Not everyone wants to play a Jedi. Some people hate them.

FFG have already made two whole games such people might like more - EotE and AoR.

What about the non-force using companions of force users? Not counting Han, Leia, Chewie, R2, or 3po, we still have Padme Amidala, Jar jar Binks, Jan Ors, Juno Eclipse, the vast majority of the companions in Knights of the old republic and Star wars the old republic. And those are just ones someone with mostly second hand knowledge of the non-movie stuff thought of in three minutes. Non-force users are constantly in the room with full blown jedi, you can't really have a stand alone game without any .

On the balance note, My money is on force careers getting 6 career skills instead of 8 and 3 freebies instead of 4, it'll set them behind the xp curve enough that rushing force powers won't be an "I win" button.

6 careers. 3 specialties. None of them will be force related.

A Bunch of universal force specializations. a max force rating of 5 or 6. Somehow.

I don't see them releasing a book that has 18 specializations that no one cares about, and only 5–6 that matter.

If you are going to make a book about Force Users, you deliver Force Users.

Characters who start with 1 (or even 2) should balance fine with other starting characters. I don't see the issue there.

Not a book about force users. Needs to cover non force users because as I keep reiterating it needs to stand on its own. IE I should be able to play star wars using it all by its self. So just like every rule book so far it is going to have 6 careers. 3 specializations each and a bunch of force using universal specializations. That is the only thing that makes sense considering FFG has stated Multiple times each core book will be able to be played by itself and be compatible with the other books.

Not everyone wants to play a Jedi. Some people hate them.

FFG have already made two whole games such people might like more - EotE and AoR.

What about the non-force using companions of force users? Not counting Han, Leia, Chewie, R2, or 3po, we still have Padme Amidala, Jar jar Binks, Jan Ors, Juno Eclipse, the vast majority of the companions in Knights of the old republic and Star wars the old republic. And those are just ones someone with mostly second hand knowledge of the non-movie stuff thought of in three minutes. Non-force users are constantly in the room with full blown jedi, you can't really have a stand alone game without any .

On the balance note, My money is on force careers getting 6 career skills instead of 8 and 3 freebies instead of 4, it'll set them behind the xp curve enough that rushing force powers won't be an "I win" button.

Or they operate exactly how force users operate now. Just with different Universal force specializations. I don't know why people seem to insist on a force using career. If that were how they were going to do things it would have been done that way already. FFG has shown us how they do force users.

Not everyone wants to play a Jedi. Some people hate them.

FFG have already made two whole games such people might like more - EotE and AoR.

What about the non-force using companions of force users? Not counting Han, Leia, Chewie, R2, or 3po, we still have Padme Amidala, Jar jar Binks, Jan Ors, Juno Eclipse, the vast majority of the companions in Knights of the old republic and Star wars the old republic. And those are just ones someone with mostly second hand knowledge of the non-movie stuff thought of in three minutes. Non-force users are constantly in the room with full blown jedi, you can't really have a stand alone game without any .

On the balance note, My money is on force careers getting 6 career skills instead of 8 and 3 freebies instead of 4, it'll set them behind the xp curve enough that rushing force powers won't be an "I win" button.

Or they operate exactly how force users operate now. Just with different Universal force specializations. I don't know why people seem to insist on a force using career. If that were how they were going to do things it would have been done that way already. FFG has shown us how they do force users.

By that logic combat classes don't exist because Recruit is how characters get combat skills and talents. This is clearly incorrect. The only reason we haven't seen force ratings in careers before this is because force users are rare and not the focus of either of the already released books.

and if they make a force using career it will unbalance the system. Force powers are powerful. they should be expensive and they are.

Force powers would still be expensive. It's ten to even be able to use any of them, let alone buy the upgrades required to make them better than parlor tricks. The method I suggested would cost a PC a quarter of the required xp to get a universal spec anyway, as well as a significant amount of future flexibility. I think that's balanced against "You can buy some powers that start off as situationaly slightly better than a normal skill check unless you spend three times as much to boost it".

Still involves using a force using career. Which is not how they are doing things. They have shown us how they are doing things.

Where in the last two books would a force using career have fit? They aren't going to compromise the theme of a book just to show off something that they don't need to. I'm not saying you're 100% bet my life wrong, but the way you are suggesting would be saying "there's no such thing as a character who's defining feature is the force, it is only ever a tacked on feature to what you really are".

Why do they need a career for that to be the case? Stop thinking like D20.

I'm not thinking like d20. I hate d20. But a character that doesn't start with something can not have it be a defining feature of their backstory, even if it becomes central to their character arc without it being a headscratcher. It creates an unnecessary throttling of character concepts, not for balance, but for creator laziness. Sure you can say a character was always force sensitive and didn't put in the time to hone it until they get their first 20 xp, but how is that fair when the mechanic can have spent his life working in his dads repair hanger, the diplomat ccan have been groomed since birth for politics, and the combat wombat can have grown up in a gang fighting to survive?

I have always been able to start with a universal force specialty.

If it is a defining aspect of your character spend the 20 XP on having it at the start. I always do.

So why can't they just make a career with the rule "characters in this career start with 20 less xp"? That way they get things like signature abilities and a coherent theme centered around usage of the force instead of a bunch of semi random generic specs that don't have any kind of philosophy tieing them together? Out of every force user I've ever seen or heard of in any star wars story that wouldn't qualify as an exile hiding their abilities or an emergent just learning them they have been part of an all encompassing lifestyle and belief system. The write-ups about the general themes and similarities members of a given career have that both other books gives support the idea that a career is more than just a skillset. It's a combination of skills, outlook,the likely origins of your character. It would be more inconsistent to ditch that then to let a subset of careers in the book called "force and destiny" use the force without buying something like that.

One more thing. Exiles and Emergent aren't dedicated by nature, they are either beginners or rusty, thus allowing them to make sense for anyone. But a practicing member of a force tradition is neither and it would not make sense to allow joe smuggler to buy into the "lightsaber duelist" universal specialization as his first taste of the force. I would put good money on the idea that other than the likely reprinted exile and emergent, every force related spec will have "requirement force rating 1+"

But then you end up with the weird "People who are force sensitive on average have lower stats" thing going on.

I'm serious if they are going to still use the universal specialty for force trees (IF), then they should just make rules for starting with a universal specialty instead of an in career one. You pretty much end up in the same place exp wise.

I was wondering if they'd allow Force Powers to be treated as skills so the narrative dice pool can be used to explain force effects like other skills are treated.

Maybe this third core rulebook will expand on the exile, the emergent and another force career but one with the specialties we've seen in the other two books along with talent trees and other options that will bring them in line with edge or age of rebellion characters?

But then you end up with the weird "People who are force sensitive on average have lower stats" thing going on.

I'm serious if they are going to still use the universal specialty for force trees (IF), then they should just make rules for starting with a universal specialty instead of an in career one. You pretty much end up in the same place exp wise.

No we really don't. But they do sacrifice something for those 20 points. Problem is you want to have your cake and eat it too.

No we really don't. But they do sacrifice something for those 20 points. Problem is you want to have your cake and eat it too.

Tell me, other than being able to use the force mildly for the first couple of sessions, what is the difference between a character who starts as Career-Career Specialization then buys a force specialization with his first 20 points, and someone who starts Career-Force Specialization, and buys an in career specialization with the first 20 points.

And yes, if you buy your force specialization with starter xp, you will on average, have lower stats than someone who didn't.

No you dont. You will have to make a sacrifice. It does not have to be stats. I sacrifice other things. Things I can buy with XP later. I buy up stats and get the specializations i want. I might not get skills or talents to start. But that is easily remedied in a couple sessions.

Majority of starter xp really should be spent on stats. Its just too universally good. Sometimes it won't matter much because you have 20 xp left over, and no stats at 1, but on average, if you are spending 20 xp on a second specialization, you are going to have lower stats than someone who didn't.

Some people want to use the force right away for their characters for role-playing reasons, so do we think we can keep the whole spending xp on stats thing to one of the dozen or so threads about optimization or character creation?

Which was why I was suggesting allowing someone to start with a Universal Specialization rather than a in Career Specialization as their free specialization.

In the long run it makes almost no difference experience wise, which is why I was suggested it. I was objecting to the idea that anyone who wants to start with the force should have to sacrifice anything for it (though I technically still "sacrificed" something for it, your starting specialization, but it doesn't change your overall xp expenditure really), since in the long run it will make 0 difference. I'm against rules that make buying things in different orders more efficient in XP, it creates sucker choices.

I figured that it made zero logical sense for a game that revolved around force sensitives (Force and Destiny), to have to have every character who wants to be force sensitive to pay for it. I was offering a middle ground between "force careers" and "universal force specializations that you have to buy separately to be force sensitive".

This is why I think the duty/obligation analog will be 'commitment' and have a way to give starting characters who want to be force sensitive get +1 force rating and characters who don't want to be force sensitive sell the commitment off for experience or credits.

Why I say +1 is that it allows an increase, if you already have a force rating, say from a universal specialization, and will count as force rating one for buying powers.

Now, if you lose commitment and thus the +1 firce rating, you could be cutting yourself off from the force.

Not a book about force users. Needs to cover non force users because as I keep reiterating it needs to stand on its own. IE I should be able to play star wars using it all by its self. So just like every rule book so far it is going to have 6 careers. 3 specializations each and a bunch of force using universal specializations. That is the only thing that makes sense considering FFG has stated Multiple times each core book will be able to be played by itself and be compatible with the other books.

The game can be about 100% Force users and still stand on its own, just as much as the other two "incomplete" games do.

It doesn't have to be a halfsies Edge of the Empire to work.

@Emperor Norton, sorry, but saying "Force users have lower stats than everyone else" doesn't make sense to me.

It seems to me that you're using "stats" to refer specifically to characteristics...in which case, I should point out that for 10 Obligation or a Duty reduction of 10 I can have a Human with three 3's and three 2's in characteristics, Force Rating 1, and an entry level Force power. Three 3s is a standard loadout. Only thing you're sacrificing there is some extra skills or talents. But even then, complaining that Force users have to sacrifice some characteristics to be good at the Force is like complaining that Marauders have to sacrifice some characteristics to be good at melee fighting. This is the nature of character creation. You create a character that can do some things well, some things at an average level of competence, and some things poorly.

Am in missing something? I just don't think I'm understanding the complaint.

That said, I would be incredibly surprised if Force and Destiny didn't have a more streamlined mechanic for allowing characters to start with FR 1. It would certainly be balanced with EotE and AoR, but I would be surprised if they made you buy into a second specialization just to get Force Rating.

Let's walk through this:

1. In EotE, and AoR if you want to start with a Force Rating of 1, you must spend 20 xp on it.

2. Therefore, that is 20 xp less you can spend on Characterstics.

3. Therefore, people who start with a Force Rating of 1, will have lower Characteristics than other characters on Average.

People seem to be missing the "on average" part of that sentence. If you had 20 xp left after buying your other characteristics and have none at 2, then no, you are not losing any characteristics. But on average, it will be slightly lower. In fact, I would suggest that unless you run into this exact situation, never buy Emergent or Exile at start. You can always pick that up after a couple of sessions.

Yes, you could start with 30 xp sunk into force powers. Or you could buy a 4th characteristic up to 3 and then buy the force specialization and power with your early xp.

You are giving up your opportunity to start with 4 3s. (on the other hand, if you wanted to start with a 4, a 3, and the force specialization, you aren't really losing anything, since after buying the 4 and 3, you wouldn't have enough xp left over to buy another stat up anyway).

Buying something you can't buy again (outside of dedication talents) is vastly more important than buying things that you can buy early game. You are giving up that opportunity if you have to buy into a force specialization rather than it being given to you.

(Note: I am not suggesting that for EotE or AoR that it doesn't work correctly. I feel it works fine for those games, because I don't see most characters as really "starting" as Force aware. In F&D though, I really expect characters to be able to start with a Force Rating, since that is kind of the whole jest of the game, and I don't think there should be a "ok, well, in order to do what the game is about, you are docked 20xp." My suggestion of keeping Force specializations as universal rather than career specializations and then letting people pick them as their free career specialization was an alternate idea of how that could be done.)

Of course there will be a Force Rating mechanic so characters can have one at creation. It wil either be in the career taken, or, as is the case with the current Force unispecs, it will be part of the career spec you take.There will be restrictions much as there are now, like it only gives a Force Rating not adds to it