I'm looking for examples of talents that really aren't very good, and possible suggestions for how to make them more reasonable, so the players will actually want to take them.

Black Market Contacts

The smuggler in my group brought up the cost increase from Black Market Contacts earlier today: Why would they want to pay 250% the price for the goods (Black Market Contacts 3)? Odds are, faced with those prices, they will wait, use placeholder gear, and get a replacement somewhere else, when they're able to find a guy who has it at regular market value.

Perhaps if that +50 was a +15 or something it would be more reasonable.

Hidden Storage. I don't know how to make it better but a good start would be to rename it Toughened or Grit imo.

Hidden Storage is pretty terrible. The idea of it is fine - that the character is good at hiding things - but the execution is terrible. We've just made it so that any attempts to find contraband hidden by the character is upgraded by the ranks of Hidden Storage. We only allow this to apply to contraband hidden in/on objects, not concealed on one's person.

Hidden Storage. I don't know how to make it better but a good start would be to rename it Toughened or Grit imo.

my thief/force sensitive exile character thinks this talent is worth every xp (and more) if he should ever obtain a lightsaber.

Hidden Storage, not necessarily the worst thing to have... but quite possibly the worst explained and defined talent in the book.

I'd like to nominate Respected Scholar for just how ridiculously specific and environment based the talent is. It's like a filler where at the end of the book someone was forced by development to make up a non combat, adventuring class and hit their "well **** it, I'm out of ideas".

"Bob is designing disrupter pistols, Joe is making spaceships, my feet hurt, I'm making up my 6th grade teacher, its too cold in here, other teachers liked them I guess."

Any talent that eliminates a single black die on a small subset of skills and costs more than 15XP. Solution: make them cheaper.

While those talents do come up it's not like it's even every other session and a talent that costs 20XP+ better be booyah or widely applicable.

Hidden Storage. I don't know how to make it better but a good start would be to rename it Toughened or Grit imo.

my thief/force sensitive exile character thinks this talent is worth every xp (and more) if he should ever obtain a lightsaber.

You can buy smuggling compartments on ships and droids. You can raise your Deception skill and hide it on yourself. Hidden Storage sucks.

Any talent that eliminates a single black die on a small subset of skills and costs more than 15XP. Solution: make them cheaper.

While those talents do come up it's not like it's even every other session and a talent that costs 20XP+ better be booyah or widely applicable.

I wish there was a cap for how many times you can take a talent. I hate when I'm taking the third or fourth of the same talent, especially for those black die removal talents. A cap would suck for the good talents, like the WT ST and Soak improvement ones, but might be needed for balance. Or maybe rule the cap that a talent is optional to take after you've already taken it so many times.

Black Market Contacts

Why would they want to pay 250% the price for the goods (Black Market Contacts 3)? Odds are, faced with those prices, they will wait, use placeholder gear, and get a replacement somewhere else, when they're able to find a guy who has it at regular market value.

Sounds like the problem isn't the talent, but that the GM isn't putting the player in a situation to use it. (A thing that can make a LOT of Talents bad)

This talent isn't for continuous use for the purchase of mundane items, it's for acquiring black market goods that you really, really need right now for the adventure you are currently playing through.

If you need a disruptor, or missile tube, or thermal detonator, all items that are Restricted, and really black market only, being able to lower the difficulty to find such a weapon can well be worth the price increase. After all, with sufficient successes the GM will probably lower the price back down a bit anyway.

Think about it, the Disruptor Rifle is 5k, and has a Rare of 6. So just finding one is a hard check, plus modifiers. With three ranks in BMC, yeah it's now got a base cost of 12500 but it's also now Rare 3, a base easy streetwise check to find. So yeah, that's money, but if the adventure you're playing right now is based around the goal of assassinating someone, that's money well spent.

Yah, I agree, BM contacts is for the must have high rarity item. Although given how infrequently it would be used it probably shouldn't be ranked, it just feels like an xp sink the way it is. The rarity decrease should be linked maybe to Streetwise or something and the price increase linked to the number of rarity steps you choose to drop the item.

The price increase is linked to how many steps you decrease rarity. The increase just happens to be pretty high.

Hiding items on yourself is listed as a use of Stealth, not Deception.

The price increase is linked to how many steps you decrease rarity. The increase just happens to be pretty high.

Plus, if you only have one rank and the item's Rarity is odd, you pay more for no difference in the difficulty of the roll. I'm not sure why they didn't make Rarity from 0 to 5 and using that number directly as the number of Difficulty dice in the check. Instead you have a number that you have to use on a chart to get another number. I can't see the advantage of doing it that way.

The way I have been doing 'half-steps' is to upgrade one die. So rarity of 6 would be 3 purple and rarity of 7 would be 2 purple + 1 red. There is probably a mechanical reason not to do that but it's fun and interesting so I went with it

Strong Arm. It's not that I think it's mechanically bad, it's just anyone in reality can throw a grenade medium range, so it's just that concept I find silly.

There are several in AoR that are crud too. The one that gives you a single blue die to stealth (if they aren't immune to Force, if you are Force Sensitive, if you climb out on a limb of the talent tree for that second rank).

Any of the talents that let you roll a force die but punish you for rolling the "wrong" symbol. Mathematically, the net effect on those talents is zero, so you spent XP on a net zero proposition.

Yah, I agree, BM contacts is for the must have high rarity item. Although given how infrequently it would be used it probably shouldn't be ranked, it just feels like an xp sink the way it is. The rarity decrease should be linked maybe to Streetwise or something and the price increase linked to the number of rarity steps you choose to drop the item.

(Quoted you cause it made me think it through)

Wait a minute....

The Talent doesn't say you count the rarity as being lower.... it says you decrease it....

So wouldn't that mean that purchasing black market trade goods and reselling them could actually net you higher returns in the long run, since it would alter the purchase->sale rarity, thus increasing the trade multiplier?

I mean lets say the difference between pickup and dropoff is already 2. Wouldn't using two ranks of BMC make the difference 4, thus giving you a x4 multiplier on the sale price? If you take this with a good Streetwise to-sell roll you'd be looking at a better profit margin to legal goods...

Example:

Black Market

Purchase:

Base: 750 credit, Rare 6

Locality modifier 0

2 Ranks of BMC = 1500 credits, Rare 4

Sale:

Base: 750 credit, Rare 6

25% Sale 187.5 credits

3 Successes for 75% sale 562.5 credits

Locality modifier +2, +2 more for BMC at purchase planet = x4 sale price = 2250 credits

Minus Purchase Price = 750 credit profit

Legal Market

Purchase:

Base: 750 credit, Rare 6

Locality modifier 0

Sale:

Base: 750 credit, Rare 6

25% Sale 187.5 credits

3 Successes for 75% sale 562.5 credits

Locality modifier +2 = x2 sale price = 1125 credits

Minus Purchase price = 375 credit profit

Right?

Did I just figure this talent out?

Maybe, butunless your GM finds gun running from system to system interesting he's probably not going to let you do that.

You'll probably get a "No, you can't find that item anywhere'

Barrage is lousy for a Bodyguard.

The talents where you spend a Triumph to do something that Triumph should already do. (Yes, I know the rules say Triumphs aren't as useful as I think. )

Barrage is pretty weak period, you get maybe one round of use, maybe once in awhile, and it's ranked. I also agree, never understood why Bodyguard gets Barrage and Merc gets Point Blank, always though that should be flip flopped.

Not sure what Triumph Talents you mean though, all of them? Smooth Talker is pretty cool once its ranked up. Improved Stunning Blow is great.

Hiding items on yourself is listed as a use of Stealth, not Deception.

I noticed this too but didn't want to get nitpicky. I'm also curious about a smuggling compartment for droids.

I don't think it's that bad of a talent, you can hide an item with a pretty dang high difficulty to find it without having to make a roll. It's also the type of thing you can wave in a GMs face if they're really trying to push for you not to have access to an item. You can have a really high Stealth skill, but I'd imagine difficulty upgrades and setback would really add up if you get strip-searched.

Yah, if you're strip searched I don't know what 'compartment' you're hiding your Lightsaber in, but they found mine......

Maybe your character is really fat. Like that morbidly obese prisoner who was found hiding a pistol in his rolls of blubber.

And who knows how much stuff a wookie could hide in his matted fur.

And who knows how much stuff a wookie could hide in his matted fur.

Which is why the Wookiee gets tranqed/stunned and then shaved.

Maybe your character is really fat. Like that morbidly obese prisoner who was found hiding a pistol in his rolls of blubber.

And who knows how much stuff a wookie could hide in his matted fur.

Just imagine what she's hiding!