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.

I wasn't and that's a good point. I started off using the PC rules so that I could get a good feel for how she might look and ballpark her power. But my intent is to create a usable nemesis character for my game so you're absolutely right I could boost her up a bit.

I'm still trying to work out what is appropriate Force levels for different levels of character. That chart does seem a little high but then again, parts of it don't seem that far out.

Personally, I'd probably put her at a Force Rating 3, which seems perfectly respectable for someone close to being a Jedi Knight. If you're intending her to be really close to Episode IV (depending on what her fate is of course) I don't suppose it would be too over-the-top to put her at FR 4. (Assuming she kept training herself and practicing)

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.

Really interesting. On the one hand they probably didn't have a feel for Force levels back then and it shouldn't be regarded as a special authority. On the other hand parts of it work pretty well. Force 1 obviously for the sensitives - you can't get any lower! And Force 2 seems okay for Padawans once they've reached the stage of actually having a master and accompanying her. Obi Wan was a padawan in TPM, yes? As is Ahsoka and though by the end of the series she probably should be a knight she's still doing some impressive stuff in the first season. Enough that I'd say she needs Force 2.

I think ranks 3 to 5 in the chart might be where some inflation creeps in if anywhere. You could collapse it into junior and senior Jedi Knight. Just FR 3 and 4 respectively. And then everyone above that moves down a point.

But on the other hand that's a fairly compressed range for Jedi Knights. What's the average number of Light Side points you get per die? I think it's 2/3rds? So a very potent / veteran Knight might get 3 to 4 dots on average? What could they do with that? Well with Bind they could hold off (immobilize) a few opponents within short range. With four dots they could move them away as well (Force Push). That seems reasonable for a very powerful knight to be fairly comfortable doing. We see them hurling Battle Droids all over the place quite frequently. Of course 3 to 4 dots is an average, meaning around half the time they'll bet less.

So five dice might be alright for a veteran Knight. And I guess it's reasonable that a Master might be one point more again. Anyway, just my thoughts on this so far.

How many Jedi Masters are there supposed to be, anyway? If you watch TCW it seems like there are more Masters than Knights though the story scenarios could introduce a bias.

Is Windu supposed to be one in ten or one in a hundred? I can't tell. Obi Wan seemed to become a Master pretty quickly as he's one in TCW (I think).

They always have the opportunity to gain a very small amount of conflict and use a few dark points to fuel some powers. They do good way more often then they flirt with the dark side, so they don't have to worry much about 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".

I think you're right about the Triumph, although they don't always knock someone down...a lot of the time they just toss someone into some object, or push them away.

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.

Why do you think it's inflated? I guess if you're looking at a Jedi Master rolling 6 dice for all of their Force powers, I suppose if could be, but if you're instead looking at that Master committing two dice to Sense, and maybe 1 more to Enhance or some talent like Force Protection, and rolling 3-4 dice, that's looking more reasonable, isn't it? Like being able to commit 3 dice to Sense and Enhance: Agility while still being able to roll 3 dice for Hawk Bat Swoop or something similar.

At some point, there isn't a whole lot that you're gaining by rolling more Force dice on a single power, so the measure of a stronger Force user becomes how many abilities they can maintain while also being able to tap the Force when they need it.

How many Jedi Masters are there supposed to be, anyway? If you watch TCW it seems like there are more Masters than Knights though the story scenarios could introduce a bias.

Is Windu supposed to be one in ten or one in a hundred? I can't tell. Obi Wan seemed to become a Master pretty quickly as he's one in TCW (I think).

The sense I have is that there are perhaps 2 or 3 dozen Jedi Masters and probably 100-200 Jedi Knights, though many of these are spread across the galaxy; however, after doing a quick search, I find that there were approximately 10,000 Jedi at the time of Order 66. I would assume that Less than 1 in 10 were masters, so maybe 1,000 Jedi Masters, a few thousand Knights, and lots of Padawans and younglings...

As for Obi-Wan becoming a Jedi Master, keep in mind that there is about 10 years between Episodes 1 and 2, which is plenty of time for Obi-Wan to go from Padawan to Master, especially if we consider him on the verge of becoming a Jedi Knight by the end of The Phantom Menace.

One in ten sounds high to me. Not from a Your Sources are Wrong angle, but from an atmosphere angle. It doesn't make Master feel special enough to me. If Knights are the black belts, Master are the high Dans who might show up at a special seminar in your area, imo. Jedi Masters, I think, are the ones who actually advance knowledge of the Force.

That's a really good point about sustaining powers and I really like how FFG have handled power curves in this game, letting the really powerful stretch in breadth of capability rather than linear power capabilities. The difference between Windu and some regular Knight being less that Windu can do things that the Knight can't, and more that Windu will be Force Pushing droids whilst still sensing danger around him and able to jump to safety at the end of it, whilst the Knight would be overwhelmed trying to manage it all.

I would totally disregard that Force Rating table, since it never surfaced again i would say that FFG has cochgfed their opinion on what the real strenght of a force user is. Meaning it's not about raw power, ie a high FR, but abut training, so with a carefully developed power you can actually do things even with a low FR.

Ghostofman in another thread once posted his build of Obi-Wan at Episode 1, and he managed to mimick everything Obi-Wan does in the movie with just 150 xp and FR1. That was very convicing and rather realistic, so i think that most jedi do not have a very high FR, i think that most have around 2 and few masters reach three. Above that we find only the most powerful or well trained jedi (and since in the movie we often see the high council members in action we may have an uncorrect view of the normal knight capabilities). So i would be careful about giving FR 4 5 or 6.

In my opinion nobody reaches 6 and Yoda (or the Emperor) reaches around 5 or even 4. Palpy can actually have lower FR than Yoda, but being willing to use dark side pips freely he can have the upper hand in a prolonged fight (which is waht we see in the movies: he tries to end the fight quickly but when the Emperor matches his powers Yoda gives up and flees).

Anakin (and Luke) can have a high FR beacuse the fluff says so, but the others usually have to get to the bottom of a two or three specs, so it cuts down on the number of people able to do that.

Knasserl i think you have a distorted view of the Jedi Masters, thinking them to be special. That may be true of the High Council Masters, and they are 12 out of 10k jedi, so yeah they are pretty special, but normally a knight becomes a master by trining a padawan, which to me seems a common occurence, so i would say that the knight to master ratio is pretty balanced and mosyt masters aren't super powerful. Maybe some are just very specialized in an area, but mosty tend to be quite versatile i'd say.

Good point Lareg. Can you share an idea about what FR probably would have the 5 or 6 main Force Users on movies/TCW please?

Knasserl i think you have a distorted view of the Jedi Masters, thinking them to be special. That may be true of the High Council Masters, and they are 12 out of 10k jedi, so yeah they are pretty special, but normally a knight becomes a master by trining a padawan, which to me seems a common occurence, so i would say that the knight to master ratio is pretty balanced and mosyt masters aren't super powerful. Maybe some are just very specialized in an area, but mosty tend to be quite versatile i'd say.

Oh. I was thinking "Master" was someone on the council member's level. Not necessarily a council member but that Windu, big head and so on were what master-level meant. So you get called a master just for training a padawan? That's a lot lower bar than I thought. I might change that in my game. I'd like masters to be special and I'd like a knight to be able to have a padawan.

I ASSUME lol, that by game mechanics one becomes a master by mastering a force talent tree perhaps?

I ASSUME lol, that by game mechanics one becomes a master by mastering a force talent tree perhaps?

"hMMMM. Missed out second Magnitude upgrade has Obi Wan. How embarrassing... Denied your application to the counsel is."

I ASSUME lol, that by game mechanics one becomes a master by mastering a force talent tree perhaps?

"hMMMM. Missed out second Magnitude upgrade has Obi Wan. How embarrassing... Denied your application to the counsel is."

Lol true. I'm all new to this Star Wars rpg I use to play saga edition.But this poses an interesting question. How does one gain the rank of master? In saga you had to meet the jedi master prestige class requirements. Or is it just fluff in this game?

I asked directly to developers about "Force Push" question. I'll post it when I know something mates

I ASSUME lol, that by game mechanics one becomes a master by mastering a force talent tree perhaps?

"hMMMM. Missed out second Magnitude upgrade has Obi Wan. How embarrassing... Denied your application to the counsel is."

Lol true. I'm all new to this Star Wars rpg I use to play saga edition.But this poses an interesting question. How does one gain the rank of master? In saga you had to meet the jedi master prestige class requirements. Or is it just fluff in this game?

Well Edge of the Empire is set immediately after Ep. IV and I think Force and Destiny is going to be set during or after Ep. VI. (Can someone confirm?). In which case there is no Jedi Counsel and no-one to say you're a master. I can probably declare myself Pharoah of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms for the same reason and there's no-one around to stop me. (Not quite true, I imagine my mother would tell me I wasn't pretty quickly).

This answer isn't meant to be facetious by the way, just in case it comes off like that. Master is just a title, I think, and there's no-one left to grant it. It's possible FFG might publish a special Jedi Order supplement where there's a "master" specialization, but I don't expect that and it wouldn't really fit with how they've structured things. If they do Signature Abilities as they have with other career supplements you could conceivably say someone is a "master" if they gain those. But you can do that with only one tree so it would seem a bit cheap.

Short answer: I think we'll never see that as a mechanical thing. I can't be certain, but I would be very surprised.

Posted

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/108101-ffg-developer-answered-questions/page-3#entry1261704

Ok i'll make a better contribution to this topic by posting Ghostofman build of Obi-Wan,before trying my hand at one.

Warning: wall of text.

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.

Ok i'll make a better contribution to this topic by posting Ghostofman build of Obi-Wan,before trying my hand at one.

Warning: wall of text.

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.

I really like that. I especially like "Holds his breath". Really shows how basic a lot of what he does actually is. That said, whilst it works for the Padawan TPM version, I'd really like to see the version from AotC or RotS.

i'll try building the AoTc tomorrow. As for RoTS i am at a disdavtange as i haven't seen TCW, so i can't choose the powers correctly.

I was thinking of adapting my Vader to the F&D rules. I've never seen Clone Wars either so I'd just build him as per the movies. Question is, do I start with him as a child in Phantom or class that as his prologue and start with AotC...

I really suggest Clone Wars to you Space

It gives you an alternative about who was Vader before and due to the lack on info from movies it's pretty useful. I watched the series 3 times full and a few more lonely episodes XD

By the way, if you will share that version, I will thank it a lot

I was thinking of adapting my Vader to the F&D rules. I've never seen Clone Wars either so I'd just build him as per the movies. Question is, do I start with him as a child in Phantom or class that as his prologue and start with AotC...

I don't find the kid version at all interesting, tbh. He had fast reactions and that's about it. I would probably boost him to a higher Force rating to reflect his Chosen One status. But other than that he's just a kid. I would definitely start with the AotC or RotS versions, myself.

TCW is well worth watching, btw. It starts quite hokey but gets good fairly quickly and very good by the final two seasons. And it manages more nuance on Anakin than the movies ever did (imo).

I may try and pick it up at some point. I bought the movie a while back but wasn't too impressed.

I'll start him from AotC then. The problem with starting him as a kid is that if you put him as either pilot or mechanic he then suffers out-of-class xp for the rest of his life

I was hoping to stat him as both PC and Nemesis, but not sure if I have that kinda time. Would be an interesting exercise though.

The series is a lot better than the movie, IMO. I held off from starting on the series for a long time because I found the movie to be so lame, but when I finally started watching the show, I really enjoyed it.

Ok i'll try to do a follow up of Ghostofman Obi-Wan build ,and show him as of the end of AoTC, so i'll give him 120xp more (60 xp each for TPM and AotC)

What do we see Obi-Wan doing in AoTC? I'm a bit rusty but i think we se himd doing these things:

sensing something in Padme's room

He convices a pusher to "go home and think about his life"

Disarms (literally) an assassin (probably a combination of high initiative and a critical hit)

Fights with Jango and deflects his blaster bolts, then grapples with him

Hangs on a rope and uses it to jump on a platform

Uses the force to open a door

Dodges jangos's attacks in an asteroid field

Fail his stealth checks sneaking around on geonosis, gets caught and used for entertainement by a bunch of bug people

Gests rescued by the jedi and fights a big battle, showing his deflection skills and dismantling lots of droids (mostly cinematic storytelling of successful lightsaber attacks)

Duels with Dooku, even parrying Force lightning, and loses, getting wounded.

So i believe his progression is this (i am assuming he has the Improved reflect talent since TPM):

Lightsaber 3 (15 xp)

Pilot (space) 2 (10xp)

Talents: toughened (5xp), parry (15 xp),Reflect (20 xp), Supreme Reflect (25xp)

Powers: Influence + control ( "mind Trick") (20 xp)

Sense (10xp)

In my opinion the biggest boost Obi-Wan ever gets is during TCW, that's where he advances to FR3 ( i imagine with protector and peacekeeper specialisations since he is very busy leading his clone army) and masters the Soresu Defender specialization (i think that both fights with Grievous and Darth Anakin in RoTS are clear exemple of Soresu). I may be able to try and build him at the end of RotS but only for the Force powers and Lightsaber specs, i have no idea how to get him to FR3 (he might also stop at FR2 though).