Pretty much, the question is in the title.

I began playing recently, filling a niche in an existing party, which is comprised almost entirely of force-users (to one degree or another). My character is an Archaeologist, and I enjoy the role I play, but if I am being completely honest with myself... there is at least a bit of Force-envy present.

As stated, I like playing this character, so no regrets- I'm just considering the Force-sensitive options alongside others also in consideration (Big-Game Hunter, Trader, etc). I think I can play it out in the narrative, and Force-use is not as rare in this campaign as it may be in many... but it still feels like somewhat of a cop-out.

Thoughts? Examples? Did you sully your character concept, by slapping Force-sensitivity on as an afterthought, and live to regret the decision?

Thanks.

I've yet to experience any kind of regret but I've found it best to start with a non-Force Sensitive career, tack on Emergent or Exile, and then later move into one of the FaD specs. Looking at Archaeologist, both Exile and Emergent have a lot to offer without getting an FaD Force user spec.

Cop out schmopp out. Play what you wanna play and have fun.

I think playing a character who discovers their force sensitivity far along in their life could be pretty interesting from a roleplay perspective. I don't see an issue with it.

While I certainly don't see a problem with it, I don't think you should have force envy. I think you have an awesome and engaging concept as is!!

My character actually has the opposite, he regards the force as a cheap short cut replacement for skill.

I really liked big game hunter, which rp-wise would totally fit after this rancor hunt!

The other thing that might fit is entrepreneur. It's counter intuitive, but I could see is setting up a for hire fixer and location service, Astrid is the only real qualified person to run the business side of it. I see Astrid a lot like Rupert Giles from buffy.

7 hours ago, TheShard said:

While I certainly don't see a problem with it, I don't think you should have force envy.

I probably should have worded it differently. I'm not actually jealous of the force-users in the party. It's more like "Holy Frell, I'm playing Star Wars, I should Use the Force!" (This is my first PC).

Force-sensitivity was something I considered at conception, but I thought there were more important aspects of the character to focus on, even with knight level XP.

7 hours ago, TheShard said:

I see Astrid a lot like Rupert Giles from buffy.

Loved that guy- I'll take that as a compliment!

Sometimes im the other way round. I originally wanted to play enforcer and was considering later to buy into warden and not be force sensitive at all, however I knew I would have to buy over force talents for no benefit and ultimately decided to start as a warden. Now though the grapple talent that I wanted is in Martial Artist, so I could have been non FS , so I sometimes wish I could ditch force sensi and go Enforcer /Martial Artist.

I did it recently in a campaign. My reason for doing it was I'd started as a Modder, as I liked the idea of helping improve my team's kit as a mechanic. Unfortunately it turns out Modder is rubbish for Modding (can only add hard points to a tiny number of items, and jury rig a couple, no bonuses to chance to mod), so I wasn't really enjoying it. Also there was a change of players, which led to my being the only non-Force user in a group of Force users, rather than one non-Force user in a group with only one Force user, which I could see concerning the GM when he ran force related plot.

So in my case GM let me rebuild as Artisan, which will actually gain bonuses on Modding, and through Intuitive improvements allow extra Hard Points to significant numbers of other people's kit. The fluff for Artisan also mentions it as being a path that those who never recognise their Force talents are likely to follow.

The character was already also Cyber-tech, and kept that, and rebuilt all my dice pools as they were, even though it involved buying non-career skills.

Now, in character, what happened was we'd been investigating a Sith Alchemy lab, and the character cut themself on something. They then tried to use medicine to fix it, but failed. When it proceeded not to improve he tried using the Bacta tank during the ride home. None of the other players mentioned the DNA errors reported on it when he got out, though he noticed his chitin colour (Verpine) had changed (I guess the DNA it repaired against wasn't 100% his). He then got a Brain Implant Cybernetic. He is currently blaming it's miscalibration for any strange feelings he has sensed since.

Although I had xp enough to buy all the way to extra force and Intuitive Improvements, I haven't done so, as I want the awakening to happen over a significant period. Am also unlikely to any time soon learn any force power other than Manipulate.

Well, as someone playing a force sensitive in a mostly force sensitive group I can tell you that I regularly feel jealous of my non-fs companions ability to be jackass murder hobos without the risk of falling to the dark side. Last session my character's story popped up and I ended up murdering a guy. Ohh he had it coming, blah blah backstory, but that didn't stop me from taking like 23 conflict and counteracting 3 months worth of morality growth. During the same session our sniper smoked like 12 dudes and for him it was just another Friday night.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that its easy to feel like that grass is greener on the other side of the fence in this game. Advance however you feels it makes sense for your character. If the force sensitive awakening is the story you want to tell then do it and don't worry about what the others think, but I would caution doing it just because of force envy. From a power level point of view, going the FE route late in a campaign is very seldom worth the cost and effort. If it doesn't fit your characters story and you're doing it because you want some shiny new toys, I expect you will find the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Since worra seems gone, we also need a proper face or "leader" character, something to consider...

31 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

I expect you will find the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

I will have to borrow this line for a character I play, Vic Verno my ewok noir ex-cop .

37 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

If it doesn't fit your characters story and you're doing it because you want some shiny new toys, I expect you will find the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

As an Archaeologist, my character is all about finding the shiny new toys, but not really accumulating them; if you mean it in a more figurative sense... force-sensitivity could explain part of her backstory, and add a new dimension to the character (plus add useful space magic- shiny new powers- to her repertoire)...

But she does not need it.

51 minutes ago, SladeWeston said:

I expect you will find the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Perhaps I am wringing the wrong fruit, here.

3 minutes ago, Edgehawk said:

As an Archaeologist, my character is all about finding the shiny new toys, but not really accumulating them; if you mean it in a more figurative sense... force-sensitivity could explain part of her backstory, and add a new dimension to the character (plus add useful space magic- shiny new powers- to her repertoire)...

But she does not need it.

Perhaps I am wringing the wrong fruit, here.

Just something to consider. I mean there are force powers that are powerful without much force rating, Seek comes to mind, that would make a lot of sense for an Archaeologist. That being said, unless you group is playing a very long campaign, it will take a significant amount of time/xp before you can advance your FR beyond 1, making many of the coolest force powers inaccessible.

If you haven't started your game yet and you really want a force character I'd advise starting as a Seeker and jumping to Archaeologist early. Two reasons for this. First, from a RPing point of view, I have found the Force Emergent stories really seem to dominate story arches. If you already had an idea of the story you wanted to tell, a FE story will often overshadow that. Also, I have found it generally more useful to have one less skill and a FR of 1 than having to spec through one of the Force E specializations. This lets you get to 2 FR much quicker and in my experience FR 2 is the minimum of where you want to be to really start feeling like a Force User. At FR 1 your power checks are going to fail 60% of the time making them somewhat hard to rely on (FR 2 drops failures to 1/3). If on the other hand you are happy with picking up some minor tricks, dipping your toe into a FE spec might be cool. Honestly, you are lucky because Archaeologist are such generalists that it's hard to go wrong with their character advancement.

Best of luck with your choice. I hope whatever you pick bring you hours of fun.

21 hours ago, SladeWeston said:

I mean there are force powers that are powerful without much force rating, Seek comes to mind, that would make a lot of sense for an Archaeologist.

Seek, and maybe Enhance, are the only powers I would be.. um.. seeking. I don't expect this character to ever take a FaD spec, or progress beyond FR1 or 2, if force-sensitivity is introduced.

21 hours ago, SladeWeston said:

I have found the Force Emergent stories really seem to dominate story arches. If you already had an idea of the story you wanted to tell, a FE story will often overshadow that.

I think this route could add some flavor to the story, but I wouldn't want any sort of dominating, overarching impact on the story as it is currently being told. I think a latent/ mild affinity could be "discovered," perhaps explaining an uncanny knack for finding things?

23 hours ago, SladeWeston said:

I regularly feel jealous of my non-fs companions ability to be jackass murder hobos without the risk of falling to the dark side.

Hmm... She's not a jackass murder hobo... but she is capable of some moral ambiguity. This might warrant further consideration.

53 minutes ago, Edgehawk said:

Hmm... She's not a jackass murder hobo... but she is capable of some moral ambiguity. This might warrant further consideration.

This is one of those "your mileage may vary things". I have been in groups were as long as you aren't being a psychopath the GM was pretty okay with letting minor things slide. I am currently in a group were breaking down doors and not trying to talk our way out of a fight can trigger conflict. If you're in a group of mostly force sensitives, chances are you've already got an idea of how your GM treats conflict, but I figured it was worth mentioning. I had a character go the FE route a while back and the character was basically ruined by a GM who expected him to suddenly become a paladin.

Well, I'm pretty sure there is no age restriction on developing force powers. The fact that most find it at a young age, is simply an artifact of the structure of Star Wars. The stories generally are about young people having adventures, because the target audience is young people, for the most part. And this isn't unique to Star Wars, I've lost count of the number of roleplaying games and tv shows/movies that use "Powers = Puberty" trope, but it's hardly a requirement.

Given that the Force touches ALL LIVING THINGS, I've always personally seen it as anyone could develop sensitivity with the Force, some are just more naturally inclined to it. But with enough training, or exposure to weirdness, like digging up ancient Force artifacts over and over, anyone could eventually use the Force. To coin a phrase from The Matrix, it's all about learning that There Is No Spoon. Anyone can learn that there is no spoon, but for some, it takes a lot of training, and some, it comes naturally to them.

And, also not focusing yours PC's life on learning the Force factors in a great deal in my book. To give another example, lets say someone has a natural gift at gymnastics, but never really bothered with gymnastics. They did accounting instead, and they liked accounting, but they were secretly great at gymnastics. Then, one day, years later, they suddenly get a chance to actually try some of that parkour stuff, and tumbling exercises, and realize they have a knack for it, all it took was a little focus.

I see no reason this concept can't be applied to a character that learns how to tap into the force later in life.

Besides, I'm pretty sure there are tons of examples from the Legends stuff, of older characters developing force powers. Wasn't Kyle Katarn well into his 30's before he first started learning the force? Didn't Luke go out and find anyone he could that had a sensitivity, regardless of age?

I mean heck, the source book itself even comments about how anyone can become sensitive, at any time, that buying the talent tree simply represents the point in their life where they began to actively utilize their latent ability.

So yeah, make your PC a sensitive, go for it.

On 5/7/2017 at 8:26 AM, TheShard said:

While I certainly don't see a problem with it, I don't think you should have force envy. I think you have an awesome and engaging concept as is!!

I'm kind of in the same boat - one non-Jedi in a group of full on jedi While I roleplay up the force envy , from a game mechanics standpoint, there's no way I'd ever give up my engineer. Lifting a rock with one's mind is cool. Building a bazooka out of the spare parts in your pocket is cooler.

38 minutes ago, Desslok said:

I'm kind of in the same boat - one non-Jedi in a group of full on jedi While I roleplay up the force envy , from a game mechanics standpoint, there's no way I'd ever give up my engineer. Lifting a rock with one's mind is cool. Building a bazooka out of the spare parts in your pocket is cooler.

Personal preference on that front. I've never been a big fan of bazookas, and would rather be a space wizard with most characters. Granted, I usually don't change concepts as things go along, or at least not drastically. But then again, my Force Wizard Sage concept ended up becoming a Slicer, instead of sticking with Sage, due to events that took place. So going from Engineer to Force user has some precedent.

It could also be a desire to branch out. Depending on how long the PC has been played, there might not be much more advancement in that field that can be done. And the only real option is to diversify into something entirely different. I mean, you can only stack so many "Remove setback dice" talents before it becomes redundant.

I just discovered this conversation and totally concur with the "Holy Frell, it's Star Wars and you get to use the Force!" Attitude. Hence, my attitude as well.

The cool thing is that now that you've been introduced to a vastly ancient being who can communicate with you via telepathy and has been around since before the Sith and Jedi... aka- Sar Agorn In-game, You can now learn whatever you want! In and Out of Game, I had no idea about the Grey Jedi until Yorik's interactions with him so I say without hesitation that you can learn whatever you want....

And Yorik will gladly teach you Force Exile if you want... :-)