Anyplace to go to make these? Other than OggDude's character Generator.

What's wrong with the ones they've already made?

Usually when someone starts talking about custom trees and custom classes, they're really saying that they want all their favorite things in one place so they don't have to "waste" XP branching out. Often this turns into someone trying to home brew a single "Jedi" class and tree, that gives the characters every stereotypical Jedi thing all at once.

That's obviously not how the game was meant to be played. Part of the point to making people diversify is to keep them from getting too powerful too fast. If you could play hopscotch down the tree, picking up all the best talents in one pass, you'd be overpowered compared to everybody else at the table.

What's wrong with the ones they've already made?

Usually when someone starts talking about custom trees and custom classes, they're really saying that they want all their favorite things in one place so they don't have to "waste" XP branching out. Often this turns into someone trying to home brew a single "Jedi" class and tree, that gives the characters every stereotypical Jedi thing all at once.

That's obviously not how the game was meant to be played. Part of the point to making people diversify is to keep them from getting too powerful too fast. If you could play hopscotch down the tree, picking up all the best talents in one pass, you'd be overpowered compared to everybody else at the table.

Sweeping generalization much?

What's wrong with the ones they've already made?

Usually when someone starts talking about custom trees and custom classes, they're really saying that they want all their favorite things in one place so they don't have to "waste" XP branching out. Often this turns into someone trying to home brew a single "Jedi" class and tree, that gives the characters every stereotypical Jedi thing all at once.

That's obviously not how the game was meant to be played. Part of the point to making people diversify is to keep them from getting too powerful too fast. If you could play hopscotch down the tree, picking up all the best talents in one pass, you'd be overpowered compared to everybody else at the table.

Considering that only one of the six jedi careers currently has a published splatbook dedicated to them with additional careers, it's a bit early to jump on the "hate the homebrewer" bandwagon.

Sure, the Seeker career book is due out sometime in the next few months, but it could be years before the Consular, Mystic, Sentinel, and Warrior careers are expanded upon. Some of the existing careers are a bit pigeonholed so I can definitely see why someone would want more variety even if it means homebrewing. Especially considering that it's silly to think that every character concept for, say, a Mystic can be expressed in one of the three specialization trees.

If nothing else, "variety is the spice of life."

To OP:

Sorry, other than Oggy's builder I haven't come across any tools for custom trees outside good old fashioned pencils and graph paper.

Also some of the talent trees are umm well bad.

Also some of the talent trees are umm well bad.

I want to like the Spy: Infiltrator because it's a fantastic concept, but it's just so f***ing awful. It's not even a talent "tree" - it's a talent "snake" and it's infuriating.

I don't trust myself or my players to make something balanced from scratch. However, a thought that has been on my mind is letting players modify a tree slightly to fit the concept. Swap out up to three talents and one skill.

For instance, a player wants to make a White Current Adept (Fallanassi). Shadow seems obvious, but she's just more mystical than pragmatic. Going with the flow seems to be their shtick, so substitute Rapid Recovery for both instances of Codebreaker and Sense Advantage for Anatomy Lessons to reflect their pacifism.

Just pay attention to the relative power of the talents, and if they're ranked, sub with a ranked talent.

I don't trust myself or my players to make something balanced from scratch. However, a thought that has been on my mind is letting players modify a tree slightly to fit the concept. Swap out up to three talents and one skill.

For instance, a player wants to make a White Current Adept (Fallanassi). Shadow seems obvious, but she's just more mystical than pragmatic. Going with the flow seems to be their shtick, so substitute Rapid Recovery for both instances of Codebreaker and Sense Advantage for Anatomy Lessons to reflect their pacifism.

Just pay attention to the relative power of the talents, and if they're ranked, sub with a ranked talent.

Oh man, I'd be absolutely thrilled with those changes in my game! I'm playing a Hunter/FS Exile/Ataru Striker and planning on heading into Shadow soon.

Codebreaker and Anatomy Lessons are complete dead weight talents for me. My character will never be good at computers, at least not without a large investment of XP, which seems frivolous in a party that already has a medic and a rigger with Intellects of 4 or better and multiple ranks in Computer. And the ranks in Rapid Recovery would go nicely with the two ranks I can already get from Hunter. Not sure how often I'd use Sense Advantage, but even once would be more than I'll use Anatomy Lessons considering I already have Soft Spot (and my character's Cunning is obviously higher than Intellect).

What's wrong with the ones they've already made?

Usually when someone starts talking about custom trees and custom classes, they're really saying that they want all their favorite things in one place so they don't have to "waste" XP branching out. Often this turns into someone trying to home brew a single "Jedi" class and tree, that gives the characters every stereotypical Jedi thing all at once.

That's obviously not how the game was meant to be played. Part of the point to making people diversify is to keep them from getting too powerful too fast. If you could play hopscotch down the tree, picking up all the best talents in one pass, you'd be overpowered compared to everybody else at the table.

Sweeping generalization much?

It may be a sweeping generalization, but he's got a valid point.

Many of the "custom specializations" that have been posted on these boards boil down to being either a glorified grab bag of the creator's favorite talents in a single spec, or a way to cheese out of having to buy multiple specs to get their character concept "just right" from the word go. There are exceptions, but those have been far and very few between; to be honest, I think the last set of entirely new custom specs that I saw and didn't make myself that I would consider allowing at my table were DarthGM's attempt at a Jedi career with attendant Consular, Guardian, and Sentinel specializations, which were created long before any of us even saw the Force and Destiny Beta.

I want to try and make "The Worst Talent Tree Ever." A combination of the most useless talents and skills. (n my Opinion.)

I want to try and make "The Worst Talent Tree Ever." A combination of the most useless talents and skills. (n my Opinion.)

The EoE core book has you covered, with any one of the original Explorer specs

I want to try and make "The Worst Talent Tree Ever." A combination of the most useless talents and skills. (n my Opinion.)

The EoE core book has you covered, with any one of the original Explorer specs

I'd beg to differ, but naturally YMMV.

Explorer and Trader are pretty solid in their roles, with Explorer being very much a "jack of all trades, master of none" that can be a pretty sturdy combatant and pretty adept at flying a ship. They won't excel in those fields, but that's par for the course when you're dealing with a jack-of-all-trades. Trader can make for a decent face and means for the PCs to generate funds and acquire hard-to-get items, though it does rely on having the PCs do actual trading instead of just running missions.

I haven't seen enough of Scout in action, but it looks like it'd be quite effective in situations dealing with a lot of wilderness. Which means that if you run campaigns that mostly comprise encounters in space or urban areas, they'd be about as effective as a Wookiee Marauder at a black-tie gathering on Coruscant.

I'd beg to differ, but naturally YMMV.

Naturally

I've talked about this at length before, but for me they don't seem 'complete'. They feel like something you'd take as a 2nd or 3rd career to round out a concept.

Fringer has a small sub-tree that might be worth taking for a Pilot type in games where Astrogation matters. The rest of it has some nice 'general toughness' talents that might suit anyone as a 2nd or 3rd spec - but it does little in itself. Feels like they are trolling us with 'Knockdown' as the career doesn't have any combat specs to get these Triumphs, AND it's gating the two Dodge talents that are very much worth taking. Adding Brawl or even Ranged/Light would make it feel more like an actual 'fringer'.

Scout is lacking when matched with Explorer, but quite good in the Spy career. The generalist career skills in Explorer really hurt it. The talents aren't bad (even 'Disorient' works with only green dice, unlike 'Knockdown') but it suffers again from having no combat skills and (bizarrely) no Stealth. Swapping Stealth for Medicine would have improved it and been more vital for the concept, I think. A Scout who cannot hide well seems a mite peculiar to me: 'Okay base, I'm downwind of the enemy encampment, I'm sending you the data... now. Oh drat, they've spotted me. Again. And I can't shoot, talk or sneak my way out of trouble. Again. Can you make sure the ransom goes through a bit quicker this time please? I hate prison food. Over and out.'

Matched with Spy it becomes handy, especially if you add combat skills with Recruit. Scout also works really well as a 2nd career for Big Game Hunter, which has synergies for sneaking and survival talents, and adds in the combat and Stealth skills it lacks. Another reason why the Explorer book came out first, I feel.

Trader would actually be a fun character to play... in a game that focuses on its strengths. A campaign set on Tattooine or Jakku where the Trader is wheeling and dealing, legally and illegally, and dipping into the underworld, would probably be a great experience. But their skills don't really shine in 'regular' Star Wars adventures - lack of combat skills again, and no Charm to make a really good Face character. You have to really write Talents like 'Black Market Contacts' into the adventure to make them useful (i.e. looking for cheap but hard-to-find items like drugs). Finally, all the talents that affect buying and selling might encourage a 'looting' style of play, if that's not your thing. Again, it can work, but you have to write it in into the adventure (like the Trader getting trade goods as a reward instead of credits).

I guess to me they feel like D&D3 'class dips' - not something you would take as the core of a character but dip into it later to round out a concept. I personally prefer the specs that seem focused from the off, or at least provide an opportunity to do something on a regular adventure. I run an Explorer campaign for my overseas player, and it's great fun and very different... but I really have to write the adventures to match the particular skillsets of the career.

Now, if we're talking 'weaksauce'... Scholar really is a spec that feels poor unless the campaign is very focused on Knowledge skills. The Archaeologist does everything it can do and much more.

The only thing I'd might chance is the Force Die being tied to certain trees only, making you pick up a tree JUST for that and not for anything else there (buffing the non-lightsaber trees might be a good idea imo). But other than that I quite like them.

I'm having a problem of picking up the 3rd tree I might invest into. Because there isn't many other talent trees that FIT my character well. So I propably end up picking up a tree where I can get the Force die the fastest. Thinking of Jedi Exile as 3rd tree, as others in Force and Destiny don't really fit him.

The only thing I'd might chance is the Force Die being tied to certain trees only, making you pick up a tree JUST for that and not for anything else there (buffing the non-lightsaber trees might be a good idea imo). But other than that I quite like them.

I'm having a problem of picking up the 3rd tree I might invest into. Because there isn't many other talent trees that FIT my character well. So I propably end up picking up a tree where I can get the Force die the fastest. Thinking of Jedi Exile as 3rd tree, as others in Force and Destiny don't really fit him.

Exile and Emergent are fast paths to a Force Rating boost, particularly if you take them both (starting with Exile since it has some of the same talents as Emergent but at cheaper point costs).

Mystic: Seer is another good path for Force Rating as many of its talents are generally useful for any character and it offers two Force Rating increases.

Also some of the talent trees are umm well bad.

I want to like the Spy: Infiltrator because it's a fantastic concept, but it's just so f***ing awful. It's not even a talent "tree" - it's a talent "snake" and it's infuriating.

So you're not upset with the talents? Just the layout? Is that what you're saying? Because the talents are really great, they've just got 2 directions, depending on if you are investing in the "I'm very sneaksie" or the "I'm very good at hitting you" routes.

OT: While I understand the desire to make homebrew specs, I don't see the need really. The specs are meant to be slightly focused, but with a bit of flexibility to them. That's why you usually get 2 distinct routes you can take, if you want to play a certain way or not. If that's the kind of character you want to play, then what's the problem?

Just seems like the rationale is like "I want to be a diplomat! But none of the diplomat specs let me be a badass gunsman!" ....well...yeah? I mean, not a lot of time for target practice at high noon at the Decent Corral (Not the OK Corral, it's slightly better than just OK). That's why you cross spec into Gunslinger. I just, I don't get it. This isn't a new thing when it comes to gaming. The various "classes" are focused tracks of progression, that exclude other areas of advancement by design. You had to cross class for decades in other gaming systems to be more diverse, FFG is no different.

As to the idea that some of the specs aren't good. I would disagree, they just aren't good for you. I've yet to see a spec that I couldn't see shining in a particular campaign or not. But obviously some specs are going to be less useful than others, depending on the campaign. Picking a rural focused class in a campaign entirely on Coruscant for example would be less than fun. But saying that means the rural focused class isn't good is a bit unfair.

Heck, given enough time, I could easily come up with a way to let each of those classes shine, no matter what the variety of specs picked by my players. They've all got their pros/cons, if the cons are bothering you that much, cross spec into one that gives you pros in that area.

Also some of the talent trees are umm well bad.

I want to like the Spy: Infiltrator because it's a fantastic concept, but it's just so f***ing awful. It's not even a talent "tree" - it's a talent "snake" and it's infuriating.

So you're not upset with the talents? Just the layout? Is that what you're saying? Because the talents are really great, they've just got 2 directions, depending on if you are investing in the "I'm very sneaksie" or the "I'm very good at hitting you" routes.

Correct - the talents themselves are fine, it's the arbitrarily restrictive way in which they must be taken that's the problem.

Compare with other trees that are good at being sneaky and hitting things - the bounty hunter assassin springs immediately to mind. Where the infiltrator is forced to wind their way down the tree in one of two predetermined routes, the assassin is free to branch through the tree (at least the upper levels) in any route they see fit.

For instance, assume two characters (one of each specialization) each proceeding down the trees in an identical path. At one point, the infiltrator is at the point where he would pick up Knockdown and the assassin would be up for Targeted Blow. Whereas the assassin could, instead, grab the 15-point version of Lethal Blows, or Stalker, or even branch over to pick up Quick Draw for 10 points, the infiltrator has only two real options - continue snaking down the path or take one of the other 5-pt talents at the top of the tree (unless, that is, they decide to throw their hands in the air and pick up a spec with a less insipid progression).

Again, I'm not arguing that the talents are bad - most are pretty good. A good chunk of them actually appear on that assassin tree I've been harping on about - Grit, Jump Up, Dodge, Master of Shadows, and Dedication. As such, the talents obviously aren't so good that they justify the railroaded progression down the "tree."

Also some of the talent trees are umm well bad.

I want to like the Spy: Infiltrator because it's a fantastic concept, but it's just so f***ing awful. It's not even a talent "tree" - it's a talent "snake" and it's infuriating.

So you're not upset with the talents? Just the layout? Is that what you're saying? Because the talents are really great, they've just got 2 directions, depending on if you are investing in the "I'm very sneaksie" or the "I'm very good at hitting you" routes.

Correct - the talents themselves are fine, it's the arbitrarily restrictive way in which they must be taken that's the problem.

Compare with other trees that are good at being sneaky and hitting things - the bounty hunter assassin springs immediately to mind. Where the infiltrator is forced to wind their way down the tree in one of two predetermined routes, the assassin is free to branch through the tree (at least the upper levels) in any route they see fit.

For instance, assume two characters (one of each specialization) each proceeding down the trees in an identical path. At one point, the infiltrator is at the point where he would pick up Knockdown and the assassin would be up for Targeted Blow. Whereas the assassin could, instead, grab the 15-point version of Lethal Blows, or Stalker, or even branch over to pick up Quick Draw for 10 points, the infiltrator has only two real options - continue snaking down the path or take one of the other 5-pt talents at the top of the tree (unless, that is, they decide to throw their hands in the air and pick up a spec with a less insipid progression).

Again, I'm not arguing that the talents are bad - most are pretty good. A good chunk of them actually appear on that assassin tree I've been harping on about - Grit, Jump Up, Dodge, Master of Shadows, and Dedication. As such, the talents obviously aren't so good that they justify the railroaded progression down the "tree."

While I agree the design is unusual compared to most of the others, the odd pathing is hardly unique to that spec. Many of them have puzzling pathing that makes no sense to me other than to be somewhat restrictive on how quickly you advance. Personally, I don't have an issue with the tree that you have, because I actually like the design. Here's why:

Let's say you've built your character to be combat capable from the start, but not so much in the stealth department. That was, by design your area to advance post-creation. Well, that's fine, start investing down the far right column, and just keep heading down. You will very quickly end up with a powerful set of stealth related talents, without having to spend XP on other talents simply because they are in the way. Pretty much all of them are focused on making you more effective at stealth. When you hit the bottom, just veer left, and boom, you are even scarier with your sneaksieness. Then you can move back up the tree (with the talents getting ever cheaper btw, meaning quicker advancement), and start picking up the combat talents as well. Or, if you are the opposite concept: (already sneaky but not good at combat), you can start from the other end and work around. And besides, there's nothing stopping you from starting down one side and just buying from the other end a bit later. You could work it from both ends.

While I agree the design is unusual compared to most of the others, the odd pathing is hardly unique to that spec. Many of them have puzzling pathing that makes no sense to me other than to be somewhat restrictive on how quickly you advance. Personally, I don't have an issue with the tree that you have, because I actually like the design. Here's why:

Let's say you've built your character to be combat capable from the start, but not so much in the stealth department. That was, by design your area to advance post-creation. Well, that's fine, start investing down the far right column, and just keep heading down. You will very quickly end up with a powerful set of stealth related talents, without having to spend XP on other talents simply because they are in the way. Pretty much all of them are focused on making you more effective at stealth. When you hit the bottom, just veer left, and boom, you are even scarier with your sneaksieness. Then you can move back up the tree (with the talents getting ever cheaper btw, meaning quicker advancement), and start picking up the combat talents as well. Or, if you are the opposite concept: (already sneaky but not good at combat), you can start from the other end and work around. And besides, there's nothing stopping you from starting down one side and just buying from the other end a bit later. You could work it from both ends.

While that's all well and good, there's no practical reason why a character couldn't choose to develop compensatory sneakiness or combat abilities at the pace they choose rather than having that choice be made for them.

Nothing in the talent tree is so outlandishly powerful for its assigned point value that it justifies having to wind down through the tree taking talents in a particular order. For the most part, the talents could have been scattered on the tree at random and it would've been fine. That's the beef - it's not structured that way as a balancing factor to prevent characters from becoming too powerful too quickly in comparison to other characters - it seems to have been done so arbitrarily.

And I'm aware that it's not the only tree to be structured that way, but that is hardly a satisfactory justification and the infiltrator is one of the worst in that regard as most other trees have at least some branching to give players agency in their character development in their talent tree.

In the end, though, players who are okay with surrendering choice in their advancement will be fine with the tree. That's their prerogative. But players, like myself, who prefer to choose talents organically as the campaign progresses (and have peeked behind the curtain of game design and enjoy the "meta-game" of the system) will continue to abhor these trees and rail against them.

While that's all well and good, there's no practical reason why a character couldn't choose to develop compensatory sneakiness or combat abilities at the pace they choose rather than having that choice be made for them.

Well technically you can still do that. just progress down both paths at the same time, switching between combat talents and stealth talents. There is no rule (that I am aware of), that locks you into starting from the original point for the entire time you are in a tree. You could start with the stealth stuff, buy a few talents down that line, and then switch over to the combat and buy some from there, and eventually meet somewhere in the middle.

But hey, you don't like it, that's fine. I just don't think it's as badly designed as you do.