I also asked earlier if players can do no wrong...

To expound on that, I police myself all the time when advancing my characters. Am I stepping on another PC's toes? Am I going in a direction that may put me at odds with the direction the rest of the group is going in? Am I overspecializing? Underspecializing? Am I changing the general power level of the group? Am I drifting into cheeseville such that I may make other players uncomfortable?

All of these are questions I try to keep in mind when I develop my characters. Whether starting out or through advancement. I may not always verbally ask this of others. But I do hope the rest of the players at the table are doing the same.

I also asked earlier if players can do no wrong...

I certainly wouldn't say that player choice is sacrosanct. Its important, yes, but not at the expense of the group's fun. (Touchy-feely answer, I know. Not much can be done about that.)

If a player's creeping into munchkinism and it's pissing most of the room off, yeah the GM (or other players) should have a word with 'em. If the problem persists, GM should start with the house rules. (If a player then doesn't like their character, they should be allowed to rebuild the character.)

I can see how the "GM needs contrived ways to beat the Marauder's soak" guy can affect the whole group's fun; I just don't see how a pilot who's really good at piloting (Pilot/Driver) or a very good healer (Doctor/Medi) would. If anything a hyper specialized pilot is going to be bored or feel less effective more often than not; even if he can do stuff with Agility, most of his Talents aren't going to be applicable.

I can see how the "GM needs contrived ways to beat the Marauder's soak" guy can affect the whole group's fun; I just don't see how a pilot who's really good at piloting (Pilot/Driver) or a very good healer (Doctor/Medi) would. If anything a hyper specialized pilot is going to be bored or feel less effective more often than not; even if he can do stuff with Agility, most of his Talents aren't going to be applicable.

Thus, as I specifically noted above, I often ask myself if I am overspecializing at the detriment of the group, let alone my own enjoyment of the game...

That's part of why I think the pilot specs are kind of a trap unless you disproportionately engage in space/vehicle scenes.

I play a Scoundrel/Pilot/Thief. And as much as my pilot talents may not come up every session, that's OK. Because when they are needed, I can do things no one else can. I get to break the rules. I get to push the ship past its limits. And I have plenty of other stuff I can do as a scoundrel and thief that I've yet to feel useless or overspecialized. If anything, I'm probably one of the most well rounded PCs in the group.

But, we digress. None of this has anything to do with the real topic at hand...

Well, cool. Smuggler is probably my favorite career. I started one character as a Pilot and before the game died, I used my piloting stuff precisely zero times. Seems like Pilot is a better secondary spec than first, really.

None of this has anything to do with the real topic at hand...

Which is what, again?

Well, what I've been debating is the potential issue of buying similar specs and stacking issues.

To bring this tangent back around: I looked at Driver when the Beta came out. But its many similarities to Pilot put me off. Yet, one of the other players in this game wanted to take Ambassador. He being a Politico already, and wanted some of that sweet stackingness. To each their own...

Having taken the time to reconcile my fledgling misgivings, here’s a little something I noticed already that I feel doesn’t sit quite right with me…

Let’s set aside for now the fact that Medic/Doctor gets to stack Surgeon and Bacta Specialist ranks from both. Maybe that’s too much? Maybe not? But really that’s just a minor issue for some. And not at all for others.

Here’s the thing. Let’s say someone has advanced considerably in the Medic tree. They have purchased quite a few of the talents, including Stim Application , Improved Stim Application , Supreme Stim Application , Master Doctor and, of course, that ever useful and highly sought after Dedication . They've probably raised Medicine skill considerably by this point as well. So what they really need now is another point in Intellect to be even better at their chosen profession. But buying another tree - and getting to the bottom of it - can be a substantial investment in XP. Or is it?

So they cleverly decide to step into Doctor . They get 2 new career skills (Cool & Education). That’s fine. But the real trick is that all the non-rank talents they already bought in Medic get checked off in the Doctor tree for free.

The character now need only buy 2 more ranks of Surgeon (for 5 and 15 respectively – a great deal in its own right since those are 2 more ranks you want anyway) and <BAM> they already have instant access to another rank of Dedication . Because, again, they don’t have to re-buy Stim Application , Improved Stim Application , Supreme Stim Application and Master Doctor again. They already did back in the Medic tree.

The buy-in to the tree has already more than paid for itself in savings getting to what many consider to be one of the key talents in the game. That was a quick, cheap trip to another potent stat bump.

Is this a problem for you? Evidently not. Should you so easily dismiss that others may have concerns their players may be exploiting or meta-gaming a system? I’d hope not.

But to each their own…

The cheapest path to Dedication in Doctor is to drop down from Grit straight to Dedication and it costs 75xp. Cheapest path for Medic is start at Surgeon, take the middle row left to another Surgeon, then drop down to Dedication for 95xp, with a total between the two trees of 170xp

Let's try a path that includes non-ranked talents so that we can remove them from the second tree. Starting with Doctor at Surgeon and working down in an L shape in order to pick up Stim App and the Improved version puts us at 125xp to get Dedication. With Medic we can now take a more direct path to Dedication because we can skip the Stim App talents, but unfortunately we need to take a 25xp talent to reach it. We come out at 75xp, which is a 20xp improvement on the normal cheapest path, but because we spent more on Doctor trying to get those talents we end up with a total of 200xp, 30 more than if a player simply took the cheapest, most direct path in each tree.

Trying the reverse like in your example, moving through Medic while picking up the Stim App suite and Master Doctor will cost you 170xp. Now you save big in Doctor only having to pick up the two ranks of Surgeon and then Dedication with 55xp, but your grand total in this venture is even worse at 225xp.

Now this doesn't include the cost of the specs or the intrinsic value the stacked talents themselves may have to a player, but it does show that if a player is only interested in picking up Dedication, exploiting the non-ranked talents is not the cheapest/easiest way to do so.

Revanchist7,

I believe there is a flaw to your reasoning. Your math would apply if, and only if , the character wasn't already paying for and using the list of non-ranked talents in the Medic tree already. For their own value. Over time. It's not like they bought everything at once.

So its not a fair comparison in that way. Because all the player is doing by this point is buying quick access to another stat bump, at a huge discount.

Fact remains. If you are a Medic, and have advanced considerably in your tree through play over time, and down the road see this, how could you not see it that way?

Here’s the thing. Let’s say someone has advanced considerably in the Medic tree. They have purchased quite a few of the talents, including Stim Application , Improved Stim Application , Supreme Stim Application , Master Doctor and, of course, that ever useful and highly sought after Dedication . They've probably raised Medicine skill considerably by this point as well. So what they really need now is another point in Intellect to be even better at their chosen profession. But buying another tree - and getting to the bottom of it - can be a substantial investment in XP. Or is it?

So they cleverly decide to step into Doctor . They get 2 new career skills (Cool & Education). That’s fine. But the real trick is that all the non-rank talents they already bought in Medic get checked off in the Doctor tree for free.

Given they spent at least 30 xp just making the jump to the other spec tree I don't see that as a big deal, but if someone didn't like the Talent jumping avoiding xp cost, make them spend the xp on a double helping of things like Stim Application and given them a Boost die for every double tap Talent and say it simulates their extensive training/knowledge/experience in the Talent.

As a politico who has Inspiring Rhetoric, Natural Charmer and Intense Presence, I could buy into the Ambassador tree and get to Dedication with three purchases: the first row Kill with Kindness, the second row Grit, and the fourth row Dedication. This would only cost me 70 experience, or five sessions assuming 15 experience a session. For comparison, if I were to buy into Quartermaster, a tree with a direct path to Dedication, I would need 105 experience, or seven sessions. That is a noticeable difference, so I can understand Carlson's concern about people taking advantage of complementary specializations.

However, the variation in how quickly players can obtain Dedication exists even if you only allow specializations from Edge of the Empire. A Slicer needs 150 experience to unlock Dedication, while a Scoundrel only needs 75. If a player who started as a Scoundrel decided to buy into Thief and ignored everything except the path to Dedication, he could boost two stats within two sessions of the Slicer boosting one.

Of course, by doing so, the Scoundrel/Thief would be neglecting his skills and sacrificing all of the great talents on both trees in exchange for a 66 percent chance of generating an extra success on skills governed by a given characteristic. That success could be canceled by the purple, red and black dice the GM likes to throw at the players from time to time.

Even if cross-line specializations were the only way to get to Dedication more quickly than other characters, I would be fine with it. The Colonist (Politico) who dips into Ambassador for a quick path to Dedication only gains one new skill, Discipline, and has to take a few talents that might be redundant with what he already has. For example, my character would be forced to take a third rank in Kill with Kindness, which removes setback die from Charm and Leadership checks. In other words, he would become so specialized that some of his talents would rarely matter.

So instead, I am probably going to take Quartermaster or spend most of my experience on skills until the new Colonist specializations come out. I might not get a green die as quickly, but I'll have access to a wider variety of skills and talents that make me much better at negotiation, a gap in our party. I'd also get Intense Focus, which would allow me to replicate the effects of Dedication in maxed-out skills.

But if the game goes long enough, I will probably buy into Diplomat for the rapid path to Dedication, Works Like A Charm, the two ranks in Dodge, and the two ranks in Indistinguishable. This will make my character extremely specialized, but as long as I'm not outshining anyone else or creating problems for the DM, that is fine.

Of course, I could step into a combat-focused specialization so I could help us win the damage race. However, I do not think I would enjoy this. Since we have two characters with great combat skills and two with solid combat skills, I would rarely do significant damage. More importantly, I would have to choose each turn between using my character's primary ability-his charm and cunning-and his much less impressive but easier-to-apply marksmanship skills, which would increase the chance of game-halting analysis paralysis.

I could also take a specialization that would fill gaps in the party. For example, I could become a doctor to gain Medicine, a skill none of us have. However, our former Doctor's experience suggests that Medicine is rarely needed in a world full of stim packs. I would also have to stretch my character concept to explain how the human resources consultant I've been playing learned a skill that takes people years to develop in the real world.

So I'm specialized. This has made the game more fun for me, because I have to figure out a way to make the tool I've got apply in situations it wasn't designed for, like combat. Alternately, I need to come up with creative ways to use other skills that are likely to have a low difficulty (for example, I once killed an opponent by running over him with a vehicle, which the GM ruled would be an easy Piloting (planetary) check. Even with my two agility, I made it.). Since I have to come up with unusual ideas to contribute, my GM has to think harder to resolve my rolls. But when things go well, I can get the other players to laugh with mad ideas, like throwing food at a deadly but dumb gladiator so he would focus on and potentially shoot me instead of the player in the arena.

I see what Ccarlson101 is saying. The trip to get the second dedication in the Medic/Doctor example is pretty cheap/easy. In fact, you can save a couple points by going through Medic and Doctor at the same time. I think it’s something that a good GM should watch out for and I hope that FFG doesn’t make too many instances where this sort of thing can happen.

However, I don’t think that it’s a huge issue to do once. Is Dedication good? Heck yeah it’s great. Upping an attribute helps so many skills and abilities at once. But, I don’t feel that rolling another die is crazy when compared to the power new talents can provide. A better attribute is a numerical bonus but new talents cannot be expressed in numbers. They can give your character neat abilities that pure numbers cannot express.

Another reason why I don’t think it’s game breaking good is due to the costs involved in buying that additional tree. Sure, the Doctor/Medic will be **** **** **** good at healing, but the character is rather focused. A potential five ranks in Surgeon (three for the easiest route) is nothing to scoff at. But this is a non-career tree. It cost extra XP to buy into the tree. There is an opportunity cost in acquiring a tree in which you already have half the talents in. You limit your growth and run out of talents you want to purchase sooner so you have to look into buying another tree sooner. The next tree you buy into costs more than the last. So on and so forth. If it was possible for a character to just take the easy or quick paths to Dedications then they’ll end up paying through the nose for additional trees full of talents they already took or are not interested in.

However, if they come up with enough similar trees where you could combo three or four of them together to get quick Dedications, then I’ll change my tune and would talk to any player who thinks it would be a smart idea to do so. Until that day, I’m not afraid of a character combo-ing two trees for a quicker second Dedication.

However, I don’t think that it’s a huge issue to do once. Is Dedication good? Heck yeah it’s great. Upping an attribute helps so many skills and abilities at once. But, I don’t feel that rolling another die is crazy when compared to the power new talents can provide.

I actually agree, largely. I don't recall ever saying it was earth-shatteringly broken or game-breaking munchkinism (not that I'm accusing you, personally, of having said I did - just generally speaking). Just that I saw issues with it and the whole thing didn't sit well with me.

One thing I'll note is that GMs who have a problem with high-Soak Marauders need to remember that AIM also allows for called shots to impose what are essentially temporary Crit effects. While you lose the damage from the shot, you can absolutely disarm that Marauder, or keep him essentially pinned in place. With a Rival or Nemesis that can potentially do strain damage that ignores soak, you can give the Marauder some really interesting combats, while not obliterating anybody else on the team.

And that's honestly the same with anything else. It really only takes a single extra setback die to partially counter Dedication, and there are plenty of ways to get that. If your whole team does it, then Adversary takes care of that while still allowing them to feel strong against more basic enemies.

And beyond that, try taking non-combat checks further than single checks. The Modular Encounters are a great example of how you can make something interesting, and I'll mention that you can easily have "Terrain" in a social setting just as you can in a race.

Say you're having your SuperFace PC trying to charm an NPC in a crowded place. Have it take multiple checks in different circumstances--the player has to navigate the scenario to get to the topic at hand. And in that case, if its noisy and bustling, there's some setback dice for that check. As you try and get said NPC to a quieter place, he's approached by someone whose telling him about some urgent business, and then you've got to check against that to get him to stay. Throw in some other skills, like Athletics from a party member to act as a screen from the crowds, or a Computers check for your Slicer to turn the music down.

There are so many solutions that can keep things interesting without freaking out that your player is rolling an extra green or yellow die. Yes, they're going to start wracking up more Triumphs, but so what? That makes for some cool twists--the setback dice you've got the power to add, the Adversary talent, along with the occasionally well-placed Destiny point, can still provide a challenge, which is all you need--it isn't about beating the players, just about making it interesting and challenging.

However, I don’t think that it’s a huge issue to do once. Is Dedication good? Heck yeah it’s great. Upping an attribute helps so many skills and abilities at once. But, I don’t feel that rolling another die is crazy when compared to the power new talents can provide.

I actually agree, largely. I don't recall ever saying it was earth-shatteringly broken or game-breaking munchkinism (not that I'm accusing you, personally, of having said I did - just generally speaking). Just that I saw issues with it and the whole thing didn't sit well with me.

I hear ya. (And I too hope you don't think I'm accusing you of saying anything or putting words in your mouth either. My intent was to add to the conversation. Gotta love online conversations/debates. )

Actually, at first I thought you were off base but you've showed how quick the Doctor/Medic routes can be. (I've played a short term game Doctor/Medic and never noticed how well the two synergize for getting the second Dedication. My choice wasn't so much as a way to break the synergy of talents but as a way to get Brawl as a carreer skill to try out the Pressure Point combat builds.) As long as FFG keeps in mind how easy it could be to dive through trees with shared talents, and designs the trees accordingly, then we should be good. Now I wish we had this conversation during the Beta. Thank you for raising your concerns.

At least with this example the party comes out with a win for having a super good doctor. Which is good, since a lot of people see healers as no fun to play. As they say: the amount of fun you have is equal to the amount of damage you deal, and since healing is negative damage then playing a healer must be negative fun. At worst, the GM has a hard time keeping people injured after a fight, but during the fights should be more or less just as leathal.

In my opinion, The Ace Pilot spec needs to be different and thus have a new name. The Pilot spec in EotE was made for Freighters.

Starfighter pilots need more defense talents and needs them quickly. They do not need Hidden Compartments or talents that take away handling setbacks.

I'm hoping this was changed . Seeing as we now have a Saboteur and a Demolitionist spec I do not see why there can't be a Pilot and a Starfighter Jockey spec.

In my opinion, The Ace Pilot spec needs to be different and thus have a new name. The Pilot spec in EotE was made for Freighters.

Starfighter pilots need more defense talents and needs them quickly. They do not need Hidden Compartments or talents that take away handling setbacks.

I'm hoping this was changed . Seeing as we now have a Saboteur and a Demolitionist spec I do not see why there can't be a Pilot and a Starfighter Jockey spec.

You might want to take another look at your EotE book. The Pilot spec doesn't have hidden compartments or anything like that, Scoundrel does. Pilot has things like "Dead to Rights" and "Let's Ride" and "Full Throttle".

The Pilot spec in EotE was made for Freighters.

I don't think you can prove this is true.

In my opinion, The Ace Pilot spec needs to be different and thus have a new name. The Pilot spec in EotE was made for Freighters.

That wouldn't quite fit with 33% of the starting ships....

In my opinion, The Ace Pilot spec needs to be different and thus have a new name. The Pilot spec in EotE was made for Freighters.

Starfighter pilots need more defense talents and needs them quickly. They do not need Hidden Compartments or talents that take away handling setbacks.

I'm hoping this was changed . Seeing as we now have a Saboteur and a Demolitionist spec I do not see why there can't be a Pilot and a Starfighter Jockey spec.

A fighter is designed to 'fight' so really it needs more offensive talents more quickly I think, which with Dead to Rights, the pilot tree has. A freighter trying to survive and run away needs defensive talents.

As fragile as smaller craft are, stuff to aid in survivability couldn't hurt.

Maybe the ace will have their two signature abilities (assuming they do this) be:

'Deathblossom' and 'the last starfighter'

Stacking ranks of Defensive Driving seems to be the best (passive) way to survive vehicular combat, and I think it's intentional that it doesn't appear more than once per tree.

Squad Leader has 2 ranks.