Note my 600 XP character is built in a 'non boring' format. I did point out my build earlier, and none of the trees are capped.

I thought this was supposed to be about playing a role, not munching numbers to be superior. If there wasn't something to balance the roles a bit I wouldn't allow force sensitives into my games because I've seen it become an issue when people min/max. It has to have value for the whole group, not just the one who wants to fling starships at people with a thought and cut everything in half with a fancy glow stick.

My players have over 600 now and are having a blast with it

My players have over 600 now and are having a blast with it

No doubt, with 600XP and the build structure you described it's probably working for you.

The problem comes up when you don't have the structure you describe. That's part of why knight level is where it is, it allows you to do the things you see in the movies (if you're willing accept it) but is still a low enough XP count to keep the characters somewhat balanced and with clear advancement opportunities, without outlining a laundry list of build restrictions to keep the Force using characters and non-force users on the same plane.

That's always been a critical point of contention. One man's "about right" XP level for his "Jedi" is another's "I'm done, lets end the campaign" level for his R2 unit.

Anyway, the finalized Knight Level stuff should be out soon. We'll see were it goes from there.

No doubt, with 600XP and the build structure you described it's probably working for you.

That's the thing you're overlooking, man - if you want to play a God Mode Jedi, there is zero reason you can't. Just throw 1,000 starting points at the party (after creation, of course) and go to town. Problem solved, and universal game balance for everyone else is maintained.

Easy peasy.

EDIT - Also, I don't buy this whole "Jedi are gods amongst men" thing. For example, lets look at what Kenobi does in the movies (putting aside Clone Wars since I dont know those by heart).

He . . . .

* Lasts longer than a human in a gas filled room (Enhance? Perhaps just lots of strain to burn through)

* Stops blaster bolts (lots of reflect)

* Shoves a bunch of battle droid down a corridor (move)

* Runs like the Flash away from the Destroyers (Enhance again)

* Survives a fall from one platform to another and then jumps back up same (Enhance)

* Stands toe-to-toe with Maul (good saber skill and well down his chosen Lightsaber tree)

* Pulls Quigon's saber to him and jumps out of the Bottomless Pit Thing (move and enhance)

* Hangs off the bottom of that probe thingie (enhance, perhaps?)

* Convinces a drug dealer to change his ways (Jedi Mind Whammie)

* Fights with Dooku x2 (more saber and tree stuff)

* Stops Dooku's force lightning (Protect)

* Jumps & leaps around with Grevious (enhance)

* Jumps & leaps around with Anakin (more enhance, plus loads of saber skill and topping out his saber tree)

* Gets past the troopers on Tatooine. (Jedi Mind Whammie)

* Distracts the guards on the Death Star (Jedi Mind Whammie)

* Becomes one with the Force (GM Fiat)

Now one might make a strong case for a second tree of force stuff (perhaps the Shadow tree? He does lots of sneaking around. I might even throw in Misdirect), but if Kenobi's got much more than that, I'd be shocked.

No doubt, with 600XP and the build structure you described it's probably working for you.

* Stops Dooku's force lightning (Protect)

Doesn't he block it with his saber? Just saying that could make it just another reflect...

Generally agree with you analysis though. I usually get the impression that most people wanting more XP:

-Believe the force is used for everything (Faking the Krayt Dragon, Healing Luke, Finding Chewie in the bar, Selling the speeder, cooking Yoda stew)

-Don't understand the mechanics well enough to tolerate things like the flipping of pips by "light side" characters.

If you follow that line of thinking, yeah you're going to need a lot more XP...

I think it's all interpretation and I don't think thinking a Jedi Knight or master are better than a non-Force user of the same level is wrong or going against what Lucas meant Jedi to be. Jedi are what wizards are in LotR. Just because game systems haven't portrayed that in every system doesn't mean it's wrong to go with that theme or mindset. If you want a game of balance then this system is perfect. If you want a game true to your belief then this system is great.

Vader avoids being crushed by an AT-ST look alike in Rebels, spoiler there, oops. And yes, he does topple a AT-AT in one of the new marvel series', doesn't need incredible FR for that though, 4 should do it.

It really depends on his spending in the Move tree.

If he has Strength upgrades maxed, then he really only needs 2 pips (depending on the range needed). So FR 2 (and deciding that this situation warrants flipping pips and Conflict) guarantees that result.

I played a relatively high level "Force Wizard" and a lot of the power comes from your XP sunk into the Power tree, doing more with less pips.

I found FR 4 was pretty good for an average of about 3 LS pips. Which meant my most common attack was:

1) Activate Move

2) Activate Strength 3

3) Activate Range 2

I also had Magnitude 2 and Control 2 (rip from mountings). Total of 80 XP in the tree.

That character refused to flip DS pips. This was before the Conflict system came out. If we'd had Conflict, I probably would have flipped some.

In summary: there's more than one way to make a powerful Force user. If you cherry pick the Powers, you need all the FR to pull them off. If you invest in a Power, you don't need as much FR.

Doesn't he block it with his saber? Just saying that could make it just another reflect...

He does stop it with his saber, but I was trying to be generous and give Kenobi as much as I reasonably could. You could argue that one either way.

I found FR 4 was pretty good for an average of about 3 LS pips.

Just out of curisoity, I rolled 3 force die, to see the spread of pips. Why three? Assuming your starting Force Die, the one you get at the end of your starting tree and a secondary tree (saber if you went force, force if you went saber). That's a pretty rounded character.

Roll 1

Light: 2, Dark: 1

Roll 2

Light: 2, Dark: 3

Roll 3

Light: 4, Dark:0

Roll 4

Light: 2, Dark: 2

Roll

Light: 1, Dark: 2

So only one time out of 5 - admittedly a small sample - was the light low on pips (and certainly everything one might want was achievable if they dipped into the dark pips). So I could see 4 being average strong, 5 being awesome but getting past 5 force die? That's silly.

I think it's all interpretation and I don't think thinking a Jedi Knight or master are better than a non-Force user of the same level is wrong or going against what Lucas meant Jedi to be. Jedi are what wizards are in LotR. Just because game systems haven't portrayed that in every system doesn't mean it's wrong to go with that theme or mindset. If you want a game of balance then this system is perfect. If you want a game true to your belief then this system is great.

It is, and that's something I find interesting.

In this game Knight level (as it stands in the beta) will get you a lightsaber, FR1 maybe 2, and either a few upgrade powers, or a good number of basic ones.

By comparison a Wizard in D&D starts with a very limited selection of spells that have very limited effects in game. Yet no one shouts "But Merlin could cast all kinds of spells all the time! This is totally underpowered and not in line with the lore! I should be able to summon Dragons and control the Weather right off!"

But I am not going with other systems I am going with what the books, movies, and stories portrayed. This system allows for both mindsets. I just feel neither way is wrong. Game balance is great for many players and GMs. True to what many see Jedi and Wizards also has nothing wrong wi th it. When I run D&D I go with spell points instead of spells known and give players way to get spell points back and there is no memorization in my games for any spellcaster. Is it wrong? Is it overpowered? I run Gestault in any d20 system and give a bonus feat every level and other bonus feats at set levels. That system requires me to house rule so much to get the game I want to run. This system has a few house rules in character creation and just giving more xp to start. It is so much less changes if any to make the system work for me. So far I love it. Can't wait for my players to reach 1000xp

Out of curiosity are all your players Jedi/Forcies? Just wondering how any mundane or droid has been rolling...

All of my players are force users at moment in my regular gamebecause we were testing out beta, bUT my side game I run is for a non force bounty hunter assassin/ace pilot/commando and a Shadow/Ataru/Shien and both shine in their areas. Gave the non force user a transport ship, a droid, and 2 crew members while the Force user has a lightsaber and a astromach droid.

By restrictions force ratings to 3 and eventually will let them get to 4 is the key to balance for me. Also helps that I promote characters to be more diverse then all powerful in one thing

My players have over 600 now and are having a blast with it

Nothing wrong with that. I haven't played at that level but I suspect the game functions surprisingly well up there. And if people want to start off with 600XP, that too is fine.

The points of contention as far as I am concerned are saying that really high XP values and Force Ratings are appropriate to represent what we see on screen (for the most part they're not) or that this should be given to Force-wielding characters but not non-Force characters.

There is also nothing wrong believing that Jedi and Wizards are legends and should have more xp or levels or spells than others. It's just how you interpret the story

Well...in Tolkien, the thing about wizards is that there's exactly 5 of them. They're called Istari, and they're actually Maia...that is, lesser angels, more or less. Besides the 5 Istari ,there's two other Maia in Middle Earth. One is Sauron himself, the other is the Balrog. (Durin's Bane)

So take those Istari seriously.

Well...in Tolkien, the thing about wizards is that there's exactly 5 of them. They're called Istari, and they're actually Maia...that is, lesser angels, more or less. Besides the 5 Istari ,there's two other Maia in Middle Earth. One is Sauron himself, the other is the Balrog. (Durin's Bane)

So take those Istari seriously.

Inverse ninja rule?

The fewer they are, the more powerful they must be?

The law of conservation of ninjutsu. Classic.

The law of conservation of ninjutsu. Classic.

The sith understood this- hence the Rule of 2.

And why the Emperor was sloppy enough to leave so many jedi alive...

And the Emperor forgot his own lesson by the time Obi Wan died and Yoda...passed on his own. Then there was only one Jedi (EU aside...)

Bit him in the hindquarters, it did.

There is also nothing wrong believing that Jedi and Wizards are legends and should have more xp or levels or spells than others. It's just how you interpret the story

There is in a game where there are people playing non-Force users which is what was suggested in this thread.

As to the rest of us "hiding behind canon", I'm not "hiding". I'm flat out saying that canon should be the default because it fits with the media most of us have seen and gives people common ground and is a better basis for a game than mixing absurdly powerful super-beings with regular people.

You're argument that new canon sources should be the baseline for the FFG lines fails to consider that the FFG lines are built on non-canon materials. I mean, even Force Unleashed is directly referenced in the AoR core's history section.

As to the rest of us "hiding behind canon", I'm not "hiding". I'm flat out saying that canon should be the default because it fits with the media most of us have seen and gives people common ground and is a better basis for a game than mixing absurdly powerful super-beings with regular people.

You're argument that new canon sources should be the baseline for the FFG lines fails to consider that the FFG lines are built on non-canon materials. I mean, even Force Unleashed is directly referenced in the AoR core's history section.

No it doesn't. I consider the canon sources which overwhelmingly more people are familiar with and which are compatible with non-Force users also participating equally, to be more important than the fact there is the occasional name, location or organization that was in Legends still being used. It's not "failing to consider", it's just basic assessment of their relative importance.

There is also nothing wrong believing that Jedi and Wizards are legends and should have more xp or levels or spells than others. It's just how you interpret the story

Also depends very much on the composition of the group.

To go with the Tolkien example from earlier in the thread, Gandalf was immensely powerful compared to the rest of the Fellowship, with Aragon and Legolas being distant seconds what he could do in terms of power. And yet, we never see Gandalf unleash this power, not even at the Battle for Minas Tirath when it would have been most helpful for him to break out the really big magics. I've seen a number of discussions that cited what we saw of Gandalf in the actual story would for the most part place him as a pretty low-level wizard in most fantasy RPGs.

In a group of PCs where there's only a single Force user (not unlike the cast of the original films), having the Force user be a superhero in terms of power and prowess creates a problem in that it quickly leaves the rest of the group feeling like they're the sidekicks. It's also known as the Superman Problem, in that Superman is so insanely powerful that he could easily solve most problems in seconds without needing the Justice League if he wasn't constantly holding himself back and generally letting the other League members do their thing. You also see it very often in high level D&D games, where the wizard that was nigh-useless at low levels is pretty much a walking storybreaker by high levels; 3rd edition was pretty bad in that by 5th level if you weren't a spellcaster of any stripe, your ability to contribute to the group's success dwindled, and that when the party's level reached the teens the non-casters were either a meatwall or an audience for the 'casters as they hogged the spotlight.

You actually see this scenario in the prequel films, where Padme (the female lead for this story) gets more and more marginalized as the films proceed, starting from a powerful authority figure and winding up a walking incubator by the climax of RotS, where in the meantime you've got Anakin and Obi-Wan who pretty much dominate the story and the action simply by virtue of how powerful they've each gotten. Where that an actual RPG group instead of a movie, I'd suspect that Padme's player would be quite ticked at how her character has been rendered trivial simply because she's not a Force user. Heck, even Artoo, one of the most useful allies that Luke and company had in the original films, becomes little more than an observer to the big climactic encounter.

You even see this a bit in the original films as well. Obi-Wan splits off from the rest of the party to do his thing, when he probably could have rescued Leia without breaking a sweat, and by RotJ Luke is split off from Han and Leia as his Jedi abilities would make taking the bunker a whole lot easier simply by virtue of how much more powerful he's gotten. Artoo was plenty useful until he got taken out by a lucky stormtrooper shot during the Endor battle.

Being an RPG, FFG can't really solve the power disparity issue of a mixed group (which is probably going to be the most common instance) by figuring that the GM will always be able to shunt the Jedi PC off on their own mission/objective while the rest of the group does their thing. Instead, they've got to work with the common scenario that the party is going to stick together to accomplish the objectives of the current adventure. So in their attempt to keep Force users as a viable character type that doesn't run roughshod over PCs that aren't Force users, they've dialed things back so that it does take a fairly long time for a FaD character to properly come into their own, but in the mean time the rest of the party is becoming equally capable and still fully able to contribute meaningfully to the adventure instead of being delegated to the Force use's cheering section. I'm sure there have been numerous WEG D6 Star Wars games where it got to the point that if you weren't playing a Jedi, then don't bother showing up, much as it did for countless pre-3e D&D games, where the old joke goes that at 1st level, the party wonders "why did we bring a wizard with us?" while at 20th level the wizard wonders "why did I bring the rest of the party with me?"

Well...I figure Anakin and ObiWan were in the 1000XP+ range. Maybe even 1500XP. Could even be as high as 2k.

What could Padme have done with all that XP? How does she compete with mundane classes? She might have a presence of 6 and 6 proficiency dice in Charm and Negotiation...then what?

(And the Wizard in D&D still finds the Cleric and the Druid competent assistance. And the Archivist. Everything that doesn't have 9 levels of spellcasting, not so much)

In fact there's the challenge. Build a 2k XP Padme, and explain how she could've prevented Anakin from falling with it.