How many combat-focused specs are too many?

By StriderZessei, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

1 hour ago, EliasWindrider said:

Jedi knight (rots) and general (cotr) have a fr 2 prerequisite. The quick path to power rule let's you spend 30 starting xp (the stuff you can use to boost attributes during character creation) to boost your fr to 2, so you can start in knight or general. General has a conflict talent. Both knight and general have an fr and dedication talent so you can have fr3 after filling out the tree and compared to sage seer etc. the dedication makes up for the used up 30 starting xp, only you can stack it on an already boosted stat.

I thought it was 20xp.

36 minutes ago, StriderZessei said:

I thought it was 20xp.

Nope. 30 XP.

9 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Nope. 30 XP.

Thanks. The bold text isn't necessary to get your point across, but the correction is appreciated nonetheless.

@StriderZessei your welcome, If you're starting knightlevel plus your GM shouldn't have a problem with using the quick path to power rule to help you get to your concept slightly quicker, but there is a subset of people who for whatever reason just don't like the rule. but honestly warrior:steel hand adept/niman disciple + unmatched ferocity is a much better (practically perfect) fit for your character concept, so I'd recommend that in this case.

On 1/23/2020 at 12:42 PM, StriderZessei said:

Nothing really jumps out at me. What do you like about it?

Glad you asked...

Jedi Temple Training spend a Destiny point add your lore to your light saber Damage.

Beginner's Luck Once per session add your lightside destiny points to a roll as successes.

Learning oppertunity after a failed roll you may spend 3 advantage to upgrade your next check

2 ranks of toughened 2 ranks of Grit

2 ranks of Parry 2 ranks of Reflect

Sincerest Flattery Once per Encounter add 2 boost die to a check if another player rolled the same skill check before you.

Something to Prove Once per Session spend 4 strain to reroll any dice check if you succeed heal 4 strain.

Adaptable when rolling any dice check where you have no skill rating spend a destiny point to remove 1 despair or threat equal to your cool rating.

Also the cheapest Force point increase in the game.

Edited by Decorus
17 hours ago, Decorus said:

Glad you asked...

Jedi Temple Training spend a Destiny point add your lore to your light saber Damage.

Beginner's Luck Once per session add your lightside destiny points to a roll as successes.

Learning oppertunity after a failed roll you may spend 3 advantage to upgrade your next check

2 ranks of toughened 2 ranks of Grit

2 ranks of Parry 2 ranks of Reflect

Sincerest Flattery Once per Encounter add 2 boost die to a check if another player rolled the same skill check before you.

Something to Prove Once per Session spend 4 strain to reroll any dice check if you succeed heal 4 strain.

Adaptable when rolling any dice check where you have no skill rating spend a destiny point to remove 1 despair or threat equal to your cool rating.

Also the cheapest Force point increase in the game.

Not to hijack (which I'm probably doing anyway, so I'm aware of my own hypocrisy 😁 ) but while those are mechanically interesting and even beneficial, most of them are themed towards the character being a newb, a concept that I personally don't like to play, wunderkind or zen/wise beyond his years is the closest I generally go to newb, so I greatly prefer the padawan survivor spec which is themed as being savvy/knowledgeable, even grizzled/experienced. With that interjected, carry on.

Edited by EliasWindrider
3 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Not to hijack (which I'm probably doing anyway, so I'm aware of my own hypocrisy 😁 ) but while those are mechanically interesting and even beneficial, most of them are themed towards the character being a newb, a concept that I personally don't like to play, wunderkind or zen/wise beyond his years is the closest I generally go to newb, so I greatly prefer the padawan survivor spec which is themed as being savvy/knowledgeable, even grizzled/experienced. With that interjected, carry on.

I have a similar issue with that tree. Namely, if you do progress to Jedi Knight and then Jedi Master some of them cease to be conceptually appropriate.

2 hours ago, Vondy said:

I have a similar issue with that tree. Namely, if you do progress to Jedi Knight and then Jedi Master some of them cease to be conceptually appropriate.

I completely agree

11 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Not to hijack (which I'm probably doing anyway, so I'm aware of my own hypocrisy 😁 ) but while those are mechanically interesting and even beneficial, most of them are themed towards the character being a newb, a concept that I personally don't like to play, wunderkind or zen/wise beyond his years is the closest I generally go to newb, so I greatly prefer the padawan survivor spec which is themed as being savvy/knowledgeable, even grizzled/experienced. With that interjected, carry on.

Thanks for pointing this out. I feel the same way, but didn't want to seem fussy about flavor. That said, several of them are still good, and make sense narratively, like Temple Training (although I'm not sure how knowing Lore makes a lightsaber hit harder.)

Edited by StriderZessei
18 minutes ago, StriderZessei said:

Thanks for pointing this out. I feel the same way, but didn't want to seem fussy about flavor.

There's nothing wrong with optimizing a character to be effective at fulfilling a concept. If you're not worrying about flavor your rolllplaying instead of roleplaying. That can still be fun but you'd still be missing out on half the game. Seriously take a hard look at steelhand adept/niman disciple... put together the build take it out for a test drive. It fits your concept incredibly well. It's probably a little less powerful than jedi:knight/ataru striker... but it fits your concept/story so much better, I really think that you'd have a better roleplaying experience with warrior:steelhand adept/niman disciple... you'd get to enjoy both halves of the game more fully.

Edited by EliasWindrider
1 hour ago, EliasWindrider said:

There's nothing wrong with optimizing a character to be effective at fulfilling a concept. If you're not worrying about flavor your rolllplaying instead of roleplaying. That can still be fun but you'd still be missing out on half the game. Seriously take a hard look at steelhand adept/niman disciple... put together the build take it out for a test drive. It fits your concept incredibly well. It's probably a little less powerful than jedi:knight/ataru striker... but it fits your concept/story so much better, I really think that you'd have a better roleplaying experience with warrior:steelhand adept/niman disciple... you'd get to enjoy both halves of the game more fully.

Perhaps. Maybe I shouldn't have given the example of Kenshin, because I mentioned him thinking of a concept more in line with "restrained space samurai" than a "strict vow of pacifism." If I were to take your build, I'd more likely go Juyo/Ataru/Seer.

Also, one of our PCs will be a Jawa, so the Jedi Knight's Peerless Interception and Circle of Shelter will play a major part both narratively and mechanically.

My turn to go off-topic: strictly speaking in RAW, I know a starting PC can't just pick up Knight immediately with a FR of 1, but if it were Knight-level play, would it be reasonable for someone to start with a Knight if he immediately uses the extra xp to get a second FR in another tree like Emergent at creation?

Edited by StriderZessei
6 hours ago, StriderZessei said:

but if it were Knight-level play, would it be reasonable for someone to start with a Knight if he immediately uses the extra xp to get a second FR in another tree like Emergent at creation?

By RAW no, you can't do that. At character creation you must choose first a career then a first specialisation in that career and only then you can choose other(s) spec(s) in career, outside career or universal. Since the knight spec has a FR2 pre-requisite the only way to choose it as 1st spec is with Quick Path to Power. That's if you play by RAW. But your GM might allow you to choose knight and to get the 2nd FR in another tree like Emergent. I know I'd allow it.

8 hours ago, StriderZessei said:

Perhaps. Maybe I shouldn't have given the example of Kenshin, because I mentioned him thinking of a concept more in line with "restrained space samurai" than a "strict vow of pacifism." If I were to take your build, I'd more likely go Juyo/Ataru/Seer.

Also, one of our PCs will be a Jawa, so the Jedi Knight's Peerless Interception and Circle of Shelter will play a major part both narratively and mechanically.

My turn to go off-topic: strictly speaking in RAW, I know a starting PC can't just pick up Knight immediately with a FR of 1, but if it were Knight-level play, would it be reasonable for someone to start with a Knight if he immediately uses the extra xp to get a second F R in another tree like Emergent at creation?

1) Emergent or any other force sensitive universal only grants fr1 it doesn't increase fr to 2. Only the fr talent does that, you'd have to but all the way down to the fr talent.

2) you have to take a first spec during actual creation, before spending any earned xp

3) regarding terminology, quick path to power actually is RAW, it's a rule written in official ffg star wars rpg supplement. It happens to be an optional rule but that doesn't mean it's not RAW or less valid.

But if your GM doesn't allow quick path to power, that leaves you with starting in jedi padawan buying down to fr 2, for 40 or 45 xp, spending another 20 xp to purchase knight and +10 xp for every spec after that. You don't have to purchase down further into padawan and take the "newb themed" talents, what this does is delay your padawan + 3spec concept by 80 or 85 xp. But you effectively get another attribute increase out of it because you didn't spent 30 starting xp on quick path to power.

Present it to your GM like that, show him the numbers, if you're starting knight level+ it's not a difference in power level, starting padawan as described above might actually be more powerful (because it's a minimum of 95 xp, a 20 xp spec +75xp straight shot to dedication +10 xp per tree, to get the attribute back) but it delays your concept. And concept is about roleplaying enjoyment.

Also there's not much point to stacking saberswarm on unmatched ferocity, you're going to be strain limited from saberswarm anyway. And draw closer is the talent that helps you pull off unmatched ferocity the most reliably, unmatched ferocity is you get to keep making attacks until you miss while increasing the difficulty with each attack or until the difficulty becomes impossible. Also improved precision strike let's you select a 2 purple difficulty crit one of which is immediately make another attack with the same die pool, which is a way to get an easy attack in the unmatched ferocity sequence. Steelhand adept/niman disciple is the pairing that best takes advantage of unmatched ferocity.

Edited by EliasWindrider
7 hours ago, WolfRider said:

But your GM might allow you to choose knight and to get the 2nd FR in another tree like Emergent. I know I'd allow it.

Thanks. It's basically treating it like Emergent was his first spec, in terms of story.

1 hour ago, StriderZessei said:

Thanks. It's basically treating it like Emergent was his first spec, in terms of story.

You just dont get any career skills

So, I actually really like the synergy between the Padawan and Knight trees, specifically, Beginner's Luck, Will of the Force, and Something to Prove.

If you fail a check, once per session you can immediately flip a dark Destiny Point to light, suffer 4 strain to try it again, then add successes to the check equal to the light side Destiny pool.

If only the Padawan talents weren't named to make you seem like a novice. Beginner's Luck should be 'Trust Your Feelings' or 'Do Or Do Not.'

5 hours ago, StriderZessei said:

So, I actually really like the synergy between the Padawan and Knight trees, specifically, Beginner's Luck, Will of the Force, and Something to Prove.

If you fail a check, once per session you can immediately flip a dark Destiny Point to light, suffer 4 strain to try it again, then add successes to the check equal to the light side Destiny pool.

If only the Padawan talents weren't named to make you seem like a novice. Beginner's Luck should be 'Trust Your Feelings' or 'Do Or Do Not.'

Those are way better thematic names

7 hours ago, StriderZessei said:

So, I actually really like the synergy between the Padawan and Knight trees, specifically, Beginner's Luck, Will of the Force, and Something to Prove.

If you fail a check, once per session you can immediately flip a dark Destiny Point to light, suffer 4 strain to try it again, then add successes to the check equal to the light side Destiny pool.

If only the Padawan talents weren't named to make you seem like a novice. Beginner's Luck should be 'Trust Your Feelings' or 'Do Or Do Not.'

Something to prove should be "Do or Do Not"
Beginners luck should be "There is no try"
Adaptable should be "Trust your Feelings"

Good thing OggDude's exists. You can easily rename the talents there.

Edited by kaosoe
1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

Something to prove should be "Do or Do Not"
Beginners luck should be "There is no try"
Adaptable should be "Trust your Feelings"

There Is No Try already exists on the Master tree.

28 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

Good thing OggDude's exists. You can easily rename the talents there.

Yeah, but printing those trees sucks ink.

44 minutes ago, StriderZessei said:

Yeah, but printing those trees sucks ink.

Is the expectation to have FFG change the talent names in future reprints?

1 hour ago, StriderZessei said:

Yeah, but printing those trees sucks ink.

this is why i went laser...toner is cheaper and doesnt go bad.

21 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

Is the expectation to have FFG change the talent names in future reprints?

Nope, no expectations here. Just whingeing.

Although, I hope there's a way in the future to print Oggdude sheets with specific fields empty (like stats that can change, e.t.c.).

Edited by StriderZessei

Has anyone considered just adding the Padawan Survivor to the Jedi Career?