Possibly Stupid Thought: SW6

It turns out that SWSE isn't actually a great fit for Star Wars. It's not the game, as such, that's the problem, but rather the level-based nature of it - it turns out that characters start way too weak, end up way too powerful, and very quickly flip between the two. There's actually a fairly short period when they resemble the characters seen in the films terribly well.

So, how about this:

1. Characters are created a 6th level, per the normal rules.
2. Each session, characters gain either one additional feat or one additional talent, alternating after each session. These can be selected from any feats or talents for which the character qualifies, as normal.
3. Instead of selecting a new talent (but not feat), a character can instead choose to "buy in" to a Prestige Class. Before doing so, he must meet all the feat/talent/species/etc restrictions for joining the class (but not level, BAB, or similar). The character adds the talent trees available to the Prestige Class to those he has access to from his 'regular' classes. In effect, he's trading immediate power for a greater breadth of power later on.

And that's it.

Basically, what this means is that characters start of in the "sweet spot" for the game, and they then remain there, permanently. They're not too fragile, but neither are they so powerful that they can laugh off blaster bolts (as happens later). And yet they do gain in power, albeit slowly (and without escalating the numbers).

As far as I can see, this works pretty well for all characters in the films, except for Luke and Anakin, who are the only two who gain large amounts of power as the films go on. But since those two basically break the paradigm anyway, causing all sorts of problems from an RPG perspective, I'm not sure that's a huge problem.

(Incidentally, the above is somewhat based on the old "E6" materials for D&D 3.5e, hence the name.)