2 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Is it too soon to talk Last Jedi? There's some good talking points I want to hit, but spoilers are involved...

I think your safe, it’s all across the three forums

I wouldn't over think this too much. If a GM has a specific challenge/content level they are wanting to start their group at, more points until it 'feels' right is the answer. Before the campaign kicks off, roll up a PC or two, have them square off against potential planned opponents and see how they fare, then adjust.

My 2 cents on the subject: Knight-Level play is Padawan-Level. Since the book specifically says 150 earned xp is where you should begin to send players on their kyber crystal quests, that falls in line with initiates passing their final test and acquiring their kyber crystal, marking them as Padawans ready to have a personal teacher.

I also feel that it isn't until roughly 500xp that you get to the point of being a Jedi Knight. This gives a good amount of time available as a Padawan and gives the gm time to organically put the PC through their Jedi trials in order to become a Knight. Upper limit of being a Knight is probably a little over 1,000xp or so, then you're hitting close to being on the level of a Jedi Master.

When we are introduced to Obi-Wan, he was already ready to become a Jedi Knight in The Phantom Menace.

When we are re-introduced to Anakin as a Jedi, he was also about to become a Knight.

Probably the biggest canon reference to someone's ability as a Padawan is Ahsoka Tano since she spent the entire Clone Wars series as a Padawan. She could even pull off some amazing feats.

55 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Likewise not having that thing doesn't have to mean they don't "know how to do it" they just chose not to.

I think this is the big difference between your philosophy of the game and mine. In my game, if a character doesn't have a talent or power on their character sheet, they are not trained to use that talent or power. Period.

I'm not saying you're wrong to draw this line where you draw it in your game. Everyone draws it someplace. After all, as Donovan pointed out, it would be a bit nuts to say that you can only ever reflect a blaster shot if you spend 3 strain on the Reflect talent. And on the flipside, as I pointed out, it would be a bit nuts to use a vibrodagger and narrate that you're using a lightsaber.

This gets to something Donovan and I have disagreed about before. I think that when Kylo Ren uses the Force to stop a blaster shot in midair, he is proving that he has the Protect power--because I would never allow a PC to stop a shot with the Force (even just narratively) unless they were trained to do that. Donovan has a philosophy closer to yours, and so he thinks Kylo could be using a Triumph or a Despair in that scene.

To me, character sheets seem a bit meaningless if they are not a record of the skills and abilities that a character actually has. At least, if there is an ability that goes along with some talent, and a character lacks that talent, they ought to lack that ability. But I see how a game could also be run well from your perspective. (And indeed, it isn't as if I don't allow any fuzziness of this sort at all. I still allow players to describe their actions as "providing suppressing fire" even if they lack the Suppressing Fire talent.)

Well, Coleman Trebor was a jedi master ...

Knight-level should be more than enough for most padawans and even some knights. Maybe not enough for padawans like Anakin, Ahsoka and Barriss, but good enough for most of them. Like all the ones not in the small circle of survivors in the arena on Geonosis...

40 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

Well, Coleman Trebor was a jedi master ...

Knight-level should be more than enough for most padawans and even some knights. Maybe not enough for padawans like Anakin, Ahsoka and Barriss, but good enough for most of them. Like all the ones not in the small circle of survivors in the arena on Geonosis...

Seems like cannon fodder to me. If that guy was a master, unfortunately his ability to fight wasn't established at all prior to this moment and comes off as a student getting too cocky for his own good.

3 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Seems like cannon fodder to me. If that guy was a master, unfortunately his ability to fight wasn't established at all prior to this moment and comes off as a student getting too cocky for his own good.

Apparently he was on the jedi council, so not just a random master either.

It seems pure badassery is not what necessarily what gets you promoted in the order.

1 minute ago, penpenpen said:

Apparently he was on the jedi council, so not just a random master either.

It seems pure badassery is not what necessarily what gets you promoted in the order.

And he is also a perfect subject for this illustration: not all 'masters' have the same abilities or proficiencies. Which is part of the reason why it's so difficult to reach a consensus on what a knight or master is capable of IMO.

He was going up against a guy who gave Obi-Wan quite a lot of trouble, when Obi-Wan was was the greatest swordsman of the Order in the EU.

1 hour ago, Stan Fresh said:

He was going up against a guy who gave Obi-Wan quite a lot of trouble, when Obi-Wan was was the greatest swordsman of the Order in the EU.

Obi wan at that point was not the greatest swordsman, he didn't have the experience from the clone wars, also kenobi was great with a saber, but he was not gifted in it, merely he had the 'get good' attitude.

3 minutes ago, Siuolis said:

Obi wan at that point was not the greatest swordsman, he didn't have the experience from the clone wars, also kenobi was great with a saber, but he was not gifted in it, merely he had the 'get good' attitude.

true, the greatest swordsman bit is from the Revenge of the Sith novelization, so that's after the Clone Wars

he was till ridiculously good at saberin'

9 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

true, the greatest swordsman bit is from the Revenge of the Sith novelization, so that's after the Clone Wars

he was till ridiculously good at saberin'

Battle of Jabiim all the way

2 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

He was going up against a guy who gave Obi-Wan quite a lot of trouble, when Obi-Wan was was the greatest swordsman of the Order in the EU.

Well, I wouldn't say that swordsmanship played into that fight as much as it would have in a lightsaber duel, but that's splitting hairs.

My point is, if you compare knight level characters to people like Anakin, Obi-wan, Ahsoka, Barriss Offee and others who turned out to be pretty good at this whole warrioring business, they're going to come up short. Then again, I think most jedi came up short to that standard as well. For every skilled swordsman and warrior, I'd say there was at least three or four jedi who weren't really cut out for straight up fighting, even if they were perfectly capable as diplomats and cops ("We are keepers of the peace, not soldiers"), especially when backed up by the jedi reputation ("No one can kill a jedi") and powers like mind tricks. Most of the galaxy believed the hype, and not without reason, considering incidents like Qui-Gonn and Obi-wan's escape from the trade federation ship, but Dooku, as en ex-jedi, would have known this to be the exception rather than the rule, and proved the galaxy wrong on Geonosis.

So in short, if you feel that knight-level characters come up short as jedi, consider who you are comparing them to. If it's one of the 30ish who were among the last ones standing in the arena on Geonosis, remember that the strike force numbered 212 in total. Meaning that for every jedi still standing, six or so were on the ground.

I bet some of those guys weren't even Knight-level. I mean some of them might even have been... *shudders* rivals.

...

Which of course begs the question: Are there jedi minions?

Yes, there are, and yes, Anakin, you still get xp for defeating them.

If the Jedi order is anything like a modern combat unit, the majority of the Jedi were good at something aside stomping face. In modern terms it takes something like 15 - 20 people to make a single infantryman able to be put into combat. Sure the Jedi had a huge support network of civilians and weaker force users, the question I would pose is: Of the force users powerful enough to be Jedi, how many of them would it take to put an Anakin or Obi-Wan on the field?

My rule of thumb for my campaign is: about 500 XP for Jedi Knight, 1,000 for Jedi Master, 2,000 for a Jedi Council Member.

3 hours ago, ASCI Blue said:

If the Jedi order is anything like a modern combat unit

Definitely not. They were law enforcement and negotiators, not soldiers (until the Clone Wars).

And of course, we must remember, the whole point of the Clone Wars, for Palpatine, was to get those non-soldier Jedi out into the field and fighting, which (predictably) leads to the Order being decimated and decapitated. He ALSO knew they weren't really combat master super-soldiers, and he proved it. They were just the only powerful Force users who had a chance to stop him, so he had to get rid of them first.

16 hours ago, StanTheMan said:

And of course, we must remember, the whole point of the Clone Wars, for Palpatine, was to get those non-soldier Jedi out into the field and fighting, which (predictably) leads to the Order being decimated and decapitated. He ALSO knew they weren't really combat master super-soldiers, and he proved it. They were just the only powerful Force users who had a chance to stop him, so he had to get rid of them first.

And if they didn't die fighting, they were surrounded by war, death, and suffering, which leads to anger, fear, and hate, and no small number of them fell to the Dark Side. And those who both survived and did not fall tended to be alone, or with one or two other Jedi, and surrounded by Clone Troopers who Palpatine had final authority over through Order 66. Divide and Conquer and its finest.