I am not sure high soak is a concern when we are talking of Force and Destiny.

Jedi are really bad asses, I have never seen a Jedi falling because of blaster fire. This is a game where we expect lightsaber fights and duels and a lightsaber has breach 1. For these nice duels to happen the guys will really need high soak values, otherwise one hit and the duel is done.

In brief, it makes sense thematically that Jedi have huge soaks, this or huge defence values. In my opinion high soak makes the game faster (less dice rolling).

I think the rules for Cortosis Armor mitigate the need for high soak. In order to resist the Breach 1, you would need a Soak of 10+, that seems pretty absurd. Cortosis armor takes care of the Breach 1 problem easily enough.

So does a phalanx of unarmed minions.........whatever is the poor, poor Jedi to do when he/she has to cut down a wall of my unarmed followers in cold blood to get to me??...............muahahahahahahaha!!

Yeah, been thinking more on the proposed change to Parry and Reflect, and using a base 1 with a +2 per rank works just as well and doesn't require a significant change to the language.

As for having Improved Reflect in additional trees, a lot of that is based on the film examplars of each style being able to return blaster file but with zero indication that they so much as looked at Shien. Obi-Wan's personal philosophy is so against the principles of Shien that he'd never utilize it, and you've got Qui-Gon and Yoda who pretty much focused on Ataru, with the later having fully mastered the style to the point that he was able to overcome its inherent weaknesses.

I do agree with leaving Niman where it is in terms of not having Improved Parry and Improved Reflect, but I put the idea out there if anyone wants to incorporate my suggested revisions as a house rule for their game.

As for triggering Improved Parry and Reflect, I'm drawing on the hours of testing I did for my Deflect Blasters talent, and relying on Threat or Despair to show up just never sat right, as they occurred too infrequently to justify paying a decent amount of XP to get those talents; I've played through entire sessions where the NPCs never rolled a Despair or enough Threat that could allow those talents to be triggered. That was why I went with a competitive check for the longest time before moving to using the Force die. Although, given that the Form specs generally don't have a Force Rating talent, perhaps the activation cost should just be a single Force Point, leaving the option open for a character with only one Force Die to choose if they want to convert that dark side pip into a usable Force Point or not. Would be in line with an aggressive action such as a direct counterattack possibly leaving one open to the lure of the dark side...

But how many characters are going to get Cortosis for their armor, or even wear armor that can be modified to have the Cortosis attachment?

Cortosis is supposed to be fairly rare by the time of the Rebellion Era, so not every PC should be decked out in Cortosis armor.

I agree with your concerns, but Cortosis comes up a lot in the equipment and nemesis chapter. It's a viable solution and should not be easily dismissed. PCs are going to want to get their hands on it.

But alas, I am thread-jacking. My apologies. Everyone can return to their regularly scheduled playtesting.

\I have never seen a Jedi falling because of blaster fire.

You didn't watch Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith did you?

Yeah, been thinking more on the proposed change to Parry and Reflect, and using a base 1 with a +2 per rank works just as well and doesn't require a significant change to the language.

As for having Improved Reflect in additional trees, a lot of that is based on the film examplars of each style being able to return blaster file but with zero indication that they so much as looked at Shien. Obi-Wan's personal philosophy is so against the principles of Shien that he'd never utilize it, and you've got Qui-Gon and Yoda who pretty much focused on Ataru, with the later having fully mastered the style to the point that he was able to overcome its inherent weaknesses.

I do agree with leaving Niman where it is in terms of not having Improved Parry and Improved Reflect, but I put the idea out there if anyone wants to incorporate my suggested revisions as a house rule for their game.

As for triggering Improved Parry and Reflect, I'm drawing on the hours of testing I did for my Deflect Blasters talent, and relying on Threat or Despair to show up just never sat right, as they occurred too infrequently to justify paying a decent amount of XP to get those talents; I've played through entire sessions where the NPCs never rolled a Despair or enough Threat that could allow those talents to be triggered. That was why I went with a competitive check for the longest time before moving to using the Force die. Although, given that the Form specs generally don't have a Force Rating talent, perhaps the activation cost should just be a single Force Point, leaving the option open for a character with only one Force Die to choose if they want to convert that dark side pip into a usable Force Point or not. Would be in line with an aggressive action such as a direct counterattack possibly leaving one open to the lure of the dark side...

I don't think it's all that hard to get Threats and Despairs to show up if a players wants that to happen with frequency, and if they're willing to cross spec, and they're willing to be patient and rack up the xp.

You get into a tree like BH/Gadgeteer and get Jury Rig and Armor Master/Improved and you can take a regular set of threads to Defense 3. Get the right crystal for a saber and add 2 ranks of Deflection. That's 5 Setbacks to a pool. Then consider Diplomat Ambassador, 2 ranks of Dodge and a rank of Range Defense. Put some points in Sense and there's a couple more Difficulty upgrades.

That takes a Difficulty pool of PP and turns it into RRR BBBBBB , for the cost of 3 Strain. I would think Threats and Despairs would be lying around with regularity.

I like the idea of changing Parry & Reflect to this and it makes additional ranks of them a nicer investment. Currently I have no worries about a PC having high ranks in either Parry or Reflect because - 1) it is quite a high XP expenditure on their part, 2) the strain cost is still a limiting factor on how many times they can actually use it, and 3) quite often I would expect the PCs to be facing off against more than one opponent so there is always the danger of focus fire, which we have seen from the movies can take out even jedi masters.

As for Improved Parry/Reflect the only thing I could think is either make it two Threat or a Despair and move them further down the tree, or perhaps make it an active ranked talent where you spend 3 strain to get the automatic hit with additional ranks in Improved Parry/Reflect reducing the strain cost by 1 to a minimum of 1.

I don’t think adding Improved Parry/Reflect to Niman Disciple fits well with how that style has been described, in fact I would go so far as to suggest maybe removing Parry and Reflect from the first tier and replacing them with something along the lines of Well Rounded and Smooth Talker.

Yeah, been thinking more on the proposed change to Parry and Reflect, and using a base 1 with a +2 per rank works just as well and doesn't require a significant change to the language.

As for having Improved Reflect in additional trees, a lot of that is based on the film examplars of each style being able to return blaster file but with zero indication that they so much as looked at Shien. Obi-Wan's personal philosophy is so against the principles of Shien that he'd never utilize it, and you've got Qui-Gon and Yoda who pretty much focused on Ataru, with the later having fully mastered the style to the point that he was able to overcome its inherent weaknesses.

Well, that's part of why when I suggested the breakdown I stuck Improved Reflect in Shii-Cho: all of those characters probably studied it to some degree on their way to their specializations. Besides, even if the characters are a master of a style, they've likely trained in others, so expecting some cross-classing makes sense to me. Put it in too many, and it becomes kind of automatic; put it in too few, and one specialization becomes too much of a must have.

I am not sure high soak is a concern when we are talking of Force and Destiny.

Jedi are really bad asses, I have never seen a Jedi falling because of blaster fire . This is a game where we expect lightsaber fights and duels and a lightsaber has breach 1. For these nice duels to happen the guys will really need high soak values, otherwise one hit and the duel is done.

Did you not watch Revenge of the Sith, or Attack of the Clones?

If not, please review footage from the battle of geonosis and the execution of order 66.

I don't like the idea of increasing the rate of accumulation for Parry/Deflect. It's important to realize that these characters, careers, and talents are not meant to represent high level jedi. The are basic initiates. and even taking one rank of parry allows you to mitigate just under half of the most basic success of the a basic LS hit.

Increasing the rate of accumulation dramatically increases the amount of min/maxing that can occur, and the top end level of power that can be achieved. it also widens the gulf between non FR characters and FR characters.

I do agree that reflecting blaster bolts should be easier, though what is nice is that the talents as presented in the beta have a special synergy with side step, defensive stance, and dodge. If you have side step, and use it in conjunction with deflect, gaining that despair is suddenly much more possible.

I suggest that these specializations not be looked at individually but as a piece of character development and that there needs to be an opportunity cost for for all of these choices. making deflect, parry, and their improved versions too powerful removes that opportunity cost. and that is really dangerous for that "balance" thing I hear about.

If one were to make reflecting easier, I would take a cue from the protect mastery upgrade and allow an attack reduced to 0 damage also be reflect-able. this would allow low damage blasts to be reflected with some moderate ranks, and it would make deflect and parry ranks even more attractive.

It's too easy to want deflecting and reflecting (and of course their parry equivalents) to be strong, but this can easily make characters that look like saga characters, instead of FFG characters. remembering the tone of this game is important, and not to just ham fist "jedi good/LS good" into a certain expectation.

Given the damage values involved with most weapons in this game, it's going to take a whole lot of ranks in Parry and Reflect to completely stop all damage from an attack, which in most instances is going to mean taking additional Lightsaber Form specs, which also entails that you're giving up the option to increase your Force Rating in most instances, which also curtails just how effective some of those high-end talents that rely on Force Rating are going to be, particularly if one wants to employ Sense's defensive Control Upgrade as well as make use of those talents.

I got a feeling that most PCs that take one of the Form specializations are going to take a spec that offers Force Rating as their second spec more often than not, and that we're not going to see insane amounts of damage mitigation until PCs are well into the 500+ XP range, at which point they're likely to be square off foes that are going to have little trouble hitting them. And at 500 or more XP, I'd say the PC has earned the right to start calling themselves a Jedi.

Since this change is reducing the number of Parry and Reflect talents at the same time it makes each talent more effective, this change is a low level boost to force users, by letting them spend less XP for the same effectiveness of talent, and giving them more options in it's place.

This is probably a good thing, but some may disagree.

Another point for those thinking my proposed change to how the damage mitigation bonus calculates would result in PCs being able to negate too much damage too quickly...

There's nothing in place to stop a PC from pulling the same trick with the Toughened talent, pushing their Wound Thresholds into such high numbers that the bad guys would literally have to focus all their firepower on that one character in order to take them down.

Another point for those thinking my proposed change to how the damage mitigation bonus calculates would result in PCs being able to negate too much damage too quickly...

There's nothing in place to stop a PC from pulling the same trick with the Toughened talent, pushing their Wound Thresholds into such high numbers that the bad guys would literally have to focus all their firepower on that one character in order to take them down.

I usually try it with a Construction Droid. 4-5 Brawn, Laminate, droid soak increase, and a couple soak increasing talents, and soon even blaster rifles can barely scratch your paint. A droid Gageteer Marauder who gets Armor Master and both enduring talents in the marauder tree has armor can reduce a LIGHTSABER's damage by 1. (along with 2 ranks of Feral Strength, 4 ranks of toughened, and Jury Rig, just as incidental bonuses from the talent dive. And for 50 more XP you can get Dediation to raise Brawn to 6, and 60 XP will get you Mechanic for another Enduring talent)

Another point for those thinking my proposed change to how the damage mitigation bonus calculates would result in PCs being able to negate too much damage too quickly...

There's nothing in place to stop a PC from pulling the same trick with the Toughened talent, pushing their Wound Thresholds into such high numbers that the bad guys would literally have to focus all their firepower on that one character in order to take them down.

I usually try it with a Construction Droid. 4-5 Brawn, Laminate, droid soak increase, and a couple soak increasing talents, and soon even blaster rifles can barely scratch your paint. A droid Gageteer Marauder who gets Armor Master and both enduring talents in the marauder tree has armor can reduce a LIGHTSABER's damage by 1. (along with 2 ranks of Feral Strength, 4 ranks of toughened, and Jury Rig, just as incidental bonuses from the talent dive)

A pretty extreme example, but it does prove that it's not difficult to make a hellaciously broken character build without even taking a step towards Force and Destiny. And in your droid's case, there reaily isn't a downside as all the talents it's taking feed into the sole concept of being a nigh-unstoppable beat stick.

Slightly better optimized version.

Knight level (+150) Droid (175) Technition: Mechanic, Gageteer (-30), Gunner (-40)

Brawn 5 (-140), all other stats 1

Toughened, Solid repairs, Enduring (-30)

Toughened, Jury Rigged, Armor Master (-30)

Durable, Toughened, Brace, Enduring, Durable (-55)

Soak of 11, -20 to crits against him, and 21 wounds. Also he fixes things. (2 free ranks of mechanics)

I've got a few Knight-level builds of both FaD 'saber-monkeys implementing my revised calculation method for Parry and Reflect, those being an Ataru Striker, a Soresu Defender, and a Shii-Cho Knight, ras well as some EotE and AoR builds with the same XP and the suggested guideline of 10K for gear.

Off hand, the Togruta Ataru Striker has (thus far) wound up with a +1 increase to Parry and Reflect (2 ranks of each) compared to the book versions, the Cerean Soresu Defender a +2 on Parry (3 ranks) and a +1 on Reflect (2 ranks), and the Human Shii-Cho Knight has a +1 Parry (2 ranks) and +3 Reflect (replaced the Column 1/Row 1 instance of Parry with Reflect, otherwise Reflect wouldn't be available at all). So not seeing any humongous bonus except for the Soresu Defender at this level, and that fits in with Soresu being all about defense and deflecting attacks while waiting for the opportune moment to strike. They've each got basic lightsabers for weapons, and spent little to no XP on Force powers; they're all varying flavors of beatsticks.

The three other combatants are a Wookiee Hired Gun/Marauder using a vibro-ax, a Human Bounty Hunter/Gadgeteer (major gunslinger vibe going with twin heavy blaster pistols), and a Zabrak Soldier/Commando with a heavy blaster rifle and vibro-knife. Going to run a few mock combats in the (hopefully) near future, using both the current versions of Parry/Reflect and my modified versions, and see how it shakes out.

I think I'm gonna have to approve of what Mr. Morningfire is doing here, the lightsaber trees do seem somewhat padded and adding some improved reflect and so on would make them more diverse and interesting.

That said I feel like parry and reflect should be folded into one talent call it block or what not that has parry as it's basic function and then say sense or enhance 1 as a perquisite to activate the ability to reflect blaster fire. My reason for this is that if you can reflect a highly energised plasma (blaster) bolt then you can parry a sword or axe. Also it would add some more incentive for the lightsaber forms to dip into force powers which I feel is sorely lacking.

Thanks for the nod of support UncleArkie.

As for combining them or requiring a specific Force power, on that I'm going to have to disagree. While I did combine Block and Deflect into a single talent for Saga Edition, here it makes more sense that the two be separate, as damage mitigation is a much bigger deal in this system than it was in Saga Edition. That and I'm not keen on forcing players to be a Force power they might have zero interest in taking, though of the two I guess requiring Sense is the lesser of the two evils since that almost equates to "basic Force perception" in some cases, though I suppose a similar case could be made for requiring the Foresee power.

Then again, Parry is currently written to be usable by characters that aren't Force-sensitive, like MagnaDroids, which helps make them a very credible threat against the 'saber-swinging crowd.

Shii-Cho Knight

Column 1/Row 1 - replace Parry with Reflect

Column 4/Row 5 - replace Parry with Reflect

Reasoning : Shii-Cho is the foundation on which all the other Forms were built, so it seems odd that it has no means of dealing with blaster fire when that was one of the things it was initially developed to deal with. It's considered something of an archaic Form, but still viable in more modern times, a contrast to Makashi which fell out of favor/use given its focus on melee combat.

Since Shii-Cho was inspired from older melee weapon combat, so you don't really parry blaster fire with an ordinary sword. So I guess it was more focused on feet work and strikes... A reason why I would put more standard defensive maneuvers instead of parry, so more Sidestep , Dodge or Defensive Stance .

I really like your idea of "1 + 2 per rank" instead of the RAW "2 + 1 per rank". I feel that the RAW makes buying a new rank of Parry or Reflect not so meaningfull.... Gaining just 1 more damade reduction is moot, especially if you have to spend 3 strain. In comparison, Armor Master from Gadgeteer gives the BH 1 more point of Armor for 15xp and he doesn't have to spend strain to get this bonus... People might just say that 1 more point of Armor doesn't do **** against a Lightsaber, but for the cost of a Lightsaber, the BH can get a Cortosis Weave and laugh off the Lightsaber.

I just add an idea... Keep the Parry and Reflect talents Form specific, so you couldn't use the Soresu Parry with the Ataru Parry.... That way, players couldn't stack to 10-15 the ranks of Parry of Reflect. In line with this idea, i'd give the talents multiple use equal to force rating. So let's say you have 2 ranks of Parry, you would reduce damage by 4 (RAW) for 3 strain ; if you character has FR 2, he could spend 6 strain and reduce damage by 8.

Dunno if it's a good idea...

What do you guys think ?

Thanks for the nod of support UncleArkie.

As for combining them or requiring a specific Force power, on that I'm going to have to disagree. While I did combine Block and Deflect into a single talent for Saga Edition, here it makes more sense that the two be separate, as damage mitigation is a much bigger deal in this system than it was in Saga Edition. That and I'm not keen on forcing players to be a Force power they might have zero interest in taking, though of the two I guess requiring Sense is the lesser of the two evils since that almost equates to "basic Force perception" in some cases, though I suppose a similar case could be made for requiring the Foresee power.

Then again, Parry is currently written to be usable by characters that aren't Force-sensitive, like MagnaDroids, which helps make them a very credible threat against the 'saber-swinging crowd.

I think I wasn't clear enough, sorry about that. What I wanted was for everyone to be able to take the parry talent and if you then have sense you "unlock" the reflect part of the talent.

Thanks for the nod of support UncleArkie.

As for combining them or requiring a specific Force power, on that I'm going to have to disagree. While I did combine Block and Deflect into a single talent for Saga Edition, here it makes more sense that the two be separate, as damage mitigation is a much bigger deal in this system than it was in Saga Edition. That and I'm not keen on forcing players to be a Force power they might have zero interest in taking, though of the two I guess requiring Sense is the lesser of the two evils since that almost equates to "basic Force perception" in some cases, though I suppose a similar case could be made for requiring the Foresee power.

Then again, Parry is currently written to be usable by characters that aren't Force-sensitive, like MagnaDroids, which helps make them a very credible threat against the 'saber-swinging crowd.

I think I wasn't clear enough, sorry about that. What I wanted was for everyone to be able to take the parry talent and if you then have sense you "unlock" the reflect part of the talent.

Ah, okay, that makes a bit more sense.

I'm still thinking that Parry and Reflect should be kept separate, as paying 10 XP to get Sense or Foresee or whatever power is used is a cheap cost to be able to negate both melee and ranged damage with a single talent.

Regarding Shii-Cho and blaster deflection, the following was taken from Wookieepedia on their article about Shii-Cho under the Training and Practice section:

"As the most simplistic form, Shii-Cho was the first form taught to initiates within the Jedi Order. Form I training provided the basic knowledge of the sword-fighting principles and blast-deflection skill that was required for practice of all the other forms.

In order to teach students to draw upon the Force rather than rely on their senses, early level Shii-Cho blast-deflect training was conducted with a blindfold, forcing the initiate to rely upon his instincts. Later training was conducted through the use of sequences and velocities, the continuous repetition making the moves instinctive reflexes. These training regimens were carried over to all following lightsaber combat forms, which used similar methods."

I've emphasized the parts about blaster-deflection training, with the article even citing that Luke's early training in ANH aboard the Falcon was him learning the fundamentals of Shii-Cho.

Now that said, I could see Shii-Cho not getting Improved Reflect, since the training was more of defense against blaster fire than turning it back on an opponent. I'm doing some re-thinking of my proposed changes to the specializations for my initial feedback report to FFG, and that's something I'm bearing in mind. If anything, may just keep the extra Parry in there since Shii-Cho was originally designed with melee combat in mind.

Edit: Huh, for some reason I had thought I'd suggested that Shii-Cho get Improved Reflect, but apparently I just added a couple ranks of Reflect to account for that above tidbit that I posted from Wookieepedia.

Think I missed that part...
Thanks Donovan for pointing that out.

I'm gonna write a feedback too... lots of things to say....
I think the more that say the same the more likely they will do it...

I found it odd that every saber form doesn't allow you to block/redirect bolts. As has been mentioned a TON of Jedi do it and it makes sense as a part of everyone's training (hard to be peacekeepers if you're constantly shot!). I have the feeling this is one of the aspects FFG is looking pretty closely at, but I could be wrong, of course.

I'd also love to get their thinking as to why they chose to do it the way they did. Not as a critique but so I can have a "theory springboard" for my own stuff, if I homebrew.

....As well as the fact that most of the Jedi that died at Geonosis at the start of the Clone Wars were Niman practitioners, thus proving that while the Form was fine for when Jedi were simply keepers of the peace, it was sorely lacking when forced into intense combat situations.

where is that written? im not aware of any official cannon source that delineates the dead at geonosis by their saber technique.

I am not sure high soak is a concern when we are talking of Force and Destiny.

Jedi are really bad asses, I have never seen a Jedi falling because of blaster fire. This is a game where we expect lightsaber fights and duels and a lightsaber has breach 1. For these nice duels to happen the guys will really need high soak values, otherwise one hit and the duel is done.

In brief, it makes sense thematically that Jedi have huge soaks, this or huge defence values. In my opinion high soak makes the game faster (less dice rolling).

if you haven't seen a jedi fall because of blaster fire you need to watch episode 2 at the end.

anyways guys good points all around but if we are worried about the talent trees not having enough reflect or improved reflect or the talent trees being padded with reflect (and yeah im seeing that too) what happens if we make the reflect ability part of the lightsaber skill with a prerequisit of force sensitivity? for instance:

LIGHTSABER (BRAWN)

"text from the original skill description" reflect: prerequisit: force sensitive when hit by a ranged attack while weilding a lightsaber suffer 3 strain to reduce damage by 3 plus 2 per rank of Lightsaber. (i like your idea too morningfire) damage reduction cannot exceed [value] improved reflect (i like your idea too Khaine)when an attacker shooting a defender with the lightsaber skill and force sensitivity generates 4 (or possibly 5) threat minus the defenders ranks in lightsaber (to a maximum of 4 (maybe 5)) the defender having spent 3 strain (maybe spend an additional 3 strain? or maybe cut that strain part out of improved reflect alltogether?) can chose to hit one target at up to medium range with the same damage as the original hit.

my thoughts: i agree with what you guys have said about reflect being something that should be unique to lightsabers. Other force users that take the specializations in this book should still be able to take parry without being "jedi" or using "lightsabers". Also i think using a lightsaber to reflect should be very common among jedi. Every jedi we see in the movies uses a lightsaber when they have to use a weapon, and a lightsaber is available, and when they do use that lightsaber they usually end up reflecting things. I dont know of any case in official cannon where a jedi used something other than a lightsaber to block a shot but i could be wrong. anyways im tieing the reflect and improved reflect abilities to the lightsaber skill, this way any specialization can use it with force sensitivity so we dont see jedi consulars that cant reflect blaster bolts. even though we do see *consular like* jedi reflecting blaster bolts in the cannon. the problem i see with this is someone taking ace from EOTE then taking ranks in lightsaber and taking force sensitivity

as for what to do with those old reflect entries and improved reflect i don't know. im sure in some cases it could be replaced with a force point. in other cases we could have a talent that allows a skill that isnt a career skill to become a career skill.

You've got to remember that Jedi Characters cannot have a better power curve then the other careers from EotE or AoR. So you can't put too much power into one skill (lightsaber) to reduce the number of talents the character has to buy to become more able.

I'm afraid the talents Parry and Reflect, by RAW, could lead to a power creep since they all stack... so you could have 21 Parry or 11 Reflect (for the right price) for only 3 strain each. I think the strain cost should increase with the potential soak gained, much like dodge or sidestep or defensive stance need to spend 1 strain per rank to upgrade opposing difficulty check.