GoblynByte said:

I agree entirely. A lot of work went into Warhammer Fantasy, and Warhammer 40K, and those of us that respect that have found playing games using those rules to be extremely enjoyable. Myself included.

Someone's always going to be waiting for "their thing" because it's at the end of the release cue: if no-one is waiting, then the product that's at the end of the cue evidently isn't very important, or going to sell very well. And as this era is focused on Rebels and fringe elements, it makes sense to put the least common option - the Jedi - at the very end of the line.

As for quick start rules? They could just have easily NOT included ANY Force rules or options in this supplement, or in Age of Rebellion, and had us all wait until the end of the product line before we could experience any degree of it. But we don't, and have found in our hands a small sampler to wet out appetites. This is more than enough for me, and - I imagine - for those who love the true facts about this era: that there just AREN'T Jedi around anymore, save for a very few exceptions.

Shakespearian_Soldier said:

And what are PCs if not exceptions?

Keep in mind even the announcement makes it sound like the Jedi book is about the same era, being the last Jedi on the Run.

Dulahan said:

That is a good point. I can recall a great many WEG d6 Star Wars games with one or more fledgling would-be Jedi, and the stories told as they searched and struggled to increase their knowledge of the Force and take up the Jedi Knights' mantle as the defenders of peace and justice.

Not saying I want the whole thing right up front (as nice as that might be), but I wouldn't mind a wee bit more than just the Force Exile. Perhaps a Jedi Trainee specialization, reflecting someone that's had a smatter of Jedi training but isn't a Temple-minted Jedi Padawan, and when combined with the Force Exile would at least give those players interested in doing so the chance to grow beyond a Force Rating of 2?

Just thinking out loud, but have this proposed Jedi Trainee specialization require a Force Rating of 1 in order to even buy into it rather than granting a Force Rating like the Force Exile does? It's expensive (you've got to buy the Force Exile just to quality for this one, so that's at least 10 XP), but it does prevent a "cheap" option to increase one's Force Rating. So instead of a free Force Rating bump, you get four skills as class skills, such as Discipline, Vigilance, Knowledge (Lore) and most importantly the elusive Lightsaber skill (which I'd see more as an Agility skill more than a Brawn one).

Or perhaps instead of getting the Force Rating of 1 when buying into Force Exile, you instead spend 10 XP to become Force Sensitive, and take your choice of either Force Exile or Jedi Trainee as a "free" specialization, and with it four class skills as well as it still applying to the 3 specialization cap.

This would require providing Force Exile with a list of class skills, but that shouldn't be too difficult if you use their existing talents as guideline. So maybe Deceit, Streetwise, Surveillance, and perhaps Skulduggery as the fourth, all reflecting the Force Exile "flying under the radar" in regards to their Force abilities.

It would still be bloody expensive to hit a Force Rating of 3 given you'd have to run through two talent trees in order to get two picks of the Force Rating talent, but at least it would be possible, and would give players interested in such a taste of things to come when Force & Destiny hits shelves.

Another musing, as much guessing at things to come as anything. how do you all suppose things are going to work in later books for CG? Because we can't change Careers, yet hints are we can become Jedi eventually. And even in Rebellion there is likely to be new careers. Rules for changing careers eventually, perhaps? Not just specializations?

And other than that, in response to Donovan. That's sort of why I proposed a "Potential" CG stat of some sort. A stat that will point out your potential, but not necessarily be a stat we will reach in EotE. That would be one good way to help compromise for us Force User fans. Keep the current max, but have the PROMISE of more later. An actual on paper promise, not a "Eventually you'll get the game you want and until then too bad, you can just go play WEG or d20 if you want a Jedi/Force User stronger than a Padawan"

Something else that might help would be the promise of a "Force Exile" sourcebook coming earlier. Again, not necessarily powerful, but things like Shaman and such. No new powers. And ways to raise Force Rating even if not getting the real good toys to go with it like Jedi get until the Jedi book.

Even a max of 4 or 5 wouldn't be bad in this one. I'm fine with no one being able to be Master or above level before the Jedi Book or even the EU sourcebooks beyond that. But at least Knight level here (In potential! Not necessarily power! And again, mega expensive late late campaign is fine anyways, since the other PCs should have stuff to keep up by then too.

In regards to Force Rating, barring any major revisions to how Force Powers currently work, you really wouldn't need to go much higher than a Force Rating of 3 at this point; anything above that is pure ego stroking from a mechanics standpoint, as 3 Force Dice will almost always net you at least two Light Side Force Points, which is enough to activate the effects any of the existing Force Powers. Save 4 and 5 for either a supplement or the Rebellion book.

As for some kind of "Force Potential" stat… I don't see the need for it, unless you're going to scrap Force Rating entirely. You said in another thread that "PCs should be exceptions" in regards to lack of Jedi in the Rebellion Era, and putting any kind of "hard cap" on how high you can raise your Force Rating flies in the face of that. In a way, we already do have the "promise" of greater Force Ratings later… as more books are released. Right now the only two caps we have on Force Ratings is the "level of power" chart which tops out at 7, and the fact that there's only one Force Rating talent, leaving the players with an achievable cap of 2 in their Force Rating. That promise may not look like it's there, but that's only the case if you narrow your focus to just the single book that we have right now. Presumably, as more books come out, the ability to achieve those lofty peaks of Jedi Master degree of Force Rating will be attainable… FFG just hasn't written the full rules for those yet.

As for the careers, it could be that FFG will take a page out of the Warhammer RPGs and give us the option of "Advanced Careers." Unlike Specializations, these would stack with your starting career, adding some new class skills and opening up entirely new talent trees. Or, they could go the route used by Rogue Trader compared to Dark Heresy, and that characters from the second "setting book" will just simply have access to more powerful starting careers right out the gate, while PCs built using EotE are stuck with slightly-less awesome careers. But that's probably a discussion for a different thread, as that really doesn't have much to do with Force usage.

GoblynByte said:

Editorialising aside, I don't think there is anything wrong with looking at the very real downsides of the 40krp publishing model and wondering if anything can be done to reduce them.

It is a long time to wait if Jedi are yor think - for instance, anyone now in university will have graduated, moved across the country and got a job by the time the rules for Jedi come out.

And the WFRP derived system is very much out of its comfort zone when dealing with characters who are much above the 'power level' of regular humans (and that is nothing unusual - even Dungeons and Dragons breaks at high level!).

As such, I propose a set of quickstart rules for Jedi, 1: to take the sting out of the wait, and 2: to demonstrate that the system can handle them when they do arrive.

Not to much to ask I think.

AluminiumWolf said:

You have quickstart rules for Jedi.. its called The Force Chapter. Allow Dedication to raise Force Rating, and boom, you can easily make a Jedi Knight.

Inksplat said:

Not really. Though as I said upthread, those who depsperatly want to be a Jedi have options right now to do so. This wasn't exactly true of Space Marines.

cetiken said:

What exactly do you consider Quickstart rules? It sounds like you guys want full-fledged rules. There's a difference. Most Quickstart rules are missing the finer details, and that is exactly what you guys have.

I was thinking of something like the adventures FFG have put out for Free RPG Day to tease the 40krp games -

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=108&esem=4

'Final Sanction' for Deathwatch for instance.

So you would get a few pre-stated Jedi, an adventure featuring them doing Jedi stuff, and enough rules to play it.

AluminiumWolf said:

We'd probably get something like those closer to when Force & Destiny would be released, much like said adventure came out when Deathwatch was on the near horizon.

Donovan Morningfire said:

And I am suggesting they move it up a couple of years in order to throw a bone to the Jedi fen. :0)

(And to demonstrate that the system was designed with Jedi in mind…)

AluminiumWolf said:

I've played it. It is.

GoblynByte said:

:-)

You're right. So quickly, in fact, that they're already done. It's called Beta (as someone else pointed out).

GoblynByte said:

So how would you stat Darth Maul? And how do you see the Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon/Maul fight working in the system?

AluminiumWolf said:

Marauder/Force-Sensitive. Sense + Move. Lightsaber. Profit?

The fight would be Qui-Gon vs Maul and Obi-wan vs Maul, with Maul getting at least 1 setback die for engaging two opponents. Would be more, but he's got the dual saber. Dual saber would also allow Maul to use two-weapon fighting rules and attack both of them at once.

What's the problem?

Inksplat said:

Nothin' but net. Boom goes the dynamite. For the win.

AluminiumWolf: have you actually read the book?

GoblynByte said:

Hell no! I just know that the WFRP system doesn't work for Space Marines, and I'd hate to see the same thing happen again with Jedi. Systems do usually have a sweet spot where they work best, so I am not entirely confident that one intended for Han Solo will work for Starkiller/The Secret Apprentice.

And I feel it is On Them to show it does, especially if they expect people to wait years to find out.

AluminiumWolf said:

Making Jedi is seriously zero problem with EotE. Marauder/Scholar/Force-Sensitive is absolutely a Jedi.

AluminiumWolf said:

Are you kidding me? All these complaints about the system and harsh words towards the designers and you haven't even given them the courtesy of educating yourself on what you're talking about? And your basis for comparison is that a fantasy RPG can't handle a science fiction elements? Um… that's kind of silly.

The point everyone is making is that they HAVE shown that it can handle that sort of thing. If you choose not to read it that's your choice. But don't ignore it then claim they didn't do it.

I should also point out that this game is still in Beta. Which means it isn't even done yet. Which means that any release of any so-called "quickstart" rules at this point would be very, very premature.

Also, consider that we may get the final product and there may be double the amount of Force information in it and they're using what's provided in the Beta book to get an idea of how the basics work. We could get even LESS Force information in the final product. Who knows?

Really, the only way that EotE limits the creation is Jedi, is that starting experience is a little low. But that makes sense--a starting character at EotE level would be a Padawan, just like a Smuggler starting in EotE hardly has any tricks either. Add more XP, and you can really make a complete Jedi.

You have:

The ability to Mind Trick people.

The ability to Move objects with the Force.

The ability to fight with a Lightsaber and utterly wreck anyone not equally trained, thanks to Force Sense & the Force-Sensitive Tree.

The ability to Force Jump (nothing against using Force Move on yourself, after all).

The ability to Force Push.

What exactly is missing? A Jedi with enough XP, so long as you rule that Force Rating is a Characteristic, and can thus be raised by Dedication, will be able to destroy any other class. And that is just with the EotE rules.

I'm really not sure what else you could want from a Jedi.

Inksplat said:

What I see as missing (but could easily be transposed from other, similar abilities) are some of the more non-combat oriented stuff like foresight abilities. Also, a lot of the grosser uses of the Force from Extended Universe sources would need to be filled in (Force Storms, and the like). But I'm not too eager to see those pop up anyway 'cause I feel the EU portrayal of the Force can get a bit silly.

Force Lightning is the only thing really missing that I feel might be a little tougher to emulate using the existing rules. But since this is one that many past RPGs have gotten flat-out wrong, I'm willing to let it go until they're sure they can get it working right.

I'd be willing to bet, though, that within a few weeks after the release of EotE (maybe the release of the Beta) there will be countless fan-made Force power trees to draw from. It really isn't difficult to extrapolate the power progression of the existing three power trees and apply that to just about anything.

Here's how you could easily make focused Jedi traits using EotE:

• Jedi Powers : The first tier gives you the ability to do the thing, later tiers give you the ability to do the thing from farther away, another tier gives you the ability to do the thing with more power. Another tier gives you the ability to do the thing to more people. Etc, etc, etc. The costs are standardized for the various tiers so balance is less of an issue.
• Jedi Careers : Create a Jedi career and give it three specializations. Start by scratching the name off of a lot of the Marauder and Bodyguard talents and give Jedi-like titles to them (and change some of the ranged-based Bodyguard talents to Lightsaber-based) and rename these specializations Lightsaber Duelist and Jedi Protector. Then build a Consular specialization by altering one of the more socially oriented talent trees. Liberally modify all three specializations with talents from the Force Exile tree.

Done. Not only is this easy to do, but it demonstrates how flexible and easily modifiable the system really is.

Well, I was specifying Jedi for a reason--they don't use Force Lightning and such. And Foresight, well, that's iffy, as it never seems to work in the movies.