Yeti: Knockdown comes to mind. I can find more for you later, but knowledge specialization is another one.

Those are talents that require triumphs, so you are "required" to have skill investments in those to make the most (or any really) use from them, and their effects are pretty lame compared to improved reflect.

There is a general current (not you specifically Yeti) of Jedi power creep, and how we think these things should be reflected in the game. But for game balance first and foremost I think improved reflect is well designed (Aside from the fact you can get it without actual getting reflect, which is problematic at best). With the exception of adding a destiny point option somewhere to give more control to the players.

In the case of Knockdown and Knowledge Specialiation, both of those are built around skills that the character (9.5 times out of 10) is going to be improving those skills anyway, even without those talents.

Yeti: Knockdown comes to mind. I can find more for you later, but knowledge specialization is another one.

Those are talents that require triumphs, so you are "required" to have skill investments in those to make the most (or any really) use from them, and their effects are pretty lame compared to improved reflect.

There is a general current (not you specifically Yeti) of Jedi power creep, and how we think these things should be reflected in the game. But for game balance first and foremost I think improved reflect is well designed (Aside from the fact you can get it without actual getting reflect, which is problematic at best). With the exception of adding a destiny point option somewhere to give more control to the players.

In the case of Knockdown and Knowledge Specialiation, both of those are built around skills that the character (9.5 times out of 10) is going to be improving those skills anyway, even without those talents.

Are you saying you arnt trying to increase your characters defence anyway, 9.5 times out of 10?

Yeti: Knockdown comes to mind. I can find more for you later, but knowledge specialization is another one.

Those are talents that require triumphs, so you are "required" to have skill investments in those to make the most (or any really) use from them, and their effects are pretty lame compared to improved reflect.

There is a general current (not you specifically Yeti) of Jedi power creep, and how we think these things should be reflected in the game. But for game balance first and foremost I think improved reflect is well designed (Aside from the fact you can get it without actual getting reflect, which is problematic at best). With the exception of adding a destiny point option somewhere to give more control to the players.

In the case of Knockdown and Knowledge Specialiation, both of those are built around skills that the character (9.5 times out of 10) is going to be improving those skills anyway, even without those talents.

I was going to say essentially the same thing.

For Knowdown, if you're not investing ranks in the related combat skill, you don't pick up the talent, and the same goes for Knowledge Specialization (also, as I said earlier, it's easier to acquire more proficiency dice than it is to add more challenge dice to your defense, so relying on Triumphs isn't as limiting as relying on Despair, and the same goes for advantage vs. threat since offense increases faster than defense). Improved Reflect isn't relying on ranks in an associated skill, where you pick up the talent if you're using those ranks, and don't if you aren't, it doesn't have any direct link to other talents or skills that are required to make it work, and in this case, it's pushing you to invest in Defensive Stance, Sidestep (not even in the same specialization), Dodge (also not in the specialization), or Sense (a costlier investment to get 1 challenge die than someone using, say, Knockdown, has to invest to get 2 proficiency dice, and costlier to get 2 challenge dice than getting 3 proficiency dice). And note that Improved Parry is not a Force talent, so Sense may not even fit with the character who has Improved Parry.

Yeti: Knockdown comes to mind. I can find more for you later, but knowledge specialization is another one.

Those are talents that require triumphs, so you are "required" to have skill investments in those to make the most (or any really) use from them, and their effects are pretty lame compared to improved reflect.

There is a general current (not you specifically Yeti) of Jedi power creep, and how we think these things should be reflected in the game. But for game balance first and foremost I think improved reflect is well designed (Aside from the fact you can get it without actual getting reflect, which is problematic at best). With the exception of adding a destiny point option somewhere to give more control to the players.

In the case of Knockdown and Knowledge Specialiation, both of those are built around skills that the character (9.5 times out of 10) is going to be improving those skills anyway, even without those talents.

I was going to say essentially the same thing.

For Knowdown, if you're not investing ranks in the related combat skill, you don't pick up the talent, and the same goes for Knowledge Specialization (also, as I said earlier, it's easier to acquire more proficiency dice than it is to add more challenge dice to your defense, so relying on Triumphs isn't as limiting as relying on Despair, and the same goes for advantage vs. threat since offense increases faster than defense). Improved Reflect isn't relying on ranks in an associated skill, where you pick up the talent if you're using those ranks, and don't if you aren't, it doesn't have any direct link to other talents or skills that are required to make it work, and in this case, it's pushing you to invest in Defensive Stance, Sidestep (not even in the same specialization), Dodge (also not in the specialization), or Sense (a costlier investment to get 1 challenge die than someone using, say, Knockdown, has to invest to get 2 proficiency dice, and costlier to get 2 challenge dice than getting 3 proficiency dice). And note that Improved Parry is not a Force talent, so Sense may not even fit with the character who has Improved Parry.

Which is why I feel Shien Expert needs a rework to include far more of that kind of talent, even at the cost of most of the actual Parry and Reflect talents. That would make it a defensive style like Sorensu, in an entirely different way than Sorensu, potentially leaving a hole in your own defenses (low parry/reflect ranks) to have a better chance of countering the opponent' strike. (more black and red dice = more threats and despair)

Here goes a new idea: why not use mor of Defensive Training to help activating Improved Parry?.
Also, in order to maintain the balance between parrying/reflecting, there should be a new talent:

Deflection Training
Activation: Passive
Ranked: Yes
When the character wields a Lightsaber weapon, that weapon gains ranks in the Deflection item quality equal to the character’s ranks in Deflection Training (this replaces any ranks in Deflection the weapon already has).

This talent should appear in the more defensive specialization trees (Soresu, Niman and Shien), and it would help to increase the chance of activating Improved Reflect. Doing this would work well along with the changes to Parry/Reflect ratio (1 +2/rank,as Donovan proposed), as some of the Parry/Reflect in the spec trees should be removed to prevent LS absorbing too much damage. Also, more specs could have access to Improved Reflect, as everyone seems to agree that many Jedi have that power.

I have altered all of the spec trees at my game, and it seems to work fine. For those who may worry about game balance, you can see my analysis' summary on the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/02rhln0hwql9laz/F%26D%20LS%20Forms.xlsx?dl=0

Yeti: Knockdown comes to mind. I can find more for you later, but knowledge specialization is another one.

Those are talents that require triumphs, so you are "required" to have skill investments in those to make the most (or any really) use from them, and their effects are pretty lame compared to improved reflect.

There is a general current (not you specifically Yeti) of Jedi power creep, and how we think these things should be reflected in the game. But for game balance first and foremost I think improved reflect is well designed (Aside from the fact you can get it without actual getting reflect, which is problematic at best). With the exception of adding a destiny point option somewhere to give more control to the players.

In the case of Knockdown and Knowledge Specialiation, both of those are built around skills that the character (9.5 times out of 10) is going to be improving those skills anyway, even without those talents.

That's a circular and self serving argument. Of course there are skills and talents that improve other talents.. that called synergy. and many (like know:specialization and knockdown) require investments in other areas, which you will need to take to make optimal use of them.

If I'm playing as a sage, I may have not interest in knowledge skills or social interactions, but to make use of the talents I HAVE to take to get FR3, I have to invest in those relevant skills (and have an intellect/presence sufficient to produce proficiency).

If I want to Knock someone down, I not only have to take the knockdown talent, but ranks in a skill (I can't simply rely on a large stat to get 4-5 ability dice). worse, If I'm a fringer (EotE) in order to take dodge, I HAVE to take Knockdown, which means if I don't have ranks in those combat skills, it's a dead talent (and for 20 xp!).

So your argument isn't really a valid one, concerning the activation of improved reflect. there are several talents that are not fully useful in a vacuum. They require investment in other talents. And as I previously pointed out, you can actually get good odds of activating improved reflect from a starting character, which is more than I can say for most Jedi concepts.

So I was thinking....
What all can upgrade incoming attacks?
Dodge
sidestep

defensive stance

What else?

I was not re-listening to the Order 66's podcast covering the release of the FaD Beta with Sam Stewart where GM Chris mentions the Misdirect Force Power and how it would work with Reflect (Improved) and noticed the little bit about committing Force Dice to create {Threat} equal to Force Dice committed on all attacks.

Very cool.

What would also be very cool is if there was a talent that went something like this:

Intuitive Lightsaber Defense

Activation: Active (Manueuver)

Ranked: Yes

Trees: Shien Expert (maybe Soresu Defender)

Force talent. When wielding a lightsaber weapon, the character can take the Intuitive Lightsaber Defense maneuver, suffering 1 strain and committing a number of {Force Dice} no greater than his Force rating, or his ranks in Intuitive Lightsaber Defense. He then upgrades the difficulty of all combat checks targeting him by an equal amount. The character suffers one strain at the beginning of each of his turns in which these dice remain committed.

That's a circular and self serving argument.

And yours are just as circular and self-serving, so say hello to the pot, Mister Kettle.

If you don't see a problem with a PC having to invest in other specializations and talents just to make use of a talent they purchased in a specific tree, that's your perogative. But there's enough discussion here to demonstrate that enough folks do think there is a problem, even if you don't.

One notion to help with the generating of the necessary Threat to trigger Improved Parry/Reflect might be to instead tweak the Defensive Training talent, so that instead of just providing a rank of Defensive, it instead provides a rank of Defensive and Deflection, but requires a Melee or Lightsaber weapon

Since the Deflection quality simply improves the character's ranged defense by one when using a weapon, it'd help with being able to use those two talents, particularly for Shien Expert while not requiring a massive rework of the tree, other than replacing the Column 4/Row 4 instance of Reflect with another Defensive Training so that the character can up their melee and ranged defense by 2 without having to go digging into other specializations.

And it is kinda cinematic to see a person using a non-lightsaber weapon to "deflect" incoming ranged attacks, be it thrown weapons, slugthrowers, or even blaster fire. And much as I dislike the concept, the TCW series did have Mandalorian guards using their staves (force pikes?) to actually deflect blaster fire, and since said series is canon, there's precedent for enabling non-Force users to use their weapons for some degree of benefit vs. ranged attacks.

That's a circular and self serving argument.

And yours are just as circular and self-serving, so say hello to the pot, Mister Kettle.

If you don't see a problem with a PC having to invest in other specializations and talents just to make use of a talent they purchased in a specific tree, that's your perogative. But there's enough discussion here to demonstrate that enough folks do think there is a problem, even if you don't.

That's true, mister kettle (save for the circular part, that's held entirely within your own argument), but as I have shown through several examples of talents stacked in Edge and Age the game designers clearly do not agree with your stated thesis. Simply by design through two other core books, it's clear that they do not mind an implicit required synergy between talents, skills, and other game aspects.

And if you can not see that, that is your prerogative. My only reason for pointing this out in the first place was to encourage discussion, and challenge ideas placed forth. Note how I pull examples of previous game design, and evidence of effectiveness (in the form of statistics, incomplete as they may be). You have presented sample populations as well, which you have even admitted, present a reasonable rate of return on redirection with a moderate investment.

And at this point we have impass.

I have to agree with the synergy aspect. Two ranks of dodge and the sense upgrade really go a long way. I also think if they intended to change it wholesale they would have not bothered clarifying the talent write up in the first update.

I have to agree with the synergy aspect. Two ranks of dodge and the sense upgrade really go a long way. I also think if they intended to change it wholesale they would have not bothered clarifying the talent write up in the first update.

Well, for the Ataru Striker, that's fine, as they get two ranks of Dodge. Also fine for the Soresu Defender, at least where Improved Parry is concerned since they've got two ranks of Defensive Stance.

It sucks for Shien Expert, who has no talents that upgrade the difficulty of ranged attacks (they've got Defensive Stance, but no Improved Parry), or Shii-Cho Knight who can't upgrade the difficulty of any attacks, melee or rangeds. Both of these get an Improved version of Reflect or Parry (respectively) yet the specialization doesn't have a built-in means of increasing the attacker's difficulty and thus giving them better odds of triggering those talents; at best they've got Defensive Training, which really only helps the Shii-Cho Knight and even then a single setback die isn't that big a help, since it's only got a 1 in 3 chance of generating a Threat. Niman Disciple doesn't have any difficulty upgrade talents either, but since they don't have Improved Parry or Improved Reflect, it's a bit of a moot point there.

Makashi Duelist at least gets Feint as well as Defensive Training, and with sufficient ranks in Lightsaber they should be able to trigger said talent fairly often, though it relies on the attacker continuing to attack the Makashi Duelist.

Of course, if the changes to the specs I suggested are made, then that leaves Shii-Cho Knight and Soresu Defender in a bit of a lurch where Improved Reflect is concerned.

Yes, the Sense power works quite well to provide additional upgrades to the attacker's difficulty, but I don't like the notion that a character (especially those who've taken Shien Expert and Shii-Cho Knight as their initial 'saber spec) should have pay what amounts to an XP tax and be practically required to take the Sense power, needing to spend at least 20 XP to be able to upgrade the difficulty of one attack once, or a total of 40 XP to upgrade the difficutly of two attacks twice. It's also enforcing that to be an effective 'saber combatant (at least if you want to use those particularly talents), you pratically need to take the Sense power. One of the gripes I had with Saga Edition and how they split negating melee and ranged attacks into two separate talents was that you had a lot of Jedi PCs that in the early levels looked identical in terms of talents; 1st level was either Block or Deflect, 3rd level was the one you didn't take, and 5th level was Redirect Shot. And even with the Sense upgrades in place, it's not a sure thing that they're going to matter in terms of getting that Despair (which is probably more likely than generating 3 Threat without further outside help from party members).

At this point in time, I think the best solution would be to drop the required Threat from 3 to 2, which has the benefit of making it more likely that a PC without access to Sense will have the option to use Improved Parry or Improved Reflect more often while also not requiring a massive revamp of the existing rules regarding those talents.

i think you're still looking at this in a vacuum.

Say a party has a guardian (body guard), an aggressor (who has spread into Shien) and a protect focused sage character.

The aggressor moves up scaring the crap out of the enemy. the body guard moves up and guards. the sage or throws up a force bubble. then the troopers shoot.

with the group synergy, that aggressor can take a ton of damage, generate threat/despair quite often, and god forbid the sage has the mastery upgrade. And these are all abilities easily within the range of a knight level group of PCs (and I left one out. too).

In a vacuum, yes it looks underpowered, but with a dash of experience (and yeah, I'm calling knight level a dash, as that is about where a young jedi knight would be, which is where I expect to see redirected shots) and in a group setting, it can actually get to be quite powerful. and once it gets powerful, it just keeps getting better.

(further) Example: Togruta Shien spec. use starting xp to get brawn 2 (20xp), and get improved reflect on shortest path, with additional 5 xp reflect (45xp). Cross spec into hunter (30xp). Shortest path to both sidesteps and the 5 xp rapid recovery (115xp) (that's 210 total xp. Add sense for maximum defense (40 xp), and that is a starting knight level character. This character can spend a manuever to use sidestep, which will upgrade ranged attacks (w/sense) a total of 4 times. On a medium ranged attack, that would mean that there would be a 23% chance of generating a despair on any given hit (and infact, despairs slightly increase the odds of being hit, as when they come up, they are only -1 success). If a team mate had bodyguard or the protect power (for the defense upgrade), there is a solid chance RAW that any blaster bolt that even hit would be redirected. If it took only 2 threat, this character could redirect almost every shot that hit it.

And this character has lots of room for growth. It still has supreme reflect to pick up, FR, dedication, and sixth sense in hunter. it's a character that would lightsaber attack with 2 ability and 1 prof (not bad for having no real focus in offense) and could use soft spot for bonus damage. And two ranks of rapid recovery for getting back the strain expended in a fight.

Not a perfect character, but it's another example of how if you wanted to, it's easily within reach of characters to be fierce at redirecting shots with the talent as written.

i think you're still looking at this in a vacuum.

Say a party has a guardian (body guard), an aggressor (who has spread into Shien) and a protect focused sage character.

The aggressor moves up scaring the crap out of the enemy. the body guard moves up and guards. the sage or throws up a force bubble. then the troopers shoot.

with the group synergy, that aggressor can take a ton of damage, generate threat/despair quite often, and god forbid the sage has the mastery upgrade. And these are all abilities easily within the range of a knight level group of PCs (and I left one out. too).

In a vacuum, yes it looks underpowered, but with a dash of experience (and yeah, I'm calling knight level a dash, as that is about where a young jedi knight would be, which is where I expect to see redirected shots) and in a group setting, it can actually get to be quite powerful. and once it gets powerful, it just keeps getting better.

(further) Example: Togruta Shien spec. use starting xp to get brawn 2 (20xp), and get improved reflect on shortest path, with additional 5 xp reflect (45xp). Cross spec into hunter (30xp). Shortest path to both sidesteps and the 5 xp rapid recovery (115xp) (that's 210 total xp. Add sense for maximum defense (40 xp), and that is a starting knight level character. This character can spend a manuever to use sidestep, which will upgrade ranged attacks (w/sense) a total of 4 times. On a medium ranged attack, that would mean that there would be a 23% chance of generating a despair on any given hit (and infact, despairs slightly increase the odds of being hit, as when they come up, they are only -1 success). If a team mate had bodyguard or the protect power (for the defense upgrade), there is a solid chance RAW that any blaster bolt that even hit would be redirected. If it took only 2 threat, this character could redirect almost every shot that hit it.

And this character has lots of room for growth. It still has supreme reflect to pick up, FR, dedication, and sixth sense in hunter. it's a character that would lightsaber attack with 2 ability and 1 prof (not bad for having no real focus in offense) and could use soft spot for bonus damage. And two ranks of rapid recovery for getting back the strain expended in a fight.

Not a perfect character, but it's another example of how if you wanted to, it's easily within reach of characters to be fierce at redirecting shots with the talent as written.

Also if you wear armor you add a setback die and stand behind a waist high crate for another setback die. So now at medium range 2 purple gets upgraded to RR R BB

Also if you wear armor you add a setback die and stand behind a waist high crate for another setback die. So now at medium range 2 purple gets upgraded to RR R BB

The most recent beta update reworded cover to not stack with defense rating granted by armor. This makes it more consistent with the previous 2 core rule books.

Also if you wear armor you add a setback die and stand behind a waist high crate for another setback die. So now at medium range 2 purple gets upgraded to RR R BB

The most recent beta update reworded cover to not stack with defense rating granted by armor. This makes it more consistent with the previous 2 core rule books.

I was gonna point that out...

The best defense you can get is A Force Sensitive Exile with a Curved Hilt Lorrdian Gemstone Lighsaber... That's gonna be 3 ranks of Defensive, 2 ranks of Deflection, 1 rank in Sixth Sense and 1 rank in Superior Reflexes, for a total of BBBB against Melee, and BBB against Range....

I don't think you can go higher than this.

Anyway... I think Improved Reflect and Parry are good the way they are... maybe just add the option to spend 1 Destiny point to trigger them. If you want to up your chances to trigger them, invest in defensive powers like Dodge and Sense power upgrades with a Curved Hilt Lorrdian Gemstone Lightsaber.

I think these talents should be considered both inside and outside of the so-called "vacuum," where as some are content to simply look at the "well if you combine it with a whole bunch of other stuff."

In regards to talents, the majority of them are not reliant upon talents from other specializations in order to work. For instance, the Full Throttle talent, found in the PIlot and Driver specs. Said talent has upgrades that improve the talent, but are found within that talent tree, and don't require the character to purchase another talent tree to make sure they can make use of those talents on a reliable basis, and it makes use of a skill that's a career skill for both specs. With the exception of Fringer, the Knockdown talent isn't reliant on additional talents to be useful, simply ranks in Melee, which most characters that are going to use Knockdown are going to buy anyway.

I noted above the specs that aren't too badly screwed over since they've got abiltiies already built into the spec that allow them to use Improved Parry a bit more reliably via defensive upgrades. Shien Expert by itself is hosed since it has next to nothing to add defensive upgrades vs. ranged attacks, and currently that's the only spec that offers Improved Reflect. As I've stated before and others have elected to ignore, a Shien Expert pretty much has an XP tax if the player wants the ability to use Improved Reflect, since without a means to reliable upgade the difficulty of an attack roll and thus no chance of a Despair coming up, they're stuck hoping for the 3 Threat, which against a reasonably capable adversary (2 profiency, 1 ability) isn't going to happen very often, especially at Medium Range and is fully impossible at Short Range. I'm going to go right ahead and say it, but setting up a specialization with a rare talent and then all but requiring a character with that spec to have to go outside that spec to gain the resources necessary to use that talent is simply bad design. It'd be akin to setting up the Marauder with all these great talents that affect melee combat and then not giving them Melee or Brawl as bonus career skills and then attaching the spec to Fringer, which also doesn't offer any combat skills as career skills.

Maybe some folks missed the memo, but a part of this Beta testing is not only testing the synergy between the new material and existing material as well as how elements of the new material work together, but also testing how the new material stands on its own. And right now, Improved Parry and especially Improved Reflect do not stand very well on their own. Again, no talent should have to practically require that you purchase a bunch of unrelated talents or Force powers just to make it work. Requiring a skill check (like Full Throttle or Inspiring Rhetortic or Scathing Tirade) is fine, since those skills can be used for plenty of other things than just activating the talent.

Improved reflect is not reliant on any other talents. It is however significantly easier to get it to go off with things like sense, dodge, sidestep. As those all help it go off more reliably.

Improved reflect is not reliant on any other talents. It is however significantly easier to get it to go off with things like sense, dodge, sidestep. As those all help it go off more reliably.

Oh no? It's impossible to activate Improved Reflect against attacks at short range without some outside help, and incredibly unlikely at medium range.

Ask yourself this question: would you pick up Improved Reflect on a character that doesn't have Sense, Dodge, Sidestep or an ally with Bodyguard? If they never pick up those other abilities?

Improved reflect is not reliant on any other talents. It is however significantly easier to get it to go off with things like sense, dodge, sidestep. As those all help it go off more reliably.

Oh no? It's impossible to activate Improved Reflect against attacks at short range without some outside help, and incredibly unlikely at medium range.

Ask yourself this question: would you pick up Improved Reflect on a character that doesn't have Sense, Dodge, Sidestep or an ally with Bodyguard? If they never pick up those other abilities?

Remind me, how is it that a jedi can even put a saber in front of a blaster bolt to deflect it, let alone reflect it at a specific target? Lorewise, I mean?

Persoanlly, I feel that Shen needs to lose ranks in parry and gain ranks of sidestep, but other than that its fine.

One notion to help with the generating of the necessary Threat to trigger Improved Parry/Reflect might be to instead tweak the Defensive Training talent, so that instead of just providing a rank of Defensive, it instead provides a rank of Defensive and Deflection, but requires a Melee or Lightsaber weapon

Since the Deflection quality simply improves the character's ranged defense by one when using a weapon, it'd help with being able to use those two talents, particularly for Shien Expert while not requiring a massive rework of the tree, other than replacing the Column 4/Row 4 instance of Reflect with another Defensive Training so that the character can up their melee and ranged defense by 2 without having to go digging into other specializations.

And it is kinda cinematic to see a person using a non-lightsaber weapon to "deflect" incoming ranged attacks, be it thrown weapons, slugthrowers, or even blaster fire. And much as I dislike the concept, the TCW series did have Mandalorian guards using their staves (force pikes?) to actually deflect blaster fire, and since said series is canon, there's precedent for enabling non-Force users to use their weapons for some degree of benefit vs. ranged attacks.

If Defensive Training gives Defensive +1 and Deflective +1, it would be too powerful. I think there should be two separete talents for each item quality. But I think theses talents should add to an item's preexisting Defensive or Deflection, not replace them. If not, these talents would be quite underpowered compared to Sixth Sense and Superior Reflexes, for example.

Improved reflect is not reliant on any other talents. It is however significantly easier to get it to go off with things like sense, dodge, sidestep. As those all help it go off more reliably.

Oh no? It's impossible to activate Improved Reflect against attacks at short range without some outside help, and incredibly unlikely at medium range.

Ask yourself this question: would you pick up Improved Reflect on a character that doesn't have Sense, Dodge, Sidestep or an ally with Bodyguard? If they never pick up those other abilities?

Medium range. 2 purple. Wearing armor 1 defense. That is the potential for 5 threat. or 1 failure 4 threat and so on. Is it likely? no. If I want t be good at it would I spend other talents to improve my odds? yes i would. But does it require other stuff to make it work? no. jut to make it more reliable.

Improved reflect is not reliant on any other talents. It is however significantly easier to get it to go off with things like sense, dodge, sidestep. As those all help it go off more reliably.

Oh no? It's impossible to activate Improved Reflect against attacks at short range without some outside help, and incredibly unlikely at medium range.

Ask yourself this question: would you pick up Improved Reflect on a character that doesn't have Sense, Dodge, Sidestep or an ally with Bodyguard? If they never pick up those other abilities?

Medium range. 2 purple. Wearing armor 1 defense. That is the potential for 5 threat. or 1 failure 4 threat and so on. Is it likely? no. If I want t be good at it would I spend other talents to improve my odds? yes i would. But does it require other stuff to make it work? no. jut to make it more reliable.

That's a slim possibility of 5 threat on its own before you even consider advantages canceling out some of those, and since your attacker is likely to be rolling better/more dice than 2 purple and a black, that likelihood plummets.

You also didn't answer my question: would you pick up Improved Reflect if you had no plans to pick up Sense, or go into a tree with Dodge or Sidestep?

To reiterate: Why would you think a character with 15 xp invested in a single talent SHOULD be able to reflect bolts at short range?

Truly, if you look at the jedi that reflect back blaster bolts in the clone wars and films, it's quite minimal. They are all experienced characters, with lot's of other abilities and defenses. Least skilled redirection I can think of is obi-wan in TPM, and he is basically ready to be a "knight" so he probably has a defensive ability or two.

This is the kind of question where in saga someone might ask "why should I need a high UtF skill to defelct blaster bolts? Why can't I just do it?" or in the OCR "why do I need a large base attack to deflect blaster bolts, why can't I just do it?" In every system there are going to be things that elevate the power of an ability to be more effective, and since FaD doesn't have traditional leveling structures, this is it.

In the end, the talent works minimally on it's own (see my above posts). With a tiny investment in abilities that are also useful, the talent becomes a force multiplier. That force multiplier increases geometrically as you increase your defenses, and so increasing the viability of the talent at early stages creates an overpowered talent at later stages.

I like the suggestion of just adding sidestep to the shien tree. Say in place of that grit talent that's right next to improved reflect. That would solve a lot of this in one easy swap.