Sorry for the noob questions, but I am new to the FaD game, but experienced with AoR and EotE.

1) For Jedi to get new force abilities (talents), they have to spend XP like they are getting a new talent, right?

2) I cannot seem to find a way for a jedi to increase their force dice except for getting to that box in the talents. Is there any other way? If this is true, it seems that Jedi's are pretty underpowered, even in the long run. Or am I missing something on how they can increase their force dice.

Thanks for all of the help.

1. Force abilities come in two forms: Force talents and Force powers. You just spend the XP listed in the trees to purchase both.

1. Correct, some Talents in some trees, do work based on an ability with the Force, but they are not Force "powers" technically. The actual Force Powers are the specific powers like Move, Sense, Battle Meditation, etc.

2. Yes, the only way to purchase a higher Force Rating, is to buy the talent in the various Specialization trees that offer it. Each time you buy one of those talents (Specifically listed at +1 Force Rating), you will increase your Force Rating, and add an extra Force die to any Force related checks.

As to the comment about this making Force users underpowered. No, this isn't the case, what it does, and this is an important distinction that many people miss:

It means they aren't Force wielding Juggernauts at Day 1. That's all. Mechanically, being Force Rating 1 PC, just fresh out of character creation, puts you, in the narrative sense, on par with the 5 year old Padawans we see in the prequels, waving sabers around like cute little fools. You are the Kindergartner at Jedi School. You know practically nothing, and have trained at practically nothing. The things we see the Jedi do in the movies (Obi-Wan in the prequels for example), are after years of training. Literally a lifetime devoted to learning those abilities, and he was still a Padawan at the time of Episode 1. So it's not something that makes you a Space Wizard terror right out of the gate. You have to actually work at it (ie: spend XP). If you focus intently on buying up Force Powers, and working towards a higher Force Rating, to the exclusion of most other ways of advancement, then yes, in short order, you will be far more powerful, and capable as a Force User. But that would make sense.

I mean, if you have a Pilot character, who spends all of his XP into being a badass pilot, logic would dictate that he would be good at piloting. Same for Force use. If you spend 100+ of earned Xp after game start on Force Powers/Talents, you will be far more capable when compared to a fresh meat Force user, straight out of character creation.

Bottom line, no, you don't start awesome, but then none of the classes really start awesome. They start "better than average". They become "awesome" after they've devoted time and XP to becoming awesome at whatever it is they are doing.

Yep, it's sort of why they stick you to the first trilogy time, as there are next to no Jedi then; just some folks efforting to learn how to use some weird powers they seem to have, and NOT get caught by the Empire. Not the psyker tithe of 40k, but the Imperium is only slightly worse, on that front, than Palpatine collecting F-Sens. So, low Force-level, and even these are expensive. For the other characters, who AREN'T Force-users, it makes it much more fair.

If this is true, it seems that Jedi's are pretty underpowered, even in the long run.

Not at all. However, they don't own the game, it's pretty balanced. Two characters that spend about the same XP will have about the same potency, whether bounty hunters or guardians.

It also doesn't take a very high FR to be deadly. With only FR3, you can trick out Bind, grab as many people as your Magnitude allows, then Commit those 3 dice and watch them all strangle to death.

Honestly, it's a relief to me to have this game make Force players take the long road, one of the huge appeals of the game IMHO. It's kind of funny to me that we all know the lessons of Yoda, but want our Jedi to kick butt from the outset without taking the character through the process.

I wouldn't worry about your force character being underpowered. They're not the juggernauts of past systems, but once you have a force rating of 2 or 3 you can get some pretty amazing results. My Sage with a 3 could routinely do 20+ damage throwing big rocks, and in a pinch could throw a silhouette 3 items for 30. Not to mention Heal 7 or more at a time and mind whammy almost anybody.

If this is true, it seems that Jedi's are pretty underpowered, even in the long run.

Not at all. However, they don't own the game, it's pretty balanced. Two characters that spend about the same XP will have about the same potency, whether bounty hunters or guardians.

It also doesn't take a very high FR to be deadly. With only FR3, you can trick out Bind, grab as many people as your Magnitude allows, then Commit those 3 dice and watch them all strangle to death.

Honestly, it's a relief to me to have this game make Force players take the long road, one of the huge appeals of the game IMHO. It's kind of funny to me that we all know the lessons of Yoda, but want our Jedi to kick butt from the outset without taking the character through the process.

Well, I'm sure at least a few people would say that Bounty Hunter has most of the things he needs on one path, and the costs attached to it, but the Force-user, to increase their Force rating beyond 2 needs to pay for the access to a new path, and then often buy all the way to the bottom, where the talent is. Sure, they can pick a lot of paths now, and get some cool stuff that they can use, but pay over 100 points, effectively, to increase by 1, and then decide if that increase was justified, along with having to pay additional, separate XP to amp up specific Force powers. If your Bounty Hunter had some bottom row other Spec talant they wanted, sure they have to do the same, but they'll probably only do it once, if ever, while the Force-user, barring a small number of exceptions, has to do this each time they want a FR+1. Now, as you said, this can be seen as a good thing, keeping the would-be Jedi in balance with the party, and not making them a supercheese who happens to be accompanied by an entourage, but I could see how some people would look at it and say "wow! That's a BIG investment EVERY TIME I want a bit more skill with my Force powers. Your FR 3 needed you to start with a Career that gave FR, or pay for a universal spec, later, then clear it, to get +1, and THEN pay along the 100 points to get it again, unless you went Seer, I think, and its two +1s are only connected by several 20+ cost talents, so not immensely cheaper. I can see where some people, who want the Force to be the defining Star Wars element, might be a bit underwhelmed, though I can also see that, for a fun game, they do need to keep the Force in line with the rest of a party, where not everyone must have it, and Han was plenty more competent than Luke in a good chunk of the movies.

If this is true, it seems that Jedi's are pretty underpowered, even in the long run.

Not at all. However, they don't own the game, it's pretty balanced. Two characters that spend about the same XP will have about the same potency, whether bounty hunters or guardians.

It also doesn't take a very high FR to be deadly. With only FR3, you can trick out Bind, grab as many people as your Magnitude allows, then Commit those 3 dice and watch them all strangle to death.

Honestly, it's a relief to me to have this game make Force players take the long road, one of the huge appeals of the game IMHO. It's kind of funny to me that we all know the lessons of Yoda, but want our Jedi to kick butt from the outset without taking the character through the process.

Well, I'm sure at least a few people would say that Bounty Hunter has most of the things he needs on one path, and the costs attached to it, but the Force-user, to increase their Force rating beyond 2 needs to pay for the access to a new path, and then often buy all the way to the bottom, where the talent is. Sure, they can pick a lot of paths now, and get some cool stuff that they can use, but pay over 100 points, effectively, to increase by 1, and then decide if that increase was justified, along with having to pay additional, separate XP to amp up specific Force powers. If your Bounty Hunter had some bottom row other Spec talant they wanted, sure they have to do the same, but they'll probably only do it once, if ever, while the Force-user, barring a small number of exceptions, has to do this each time they want a FR+1. Now, as you said, this can be seen as a good thing, keeping the would-be Jedi in balance with the party, and not making them a supercheese who happens to be accompanied by an entourage, but I could see how some people would look at it and say "wow! That's a BIG investment EVERY TIME I want a bit more skill with my Force powers. Your FR 3 needed you to start with a Career that gave FR, or pay for a universal spec, later, then clear it, to get +1, and THEN pay along the 100 points to get it again, unless you went Seer, I think, and its two +1s are only connected by several 20+ cost talents, so not immensely cheaper. I can see where some people, who want the Force to be the defining Star Wars element, might be a bit underwhelmed, though I can also see that, for a fun game, they do need to keep the Force in line with the rest of a party, where not everyone must have it, and Han was plenty more competent than Luke in a good chunk of the movies.

This isn't technically true. There are 2 F&D specializations that have 2 +1 Force Rating talents in their tree. Specifically the Consular Sage, and the....Mystic (?) Seer. Might have the Career name wrong, but whatever career the Seer is in. They both would allow a player to get to FR 3, simply by sticking in that tree.

And as to being "powerful", it's really not as hard as you are making it. I have a player who only recently got FR 2, and he's put a few points into a few Force powers to buy some upgrades for them. And with what is honestly, very little investment into Move, he was able to roll enough force pips to pick up TWO silhouette 2 targets, and fling them into the ground, dealing 20+ damage to each of them as they were smashed to bits. That's some pretty insane damage for a mediocre Force user. Trying to consistently be awesome with Force powers, with an FR of 1, is indeed difficult, but that's the point. You're a rookie Force user at FR 1. But once you hit FR 2, you will consistently roll enough pips to trigger at least 1 or 2 upgrades on your Force power. And if you've bought several ranks of those upgrades, it can equal some insane results. Which means, you can easily pull this off with just an FR 2, which you can get by sticking to any one Force related spec.

Sure, if you want to be Yoda level power, you're going to have to diversify your spec trees, but that's very late game power levels. Every class would be maxed out by that point, forcing other PC types to diversify, simply because they've bought out their tree. And considering the magnitude of what you can do with some of the most basic Force powers, compared to simply being better at shooting someone, or flying a ship, or whatever, having it cost a little bit more to be able to hurl starships like rocks hardly seems unbalanced. Yeah, that pilot can outfly anybody in the quadrant....but you can grab his ship and slam it into the ground for massive damage. Where is the disparity really in this?

Another aspect to keep in mind; EotE has 5 of 6 career books released, FaD has 1... when every book is out it will be much easier to compare the lines. I find it highly likely we will see more spec trees with 2 FR talents at the bottom, essentially making FR5 much more common and more flexible with more options of character archetype to use it within. I have a sneaking suspicion Hermit or Navigator in the upcoming Seeker book will be such a tree. Of course its expensive, currently the bare minimum for FR5 is 305xp, plus any Force talents to use that and their associated upgrades, easily another 1-200 for variety and potency. But roll 5 FD with any skill check, its amazing what can be done!

Now for that Force Rating, its an incredible thing, when you get that +1 to your FR suddenly every single talent and force power gets stronger. One of the ways you can use your force dice is in combined checks with skills, these are amazing! every force dice you have can potentially contribute a success or advantage (sometimes 2). as your FR goes up this becomes an amazing ability, allowing you to suddenly pass a check that would have failed, add advantage to trigger effects and in general control your effectiveness so much more. A PC who is generally useless in social can get influence and suddenly become a master, a weakling can get Enhance and suddenly be a tough guy. But its the flexibility of the force dice thats the real winner, its almost like having characteristic points you can shift around at will!

I think the problem here is the misconception that a force user is measured only in strength by their FR, any higher than how it's currently set and the FR starts to massively outdo their non force using peers. Ie a FR one character with range or magnitude upgrades increases their force potential massively while not neccessarily consistently. FR by itself is more potential not neccessarily power.

Heck though lets just look at what even an FR 1 force user can do. They can throw a person, move a speeder bike, alter a few people's minds for a few minutes, leap to medium range, etc. At FR 2 your capabilities increase exponentially even enough to be tossing a ship the size of the falcon etc. The key is don't be afraid to use dark side pips, most complaints seem to stem from players avoiding those like they mean they instantly turn evil when the reality is destiny points should constantly be moving back and forth, strain is a resource that can be recovered easily and if you're earning 5 conflict per session then on average your morality will be static not dark side.

I think the problem here is the misconception that a force user is measured only in strength by their FR, any higher than how it's currently set and the FR starts to massively outdo their non force using peers. Ie a FR one character with range or magnitude upgrades increases their force potential massively while not neccessarily consistently. FR by itself is more potential not neccessarily power.

Heck though lets just look at what even an FR 1 force user can do. They can throw a person, move a speeder bike, alter a few people's minds for a few minutes, leap to medium range, etc. At FR to your capabilities increase exponentially even enough to be tossing a ship the size of the falcon etc. The key is don't be afraid to use dark side pips, most complaints seem to stem from players avoiding those like they mean they instantly turn evil when the reality is destiny points should constantly be moving back and forth, strain is a resource that can be recovered easily and if you're earning 5 conflict per session then on average your morality will be static not dark side.

Definitely this, a huge advantage of a higher FR is consistency, but to get the most out of your powers your always going to be tempted to use those DS pips, its why falling is so easy and redemption is so hard.

As others have said, this is a system where a Force user has to "pay their dues" before they can be awesome, much like it was back in the days of the D6 system. In D6, a starting Force user was going to be gimped in terms of their attributes, since for each of the three Force skills that you wanted to start with, you to reduce the number of dice you had to spend on attributes, and attributes in D6 were very much like characteristics are in this system. And then you had to burn skill points to boost up those Force skills further so that you could do more than just a couple of parlor tricks.

However, where FFG definitely got it right (at least to my view) is that there's not really a point where the Force user is going to completely outshine the rest of the party and make them feel useless. Many critiques of D6 was that after a certain point, Force users had so many tricks up their sleeves that they could do pretty much anything better than most of the party once they'd reached a point they could reliably activate their powers, of which they invariably had dozens due to how D6 handled learning various Force powers. d20 and in particular Saga Edition suffered from this as well, though with Saga Edition the real problem was in the early going due to how easy it was to abuse the skill proficiency mechanic and the Skill Focus feat at low levels and how defenses didn't really scale that well vs. skill checks in those same early levels.

Yes, it can seem frustrating in this system that there's the incentive to purchase all those cool Force power upgrades, but until you reach FR2 you can't use most of them, with Move in particular being guilty of this. What you need to do is resist that temptation to simply buy various power upgrades, and focus your efforts on getting to Force Rating 2. Granted, that's easier said than done if you're playing one of the Lightsaber Form specs as your starting spec, since most of them don't offer a Force Rating boost, and the one that does has (I believe) the highest XP cost to reach it out of all the specs published thus far. However, once you do reach Force Rating 2, you've paid a lot of your dues and the option to make use of those various upgrades is far more viable; Move becomes far more potent of an offensive option when you've got a solid chance of generating the 3 Force Points you'd need to trigger both your Magnitude and Strength Upgrades to hurl a bunch of large objects at several targets (or one very beefy target).

As has been noted time and again, FFG opted to go the "Luke's Journey" route in terms of being a Force user rather than the prequel path. Which makes sense, as the RPG is centered around a time frame when there are no Jedi training programs, and Force users in general have to keep a low profile if they don't want the Empire to come knocking. It wasn't until Luke came under Yoda's tutelage that we started seeing a major increase in what he could do with the Force; consider that early in ESB we see Luke struggling to call his lightsaber to him, while during his fight with Vader later in the film Luke does that same trick in the middle of a fight with ease.

So for folks that are used to the Jedi of the prequel era (most of whom are the superstars of the Order as opposed to the rank and file), that you don't start out powerful is rather jarring. Of course, by the time we meet Obi-Wan, he's on the verge of becoming a Jedi Knight, and has far more XP under his belt than a FaD PC when they first enter play which accounts for his having been trained since childhood. Even Kanan in Rebels has a fair chunk of XP under his belt by the time we meet him, and though he has a bit further go since his training got cut short due to Order 66 he's still more capable than most PCs would be upon entering play.

Yeah, I wanted to list both, but couldn't find the one, on my quick perusal of the specs. Still a little bit more "you have to focus on this one, regardless of what you want" than I might've originally liked, but I've played Star Wars long enough to know that Consular is more Force, and Guardian is more combat (Sentinel was more skills, but I don't know, off the top of my head, if they have any sort of that, anymore, or if they do something else, entirely). As for strength, I'll agree that you don't always need to have a higher Force rating, to be more powerful, but the book has never done much to clarify this, and it can help to be able to, at least sort of, quantify one's ability. Also, while I do like the Temptation system, for finally making the Dark Side tempting, I have both the dice, and the phone app, and they both seem to roll just dark a lot more than I would favor. It might just be my own ability, or lack there of, with dice, as the failures and threats do it, too.

As for books, I'll agree, but have to wait for them to come out, and then be good. Also, I need to sucker, er...convince my friends to give it a shot, before I invest in the splat books; FFG already has enough of my money with 40k books I've never run, and the only reason Enter the Unknown got purchased is because they have the Chiss, one of my favorite species, and it makes me feel like Thrawn is still canon, as he should be.

I think one thing, and I think I like it, is that you can't entirely specialize in the Force. In other systems, if it was attached to a skill, or to an Attribute, you knew what to focus on, and could make sure you were cheesy, but here, the only thing is the talent, and it's frequently costly to get to, and time-consuming to reach. As we said, this is, overall, how it should be, but it takes a little getting used to, in my head.

With this system, it seems that being "strong in the Force" is a combination of Force Rating and how much XP you've invested into a given power.

Force Rating 3 is great and sounds awesome, but if all you've got is the basic effect of a Force power, then that FR3 isn't quite as useful.

A PC with FR2 and plenty of XP sunk into Enhance and Foresee's initiative boosting side is going be able to pull of some pretty cool stuff, such as being a madly-skilled pilot/brawler that can leapfrog all over the place while ensuring he gets to act before the bad guys and that they have a tough time hitting him in the opening round.

Thank ya'll.

I guess I was not thinking it of a 'long run' kinda character. But I do believe you all have valid points, and I now see what you (and FFG) were thinking. It makes sense now. I just guess I was thinking of the prequels, and as KungFuFerret mentions (as well as a few of you) its more about progression and story vs. 'power up and stand back mortals' kind of balance.

I now see the fact that FR3 is pretty hard to get to, and it is supposed to be that way. I was used to the WEGd6 system of powering up quickly, and making the party pretty much inert.

Again, thanks all for enlightening me on this. I now have a much different idea on how I want my character (and villains) to go.

I appreciate all the input.

Thank ya'll.

I guess I was not thinking it of a 'long run' kinda character. But I do believe you all have valid points, and I now see what you (and FFG) were thinking. It makes sense now. I just guess I was thinking of the prequels, and as KungFuFerret mentions (as well as a few of you) its more about progression and story vs. 'power up and stand back mortals' kind of balance.

I now see the fact that FR3 is pretty hard to get to, and it is supposed to be that way. I was used to the WEGd6 system of powering up quickly, and making the party pretty much inert.

Again, thanks all for enlightening me on this. I now have a much different idea on how I want my character (and villains) to go.

I appreciate all the input.

Well, FR 3 isn't exactly "hard" to get to. It's not easy sure, but there are some specializations that can get to it all by themselves. But those are the "I focus on the Force" kind of builds, and not "I focus on combat/lightsabery stuff" kind of builds. They are, by design, meant to be the kind of character who will become a powerhouse with the Force, faster than other classes, because that's their focus. They sacrifice for it, as the Sage and Seer specs both get up to FR 3 by themselves, but they don't get Dedication...at all. So there is a trade off for it. I think the key is to understand what spec you picked's strengths are. If it's not a Sage/Seer, it's not as quicky to power up in the Force as them, but, you do get other things that they don't. Like combat skills, or more wound threshold, piloting ability, etc. They all have their pros and cons. I for one, am playing a Sage, without any other spec right now. So, I'm pretty much not a combat pc at all. I have zero capability with combat. Well, that's not true, better to say "my talent tree does not support/improve my combat capability". I am however really good at talking to people, and looking stuff up. And eventually, really good at using the Force. But if you put a minion group of...heck, even the lowest, most wimpy minions you could find, my guy would run. Because he doesn't fight. That's not his thing.

Thank ya'll.

I guess I was not thinking it of a 'long run' kinda character. But I do believe you all have valid points, and I now see what you (and FFG) were thinking. It makes sense now. I just guess I was thinking of the prequels, and as KungFuFerret mentions (as well as a few of you) its more about progression and story vs. 'power up and stand back mortals' kind of balance.

I now see the fact that FR3 is pretty hard to get to, and it is supposed to be that way. I was used to the WEGd6 system of powering up quickly, and making the party pretty much inert.

Again, thanks all for enlightening me on this. I now have a much different idea on how I want my character (and villains) to go.

I appreciate all the input.

Well not just story progression but a different time frame of the Force use. The PT depict an era in which Force users were trained as children in the ways of the Force. The characters we see using the Force have been using it since they were children. Thus when we see Obi Wan as a young adult he is able to do really awesome stuff with the Force.

This game portrays Luke's journey though. People who learned the Force as adults and are just beginning to figure things out. Thus you are expected to go through a much slower and a much more trial and error (and partial failure) path than we see from the likes of Obi Wan and Anakin. If you (and your players) approach this from Lukes POV things actually are fine. But if you approach it from the PT POV .... yeah you'll be a bit disappointed.