On 5/29/2018 at 11:51 AM, SEApocalypse said:

Would a 300-400 xp Gambler, Padawan Surviver, Force Exil & Force Emergent not be already at Force Rating 4? ?

No, those don’t apply if you already have a Rank, so that’s a force Rating one, unless you buy through the trees to get the talent, at which point you have invested a lot more. Hermit is actually the most cost effective means to get 3 Ranks, then stacking a 4th would be easy, but that’s without accounting for any Force Powers, stats etc. All of which is designed to weigh you down on xp to allow for balance.

I still say all a GM has to do is import the Genesys talent tree and call it done if they want a more open character advancement system. The existing talent trees in Star Wars provide easy guidance on what tier ranking to assign Star Wars talents in Genesys, and the sequential tier cost increase for ranked talents and scaling nature of the tree imposes the balance. There just isn't a need for a new product.

2 hours ago, Khazadune said:

No, those don’t apply if you already have a Rank, so that’s a force Rating one, unless you buy through the trees to get the talent, at which point you have invested a lot more. Hermit is actually the most cost effective means to get 3 Ranks, then stacking a 4th would be easy, but that’s without accounting for any Force Powers, stats etc. All of which is designed to weigh you down on xp to allow for balance.

You get FR 3 from just Emergent and Exile for about 150xp, there are just so many talents without ranks which save you tons of XP. Padawan surviver has iirc the 3rd rank in the talent. And you need something as starting career, no need to even invest XP into it.

Now there are certainly other ways as well maybe even some more XP effective, either way FR4 in itself is not a large XP investment.

1 hour ago, SEApocalypse said:

You get FR 3 from just Emergent and Exile for about 150xp, there are just so many talents without ranks which save you tons of XP. Padawan surviver has iirc the 3rd rank in the talent. And you need something as starting career, no need to even invest XP into it.

Now there are certainly other ways as well maybe even some more XP effective, either way FR4 in itself is not a large XP investment.

The example you provided takes 375 spent xp and you end with only 4 FP and no super useful talent combinations or any skills. Sure, you can spend hundreds of xp to achieve the 4 ranking, but that doesn’t make you Maul.

Mid you invest another couple of hundred of xp you can pull together a coherent character concept and bring in force talents, but all this goes towards the original point... this is expensive for a reason.

1 hour ago, Khazadune said:

The example you provided takes 375 spent xp and you end with only 4 FP and no super useful talent combinations or any skills. Sure, you can spend hundreds of xp to achieve the 4 ranking, but that doesn’t make you Maul.

Mid you invest another couple of hundred of xp you can pull together a coherent character concept and bring in force talents, but all this goes towards the original point... this is expensive for a reason.

My point was that force rating 4 is dirt cheap. But I guess we have different viewpoints and expensive in the first place. And about what useful talent combinations are.

On 5/17/2018 at 11:27 PM, Ahrimon said:

Allow me to attempt to elaborate on how I am looking at it. First, it's not a matter of XP. Any character concept could be made with an unlimited amount of XP. It's more, for 200 xp I could have the basics of my character to where it's now coming together. I can do the things I want. I'm not great, but good enough and have my desired bases at least touched on with definite room for improvement. VS it takes me 300 to 400 xp to fill in that basic foundation and I had to take several talents that had absolutely nothing to do with the desired direction of my character.

Another way to look at it. Say you have a career plan and pick most appropriate school. You've taken the main courses and started your career but want to continue your education down a certain path to get better. Your school doesn't offer any more of those courses so they tell you that you will have to find a different school to take the courses you want. Only when you go there they tell you that before you can take the courses that you want you have to take several other courses that have absolutely nothing to do with your career path. There's no negotiation, it's just "if you want the 300 level engineering course, you have to take history 102, and underwater tapestry weaving 1 and 2 first. Oh, and you have to join the dance team." The Genesys rules are more like a school that says "if you want the 300 level engineering course, you'll have to take some 100 and 200 level courses first to balance out your load. Go ahead and pick whichever ones you want that you think will be good for you though, we're cool like that."

Hi Ahrimon,

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I think I understand - the issue is more in terms of rigid progression paths forcing players to pick up talents that they aren't necessarily that keen on taking or, if the player if starting with a higher level character might feel is not in keeping with the character they wish to create.

Personally, I would suggest that in most cases you might have overstated the thematic departure of talent branches - as I think FFG have done a pretty good job on the whole of grouping talents in a thematically consistent manner. To my mind it's usually more akin to "You want the Engineering degree but you'll also learn byproduct skills such as technical drawing."

I think I understand, and to a degree sympathise with that specific issue, though personally I find it more compelling, rather than less - as it reflects what I would consider to be a more natural character progression, as we certainly pick things up tangentially without intending to do so all the time. I suppose it just makes sense to me.

I can certainly see why people would prefer the Genysis system - I think it clearly offers a finer degree of control. Though again, personally, I do not think greater control always = greater fun for me. I usually prefer my decision making to actually be confined to situation parameters.

At the same time, I think I concur with some of the other comments, regarding a loss of a certain je n'ais se quoi if you move away from those specialisation trees. Perhaps it's also because I feel like swrpg, when compared to Genysis, is a little more focused on a type of push and pull with player agency, if that makes sense.

Anyway, thank you again for the response. Sorry not to have acknowledged it sooner.