There are a lot of Fantasy Flight Star Wars Roleplaying books. I love it! But... something has frustrated me. As my group is playing we're starting to realize that there are missing pieces in the talent trees. For instance, the "Inventor" talent is extremely vague (how does the check work?... no explanation), but a player has the option to buy it now. Some players in our party can add on that talent extension thing at the bottom of their trees, while other players are finding out that they can't... yet (because they haven't released those books yet).

I don't want to get into a debate over how some people "interpret" the inventor talent and such. I'm just a little frustrated at spending $60 on a huge book that doesn't even explain all the stuff in it. Don't get me wrong, I know a lot is up to the GM and we shouldn't have a hard rule for every single detail.

What I think they should have done:

-If a talent is mention explain it thoroughly enough. If you aren't going to explain it good enough, then remove it from the core book and add it in a later book where you do explain it.

-Add all the talent tree extenders in 1 book, so that no one feels left out.

I'm not looking for a response from everyone, I just thought I'd vent a little. I love this game and it's awesome, so don't think this is a deal breaker for me, or someone reading this that hasn't played this game yet.

Maybe you have some similar thoughts on items/skills/talents that I didn't mention here? Things that leave you hanging and are too vague for a GM to make good interpretation on.

So are there any other talents you are missing the workings for? Because right now you seem to be frustrated with one talent and the fact that not all books are out yet (which is only because of the way in which printed media works.)

Also what is it about "Inventor" that maks you feel it is vague?

The signature abbility are not mandatory and are not all equal in term of usefulness. In my experience,. I never saw one of my player buying one. It would also remove value to a career source book if you remove the signature ability to place them in yet another book.

Tell the complaining player to buy another specialization to make his character better and let the other waste his XP on his signature ability.

you can ask the devs for comfirmation how something is intended. ths has been done many times before. https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/108101-ffg-developer-answered-questions/

if you have any questions not answered there, ask here in the forum or, if that doesn't satisfy you, try the devs directly. no book will ever be able to answer all questions players might have. those gits are too imaginative!

Some talents (Inventer in particular) have been stated since the beginning to have been purposely left vague. This is because the designers did not want to have to retrofit talent trees later on. So Inventer was put in knowing that it would not be defined till (probably) the Technician career book. It sucks but this is their forward thinking idea.

The Inventor talent seems to be pretty clear to me. Are you saying the rules for constructing weapons aren't spelled out? It points you at the right chapter, and the page is 187 if you're looking for the check. All you need to do is hunt around some, which is a good idea anyway.

Are you frustrated because Inventor only comes up twice in that tree? That's the only thing that's ever even slightly bothered me, but I never believed the CRB would be the only book we'd receive and get to use. The same thing with Signature Abilities: they're not necessary for general play, they're meant as a high XP alternative to switching into a different Specialization. That sort of mechanic is more and more common in RPGs now to award dedication to a single class, and you can't fault FFG for doing what everyone else is doing when it works.

I also wouldn't want the Signature Abilities in a single book. I'd rather have them in the book relevant to the proper Career, since that means less hunting around when I'm looking for details pertaining to that Career and no other.

In my opinion, the $60 book has all the stuff in it. There's just extra stuff if you want it, in bite-size $30 packages.

I'm hoping we will see invention and item creation rules in the technician source book. I have no definitive reason to believe that, but it's something I would love to see.

Your players will see the signature abilities for their chosen career in due time. "[They] will LEARN patience"

Realistically if they "put it all in one book" with the signature abilities, and detailed explanations for additional rules (like the homestead stuff) and everything else "that would be nice to have", pretty soon the book page count would be 1000 pages.

There is a certain amount of room for a certain amount of things. Are some thing overly vague? yes. The fun part is each new sector or career book gets you awesome updates to your game. It gives it that old school MMO feel where updates mattered and added depth.

Some things I also don't want to have a rules lawyer focusing on. If a Player has a talent to invent things, and they give a decent explanation... go for it, that is covered in the GM section under "Rule of Cool".

So in summary, they had a limit to the stuff they could add in, they did a wonderful job with that limit, and there is more awesome to come!

I've been waiting for more specifics on inventing and scaveging as well. I don't get frustrated though I just accepted splitting content up between the books was a smart marketing strategy. Honestly smart marketing is the only way this hobby will survive healthy enough to see good quality material like FFG puts out.

I also don't hesitate to make my own house systems when I find something just not working for me. I've had an idea for inventing but haven't put pencil to paper yet in anticipation of the Tech book. If you're that aggravated be proactive and make something up but don't just fume over it. No game will ever be 100% to everyone all the time.

Realistically if they "put it all in one book" with the signature abilities, and detailed explanations for additional rules (like the homestead stuff) and everything else "that would be nice to have", pretty soon the book page count would be 1000 pages.

Not only that - I took a tape measure to my stack of books and they're 11" wide and growing.

I prefer the split up books. Just like with Wizards of The Coast material (ignoring Saga of course), it's nice and laid out in such a way that you know exactly where things are. I rarely ever get to play unfortunately, but when I do I'm either a face or a tech guy. That's why I picked up the Smuggler splat and plan on getting the Technician splat. Those are the books that aid me the most in my play style. Luckily I have a pretty solid group so we tend to share collections and GM'ing with material from other books I don't own is pretty easy because of that.

It's just like the Complete series. Nobody complained that the fighter of the group had bought The Complete Warrior's Handbook before anyone else had one for their class at my table. It was more, "OOOOOO, I need to get one like that for my Wizard!"

Now, on my own, I have made a couple compendiums for my players. So far I have a document for all of the Species from every book in alphabetical order, a document for every career and specialization from every book I could get my hands on, and soon a document for all the equipment (the typing for that....ugh...I mean, YAY!). While nice, I would never "buy" a sourcebook made up only of that. Except for a complete equipment and ship guide after everything else is printed...that I would love.



Also, I know you weren't looking to debate on it so I apologize, but how is Inventor vague? You get to add a boost die or remove a setback die when making or modifying equipment... That's pretty straightforward.

Do you mean that it's too vague because there aren't hard set rules on item creation? That's pretty common in narrative games, especially one with so much material to cover. That's why the role of GM is so much more taxing in these types of RPGs. It's less, hold on for 20 minutes while I get all these complex rules figured out, and more of the below example.

Or, do you mean that the talent itself doesn't go into details on crafting, modifying, and repairing? In that case, should the Brace talent go into how to make attack rolls in adverse environments? Of course not. You have go to the relevant section to see the details related to it.

Example:

• Steve decides that his character, Jan, wants to use a bunch of parts (1,500 credits worth) from old broken blasters they found aboard a derelict ship to make a fully functioning DL-44 (using the old body of one).
• I inform Steve that combing through all the junk to find good parts is going to take extra time (10 hours of work total) and and that it's going to be a Hard check (equal to a Major repair). Jan is able to dig up an inventory list to help her make sense of it all (boost die) but the corrosion and complex retrofitting is going to to add two total setback dice.
• Jan has two ranks of Inventor which removes the setback dice. The pool is now 2 Proficiency Dice, 3 Ability Dice, 1 Boost, and 3 Difficulty.
• Steve rolls the dice...Net results of 2 Successes with an Advantage and a Triumph (though the success was negated).
• I inform Steve that the Jan completes the blaster faster than expected (8.5 hours), using only 560 credits worth of parts, and that the blaster is considered Superior.

That was all using only rules from the core book (Mechanics description in the Skills chapter, and repairing rules in the Equipment chapter) and some GM finesse.

I prefer the split up books. Just like with Wizards of The Coast material (ignoring Saga of course), it's nice and laid out in such a way that you know exactly where things are. I rarely ever get to play unfortunately, but when I do I'm either a face or a tech guy. That's why I picked up the Smuggler splat and plan on getting the Technician splat. Those are the books that aid me the most in my play style. Luckily I have a pretty solid group so we tend to share collections and GM'ing with material from other books I don't own is pretty easy because of that.

It's just like the Complete series. Nobody complained that the fighter of the group had bought The Complete Warrior's Handbook before anyone else had one for their class at my table. It was more, "OOOOOO, I need to get one like that for my Wizard!"

Now, on my own, I have made a couple compendiums for my players. So far I have a document for all of the Species from every book in alphabetical order, a document for every career and specialization from every book I could get my hands on, and soon a document for all the equipment (the typing for that....ugh...I mean, YAY!). While nice, I would never "buy" a sourcebook made up only of that. Except for a complete equipment and ship guide after everything else is printed...that I would love.

Also, I know you weren't looking to debate on it so I apologize, but how is Inventor vague? You get to add a boost die or remove a setback die when making or modifying equipment... That's pretty straightforward.

Do you mean that it's too vague because there aren't hard set rules on item creation? That's pretty common in narrative games, especially one with so much material to cover. That's why the role of GM is so much more taxing in these types of RPGs. It's less, hold on for 20 minutes while I get all these complex rules figured out, and more of the below example.

Or, do you mean that the talent itself doesn't go into details on crafting, modifying, and repairing? In that case, should the Brace talent go into how to make attack rolls in adverse environments? Of course not. You have go to the relevant section to see the details related to it.Example:

• Steve decides that his character, Jan, wants to use a bunch of parts (1,500 credits worth) from old broken blasters they found aboard a derelict ship to make a fully functioning DL-44 (using the old body of one).
• I inform Steve that combing through all the junk to find good parts is going to take extra time (10 hours of work total) and and that it's going to be a Hard check (equal to a Major repair). Jan is able to dig up an inventory list to help her make sense of it all (boost die) but the corrosion and complex retrofitting is going to to add two total setback dice.
• Jan has two ranks of Inventor which removes the setback dice. The pool is now 2 Proficiency Dice, 3 Ability Dice, 1 Boost, and 3 Difficulty.
• Steve rolls the dice...Net results of 2 Successes with an Advantage and a Triumph (though the success was negated).
• I inform Steve that the Jan completes the blaster faster than expected (8.5 hours), using only 560 credits worth of parts, and that the blaster is considered Superior.

That was all using only rules from the core book (Mechanics description in the Skills chapter, and repairing rules in the Equipment chapter) and some GM finesse.

Some people don't like arbitrarily coming up with the value of parts or the amount of time something will take. Additionally, I've heard the complaint of why bother crafting something that is already in the game when you can just go buy it. So really, depending on how you look at it, there is a lot you just added to the situation that isn't covered in the rulebook and can be a source of conflict between the GM and the player involved if they see things differently.

Building something from scratch could be a great way to get around that pesky rarity problem.

Personally, if someone is making something from scratch, I would assign it the "Inferior" quality unless the player comes up with one or two Advantages to counteract. However, I also make clear that the quality can be removed from the weapon with a separate check at a later time.

On a Triumph, I'd totally let the weapon gain the Superior quality.