Improved Inspiring Rhetoric : Each ally affected by Inspiring Rhetoric gains Boost on all skill checks for a number of rounds equal to the character's ranks in Leadership.

Inspiring Rhetoric : The character may take the Inspiring Rhetoric action, making an Average Leadership check. For eah Success, one ally within close range recovers one strain. For each Advantage, one ally benefiting from Inspiring Rhetoric recovers one additional strain.

Let's say my character has both talents and rolls 3 success on his Leadership check, which means 3 allies in close range recover 1 strain each. Now, if those 3 allies where brand new with no strain lost, would they still be affected by Improved Inspiring Rhetoric ?!? Does the target need to recover strain to be affected by Improved Inspiring Rhetoric ?!?

Also, since it gives a Boost dice on all skill checks, it could be useful in social encounters, but also in space battles. For a Starfighter pilot, would you allow Improved Inspiring Rhetoric to work with your squadmates in close range (space) ?!? For a smuggler's ship, would you allow your crewmates coordinating the transports defense all on the same comm frequency ?!?

Thanks for the help

Ask your GM. It's open to interpretation.

It's an interesting and potentially easily abused skill. I'm a GM and I have a player who's playing a Protocol Droid Charmer.

For me, yes, if you have the success and irregardless of a players current strain, they're going to gain the boost die. I do not let that boost die stack, however. Also, I make him RP it. He has to come up with something that sounds like inspiring rhetoric. For the moment, he succeeds in doing so and has fun conjuring up the little speeches he throws out mid battle.

As for this applying to other actions and such things as social encounters, yes. But beware, don't abuse it. I don't let my player make a Inspiring Rhetoric action because our slicer is slicing a computer just for the boost die. It has to fit the scene, if someone just started spewing hyperbolic happy crap at you all day, it would lose it's effectiveness. Timing is everything.

As for space scenes, yeah, I let the droid use comms to extend the range to other ships, that I don't mind in the least.

I'd say that Improved Inspiring Rhetoric would take effect, and that even if those three allies didn't recover any strain, they were still affected by Inspiring Rhetoric, even if they didn't directly benefit from the core talent.

Then again, I've rarely seen the talent be used except when there are PCs in need of recovering some strain, so it may be a case of YMMV, especially if the PC with both these talents keeps trying to use them every round, including at the start of combat, just so that they can pass out boost dice to their fellow PCs. That scenario might require a bit more GM intercession if they feel that the Leader PC is abusing the talent.

If the character used Inspiring Rhetoric every round to help his teammates recover Strain because they are jedi using Parry and Reflect every round, would you ask him to make a Roleplay speech to justify his action ? Since Improved Inspiring Rhetoric cannot stack per RAW, with a leadership rating of 3, it would give a boost die for 3 rounds, then the Leader character could do another Improved Inspiring Rhetoric to give another 3 rounds.

With the Supreme version, where you can do Inspiring Rhetoric for a maneuver, it might be easier to pass on Boost dice to your allies, but without it, you have to sacrifice your action to have the chance (depending on roll) to give some boost dice to maybe one, two or three allies. I think it might be a big gamble. Would it be OP or abusive to trade an action for a chance to give boost dice ?

Is it happy crap like Clavain said ? or his the leader just reminding the other character the importance of his action, reminding him to concentrate and focus on his task, maybe to tell the other characters to stop talking and let the other character... I think Inspiring Rhetoric can be Roleplayed in many ways each with it's own valor and meaning. It's not always "Go Go Go Johny, you can do it, you're the best!".

Thanks for the feedback.

I'll have a talk with the other guys in our play group.

Depends on your table. Do you make the players describe every action with in-depth detail? Expect no less for this action. If people just say, "I attack"' then "I use Imp Rhetoric" is fine.

Don't penalize the action with more effort than you ask from other actions.

But more detail or dramatic speeches around the table could certainly merit a boost.

I would definitely allow the boost even if there was no strain to be gained.

Also, since it gives a Boost dice on all skill checks, it could be useful in social encounters, but also in space battles. For a Starfighter pilot, would you allow Improved Inspiring Rhetoric to work with your squadmates in close range (space) ?!? For a smuggler's ship, would you allow your crewmates coordinating the transports defense all on the same comm frequency ?!?

Definitely, any kind of combat works.

As for this applying to other actions and such things as social encounters, yes. But beware, don't abuse it. I don't let my player make a Inspiring Rhetoric action because our slicer is slicing a computer just for the boost die. It has to fit the scene, if someone just started spewing hyperbolic happy crap at you all day, it would lose it's effectiveness. Timing is everything.

Absolutely. This is also true of Scathing Tirade and the like. The Colonist sourcebook notes that if you just keep doing the same thing it will be less effective each time.

For Improved Inspiring Rhetoric, because it's a Leadership skill (and not Charm) I assume that it can encompass not just happy rah rah stuff, but also tactical advice along the lines of Fire Discipline, hence the boost that lasts a while. So I don't necessarily demand a fluffy narrative every time.

On the same topic, would you allow a player to use Inspiring Rhetoric 3 times a round if they had the Supreme version? Only in structured time? What about during "wilderness slogs" where strain cost is the penalty for failing to adapt to the environment?

On the same topic, would you allow a player to use Inspiring Rhetoric 3 times a round if they had the Supreme version? Only in structured time? What about during "wilderness slogs" where strain cost is the penalty for failing to adapt to the environment?

You can't do more than 2 maneuvers, even if you downgrade your action. All the downgrade does is save you Strain. Or am I missing something? Anyway, if both uses were targeting different recipients, why not allow it? I wouldn't let it stack on the same recipients.

I'd allow it for wilderness slogs, can't see why not.

It doesn't say during an encounter, so to me that means it's allowed for use in narrative play.

It does say you may take it as a maneuver so I get the use it as an Action and then use it as two maneuvers, but my answer would be no, that's rule lawyering. Plus it does say it allows you to use it as "A maneuver", which implies it can only be used once in a strict literal interpretation, with the option of using it as "A maneuver" instead of an "Action".

I agree it can't stack. I also wouldn't allow it to just be spammed to completely eliminate a Strain penalty on a long march in narrative play. In narrative play I'd likely limit it to a use per scene or act or event, whatever descriptor you like. So once, on a long march. At some point everyone would tell Mr. Positive attitude to shut up.