Swift: the character does not suffer the penalties for moving through difficult terrain (he moves through it at normal speed, without spending additional maneuvers)

Outdoorsman: The character removes 1 Setback per rank of Outdoorsman from checks to move through terrain or manage terrain or environmental effects. Decrease overland travel times by 50% (non-stacking).

I feel like I'm missing something here. Isn't Swift a strictly better talent? Reducing overland travel time for the party is a decent perk, but most overland travel is abstract to begin with.

One talent reduces the number of maneuvers it takes to move in difficult terrain, and the other reduces Setbacks added to dice pools by terrain or other environmental factors.

Swift is for very specific structured encounters, it provides a mechanical benefit in only one situation. As GM that requires you to only do a small amount of work to include areas of difficult terrain in the encounter.

Outdoorsman on the other hand provides a much greater benefit, but that benefit is largely Narrative. The biggest benefit in a structured encounter is ignoring 1 Setback on Combat checks cause by the environment:

Dark, Fog, Smoke, Wind, Rain, Cold, Hot...

You name a natural phenomenon that makes life more difficult and this talent removes one setback. Climbing in the rain? Attacking in the dark? Tracking in fog? Negotiating a treaty with pirates over the noise of the howling wind? Chasing a foe down a steep hill covered in shale?

Then you add the 50% thing. That could turn a 2 week trek through the jungle into a week! A three month expedition becomes six weeks!

For GM’s we know a lot of the time overland travel moves at the speed of plot. If you where going to get there a day late then no matter the hiccups along the way the party always arrives a day late. But this talent lets you make the player feel immediately more useful:

”the local sheriff says it’s a 6 hour ride on the road to the farm while cutting across the forest will take 8. The bad guys rode off down the road an hour ago ”

Imediatly the Outdoorsman does the maths and knows they can get there in 4, beating the bad guys. But you didn’t have to tell them that, you didn’t hand them the information directly, you didn’t open a Magic portal to do it.

This can let you give the group the upper hand some times. They get to the farm ahead of the bad guys and help the farmers. It’s a tool for you as gm to offer options, it just takes more thought and planning until you can act without thinking in a session.

Thanks, that is helpful. I was only seeing it from a tactical movement perspective.

Hi, I'm sorry, but where is the Outdoorsman Talent from?

Edge of the Empire, Survivalist tree, I think.

Edit: I checked, and it's actually in all three Star Wars core rulebooks (Edge of the Empire, Force and Destiny, Age of Rebellion).

12 hours ago, wariojosh said:

Hi, I'm sorry, but where is the Outdoorsman Talent from?

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/265863-genesys-talents-expanded/

Download it. Use it. Love it! (Keep checking for updates. There's more Star Wars on the way iirc.)