Padawan?

By Ethan2Osmundson, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

Can we play a Padawan? I mean I guess you could play Edge Of The Empire, Force Sensitive but we need Padawans these careers focus on the major Jedi's, I wanna play a newbie, maybe a little Togruta like Ashoka? But could we focus on one major Career in FaD? I mean maybe but could we at least get to play a Padawan I wanna play a campaign of 6 players, one might be a Jedi and one might be a Padawan? And the other 4 are just AoR or EoE characters right? Maybe? Please Comment down below.

Depends on your definition of Padawan.

Do you mean you want a character who was raised by the Jedi Order before Order 66 came down? Of course, that's just a background story, and works perfectly fine.

Are you just asking if you can be force-sensitive? If so, then yes, you can be - in fact if you're making a character ONLY using Force and Destiny, then that's technically all you can be, with all careers/specializations having a mix of force-based talents and normal talents.

Are you asking to be a force-sensitive on the level of Ahsoka? You can, but not really at the start; you have to build up to it. Even if you use the game's Knight Level rules to get more XP during character creation, you'll still need a bit more XP to more properly emulate her; but it is do-able.

It takes a staggering amount of XP to be close to even what Ashoka, as a padawan ended The Clone Wars with.

From what I've seen just messing around with the system, you can get fairly close to a beginning padawan with "Knight Level Play" - take your career and specialization as normal, and pick up the following force powers after character creation with the bonus XP: Enhance (With leap upgrade); the basic sense, forsee, and move powers. You'll still have some XP to spend on discipline and whatnot, and a basic use of all the major force powers you see in the movies.

A full on jedi knight is a several hundred XP character, probably closer to several thousand.

It takes a staggering amount of XP to be close to even what Ashoka, as a padawan ended The Clone Wars with.

From what I've seen just messing around with the system, you can get fairly close to a beginning padawan with "Knight Level Play" - take your career and specialization as normal, and pick up the following force powers after character creation with the bonus XP: Enhance (With leap upgrade); the basic sense, forsee, and move powers. You'll still have some XP to spend on discipline and whatnot, and a basic use of all the major force powers you see in the movies.

And then say your age is 12 or something similar.

Possibly your mindset of what a specialisation is needs to change slightly. think of it like the name of the specialisation is what you will be when you have bought A LOT of the tree.

But when you begin you have an innate level of aptitude for something, but your not an expert. basically every starting character in FaD is a padawan, or less!

FFG introduced the idea of Knight Level Play for this exact reason. after character creation you need at least 150xp to be really good at a very focused thing (by the way its a total of 300xp just to buy every talent in a tree, without any skill training, force power purchasing or additional specialisations!)

Makes me wonder.

A player Character is going to be aged 18+ and would have undergone some training perhaps. Yet with just 100xp they may have just one force power and a rather limited ability to use that power.

Now, in the skills department a character even one who has no skill ranks in a particular skill have their skill defined by their attribute score.

Perhaps there needs to be some guidance or some assumption that all force users can use various force powers but with a very limited scope of ability?

Ashoka is not an especially good example, she was a prodigy and quite capable at the time we meet her. Also, with years of activity in the Clone Wars she would have been receiving quite a lot of training/XP.

A padwan is somewhere between a complete novice and a master themselves. So there is a vast scope of ability, training and expectation for such a PC.

Edited by Amanal

Ashoka is not an especially good example, she was a prodigy and quite capable at the time we meet her. Also, with years of activity in the Clone Wars she would have been receiving quite a lot of training/XP.

I think she's a good example. She was a prodigy in that she was especially *young* to be a Padawan, but someone older with her capabilities would also be a Padawan at roughly the same level.

Really how you look at it all depends on how well you think the dice odds, breadth of skills, and specific areas of expertise convey the flavour of a capable Padawan. Are they skilled at more than a lightsaber? Can they give a lecture on corruption in government? Are they capable military leaders? If you're a GM you can also adjust that by scaling the opposition appropriately. So if you want to run a game with "capable Padawans at chargen" then you'd make most skill checks Easy or Average, use minions in groups of no more than 2, and wait a while before introducing Nemeses.

Personally I like a little more XP in the character, so to me a new Padawan is 150XP or so, and a new Knight is 300+. But YMMV...

Been thinking of my reply: Which came first the XP or Ashoka?

:P

Been thinking of my reply: Which came first the XP or Ashoka?

:P

Well it'd have to be the XP right? Otherwise it would mean that Ashoka was being given unfair advantage by the DM.

If you take away spending on characteristics and spend starting exp on talents and skills plus the additional 150 exp, the average Jedi Knight starting at +150 exp may seem a bit more appropriate. Mind you no skills would still be permitted to be above Rank 3 and its a character developed for short term advantages rather than long term strength one would get from spending starting exp towards characteristics first.

A specializations full talent tree will not run you more than 300 XP, with Lightsaber specializations allowing you to pay 25 XP to start with a 3 in Lightsaber skill in Knight level play its very feasible you could complete most of a specialization tree and be proficient with a lightsaber with points to spare for a Force power or 3 especially with a Mentor.

If you choose your Lightsaber form from a tree that retains a Force rating increase there is that advanatge as well.

I don't remember Ahsoka doing anything too impressive in the first season of the show. Later on she started to get pretty ridiculous though.

I think Ahsoka is a good example

I don't see why Ahsoka is held up as a really expensive character to realize.

Capable with a lightsaber. Competent with some force powers like Enhance and Move, perhaps Sense.

Perhaps more points than Knight Level (depending on build/approach) but not a whole lot more than Knight Level.

Start Knight Level, play for say 4 sessions and you're looking at +240 XP after charcter creation.

Seems pretty doable.

The biggest roadblock to most advanced Padawan and Knight characters is how expensive it is to get competent at using Force Powers because of the FR required to reliably generate multiple Force Points. Getting to FR 3 or 4 is pricey (again, depending on build and concept) but a FR of 4 means you can reliably pull of amazing things so it seems appropriate. And a lot of concepts can get by on FR 2 at the "mid-point" of character advancement.

As for Ahsoka - or Jedi generally - being viewed as too good at too many things...I think too much is made of this. It's just part of the setting in general that characters - of all types - are thrown into positions which they don't have a lot of story or mechanical backing for. I'm not steeped in the EU but just going with the movies and the Clone Wars TV show you see non-Jedi thrust into positions of power and authority without being highly trained etc. Han Solo went from a smuggler with a price on his head looking to pay off his debts to a general with a price on his head looking to evade the Empire and bounty hunters. Luke went from farm boy to leader.

Ahsoka doesn't need a lot (or any really) mechanical backing to lead troops or advise and assist rebellions etc. That's just part of the story. Maybe pick up some skills to help out in areas like this as they become relevant but it's not a major XP investment.

A similar approach works for knowlege as well. The Skills chapter says that a rank is indiciative of focused training or natural ability - that most basic tasks using any of the skills doesn't require a roll and most people don't need a rank to be competent at basics. A Jedi character can be assumed to have basic Jedi knowledge.

Anyway, just my 2 credits.

Edited by Jedi Ronin

The more appropriate example would be Ezra Bridger.

He is just barely a padawan now.

Ezra is a Fringer or Thief or something, with the Force Sensitive Exile tree. His Force training doesn't even need a new spec (unless he needs Reflect based on recent episodes).

Frog, that was kinda my point in bringing him up.

I'd call Ezra a case of a PC that started at Knight Level, likely as a Smuggler/Thief/Force Exile, and once he started getting proper training under Kanan opted to pick up a LS Form spec, probably Shien Expert since Ezra's got a decent Cunning and has noted that he's not a very good duelist (Idiot's Array) or necessarily good at deflecting blaster fire yet.

I'd say that Ahsoka as of the start of The Clone Wars, particularly the movie is a solid example of a Knight Level PC built as a Jedi Padawan. Biggest Force-related thing she did in the movie was pull down a rather sizable wall (Silhouette 2) to squash a bunch of droids that had surrounded Anakin, which can be covered by her taking the Move Power and two Strength Upgrades, though the GM might have allowed her to affect the wall with only one Strength Upgrade, since she was letting gravity do most the work and it sounded like a cool description of her using the Force to help Anakin's player. She probably also has the Sense power with at least the defensive Control Upgrade, and probably not much else in terms of Force powers. She'd only be Force Rating 1 and probably in the Shien Expert spec though not very far (enough to get at least one rank of Reflect and the Shien Technique talent), along with 2 ranks in Lightsaber. Figure that she's gained and spent XP at various "break points" in the story, and by the end when she takes on three MagnaGuards isn't that far out of the realm of possibility if one figures she'd earned about 50 XP by that point, allowing her to boost her Lightsaber skill (15 XP), but the Duration Upgrade for Sense (10 XP), and dive a bit further into the Djem So side of the Shien Expert tree; 2 ranks of Parry, rank of Toughened, and Defensive Training would help her out quite a bit, and possibly even Defensive Stance to add a constant challenge die to the MagnaGuard's electrostaff attacks.

Can we play a Padawan? I mean I guess you could play Edge Of The Empire, Force Sensitive but we need Padawans these careers focus on the major Jedi's, I wanna play a newbie, maybe a little Togruta like Ashoka? But could we focus on one major Career in FaD? I mean maybe but could we at least get to play a Padawan I wanna play a campaign of 6 players, one might be a Jedi and one might be a Padawan? And the other 4 are just AoR or EoE characters right? Maybe? Please Comment down below.

You can completely model a padawan with the F&D careers.

It just depends what the character's focus is. They might be quite a lightsaber prodigy but have little skill in using Force powers, or might be a Seer with a deep connection to the Force that has been cultivated at the expense of their lightsaber training.

The main difference between padawan and full knight is in part the XP total but mores it is a degree of narrative experience (the knight is expected to be able to mentor the padawan, not just in Force and lightsaber training, but also in applying the Jedi Code while doing field work - much different than just being at the temple all the time).

So you can model this by having one PC more knowledgeable and acting in a mentor-student relationship with another. But I wouldn't build in XP disparity to represent the student being less capable - I have never seen that go well.

If you want a true mechanical split, I would go with the padawan having a basic Edge or AoR Career and FSExile/Emergent - this covers having a basic but non-Jedi skill set so they're not completely incompetent, and then let them buy into a "true" Jedi spec later.

I think part of the issue for some, particularly the older guard that got into this system with the EotE Beta, was in said book there was a chart with guidelines for where a character was in terms of their Force proficiency.

Force Rating 1 in said chart was anyone that was Force-sensitive, trained or otherwise. Force Rating 2 was cited as "a well-trained exile" and "a Jedi Padawan," and there in lines the rub for those that can't get past Knight Level having nothing to do with playing a Jedi Knight. To them, being at the Padawan level means you must have Force Rating 2, and with one exception the Lightsaber Form specs simply don't permit that. So with the +150 XP that PCs get for being Knight Level, you either get Force Rating 2 or you're pretty good with a lighsaber, but not both.

I believe the ranks go Youngling Padawan Jedi Jedi Knight Jedi Master Jedi Grand Master? That's if you give it a ranking system you may or may not add Knight in there...I do for an extra tier.

So that being said a Youngling would be a kid...like in the scene where Obi talks with Yoda and the little kids. Padawans are older...remember Anakin in ep2...his constant whining that he was ready for the trials. So being maybe 16-18 would be appropriate age in my mind for a Padawan...so the creepy "5 year old force user" is skirted so far.

Padawan? Sure why not. Not to hard. Just take less force powers to represent the fact you aren't proficient in your Jedi skills. You could have been a 16 year old Padawan during order 66 and escaped. Lost your way and years later being an exile have not focused on your Jedi powers since you wanted to remain hidden. Now in FAD you've "come out of the closet" to continue where you left off-- Padawan level training. Remember...Luke was a Padawan and almost didn't receive training from Yoda because he was "to old".

It's basically how you set up your background and shift your points and powers to represent your abilities.

We ran into during oir gameplay and here is how I decided to handle it. I gave them base EXP to spend on a new character. But since Padawans rarely ever listen to their master I created a D20 chart that they roll before every action on the battlefield. So for example D4 is ignores masters orders and hides behind nearest obejct, D10 is in a fit of rage the padawan ignores orders and runs into the group of enemys...sometimes the rolls determine something positive like if padawan destroys the enemy on this turn the master gains a blue due on next roll for being proud of his young padawan...etc... I like to think that the padawan would help but also change the battle and the way the master would calculate his moves. It might work for you and it might not but for my guys it alot of fun watching them scramble as their padawan disobeys their orders haha

On 2/16/2015 at 8:56 PM, Revanchist7 said:

I don't remember Ahsoka doing anything too impressive in the first season of the show. Later on she started to get pretty ridiculous though.

In the pilot episode/movie, she was standing on a walker-mech as it scaled a sheer cliff, fending off blaster fire from an elevated ambush position, all while keeping her balance on a relatively unstable surface. I'd say that was a pretty impressive first introduction to the character's abilities.

OT: Please remember that "padawan" technically covers a timeframe from roughly 4 years old to well into your 20's (given how old Obi-Wan was in Phantom Menace, and he was still a Padawan). There is a LOOOOOT of variation in skill with that big of a timeframe. So you could have just about any level of competency for a PC and have them be a Padawan.

Wow you guys dug up a three year old thread.

Ashoka would have one or two lightsaber specs, likely Shien, and Niman, starfighter ace, and iron hand minimum (unarmed parry), probably a sentinel spec like investigator, and probably Padawan.

Edited by Eoen

Going by what I remember of EU Legends canon, the kids in the creche were considered to be "younglings", and maybe "initiates" during the upper stage of the youngling period. "Padawan" was the title gained when an initiate was chosen (usually some time between ages 9 and 13 or species-equivalent) from the creche by a Knight/Master for more specialised one-on-one training which would last several years. Given that EU canon was vague/inconsistent, Obi-Wan could have been anything between 20 to 25 by the time of episode 1, and that might or might not have been a normal timeframe for taking one's Knight trials and getting that braid cut. Plus there were the early-Knighted prodigies like Quinlan Vos. He was a Kiffar, but I can't remember whether that meant that he was human from a particular culture/planet, or near-human.

As for playing a Padawan, like Eoen mentioned there exists a Padawan Survivor universal specialization (in Dawn of Rebellion) which can be tacked onto any beginning character (although not as one's first specialization, IIRC). It's quite a useful talent tree.

On 2/15/2015 at 10:08 AM, Ethan2Osmundson said:

Can we play a Padawan? I mean I guess you could play Edge Of The Empire, Force Sensitive but we need Padawans these careers focus on the major Jedi's, I wanna play a newbie, maybe a little Togruta like Ashoka? But could we focus on one major Career in FaD? I mean maybe but could we at least get to play a Padawan I wanna play a campaign of 6 players, one might be a Jedi and one might be a Padawan? And the other 4 are just AoR or EoE characters right? Maybe? Please Comment down below.

The quickest path to emulating a movie quality jedi knight can be done with 2 specialization: niman-disciple and sentry in either order. Throw in: enhance, influence, move, and sense with a few upgrades an you're good to go. It's somewhere in the ballpark of 700-800 xp though (and this is the quickest path)

I am currently in a PbP game in the Friends and Nemeses site in which 5 of 6 characters are Padawans (the 6th being a modified security droid). Time period is Old Republic, but everyone started out with 200XP, an extra Force Die and a basic lightsaber till we build our own. It works pretty well so far.

http://friendsandnemesis.000webhostapp.com/gaming/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=120 is the link to the game itself.