Hello,

I have read the rules for EDGE, and i like them a lot.

I would like to setup a game using FFG rules (FaD beta) but we want to play in the republic era.

I assume that FaD does not cover that period, and of course there would be no support from official adventures.

Assuming converting stat blocks is easy enough, are there any other reasons why changing the era of play is a bad idea?

Are there rules for full Jedis in the FaD beta (i had a quick look and it didnt seem so)? Are there rules for dark side powers, sith, etc?

Thanks
Madeiner

Force and Destiny has it covered.

For creating "Full Jedi", there's a section the book that refers to Knight Level play. Basically, you create your characters as normal, but once you are done, you get extra 150XP and either a basic Lightsaber or 9,000 credits. That 150XP cannot be used to directly raise characteristics (because it is technically awarded after character creation), and you cannot raise a single skill rank above 3.

There is some debate (which I do not want to get into)if 150xp is enough to truly represents a Jedi Knight. But it's definitely enough to represent a budding padawan who has been trained all their life. If you want an early-level Knight, I say throw in an extra 100XP-150XP)

Other than that, it will just be some reskinning of enemies, ships, and gear and a touch of homebrewing to fill in the gaps.

Make sure you check out the Force and Destiny beta updates .

One suggestion on the extra experience points: it sounds like you and your players might be new to the system. If that's the case, keep in mind that more experience makes you characters more complicated. It might be better to start out at the base character level, but gain xp at an increased rate if you feel everyone's comfortable.

One suggestion on the extra experience points: it sounds like you and your players might be new to the system. If that's the case, keep in mind that more experience makes you characters more complicated. It might be better to start out at the base character level, but gain xp at an increased rate if you feel everyone's comfortable.

Good point!

To ease them in, you could plan an adventure with them as budding younglings (don't worry about nerfing their characteristics for being young. It's just flavor) where they go through their training and facing various trials. You could do it as a series of 2-3 sessions where each session is them at a different point in their path. At the very end they will have the necessary XP to be a full Jedi Knight. That's when the real adventure unfolds.

There are also whole segments of KOTOR where there aren't really Jedi, and your players might fall into that category, wherein, the rules as provided should cover you. It depends on what you want to do, and what you most like about the Knights setting. Heck, even Tthe Old Republic, where the game has a standing Jedi Council, gives you more a feeling of "figuring it out as you go", rather than sitting in a room, meditating, while your Master slowly drills the ways of the Force into you, so if you want them to feel that bit more haphazard, it might still work.

KOTOR is my favorite overall setting, so I wish you the best, should you choose to tackle it. It might depend on your knowledge, your preferences, and when (1, 2, an in-between, or TOR), but it should be awesome.

Thing to bear in mind is that while Force and Destiny covers Force users, it's not really meant to allow a player to quickly and easily create a "Jedi" of the caliber we see in the films and TV series. Even at Knight Level (which is only +150 XP on top of what each PC normally gets), you're not really going to be able to create a "Jedi" as most folks tend to view them.

Beyond that, Force and Destiny pretty much covers the basics of being a Force user, including the consequences of calling upon the dark side to fuel your Force powers. It's a significant step down from how WotC handled it, and almost a slap on the wrist in contrast to how West End Games worked; there's a joke that Luke in RotJ wasn't contemplating his cybernetic right hand as he stood over Vader, but was counting how many dark side points he'd earned, and only refused to strike down Vader because he realized that he was one point away from going dark and becoming an NPC.

As DoctorXerox said, the more XP a character starts out with, the more complicated things get as the PCs have more talents and powers they have to remember. This proved to be an issue when doing the playtesting for Stay on Target as many players simply forgot about talents that they had because the character hadn't evolved from baseline to those semi-lofty heights needed to reach the Signature Abilities.

But as for playing in the Old Republic (or any other era), there's really not much stopping you, other than the players may need their expectations of what it means to be a Jedi lowered. It's been discussed fairly in-depth in the past on these forums, but Knight Level is barely enough to create a PC that would be considered a newly-minted Padawan in terms of their skills and capabilities (not helped by the fact that all but one the Lightsaber Form specs don't provide the chance to increase one's Force Rating).

Thanks for the heads up

I read a few topics about the XP levels, how knight level works and how is not enough to provide jedi power right off the bat.

Power level does not worry me much, as i know i can account for it in some way (good suggestions in the topic, btw)

Skimming through the FaD book, i still don't understand the classes much.

My players will ask me "where's the jedi guardian tree?" and i still wouldn't know what to tell them. But i suppose that will become clear in time.

I also read a few topics and many people were interested in making new trees for "basic" padawan abilities. I dont know if anything has been done yet. Probably after release? Wouldnt want anything fancy, but i'd love for a starting character to have a couple basic powers, a lightsaber, and at least the ability to reflect bolts. I feel that's what most people want, too.

Anybody could tell me how hard it would be to adapt NPCs from SAGA adventures? Once you get some system experience, how much time does it take to stat npcs and monsters? I'm used to D&D and SAGA and it takes quite a bit of time, even if you dont want to be rules compliant (i usually eyeball), to balance out things in order to provide a challenge.

Skimming through the FaD book, i still don't understand the classes much.

My players will ask me "where's the jedi guardian tree?" and i still wouldn't know what to tell them. But i suppose that will become clear in time.

There is a Guardian class, with three specializations. But you’re not going to be a proper Jedi Guardian unless you’ve got at least two of those three specializations, if not all three. And you’d need to be well-bought into the majority of the talent trees for each of those.

And even that might not be enough to build a proper Jedi Guardian.

I also read a few topics and many people were interested in making new trees for "basic" padawan abilities. I dont know if anything has been done yet. Probably after release? Wouldnt want anything fancy, but i'd love for a starting character to have a couple basic powers, a lightsaber, and at least the ability to reflect bolts. I feel that's what most people want, too.

IMO, that’s one of the areas where F&D Beta really falls short. I feel that they should have had a Universal specialization called Padawan/Student/Learner/Novice/Initiate or whatever they wanted to call it, and that’s where you’d actually get your first Force ranking, plus learn the basic sorts of things that we also see in the Force Sensitive Exile in EotE and the Force Sensitive Emergent in AoR.

But that’s not how they did things.

To be honest, I think if you take what FFG calls “Knight-level Play” with bonus 150xp plus 9000Cr, that would be enough to let you build a decent Padawan. If you did it right, you could even get to FR2 or maybe even FR3, although you’d really be hurting yourself in the latter case.

The hint here is that Mystic/Seer has the most accessible FR+1, and Mystic/Advisor is not far behind. Sage also has a pretty accessible FR+1. Note that Seer and Sage are the only two specializations that have two FR+1 talents in their respective trees, so by taking both of those plus your starting FR1, you can get to FR5 without taking any additional specializations.

Anybody could tell me how hard it would be to adapt NPCs from SAGA adventures? Once you get some system experience, how much time does it take to stat npcs and monsters? I'm used to D&D and SAGA and it takes quite a bit of time, even if you dont want to be rules compliant (i usually eyeball), to balance out things in order to provide a challenge.

Don’t know anything about Saga, so I can’t give you any advice there. Personally, I look to older material as inspiration, but would then completely re-build in the new system, and probably keeping only the fluff descriptions.

Thanks for the heads up

I read a few topics about the XP levels, how knight level works and how is not enough to provide jedi power right off the bat.

Power level does not worry me much, as i know i can account for it in some way (good suggestions in the topic, btw)

It's more a certain point of view issue then a yes/no.

I think as a relatively new sounding GM to the system you'll want to go ahead and use the official Knight level just to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed, and then after a few sessions if you want to beef things up just kick out a huge XP reward. See below for a recommendation from another thread that goes into more detail.

Skimming through the FaD book, i still don't understand the classes much.

My players will ask me "where's the jedi guardian tree?" and i still wouldn't know what to tell them. But i suppose that will become clear in time.

I also read a few topics and many people were interested in making new trees for "basic" padawan abilities. I dont know if anything has been done yet. Probably after release?

To get what most people think of as "Jedi" in this system you don't need any specific Spec. All you need to do is get a Role Spec, and a Saber Form Spec. That's about it. Just figure out what kind of Jedi you want to play, and mix and match till you get what you want.

As an old Saga player, don't use the old class names like "Guardian" to define your character. FFG is a different company, and is using a different system, so the old names don't apply in quite the same way. They get close, and if you liked Guardian in Saga I'd say to start looking at the Guardian career, but I'd also say to scope out the Warrior...

So If you want say a "Stealthy Jedi Ninja" you'll probably want to take the Shadow Spec as your role. With Cunning being a characteristic you're probably going put some starting XP into, you'll probably want Shien Expert as your saber spec since it allows you to use Cunning instead of Brawn when making lightsaber checks.

By comparison lets say you instead want to play a "Jedi mechanic that fixes stuff using the force" In this case you'll want the Artisan as your skill spec, but since it's Intelligence that most of those Tech skills are based on, you'll probably want the Sorensu Defender as your saber spec to better leverage that.

You can also mix and match from the other books too if you like. So if you wanted to play a character that was "A Jedi that's spent a little too much time in the temple, and not enough in the galaxy" (like say a padawan...) You might want to take something like Ataru striker as your starting spec (being a pretty balanced saber tree) and then skip the more skill-oriented tress and just take Force Exile or Emergent, that can still give you that FR+1, but otherwise don't offer much that can be applied to any one role.

Master-Padawan Notes as follows:

As for most of the home-brew "Padawan" trees. Don't. They mean well, they do, but most of them aren't well balanced (there are a few rare exceptions of course, but since you still seem to be learning, I think it's safer if you stick to RAW). I took part int he Alpha test of F&D, and while I can't say what's changed due to the NDA, I think it's ok for me to tell you the trees you see now look that way for a reason. The "Padawan" and "Jedi" trees people have homebrewed tend to be overpowered, as it's usually people just trying to make the system match their individual view of what a Jedi should be, and not much consideration given to game function, mechanics, and balance.

Anybody could tell me how hard it would be to adapt NPCs from SAGA adventures? Once you get some system experience, how much time does it take to stat npcs and monsters? I'm used to D&D and SAGA and it takes quite a bit of time, even if you dont want to be rules compliant (i usually eyeball), to balance out things in order to provide a challenge.

My Saga specific experience is limited, but I'm very familiar with D20 and D&D4.

To adapt is gonna be kinda tricky depending on the NPC in question. The Stat blocks between the two games are quite different, as are the mechanics, so there's only so much "this=that" that you can even apply. Lower level NPCs will be pretty easy, but by that note, most of what you're looking for in lower level NPCs is already statted for you in the Core book...

The good news is once you get the hang of it, statting new NPCs is easy as pie, and takes very little time compared to D20. NPCs in this system don't have to follow any build rules, you just put down the numbers, talents, abilities, and gear you need for the encounter you have in mind. So once you get a feel for how your players roll, what skills and abilities they have, and how the difficulty dice translate to actual play, you'll be able to stat most NPCs you'll need in just a minute or two.

Nothing prevents you from staging the game in old republic era.

Remember these are rules and frame they game-- but no one is standing over you forcing you to have to use every **** rule. As long as your players are having fun and it's fair to all playing.

A podcast you will likely get a lot of solid advice from is the Order 66 Podcast. It has a ton of good advice for GMing the Fantasy flight version of star wars. They also have alot of the devs on. Which will let you here some of their thoughts on why they designed things the way they did. As well as solid advice from the devs themselves.

IMO, that’s one of the areas where F&D Beta really falls short. I feel that they should have had a Universal specialization called Padawan/Student/Learner/Novice/Initiate or whatever they wanted to call it, and that’s where you’d actually get your first Force ranking, plus learn the basic sorts of things that we also see in the Force Sensitive Exile in EotE and the Force Sensitive Emergent in AoR.

But that’s not how they did things.

There really is a lot of cross messaging as it were. In one place the game says pretty flat out that it is meant to play the Heirs to the Jedi's legacy. NOT Jedi proper, just something very like them. Yet later you get rules to make "Knight level" characters. If not flat out knights. These characters are by the game's own admission those who have 'grown up using' The Force in their daily lives. As opposed to Exile and Emergent who stumble into it later.

Given the era? This is not a bad thing. Heck, it even makes sense. It is what the era is. We are playing the ones who are trying to restore the tradition, not members of the tradition proper. But that's why I think for a LOT of us this does not a Jedi make, even if they eventually 'make' themselves a Jedi. And yes, it is also possible to crib a Jedi, but again, it's a crib, it's not exactly in theme. And therein lies the rub. (and why I agree with the poster I am quoting here). Cribbing isn't good enough for a lot of us. There truly is a subset of gamers who prefer things as written without needing to fudge, for any number of reasons. We hate being told 'just fudge it.'

Fundamentally, this IS an issue of messaging. So often the arguments against just say give XP and bam! You're a knight. Or how another poster said "the signature abilities" or whatever will probably change minds. I don't think it's so much the upper level we're concerned about (well, some of us). It's the entry level that doesn't match with what Jedi are.

As the quoted poster says, there is definitely a difference between someone who grows up using the Force and trying to Emulate the Jedi's ways compared to a Padawan who is grown up being directly TAUGHT their ways. These are two very different things. The former is someone living a normal life, however that is represented. Your Ace is still a sort of pilot. Your Mystic is still, well, sort of a mystic. But all growing up in some other society. A Jedi Knight? Typically grew up within the Order, but literally tied to the Order. In fact, for many this represented a sort of... sheltered nature. Hell, it was one of the weaknesses of the later day order in the prequels, they were a society apart.

so that's why I hope if we do get a Clone Wars or pre-OT era sourcebook somewhere, we get rules for true Jedi from the get go. Not 'inheritors of the legacy' (and again, I don't disagree we have a good means to crib it, I just don't think it's perfect, and a genuine career will make a big difference). I imagine the trees would be subtly different from what we have. And I especially agree some form of 'padawan' tree is a good idea. Or really, a series of them. (Frankly, I think one for each of the careers, slotted in alongside the 3 existing would be best).

I'm in the middle of a KotOR game right now, smack in the middle of the Sith Cold War with no apparent ill effects. The most work I have to do adapting to the new setting coming up with stats for stuff, and mostly that's just a simple matter of reskinning Empire era equipment. TIE Fighters are now Sith fighters and so on. Make the hyperdrives a bit slower (weeks to cross the galaxy instead of days), put a Jedi or Sith everywhere and we're good.

Same thing for you - take a stormtrooper, call him a Battledroid, make him immune to vacuum and poison and you're golden.

Anybody could tell me how hard it would be to adapt NPCs from SAGA adventures? Once you get some system experience, how much time does it take to stat npcs and monsters? I'm used to D&D and SAGA and it takes quite a bit of time, even if you dont want to be rules compliant (i usually eyeball), to balance out things in order to provide a challenge.

I have found that the two systems are wildly incompatible and that you are better off just using the flavor of the text to guide your build. If you're going to convert - and even this isn't a perfect match up - it's much easier to come from D6 than WotC.

IMO, that’s one of the areas where F&D Beta really falls short. I feel that they should have had a Universal specialization called Padawan/Student/Learner/Novice/Initiate or whatever they wanted to call it, and that’s where you’d actually get your first Force ranking, plus learn the basic sorts of things that we also see in the Force Sensitive Exile in EotE and the Force Sensitive Emergent in AoR.

If the OP is interested, we gave it a shot here: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/127046-jedi-initiate-universal-specialization-full-design-write-up-inside/

One thing that detractors of the "Knight Level" term (i.e. those that think that 150XP isn't even enough to build a Padawan, let alone a Jedi Knight) fail to recognize, IMO, is the effect that the narrative dice can have on your gameplay, especially as it relates to Force usage.

For example: in TPM, Obi-Wan slashes his lightsaber through some droids on Naboo and then uses the Force to smash a couple more. This kind of thing is easily simulated in-game with an Advantageous Lightsaber attack against a minion group. A few successes, and you get 11 damage with Breach 1 (enough to take out two battle droid minions). Spend the 1 or 2 Advantage to score a critical hit and destroy the last droid minion in the group "with the Force." That's a savings of at least 25 XP right there

Or take, for another example, Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul in the reactor room. We don't see Maul using the Force for much (opening a door is pretty much all he does in TPM), but at one critical point he Force-pushes Obi-Wan directly into the Bottomless Pit™. This could be a use of the Move power, but could also simply be Obi-Wan rolling enough Threat (or more likely a Despair) that he is "pushed" into he chasm and manages to grab hold of a small nodule sticking out of the wall.

I know there are different schools of thought on all this, but the pure fact of the matter is that it is possible to build a starting character and, through proper narration, do the same things that we see Obi-Wan do in the Phantom Menace. I won't touch on the other prequels, except to say that they can be seen to follow a natural, steady XP gain for the characters in question.

Fantastic example Away! The Pit being especially good. No ranges change, no points, no thresholds, just Obi-wan's condition going from standing up, to hanging from a ledge.

I know there are different schools of thought on all this, but the pure fact of the matter is that it is possible to build a starting character and, through proper narration, do the same things that we see Obi-Wan do in the Phantom Menace.

I guess I'll be the other school: I think going by what's in the movies isn't that helpful. It's what's implied by the movies that the game fleshes out.

The danger of implied is that everyones implied is different. This becomes even more dangerous when you get to pick out your source material (canon) as well.

The danger of implied is that everyones implied is different. This becomes even more dangerous when you get to pick out your source material (canon) as well.

Absolutely. I didn't mean to *imply* that would work for all tables, or any tables but mine. For me, the background of what's expected from a Jedi pre-Knight Padawan is a lot more that can be achieved in 150XP. They're all Rhodes scholars that can hold their own in a fight.

The danger of implied is that everyones implied is different. This becomes even more dangerous when you get to pick out your source material (canon) as well.

Absolutely. I didn't mean to *imply* that would work for all tables, or any tables but mine. For me, the background of what's expected from a Jedi pre-Knight Padawan is a lot more that can be achieved in 150XP. They're all Rhodes scholars that can hold their own in a fight.

A Rhodes scholar would have above-average Intellect (3, maybe 4) and holding one's own in a fight only requires training, which is anywhere from 1-2 skill ranks in the chosen combat skill. That sounds like a starting character to me!

I think maybe our opposing views could possibly be linked to an under-appreciation of the numbers presented. We might call it inflation, brought on by GM/player escalatory behavior: the GM raises the average difficultly, so the players get more dice, so the GM raises the average difficulty again. Not saying that's a problem at your table; it definitely was at mine previously, and that made me take an objective second look at the numbers and the design of the game.

To my understanding, someone who has 2 ranks in a given skill is supposed to have had the equivalent of higher education in the subject, like a university degree or somesuch. Raise that cap to 3 ranks (like they do with Knight Level) and you have the next level up from university training: that is, trained-from-birth. We see this in-game in non-Knight-level Corellian Humans, and also in the lore of Mandalorians and Jedi. These guys are really good at what they do (3 dice minimum) because it's basically inborn.

I agree that one could infer any number of things from the movies, but when we have split views on what the numbers in the system actually mean, possibly caused by inflation due to gameplay, then I fear discussion would be hampered.

I think we need to remember Clone Wars (the cartoon) is canon now too, and definitely leads to some... crazier views as well. Especially vis a vis Ahsoka. Since she's, well, a Padawan but frankly is doing things that put many of the On Screen Knights to shame.

I think we need to remember Clone Wars (the cartoon) is canon now too, and definitely leads to some... crazier views as well. Especially vis a vis Ahsoka. Since she's, well, a Padawan but frankly is doing things that put many of the On Screen Knights to shame.

Sure, but they also have benefit of...how many play sessions? If we count each episode of TCW as a 4-hour session, and award the PCs regular 5 XP rewards for "playing to their motivations," as it were, then the characters would have ridiculous amounts of XP to throw around. Start Ahsoka at Knight Level, and there we have her at the beginning of The Clone Wars film. Give her 15 XP for Christopsis and 25 XP for Teth (seems like all that'd take about 6 hrs of gameplay), and now she's got FR 2 and is in decent shape to fight those Magnaguards with a bit of help from R2. And then she progresses from there. As for putting other Knights to shame, she's a hero and a prodigy! A true player character if I ever saw one. And she should be one-upping NPCs, and be able to stand out from among the other PCs in a significant way.

Anakin and Obj-Wan in TCW are by no means starting characters, of course. I'd give them both at least 350 XP each at the start of TCW.

Oh god no. Obi-Wan's a Master. And Anakin is the Chosen one and basically at Master level. While both are probably in the top 5 for most powerful Jedi in the Order, and definitely best duelists (Only Yoda and Mace having a claim to possibly be better)

So yeah, no arguing there!

Meanwhile, even Ahsoka is able to hold her own (not WIN, mind you) against people like Cad Bane, Ventriss, Grievous, and Dooku. But survive until the Cavalry arrives.

Heck, to really represent her she almost has to be in a long running campaign with slightly less XP on average I think!

EDIT: And when you think of it. Obi Wan and Anakin are less raising their force stats, and more buying into all new trees for Generalship style skills! While Ahsoka? She's blasting her way up the intro force trees. While the named Clones are buying up their respective specialties and R2 is finding more and more ways to twink up towards "Summon Bigger Fish"

I agree that one could infer any number of things from the movies, but when we have split views on what the numbers in the system actually mean, possibly caused by inflation due to gameplay, then I fear discussion would be hampered.

I won't go on about it, promise I know I'm in a minority here and in all honesty I haven't had a chance to playtest it enough for my own satisfaction.

At this point based on what I've seen, I'm pretty comfortable with a post-Youngling Ahsoka at Knight level (150XP), I put a build up a while ago that would satisfy my sense of flavour and "implied" capabilities. That seems like a baseline to me, so it does suggest to that TPM pre-Knight Obi-wan, who was considerably older and more experienced, would need somewhere in the range of 250-300. His position and inclusion in diplomatic missions implies at least a few Knowledge skills at rank 2 at least (a university degree equivalent), greater self-control, Negotiation, general diplomacy etc. Sure, we never see him be "the Negotiator" as Grevious calls him, or do any of the things his position suggests he is capable of, but that's the kind of implication I'd like to be able to account for. In a game, or at least in my game, a character would need to have all that "implied" stuff fleshed out to be able to call themselves and Obi-wan equivalent.