As a lot of you here know, there's been a lot of discussion (positive and negative) about the limited amount of material presented in the Edge of the Empire regarding the Force. Since September, I've been working on a little something to expand the list of options for Force-users just a smidge.

Well, seeing as how today is May the Fourth, I thought this would be as good a time as any to publish that material.

Ways of the Force at Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog

You'll find the link to the document on my blog. I also ask that you please do not host this document elsewhere or as part of an online resource collection.

I'm curious to know what folks think I got right, what they feel I got wrong, and what might be done to fine-tune things. I already know I'm looking at doing at least one major update once the actual Edge of the Empire corebook comes out.

Enjoy and May the Fourth be with you.

Edit 07/12/13: Newest version (1.03) is now posted, with the link updated to go directly to that post.

Edit 11/29/13: Link updated to version 1.2.

So first off let me be clear : I despise fan-written supplements. They are never what anyone but the author wants them to be, no matter how well thought out or put together.

I just finished reading this supplement and have to say that I like it. I'm going to have my players look it over before we incorporate it into our games (we have one force user), but I really don't see an issue right now.

I think it will require playing it a bit to really get a feel for how these are to be used, but right now, as I've said, I really like it!

Even if we don't end up using it, I'm sure others will agree that you've done a fine job. Well done!

Maybe add something about finding a lightsaber crystal to the build lightsaber talent. I also wonder if the Lightsaber Defense and Deflect Blasters talents wouldn't work better by allowing people with those talents to reinstate the defensive and deflect abilities that were originally in the beta rules for lightsabers. Otherwise, at a glance it looks good.

Kintaro1,

I can understand your bias against homebrew supplments. I've been in this hobby quite a while, and I've come across some real gems and some real stinkers for a varity of systems.

I'm glad this made a good first impression. I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback once you and your group have had a chance to play around with the material. I did some pretty extensive playtesting of my own, but that's not to say your group won't come across something that either got overlooked or worked out in a different manner.

MrBaldwin said:

About the crystals, there's enough EU lore to support that the focusing crystals don't have to be of any special source. The Jedi might have preferred Adegan or Ilum crystals, but they were also able to make do (and in the case of aspiring Jedi from Dark Times well into NJO & Legacy eras) with alternate sources; after all, Luke created an artificial crystal for his new lightsaber. So in that respect, the focusing crystal is included with the required 2000 credits' worth of parts. It's also why the talent doesn't give the lightsaber any special bonuses (which only occured on the d20 versions to begin with).

I initially did make use of the Deflection and Defensive qualities in earlier drafts, with each rank in Lightsater Defense adding one rank of each quality to the Lightsaber, but the wording and application felt unnecessarily cumbersome vs. simply saying "add a Setback Die per rank to enemy attack rolls" as well as making it a bit less about the weapon and a bit more about the person wielding it. It's ultimately a personal choice, as Awayputyrwpn followed the route you suggested for his Jedi Career, with two separate talents that add either Defensive or Deflection per rank.

Very well done! I love how you simplified alot of the skills ie. "LightSaber Defense". It is very much in the vain of what FF is going for in this RPG.

I will be using this for sure. .

I looked through it, and while I don't think the supplement is really all that neccesary, I think you did a really good job with most of whats in it to where I feel that I could use it in my games. It all looks really well balanced, with one major exception (See below).

I'm a little worried that the published Force Exile feels a little obsolete now in the face of the Jedi Initiate and the Force Mystic, but different groups' mileage may vary with that.

My biggest concern is the healing tree, which feel way off-balance compared to the RAW's recovery/healing. For 10 XP, you can heal 5 wound, per character, per day. Thats pretty big, but not game shattering, but its also really easy to activate for a single LSP compared to the effect and can be done in combat. MORE concerning is that for another 10 XP you can heal a critical injury once a day! That's simply way too much. It's like a free hour in a bacta tank, again, activatable in combat. I don't see how a power with such dramatic results represents the "subtle and gentle" nature of the light side of the force.

A few other questions/comments below:

1. Lightsaber Defense: Why not just use the "Defense" mechanic already in place? Perhaps this ability could increase a defense rating of the players choice (Ranged, Melee, General) as they wish.
2. Path to the Dark Side: Is this really needed? The same effect can be generated by making a series of force checks and converting DSP to LSP, or simply allowing a player to start as a dark side character.
3. The Dark Side Acolyte lacks a spec skill talent, and has no way to get Discipline as a spec skill, making him kind of an odd man out.
4. I didn't really like the Build Lightsaber talent on it's face, but on closer examination, I think it works really well to represent the time and energy needed to construct a 'saber.
5. I think you said something about a "Fleshed out Lightsaber Skill", but there's nothing new the description. Did I miss something?
6. I like Lightsaber Expert, but feel 25XP is a little pricey for the effect.
7. Doesn't Deflect Blasters start throwing around a LOT of difficulty upgrades pretty quickly at once per rank??
8. Burst of speed can generate either success or triumph on an LSP. Why would a player choose a success instead of a triumph, which ALSO counts as a success?
9. Really like the inclusion of the "minor powers" as optional rules.

Anyway, Thanks for putting this together!

-WJL

About Lightsaber Expert: Not only does it allow you to activate a quality with no advantages, it also destroys the item completely. I agree that it is on the expensive side, but I think its fair considering the auto-destruction of weapon, easter egg, symbol of holy mass-psychosis, trigger device (let's hope it doesn't actiave the bomb) … anything wielded, which I guess could go for armour and the like too if you're a mean/generous GM…

Burst of Speed allows pips to be success and/or advantages, there is no Triumph symbol there (not in my v1.0 copy at least).

Jegergryte said:

The weapon qualities can already be activated using 1 Triumph instead of multiple advantages (Beta Text p132, Step 4: Resolve Advantage and Triumph) so that part of the talent really isn't new. Under the RAW, Sunder already only takes a single adv to activate and can be activated multiple times on a single attack. What is new is that instead of doing one step of damage, it destroys the item outright, basically saving you 2 or 3 adv (depending on how you count it).

The point I'm trying to make here is that I'm not sure that 25 XP is the appropriate cost for an abilit that makes a triumph worth 3 adv instead of 1. Don't get me wrong, I LIKE this talent.

I guess I'm also making the assumption that the attack has to hit for sunder to be activated. IF that's correct, AND the triumph could be spent to destroy a weapon even on a miss, then I think the price is appropriate.

Jegergryte said:

About sunder: Ah. Yes. I see. Well the talent doesn't state that specifically, nor does the quality as I can remember. So assuming those premisses, and the mechanic you suggest - to destroy even on a miss - that's really nice.

Kager,

Thanks. Let me know how things turn out, especially if you and your group spot something problematic. I'd like to think I avoided anything too broketastic, but that doesn't mean there wasn't some odd combination of effects that got overlooked.

LethalDose,

Is this supplement necessary? Not at all, and I imagine there's plenty of EotE GMs whose games will be just fine if they or their players never use one element of this document. I prefer to see it as a set of options that GMs and players can choose how much of it they wish to incorporate of it. Jegregryte mentioned over at d20 Radio that he's using Injure for an NPC in his game, and if that's the only thing he uses out of this supplement, then I did good by enhancing a fellow GM's game just a little.

About the Jedi Initiate and Force Mystic pushing the F/S Exile off to the sidelines, I tried to address at least the Jedi portion with the "Including Dark Side Acolytes & Jedi Initiates in Your Campaign" sidebar, pretty much saying "be **** sure you get your GM's permission first." I'm a fan of making use of the fluff to help balance some of the crunch, and in most EotE campaigns, being a Jedi is tantamount to putting a big ol' bullseye on your back. Also, I see the F/S Exile as something of a self-taught savant with no formal instruction, where the Mystic has the benefit of having at least gotten a "Force Usage for Dummies" training course if not actual bona-fide training. Ideally, the Force Mystic would be primitive shamans and sages, and as a GM I'd require a player that wanted to take Force Mystic to provide me with a good explanation for why should let a civilized character acquire a "backwater" specialization. I did try to keep the F/S Exile relevant with the suggestion of a hard cap on Force Rating of 3 and that F/S Exile be required as one of a Force-user's two Force-Sensitive specializations.

The Healing power in general should generally be rare, given we don't really see concrete evidence of it in the movies and it's a very uncommon power to have in the EU. That said, if a GM feels that 5 Wounds is to generous, even if it's only once per day, I'd suggest dropping the healing down to 3 Wounds. There's also the matter of stimpacks already providing "quick in-combat healing," although with a diminshing return rather than a hard-wired daily limit and a decent chance for failure with a low Force Rating (the player may not always be able or even willing to suffer Strain and flip a Destiny Point to provide a quick bit of healing), so I don't feel that Healing's basic power does all that much to skew the danger level of EotE.

In regards to your points on the talents themselves…

1) Lightsaber Defense: The reason I didn't use the Defense mechanic was that the way that part of the rules isn't exactly the most player friendly, particularly in regards to the three Defense types (Melee, Ranged, and 'untyped' as provided by armor) being called as not stacking with each other (pg134 of the Beta rulebook). Rather than deal with possible instances of PCs having Melee or Ranged Defense and not getting any perk from Lightsaber Defense (if you go with it just adding +1 to the PC's untyped Defense), I just sidesteped the issue entirely, though it does mean the Jedi is safe from Precise Aim, which makes an odd kind of sense to me, given that it's typically massed fire that takes down a Jedi with a lightsaber. Now, if the rules on Defense are revised in the final version of the rules (such as removing the Ranged/Melee distinction entirely or allowing them to stack with untyped Defense), I may well revisit Lightsaber Defense in a later update.

2) Path to the Dark Side: I think you've got this confused with Dark Side's Embrace. Jegergryte asked a similar question over on the d20 Radio boards, and truthfully Dark Side's Embrace only exists to provide a clear-cut sign post that says "I have gone full Dark Side!" to those GMs and players that want such a thing. Right now, the rules we have (Beta) are pretty unclear on what exactly the jump-off point to becoming a dark sider is, and several folks have tried to shoehorn in rules for falling to the dark side. If a PC doesn't want it, they don't have to buy it. If a GM wants to let their Force-using players start out as being dark siders, that's their call, but that's just as much of a house-rule as the Dark Side's Embrace talent.

3) Like I said above, I think you got Path to the Dark Side and Dark Side's Embrace confused. Path to the Dark Side is a "bonus career skill" talent, providing Coerce and Discipline, so Dark Side Acolyte can get Discipline just as easily as the Force Mystic and Jedi Initiate.

4) Thanks. I wanted to avoid the WEG default method of "okay, here's your lightsaber, no fuss, muss, or meaningful roll required" but also avoid the mechanics-focused approach that the various d20 systems had. I also was amused by the idea of a Jedi wanna-be skipping over this talent, either because they don't want a lightsaber (odd choice perhaps; smart maybe, but odd), or somehow they've already got a lightsaber. In my head-canon, I figure that Luke bypassed this talent when he was power-leveling on Dagobah now that GM George had let him by into the Jedi Initiate spec

5) Given the Beta doesn't really have a Lightsaber skill, including it with actual codified rules (base Difficulty to attack, choice of governing Characteristic) as well as some (I think) neat background fluff would constitute "fleshing it out." Nearly all the skills in the Beta could very easily have their fluff text carved out with no real change in how the skill works, especially given the whole point of the Beta was to test the mechanics of the system.

6) In all honesty, Lightsaber Expert was tricky for me to price. The fact that Sunder doesn't require you to successfully hit the target in the first place (at least according to the text in the Beta about that quality itself or even the other qualities) means that the ability to spend a Triumph to instantly take out an opponent's weapon (much like Luke took out Boba Fett's carbine in RotJ) makes it pretty powerful. There's also the fact that Autofire, Blast, and Linked each specify that the attack has to hit in order to trigger those qualities, which lead me to conclude that Sunder, much like disarming an opponent, doesn't require you to hit the target, only to have enough Advantage (or Triumph in this specific case) to activate the effect. So, I preferred to err on the side of caution and make it a tad too expensive than too cheap or easy to acquire. Heck, in one play test session, the Jedi PC used this talent to destroy the heavy blaster rifle of an assault droid that was specialized in using that rifle and had no other weapons, turning it from a dangerous threat to a pushover at the cost of a single Triumph; to me, that's pretty powerful stuff. It does mean that this talent allows the Jedi to convert a Triumph into 4 Advantage for this one effect, and for some GMs and players might even seen as a weak use of a Triumph.

7) Deflect Blaster does potentially toss around a lot of difficulty upgrades, but only to a single attack in a given round, so the Jedi does have to pick and choose when they are going to use it. Do they use it on the bounty hunter packing a disentegrator rifle, or do they use it against the large group of minions that are each packing blaster rifles? Part of GM Chris' revision of "The List" for EotE (if anyone hasn't, go give Episode 7 of the new Order 66 podcast a listen, as The List is a great suggestion of things a GM should keep in mind when building encounters) is to avoid one-on-one encounters as much as possible. Honestly though, this talent was by far the hardest to iron out mechanics for, and could very well see some revision down the road. I do feel it's pretty **** powerful, which is why I buried it on the 5th row behind another 5th row talent and made it a non-ranked talent. That said, depending on what results people have from when it's put into play in their games, I may very well revise this if appears to be too butch.

8) Like you said, crossed wires, so nothing more for me to say.

9) Thanks again. I'm rather proud of the minor powers, as they provide a framework for additional homebrew Force powers, either by myself or by others, without requring them to have to build an entire Force power tree around it. I had tried building a Force Speed/Surge power tree, and that turned out to be a pretty dismal failure. But as a minor power (perhaps allowing the Force-user to take up to three maneuvers in a turn instead of being restricted to only two manuevers), it'd be a more feasible addition.

Jegergryte said:

As I said above, there's nothing about the Activated weapon qualities in general or Sunder specificaly that says you have to hit, with the major exceptions of Autofire, Blast (which has a caveat if you miss), and Linked all having "on a hit" as part of their rules text. It's akin to the "disarm the target" option for spending Advantages, which also doesn't require you to hit and deal damage to the target.

For this talent, I had in mind the scene in RotJ where Boba Fett drops down in front of Luke, readies his blaster carbine… only to have it chopped in half by Luke while taking no damage. In game terms, Luke (having picked up Lightsaber Expert in the year between ESB and RotJ) rolled to attack Boba Fett, but the Fett-man had enough Adversary ranks to cause Luke to miss (no uncancelled successes remained) but Luke still had that Triumph he rolled (the success part of the Triumph got cancelled), so he opted to spend his Triumph to outright destroy Fett's carbine while still having a couple of Advantages left for a free manuever (perhaps to move out of Engaged and back to Short Range; not the brightest move, but Luke probably figured Fett wasn't as much of a threat without his rifle).

**** my assumptions.

Well, when it comes to the healing power. Perhaps the injure too. I'd add some requirements in my game (these are not suggestion for alterations in the document Dono), for Healing I'd add a requirement of at least a FR of 2, if not 3 - also a limitation on the use of destiny points for using black pips. In fact I'd be willing to go so far as to disallow this for dark side users, but I won't. But, if the player using it have to convert/use black pips for the activation I'd subtract 1 from the number of wounds healed per black pip used.

For injure I'd subtract wounds taken in a similar way, perhaps require a FR of 2 to buy into it, and perhaps also require the Dark side talent you made (if using that talent in my own game that is) to gain access. I mean, about that - ignoring my own ideas now - if using the injure power and not having "turned" so to speak (i.e. not having your talent for using black pips and not having reached that point in-game either if using the beta book way), you still have to use a destiny point to use black pips yes? Thus taking strain…

Thanks very much, Donovan! This is an excellent document! I am going to use it to create some character writeups, which I will then post here in the Edge of the Empire forums for people to hopefully enjoy!

G2 Joe the Condor said:

Thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up in terms of character write-ups.

Jegergryte said:

Well, nothing says you have to make these two powers available to the PCs right at the start.

Injure was meant to be more of a "bad guy" power, much like the various "dark side" powers in both d6 and d20. Quite a few GMs (self included) prevented PCs from starting out with any powers that had the "dark side" tag in those games unless the player gave a really darn good reason… which most of the time meant the PC was restricted from buying those powers at 1st level, particularly if trained as a Jedi or similarly Light Side aligned Force Tradition. No reason you can't institute that same restriction for your game, as well as including a caveat that in order to learn a new Force power after play begins, the Force-user needs to find a teacher or some other means of learning the power; in other words, they can't just drop the 10 XP and boom, new power time.

Personally, I like the idea of Injure not having any special requirements, since it reflects the lure of the dark side and the "easy power" it can offer. I'd say anyone that makes frequent use of Injure is on the fast track to becoming a dark sider.

As far as dark side users and the Healing power, they've already got to suffer Strain and spend a Destiny Point to use the power, as one of the things I instituted was that much like how Injure and the negative emotions aspect of the "mind trick" Control Upgrade for Influence require Dark Side Force Points to use, so to does Healing require Light Side Force Points. I'd hoped to have made that pretty clear in the power's write-up in the paragraph just above the "basic power" description.

And you are correct in that if you're not a dark sider and you want to use Injure, you'll need to spend a Destiny Point and suffer Strain, at least going by the "Influence Special Rule" sidebar on page 182 of the Beta.

I have to say I quite liked it, there were a couple of things which I would have done differently but that is fairly standard when you have multiple gamers/refs. I will be running an Old Republic game at the convention I go to in early July and so have done a few modifications for my own use. One of these includes changing the speed at which healing works. You must spend time healing each wound, and even longer to heal criticals, I think this helps stop the power becoming a combat power.

I agree with the general concensus that the idea of the minor powers is a good one, though I might be tempted to play with the cost based on each individual power. I have also decided for my game to add the Deflect blaster talent to the list of minor powers instead, this is partially because I see it as more of a force based ability than a pure skill thing and also because I have removed the Lightsaber related parts from the Jedi Initiate. My main reason for that is that I don't want Initiates (who aren't even Padawans yet) having access to a Lightsaber, they may get the use of one later which will be less potent than the official one with the ability to construct their own as their final trial before becoming a full Jedi.

Overall, well thought out and nicely presented.

Eldath

My players just found a very dirty Jedi Holocron in a scrapyard. inside is the memory engram of Jedi Master Felicia. I have one force exile in my group.

Master Felicia will be able to guide him to the new options included in the Way of the Force guide. Especially healing which was her specialisation.

Cant wait to see the face on my players when they activates the Holocron for the first time and I hand them a copy of the Way of the Force!!!

eldath said:

Thanks man.

In so far as the Healing power goes, I have been taking a second look at it, both in terms of how many Wounds are recovered but also how long the power takes. Most of what I could find on Force healing suggests "quick recovery effect" rather than a regeneration type of effect in most cases.

I'm thinking a "takes 5 minutes to use" for the Basic power would be sufficient to take it out of the realm of "combat power."

BTW, I'm curious to what you might have done differently in those few instances you mention, so if you'd prefer you can just PM me here.

Largely, the changes are as I mentioned in my last post but in more detail. I used your Jedi Initiate as a beginning but removed anything related to Lightsabers, this was because I don't want my Jedi Initiates running around with a Lightsaber yet, they will not even be Padawans yet and should only really get a proper Lightsaber as a part of completing their Trials. Having done that I needed to rearrange the talents available, mainly restricting myself to adding standard talents in. I think the Jedi Training, and the Lightsaber based new talents you created would probably work very well for more advanced Jedi, and this mainly comes down to the world view of the ref and the timeline the game is based in. If running a game in the new Jedi order I would likely use your Initiate almost if not completely unaltered.

I added one homegrown talent (at the 20xp level) - Guardian: As an action, the Jedi selects one ally who is within engaged range of the Jedi. For that round, any attacks made against the ally are instead resolved against the Jedi. This does mean that whilst this talent is in use the Jedi is unable to do anything except maneouvres.

The Jedi Training talent I decided not to use, mainly for the same reason as the removal of the Lightsaber related talents. I also prefer the idea of the Deflect Blasters talent as a Minor power, as I see that particular ability more of an understanding of the force than of using a Lightsaber. With regard to my playing with the cost of Minor powers, Deflect Blasters was the main reason for that. I think that compared to the Minor Powers you have brought in, making that talent a power would be more powerful so should cost more. Additionally if I decided to add more powers, the cost would also be worked out on how powerful it was. I think I would make Deflect Blasters a 20xp power, not a major increase in cost but more expensive nonetheless.

Though I can see where you are coming from on theDark Side's Embrace talent, I would not have put it in. As mentioned in my last post however that is a personal call and as you mentioned in one of your previous posts, the pc doesn't have to buy it.

Lastly, the Healing power and its initially inferred use time. As I mentioned I would increase the time needed to use the power, the 5 minute use time you mentioned I think would be fine, though I would probably increase that for a critical or at least make it a different use of the power. Obviously unless they had purchased at least one duration upgrade that would mean that if a critical was healed, they would have to wait until the next day to heal any further criticals or wounds.

All of the above aside, the alterations I have made are my personal preference, not because of any lack of quality in the original document.

Eldath

Eldath,
I can certainly respect that. After all, you know your group and players better than I do.

About Dark Side's Embrace, I'm toying with the idea of adding some guidelines for "When to tell if your PC has gone Dark Side" for a future release, and changing the talent into something that provides more of a mechanical benefit. That will probably wait until we get the corebook, as it's possible that FFG may have added such guidelines already.

You do raise some interesting thoughts about Healing and needing separate actions to recover Wounds and remove a critical injury. As it stands, the Force-user would only need to roll 2 LS in order to activate the base power and remove a critical injury (with a 30 XP investment to gain that ability). Personally, I kinda think the rules on healing a critical injury sans bacta are a bit too harsh, so that probably informed my design choice on how I've got the power set up. But you do have a point on it perhaps being "too easy" to accomplish, and I may very well consider changing the upgrade's effects to "instead of recovering Wounds, the target heals one critical injury." I think between that and adding the "takes 5 minutes to use," that would help move Healing out of the "combat recovery" realm that it's currently occupying, something that's already covered by stimpacks and isn't quite as necessary in EotE as it was in the d20 games.

Some of my thoughts on why Build Lightsaber was designed the way it was, for those that are curious.

http://jedimorningfire.blogspot.com/2013/05/lightsabers-in-eote-relic-of-more.html

Will probably ruminate about why a dark side specialization in the next post. That or go into Deflect Blasters and Lightsaber Defense being written the way they were.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Just a thought, but maybe a Jedi could automatically call a lightsaber that he/she build to his/her hand from close range with no need for a roll (assuming there's nothing in between them and the lightsaber. I agree with your justifications for why the talent is powerful enough as is, but I think people (me included) like the idea of having a benefit, however small, to a lightsaber that you built yourself.

MrBaldwin said:

Well, something like that is pretty much a retread of the Move power, which just the basic power alone lets you recall a small object from within Short Range for a single Force Point, which will get easier to accomplish as the Jedi increases their Force Rating, making such a proposed perk to a self-built lightsaber kinda redundant.

Early on in the development of this file, I'd considered dropping the 4th Row Range Upgrade under Move for a Control Upgrade that let the Force-user use Move as an Incidental, but only for unattended objects within Close/Short Range, to reflect just that sort of thing, but ultimately decided to set it aside for the moment. Depending on how the Move power looks in the final rules, I may bring it back.

One possible notion, for folks like yourselt that really want a self-built lightsaber to provide a minor perk is to simply have it generate 1 additional success on each attack roll. I think that would mimic the d20 system's bonus to attack rolls but not be too powerful of a added benefit.

Although I am of the school of thought that having a lightsaber should be a big enough deal by itself, I can see some wanting a bit more to show for the crafting process. An alternative to giving a self made lightsaber a boost dice as a bonus might be to allow a setback dice to be removed. This would effectively be a nice bonus but I don't think it would be as much of a game balance issue as having the boost dice.

eldath said:

That's an idea, though if I were to pursue it, I might alter it to simply removing a point of Defense from the target instead of a full setback die, especially given the low XP cost fo the talent itself.