I do get where you're coming from with the whole initial force rating thing, in my group and other groups I've talked to, very few characters actually make use of the force talents until they get there second die of force rating. Yes I know there are things to do with just 1 pip of force, but alot of fun stuff cannot be done until you can consistently generate 2 or more pips.

Now I know a house rule used by another group and while my GM doesn't want to use it, I was thinking when it comes to my turn to GM I'd use it.

The rule is when you make a force rating check you generate a number of neutral force pips equal to your available force rating (so dedicating force dice does reduce this) and then roll your force dice for additional pips of black/white force pips. This allows your players to make more use of there force powers earlier in a campaign if that is what your looking for.

Another useful house rule is one our GM allows which is Force assist, you spend your action to force assist an engaged ally. When that ally makes a force power check you roll your own force rating and declare some or all of those pips as bonus pips to the engaged ally as neutral force pips, you still must flip a destiny point and take conflict to use a dark pip with this action.

We felt this represented those master/apprentice situations of working together to achieve a great feat.

3 hours ago, Leopardao said:

I do get where you're coming from with the whole initial force rating thing, in my group and other groups I've talked to, very few characters actually make use of the force talents until they get there second die of force rating. Yes I know there are things to do with just 1 pip of force, but alot of fun stuff cannot be done until you can consistently generate 2 or more pips.

Now I know a house rule used by another group and while my GM doesn't want to use it, I was thinking when it comes to my turn to GM I'd use it.

The rule is when you make a force rating check you generate a number of neutral force pips equal to your available force rating (so dedicating force dice does reduce this) and then roll your force dice for additional pips of black/white force pips. This allows your players to make more use of there force powers earlier in a campaign if that is what your looking for.

Another useful house rule is one our GM allows which is Force assist, you spend your action to force assist an engaged ally. When that ally makes a force power check you roll your own force rating and declare some or all of those pips as bonus pips to the engaged ally as neutral force pips, you still must flip a destiny point and take conflict to use a dark pip with this action.

We felt this represented those master/apprentice situations of working together to achieve a great feat.

There's no such thing as the neutral Force and no such thing as neutral pips.

There are mechanics in the game for achieving fantastic things - Advs/Triumphs/Destiny Pool. Why completely fabricate something that doesn't fit anywhere else when you could achieve it with generous use and interpretation of existing rules?

There are mechanics for bonus Force pips/Rating - have them start on a Light Nexus, or give them a Holocron (or Other Force Talisman) instead of a Mentor. Again, why completely fabricate nonsense when it could be handled with generous implementation of existing tools at your disposal?

1 hour ago, emsquared said:

There's no such thing as the neutral Force and no such thing as neutral pips.

There are mechanics in the game for achieving fantastic things - Advs/Triumphs/Destiny Pool. Why completely fabricate something that doesn't fit anywhere else when you could achieve it with generous use and interpretation of existing rules?

There are mechanics for bonus Force pips/Rating - have them start on a Light Nexus, or give them a Holocron (or Other Force Talisman) instead of a Mentor. Again, why completely fabricate nonsense when it could be handled with generous implementation of existing tools at your disposal?

Sorry for not being clear, this is a 50/50 thing.

One, neutral is a good way to use words to describe that half black half white symbol used in the books.

Two, in the case of force pips not coming directly from your own dice roll, it was explained to me that the force was neither purely black or white for the purposes of force powers that may have extra effects that trigger or don't trigger depending on the force.

If you were using the rule, personally I could see things like saying a darkside or lightside force user generates dark or light force pips.

10 hours ago, Leopardao said:

I do get where you're coming from with the whole initial force rating thing, in my group and other groups I've talked to, very few characters actually make use of the force talents until they get there second die of force rating. Yes I know there are things to do with just 1 pip of force, but alot of fun stuff cannot be done until you can consistently generate 2 or more pips.

Now I know a house rule used by another group and while my GM doesn't want to use it, I was thinking when it comes to my turn to GM I'd use it.

The rule is when you make a force rating check you generate a number of neutral force pips equal to your available force rating (so dedicating force dice does reduce this) and then roll your force dice for additional pips of black/white force pips. This allows your players to make more use of there force powers earlier in a campaign if that is what your looking for.

Another useful house rule is one our GM allows which is Force assist, you spend your action to force assist an engaged ally. When that ally makes a force power check you roll your own force rating and declare some or all of those pips as bonus pips to the engaged ally as neutral force pips, you still must flip a destiny point and take conflict to use a dark pip with this action.

We felt this represented those master/apprentice situations of working together to achieve a great feat.

And there seems no region, then, where you struggle to increase your skill. Luke had legendary skill, to some degree, but he still struggled to do simple things, like grab his lightsaber, or lift the X-Wing, at first. Having the little access to assets can also represent your subconscious telling you "no, this is impossible! You can't just move stuff with your mind!", as many characters in these games are supposed to have been raised outside the indoctrination of the Jedi Order. If you ever saw White Wolf's Mage: the Ascension, one of the mechanics was "magic is as hard to do as it is because most people don't believe in it", and, as you try to struggle, you get better, but their disbelief also continues to become more troublesome, up to, and including Paradox, as the universe puts you back in your place. This is similar; even Han Solo, who would've been a young boy when the Clone Wars, and the Jedi Order, ended, didn't believe in that magic mumbo-jumbo, and it was a popular, powerful group, in his lifetime. Most players would've been raised to believe such feats impossible; the fictions of fantasy, and the day they learn they can actually use it, they'll be at least as certain that it's BS, and fail. While you certainly have an easier time, only needing one pip, usually, to do something, it's still good to know you might not, or you'll need to dip into the dark pips, and get that bit of Conflict ("was there any other way we could've done this?")

The force in this version pf a sw rpg is remarkably balanced compared to other types of players.

If You want to start off farther down the jedi road then give more xp, hell give them a free talent tree like emergent or exile... Having neural pips allows paplayers to avoid the conflict mechanic which is in place for a reason. Having extra pips will make players way more Op compared to other non-fs career types, if that's ok with your table go ahead, I think however, the mechanics are five as is and there are better ways to accomplish your goal then to monkey with the rules.

On 5/17/2017 at 11:32 PM, Decorus said:

Having a high force rating does not make you awesome in FFG, honestly given the amount of xp you have to dump to achieve a decent force rating its extremely underwhelming.

I am well aware that just having a high FR doesn't make you powerful.

On 5/17/2017 at 11:32 PM, Decorus said:

A Force rating does nothing without the force powers and talents to back it up which costs even more experience.

That is correct.

On 5/17/2017 at 11:32 PM, Decorus said:

The current system requires you to basically power game your way into an extremely specific build to gain what you want to make your character work properly.

No it doesn't. You can be perfectly effective while you build your way to a more powerful character. Besides, everyone's "specific build" is never a starting character design. Never. It's always the "down the road of advancement" kind of concept. So it's hardly a unique, or even surprising thing that *gasp* You have to build up your character over time to make them very powerful. A character can "work properly" out the gate, it's insanely easy with this system. And it doesn't even require min/maxing.

On 5/17/2017 at 11:32 PM, Decorus said:

There is far too much Multiple Attribute Dependency Syndrome in Force and Destiny.

Hardly. I've yet to see a character concept, other than the most streamlined, min/maxed dps build, that doesn't require at least some investment in 2 Characteristics to be "truly powerful". None of them are designed to be One Trick Ponies really. Sure, one characteristic might be dominant for a build, but that's hardly unique to F&D. Scoundrel types would all benefit from having high Agility and Cunning. Social types would benefit from a high Willpower and Cunning. The F&D are no different. You don't HAVE to be 4 ranks in a Characteristic to be "effective" in something.

In my games my players get to choose to start with a bonus force rating or 30 extra starting xp. 30 bonus starting xp means they generally have at least one higher starting stat and this is the only chance they get to choose. I like force players to start with the 2 force rating

If you're unsure, you can wait and see. If an extra force die seems critical or important, you can grant one as a story reward.

On 5/14/2017 at 5:40 PM, ErikModi said:

So, I convinced my group to switch to the FFG Star Wars system from Saga Edition. One kind of sticky widget, however, involves Force Ratings. We're in an established campaign (characters are level 4 if memory serves), set in a homebrew setting involving a Second Galactic Empire propped up by an established Jedi Order. One of the PCs is a Jedi, the other is a Force-Sensitive not-Jedi-but-maybe-Dark-Side-leaning-but-maybe-not scoundrel. While I really like what FFG is doing with Star Wars, the Force Rating and its increases seem very limiting. So here's my proposed idea:

Any Force-Sensitive character (so you must already have a Force Rating of at least 1 to do this) can increase their Force Rating by spending XP equal to ten times the Force Rating you would have after the increase. So you can increase your Force Rating to 2 with 20 XP, 3 with 30, etc. The Force Rating Talents in the various Specializations stay as they are. Partly because I'm hesitant to start tugging at the threads of careers and specializations lest the whole thing come unraveled, partly because the specializations with more Force Rating talents are those that focus more on the Force in general, so I feel they should retain that flavor by getting potential cost breaks. For instance: a Specialization that has a Force Rating talent that costs 20 XP could use this house rule to get Force Rating 2 for 20XP, then buy the talent for 20 XP (plus prerequisites, of course) and save 10 XP on Force Rating 3 compared to others.

My major concern is: will I utterly screw over the system if I go with this? I want the characters to be a touch more powerful Force-wise, and want them (and, potentially, their adversaries) to be able to really cut loose with the Force at times, but will this really alter the balance of play and power at the table? The third character is a droid, basically designed as a combat medical unit, so he won't be getting any benefit from this, but having a dedicated healer character is (I'm gathering) a lot more important in this system than in Saga, so he should still have a lot of utility.

That is broken as all get out. Not that i'm advocating my coming proposal, but IF you were dead set on making force rating easy to get THEN I would recommend letting dedication be used to increase force rating instead of an attribute.

18 hours ago, Kilcannon said:

In my games my players get to choose to start with a bonus force rating or 30 extra starting xp. 30 bonus starting xp means they generally have at least one higher starting stat and this is the only chance they get to choose. I like force players to start with the 2 force rating

While this does still make Force users in the party quite more capable with their powers, it does offer a nice consolation to those PCs that either opted out of the Force Rating boost or simply aren't Force users to start with. Like you said, an extra 30 XP generally means an additional characteristic at 3 (which can be a very handy benefit for much of a PC's adventuring career), a few skills at 2 ranks instead of 1, or even starting out with some of the more expensive talents in a PC's initial spec.

In a way, this is reminiscent of how in WEG Star Wars, those PCs that weren't Force users had a bit of a leg up on the Jedi in the party, due to better starting attributes and not having to spread their starting skill points quite as far.