Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, Beta (Week 10)

Fantasy Flight Games has announced that the Beta is coming to an end for the new Star Wars RPG. The latest update to the Beta was a minor one in comparison to previous updates. The two real fixes in this update deal with Autofire weapons and Two-Weapon Fighting. Autofire was adjusted in two ways. The first is that it now costs more Advantages to activate the ability, which reduces how often it will go off. The other change is that uncancelled Successes aren't added to every hit from the weapon when the Autofire quality is activated with Advantages. Instead, the extra damage is now distributed amongst the hits as the player wishes. This minor change makes Autofire a little less deadly in that only the base damage for the weapon scales with the Autofire activation. The separate successes no longer get scaled with the number of hits, but that isn't a big deal in comparison to the large amount of base damage for most weapons with Autofire.

Two-weapon Fighting was completely revamped from the Beta book with this update. The rules are pretty simple and even have a note that the GM has final say as to whether or not any given weapons can be held in one hand and used in that way (like Han's blaster pistol and a thermal detonator). Creating the dice pool is relatively simple. Take the worst skill rank of the two skills that were to be used (such as Ranged[Light] and Melee) and then the worst of the associated Characteristic (such as Agility vs. Brawn). If the skill ranks were equal, then add a single Difficulty die to the pool. If they weren't the same, then add two Difficulty dice. A very nice, clean and simple mechanic.

 There will only be one more update posted for the Beta and then it will be over. Makes sense since the Beginners Box has already gone to print and FFG will want the book completed soon to get it ready for release early next year. The nice thing about this timing is that with the change to LucasFilm, Ltd., FFG won't have to reprint a ton of material with the Disney logo in place of the LFL logo. This is apparently the reason why the second batch of expansions for the Star Wars X-wing game have been delayed until early next year.