I have posted one before but here is a second attempt at a "Jedi/Sith" Universal Specialization. It started as a Jedi Specialization but when I went to make a Sith I couldn't decide what to change. I am not sure the game really needs this tree but I just made it in case. Talents with a | do not connect to the talent to the side, underlined talents do not connect to the talent below.

Jedi/Sith Specialization
Grants Force Rating of 1

5XP: Lightsaber Training*| Toughened| Grit Insight
10XP: Parry| Uncanny Reactions| Uncanny Senses Grit
15XP: Reflect| Toughened| Sense Emotions Balance
20XP: Sleight of Mind Uncanny Reactions| Uncanny Senses Sleight of Mind
25XP: Dedication Sense Danger| Force Rating Touch of Fate

New Talent- Lightsaber Training: Adds Lightsaber to your list of career skills

ummm why not just go to the force and destiny rules? I do not see jedi or sith as this cookie cutter.

Jedi and Sith are very broad terms that cover a wide variety of backgrounds, specializations, and Talents. There is no one universal specialization that covers them.

Lightsaber Training is flat-out worse than Well Rounded.

Otherwise, I agree with the above two posters. There's no 'generic' Jedi/Sith tree that works for all of them or even the majority of them.

"Jedi" and "Sith" are not careers or specializations per se, but rather a label for two very broad and very diverse groups.

Maul, Dooku, Sidious, and Vader were all Sith Lords, but each had a very different approach. Maul was a physically-orientated combatant, using the Force sparingly in a fight and rarely saying much, Dooku was far more elegant in both his lightsaber fighting and usage of the Force. Vader was a steam-roller, just literally plowing his way through his foes, but he also made use of psychology in his fights, especially with Luke in ESB, to break his foe's spirit. About the only point of commonality between Vader and Dooku is their initial training was under the Jedi methodology, with each adopting Sith methods later in life.

And there was no one path to becoming a Jedi Knight, much less a Jedi Master. Yoda and Mace Windu and Obi-Wan Kenobi had very different approaches not only to lightsaber dueling but to usage of the Force. Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and Kanan Jarrus are all Jedi, but none of them fights or operates the same as the other.

Frankly, the proposed spec layout looks more like a random grab-bag of "hey, this looks good!" talents with real theme to it.

1) I don't think the game needs one

2) if I made a jedi/sith apprentice universal spec it would be force sensitive emergent with a few tweaks: replace the 5xp indistinguishable and balance with reflect, replace the 15 xp indistinguishable with improved reflect. Replace sense danger and touch of fate with parry. replacing invigorate with improved parry, and replacing insight with well rounded.

Now I would take that universal spec in a heartbeat which may mean it's too good. However, I would also take force sensitive emergent in a heartbeat (admittedly it's a third spec in my two favorite Jedi builds, both of which also involve niman-disciple)

4 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Frankly, the proposed spec layout looks more like a random grab-bag of "hey, this looks good!" talents with real theme to it.

Yeah this seems like a grab bag of a bunch of stuff so i don't have to go hopping around a bunch of trees to get a bunch of stuff....

When my players are looking for an good generic "Jedi" talent tree, I usually point them to Niman Disciple.

"Grab bag" trees are a definite sign of not having a theme, jedi/sith also lack a specific theme, a jedi/sith APPRENTICE tree has a more specific theme, as in what are the first things you would teach your apprentice.

Just now, kaosoe said:

When my players are looking for an good generic "Jedi" talent tree, I usually point them to Niman Disciple.

Niman-disciple is my favorite jedi spec, but I like it for what it is, "bash someone with telekinesis in between bashing them with a lightsaber" I think it lacks a few things (most importantly improved reflect) that a generic jedi needs, if it were to drop center of being for improved reflect then I would say it was a generic jedi spec, but that would

A) make it too good

B) not fit the Niman disciple theme

9 hours ago, JinFaram said:

I have posted one before but here is a second attempt at a "Jedi/Sith" Universal Specialization. It started as a Jedi Specialization but when I went to make a Sith I couldn't decide what to change. I am not sure the game really needs this tree but I just made it in case. Talents with a | do not connect to the talent to the side, underlined talents do not connect to the talent below.

Jedi/Sith Specialization
Grants Force Rating of 1

5XP: Lightsaber Training*| Toughened| Grit Insight
10XP: Parry| Uncanny Reactions| Uncanny Senses Grit
15XP: Reflect| Toughened| Sense Emotions Balance
20XP: Sleight of Mind Uncanny Reactions| Uncanny Senses Sleight of Mind
25XP: Dedication Sense Danger| Force Rating Touch of Fate

New Talent- Lightsaber Training: Adds Lightsaber to your list of career skills

I recently had an idea for a Youngling Universal spec, different to your idea and more focused on providing an answer to the common question of "how do i make a Jedi from the Prequels without 4 different specs?" Keep in mind its intended to get a child through the Youngling Trials on Ilum, to the start of being a Padawan. It's not complete, its untested, but it may have ideas for you to mine:

Jedi Youngling Universal Specialisation

Skills: None,

Gain Force Rating 1.

5XP: Parry | Toughened | Confidence | Grit
10XP: Reflect | Feel the Force | Focus You Must Brace
15XP: Ancient Saber Craft Conditioned | Keen Eyed Uncanny Senses
20XP: Defensive Training | Grit | Uncanny Reactions Trust in the Force
25XP: Dedication Uncanny Reactions | Balance Force Rating

New Talents:

Ancient Saber Craft: Remove 1 setback form checks to make or modify your personal lightsaber. Knowledge Lore and Lightsaber become career skills.

Feel the Force: Gain the Enhance basic force power

Focus You Must: Gain the Move basic force power

Trust in the Force: Gain the Seek basic force power. Astrogation and Perception become career skills

25 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

I recently had an idea for a Youngling Universal spec, different to your idea and more focused on providing an answer to the common question of "how do i make a Jedi from the Prequels without 4 different specs?" Keep in mind its intended to get a child through the Youngling Trials on Ilum, to the start of being a Padawan. It's not complete, its untested, but it may have ideas for you to mine:

Jedi Youngling Universal Specialisation

Skills: None,

Gain Force Rating 1.

5XP: Parry | Toughened | Confidence | Grit
10XP: Reflect | Feel the Force | Focus You Must Brace
15XP: Ancient Saber Craft Conditioned | Keen Eyed Uncanny Senses
20XP: Defensive Training | Grit | Uncanny Reactions Trust in the Force
25XP: Dedication Uncanny Reactions | Balance Force Rating

New Talents:

Ancient Saber Craft: Remove 1 setback form checks to make or modify your personal lightsaber. Knowledge Lore and Lightsaber become career skills.

Feel the Force: Gain the Enhance basic force power

Focus You Must: Gain the Move basic force power

Trust in the Force: Gain the Seek basic force power. Astrogation and Perception become career skills

Why are feel the force and focus you must in the tree? They are just the basic version of two force powers which I assume can be upgraded as normal

In all honesty I didn't want too many talents in the tree and I wanted a theme for the character to follow, those talents fill out the tree and provide some core themes without bloat They are there to force a character to take them as part of the training the Jedi temple provides. Its essentially a reduction in the cost of getting the Force Rating talent since its a Force Power they should have gotten anyway. When the question of "What makes a Jedi" comes up there is a long list of things they do with the force that must be met, this is my answer.

The Recruit has many ways to make Skills career skills, the same effect can be had by getting another specialisation, but the talents make it cheaper in the long run. In this case the learning of those basic force powers is advancing the character towards greater knowledge of the force and themselves.

Out of interest I'll explain why I left Influence out, this is a specialisation for "children" and I didn't think the Jedi would teach younglings how to stress the minds of others. Thats something a Padawan would learn.

3 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

In all honesty I didn't want too many talents in the tree and I wanted a theme for the character to follow, those talents fill out the tree and provide some core themes without bloat They are there to force a character to take them as part of the training the Jedi temple provides. Its essentially a reduction in the cost of getting the Force Rating talent since its a Force Power they should have gotten anyway. When the question of "What makes a Jedi" comes up there is a long list of things they do with the force that must be met, this is my answer.

The Recruit has many ways to make Skills career skills, the same effect can be had by getting another specialisation, but the talents make it cheaper in the long run. In this case the learning of those basic force powers is advancing the character towards greater knowledge of the force and themselves.

Out of interest I'll explain why I left Influence out, this is a specialisation for "children" and I didn't think the Jedi would teach younglings how to stress the minds of others. Thats something a Padawan would learn.

It kind of makes sense from that perspective, but it's not a spec I would ever take. I honestly prefer emergent over it. I really really really like everything in the emergent spec other than the invigorate talent, insight is so so.

With the "apprentice" spec I proposed I see it being used 2 ways

1) convert a non force sensitive character into a jedi (the same way recruit converts EotE non combat specs into rebel), so base level competency in a bunch of things a jedi would need.

2) boost a F&D first spec character a bit, again it gets base level competency in any area it was lacking and if it was already competent (e.g. a Niman disciple has 3 ranks of reflect and parry) it makes them proficient without being a master (the Niman disciple ends up with 5 ranks of parry and reflect)

But honestly I don't think the game *needs* either my our your universal spec. emergent is close enough

2 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

It kind of makes sense from that perspective, but it's not a spec I would ever take. I honestly prefer emergent over it. I really really really like everything in the emergent spec other than the invigorate talent, insight is so so.

With the "apprentice" spec I proposed I see it being used 2 ways

1) convert a non force sensitive character into a jedi (the same way recruit converts EotE non combat specs into rebel), so base level competency in a bunch of things a jedi would need.

2) boost a F&D first spec character a bit, again it gets base level competency in any area it was lacking and if it was already competent (e.g. a Niman disciple has 3 ranks of reflect and parry) it makes them proficient without being a master (the Niman disciple ends up with 5 ranks of parry and reflect)

But honestly I don't think the game *needs* either my our your universal spec. emergent is close enough

I tend to agree there, it was simply an exercise in entertainment for me. Personally I think the best way to handle some kind of apprenticeship/training is through a modified Knight Level system, tweak it to suit whatever the particular institution was that trained you:

After character creation your PC gains:

1. Seek, Move, Influence and Enhance basic powers.
2. 1 Rank in Discipline, Lightsaber, Parry, Reflect and Improved Reflect.
3. 100xp and a Basic Lightsaber.

9 hours ago, kaosoe said:

When my players are looking for an good generic "Jedi" talent tree, I usually point them to Niman Disciple.

I'd agree, and in fact feel that any PC that wants to go the route of being a "classically trained Jedi" should grab Niman Disciple at some point, probably as their second spec.

And that if you want a PC that's started out with actual Jedi training from before Order 66, then the PC should probably start out as Consular/Niman Disciple, as that combination provides the solid foundation that most Jedi Initiates would have received prior to becoming a Padawan.

8 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

I tend to agree there, it was simply an exercise in entertainment for me. Personally I think the best way to handle some kind of apprenticeship/training is through a modified Knight Level system, tweak it to suit whatever the particular institution was that trained you:

After character creation your PC gains:

1. Seek, Move, Influence and Enhance basic powers.
2. 1 Rank in Discipline, Lightsaber, Parry, Reflect and Improved Reflect.
3. 100xp and a Basic Lightsaber.

I could really get behind this, except i'd go with sense instead of seek, but you did say to tweak it.

I'd veto including Improved Reflect as part of a "Jedi basic training" package. It only shows up in three specs thus far, and for two of those (Soresu Defender and Sentry) it's a 5th Row talent.

Given the high volume of ranged combat in most Star Wars games, getting for free a talent that lets you make an instant counterattack on a foe is a hell of a steal.

Honestly, rather than handing all those skills, talents, and basic powers out for free, I'd simply require that if a PC wanted to have their character be of the old school Jedi training (pre-Order 66), then they'd need to purchase those traits.

As for skills, I'd probably also include Negotiation and/or Knowledge (Lore) as part of the list of skills a PC should have at least one rank in, on top of Discipline and Lightsaber, especially if the PC had made it to Padawan status, given the Order's general focus on being keepers of the peace and trying to resolve situations diplomatically when possible.

For Force powers, I'd say Sense and Move are the major requirements, with Influence and Enhance being nice but not exactly mandatory. The cost of those powers could be mitigated by allowing the PC to buy them at the discounted route offered by the Mentor group resource.

On 1/26/2017 at 7:26 PM, EliasWindrider said:

1) I don't think the game needs one

2) if I made a jedi/sith apprentice universal spec it would be force sensitive emergent with a few tweaks: replace the 5xp indistinguishable and balance with reflect, replace the 15 xp indistinguishable with improved reflect. Replace sense danger and touch of fate with parry. replacing invigorate with improved parry, and replacing insight with well rounded.

Now I would take that universal spec in a heartbeat which may mean it's too good. However, I would also take force sensitive emergent in a heartbeat (admittedly it's a third spec in my two favorite Jedi builds, both of which also involve niman-disciple)

I used OggDude's character generator to copy the force sensitive emergent tree and then made some changes to it (FSE is the first page of the following pdf, Jedi/Sith apprentice is the second),

http://www.mediafire.com/file/w26crj8eqga4wji/ForceSensitiveEmergentJediSithApprentice.pdf

I made essentially the same spec as the one I proposed in my earlier post, except I remove improved parry as that didn't seem essential to jedi/sith and replaced it with "mind over matter" (an executioner talent from savage spirits, spend a DP gain back strain equal to will power) I replaced sleight of mind with "sense emotions" because "sleight of mind" was sneaky and Jedi aren't necessarily sneaking and being able to sense someones emotions seems more universal. Then reshuffled the middle three rows of the right column to make improved reflect harder to get.

I toyed with the idea of making a "good will hunting" spec focusing on willpower related talents like

steely nerves (spend a DP to ignore the effects of critical injuries on willpower and presence)

force of will (once per session may use willpower in place of another attribute but you have to explain how its relevant in this circumstance)

mind over matter (spend a DP to regain strain equal to willpower)

death blow (another executioner talent, spend a DP add damage equal to will power to one hit of one attack)

constant vigilance (a sentry talent, may always use vigilance for initiative checks, vigilance depends on willpower as opposed to cool which depends on presence)

Intimidating

confidence

(of course with a force rating and dedication)

but I'm hoping (and I don't think it's entirely far fetched) that the new "arbiter" spec from the upcoming "disciples of harmony" could be an "I am the law, what I say goes" willpower based spec. I doubt I'd get the full wish list but given that consular is the will power career (it got niman disciple), "arbiter" sounds like a law enforcing/imposing negotiator, likely has the consular's conflict talent, "kind of lightsaber combat" spec, I don't think it's entirely far fetched.