Can someone help me understand the value of the Knockdown Talent which states, "After hitting with a melee attack, the character may knock the target prone by spending a triumph. If the target is larger than the acting character, it requires one additional triumph for each silhouette larger."

I feel like any character who rolls a triumph and wants to knock the target prone should be free to do that. This just seems like a waste of a Talent to me.

I agree

Yeah it's a little weird, because when the game system first came out, when asked "what can you do with a Triumph?" they would often give examples of things that are now, in later publications, things that are the purview of a talent. Which I personally find annoying, but that's the reality of it.

I personally think that talents that let people do special things in combat, should require things like "Flip a DP" or "Spend X Strain", instead of Triumph. Triumph's are supposed to be where players can do interesting things of their choice, and things like "I disarm him!" or "I knock him on his butt!" are perfectly valid in my opinion. To say "Nope, sorry, you can't do that, because there's a talent that does that that you don't have" is lame to the highest degree. Let the talent allow the PC to do it without having to spend a Triumph, reflecting it being easier and cheaper for them, and let the Triumphs allow people to do it every once in a while as a special bonus.

So, there was a big discussion about that here not too long ago, and the distinction that is made is as follows:

The option on the Advantage chart in the book is that, for three Advantage (or a Triumph) on any attack, a character can - by foregoing damage - inflict an alternative effect roughly in line with those on the Critical Injury chart. Obviously, one of the possible results on that chart is knocking the target prone.

However, this option is both A) taken at the expense of dealing damage; and B) subject to GM approval, like all general Advantage/Triumph expenditures. So if the situation seems unlikely to result in a knock-down, the GM can say no.

The Knockdown talent, on the other hand, while it only applies to melee attacks, does not forego damage and is not subject to (as much) GM approval, as your character has spent XP to have that ability, and now always has a plausible reason for being able to knock their target prone ("I've practiced doing exactly that, hence the talent!")

Now, that said, I don't disagree that it's not especially potent, and could be beefed up a bit more. One alternative I've suggested is to have it read: "All melee combat checks you make gain the Knockdown weapon quality." But that's probably swinging it a bit much the other direction.

10 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

So, there was a big discussion about that here not too long ago, and the distinction that is made is as follows:

The option on the Advantage chart in the book is that, for three Advantage (or a Triumph) on any attack, a character can - by foregoing damage -

Is that just the player community interpretation of that chart? Because I've never heard that distinction made by anyone. Granted I haven't listened to the O66 in a while, but I've listened to it since the release of the EotE beta, and heard lots of questions being answered by the Devs, and I don't recall them ever saying you have to give up damage to do that. That kind of defeats the purpose of Advantage and Triumph, as they are supposed to be additional effects from your action, not the only and final result of it.

5 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Is that just the player community interpretation of that chart? Because I've never heard that distinction made by anyone. Granted I haven't listened to the O66 in a while, but I've listened to it since the release of the EotE beta, and heard lots of questions being answered by the Devs, and I don't recall them ever saying you have to give up damage to do that. That kind of defeats the purpose of Advantage and Triumph, as they are supposed to be additional effects from your action, not the only and final result of it.

Alas I don't have my books with me, and I can't recall what thread the discussion was in (I'm fairly certain it was on the Force & Destiny forum, but I don't think it was dedicated to the Knockdown talent specifically). I'm pretty sure that stipulation was called out, or at least heavily implied, in the actual chart for spending Advantage/Triumph in the Combat chapter, however. When I take lunch I can head home a double-check real quick .

Regardless, I generally agree with your position: Advantage/Triumph should be additional effects, and knocking a target prone should be possible with a Triumph without the need for a specific talent. Hence my spitballed attempt at a house-ruled fix above.

Yes please, because I think I've got that talent in my new tree, and honestly I cant think of a worse waste of points spent on a talent and the worst use of a Triumph in the game than this one. I'd like to see how to un-nerf (or whatever the opposite of nerfing is. Feeding it spinach so it Popeyes up?) the stupid thing.

Page 212 in the Force and Destiny core rulebook has a table for spending advantage and triumph and here is a possible effect of spending one triumph (emphasis mine):

"When dealing damage to a target, have the attack disable the opponent or one piece of gear rather than dealing wounds or strain. This could include hobbling him temporarily with a shot to the leg, or disabling his comlink. This should be agreed upon by the player and the GM, and the effects are up to the GM (although Table 6-10: Critical Injury Result is a good resource to consult for possible effects). The effects should be temporary and not too excessive."

So according to that, no damage, but an effect.

4 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Yes please, because I think I've got that talent in my new tree, and honestly I cant think of a worse waste of points spent on a talent and the worst use of a Triumph in the game than this one. I'd like to see how to un-nerf (or whatever the opposite of nerfing is. Feeding it spinach so it Popeyes up?) the stupid thing.

I just did a quick check; with the exception of the instance in the Marauder spec, all instances of Knockdown require a minimum of 50 xp to get to, once you have purchased the specialization in question, and there are only five specializations that have it (Archaeologist, Commando, Fringer, Infiltrator, and Marauder, in case you were curious). With that in mind, perhaps my earlier suggestion is not too far off. Have the talent give all melee combat checks you make the Knockdown weapon quality.

This doesn't affect unarmed combat checks or most Brawl attacks, because unarmed attacks have Knockdown innately, and Brawl weapons almost always augment your unarmed attack, therefore retaining that quality. All it does is give you another option for your already strained Advantage with Melee weapons (and technically lightsabers, but no Force tree has the talent yet, so...).

I don't know if this the best way to handle it, but I've always allowed my players to knock a target prone for 3 advantage. For 3 advantage if they want to, they can Crit with many weapons and being knocked prone is far less severe than most of the Critical Injuries they can inflict.

Would it be overpowered to make the Talent say "for 2 advantage, you can knock a target prone and then for every silhouette larger than you, spend 2 additional advantage. So if I'm a sil 1 character, for 4 advantage I knock a sil 2 target prone?

2 minutes ago, dfn said:

Page 212 in the Force and Destiny core rulebook has a table for spending advantage and triumph and here is a possible effect of spending one triumph (emphasis mine):

"When dealing damage to a target, have the attack disable the opponent or one piece of gear rather than dealing wounds or strain. This could include hobbling him temporarily with a shot to the leg, or disabling his comlink. This should be agreed upon by the player and the GM, and the effects are up to the GM (although Table 6-10: Critical Injury Result is a good resource to consult for possible effects). The effects should be temporary and not too excessive."

So according to that, no damage, but an effect.

Yep, that's what I'm referring to above. Thanks for that . Not that I don't disagree with the intent there, but it is the official rule from the book.

EDIT: Archangel, that is almost exactly what the Knockdown weapon quality does, so it appears you and I are in agreement .

9 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

Alas I don't have my books with me, and I can't recall what thread the discussion was in (I'm fairly certain it was on the Force & Destiny forum, but I don't think it was dedicated to the Knockdown talent specifically). I'm pretty sure that stipulation was called out, or at least heavily implied, in the actual chart for spending Advantage/Triumph in the Combat chapter, however. When I take lunch I can head home a double-check real quick .

Regardless, I generally agree with your position: Advantage/Triumph should be additional effects, and knocking a target prone should be possible with a Triumph without the need for a specific talent. Hence my spitballed attempt at a house-ruled fix above.

I think your comment earlier about giving your attacks the weapon quality is actually a good way to go with it personally. Here me out:

Ok so, this allows for multiple ways to get to the same end, thus allowing for more PC types to enjoy the same variety of actions.

So, you have the talent give the weapon quality, whatever that is, disarm, knockdown, stun, etc. And it costs a base 3 advantage to trigger, possibly also some strain cost. Now, you can do this easier, if you are willing to spend credits to get a weapon with the ability, or a mod to add it, but then you have the risk of losing that weapon, and the ability to Knockdown (or whatever), and if you ever upgrade to a better weapon, you again have to spend credits to duplicate the effect on the new weapon. So you have one route that is based on spending money to allow the action.

BUUUUT, the Talent, and the upgraded versions of it, make it more efficient. So, perhaps Improved Knockdown, removes the strain cost per rank in Knockdown. Or reduces the number of Advantage that has to be spent, but the strain cost remains. The main benefit here is that it works on any attack of that type, regardless of the weapon (or unarmed if Brawl). So while it's a bit more resource intensive, you gain the flexibility of using it with any weapon of that type you get your hands on, so spending credits on mods, or using only the weapons with that feature, is no longer an issue for you.

Then the Supreme Knockdown, lets you do it just like the weapon mod ability, triggered with just a set amount of Advantage, perhaps slightly less, since it's Supreme and all.

The other option, for the person who isn't building a character concept around tripping people (which I have done in old 3rd edition D20, and it was awesome), they can just burn a Triumph now and then to do it.

1 minute ago, KungFuFerret said:

I think your comment earlier about giving your attacks the weapon quality is actually a good way to go with it personally. Here me out:

Ok so, this allows for multiple ways to get to the same end, thus allowing for more PC types to enjoy the same variety of actions.

So, you have the talent give the weapon quality, whatever that is, disarm, knockdown, stun, etc. And it costs a base 3 advantage to trigger, possibly also some strain cost. Now, you can do this easier, if you are willing to spend credits to get a weapon with the ability, or a mod to add it, but then you have the risk of losing that weapon, and the ability to Knockdown (or whatever), and if you ever upgrade to a better weapon, you again have to spend credits to duplicate the effect on the new weapon. So you have one route that is based on spending money to allow the action.

BUUUUT, the Talent, and the upgraded versions of it, make it more efficient. So, perhaps Improved Knockdown, removes the strain cost per rank in Knockdown. Or reduces the number of Advantage that has to be spent, but the strain cost remains. The main benefit here is that it works on any attack of that type, regardless of the weapon (or unarmed if Brawl). So while it's a bit more resource intensive, you gain the flexibility of using it with any weapon of that type you get your hands on, so spending credits on mods, or using only the weapons with that feature, is no longer an issue for you.

Then the Supreme Knockdown, lets you do it just like the weapon mod ability, triggered with just a set amount of Advantage, perhaps slightly less, since it's Supreme and all.

The other option, for the person who isn't building a character concept around tripping people (which I have done in old 3rd edition D20, and it was awesome), they can just burn a Triumph now and then to do it.

That's an interesting option:

"Suffer 2 strain before making a melee combat check to add the Knockdown weapon quality to the attack." That makes it not quite as good as wielding a weapon that innately gets Knockdown, but it makes it better than requiring a Triumph, and leaves the Triumph option open for those who don't have the talent to send people sprawling.

One thing I would note, however, Mr. Ferret, is that Knockdown is not a ranked talent, and there is not currently an Improved or Supreme version. So that would require either re-formatting multiple trees, or creating new ones. I think a simple fix like the one above is probably the easiest way to go about this.

7 minutes ago, Archangel3000 said:

I don't know if this the best way to handle it, but I've always allowed my players to knock a target prone for 3 advantage. For 3 advantage if they want to, they can Crit with many weapons and being knocked prone is far less severe than most of the Critical Injuries they can inflict.

Would it be overpowered to make the Talent say "for 2 advantage, you can knock a target prone and then for every silhouette larger than you, spend 2 additional advantage. So if I'm a sil 1 character, for 4 advantage I knock a sil 2 target prone?

This.

Could the knockdown from the talent be some sort of improved version. Normally it only takes one maneuver to stand up, but if you are knocked down via the talent you are especially tangled up and have the wind knocked out, so it takes you two maneuvers to gather yourself and stand. Or alternately you cannot stand up on your next turn, you must wait until your second round before you can get to your feet.

17 minutes ago, Split Light said:

Could the knockdown from the talent be some sort of improved version. Normally it only takes one maneuver to stand up, but if you are knocked down via the talent you are especially tangled up and have the wind knocked out, so it takes you two maneuvers to gather yourself and stand. Or alternately you cannot stand up on your next turn, you must wait until your second round before you can get to your feet.

I like this idea, but I feel that could be allowed with a triumph if that is how the PC narrated that. So if they just said, "I'd like to knock the target down," then great, he's knocked prone. But if the the PC said, "I grab a chair out from under a bar patron and swing it at the guy knocking him back. He crashes into the table, flipping it up in the air. As he hits the floor, the table lands on top of him, knocking the wind out of him so that he has to take two maneuvers to stand (or so he's prone for one full round)." I'd definitely allow that.

1 hour ago, Absol197 said:

"Suffer 2 strain before making a melee combat check to add the Knockdown weapon quality to the attack." That makes it not quite as good as wielding a weapon that innately gets Knockdown, but it makes it better than requiring a Triumph, and leaves the Triumph option open for those who don't have the talent to send people sprawling.

I like the idea of suffering 2 strain to add the Knockdown Weapon Quality to any melee weapon. That goes along with how the Edge Rulebook describes Talents (page 127, 1st paragraph), "Talents provide a game mechanic for a character to perform tasks with superhuman flair and ability. These generally represent specialized techniques that a character has mastered - typically through intense practice and study."

So if the PC takes this version of the Knockdown talent, this means that the character is specialized in knocking down opponents with melee weapons. Sure, it may cause him some strain, but he can do it with any melee weapon and he can do it better (2 advantage) than anyone else could who doesn't take this talent and doesn't have a weapon with that quality.

The Knockdown Talent as written, does not provide superhuman flair and ability.

At my table, we use two house rules for this. 1) The Knockdown talent gives all melee weapons you use the Knockdown quality. And b) Anyone can use a Triumph to knock an opponent Prone.

Keep in mind, all Brawl attacks have the Knockdown quality built into them (EoE CRB pp. 211). Only five specs so far have the Knockdown talent on them: Archaeologist, Commando, Fringer, Infiltrator, and Marauder. Also, don't forget, the Knockdown quality is an active weapon quality and thus requires spending two Advantages to enact.

Edit:

As a bit of extra information regarding being knocked prone, there are seven specs that feature the Jump Up talent, which allows you to stand from a prone (or seated) position as an incidental. These are Assassin, Ataru Striker, Fringer, Infiltrator, Performer, Recruit, and Thief.

Oddly, neither the Knockdown, nor Jump Up talents appear on the Martial Artist spec.

Edit again:

Martial Artist should have Jump Up, I think, but not Knockdown. The spec has Brawl as a career skill, but not Melee. Perhaps replace the Grit in the first row with Jump Up.

Well, wait a minute... Why does Archaeologist and Fringer have the Knockdown talent? Neither have Melee as a career skill. The Explorer career doesn't have Melee as a career skill.

Years ago my players and I agreed that Knockdown was a bull waste of a talent. When it comes up in their tree, I'll usually let them bypass it entirely or substitute it for a rank in Grit.

5 hours ago, Absol197 said:

and there are only five specializations that have it

Double checking my trees - I was thinking of the Stand Up talent, which is only slightly less useless. Annoyingly it's a 20 pointer right smack in front of my Dedication, so the chances of me skipping this marginally more useful useless talent is zero.

17 hours ago, Desslok said:

Double checking my trees - I was thinking of the Stand Up talent, which is only slightly less useless. Annoyingly it's a 20 pointer right smack in front of my Dedication, so the chances of me skipping this marginally more useful useless talent is zero.

I'll make sure to knock you down A LOT. I want to make sure you have a chance to use your talent.

17 hours ago, Desslok said:

Double checking my trees - I was thinking of the Stand Up talent, which is only slightly less useless. Annoyingly it's a 20 pointer right smack in front of my Dedication, so the chances of me skipping this marginally more useful useless talent is zero.

You know, Mr. Penguin, generally I'd agree. But there's always that one time that you get knocked down just before a turn where you really needed two maneuvers, in which case Jump Up can be a literal lifesaver.

1 minute ago, Absol197 said:

You know, Mr. Penguin, generally I'd agree. But there's always that one time that you get knocked down just before a turn where you really needed two maneuvers, in which case Jump Up can be a literal lifesaver.

I would actually agree, Jump Up can be a handy talent. I'm not sure if it's 20 point handy, but I have no problem paying 5 or 10 for it.

Yeah, it's the 20 points that's the killer. Most expensive Jump Up in the whole game.

(And to be fair, I've never actually had the talent before - it might be ragingly useful. Who knows. I didnt think that I'd love Utility Belt as much as I did, so I might be throwing shade unnecessarily here. We'll see 15 weeks down the road. . . .)

32 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Yeah, it's the 20 points that's the killer. Most expensive Jump Up in the whole game.

(And to be fair, I've never actually had the talent before - it might be ragingly useful. Who knows. I didnt think that I'd love Utility Belt as much as I did, so I might be throwing shade unnecessarily here. We'll see 15 weeks down the road. . . .)

My character gets it also (though admittedly only for 10 points). We can add acrobatic simuljumpups to the act.

It is expensive there (unless you also buy it cheap elsewhere as not ranked) but such talents can be amazing for action economy.

Being able to get up and still perform two manoeuvres can be situationally useful, especially when trying to get away or chase someone down.