Flavor Fix to Dueling Trees

By OrangeCat, in General Discussion

NOTE: This fix is based ONLY on the BETA as it stands. I know I am coming late to the party, but I want the opinion of some people who play the game a tad more regularly.

I have been playing with Edge of the Empire for the past few months. Was a big, BIG WEG d6 GM back in the day. I have finally restarted that campaign for the express purposes of bringing some closure to it, and Skyping with some OLD freinds who I hardly see anymore.

And to have fun.

Anyway.

My Jedi character, who I reconstructed with EoE, followed this path.

Scout

Recruit

Force Emergent

She began the old d6 campaign as a slave alien from a planet with no contact with the outside Galaxy. In fact it was only through the campaign that she came into contact with first "the Force" which on her planet was just a form of mysticism (white magic), and an actual lightsaber. She is basically self trained, however, she went back to her planet to reconnect and study a newly found holocron. (So, 6 months for character and 10 years for the player. Me. :) )

HOUSE RULE

For my campaign, once you become Force Sensitive. You may choose what attribute your lightsaber skill is connected to. My character is basically following the physical adept path so it was Dexterity. (In fact the first two books make a point of not linking the skill to any attribute.) Obvioulsy my character follows the Ataru saber class, to the point where she built a shoto and focuses on "many-light-cuts."

Can you tell my favorite Clone Wars characters are Ashoka Tano and Asajj Ventress? Ahem...

This makes certain talents... Useless, or at least a point sink. Specifically the ones that say "you may now use attribute X with your lightsaber skills."

Rather than reworking the trees, I decided to turn the talents into "useful color". I would call myself a GM who like ROLEplay, not ROLLplay. If you know what I mean.

What do you think of this?

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I Shii-Cho Technique (sweeps and multiple opponents)

- gain a boost die when engaging/dueling multiple opponents. This can be lightsaber, melee or brawling.

Obi-Wan, Kit Fisto (From the book.)

II Makashi Technique (dueling, specifically vs a lightsaber)

- Gain two boost die on your next attack when your opponent misses a lightsaber, melee or brawling attack. (Misses, not because your parried it.)

- The advantage cost to sunder your weapon or disarm you is increased by one.

Count Dooku

III Soresu Technique (most defensive, especially vs blaster fire)

- Reduce strain cost of parrying or deflecting blaster fire by one. (To 2.

Obi-wan Kenobi was a master, Ki-Adi-Mundi

IV Ataru Technique (many small attacks, jumps and flips)

- In an open area, the user gains one boost die when attacking. (Lightsaber, melee or brawling.) Does not work in enclosed spaces, such as a hallway or small room.

- May spend a triumph to strike twice with two weapons or one double-ended weapon against minion mob.

Ashoka Tano, Kyle Katarn, and Yoda

V Shien / Sum Djem So Technique (disarm, sunder, de-limb)

- May spend a triumph or 2 advantage to knock down an opponent. (+1 per size difference.)

- Sunder ALWAYS costs 1 advantage, may sunder 1 with any lightsaber or melee weapon. (Or even disarm with a kick.)

Darth Vader

VI Niman Technique (telekinesis to control combat)

- May grab, pull, push or strike (dark side) opponent using willpower at engaged or short range using the force. (As long as you have the Force Power:Move)

- Hybrid style. Nullifies boost die bonuses of other styles, but no inherent bonus to user.

Darth Sidious, Darth Maul

VII Juyo / Vapaad Technique (high speed, Jedi and lightsaber EVERYWHERE)

- Gain two boost die when using lightsaber, melee or brawling skill, but advantage points may only be spent on criticals or to boost criticals.

- This form skirts the Dark Side! Justify.

- No skill tree I have seen has this talent. You can only learn it from a Juyo or Vapaad master.

Mace Windu, Quinlan Vos (---)

These do not stack, but if the player has multiple known talent, s/he may switch from round to round depending on situation. Much like a movie martial-artist.

Again. I have not been a part of the Beta, just got the F&D book as a present a month ago.

or you could, when you get the talent that lets you swap, allow then the any stat to replace.

I admit, this is all academic since Seeker:Ataru Stiker is a VERY good fit for her when she goes full Jedi. Not just "Jedi-wannabe".

I think how it is done RAW is better...

As written, these "Form Techniques" simply provide far too much benefit for a 10 XP talent, particularly since Shii Cho Knight doesn't have a "Shii Cho Technique" talent in the first place.

One thing to consider is that it's highly unlikely that PC is going to gravitate to more than two of the LS Form specs, especially since only Niman Disciple offers that very useful Force Rating talent; otherwise, the PC is going to be stuck at Force Rating 1, and thus fairly limited in what they can accomplish with what Force powers they do purchase as well as any LS Form talents that require rolling a Force die as part of the action (Draw Closer and Hawk-Bat Swoop for instance) or just a Force die roll in general; Balance is of only decent use if you're rolling a single Force die, but becomes far more useful as the character's Force Rating improves.

Another angle to consider is that by having one or more of the Form Technique talents, it gives the player options as to which characteristic to use when making a Lightsaber attack. This could be handy if they suffer a critical injury that says "increase the difficulty of all checks" that applies to their usual characteristic; for instance a PC that had Brawn 2, Willpower 3, and Cunning 3 with the Shien Technique and Niman Technique talents could very easily swap from using Cunning to Willpower and still be just as effective with their general attacks, in effect completely circumventing the effects of a critical injury without paying any additional resources beyond that one-time 10 XP investment.

You are correct, I am probably overthinking it. To be honest, I have very few problems with the FFG game as it stands. It is VERY SOLID in my opinion. In fact, it moves way faster than the old WEG d6 game for combat, which was more of a simulation, rather than a role-play system.

GM : "Ok, you fire your blaster."

Roll d6s to hit.

Roll dodge for NPC, HIT YAY

Roll damage for blaster

Roll toughness to target, nope. All that rolling and no damage. BOO.

Been Skyping FFG:SW, works out great since everyone is making their own die pools. Especially since success and failure are built into the initial pool. LOVE IT. As a geezer gamer, I can appreciate when a hobby you thought had maxed out innovates like this.

Decided that my character was just a "natural duelist" and she had bought the talent -Ataru Technique-... Somewhere, when she became force sensitive. Like when a wild talent is a natural telekinetic or animal empath. When she finally takes the Seeker:Ataru Striker career specialization, she will just step over that one talent. Which is good since this last career will cost her 50 points.

I really don't mind when a character breaks the rules a little bit for role-play reasons. GMs should not be afraid to play around a bit. Like a D&D sorceror getting a bonus to fire damage spells... because that's all he knows. "Can you learn a clarvoicnce spell?" "No, curse my djinn heritage!!!" (Unless their players are SPECIFICALLY trying to game the system.)

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I do like how the "saber specializations" or as I like to call them, the "saber murder trees" are spread over the careers. Stops a munchkin from just collecting the saber talents. Anyone having trouble with twink min-maxer-ship?

like I said, I really have no problem with substituting a stat. bUT donovan is right, that is way to powerfulfor 10 points early tree. so,Iid recommend that you make the duelingtree talent thingy be the one that lets you use any ability. there's still reason to buy into the tree because of everything else for it, is only a minor tweak that gives you exactly what you want, and isn't game breaking. they would be worth 10 points still.

that's my 2 pence on the issue

Thanks miishelle.

So you mean a technique would just let you pick a stat to use rather than each stat being locked into a particular specialization?

So you mean a technique would just let you pick a stat to use rather than each stat being locked into a particular specialization?

That is miishelle's suggestion if you feel the need to homebrew, yes.

So you mean a technique would just let you pick a stat to use rather than each stat being locked into a particular specialization?

That is miishelle's suggestion if you feel the need to homebrew, yes.

Yep, that's what I got out of it. Strength sickened/damaged/reduced? Switch to Willpower.