A bit of a long-winded answer, but I hope it's a suitable answer.

This gives a pretty solid insight into how you did things, and I'm glad to see that someone was willing to experiment with non-talent "abilities" here. Thanks for that!

And I understand the feeling of not wanting to write so much. I was getting that feeling as my thread on starfighters began to go a bit silent, as I have the feeling that when Force and Destiny comes out, a few of my ships will be "official," and others will be added that will make most of my work a moot point.

Still, doesn't stop us all from making things that work for the time being, ne?

Thanks for the work on this, Donovan!

I'm new to the FFG Star Wars game (just made a character last night), largely because I had little interest in playing in my friends' game unless I could play something approaching a Jedi, as I'm just not all that interested in playing a different sort of character in that universe. After some haranguing, and reading through your document, we've finally reached an agreement on that front.

I've read through the thread, and had a thought regarding Deflect Blasters: I feel like it should probably work like the first Control upgrade to the Sense power, committing a Force die to be able to deflect a shot each round (using the other mechanics you have in place to actually resolve the check). Reading through the EU material, it seems like deflection requires some awareness and focus on minute disturbances in the Force by blaster attacks, or anticipation of living creatures. I realize that there aren't any talents that are tied to Force powers at present, so just tying it into that would make for a cumbersome precedent, but simply changing the talent to require the Force die being committed wouldn't change the functionality of the talent itself, just how it interacts with other talents and powers.

yeti1069,

Thanks for the compliment, and I hope you have fun playing your Jedi Initiatie.

As for Deflect Blasters, that was something I had briefly considered, having it be an Ongoing Effect but one I opted not to pursue as I felt that having the talent be a "once per round" effect was limiting enough (well before I settled on using a contested roll), and that I'm operating on the suggesting that GMs limit Force-user PCs to having a Force Rating of 3 in most instances. Plus, there's the Sense Ongoing Effects which I imagine most Jedi-types are going to gravitate towards anyway, so I really didn't want to add yet another Ongoing Effect that needed to be activated, and doing so made it start to feel unnecessarily punitive, as it would mean the Jedi would have to choose between the Sense effects or having the Deflect Blasters effect (which was never a "sure thing" from the start) as an option; most players would probably go for the Sense effects as they're far more reliable in what they do.

I had been thinking that it would get tied to the Sense control upgrade, as in, commit the Force die and add the ability to deflect a shot 1/round, then with each upgrade of uses/round, get to deflect more shots. I can see why that's cumbersome, though.

On a separate topic...how would you go about actually building your character starting out? My thought had been to pick up some Talents working toward +1 Force rating, along with some of the basic Force powers (Base Influence, Move, Heal, Sense +1st control upgrade, Sense Force), and then put a rank or two into a few skills, all with the idea that I've been learning the Jedi way for a while, but slowly, and with few tools to aid the process. Do you invest in characteristics at the outset as the prevailing wisdom appears to be for other characters?

Now that I've actually gotten to start playing the character...

A question for you Donovan: How come you spread the Lightsaber-focused talents all through the Jedi Initiate tree?

I'm finding it a bit odd that, once I've made my direct way down to Force Rating, if I head over to pick up Dedication, I'll also be getting Lightsaber Expert, despite having zero talents that deal with lightsabers, and may not even have my own lightsaber yet by that point.

I know that I could have a lightsaber before building my own, so sticking everything after Build Lightsaber wouldn't make sense, but the tree looks kind of jumbled now that I'm actually seeing where I'm going as far as XP is concerned.

Would the tree benefit from some reorganizing, perhaps? Maybe split the tree, with some general and maybe Force-y talents on one side, mostly lightsaber and combat talents on the other side, with a link between the two at rank 2 or 3 (10 or 15 XP)? Or at least swap Dedication's position with Lightsaber Expert? After all, Dedication seems important to both focuses, while Lightsaber Expert seems like it should be the "capstone" of a lightsaber duelist (or Deflect Blasters).

Oh, and did you consider requiring the usage of an Advantage to activate the offensive portion of Deflect Blasters? After all, not every shot should be deflected at a chosen target--not even the more skilled characters in the films or books are able to deflect every shot back at someone. That way, you'd have some degrees of success:

-Success remaining, no Advantage: the bolt doesn't hit you and is deflected somewhere to no effect

-Success remaining, at least 1 Advantage: the bolt doesn't hit you and is deflected at a target of your choice within Medium range

Maybe also:

-Success remaining, at least 1 Threat: the bolt doesn't hit you and is deflected somewhere detrimental (an ally, important piece of equipment, etc...)

I wouldn't mind seeing Natural Duelist get replaced with a second rank of Deflect Blasters, either adding an additional use per round, or breaking up the mechanics into two abilities--maybe the first allows you to deflect a blaster bolt to not be hurt, and the second allows the usage of Advantage to redirect the shot? That would kind of solve the wordiness of a single talent, and demonstrate the progression we tend to see with Jedi learning this skill.

Maybe even add a further line saying that a Triumph on the defensive check could be used to allow you to deflect a second bolt this round?

As far as the lightsaber stuff, I wanted it to be a choice between becoming really good with a powerful weapon, or becoming a better Force-user. And the tree is fine, as I deliberately put Dedication where it is, so no reworking necessary on that part.

If you don't want any lightsaber talents, then don't use the Jedi Initiate specialization for your character. There are plenty of other options that are just as solid for a Force-user that have nothing to do with lightsabers.

Same with Deflect Blasters. Making it a once-per-round competitive check works fine, both in execution and in keeping the character from overpowering the game. Remember also that combat rounds in this game are roughly 1 minute, so that alone accounts for the "not being able to deflect every single shot fired at them." The Jedi is going to have to pick which shot to try and deflect if faced with multiple opponents. Adding an Advantage cost begins to over-complicate the talent more than it already is, which in turn slows down the game.

Okay. They were just thoughts.

And I want the lightsaber talents...I'm just going to work around to them slowly, as I won't be focused on a lightsaber for a while. It just seemed a little odd that I'm getting Lightsaber Expert moving on from Force Rating before any other lightsaber related talents.