Which of these two talent trees is better and fun?

The Martial Artist or the Warden?

That's purely subjective and can also really depend upon if you want to be a Force user or not too.

12 minutes ago, Trigger Happy Droid said:

Which of these two talent trees is better and fun?

The Martial Artist or the Warden?

Yes, absolutely.

That one, there.

Is the move force power the one that let's characters fling back missiles and grenades back at enemies? Just like the image in the Keeping the peace book on page 23? And should I get the Protect force power?

Not to hijack the thread, I just got into the game recently too, rather than starting a new thread this seems like an applicable thread for this question, is shadow/niman/sage a good combination to go with for a stealthy jedi character?

33 minutes ago, Trigger Happy Droid said:

Is the move force power the one that let's characters fling back missiles and grenades back at enemies? Just like the image in the Keeping the peace book on page 23? And should I get the Protect force power?

At least suggested by the developers, that may be an interpretive use of Reflect.

Martial Artist is more combat focused. Warden has a number of talents that emphasize coercion and fear.

Martial artist relies on coordination for offense and defense allowing you to use coordination dodge to add up to 5 failure on a combat check against you, that same coordination rank can be used to boost the damage (only) of your brawl attacks. While it has access to overbalance this is a bit of a trick defense as your two main ways of defense -parry and coordination dodge do not increase your opponents threat or despair chance in any way, but will flat out cause them to fail or at the very least reduce the damage.

Warden works differently to the Martial Artist, as its defense relies on high ranks of Coercion and uses Baleful Gaze , now this works differently to coordination dodge as it upgrades the difficulty up to 5 times (and is only usable on medium range), however this increases the likelihood of threat or despair on those roles making it work better with overbalance. Other defense (and its not immediately obvious) is Fearsome as this can leave an opponent with a setback on every check made (again increasing the chance of threat), also additional failure on the discipline check can cause strain damage. Threat on these roles can trigger no escape causing free maneuvers to be lost. Scathing tirade also gives you a short range AoE strain damage attack that can also trigger no escape with 2 advantage(note that unlike the forced threat check,from fearsome, this advantage can lose the free maneuver of any target in range , they get no way of avoiding this as its not targeted, so will work on higher level foes, so you could roll 1 success and 2 advantage and do 1 strain on a minion and use no escape on the nemesis)

Wardens only way of increasing damage through talent like abilities is through enhance brawl which allows you to add force dice to your brawl check. 2 if you get the fr talent , and this can add up to 4 DMG to the attack assuming that you roll well and the right color of pips (or you can spend the DP to allow you to use)

The martial artist is a straight up fighter trading blow for blow. The warden specialises in strain damage causing effects on top of using their fists , but has a barrage of abilities that mess with the enemies movement and has a better likelihood of triggering overbalance (which is a bonus to the martial artist, but harder to trigger).

The martial artist wants to flat out cause damage and avoid it, they do this better than the warden. They can also manipulate crits better and finally get to recover strain with mind over matter,.

The warden forces the opponent to make mistakes (through fearsome, scathing tirade, baleful gaze, disorient, no escape and grapple) but relies on enhance to boost straight damage without relying on other specs. Also has access to Sense etc.

Note that both of them have access to an interesting combo use precision strike to trigger an easy crit (1 strain) and chose the option to flip a DP , which then let's you have a DP available for Coordination Dodge /Balefuil Gaze / Mind over Matter. Unlike Martial grace which costs 2 strain, enhance brawl is always on and gets significantly better with each FR you go up.

3 hours ago, Trigger Happy Droid said:

Is the move force power the one that let's characters fling back missiles and grenades back at enemies? Just like the image in the Keeping the peace book on page 23? And should I get the Protect force power?

Protect as a Light Side force user is really the best way to do this, but it requires a decent Force Rating to even consider it a possibility.

To answer the OP's question in a round about way, I've been building a Force sensitive character for a KotOR era game that will start this fall, having 225 earned xp

(225 xp because of conversion from a 4th level d20 RCR star wars character, 4th level => leveled up 3 times, 3 times 75 xp = 225xp, 75 xp per level because you get 1 dedication per tree, and 1 attribute upgrade every 4 levels, and it costs 300 xp to fill out a tree so 300 xp/4 levels = 75 xp/level, the GM has approved my character starting with 225 earned xp)

The character concept is Shaolin monk meets jedi, who combines space-king-fu, light saber, and (as of FFG) telekinesis into a single effective fighting style.

Under RCR d20 the only effective way to combine martial arts and lightsaber combat was the "defensive throw" feat which let you throw someone whenever they missed you with a melee attack, which would interrupt a multi attack, so the d20 character was on the shortest path to get "defensive throw" (at 7th level).

The original build plan was Guardian:Warden/Niman-disciple, because Warden was the only spec at the time with the "overbalance" talent which is the closest FFG star wars equivalent of "defensive throw" and Warden allowed me to start with 2 ranks in ithe Brawl skil and 2 ranks in Discipline, and had a "sentinel like" skill set (skulduggery coercion). The d20 character started as the sentinel archetype (consular class with a different set of class skills and bonus feats, intended to be mixed with the investigator prestige class, but I went off script quickly, I just liked the sentinel class skills and feats better than consular). Also started Guardian:warden was more xp efficient than starting Consular:Niman-disciple to get the set of skills, talents, sense force power +upgrades, I wanted when restricting the character to 225 earned xp.

But recently the Martial artist spec was released, which also has over-balance, it also has "mind over matter" (spend a destiny point to recover strain equal to willpower rating) and a lot of other nifty martial arts talents like "natural brawler", "unarmed parry" (plus 2 more ranks of "parry" which is crazy useful with a lightsaber), plus more talents in the precision strike family and coordination dodge. Martial artist doesn't have a force rating talent BUT since niman disciple does (the only lightsaber form spec to date that does) taking niman disciple and martial artist would be like taking any other lightsaber form spec and another FS spec with one dedication and and a force rating talent, so I wouldn't be "behind the curve" compared to other jedi builds. And because of the layout of talents in the Martial Artist tree, I can still have a good set of skills, talents, the sense force power + upgrades (to make me harder to hit so more likely that incoming melee attacks will get the despair/threat needed to trigger overbalance), with the 225 earned xp that I'll start the game with)

Now given that niman-disciple has the "niman technique" talent which lets you use willpower attribute with the lightsaber combat skill and I was planning to max out willpower by the time I completed filling out my third spec (currently planned as force sensitive emergent because of many reasons including the "force of will" talent, and 2 ranks of indistinguishable [good for a "sentinel"]) because among other reason it's the skill that most force powers (and resisting most force powers) depends on. A very high willpower makes mind over matter, and "force of will" (once per session use willpower in place of any other attribute, you have to explain why it's relevant in this particular instance, and "force of will" and "clever solution" [same except for cunning], are crazy easy to justify in any situation) crazy useful.

Other specs I'm looking at for the 3rd spec and beyond are "arbiter" (from the upcoming "disciples of harmony" consular book, which the teasers make sound like it "could be" willpower focused, I'm hoping for another spec with "force of will" [currently "force sensitive emergent" is the only option], and yay its consular so no out of career 10 xp cost to take the spec), executioner ("death blow" spend destiny point to add damage equal to willpower" and other nifty talents), and "sentry" (a sentinel spec which provides "reflect improved" and "constant vigilance" talents and 2 ranks of "reflect" (which would bring the character to 5 ranks of parry and 5 ranks of reflect), and "shi-cho knight" (lots of parry, another rank of "defensive training" which with the 2 from "niman disciple" brings me to 3 which because of the "repulsor fist" cybernetic appendage/built in brawl weapon means it always applies for this character because he's always armed with a brawl weapon, and yes the d20 character had a cybernetic arm with a built in heavy blaster pistol that fired from the palm of the hand iron man style and I was always trying to use it as a touch attack open palm kung-fu strike which the GM wouldn't allow so the repulsor fist is actually a better fit than built in blaster, but no force rating)

So to get to the point: *FOR MY BUILD* (mixes space kung fu, with lightsaber combat, with telekinesis, while being willpower focused and a bit sneaky) martial artist was a better choice than Warden.