I'm messing around the Smuggler - Charmer spec and found it quite interesting.

I just wanted to have people feedback to make sure I've got all this right.

Disarming Smile is an opposed roll, so I take the opponents Charm dice pool and I turn it into Negative dices... I also don't think talents like Sense emotions would give a setback dice on the roll if the opponent has it.

Since Adversary only affects combat checks, I guess it wouldn't affect Disarming Smile since it's not an attack nor made using a combat skill.

Since Charm isn't that popular a skill on pregen ennemies (Nemesis or Rival), then Disarming Smile would rarely benefit from Congenial.

Now I think I have it all right.
The Spec could be useful and funny to play...

Anyone played a Charmer ? How did you find the talent tree ?

Any other kind of Career/Spec that isn't combat focused that could be a lot of fun ?

Any other kind of Career/Spec that isn't combat focused that could be a lot of fun ?

Basically anything with Scathing Tirade + it's upgrades.

Not sure what the point of this sentence is. Based on the talent description, Sense Emotions adds boost dice to Charm, Coercion, and Deception checks made by the owner; It doesn't do anything to "incoming" rolls targeting the owner, unless there are additional rules I'm not aware of. If Disarming Smile calls for a check with any of those skills, Sense Emotions absolutely should apply if the user has it.

Singular of dice is "die". "Dice" is already pluralized.

"Dices" is a verb that involves cutting something (typically food) into small pieces, and has nothing do with plastic polyhedra, other than being horrendous grammar.

Apparently, the OED states "dice" is becoming more acceptable in modern English to refer to a single die, but I find that use vulgar. Maybe I'm just old.

I've always liked Performer and Fringer, for different reasons. The first because Distracting Behaviour and Coordination Dodge are really powerful, and the second because you get a whole list of cool talents that make it easier to explore other trees

To Lethaldose :
Sorry English isn't my first language.

About the Sense Emotions thing... I worded the Opposed roll that you take the opponent's dice pool and turn it into negative dice as your roll difficulty.... if it was a Competitive check, an Opponent with Presence 3, Charm 2 and Sense Emotions would roll YYGB against the set difficulty. In an Opposed check, you'd roll your skill against a difficulty (against the same opponent) of only RRP... so the Boost die from Sense Emotions doesn't turn into a setback dice for the Opposed roll. So my red sentence isn't entirely true... that's what I meant.

To SirSprinkles :

I also really like Performer... I was thinking of building the classic Twi'lek slave girl with the Performer Career.... but I probably won't make that character since I think one of my fellow players will make this character when we rotate to a new campaign. But I'm thinking that a Performer with a fellow Soresu Defender could make a strong duo... Improved Distracting Behavior could help generate a lot of Improved Reflect or Improved Parry.

For interesting non-combat setups, I was thinking something like the party Face (Ambassador maybe) being a Falleen... or a Togruta Advocate for the synergy with the Encouraging Words talent.

I wanted to make a cool Wookie character... but can't seem to find the right combo... I'm not interested in the usual Doctor or Marauder spec... maybe Shien Expert for Falling Avanlache...

Other ideas ?

Disregarding any idea of optimization for the character, what do you want to play? You mention a face character and a Wookie warrior type. If you go the Wookie route you could do the Warrior:aggressor career to start, move down the tree to get 3 levels of fearsome and move into enforcer for more levels.

... Twi'lek slave girl with the Performer Career...

Performer Career? I don't have the "Far Horizons" book, but I'm pretty sure it didn't add a new Career. Performer is a specialization under the Colonist career, right?

... Twi'lek slave girl with the Performer Career...

Performer Career? I don't have the "Far Horizons" book, but I'm pretty sure it didn't add a new Career. Performer is a specialization under the Colonist career, right?

Yeah my bad... Performer Spec...

I'm looking to make a support character... many of my fellow players are new to RPG and I don't want to make a character to take the spot light... I want them to have the chance to really shine and take the stage. I want a character that will make it easier for them... Either in space, in combat or in social interactions...

The one thing I would caution you about is making a “support” character that is always poking their nose into the PCs business, and “facilitating” discussion with NPCs.

At that point, you’re basically just “playing with yourself” in public and making other people watch while you do it.

For those of you who are adults and who don’t understand that reference, feel free to go over to the Urban Dictionary site and look that up. However, I’m not going to provide any links, because I don’t want to make it too easy for younger readers.

In other words, your support character really should be support only, and should primarily interact with the PCs and not other NPCs.

Side note: Yeah, don't teach kids about sexuality and their own bodies, that would be bad... because... huh? Repression, insecurity and confusion is better... **** yeah!

JP_JP: if you're planning on making a support character I don't think gambler is a bad move, but again as bradknowles points out, if you want to be a support character be sure that that's what you're choosing. With new players it can be easy to outshine them regardless of what you choose, it depends on the GM a lot too, and for you (the experienced one) to be active, stimulating, but at the same time pointing the spotlight on your fellow players. If you play a social character, get into real trouble, let the new players help you/save you, if you're the combat player, let them talk you out of trouble, and so on.

Side note: Yeah, don't teach kids about sexuality and their own bodies, that would be bad... because... huh? Repression, insecurity and confusion is better... **** yeah!

I’m not so concerned about what under age people would read on the primary page I would have been linking to. But there is a lot of material at that site that I find revolting and disgusting and wish that I had never seen, and so I wouldn’t want to unintentionally inflict that on anyone else.

As I see it, if you’re an adult, then you’re legally allowed to make decisions on whether that kind of material is something you want to see.

However, someone who is not yet an adult is more likely to be very ill-prepared to see that kind of material, and I wouldn’t want to make it too easy for them to go to a site like this.

The one thing I would caution you about is making a “support” character that is always poking their nose into the PCs business, and “facilitating” discussion with NPCs.

At that point, you’re basically just “playing with yourself” in public and making other people watch while you do it.

Sorry for the confusion... I'm usually the GM, but the character I wanna build is to play it like a regular player.

I GM for about 50-60% of the games, but I intend to play a little bit more in our new campaign.

I understood what you meant after reading it a few times.... that I was the GM and I wanted to create a NPC support to help the players...

But it's my own character has a player, but I don't want to outshine the other players, I want to help them get more involved in the game, help them take more initiative and lead the story more.

That's why I want to build a support character.

Like maybe a Togruta Charmer... Improved Inspiring Rhetoric to give them back strain and give them a Boost die ; Disarming Smile to lower the enemy's defense value ; Just Kidding to remove a Despair on a friend's social check ; Togruta to give 2 Boost dice when doing an Assist maneuver.

This is one character I like, but I'm not convinced yet... That's why I asked for inspiration....

The races I find good are Human, Togruta, Hutt and Wookie... Gank could be a cool idea but it could get ugly if we stumble on a lot of cash.

I just had a revelation...

Battle Meditation... a great, super great power to support my buddies... wow that is a great power and would be super cool to use.

I could still go Smuggler-Charmer then buy FSEx and then go Niman Disciple for 3 Force Rating... but that would take a lot of XP....

So now the problem would be to find the proper F&D spec to use for a Support class ?

I could still go Smuggler-Charmer then buy FSEx and then go Niman Disciple for 3 Force Rating... but that would take a lot of XP....

So now the problem would be to find the proper F&D spec to use for a Support class ?

Both Consular/Sage and Mystic/Seer have two “Force Rank +1” talents, so that would be a quick way to boost your Force rank pretty quickly. They both have some other talents which can also be useful. I prefer Seer somewhat over Sage, but that may just be a personal choice.

IMO, the more important thing is the powers that you use to support the party. Both Seek and Foresee can be very useful in combat, with Foresee especially as you go down further into the tree and you can benefit more and more people as they are further and further away from you.

IMO, the more important thing is the powers that you use to support the party. Both Seek and Foresee can be very useful in combat, with Foresee especially as you go down further into the tree and you can benefit more and more people as they are further and further away from you.

Why is Seek very useful in combat ? The Mastery upgrade only affects your own rolls against the target, not everyone.

But I can see how Foresee can be pretty powerful... giving affected allies a bonus to defense for the first round and a free maneuver.

I was also wondering if Battle Meditation works outside of Combat ? There is nothing in the RAW that states that it can only be applied in combat, it just adds one automatic success to all checks before the end of his next turn (which could be 2 full rounds if he plays first on round 1 and plays last on round 2). So in theory, you could use Battle Meditation to help your buddies climb a mountain or to talk their way trough a difficult situation. How do you interpret it ?

On a side note :

Writing this message, I wonder if it would be a good idea to houserule that it adds 1 automatic success to all checks on affected targets next turn.... as to prevent 2 full rounds of effect if the caster goes first then last. We houseruled most of the boost/setback effects this way like Scathing Tirade, Inspiring Rhetoric or Disorient... it's easier to manage this way and the caster has the feeling of being useful even if he goes last in the round. What do you guys think ?

Why is Seek very useful in combat ? The Mastery upgrade only affects your own rolls against the target, not everyone.

The first Control lets you upgrade your Vigilance and Perception checks once for each Force die that is committed, including for establishing initiative. Having someone with a reasonable chance of a higher ranking in initiative can benefit the whole party, because RAW anyone can use any initiative slot. And there could always be things during combat that also require Vigilance or Perception rolls, but which could potentially effect the whole party.

The second Control give you add Pierce to your attacks, equal to Cunning+Perception, if you commit three Force dice.

Both of those abilities could be very useful in combat.

Moreover, you should be able to use the narrative side of Seek to gain information about your opponents, which you might be able to pass on to your party members.

But I can see how Foresee can be pretty powerful... giving affected allies a bonus to defense for the first round and a free maneuver.

Yup.

I was also wondering if Battle Meditation works outside of Combat ? There is nothing in the RAW that states that it can only be applied in combat, it just adds one automatic success to all checks before the end of his next turn (which could be 2 full rounds if he plays first on round 1 and plays last on round 2). So in theory, you could use Battle Meditation to help your buddies climb a mountain or to talk their way trough a difficult situation. How do you interpret it ?

Well, at the top of the tree it says “The Force user directs allies in battle”. And later it talks about the duration being “until the end of his next turn”. So, those two clues would indicate that it only works in combat. However, this is a case where I would think that the GM could potentially offer some leeway.

On a side note :

Writing this message, I wonder if it would be a good idea to houserule that it adds 1 automatic success to all checks on affected targets next turn.... as to prevent 2 full rounds of effect if the caster goes first then last. We houseruled most of the boost/setback effects this way like Scathing Tirade, Inspiring Rhetoric or Disorient... it's easier to manage this way and the caster has the feeling of being useful even if he goes last in the round. What do you guys think ?

Makes sense to me!

Of course, if they’re using the ongoing effect of Battle Meditation by committing three Force dice, then that wouldn’t be an issue.

The first Control lets you upgrade your Vigilance and Perception checks once for each Force die that is committed, including for establishing initiative. Having someone with a reasonable chance of a higher ranking in initiative can benefit the whole party, because RAW anyone can use any initiative slot. And there could always be things during combat that also require Vigilance or Perception rolls, but which could potentially effect the whole party.

You can't commit more then one Force Die for the Control upgrade to Seek. Except Enhance control upgrades to Brawn and Agility (raised to a maximum characteristic of 6), all other Commit powers have the "That user may not activate this multiple times" quote at the end of the description.

It's been changed in the last Beta update and still holds true in the Core Rulebook.

The first Control lets you upgrade your Vigilance and Perception checks once for each Force die that is committed, including for establishing initiative. Having someone with a reasonable chance of a higher ranking in initiative can benefit the whole party, because RAW anyone can use any initiative slot. And there could always be things during combat that also require Vigilance or Perception rolls, but which could potentially effect the whole party.

You can't commit more then one Force Die for the Control upgrade to Seek. Except Enhance control upgrades to Brawn and Agility (raised to a maximum characteristic of 6), all other Commit powers have the "That user may not activate this multiple times" quote at the end of the description.

It's been changed in the last Beta update and still holds true in the Core Rulebook.

Additionally, the section on Committing Force Dice (pp 281-2, specifically the last paragraph) explicitly disallows activating a single "commit force die" ability more than once, so you can't do it even on the enhance powers. The wording on the other specific power upgrades primarily serves as a reminder and is actually redundant.

Additionally, the section on Committing Force Dice (pp 281-2, specifically the last paragraph) explicitly disallows activating a single "commit force die" ability more than once, so you can't do it even on the enhance powers. The wording on the other specific power upgrades primarily serves as a reminder and is actually redundant.

It’s interesting you mention this, because I don’t read that section that way. Let’s look at the whole section — please excuse any typos, because I’m not scanning or taking a picture of the pages but in fact re-typing the section word-for-word:

Committing Force Dice

Some Force powers and Force talents provide an ongoing effect — they give the character a benefit until he chooses to end it. What they do is detailed in the description of the power or talent. However, most powers or talents that provide an ongoing effect require the character to commit a number of Force dice.

To activate and fuel an ongoing effect, the Force-sensitive character commits a number of Force dice ⬡. The number of ⬡ that need to be committed is listed in the effect; however, a character cannot commit more ⬡ than his current Force rating.

When a character has committed one or more ⬡, he counts his current Force rating as lower than his actual Force rating. For all mechanical purposes, the character’s Force rating temporarily decreases by an amount equal to the number of ⬡ committed. This is the PC’s current Force rating. When he ends the effect, the character no longer counts his Force rating as lower than usual, because the dice are no longer committed. However, a Force-sensitive character still counts as a Force-sensitive character, even if committing ⬡ has dropped his current Force rating to 0.

A character may end an ongoing effect at the end of any of his subsequent turns as an incidental. While an ongoing effect is active, the character may not activate that specific ongoing effect again (the character cannot be benefitting from two “copies” of the same ongoing effect).

Okay, so as far as that goes, that actually seems pretty straightforward to me.

What this does NOT SAY, however, is that you can only commit exactly the number of force die that are specified in the power or talent, and the rule now is that effects can be activated multiple times unless specified otherwise.

In the case of Seek, the first Control upgrade ends with the following two sentences:

Upgrade the ability of all Perception and Vigilance checks the user makes once. The user may not activate this multiple times

So, it seems clear that you can only commit one Force die to this Control upgrade, in contrast to my previous understanding. Mea Culpa.

However, in other places, such as Enhance and the Control upgrades to increase Brawn or Agility, it does not specify that this upgrade cannot be selected more than once, so if you had enough Force dice available to you, then you could presumably commit the appropriate number of ⬡ and increase your Brawn and your Agility from 1 all the way to 6 (the max allowed).

That would take a Force rating of ten to make happen, but you should be able to do it. In fact, this is pretty much the way I imagine that Yoda does his lightsaber fighting, using the Ataru style and committing most of his Force dice to upgrading his Agility to the maximum possible.

The only other places I see a single Force die being talked about with regards to an upgrade, they are either explicit about being able to commit multiple Force dice (see the last Control upgrade for Misdirect) or they are like Seek and they are explicit about disallowing the user to commit more than one Force die this way (see the Control upgrades for Sense).

Lethaldose is right...

Force&Destiny Rulebook p.282 3rd paragraph : "While an ongoing effect is active, the character may not activate that specific ongoing effect again (the character cannot be benefiting from two "copies" of the same ongoing effect)."

Thanks for pointing that out...

it's pretty easy to overlook.

What this does NOT SAY, however, is that you can only commit exactly the number of force die that are specified in the power or talent, and the rule now is that effects can be activated multiple times unless specified otherwise.

Yes, actually, it does. Directly in what you transcribed, the last sentence:

"While an ongoing effect is active, the character may not activate that specific ongoing effect again (the character cannot be benefitting [sic] from two “copies” of the same ongoing effect)."

The first (non-parenthetical) part of the sentence states you can't activate ongoing effect again. Once Enhance's Agility upgrade is activated, you can't activate it again. It takes an action to activate the effect once (based on clarifications from Sam here). You can't activate it twice at with a single action, so the actions would have to be activated sequentially, which is specifically disallowed by the passage you transcribed.

Similarly, the parenthetical part of the sentence clarifies this even further even if you managed to activate it twice. It's very clear you can't benefit from Enhance's Agility upgrade twice. You can't benefit from Enhance's Brawn upgrade twice. You could benefit from each once, separately, though, because they're separate abilities.

Edit: Basically what JP said above.

Lethaldose is right...

Force&Destiny Rulebook p.282 3rd paragraph : "While an ongoing effect is active, the character may not activate that specific ongoing effect again (the character cannot be benefiting from two "copies" of the same ongoing effect)."

There’s nothing there that says you can’t commit more than that number of dice in the original action, and get a higher level of benefit. I’m not talking about an additional activation, only a single activation with more dice involved.

The first (non-parenthetical) part of the sentence states you can't activate ongoing effect again.

I’m not talking about activating it again. I’m talking about committing more Force dice as part of the initial action, and thus getting a greater benefit than if you had committed just one Force die.

But obviously we need a clarification from Sam, because what seems to be a perfectly obvious reading of the rules to me contradicts your reading, and vice-versa.

The first (non-parenthetical) part of the sentence states you can't activate ongoing effect again.

I’m not talking about activating it again. I’m talking about committing more Force dice as part of the initial action, and thus getting a greater benefit than if you had committed just one Force die.

There are powers and talents that specify exactly how many you can commit total, though (sometimes that max is all your Force rating). If you can always just load up as many dice as you want, then it why specify it in some cases?

There are powers and talents that specify exactly how many you can commit total, though (sometimes that max is all your Force rating). If you can always just load up as many dice as you want, then it why specify it in some cases?

I would actually turn that one around exactly 180 degrees. Precisely because they specify how many Force dice may be committed in a specific power or talent (or upgrade thereof), to me that means that for those cases where it would make sense to commit multiple Force dice if you choose and the power or talent does not otherwise preclude that kind of action, or where it wouldn’t make sense.

I get why you can’t apply the same ongoing effect multiple times. No problem there. But why not allow a more powerful version of the ongoing effect, if more Force dice are committed?

There are powers and talents that specify exactly how many you can commit total, though (sometimes that max is all your Force rating). If you can always just load up as many dice as you want, then it why specify it in some cases?

In a word, clarity.

The core book explicitly states that upgrades can be activated multiple times, but "For convenience, however, most basic uses and upgrades have clarifying text indicating whether or not they can be activated multiple times..." etc etc.

I wish this argument was stronger, but... sorry.

I'm only using that text as an example of the dev's making it clear there is redundant text in the descriptions. However the content of that quote is not applicable to the current discussion; Spending force points to activate basic powers and upgrades is fundamentally different than committing force dice for ongoing powers.

The first (non-parenthetical) part of the sentence states you can't activate ongoing effect again.

I’m not talking about activating it again. I’m talking about committing more Force dice as part of the initial action, and thus getting a greater benefit than if you had committed just one Force die.

But obviously we need a clarification from Sam, because what seems to be a perfectly obvious reading of the rules to me contradicts your reading, and vice-versa.

If you want to shoot a message to the devs, go right ahead. You can run your table how ever you want, but your interpretation is directly counter to the RAW. The part of my quote you cut out makes it clear as day you can't benefit from the same "ongoing force effect" multiple times.

I think I figured out where you were coming from: You're treating the force dice like resources you got from a roll, e.g. force points or advantages. It doesn't work like that.

Edit: Had a repeated clause above.