The Nightsister universal spec is in collapse of the republic which opens the door to a whole bunch more force traditions getting their own universal specializations and with the glut of other universal specs added recently... I'm almost of the perspective that a few more couldn't hurt. This thread is intended to be a place for people to post their own force tradition universal specs. It can either be a cannon/legend force tradition or one that you make up yourself. This is also a place to give/get feedback on the universal specs and I expect that the most common feedback will be that's overpowered/broken. I expect to get that myself, but I'm also hoping for constructive feedback on how to fix the problems real or imagined with the posted specs.

Back in the wotc days, can't remember whether it was RCR or Saga edition but I devised a force tradition based on the elite trooper artwork. The gist of this was they were an offshoot of mandalorians and jedi that wore armor and fought with what amounted to a double bladed lightsaber with one end replaced with a blaster pistol in a kung fu/gun fu sort of way. I was in love with staff weapons from star gate, and the power lance from gene roddenberry's starship andromeda. Previously there was no good way to pull off that in this system, even if you were fortunate enough to have ataru technique so you could use agility for each you would be facing a 4 purple difficulty for two weapon fighting with two different skills. But in collapse of the republic they also introduced the death watch spec which has this amazing talent named improved sidestep which is basically a hybrid of both improved parry and improved reflect... any combat check targeting you that results in a despair or 3 threat lets you get a shot off like improved reflect but with damage per your ranged light/heavy weapon... the catch is you had to have used sidestep (spent a maneuver and one or more strain) on your last turn. Which hurts mobility and only works if you're getting attacked a lot so and have very good defenses too.

Now I know what you're thinking "mando fanboy" and no not really, while I enjoyed the clone commando novel (singular) I thought travis having jaina learn to kill jacen by training under boba was stupid (sorry if I got the details wrong, I thought the premise was too stupid to read and I got the info second hand). If you're looking for an inspiration well armor wearing force users derived from jedi + another group with lightsabers and a powerful ranged attack (ballistakinetics) describes jensarri. But I really wanted the ranged attack to come from "a staff weapon lightsaber" and historically there was a mandalorian jedi (because darksaber) and mandos wear armor so it was an very easy narrative fit (I didn't search too hard for another tie into established lore) for what I wanted.

Mando'eti (I know real "original" name, open to other names) use a weapon that is a like a double bladed lightsaber but the other end shoots (ranged light, medium range) damage and effects per crystal minus breach and Sunder, it uses a force attuned resonator (keeping the peace) to fire and has 4 hp (like a double bladed lightsaber 2 of those used by crystal) I'm tempted to give it only 3 hp. It would have 2 stat blocks like the mon cal spear blaster in "strongholds of Resistance."

So now the spec

Skills: knowledge(lore), mechanics, melee, ranged(light)

Witchcraft Parry Sidestep Grit

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Renegade form-------Secrets of the jedi---Armor master----------Parry

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Force rating------------Hawkbat swoop-----Grit Improved armor master

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Sarlaac sweep Moving target toughened Improved sidestep

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Multiple opponents--Momentum-----------Dedication--------------Improved secrets of the jedi

So anticipating some comments

Why secrets of the jedi and improved? mandalorians are known for pimping out their gear, also wanted to provide lightsaber and discipline as skills

Why witchcraft? needed force rating 1 and needed to provide mechanics and ranged light as skills, wanted lore, and wanted melee (parry keys off of melee or lightsaber and I wanted this class to be able to be used without lightsaber/the force

Why hawkbat swoop? Sidestep takes away a maneuver (and can't use improved sidestep withoutusing sidestep), hawkbat swoop let's you move as part of a light saber agility attack, and the extra advantage could be used to recover strain (which you are going to be spending every round whether or not you need to)

Why momentum? To get an extra point of damage from using hawkbat swoop, also with a fully upgraded force leap (twice as a maneuver) and then a hawk at swoop that's +5 damage which is substantially less powerful than saber swarm and it means you spent 2 strain/advantage and won't be using sidestep/improved

Why sarlaac sweep? This is actually something I could drop but the reasoning was they were in the thick of things and fighting multiple opponents so it fits narratively.

Why renegade form? I could go ataru technique but I thought it odd to have ataru technique in something other than ataru striker. Having hawkbat swoop and sarlaac sweep sounds more like a renegade form anyway.

So that's what I was thinking, what's your feedback on it and please post your own?

Someone's got to have a comment, or be working on jensarri/zeison sha/matukai/ wardens of the sky/bo daron sages/etc.

If I'm doing the math right, with mobility and Force Leap that's at most, +4 damage starting from extreme range and moving to engaged. The other problem I see with that is by the developer interpretation and pretty much the interpretation of everyone but myself, you need to take a separate maneuver just to engage a target, meaning in reality the best you could get is Long > Medum > Short with an upgraded leap and then Short > Engaged with a maneuver for +3 damage. I guess that's where the Hawkbat Swoop comes into play, so you could leap Extreme > Long > Medium once, then Leap Medium > Short, then engage with Hawkbat Swoop. It would still be +4 damage though at max.

If someone is making the most of this then they're going to take Agility for their characteristic anyway, since that's what Hawkbat Swoop requires.

27 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

If I'm doing the math right, with mobility and Force Leap that's at most, +4 damage starting from extreme range and moving to engaged. The other problem I see with that is by the developer interpretation and pretty much the interpretation of everyone but myself, you need to take a separate maneuver just to engage a target, meaning in reality the best you could get is Long > Medum > Short with an upgraded leap and then Short > Engaged with a maneuver for +3 damage. I guess that's where the Hawkbat Swoop comes into play, so you could leap Extreme > Long > Medium once, then Leap Medium > Short, then engage with Hawkbat Swoop. It would still be +4 damage though at max.

If someone is making the most of this then they're going to take Agility for their characteristic anyway, since that's what Hawkbat Swoop requires.

The plus 4 is a completely legitimate interpretation, I can also see a case for 5, since extreme is huge and can include many smaller range bands in it... the case for 5 is that force leaping to medium range is 2 range bands doing it twice is 4 and then Hawkbat swoop is another 1... and yes that's where Hawkbat swoop comes in. But I wouldn't quibble between a +4 vs +5 ruling from a GM on this, point is it's not horribly abusable.

1 minute ago, EliasWindrider said:

I wouldn't quibble between a +4 vs +5 ruling from a GM on this, point is it's not horribly abusable.

Considering the intent is for the talent to be used with jetpacks which can move you from extreme to short in 1 maneuver, yeah it's not all that exploitable since that's how it's meant to be used. In fact, it takes just as many maneuvers to pull this off with a jetpack as it does leaping.

Do you have any other feedback about the tree. Is there too much synergy between talents? I tried to make it not overpowered and to focus on the narrative theme more than mechanical benefit but loading up on too many goodies is the usual bane of homebrew specs. Is the blaster/saber weapon too good? I debated about whether damage and effects fixed or per crystal. End up going for crystal for flavor and to put damage on par with a carbine.

For the Talents tree part.

Moving Target feels like it is adding too much to defense to get the Improved side step to trigger. I can't think of any other tree that has improved parry or Improved reflect that would give 2 black dice to attacks against you. And with the pick a player initiative system you would probably always go 1st.

Sarlaac sweep - Giving 2 combat attacks seems like too much, no other trees have that. Also with the double bladed light you would already have linked 1 so you wouldn't really need this talent.

The shooting part is not a concern it may be under powered with since the big reason for lightsaber is a the breach. But they can use Modes to adjust the damage.

I think the Hard points should only 3 hard points since it already has the force resonator as part of it.

4 hours ago, damnkid3 said:

For the Talents tree part.

Moving Target feels like it is adding too much to defense to get the Improved side step to trigger. I can't think of any other tree that has improved parry or Improved reflect that would give 2 black dice to attacks against you. And with the pick a player initiative system you would probably always go 1st.

Sarlaac sweep - Giving 2 combat attacks seems like too much, no other trees have that. Also with the double bladed light you would already have linked 1 so you wouldn't really need this talent.

The shooting part is not a concern it may be under powered with since the big reason for lightsaber is a the breach. But they can use Modes to adjust the damage.

I think the Hard points should only 3 hard points since it already has the force resonator as part of it.

I'm pointing out/providing some information may affect your comments.... as in here are some extra things to think about and how if it all would it alter your previous comments. I do want a take 2 and I'm not trying to argue against them I'm just saying here's some extra info that may be relevant and asking does it change your previous critique?

The saber doesn't have linked 1, it lost a blade (linked 1) to get the blaster like end (I was thinking a site 145 replica blaster pistol which has a built is force resonator) I don't know how the loss of linked 1 affects your 3 vs 4 hp comment.

Besides the saber not having linked 1. Off the top of my head Ataru striker (Hawkbat swoop/saber swarm/saber throw), niman disciple (draw closer/force assault/sum djem), makashi duelist (makashi flourish/makashi finish/sum d'jem) have 3 combat talents, Shien Expert has falling avalanche/saber throw/disruptive strike (not sure disruptive strike counts as an attack talent it kind of is, it's the anti Hawkbat swoop/anti draw closer). For shi-cho knight it has sarlaac sweep and I'm not sure whether natural blademaster counts as its second. juyo berseker has 2 ranks of embrace your hate plus juyo savagery and vapaad control... I'm not sure how those shake out into a count because they are some unusual talents.

You are "kind of" right about the defense but moving target only works against ranged attacks so from the perspective of improved parry there is only 1 black die which is fairly standard.

For improved reflect, there are other ways to get a ranged defense of 4 (e.g. armor inserts and a portable plasma shield can do it without any talent assistance). The 4 specs with improved reflect also have a minimum of 2 reflect for 4+ points of ranged damage stopping so again it's pretty on par (maybe even sub par) in terms of the ability to stop ranged damage. It's also pretty comparable to the deathwatch spec in getting to shoot back at someone who shot at you.

I was looking at a FaD starting spec to pair it with and surprisingly it doesn't pair well/synergize well with a lot of things. Hunter works well as a starting spec, niman-disciple isn't terrible either.