What's the deal with the Royal Guard stats?

In the stats for the Imperial Royal Guard, they are given 5D in Dexterity.

By the rules, the human limit for any attribute is 4D.

It is known that Emperor Palpatine hated aliens, and so he would never allow them for his personal guard (the Royal Guard). Also in the Crimson Empire series, all Royal Guards are humans.

We also know that they aren't jedis, because the emperor killed them all...

So, what have we? Non-humans? Exceptions (they are the best of the best of the best)? A plain contradiction of the rules? Did I get the rules wrong and you CAN improve above the species limit with due training?

PS: I´m talking about West End Games system, if you haven't realized.

I know you are talking about the WEG system. Yes you can go over the max but it has a risk of wasting you character point. The basics is that you try to improve you attribute like normal but you make a roll with what it would be. Mean while the GM makes a roll with the species max. If he roll higher then your attribute increases. If you roll higher your attribute stays the same and you lose all of the character points that you spent.

Where did you find this rule? I've searched in the Rule Book and couldn't find anything. Is it there?

As of revised 2nd Ed, page #35

"There is a limit to how high an attribute can go - a person can only be so smart or strong. At the end of the training time, the character rolls the new attribute die code. The gamemaster must roll the attribute's maximum (as listed in the species description in "Aliens").
"If the character's roll is equal to or less than the gamemaster's die roll, the character's attribute goes up.
"If the character's roll is higher, the attribute doesn't go up and the character gets half of the Character Points back."

Well, for me that means a human can NOT go above 4D in any attribute.
Notice: "There is a limit to how high an attribute can go."
That limit is 4D, in the case of humans.

What those rules say is that you can grow from your initial stat of, say 3D+1, up to 4D. But you can't go beyond that.

Anybody disagree?
And so, how does the Royal Guard stays...?

The rule may say only 4D and for PC creation that is an unbreakable rule. But in the case of the Royal Guards it is assumed that through cloning, genetic enhancements, and a little bit of the Force(hummm... would you think Palpatine's personal guards would have some moding?) the exception can become the rule.
Besides it makes your NPC Royal Guards bad mama-jamas to fight, a look of fear should cross the players faces when they see the red robed twink machines. Besides most experinced players will find some creative way to mow through the poor guards aways.

Or it least that is how I look at it...

- V

I hope this all helps you.

Well, it's more of an excuse than an explanation. But I guess that's all we're gonna get... WEG ignored their own rule, that's for sure, but at least you can imagina a viable reason why RG may be beyond this rule...

Any character could benefit from such rules. After all, there are rare individuals who are much better than commonfolk, so good that they appear superhuman where they're human for sure. The great thing in Gamemastering is that you don't need to comply to any rules but those which will allow you to create a universe fitting your vision. If the Royal Guard is to be a really frightening foe, then so be it.

Well said Lordban.

As i remember it there is no mention made of there being a maximum to this rule...
but offcourse the rule implies a maximum in itself...
losing the roll makes you lose half the character points...
so for going from 4 to 5 D will cost you 120 CP (assuming you win every roll...)
going higher then 5 D will cost 150 Cp...
but imagine rolling less with 5D then with 4 D ... or less with 6D then with 4D ... (three times in a row)

so theoretically this can keep going on forever but that would mean an incredible amount of needed CP ...
and giving youre players that much was never the intention of the game ...

so 5D is plausable ... but much higher then that will begin to get very difficult...