of roleplaying game though, in that it relies less on raw statistical power and more on speciality dice (sold by FFG obviously).

Currently there are three separate campaign settings:

• Edge of the Empire
• Age of Rebellion
• Force and Destiny

However, unlike the Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying games produced by Fantasy Flight, they all use the exactly the same format and rulesets and are completely compatible with one another with only minor differences in the reason for why they adventure, though all of the mechanics can be used simultaneously.

Setting

The three settings are set around the same time as Episode IV, approximately the same time that the Rebels blow up the Death Star. So it's the time of Storm Troopers, X-Wings and Yoda.

Depending on the rulebook that the characters are drawn from, the players are hooked into the universe using a variety of mechanical effects.

EotE uses an Obligation mechanic, which is a percentile number of how much debt they are in to someone or something else. It doesn't have to be monetary "debt", it could be a frail old grandmother that needs looked after, or simply having children. Either way the character has something after which they need to look or appease. The higher their percentile, the more chance of an off-table event occurring, which will affect the mindset of the character, reducing their effectiveness in-game. The players can use Obligation as a resource though, and accumulate more obligation to gain assets of value, like starships or rare items. Too much obligation and they start becoming a liability, so it's usually in the players interest to get rid of it when they get the opportunity.

AoR uses Duty, which is like inverse Obligation, they "want" to accumulate duty as it represents their status with their chosen organisation (the Rebellion by default), at low levels they don't get much, but as they accumulate more, they can trade it in for starships and items.

F&D uses Morality which generally only works for force users, being an asshole will accumulate conflict points, which will reduce their morality in the long run, meaning that they can start using the dark side. The custom dice that force users have has 7 dark sides out of 12, but the light sides tend to give more points when rolled. This is somewhat consistent with the lore, which describes the dark side as easier, but the light side as ultimately more powerful. In that vein, lightsiders gain a higher strain threshold, and can therefore continue fighting/acting for longer.

Gameplay

Anyone that has played any of the 40k roleplaying systems by FFG will get a familiar feeling when playing Edge of the Empire, it takes the "degrees of success" mechanic from the 40k rules, and strips away pretty much everything else.

Instead of simply taking a skill or combat check and comparing numbers, players roll a dice pool which just has a random number of success or advantage symbols on the dice itself. Comparing that to a similar dice pool rolled by the DM representing the difficulty of the test.

This actually has two major advantages over most other rule sets straight off the bat.

• 1) Less reliance on statistics means there are less pauses at the table while people count up what their rolls actually mean. Basically few rolls require counting higher than ten.
• 2) Cheating becomes much less of a problem as players cannot simply roll dice and declare that they have passed or failed a test, since they actually have to compare their successes to the DMs number of failures. Meaning the authority always remains with a DM.

Of course this means owning a set of Star Wars dice, though you can use traditional dice, and just use a conversion table found in the rulebook... though that defeats the point.

Dice pools are generated quite easily, when you take a test, each skill has a stat associated with it. Compare your ranks in the skill with the stat, and take the higher of the two numbers as your basic number of dice, and the lower of the two number determines how many of those dice are "upgraded" from D8s to D12s.

If you get situational bonuses due to talents or environmental effects, the DM can add or take away D6s to the pool.

Classes

The Fantasy Flight version is a strange hybrid of free-form vs structure when it comes to character creation.

PCs choose a career and a specialisation to spend their experience in. However, if they choose to, they can buy upgrades from other specialisations by paying into those specialisations. They may also buy into other entire careers if they feel inclined too, though that is essentially cross classing and therefore comes at an increased XP cost.

Again, unlike the disparate 40k settings, they all work in unison with one another, so a Smuggler pilot could easily cross-class as a Consular Healer if the DM allowed it, since it would not affect the way the game is played, nor would it change the overall power level of the character with respect to the rest of the Party

Edge of the Empire

Bounty Hunter

• Assassin - Part Ninja, part Sniper, all deadly. Gets aiming bonuses for added damage, and dodge & stealth bonuses for avoiding it. Also gets "Lethal Blows" for absolutely horrific critical hit modifiers.
• Gadgeteer - Be like Boba Fett and get custom armour and gear. DMs should be wary about players who want to play this, as they are going to Munchkin the FUCK out of the character.
• Survivalist - Tracking, sneaking and good at covering terrain, everything a good bounty hunter needs. Which of course makes for a good scout/pointman if your party doesn't include one already.

Colonist

• Doctor: Pretty good as both a medic and a purveyor of "feel good juice" for buffs. Also make pretty damn good martial artists if they start taking the right skills in the tree, particularly for races that get automatic buffs to their unarmed damage like trandoshans and wookiees.
• Politico - The "Face" and buffer of the group, gets a hilarious ability to hurl scathing abuse at an opponent, causing strain, which has the potential to knock them unconscious. Can also do the inverse and restore strain on allies.
• Scholar - all the lore at your fingertips, basically about researching things you didn't know, but as a student of the mind you get have surprising mental discipline, you can reduce strain damage and can get some non-career skills of your choice.
• Entrepreneur (Far Horizons) - Always looking for a deal: Buy Low / Sell High, also get free money in every session due to your fat cat nature and wise investments. You can also become wealthy enough that you can throw money at your obligation and make it go away temporarily.
• Marshall (FaHo) - Gives the Colonist some much needed fighting ability and the ability to to-and-fro your interaction skills with another player, Good Cop/Bad Cop.
• Performer (FaHo) - the actual Bardic music class, this is ALL about the active abilities and gets practically no passive bonuses at all. Your performances can net you your "Biggest Fan", so pretty much like magical domination.

Explorer

• Fringer - Gets a whole bunch of astrogation bonuses that are unlikely to come into play, but makes for an acceptable group pilot if no-one else can do the job. They also get a few defensive bonuses that are generally handy no matter what other specialisations they take.
• Scout - The stealth dude the team puts on point since he'll see everything and not be seen in turn, and gets to backstab in a similar way to Rogues. Also gets the utility belt ability, where he can pull a common rarity item out of his ass for free by spending destiny points.
• Trader - Earn 15,000,000 Gold a Day by wheeling & dealing your DMs economy to breaking point and also locating black market items he doesn't want you to have. Try to cross-class as Quartermaster and/or Entrepreneur to gain added Profit and your DM will kick you in the balls.
• Archaologist (Enter the Unknown) - Indiana Jones IN SPACE, you can play Harrison Ford's OTHER alter ego, despite not having the brawl skill immediately, is surprisingly good at... Brawling
• Big Game Hunter (EtU) - like playing an archery Ranger, gets a few stealth / terrain talents and can cause MASSIVE damage at long range
• Driver (EtU) - A "Pilot" but for atmospheric vehicles rather than X-Wings, is virtually analogous to to that specialisation and many of the bonuses carry over, so it can be a worthwhile choice.

Hired Gun

• Bodyguard - Supposedly the "protector" archetype but I can't remember the last time I saw the secret service use rifles, bazookas and gun-turrets, but okay. They get barrage bonuses on heavy weapons & gunnery at long range but most of the specialisation IS about defensive boosts, and they can provide active benefits to party members. So it works.
• Marauder - Barbarian hit things, Barbarian do much damage... while having the highest HP and natural damage resistance in the game.
• Mercenary Soldier - The professional, and does it pretty well. Boost team members due to leadership skill, and gets half-decent fighting bonuses, making this a good option.
• Enforcer (Dangerous Covenants) - Get your Thug on and hit things with baseball bats. Good for intimidation value and getting around in the underworld.
• Demolitionist (DaCo) - KABOOM BABY! All about blast weapons, making blasts better and how they are shaped (so you can exclude friendly targets), you can also rig mundane stuff to explode once per session.
• Heavy (DaCo) - Make big guns seem like kiddie toys and start hip-shooting normally mounted weaponry and doing massive damage while you spray lasers all over the place.

Smuggler

• Pilot - Learn to fly a space craft, while many classes get the pilot skill, a specialised pilot gets talents and bonuses that make him generally better at it than anyone else. (until you see Rebel Aces)
• Scoundrel - Telling lies and acting quickly, also gets the black market connections that the Trader gets but doesn't screw with the economy so much since he's not selling them back at a profit.
• Thief - "Yoink" I've picked your lock, pinched your stuff, now I'm stealthing off into the night then blending into a crowd. Like playing the Thief video game, but in science fiction!
• Charmer (Fly Casual) - A huge amount of active talents that help with interaction checks, but this specialisation also allows normally "Face" style characters to do stuff in combat with "Don't Shoot" and "Disarming Smile".
• Gambler (FlyCa) - Yes, they've got a few actual "Gambling" boosts, but this class is excellent no matter what you are doing or what career you started from. You can get access to re-rolls, can suffer strain to get a Destiny point back in your pool and the Double or Nothing talent can be Awesome if you use it on skills you know you can pass.
• Gunslinger (FlyCa) - Gives the Smuggle career some needed firepower, though exclusively based around pistols and initiative-order trickery. Fantastic on the quick draw, they get bonuses to Critical Hits and if they get in first they can reduce the crit rating of their weapon for that strike, as well as gaining additional first strike bonuses.

Technician

• Mechanic - Fixes stuff, so is good with vehicular focussed parties. Can also cause machinery to spontanously combust due to "Bad Motivator", which is hilarious. Can also make items out of sticky tape, PVA glue and coloured paper which can solve immediate problems. FUN
• Outlaw Tech - Remember how the scout could pull items out of his ass? well so can this guy, but earlier on. Plus he can modify, scavenge, improve and repair things. Making him a desirable party member when people want to upgrade their gear. Anyone who cross-classes Gadgeteer with Outlaw Tech is a filthy munchkin and can't really deny it.
• Slicer - There is something called "Defensive Slicing", just in case your DM wants to hack your computers with a skill check rather than telling you he's hacked your system, the only situation this routinely comes up is in space combat, but is far more likely to be the slicer hacking enemy ships. But this class is not just about tackling computers and is also handy with lock-picks. Not really a specialisation to completely max out unless I'm missing something.

Age of Rebellion

Ace

• Driver - Identical to the Explorer specialisation, even if your focus is not atmospheric, can be worth taking for the stacking passive bonuses it grants.
• Gunner - Good even if you can't pilot for shit, since larger vessels have turret mounts that few people get any bonuses using, different from the Heavy since it's less about mobility and more about aiming bonuses. But the talents also work broadly too, turning you into a Tank. If you are also a decent pilot... Then well....
• Pilot - Exactly the same specialisation the Smuggler gets, but a better fit for a character who wants to be a dedicated pilot, since the in-career specialisations combo extremely well together.
• Beast Rider (Stay on Target) - More for riding than driving/piloting. Your mileage may vary since mounted characters might be rare in your campaign.
• Rigger (StTa) - Holy Shit! Like the Gadgeteer, except for a vehicle, if your group has a shared starship and the setting involves a lot of space combat, someone should be MADE to play this class.
• Hotshot (StTa) - Like the Pilot, except more about crazy active abilities like maneuvering enemies into each other or pulling the switcharoo during dogfights.

Commander

• Commodore - Combo Mechanic and Fringer with command and defence abilities thrown in. Literally there are four straight-line paths to the bottom which means you aren't forced to mix up your abilities. It's generally straightforward if your character wants a two or more of those paths and couldn't get them without multi-classing more than once.
• Squad Leader - A defensive pilot. If he was on his own he'd be fairly inoffensive though he does get the Quick Strike ability for getting first hits in. His group skills mostly work on the ground as well as in vehicles, so he's not entirely useless. But this should be chosen as a later specialisation, rather than starting the game as a squad leader.
• Tactician - Sort of a combination of Bodyguard and Mercenary Soldier, without the fighting talents of either but gets improved mobility skills (so would have made a better "Bodyguard" than the Bodyguard specialisation). Good if the party includes several fighting characters and could use someone to buff them up.

Diplomat

• Ambassador - they took the chatty part of the Politico specialisation and removed all of the foul language and gave them actual defences instead. They still can't stand up in a fight but they've got strain for days and are resistant to fear.
• Agitator - The angry portion of the Politico, made more focussed. They're much more thuggish (like the Enforcer) but unfortunately unless they cross-career into something tough, its all bark rather than bite. That said, the ultimate ability causes a literal riot.
• Quartermaster - FREE MONEY! Seriously they can learn an ability that gets them free money every session. Mucks up the economy just like the Trader specialisation, but with less access to black market stuff, instead they learn how to use bribes as a game mechanic.

Engineer

• Mechanic - Same as in the Technician Career, you fix stuff.
• Saboteur - Its about the bombs, though the first half of the progression is actually more about defensive abilities and you don't get the blast bonuses until later.
• Scientist - Like the Scholar, but less about being well rounded and more about application. You get the same knowledge and academic respect talents, but instead of all the mental fortitude (since that went to the Ambassador) you get to play with your gear making it better like an Outlaw Tech, plus utility belt for lulz.

Soldier

• Commando- Combat Pro, though unlike the Merc Soldier is less about team command and more about being good in a fight. Though isn't really focused on a particular thing. There is armour, resilience, melee and ranged buffs going for them. If you're a fighting character and can't decide where you want to be, going Commando is for you.
• Medic - Do you need healing NOW? The military medic is based around patching people up immediately using consumable stim-packs that become less effective with repeated applications. The Doctor might be the better overall healer but you get to cross-class as Commando & Sharpshooter, so SUCK IT UP SOLDIER!
• Sharpshooter - Like the Assassin, but with less stealth and MORE killing, when this guy is maxed out and armed with a sniper rifle, very few careers can do it better. Combo with Assassin & Big Game Hunter and no-one will survive.

Spy

• Infiltrator - In a word: Ninja. Strangely less about actual "infiltration" (though does get stealth bonuses later on) and more about dodging, flipping and overwhelming opponent's in melee
• Scout - just like the Explorer, works well here for stealth reasons and being able to go solo.
• Slicer - the same as the Technician, but considering the multi-class combos the Spy gets it gives it a more malicious edge, though they might want to skip this and go out-of-career for their next specialisation since it doesn't really fit the melee/stealth character build.

Force & Destiny

Consular

• Healer - Since "Heal" is a universal force power, the Healer specialization is strictly unnecessary, but it's still a good career to have, since it applies itself primarily to medicine checks for recovering wounds and strain. So does not tie itself into force usage. You also get "Healing Trance" where you can heal yourself over encounters naturally by committing force dice, rather than actually attempting to roll for it.
• Niman Disciple - A good generic lightsaber style based on Willpower instead of Brawn, comes with some flat defensive bonuses which are always good to have and allows you to increase the crit ratings of hits that strike you so you are less likely to be hurt badly. The style allows you to mix in some force techniques like push/pull as part of your attack action so you can have some control over your opponent. Finally, it's the only Saber style that grants an increase in Force Rating, making it a great general option for any Jedi character.
• Sage - They start out as Force wielding scholars where they get a bunch of bonuses to interaction and knowledge checks. Later they start pulling out impressive set-pieces with the Force, like by meditating to add white spots to your force checks in the following encounter, or being able to perform Force powers as maneuvers instead of actions. The Sage is also one of the few classes that gets two Force Rating increases, so is a very good option to consider for a Force-heavy character.

Guardian

• Peacekeeper - read: "Squad Leader", it is nearly all about Discipline & Leadership checks, even allowing you to add Force dice results to improve leadership rolls. Some cool abilities here, allowing you to get the whole team performing maneuvers out-of-turn if you need the group to surge forward or coordinate actions.
• Soresu Defender - The Tank style, based on Intellect instead of Brawn. It's the only career with Supreme Parry so you can block for days rather than tiring yourself out. You can also improve the defenses of the whole group with your lightsaber by creating a Defensive Circle and you can even Aggro/Taunts enemies into attacking you exclusively. Obviously this specialization is more about blocking incoming attacks rather than hitting hard so your group will need someone else to do the heavy punching or shooting.
• Protector - Kind of like a medic crossed with bodyguard. For starters, you get some Parry/Reflect talents even though this is not a lightsaber combat style and can even Parry/Reflect for your allies, or make them more difficult to hit with your "bodyguard" talents. Your other abilities include using stim-packs for immediate healing rather than a medicine check, but which get worse with repeated use, but you're "better" with them, you also get Force Protection, so you can commit force dice to increasing your soak value temporarily.

Mystic

• Advisor - The "face" of the group, the class is fairly straightforward granting you bonuses to interaction checks while ignoring penalties. You also get a couple of trading boosts thrown in for good measure. Not a great deal for force users except for one ability where you can switch out your force rating for your ranks in Knowledge (Lore) once per gaming session, which can be good if you min-maxed, but in the late game your force rating may eventually overtake your skill ranks.
• Makashi Duelist - Presence-based Lightsaber style heavily focused on dealing with a single opponent in melee, so you get no Reflect talents. You do have some cool techniques though which can allow you to dominate your opponent, like feinting to turn your missed attacks into penalties for your opponent, or by taunting your opponent into losing strain points while recovering them for yourself. You ultimate ability is the Makashi Finish, which can massively boost your critical damage rolls and rip your opponent a brand new asshole if you manage to hit him with it.
• Seer - A more practical counterpart to the Sage, it also gives you two Force Rating increases. But instead of knowledge or interaction bonuses, you get much improved initiative checks and some boosts to outdoor survival checks. It doesn't quite have the same force boosting talents as the Sage, but you can get some floating re-rolls on power checks, and with "Forewarning" you can massively increase your allies defenses up until the point they act in an encounter.

Seeker

• Ataru Striker - A blitz and blur of motion, the Ataru style is based on Agility. You do get some awesome damage potential, like the ability to hit an opponent multiple times in a single attack (and with a lightsaber he's going down), throw your lightsaber as a ranged weapon or close the distance fast and leap to your opponent's space. The defensive abilities are no slouch either, allowing you to mix up Parry/Reflect with Dodge so you're unlikely to get hit. However, the style is heavily dependent on your pool of strain points, so if you cannot finish a fight fast you may find yourself running out of things to do.
• Hunter - A very practical specialization that works in situations where you don't need or own a lightsaber. Good at tracking and with perception checks and is good for dealing damage to animals and beasts, as well as avoiding incoming ranged damage. It also allows you to use your force dice on ranged weapon attack rolls, making it a good fall-back class for anyone.
• Pathfinder - The Druid to the Hunter's Ranger. This also gives you a whole bunch of outdoor survival boosts and travel enhancements. As the class progresses, you get your own permanent animal companion, though as your force rating increases you could swap it out for larger and meaner creatures.

Sentinel

• Artisan - The Mechanic and generally the guy you want fixing your vehicles and broken stuff. A non-force wielder like a technician or proper mechanic might be better in general situations, but this guy can imbue his items with the force to gain enhancements, or he can even use the force to add hard points when modifying items.
• Shadow - The Thief archetype, you are really good at stealth. To the point that you can make yourself invisible to other force users and make your own force powers being undetectable. You can even make people forget about your existence once per session. Other than stealth, you also get improved hacking skills but only when attempting to decipher communications.
• Shien Expert - A Cunning-based style heavily focused on dealing with ranged attackers and being defensive, but not quite as one-dimensional as the Makashi or Soresu styles, so you at least have combat options. The talents actually make this class very well rounded, allowing you to take advantage of enemy misses, or close the distance quickly if you need to.

Warrior

• Shii-cho Knight - The "basic" lightsaber style, which is still based on Brawn. Shii-Cho is about dealing with crowds of enemies in melee, allowing you to strike multiple targets with a single attack. It has virtually no ranged defenses so can be easily overwhelmed by the same bunch of dudes with guns if you can't close the distance, but the specialization does have a focus on durability and being able to increase crit ratings on incoming attacks.
• Aggressor - The muscle dude who exists to debuff enemies and make them easier to deal with. The Aggressor can terrify opponents into a disoriented or immobilized state, then take advantage of that state by dealing additional damage.
• Starfighter Ace - Exactly what you think it is, a force-wielding pilot, coming with some useful repair talents and force enhancements while at the helm of a vehicle, making it ore difficult to hit and allowing you to add your force dice to your vehicular attack rolls for improved damage.

Incidentally, there's no specialization for Form VII, aka Juyo, so if your special snowflake Jedi OC uses it then you're out of luck. This does make sense, though, as it's basically "the one used by Sith and Mace Windu"; if you're really determined, just use the Shii-cho Knight, since they're both all about the stabbing.

Universal

Specialisations that can be taken by any character as if they were part of the character's own career path, so therefore does not suffer the additional experience penalty for choosing them.

• Force Sensitive Exile - Representative of a Force user in hiding, lots of passive boosts to reaction/initiative and social interactions making it broadly useful as an alternative career choice for anyone looking to expand into Force wielding.
• Force Sensitive Emergent - Someone just coming into "Force Puberty", gaining passive bonuses to stealth and perception. It is a bit more focused than Exile but it gets more by way of "The Force" than the Exile path does by allowing you to enhance your allies or use your own Willpower in place of their usual stat.
• Rebel Recruit - A universal specialisation providing a broad set of low level combat and utility abilities. Actually a really good choice for non-combat characters (especially from EotE) who don't want to cross-career into more focussed combat roles and take them too far from their original concept/build.

Signature Specialisations

Kind of like Epic/Ascension level equivalents, they give you a single ability that must be activated using destiny points to give a very powerful bonus, usually once per gaming session but some can be upgraded to be used multiple times. They can only be taken by attaching the signature ability to the bottom of one of your career talent trees. Obviously there are a few caveats to that; you can only take signature abilities from your own career (meaning if you start as a hired gun, you can't take smuggler abilities) and you can only attach them to in-career talent trees (so your hired gun cannot attach a hired gun ability to a smuggler talent tree taken out-of-career).

Once you've got the signature ability, you can further upgrade it like it was part of your regular talent tree, and some of the abilities are very nearly broken as hell...

• Sudden Discovery (Explorer) - You can take a knowledge check to learn your location (if you were lost) or a safe path out of your location. Sounds weak, but the best is yet to come... you can also to discover the location of a place or object of your choosing subject to GM approval. So you can learn otherwise secret things like the location of the Valley of the Jedi, Revan's Infinite Army or unique and powerful relics otherwise lost in the setting.
• Unmatched Mobility (Explorer) - Allow yourself a third maneuver per round, for an upgrade-able number of rounds. Under normal circumstances PCs only get two maneuvers with the second costing strain to perform. This makes you fast as hell, meaning you can pull off a ridiculous amount of shit while the power is in effect.
• Last One Standing (Hired Gun) - Kill ALL low level minions in your current encounter with a single check, followed by a suitable explanation for what you are doing, like jumping out of cover with a repeating blaster and getting them all with headshots., or throwing a grenade that brings down a landslide or something. The ability can also be upgraded to work on "rival" (mid-level) characters but it won't clear out a "nemesis" like Darth Vader or Starkiller.
• Unmatched Protection (Hired Gun) - For the duration of the ability you can half the amount of damage you take BEFORE you apply things like armour and toughness to modify it, making you an absolute tank. This power is upgradable by increasing duration or the number of hits per round that it can apply to.
• Insightful Revelation (Colonist) - Take a Knowledge check to gain one bit of information from the GM that must be immediately useful to overcoming the current encounter. While this ability sounds like a waste, the answer MUST NOT have been obtainable by any immediate means, so the GM can't cheat you by giving you stuff that you could find in the galactic library or by telling you that walls make good cover in a gunfight, making it nearly as situationally powerful as Sudden Discovery, but involves the GM telling you something rather than you asking a specific question.
• Unmatched Expertise (Colonist) - One sure fire way of breaking the game temporarily. It reduces the difficulty of all career checks by one for the remainder of the encounter. This can be further upgraded to modifying difficulty by two down to a minimum of "simple" as well as reducing any setback dice that your GM may want to impose upon you. All of this means that you character can pull off pretty much any skill check virtually unopposed, including making combat checks which are only countered by the target's defense dice, which can amount to very little after setback reductions, meaning you can just land hits on Darth Vader with impunity and will make your GM thankful for the reason that signature abilities can only be taken as in-career upgrades.
• Narrow Escape (Smuggler) - Your character can NOPE out of any encounter with a successful check. Initially only applying to personal combat but can be upgraded to ship-scale or social situations on various different checks. It doesn't actually end the encounter and in some situations could make matters worse, like by leaving some of your companions in the lurch (it can be upgraded to cover some of your allies) or by leaving a powerful opponent alive to come and get you later. This can also leave the GM in a difficult spot if the encounter was particularly important to the story progression like the boss fight at the end of the campaign, so it should probably be discussed with the GM how it best fits the situation.
• Unmatched Fortune (Smuggler) - Spend Destiny to "flip" a dice to an adjacent side, allowing you to turn a fail into a pass, or a pass into a triumph. Can also be upgraded to apply to multiple dice from different pools, including your allies.
• This One is Mine (Ace) - You can lock yours and your enemy's vehicle into attacking each other for a set duration, and also preventing anyone else from targeting either of you. Meaning you can do things like lock enemy TIE fighters out of a boss fight. It works especially well if you have a vehicle crewed by multiple PCs and will let you all deal with the most difficult target without having to worry about other things. It does have limitations based on the relative sizes of your vehicles, so you can't challenge a star destroyer to a duel with an X-Wing, but you might get away with a frigate sized vessel if you were in a freighter.
• Unmatched Survivability (Ace) - Kind of situational but spectacular at turning around a vehicle battle that is going sour. It makes a crippled vehicle NOT be crippled, allowing you to fight beyond the wounds/hull threshold that would normally take you out of the fight. All the while reducing enemy critical hit values on your ship so you are less likely to die in a grizzly fashion when you continue to take damage. While it sounds like an obvious take if the crew share a common vessel since it keeps them going longer, from a GM's point of view this ability would be better if the whole crew had separate vessels since a GM should only cripple (and therefore wreck) a shared vessel if the storyline demands it, otherwise the party will have ended up in a TPK.

Equipment

Like any good FFG system, it is heavily equipment based, meaning that any character with a decent set of gear can overcome nearly every problem, so differences between character levels means significantly less than it does in other systems. (like 3rd & 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons)

The game also does away with most of the minutia that bog down other systems; so no tracking extremely minor consumables, food & drink, denominations of currency, and the exact weight of each item of gear. Instead it has a system of "encumbrance" which is basically an abstract number of how heavy or bulky an item actually is, and a character has a small threshold before becoming encumbered, meaning that most PCs will not simply attempt to loot everything in sight

Weapon upgrades are also dealt with fairly, each weapon / armour / starship has a pre-determined number of hard points where things can be added to and each modification has a hardpoint value, though certain mods can be upgraded in and of themselves. So very few items can be pimped out to the max and become stupidly overpowered.

Lightsabers are in, and work exactly how they are expected to, so no underpowering them for the sake of game balance.

• "Default" Ilum sabers have a crit rating of 1 (in F&D, they added customisable sabers and lowered the power level for a "basic" saber) so if a player hits and rolls just one advantage on his dice, body parts get chopped off. Lightsabers also ignore all armour up to and including starship bulkheads.
• Thankfully the setting largely excludes Knight-level characters, so very few people actually knows how to use them properly, meaning any character stupid enough to wield one will be rolling a number of D8s based on strength or agility without any skill points to upgrade them and therefore would have problems reliably hitting anything with a decent defense score.
  • Force & Destiny added Lightsaber styles as part of the base ruleset. That still doesn't make people into jedi swordmasters though, since each style has to be learned separately just like any other career specialisation, plus Lightsabers are still rare and illegal, so finding one should be a challenge.

The Force

Despite Jedi not being the focus of the setting, the Force is present if players want to use it. Thankfully it's not as OP as sometimes portrayed in other rules systems.

Access to force powers is granted by the force rating talent, which can only be obtained via certain specialisations. It is NOT automatically granted by any of the F&D career classes, though the game provides characters of those classes with Rating 1 at character creation in the same way that they get free ranks in career skills. That means that players who don't start out as "Jedi" have to take a much longer path to competency in Force abilities, having to first cross class into Force Emergent or Force Exile to be granted Rating 1 if they didn't already have it. With all that being said, players could still multiclass into one of the "Jedi" careers and pick up the Rating increase found at the end of most talent trees, but that's also long way journey to the bottom where youd have to purchase a lot of unusable talents that wont help you until later. This is quite consistent with the lore, where often those considered "too old" for training were not permitted to become Jedi.

Once the specialisation (and therefore the talent) is bought, upgrades can be taken for the class itself, but can also be bought for powers, which are relatively simple: Move / Sense / Influence / Enhance / Foresee / Heal / Harm / Misdirect / Seek / Bind / Protect / Unleash / Battle Meditation. Which are initially very weak but can be upgraded much like any other career specialisation.

Force powers require a special D12 dice to activate which has white and black spots on it, representing light or dark points respectively. (players are inherently "light-based") and powers require certain numbers of white spots to be effective or activate additional effects. Unfortunately only five sides of the D12 have any value to a light side force user making them useless 58% of the time. The player can expend a destiny point to "flip" black spots to white ones, though if your DM is using the F&D morality system this will inevitably cause the character to descend into evil ways. Three-fifths of the light-sided faces of the die have two dots, while only a single dark-side-aligned face does. This is somewhat-consistent with the movie lore, wherein the dark side is easier to use, but the light side is more powerful overall.

The number of dice you get is represented by your force sensitivity factor and you invest these successes into your power upgrades to perform more impressive feats, like moving larger objects or mind-tricking more opponents. However unless you are using options from Force and Destiny, your force sensitivity factor doesn't go higher than 2, meaning that your powers are unlikely to be impressive as you cannot activate as many upgrades to a power as you can roll light-side successes. Even "true" Force Wielding characters often don't have a Force Rating of higher than 3 without cross classing into different force-wielding careers (unless you start out as Consular) which still won't guarantee Starkiller levels of power.

Vehicles

In most of the campaigns, the group starts out with their own method of transportation. EotD and F&D gives them a freighter while AoR gives them either a shuttle or a squadron of cheap starfighters (Y-Wings by default). There are options to choose from, but generally the GM should choose for the group depending on the theme of the campaign, because it would not do too well for a squadron of fighters to roll up in certain situations, but also that some ships have certain narrative crew requirements or limitations which are all helpfully explained in the vehicle's stat block. So small groups might find they don't have enough manpower to properly use a large gunboat/corvette while large groups simply won't fit in smaller light freighters.

Like Rogue Trader the ship and ship combat can play a very big part of the gaming session. But thankfully unlike Rogue Trader the rules have been streamlined in line with what they did to personal scale combat. Distances and positions are abstract, so you only need to pay attention to who has particular advantages over each other.

The ruleset doesn't depart too much from the personal scale either, so rather than learning something new, you calculate your dice rolls much the same way, this means that space combat can be speedy and active rather than onerous arguing about position, speed and firing arcs.

Splatbooks

As with any good splatbook, each non-adventure module adds new races, equipment and vehicle options. Most of them also add modular encounters which can be squeezed into any other adventure without too much trouble, or even strung along together to manufacture your own adventures.

Edge of the Empire

• Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook
• Enter the Unknown - rules for Explorers.
• Dangerous Covenants - rules for Hired Guns as well as help for GMs running military campaigns that don't focus on adventures from job to job. Adds A LOT of weapons, from mini-guns and grenade launchers, to retractable forearm blades, and Vibro-greatswords.
• Far Horizons - rules for Colonists, adding rules for running your own business/homestead giving you an upgrade-able base of operations and working off-screen jobs to generate cash in the long term, as well as adding rules for allowing non-combat characters to shine and use their skills in ways more than simply "roll profession" checks.
• Fly Casual - rules for Smugglers, but also adding lots of additional rules for Slicing and Astrogation, giving those very situational skills much needed breadth and allowing characters to do more with it rather than just "yes/no" rolls.
• Suns of Fortune - a gazetteer for the Corellian sector, and one of the modular encounters has rules for portraying Sabacc, incorporating various skill checks into influencing gambling rolls rather than just taking a "gambling check".
• Lords of Nal Hutta - another gazetteer for Hutt space, and rules for Hutts as PC characters and plenty of rules for cybernetic enhancements
• Beyond the Rim - First adventure supplement, covering a treasure hunt for a lost clone wars starship.
• Jewel of Yavin - Another adventure supplement that centers around a jewel heist.

Age of Rebellion

• Star Wars: Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook
• Stay on Target - sourcebook for Aces, also provides expanded rules for Astromech PCs & NPCs and what they can do with a starfighter, as well as rules for beast and wild animals.
• Onslaught at Arda I - adventure supplement, involving helping the rebels hunt down an Imperial spy.

Force and Destiny

• Star Wars Force and Destiny Core Rulebook