Hey, guys. Has anyone considered scrapping the SWRPG talent trees and going free-form like Genesys? The careers would still exist for skills, obviously, but how do you think this would work otherwise?

2 hours ago, TyrisFlare said:

Hey, guys. Has anyone considered scrapping the SWRPG talent trees and going free-form like Genesys? The careers would still exist for skills, obviously, but how do you think this would work otherwise?

Absolutely not. This system is not Genesys and would break down too quickly. the way the careers and talents are built in this system depend upon the talent trees as they're written.

Why do you think that? If anything, I think it would be a lot more difficult to cheese certain things like high ranks of Parry or Reflect. I mean, everyone would grab 1 or 2 ranks, but after that it starts to get insanely expensive (would anyone keep grabbing Parry past 5 at the cost of Dedication/FR etc?). The same goes for toughness, etc.

Or is the problem more that you think everyone would get the same unranked talents like Saber Swarm or what have you?

No. Doing away from the specialization system used would "cheese" the system significantly more. The specs we have are specifically balanced to create more well-rounded characters. to remove that system, would more likely result in significantly more "one-trick-pony" characters with players pumping XP into only a few favored talents to max out that character's abilities in one thing at the expense of anything else. This was a major problem with the D20 system. Genesys is built around a completely different talent tree system, where each tree is also much smaller so you can't super focus on advancing in only one or two talents.

I don't necessarily disagree, but isn't that a big mark against Genesys then? If you used the Expanded Talents list, you'll get almost all the SWRPG talents and can do exactly what you are saying (without that list, you have very few talents to choose from and would struggle to build/play a high xp character, I think).

3 minutes ago, TyrisFlare said:

I don't necessarily disagree, but isn't that a big mark against Genesys then? If you used the Expanded Talents list, you'll get almost all the SWRPG talents and can do exactly what you are saying (without that list, you have very few talents to choose from and would struggle to build/play a high xp character, I think).

That's why Genesys and the SW RPG are not compatible. They use essentially a completely different talent tree system. In order to get "super good" with any particular ranked talents in this system, it requires an exceptional XP expenditure by having to take not only several other talents within any given specialization, just to get to the next copy of that ranked talent, but multiple specializations as well, This adds up very quickly to a lot of XP being expended. That is a key limiting factor. Genesys has a completely different mechanism for limiting this "min-maxing" behavior by essentially capping out how many ranks there are for any given ranked talent period. I don't know the specifics of how the Genesys system works, since I don't play that game, but it is very different from the SW RPG system.

Maybe that is the confusion - Genesys doesn't have talent trees. You can take any talent you want, so long as you have +1 talent of the previous tier. So to take a T5 talent, you need 2 T4, 3 T3, 5, T2, 5 T1. A visual representation:

Since ranked talents always go up one tier per rank, Rank 1 of Parry would only cost 5xp, but Rank 5 would cost 25xp (and eat up a precious slot for Dedication or Force Rating).

Anyway, I guess my point is this: you can multiclass in SWRPG and end up with insanely high ranks of Parry/Reflect/Toughness etc for relatively cheap compared to the free-form system. I actually think this is probably better for preventing stacking cheese. But I do suspect it would mean people will congregate around a lot of similar T3-T4 talents. Like who wouldn't take Deadly Accuracy/Saber Swarm etc if they wanted to be good at combat? Whereas in SWRPG such things are limited to a few trees.

It would work fine, but it's not something I would do if I were in the middle of a campaign. Rather than inject Genesys into Star Wars, I would inject Star Wars into Genesys. This means using Genesys' lower characteristic cap and so on. There would be some talents that would be incompatible, but nothing explicitly that wouldn't work or anything.

2 minutes ago, TyrisFlare said:

Maybe that is the confusion - Genesys doesn't have talent trees. You can take any talent you want, so long as you have +1 talent of the previous tier. So to take a T5 talent, you need 2 T4, 3 T3, 5, T2, 5 T1. A visual representation:

Since ranked talents always go up one tier per rank, Rank 1 of Parry would only cost 5xp, but Rank 5 would cost 25xp (and eat up a precious slot for Dedication or Force Rating).

Anyway, I guess my point is this: you can multiclass in SWRPG and end up with insanely high ranks of Parry/Reflect/Toughness etc for relatively cheap compared to the free-form system. I actually think this is probably better for preventing stacking cheese. But I do suspect it would mean people will congregate around a lot of similar T3-T4 talents. Like who wouldn't take Deadly Accuracy/Saber Swarm etc if they wanted to be good at combat? Whereas in SWRPG such things are limited to a few trees.

Actually, you can't multi-class, since you're only allowed one career. However, multi-specializing is possible, but can get very expensive very quickly since each spec costs 10 XP multiplied by the total number of specs plus an additional 10 XP if it's a non-career spec. That adds up to a load of XP. So to get really good at one ranked talent can end up costing hundreds of XP. It's not cheap. To get really good at one talent under Genesys is a lot cheaper.

3 hours ago, TyrisFlare said:

Hey, guys. Has anyone considered scrapping the SWRPG talent trees and going free-form like Genesys? The careers would still exist for skills, obviously, but how do you think this would work otherwise?

I think it would work really well, considering the Genesys was built using the Star Wars system as a foundation anyway. I think there is a fan made "conversion" document that helps to translate the talents in Star Wars that are not in Genesys.

37 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No. Doing away from the specialization system used would "cheese" the system significantly more. The specs we have are specifically balanced to create more well-rounded characters. to remove that system, would more likely result in significantly more "one-trick-pony" characters with players pumping XP into only a few favored talents to max out that character's abilities in one thing at the expense of anything else. This was a major problem with the D20 system. Genesys is built around a completely different talent tree system, where each tree is also much smaller so you can't super focus on advancing in only one or two talents.

It would also create characters that are easier to use for players that don't want to remember what a score of different Talents actually do. I'm a proponent of characters having fewer (no more than 10) talents, but I'm OK with them having higher ranks in those talents, as it's no harder to remember and use Parry 6 vs. Parry 1.

1 minute ago, HappyDaze said:

It would also create characters that are easier to use for players that don't want to remember what a score of different Talents actually do. I'm a proponent of characters having fewer (no more than 10) talents, but I'm OK with them having higher ranks in those talents, as it's no harder to remember and use Parry 6 vs. Parry 1.

And I'm just the opposite. That screams too much of min-maxing.

In Genesys, it takes 175 XP to hit tier 5 the first time, then 75 XP each subsequent time. However, every time you buy a ranked talent, it increases a tier. So your fifth rank and beyond of Grit is going to be a tier 5 talent. There are a finite number of talents that characters can take at each tier (GM allowing). Also, characteristics are lowered to 5 instead of 6, and Dedication (a tier 5 talent) can only ever raise a characteristic once per purchase (it costs 550 XP to purchase 6 ranks of Dedication, provided you don't buy any other tier 5 talents). Certain recurring talents, like the Natural and Master talents, can only be taken once instead of multiple different times. Ultimately, Genesys characters are weaker than Star Wars characters if you lay them side-by-side.

If you go the route of Genesys, I suggest the following modifiers to allow WT and ST to scale and to prevent Dedication and/or Force Rating from being the default Tier 5 choices. These bonuses do not cost XP; they are awarded when the XP total hits these thresholds.

• Per 100 XP: +1 WT (Toughened can not be purchased as a Talent and WT increases are only available in this manner)
• Per 200 XP: +1 ST (Grit can not be purchased as a Talent and ST increases are only available in this manner)
• Per 300 XP: One rank in Dedication or Force Rating (these can not be purchased as Talents and are only available in this manner)

This means that a character that has earned 600 XP would have +6 WT, +3 ST, and 2 ranks of either Dedication or Force Rating (or 1 rank of each) on top of the skills and talents they purchase with the 600 XP. Adjust XP awarded per session to compensate for the rate of character growth desired.

The funny part is that I vastly prefer the magic system in SWRPG to Genesys. I have been planning to use a conversion for the Force dice because I like it much better than the skills.

I'm just not sure about which talent setup is better.

That is an interesting approach for FR and such being automatic though.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

Per 300 XP: One rank in Dedication or Force Rating (these can not be purchased as Talents and are only available in this manner)

Should probably make this Dedication *and* FR unless you want to screw over Force users pretty badly. F&D trees almost all have both FR and Dedication, and it takes forever to level up FR as it is.

Just now, DaverWattra said:

Should probably make this Dedication *and* FR unless you want to screw over Force users pretty badly. F&D trees almost all have both FR and Dedication, and it takes forever to level up FR as it is.

Except for the lightsaber style trees. Of all of them only the Niman Disciple gets any Increase Force Rating talents.

I'd much rather have the genesys style since it allows character concepts to be realized much sooner than the talent tree system.

If you are worried about. certain talents becoming a go-to for everyone, like toughness for example, you could increase the starting tiers add 5 or 10 like out of career skills/specializations, or even make those talents always cost double.

On 7/9/2018 at 6:32 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

Except for the lightsaber style trees. Of all of them only the Niman Disciple gets any Increase Force Rating talents.

Colossus also lacks a Force Rating talent.

I was trying to figure out how to do this before Genesys was announced/came out.

I would not mix PCs of the two different approaches in one game (maybe that goes without saying), and honestly I would be hesitant even to use this approach with the swrpg Force Dice System for "casting", due to the xp dynamics surrounding Talents and Force Die and Powers in the Specialization system.

Which I guess is to say, if you want to play Genesys, play Genesys.

The resources are out there to play Star Wars using Genesys, so just give it a try. You don't need the permission of strangers on the internet.

I just don't personally like the idea of having skill checks for magic for a number of reasons, but a big one is that it makes progression incredibly flat. A starting character has a 50/50 chance of resurrecting someone (or performing any other ridiculous feat of magic). With FR, some things will just not be possible for a while because you simply can't generate the pips. And at the same time, without the XP trees from SWRPG you can't get multiple strength upgrades and weaponize pips the same way.

I also like flipping pips for strain rather than a default cost, and the dark side results are great for systems with dangerous magic (like Dark Sun or Dragon Age or many others).

18 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Colossus also lacks a Force Rating talent.

You are correct. ?