Crazy idea just popped into my head while I was out on a run:

What if players could use starting experience to increase their Force Rating before the first session begins, just like with Characteristics?

This sounds insanely over-powered, but hear me out. Multiple times in the canon we witness characters with no prior Force training execute some pretty powerful Force maneuvers. Rey is the most recent example. These characters have no prior knowledge of any Jedi-style abilities or talents, and yet when they need to they can call on the raw power of the Force to do their bidding. This is difficult to emulate in the RPG that we all love because in order to get a higher Force Rating, you need to go through the Force-sensitive talent trees and pick up talents along the way that are all flavored and worded to reflect someone who has had time to train and hone their abilities.

If you wanted to roll up a Rodian with powerful latent Force power but no training living on some backwater world, for example, you would ideally want him to start out as an Explorer or a Colonist or whatever. Say this character, at character creation, purchased 3 ranks of Force Rating in the way that he would purchase Characteristics (10 xp for the first rank, 20 xp for the second rank, 30 for the third rank. So he blew 60 xp on this.). So he has the ability to generate pips, but nothing to spend them on since he is a Scout and purchased no Force powers. At the beginning of the second or third session, however, when him and his friends are on the run from the main villain, he purchases Move and decides that his character has suddenly discovered his latent talents just as the Crew is under some serious duress. The Marauder's vibro-sword gets knocked out of his hand, and the evil Gank assassin steps in for the kill... but then the Rodian Scout rolls three Force dice for Move, and the Gank suddenly goes flying -- much to everyone's surprise! The Rodian starts to "learn" about his new abilities at this point through purchasing talent trees and powers, knowing that he is "strong in the Force, but untrained," as Kylo Ren described Rey.

Again, this is just off the top of my head. It just occurred to me that this might be a fun way to represent someone who is strong in the Force without having knowledge of it, as current Force increases follow a very linear, predictable pattern. I'm sure there is something obviously broken and dumb about all this that I am missing. What do you folks think?

My view is that if you bought the Force Sensitive Trait or start off with a Force Career then you start with a Force Rating characteristic of 1 and can spend starting experience to increase it to 2 or 3 like you can with other characteristics.

I don't recommend purchasing beyond 2 though!

Did they ever considered when buying a force power to also turn it into a skill so you use narrative dice with force powers?

I wouldn't recommend it, as there's a significant jump in power between Force Rating 1 and Force Rating 2 in terms of being able to activate Force powers. It makes the character a lot more powerful than other PCs would be from raising their characteristics.

Yes, it does mean that the Force users in the party will have to wait and struggle with their powers at the outset (especially if they refuse to make use of those dark side pips), but that's intentional to keep with the feel of the Force as we see it in the original films, in that someone who is fairly new to the life of an adventurer is still struggling with their powers.

To put it in D&D terms, what you're suggesting is akin to letting the party mage start out at 5th level while everyone else in the party starts out at 1st level.

I understand the inclination to want to mirror everything about the universe. However, this would be -extremely- unbalancing.

If that's what you want, though, then more power to you. Ogg's character builder actually allows that kind of thing in the GM grants section.

That said, be aware that it'll screw up balance of the Force abilities in a very significant way...

I don't think it's a good idea either. Additional FR should be hard to get.

That said however, the new Keeping the Peace Guardian sourcebook has a great section for dealing with story elements where a PC suddenly discovers latent abilities. Page 74 has a section called "Learning as you go" which outlines how to handle XP expenditures for that kind of situation. Basically the player can invest partial XP into an ability, suffering some difficulty upgrades when using it "unlearned".

There's no reason you can't allow the PC to experience some ability surge so long as they commit to spending their next XP on that ability.

Crazy idea just popped into my head while I was out on a run:

What if players could use starting experience to increase their Force Rating before the first session begins, just like with Characteristics?

This sounds insanely over-powered, but hear me out. Multiple times in the canon we witness characters with no prior Force training execute some pretty powerful Force maneuvers. Rey is the most recent example. These characters have no prior knowledge of any Jedi-style abilities or talents, and yet when they need to they can call on the raw power of the Force to do their bidding. This is difficult to emulate in the RPG that we all love because in order to get a higher Force Rating, you need to go through the Force-sensitive talent trees and pick up talents along the way that are all flavored and worded to reflect someone who has had time to train and hone their abilities.

The reason for that is 2/3rds of those characters are Skywalkers, and all three are specifically noted to be strong in the Force. So unless you want your campaign to follow the adventures of Anakin's secret bastard offspring with all the side ladies he knocked up in the Clone Wars (Although...) or contrive a reason for there to be multiple Skywalker-level Force adepts walking into the same Corellian tavern, there's not a whole lot of justification for it.

Though it's your game and you can do what you want, just my two cents.

Way OP and would capsize game balance.

I don't have enough experience with the system to say for sure that it is overpowered, but that's what my gut says.

As an alternative you might consider once per session per force rating the force user possesses that they can flip a Destiny point to try to use a force power they don't possess (or perhaps upgrade it one step to attempt something they can't currently accomplish). But keep track of it and if they don't purchase the skill they used in this fashion it might generate some conflict for them as they are clearly trying the quick and easy path

I agree with the previous posts.

Remember and remind your Players that it's okay to use Dark Side Pips to activate Force Powers, especially in the early part of a PC's journey. Unless their PCs are over relying on their powers, and rolling poorly, they're not likely to gain more than a few Conflict per session this way. Conflict represents a range from acting out with a little fear and anger (1-2 Pips) to full on brutality and murderous hate (10 Pips). A few Conflict per session really only means that the PC is acting how most of us do in our everyday lives. As the PCs gain in power (add Force Dice) they will remain calmer and not draw from Fear and Anger as much. Also gaining Conflict is only the game mechanic used to represent the struggle it's not about falling to the Dark Side or where they lay on the path of Light and Dark, that's Morality.

So next time your players want to use a Power but only roll a black pip, tell them it's okay to use it if it's important just don't rely it, because that will lead to the Dark Side.

Not a good idea. Someone "strong in the Force without having knowledge of it" can already choose certain specs and talents to quickly ramp up their FR.

I assume being strong in the Force and not know it means they can't select a force career without actual training by that I mean they have to actively try to find out which runs counter to that claim above!

The Exile had actual training cut short, but the Force Emergent would count but how do they learn new force powers if not actively trying to learn?

Thanks for the heads up on the Guardians book though!

With Knight-level play, and careful spending of points in the right Specializations, you can actually buy down to FR+1, and have your character start out with FR2. We had a guy do just that in the F&D campaign we started a while back.

And yes, that does do a pretty good job of messing up game balance, especially when combined with a Force power like Move that can itself be a little OP.

In a situation like this, the primary restraint has to fall on the player, to not abuse the situation. If s/he does, then the GM will have to decide how they’re going to handle that problem, and I’m not aware of any good outcomes from being forced to make that kind of a decision.

As nigh everybody else said, in so many words: Better not!

I imagine the developers had been playing with the "Force is just another characteristic" idea at some point before beta release. Seemingly, in the end they thought better of it.

You get FR 1 when you open your first force tree and should be able to buy into FR 2 within 75 to 105 xp depending on which tree it is. With seer and scholar, getting to FR 3 in the same tree is possible. I don't recall if this is true of sentinel, too. One way to make it easier that would blance, IMO, is including a FR at the end of the saber trees (not just niman). This would allow most characters to reach FR 3 with two trees.

You get FR 1 when you open your first force tree and should be able to buy into FR 2 within 75 to 105 xp depending on which tree it is. With seer and scholar, getting to FR 3 in the same tree is possible. I don't recall if this is true of sentinel, too. One way to make it easier that would blance, IMO, is including a FR at the end of the saber trees (not just niman). This would allow most characters to reach FR 3 with two trees.

Problem is, with FR3, things can really start going off the rails.

So, you really don’t want to make that easier to get to, unless you like dealing with the problem of Force Wizards that enjoy tossing around AT-ATs as if they were toys.

You get FR 1 when you open your first force tree and should be able to buy into FR 2 within 75 to 105 xp depending on which tree it is. With seer and scholar, getting to FR 3 in the same tree is possible. I don't recall if this is true of sentinel, too. One way to make it easier that would blance, IMO, is including a FR at the end of the saber trees (not just niman). This would allow most characters to reach FR 3 with two trees.

Problem is, with FR3, things can really start going off the rails.

So, you really don’t want to make that easier to get to, unless you like dealing with the problem of Force Wizards that enjoy tossing around AT-ATs as if they were toys.

I have not had the same experience with FR 3 and regard your comment as hyperbole. It may be true in certain games, or for certain styles of play, but it is far from universally true.

There were FRs in all the trees, it was dropped for balance.

I have not had the same experience with FR 3 and regard your comment as hyperbole. It may be true in certain games, or for certain styles of play, but it is far from universally true.

I did say “can really start going off the rails”. Not that this is a statement of universal applicability, but that it is a potential weakness in this game, and I think it’s the biggest and earliest weakness that F&D games are likely to encounter.

Of course, each game is different, as are the GMs and the players. But that doesn’t change the potential danger.

You get FR 1 when you open your first force tree and should be able to buy into FR 2 within 75 to 105 xp depending on which tree it is. With seer and scholar, getting to FR 3 in the same tree is possible. I don't recall if this is true of sentinel, too. One way to make it easier that would blance, IMO, is including a FR at the end of the saber trees (not just niman). This would allow most characters to reach FR 3 with two trees.

I'd recommend against altering the LS Form specs that don't have the Force Rating talent already to now provide it.

Simple reason being that a lightsaber is one of the most effective weapons in the game, especially if fully modified and more so for some of the high-end crystals like Krayt Dragon Pearl and Mephite, coming a close second to auto-fire and but still ahead of distruptor pistols/rifles (due to their minimum crit result)

Niman is balanced by not having either Improved Parry or Improved Reflect, which can be a lightsaber's wielders primary form of damage output given it just needs three threat or a Despair result, and there's a number of ways for those characters to impact the attacker's dice pool to increase the chances of getting those results, with the Sense power being the easiest to access. Having an extra Force die to play with for those other LS Form specs means they can use Sense for the defense boost and then still have a Force die available for any specialty talents that work off of Force dice, such as Hawk Bat Swoop and Saber Swarm without having to branch out. For a Force user, a chance to boost their Force Rating is a lot more valuable than Dedication, and that goes triple for the LS Form specs.