Not having an edit button (for long term editing) is harsh. Sigh.

So, Here is an initial pitch for a jensaarai specialization. This is a universal specilaization similar to Force Exile but with a couple key differences.

Some symbols used:
<o> ongoing power: you must commit a force die to this power, during which time it is unavailable to power other traits.
For the purposes of this class Jensaarai Armor is any type of Armor with the Cortosis quality. Jensaarai Armor increases the cost of the Armor by 25,000 credits, is typically illegal or highly regulated, and NO jensaarai would ever sell his armor, as that is like selling a part of your soul!!!!!!!!!!

First, the Pre-req for entry is Force Rating 2.
Second, this is only the apprentice level of Jensaarai, and thus it is not a wholistic look at the entire tradition.

Special talents for the tradition:

Force Cloak (Force)-
Ranked: Yes
Action: Special
Effect: <o> Attempts to dicern you with either the force (including the sense power) or with electronic devices (optics, trip lines, motionsensors, etc.) suffer one set back die. For every rank beyond the first, the number of setback die increase by 1.

Ballistakinesis (Force)-
Ranked: Yes
Action: Special
Special: this talent requires the control upgrade allowing attacks with the Move power. you may learn this talent without that upgrade, but you may not benefit from it's effects.
Effect: <o> When activating the move power, you may throw very small objects at powerful speeds. When using the move to attack a target, you may improvise a weapon from objects of almost anysize and composition, but they generate one automatic threat when you do as improvised weapons.

Also as long as no object lifted is larger than size 0, you may activate your magnitude upgrades as though you had rolled one additiona force point with your force dice (this does not eliminate the need to get at least one force point on the roll). For every rank beyond the first you gain 2 advantage on the attack roll which may be use explicitly to increase the number of hits when attacking with multiple objects.

Darkside Resistance (force)-
Ranked: Yes
Action: Passive
Effect: When tapping the darkside to turn darkside points to force points when using a force dice, the strain suffered from doing so is reduced by one point, to a minimum of one.

Deflect (Force)-
Ranked: Yes
Action: Passive
Effect: When weilding a Lightsaber, your ranged defense increases by 1.

Block (Force)-
Ranked: Yes
Action: Passive
Effect: When weilding a Lightsaber, your melee defense increases by 1.

Jensaarai Customization-
Ranked: Yes
Action: Passive
Effect: as the tinkerer talent, save that it only applies to the Jensaarai Armor or armor Personally owned by the Jensaarai. The number of hardpoints an armor can benefit from do stack.

Forge Jensaarai Armor (Force)-
Ranked: No
Action: Passive
Effect: You have been completed the rights of Jensaarai Armor creation. You may now create Jensaarai Armor. Also, when modifying an armor attachment for your Jensaarai armor, you may roll a number of force dice up to your force rating, with force points granting successes.

Surge (Force)-
Ranked: No
Action: Incidental
effect: when making an athletics check you may roll a number of force dice up to your force rating. Force points indicate successes, and darkside points generate threat on the roll.

Attune Armor (force)-
Ranked: No
Action: Special
Effect: <o> When wearing Jensaarai armor (or armor the Jensaarai has modified with Jensaarai Customization) the defense increases by 1 (original idea is to increase the soak by 2, but I feel like the soak on these bad boys is already going to be massive).

Interference-
Ranked: Yes
Action: Standard (you know, an action)
Effect: Make an athletics check at hard difficulty. If the check succeeds all allies engaged with you gain a +1 bonus to their defense. For every 2 extra successes on the check their defense increases by an additional +1. This effect remains until the start of your next turn. Your defense decreases by 2 during this time.

Linked Defense-
Ranked: No
Action: Incidental
Effect: By spending a destiny you may select a single ally within short range that has been hit by an attack. You move to engaged range with that ally and you are hit by the attack, sufferring all effects as though you were the original target.

Lightsaber Training-
Ranked: No
Action: Passive
Effect: The character gains Lightsaber as a career skill and can use lightsabers with proficiency. Further, the character can build lightsabers if they possess the proper components. When modifying lightsaber modifications the character gains 2 boost dice on checks.

Ok. so that's my initial concept. Above this would be the Jensaarai defender, and possibly (though I doubt it a saarai kar). Let me know what you think

What I see, is a characte that can be difficult to detect with the force, can fling and attack with multiple small objects, and can help defend allies in a different way then a bodyguard. Some basic skills with a lightsaber are also possible.

The first "issue" I see, is the defence related talents - I can't see if this has been updated by the FFG crew, but defence from different sources do not stack according to the book. This is not that big of an issue, as there is only one deflect and block talent, whereas their armour most likely will have higher defence through modification and the like. So not a big problem really, but the two talents then become - if not useless - perhaps a poor investment option.

Some of the talents are very much in the line of force powers: Force Cloak, Balistakinesis (which is also hard to understand the effect of and how it functions) and Attune amour. Not sure how to solve that, but the current way might be sufficient.

As a starting point it seems good. I'm off to work now, so I'll pop by later when I have digested this some more.

I interpreted the section on page 134 to mean ranged/melee defense doesn't stack with unlabeled defense. If I could edit those talents above I would, but for the purposes of the above talents assume "specific beats general" and that these talents stack by "increasinge" defense rather than adding a base value (like superior reflexes or armor).

First I wonder what you mean by "unlabeled defence", it is unclear to me. The trouble with defence is that it is a bit unclear - to me at least - how it works, exactly because they don't stack, but does that mean if my armour grants me 1 general defence, and I use a vibrosword, with the defensive quality, I still only have 1 defence, or will my melee defence be 2? Is cover a type of defence, or only an environmental setback die? I don't have the book here and now, so I can't check exact wording on this. Anyways, my intention is not to turn this discussion into one about defence and stacking.

As for the rest of the talents and talent tree, I'd like to hear about the testing of this, rigorously and stress-tested.

I'm not sure that Jensaarai armour by default has the Cortosis quality - it's been a while, but I cannot remember reading "I, Jedi" and it being specified that their armours could withstand and endure lightsaber hits. I know its a thing they have to make, and all that, but basically I'm uncertain its a good idea. As an upgrade sort of thing, sure, but not by default.

The on-going power talents seems to divert a bit from the conventions of the game, mechanically at least, but I can see that it solves an issue of having to extend or make new force power trees.

I'm of two minds about having the FR 2 as a prereq …

Force Cloak - So by investing 1 force die, the Jensaarai adds as many setback dice to detecting him/her as he/she has ranks in the talent? Hm. I'd either require x force dice = x setback dice - or change the price to 1 destiny point = setback dice equal to ranks in talent. Perhaps a bit more expensive, but its a good power. You could also change the mechanic from setback die to either increasing difficulty or upgrade difficulty - increasing is perhaps more powerful (if you ignore the potential despair result of the challenge die).

Ballistakinesis - I'm a bit uncertain about this, I mean what it does. Can the practitioner "gather" an improvised weapon from the surrounding area? or is the move attack considered an improvised weapon? The wording is a bit unclear - an example would be nice.

Dark side resistance - Nice touch, I think I like it. Although I'm am waiting impatiently for better rules on dark side corruption, guess 2015 is the year for that.

Block/deflect - I see now how you have worded it, which makes the defence discussion above slightly irrelevant.

Jensaarai customization - Nice limitation, as I don't have the book handy I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence.

Forge J.A. - Nice idea - although some guidelines on "how to" forge it mechanically would be nice, unless its a complete narrative thing, which could be cool.

Surge - Not really sure what this is supposed to do, I mean I understand the mechanical side, but what would be the effect other than increased chance of success? I associate surge with increased speed or jumping distance and that sort of stuff.

Attune Armour - It seems to me that these are already defence monsters more than soak monsters… but hey, its one or the other, and perhaps defence is the better choice

Interf erence - very… d20. Not necessarily a bad thing, but its an odd talent to me. It's nice even, but… I don't know. Prejudice I guess

Linked defence - this, this is way too… micro-managing tactical game type of talent to me. Particularly as an incidental. But hey, I've not dared to try to make these guys for this system yet.

Regarding making talents: I do have a strong d20 back ground, split pretty 50/50 with world of darkness. Part of the challange with talents for this game is that I enjoy some level of tactical interplay, and also I'm stretching some of the mechanics we've already seen to see what happens. Whether I succeed or not…

re: requisites. This spec is not for the uninitiated, and is part of a larger tradition. I see it as the padawan equivalent, so I made the req a bit higher. Also, with armor mastery only 5 xp, I feel that's an acceptable trade off.

Re: surge. Since speed is fairly difficult to quantify in this game my thinking for surge was the scene in episode 1 where obi jumps up to the platform after falling down, just before the scene with the force fields. In the Stan system (inside joke, EotE incase I'm not clear) I would imagine obi making an athletics check to jump up as part of a maneuver to accomplish that cinematic move. This talent gives the potential to accomplish blatantly impossible feats of acrobats, with out overly defining notions of speed. My thinking anyway.

Re: interference and linked defense. I did have a sort of tactical mindset for these, but interference was a very deliberate choice as an action. I wanted something that was different from bodyguard, and would be usable in tandem. Now, I made it an action at a difficulty for two reasons. One is talents like bad motivator form some precedence for the use of a roll, but mainly because if you're using your action to do this I feel like some opportunity for advantage and triumph should be possible. I'd be very open to less tactical versions though.

Re: Ballistakinesis. This one is tricky. So first, the jensaarai are able to propel normally tiny, innocuous objects at lethal speed. The first part is more flavor, but there to say that even pillows and teddy bears can deal lethal damage with this, albeit at a minor penalty.

The more important effect is the auto generated force point. The idea in my head was that a force die has only a 5/12 chance of producing a force point result (individually). So by committing a force die to this ongoing effect, the ballistakinesis (BK) talent automatically generates a single force point, but with a very limited scope. A big part of the BK of the Jensaarai is that they can fling multiple objects at once, and while small, those small pings can add up.

First off, it looks like you're trying way too hard to match the d20 version of Jensaarai and by extension Force-users as well. To be blunt, a lot of your talents read like ham-fisted attempts to ram d20 mechanics into a non-d20 game.

Pre-req idea at least helps cuts down on people immediately wanting to take this Specialiazation instead of F/S Exile, which is good given the other concerns I have with this.

I agree with JegerGryte's early sentiment in that you've got way too much of this Specialization set-up to rely on Force stuff, with perhaps a bit too much in the way of micro-managing of bonuses, something that EotE is generally trying to avoid; probably a leading reason why so many of the defensive talents in EotE Beta were revamped and "improved" versions of many of them were discarded.

Now for the individual talents themselves…

Force Cloak
Just make it a ranked talent that provides either provides a boost die to Stealth checks, and remove the Force Point requirement, especially as getting a single LS Force Point with 2 Force Dice is incredilby likely.

Ballistakinesis
Reads like you're trying to make attacking with the Move Power have an autofire option. Frankly, this is something that's probably better suited as a high-end Control Upgrade for the Move Power itself rather than something tucked away into a Specialization. Especially as there's really not much of anything in the Jensaarai information out there in the EU to suggest they had such great degree of telekinetic skill. Perhaps replace these with talents that boost the Jensaarai's combat prowess in melee instead? Knockdown and Lethal Blows would be my suggestions.

Dark Side Resistance
Bad idea, as it makes activating Force Powers that much easier, even if there's a "minimum cost" of a single Strain point. Also, the Jensaarai weren't immune to the dark side's lure, since a decent portion of their base teachings came from Sith lore, itself steeped in the dark side. Maybe replace these with one instance of Grit and Toughened to beef up them a tad in terms of Stress & Wound Thresholds?

Deflect & Block
Not really needed, or at least not separate wording, as there's already weapon qualities that provide a bonus to melee defense (Defensive) and ranged defense (Deflection), particularly since they're reliant upon wielding a lightsaber.

Jensaarai Customization
I'd revamp this to instead reduce the Encumbrance value of a specified suit of armor per rank, making it more viable for a Jensaarai to wear heavier armors.

Forge Jensaarai Armor
The extra dice are overkill, as installing modifications isn't horrendously difficult. Instead, allow the character to upgrade a number of Ability Dice on the Mechanics check equal to their Force Rating.

Surge
Same as FJA above, use upgrade to Ability Dice, as it's much simpler to track.

Attune Armor
Again, too much of an attemp to d20ify a non-d20 game. Honestly, dump this one entirely and replace it with Enduring instead.

Interference
Too cumbersome, and frankly steps a lot on the toes of the Bodyguard talent, so I'd replace it with Bodyguard instead.

Linked Defense
Seems too good, especially for a Row 1 talent, and again steps on the Bodyguard talent. In fact, I'd go so far as to say replace this with Bodyguard as well.

Lightsaber Training
First off, everyone is considered "proficient" with a lightsaber, in that there's no penalties involved in using one if you don't have the relevant skill; you're just stuck using your Ability dice for the corresponding Characteristic the same as you'd use Agility if firing a blaster pistol without ranks in Ranged (Light). Further, lightsabers don't have any Hard Points at all per the Weekly Updates, so modifications can't be added at all, making the second half of this talent pretty worthless. You may want to specifiy what Characteristic the Lightsaber skill would be keyed to.

On the Talent Tree Set-up, I'd remove the link at Column 3 (the one that starts with Armor Mastery) between FJA & Force Rating, and instead put the link between JenCust & FJA. This cuts down on players simply making a beeline for the Force Rating talent.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Fair enough. It may be ham-fisted, as my friends do call me lenny.

Micro managing bonuses is something i noticed as I made these talents, but I was trying very hard not to make this GOOD, so i may have gotten carried away. I can certainly de-d20 some of these options.

As a general rule, I didn't want to overshadow the bodyguard class, so I removed the bodyguard talents. Likewise, i removed grit from this for the same reason (overshadowing the core classes). I'm not opposed to including them back in.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Most of the rest I agree with and/or will take into consideration. The above i do have some responses to and i'm sorry to cite wookiepedia rather than the source material, i have long since sold my novel

Ballistakinesis - From wikipedia "The Jensaarai were also able to use a unique power they called ballistakinesis . This power involved hurling a collection of small, usually harmless objects, such as coins or pebbles, and using the Force to accelerate their velocity to lethal speeds."

For this I wanted to make a power that interacted specifically with the magnitude upgrades. I said above I need to rethink and clarify the ability, make it simpler. However the power is Unique to jensaarai, and a bit of a signature ability. So I felt it required a prominent aspect in their basic training.

Force Cloak - Also from wookiepedia "Presumably, from the tales of Sith assassins, the Jensaarai were also able to effectively mask their presence in the Force, which may explain why the Emperor's Jedi hunters left Susevfi so early." This is actually a larger ability that disrupts electronic devices as well in the fiction. It's an ability that takes focus and effort, and I didn't feel was something that should be passive-ly automatic, and I felt should add setback to others rather than duplicate the effects of stalker.

The ability is supposed to be ongoing, so you'd commit a force die, not to roll force and get an FP. This would actually represent a large commitment on the part of the Jensaarai, as at this level they would be committing half their potential force power.

Jensaarai Customization - As to the customization talent: wookiepedia again "Though not a rule, it was common practice for armor to be styled on animals that were not overly aggressive, but were capable of adequately protecting themselves when threatened, such as a reek or Corellian sand panther . If the wearer was so inclined, modifications to the armor included systems designed to better emulate the creature in question, such as built-in macrobinoculars or retractable claws. The construction of the armor was a deeply personal affair, and was as much of an art form as lightsaber construction, requiring just as much dedication and skill, used in the Jensaarai as the transition from apprentice to full 'knight'."

Armor is focal to the jensaarai tradition and modification is also very important. While reducing the encumbrance is good, and may fit well in the forge armor talent, ignoring the importance of customization from the tradition doesn't do it justice. I though replicating the tinkerer talent would be good for this, but spreading them out would be good, to develop a less direct progression.

Surge - This is similar to the overwhelm emotions talent, so I'm unclear why that is acceptable and this is not, other than I made the dice more advantageous (since dak side only generate threat). I did intentionally want thsi to be a powerful talent, but if i went to far i could see changing it. However, I basically replicated an existing talent, so i don't see how it is too complex or not in the flavor of the system.

Thank you for your input.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I'd also like to point out that Lightsabers do not have the defensive qualities they used to. They have viscious, sunder, and breach. so using deflect/block to add defense with the saber is not unreasonable.

Secondly, Lightsabers can acquire hardpoints with tinkerer, and adding boost to to a mechanics roll to modify an attachment is a very narrow scope. The main point of Lightsaber training is that the Jensaarai can build sabers and gains it as a career skill, but it gives them a small boost if they manage to get a hard point on a saber.

On the talent tree above, there is no connection between forge armor and customization. I never had one, because forging your armor is the capstone effort of the jensaarai. So there is no bee line for the force rating and forge armor talents.

"First off, it looks like you're trying way too hard to match the d20 version of Jensaarai and by extension Force-users as well. To be blunt, a lot of your talents read like ham-fisted attempts to ram d20 mechanics into a non-d20 game. "

While this is true, I think it’s great to see a first iteration of an alternative Force tradition. The Jensaarai got a bit of love in d20, and were a great alternative to playing the “alignment” restrictive Jedi classes, especially in the Revised Edition i.e. “walking the strict Jedi Code”. The OP posted this in order to refine the idea into something worth suggesting to FFG, and I for one would love to see the Jensaarai make an appearance in the Force & Destiny book when it comes out.

"Force Cloak
Just make it a ranked talent that provides either a boost die to Stealth checks, and remove the Force Point requirement, especially as getting a single LS Force Point with 2 Force Dice is incredilby likely. "

This is taken from the prestige class in the old Polyhedron 157 / Dungeon Magazine 98 back in 2003.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Polyhedron_157

Force Cloak creates a sort of “Force void” bubble around the PC, similar to those Ysalamiri http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ysalamir from EU. The problem is, other Force users are able to detect the void when it is activated in their general area. The cloak only hides the PC from Force based detection, and does not hide the player from physical site. So in game terms, it wouldn’t affect a Stealth check unless there were rules for using that skill to hide your Force presence.

"Ballistakinesis
Reads like you're trying to make attacking with the Move Power have an autofire option. Frankly, this is something that's probably better suited as a high-end Control Upgrade for the Move Power itself rather than something tucked away into a Specialization. Especially as there's really not much of anything in the Jensaarai information out there in the EU to suggest they had such great degree of telekinetic skill. Perhaps replace these with talents that boost the Jensaarai's combat prowess in melee instead? Knockdown and Lethal Blows would be my suggestions. "

Also taken from Polyhedron 157. It works the same way the Telekinetic Throw ability for the Jedi Consular from TOR does:

"Dark Side Resistance
Bad idea, as it makes activating Force Powers that much easier, even if there's a "minimum cost" of a single Strain point. Also, the Jensaarai weren't immune to the dark side's lure, since a decent portion of their base teachings came from Sith lore, itself steeped in the dark side. Maybe replace these with one instance of Grit and Toughened to beef up them a tad in terms of Stress & Wound Thresholds? "

But in I, Jedi—the novel they first show up in—the Jensaarai Defenders show no sign of negative effects of the darkside like a true Sith or Dark Jedi would. They learn how to use some Dark side powers as tools, but also rely on Light powers as well. Kind of like those Imperial Knights from the Legacy series. They would have some resistance, since they don’t crave power like a Sith does. In game, setting rules for resisting Dark Side negative effects would help for later books in GMs or players want to run a Dark side campaign and not waste away their characters (like how it was in d20).

"Deflect & Block
Not really needed, or at least not separate wording, as there's already weapon qualities that provide a bonus to melee defense (Defensive) and ranged defense (Deflection), particularly since they're reliant upon wielding a lightsaber."

"Jensaarai Customization
I'd revamp this to instead reduce the Encumbrance value of a specified suit of armor per rank, making it more viable for a Jensaarai to wear heavier armors. "

"Forge Jensaarai Armor
The extra dice are overkill, as installing modifications isn't horrendously difficult. Instead, allow the character to upgrade a number of Ability Dice on the Mechanics check equal to their Force Rating. "

Jensaarai customize their armor by making it look like birds-of-pray or some type of natural hunter or predatorily animal. They add cortosis claws, or a mask, or spiked shoulder plates, or hidden weapons… Their armor is their identity, and it is their focal point, in the same way that a Jedi’s lightsaber is. I do agree, though, that it should be a top tier Talent, since you basically become a Knight equivalent once you’ve forged it. But it's still more significant than just "making your suit lighter".

"Attune Armor
Again, too much of an attemp to d20ify a non-d20 game. Honestly, dump this one entirely and replace it with Enduring instead. "

As I've just stated, Jensaarai attune to their armor the way Jedi attune to their own lightsaber.

I think it is really great to see this. Maybe we'll see some Dathomiri Force Witch, or Baren Do Sage builds. I'd like to see an Antarian Ranger build to combine Force powers, guns, and soldier tactics (though you can already kind of do that, anyway, with the current rules). I always liked playing a Force Sensative Antarian Ranger in d20 because it gave the game a kind of "Mass Effect" feel using blaster rifles and Force Pushing bad guys.

So, I've thought about it and I am changing :
-ballistakinesis to adding a boost die to discipline checks when using the move power to attack with an object no larger than size 0.
-force cloak to automatically negating electronic and force detection methods, and if resisted by another character it adds setback dice to the roll. This talent is activated for an encounter at a cost of 4 strain.
-deleting interference and linked defense, and replacing them with some other talents, possiby grit and rapid recovery.
-Attune armor and forge armor will now reduce the encumbrance of armor, reducing the defense bloat of this class.

The ongoing effects for ballistakinesis was actually sub par at FR 2, and even at FR 3 it adds only a tiny % increase of accomplishing what I wanted. Instead, the boost dice under a specific circumstance (moving only size 0 objects) is much simpler and is more effective. For being sub par, it was far too complex.

For Force Cloak the effect again seemed sub par and comlicated, and perhaps on-going powers shouldn't be incorporated into talents. I'm undecided. However this gives the talent an immidiate advantage and a cost as well.

The more I thought about it, the more the apprentice is building skills at the basics, and talents like interference and linked defense distract a bit from the core of the spec. So I'm replacing those with talents that would interact with fear chacks and imidate checks, making the Jensaarai more resistant to fear, and enhancing that image of them being more resisant to the darkside. I'll post up important changes soon.