I am working on a custom race to later be used for a F&D campaign that is set in the decades after my current EotE one. Long and short, convicts & sith lords from the time of the Galactic Cold War (SWTOR) are thawed out a few years before Yavin. While I have no idea if the players will be interested, I want the option available to play grandchildren of these Sith lords and as such am creating a Sith Pureblood race.

I have all characteristics set at 2, a free rank in Melee or Lightsaber, they get 100xp at character creation, and Dark Side Sustainment: When rolling Discipline to recover strain after an encounter, a Sith Pureblood may add a number of Force Die up to their Force Rating and count Black pips as successes. Characters without an Force Rating may add 1 Boost instead.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Changed the racial power to be less game-breaking as per Ghostofman's suggestion. Any other thoughts/suggestions?

My primary thought is that this is too good for Light Side Force Users. Granted, the free use of a DS pip won't be as much when you have Force Rating 3, but this gives you a guarantee of using a Force power, every time. It won't necessarily be spectacular, but you can't fail to use a Force power. And if it's a throw away ability for a Dark Sider, then how does that enforce playing the stereotype of being evil?

See the problem?

Personally, I'd just write them off as Near-Human, which FFG established is Human, for all intents and purposes. Although they broke it with Mirialan... Still, I'd just use a Human.

Agreed, the way the mechanic works the Dpoint/strain/conflict for flipping a pip is supposed to be a balance to prevent extreme use. It's a way for the game itself to ask the player "Are you really sure you actually need to use the Force to do that?"

Removing that mechanic not only makes this the go-to force race, but also pretty much lets the character use the force for everything all the time.

I'm not a huge old republic buff, but reading wookieepedia why not do something like "Darkside sustainment: When rolling Discipline to recover strain after an encounter, a sith pureblood may add (force die) not to exceed their FR and count Black pips as successes. Characters without an FR may add 1 Boost instead."

Useful, especially for a Force user, but hardly game breaking and there's an option for guys that just want to play a weird looking red guy...

I created a homebrewed Sith Pureblood for my game.

Brawn: 2, Agility: 2, Intellect: 2, Cunning: 3, Willpower: 1, Presence: 2
Wound Threshold: 11+
Strain Threshold: 10+
Sith Alchemy: may begin the game with one rank of Knowledge (Lore) but may not train Knowledge (Lore) above rank 2 during character creation.
1 free rank in Feral Strength
Starting XP: 100

I mostly threw it together for my wife since she wanted to play one. I wasn't happy with the rank in feral strength, but I think everything else works well for them.

So here's the Sith Purebloods that I will eventually be using:

Brawn 2, Agility 2, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 2, Presence 2

Wound Threshold 11+B

Strain Threshold 10+W

Sith Purebloods receive a free rank in either Melee or Lightsaber. The skill chosen may still not be advanced above 2 at character creation.

Dark Side Sustainment: Sith Purebloods receive a free rank in the Rapid Recovery talent.

Starting XP: 100

overpowered in starting skill choices, giving it an advantage over all other lightsaber careers by race, though not a major issue if starting exp is appropriately adjusted to reflect that.

The Dark Side Sustainment power is not gamebreakingly good but it is imbalanced as its useable in every encounter rather than limited to one skill instance with no penalties to it.

starting XP at 10 less than a Human same baseline strain and wounds, again you gave the race two advantages superior to the baseline human (lightsaber trainable to 2 without need to spend XP, and a special ability usable at the end of every encounter) with only a 10 point reduction where it probably should be starting at most at 85 XP if not less

Alright, so making the following changes:

Starting Presence 1

Skills to Melee or Education (they were the nobility so it makes sense)

Dark Side Sustainment can be used once a session

Does that make it more balanced?

The Dark Side Sustainment power is not gamebreakingly good but it is imbalanced as its useable in every encounter rather than limited to one skill instance with no penalties to it.

I'd like more info on why you think it's a problem. Most of the species have pretty usable talents. How is that different then starting the game with one rank in the Command talent?

i don't see it as game breakingly good my only advice would have been an adjustment to starting exp, reducing Presence by 1 would probably be sufficient to make it comparable to most other starting races.

the Dark Side Sustainment as its described would be usable at the end of each encounter to generate automatic successes using dark side pips per force rating for the purpose of generating strain recovery(close to 60% of the die facings per Force Rating) compared to Command which applies a Boost die(only 33% of the facings can generate at most 1 success and requires additional ranks of Command to generate greater effects and the effects are applied to others not to yourself) So in comparison to a talent like say Command it would be a doubly effective Command skill usable on yourself that multiplies in effect based on force rating(a talent with its own desired rewards associated with it) without the need for additional talent ranks.

Personally I think if the goal is to give them a per encounter mechanic to recover more strain I would have just called the power Dark Side Sustainment and give all that race 1 Rank in Rapid Recovery starting out, just as droids start with 1 rank in Enduring to reflect thier more durable mechanical nature.

Makes sense. Thanks for that.