Ok my difficult player raised an interesting point.

In the Seeker / Pathfinder talent tree, we see Grit and Keen Eyed at tier 1.

He wants to get Animal Empathy, so he'd have to first take Grit for 5 points, then Keen Eyed for 10 points, so he can then access Animal Empathy for 15.

But he doesn't understand why Keen Eyed costs 10 here, if he can get it for 5 going a different talent path, given that they do exactly the same thing.

My justification is that the cost is not about what the talent does, but how much accumulated power you have. So of course Keen Eyed is going to cost 10 when you already have Grit.

But then again, that would be a 15 point expense, when you can just buy both Grit and Keen Eyed and spend just 10 if they're not on the same talent path.

Hmmm. Thoughts on this?

Ok my difficult player raised an interesting point.

In the Seeker / Pathfinder talent tree, we see Grit and Keen Eyed at tier 1.

He wants to get Animal Empathy, so he'd have to first take Grit for 5 points, then Keen Eyed for 10 points, so he can then access Animal Empathy for 15.

But he doesn't understand why Keen Eyed costs 10 here, if he can get it for 5 going a different talent path, given that they do exactly the same thing.

My justification is that the cost is not about what the talent does, but how much accumulated power you have. So of course Keen Eyed is going to cost 10 when you already have Grit.

But then again, that would be a 15 point expense, when you can just buy both Grit and Keen Eyed and spend just 10 if they're not on the same talent path.

Hmmm. Thoughts on this?

Both are also cumulative. Sure, you can take them for 5 each. There's a presumption that, when reaching the more expensive copies, that a player has already purchased the less expensive version, and is building on top of those.

You realize they're ranked talents, right? Additional ones cost more because they're increasing the effect.

So the moral of the story is that if you want to get the talents cheep, you need to diversify. If you are drilling to a specific talent (Usually Force or Dedication), that is the price you pay for doing that.

They cost what they cost. Part of the cost is for the talent itself and part of it is for the lines going out of the talent leading to other cool stuff. The farther down the tree you go the closer you are to the most powerful abilities (Force Rating and Dedication top the list on the Pathfinder tree but Enduring is great too). Therefore you have to pay to get there.

Another big consideration is that a second rank in "Keen Eyed" is more powerful than the first rank. A one Setback die penalty might be "it's a bit dark" while a two Setback die penalty might be "it's pitch black". The ability to ignore two Setback dice (even thought this will be less common than one Setback die) is enough more powerful, and more cinematic than, than the ability to ignore one Setback die that it has to cost more for balance and for flavor.

Indeed the cost of a talent isn't just its XP cost but also the cost of getting to it some are buried deep or in dead ends, Some are in a straight path. Some are in groups, and some are positioned in such a way that other linked talents have to be chosen first. All in its a very clever system.

Take the talent toughened, combat specializations usually get a few ranks cheaply, whereas others might get only one rack of it and it costs 20 xp, the reason is, its not a combat class. Again with ranked talents it can be because a second rank is that much more powerful.

Take 1 rank that allows you to upgrade a skill check, this might allow you to upgrade a green dice to a yellow, or might give you an extra green dice. Double upgrade though gives either 2 greens upgraded to a yellow (which is a 17%increased chance of a triunph) or it can give you an additional yellow dice to roll (giving a significantly better chance of success advantage or triumpth), an extra green is one thing but adding in another yellow is that much better, each additonal rank builds on this.

See, but if he's taking the path straight to Animal Empathy, he's getting 1 rank of Keen Eyed for 10xp.

Whereas you could get the same thing for 5, if you go the other path, you know?

We've agreed that it's going to be the way the book says it is, so that's that but he did make a good point...

Parry and Reflect can be purchased at top tier in certain trees, but I would argue that it's worth more than 5XP. As you gain ranks, it becomes a lot more powerful.

As others pointed out, it's not just about flat cost, but building to what you already have.

Ok think of it like this:

For some people they pick up a new talent easily, but still have to work hard to go beyond a basic understanding. This is the situation of 5xp talent first then 10xp talent second.

Other people have to work much harder to figure out the basics of something new, but once they have the basics sorted the learn more improved techniques quicker. This is the example of getting the 10xp rank of a talent first then picking up the 5xp version later on.

Finally a third group spend a lot of time learning the basics but stop there and move onto different talents to broaden their abilities, they needed the basics to progress but they never went beyond that. This is the example of only getting the 10xp rank.

The tree is there to represent the path to knowledge that all professions have, you have to crawl before you run and such.

Basically the player needs to deal with it and accept it as part of the balance of the game.

Which is what I told him. Ok thanks!

Okay benefits of buying keen eyed at tier 1 , only costs 5 xp and gets you access to outdoorsman.

Benefits of taking keeneyed at tier 2, gives you access to outdoorsman at 10 xp, gives access to animal empathy for 15 xp.

If you wanted animal empathy it is effectively the 'tax' for getting there quicker, keen eyed will still be there for 5 xp when he wants rank 2. If he never wanted keeneyed at all then he has to plan for this and accept the cost.

It sometimes becomes more "unfair" for unranked talents in a way, because although you may not have to buy it again you could buy it for 25 xp (say knockdown in fringer tree) and then buy into another spec where you could have paid 10xp for it).

I personally dont have any problems with the way this works. The tier 2 keen eyed clearly has more value to it as it gives access to two talents , one tier 2, the other tier 3, the latter of which gives you one step closer to tier 4 and 5 talents.

Taking the tier 1 keen eyed gives you access to outdoorsman and doesnt progress you up the tree beyond that.Explained like this you can see how the tier 2 keen eyed is more valuwble even though they mechanically do the same thing.

We've agreed that it's going to be the way the book says it is, so that's that but he did make a good point...

The only point your player made is that he doesn't understand the approach to character design and progression for this game , yet.

And you're apparently in the same boat as him.

See, but if he's taking the path straight to Animal Empathy, he's getting 1 rank of Keen Eyed for 10xp.

Whereas you could get the same thing for 5, if you go the other path, you know?

We've agreed that it's going to be the way the book says it is, so that's that but he did make a good point...

He's not really making a good point. The Keen Eyed he's talking about is a tier 2 talent. Sure he could get it cheaper going to the tier 1 but everything on tier 2 assumes, to a certain degree, that you've taken the tier 1 stuff too. Now granted you don't have to take all the tier 1 stuff in the order that it's presented but the basic math is built on the fact that you've likely taken the tier 1. And at some point you'll likely are going to take it, thus in the end the math on it all balances it out. Sure it sucks if he just wants to blow all the way to one specific talent and he's paying twice as much for an effect that he could have cheaper, but the effect is stackable and the balance of it is based on the fact that it is stackable and at some point you'll go back for it.

In the end the cost works itself out. It's just seems unfair if you do a bit of jumping around. But you'll notice it all cost the same. Don't think of it in terms of "I could get this cheaper if I took it earlier". Instead look at it's placement in the tree. You'd be in the same boat if you were to say blow all the way down to Quick Movement. Before you get to it you buy Grit for 15. Sure I could get it for 5 much sooner, but I pay 15 here not because this version is better than the previous, but because it's A. stacks and B. is a tier 3 talent.

So in the end he's paying for Keen Eye at 10 because all the tier 2 talents cost 10. The same with Grit at 15. All the tier 3 talents cost 15. Yes it's cheaper earlier but that price is also based on it's placement on the tier line. Also because the price is based on it's place on the tree level ..... you could swap out that Keen Eye with pretty much anything else and he'd still be paying the exact same amount of exp to get to Animal Empathy.

Wait so he doesn't understand that to obtain that Animal Empathy talent he needs to purchase two related talents that act as prerequisites before he can pick up the Talent he actually wants.

The problem he has is that to gain access to Animal Empathy he needs a version of the Keen Eyed that costs him extra because its a prerequisite to access the talent he actually wants.

So the 5xp version is cheaper provides pretty much the same thing BUT it isn't a prerequisite to Animal Empathy unlike the 10xp version.

He accepted it when I said: The two ranks in Keen Eye, will cost 15 either way. So that's a rank 2 talent for 15xp like it should be.

It's not always going to make sense, sort of like taking some GE classes you have to take to get your BA, you just do it because you thats the system. If this is what you're dealing with already I feel for you when the game actually gets rolling....

It's not always going to make sense, sort of like taking some GE classes you have to take to get your BA, you just do it because you thats the system. If this is what you're dealing with already I feel for you when the game actually gets rolling....

Ahahahahah!!! YES! Thank you for the sentiment. This guy changed his mind about his career/spec about 6 times so far. I'm sure that when he starts playing, a lot won't be like what he's thinking and he's gonna want to switch again.

But there's an upside. This is forcing me to have a REALLY good grip on the rules.

Wow. When will you be starting the game for real? I hope the rest of your group is solid, he sounds like the type to lose interest and flake after a few sessions.

Oh he will most definitely not flake, he's the most excited and eager of the group... right now I have 9 players. They're all coming over tonight for character conceptualization and creation, and I'll go over dice mechanics and fill some gaps with SW lore.

Most likely next week I'll run the adventure in the core rulebook and then the one in the GM kit.

I'll keep running published adventures to get them used to the system, and maybe see if they regret anything they picked for their characters and want to make any changes, while I write my campaign.

When that's finished and ready to go, this will become a streaming channel with edited chapters on Youtube :-)

Nine?

I'll never understand why people even want to play in a game that big. The waiting to do something, the inevitable side conversations, the necessarily massive combats, the endless shopping expeditions. Boggles the mind.

You've got enough Players for two games, why don't you hand five of them a beginner box and tell them to go at it?

I have nine because I don't know a few of them, and most of them never played Star Wars, and 7 of them never played a game of mine.

So I don't know how consistent they will all be showing up every week, or how well they role-play, how pleasant they are to be around, how much of a team player each one of them is.

I need to filter the right people for the streaming channel. They need to look decent, be charismatic, and lots of other things, this is a store-investment backed project so I need it to be stellar.

The end result will be a table with 5 players tops. This is another reason I'm running "tryout" sessions for them.

Nine?

I'll never understand why people even want to play in a game that big. The waiting to do something, the inevitable side conversations, the necessarily massive combats, the endless shopping expeditions. Boggles the mind.

You've got enough Players for two games, why don't you hand five of them a beginner box and tell them to go at it?

My group is about that big, but I've also got a mix of people who I don't expect to all be able to make it to each session. (This week's session will have 3 out), so it allows me to still plan "standard" scale sessions. Meanwhile, for those sessions with everyone, it's time to go for an epic feel. It can certainly make for a juggling act, but - so far - everyone's having fun and not feeling left out.

The only issue I have with the "feat tax" logic of the tree system is that many times it feels forced.

Some of the convoluted lines connecting the boxes and seemingly unrelated talents stuck here and there make you VERY aware that the tree is exactly 5 rows long and 4 columns wide, and dang it, there's no exceptions - even if extra talents which don't really fit need to be stuck here and there.

I agree that it works really well in quite a few cases. Traveling down one side of the tree produces a certain feel to the class, while the other can give a different feel. In these cases, it's a phenomenal system!

However, its uncompromising rigidity can also become its downfall.

In making characters, are the characters staring at Knight Level play, or are the bulk of the starting XP spent on raising characteristics? Note: Many recommendations suggest pumping characteristics over anything else. This strategy may provide for more variety of skills, while avoiding the nightmare of nine newer players' debated choices, since some are also "rusty" about Star Wars lore, and who may have reading challenges.

I'm slightly alarmed how a role playing group may exclude someone who doesn't "look decent." I always hoped our RPG community-at-large would be welcoming; it's often a refuge for people who may not fit traditional groups, but whose creativity and other talents were valued more than if they wore a polo t-shirt without a ketchup stain. I'm interested to see:

1) A list of the characters, with reference sheets for species, characteristics, skills, and careers.

2) The store hosting the event.

3) Links to any video replays of the gaming session.

4) Any pregenerated characters, used or not used.

Wishing you and your group a great time today!!!

Great points.

This is all on paper still, we're still budgeting gear, room treatment costs, we just recently found a location to open the physical store, the studio will be in the upper floor.

Everything is on its earliest stage so far. I'll definitely be posting things here as we progress. I could use help with the writing for the campaign and things like that.

It's not an event as much as a weekly streaming channel of live games and then also uploads of edited versions as well.