Iconic Write-Ups

By knasserII, in General Discussion

It was suggested in the other thread that I should put this write up in a place of its own. I'm not sure it deserves that but as requested...

This is Ahsoka Tano as she would be by the time of Edge of Empire / Ep IV. She left the Jedi order before Order #66 and withdrew from the war as well, so far as we can tell. She never even actually became a Jedi Knight properly and wasn't on any active duties. Therefore if any "Jedi" might have slipped away and still be alive today, she's probably one of the leading candidates.

I created her as a PC first of all. She came out at around 500XP in total (including starting XP) which is a pretty hefty sum. I then used that as a base to create the Nemesis version as that's what would be most useful for people's games (certainly mine). But regardless of the 500XP base being quite a lot, she'd be in her mid to late thirties by this point and was already an accomplished warrior and leader in TCW show. So I think she should be impressive.

Anyway, without further ado:

Ahsoka Tano, adult version. [Nemesis]

Attributes: Brawn 3, Agility 3, Intellect 3, Cunning 3, Willpower 4, Presence 3

Skills: Athletics 3, Brawl 4, Cool 3, Deception 1, Discipline 4, Leadership 3, Lightsabre 3, Mechanics 1, Melee 2, Piloting (Planetary) 2, Piloting (Space) 3, Resilliance 3, Vigilance 4

Talents:

  • Adversary 3
  • Force Rating 3
  • Enhance (Spend FP to gain Successes or Advantages on Athletics, Piloting (Planetary), Piloting (Space) checks)
  • Force Leap (Power check to leap anywhere vertically or horizontally in Short Range as a Maneuver, spend 1FP to increase to Medium range)
  • Bind (Spend 1FP to immobilize target in Short range as an action, add 1FP to increase to Medium range, spend 2FP per additional target)
  • Move (Spend 1FP to move object of Silhouette 0 to Medium range)
  • Second Wind (once per enounter take an Incidental to recover 2 Strain)
  • Parry (When hit by Brawl or Melee attack may spend 3 Strain and reduce damage taken by 4 and automatically hit the attacker)
  • Reflect (when hit by ranged attack may take 3 Strain and reduce damage by 5)
  • Defensive Circle (may make a Hard Lightsabre (Intellect) action and add Defense 1 to seld plus 1 ally in Short range per hit. Increase Defence by 1 per two advantage)
  • Commanding Presence: Remove 2 Setback from Leadership tests
  • Enhanced Leader: When making Leadership test, add FR Force dice. Spend FP to buy Successes or Advantages.
Gear: 2x Shoto Lightsabres w. modified Illium Crystals (Green) - Damage 5, Crit 1, Accuracy 1, Breach 1, Sunder, Viscious 2

Notes: We get to see an adult version of Ahsoka very briefly in the Mortis sequence. She's pretty imposing so I brought her up to Brawn 3. I also brought her up to Force 3 after some deliberation. The Jedi in a published adventure (name ommitted because spoilers) had Force 3 so I'm okay with that. It's a little high possibly, but I calculate by the period my game is set (Ep IV) she'd be about mid-thirties or late thirties.

Adversary 3 was a tricky one. But the published Jedi has Adversary 2 and I think Ahsoka ranks equivalent to some of the inquistors (or better) so it didn't seem unreasonable.

There were more talents that I should have put in there, really. But it was getting pretty silly for a Nemesis character so I finished up with Field Commander just to reflect her military command experience and called it a day.

I have to say, I hadn't really looked at Lightsabres or the Dual Wielding rules before. Now I've read both it seems to me that Lightsabres can be pretty scary. Not sure if the Shoto is the best choice for her, but my reasoning is that she fought with two sabres and the book says that the Shoto was popular with dual wielders. Also, she left the order when she was young so may have had smaller sabres at the time. Without much opportunity to train with others or build more, she might still have her originals. She'd be pretty comfortable with them by now. I did let her add some mods (but not all) to them as left alone they're a little weak. In her hands now though, she should be critting away like nobody's business. If the PCs get in an actual fight with her (I mostly hope they don't but it's their choice) then I hope a couple of quick swipes will get them to back off! :)

Thoughts, comments?

EDIT: Added mechanics and changed Field Commander to Commanding Presence and Enhanced Leader, as per yeti's suggestions.

Edited by knasserII

Anyway, that was one. I am totally okay and in fact very happy, to see other people post their own takes on Asoka, adult or TCW version. Or indeed any other iconic characters. I might do others if people want them, but my game will be set in Ep IV era so it will mainly be either people who might have survived that long, or those from the OT.

Nice, but her name is "Ahsoka", IIRC. Other than that, cool idea, and a pretty good approximation of an adult version of her, as far as I can tell.

Nice, but her name is "Ahsoka", IIRC. Other than that, cool idea, and a pretty good approximation of an adult version of her, as far as I can tell.

I've corrected the name. And glad it looks okay to people.

I was curious about the brawn 3, but your explanation made sense. I think Wookieepedia or maybe "Path of the Jedi" had her off-hand as a shoto with her main hand being a standard sized lightsaber. Your stats work just fine to me.

Nice work. Agree with kaosoe, she starts with a single normal lightsaber and picks up the shoto later in the series. I always felt like she was the star of the series and had the most character development.

Edited by Aki

Nice work. Agree with kaosoe, she starts with a single normal lightsaber and picks up the shoto later in the series. I always felt like she was the star of the series and had the most character development.

Agreed. Anakin had some development and what was there was nicely done. You could definitely see theforeshadowing of Vader in the later seasons. The scene where he finds Clovis and Padme together might be a clichéd "entered at just the wrong moment", but it remains one of my favourite scenes because he seems like he's actually going to really lose it (great voice acting). But they're kind of constrained by the need to keep him between Ep II and Ep III in development which isn't a large range. Obi Wan doesn't so much get character development so much as we slowly find out more about him. It isn't much but I do like the Mandalorian arc with him and the Mandalorian Queen. It teases a little about how much he has worked out about Anakin and Padme. He clearly suspects something, but seems to think it's far less than it actually is. Oddly, the only other one other than Ahsoka I can think of with actual development is Yoda. When we first see him, he's still overconfident, still not appreciating the depth of the fall ahead. By mid season, you can tell he realizes the Jedi might actually be in trouble and in the final season, where it focuses on him, he changes from war leader to realizing the best thing he can do is survive to pass on the teachings one day. It's pretty sad, although still hopeful.

So yes, Ahsoka definitely has the richest development arc of any character in the season, I think. Though you see the clones developing as well. Can't remember which one finds out about Order #66 but it's horribly tragic as you've known him from the very start as a raw recruit.

The "Wrong Jedi" sequence is my favourite part of the whole series. She really changes and reaches a realization in that and the end is genuinely moving. Remarkable for what's ostensibly a kids cartoon.

Edited by knasserII

I'd go higher on the FP, maybe 4. She really doesn't struggle to use it, and to really do her justice she'd need to be able to commit dice to Enhance, etc while still being able to roll well enough to not have to use dark pips. I think what really starts separating capable Force users is their ability to commit multiple dice to sustain effects while also generating enough pips to use. FP3 still requires you to choose...

Otherwise, nice job.

I'd go higher on the FP, maybe 4. She really doesn't struggle to use it, and to really do her justice she'd need to be able to commit dice to Enhance, etc while still being able to roll well enough to not have to use dark pips. I think what really starts separating capable Force users is their ability to commit multiple dice to sustain effects while also generating enough pips to use. FP3 still requires you to choose...

Otherwise, nice job.

Thank you. Really appreciate that.

With the Force rating, I really wasn't sure. The published Jedi we have (both the named NPC and the forsaken one in the EotE book) have a FR of 3 and they were both full Jedi Knights whilst Asoka left as a Padawan. Not that she would have stopped developing, but I was using them as some of my benchmarks. Looking through the Force wielders in the back of F&D I don't see anyone over 3 and the nemesis rules suggest 1-3 as well. So I'm thinking 4 has got to be pretty high. To hit 4 she would have had to reach the bottom of three different specializations, I think? As one of the ones I used for her was Soresu Defender which doesn't have it, I'm looking at four specializations. It just seemed high. But I have no experience with high level play, currently.

Can I ask people generally what they consider different Force ratings to mean?

Where would people place the following, maybe with a range such as "Padawan: FR 1-2":

* Padawan

* Jedi Knight

* Jedi Master

* Qui Gon Jinn

* Count Dooku

* Yoda

* Darth Maul

* Ep III Anakin

* Ep VI Vader

I think seeing what people think of for those would be really instructive and help me get a feel for power levels.

I'm impatiently waiting for F&D, so I'll admit I'm talking out my * . But when I look at the options to commit dice, it seems that "golden age" Jedi would have had a lot to play with if only to avoid using dark pips. But I shouldn't really make a comment, it needs a real play test.

As for Ahsoka's status, Mace did say at the end "this was your great trial"...they were ready to make her a Knight at that point.

As for Ahsoka's status, Mace did say at the end "this was your great trial"...they were ready to make her a Knight at that point.

True. I can't help feeling Anakin never pushed her towards the trials and she never asked just because the two liked working together so much and were both teaching each other.

But regarding Mace's comments, well, my attitude is that making her a knight would be the least of the things they could do. But it was too late by then. She'd lost respect for what being a knight meant so offering it as a reward... if anything the offer would have just made it even clearer to her that it didn't mean anything to her any more.

I'd go higher on the FP, maybe 4. She really doesn't struggle to use it, and to really do her justice she'd need to be able to commit dice to Enhance, etc while still being able to roll well enough to not have to use dark pips. I think what really starts separating capable Force users is their ability to commit multiple dice to sustain effects while also generating enough pips to use. FP3 still requires you to choose...

Otherwise, nice job.

This is my thinking in regards to the iconic Jedi we've seen in action, that they have to have a fairly high FR in order to both be committing 1-3 dice to sustained powers, while also being able to activate powers reliably. Now, one could argue that we just never see anyone fail to activate a power, indicating that they are always rolling enough light side pips, are tapping into the dark side occasionally, only fail off-screen, or failure simply isn't visually apparent.

They were also in the middle of a galaxy-wide war. I think that was a slight distraction from things like Knight trials.

Also, I'd be careful pumping the FR up too high. These characters/Jedi/Sith are capable, but not infallible. They should have to make some choices too about things such as when to commit dice and not. Beware the temptation for power creep.

Each FR (past the first) represents mastering an entire specialization tree (outside of sage and seer which grant 2 FR). And I'd venture a guess that a lot of the "iconics" are not Sages or Seers.

Edited by Demigonis

As for Ahsoka's stats, she should definitely have Enhance: Coordination, and should possibly also have Enhance: Agility.

Did she ever use Bind on the show? I can't recall her having done so.

Didn't she use Move at some point to Force push someone? That would mean she'd have to have at least one Strength upgrade. Reading Wookiepedia, it not only mentions her using Force Push several times (on Sil 1 targets), but also pulling down a wall, which, at the very least, gives her the Move: Control upgrade for pulling things off their mountings.

Ahsoka also has a fairly well-developed Sense power (at least for detecting others in the Force), so that's probably Basic power + 1-2 Range upgrades, and she uses Mind Trick a few times during the show, though she fails some uses as well, which could be that she's rolling poorly, or, more likely, she either failed her Discipline check, or generated threat or despair on the check.

Not sure I'd give her Field Commander--yes, she was commanding troopers frequently, but she was typically leading from the front, not standing back and directing them, which is what FC is really doing: you give up your action to give your allies a free maneuver/action.

Similarly, I'd probably raise her Athletics to 4 (she does a lot of flipping, jumping, climbing, swinging), and possibly her Agility to 4 as well. She was far more focused on lightsaber use than she was on Force power proficiency, and appeared to be an incredibly skilled combatant, so she should probably have 4 ranks of Lightsaber. She'd also need 2-3 ranks in Mechanics, since we see her fixing things fairly often (like the ship on Mortis).

According to Wookiepedia, she was trained in Shien (we certainly see her swatting away blaster bolts as she advances swiftly on her target to make an attack often), and Ataru (jumping and flipping), so I'd probably give her both of those, along with Djem So Deflection and Saber Swarm (and probably Hawk-Bat Swoop).

I know this is tacking on a lot of XP, but this is what we see of the character in the show, and what Wookiepedia tags her as being capable of.

Personally, I felt that she should have been made a Jedi Knight by the end of Season 4--she'd overcome several significant challenges, had become a competent leader, a protector of others, a highly skilled combatant, and had developed her Force powers to a point where they were not too weak (this might be her biggest failing as far as Knighthood goes), was a problem solver, and was (in some cases) more disciplined than Skywalker.

Didn't she use Move at some point to Force push someone? That would mean she'd have to have at least one Strength upgrade.

She lays down a Force wave on Onderon, putting several battle droids and droidekas out of commission (at least temporarily). Do the rules account for Force waves like that?

To my knowledge the rules don't really give a great account of how to do "Force Push" (as it is seen in the films/show) to begin with. I wish they would resolve that. As a side bar if nothing else.

I thought Light Side Bind was a Force push? It knocks people back and temporarily disorients them. I figured that this was the power I should be using to represent Asoka flinging yet another bunch of hapless battle droids back. Maybe I need to re-read the power.

EDIT: Changed immobilize to disorient.

Edited by knasserII

Can I ask people generally what they consider different Force ratings to mean?

There was a Force Rating Examples table in the EotE Beta which seems to have been abandoned into the finalized game, but it looked like this:

1 = Sensitive (Jedi Initiative)

2 = Tenuous (Self-Taught Exile; Padawan)

3 = Moderate (Young Jedi Knight)

4 = Strong (Well-Trained Jedi Knight)

5 = Potent (Veteran Jedi Knight)

6 = Formidable (Jedi Master; Sith Lord)

7 = Legendary (Most truly heroic Jedi or most villainous Sith Lords)

Make of this what you will.

Didn't she use Move at some point to Force push someone? That would mean she'd have to have at least one Strength upgrade.

She lays down a Force wave on Onderon, putting several battle droids and droidekas out of commission (at least temporarily). Do the rules account for Force waves like that?

Could call it Move + Magnitude upgrades with a rolled Triumph to knock them down.

Personally, I think it would be good to change Move to add another Control Upgrade in there somewhere that allows the Force user to spend a Force pip or some number of Advantage or Triumph to knockdown and/or disorient their target(s).

As for Ahsoka's stats, she should definitely have Enhance: Coordination, and should possibly also have Enhance: Agility.

Did she ever use Bind on the show? I can't recall her having done so.

Didn't she use Move at some point to Force push someone? That would mean she'd have to have at least one Strength upgrade. Reading Wookiepedia, it not only mentions her using Force Push several times (on Sil 1 targets), but also pulling down a wall, which, at the very least, gives her the Move: Control upgrade for pulling things off their mountings.

Ahsoka also has a fairly well-developed Sense power (at least for detecting others in the Force), so that's probably Basic power + 1-2 Range upgrades, and she uses Mind Trick a few times during the show, though she fails some uses as well, which could be that she's rolling poorly, or, more likely, she either failed her Discipline check, or generated threat or despair on the check.

Not sure I'd give her Field Commander--yes, she was commanding troopers frequently, but she was typically leading from the front, not standing back and directing them, which is what FC is really doing: you give up your action to give your allies a free maneuver/action.

Similarly, I'd probably raise her Athletics to 4 (she does a lot of flipping, jumping, climbing, swinging), and possibly her Agility to 4 as well. She was far more focused on lightsaber use than she was on Force power proficiency, and appeared to be an incredibly skilled combatant, so she should probably have 4 ranks of Lightsaber. She'd also need 2-3 ranks in Mechanics, since we see her fixing things fairly often (like the ship on Mortis).

According to Wookiepedia, she was trained in Shien (we certainly see her swatting away blaster bolts as she advances swiftly on her target to make an attack often), and Ataru (jumping and flipping), so I'd probably give her both of those, along with Djem So Deflection and Saber Swarm (and probably Hawk-Bat Swoop).

I know this is tacking on a lot of XP, but this is what we see of the character in the show, and what Wookiepedia tags her as being capable of.

Personally, I felt that she should have been made a Jedi Knight by the end of Season 4--she'd overcome several significant challenges, had become a competent leader, a protector of others, a highly skilled combatant, and had developed her Force powers to a point where they were not too weak (this might be her biggest failing as far as Knighthood goes), was a problem solver, and was (in some cases) more disciplined than Skywalker.

Lot of good stuff in there. You're absolutely right about Mechanics - I had forgotten that. I also hadn't thought about Field Commander in those terms. I'll swap in Commanding Presence and Enhanced Leader as she should have those anyway, I guess.

I'm really not sure about Force 4 and piling in all those extra lightsabre forms. It's making her awfully powerful. What do people think about those Force rating categories I posted earlier? What do people think the typical values would be? It might help place her.

I thought Light Side Bind was a Force push? It knocks people back and temporarily disorients them. I figured that this was the power I should be using to represent Asoka flinging yet another bunch of hapless battle droids back. Maybe I need to re-read the power.

EDIT: Changed immobilize to disorient.

Oh. Hmm...I guess Bind could work, but it feels much more like Move to me.

Can I ask people generally what they consider different Force ratings to mean?

There was a Force Rating Examples table in the EotE Beta which seems to have been abandoned into the finalized game, but it looked like this:

1 = Sensitive (Jedi Initiative)

2 = Tenuous (Self-Taught Exile; Padawan)

3 = Moderate (Young Jedi Knight)

4 = Strong (Well-Trained Jedi Knight)

5 = Potent (Veteran Jedi Knight)

6 = Formidable (Jedi Master; Sith Lord)

7 = Legendary (Most truly heroic Jedi or most villainous Sith Lords)

Make of this what you will.

Hmmmm. That's really interesting. I wonder why they pulled it. FR6 for Master Windu, then? Pretty scary. Actually, forget that. VERY scary. So he'd have reached the bottom of five specializations, probably. No wonder they made him the head of Shield!

To my knowledge the rules don't really give a great account of how to do "Force Push" (as it is seen in the films/show) to begin with. I wish they would resolve that. As a side bar if nothing else.

In a way, the developer's may have implied that Force Power Move could be used to represent a "Force push".

On p.195 of FaD beta, in the "Resisting Force Power Checks" side-bar, last paragraph, my emphasis in bold:

"Likewise, an attempt to use Move to throw a character around a battlefield could be opposed by Resilience, as the defending character resists with his raw physical strength."

Now granted, they use the word "throw" as opposed to "push", but the description seems to evoke a PC making a specific attack with the Move power directly against an opponent...or I might just be reading too much into it.

I'm really not sure about Force 4 and piling in all those extra lightsabre forms. It's making her awfully powerful. What do people think about those Force rating categories I posted earlier? What do people think the typical values would be? It might help place her.

One thing to consider is that if she's an NPC she doesn't have to conform to the PC generation rules. IOW, giving her FR4 doesn't mean she has to have drilled down a tree. She might just be particularly "strong in the Force"...it's worth noting that most people laughed when she called herself a Padawan, they assumed she was still a "youngling". So she was clearly ahead of her peers.

Then again if you're doing this exercise to compare against a PC's progress, then I guess you're locked into spending as per the trees dictate.

Could call it Move + Magnitude upgrades with a rolled Triumph to knock them down.

Personally, I think it would be good to change Move to add another Control Upgrade in there somewhere that allows the Force user to spend a Force pip or some number of Advantage or Triumph to knockdown and/or disorient their target(s).

I do think Move needs another track to handle this, or at least a sidebar explaining it. I'm not sure a Triumph should be required, because they seem to be able to do it at will, especially if they take a moment before-hand to "gather their strength".

Can I ask people generally what they consider different Force ratings to mean?

There was a Force Rating Examples table in the EotE Beta which seems to have been abandoned into the finalized game, but it looked like this:

1 = Sensitive (Jedi Initiative)

2 = Tenuous (Self-Taught Exile; Padawan)

3 = Moderate (Young Jedi Knight)

4 = Strong (Well-Trained Jedi Knight)

5 = Potent (Veteran Jedi Knight)

6 = Formidable (Jedi Master; Sith Lord)

7 = Legendary (Most truly heroic Jedi or most villainous Sith Lords)

Make of this what you will.

Hmmmm. That's really interesting. I wonder why they pulled it. FR6 for Master Windu, then? Pretty scary. Actually, forget that. VERY scary. So he'd have reached the bottom of five specializations, probably. No wonder they made him the head of Shield!

I would almost completely disregard this table. This was a very early "ballpark" for the original EotE beta, before they had probably even had a very concrete idea of how things would finally work out once they got to Force and Destiny. Given how things are now I'd say it's at least a little bit inflated.

Edited by Demigonis