So, after a long summer vacation, I am back with an update on the custom Dark Forces campaign I'm putting together.

I've got the mission plan in place, but I'm still waiting for Twin Shadows to drop so I can use the tileset from that to make the maps.

However, I'd love feedback on the other new hero. You may have already seen Jan Ors, now here is Kyle Katarn.

Feedback welcome. Hero class cards will follow.

And here are the class cards. I expect that I will come back and tweak a number of these after playing tomorrow night.

1xp The Right Tool – You may bring up to 3 weapons and 4 equipment to a mission.

1xp Cleansing Rest - When you perform a rest action, you may also remove one condition card from your figure.

2xp When the Going gets Tough – When you suffer 3 or more strain during one activation, exhaust this card to become focused.

2xp Scramble – 2 strain: Exhaust this card to become mobile until your next activation.

3xp Force Manipulation – Action, 2 strain: Interact with any token within 3 spaces.

3xp Mow them Down – 2 actions, 2 strain. Perform three ranged attacks. Apply the following to each attack. First attack: +1 Surge, -1 accuracy. Second attack: -2 accuracy. Third attack: -3 accuracy.

4xp Force Jump – 3 strain: Choose any unoccupied space to which you can draw line of sight. Exhaust this card to move your figure to that space.

4xp Deep Reserves – Apply +1 endurance to your character. You may spend up to two surges per attack to heal 1 strain each.

He seems really broken. Both as underpowered and overpowered. Also, it seems confusing what role he is supposed to fulfill in the group.

From my experience, heroes (besides Jyn) only ever bring 1 weapon during a mission. They usually sell their excess weapons for the credits to buy better gear. So 'The Right Tool' seems worthless.

'Cleansing Rest' seems to contradict his second base ability. Is he supposed to rest or not rest?

'When the Going gets Tough' is completely worthless until you get 'Scramble' another action that costs strain. Otherwise you can't hit 3 strain unless you attack twice in a single turn.

'Mow them down' is super OP. You can just stand next to someone to negate the penalty completely.

'Force Jump' is super OP. It would completely break some missions and doesn't even require an action!

'Deep Reserves' seems like a terrible 4xp skill.

I think there are some nice ideas here, particularly Force Manipulation and the basic abilities, which seem fairly balanced. I'd maybe make Force Manipulation test Insight though, which seems to be a common theme for Diala's force powers. You could perhaps drop it to 1 Strain in exchange for this.

What starting weapon will he get? In general heroes seem to get 5 'points' over the basic 10 Health, 4 Endurance/Speed, and 1 Blue for each skill, but melee characters go over this by one or two. I think his stats are fine, but be aware that they're perhaps slightly above average for a ranged hero.

For my Carnor Jax hero, I based Force Jump off Diala's Force Push, but applied only to the active hero. Could you do something similar/identical here, i.e. limiting it to 3 spaces and requiring and Insight test?

I like Cleansing Rest and Scramble, they seem about right. Scramble could maybe be dropped to 1 Strain (or 1 XP), not entirely sure - it would depend partially on your map design in terms of frequency of difficult terrain and bottlenecks.

Regarding the other upgrades, I think patrickmahan is correct about The Right Tools not really seeing much use, especially as he can already swap out ranged weapon dice as needed. When The Going Gets Tough is good I think, and will be more useful than patrickmahan suggests once you factor in gaining Strain for movement. Perhaps slightly overpowered even, so maybe increase it to Strain 4? Mow Them Down should probably be fine, but might need some work after playtesting. I'd maybe make it a 4xp upgrade and lower Deep Reserves to 3 (plus add something to it, as it's a bit weak right now).

By the way, do you have a .psd template for equipment/upgrade cards? I'm working on an Imperial Campaign, and whilst I've mocked up some equipment templates they're currently a bit messy, so it would save me some work if you did. If not, and if you're interested, I could send you my templates once they're done.

Thanks for the feedback, PatrickMahan and Josef.

A few thoughts. Part of the issue with first person shooters like Dark Forces is that the player character tends to be a somewhat blank slate, to allow a variety of different play styles. Translating that into a real character can be hard, because of those different styles. I decided to run with that, making Kyle a highly flexible, highly mobile team member that can get around the map quickly. It's been a few months since I was able to play, so I'm a tad rusty on mechanics. Playing tonight should give me a better idea of some balancing on these. Still, I think you're right Josef that his stats are a bit high as they stand. I'm considering dropping his Health back down to 10.

Force Manipulation - I like the idea to test insight, Josef. Good add!

Force Jump should absolutely cost an action. I must have transcribed wrong from my notes! However, I'd like to understand why Patrick thinks it's game breaking. Draw line of sight means it doesn't work through doors, enemies, or anything else that blocks line of sight.

When the Going gets tough - I like the suggestion to raise to Strain 4. We tend to inflict a lot of strain using extra movement points at my table. Perhaps others don't, or forget the rule, but hitting three is possible right off the bat for Kyle.

Mow them Down - hadn't considered standing immediately next to someone. Perhaps the penalties on subsequent shots could be extra evades, blocks, or both for the target.

I would replace the right tools with an ability similar to Fenn's take cover.

Force jump could duplicate a merging of the Nexu's pounce and Garkhaan's charge: one action, 1 strain, place your figure within 6 and perform 1 melee attack.

I believe the reason patrickmahan thought it was OP is that line of sight means that as long as you can trace a line, you could move. So you could move 1 other hero, have that hero open a door, then on your activation use Force jump to jump almost clear across the map (on some maps)

Force jump could duplicate a merging of the Nexu's pounce and Garkhaan's charge: one action, 1 strain, place your figure within 6 and perform 1 melee attack.

I believe the reason patrickmahan thought it was OP is that line of sight means that as long as you can trace a line, you could move. So you could move 1 other hero, have that hero open a door, then on your activation use Force jump to jump almost clear across the map (on some maps)