Hello there,

I'm currently prepping for a Edge of the Empire Campaign, but with all careers available to my players.

One of my players expressed the wish to play an Agent of some sort and regarding the skills he wanted, we came up with the Spy - Infiltrator Career.

My problem is now: That the Spy Career's Signature abilities are oddly specific in the case of counter-espionage and kinda boring in case of Unmatched Tradecraft.
At least when you compare them to other signature abilities of comparable careers like the smuggler, the spy seems to "lose out".

To be clear: I dont need the Spy's Signature abilities to be OP or overly powerful, if they were cool or cineastic it would be just fine.

And since I'm having a hard time believing that me and my player are the only ones that encountered this or feel this way:

Has anyone dealt with this?

Or maybe has someone even thought of alternate Signature Abilities for the Spy?

Thanks in advance 😃

First off, this is a problem that is waaaaay down the road. It takes quite a lot of time and play to get to the point where your players are picking up Signature Abilities.

That said, can you explain better what you both don't like about Unmatched Tradecraft? It essentially lets the Spy turn a failed Deception check into a passed one, and with a few improvements, even ignore a Despair! This extends to Stealth and Skulduggery with a couple more upgrades. That's super awesome in my opinion.

Counterespionage is a bit more spy-centric, though, so I can see how that wouldn't be attractive in an Edge game. Is the problem that your player prefers the more narrative signature abilities rather than a more mechanically oriented ones? Each Career tends to have one of each. If this is the case, why not just let him pick a Signature Ability from another Career that might do what he wants? It won't break anything. The only potential drawback is that another PC with that same Career might feel less special, but, well, tough?

I have no particular problem with Unmatched Tradecraft, but yes its very mechanical, making it not as interesting to the player. And I can relate to that, the narrative abilities are much more interesting for me at least and for the player in question.

Counterespionage, while narrative is in my opinion not only very spy-centric (what is totally okay in an AoR game, just not with us using it in Edge) but I also feel its applicability is very narrow when compared to the Smuggler's Narrow Escape, the Colonists Insightful Revelation or other narrative Signature Abilities, which mostly take a much more broad approach to when you could use it.

I could see playing around with the Colonists Insightful Revelation (using Streetwise or something instead of Education) or maybe work with the Connected Heroic Ability from Realms of Terrinoth (But I'll have to look into how I would bring that one in-line with the Star Wars Signature Abilities).

7 hours ago, SavageBob said:

First off, this is a problem that is waaaaay down the road. It takes quite a lot of time and play to get to the point where your players are picking up Signature Abilities.

I have to agree with this. Having played with SavageBob before, both as a fellow player and with him as a GM PbP. While I have had several characters that could have gone with signature abilities, I generally expand with another Specialization. That being said I do sometimes wonder why some Signature Abilities seem to be backwards in which of the Specializations for that Career can take them.

If he doesn't want the Spy signature abilities, maybe he really doesn't want to be a Spy (big "S"). It's not even unusual in this system to take a different Career and operate as a spy (small "s"). That Colonist or Smuggler could be a spy, and so could the Technician or anyone else. If they decide to pick up Spy specializations (after the first "free" in-Career specialization), so be it, but they still choose the signature abilities from their Career.

10 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

If he doesn't want the Spy signature abilities, maybe he really doesn't want to be a Spy (big "S"). It's not even unusual in this system to take a different Career and operate as a spy (small "s"). That Colonist or Smuggler could be a spy, and so could the Technician or anyone else. If they decide to pick up Spy specializations (after the first "free" in-Career specialization), so be it, but they still choose the signature abilities from their Career.

Maybe, but Agent for the Chiss Ascendancy has a strong Spy vibe and it was the best fit for the desired Skill-Set.

But yes, it is a concept as of yet, He could always choose to play a spy (small "s"), the Skill-Set would be kinda tricky though.

5 minutes ago, Fl1nt said:

Maybe, but Agent for the Chiss Ascendancy has a strong Spy vibe and it was the best fit for the desired Skill-Set.

But yes, it is a concept as of yet, He could always choose to play a spy (small "s"), the Skill-Set would be kinda tricky though.

Even if a skill isn't a career skill, you can still access it for only a small increase in XP cost.

4 hours ago, ThreeBFour said:

I have to agree with this. Having played with SavageBob before, both as a fellow player and with him as a GM PbP. While I have had several characters that could have gone with signature abilities, I generally expand with another Specialization. That being said I do sometimes wonder why some Signature Abilities seem to be backwards in which of the Specializations for that Career can take them.

I actually wonder if the Heroic Abilities from Genesys Realms of Terrinoth might be a better system than Signature Abilities. Probably worth some playtesting at least. (The basic idea is that you start with a cool ability on day one and then customize it as you gain XP (without it taking any of the XP itself).

14 hours ago, Fl1nt said:

I have no particular problem with Unmatched Tradecraft, but yes its very mechanical, making it not as interesting to the player. And I can relate to that, the narrative abilities are much more interesting for me at least and for the player in question.

Counterespionage, while narrative is in my opinion not only very spy-centric (what is totally okay in an AoR game, just not with us using it in Edge) but I also feel its applicability is very narrow when compared to the Smuggler's Narrow Escape, the Colonists Insightful Revelation or other narrative Signature Abilities, which mostly take a much more broad approach to when you could use it.

I could see playing around with the Colonists Insightful Revelation (using Streetwise or something instead of Education) or maybe work with the Connected Heroic Ability from Realms of Terrinoth (But I'll have to look into how I would bring that one in-line with the Star Wars Signature Abilities).

Look at the always get my mark signature ability of bounty hunter (no disintegrations). Your player may also decided to go martial artist if you have that book.

On 1/20/2019 at 10:26 PM, HappyDaze said:

If he doesn't want the Spy signature abilities, maybe he really doesn't want to be a Spy (big "S"). It's not even unusual in this system to take a different Career and operate as a spy (small "s"). That Colonist or Smuggler could be a spy, and so could the Technician or anyone else. If they decide to pick up Spy specializations (after the first "free" in-Career specialization), so be it, but they still choose the signature abilities from their Career.

I had the same Idea some time ago in this thread . But GroggyGolem posted that he had experience with that and how heroic abilities from start affected their game, which ultimately made me trash that idea.

On 1/21/2019 at 5:09 AM, EliasWindrider said:

Look at the always get my mark signature ability of bounty hunter (no disintegrations). Your player may also decided to go martial artist if you have that book.

Yes that might also be a good match, thanks for the suggestion 😃

My player also plays an Infiltrator in Edge game. While she doesn't have a SA yet, at character-creation we swapped Knowledge Warfare to Underworld to match the setting. I don't see any reason why you can't modify the ability to used with Knowledge Underworld (in my case) and foil the plans of opposing masterminds, smuggler circle, or similar cunning (but one that fits the setting more) opponent.