Donovan Morningfire Said: So what do you call the Force Powers and lightsaber stats that are in the book?

Force Powers and Lightsaber Stats. Notice how they're aren't connected in a meaningful manner. (Yet.)

Donovan Morningfire Said: On a purely mechanical level, I'd call those "rules for playing Jedi." True, there's no fluff about what it means to be a Jedi, but then there's not a lot of fluff in any of the book. A few pages back, I did what I'd like to think is a pretty solid breakdown of what "Jedi" means in terms of game mechanics.

See above.

Also… how can I Redirect a shot? Throw my lightsaber, then return it to my hand? Stop a Blaster Bolt with my hand? Jump 10 meters in the air? Race down a hallway faster than the eye can see? Use the Force to heal another? (The list goes on and on with more esoteric techniques… but the above list is pretty basic for "vanilla jedi".)

Donovan Morningfire Said: You even said yourself within 24 hours of acquiring the book that folks should relax, there are rules for the Force and playing Force-users, as well as stats for lightsabers. And when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, isn't that what a Jedi essentially is, a Force-user with a lightsaber? Last I checked, you can do that, so in that respect, there are rules for Jedi in the Beta. Or did I get a different copy of the Beta than those folks clamoring there's no way at all to play a Jedi-type character in this game?

The more I've read… I would be tickled if there was just MORE. Even if I had to reverse engineer it from stat-blocks. (See above.) I just don't have the time to custom-house-rule new talent trees for Jedi or The Force.

And, homie, don't be playing like dat! Dono, you, yourself, have already began work on "new" Force Power trees - so even for you there's got to be something desired, here.

Donovan Morningfire said:

My issue with that rationale is that, first, class skills are a bad idea that even WoTC is finally abandoning in the Next beta. Second, if you spec hop to get grit and toughened and the like, your spending 5 or 10 xp every couple of talents, which will add up, and you're buying a lot of low level talents instead of a smaller number of high level talents. Sure, you'll have great durability, but you won't get Dedicated, or any of the other 25 point talents, near as quickly as someone who doesn't spec hop.

Meanwhile, at the 5 and 10 cost (and I'd be fine with making a new spec in your career free, honestly) it's still easy, even in chargen, to make a variety of characters work that can't work within one specialization.

And the specializations are narrow enough that I imagine a lot of people are going to run up against this. In building characters for my group, and a dozen or so test characters just for fun, starting from a character concept and then finding the mechanics to match, my experience has been that literally every character takes more than one spec, and that most get all they need from their career from one spec, and the others within that career don't help them flesh out the character, so they have to go with a non career spec.

GM Chris said:

Good points, Chris. I'm with you. Do I think we're gonna get all of the above? No. Do I think FFG should know I'd be happy with SOME of it? Yeah!

As for civility, thanks for the backup. Last thing I wanna do is trade insults with my fellow fans!

RonRamron said:

Last thing I want is for this place to become another WotC forums.

Oh no! Did that get bad?

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to add a couple points. First, I would ask that everyone keep things civil; which I'm pleased to say looks like it won't be too hard.

But as a side note about the lightsaber skill; the reason it does not exist as a listed skill is because we do not feel it fits with the theme of Edge of the Empire specifically. However, we did note that some people's characters may warrant having this skill. That's why we encourage GMs to create the Lightsaber skill as a custom skill tied to Brawn or Agility if they feel that its warranted for a specific PC. They can also decide whether or not it should be a career skill. This means the creation of the skill is a collaborative decision made between the players and the GM.

Thanks everyone!

CharlieBananas said:

Trust, but verify I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify

I am sure they won't make the same mistakes again.

But I'd still like to see examples of how the system performs at Jedi level sooner rather than later. Just to make sure, yknow?

Hey! Thanks for posting, Sam! We appreciate how hard you all are working for our benefit.

Can I be so bold as to ask you this..? Said custom lightsaber skill. Would it be entirely out of line to make that skill twice as expensive as normal skills to compensate for the extreme effectiveness of FFG's lightsaber? Have your designers ever considered options such as these to account for exceedingly rare training or inherent difficulty of a certain area of learning?

Difficult to wield? It ain't 2d8 anymore.

Slaunyeh said:

It would be wrong in relation to the source material to say that every Jedi is an exceptional individual by virtue of their personal capacities and abilities. It's certainly possible for someone extraordinary to content with certain Jedi on roughly even footing. That said, let's consider Jengo Fett. To say that he was peerless wouldn't be a stretch. He was so amazingly gifted, in fact, that he was sought out, above and beyond everyone in the galaxy, to serve as the template by which the new clone army would be minted.

Now Jengo Fett killed Jedi, of that there can be no doubt. The Jedi he killed were special in their capacity to to use the force, but not necessarily as warriors. They had the advantage of the force and a bit of training, but they were still limited by their own capabilities. People with the ability to use the force were simply too rare to segregate them as such. The one time that Jengo Fett did encounter someone that approached his own skill as a combatant in addition to being a force-user he died. Quickly. It wasn't a long, drawn out encounter. He shot at Mace Windu, who deflected his attacks and then summarily decapitated him. The man that was selected to above the countless masses of the galactic population because of his consummate skill, was killed in seconds by the man that happened to be the best Jedi in the order, a much, much smaller sample group than the galaxy as a whole.

The fact of the matter, at least as established by the setting that the game seeks to replicate, is force users are innately more powerful than their mundane counterparts. While some individuals can close the gap somewhat do to their superlative skill, when they encounter someone similarly gifted and with access to the force unless there's some other mitigating circumstance the outcome is almost certain.

Now I'll grant you that this isn't necessarily a lot of fun for every group. Because of this, Edge of the Empire has chosen to separate the games in a fashion that should allow everyone to be happy. The Jedi, and force users in general, won't be watered down for the sake of balance, and neither will other characters necessarily be overshadowed by their force using counterparts.

GM Chris said:

I, and the people I play with, feel the same way. I wish they could simply release all three books simultaneously, providing the different play experiences that people are likely to want. That said, if the developers need to choose between releasing crap and making us wait I'll always choose the latter.

Chrislee66 said:

I made this exact argument, not a few pages before this (post 117). Same example, everything. I was told that Jango died because his jetpack broke (post 118). For the sake of argument, I just let it go, but I was like… "Like Mace was out of options if Fett happened to launch". "He couldn't have done one of those jump 10 meters things and caught Fett?, he couldn't have chucked his lightsaber at Fett guiding it with the force?, He couldn't force grip Fett and slam him back to the ground?, or move faster then light?", etc…(all talent's the person that argued the Fett ordeal, has since brought up in desire for jedi characters,, 175). Yeah, I called you out GM Chris

Needless to say, I'm with you…

$hamrock

RonRamron said:

It shouldn't be necessary to have a skill that breaks the rules. It's already going to cost almost everyone (from EotE) more to advance it than their career skills. As for the lightsaber being extremely effective, that's balanced by the fact that it's extremely rare. It would also stand to reason that it's hard to develop the skill prior to owning a lightsaber, so that avoids the cheap trick of a human dropping a free point into it right off the bat (unless the GM allows them to start with a lightsaber, but that seems far from mainstream).

Hi everyone,

To answer the second point, as long as the lightsaber skill is a custom skill, then the GM and players have a certain amount of leeway to collectively decide what's best for their game. If that means increasing the cost of the skill, then that's a decision a GM is allowed to make—so long as the players being affected are in agreement as well. The last thing anyone wants is to start a fight in a gaming group over this; so if it looks to be contentious, I suggest using the normal rules for non-Career skills.

Hope that helps!

I was musing that…

And what if instead of Agility or Brawn, the Ability Dice to use lightsaber were equal to the user's Force Rating?

What do you think of the idea? Cool? Unbalanced? Rubish?

OB-1 said:

I think that is a capital idea.

OB-1 said:

It's a fine idea!

But it does work on the assumption that your skill with a lightsaber is directly related to your Force Ability. If you're fine with that assumption, then cool. (At least for EotE. For future releases, when Force Rating gets up past 5, you can't because you're then moving past the normal upper limit of a skill.)

But there are lots of instances in canon where you have Jedi who were weaker with the Force, but fearsome lightsaber combatants, and vice-versa. If you did this, then a Force Sensitive hermit who's worked his way up to a Force Rating of 3 or 4 could find a lightsaber for the first time in his life, pick it up, and "suddenly" have 3 or 4 skill dice in it's use. Yeeesh. :-

GM Chris said:

The OP on this idea clearly states the ability associated with the skill be FR, not the skill to use it. In your example, a force sensitive with FR = 4 w/o a lightsaber skill would start at 4 ability dice, just like anyone without any ranks of ranged (light) and 4 Agi would start with 4 ability dice.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "skill dice". That could be proficiency or ability… Again, he's very clearly not saying that FR would equal ranks of lightsaber skill.

-WJL

GM Chris said:

I don't know that I'd do a straight substitution, but I'd totally be fine if later down the line a Jedi or other Force-user has the option to change it from Brawn/Agility to Force Rating with a talent or something like that. Lets those weapon masters continue to be destructive because of their training, but lets those stronger in the Force take advantage of that aspect as well.

OB-1 said:

Interesting notion, but you run into the problem of there being a host of characters, chief amongst which being General Grievious, that have zero ability with the Force yet are capable, even fearsome lightsaber combatants.

Personally, if I were going to tie Force Rating into lightsaber usage, I'd probably have a talent that lets you add your Force Rating to the damage rolls, but said talent would be the purview of Jedi Knights, not your average untrained Force-user.

That or make Force Rating a requirement to make use of the Deflection quality, reflecting how those "Jedi-like reflexes" enable you to intercept incoming ranged attacks. I wouldn't have it scale though based on Force Rating though, as GM Chris noted would prove quite problematic when the rules for reaching those higher Force Ratings become available down the line.

Well then GM Chris, allow me to retort (didn't reply sooner as you've got some valid points and I wanted to give them their proper due).

Donovan Morningfire Said: So what do you call the Force Powers and lightsaber stats that are in the book?

GM Chris Responded : Force Powers and Lightsaber Stats. Notice how they're aren't connected in a meaningful manner. (Yet.)

My Reply : But they are there, and as I noted earlier, the book is lacking a lot of the fluff. To say nothing of there being plenty of Force-using lightsaber wielders who aren't Jedi and more than a few Jedi that don't make use of lightsabers.

Donovan Morningfire Said: On a purely mechanical level, I'd call those "rules for playing Jedi." True, there's no fluff about what it means to be a Jedi, but then there's not a lot of fluff in any of the book. A few pages back, I did what I'd like to think is a pretty solid breakdown of what "Jedi" means in terms of game mechanics.

GM Chris Responded : See above. Also… how can I Redirect a shot? Throw my lightsaber, then return it to my hand? Stop a Blaster Bolt with my hand? Jump 10 meters in the air? Race down a hallway faster than the eye can see? Use the Force to heal another? (The list goes on and on with more esoteric techniques… but the above list is pretty basic for "vanilla jedi".)

My Reply : Going by the movies, the only Jedi we see that redirect blaster fire that aren't already Jedi Knights are Obi-Wan in TPM (whose had a lifetime of Jedi training), Anakin in AotC (formal Jedi training), Lucas' son in RotS (formal Jedi training and being the director's kid), and then Luke in RotJ (at which point he's practically a Jedi Knight). So that'd fall under "high level ability." To put it in Saga Edition terms, it'd be akin to complaining that you can't take the Redirect Shot talent because you refuse to take levels in the Jedi class. Only for EotE, the Jedi class (which also reflects an inherent degree of actual Jedi training) doesn't exist, so those high-level abilities aren't accessible to most characters.

Throw a lightsaber and return it to your hand? Easy, just throw it and then use Move the next round to reclaim it. Going by the movies, the only two characters we see that use throwing their lightsaber as a tactic is a Sith Lord (Vader in RotJ) and the Jedi Grand Master (Yoda in RotS), and neither of them use the Force to instantly reclaim it.

Stopping a blaster bolt with your bare hand again falls into "high level ability," stuff that requires training that's not really going to be readily available, since the only person we see do anything like that in the movies is Yoda, the Grand Jedi Master, and even then only against a Force attack, not blaster bolts.

Jump 10 meters into the air? Use the Move Power. After all, the power doesn't say that you can't use it on yourself. Just buy the first Range and Strength upgrades and you're set to go.

Racing down a hallway I'll give you, but even that could be handwaved with the Move, used on self, with most of the Range Upgrades, allowing you to "move" from Engaged to Medium in one action.

As for the others, the majority of the Jedi that we've seen do those things have either had some pretty extensive training or had a huge head start due to being naturally gifted in the Force, which is Luke's excuse, and even he had pretty rigorous training under Yoda; if 800 years of training Jedi doesn't give you the means to know what lessons will get the best effect in the quickest amount of time, then nothing will.

Donovan Morningfire Said: You even said yourself within 24 hours of acquiring the book that folks should relax, there are rules for the Force and playing Force-users, as well as stats for lightsabers. And when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, isn't that what a Jedi essentially is, a Force-user with a lightsaber? Last I checked, you can do that, so in that respect, there are rules for Jedi in the Beta. Or did I get a different copy of the Beta than those folks clamoring there's no way at all to play a Jedi-type character in this game?

GM Chris Responded: The more I've read… I would be tickled if there was just MORE. Even if I had to reverse engineer it from stat-blocks. (See above.) I just don't have the time to custom-house-rule new talent trees for Jedi or The Force. And, homie, don't be playing like dat! Dono, you, yourself, have already began work on "new" Force Power trees - so even for you there's got to be something desired, here.

My Reply : True, I've been working on some new talent trees for a couple of Force-based specializations (though a lot of my earlier pre-lim work on Force Powers got deep-sixed with the Week 2 update), but even then there's a limit to how far I'm willing to go for this stage of the game. I'm not looking to recreate the full diversity of what Jedi could accomplish in Saga Edition, and am in fact generally sticking to the movies in terms of what "powers" are out there. But even if FFG doesn't expand on what they've already provided in terms of the Force, it's a pretty wide gulf between saying "We can't play full-fledged Jedi Knights" and "We can't even play anything close to Jedi." I agree that full-fledged Masters of the Force aren't an option, but I was offering a mechanics-based counterpoint to the "there's no Jedi at all" arguments.

Also, one of the things from long before the days of the Prequels that's been lost along the way is the fact that knowledge of how to do a lot of those really uber-potent powers have simply been lost due to the Empire's efforts to purge the Jedi and their lore from the galaxy. Centuries upon centuries of lore and research into the Force had simply been lost, with very few Jedi Masters surviving the purge, and a fair number of the surviving Jedi were probably more focused on fighting in the Clone Wars than learning ancient or esoteric Force techniques.

Maybe I'm showing my D6 roots, back when a lot of the stuff modern fans take for granted in terms of Force powers simply didn't exist , but given the scope and focus of the game, I'm quite alright with FFG not allowing for high-tier Force powers or Jedi Masters at this stage of the game. I wouldn't mind a wee bit more on Jedi (namely a Jedi-centric specialization with some Jedi-specific talents, such as enhanced lightsaber prowess and a couple of Force-based talents), but the Force powers they've provided do cover the basics of what we see in most of the movies, and even the run-real-fast thing we only see once in TPM ( fully recall the complaints about why Obi-Wan didn't use that to get past those laser doors and thus help Qui-Gon during the big fight with Darth Maul). And for a core rulebook that's admittedly centered on a specific era of play rather than trying to cover everything at once, the basics of the Force are sufficient.

So can you play Jedi of the same caliber and breadth of ability as you could in the d20 versions of Star Wars? No, but again those books were trying to cover every possible era, many of which include the Jedi Order at full-strength, with valid arguments on both sides as to how well WotC did. FFG has chosen to go for a narrower focus in terms of era, selecting one of the few where the Jedi were at their absolute weakest. If this game were set in the Clone Wars and we didn't have full-bore Jedi rules, I'd be right there with you. But since it's the Rebellion Era and Jedi knowledge is an incredibly scarce commodity, I guess the lack of fully-trained Jedi with access to incredibly broad ranges of powers just doesn't bother me the way it does some other folks.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Vader stopped Han's blaster bolts in Empire as a party trick before they sat down to a nice dinner.

-WJL

Donovan Morningfire said:

+1 to all of this.

I'm glad to hear stuff like this that make me feel like I'm not the only person who remembers what it was like before the dark times… Before the prequels (and d20)…

There are enough rules covering the Force and the Jedi in this system to fit the setting. Period. FFG made the right decision. This isn't just nostalgia. The rules provided allow for weak force users to exist, and accomplish feats in line with what we saw new force users able to accomplish.

If you need more, the good news is there will likely be more. and soon. EotE will not be a stand-alone product, there will be supplements that come out before the Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny corebooks. Some of them will probably even have Force user related fluff in them. Look at how the Warhammer fantasy supplements have expanded the character creation and advancement options for that game. And this can be done without having a Force and Destiny proxy. Examples include

• Bounty Hunter supplement. Bounty hunters were absolutely hired to hunt Jedi and other force users… and the supplement can better support the creation of characters who they may hunt
• Force users of the fringe. The witches of Dathomir are a threat to smugglers and hired guns, as well as light side force users. The Gand findsman tradition can be explored in more depth, and maybe we can see the Zeison-sha and Matukai show up (Though I'm not sure if those are exclusive WotC properties, I'm sure LucasArts could release them). And a whole host of other "non-Jedi" force users from the edge of space (shamans, Sith cults, etc.)to donate more force info.
• Maybe even an "Outbound Flight Project" supplement

All are possible sources of Jedi/Force information and rules that don't need to be here in the core book. Food for thought.

-WJL

FFG_Sam Stewart said:

Yeah, I actually like the handling of the Lightsaber skill. I don't really think that full blown Jedi characters need to be a part of this part of the game, but someone that wants to use a lightsaber (say, an exiled Tipani saber rake) can, as long as the DM isn't a jerk. (a saber rake's weapon should do less damage than a standard lightsaber, btw)

My issue is much more general.

Chrislee66 said:

Jengo Fett was exceptional, but peerless? There's no evidence to suggest that the best wookie warrior couldn't have killed him, or that a Teras Kasi master wouldn't take him down with the same ease as Mace Windu. All we know is that he was exceptional, that he was better at asymetrical combat than direct, and that he said yes to the cloners. We don't know if he was the first choice, if the cloners were told to seek out the best of the best or just, "hey, find a bad ass mando, double check some of his bad assery is natural abillity if you can, and see if he'll let you create a clone army from his genes."

Further, Mace Windu isn't just someone that happened to be the "best Jedi in the order". He was one of the most lethal people in the known Galaxy. He invented a new lightsaber combat technique that required extreme discipline in order to use without falling to the Dark Side. He was second only to Yoda, and he would have killed Darth Sidious had Anakin not intervened.

More importantly, Luke isn't so awesome that it seems silly to run him in the same game as Chewie, Han and Leia. Seperating the game like they are makes it so that it doesn't make sense to have the core Star Wars characters in the same party.

I'm sorry, but that is terrible.

doctorbadwolf said:

Jengo Fett was selected to serve as the genetic template for Grand Army of the Republic. The single most powerful political entity in an entire galaxy selected this one individual from the whole of the population pool at their disposal, across all species and planets. I'd say that makes him far, far more than exceptional. Even simply being the best bounty hunter in the galaxy, which he most certainly was given cannon, makes him one of the most lethal people in existence.

Further, my supposition to you is that Mace Windu was one of the most dangerous people in the galaxy precisely because he was the best in the Jedi order. While his creation of Vapaad was certainly impressive, it's only exceptional within relation to other members of the order. We don't know how many other individuals throughout the galaxy may have had the same potential if they simply had access to the force. Remember that there were, at their peak, only about ten thousand Jedi in the galaxy. This number is so small as to be almost laughable in comparison to the teeming masses of the population of the galaxy, and the defining trait for entrance was there ability to use the force. They weren't required to be great fighters. In addition to being an exceptional combatant, however, Mace Windu was also a powerful force user, a combination that made him unbelievably dangerous.

Thank you for mentioning Yoda, by the way. Bringing him into the conversation only furthers my point. Yoda is small, likely less physically powerful than others both because of his stature and because of his advanced age. And yet, despite these huge physical handicaps, he was a terrifyingly lethal combatant. The reason, of course, is the force. He says it himself. In the cannon he does some pretty amazing things, and it's not because he's an exceptional specimen.

To your last point, I actually think that you can make Luke, at least from the first two movies, fairly easily in the system. He used a blaster far more than he used a lightsaber anyway. He's a colonist with Fringer, Pilot, and Force User. Only in the last movie does he transcend the system.

Chrislee66 said:

Alright. Let's consider the fight between Mace Windu and Jango Fett. And let us assume that Jango was, indeed, peerless (I'd have use the term 'exceptional', but we can at least agree that he is probably extremly good at what he does). Mace, on the other hand, is described as one of the best warriors the jedi order has ever known. His mastery of the force is second only to Yoda, and his skills with a lightsaber is second to none. That's not the baseline for a Jedi PC party I'd want to see in a game (but, then again, neither is Jango).

What actually happens in that fight? First Jango get run over by a monster. Then he realize that his jetpack is shot. Then he has a moment of stupid and starts firing his blasters at, you know, a jedi with a ready lightsaber . Nevermind the best lightsaber combatant in the known galaxy. In the end, what we see is a protagonist defeating an antagonist with hilarious ease, which is a fairly common tv trope. I don't think the message was ever "hey, that Jango guy was never a big deal after all."

If you want to gauge ability, I think it is inherently unfair to use a 'protagonist' vs. 'antagonist' fight as a baseline for PC power. Of course the protagonist is going to win. That's like concluding that "speaks with a German accent" should reduce your starting characteristics because John McClane beats Hans Grüber in Die Hard.

I think what you need to look at, instead, is how 'mixed groups' actually interact. Now, the prequels are essentially a story about jedi, so they are naturally skewered towards jedi-focused stories (and, thus, don't really spend a lot of time on 'group dynamics'). But even then, it's not like Padmé just sits around and wait to be rescued. She fully justifies her presence in just about any scene she's in… and while she can't jump tall buildings, she does have other talents to bring to the group. And that's disregarding the inherent unfairness in using Anakin or Luke as the baseline for anything. Han Solo manages to do pretty well without having the entire galaxy revolve around him. As does Obi-Wan, for that matter.