One pretty simple question with two follow-ons.
Are Force points characteristics?
- I.e. can you raise the score with the Discipline talent?
-If you take the Force Sensitive Exile talent tree at chargen (for 20 of your experience points), can you then spend another 20 of your experience points to raise your Force rating from 1 to 2?
12 minutes ago, easl said:One pretty simple question with two follow-ons.
Are Force points characteristics?
- I.e. can you raise the score with the Discipline talent?
-If you take the Force Sensitive Exile talent tree at chargen (for 20 of your experience points), can you then spend another 20 of your experience points to raise your Force rating from 1 to 2?
The answer is no: Force rating is not a characteristic, it's a separate quality, and so can't be increased with starting XP. The only way to raise it is with ranks in the Force Rating talent, which is in most Force-sensitive trees.
Edited by Absol197I'm sure it's in other forum posts, but it's important to note this as well:
So starting (and starting only) with a F&D career or later picking up one of the Force Sensitive universal specs allow you to have a Force Rating of 1. As Absol197 said, the Force Rating talent is the only way to increase it.
9 hours ago, easl said:One pretty simple question with two follow-ons.
Are Force points characteristics?
- I.e. can you raise the score with the Discipline talent?
-If you take the Force Sensitive Exile talent tree at chargen (for 20 of your experience points), can you then spend another 20 of your experience points to raise your Force rating from 1 to 2?
No on all counts.
Dedication only works on characteristics, and Force Rating isn't considered a characteristic, but is instead more of a "special ability."
Plus, the line for F/S Exile/Emergent let you "Gain Force Rating 1," denoting it's a flat value. So while nothing is stopping you from buying both Exile and Emergent (apart from XP costs), doing so won't increase your character's Force Rating as you've already gained a Force Rating of 1 from buying the previous spec.
Same logic holds for the F&D careers, as each of them lets the PC start with Force Rating of 1, so buying Exile or Emergent won't bump up your Force Rating there either, since again they're "Gain Force Rating 1" which your character already has.
In short, if you want to boost up your Force Rating within the rules, the only method available is to purchase the Force Rating talent.
All that being said, it's not a completely unheard-of house rule to allow F&D PCs to "buy up" Force Rating with XP at character creation using the same costs as increasing a characteristic, though usually only allowing a single bump to FR at a cost of 20XP. In the long run, this tends to make the PC a much more powerful Force user, especially if they started out in one of the Lightsaber Form specs (five of which don't have the Force Rating talent while the one that does has perhaps the most expensive path XP-wise to reach it), since 20XP is about one adventure's worth of earned XP, and is ground that can quickly be made up.
Another house rule I've seen a couple times is that if a F&D PC does purchase Exile or Emergent, to let them gain a single +1 to their Force Rating due to those specs not offering any new career skills the way that other specs would (including the Recruit from AoR, which is currently the only other published universal spec until Dawn of Rebellion hits shelves). Again, it's a cheap boost to Force Rating since as a second spec it's only 20XP to buy, but it does have the catch of giving the PC another place to spend XP on and can allow a fairly quick jump in Force Rating, especially Emergent which has a pretty quick path to its Force Rating talent.
As you can see, the problem with both is that each bump in Force Rating has a notable expansion on the PC's power in terms of Force usage, as they've got better chances of rolling double white pips the more dice they use, and for some powers (Move especially but also Bind, Protect/Unleash and to an extent Influence), the more Force dice you can roll, the greater the effect you can accomplish. There's been numerous threads about how horrifically game-breaking (YMMV) the Move power is when in the hands of a PC with a Force Rating of 3 or more, and while it's a bit more of "the sky is falling!" hypothetical scenarios, there's still an element of truth in those concerns.
Thanks for all the answers! I knew gaining one of the force talent trees started you out with a Force Rating of 1. Wasn't sure about whether it could be bumped up from there during chargen.