In a campaign that I'm starting this weekend, I plan for the focus to be on the Je'daii that focused on a balance between the Light and Dark sides of the Force. Once the PCs start down the path to becoming the new Je'daii, I want to provide mechanical benefits to maintaining 40-60 Morality.

Some recommendations that I was given on Facebook included waiving the automatic conflict from certain talents, but the one that I am leaning most heavily towards was an alteration to the Morality scale:

1-10: +2 WT, -2 ST
11-20: +1 WT, -2 ST
21-25: Dark Side User

26-35: Unaffiliated

36-40: Balanced
41-45: +1 ST
46-55: +2 ST, Je'daii Bendu
56-60: +1 ST
61-65: Balanced

66-74: Unaffiliated

75-x: Light Side Paragon
x-x: -1 WT, +1 ST
x-100: -2 WT, +2 ST

The PCs wouldn't start out with the +2 ST, but they would need to set out on the path to become Je'daii.

I don't exactly get it. What is balance in the concept of this scale?

As with most Morality "improvements" to allow the playing of "Grey Jedi" (which is by and large what the Bendu is), this has significant problems.

Unless the PCs put substantial effort into going dark or going light, and earning around 3 to 5 Conflict per session, they're going to hover within the 40 to 60 range most of the time, which under the proposed scale means that most PCs that follow the Bendu/Grey path are going to get a boost to strain threshold while still not having to worry all that much about gaining Conflict from using dark side pips too often.

Of course, that relies on the GM effectively using the Conflict mechanics, which sadly a fair number don't as they either forget (I've been guilty of that on occasion) or they apply "real world morality" when the Force itself sees things in terms of black and white; you killed a helpless man? That's automatic Conflict, regardless if that man was an innocent bystander or a ruthless war criminal. You stole from the less fortunate or caused unnecessary property damage? Again, that's Conflict no matter what your intentions were.

The authorial intent behind Light Side Paragons getting the perks of a boosted strain threshold with no downsides is that reaching that status and maintaining it shouldn't be a walk in the park, and should take considerable effort on the player's part. Again, a lot of the "sleepwaking to LS Paragon" boils down to the Morality/Conflict system not being used as thoroughly as intended, either due to GMs not assigning Conflict or creating scenarios were the 'easy' path involves committing Conflict-earning actions, or the players are so well-versed on how a proper Jedi should act (I'm guilty of this due to decades of playing Jedi PCs in various iterations of Star Wars RPGs) that little to no Conflict is generated.

Frankly, if you want a "balanced" Force user that isn't "aligned" with the dark side or the light side, the current Morality system works quite well, as the PCs can make fairly regular use of dark side pips without too much worry as the d10 roll generally favors the PCs either not losing Morality or only gaining a couple of points here and there.

Why does being a Bendu practitioner warrant any special mechanical benefits at all?

The benefit of being Bendu by my estimation is that you have more flexibility. You can use the Darkside (easy power) with little worry, and you're not restricted to being "Lawful Stupid" when the baddies use the law against you.

There's nothing I'm aware of in the fiction that indicates Bendus gain any benefit in the Force for being such a praticioner either (granted I've never watched any of Rebels... >.<), so where's this coming from?

If you want to have a REAL Bendu-focused game, set it on Tython. Tython is (was?) a Bendu Nexus, and when I did this (set a campaign on Bendu), I just had it so that so long as you were between 30 and 70, you gained a +1 Force Rating. There's some real inspiration to stay "balanced".

A big part of the campaign is going to be focused on just finding Tython, but once reaching it I may use the +1 FR to give them a boost in the final fight against the BBEG.

Thank you all for the feedback, still a pretty inexperienced GM as far as this system's concerned, hence my reaching out for the advice of those with more experience than me.

3 hours ago, Meribson said:

Thank you all for the feedback, still a pretty inexperienced GM as far as this system's concerned...

Honestly, run the system as-is before you start tweaking/changing things. More often than not with this game, many of the things that look 'off' or 'broken' or 'unusable' on paper actually work quite well once put into application or aren't nearly as problematic as they might seem.