Sneak Attack:

Tier 2

Ranked: Yes

Active (Manoeuvre)

Make a sneak attack manoeuvre to add or increase Pierce equal to ranks in sneak attack to your next Combat check. Can only be applied once to an Attack.

Take note this could even apply to the Magic Attack Spell.

Sneak Attack (Improved):

Tier 4

Ranked: No

Active (Manoeuvre)

May add or increase Vicious instead of Pierce when performing the Sneak Attack Manoeuvre.

Sneak Attack (Supreme):

Tier 5

Ranked: No

Active (Incidental)

Once per encounter may suffer 2 Strain to perform the Sneak Attack manoeuvre as an Incidental.

Pyromancer:

Tier 4

Ranked: No

Passive

Add the Fire Enhancement (Burn) to any Spells cast where that is an option for no increase in difficulty.

Frost Mage:

Tier 4

Ranked: No

Passive

Add the Ice (Ensnare) Enhancement to any Spell cast for no increase in difficulty.

8 hours ago, TheSapient said:

There is a lot to unpack here, and it is a very cool collection. I'm going to address some things I think may be problematic.

Nightstalker: Doubling movement is a huge thing, and "undetected" is pretty vague. I'm not sure what this would mean in a lot of situations as well. If a character is successfully being stealthy, they can move twice as fast as someone who is flat out running?

Toxic Blade: I take this to mean that one damage that bypasses soak is applied. If that is correct, I think this is a nice, flavorful talent,

Elaborate Planning: needs more precise wording. Like "Take an Elaborate Planning action. If you take no other actions, maneuvers, or incendentals, and you are not the target of any other characters actions, before your next action, your first action on your next turn gains 2 SUCCESS.

Marked for Death: Also needs more precise wording.

I'll look at the rest later!

Here they are, revised and tweaked. If anything needs to be clarified, please let me know. Cricicism is very much welcome on the rest of the talents as well!

I swapped Toxic Blade and Nightstalker's talent tiers, as Movement really is a big deal, considerably more so for a damage dealer like a Rogue who wants to be under Stealth at all times.

For talents from the Subtlety/Outlaw specs, whenever I use minor action or free action or whatever, those mean maneuver and incidental, respectivelly.

Master Poisoner (T1): May apply/re-apply poison to a weapon as a maneuver.

Toxic Blade (T2/T4): Whenever you hit with a poisoned blade, 1 damage bypasses soak, regardless of type. (I.e. even if you deal 0 damage on an attack, your opponent’s Wound Threshold would ALWAYS go down by 1, unless magically protected or whatnot).

Nightstalker (T3): While nobody is aware of your presence (mustn't aware to begin with) , you may move up to twice the range that you normally would while running.

Elaborate Planning (T4): You may spend an entire turn planning your next attack/action, but you must not targeted by any other character’s actions and not take any maneuvers/actions/incidentals during the turn yourself. If you’re left alone for the duration, add +2 SUCCESS to the result of your next action.

Marked for Death (T5): Spend an entire turn planning your victim’s demise, must be uninterrupted (as with Elaborate Planning) . If successful, you or a designated character will deal twice the damage on the first successful attack.

8 hours ago, TheSapient said:

It is

These are good, IMO. However, we already have a Finesse and Finesse Improved in the list.

Whoops.

For me, I felt like adding Agility/Dexterity to damage is something that only ever made sense from a game mechanics standpoint: people want Finesse, then people want to not feel like their choice and investment to use Finesse gimps them, so let's add the ability to deal damage with your Finesse stat.

Here, I feel like we have the tools to find other ways to make that choice relevant without retreading that same ground.

First, you're psuedo adding Agility to damage, because rolls in this game aren't just to-hit, so the difference between Agility and Brawn on the actual roll is basically nil.

Second, no one is starting with negative Brawn, so everyone is, at minimum, adding 1 damage from Brawn, and the difference between the highest and lowest is pretty small (4).

To me, attacking with Agility feels like it should be faster, maybe more precise. Hence Pierce. Not sure what to do to represent "faster." Maybe it's just me putting my preferences before what's good for the game, but I just don't like the idea of adding other characteristics to damage. Heck, I wasn't too thrilled with Force and Destiny's using each different characteristic for attack, but it was a unique way to differentiate the lightsaber forms without loading up each specialization tree with a ton of unique and complicated talents. The way they did it, each form feels different from the get go, then gets 2-3 talents that complete the picture.

I do agree that, for a melee character, focusing on something besides Brawn feels much weaker than it does in D&D, since Brawn is this system's "god stat" adding to damage, defense, hit points, a couple relevant skills, and encumbrance. I think we have the tools to make Agility both a reasonable focus stat and make it feel different.

11 minutes ago, Tkalamov said:

Here they are, revised and tweaked. If anything needs to be clarified, please let me know. Cricicism is very much welcome on the rest of the talents as well!

I swapped Toxic Blade and Nightstalker's talent tiers, as Movement really is a big deal, considerably more so for a damage dealer like a Rogue who wants to be under Stealth at all times.

For talents from the Subtlety/Outlaw specs, whenever I use minor action or free action or whatever, those mean maneuver and incidental, respectivelly.

Master Poisoner (T1): May apply/re-apply poison to a weapon as a maneuver.

Toxic Blade (T2/T4): Whenever you hit with a poisoned blade, 1 damage bypasses soak, regardless of type. (I.e. even if you deal 0 damage on an attack, your opponent’s Wound Threshold would ALWAYS go down by 1, unless magically protected or whatnot).

Nightstalker (T3): While nobody is aware of your presence (mustn't aware to begin with) , you may move up to twice the range that you normally would while running.

Elaborate Planning (T4): You may spend an entire turn planning your next attack/action, but you must not targeted by any other character’s actions and not take any maneuvers/actions/incidentals during the turn yourself. If you’re left alone for the duration, add +2 SUCCESS to the result of your next action.

Marked for Death (T5): Spend an entire turn planning your victim’s demise, must be uninterrupted (as with Elaborate Planning) . If successful, you or a designated character will deal twice the damage on the first successful attack.

How about: Toxic Blade : Whenever you hit with a poisoned weapon, you deal a minimum of 1 damage, regardless of soak.

Nightstalker seems much too good. It feels like it's trying to deal with the D&D rules, where you move slower while sneaking, but since this system doesn't have that kind of rule, you went faster while sneaking undetected? Also, since "running" isn't a thing here, the talent is unclear. I suppose it would be (in structured combat), allowing you to move two range bands with one maneuver if unobserved, but that still seems much too good.

Elaborate Planning feels weak. You give up an entire turn, and hope your opponents ignore you ( or you spend one turn getting in position where you can be ignored before giving up an entire turn) to then have a better chance at succeeding on one skill check? Also, this feels like it will often just automatically grant 2 Success outside of combat: if time isn't a factor, you could always just stand there contemplating before taking an action.

Marked for Death at least covers that last part, by making it a combat-only ability. I think trading your turn to deal double damage, or have someone else deal double damage is a better trade-off than Elaborate Planning. It still feels clunky to me.

These almost certainly should be skill checks, I think. Maybe a Hard Perception check, or some kind of Knowledge check? Or a Leadership check for MFD if directing another character?

It could be: Take the Elaborate Planning Action: make a skill check. If successful, add (something) to your next action. If you use a maneuver, or are affected by an opponent's skill check or ability, or take damage, your plans are ruined...or something like that?

20 minutes ago, Tkalamov said:

Here they are, revised and tweaked. If anything needs to be clarified, please let me know. Cricicism is very much welcome on the rest of the talents as well!

I swapped Toxic Blade and Nightstalker's talent tiers, as Movement really is a big deal, considerably more so for a damage dealer like a Rogue who wants to be under Stealth at all times.

For talents from the Subtlety/Outlaw specs, whenever I use minor action or free action or whatever, those mean maneuver and incidental, respectivelly.

Master Poisoner (T1): May apply/re-apply poison to a weapon as a maneuver.

Toxic Blade (T2/T4): Whenever you hit with a poisoned blade, 1 damage bypasses soak, regardless of type. (I.e. even if you deal 0 damage on an attack, your opponent’s Wound Threshold would ALWAYS go down by 1, unless magically protected or whatnot).

Nightstalker (T3): While nobody is aware of your presence (mustn't aware to begin with) , you may move up to twice the range that you normally would while running.

Elaborate Planning (T4): You may spend an entire turn planning your next attack/action, but you must not targeted by any other character’s actions and not take any maneuvers/actions/incidentals during the turn yourself. If you’re left alone for the duration, add +2 SUCCESS to the result of your next action.

Marked for Death (T5): Spend an entire turn planning your victim’s demise, must be uninterrupted (as with Elaborate Planning) . If successful, you or a designated character will deal twice the damage on the first successful attack.

For me I don’t like the mechanic of spending an entire turn, not being interrupted. That’s a completely new thing with no basis in any other part of the game. You would be better sticking to a single Action, perhaps with no move manoeuvre allowed.

Also Marked for Death is a Talent in Star Wars, it adds 2 Advantage to checks. You should perhaps find a different name for yours so that the original can be brought across without confusion

3 minutes ago, yeti1069 said:

Nightstalker seems much too good. It feels like it's trying to deal with the D&D rules, where you move slower while sneaking, but since this system doesn't have that kind of rule, you went faster while sneaking undetected? Also, since "running" isn't a thing here, the talent is unclear. I suppose it would be (in structured combat), allowing you to move two range bands with one maneuver if unobserved, but that still seems much too good.

I agree with this. Free Running is a better fit for this concept, spending 2 Advantage from a check to use it.

Thanks y'all for the feedback. Pretty new to this whole talent-building thing, so any and all criticism is wholeheartedly welcome.

I've taken some notes from your suggestions, and revised the discussed talents. Take a look at them + the ones from the other 2 Rogue Specializations.

EDIT: Added "May suffer 1 strain" to the Grappling Hook talent.

Rogue specs.docx

26 minutes ago, Tkalamov said:

EDIT: Added "May suffer 1 strain" to the Grappling Hook talent.

For grappling hook there’s a talent in Force and Destiny a lot like this, called Free Running. But it costs 1 Strain to move to Short, the Improved version allows moving to Medium for 3 Strain

2 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

For grappling hook there’s a talent in Force and Destiny a lot like this, called Free Running. But it costs 1 Strain to move to Short, the Improved version allows moving to Medium for 3 Strain

Okay, maybe I can use that and integrate it into Grappling Hook. Thanks for the reference!

Tier 3 for both seems right, if it’s a super fitting and appropriate talent for your setting then perhaps reduce the cost of the Improved version to 2 Strain

5 hours ago, Tkalamov said:

Okay, maybe I can use that and integrate it into Grappling Hook. Thanks for the reference!

Please note that Freerunning is already a talent in the GTE document.

6 hours ago, Tkalamov said:

Thanks y'all for the feedback. Pretty new to this whole talent-building thing, so any and all criticism is wholeheartedly welcome.

I've taken some notes from your suggestions, and revised the discussed talents. Take a look at them + the ones from the other 2 Rogue Specializations.

EDIT: Added "May suffer 1 strain" to the Grappling Hook talent.

Rogue specs.docx

Hi,

I'm just speaking from there point of view of integrating talents into the Genesys Talents Expanded collection here. The talents themselves may be perfect for your own settings.

Talents in Genesys start at a specific tier, and are ranked or not. Having talents that can be taken at, say T2 and T4 are not consistent with this.

Poison is not yet a thing in Genesys, so talents which reference poisons are hard to deal with.

Being in or out of steath is not really a Genesys thing. Instead, you make a skill check when Stealth is relavent.

8 hours ago, yeti1069 said:

How about: Toxic Blade : Whenever you hit with a poisoned weapon, you deal a minimum of 1 damage, regardless of soak.

Be careful with this, a lot of things require the character to be able to breach the soak of the target, and this would effectively bypass that.

Hey everyone! The discussion here has been fantastic. It does make it hard for the review team to suss out what we should be considering, so...

Please continue to use this thread to hash out ideas. When you are ready, and feel your talent(s) are consistent with the principles set out HERE , please MESSAGE ME your talents in the following format:

All-Terrain Driver
Tier: 1
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
Do not suffer usual penalties for driving through different terrain when using Driving.

Thanks!

.

Well well well... Nice. I was just thinking since Genesys was now out, perhaps I would revisit my old Savage Worlds SWRPG mashup "Savage Edge" I never finished, and see if I could take all the talents I tiered for that and do exactly this.

I will gladly skip it and use yours! Thanks!

Precise Aim seems woefully under powered. The Aim maneuver by itself adds one Boost Die. Precise Aim (1) removes one Setback from Defense die for 1 Strain as a maneuver. Ummm, what? We know a Boost die is slightly better than a Setback die (given the extra Advantage pip). Also, being limited to removing dice from Melee or Ranged Defense is far more restricting.

At rank 2 you are spending a maneuver and 2 strain to remove two Setback dice from Defense vs Aiming twice for 2 Strain (for the extra maneuver) and you can use it to target the squishy mage.

At rank 3 maybe it becomes worth it, but only if you are consistently fighting guys in plate + shield in guarded stance.

Making it a Tier 3 talent just make the cost-benefit analysis that much worse.

My suggestion is to rename it and make it an enhancement to the Aim maneuver.

Find Weakness
Tier: 3
Activation: Passive
Ranked: Yes
Once per round, when performing the Aim maneuver, suffer a number of strain no greater than ranks in Find Weakness , then reduce target's melee and ranged defense by that number.

18 hours ago, Tkalamov said:

(T2/T4)

(T3/T5)

I don't have the book, yet, so I'm not sure if there is precedence for this. If not, then you're conflating ranked talents with "Improved" lines. Based on what you're trying to do, you should probably just use the improved talent structure, possibly with a minor extra tacked onto one.

18 hours ago, Tkalamov said:

Toxic Blade

A number of people have already pointed out the problem with letting you bypass soak this efficiently: You can just casually activate any weapon quality. I don't think that's what you want to do...?

Assuming you're trying to make a poison-based talent, here's a better version:

With But a Scratch : You may activate the poison weapon quality on a successful hit that deals no damage.

With But a Scratch (Improved) : When you activate the poison weapon quality, you may spend [advantage] or [triumph] to inflict a critical condition, regardless of the weapon's actual critical rating.

On 12/20/2017 at 8:15 AM, TheSapient said:

Our goal is to create a useful collection of talents from which gaming groups can choose as many or as few as they like. However, we do wish this list to be internally consistent and cohesive.

Thanks for all the hard work.

As a thought, it seems that it would be helpful to categorize talents by their general purpose by way of an additional column in the spreadsheet and/or a sorted table to the word doc that cross-references the name to the category. Examples of these categories might be Combat, Social, Piloting, Survival, Movement, etc. This way if someone is only interested in social skills, they dont have to scan through 300+ talents. If the categories are in the spreadsheet, then the user can sort by this or other columns as they see fit.

1 hour ago, lyinggod said:

Thanks for all the hard work.

As a thought, it seems that it would be helpful to categorize talents by their general purpose by way of an additional column in the spreadsheet and/or a sorted table to the word doc that cross-references the name to the category. Examples of these categories might be Combat, Social, Piloting, Survival, Movement, etc. This way if someone is only interested in social skills, they dont have to scan through 300+ talents. If the categories are in the spreadsheet, then the user can sort by this or other columns as they see fit.

This is something that I've considered, and I do know how I would like to do it. It may happen later, but probably not anytime soon due to the large workload involved.

1 hour ago, lyinggod said:

Thanks for all the hard work.

As a thought, it seems that it would be helpful to categorize talents by their general purpose by way of an additional column in the spreadsheet and/or a sorted table to the word doc that cross-references the name to the category. Examples of these categories might be Combat, Social, Piloting, Survival, Movement, etc. This way if someone is only interested in social skills, they dont have to scan through 300+ talents. If the categories are in the spreadsheet, then the user can sort by this or other columns as they see fit.

That's a great idea! I may do that on my end! Wish I had read this two days ago, heh.

If I do get around to this, I'll share it.

Sifting through it, I couldn't find That's How It's Done, the Instructor's talent found in Lead by Example. Was that excluded or forgotten?

2 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

Sifting through it, I couldn't find That's How It's Done, the Instructor's talent found in Lead by Example. Was that excluded or forgotten?

I can't find any notes on why it is in the rejected pile. Most likely just an error, unless ESP77 can remember any discussion we had.

On 12/26/2017 at 10:58 AM, TheSapient said:

All-Terrain Driver
Tier: 1
Activation: Passive
Ranked: No
Do not suffer usual penalties for driving through different terrain when using Driving.

Should that be “difficult terrain”?

4 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

Should that be “difficult terrain”?

I'm sure you are right, but opening book.......and you are indeed correct. Thanks!

2 hours ago, TheSapient said:

I can't find any notes on why it is in the rejected pile. Most likely just an error, unless ESP77 can remember any discussion we had.

No idea. Let’s put it back into the ring for consideration.