So I've been hearing complaints from my players about how the Spec Trees are assembled, as well as some complaints about specific talents. I figured I would ask about them before I consider making houserules to make my group happier.

1. W-Shaped Talent Trees:

What is the logic behind the lines that connect the talents? Is there any real kind of game balance there?

Our scoundrel is unhappy at the prospect of having to go all the way to the bottom of the tree and then all the way back up to get convincing demeanor and black market contacts, which as he pointed out "are the same talents I got for 5 points, so are clearly not powerful capstone abilities".

Anyone have any idea why some of the trees are set up this way?

It's to slow progression down otherwise you blast through the trees too quickly. No problem house ruling around it but realize the shelf life of the characters are vastly reduced.

Most of the trees also have thematic reasons or are divided to create different sub-classes. Like slicer is shaped very oddly to represent having to invest a lot of time and energy to become a really proficent hacker. And politico is clearly split between buffer and debuffer.

As for ranked talents existing at different points in a tree it's at least partially to show that you can spend a little bit of time to become ok at time but generally if you want to be great at things typically a large amount of time and energy has to be spent.

I think it's a game balance thing mostly. They are trying to prevent people from lightly dipping into specs. That's the sort of thing in 3.x D&D that drove DMs nuts. The guy with 2 levels of 6 different classes that all formed Mega-Voltron! He could pwnanate all comers and bottle root bear while he did it.

Personally, I say don't play with the D-bag who would make this character in the first place, but having a few checks and balances makes sense.

At the end of the day, the cost to buy all the talents in a tree is the same. Few players will want to complete a tree, but most will get close. That tends to even things out for the guy who had to purchase things in a circuitous route.

At 4+ specs the cost to acquire them is getting prohibitive, and can really slow the advancement of a character. That makes the guy who was surfing specs to cherry pick the best and cheapest talents slow way down.

So I've been hearing complaints from my players about how the Spec Trees are assembled, as well as some complaints about specific talents. I figured I would ask about them before I consider making houserules to make my group happier.

1. W-Shaped Talent Trees:

What is the logic behind the lines that connect the talents? Is there any real kind of game balance there?

Our scoundrel is unhappy at the prospect of having to go all the way to the bottom of the tree and then all the way back up to get convincing demeanor and black market contacts, which as he pointed out "are the same talents I got for 5 points, so are clearly not powerful capstone abilities".

Anyone have any idea why some of the trees are set up this way?

They must've decided that that access to good Black Market Contact should be reserved for experienced Scoundrels. Sure, every Scoundrel worth his salt will have a contact, which is why the first one is 5xp. However, only a Scoundrel who has been around a while would have the time to build up his contact list to be able to find stuff faster. Which is why they hid the other two. Takes a bit of XP to get to so the Scoundrel is more seasoned.

Personally, I like the design of the trees that force you down a more narrow path. It shows the narrow skillset that the spec would have until the character knows more about what they are doing and can pick their own talents.

Since the trees are small and it's expensive to dip into too many trees, it's hard to screw up a character by taking the wrong talent choices. Anyone here play Final Fantasy X? IIRC, the Japanese and American Sphere grid (read talent tree) was more directed for each of the characters. The design was to help create powerful characters. The European grid was more open, which was cool because it was easier to give any character anything you wanted. However, it was easier to ruin a character. Specializing too much or not giving the right abilities. (Such as only taking Magic Power for casters when they need some HP love every once in a while to not die from a single hit.) This is why I like the limited direction on the talent trees. It helps ensure the character comes out the way it should and that I as a player don't over look something and make a bad choice that goes against game design.

Our scoundrel is unhappy at the prospect of having to go all the way to the bottom of the tree and then all the way back up to get convincing demeanor and black market contacts, which as he pointed out "are the same talents I got for 5 points, so are clearly not powerful capstone abilities".

His logic is flawed. The tree's capstones are really Dedication, Soft Spot, and Natural Charmer. Having to double back and spend more XP to get more ranked Talents in no way implies that those second or third iterations are more valuable singularly (though in sum, they can be quite potent). He also really shouldn't be complaining in a Spec with a 75-XP-total straight beeline to Dedication either. Play Slicer or Trader before you b**** about how trees are set up

Player in question here.

I'm not actually super concerned with getting Convincing Demeanor 3 and Black Market Contacts 3 so much as I'm just wondering why half of my talent tree is locked out until after I've overcome half the capstones. None of the post-capstone abilities are especially amazing. You'd certainly not bat an eye at them being where they are and costing as much as they do were it not for the fact that you need to spend over 100 experience in prerequisits to get to them.

There's what, 36 specializations between EotE and AoR? Some of those are duplicates, I think. At a quick count, of these 36, 8 have trees which branch in such a way as to allow you to go back 'up' the tree. Squad Leader, Agitator and Sharpshooter all make sense here with these little paths representing cheap one-talent dead ends. But what's the logic on requiring a Scientist to spend 200 experience on prerequisits for their second rank of Speaks Binary - a low-utility talent which they can take the first rank for at first level for 5?

Scientist, Slicer, Quartermaster and Scoundrel (and Trader, for that matter) all seem poorly designed in this regard. Large portions of these trees seem arbitrarily locked away and the number of options available to players suffers as a result. While I can see an argument for restricting access to the very juicy Master Merchant, I don't think you could make such an argument for most of the rest of the junk in there.

Am I just not allowed to be mediocre until I've become amazing first? I'd genuinly like to hear the reasoning behind these unusual design decisions.

Player in question here.

I'm not actually super concerned with getting Convincing Demeanor 3 and Black Market Contacts 3 so much as I'm just wondering why half of my talent tree is locked out until after I've overcome half the capstones. None of the post-capstone abilities are especially amazing. You'd certainly not bat an eye at them being where they are and costing as much as they do were it not for the fact that you need to spend over 100 experience in prerequisits to get to them.

There's what, 36 specializations between EotE and AoR? Some of those are duplicates, I think. At a quick count, of these 36, 8 have trees which branch in such a way as to allow you to go back 'up' the tree. Squad Leader, Agitator and Sharpshooter all make sense here with these little paths representing cheap one-talent dead ends. But what's the logic on requiring a Scientist to spend 200 experience on prerequisits for their second rank of Speaks Binary - a low-utility talent which they can take the first rank for at first level for 5?

Scientist, Slicer, Quartermaster and Scoundrel (and Trader, for that matter) all seem poorly designed in this regard. Large portions of these trees seem arbitrarily locked away and the number of options available to players suffers as a result. While I can see an argument for restricting access to the very juicy Master Merchant, I don't think you could make such an argument for most of the rest of the junk in there.

Am I just not allowed to be mediocre until I've become amazing first? I'd genuinly like to hear the reasoning behind these unusual design decisions.

Then you should probably send an email to the designers, none of us made the game.

I've seen the devs post here periodically, does that not happen anymore?

I do agree that it was a weird design decision.

I'm sure if he sends and email and asks he will get an answer. I can speculate, everyone here can speculate, but if he wants an answer an email is the only real way to get feedback from FFG staff. It could come up in one of those podcasts and it isn't a bad question it might get asked.

My own speculation like I previously said is to slow progression, or possibly encourage some specs to spend more on Skills as opposed to Talents because maybe the spec was balanced that way. All just speculation though.

I'm sure if he sends and email and asks he will get an answer. I can speculate, everyone here can speculate, but if he wants an answer an email is the only real way to get feedback from FFG staff. It could come up in one of those podcasts and it isn't a bad question it might get asked.

This actually has already come up (indirectly) on the O66 podcast. Either Jay or Sam described the layout of the trees as intentional. I believe they discussed the Slicer tree specifically. Now I'm paraphrasing and therefore may not get the context perfect, but my understanding was that the choices they made were intentional to increase the costs of some talents while not making the talent itself cost more XP. /paraphrase

I think of this example (again from Slicer). It has three ranks of Grit at 5, 10, and 15 XP. The first rank is an easy 5XP grab. Plenty of trees have this type of thing; no biggie. Beyond that, you will have to pour a lot of XP into your specialization in order to get more ranks of Grit. The devs apparently prefered this model. Some of it may be a page layout/design thing. Rather than having the trees widen as you get deeper, each level has four talents with the same cost, but FFG could get the same effect of a pyramid shaped tree by folding the thing in on itself and restricting the paths you can take.

I prefer the "rectangle" layout just for the look. It makes each specialization have an almost identical look on the page. It feels like it's a cleaner design to me.

$0.02

I will say though: some trees are incredibly strong. Anything that gives Dedication for a straight-shot 75 XP is pretty awesome. The combat oriented trees are great even if they don't have a fast line to Dedication. Marauder's Talent synergies are stupid good.

I will say though: some trees are incredibly strong. Anything that gives Dedication for a straight-shot 75 XP is pretty awesome. The combat oriented trees are great even if they don't have a fast line to Dedication. Marauder's Talent synergies are stupid good.

Gadgeteer I think is the platinum standard for combat. Make yourself far more defensive and more offensive from both range and hand to hand combat. It even manages to sneak in some social potential via Coercion.

I agree Gadgeteer is a no-brainer for anyone who wants a blanket increase to defense and soak as well as offensive options. It's a really, really good tree.