I have been running a couple of Edge of the Empire games with some Age of Rebellion characters and it was fairly straight forward to integrate them.
They meshed well and I have managed to tweak duties and obligations to fit.
Now with Force and Destiny, I am wondering how people found integrating the new characters.

Were there any difficulties?
Have you any tips on things to do or more importantly not to do..?

I am conscious of trying to keep the challenge level right for the players and differing character background/types without loosing the feeling of threat and peril.

Just keep it all the same XP level (or fairly close) and it should be fine.

You'll probably find you need to make similar tweaks like before to allow Morality to mesh, but since Morality is more personal then it should be pretty simple by comparison.

Typically Force using characters are weaker then EOTE or AOR characters due to weak force talents, having a third category of things to spend xp on and having less class skills. Thats not including the lack of an effective talky tree or knowledge guy tree and the cost of light saber specs.

Typically Force using characters are weaker then EOTE or AOR characters due to weak force talents, having a third category of things to spend xp on and having less class skills. Thats not including the lack of an effective talky tree or knowledge guy tree and the cost of light saber specs.

This isn't true, but it's not exactly false either.

Force users have fewer career skills and a wider range of things they will probably want to spent XP on compared to a mundane character. By extension though there's the ability to use force powers to augment certain skills with force powers. So a Sage might not be as good a straight talker compared to a politico, but the politico won't be able to use the Influence power, where the sage can. But the Sages purchase of Influence is XP not spent on skills and talents.

The result is a Force user will typically want to be built with a little more care, because their XP economy is a little tighter. If you lay out an advancement plan for your character early, you'll be about as powerful as the mundane members of your party. If you just buy whatever whenever you may feel a tad weaker because you might not have the right combination of skills talents and powers to get the best benefit.

Our group has a collection of AoR and F&D characters and things are going pretty well.

Currently, four of the five characters are tracking Duty and three of the five are tracking Morality.

Three of the characters started as AoR characters and got an initial XP boost from buying down Duty, whereas the other two started with Morality instead. Note that you're not supposed to "double-dip" and receive bonus starting XP from both Duty and Morality.

One of the characters in the group had started with Duty, but recently picked up a Force Point and started tracking Morality as well.

It is true that F&D characters have to spread their XP out between more resources than AoR characters. However, there are a number of talents and Force powers that allow them to add their Force rating to skills, which helps even things out if they select these talents/powers. For example, while a character may not have Athletics as a career/specialization skill and might not have any ranks in Athletics, they can purchase the Enhance Force Power to add their Force die to Athletics checks. The net effect off this is that they can almost guarantee themselves a success on an Athletics check because, even if they roll Dark side pips on the Force die, they can flip Destiny, take a strain, and take a conflict to turn that Dark pip into a Light pip (and thus a success). So, they end up being more consistently successful, even if it's not the dramatic success you'd find in the case of a character with Proficiency dice rolling Triumph.

F&D characters also have a number of talents that can add boost dice to skill checks against opponents that aren't immune to the Force. So, again, this may not make for dramatic success from rolling Triumph, it does give them about the same, or better, odds of routine success on the affected skills.

For instance, my character doesn't have a single rank in Coordination, but between my 4 Agility, a rank in a talent that adds a boost die to Coordination, and the Enhance tree allowing to add my Force die to Coordination (and/or increasing my Agility to 5 by committing a Force die), it's pretty rare that I'll fail a Coordination check. Similar circumstances with Force powers and talents also make my character a good pilot, even though he doesn't have a single rank in either Planetary or Space piloting.

Yeah, FFG has done a solid job so far of keeping Force user PCs in balance in comparison to the rest of the group.

As Ghostofman said, when playing a Force user the main thing you'll have to keep in mind is where you spend your XP. I've been guilty of the "spending willy-nilly" early on, which resulted in a PC that wasn't very effective until much later in the campaign, and only really started coming into his own shortly before the campaign went belly up.

I've played in a few groups where not every party member is a Force user, such as an AoR game where I'm playing a Shii-Cho Knight (the only Force user) and he's very effective in close-quarters fighting due to judicious spending of my XP, and is a beast when the lightsaber comes out (which isn't every combat as I try to have my PC keep something of a low profile.

I've also played a number of one-shots con games that were also a mixed party, and again the Force user didn't dominate the show, since all the PCs were built on the same amount of XP and all of them were pretty awesome in their chosen niche.

And that is the point Ghostofman is ultimately making, is that if you're going to play a FaD character, you need to determine what your niche is and stick with it, especially in the early going when your XP budget is pretty limited.

Pretty much what they said. I'm running an F&D campaign, with 2 Force users, and they are hardly OP. Not even comparing them to other game line careers, just, as individual characters, they are not powerhouses, and I even gave them roughly Knight level xp when I built them. They each have a handful of things they are decent at, and one or two things they are quite good at. But I have frequently had them floundering around, unable to accomplish anything really amazing...or even accomplishing anything at all. They still fail checks all the time, or get really minimal results, and their Force powers are not OP, because they haven't heavily invested in them, nor have they pumped up their Force Rating to get enough pips to consistently do awesome things. They are very much like other career types, only their forte is magic powers that give them an edge. But it's really no different than the Pilot who has some talents that "give him an edge" when he's in a cockpit.

The real difference is in the goals and objectives. F&D players look for holocrons, learning and training, EoE looking for fights and swag. AoR looking to kill imperials

The real difference is in the goals and objectives. F&D players look for holocrons, learning and training, EoE looking for fights and swag. AoR looking to kill imperials

And a GM can easily tie all these things together, to keep the party pointed in the same direction. Or, split them up like in Empire. We certainly have precedent for it from the OT. Han is heading out because of money, Leia is heading out because of the Duty she has to the rebellion, and because she needs a ride. And Luke is heading out somewhere else because of the Force. They might not be physically close to each other, but it all hangs together very well in a narrative fashion.