Just something Ithought of. But how do you think the following rule is?.

When you reach the bottom of a in career talent tree, and have all four talents on said row, if you have not done so previously, you may take a single out of Career signaure ability. This ability must relate to the tree.

(i.e. a Smuggler Pilot could take an Ace signature ability.)

As with any house rule I think whatever works at your table is fine. Personally I've never taken a SA and none of my players have either. For the xp you spend on them the points are better spent in other places imo.

I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't allow it if I were GMing for this way lies madness and anarchy - and if I did allow it somehow, I'd still enforce the two per character, 1 per tree rule, but it probably wont break the game.

Yeah, it encourages munchkin play a little much.

I understand 5 of the 18 careers don't have access to signature abilities yet, but in the meantime there are still plenty of ways to advance your character.

Skills, signature abilities, and the cost of buying a new specialization tree are determined by your starting career. The game is so open otherwise I don't think a little structure hurts things.

I mostly agree with everyone else.

The only thing about Sig abilities I would have changed for the rules is while the ability should always be linked to specializations of the specific career they were designed for (ie Fated Duel attached to a Guardian Specialization, such as Soresu Defender, for example), if you took one of those specs as an out of career spec, you could apply that spec's Sig ability on that spec. So, if you had a Sentinel/Sentry with Soresu Defender as a second or third spec, he could attach Fated Duel to his/her Soresu Defender spec.

But allowing you to attach one career's sig ability to another career's Specializations? No.

I would think it might make more sense to allow an out of career sig ability to attach to a relevant out of career spec. If you want a Soldier sig then you have to bottom out a soldier spec.

My biggest complaint/worry is sig abilities Vs character growth.

for example I am currently playing a BH:Gadgetter + Droid tech as a secondary spec. My original concept was a BH that modded her own gear. But during play she has become more of a general tech that also knows how to kick ass.

As such the Technician Signatures suit me (OFC we have only seen 1 BH sign in the No Disintegrations article), but I am limited to the BH Signatures even if the don't suit.

Edit: I would perhaps say that you could only have the Signatures for one carrier you have specs for and you have to get them the normal way.

My biggest complaint/worry is sig abilities Vs character growth.

for example I am currently playing a BH:Gadgetter + Droid tech as a secondary spec. My original concept was a BH that modded her own gear. But during play she has become more of a general tech that also knows how to kick ass.

As such the Technician Signatures suit me (OFC we have only seen 1 BH sign in the No Disintegrations article), but I am limited to the BH Signatures even if the don't suit.

Edit: I would perhaps say that you could only have the Signatures for one carrier you have specs for and you have to get them the normal way.

Does your GM not allow character retools, so that you could grab Technician:Droid Tech as your primary spec and BH: Gadgeteer as your second? I allow my players to do so if they find that a different order suits their character more, as long as they don't change the individual talents chosen overly-much, i.e. as long as they don't change the character's overall capabilities, minor tweaks like changing career without changing specifications to better fit your character's development seem quite reasonable to me.

Signature abilities are one of the defining features of a career and are another way of making the choice meaningful. It I was to house rule it I woukd just go the whole hog and allow career /spec mismatches at creation since you are losing one of few major barriers in game. After all the only barrier is your career and signature ability.

Edit oh, and the force rating 1 giving careers and specs. The only things that are limited are signature, force abilities, and certain species abilities , everything else is easily attainable if you want to oay the cost (and even force abilities are attainable on a secondary basis)

No one in the game I GM (where the players have reached Sig Ability-level XP) have yet tried to pick one out (they all have their eyes on them, though!), but I have a house rule in place already.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not really concerned with overpowered characters in my game - almost inadvisably so. I'm more concerned with players growing a character that is fun and fits their concept... even if it makes it hard for me to balance challenges against them.

As many people have already suggested, my house rule is that you can attach a Signature Ability to any of your Specs that matches that Spec. So, if you're a Sentinel Artisan but have a Technician Spec, you can attach one of the Technician Signature Abilities to that Spec . You can't attach it to Artisan, however - that can only take a Sentinel SA. And so forth. Although, again, I could see exceptions based on circumstances - for example, none of the Sentinel SAs really work for an Artisan, so I may allow a Technician SA without requiring further investment in a Tech Spec tree.

Just my two cents. I know, I'm reiterating what the others have pretty much beat into the ground, but... I figured it was worth noting that this is an actual house rule at my table, rather than the "this is how I'd adjust it" comment.

I think most Signature abilities are fine to mix and match IF they make sense and are attached to a realistically appropriate spec. In very long games where you plan on playing 700-1000 xp or more you may stray very far from where you started. I don't mind the flexibility.

I dread saying any house rules I have for fear of people jumping on me, but the way my group has decided to do them is that you can't buy them at all, you have to meet the requirements to buy it then during a session you spend all of the groups LS points (minimum 2) at a dramatically appropriate time and use the ability. Thereafter you have the ability without xp cost. Many of these abilities are so powerful that we feel they can only be used thereafter at dramatically appropriate times to really shine in a scene. Not every crafting check is worthy of unmatched calibration, not every enemy is worthy of a fated duel. While this may not work in many groups having 5 good storytellers working on the same story makes it work for us.

Mostly the trade off for signature abilities is not worth it for character optimization

We are not that long yet, just few sessions under in current campaign. I don't remember what's the RAW on signature abilities, but I probably use same style as Kestin. Of course, depanding on a situation. If SA really fits the character, then I'll probably allow it. If it's just to maximize dice pools or character's lethality, then I'll have chat with the player.

I wouldn't do it, I wouldn't allow it if I were GMing for this way lies madness and anarchy - and if I did allow it somehow, I'd still enforce the two per character, 1 per tree rule, but it probably wont break the game.

I didn't realise that I was implying that you could have more than two. I meant for that and the one per spec rules stay the same.

I would think it might make more sense to allow an out of career sig ability to attach to a relevant out of career spec. If you want a Soldier sig then you have to bottom out a soldier spec.

That's an excellent idea. Thabks for the advice.

No one in the game I GM (where the players have reached Sig Ability-level XP) have yet tried to pick one out (they all have their eyes on them, though!), but I have a house rule in place already.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not really concerned with overpowered characters in my game - almost inadvisably so. I'm more concerned with players growing a character that is fun and fits their concept... even if it makes it hard for me to balance challenges against them.

As many people have already suggested, my house rule is that you can attach a Signature Ability to any of your Specs that matches that Spec. So, if you're a Sentinel Artisan but have a Technician Spec, you can attach one of the Technician Signature Abilities to that Spec . You can't attach it to Artisan, however - that can only take a Sentinel SA. And so forth. Although, again, I could see exceptions based on circumstances - for example, none of the Sentinel SAs really work for an Artisan, so I may allow a Technician SA without requiring further investment in a Tech Spec tree.

Just my two cents. I know, I'm reiterating what the others have pretty much beat into the ground, but... I figured it was worth noting that this is an actual house rule at my table, rather than the "this is how I'd adjust it" comment.

I'll probably do this when my players reach sig ability in the near future.

Edit: And as theyare both engineers, I'm going to let them take a look a SM.

We are not that long yet, just few sessions under in current campaign. I don't remember what's the RAW on signature abilities, but I probably use same style as Kestin. Of course, depanding on a situation. If SA really fits the character, then I'll probably allow it. If it's just to maximize dice pools or character's lethality, then I'll have chat with the player.

The RAW on Sig abilities is that you can only take Sig abilities in your career and must attache them to a Career Spec. For example, if you're a Guardian, you can only take one of the two Guardian Sig Abilities and can only attach them to a Guardian Spec.