I have a PC who is trying to skill into 3 lightsaber trees, but does not want to take the drawback form Duelist's Training. My house rule was the talent good and bad only activates when a lightsaber attack is made using Presence. So he is still free to use all the styles he paid for to their fullest. Thoughts?

There's actually a lengthy thread here about it.

In short:

No real full consensus. A lot of suggestions, on how it could be changed and ways to balance each of the suggestions, but nothing in particular that people who feel it should change have settled on, and there are also a number of people (I'd say maybe around half the people who participated in the thread) who feel the talent shouldn't be changed at all.

In terms of the suggestions - what you proposed is one of the suggestions in how to change it. Other suggestions include just dropping the setback, dropping the setback and making it more expensive, changing it so it removes a setback (and maybe replacing another talent and making it a ranked talent - so up to 2 setback removed total), and taking a setback while engaged with multiple opponents to gain a free maneuver (that does not exceed the 2 maneuvers a turn limit).

Honestly the setback die isn't that huge a deal, in spite of what the Chicken Littles in the thread that Lathrop mentioned keep harping on about. Frankly, it's akin to the target having a free rank Melee Defense 1, and once the PC is at three Proficiency die or more, he's barely going to notice that setback die, as the most it's going to cost him is an extra success or advantage.

That said, tying it Lightsaber (Presence) checks is an acceptable house rule if the player is really that scared of a single setback die. Especially one that with a little creative thinking (and a manuever) you can mitigate if not outright remove in a number of instances; pretty much the only situation you couldn't avoid the setback die is when attacking a minion group, but any other type of opponent wouldn't be impossible.

I have a PC who is trying to skill into 3 lightsaber trees, but does not want to take the drawback form Duelist's Training . My house rule was the talent good and bad only activates when a lightsaber attack is made using Presence. So he is still free to use all the styles he paid for to their fullest. Thoughts?

The PC doesn't buy the Talent, it's not a bottleneck, he can go around it in the Tree.

Have you considered running it the way it was written for a while and seeing how it works?

Have you considered running it the way it was written for a while and seeing how it works?

Doubtful, since he barely runs the system the way it was written.

Edit: removed misunderstanding.

I think he is talking about evileeyore who has pretty much said he runs a heavily modded game.

Ah, that wasn't clear, I thought he was responding to a fair question directed at the OP. I'll edit.

I think he is talking about evileeyore who has pretty much said he runs a heavily modded game.

Exactly. Particularly as said poster has admitted that GURPs is his system of choice, and that he pretty much intends to rip FFG's system part until it's just another GURPs clone. Which makes me wonder why he doesn't just stick with GURPs since it's got the extreme levels of mechanical crunchiness that he apparently thrives upon.

Amazing how when I give advice fully consistent with running the game as written Dono still carries on with his petty bull.

Dono: I've told you repeatedly why I want to run this version of Star Wars, you simply fail at reading comprehension (hint: It's the dice mechanics).

I should have been clear, I was addressing the original poster's question, which I read and thought maybe that poster would consider trying it RAW as an option.

If a new player with only 3 prior posts came here to ask a fair question, I'm not sure dragging in all the tension from a different thread is very helpful...

I have a PC who is trying to skill into 3 lightsaber trees, but does not want to take the drawback form Duelist's Training. My house rule was the talent good and bad only activates when a lightsaber attack is made using Presence. So he is still free to use all the styles he paid for to their fullest. Thoughts?

Strongest suggestion I can make is that you and your player try using the talent as written for at least a couple sessions before changing it.

That setback die isn't really all that much of a deal-breaker, as it effectively grants minion groups a Melee Defense of 1 (when the most often have a Melee Defense of 0) or adds said Melee Defense 1 to Rivals, who again most often don't have a Melee Defense score in the first place. And most people that have played this game for any length of time will tell you that a single setback die on an attack roll, especially once you're rolling three or more dice and at least half of them are Proficiency dice, isn't that much of a setback, since it's only got a 1 in 3 chance of resulting in a failure or a 1 in 3 chance of coming up with a Threat. Against a difficultly of 2 purple, that extra setback die isn't really going to amount to much, particularly if using a lightsaber since the Breach 1 quality is going to ensure your player's character does a healthy amount of damage per swing,

And unless Makashi Duelist is going to be his initial specialization, by the time your player picks it up as even his second specialization, odds are he's going to have a Lightsaber skill of 3 with a Characteristic of 4, for a dice pool which will pretty effectively negate what little disadvantage the setback die would have had, while still providing a very useful advantage when squaring off against Rivals and Nemeses, given that it's not a huge matter to use a maneuver to disengage and leave yourself only engaged with a single target when you make your attack roll.

I should have been clear, I was addressing the original poster's question, which I read and thought maybe that poster would consider trying it RAW as an option.

It's a solid suggestion.