As with any game with "careers", "classes", or what have you, what you call yourself and what your character sheet says can be two different things. Nothing you've put forth can't be done with either specific or generalized careers. Just because someone makes a bounty hunter/assassin doesn't mean he needs to call himself a bounty hunter all the time or even hunt bounties. He could just be an assassin or even a mercenary. Much like Luke went from being a fringer to a jedi, anyone else could do the same on their path and still call themselves a jedi. Or they can build a character that starts with a jedi career once F&D releases and call themselves a jedi, or a gray jedi, or whatever.

I'd be very surprised to see a bunch of Force-using unispecs. That seems very much against their design intent as seen so far. As far as duplicating specs, they could do so, or they could tweek them to add Force aspects to them. If they added the pilot to the Guardian career, for instance, they could leave it as it is, so if you took the spec you would not gain a Force Rating. Or they could change it to a Force Pilot spec and you could, potentially, gain a Force Rating like taking other Force specs.

Actually this brings up something else I've been thinking of. The Force unispecs as we have seen so far do not give any skills and only the initial Force Rating unless you already have a Force Rating. The new career specs will, in all likelihood, have skills with them. So will they give both a Force Rating and skills when initially taken? Or will one have to make a choice upon taking a Force spec initially? Take the Force Rating if it is the first Force spec and not get the skills or take the skills because they already have a Force Rating? I'll be interested in seeing how they consolidate that. Giving both will make the specs in F&D a lot more attractive than unispecs which do not. Even giving the skills will do so.

There is nothing wrong with repetition. They can do Jedi careers and have Jedi as part of the F&D "commitment" mechanic to show you are dedicated to the Jedi Path. But then again, by the time F&D comes out, I could see a hired gun/bodyguard with a "commitment" to the Jedi Path because he believes and follows all the stories he's heard and tries to live his life in their mold. Or many other combinations. The only limitations are the ones you set on yourself.

I'd imagine the new career-based Force specializations would have both the bonus career skills and "gain Force Rating 1." That itself would account for the supposed comment someone heard an FFG staff member when the EotE Beta was released saying that you could use "F&D characters with EotE & AoR PCs, but the F&D characters would be a bit more powerful." Not providing the bonus career skill that are part and parcel of career-based specializations would instead be gimping the F&D characters.

As I noted earlier in the thread, providing Force Rating 1 as part of the initial specialization gives the F&D character what amounts to an extra 20 XP in comparison to a Force-user built using either the Exile or Emergent universal specializations, since the F&D character doesn't have to purchase a second specialization in order to get their Force mojo going. But when compared to a regular EotE or AoR character that's not a Force-user, the F&D character really wouldn't be that much more powerful, as they'd still be spending XP on Force Powers, which is XP the muggles are spending on buying talents and raising skills. So in the early game, the balance of power is generally going to favor the muggles, at least until the Force-users reach Force Rating 2, at which point it begins to shift as the Force-user PCs can now activate their powers a bit more reliably. I don't know if the power curve between mundanes vs. Force-users is going to mirror the power curve between non-casters vs. spellcasters from D&D, but based on the Force Powers we currently have, the more Force Dice you have available to roll, the more likely you can expand the effects of those powers, namely affecting multiple targets from further away and either dealing more damage (Strength Upgrades) or making the effect last longer (Duration Upgrades) without having to burn Destiny Points to convert those Dark Side pips; if you got less than 4 Light Side pips to work with when rolling 5 or more Force Dice, then you had a really crummy roll.

I'm going to wait for the beta before making a house-ruled version, but something I'd like to incorporate in to the 'forms as talents' breakdown is that selecting a form dictates whether or not you use Brawn or Agility for your attack, like using Brawn with Shii-cho, or Agility with Makashi.

I'm going to wait for the beta before making a house-ruled version, but something I'd like to incorporate in to the 'forms as talents' breakdown is that selecting a form dictates whether or not you use Brawn or Agility for your attack, like using Brawn with Shii-cho, or Agility with Makashi.

I was thinking exactly the same thing...

I also think that putting forms outside ot talents trees would just saturate it more... Same for Lightsaber mods....

It needs to be kept fluid and fast

I'd actually be interested in the idea of the pre-existing Force specializations being "career specialization" options for the Force-wielder/Jedi career, since the "initial specialization", but if the idea is that F&D characters start a bit more powerful for a given early XP amount then I can see where exactly this is going. And yeah, fluid and fast (in the sense of easily/readily adjudicated) rules would seem to be most in keeping with the intended spirit of the FFG SWRPG, especially if the canonicity of what we know of the Jedi is due for an overhaul along with the EU anyway.

One thing I'm wondering about is the kinds of adventures we'll see for this line.

It's different from EotE and AoR in that both of those are focused on what you are doing, rather than who you are. If you take a character from AoR and bring them into EotE, it is still clearly an EotE game (and vice versa). It's easy to see what kinds of adventures those two games will have because it's what defines each game.

FaD, though, your character is defined by who they are rather than what they do, so the question remains: "what do they do?" Will the adventures be Jedi vs. Sith? Will they all be about exploring the Force?

What is going to be the motivational touchstone in this game that defines it as a setting? EotE and AoR both have very clear ones, so it's going to be interesting to see what FFG does with the third line.

So (sic) the question remains: "what do they do?"

Man .... so, so true!!

Though I do have to say, you remind me of Ambassador Kosh. "Who are you?"

I have a thought that where edge of the empire and age of rebellion give ships or resources, force and destiny will give starting characters a mentor.

Adventures will be hiding from imperial inquisitors, and going on adventures set by your mentor to earn both experience and commitment (the obligation/duty for this game) to further your training.

I think commitment will be a secondary type of xp that you cash in to learn aspects of your chosen tradition. So turn in 10-20 commitment and you get lightsaber as a class skill if you're on the Jedi path. Trading in 100 could get an increase to your force rating.

I have a thought that where edge of the empire and age of rebellion give ships or resources, force and destiny will give starting characters a mentor.

Adventures will be hiding from imperial inquisitors, and going on adventures set by your mentor to earn both experience and commitment (the obligation/duty for this game) to further your training.

I think commitment will be a secondary type of xp that you cash in to learn aspects of your chosen tradition. So turn in 10-20 commitment and you get lightsaber as a class skill if you're on the Jedi path. Trading in 100 could get an increase to your force rating.

I really hope you're wrong on that, because that setup sounds terrible to me.

I have a thought that where edge of the empire and age of rebellion give ships or resources, force and destiny will give starting characters a mentor.

Adventures will be hiding from imperial inquisitors, and going on adventures set by your mentor to earn both experience and commitment (the obligation/duty for this game) to further your training.

I think commitment will be a secondary type of xp that you cash in to learn aspects of your chosen tradition. So turn in 10-20 commitment and you get lightsaber as a class skill if you're on the Jedi path. Trading in 100 could get an increase to your force rating.

I agree with HappyDaze in that I really hope they don't go that route.

Having mentor-figures directly involved with a PC can lead to various plot issues, such as "why doesn't this guy simple pitch in and help solve the problem in the first place?" Elminster of Forgotten Realms was notorious for this, as was Gandalf to a degree (though Gandalf had some very good reasons in both Hobbit and LotR). There were some complaints about TPM that Qui-Gon Jinn, cool as he was, was pretty much useless and could largely have been removed from the plot without causing any major issues (Obi-Wan would simply need to have less of a stick up his arse and be more in line with what folks thought he was prior to the prequels being released).

While that sort of set-up works for Age of Rebellion, that being to increase Duty to gain certain rewards from the Alliance, it only works because the Alliance is a big galaxy-spanning organization with significant resources; it's only when compared to the Empire or major crime organizations like Black Sun or the Hutts that the Alliance starts to look poor, underfunded, and/or strapped for resources. Things like increasing Force Rating and picking up certain non-career skills as career skills are already covered by the talent system, so I strongly doubt that FFG is going to set-up a duplicate method of gaining those sorts of in-character perks.

As far as F&D's equivalent to Obligation and Duty, I'm really thinking it might be incorporated as something as a Dark Side measuring stick, in that the higher the value, the worse it is for the Force-user; thus, the PCs have an incentive to stay on the straight and narrow, much as EotE PCs generally want to try and decrease their Obligations to avoid suffering those Strain Threshold reductions. And when an individual PC hits 100 on said tracker, then they've become lost to the Dark Side (GM option if the character should be retired as a brand new villainous NPC or not). Dunno if said method of tracking Dark Side abuse would incur a similar penalty to Strain Threshold, though it would make the most sense.

And when an individual PC hits 100 on said tracker, then they've become lost to the Dark Side (GM option if the character should be retired as a brand new villainous NPC or not). Dunno if said method of tracking Dark Side abuse would incur a similar penalty to Strain Threshold, though it would make the most sense.

That was my favorite part of the WotC Star Wars game. If it doesn't return in some form in F&D, I'm almost certainly going to house rule it.

Geez I hope not. Last thing I want to do is police characters. I hope they leave Light side/Dark side more to the narrative.

Geez I hope not. Last thing I want to do is police characters. I hope they leave Light side/Dark side more to the narrative.

I agree tracking and adding up points sounds too much like an mmo for my tastes.

And when an individual PC hits 100 on said tracker, then they've become lost to the Dark Side (GM option if the character should be retired as a brand new villainous NPC or not). Dunno if said method of tracking Dark Side abuse would incur a similar penalty to Strain Threshold, though it would make the most sense.

That was my favorite part of the WotC Star Wars game. If it doesn't return in some form in F&D, I'm almost certainly going to house rule it.

I'd like the option of if you have descended to the dark side that you always have a chance to redeem yourself and come back to the light side, like Darth Vader.

They already have the dice to determine dark side influence which I am a fan of, but I really hope they stay away from the RP influence as that gets so iffy. I had game after game of D20 and saga edition fall apart because two people had differing interpretations of what was dark side. Yeah there are some cut and dry examples but the grey areas left so much to opinion that handing out dark side points felt like I was punishing my players for roleplaying the character they wanted to play.

In so far as the "dark side tracker" mechanic and how it increases, I'd say the major source would be converting those Dark Side pips on your Force dice, which would fit with the line about "full-fledged Jedi and other powerful Force-users suffering long term consequences for calling on the dark side" as mentioned in the EotE core rulebook (page 278).

I also think that it's too important a part of the Star Wars mythos regarding the Force to be brushed off in the book that's devoted to characters that are Force-users, to the point that I suspect there will be at least a few pages devoted solely to how to handle what is and is not a transgression. Frankly, Gary Sarli's Five Questions in Jedi Counseling 111 went a long way towards helping GMs wrestle with that question (and it's useful for any Star Wars system, not just Saga Edition). The main thing to remember (that more than a few GMs don't) is that the Force doesn't care about mortal social morality; ritualized murder is still murder, even if the culture in question sees the ritual as a good thing, and sparing a life is a good deed, even if the local social morality says the person should die.

Also, my long-standing rule in regards to Dark Side points (every since the WEG D6 days) has been "the more the player tries to justify why their action shouldn't warrant a DSP, the more they deserve that DSP." It's proven remarkably good at cutting down the arguments of what is and isn't an "evil" action, particularly at the game table. So maybe I'm not as wishy-washy as other GMs when it comes to dark side transgressions; if a PC wants to be a Force-user, particularly a Jedi, then they have to accept that much like a pre-4e D&D Paladin, that character type comes with a certain code of conduct that needs to be adhered too. They break that code of conduct, then they suffer the consequences. If they don't want to deal with a code of conduct or consequences from breaking that code, then they can play something else.

To again reference a truly useful sidebar from the RCR sourcebook Power of the Jedi, ask the would-be player that if you stripped away the fancy laser sword and the pseudo-psychic powers, leaving them with an ordinary person that is dedicated to a life of serving the galactic populace with no thought or expectation of reward, would they still want to play a Jedi? If their answer is no, then that player is prime candidate for "lightsaber syndrome" and probably shouldn't be allowed to play a Jedi. And if you let them play a Jedi and they become a problem character, you as the GM ultimately have nobody to blame but yourself.

Good points Donovan, but what is murder? I've had players define killing in self defense as murder and then others view cutting off limbs as a dark side act. Thats the grey area I was referring to. If the Force has personal opinions on what these are awesome, but I have yet to see anything that comes close to a definitive rule.

"the more the player tries to justify why their action shouldn't warrant a DSP, the more they deserve that DSP." Great idea, I'm going to have to keep that in mind for future games.

Also, my long-standing rule in regards to Dark Side points (every since the WEG D6 days) has been "the more the player tries to justify why their action shouldn't warrant a DSP, the more they deserve that DSP."

That only works if the player is the one gaining DSP. Since most of the justification is done OOC, i consider it rather improper to punish the character for it.

To again reference a truly useful sidebar from the RCR sourcebook Power of the Jedi, ask the would-be player that if you stripped away the fancy laser sword and the pseudo-psychic powers, leaving them with an ordinary person that is dedicated to a life of serving the galactic populace with no thought or expectation of reward, would they still want to play a Jedi? If their answer is no, then that player is prime candidate for "lightsaber syndrome" and probably shouldn't be allowed to play a Jedi.

One of the most useful items about handling the "Jedi concept" in the context of a Star Wars RPG, since we already have the Exile and Emergent for statting a by-default amoral (I didn't say immoral) Force-user who could wield a lightsaber (and, really, to me the difference between a Lightsaber skill and not having one is simply whether someone could buy it without having to pay extra for it not being a career skill).

* _{I recognize the irony of this when my own Star Wars AU idea that I mentioned previously specifically revolves around the idea of Luke Skywalker having a rather skewed view of what "Jedi" means.}

As I said before I hated the dark side points and the system that controlled them. What my wife and I would like to see is a

non-mechanical system for falling to the dark side. It's the wild west of the Jedi order folks. No code, no council, no body of peers to judge your actions! So let the noob Jedi swing their lightsabers, throw their force powers, and learn morality as they go just like every other Jedi during this time period.

If a player is getting a little too wild with his lightsaber then show him the error of his ways through Roleplay. If a player wants to fall or struggle with the dark side he talks to the GM and they set it up. Beyond that, the only mechanic I see for dark side is dark side pips. Anything more would be punishing the player for Roleplay decisions, which prevalent in D20 and saga, have yet to show up in this system.

Donovan, that sidebar you mention in power of the Jedi is exactly why I think commitment should be the obligation/duty mrchanic for this game. Because being a Jedi had little to do with force powers, lightsabers and talent trees. Its how you act. If you don't act like a Jedi, you wouldn't earn commitment and therefore wouldn't be trained as one. It is also the reason why careers should be more general than a codified Jedi career - because being a Jedi has more to do with your belief than how skilled you would be with a lightsaber.

As to a darkside tracking mechanism, I think that is a horrible idea. Especially if you take the character away. You lose the dramatic story of a character redeeming oneself. Not to mention, who is the GM to say 'no you can't?'. The first rule of a gm should be to never say 'no', but to say 'yes, and...'

In regards to my mentor idea, I feel that it is something integral to the star wars stories. Who would Luke be without the mentoring roles if Kenobi and Yoda? Even Anakin looked to Palpatine as a mentoring role.

Unless this game is nothing but middle aged Jedi in hiding or untrained padawan survivors in hiding (the latter of which suites the force sensitive exile to a tee), characters learning to be a Jedi or other tradition need to learn it from someone. Or something. A mentor need not be a who, but a what. Perhaps a Jedi holocron can fit the bill. Or a stone tablet from dathomir.

As I said before I hated the dark side points and the system that controlled them. What my wife and I would like to see is a

non-mechanical system for falling to the dark side. It's the wild west of the Jedi order folks. No code, no council, no body of peers to judge your actions! So let the noob Jedi swing their lightsabers, throw their force powers, and learn morality as they go just like every other Jedi during this time period.

If a player is getting a little too wild with his lightsaber then show him the error of his ways through Roleplay. If a player wants to fall or struggle with the dark side he talks to the GM and they set it up. Beyond that, the only mechanic I see for dark side is dark side pips. Anything more would be punishing the player for Roleplay decisions, which prevalent in D20 and saga, have yet to show up in this system.

Think of it this way... although I'm sympathetic to your perspective, therein lies the problem with the concept of the Jedi as an actual career or specialization at all.

Not sure what your trying to say Chortles, please explain.

I'm talking about the idea of any class/career/specialization with specific roleplaying requirements/boundaries tied to game mechanics.

I'm talking about the idea of any class/career/specialization with specific roleplaying requirements/boundaries tied to game mechanics.

Kind of like how the paladin was viewed in days gone by? If you play a paladin you must follow this code?