I think he means the fact that Emergent has a straight shot 75XP path to FR+1 with usable talent in between and is by nature "cheaper" for being a universal tree.

By comparison FSEx and a lot of F&D trees make you dig through several other talents and have that out-of-career tax attached.

I never really understood that rationale though. Why take a talent tree unless you want the other talents provided? There are enough specializations that a few points here and there to get what you really want for your character isn't a bad thing.

FR is good, but its not the end of the world.

I think he means the fact that Emergent has a straight shot 75XP path to FR+1 with usable talent in between and is by nature "cheaper" for being a universal tree.

By comparison FSEx and a lot of F&D trees make you dig through several other talents and have that out-of-career tax attached.

I never really understood that rationale though. Why take a talent tree unless you want the other talents provided? There are enough specializations that a few points here and there to get what you really want for your character isn't a bad thing.

FR is good, but its not the end of the world.

We know that, but we've been a round it a while. Newer players tend to do things like get hung up on not flipping pips (oh noes, teh darksides!), and the desire to toss star destroyers like legos.

Eventually they figure it out.

Even without the force rating bump, if you are playing a character who already has all the major skills they're going to want as career skills, then there's not much difference between taking FSEx or FE and taking a F&D specialization - in either case it's 16 talents which may or may not be of use to you.

This occurred to one of my characters, a somewhat sneaky, hunter type force user. After combing through all the F&D specializations a couple times, it really came down to the fact that the talents on FE were a better collection of what I was looking for now than any of the F&D ones were. (Hunter + Force Exile, for the curious)

As a GM, I am not sure I would be ok with an FaD character taking Emergent as a spec after their starting FaD Career and Spec. The name implies that being Force Sensitive is newly discovered by the character.

As a GM, I am not sure I would be ok with an FaD character taking Emergent as a spec after their starting FaD Career and Spec. The name implies that being Force Sensitive is newly discovered by the character.

This is really a meta/semantic argument. Reskinning and reframing character features in this hobby is about as common as having brown eyes. It's not breaking the game, certainly not munchkining -- likely the opposite.

Names are as meaningful or meaningless as you want to make them. I can take the scoundrel specialization and not be a smuggler. My character makes a lot of use of the Assassin spec but may be more of a general mercenary.

The "Artisan" tree... is about many things, but probably being an artisan is not among them

The "Artisan" tree... is about many things, but probably being an artisan is not among them

I don't know, adding 2 HP to any equipment on a decent roll, knocking the difficulty down by 1 with Master Artisan, re-rolling Mechanics rolls, and never needing to carry tools, all seem like the makings of a pretty bad-ass artisan.

The "Artisan" tree... is about many things, but probably being an artisan is not among them

I don't know, adding 2 HP to any equipment on a decent roll, knocking the difficulty down by 1 with Master Artisan, re-rolling Mechanics rolls, and never needing to carry tools, all seem like the makings of a pretty bad-ass artisan.

Also can make a skilled mechanic and terrible artisan.

Mmm... I had a different idea in mind about what an artisan might be, but having checked the dictionary, yes, you're right. Still, not the best name choice anyway.