I want to create a new specialization for my players, does anyone have any advise?

Study ALL the other spec trees for a very long time and ideally read all the text available on all those trees from the books before even entertaining the idea. It appears to be very easy to create an over powered tree or unbalanced tree if you aren't careful.

Then post your ideas here to get suggestions and tips... And be sure to keep an open mind and listen to the advice.

(Listening doesn't necessarily mean doing as is suggested... just that you at least consider what is said)

Do I!

Okay, so, from my analysis, trees have between 10 and 17* unique talents in them; however, they are strongly clustered in the 13-15 range. That means that you want to have at least 6 ranks of ranked talents. Also, consider that not all ranked talents are equal. Kill with Kindness is less valuable in most every situation than Reflect.

To start with, take a blank tree, put Dedication in row 5, and set aside 2 ranks in Grit and 2 ranks in Toughened. If this is supposed to be a Force tree, also put a Strong in the Force (my name for the Force Rating talent) in the bottom row. This gives you 15 (or 14) blank spaces to work with. Next, choose one or two basic ranked talents (Setback removal, or minor Boost-adding, such as Kill with Kindness, Convincing Demeanor, Shortcut, Uncanny Reactions/Senses) and add in two to four ranks (combined) of those talents. Now you've got your canvas, start painting in the fun stuff!

If you find yourself running out of space, you can start by removing ranks in Grit or Toughened; that's what they're there for - to be filler that's removable if necessary. I wouldn't try inventing many new talents at first - those are much trickier to balance than you might think. Also, no grab-bags of the best stuff: find four, maybe five, good talents that you feel REALLY need to be in this tree, then fill in the rest with useful, but not necessarily mind-blowing, goodies.

And there's your starting point! The only thing we haven't talked about is the layout, and the connections. You have to make sure you don't make the powerful stuff too easy to get to, but you can massage that by playing with the connections between trees.

* The Padawan Survivor broke this trend with 18 unique talents.

So the reason that I want to do this is that one of my players wants to be a clone, and I decided that the new thing that I could do to represent the training that clones got, was to create a class free specialisation, like the recruit from AoR.

this is what I came up with, though I would love feedback on it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-wMWag4AvgRwnUSHR9FfAXdFCn9OYdTipQ9_2zZKdN4

3 minutes ago, Sherblock said:

So the reason that I want to do this is that one of my players wants to be a clone, and I decided that the new thing that I could do to represent the training that clones got, was to create a class free specialisation, like the recruit from AoR.

this is what I came up with, though I would love feedback on it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-wMWag4AvgRwnUSHR9FfAXdFCn9OYdTipQ9_2zZKdN4

I can try to take a look later, but you know that the Retired Clone Trooper specialization was in the just released Dawn of Rebellion , right? That might fit your needs and be much easier than balancing a new tree.

I did not know that, but thanks!

Having put together a few custom specializations, I'd say it's really more of an art form than any sort of science, especially has time has gone on and FFG has done some funky things with how various specializations are laid out (Heavy and especially Gambler come quickly to mind).

I will say that it can be awfully tempting to put a lot of "good" talents in the tree, and that is a very dangerous temptation, especially if it's a universal spec as there's less penalty in folks wanting to buy said spec. At worst, you wind up with a glorified grab bag of goodies; during the F&D Beta there were a number of homebrew attempts at a "Padawan" spec that quite simply were a munchkin's fantasy, stacking ranks of Parry and Reflect, one or both Improved Versions, and a Force Rating, all of which were fairly easy to access.

I'd agree with Absol197 that if your player is looking to be a former Republic Clone Trooper, then the Retired Clone Trooper universal spec from Dawn of Rebellion will be right up your player's alley, as said spec can make the PC quite a badass in combat, as well as providing access to all the major combat skills as bonus career skills and a couple of helpful additions that most combat-centric careers don't always have.

Edit: Also, when creating a homebrew specialization, especially universal ones, a very important question you need to be answer "Is there a mechanics-based reason why I wouldn't take this specialization?" If you can't come up with at least two concrete mechanics-based reasons why any character wouldn't take the spec regardless of their concept within a few minutes, then it's probably bordering on being too good. If you can't come up with any concrete mechanics-based reasons after several minutes, then it's definitely too good and you need to go back to the drawing board.

11 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Having put together a few custom specializations, I'd say it's really more of an art form than any sort of science, especially has time has gone on and FFG has done some funky things with how various specializations are laid out (Heavy and especially Gambler come quickly to mind).

I will say that it can be awfully tempting to put a lot of "good" talents in the tree, and that is a very dangerous temptation, especially if it's a universal spec as there's less penalty in folks wanting to buy said spec. At worst, you wind up with a glorified grab bag of goodies; during the F&D Beta there were a number of homebrew attempts at a "Padawan" spec that quite simply were a munchkin's fantasy, stacking ranks of Parry and Reflect, one or both Improved Versions, and a Force Rating, all of which were fairly easy to access.

I'd agree with Absol197 that if your player is looking to be a former Republic Clone Trooper, then the Retired Clone Trooper universal spec from Dawn of Rebellion will be right up your player's alley, as said spec can make the PC quite a badass in combat, as well as providing access to all the major combat skills as bonus career skills and a couple of helpful additions that most combat-centric careers don't always have.

Edit: Also, when creating a homebrew specialization, especially universal ones, a very important question you need to be answer "Is there a mechanics-based reason why I wouldn't take this specialization?" If you can't come up with at least two concrete mechanics-based reasons why any character wouldn't take the spec regardless of their concept within a few minutes, then it's probably bordering on being too good. If you can't come up with any concrete mechanics-based reasons after several minutes, then it's definitely too good and you need to go back to the drawing board.

14 hours ago, Absol197 said:

I can try to take a look later, but you know that the Retired Clone Trooper specialization was in the just released Dawn of Rebellion , right? That might fit your needs and be much easier than balancing a new tree.

Using that would be great, it would be exactly what I'm looking for, but as my game starts on saturday I don't have the time to wait. Thanx for the feedback but I will use my own one for now, although it is subject to change.

It’s not the least broken I have seen. You seem to be suggesting this is an entirely different career, in which case it’s potentially 8 career skills, and 4 ranks in those skills, short of any other character. If you want this to be a Specialisation if it’s own you need to come up with those skills.

2 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

It’s not the least broken I have seen. You seem to be suggesting this is an entirely different career, in which case it’s potentially 8 career skills, and 4 ranks in those skills, short of any other character. If you want this to be a Specialisation if it’s own you need to come up with those skills.

No I don't want it to be a new career, but as I stated before, more like the recruit from AoR, to represent the clones being trained for service and learning some skills essential to the war effort. Therefor the Clone specialization will not be bound to any career, as stated in the top of the document.

33 minutes ago, Sherblock said:

No I don't want it to be a new career, but as I stated before, more like the recruit from AoR, to represent the clones being trained for service and learning some skills essential to the war effort. Therefor the Clone specialization will not be bound to any career, as stated in the top of the document.

Ok, the description:

“This specialization can only be chosen in character creation, an is chosen instead of the free career specialization. If you chose this, that means that unless you buy another specialization, this is you're only specialization. “

doesn’t read anything like the universal Specialisation, it says it can only be taken at character creation and can be your only spec. If it is chosen as your only spec then you don’t have a career? Or you choose a career then choose this spec? What Career?

You would chose a career and then chose this instead of the normal career specialization. I did this with one of my player yesterday, and he ended up spending his xp on getting another specialization later,and taking a talent from each tree. The only thing that came from him choosing to be a clone was the ability to have a more fun backstory and that he got a rank in ranged heavy and athletics, making him a little more resilienent and giving him the ability to fight, at the very least a little, like a former clone soldier would.

I do think the tree is a touch heavy on the special talents. There’s a huge amount of stuff there that are not usually found together; Heroic Fortitude, Deadly Accuracy, Field Commander, True Aim, Sniper Shot and two talents to reroll. It is a really beefy spec.

A good measure of a spec balance is how often would you want to take the spec, I think most characters wanting to play a combat character would include this in their build. I would drop Sniper Shot, Move Deadly Accuracy to the bottom, shuffle a few things down and add another rank of Toughened. There’s probably a few more changes but that’s the big one

13 hours ago, Sherblock said:

Using that would be great, it would be exactly what I'm looking for, but as my game starts on saturday I don't have the time to wait. Thanx for the feedback but I will use my own one for now, although it is subject to change.

Here is a PDF of all of the Universal spec Trees, including the Retired Clone Trooper.

7 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Here is a PDF of all of the Universal spec Trees, including the Retired Clone Trooper.

Thanks a lot! That is really inspirational, but I have to ask, how did you get your hands on that? I thought that DoR wasn't supposed to release until Q4 of this year.

2 minutes ago, Sherblock said:

Thanks a lot! That is really inspirational, but I have to ask, how did you get your hands on that? I thought that DoR wasn't supposed to release until Q4 of this year.

Dawn of Rebellion released on February 22 . It's the other upcoming books that won't be out until December...

5 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

Dawn of Rebellion released on February 22 . It's the other upcoming books that won't be out until December...

Oh, I must have read that wrong somewhere. Anyway, thanks a ton everybody!

One other idea that I haven't seen mentioned is to use Genesys' system for assigning talents. Just make a bank of talents available for the genesys pyramid, some of the talents will have assigned levels already, you can just assign Talents unique to Star Wars a level that matches where it appears in other trees, and call it good.