Back to the main topic of Jedi Career vs F&D Careers...

The F&D careers are all couched in the language that they aren't real Jedi but rather following in the footsteps of Jedi and that the character is picking up a relic of the past and continuing it sort of thing, it's trying to live up to the legacy typically in very focused ways. There is a bit of a nod and a wink to it in that you can take most of the "Jedi" Careers in F&D and make Jedi characters in eras that had a Jedi Order. Though this approach has some drawbacks - as some have noticed and complained some lightsaber Specializations have really odd drawbacks especially considering the lore around how Jedi were trained. Why doesn't Shi-cho and Makashi have Reflect? Makashi is weak against blasters but zero? Other forms made for more complete representations and contained most of what you'd need to fill out a Jedi - one reason why Niman is mechanically very appealing because you git a bit of everything and your Jedi character is on their way. So F&D made it possible to take a spec or two and fill out a Jedi character.

What the proper Jedi Career does is give it a boost and gives a basis for approaching this more "generically" - especially for those who get really caught up in the labels of "Lightsaber Forms" or whatever in making a character. You don't need to (if you don't want to) mix and match a hodgepodge of styles and specializations together to get it to work.

Now you can recreate the path of Jedi characters trained in the Order - everyone has a common basis in Padawan (or Padawan Survivor) that gives these basic pieces with the "proper label". Now if you want a Jedi who is mastering Makashi then you start as a Padawan who gets the more well rounded basics and foundation and then as the character develops you move into Makashi Duelist to specialize when it's time for that step in the training (later Padawan training, after being Knighted or whatever) where not having Reflect (as well as other things) in that tree doesn't hurt as much because you picked that up starting in Padawan. So a Makashi Duelist will in practice be "weak" against blaster attacks with a rank or two of Reflect instead of totally vulnerable because of zero ranks.

This sounds a lot like the recruit tree in the age of rebellion book as well. It was just the generic "soldier" tree for those that did not want to play a soldier and encompasses a lot of the things you would think a rebellion member would need to have regardless of their actual job.

1 hour ago, Jedi Ronin said:

We used to have a "Build the Character" contests, each with their own theme (typically these contests had no XP or other constraints except for the theme like "Jedi" or "Bounty Hunters") and threads. It was just builds and not actually playing them off/against each other in a duel or anything like that but people would vote for their favorite build. Anyone could start that back up...

I've tried out Sentinel/Shien in several short-lived online games and I like it.

I honestly think I want to bring this back, WITH the XP constraints.... I think the XP constraints make the builds more interesting as you can give realistic goals to attaining that type of fantasy where as a 2000 xp character just is not as realistically attainable in most games.

I wonder if people will still stick to line that "not everybody with career x is actually an x" with these careers. I recall this coming up most with Bounty Hunter and Smuggler careers, but it can apply to all of them. So,, will people use the Jedi career to make non-Jedi Force-users and/or Clone Soldier career to make combatants that are not clone soldiers?

30 minutes ago, tunewalker said:

I honestly think I want to bring this back, WITH the XP constraints.... I think the XP constraints make the builds more interesting as you can give realistic goals to attaining that type of fantasy where as a 2000 xp character just is not as realistically attainable in most games.

My observation was that the builds that went overboard didn't get the votes but I didn't watch many of them that closely. But the "contest" could certainly come with XP restraints. The contests seem more about who could come up with something cool or interesting.

14 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

I wonder if people will still stick to line that "not everybody with career x is actually an x" with these careers. I recall this coming up most with Bounty Hunter and Smuggler careers, but it can apply to all of them. So,, will people use the Jedi career to make non-Jedi Force-users and/or Clone Soldier career to make combatants that are not clone soldiers?

In my home group I plan on opening up the Clone Soldier Career/specializations to non-clones. I'll see if anyone bites.

2 minutes ago, Jedi Ronin said:

In my home group I plan on opening up the Clone Soldier Career/specializations to non-clones. I'll see if anyone bites.

Clone Trooper had a lot going for it in the early-to-mid portions between Brace (Improved), Suppressive Fire, Deadly Accuracy, and Armor Master. Lots in there almost any shooty character will like.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

Clone Trooper had a lot going for it in the early-to-mid portions between Brace (Improved), Suppressive Fire, Deadly Accuracy, and Armor Master. Lots in there almost any shooty character will like.

The player I have in mind is primarily a Hired Gun: Mercenary Soldier and Heavy in the current game so I'm thinking he'll like it.

1 hour ago, Jedi Ronin said:

The player I have in mind is primarily a Hired Gun: Mercenary Soldier and Heavy in the current game so I'm thinking he'll like it.

I think so.

I'm just waiting to see if people will balk at seeing Jedi career & spec on non-Jedi characters or Clone Soldier career and spec on non-Clone characters. It took a long time for people to get over the labels on other careers and specs and start looking at what they offer, and some people still don't like to do this. In fact, the splat books give fluff descriptions that make it sound like the names are important even though this flies in the face of what has been discussed since the line started (e.g., not everyone in the smuggler role has to have the Smuggler career and not everyone with the Smuggler career plays the role of a smuggler).

Initiative : 2eA+1eP 5 successes, 1 Triumph

I’ll spend the Triumph to take a free Maneuver and activate Defensive Stance 2, taking 2 Strain.

Pan raises his blue lightsaber in both hands and takes the classic Soresu defensive stance, letting the Force flow through him.

22 minutes ago, Jedi Ronin said:

Initiative : 2eA+1eP 5 successes, 1 Triumph

I’ll spend the Triumph to take a free Maneuver and activate Defensive Stance 2, taking 2 Strain.

Pan raises his blue lightsaber in both hands and takes the classic Soresu defensive stance, letting the Force flow through him.

My previous roll was 3 success, 3 advantage... you can attack first if you want. If you don't Leonard NiMaan will use coercion (1 yellow 5 green) while he waits for pan to close the distance.

Yesterday when reading through the book they were talking about after the initial fight on in the arena where they lost lots of Jedi, they didn't have enough to handle the war. So these classes represent them stream line the training to get them ready to fight in the war, they cut down what was required of the Jedi so they could have leaders in the war. Some were ready and capable while others were not, so these specializations are there to represent the fast path to Knighthood to be veiwed as capable leaders to inspire confidence to their clone troopers.

2 hours ago, damnkid3 said:

Yesterday when reading through the book they were talking about after the initial fight on in the arena where they lost lots of Jedi, they didn't have enough to handle the war. So these classes represent them stream line the training to get them ready to fight in the war, they cut down what was required of the Jedi so they could have leaders in the war. Some were ready and capable while others were not, so these specializations are there to represent the fast path to Knighthood to be veiwed as capable leaders to inspire confidence to their clone troopers.

Odd then that Knowledge (Warfare) is not among the career skills.

2 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Odd then that Knowledge (Warfare) is not among the career skills.

Jedi dont have much of that knowledge to pass on

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

Jedi dont have much of that knowledge to pass on

The Jedi have all sorts of knowledge in their archives. There were long periods of them leading or assisting the Republic in wars.

7 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

The Jedi have all sorts of knowledge in their archives. There were long periods of them leading or assisting the Republic in wars.

Their archives have it. They dont. And they dont really have the context to use that knowledge anymore. Which when you look at how basic the Jedis tactics were in the war it makes sense they dont have knowledge warfare.

13 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Their archives have it. They dont. And they dont really have the context to use that knowledge anymore. Which when you look at how basic the Jedis tactics were in the war it makes sense they dont have knowledge warfare.

Their tactics were the same as everyone else's since they were all based upon Lucas's tactical brilliance. Rommel he isn't.

46 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Odd then that Knowledge (Warfare) is not among the career skills.

They're peacekeepers, not Soldiers.

In all seriousness though, in most organizations, and the military especially, you hit a point where you don't need to know a heck of a lot about the job, just how to manage the people and be the one to take blame for bad decisions.

Jedi do have Education, Negotiation, and Leadership as class skills when you factor in Padawan, so they can lead make bad decisions just fine. If they need a tactical analysis they'll ask a clone commander like Cody.

Technically speaking real-world while the Army does try and assign General officers with a background in the branch they are commanding, on paper any General is supposed to be able to command any unit. "Jedi Generals" are probably seen in a similar way. Their Leadership and Knowledge of the galaxy is what they are there for, the fact they can fight as well is a bonus, but it's the Clones and Regular Officers that are there to provide the tactical and strategic options.

27 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Their tactics were the same as everyone else's since they were all based upon Lucas's tactical brilliance. Rommel he isn't.

lol

Jedi having knowledge (warfare) during this period of time does feel right but also buying it out of career could just be the norm for Jedi or they pick up Clone Soldier, Officer, or Pilot to gain those talents and skills needed for the clone war lol.

It would be interesting to see a Jedi take up one of the Clone Specializations if we are going with the name of the career not meaning a whole lot.

Or a clone taking up Jedi Padawan... Force Sensitive Clone?

Would a Jedi who sensed one of the clones as Force Sensitive, train that clone to control themselves? Can a clone be force sensitive?

9 hours ago, Drig said:

lol

Jedi having knowledge (warfare) during this period of time does feel right but also buying it out of career could just be the norm for Jedi or they pick up Clone Soldier, Officer, or Pilot to gain those talents and skills needed for the clone war lol.

It would be interesting to see a Jedi take up one of the Clone Specializations if we are going with the name of the career not meaning a whole lot.

Or a clone taking up Jedi Padawan... Force Sensitive Clone?

Would a Jedi who sensed one of the clones as Force Sensitive, train that clone to control themselves? Can a clone be force sensitive?

In legends Dorsk# was

Going back to the lightsaber forms, I'm thinking once you start to beef up your force rating a bit, Disruptive Strike should make Shien a beast in 1v1 duels by stacking a bunch of automatic fails on the opponent, regardless if you hit or miss. The best defense is of course making the opponent miss, meaning that you won't need to spend strain to parry. Of course, Niman counters this directly with Draw closer, but pretty much every other style will have serious trouble.

It's also worth considering that a Steel Hand Adept that's invested a bit in Enhance could probably make a fair showing against most lightsaber duelists by hammering them with strain damage. Not a lightsaber style as such, but worth noting.

On 5/12/2019 at 8:03 PM, EliasWindrider said:

Magnetic weapon tether, modded

Get it back as an incidental

And sum djem explicitly requires GM approval so it may not work against nemeses or other PCs

The magnetic weapon tether only works if the weapon is still in engaged range. With Sum Djem you can put it anywhere within short range, preventing the use of the magnet.

And which GM would prevent a player from using a talent he bought for 20-25 XP and could finally make some use of?