Here is my version of Jar'Kai. Feel free to leave a comment or a critique.

Linky

Rules for using Jar'kai. It can never be chosen as the first lightsaber form that a force user can take. It must be a second or subsequent form. To be eligible to begin learning Jar'Kai, the character must have spent a minimum of 60 points in their beginning Lightsaber Form. The character can choose what characteristic their Lightsaber skill uses for Jar'Kai.

Due to the difficulty of fighting with dual lightsabers and melee weapons, Jar'Kai Technique costs the character 2 Strain to do a two weapon attack without the additional Difficulty die.

There are several Talents, beyond the Technique Talents, that are specific to Jar'Kai. Twin Strike allows the character to attack a single target with two weapons without difficulty. Overcome Defenses the character can apply their Force Dice to adding boost dice to an attack. Jar'Kai Dual Defense adds to a characters Reflect, Parry, and Defense. Finally, there is Rising Whirlwind. The character can add as many Force Dice as their Force Rating to the roll and costs 2 Strain. Add +1 Defense for every 2 Force Points spent. Rising Whirlwind also attacks two different targets with a single weapon in engaged range.

Special thanks to TalosX, Daeglan, and Kilcannon for the great help!

If your idea is for this to be an add on for shien I would not include draw closer. As draw closer would be a Niman thing.

Naw it's not an addon for any specific form, but rather an addon for all forms. Jar'Kai's history is shared with the Niman Disciple and shares many of the main attributes. The only reason why Shein appears is because I used Oggy's GM Tools and I had to take it since Jar'Kai is an additional form learned after one of the 7 basic forms.

I would make it more generic then. No draw closer. Just the two lightsaber stuff.

I would make it more generic then. No draw closer. Just the two lightsaber stuff.

What about making Twin Strike ranked and each additional rank increases the number of targets hit? This would be switched out for Draw Closer.

that doesn't feel right. Also it should not have a force rating talent. I would follow the Gunslinger spec. as a model. It fits better.

that doesn't feel right. Also it should not have a force rating talent. I would follow the Gunslinger spec. as a model. It fits better.

Okay, so that leaves me with switching it for Defensive Stance or Saber Swarm.

I believe the Force Rating fits since Jar'Kai is an advanced lightsaber form and it shows growth in the force due to the amount of control needed in the force to use both blades effectively.

This again huh. Alright, well I agree with Daeglan that Draw Closer shouldn't be in here at all. You're literally taking the single unique talent from a tree and co-opting it. FFG has avoided this for very obvious reasons.

Second, Daeglan is right that Force Rating should not be in Jar'Kai. One of the 3 discussed weaknesses was that Jedi who learned Jar'Kai tended to fall behind their peers in force abilities. It simply takes to much extra time and focus to master both simultaneously. Many Jar'Kai masters were known to be weak with force abilities in general due to the time needed to master Jar'Kai.

Rising Whirlwind's extra attacks should be capped at the number of sabers you're wielding. This treads dangerously close, once again, to stepping on Shii-Cho's Sarlacc Sweep. FFG gave every specialization in FaD a unique talent, and they went out of their way so far to ensure no other specialization impeded on those unique talents. You've done it once with Draw Closer, and are very close to doing it again with Rising Whirlwind. Their are 2 sources that mention Rising Whirlwind so far. Saga Edition and the TCG. I've been informed it was an attack in SE, but it's a defensive ability in the TCG. If Jar'Kai becomes an official specialization, it's 50/50 which way Rising Whirlwind will go.

Also, there is no canon evidence that Jar'Kai was especially good at attacking multiple foes. What Jar'Kai is known for is continuous attacks directed at a single opponent, and being capable of defending against multiple attackers. Personally, I would remove Rising Whirlwind in favor of Saber Swarm to simulate the continuous attacks, and I'd drop Draw Closer and add a passive talent that defense by 1. Lastly, remove the Force Rating, it definitely doesn't follow the Jar'Kai theme.

After all the wonderful feedback, I altered it to fit better with what is written about Jar'Kai. The link in the first post leads to the new version of Jar'Kai. More comments and critiques are welcome.

What if, for Rising Whirlwind, you were allowed to allocate your two hits to any two targets within short range? That would make it like Draw Closer/Hawk Bat Swoop, but wouldn't end with you engaged with your targets. And it wouldn't have as far a reach, but would allow for a single extra hit.

Also, you might wanna remove the talent descriptions for official talents. That is treading pretty close to copyright infringement. Best to play it safe

What if, for Rising Whirlwind, you were allowed to allocate your two hits to any two targets within Medium range? That would make it like Draw Closer/Hawk Bat Swoop, but wouldn't end with you engaged with your targets. And it wouldn't have as far a reach, but would allow for a single extra hit.

Also, you might wanna remove the talent descriptions for official talents. That is treading pretty close to copyright infringement. Best to play it safe

That would make it unique to the style and incorporates a double saber throw. However, Rising Whirlwind doesn't do that. What it does is the practitioner uses the double lightsabers to create a whirlwind around their body and perform deadly attacks to nearby opponents.

Thanks for the advice and I'll do that in the future.

Whoa! I meant short range. Not sure what I was smoking there...

Whoa! I meant short range. Not sure what I was smoking there...

I like the idea of hitting two targets within engaged range. I think I'll do that and make it where the difficulty stays the same for both attacks.

Bravo on building a munchkin spec that simply did swap-and-replaces of talents in Niman Disciple with zero regard to play balance. And I thought some of the hamfisted attempts to build a "generic Jedi" universal spec over in the FaD Beta forums were horrifically unbalanced, but this one takes the cake in terms of being a glorified grab-bag of "cool talents." If this is the improved version, I think I'm glad to have missed the initial version.

That you've got both the Improved and Supreme versions of Parry and Reflect pretty much puts this in the realm of "why the hell wouldn't I take this spec!" for a PC using a lightsaber Especially since you can get many of those talents very inexpensively. Honestly, at most I'd offer Improved Parry, and then drop the other three if you want this thing to be even remotely balanced against the other LS Form specs. In fact, replace both of the Supremes with ranks of Parry, and the Improved Reflect with just Reflect.

The Jar'Kai talent is pretty much a straight rip-off of Niman Disciple. If anything, instead of allowing a swap to a different characteristic, perhaps let it reduce the Advantage cost to trigger a hit with the off-hand weapon when dual-wielding lightsabers, much like the Paired attachment operates from Fly Casual.

Rising Whirlwind is similarly just a rip-off of Saber Swarm, and an overpowered one to boot since as written it'd provide Linked to both weapons by default. Instead of it being a purely offensive talent, suggest changing it so that recovers a small bit of strain if both weapons hit.

Twin Strike is tricky, since it's again just a reskin of the Heavy's Rain of Death talent from Dangerous Covenants. This one I'd suggest sticking closer to the source material and keep the cost to a maneuver to activate it, since 2 strain is fairly paltry given how much damage a lightsaber attack can do thanks to the Breach 1 quality. Or, replace it with something more original and let the user suffer 2 strain, spend an incidental, as well as have the increased difficulty from attacking with two weapons to allow the PC to simply add half the damage value of their secondary weapon to the damage of their primary weapon (still treated as one hit), with the PC still having the option to spend 2 advantage to get in a hit with the secondary weapon if they so choose. So if attacking with two basic lightsabers (Damage 6), the PC spends 2 strain, rolls against a base difficulty of 3 purple, and if they score a hit, the base damage is 9 plus successes.

Would also suggest dropping Defensive Stance and Side Step and just replacing those with Dodge talents. Most of the Jar'Kai usage we see is in one-on-one battles.

Probably also need to rethink how the talents are connected to one another instead of just aping the layout for Niman Disciple.

There's also the problem of a number of Jar'Kai users we see that don't have much of a history with Niman, with prime examples being Ahsoka (Shien), Asajj Ventress (most likely Ataru), and Kit Fisto (Shii-Cho).

@Donovon: I will take your suggestions under advisement. My goal is to make a balanced spec not a munchkin one. There is no fun in being a munchkin.

I have suggested the gunslinger spec as a model. It is a far better model for the type of stuff you should have in the spec. Something that makes duel wielding good but not crazy good.

I have suggested the gunslinger spec as a model. It is a far better model for the type of stuff you should have in the spec. Something that makes duel wielding good but not crazy good.

Alright I'll take a look at it.

I would suggest the gunslinger spec also in regards to an idea. A talent that lowers two weapon difficulty for 2 strain. A talent that lows for more hits from for advantage cost. You don't need something that gives paired modification idea since I would just have that modification available for a two weapon saberist. Instead of lethal blows a few parry and reflects. Quick draw and improved quick draw. I wouldn't go with improved parry or reflect since most Jar'Kai new a second form let them get those from that form. Definitely agree no force rating. Rising Whirlwind can be that you roll your force rating with your Saber attack and for one force rating pip you can do blast damage (2) per pip used to any other enemy engaged with you if your initial attack is successful and since it's from a saber it ignores soak and still hit the initial target with the two weapon attack and follow normal 2 weapon rules.

There was a reason I made rising whirlwind a blast talent a long time ago in a post far far away.

I redid the specialization as per the feedback and the link has been replaced with the newer version. I believe that this is a very balanced lightsaber form on par with the others. I appreciate more feedback on the new spec.

One new change is that the form is now a career spec for all F&D careers.

That is much better.

That is much better.

Thank you, any other suggestions about it or is it fine?

Since part of the original intent was to make it the equivalent of a D&D3.X prestige class, I'm wondering if a better solution would be to make it akin to a Signature Ability, with the change that it's not restricted to a specific career, it can only be attached to a LS Form spec.

The basic ability would be some means of briefly improving two-weapon combat at the cost of 2 Destiny Points, such as outright negating the difficulty increase from using two-weapon combat for 3 rounds. Add in a couple of Duration Upgrades to extend the bonus to a max of 5 rounds (more than enough for most combats where lightsabers get involved), perhaps a Magnitude Upgrade to allow for an additional hit, a Destiny Upgrade to drop the cost down to 1 Destiny Point. Twin Strike could be used to allow additional hits against adjacent targets similar to Sarlacc Sweep, or just the flat damage bonus that I'd suggested earlier. As for Rising Whirlwind as part of a Signature Ability set-up, that one I'm not sure on, though I'd personally favor something that had more of a defensive focus, such as boosting the user's Melee Defense by +2 while this ability is active?

It'd be far less prone to abuse than a full spec would be, and would be in keeping with the design intent that Jar'kai mastery is an "advanced" ability, and as such while anyone of any Form can use the techniques, it takes dedicated study to really master it.

Since part of the original intent was to make it the equivalent of a D&D3.X prestige class, I'm wondering if a better solution would be to make it akin to a Signature Ability, with the change that it's not restricted to a specific career, it can only be attached to a LS Form spec.

The basic ability would be some means of briefly improving two-weapon combat at the cost of 2 Destiny Points, such as outright negating the difficulty increase from using two-weapon combat for 3 rounds. Add in a couple of Duration Upgrades to extend the bonus to a max of 5 rounds (more than enough for most combats where lightsabers get involved), perhaps a Magnitude Upgrade to allow for an additional hit, a Destiny Upgrade to drop the cost down to 1 Destiny Point. Twin Strike could be used to allow additional hits against adjacent targets similar to Sarlacc Sweep, or just the flat damage bonus that I'd suggested earlier. As for Rising Whirlwind as part of a Signature Ability set-up, that one I'm not sure on, though I'd personally favor something that had more of a defensive focus, such as boosting the user's Melee Defense by +2 while this ability is active?

It'd be far less prone to abuse than a full spec would be, and would be in keeping with the design intent that Jar'kai mastery is an "advanced" ability, and as such while anyone of any Form can use the techniques, it takes dedicated study to really master it.

So the revamped version is still unbalanced if I understand you correctly.

I can make it as a signature ability and I tend to agree with you that it should be. My only concern is the use of destiny points to use them.

Twin Strike is currently set up like Sarlaac Sweep, but adds in a difficulty for each target beyond the first. It costs 2 Advantage to activate. For Rising Whirlwind, how about an option to use Force Dice to add Blast 2 or Defense +1 for every two Force pips used? This way the player has the option of using offensively or defensively and if they choose to use Blast they can't use the Defense or vice versa. If it's an active ability then instead of using the pips the player can commit Force Dice to grant Blast 2 or Defense +1.

There was a reason I made rising whirlwind a blast talent a long time ago in a post far far away.

Yup that was my thread when I was trying to make Jar'Kai and the blast idea was good in my opinion as well as setting Jar'Kai seperate from Ataru's saber swarm and Shi'Cho's sarlac sweep