Just to reinforce the point, the only thing different about Ahsoka is that she is younger than most Padawans, causing some to underestimate her (which she finds aggravating). But the main take-away is that the Jedi grant titles based on capability, not age or some other arbitrary measure. So if Ahsoka represents a Padawan, and XP is a measure of capability, then measuring a Padawan's capability based on Ahsoka's abilities should be fairly accurate.

You're prolly gonna hate me, but I watched TCW again last night, and Ahsokas doable at 150. Though in fairness she could be higher based on the concept that ani and obi started at +150 in TPM and earned more, so ahsoka got bonus xp to keep her in the same xp ballpark as the others.

Also your other issue does arise. Obi and ventress are fighting and suddenly sense ani and ahsoka jump to hyperspace.

Tricky issue.

You know, one thing I think is seriously lacking with all these conversations is actual character creation, and stating of concepts to see what's possible and what's not. It's supposed to be a beta with us testing as many facets of the new book as much as we can. I think we should start actually coming up with stat blocks for Star Wars characters--or create characters similiar in ability--based on what we've seen them do. That way we can gain a realistic benchmark of XP expenditure to see how much XP it would take to get characters to where they should be.

Here you are:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/114395-knight-level-play-too-soon/

at page 3 you'll find Ghostofman build of Obi-Wan in TPM

Stuff like that is good. I enjoy reading different builds. I wouldn't necessarily agree with all the points but it's a good take. I'm contemplating stating up Ahsoka...though I don't particularly like her as a character.

Just to reinforce the point, the only thing different about Ahsoka is that she is younger than most Padawans, causing some to underestimate her (which she finds aggravating). But the main take-away is that the Jedi grant titles based on capability, not age or some other arbitrary measure. So if Ahsoka represents a Padawan, and XP is a measure of capability, then measuring a Padawan's capability based on Ahsoka's abilities should be fairly accurate.

You're prolly gonna hate me, but I watched TCW again last night, and Ahsokas doable at 150. Though in fairness she could be higher based on the concept that ani and obi started at +150 in TPM and earned more, so ahsoka got bonus xp to keep her in the same xp ballpark as the others.

Also your other issue does arise. Obi and ventress are fighting and suddenly sense ani and ahsoka jump to hyperspace.

Tricky issue.

You know, one thing I think is seriously lacking with all these conversations is actual character creation, and stating of concepts to see what's possible and what's not. It's supposed to be a beta with us testing as many facets of the new book as much as we can. I think we should start actually coming up with stat blocks for Star Wars characters--or create characters similiar in ability--based on what we've seen them do. That way we can gain a realistic benchmark of XP expenditure to see how much XP it would take to get characters to where they should be.

Here you are:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/114395-knight-level-play-too-soon/

at page 3 you'll find Ghostofman build of Obi-Wan in TPM

Which some of us will strongly disagree with. Where is the point in mechanics? Why is Obi-Wan speccing Shien, a Form he has never touched (he and QGJ are Ataru practioners, Obi-Wan switches to Soresu after this film). And his saying that FR1 is workable is technically true only if you assume double pip rolls a few times and explain off some other things he does as creative use of advantages (that replicates talents, something that some of us never thing should be allowed).

I do not disagree with everything Ghostofman did, and I think he got pretty close. However, when I do various builds testing different xp levels, I get different results, and who is to say who is right? When I build an "end-of-TPM" Obi-Wan, I end up around 250xp (220 if I /really/ cut some corners). 300xp if you want to be generous and assume he doesn't always just roll amazingly with his single Force Die. Of course, there is always the problem that you can save tons of xp at character creation by saying a character spent nothing on characteristics. This is completely unrealistic, but some people like to play this card so they can claim low-xp concept achievement or low-xp source character builds.

In my own personal experience, the much more realistic and true-to-canon (all 6 movies + TCW Movie + 6 seasons + Rebels) xp breakdown for the different Jedi levels are as follows:

Padawan: 100xp minimum

Knight: 225xp minimum

Master: 400xp minimum

Now, again, this is all completely subjective. Who is to say what exactly defines a Knight as it even varied in source materials depending upon the situation, the Era, etc? Regardless, these numbers come from making around 15 different builds of canonical characters at various times in their canon careers. I neither cut corners to try and save xp or went overboard to try and inflate it. I tried to remain as reasonable as possible to assume most of the things they did often they didn't need to be exceptionally lucky with Force Power activation to do.

My benchmark characters were as follows:

Entry level - Early Padawan: Ahsoka in TCW Movie. She's literally fresh out of the Temple and is even commented as being young for a Padawan. For early Padawan (seasons 1-2), I looked at Barriss and Ahsoka in their team-up eps.

Mid-Late Padawan: Season 5 Ahsoka/Barriss. It's obvious she's starting to near Knighthood at this point in the show, and Barriss (her only peer we get a decent amount of exposure to) is becoming moderately powerful as well.

Experienced Padawan / Novice Knight: Obi-Wan at the end of TPM. Secondarily, Kanan in Rebels. I mostly looked at Obi-Wan here as he was right on the border of Padawan and Knight. Kanan is fun to look at as well as a late Padawan, possible Knight. We know he was a Padawan before **** hit the fan, but he's had quite awhile to practice, has a Holocron, and held his own against the Inquisitor long enough to escape (sort-of).

Experienced Knight: Anakin in TCW. Seasons don't matter much as Anakin doesn't seem to grow power-wise season to season. Another fun one to look at for this level is Asajj. Not a Jedi, but on par with Anakin early on.

Novice Master: Obi-Wan in TCW and RotS. Obi-Wan is another one in TCW that doesn't grow much in terms of ability, so he's a good example for this slot.

Now, the tricky thing about Obi-Wan is that he's a very good Jedi. He masters Form III, gets Knighted and put on the question, both without any seeming hesitation, and is a hell of a duelist. So one could argue he is ahead of the curve and shouldn't be modeled on, but that's fine, it still gives us an idea. Even if Obi-Wan is ahead of his contemporaries, you're talking maybe 50-75xp at most.

I have no problem with when characters start to feel like a Jedi Master, I just feel like it takes forever for a Force user to get going. It's just unfortunate that to feel like a Jedi, you need to either cut a bunch of corners and pray on the Force die / accrue a bunch of conflict, or just sit and try to soak xp for awhile until your concept comes together.

But a bunch of people will disagree, and that's fine. My point is that you said people should be testing concepts with builds at various xp, but we do that. The problem is that people will not agree with each other with the representations we see on screen. I say Ahsoka cannot be done with less than 150xp, Ghostofman says she can be. I say Obi-Wan in TPM cannot be done with less than 225xp, Ghostofman says he can be. So who's right? This is all just opinion and no one can be proved right or wrong on it. But this is the internet, so people will try anyway.

I did just stat up Ahsoka...very quick summary is that 150 does seem to work for a Padawan:

Brawn: 1

Agility: 3

Intellect: 2

Cunning: 3

Willpower: 4

Presence: 2

Career: Consular, Niman Disciple. The Niman technique allows her Willpower to come into play in the Lightsaber skill. I made that so high to reflect her fearlessness, and when the crunch comes she knows how to persevere.

The upshot is that 150XP you can't get to FR2 and still buy any Force powers (never mind skills), but you can get pretty close. The only stickler here is a specific display of power in the TCW movie, where she pulls a wall down around Anakin to crush the droids around him. The wall has to be a Sil2 object, meaning she needs 2 Strength upgrades on Move, and had to roll double pips with FR1, which is, of course, doable.

So if you stop after picking Center of Being, and only pick one Parry and one Reflect from the tree, you have enough to have a decent Move + Strength x2 upgrades, with maybe a bit of Sense and/or Enhance. It would only take a few "episodes" to round out her character with some skills and get to FR2. If you stop just before Center of Being you'd have room for a couple more skills.

Where is her Imp. Reflect, Whafrog? ;P

I don't think she uses that in the movie, unless I missed it.

I did just stat up Ahsoka...very quick summary is that 150 does seem to work for a Padawan:

Brawn: 1

Agility: 3

Intellect: 2

Cunning: 3

Willpower: 4

Presence: 2

Career: Consular, Niman Disciple. The Niman technique allows her Willpower to come into play in the Lightsaber skill. I made that so high to reflect her fearlessness, and when the crunch comes she knows how to persevere.

The upshot is that 150XP you can't get to FR2 and still buy any Force powers (never mind skills), but you can get pretty close. The only stickler here is a specific display of power in the TCW movie, where she pulls a wall down around Anakin to crush the droids around him. The wall has to be a Sil2 object, meaning she needs 2 Strength upgrades on Move, and had to roll double pips with FR1, which is, of course, doable.

So if you stop after picking Center of Being, and only pick one Parry and one Reflect from the tree, you have enough to have a decent Move + Strength x2 upgrades, with maybe a bit of Sense and/or Enhance. It would only take a few "episodes" to round out her character with some skills and get to FR2. If you stop just before Center of Being you'd have room for a couple more skills.

You can get to FR 2. Depending on the tree you use.

I don't think she uses that in the movie, unless I missed it.

She does. She uses it once in the hallway when those droids are "sneaking up on them" and Anakin quips at her about missing one. And I think she does it a couple times later as well, but I don't remember the scene.

Just goes back to FFG aggravating the hell out of me on the Imp Reflect issue. They all do it. All the **** time. It should not be so inaccessible.

edit: and as far as Ahsoka's trees go, I've always assumed she's Ataru. Niman is the foundation for Jar'Kai, but she doesn't dual wield until later, and Ataru is often used by Jar'Kai practitioners as well. Her lightsaber fighting is always very dexterous and "spinny-jumpy," and she isn't a huge Force power user, so I build her early as primarily a glow stick swinger except for her upgraded Move (which Wahfrog covered) and Enhance.

I thought Ahsoka was mostly skill in shien like Anakin? Wookiepedia mentions she knows Shien/Djem So, some training Ataru, and some training in Niman.

I don't think she uses that in the movie, unless I missed it.

She does. She uses it once in the hallway when those droids are "sneaking up on them" and Anakin quips at her about missing one. And I think she does it a couple times later as well, but I don't remember the scene.

But.... the "Movie" is just three episodes taped together. So she'd be getting XP reward between each one, with potential to advance. In the first Episode she uses Move fore certain, and probably Enhance, and that's about it. Her use of sense doesn't come in until episode 2.

Really she's pretty sound until you get to the end of episode 3 where she solos multiple Magnaguards... but who's to say those used the printed stats...

Just goes back to FFG aggravating the hell out of me on the Imp Reflect issue. They all do it. All the **** time. It should not be so inaccessible

This is a problem... sort of... See in a lot of the shows and films we see a Jedi reflect a shot back at the shooter it's usually within what would be Engaged range, and followed up with a lightsaber attack. So was it an improved reflect, or a regular reflect and lightsaber attack with some fancy narration?

It's annoying, but explainable.

edit: and as far as Ahsoka's trees go, I've always assumed she's Ataru. Niman is the foundation for Jar'Kai, but she doesn't dual wield until later, and Ataru is often used by Jar'Kai practitioners as well. Her lightsaber fighting is always very dexterous and "spinny-jumpy," and she isn't a huge Force power user, so I build her early as primarily a glow stick swinger except for her upgraded Move (which Wahfrog covered) and Enhance.

Resist the urge to assign the name of a talent tree to an actual thing. The Smuggler:Thief could just as easily be a Private Investigator as a criminal. What the name of your saber tree is doesn't really change the fact you can swing a saber.

Resist the urge to assign the name of a talent tree to an actual thing. The Smuggler:Thief could just as easily be a Private Investigator as a criminal. What the name of your saber tree is doesn't really change the fact you can swing a saber.

Totally agree, and to prove Ghost's point Far Horizon suggest to build the Private Investigator as a mix between Marshall and Thief. As for the lightsaber techniques, Shien is the one that has the most reflects/ improved reflect so it's fiarly likely that it was taguht to every jedi as basic self defence technique. Alternatively, normal reflects narrated well can do the trick most of the times (you could say you reflect back but don't always hit or pierce the armor/clothes of the target).

Ok.... interesting monkeywrench to toss into the machine...

The forsaken jedi, the jedi in jewl of yavin, and the inquisitor build suggestions all have an FR of 3...

Ok.... interesting monkeywrench to toss into the machine...

The forsaken jedi, the jedi in jewl of yavin, and the inquisitor build suggestions all have an FR of 3...

Well, for EotE NPCs, even FR 3 is a bit much for them. Jewel of Yavin jedi for instance only needs one actual force point to activate any of the powers she has, and still has On the Edge to spend 1 strain to use a dark side point. Forsaken is the same, but also has access to the Sense difficulty upgrade commit. Even the Jedi-in-Hiding is similar, at least in regards to their Force: Move power.

It's really just these NPCs in FaD that don't have the same powers that only require a single usable point to activate at that character's full power. There can be a number of reasons for the change - match it up to players now that all FaD players are force-sensitive, trying to be less "unfair", the inherently beastly stats of an Inquisitor which is combined by their more customizable nature, etc.

Ghost, I noticed the same (and also the Forsaken Master in the F&D update has a FR 3), and that's why i think that fully trained Jedi Knights have FR 3 to actually qualify for the title.I also believe that is the normal maximum usually reached by a Jedi Knight, and only the sages and seers like Yoda and Palpatine actually bothered to delve deeper in the Force to reach FR4 or higher.

It's also possible the devs still believed in the old Force Rating Table from the beta when they statted the adversaries and kept using FR3 to mantain the standardization and allow adversaries from all books to cross over.

You can also argue that all those adversaries have had 20 years of developing their Force power so FR3 isn't that strange.

Alright, here we go.

I thought Ahsoka was mostly skill in shien like Anakin? Wookiepedia mentions she knows Shien/Djem So, some training Ataru, and some training in Niman.

She does. Almost all Jedi have some basic training in several different forms, because like all martial training, having exposure to several forms creates a greater whole. Regardless of her eventual training in many forms, this is brand-new-Padawan Ahsoka and everyone is claiming she can easily be made with 150 xp. You can't claim this and claim she has two or three Lightsaber specializations at the same time. The xp to afford that just isn't there.

But.... the "Movie" is just three episodes taped together. So she'd be getting XP reward between each one, with potential to advance. In the first Episode she uses Move fore certain, and probably Enhance, and that's about it. Her use of sense doesn't come in until episode 2.

Really she's pretty sound until you get to the end of episode 3 where she solos multiple Magnaguards... but who's to say those used the printed stats...

No, you can't start saying they get xp at the end of every single episode or multiple times within the movie. You get xp per adventure, which would correlate with story arcs in TCW show. If you give them session xp per episode, Anakin and Ahsoka would come out of TCW with 1000+ xp. Even giving them xp per arc puts Ahsoka in the 500+ xp ballpark... and she was never Knighted.

Again, you can't claim she gets extra xp to cover her bases when it's convenient and then claim she's a low xp build at the same time.

This is a problem... sort of... See in a lot of the shows and films we see a Jedi reflect a shot back at the shooter it's usually within what would be Engaged range, and followed up with a lightsaber attack. So was it an improved reflect, or a regular reflect and lightsaber attack with some fancy narration?

It's annoying, but explainable.

As for the lightsaber techniques, Shien is the one that has the most reflects/ improved reflect so it's fiarly likely that it was taguht to every jedi as basic self defence technique. Alternatively, normal reflects narrated well can do the trick most of the times (you could say you reflect back but don't always hit or pierce the armor/clothes of the target).

I absolutely hate this argument about Improved Reflect. This is so cheap and hamfisted, I can't believe any GM or player would be happy with this explanation. I'm all about improvising narration, and did it in Saga and other d20 systems that supported this kind of storytelling to a far lesser degree. However, you can't just give people abilities through narration or allow them to simulate talents with advantages or threat. That cheapens the talent itself, especially if you have other people in the party who went out of their way to get that really cool talent. I'm sorry, but if we see a blaster bolt bounce off a lightsaber and kill something, that's Improved Reflect. It's a cool talent, don't detract from it to explain away its absence.

This "solution" people like to use for Improved Reflect is just damage control and scrambling to try and defend what is an obvious hole in the system. A hole that is easily fixable by including the talent in the trees that clearly have a basis in lore for having it. Does Shien have a direct focus in reflecting blaster fire as an offensive tactic? Absolutely. Was it the first one to do it? Absolutely not. There is no reason that every tree, except for Makashi and Niman, shouldn't have Improved Reflect. Similar arguments could be made for Improved Parry, excluding Soresu and Niman, but that's far harder to point out examples of in source material (was he improved parrying or just parrying and attacking?).

Shien should have Improved Reflect as a specialty, i.e. it should be in the 2nd or 3rd tier. Shii-Cho, Soresu, and Ataru should all have it as well, probably in tiers 4, 5, and 5, respectively. Let's be honest, with the current state of lightsaber trees, it would not be hard to find room for Improved Reflect where it so obviously should go.

Resist the urge to assign the name of a talent tree to an actual thing. The Smuggler:Thief could just as easily be a Private Investigator as a criminal. What the name of your saber tree is doesn't really change the fact you can swing a saber.

The names of the lightsaber trees absolutely matter. They carry a theme with them and very specific connotations in lore. If I'm speccing Ataru, I expect to be a mobile, dexterous, and aggressive lightsaber fighter. If I spec Niman, I want to be blending Force powers with a more defensive, paced style. If I play Shien, I want to feel powerful and dangerous. These trees and names have meaning in the lore and the names absolutely are important because they are how the devs choose to design the tree. Creatively interpreting a specialization to fit your concept is fine, but not being able to accurately build a concept of which there are countless source examples is a problem.

If we hardly ever saw Jedi improved reflecting, or only saw experienced Knights and Masters doing it: fine, keep it in Shien and Soresu. But that's not what we see. We see fresh Padawans and Jedi of every type, Jedi who in the lore explicitly are not practitioners of either of these two forms, improved reflecting. It's an incredibly common application of lightsaber combat in an age dominated by blaster fire. And let's all be perfectly honest: it's not even that good of a talent. I understand having to slightly deviate from the source material for the sake of balance, but when it's not going to disrupt gameplay or unbalance anything, why not replicate the Galaxy that inspires us to play the game to begin with?

edit: I feel like I should write a small disclaimer to this point. I completely and entirely agree with using specializations and interpreting them creatively. However, I think this only makes sense when the playstyle created by these choices is accurate to the concept, such as your smuggler|thief example.

You can also argue that all those adversaries have had 20 years of developing their Force power so FR3 isn't that strange.

You know who else has 20 years of developing their Force powers? Padawans nearing Knighthood and younger Jedi Knights. But people like to argue that they can accurately be built with 1 or 2 FR, so which is it?

----

I fully expect ad-hoc attacks after this post claiming that I'm unimaginative and would be a terrible GM to play with or something. So I'll just address it now and say something equally as subjective: I'm actually an incredibly narrative and laid back GM who hand-waves rules more than any other GM I've ever played with. However, it is true that I will not allow narrative recreation of actual mechanical abilities that are intended to be purchased. This undercuts and undermines the value of the mechanic itself.

PCs are not NPCs and vice versa. NPCs are going to have whatever it takes to challenge the player characters. Personally I wouldn't use any of them as a yardstick for anything player character based.

PCs are not NPCs and vice versa. NPCs are going to have whatever it takes to challenge the player characters. Personally I wouldn't use any of them as a yardstick for anything player character based.

I absolutely agree.

edit: My point was just that we can't use them as yardsticks when convenient and then ignore them when it isn't. They have the FR they have because that's what's necessary to challenge the PCs, not because of their possible background. I'm of the opinion that Padawans can be represented with 1FR, Knights with 2-3: I was just pointing out the disconnect.

I wasn't directing that comment at anyone in particular. Just that NPCs and "monsters" are there to challenge the players and their characters. Their stats are designed to do that and only that. Using them as a yardstick is meaningless for me.

All this does make me wonder why Parry and Reflect are identical. Parry and its upgrades should be a combat ability that anybody could learn. Reflect seems rooted in the Force. If they separated these mechanically maybe they could find a way to include the effect of Improved Reflect in more places.

All this does make me wonder why Parry and Reflect are identical. Parry and its upgrades should be a combat ability that anybody could learn. Reflect seems rooted in the Force. If they separated these mechanically maybe they could find a way to include the effect of Improved Reflect in more places.

Parry is a normal talent, Reflect is a Force talent. Unless what you mean is you'd rather force rating or something should come into play in some additional manner, like additional Force Ratings increasing damaged reduced or something.

But.... the "Movie" is just three episodes taped together. So she'd be getting XP reward between each one, with potential to advance. In the first Episode she uses Move fore certain, and probably Enhance, and that's about it. Her use of sense doesn't come in until episode 2.

Really she's pretty sound until you get to the end of episode 3 where she solos multiple Magnaguards... but who's to say those used the printed stats...

No, you can't start saying they get xp at the end of every single episode or multiple times within the movie. You get xp per adventure, which would correlate with story arcs in TCW show. If you give them session xp per episode, Anakin and Ahsoka would come out of TCW with 1000+ xp. Even giving them xp per arc puts Ahsoka in the 500+ xp ballpark... and she was never Knighted.

Again, you can't claim she gets extra xp to cover her bases when it's convenient and then claim she's a low xp build at the same time.

I'm not saying for certain what her XP build is, only that it can be done at the +150 level. You can take the +150 and get to where she needs to be to do what she does in the show.

But as I also said earlier that's merely a single option. There's other options that would also be consistent, such as:

• +150 XP and normal rewards
• +150 XP + XP that Obi Padme, and Anakin have from TPM, AotC, and any other adventures you wish to factor in.
• +150 XP and increased rewards to allow her to catch up to Anakin, Padme, and Obi.

And I'm not "starting" to say anything, I'm still consistent with previous claims. My Obi as of TPM at +150 also factored in that he (and others) would be getting XP rewards and advancing between each act of the films 3 act structure (in game mechanics I considered each act to be both an adventure milestone as well as a game session similar to what you see in the printed adventures like Beyond the Rim). Even if you think of the Clone Wars "Movie" as an actual film, you still get 3 acts.

The rewards they get for each episode of the series is a question, but not one I'm addressing here.

I'm not going to make any claims as to if you'd be a good or bad GM, but I do get the feeling that the real heart of your issues might be you just don't like how the system is handling Force users. Which is fine, but at this point there's only so many changes you can expect. Complete revamping of whole talent trees or previously published mechanics aren't really in the cards...

All this does make me wonder why Parry and Reflect are identical. Parry and its upgrades should be a combat ability that anybody could learn. Reflect seems rooted in the Force. If they separated these mechanically maybe they could find a way to include the effect of Improved Reflect in more places.

Parry is a normal talent, Reflect is a Force talent. Unless what you mean is you'd rather force rating or something should come into play in some additional manner, like additional Force Ratings increasing damaged reduced or something.

Could be that Parry is generally only found in the Lightsaber Form specs, which are all Force-related by default. Which isn't surprising given that neither Parry or Reflect existed prior to the Beta being released.

There are the MagnaGuard NPCs that have a few ranks of Parry, and being droids they're certainly not Force-sensitive. But aside from dipping into one or more of those LS Form specs, there's not really any other way for a PC to get ranks in Parry, much less the Improved or Supreme versions.

Could be that in later sourcebooks for AoR and maybe EotE there will be one or more melee-based specs introduced that will include the Parry string of talents. Or it could be that they're meant to be used within a Force and Destiny campaign.

I'm not saying for certain what her XP build is, only that it can be done at the +150 level. You can take the +150 and get to where she needs to be to do what she does in the show.

And I'm not "starting" to say anything, I'm still consistent with previous claims. My Obi as of TPM at +150 also factored in that he (and others) would be getting XP rewards and advancing between each act of the films 3 act structure (in game mechanics I considered each act to be both an adventure milestone as well as a game session similar to what you see in the printed adventures like Beyond the Rim). Even if you think of the Clone Wars "Movie" as an actual film, you still get 3 acts.

I am using 'you' in the general sense. I simply mean that when we are using TCW as source material, which we honestly need to do because it's one of the very few canon things left, we have to consider how to have the characters come out with realistic xp levels. If we don't, we can't use the characters as a basis for anything.

If you give these characters session xp for any smaller increment of the show than story arcs (of which the movie is one), then they will come out of the movie+6 seasons with 1000s of xp. I absolutely agree with you that logically it should follow the same rules as the modules and movies, but there is just too much material there to apply the same rule across the board. In reality, yes, if a group of PCs played every episode of TCW, they'd be gods with a mountain of xp, but if we model it that way we lose the largest amount of canonical source material we have.

I'm not going to make any claims as to if you'd be a good or bad GM, but I do get the feeling that the real heart of your issues might be you just don't like how the system is handling Force users. Which is fine, but at this point there's only so many changes you can expect. Complete revamping of whole talent trees or previously published mechanics aren't really in the cards...

Not at all. I think the way the Force is handled in this game is quite interesting. If I didn't, I would still be playing Saga. And nowhere did I suggest that I expect or desire the entire revamping of talent trees. I merely want abilities that are shown as being so absurdly common that they seem to be standard -- improved reflect -- to be represented as such in the game. What this means is adding Improved Reflect to two more trees. They have already added it to Soresu, so it is not as if the devs are unwilling to add things to trees or make changes. It is a change that would match more closely to the source material and not unbalance or break anything.

As has been said and shown mathematically by Dono and others, Improved Reflect isn't exactly a power talent. It is, however, iconic, and to not have it in all of the trees except for the ones that explicitly do not have a foundation for it in the lore (Makashi as a melee and dueling form and Niman as the diplomats form that is light on any intensive techniques), is a pretty huge oversight and disconnect from the source material.

As far as the rest of how F&D handles Force users, yes, I have some minor problems. I think they may have written themselves into a corner and not left much room for a traditional Jedi in future supplements. I think a few of the lightsaber forms are using the wrong characteristic. But these things are minor in my mind compared to the system's oversight and inability to accurately and easily reproduce one of the most iconic uses of lightsabers without either a) being shoehorned into 2 of 6 lightsaber forms or b) spending a ton of xp just to get one mediocre ability from a tree you wouldn't otherwise touch.

As far as the rest of how F&D handles Force users, yes, I have some minor problems. I think they may have written themselves into a corner and not left much room for a traditional Jedi in future supplements. I think a few of the lightsaber forms are using the wrong characteristic. But these things are minor in my mind compared to the system's oversight and inability to accurately and easily reproduce one of the most iconic uses of lightsabers without either a) being shoehorned into 2 of 6 lightsaber forms or b) spending a ton of xp just to get one mediocre ability from a tree you wouldn't otherwise touch.

Not to mention that a lot of the talents seem to just be there to take up space, or otherwise don't exactly make sense in being a talent. For instance, Saber Throw just seems odd to me as a talent, even if it is a "force talent". The idea of using the force to throw a saber could easily be handled with the application of the move force power, thus making room for an additional talent that would be more "significant" considering the costs of where Saber Throw is in the trees.

As has been said and shown mathematically by Dono and others, Improved Reflect isn't exactly a power talent. It is, however, iconic, and to not have it in all of the trees except for the ones that explicitly do not have a foundation for it in the lore (Makashi as a melee and dueling form and Niman as the diplomats form that is light on any intensive techniques), is a pretty huge oversight and disconnect from the source material.

I really would like to see a better way for Improved Reflect to be handled. As it is now, it's too reliant on negative dice in order for it to effectively fire off.

Not to mention that a lot of the talents seem to just be there to take up space, or otherwise don't exactly make sense in being a talent. For instance, Saber Throw just seems odd to me as a talent, even if it is a "force talent". The idea of using the force to throw a saber could easily be handled with the application of the move force power, thus making room for an additional talent that would be more "significant" considering the costs of where Saber Throw is in the trees.

Wow, I hadn't even noticed that saber throwing was a talent since none of my current players have Ataru. I figured it would be covered under Move's third Control upgrade.

Wow, I hadn't even noticed that saber throwing was a talent since none of my current players have Ataru. I figured it would be covered under Move's third Control upgrade.

It's also in Shien and Aggressor, iirc. Since canonically we've rarely seen this done (Vader and Yoda in the movies, Savage and maybe a couple others in TCW), I don't mind the scarcity of this talent, though I do agree it seems like something that could easily be done with Move and some narration.