Pick and make a force tradition universal spec

By EliasWindrider, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

Career skills: brawl, coordination, discipline, resilience

Talents:

1) Witchcraft see nightsister in clone wars book

X

2) Wan shen technique: melee becomes a career skill. In addition the character can use a two handed Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber weapon in one hand and receive the benefits of using it in two hands and one hand simultaneously

X

3) Weapon kata: once per round after making a successful Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber attack, the character may spend 2 advantage to immediately make a brawl attack as an incidental against any engaged target.

X

4) Burning hands: force talent: character may commit a force die to add successes equal to discipline to resilience checks against hot or cold temperatures and damage equal to discipline to the first hit of an unarmed brawl attack.

X

5) iron body (improved): force talent commit a force die to increase soak by ranks in iron body, and add successes equal ranks in iron body to resilience checks against drugs and poisons.

X

7) 2x iron body xx

8 ) Extended reach (see force adherant in dawn of rebellion) x

9) parry x

10) Unarmed parry

11) feral strength x

12) dodge

13) improved dodge x

14) Toughened x

15) Dedication x

16) Force rating x

17) superior reflexes

18) sixth sense x

19) natural brawler x

20) balance x

So a tree layout something like this

Iron body Wan Shen technique Parry. Toughened

|

Force rating. Extended reach. Weapon kata ---- iron body

| | | |

Burning hands. Feral strength--- unarmed parry Dodge

| | |

Iron body (improved) witchcraft. Superior reflexes-----Dodge (improved)

| | |

Balance ---------------------- Sixth sense ------ dedication -------- natural brawler

Edited by EliasWindrider

Or maybe this

Career skills: brawl, coordination, discipline, resilience

Iron body Wan Shen technique Parry. Toughened

| |

Force rating. Feral strength-----unarmed parry-- iron body

| | |

Burning hands. Extended reach Dodge (improved)--- Dodge

| | |

Iron body (improved) witchcraft. Superior reflexes-----weapon kata

| | |

Balance ---------------------- Sixth sense ------ dedication -------- natural brawler

New Talents:

Wan shen technique: melee becomes a career skill. In addition the character can use a two handed Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber weapon in one hand and receive the benefits of using it in two hands and one hand simultaneously

Weapon kata: once per round after making a successful Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber attack, the character may spend 2 advantage to immediately make an brawl attack as an incidental against any engaged target.

Burning hands: force talent: character may commit a force die to add successes equal to discipline to resilience checks against hot or cold temperatures and damage equal to discipline to the first hit of an unarmed brawl attack.

iron body (improved): force talent commit a force die to increase soak by ranks in iron body, and add successes equal ranks in iron body to resilience checks against drugs and poisons.

Edited by EliasWindrider

There may be precedent for something similar, so please point it out if there is, but Burning Hands and Iron Body (Improved) do multiple fairly different things in a single talent, and I think that is a bit much.

As for Burning Hands, I think that is a bit much. Someone with 2 Discipline, 3 Brawn, and Feral Strength is doing a base damage of 6 with completely unarmed attacks. Add Vibroknucklers and Weapon Kata and now they can fairly reliably dish out 16-(Soak-1)*2, or 10 damage past a Soak of 4 with just about every attack. And this is before going for something like Marauder, Martial Artist, Steel Hand Adept, or increasing Brawn and Discipline.

I'd suggest at a minimum dropping Feral Strength. I think that you should drop or change Burning Hands.

That's also a really janky tree path, something you tend to do but that I do not recommend.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

There may be precedent for something similar, so please point it out if there is, but Burning Hands and Iron Body (Improved) do multiple fairly different things in a single talent, and I think that is a bit much.

As for Burning Hands, I think that is a bit much. Someone with 2 Discipline, 3 Brawn, and Feral Strength is doing a base damage of 6 with completely unarmed attacks. Add Vibroknucklers and Weapon Kata and now they can fairly reliably dish out 16-(Soak-1)*2, or 10 damage past a Soak of 4 with just about every attack. And this is before going for something like Marauder, Martial Artist, Steel Hand Adept, or increasing Brawn and Discipline.

I'd suggest at a minimum dropping Feral Strength. I think that you should drop or change Burning Hands.

That's also a really janky tree path, something you tend to do but that I do not recommend.

I intended to say unarmed attacks which rules out vibro knuckles

The "janky tree path" was done super specifically/intentionally to better fit with the lore about the matukai path to awaken force sensitivity being long and arduous... the quick path takes you through a 20 xp witchcraft that anyone who is already force sensitive wouldn't want to pay, a 25 xp balance on the way to the cool force stuff is also a bit of "discouragement" to make it more arduous.... also stuff gets increasingly "forcey" from witchcraft (or sixth sense if you went the long way around) so it has the awakening at the end of a long arduous process vibe.

Comparing burning hands to deadly accuracy makes it seem not uber because 1) it works off a different skill, and 2 requires commiting a force die. And that one is strictly about controlling body temperature.

I will try to find an example talent... the secrets of the j.g edi talents come to mind as not excellent examples.

Kind of examples from FaD, part of clone wars books and some of the universal specs, I haven't looked at AoR or EotE, but I'm guessing that at least one of the following will qualify

Hawkbat swoop,

Draw closer,

Adaptable (padawan)

Something to prove (padawan)

Improved secrets of the jedi

Hunter

Keen eyed (halves time as second)

Researcher (time reduction as second)

Conditioned (second is reduces strain from falling damage)

Inner peace

Ichor blade

Ichor blade improved

Improved overwhelming aura

42 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Hunter

Keen eyed (halves time as second)

Researcher (time reduction as second)

Conditioned (second is reduces strain from falling damage)

I wouldn't count those as the two effects fit together pretty closely and those are Passive talents, not Active. It's also generally a lesser effect tagged on as a small bonus, not something that deserves to have its own talent.

45 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Hawkbat swoop,

Draw closer,

Adaptable (padawan)

Something to prove (padawan)

Ichor blade

Ichor blade improved

Improved overwhelming aura

I don't know why you'd list any of these. Some of them are two-step or have two sides of a coin, but none of them have completely different effects or what looks like two different talents under the same umbrella.

53 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Improved secrets of the jedi

This one is the only one I can see something of a case for, but not all that much of a case and I think it makes sense, especially as all the second effect does is make something a career skill. I don't think your talent is comparable to any of these.

Here's what I would suggest for those talents:

Temperature control talent:
Force Talent: The character may commit a force die to remove up to 2 Setback due to hot or cold environmental effects, and decrease the difficulty of Resilience checks to resist the effects of hot or cold environments by 1.

Iron Body (Improved):*
The character may add their Force dice to Resilience (and Coordination?) checks, spending [PIP] to add Success or Advantage.

And for adding damage, a talent like Anatomy Lessons or Soft Spot: Flip a DP to add damage equal to Willpower to one hit of a successful combat check. Or perhaps instead, Commit Force die to add damage equal to Willpower to one hit of a successful unarmed Brawl check per round.

*This doesn't even need to be Iron Body and may be better off being called something else.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I wouldn't count those as the two effects fit together pretty closely and those are Passive talents, not Active. It's also generally a lesser effect tagged on as a small bonus, not something that deserves to have its own talent.

I don't know why you'd list any of these. Some of them are two-step or have two sides of a coin, but none of them have completely different effects or what looks like two different talents under the same umbrella.

This one is the only one I can see something of a case for, but not all that much of a case and I think it makes sense, especially as all the second effect does is make something a career skill. I don't think your talent is comparable to any of these.

Here's what I would suggest for those talents:

Temperature control talent:
Force Talent: The character may commit a force die to remove up to 2 Setback due to hot or cold environmental effects, and decrease the difficulty of Resilience checks to resist the effects of hot or cold environments by 1.

Iron Body (Improved):*
The character may add their Force dice to Resilience (and Coordination?) checks, spending [PIP] to add Success or Advantage.

And for adding damage, a talent like Anatomy Lessons or Soft Spot: Flip a DP to add damage equal to Willpower to one hit of a successful combat check. Or perhaps instead, Commit Force die to add damage equal to Willpower to one hit of a successful unarmed Brawl check per round.

*This doesn't even need to be Iron Body and may be better off being called something else.

Other than committing a force die, burning hands and iron body improved are passive. The same way deadly accuracy is passive, which makes it similar to say conditioned

Ichor blade (cortosis, pierce 2, reduces critical rating by 1)

and

ichor blade improved (sunder, defensive 1, and increases damage by 2)

each have 3 separate effects

Deadly accuracy is a 15 xp talent ( see sharp shooter which also has a 10 xp copy but you have to go down and around and back up for it)

Burning hands should be compared to deadly accuracy.... both are 15 xp talents (but burning hands is extremely costly to get to).... both add damage equal to ranks in a skill but deadly accuracy is in the skill used to make the attack and burning hand requires a second skill, deadly accuracy works with any combat skill (i.e. could be used with lightsabers), burning hands only works with unarmed brawl attacks (the weakest type of attack), deadly accuracy is passive, burning hand requires committing a force die.

Without any other add on effect "burning hands" is in every way inferior to deadly accuracy, and rather dramatically so.

But deadly accuracy doesn't appear in any tree with a force rating, presumably to make it more costly to use with a lightsaber, but martial grace (which appears in steelhand adept) is a closer analogy.

Martial grace costs 10 xp and is extremely easy to reach, vs burning hands which costs 15 xp and is extremely expensive to reach; martial grace can be used on any brawl attack vs. burning hands which can only be used on unarmed brawl attacks (so less damage and less pierce per attack); martial grace costs 2 strain and no action to use vs. burning hands costing an action to commit a force die; martial grace can be used once per round vs burning hands which can be used once per attack.... martial grace appears in conjunction with improved precision strike (overpowered crit) and 2 ranks of iron body (so 3 advantage crit) vs. burning hands occurring in the same tree as weapon kata. So without any add ins burning hands is about equally powerful to martial grace but it is dramatically more costly to both get and use.... maybe the add on was too powerful.. maybe it should decrease the difficulty of resilience checks vs hot and cold temperatures once as the add on.

I saw a talent to commit force die, gain equal soak and pay strain so my iron body improved is dramatically overpowered, however your iron body (improved) replicates a small (cheap to get) part of the enhance force power, so it's kind of pointless.

Maybe I ought to drop iron body improved and pick up an enduring...

Edited by EliasWindrider

How about this

Career skills: brawl, coordination, discipline, resilience

Iron body Wan Shen technique Parry Toughened

| | |

Enduring ----------------- Feral strength-----unarmed parry------iron body

| |

Force rating Extended reach Dodge (improved)--- Dodge

| | |

Burning Hands witchcraft Superior reflexes------weapon kata

| | |

Balance ---------------------- Sixth sense ------ dedication -------- natural brawler

New Talents:

Wan shen technique: melee becomes a career skill. In addition the character can use a two handed Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber weapon in one hand and receive the benefits of using it in two hands and one hand simultaneously

Weapon kata: once per round after making a successful Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber attack, the character may spend 2 advantage to immediately make an brawl attack as an incidental against any engaged target.

(Long version of burning hands, not the short tree description)

Burning hands: force talent: the character gains unnatural control of their body temperature. He may commit a force die to decrease the difficulty of resilience checks against hot or cold temperatures once and also add damage equal to ranks in discipline to the first hit of each unarmed brawl attack while the force dir remains committed.

Edited by EliasWindrider
9 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Ichor blade (cortosis, pierce 2, reduces critical rating by 1)

and

ichor blade improved (sunder, defensive 1, and increases damage by 2)

each have 3 separate effects

Not at all. It has 1 separate effect: Enhancing the weapon to the user's specifications. Aside from it only increasing a single weapon's weapon qualities, the basic version has one small feature that goes hand-in-hand with the personalization effect, and that is adding a Setback to other users (see the full text).

10 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Other than committing a force die, burning hands and iron body improved are passive. The same way deadly accuracy is passive, which makes it similar to say conditioned

Conditioned and the like are also ranked talents, and like I said, their secondary abilities fit pretty closely to the primary abilities and don't warrant their own talent. Yours does not fit closely and it does warrant its own talent.

10 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Deadly accuracy is a 15 xp talent ( see sharp shooter which also has a 10 xp copy but you have to go down and around and back up for it)

Burning hands should be compared to deadly accuracy.... both are 15 xp talents (but burning hands is extremely costly to get to).... both add damage equal to ranks in a skill but deadly accuracy is in the skill used to make the attack and burning hand requires a second skill, deadly accuracy works with any combat skill (i.e. could be used with lightsabers), burning hands only works with unarmed brawl attacks (the weakest type of attack), deadly accuracy is passive, burning hand requires committing a force die.

Without any other add on effect "burning hands" is in every way inferior to deadly accuracy, and rather dramatically so.

But deadly accuracy doesn't appear in any tree with a force rating, presumably to make it more costly to use with a lightsaber, but martial grace (which appears in steelhand adept) is a closer analogy.

Martial grace costs 10 xp and is extremely easy to reach, vs burning hands which costs 15 xp and is extremely expensive to reach; martial grace can be used on any brawl attack vs. burning hands which can only be used on unarmed brawl attacks (so less damage and less pierce per attack); martial grace costs 2 strain and no action to use vs. burning hands costing an action to commit a force die; martial grace can be used once per round vs burning hands which can be used once per attack.... martial grace appears in conjunction with improved precision strike (overpowered crit) and 2 ranks of iron body (so 3 advantage crit) vs. burning hands occurring in the same tree as weapon kata. So without any add ins burning hands is about equally powerful to martial grace but it is dramatically more costly to both get and use.... maybe the add on was too powerful.. maybe it should decrease the difficulty of resilience checks vs hot and cold temperatures once as the add on.

Then it's a bad talent. Or you can just place it somewhere else on the tree and not be so set on making it take forever to get to. Like I said in the first place, this is better done with a pair of talent trees and some creative fluff, perhaps with some judicious and thematic XP expenditures by the player.

And I actually forgot about Enhance for Iron Body (Improved), Enhance isn't something I run into very often. Instead of Iron Body (Improved), just add the temperature control talent.

I cannot find a thread to fit my question so I ask here.

Is there another Talent Tree with Parry exept Bounty Hunter - Martial Artist for non force users?

16 minutes ago, dreenan said:

I cannot find a thread to fit my question so I ask here.

Is there another Talent Tree with Parry exept Bounty Hunter - Martial Artist for non force users?

You might be out of luck.

To my knowledge only the following have the Parry Talend: Arbiter , Ataru Striker , Juyo Berserker , Makashi Duelist , Martial Artist , Niman Disciple , Padawan Survivor , Protector , Shii-Cho Knight , Shien Expert , Soresu Defender and Steel Hand Adept.

This does not account for Clone Wars Specializations, I haven't worked those into my wiki yet so I can't be sure.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Not at all. It has 1 separate effect: Enhancing the weapon to the user's specifications. Aside from it only increasing a single weapon's weapon qualities, the basic version has one small feature that goes hand-in-hand with the personalization effect, and that is adding a Setback to other users (see the full text).

Conditioned and the like are also ranked talents, and like I said, their secondary abilities fit pretty closely to the primary abilities and don't warrant their own talent. Yours does not fit closely and it does warrant its own talent.

Then it's a bad talent. Or you can just place it somewhere else on the tree and not be so set on making it take forever to get to. Like I said in the first place, this is better done with a pair of talent trees and some creative fluff, perhaps with some judicious and thematic XP expenditures by the player.

And I actually forgot about Enhance for Iron Body (Improved), Enhance isn't something I run into very often. Instead of Iron Body (Improved), just add the temperature control talent.

Please explain to me how removing a setback from athletics and coordination fits with reducing strain taken from falling damage in conditioned

When using the same logic temperature control dpes not fit with both resistance to hot cold and making your hands hot enough to cause damage?

I'm not trying to be argumentative about this, I just don't understand the logic of why conditioned's effects are related without burning hands' two effects also being closely related through "temperature control" which seems like a very strong (stronger than conditioned) tie to me.

Edited by EliasWindrider
54 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Please explain to me how removing a setback from athletics and coordination fits with reducing strain taken from falling damage in conditioned

Easy. Athletics and Coordination are the skills used for reducing fall damage. And Conditioned applies to both Wounds and Strain, not just Strain.

55 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

When using the same logic temperature control dpes not fit with both resistance to hot cold and making your hands hot enough to cause damage?

I'm not trying to be argumentative about this, I just don't understand the logic of why conditioned's effects are related without burning hands' two effects also being closely related through "temperature control" which seems like a very strong (stronger than conditioned) tie to me.

The main problem is that the two effects are so different. One adds damage to an attack, the other helps with resistance to a n environmental effect. That's two completely different things. Further, making your hands hot enough to burn someone requires much more heat than keeping your body warm in cold conditions. I'd suggest making it two talents, the environmental resistance gating the damage talent.

5 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Easy. Athletics and Coordination are the skills used for reducing fall damage. And Conditioned applies to both Wounds and Strain, not just Strain.

The main problem is that the two effects are so different. One adds damage to an attack, the other helps with resistance to a n environmental effect. That's two completely different things. Further, making your hands hot enough to burn someone requires much more heat than keeping your body warm in cold conditions. I'd suggest making it two talents, the environmental resistance gating the damage talent.

I'm still not following your logic.

Reducing wounds and strain from falling is a very different mechanical effect than making checks easier... and the talent is about being in good athletic condition rather than being focused on falls... if it was named something to the effect of "feather fall" that'd be another story... but the talent isn't themed on falling it's themed on being in good athletic shape and the mechanical effects are pretty different.

Burning hands is focused on unnatural/supernatural temperature control, control extreme enough to damage others and yet not damage yourself with the heat you produce. Being able to control your own body temperature that extremely with that much precision is certainly enough control to aid against "normal/natural" environmental hot and cold extremes. The extreme temperature control theme of the talent better explains the differing mechanical effects than "conditioned" does,

Long version of burning hands, not the short in tree description)

Burning hands: force talent: the character gains unnatural control of his body temperature. He may commit a force die to decrease the difficulty of resilience checks against hot or cold temperatures once and also adds damage equal to ranks in discipline to the first hit of each unarmed brawl attack while the force die remains committed.

In terms of force talents' themes' ability to explain disparate mechanical effects

The theme of "drawing someone closer to you with the force" doesn't strongly explain adding successes, at least not as strongly of unnatural/supernatural temperature control explaing both effects of burning hands

And the theme of "jumping at someone with Hawkbat swoop" doesn't strongly explain adding advantages, at least not as strongly of unnatural/supernatural temperature control explaing both effects of burning hands

So I'm not following why you're ok with official talents whose themes poorly (by comparison) explain disparate mechanical effects and your not ok with a weaker (than draw closer and Hawkbat swoop) more expensive (to get to) talent whose theme better explains disparate mechanical effects.

Edited by EliasWindrider
1 hour ago, EliasWindrider said:

I'm still not following your logic.

Reducing wounds and strain from falling is a very different mechanical effect than making checks easier... and the talent is about being in good athletic condition rather than being focused on falls... if it was named something to the effect of "feather fall" that'd be another story... but the talent isn't themed on falling it's themed on being in good athletic shape and the mechanical effects are pretty different.

You're too wrapped up in the talent's name (though the name does make sense). It makes falling checks easier because it removes Setback from those checks (as well as others) and reduces Damage/Strain by 1 per rank.

Now to justify the talent's name: If you are in really good physical condition (and removing Setback suggests you are more adaptable and flexible), you are going to be able to take falls more easily. Say it's taking a tumble instinctively as you hit the ground so you don't land as hard.

Both effects are focused on a single sort of check, with one focusing more on a subset of those checks.

1 hour ago, EliasWindrider said:

Burning hands is focused on unnatural/supernatural temperature control, control extreme enough to damage others and yet not damage yourself with the heat you produce. Being able to control your own body temperature that extremely with that much precision is certainly enough control to aid against "normal/natural" environmental hot and cold extremes. The extreme temperature control theme of the talent better explains the differing mechanical effects than "conditioned" does,

I'm not saying they don't fit the theme. The mechanics don't fit together. Why aren't Sniper Shot and True Aim nestled together under a single talent called Sniper Skills or something? Just because they match an overarching theme doesn't mean they can reasonably be nestled under the same talent.

2 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

The theme of "drawing someone closer to you with the force" doesn't strongly explain adding successes, at least not as strongly of unnatural/supernatural temperature control explaing both effects of burning hands

Again, you are too wrapped up in the name. Mechanically, it makes perfect sense. What else are you going to do with the rest of the Force pips? It gives you an option for that. It doesn't say "May engage as an incidental. May also add Force dice to Lightsaber checks." You're adding the Force dice anyway and need something to do with those other pips.

For a narrative justification, you're moving quickly up to the target, penetrating their defenses and striking them quickly with your lightsaber. As you are using the force to augment your speed, it is harder for them to defend against, hence the greater damage by adding Success or even hitting when you otherwise would miss.

2 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

And the theme of "jumping at someone with Hawkbat swoop" doesn't strongly explain adding advantages, at least not as strongly of unnatural/supernatural temperature control explaing both effects of burning hands

Why not? Similar point to the above. Plus, it stacks with Saber Swarm, doesn't it? The advantage from Force pips can be used to trigger Saber Swarm. It's the force augmenting your speed so you can land several strikes in quick succession as opposed to the heavier hit from Niman's Draw Closer.

2 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

So I'm not following why you're ok with official talents whose themes poorly (by comparison) explain disparate mechanical effects and your not ok with a weaker (than draw closer and Hawkbat swoop) more expensive (to get to) talent whose theme better explains disparate mechanical effects.

Because they make sense and your doesn't. Yours is better off as different talents. Buff Burning Hands's combat side if you need to, but it should be two different effects. You are way too determined on making it really hard to get to, and thus thinking that since you made it so hard to reach then you have to make it really good. Just make it good and put it on the top row or the second to top row. Don't make a really janky tree that takes forever to navigate.

Thanks for taking the time to explain argument that you're making to me. I don't agree with the premise of the argument, but I do understand it now. And the thanks for explaining it to me is genuine.

I really don't think it makes sense for a tree to have 2 force talents focused on unnatural heat control especially when the benefit from one of them is so minor and so situational (with an extremely rare situation at that) ....

Besides being narratively justified as the same talent, The rarity of extreme heat and cold environmental effects just doesn't justify a second talent. While it isn't a talent, there's an analogous bundling of disparate very rare situational effects, including resistance to heat and cold. The protective amulet (alchemical crafting, in unlimited power) is crazy easy (1 purple) and cheap (300 credits) to make and covers a buttload of extremely rare situational benefits (vacuum, underwater, extreme temperatures, immunity to the burn quality, I forget what else) so I'd bet money if the game designers were to include these effects in a hypothetical matukai talent tree they would be the same talent (and I think they'd straight out give immunity to extreme heat and cold following the example of the protective amulet)... it's also possible they'd say the enhance force power covers the resistance to heat and cold adequately... but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be two separate talents.

The abilities were also nested under a single feat in d20 (I can take a photo and email it to you if you like) so professional game designers didn't have a problem with it.

A janky tree that takes forever to navigate fits the narrative theme of matukai, it'sthr point of matukai... someone whose force density is so minor that jedi wouldn't accept them as candidates for taken can have their force sensitivity awakened by the long arduous process of matukai training. if any tree should have a janky tree (and gambler does) matukai is the single concept/spec with the best narrative justification for it.

I view narrative justification and balance as the highest priorities.

What is the narrative justification?

17 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

What is the narrative justification?

I'm assuming you mean for the janky tree

I bolded some relevant sections of what follows but the gist is that through an arduous process involving physical training/disciple, meditation rituals etc., matukai could awaken the force in those not inherently gifted with strong force sensitivity. People the jedi rejected for training because of their weak force sensitivity could become matukai to strengthen their connection

Here's a small excerpt from the wookieepedia entry on matukai

Matukai philosophy was centered around creating a balance and harmony between the spiritual Force and the physical body, using exercise as a form of meditation. Their training involved meditative martial arts, physical training, and somatic rituals, and they were noted for being able to develop a Force-sensitivity in many beings who were not inherently gifted with the Force. Using their bodies as a focus, they emphasized keeping oneself clean and strong, purifying oneself through physical activity, and avoiding the dark side .

Here's another excerpt (philosophy)

The balance of the physical and spiritual was the cornerstone of Matukai philosophy. [1] Their robes, which were similar to Jedi robes apart from their green and white coloring, were designed to help achieve this balance. [2] The general tenets of the Matukai included keeping the body clean and strong, purifying themselves through physical activity, focusing on the Force through exercise and ceremony, and avoiding the taint of the dark side. [1] To promote these tenets, a meditation band was sometimes worn by the Matukai as a possible deterrent from the influence of the dark side. [2] Another Matukai teaching emphasized a flexibility of spirit that avoided becoming flustered or upset in order to maintain a stress-free and relaxed state. The purpose of this teaching was to allow the body to focus the Force with greater efficiency. Matukai philosophy encouraged the use of meditative martial arts, physical exercises, and somatic rituals in hopes of developing an inherently weak connection to the Force into something stronger. [1]

During training, a Matukai instructor had leeway in deciding exactly how to proceed, but trainees were frequently required to push the limits of their physical stamina while using the Force to gain strength. Lessons typically combined a physical component with a spiritual component related to the nature of the Force. Another common exercise for a Matukai was to stand in one stance for hours or even days at a time, sometimes in harsh weather conditions or other physical strain, in hopes of allowing the Force to flow through them in the process. As such, graduates of Matukai training were generally in good health due to their rigorous training and their newly enhanced connection to the Force. Upon completion of their training, Matukai received a distinctive tattoo covering their foreheads and the sides of their faces near the eyes. [3]

Edited by EliasWindrider

I don't particularly agree with @P-47 Thunderbolt 's reasoning but I thought of some other new force talents in keeping with matukai, one of which would provide boost resilience through the enhance power, and I doubling up would be too much, so how is the following.

Career skills: brawl, coordination, discipline, resilience

Iron body Wan Shen technique Iron Body Toughened

| |

Somatic ritual Parry-----------unarmed parry Enduring

| | |

Burning Hands Extended reach ------weapon kata-------Dodge

| | |

Inner Harmony witchcraft Superior reflexes----Dodge (improved)

| | |

Balance ---------------------- Sixth sense ------natural brawler-----Dedication

New Talents:

Wan shen technique: Melee becomes a career skill. In addition the character can use a two handed Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber weapon in one hand and receive the benefits of using it in two hands and one hand simultaneously

Weapon kata: once per round after making a successful Brawl , Melee , or Lightsaber attack, the character may spend 2 advantage to immediately make an Brawl attack as an incidental against any engaged target.

Inner Harmony: force talent: the character may use the enhance force power (including purchased upgrades) and balance talent even when all force dice are committed, furthermore he generates OO on top rolled force die results rolled for the enhance force power and balance talent. the extra OO can not be spent on other force talents or powers.

Burning hands: force talent: the character may commit a force die to add damage equal to ranks in discipline to the each hit of unarmed brawl attacks made while the force die remains committed

Somatic Ritual: force talent: the character may spend a maneuver to temporarily increase his force rating by one use of a force power or force talent made before the end of his next turn, this extra force die can not be committed.

Inner Harmony is similar to empty soul from ascetic... it grants 2 white pips instead of one white and one black.... but it can only be used on the enhance force power and balance talent. And that fits with the lore. Somatic ritual is like a force rating you have to spend a maneuver to use which also fits with a matukai's weaker force connection.

Edited by EliasWindrider
5 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Inner Harmony is similar to empty soul from ascetic... it grants 2 white pips instead of one white and one black.... but it can only be used on the enhance force power and balance talent. And that fits with the lore. Somatic ritual is like a force rating you have to spend a maneuver to use which also fits with a matukai's weaker force connection.

Inner Harmony seems rather overpowered compared to Empty Soul, already a 25 point talent. It gives more and doesn't come with the very strict restrictions of Empty Soul.

8 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

Inner Harmony seems rather overpowered compared to Empty Soul, already a 25 point talent. It gives more and doesn't come with the very strict restrictions of Empty Soul.

Either you missed the restrictions or don't agree that they're restrictions.

It's restricted to 1 force power (enhance) and 1 talent (balance) and being only lightside pips restricts its utility to characters who haven't fallen to the darkside side (because they'd be using darkside pips) so a morality restriction, all of that is thematically appropriate to Matukai.

In terms of power, they get this and somatic ritual instead of "empty soul" plus a force rating talent. Looking at the pair of empty soul + force rating you get 1+ 2/3 force pips on average (either lightside or darkside, no morality restriction) on all force powers... this gives you 2 lightside pips for enhance (and balance) so 1/3 pip more for a very narrow area of application where it is slightly stronger And nothing for every thing else. If you spend a maneuver (so a very high at the time cost) you get to add 2/3 pips on average

For all other force talents you're either down 2/3 of a force pip (on average) , or down a maneuver. For other force power you're down either 1 +2/3 pips (on average) or down 1 force pip and a maneuver and you can't commit the temporary force die which rules out a lot of uses.

So this is slightly stronger in a very narrow area of narratively appropriate focus and dramatically weaker in all other cases.

In terms of cost this is 145 xp to get the pair (buying through the matukai tree) vs. 130 xp to get the pair for ascetic, and that's if you buy through witchcraft which is 20 xp with zero benefit if you already had a force rating, otherwise it's dramatically more expensive.

To my eyes it seems balanced and adequately restricted, maybe you see reasons I've missed that it's not balanced or adequately restricted. If so maybe you could explain them

@EliasWindrider , I still have some misgivings about the layout and I'm iffy on Inner Harmony, but I think this is a much improved tree and you've resolved most of my complaints. I think Burning Hands is good and have no particular objections to the tree as-is.

7 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

@EliasWindrider , I still have some misgivings about the layout and I'm iffy on Inner Harmony, but I think this is a much improved tree and you've resolved most of my complaints. I think Burning Hands is good and have no particular objections to the tree as-is.

Do you have a suggestion for the next force tradition to work on? I kind of think adding a balistakinetics force power to the FaD armorer tree might be enough to cover jensarri... they probably don't need a universal spec... so covering jensarri means creating a force power tree.... or maybe ballistalkinetics is a talent that modifies move so that the damage inflicted by hurlling a silhouette 0 object is determined by the number of strength upgrade activations rather than the size (silhouette 0) of the object.

4 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Do you have a suggestion for the next force tradition to work on? I kind of think adding a balistakinetics force power to the FaD armorer tree might be enough to cover jensarri... they probably don't need a universal spec... so covering jensarri means creating a force power tree.... or maybe ballistalkinetics is a talent that modifies move so that the damage inflicted by hurlling a silhouette 0 object is determined by the number of strength upgrade activations rather than the size (silhouette 0) of the object.

No. I'll probably critique it when you make it, but I don't know much about any of these, least ways not enough to have a preference. The Old Republic never interested me, and I was always more interested in the military and military technology side of Star Wars anyway.

I have been watching with great interest, thanks for the hard work. If we are calling the Matukai complete, I might have a suggestion. I have always been interested in a blaster wielding force-sensitive. How about a Universal for the Teepo Paladin / Gray Paladin? In my mind I have been using Executioner / Gunslinger, but they seem to be able to do some cool stuff that might interest you in making a Universal for it. I also really like the Fallanassi, but I am not sure if there is enough there for a spec.