Encumbrance compared to actual weights

I understand that a combination of item properties or qualities are mashed together culminating in this sort of 'abstract' representation that is Encumbrance. But really Fantasy Flight? You have ventured into an established and exceptionally well documented universe. A universe whose fans and lovers are often dare I say, a bit on the nerdy side. One of the best resources for looking up the plethora of cannon that is out there for star wars is Wookieepedia. It is a shining example of just what kind of fan base Star Wars and SWeotE has. So we are a bunch of nerds who like to be creative (that's a big part of why we are playing your RPG).  When you have creative, intelligent fans/users, and your delving into a universe as established and well recorded as Star Wars, This kind of Crap is unacceptable.

 

I mean really.....   did ANYONE think about this???

Look at those numbers...  LOOK AT THEM DAMMIT!

I can forgive a bit of discrepancy based on the Encumbrance concept... but not this..

ZERO consistency! None of it makes any damn sense.. i tried.. i really did.. i tried to figure out your secret formula. i played math games with these numbers for days.. all i got was chewed up fingernails a broken keyboard and a weird vein thing on the side of my head.

I want to create more material. I want to add to the collective. I want to feel confident that my contributions are representative of already published material... but.. i can't .. i can't tell whats what.  I can't have any faith that you're going to stay even remotely true to what the entire rest of the star wars community has already agreed upon.

I hope there is some way that this kind of inconsistency can be addressed and resolved.

In the mean time, I'm sure I'll keep making material. I'll just tell myself that I'm focusing on the real nature of the game. Narrative Role Play.... because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how fast my ship is compared to his, or how much it can hold, or which way is up, or if 6 and 10 have the same value, as long as we're all having fun.

another bike party? more like a small get together for the cool kids.

It's important to be able to get around town, and even more important to do it in style.


Be the modern tough guy in a Kybuck Speeder Bike.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Let them hear you coming in a Quickfire Speeder Bike.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Really show you're cool and go old school in the classic Starhawk Speeder Bike.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Enter the unknown.

I have mixed feelings about Enter The Unknown.
Cool new RP stuff. It's always nice to have more suggestions and hints toward what is possible for those of us who aren't as spontaneously creative.
All three of the new Races are kind of weaksauce. The chiss get an ability that anyone (including the chiss themselves) can have a better version of for the low cost of 250 credits by simply buying a pair of electrobinoculars.
The bonuses provided to the Duros are ok.
Toydarians. seriously? they can still fall to their deaths even though they can basically FLY. and no mention of any force resistance at all.

Archaeologist is a neat career tree. I can see it being fun in more narrative role play and problem solving games. It has one or two combat-ish oriented talents that are cool but just seem out of place.
Big Game Hunter seems really cool except that it makes NO sense in the explorer career. sure, you can track a thing down but then what... explorers will have to spend lots of xp elswhere to be able to do anything once they actually do catch that prey. Also, hunter's quarry shouldn't have been limited to a specific range band.
Driver talent tree. seems familiar... seems like i saw something like this before, hmmm.. Oh yeah.. they already did this tree. Its called PILOT. ok, so pilot may be more geared toward space where as driver is geared toward planetary.. but it seems like there is TOO much overlap.

Love the idea of signature abilities in general.
Love the mechanics for gaining and 'attaching' signature abilities.
disappointed that they ONLY introduced signature abilities for the Explorer tree. Its a huge new mechanic.. would have been nice to introduce at least one for each existing career tree instead of presumably making non-explorers wait. I feel bad for those playing whichever career doesn't get a supplement book until 2014, i hope they don't really have to wait that long to see their first signature abilities.
I get that these abilities are super powerful and so you want to limit their use, but it annoys me that they use destiny. It means that if i use MY signature ability, I'm likely depriving a fellow party member of their ability to do so and that's kind of lame.

Most of the weapons are decent and interesting.. but. whats with the vibrosaw? why include it. It's worse in almost every way that the vibroaxe and in the description it even says its not supposed to be a weapon! if its a tool and not a weapon, why would you even include it in here... you could have used that space for a different Actual weapon that would have been useful to someone.
Most of the gear and equipment is cool. at least the stuff that isn't as mechanically awesome is still thematically appropriate. No complaints here.
New ships is always a good thing. Most of it is good. As you may have noticed from my shipyard entries, i rather like having more ship options. This book even released official versions of a couple ships i had already done up custom works for. My only complaint about the ships that fantasy flight has put in their books is not so much about the ships themselves but about the abstract system they use. I feel like they are just pulling speeds, silhouettes and encumbrance values out of a hat. that said, Enter the Unknown still has a decent selection of interesting ships.

Last thought on this supplement. for $29.95 I'd like to see more than 100 pages in the next one.
For value comparison.
This supplement was 93 pages of material. that means it costs  ~32.3 cents per page of material.
The Core edge of the empire rule book is $59.95 and rings in at 446 pages of material (including character sheets in the back) and while the sticker shock is bad, it seems like quite the bargain at only ~13.4 cents per page of material.
That means that Enter the Unknown was actually 240% more expensive than the core rule book!!

I love new material, and I have a lot of faith in FF games.
I just hope that the next supplement can provide a little more bang for my buck.