Slaunyeh said:

I believe that rules state that you do not have to pay for additional instances of non-ranked talents. Since you already know the talent, you automatically qualify to move past it on the tree.

Dulahan said:

But didn't Yoda say "you must unlearn what you have learned?" I kid.

However, though I agree with you in principle, let's be fair and discuss what really happens when you dump a Spec. You retain all career skills that you earned and you retain all permanent talents, so you certainly don't forget everything. In fact, if you choose you talents wisely, you'll forget very little.

jordiver2 said:

But this is already built into the DNA of the game. As Jay has stated previously, the Skill system does allow anyone to attempt just about anything. It's a system that, rather than require PCs to take a skill and have some degree of training to even attempt an action, instead essentially allows characters to do whatever they want. Characters have the ability to do anything, but not the proficiency to do everything well. If you were to tell me that in Star Wars, every character should eventually be able to be good at everything, then yeah, I'd agree that a very open-ended systemwith rotating specializations woul dbe a good fit.

However, I think what the game rules should actually do is to let the characters try just about anything, but only be good at a limited number of things. I believe that fits pretty well with what we see in the films.

Venthrac said:

What you suggest is a fix for a problem that doesn't exist. It will be a rare campaign that lasts long enought to fill out three trees. What what drppong trees does do is put the brakes on characters who are only dabbling in the top tier talents of a few specs. Also in the field of unintended cocsequences not being able to drop specs freely turns the human ability from boring to being actively bad.

Shakespearian_Soldier said:

Actually techincally, you could take drop a sepcialization, and take on a new one. Run the tree to the bottom to get another Dedication. Since Dedication is a Permanent Talent, it will not go away when you take a new specialization.

The way I conceive Luke's character is that Luke will keep taking more and more Jedi Specialization as he evolve, and drop his previous specialization.

sakieh said:

This was my take on things as well. I was going to use the example of Corran Horn from the EU (or Kyle Katarn, for an even more extreme example), but I suppose a few more people might know Luke's story.

From examining the mechanic for a while (in this, and other games), I don't think it's ever worthwhile to take away something the players have spent experience for without some sort of equivalent exchange. Starship gets blown up by fiat? You get a shiny new one. Character spent all his xp on Pilot specialization with a focus on space flight, but the campaign is going to be spending a ton of time politicking around Kuat Drive Yards? He should get a refund.

If the GM doesn't allow it to be done frivolously (and guidelines for such are given), or if they players retain Permanent talents but are refunded for everything else, I think it would be fine. But I don't think the players or the characters should simply lose the experience they've worked hard for.

I belive the idea is that the 'lost' xp is the cost of over generalization. If you want to be specalized in to to many diverse areas, it's essentialy costing you more. In some cases, if you really want that Permanent ability, it's worth the extra XP. As a related side note, it's my experiance that the more naritive a system/game is, the less XP balance truely matters.

Actually, I see that the character does retain Permanent abilities! This is pretty much fine by me.

I see abandon of specialization and all non-permanent talent as a character's decision that he will not use these skills again. And we all know if we don't use a skill over a period of time, you do forget how to do something. Of course, you can go back and re-familiarize yourself with the skill again, but you need re-invest time ( aka spend EXP), to get those skills back.

In theory, you can switch specialization again and again forever until you up all your trait to max, but in praticallity no one probably will do it until they ran max out option in current specializations.

Keep in mind that right now we don't even know if just 'drop specialization to pick up new one' is even the way things will work out when trying to upgrade. To be fair, it is a very good guess, but it is still just a guess until we're told something concrete.

And by the way, does anyone else find the power tiers a bit weird? Why is Rebellion Pilot somehow more than Bounty Hunter. I'll be the first to admit that I think Boba Fett was a joke, and lucky at best, not some super awesome invincible Bounty Hunter like he's become (I really, REALLY don't get his appeal, he was a lucky joke throughout the OT, maybe a bit smarter then the other Bounty Hunters, but nothing special). But I also bet that FFG is using the latter not something else. So on the topic of hypothesizing, anyone wonder if there's going to be advanced versions of the current talent trees to keep playing them up to Force and Destiny levels of power?

Dulahan said:

Has FFG explicitly said the books are supposed to represent power tiers? Granted the 40K books did, but that was a stated design goal from the start.

I can kinda see it making sense since the rebel pilot has an entire Rebel Alliance to give him resources. When the bounty hunter's ship blows up, he doesn't just get handed a new one. And sure, the Jedi are powerful.

Still, I'm just assuming and it's off-topic so, back to character creation feedback…

Going from half remembered stuff I heard while watching the In Flight Report on Youtube, I definitely got the impression it was supposed to be power tiers. At least the Jedi one is supposed to be a higher tier.

But I am confused why Rebels are a higher tier than Edge of the Empire style people. I can definitely see a great argument for Smugglers, Bounty Hunters, and the likes not being any different from Rebels aside allegiance, and am a bit perplexed why they need to be a separate game at all. Compatible or not. And I imagine a lot of EotE games are going to end up being de facto Rebellion games in play.

Dulahan said:

Due to focus on Rebellion, you are run into Military organization. I think in general Military Organization is better trained than Civilian organization. Also, generally Military Organization have access to BIGGER guns.

The other issue is acquisition in Military organization. In Military organization, you request gear instead buy them. So character will be generally better equiped compare to civilians.

Dulahan said:

Has it been stated by anyone "in the know" that the three books will feature a steady progression of power? I know the Force and Destiny book has been portrayed as being a higher power level because, well, it's about obviously more powerful people. But I don't think that means that the rebellion book would be a middle step in that progression. One could even argue that it will feature lower powered characters.

However, military style campaigns are very, very different stylistically than other campaigns and, as such, could benefit greatly from its own treatment.

I think the greatest aspect to take away from the three core rulebooks is not just a diverse power level (which I think is very important when it comes to portraying Jedi), but also (and equally) a stylistic difference. Fringe campaigns play differently than military campaigns which can play differently than Jedi campaigns.

Yeah, all of this is speculation right now!

I don't disagree military campaigns run differently either. But enough to need a new game versus a dedicated sourcebook to this one? Force and Destiny is another matter, of course. And who knows, maybe Rebellion will see our characters as more the 'leaders' and elites versus the 'grunts' too? We just don't know enough yet.

Dulahan said:

Just thinking out loud, but maybe the Rebellion Era book isn't so much about "more powerful heroes" but "heroes involved in greater things" as opposed to EotE's "heroes involved in petty concerns." The former can have grand, sweeping changes on the galaxy, while the latter's impact will be trivial, maybe impacting a single city or a small backwater planet at best. To use TV show examples, Firefly would mesh nicely with EotE, where Serenity would be a transition to impacting things on a bigger scale than just "flying the black and keeping afloat."

Yup, I'm thinking it'll be less "powerful heroes", although they might have more XP to throw around.

With any new style of storytelling (fringe vs. military vs. Jedi) is going to have a host of differently appropriate skills, talents, careers, and such. These may be skills that would never come into play for a Fringe campaign and would only muddy the waters if players had to weed through them to find the appropriate stuff. Having this stuff in their own RPG is useful.

Also, the entire Obligation mechanic - at least the way they describe it in Edge of the Empire - is a very Fringe type of quality. It's about owing favors and being tied up in less than savory machinations of underworld politics. That's something that isn't exactly in the right theme for the more upfront confrontations of soldiers or the "higher purpose" of the Jedi. I could be very wrong. Obligation might appear in each book. But it may also have a very different analogue in the future RPG books (with ways of using them in the same campaign, I'm sure).

Are all these things that could appear in a single rulebook with various sourcebooks? Well, sure. But the way they're doing it is cool, too, and I don't see any drawbacks. At least, no drawbacks that I find worth the effort of getting my underpants in a bunch about.

I think that the idea of dropping a specialisation and losing non-Permanent talents isn't such a bad thing. Aside from ensuring that you don't have players who keep switching specialisations "just to get a little of everything", it also could be argued that taking on a specialisation means more. If your character can fly a ship, then great! Choose Pilot as a skill and develop it; but if you take on the Pilot specialisation, it should represent the fact that his skills in the cockpit are a HUGE part of who he is, which is why he's gained access to talents that make him one step better than everyone else.

Specialisations, if they're chosen for the reason that they determine WHO your character is, should not be dropped on a whim; if this happens, then the player obviously doesn't know who his character is yet. He shouldn't pick up a new specialisation just because he's learning new skills, or because he's dabbling in bits and pieces that might tie in with other options - he should only trade over if such dabbling leads to something more, something significant.

I, personally, think that 3 specialisations is more than enough to provide you the tools with which to make a truly larger-than-life, well-rounded character. Anything more would simply provide you with an uber-character, someone who can do everything well instead of somethings well, and to me this just isn't Star Wars.

But to each their own. XD

lowdog said:

Would be very nice for those races to be represented in the core book.

Just my 2 cents….:-)

While I've no disagreement I'd love to see more races. At least we can probably assume they'll be in sourcebooks, they seem an easy add, at 2 a page or so, really easy space filler.

Also might be more in the full release.

Yeah, there's a big call for Duros in the other thread. I think they've been statted up since WEG's first edition, and they're iconic to the movies and to the lore. They're a spacer culture, and nearly as ubiquitous as humans.

I agree with Baron that of all the species, Duro are the one to add. I was actualy suprised to see Bothans included - I had assumed they'd be part of the Rebellion book.

New species can easily be added in supplements as well. so hopefully if Duros don't make the cut for the core book, they'll be in an early supplement.