With HBS:

• Assuming we both hit and had advantage, we get to add +30 to the crit roll. Huh, that's exactly the same, because we just spend those advantage to trigger the crit an extra three times.

You can only crit once per hit that I'm aware of. Of course, I may have just been playing with a house rule so long I forgot it wasn't a core rule. I do certainly see how being able to replicate Makashi Finish's effect with advantage generated by HBS would render the Finish moot, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Edit: It WAS a house rule, just found the multiple triggered crit rule in the weapons section. I believe we removed that rule to avoid being able to just kill your opponent in a single round by stacking advantages (and also to avoid trivializing mods, talents, and other things that give you +10s tor crit roll). So yes, the existence of that rule DOES underpower Makashi finish by a wiiiiiiiide margin. We just never ran into that exact issue because we had houseruled the original problem away ages ago.

Regarding the rest, I really don't think you can just compare HBS and Finish in a vaccuum, they really do need the context of the talents around them to be fully valued. Comparing what you can do with Saber Swarm and a DBL isn't really doing the talent justice, because that's not what the Makashi form is set up to do.

Ataru is generating all those advantages , sure. However, even with crit 1, your biggest concern isn't critting, it's hitting . You want that DBL, you want that Saber Swarm, because hitting hard and fast while burning through strain is what Ataru does. They don't have the Parry nor the strain to get through an extended saber fight.

Makashi, on the other hand, not only has strain for days, they have abilities that inflict strain on their opponents while gaining the same amount of strain back! They also have more Parry than any other tree, including Soresu . They also get defensive training (so their lightsabers don't need that mod) and a talent that adds a blue die if they're fighting a single opponent (which helps them get the extra advantage they need). They don't need large amounts of advantages, the only need the one.

Keep in mind as well, Saber swarm is a maneuver that takes up your free maneuver AND costs a strain. Someone who doesn't need to use it could just as well Aim for an extra Boost to generate more success/advantage.

Nevermind.

Well, I'll try to break it down. Both Hawk Bat Swoop and Makashi Finish essentially offer the same thing: to convert force pips into something useful on a combat check.

For the Striker, extra advantage is helpful. Their high Agility means they're natural double-bladed lightsaber users, and they have access to a Talent (Saber Swarm) that gives them Linked as well. Finally, Strikers have to carefully manage their strain, as they get no Grit talents, strain recovery talents, or even Supreme Parry/Reflect Talents to help conserve strain when on the defensive. For all of these reasons, a Striker can pretty much always use the extra Advantage to their...well, advantage.

For the Duelist, they're more suited for high Presence, so unless they've bumped their agility up for whatever reason, they're less likely to have that DBL with linked. They obviously don't get Saber Swarm. And they DO get both 3 Grit talents AND a strain recovery talent (Intense Presence), so they have much less of a burning need for Strain recovery via Advantages. All of this means that they are MUCH more likely to only get a single hit and therefore, a single crit on any one enemy. Making that crit count is...sigh, critical. (I swear I'm not doing this on purpose.) As someone who can take a +40 bonus from Lethal Blows and Vicious and still get a final result of 53 with depressing regularity, the ability to take anywhere from +10 to +60 (assuming an upper limit of three force dice) to the roll is humongous. It can quite literally spell out the end of the fight right then and there, as opposed to handing down a few blue dice to your allies or some black ones to the enemy.

Pretty much this. Crit is something you need to either build for or ignore so a Makashi user will build for it based on the talents while the Ataru user will just ignore it. Different styles designed to do the same thing. Ataru is about doing as much damage as possible while Makashi is about stopping the fight by critting hard. So by the time a Makashi user has got to Makashi Finish their lightsaber should have at least a curved hilt or Superior (or maybe both) along with a Crit rating of 1. Add in a level or two of Vicious and you are potentially sitting on a +30 crit roll before the dice are rolled. With three advantage on the roll and three force pips and that's +90 on the roll. That's how you walk up to a person and kill them in the first attack.

Well, I'll try to break it down. Both Hawk Bat Swoop and Makashi Finish essentially offer the same thing: to convert force pips into something useful on a combat check.

For the Striker, extra advantage is helpful. Their high Agility means they're natural double-bladed lightsaber users, and they have access to a Talent (Saber Swarm) that gives them Linked as well. Finally, Strikers have to carefully manage their strain, as they get no Grit talents, strain recovery talents, or even Supreme Parry/Reflect Talents to help conserve strain when on the defensive. For all of these reasons, a Striker can pretty much always use the extra Advantage to their...well, advantage.

For the Duelist, they're more suited for high Presence, so unless they've bumped their agility up for whatever reason, they're less likely to have that DBL with linked. They obviously don't get Saber Swarm. And they DO get both 3 Grit talents AND a strain recovery talent (Intense Presence), so they have much less of a burning need for Strain recovery via Advantages. All of this means that they are MUCH more likely to only get a single hit and therefore, a single crit on any one enemy. Making that crit count is...sigh, critical. (I swear I'm not doing this on purpose.) As someone who can take a +40 bonus from Lethal Blows and Vicious and still get a final result of 53 with depressing regularity, the ability to take anywhere from +10 to +60 (assuming an upper limit of three force dice) to the roll is humongous. It can quite literally spell out the end of the fight right then and there, as opposed to handing down a few blue dice to your allies or some black ones to the enemy.

Pretty much this. Crit is something you need to either build for or ignore so a Makashi user will build for it based on the talents while the Ataru user will just ignore it. Different styles designed to do the same thing. Ataru is about doing as much damage as possible while Makashi is about stopping the fight by critting hard. So by the time a Makashi user has got to Makashi Finish their lightsaber should have at least a curved hilt or Superior (or maybe both) along with a Crit rating of 1. Add in a level or two of Vicious and you are potentially sitting on a +30 crit roll before the dice are rolled. With three advantage on the roll and three force pips and that's +90 on the roll. That's how you walk up to a person and kill them in the first attack.

While this is very true it IS worth noting that, as Falloon points out, at this point all Makashi finish is giving you is a very, very limited form of Hawkbat Swoop. It's easily fixed by houseruling away the multiple crit rule, but if your group doesn't want to go that way then you could just bump the bonus Finish gives you from +10 to +20. This makes it more specialized in its role (crit hard) without relying on mods to boot the crit number.

As someone pretty new, why would a Striker love a saberstaff so much?

As someone pretty new, why would a Striker love a saberstaff so much?

Saberstaffs come with unwieldy 3, meaning if you don't have an Agility of at least 3, you take a penalty to its use.

The default characteristic for the Lightsaber skill is Brawn, but every lightsaber spec (aside from Shi-Cho Knight) comes with a talent that lets you sub in a different characteristic. For Striker this talent lets you sub in Agility, so it benefits Ataru Strikers to have high Agility. So, they're set to take advantage of the benefits of a saberstaff and will have the Agility to negate its drawbacks.

They also have a Talent (Saber swarm) that gives them Linked, so overall Strikers tend to focus on hitting very hard very quickly before they run out of strain and collapse.

If I am to opine I think that Makashi Finish can be the most powerful due to how it scales with force points. Assuming this character has seer, sage and Makashi Duelist, they have 5 force dice let's say then they roll 10 force points, that right there is +100 with the right Lightsaber mods that could easily come to be +40 so with the best roll you kill anything.

Ataru Strikers probably would have 3 force dice to spend making it a bit harder to use hawk bat swoop to great effec because you must use a point to close in on your target plus using black pips might be problematic in a fight since their strain recovery isn't really that good. Meanwhile the Duelist could probably even afford to absorb 10 strain and conflict on a super roll of they need to kill their target.

I understand sage is a consular spec but if your building around Makashi Finish you want all the Force Die you can get. That's just my 2cents.

I understand sage is a consular spec but if your building around Makashi Finish you want all the Force Die you can get. That's just my 2cents.

I'm not sure why you think that an Ataru Striker has less need of Force Rating than a Makashi Duelist. Everybody generally wants as high of a FR as possible, so it's a nonsensical argument.

I'm not saying a seeker wants any less force die I'm saying it's much easier as a Mystic or Consular to have a crapton of force die.

I'm not saying a seeker wants any less force die I'm saying it's much easier as a Mystic or Consular to have a crapton of force die.

Actually, that's incorrect, considering that, firstly, Seekers have Hermit specialisations that has 2 FR upgrades, and, secondly, there are more specialisation in the Seeker career. The reverse to what you say seems to be true, actually.

Sorry for intervening.

I forgot about hermit well until we get the mystic book I'm really babbling on my point for Mystics having more force dice in general. Arctanaar no need to be sorry it's a discussion no one is mad here.

The issue is that, regardless of how much FR either spec has, HBS completely outperforms Finish under the current rules. It can do exactly what Makashi Finish does while also having a lot of additional uses as well. If Finish offered more of a bonus per force pip or you couldn't trigger the same crit multiple times, then Finish would be comfortable in its niche.

I think the icing on the cake (and something I didn't account for earlier, sorry Falloon) is just how much XP you need to spend to even get Finish. It requires you to get Makashi Flourish, a 25 xp Talent that is quite handy (inflict AND heal strain, woo!), but is an Action, meaning it actually competes with Makashi FInish instead of complementing it like Saber Swarm does with Hawk-Bat Swoop. And just to add insult to injury, neither SS nor HBS are end-tier talents.

Frankly, under RAW it probably makes for sense for a Makashi Duellist to spend that 50xp on buying the Ataru Striker spec and beelining for HBS and SS. Pick up some Reflect on the way in, to boot.

Makashi Finish is at its best with multiple hits, since it adds to ALL crit rolls from that attack. For a single force pip you can add +10 to multiple crits from multiple hits.

To Maximise the talent:

1. Paired Superior Shotos, crystals with crit 1 and Vicious mods, then hit twice with 1 advantage, 2 more advantage to crit on each hit, then every Force Pip to increase BOTH crit rolls.
2. Superior Double Bladed Saber (Jury rigged for 1 Advantage Linked activation), crystal with Crit 1 and Vicious mods, 3 advantage to hit and crit twice and add FPx10 to both rolls.

On a side note I personally think the Executioners talent is better than HBS since it can be used with any personal scale weapon to add Advantage or a Triumph (which can be used for far more than an Advantage in narrative terms)

Makashi Finish is at its best with multiple hits, since it adds to ALL crit rolls from that attack. For a single force pip you can add +10 to multiple crits from multiple hits.

To Maximise the talent:

1. Paired Superior Shotos, crystals with crit 1 and Vicious mods, then hit twice with 1 advantage, 2 more advantage to crit on each hit, then every Force Pip to increase BOTH crit rolls.
2. Superior Double Bladed Saber (Jury rigged for 1 Advantage Linked activation), crystal with Crit 1 and Vicious mods, 3 advantage to hit and crit twice and add FPx10 to both rolls.

On a side note I personally think the Executioners talent is better than HBS since it can be used with any personal scale weapon to add Advantage or a Triumph (which can be used for far more than an Advantage in narrative terms)

Those are some pretty good methods for maximizing what you can currently get out of Finish. The problem as I see it is that the Duelist is not really naturally geared towards multiple hits (unlike the Striker) without doing what you're doing and dedicating a very specific mix of weapons and mods to getting those extra hits and crits. I'm of the school of thought that Talents should be useful independent of equipment. As an example, the Striker benefits from using a saberstaff but doesn't HAVE to use one to get access to Linked. Similarly, the dual weapon setup you described would be an excellent way to take advantage of Finish, but it shouldn't be required to milk any real benefit out of Finish at all.

But a Heavy needs heavy weapons, a Gunslinger 2 pistols, a Pilot needs a Ship. Plenty of specs have talents that only work with the right equipment. I'm not saying Finish is useless without these combos, just that it's the best way to maximise the talent. We also have not seen the 3 Specs to add to this career, who knows what synergy there may be.

Personally, I hope none of the Mystic specs that are still to come have a strong lightsaber focus, but that's just me. I'm of the opinion that Makashi Duelist is only in the Mystic career because it was their original design paradigm that each F&D career had a lightsaber tree and that's it.

I want my Mystic specs to focus on the rarified, the ephemeral, the sublime. Not on whacking people with glowsticks!

But a Heavy needs heavy weapons, a Gunslinger 2 pistols, a Pilot needs a Ship. Plenty of specs have talents that only work with the right equipment. I'm not saying Finish is useless without these combos, just that it's the best way to maximise the talent. We also have not seen the 3 Specs to add to this career, who knows what synergy there may be.

1. A Heavy needs heavy weapons, a gunslinger 2 pistols, a Pilot a ship...and a Duelist needs a lightsaber. That's it. You'll notice the Heavy doesn't require a Missile Tube with all damage mods on it, a gunslinger doesn't need two Viper pistols with Superior mods, and a Pilot doesn't need a YT 1300 with an engine ring modification just to make their endspec Talent worthwhile.

2. I AM saying Finish is nearly useless without those combos (or a houserule). It literally does nothing but act as a very, very limited form of Advantage. Which is ridiculous when other lightsaber combat trees offer similar talents (for less XP!) that give you actual advantage to use. They do everything that Finish does and more . This is a Bad Thing.

Remember Falloon's situation that led to this thread: he has two players, one going into Duelist and the other going into Striker, and he noticed that the Duelist-specific Talent was a lot weaker than the Striker one. Initially I thought it was fine, because in my own group's game the Duelist talent does something you cannot replicate with mere Advantage. It has a niche, a role that no other lightsaber combat tree can replicate. However, by RAW, the talent is worthless compared to it's counterpart in the Striker tree (which, again, is easier to access and costs less XP to buy). Telling the player in question that he has to go for a very very specific weapon and mod loadout just to get something worthwhile out of his Talent is ridiculous. Notice how the Striker can get Linked from Talents alone, not from HAVING to take a saberstaff. A spec requiring a base type of equipment (a ship, a lightsaber, pistols, etc) is par for the course. Having to take a very specific loadout (dual-wielding lightsabers modded to hell and back) just to have a Talent provide something approaching usefulness is not great game balance.

Adding 1 Advantage is not naturally the equal to adding +10 to a Crit roll. For that 1 Advantage to be the equivalent to the +10 to a crit roll the crystal has to be modified to Crit 1, a modification that isn't necessary but helps.

Sticking purely to these trees and ignoring multi spec builds the Striker certainly has cheaper options to do more and is more flexible, but there are other costs to that. Sabre Swarm has a strain cost, yet Ataru has no talent for recovering strain during an encounter other than those precious Advantage from Hawk Bat Swoop. Duelist has 2 talents for recovering strain.

They are very different focuses between the two, and with a basic lightsabre are quite different in their approach:

Ataru want to hit hard, first, with Quick Draw, Saber Swarm (1 Strain), Quick Strike and HBS. In this case they either need to start engaged to get all those advantage from the Force Dice, or use a Maneuver to get to Engaged (2 strain), or sacrifice a force pip to engage. After hitting first Ataru is looking to use Dodge (2 strain for 2 upgrades) to make an incoming attack harder, then Parry (3 strain) hoping to trigger Improved parry. In a single round they could have burned through 8 Strain. With only advantage to recover them mid fight, which then reduces the number of hits from Saber Swarm or number of Criticals from the HBS talent, Striker has a very real problem of strain management to deal with, especially if those pips turn up Dark in which case your loosing even more strain.

Dualist on the other hand only has the Parry and Resist Disarm (which also prevents weapon damage) talents to spend Strain on, and 2 ways of recovering strain, on of which inflicts equal strain on the opponent. Defensive training doesn't have a cost, Feint only has the cost of actually missing. Sum Djem is a cheap way of ending a dual early, and then Finish helps end it the more violent way. If the opponent rolls badly then Improved Parry will come into play, Feint can improve the chances of that. The Duelist doesn't need their Force Pips to be advantage since they can recover strain in much better ways, and choosing to use DS pips is less of a problem for them.

Basically Makashi is attempting to outlast their opponent, while Ataru is trying to bring them down fast. I know that Finish is much more focused than HBS, but its effect is more powerful at that one thing. If your modifying your saber to have a lower crit rating then that also benefits the Duelist as much as the Ataru, and doesn't change the overall Strain management differences of the two forms of saber use.

I think part of the problem is that lightsaber crystals general either come with crit 1, or have it available as a mod. It's always been the first mod I've seen anyone take since it's such a huge boost, even for classes that don't focus on crits (and again, going by RAW, you can do some horrific things to an enemy by critting on the same hit multiple times). In my games it's basically a given that anyone with a lightsaber will have crit 1. I don't think it's unreasonable to approach the lightsaber talents with the assumption that anyone far enough long on the tree to buy them has invested the time/money to install that mod.

I definitely agree with you on the differences between the focuses. I think I went into Striker, Duelist, and strain in a previous post. The problem isn't that the two doesn't have different focuses, it's that the Mashaki focus (critting hard over hitting lots) is somewhat lackluster in the face of its sister talent in the Ataru tree. The Ataru talent can be used to gain back strain, achieve linked hits, OR (and this is the part that bugs me) act like Makashi Finish and crit harder. It's like one class was given a Swiss Army Knife, and the other was given a rusty shiv. The fact that Makashi has better strain management doesn't really make up for it, and any player who realizes that the ultimate expression of their Form is inferior to someone elses Form is gonna feel cheated. If Finish worked as intended, I'd say the two classes were roughly even. Ataru is a strain hog, but HBS lets them employ Force pips to gain it back if they want, or to just Link the hell out of the poor sod they're fighting. Finish maybe helps them crit, but doesn't offer anything more Advantage wouldn't.

Sum Djem is a cheap way of ending a dual early, and then Finish helps end it the more violent way.

I used to think that Sun Djem was just a way to save an Advantage on the disarm you can already do for 3 advantage. Then I saw that it landed Short distance away, and realized it was actually worse: when you use the normal disarm, it just falls at your feet. if you saved a maneuver (which you should be doing in a duel) you can scoop up your opponents weapon and end things right then and there, instead of them just using a Move to get it back.

Then clearly you haven't thought through all the devious things you can do with Sum Djem. First and foremost, you don't have to throw their weapon out to short range - if you want to pick it up, you're more than welcome to have it drop at your feet so you can grab it, that option does not go away.

But what throwing it out to short range does, at the bare minimum, is increase the number of maneuvers your opponent needs to two or even three, depending on your GM's interpretation (can they just use a move maneuver to get to it and another to pick it up? Or do they need to use a maneuver to disengage, another to move to it, and a third to pick it up?). But also, it's a great chance to use your environment to your advantage.

Are you fighting near a cliff? Send their weapon over it! There's no getting it back before the fight's over. Are you in a factory? Flip a DP and it lands within short range...on a conveyor belt that then carries it even farther away! Is there a pool of some description, either water or, even better, oil? Drop their weapon in there and now it's sinking!

Sum Djem is awesome, you just have to think outside of the mechanics and into the realm of the narrative. Combat doesn't happen in a vacuum (usually; and even when it does, there's still stuff around ), so there's always a way to make it do much more than just drop your opponent's weapon a little farther away than normal.

I believe the designers have done a great job considering that the complaints on this thread mirror the complaints of Makashi practitioners in the Legends material. The Makashi Finish is the "Shiak" move, a lunge and thrust like you would see in Olympic fencing particularly the foil. It will not give you all of the possibilities of anything in the Ataru form. If your character is not happy with the shortcomings of their form they may consider learning another form to compensate as someone previously posted. This seems to be what many characters in the prequels and Clone Wars did.

Just my two credits.

Then clearly you haven't thought through all the devious things you can do with Sum Djem. First and foremost, you don't have to throw their weapon out to short range - if you want to pick it up, you're more than welcome to have it drop at your feet so you can grab it, that option does not go away.

But what throwing it out to short range does, at the bare minimum, is increase the number of maneuvers your opponent needs to two or even three, depending on your GM's interpretation (can they just use a move maneuver to get to it and another to pick it up? Or do they need to use a maneuver to disengage, another to move to it, and a third to pick it up?). But also, it's a great chance to use your environment to your advantage.

Are you fighting near a cliff? Send their weapon over it! There's no getting it back before the fight's over. Are you in a factory? Flip a DP and it lands within short range...on a conveyor belt that then carries it even farther away! Is there a pool of some description, either water or, even better, oil? Drop their weapon in there and now it's sinking!

Sum Djem is awesome, you just have to think outside of the mechanics and into the realm of the narrative. Combat doesn't happen in a vacuum (usually; and even when it does, there's still stuff around ), so there's always a way to make it do much more than just drop your opponent's weapon a little farther away than normal.

1. The option does not go away, but why would I pay a whopping 25xp for something I could already do?

2. I don't want my opponent to retrieve it at all. And they won't, because I'm holding it now.

3. Or I could just...grab it. And hold it. Now they can't get it, because I have two weapons and they have none. If I want to thow it over a cliff, or into a pool of lava, I can do that. But at this point I've ended the fight.

It;s not really mechanics vs. narrative, the option to dramatically fling their lightsaber away still exists. It's just that it's a talent that replicate something the player could already do. If it were a 5 or 10xp talent that basically shaved off an Advantage required for activation and let you be a little more reckless with your Maneuver economy (in certain environments, at least) it'd be pretty balanced. As it is, though, you're better off just pretending it doesn't exist.

I just realised Finish would also add 10 to Critical rolls from incapacitating the target as well. So HBS can add 10 to one crit for 1 Force Pip, MF can add 10 to up to 3 Crits for 1 Force Pip... Yes in its most basic form HBS is a more versatile version, but it trades peak power for broad utility.

Just think about that attack by a Duelest that hits twice with a linked 1 Lightsaber for 2 advantage (or a triumph), then Crits twice for 2 more advantage, and because it's a finish move the target gains a third Crit for exceeding their Wound Threshold. With 2 Force pips and no other factors such as vicious or previous critical injuries the 3 rolls will look like this:

+20, +30, +40

The same result with 2 Pips spent on adding advantage for HBS would be:

+0, +30, +20

Again this is a fundamental difference. HBS is a bread and butter attack, but the choice on what to spend those advantage on is a hard decision, triggering extra qualities, critting, recovering much needed strain. MF is not a bread and butter (although it can be) it is an attack aimed at piling big critical hits on opponents. I totally get that HBS is cheaper, it's more flexible, it's more appealing... But it can never compete with the pinnacle of what MF can achieve, it simply can't. Then I f you begin talking about multi spec characters with more than Force Rating 1 the gap gets even bigger.

Richardbuxton is spot on...

The main advantage to Makashi Finish is that is gives +10 to any resulting critical injury rolls.... that can get very messy...

For the sake of argumentation... let's compare results from 2 identical attacks with different but equivalent specs/weapons

Player 1 : Ataru Striker, Force rating 3, Hawk Bat Swoop, Saber Swarm, Lightsaber (Dam 7, Crit 1, Breach, Sunder)

Player 2 : Makashi Duelist, Force rating 3, Makashi Finish, Double-bladed Lightsaber (Dam 7, Crit 1, Linked 1, Breach, Sunder)

Now each character scores a hit with 2 success, 4 advantages and 4 Force Pips (Player 1 used 1 maneuver and 1 strain to use Saber Swarm) :

- Player 1 : uses 4 advantages and 2 Force Pips to hit 4 times total, then 2 Force Pips to generate 2 different crits : total 36 damage, 2 crit (+0, +10)

- Player 1 : uses 2 advantages to hit 2 times total, then 2 advantages and 4 Force Pips to generate 2 different crits : total 18 damage, 2 crit (+0, +50)

- Player 2 : uses 2 advantages to hit 2 times total, then 2 advantages and 4 Force Pips to generate 2 different crits : total 18 damage, 2 crit (+40, +50)

Now if the ennemy went over his Wound Treshold, then they would score another automatic critical... it would go this way :

- Player 1 case 1 : +0, +10, +20

- Player 1 case 2 : + 0, +50, + 20

- Player 2 : +40, +50, +60

Overall... It's easy to see the main difference between these 2 talents...

Hawk Bat Sweep is more versatile, allows to score crits, regain strain, pass advantages, etc...

Makashi Finish gives critical hits way more punch !!!

*** Now, if the Makashi Duelist doesn't use a saberstaff, then he's not doing it right***

*** Also, the Makashi Duelist could use another kind of Crystal with different bonus, limited to Critical 2 and still pull off huge crits... the Ataru Striker couldn't do that***

Makashi Duelist doesn't have to build a Lightsaber with Critical 1 to pull off Huge Criticals.... unlike the Ataru Striker

Ataru Striker is more versatile in combat, but can't hold his strain for long... it can crit easier.

Makashi Duelist is more versatile in his build, and can hold is strain longer in combat.... it can pull off huge crits.

Both are great in different ways...

(corrected the damage values)

Need to add success to those damage values, and its a little unfair to compare a build with a saber that cost double, but your point is spot on with mine. Ataru does well with 2 lightsabers anyway, that way they can have different hilts, different crystals and still hit multiple times a round through saber swarm without suffering the penalties of Two Weapon Combat. The depth of options is getting quite crazy at the moment too.

One other talent its worth adding to the mix here is the Executioners Essential Kill talent. Its super flexible, when you add that Triumph your also adding a success to your roll, so it allows you to potentially turn a near hit into a hit with Triumph...WITH ANY PERSONAL WEAPON!!! of course the limitation is no Strain recovery, but Advantage rolled on the dice themselves can still be used for that. In fact Executioner and Duelist are quite the pairing, with those 3 ranks of Lethal Blows and the Precise Aim talents its a brutal mix.

i guess it would be fun going over all the talents that Force Dice to attacks, i may do that soon.