No Soldier, the beta says that for Knight level play you just give 150 xp after charcter creation, 300xp aren't mentioned anywhere. Though the GM is surely free to give them if they need it, Maelora did that in her game.

Rakaydos, i believe that Obi-Wan had much more than 150xp in Epi 1, more likely 300-500. I imagine him having a FR 3, and that requires a second non combat specialization, plus he is obviously deep into ataru striker. As Force power he is fairly deep into Move (he gets to the Force push ability) and Enhance (jumps and force speed at least) and i'd expect him to have sense with an upgrade at least.

My bad. It was the "gains an additional 150 XP" that threw me.

@ Lareg: The old Legends lore actually did bear out the idea of Obi-Wan having so much XP by Ep 1, if only due to the sheer number of pre-Ep 1 adventures that he went on (as did Qui-Gon, with a corresponding amount of XP gained by Qui-Gon too). It reminds me of the talk about how the infamous EotE/AoR lightsabers are basically FaD lightsabers with FaD mods/upgrades tacked on.

No Soldier, the beta says that for Knight level play you just give 150 xp after charcter creation, 300xp aren't mentioned anywhere. Though the GM is surely free to give them if they need it, Maelora did that in her game.

Rakaydos, i believe that Obi-Wan had much more than 150xp in Epi 1, more likely 300-500. I imagine him having a FR 3, and that requires a second non combat specialization, plus he is obviously deep into ataru striker. As Force power he is fairly deep into Move (he gets to the Force push ability) and Enhance (jumps and force speed at least) and i'd expect him to have sense with an upgrade at least.

But he doesn't actually need that much to do any of that stuff. The force powers he uses only total around 65 XP (and that for most of the film, some stuff that he does later in the film can include xp gained in the first two sessions/acts) including starter xp that leaves Obi with over 200 XP to work with.

While you certainly CAN stat him as a 500 XP monster, the point is that with +150, careful play, and decent rolls you can still do nearly everything you see in the film.

These are major characters, and we have a lot emotionally invested in them, but you gotta be able to take a step back.

I agree with Ghostofman on this. Most of the force use in the movies or TCW cartoons by Padawans and Knights can be duplicated with lower xp expenditures.

I went and created a Character, I gave it +10xp and only career skills. I added Move, Misdirect, Influence, Forsee, Sense and Heal which added 65xp. Maybe more reasonable to get rid of 25 points of these so 40xp would give me 4 powers at base level. But, these powers were the ones I wanted without getting too involved. As a player I may have spent more time in making the choice, because as part of a campaign I would be able to choose in smaller increments.

I then added Talents: Originally I took a Consular - Niman Disciple as it was the first career that gave me Lightsaber, I then wanted to get myself 2 Force Rating and added a whole mess of talents and a further 130xp. So some of the Force Powers would have to go.

Taking a step back I then used a Warrior - Aggressor and took 75xp to get to Force Rating 2. This would allow me to put back in the 2 powers I discarded and then have 10xp left over, which got me a second rank of Lightsaber. I could as an alternative have started down the Move Power and taken an extra Strength.

At this point I did drive down my talent tree in a straight line, so I would like to use my XP earned during the characters adventures to round him out and get some talents, skills and force power enhancements that I would like.

Having made the character and spent the 150xp I do have the following comments and observations:

• Gaining Force Rating can be as little as 65xp and more than 100xp in some careers. Some careers don't seem to allow an advancement in Force Rating at all. I think this needs to be flatter and fairer across the board or when players get large chunks of XP they will tend to spend their points in a similar manner.
• Recording it all is unwieldy. I ended up with a character sheet, a career talent sheet and 6 force power sheets. Can the paper work be simplified? (Actually, no, this shouldn’t be a question.) Simplify the record keeping. A single row on the character sheet with slots for the various effects. Strength, Duration, Range etc….
• Players of F&D seem to get their Initial Force point for free, should they get 20xp less overall or pay for the initial FP? In general Force Users have a lot of XP sinks, but they should start on the same footing as characters from any book.
• I think you could work out "packages" but effort for benefit would be undesirable, perhaps though a cap on spending more than 100 points per 150 on a single category of use? Or even a sentence that gives the GM some guidance as to how to assist players spend the XP without too much min/maxing.

My advice is create a character or ten as a GM and find the best fit for you and yours. I think 150xp would be a Clone War level Padawan, you have some skills and training as a youngling and then some small amounts of variation and specialisation.

Ghostofman, i read your idea that Jedi don't need all that many xp to pull off the stuf they do in the films and i actually wanted to ask you to explain that idea better.

Maybe it's worthy of a new thread, but could you put down the talents and Force powers you think Obi-Wan uses? I think that could give a good gauge of what you can achieve with 150 XP.

I have tried building a Sentinel/shadow/shien expert and with 150 XP he certainly can do very little similar to Obi-Wan, especially in regards to Force Powers ( i end up lacking the XP to buy the upgrades).

Amanal, i agree with your statement that getting to FR2 is really dependentton the career, some have it really cheap and others would eat up the vast majority of those starting XP. (Shadow requires 100 xp, and Protector even 125!).

That's the main reason why i think that Obi-Wan has substantially more that 150XP: he definitely has a FR2, and likely FR3, and his Move, Sense and Enhance tree fairly filled out.

I went and created a Character, I gave it +10xp and only career skills. I added Move, Misdirect, Influence, Forsee, Sense and Heal which added 65xp. Maybe more reasonable to get rid of 25 points of these so 40xp would give me 4 powers at base level. But, these powers were the ones I wanted without getting too involved. As a player I may have spent more time in making the choice, because as part of a campaign I would be able to choose in smaller increments.

I then added Talents: Originally I took a Consular - Niman Disciple as it was the first career that gave me Lightsaber, I then wanted to get myself 2 Force Rating and added a whole mess of talents and a further 130xp. So some of the Force Powers would have to go.

Taking a step back I then used a Warrior - Aggressor and took 75xp to get to Force Rating 2. This would allow me to put back in the 2 powers I discarded and then have 10xp left over, which got me a second rank of Lightsaber. I could as an alternative have started down the Move Power and taken an extra Strength.

At this point I did drive down my talent tree in a straight line, so I would like to use my XP earned during the characters adventures to round him out and get some talents, skills and force power enhancements that I would like.

Having made the character and spent the 150xp I do have the following comments and observations:

• Gaining Force Rating can be as little as 65xp and more than 100xp in some careers. Some careers don't seem to allow an advancement in Force Rating at all. I think this needs to be flatter and fairer across the board or when players get large chunks of XP they will tend to spend their points in a similar manner.
• Recording it all is unwieldy. I ended up with a character sheet, a career talent sheet and 6 force power sheets. Can the paper work be simplified? (Actually, no, this shouldn’t be a question.) Simplify the record keeping. A single row on the character sheet with slots for the various effects. Strength, Duration, Range etc….
• Players of F&D seem to get their Initial Force point for free, should they get 20xp less overall or pay for the initial FP? In general Force Users have a lot of XP sinks, but they should start on the same footing as characters from any book.
• I think you could work out "packages" but effort for benefit would be undesirable, perhaps though a cap on spending more than 100 points per 150 on a single category of use? Or even a sentence that gives the GM some guidance as to how to assist players spend the XP without too much min/maxing.

My advice is create a character or ten as a GM and find the best fit for you and yours. I think 150xp would be a Clone War level Padawan, you have some skills and training as a youngling and then some small amounts of variation and specialisation.

The difference in cost for force rating has to do with how dedicated the specialty is to force use. Some are more martial or have other focuses. others like say mystic focus a lot on the force.

Put i do agree ahsoka tano when she first appears is probably the power level you are looking at.

Ghostofman, i read your idea that Jedi don't need all that many xp to pull off the stuff they do in the films and i actually wanted to ask you to explain that idea better.

Maybe it's worthy of a new thread, but could you put down the talents and Force powers you think Obi-Wan uses? I think that could give a good gauge of what you can achieve with 150 XP.

I have tried building a Sentinel/shadow/shien expert and with 150 XP he certainly can do very little similar to Obi-Wan, especially in regards to Force Powers ( i end up lacking the XP to buy the upgrades).

Jeebus this is long.... wall o'text warning.....

Well some of the issue is no doubt the ole "certain point of view" that Obi-wan was such a jerkface about, but you end up the same anyway... The thing is I only look at what the character does, not what some novel said he did, or some comic, or what I want him to do just because he's him. Then I next assume that we're not seeing the dumb failures. The Phantom Menace is the adventure where everyone was largely rolling well, that business on Cato Nemoidia doesn't count because that was the time Obi rolled three critical failures in a row, had his WT exceeded twice, and forgot that he had to rescue the princess before blowing up the battlestation.

So, using just what you see in TPM film you'll notice that while Obi does use the force regularly, he never really does anything that requires a high FR.

Feel free to mention anything I missed, but offhand he.....

Holds his breath

Knocks over some battledroids

Runs down a hallway (Maybe, this could be explained several ways ranging from The Force, to Triumphant Athletics, to The Editor Likes Vodka)

Jump-kicks (also maybe, but he jumpkicked two droids in the head at the same time so I'll go with yes to force on this, but it's a lower priority).

Jumps

Launches himself out of a pit using only his mighty biceps and rage

... anything I forget?

Talent-wise he:

Reflects

Improved reflects (again, maybe, but more maybe this time as he tends to reflect while at engaged range and follows through with a lightsaber to the torso, so this could easily be regular reflect followed by a lightsaber attack and creative narrative play)

Parrys

and........ Anything missing here?

So with the film as my guide I notice two important things:

1) He never really does anything that requires a roll of more then 2 force pips

2) He doesn't really do anything especially Shadowee

Meaning he doesn't need an FR of 2, and by extension, doesn't need the Shadow Spec. THAT frees up a TON of XP To the point where now I can make a TPM grade Obi-wan with only a lightsaber and +150 XP. I'm not a numbers guy so feel free to check my math, but I should be pretty solid with:

Obi-wan Kenobi

Sentinel:Shien

Conflict:Brave/Arrogant

Morality 50, +10 XP

Is going for a balanced character, so take 3's in everything except Int and Pre

Career/Spec rankings in:

Athletics

Discipline

Perception

Stealth

Lightsaber

Human bonus Ranks in

Piloting:Space

Gunnery (I'm flexible on both of these if you've got a better idea)

Buys Various odds and ends with his starting credits.

Takes Mentor option Qui-gon, later Yoda/Council)

____________

Knight Level:

+1 Rank Saber

Talents:Street Smarts, Reflect, Defensive Training, Conditioned, Parry, Shien, Reflect, Improved Reflect

Powers: Enhance + Control (resilience) + Control (Brawl) + Control (Leap Horz) + Control (Leap Vert)

Move + Str, Rng, Control (throw)

5 XP to spare

+15-20 XP for Act/Session 1, +15-20 XP for Act/Session 2

That leaves ample XP for additional Skill Ranks and Talents before facing off against Maul. , though depending on how you stat out Maul, he could go all the way to the credits (+15-20 XP for Act/Session 3) without spending hardly a single XP if he so desired....

Alternative builds put additional ranks in Discipline and such upon character creation in exchange for using Act 1 & 2s XP to purchase Leap Vert, Conditioned, Parry and/or anything else he doesn't use until Act 2 or 3. And as I mentioned, I'm flexible on Improved Reflect if you find you need a little more XP for something else Obi does in a more visible and defined fashion.

Now about the whole: "But as a Jedi I should have a waaaay higher FR then some farmboy that hasn't trained a day in his life!" issue.

Should you? We assumed so for a long time because of a chart in the EotE beta, but that chart was eliminated and hasn't been seen since. So when you look at F&D now, you'll see that Force usage isn't intended to be as much about power as training. Max our your FR all you like, if you don't got the Power tree to go with it you're not much better then a guy with a low FR, but his power trees carefully leveraged to make the most of those few pips he will be rolling.

But there you have it. My certain point of view.

The difference in cost for force rating has to do with how dedicated the specialty is to force use. Some are more martial or have other focuses. others like say mystic focus a lot on the force.

Put i do agree ahsoka tano when she first appears is probably the power level you are looking at.

Also note, the carear and specialization where you can get a force point for only 65... does NOT have Discipline as a carear or specialization skill. (it also gives you a cute shoulder dragon familiar)

So how would people stat Darth Vader?

So how would people stat Darth Vader?

Assuming an Imperial game (otherwise, inquisitor)

High presence, Warrior/Aggressor, who's force powers are limited to Bind/choke, and basic Sence, at least in ANH. Has Pilot and Gunnery

He's intimidating, sure, but he doesnt do much.

So how would people stat Darth Vader?

I'll beat you Rak:

As of EP IV? Simple:

Leia must pass a Hard resilience check to avoid divulging the location of the rebel base, this will be upgraded with a Dpoint.

Piloting 4:2

Gunnery 4:2

Determine the rest later.

It's easy to stat out characters when they don't interact with the players much...

So how would people stat Darth Vader?

Assuming an Imperial game (otherwise, inquisitor)

High presence, Warrior/Aggressor, who's force powers are limited to Bind/choke, and basic Sence, at least in ANH. Has Pilot and Gunnery

He's intimidating, sure, but he doesnt do much.

I think I like The Force Unleashed version more. Easier to see where he got his reputation.

Beacuse strangling a guy with a single hand keeping him a meter off the floor isn't intimidating?

Thank you for your answer Ghostman, it's very enlightening, and makes quite bit of sense. Spot on with the morality.

I imagined Obi-Wan had a higher FR because he seems to activate is powers a lot during combat and since i don't imagine him converting dark side pips (well maybe in the last jump before killing Maul) i thought he needed more dice to have reliable flow of light side pips.

I understand why you gave him shien (and makes alot of sense), but since the fluff always says that he trained in ataru under Qui-Gon, do you think he could pull off all those blaster reflections just with the reflect talents in the Ataru Striker tree?

Btw i think you made a mistake there, where does Obi-Wan get the rank in discipline? i don't think it's among the sentinel career skills and the shien expert skills, and he spent all his 120 xp to raise 4 characteristics out of six.

Thank you for your answer Ghostman, it's very enlightening, and makes quite bit of sense. Spot on with the morality.

I imagined Obi-Wan had a higher FR because he seems to activate is powers a lot during combat and since i don't imagine him converting dark side pips (well maybe in the last jump before killing Maul) i thought he needed more dice to have reliable flow of light side pips.

I understand why you gave him shien (and makes alot of sense), but since the fluff always says that he trained in ataru under Qui-Gon, do you think he could pull off all those blaster reflections just with the reflect talents in the Ataru Striker tree?

No prob.

I'm not too concerned about that kind of fluff. At no time in the films do we see:

Obi-wan: Never fear Consul Qui-Gon, I shall use Poodleplap Form XI to defend the Aquilae facility from the Empire!

Qui-Gon: Smashing Daemon Green! You are indeed a mighty Jedi-Bendu! The Force of Others is truly with us!

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

So I went with Shien since mechanically it had all the right career and spec skills and doubles up well with Shadow which I thought was reasonably fitting to what we see in EP II.

That said, all I think you really need for Obi in EPI that I can think of is at least 1 rank in Parry and Reflect. So if you want a different build with Ataru you can probably pull it off...

Also I'd just like to remind you that calling on the darkside just a smidge in this system isn't going to do much harm. Obi mostly behaved himself thoughout all three acts/session, so if he NEEDED that one pip to pull off his move, he could do it without much fear of a major morality drop.

That, and I thought that a bunch of the point of the duel portion between Qui-Gon's stabbing and the leap was Obi-Wan being fueled by rage and adrenaline...

Beacuse strangling a guy with a single hand keeping him a meter off the floor isn't intimidating?

That, and I thought that a bunch of the point of the duel portion between Qui-Gon's stabbing and the leap was Obi-Wan being fueled by rage and adrenaline...

That's how I saw it.

Additional fun fact: While working on this and trying to figure out the whole Qui-gon = Master = Mentor= Player character angle I determined that Qui-Gon was either a GM generated character or the character of a Player that was "done" with him. The solution being that Anakin (a starter level character) is also a player character, but controlled by the same Player as Qui-gon! Qui-gon's demise was a planned character termination, with Anakin being boosted to Knight level upon completion of the TPM adventure thread in preparation for AotC.

This explains why Qui-gon is so focused on bringing him along and why Anakin never is in the same action scene as Qui-gon.

Lol that's a great interpretation. And makes perfect sense. I'd add that Obi-Wan gets a major boost too since he must act as Anakin's master in Episode 2.

The difference in cost for force rating has to do with how dedicated the specialty is to force use. Some are more martial or have other focuses. others like say mystic focus a lot on the force.

I am not too sure, a force user doesn't get the opportunity to for a +1 attribute, so there is quite a high opportunity cost in that IMO. Putting the +1 FR all over the place may promote a little min/maxing amongst players. Plus the increase in FR isn't actually linked to the use of or the characters advancement in their use of the force.

I think I would rather put force rating increases on the bottom row of each force tree. At the bottom of the powerful trees the FR increase may cost more than other trees. You could also perhaps colour code them or number them and for a player to qualify for the yellow FR increase he may have to get to the bottom of two or more trees.

You could also use various paths to act as gateways, so like the signature abilities you have to take 2 or paths down the trees.

I am not too sure, a force user doesn't get the opportunity to for a +1 attribute, so there is quite a high opportunity cost in that IMO.

Hmmm.

Lol that's a great interpretation. And makes perfect sense. I'd add that Obi-Wan gets a major boost too since he must act as Anakin's master in Episode 2.

Oh? What makes you think that? AotC doesn't stick in my mind as solidly as TPM for some reason, but I suspect using the same method I used for TPM Obi you'd find that they were both roughly the same XP level, just different builds.

I'm fairly sure that TPM Qui-gon can be done at Knight level as well if you make the effort.

Remember my criteria: Look at the character's performance in the film. Ditch the EU and look only at the mechanics when possible , which is most of the time. Focus on just what the character needs to do what they do. Resist the urge to grant bonus XP simply because a character is a Jedi, or a Master, or a Senator, or someone you love.

In most cases you'll actually end up with XP to spare.

It actually gives you a really new perspective on things when you realize little details, like how very few uses of The Force in the films actually REQUIRE an FR above 1.

Help me remember.... In AotC Obi-wan....

Senses something exciting happening in Padme's bedroom

Dives through a window..

Mind Tricks a dealer...

Fights Jango to a relative stalemate...

Uses to force to open a door (which I don't know if we need to really stat that, but we'll keep it in mind)

Force Jumps some more

Sneaks around a Sep HQ

Gets his arse kicked by Count Dooku

Anakin....

Senses something exciting happening in Padme's bedroom (that doesn't involve him)

Jumps off a moving speeder...

Complains about sand...

Has a bad dream (also not 100% sure this counts as a an actual power use, but we'll keep it here if we have the XP)

Jumps off a cliff

Rides a bull (A couple solutions for this one, but we'll keep it on the list)

Parry's

I'm gonna assume he reflects, but I don't actually remember it

Anything there I forget?

Anakin....

Complains about sand...

So he's got Scathing Tirade...

Anakin....

Complains about sand...

So he's got Scathing Tirade...

The mechanical implications of this are horrible... you gain 1 conflict point.

uhm i like your way of analyzing the movie characters

So tright off the bat I'd say that Obi-Wan:

keeps getting talents in the Shien expert line, probably Improved reflect, another reflect and supreme reflect, also probably grit.

buys the Influence power with the "mind Trick" upgrade and the sense power with the +1 ranged defense control upgrade and he might buy more into the Enhance tree getting the control (pilot:planetary) and Control (pilot:space) upgrades.

goes to lightsaber 3.

yes you are right it, isn't so much more, it should total around 130 xp.

Will try thinking about Anakin later.