1 hour ago, EliasWindrider said:

I started by pitching a rough concept getting largely positive/encouraging feedback and incorporating the suggestions of several forum members into the first draft which is probably why it had the grab bag feel. I've been trying to adapt it to your feedback but either you've been changing that feedback or you been unclear about what you've intended to be communicate from the beginning.

I actually think that being practiced enough to repeatably pull off something cool on cue is thematic for a ronin/ronin/ex-samurai. In the case of ravage it seems like a half measure of a talent that would appear in a lightsaber form spec, which is kind of appropriate for force sensitive outcast because it's not even a half form. Having the full measure of the talent/split across two talents (ravage and ravage improved to let you use it once per round, to make it more like Hawkbat swoop or draw closer but minus moving to your opponent or moving your opponent to you) particularly when themed as succeeding through intense ferocity, seems remarkably appropriate for a half lightsaber ronin spec. But maybe destined blademaster is over the top and not thematically on point as it could be.

Making it more coercion based seems appropriate...

What if the reused "trust no one" talent was paired with matching new "trusted by no one" and "feared by all" talents... of course I need to figure out mechanical effects for them, but thematically would that work for you (generalized you, looking for feedback from anyone willing to give it)

The thing is i dont think a well trained person would use ravage. They would use a light saber for tree. Look at trees like Arbiter or Armoror as good examples. Ravage strikes me an angry and untrained. Not experienced. And being able to repeat abilities is not interesting or thematic really. Instead give them new once per day abilities that stack well with the other trees that dont care what form technique you use. Things like sum djem etc.

14 hours ago, Daeglan said:

The thing is i dont think a well trained person would use ravage. They would use a light saber for tree. Look at trees like Arbiter or Armoror as good examples. Ravage strikes me an angry and untrained. Not experienced. And being able to repeat abilities is not interesting or thematic really. Instead give them new once per day abilities that stack well with the other trees that dont care what form technique you use. Things like sum djem etc.

It's a little bit like unmatched ferocity signature ability.... ferocity/ravage can be intense pressing the attack not giving the opponent a break opportunity to respond... maybe the intensity is fueled by emotion but it doesn't mean unbridled/uncontrolled rage.

23 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

It's a little bit like unmatched ferocity signature ability.... ferocity/ravage can be intense pressing the attack not giving the opponent a break opportunity to respond... maybe the intensity is fueled by emotion but it doesn't mean unbridled/uncontrolled rage.

This just makes me think what you really want is already covered by existing trees.

I see two more possible specialisations for the Jedi career. Both with a FR3 prerequisite.

1st Temple Guard spec tat could be a mix between specs from Guardian and Warrior career with a few unique talents. With dedication and FR1 talents

2nd Ronin spec more dedicated to laser saber mastery then borrowing talents from the laser saber's form spec and a few unique talent. With Dedication but no FR+1 talents. The later replaced by a talent that could be written like this :

"Choose any one spec from a F&D career. This spec becomes a career spec (you don't need to pay the extra 10 XP for out of career spec but you must still pay the normal cost in XP for another spec). And you can attach one Signature Ability from the career that spec normally belongs to. You need a FR4 prerequisite for activating this talent."

I find it frustrating there's only one signature Ability for the Jedi Career and this a way to add another one from a F&S career.

Take 3

Constant vigilance toughened parry reflect

| | |

Always ready ---- parry ----- push aside ----- grit

| |

Trust no one renegade form natural blademaster force rating

| | | |

Trusted by no one disorienting strike ravage improved grit

| | |

Feared by All ----- coercion dodge ----- ravage ----- dedication

Always ready: (force talent) when targeted for an attack, the character may draw and ignite an available lightsaber as an out of turn incidental, qualifying the use of talents such as parry, reflect, and combat training. An asleep character may still use this talent, it wakes them up.

Trusted by no one: upgrade the difficulty of all charm, deception, and negotiation checks made by the character once, in addition to the normal effects of despair add an number of triumphs equal to the number of despair rolled to the next initiative check made by the character in the same session. This talent does not stack with itself.

Feared by all: the character can oppose fear and coercion checks with coercion instead of discipline or cool. In addition if the opponent fails the check with despair or the character succeeds on the check with triumph, the attempt backfires and the opponent targeting the character suffers the coercion or fear effect instead.

Coercion dodge: (coordination dodge but with coercion instead of coordination, flavored as a look from the character causes the attacker to hesitate and falter momentarily, giving the character the opportunity to evade the attack)

Ravage (improved): may use ravage once per round instead of once per encounter.

6 hours ago, Daeglan said:

This just makes me think what you really want is already covered by existing trees.

Unmatched ferocity is a signature ability, not a talent tree... btw I did a take 3 with some more original talents.

For the librarian I'm thinking of a few new talents

Fact check: can oppose decision checks made against the character with knowledge lore instead of discipline, a different knowledge skill can be used at the discretion of the game master on a case by case basis.

If it's not in the library: flip a destiny point to remove despair from a knowledge check.

Forbidden knowledge: (conflict force talent) once per session the character may use darkside force pips without flipping a destiny point or taking strain. They still take conflict for spending darkside pips as normal.

Also looking at reusing well read, secret lore, secrets of the jedi (and improved), knowledge is power, as the force wills it, stroke of genius, mental fortress, researcher, improved researcher, knowledge specialization, respected scholar, and maybe anatomy lessons, transmogrify (force rating, dedication, and grit) with knowledge lore, knowledge education, medicine, and computer.

I would probably not put an fr requirement on this spec

2 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Take 3

Constant vigilance toughened parry reflect

| | |

Always ready ---- parry ----- push aside ----- grit

| |

Trust no one renegade form natural blademaster force rating

| | | |

Trusted by no one disorienting strike ravage improved grit

| | |

Feared by All ----- coercion dodge ----- ravage ----- dedication

Always ready: (force talent) when targeted for an attack, the character may draw and ignite an available lightsaber as an out of turn incidental, qualifying the use of talents such as parry, reflect, and combat training. An asleep character may still use this talent, it wakes them up.

Trusted by no one: upgrade the difficulty of all charm, deception, and negotiation checks made by the character once, in addition to the normal effects of despair add an number of triumphs equal to the number of despair rolled to the next initiative check made by the character in the same session. This talent does not stack with itself.

Feared by all: the character can oppose fear and coercion checks with coercion instead of discipline or cool. In addition if the opponent fails the check with despair or the character succeeds on the check with triumph, the attempt backfires and the opponent targeting the character suffers the coercion or fear effect instead.

Coercion dodge: (coordination dodge but with coercion instead of coordination, flavored as a look from the character causes the attacker to hesitate and falter momentarily, giving the character the opportunity to evade the attack)

Ravage (improved): may use ravage once per round instead of once per encounter.

I really dislike Ravage improved. Come up with some cool instead. The improved versions for other talents dont allow more use. they change the way a talent works. I am not aware of any talents that make once per talents at will talents. I get you really like ravage. But I really think you should create a talent that gives you another ability.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

I really dislike Ravage improved. Come up with some cool instead. The improved versions for other talents dont allow more use. they change the way a talent works. I am not aware of any talents that make once per talents at will talents. I get you really like ravage. But I really think you should create a talent that gives you another ability.

What do you think of the rest of the tree?

11 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

What do you think of the rest of the tree?

looks decent. though to me renegade form doesn't make sense. if you are making a lightsaber bad *** you would have a lightsaber for that that this improves on. so renegade for seems like a waste of a slot. I get you desperately want everything in 2 trees but that severely limits concepts and it is clear more than 2 trees is likely to be the norm. And I think that thinking is hurting this trees design. look at how trees like Arbiter are built

So Coercion Dodge is just a straight up better version of Baleful Gaze?

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

looks decent. though to me renegade form doesn't make sense. if you are making a lightsaber bad *** you would have a lightsaber for that that this improves on. so renegade for seems like a waste of a slot. I get you desperately want everything in 2 trees but that severely limits concepts and it is clear more than 2 trees is likely to be the norm. And I think that thinking is hurting this trees design. look at how trees like Arbiter are built

Ronin is an outsider/renegade not entirely approved by the jedi order before order 66.

I'm not trying to improve on a lightsaber form, in fact I limited the ranks of parry and reflect to be more in line with jedi career specs. Padawan+knight+ronin would place ahead of a single lightsaber form spec, probably close to 2 lightsaber form specs, but ronin itself is intended to be less potent than a lightsaber form spec... maybe something like 3/4 of a lightsaber form spec. Knight is like a 3/4 of lightsaber spec, not enough parry and reflect for starters, no attribute switch technique talent either. I avoided choosing talents like quick draw, balance, temple training etc. that were in either padawan or knight... trying to get it to have a unique place in the jedi career. Trusted by no one is interesting but makes it a little harder to use the jedi:padawan/knight/ronin combo for a jedi battle master in good standing with the jedi order but because ravage is a conflict talent it kind of fits, and because someone could 2 ranks of parry, 1 reflect, push aside, renegade form, and always ready without taking trusted by no one... it's still worth while for someone who doesn't want to commit to the barely tolerated outsider jedi motif.

1 minute ago, EliasWindrider said:

Ronin is an outsider/renegade not entirely approved by the jedi order before order 66.

I'm not trying to improve on a lightsaber form, in fact I limited the ranks of parry and reflect to be more in line with jedi career specs. Padawan+knight+ronin would place ahead of a single lightsaber form spec, probably close to 2 lightsaber form specs, but ronin itself is intended to be less potent than a lightsaber form spec... maybe something like 3/4 of a lightsaber form spec. Knight is like a 3/4 of lightsaber spec, not enough parry and reflect for starters, no attribute switch technique talent either. I avoided choosing talents like quick draw, balance, temple training etc. that were in either padawan or knight... trying to get it to have a unique place in the jedi career. Trusted by no one is interesting but makes it a little harder to use the jedi:padawan/knight/ronin combo for a jedi battle master in good standing with the jedi order but because ravage is a conflict talent it kind of fits, and because someone could 2 ranks of parry, 1 reflect, push aside, renegade form, and always ready without taking trusted by no one... it's still worth while for someone who doesn't want to commit to the barely tolerated outsider jedi motif.

I get it. dont include the renegade form talent. it doesnt make sense. and would be better used for some lightsaber trick

10 minutes ago, StriderZessei said:

So Coercion Dodge is just a straight up better version of Baleful Gaze?

Maybe more reliable in terms of making an attack fail but no chance of adding despair or threat to trigger overbalance in the case of warden or improved parry/reflect for a knight/ronin... so maybe not straight up better.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

I get it. dont include the renegade form talent. it doesnt make sense. and would be better used for some lightsaber trick

I could merge ravage and improved ravage into a talent called

"The force is the blade of the heart"

minus conflict to bring it inline with Hawkbat swoop or draw closer, but a 25 xp talent compared to 20 for draw closer and Hawkbat swoop (you get success or advantage but no movement)

And maybe a few other lines of the crystal code

The crystal is the heart of the blade seems like a crystal modification talent but that's too similar to secrets of the jedi (improved)

So maybe

the heart is the crystal of the jedi.... maybe a strain recovery talent but there's a mess of those ... no I don't think any other line of the crystal code would work

then maybe make coercion dodge a conflict talent, maybe make feared by all another conflict talent.

Not sure what other talent I'd add to it... maybe another rank of parry or reflect?

The crystal is the heart of the blade.

The heart is the crystal of the Jedi.

The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.

The Force is the blade of the heart.

All are intertwined.

The crystal, the blade, the Jedi.

You are one

Padawan and knight each have 2 ranks of parry and 2 of reflect, so for symmetry it needs an extra rank of reflect.

Take 4

2 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Take 4

Constant vigilance toughened parry reflect

| | |

Always ready ---- parry ----- push aside ----- grit

| |

Trust no one renegade form natural blademaster force rating

| | | |

Trusted by no one disorienting strike grit reflect

| | |

Feared by All ---- coercion dodge -- The Force is the blade of the heart -- dedication

Maybe shorten it to "blade of the heart"

Always ready: (force talent) when targeted for an attack, the character may draw and ignite an available lightsaber as an out of turn incidental, qualifying the use of talents such as parry, reflect, and combat training. An asleep character may still use this talent, it wakes them up.

Trusted by no one: upgrade the difficulty of all charm, deception, and negotiation checks made by the character once, in addition to the normal effects of despair add an number of triumphs equal to the number of despair rolled to the next initiative check made by the character in the same session. This talent does not stack with itself.

Feared by all: the character can oppose fear and coercion checks with coercion instead of discipline or cool. In addition if the opponent fails the check with despair or the character succeeds on the check with triumph, the attempt backfires and the opponent targeting the character suffers the coercion or fear effect instead.

Coercion dodge: conflict force talent (coordination dodge but with coercion instead of coordination, flavored as a look from the character causes the attacker to hesitate and falter momentarily, giving the character the opportunity to evade the attack)

Blade of the heart (force talent): take the blade of the heart action, make a lightsaber combat check against an engaged target. Add force die up to force rating, spend forcepip to add success or advantage (multiple pips can be split between success and advantage)

Wow is blade is the heart over powered. Why would you note take it. For perspective to do that normally it would take 2 talents and you can only do one or the other

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

Wow is blade is the heart over powered. Why would you note take it. For perspective to do that normally it would take 2 talents and you can only do one or the other

Those talents either move you to the opponent or move the opponent to you and cost 5 xp less, and the seeker:hunter's 25 xp intuitive shot talent does the same thing for ranged light and ranged heavy so it's not as bad as your making out to be. It's also behind at least 1 conflict talent (possibly a second if feared by all becomes a conflict talent) and it's behind trusted by no one which makes charm deception and negotiation checks harder, so there are reasons to not take it. The tree is also lacking an equivalent to saberswarm or force assault, which makes it significantly less powerful.

53 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Those talents either move you to the opponent or move the opponent to you and cost 5 xp less, and the seeker:hunter's 25 xp intuitive shot talent does the same thing for ranged light and ranged heavy so it's not as bad as your making out to be. It's also behind at least 1 conflict talent (possibly a second if feared by all becomes a conflict talent) and it's behind trusted by no one which makes charm deception and negotiation checks harder, so there are reasons to not take it. The tree is also lacking an equivalent to saberswarm or force assault, which makes it significantly less powerful.

ituitive shot doesnt involve a breach weapon.

31 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

ituitive shot doesnt involve a breach weapon.

So you're saying there aren't any ranged heavy weapons with breach? I'm not sure that's true. But at the very least it involves higher damage output weapons with autofire that gets a lot easier to trigger thanks to spending force pips to get advantage, or if you happened to get a whole lot of advantage and not enough success to hit in the first place it helps score the first hit in a massive autofire barrage. To be honest I'd rather take my chances against the breach weapon.

Btw if the character had the strong arm talent they could chuck thermal detonators at you with ranged light. So yeah it does involve breach weapons.

7 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

So you're saying there aren't any ranged heavy weapons with breach? I'm not sure that's true. But at the very least it involves higher damage output weapons with autofire that gets a lot easier to trigger thanks to spending force pips to get advantage, or if you happened to get a whole lot of advantage and not enough success to hit in the first place it helps score the first hit in a massive autofire barrage. To be honest I'd rather take my chances against the breach weapon.

Btw if the character had the strong arm talent they could chuck thermal detonators at you with ranged light. So yeah it does involve breach weapons.

There are. But they are Gunnery or limited ammo weapons and tend to have prepared trait and are unweildly

T-7 Ion Disruptors have Breach 2.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

There are. But they are Gunnery or limited ammo weapons and tend to have prepared trait and are unweildly

Even after breach is factored in, saberswarm + Hawkbat swoop (or unmatched ferocity but that has a 2x per session limit) is the only way in the game for a lightsaber to approach the damage capacity of a ranged heavy autofire weapon, and intuitive shot layers on top of that, so given that precedent I don't think that blade of the heart, which isn't paired with a talent equivalent to saberswarm, is over the top. Beyond that range means you have less exposure to your enemy's attacks than standing next to them with a lightsaber (and Hawkbat swoop and draw closer also lets you get close to ranged opponents who have been trying to stay out of reach which is huge, heart of the blade doesn't do that but you could go down the right side of the enhance force power tree to be able to force leap anywhere in medium range as a maneuver, but that cost a maneuver and a bunch of xp to get so...).

5 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Even after breach is factored in, saberswarm + Hawkbat swoop (or unmatched ferocity but that has a 2x per session limit) is the only way in the game for a lightsaber to approach the damage capacity of a ranged heavy autofire weapon, and intuitive shot layers on top of that, so given that precedent I don't think that blade of the heart, which isn't paired with a talent equivalent to saberswarm, is over the top. Beyond that range means you have less exposure to your enemy's attacks than standing next to them with a lightsaber (and Hawkbat swoop and draw closer also lets you get close to ranged opponents who have been trying to stay out of reach which is huge, heart of the blade doesn't do that but you could go down the right side of the enhance force power tree to be able to force leap anywhere in medium range as a maneuver, but that cost a maneuver and a bunch of xp to get so...).

I find this to not be the case. If you think about it the lightsaber starts with effectively +10 damage and 6 to 10 damage...so 16 to 20 damage per attack. add in saber storm and hawkbat swoop double to triple that,. So yeah. I think you are underplaying the damage output of a lightsaber.

3 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

I find this to not be the case. If you think about it the lightsaber starts with effectively +10 damage and 6 to 10 damage...so 16 to 20 damage per attack. add in saber storm and hawkbat swoop double to triple that,. So yeah. I think you are underplaying the damage output of a lightsaber.

Breach gives literally 0 damage. It only allows you to ignore Soak, and most personal-scale targets have 5 or less Soak, meaning that at most you could say that it is +5 damage, and against a target with 1 Soak, it is only +1 damage.