Right, so I have gathered that once you pick a talent this determines what talents you can pick next; the ones connected via the lines.

Does this mean that if I go for the smuggler scoundrel tree and pick black market contacts, I have to go for convincing demeanor (at 10xp) as my next talent from that tree? What if I start out by picking quick draw. It has no lines connected to it… should I then just pick another 5 point talent and go on from there?

I find these trees to be slightly confusing.

Jegergryte said:

They are a bit daunting at first, I'll grant you, but not horribly so.

The main question in determining if you a talent qualifies as a prerequisite is "does the talent I want have a grey line connecting it to a talent I already have?" The only exception are the first tier / 5 XP talents, as those can be taken at any time.

So for your example, if you take Quick Draw, then you can't take any of the 10 XP talents because Quick Draw doesn't have a line connecting it to to any other talents. But if you take Black Market Contacts, you can buy Convincing Demeanor because they are connected by a grey line. But you couldn't by Black Market Contacts for 10 XP because there's no connecting line between the Convincing Demeanor talent that's one the 2nd row of the leftmost column and the Black Market Contacts that's to it's immediate right.

Let's try another example, the Thief talent tree on the adjacent page. Let's say that your character has already purchased the Bypass Security, Indistinguishable, and Street Smarts talents from the first row.

You'd be eligible to then purchase the following 2nd row talents: Black Market Contacts (connect to 1st row Street Smarts), Grit (connected to 1st row Indistinguishable), and Hidden Storage (connected to 1st row Bypass Security), but not Street Smarts because you don't have Black Market Contacts on the 1st row. But, if you purchase either Grit or the 2nd row entry for Black Market Contacts, now you can purchase the 2nd row entry for Street Smarts because BMC and Gri are connected to it horizontally.

Also, the lines are not one-way arrows. So for trees like Scoundrel and Force Exile, which require you to to buy up to some rather high-level talents before you can access the middle cluster of talents, once you get those high XP talents from the bottom rows, you can follow the grey lines back up. For example, your Scoundrel manages to have purchased Dedication and then Natural Charmer. He can then travel back up, buying Rapid Reaction, which then connects him to Toughened and Hidden Storage, and so on.

I hope this helps, and apologize if I've only managed to confuse you any further.

Thanks Donovan. I re-read the rules for picking talents after your post, it seems I have overlooked the "pick any from the 5xp row" part you pointed out, thanks. it clarifies things.

Basically, I realise that whatever I do for my scoundrel (if I ever was to play one) I have to go down the left or right-most columns before getting access to the two mid-columns. Except for the two 5 xp talents of the two mid-columns, convincing demeanor and quick draw that is. It was those two that caused the whole confusion because they have no lines connecting anywhere.

It is a pretty nifty addition to the talent trees I think. I like it.

Again thanks for clarifying.

I 'm a little confused about the base costs for specializations and talents.

On p65 it says that "Purchasing a specialization is basically the character buying the ability to purchase talents within that specialization."

So do I spend 5xp to learn every career specialization? and 10xp to learn any (other) non-career specializations? and do you gain 1/your first specialization for free?

Then spend 5-25 for all actuall talent costs, because I don't see where it defines a cost for each talent tree/specialization?

I hope the question is clear.

Specialisations, and thus access to one talent tree (beyond the first specialisation/talent tree you pick during character generation), now costs 10xp for career specialisation, and 20 for non-career - se weekly update 1. Specialisation sort of equals talent trees, but also gives you a set of additional career skills specific to that specialisation.

The price for talents are listed on the side of the pages aligned with each row. Basically the top most row cost 5xp per, and then each row beneath costs 5 more per row, so second cost 10, third 15 and so on.

Hope that answers your question.

Gamerunner said:

Your first specialization is free. Your second and third one now cost more as the previous poster pointed out per the week 1 errata and all it does is give you more career skills and the ability to purchase talents from said specialization. You then spend more experience to purchase those talents, as you normally would.

So my 1st spec.(say as a B ounty Hunter) Assassin talent tree, is free . Then first tier is 5xp, 2nd tier is 10xp, and so on up to 25 for 5th tier.

Then if I choose Survivalist talent tree (as my second spec.) its going to cost me 10xp before I can spend 5xp on the tier 1 talents etc…

And if I choose the Force Sensitive Talent tree or the Scoundrel Talent tree (as my third spec.) its going to cost me 20xp before I can spend 5-25xp on the proper tiers…

Correct?

If so those costs, 10xp in career/ 20xp out of career, maybe should be posted at the top of the talent tree pages to clarify.

For some reason I was adding the additional cost to each tier of the talent trees.

Gamerunner said:

Technically the above is all true, though you'd still be paying 20 XP for Force-Sensitive or Scoundrel even if they were your second choices.

Personally, I'm not crazy about would-be Force-Sensitives having to pay 20 XP just get a Force Rating, which by itself is pretty **** useless without devoting even more XP to Force Powers. It feels like the writers are trying to create an artificial road-block to having Force-using player characters. The chapter itself pretty says "You need the GM's permission to take this," so if the GM decides that they don't want Force-users in their game, then nobody can take the Force Exile specialization and that's that. And if it's an attempt to better balance Force Powers, then all it does is delay the issue, not solve it.

I don't think they're trying to "balance" force users. Force users are supposed to be OP just based on what is seen in Canon and extended material (novels, comics, etc…). These books are also based on the Rebellion Era (the first 3 movies, not the prequels), so Jedis are nearly non-existent, hence the needing GM permission for the ability.