Phonelobster Shakes The Angry Fist at Star Wars Saga

[Kaelik]

Point of fact, refusing to read someone's gish gallop is not actually the correct response.

If someone was having a debate, and someone said "my opponent was gish galloping, and I know that because I stopped listening" you would rightly call them really dumb.

Gish Gallops are designed to not be refutable in the allowable time, but since they first existed in a format in which not listening and listening take the same amount of time, refusing to know what is being said is not the appropriate response for criticism.

You can just not read it because it is a waste of your time, but by doing so, you pretty much basically completely give up on any right to criticize the thing. Just like Dean's criticisms come off as just thread shitting with no value to anyone who wasn't involved earlier when he talks about stuff in other threads.

[PhoneLobster]

Before Dean and DSMatticus waste too much thread in one go embarrassing themselves on their endless repetition on content free personal vendettas. Lets move on to another particularly exciting chapter...

(oh and my apologies to certain posters, it seems there are more "It's A Traps" than I recalled...)

SUDDENLY !!!! Chapter VI : The FORCE!!!
Many of the remaining prestige classes have a lot of things that revolve around dense clusters of Midi-chlorians so we sorta need some background, so here we are finally doing the son of a bitch Force chapter.

Gaining Force Points
Aside from about 2 rare talents so far that randomly give you the occasional “temporary” point you get your 5/6+half level per level and that's it, and aren't even allowed to bank your old ones for no fucking reason. Basically they give out 1 per average encounter per level and an escalating number of extras only they give them to you at level up with no fucking flexibility at all.

This is one of the most basic things that makes d20Modern style Action Points systems fail. Unreliable renewal makes players hoard the fucking things, if they don't know they are getting resources back at least as soon as tomorrow making them spend them is hard. If they don't spend them they forget they have them, the entire mechanic vanishes.

Force Points Save Your Life
We already know if you don't keep at least 1 force point hoarded you might just suddenly die when you hit 0 HP. And since you get precious little more than 1 per encounter and if you are unlucky you might be the guy who falls down like EVERY encounter (also known as a Noble or Scoundrel character) So that just means players hoard force points even harder and basically they exist to just say “fuck no” to the “LOL permadeath on 0 HP with average damage rolls!” rule.

If you TRIED to write a "hoard this resource and never spend it on other things" motivation you'd be hard pressed to do better than that one.

Force Points are D20Modern Action Points
And you can spend them on +1d6 to a roll. And later you roll 2d6 and take the highest (fucking incremental net bonus...) then 3d6 and take the highest! (Oh for fucks sake).

Or you can keep them to try not to die. Or you can use them for fueling and upgrading various random amazing powers. Or about +3.5 or incrementally more to a single roll. HMMMMM.... which to choose.

Force Points Are Extra Uses Of Force Powers Per Day
Spend a force point for an extra force power use per encounter... Or keep it to not permadie... hm....

And Force Points Can Burn Off Those Dark Side Calories
And you can burn force points to say “fuck you no” when the DM makes you take Dark Side points. Or you can save them for doing stuff and not dying.

Force Points are also a Talent/Power Resource
But also some talents and force powers and junk require you to burn force points to use them or upgrade them, because fuck you basically. Mixing force points as the “way to not be a permadeath at 0 HP hardcore mode character” AND a basic resource to use your abilities AND all those other things is quite simply fucking stupid.

So wait... more about the Dark Side?
“Most Players don't want to have dark side jedi”
Oh really now random side bar. Are you sure? Apparently you are...

Dark Side Score
You can have up to your raw Wisdom in dark side points. You only accrue them if you “perform an evil act”. And we've all seen the jedi's incoherent bat shit idea of what constitutes evil acts before I'm sure.

And if you reach your maximum dark side score the GM has explicit permission (possibly even encouragement) to take your character away for himself. He doesn't have to but that's the big bad end there “no sith lord for you, I'm taking it and attacking all the others with it AHAHAHAHAHA, awesome.” Yes. That. That is what the game wants to happen. Thanks game. Thanks a lot.

These things SHOULD increase your Dark Side by 1
“Blatantly Evil Acts” - Gee so helpful. Killing an maiming “innocents” AND evil murderers as long as they honestly repent before the lord in their heart whether they believably tell you or not. Oh great so the emperor secretly decides to turn good then you throw him into a reactor and gain a dark point. Also, luke leaving vader to die when he repents, pretty much definitely a blatantly evil act.
Using Dark Side tagged Powers – At least it's straightforward. But yes. Shooting lightning at a practice target DOES put you 1/12th closer to your GM taking your character away and attacking everyone else with that force lightning.
Using the force in anger – A stupid thing on the list. But more stupid because it is on the “definitely get a dark side point” list but then mostly consists of the proviso “this is impossible to determine and impossible to enforce”. And then just sort of cops out by asking players to voluntarily demand that they are so angry they get a dark side point for practicing that blast shield helmet thing with that anger inducing little ball that zaps them. Which suddenly they will totally do despite the side bar earlier claiming players hate going dark side.

These Things MIGHT increase your Dark Side by 1
Using the force to cause undue “harm” - But you can totally ram ewoks or ewok communities with Star Destroyers, just not with the force. But anyway, even assuming you aren't disproportionately responding to fist fighting threats using rocket launchers (which is fine) if you use any force power in any way that ever harms a living being you might get a Dark Side point because fuck you have a dark side point for force slamming a bunch of storm troopers while the GM was in a "fuck you guys" mood.
Perform a questionably evil act – If something might be evil it might give you an evil point. Gee. Bravo game. It elaborates by telling you to consider intent. Then it gives an example, without any information on intent, of killing, or allowing someone to kill, a known remorselessly evil character, but that character is helpless. Then it doesn't tell you if it thinks that is evil or not, it just presents the example and doesn't even begin to say what the fuck you should actually god damn do with it.

These Things MIGHT NOT increase your Dark Side by 1
Yes this is perhaps the stupidest category to have if we wanted actual god damn clarity. Blame the book I'm not writing this stuff.
A Dubiously Evil act – It's different to questionably evil because no reason. I think it's trying to say “being mean isn't that bad” and “you can kill people that's ok, BUT SOME TIMES IT IS SUDDENLY NOT OK!!!!”. But they do a poor job of even that.

I was Dark Side Then I Got Better
You can burn force points on curing dark side points. Which is shitty on several levels. Or you can perform giant suicidal acts of heroism and lose (almost) all your dark side points in return for sucking the GM's cock hard enough and doing something so risky you explicitly have to suck his cock a second time for your character to actually survive it.

Training Force Powers
Ok. So the game has this stupid thing where feats give you skill points and now it has this stupid thing where feats give you force powers.

So first you need Force Sensitivity feat. This makes you proficient with the force and lets you have the Use The Force skill. Then you'll probably want to train that skill which will be a Skill Training Feat and one day if not right now, you will want a Skill Focus feat on that.

If you are sensible you are a jedi at level 1 and save yourself 2 out of 3 feats on that one and get to be one of the best base classes as a side bonus.

THEN you need to spend a feat on Force Training. This gives you Wisdom Mod +1 Powers you can use. Each selection is basically a “single use per encounter” and you can select the same thing multiple times and probably will. And yes running that right off wisdom mod means some guys get like a million uses and some guys get just short of none and it's totally unbalanced, unfair and annoying.

You can blow force points on getting your force uses back mid encounter one by one, you can have them ALL back for free any time you roll a natural 20 on a force check (because fuck predictable use per encounter limits because “LOL, Whut?”)

Light Side Powers
Some powers are fuck you you can't use them if the GM decided to interpret Dubious Evil as Questionable Evil and gave you even a single dark side point. No you don't get a fucking refund on your use per encounter slots, fuck you. Burn a Force Point or GTFO and yes even suicidal great heroic act cock sucking doesn't get rid of that last point that disqualifies you here, so burn the force point or fuck you! Great. Good work game, very nice of you.

And now, The actual Force Powers
I'll warn you now, half of these powers start with “Force ...” it gets tedious.

Battle Strike – Swift action Use The Force check for a self buff. DC 15 for shit +1 attack and +1d6 damage on your next attack only, DC 20 for a net +3d6 damage, DC 25 for a net +4d6 damage. Now this would be OK, especially considering a human jedi might well have access to this and a net +12 or more Use The Force at level 1. BUT... you get like 2-3 force uses per encounter per god damn feat, and a minor buff to one attack is sorta shit. Blow a whole god damn force point for a whole dog damn +2d6 damage, which you just don't do because even the probable waste of spending the point to just use this ability again is probably as good or better than that.

Dark Rage [DARK SIDE!!] - It's battle strike only it gives you a dark side point, lasts the whole TURN (how generous) and gives somewhat shittier but different incremental bonuses to melee attacks only. Spend force points for +1 duration (don't), and oh yeah, it's rage so fuck you rage limitations on actions while it applies, because why not, this power wasn't bad enough yet apparently.

Farseeing – Full round action to spy on someone you know while they are in the shower on another planet. Only gives Vague impressions unless you spend a force point for a 6 square radius snap shot. Has to beat the target's will defense to work or you get embargoed from peeping for 24 hours. And inexplicably a strong defense against this is being dead for the will defense of a level 19 or so give or take character. There are various weird little reasons to take this ability but it's kinda shitty if you don't have them.

Force Disarm – Use The Force on a Disarm action then take the disarmed item in your hand. Blow a force point to try and blow up the weapon because yeah sure that makes fucking sense. It looks like a fun use for a spare force use per encounter, But then we note it's range isn't any further than just walking over and performing a regular disarm and it explicitly doesn't benefit from stuff that improves disarm attacks So fuck you too “The Force” you can keep this one.

Force Grip - Inexplicably immobilizing and maybe crushing the life out of your victims ISN'T a specific dark side tagged power. Same range as walking over and doing the same thing by hand but better damage and rolls involved. DC 15 force check for 2d6 damage, DC 20 for 4d6, and DC 25 for 6d6. And if you get more than 15 the victim gets only a swift action on their turn, there is NO escape, no grapple interactions or grapple escape actions, just damage and lost actions and screw that guy. Again, human jedi can walk in at level 1 with about +12 on the check and this power. This power is very nice but despite not being dark side tagged will probably net you dark side every time you use it on anything but droids (but you can probably crush R2D2 slowly to screaming sentient death without repercussions).

Force Lightning [DARK SIDE TAGGED!] - Has really short range, gee. Might as well walk over and hit them with a lightsaber. Use the force is now your attack bonus vs reflex, and on hit you deal 8d6 damage and a condition step. On a miss it's just half damage. This isn't a AoE or blast so it ignores Evasion but you might be able to have a stupid argument about it being a ranged attack for Deflect. You do NOT use the special option to spend a force point for an extra -1 condition track.

Force Slam – It's force lightning minus the dark side tag, (but you probably still get dark side for hitting actual organic people with it) and it's substitutes for your attack AND targets a weaker fort instead of ref defense. But it deals half damage. But it knocks things over. But it's explicitly an AoE so evasion works on it. But it targets a whole cone instead of one guy. But the cone is only marginally OK in size. You can spend a force point on it for +2d6 damage, but you probably don't because and you just take Force Lightning or Force Grip instead because screw it any time you attack living things with any of them you get dark side anyway and they do basically the same things better on less targets. But if you feel the need to deal with multiple targets in one go instead of superior focus fire it works out pretty nice, but remember, the game doesn't like/recommend throwing more than 6 enemies at you in one go because it breaks under more than that.

Force Stun – Now there is a bullshit side bar earlier in the chapter telling you some force powers need special DCs to work at all, like this one that needs to beat a DC 20. Which is totally fucking odd because the power itself never mentions that and just substitutes Use Force for your attack and targets your victims shitty Will defence (without being a mind effecting power) and then only compares to that sub par defense instead of any DCs at all. -1 condition track and an extra -1 condition track per 5 points of margin of success. Level 1 opponents are walking in with maybe 11 Will defense. Your human jedi can walk in at level 1 with this power and easily a +12 to Use the force. Condition track has only 5 points to KO. THIS is somehow the heart of the best and cheapest “KO in one turn” condition track builds that actually hope to function before the victim does something that makes the condition track irrelevant. 1 Force point for an extra condition track and you MIGHT sometimes use it. And this power WON'T net you dark side points.

Force Thrust – A force power at 12 squares? Madness! What range, that's like, two casual move actions! Use force vs a Strength check, you win against humanoids and lose against vehicles. Then you push things around 1 square per 5 points of success and deal 1d6 damage if you slam your victim into things. Force point for -5 on the opposed str check you are probably auto winning or auto losing against anyway. That also ups the damage to a whopping 2d6. So you don't waste that point. The ability is shitty, but possibly hilarious in the edge case of pushing people off buildings, though that's basically dark side points right there. Also really? You slam an organic into a wall for 1d6 damage with that and it's pretty much a dark side point. Great.

Mind Trick – it's mind effecting so your smart mental trickery is utterly ineffective against the stupidest of targets because stupid legacy mindless mechanics. 12 squares for kinda long range. OR Use the Force vs Will for hide in plain sight. Or a successful Feint (we need to cover that later in skills), or one suggestion mind control with a no hurty limitation, or 1 minute of fleeing in terror but you aren't allowed to use the last one on things your level or higher because fuck you. 1 Force point to turn the suggestion ability into ALSO a 3.x attitude manipulating Diplomacy check, only it always succeeds by at least one attitude step. If you want to be sneaky then you want this ability, and maybe the Haze one from jedi too. So Jedi are the sneaky kings of the edition. But don't really take that anywhere all that much (except for one thing we will get to). Also this has plenty of added utility so it's a good one. Also it basically always succeeds until later levels. So... yeah. Hide in plain sight, temporary mind control and long term charm, (and a fear effect you ignore) all here for the price of one.

Move Object – Had to be segregated from the other three telekinesis abilities already mentioned because who knows why. It's marginally elaborate and you can spend force points for upgrades. The general result is, you only take this for moving vehicles and buildings around, which you can, but anything of any size that turns on their engines will auto-escape you. It's sorta crappy other than the comedic value of picking up and dropping parked Tie Fighters and eventually Parked Star Destroyers. A power for glorified parking attendants.

Negate Energy – Lets start by noting it flat out doesn't work on force lightning due to inexplicable damage typing issues. But anyway, Use The Force opposing a damage roll (so basically a success on anything that isn't game breaking like Star Destroyer orbital barrages) and you take no damage. You put one or two uses of this on top of Block and Deflect and go from being untouched by like 70% of all attacks to being untouched by like 90% of all attacks. You can spend a Force point to turn the damage into healing. You sometimes might.

Rebuke – You control undead. No wait. Use the Force against someone else's Use the Force of a force power targeting you to cancel it. Nice enough I suppose. Take it to screw over Force Stunners then Force Stun them on their turn and hope they didn't take this I guess. Beat the opposing power by 5 or more and reflect it. Really just more of an excuse to abuse the broken skill system front loading, and we didn't need that. The rebuke jedi is a character specializing in Force Use, Wisdom and Charisma and just uses force powers all day long and keeps this around because he is so specialized in that and it pays off to apply his front loading abuse/charisma DC boosting on being immune to/reflecting any Force Users who didn't go similarly all out if they try and mess with him.

Sever Force – Light Side Tagged to prevent you from using it, or at least apply a frustrating force point tax if the GM doesn't like you. Only works on dark side targets, stops them using force points (wooh), and punishes them for using force powers (meh). I'd prefer an extra use of Rebuke to this any day. Being otherwise inferior to Rebuke, but having a long and stupid extendible duration, this is basically a power explicitly for REALLY shitty asshole NPCs that GMs presumably just use to screw people over with after giving them dark side points for daring to push an organic over with a force slam. Costs of duration extensions include force and destiny points that those asshole NPCs don't care about and will invest stupidly, but notably hey, Destiny points, those are “optional” but written right in here like a regular rule without comment.

Surge – Roll Use Force for a variable jump and movement bonus. Take it if you need to be in melee in a hurry or like acrobatics, a pity about the use per encounter limits, but it might be worth a few once you've covered your main bases and run out of new things to spend feats on.

Vital Transfer – Light Side tagged to screw you. Force Use to determine which multiplier of a crappy too small number of HP you heal on a target you touch, and then you take half that damage yourself. Don't do it it's a trap. It's doubly a trap because any use of a force ability that harms a living thing is evil, this ability cannot be used again by a creature with evil points, and YOU are a god damn living thing and this ability is a force ability that harms you. Destiny point upgrade is notable this time despite being a god damn optional rule because you can spend one to heal a target the entire condition track with this. Force points to take no damage.

Force Traditions
Looks like wasted fluff space then BAM suddenly talent trees. Notably the descriptions are supposed to include conditions for membership, that suddenly become important when that might qualify you for special talent trees.

Jedi – Fluff includes exhortations to force players to take levels other than jedi before letting them be jedi, and to insert old Luke Skywalker into their game as a high level mentor “when the GM feels it is warranted for them to receive training”. But you get to declare membership by just having the Force Sensitive feat and convincing the GM you are apprenticed to like, some guy.

Sith – God damnit sith are even stupider than jedi. And the incredibly stupid “only 1 master and only 1 apprentice” rule IS in effect for the shitty prequel era. But outside of that you just need Force Sensitivity and the ability to convince the GM you are apprenticed to “some guy”.

Other – then it's other and you think the chapter is finishing up with fluff but then you get two talent trees. I'll cover those in force talents.

Force Techniques and Force Secrets
For some god damn reason appear here, sans any actual ability to take them. They are mostly class abilities for prestige classes. They are just here for annoying page flipping of this already annoyingly page flippy funky shaped little booklet. These by all that is good should be in the god damn classes that grant them as class features or talents, they are even the same size as such things, but no, they live here. I'll cover them in relevant classes instead.

Force Talents
So you have the Force Sensitive feat? Well then you can just take talents from these trees instead of regular talents whenever you get a talent. So Jedi get access to all the generic force talent trees just like that right away. Everyone else... well as usual they have to pay a premium instead of getting it free like jedi do.

Alter Talents
Disciplined Strike – Selective targeting for cone force powers, like, it says, Force Slam. Nice of it to mention the ONE existing force power it effects as it's “example”. Oh, and then it has some limitations within that based on number of targets excluded not exceeding your wisdom bonus. Just to make sure the ability isn't too good, on that one force power it effects.
Telekinetic Power – Should be the name of half the force abilities. Oh look it effects them, all those TK abilities get “on a roll of 20 use ability again immediately for free”. Doesn't include force stun so not as good as it could be but still nice enough. Being on natural 20 only makes it fairly negligible in actual impact, but it would be fun when it crops up.
Telekinetic Savant – It's more needlessly complex and has hoops and stuff, but basically 1 extra use of a TK force power you already have once per encounter. Sorta Meh.

Control Talents
Damage Reduction 10 – Wait what, this ability is named it's effect with the number and everything? Since when do they do that? Whatever. Force point for 1 minute of DR 10. Sorta crap on the Force cost, and yet hands down better than the incremental DR on a high level Elite Trooper prestige class. Burn your low level force points and an early if not first talent on this wouldn't be all that bad. For a while. And hey we finally found a second source of DR for light sabers and soldiers to ignore on something other than items!
Equilibrium – 1 swift and a force point to remove ALL negative conditions and return to a “normal state” which if you didn't know (and you don't unless you've gone and read the right section in detail) is the top of the doom spiral condition track. So “1 force point to ignore all poison and stuff and also the entire condition track to boot”. More reasons not to play a condition track guy unless you can KO your target in one go.
Force Focus – Full round action for a DC 15 use force (so basically an autosuccess starting around level 2ish.) to get back a spent force power for the encounter. You might take it on the off chance of extended encounters ever happening, but really seems like the action cost is too great to be particularly worth it.
Force Recovery – Requires Equilibrium, which isn't a bad thing to have anyway. This one gives you extra healing when you use Second wind, based on remaining force points up to potentially 10d6. It's nice and you should get it, and the second wind feat and lots of Cons, and that soldier thing for more second wind. But. It's also another written in reason to hoard force points which is bad. So net “boooooh” on that one for its effect on the game, but take it for the effect on you.

Dark Side Talents
You must have 1 Dark Side point to select these. Which is easy enough but DOES mean you aren't allowed to select these as level 1 talents. Also you can't use these at dark side points 0 so you can't use these and light side powers at the same time (so you just don't use light side powers because they fucking suck so far).
Power Of The Dark Side – Holy shit this is bad. Cop a Dark Side point so that when you spend a force point on adding a dice to a roll (something you probably shouldn't do, especially if you are using force powers with remotely nice upgrades at all) well actually only an ATTACK roll, you get to roll an extra d6... and take the best. So not even as good as +3.5 it's actually more like about half that (ish) at level 1 and drops in value every time the default force dice bonus adds an extra dice to the “best of” roll until it's somewhere in the “is this even a +1 anymore?” territory. This ability is a giant neon sign flashing IT'S A TRAP.
Dark Presence - Standard action for +1 force bonus to defense for you and all allies within 6 squares for the rest of the encounter. Well, actually they can move out and lose it but NOT move in and gain it, so slightly crapper than that. Very evil. That +1 defense bonus for your friends. Really evil. Also, possibly a net loss on the standard action in combat cost. Oh and you have to have Cha 13 for no reason and the Power Of The Dark Side for the reason of totally fucking sucking first.
Revenge - When an ally of your level or higher is killed (so not shitty CL 2 crime lord mooks and NPC side kicks or droid slaves or anything remotely sacrificial, other PCs and GM dick wavers only) you get a non-stacking +2 force bonus to your attack and damage rolls for the rest of the encounter. And you need to have dark presence AND the power of the dark side (and by extension cha 13). So all those hoops and Bob's character has to die for a shitty +2 to my character? AND if Sally's character dies too it won't stack for diddly and she dies for nothing? IT'S A TRAP.
Swift Power - Once per day use a force power as a swift instead of standard action. Requires Power of the dark side. You sorta want this, if you are Force Stun guy you REALLY want this. But you don't want god damn Power Of The Dark Side. So it's damned expensive tax for dealing with someone without letting them pull an “ignore the stupid condition track” ability that negates your entire strategy.

Light Side Talents
Ahahahahahah there aren't any.

Sense Talents
Force Perception – Use The Force in place of Perception, specifically limited to all the categories you are most likely to care about. If you get perception rerolls, you can use them on this instead. Just another opportunity to Use The Force instead of having other skills.
Force Pilot – And now ANOTHER opportunity to use the force instead of having other skills. Guess how this works, you should know by now.
Foresight – A force point for re rolling initiative. Keep the best but due to poor wording only pay attention to the second roll for the ability to get a force point refund if you roll a 20. There are better ways to boost your initiative without wasting a force point. Also you have to have force perception first, so you take the prerequisite but not this.
Gauge Force Potential – Use the force vs will to “gauge how strong a creature is in the force”. Just go do a god damn midi-chlorian blood test and don't waste time taking this useless talent. Which also requires force perception, this game REALLY wants you to take perception boosts/rerolls/substitutes (it REALLY hates stealth and deception).
Visions – So... use “Farseeing” force power, spend a force point to see into their past or future up to a maximum of 1 year per character level. Future information is subject to change, IF steps are taken to change it but since that is not really defined or definable that means “future information is mostly worthless toss”. The main thing you want Farseeing for is probably the present but you might pick this up for lulz later on. Requires Force Perception again (“Screw stealthers!” screams the game yet again) and also farseeing, which is convenient since it does nothing without it.

Force Tradition – The Jensaarai
We do not know who they are or care. Because what they are is half jedi/half sith/half IRL furries who wear animal armours reflecting their personalities and use both light and dark powers and get to use light sabers. And that's just yeah.... ok... sure buddy you can bring your crazy little fan fiction thing into the game if the others don't mind...

You can join the tradition and get access to it's talent tree by having the Force Sensitivity trait and saying you are apprenticed to “some guy” (I'm seeing a pattern here) though it also takes the time to insist anyone from “place you don't care about” pretty much MUST be a member if they are force sensitive, you know, just because someone really likes these fur suit wearers a bit too much.

Jensaarai Defender Talents
Attune Armour – Full Round Action and a Force Point to PERMANENTLY increase the armour bonus by +2, max dex by 1. To avoid abuse it takes time to specifically state you cannot let someone else benefit from this bonus and it only works for you. But they DON'T take the time to out to say it doesn't stack despite using stacking wording. Because you know. THAT wouldn't be an abuse issue if it did right?
Force Cloak – It's a swift action, only it's also concentration burning your Standard Actions, and it's invisibility to electronics. (does it work on droids? No comment) Er... ok. So pure utility/out of combat there. Fun enough if a bit weak/specific compared to other utility effects. but the name of the game is "collect them all" (them being incremental combat bonuses). So it's a departure from your advancement curve.
Force Cloak Mastery – Requires Force Cloak, now you can shield your friends too. So, blow three levels on a way to deliver yourself to encounters you will get to anyway while avoiding the encounters XP and other rewards of the encounters you might have met on the way. These sort of powers have a place, but not at the expense of combat effectiveness, it makes them the poor choice by necessity.
Linked Defense – A swift action for -5 to your attack to add +5 as a force bonus (to make stacking slightly awkward) to an ally within your line of sight. IF Farseeing is line of sight you pay someone else to do this for you In A Galaxy Far Far Away. Sadly Farseeing deigns not to comment.

Dathomiri Force Tradition
Like the last one is a stupid word. Well, another jedi rogue wanders off and founds an order, them and the sith seem to do this more often than say, just hanging around surviving a whole generation. These guys are a lost primitive colony and their back story involves brushing over a mention of Amateur Jedi Eugenics like it was no biggy.

You have to be from Dathomir, you have to be female and you have to be Force Sensitive then you qualify for the Talent Tree. Thats about the harshest requirement set of any force tradition.

Dathomiri Witch Talents
Adept Spell Caster – Use force powers as Full Round actions instead of less for a reroll you have to keep even if it is crap. It sucks. It sucks so hard.
Charm Beast – Use Force instead of Persuasion to tame animals. Ignore the -5 for not speaking animalese. Part of the thing where Jedi just use one skill for everything, but otherwise largely a waste of space and a poor choice of talent compared to something that increases your actual combat effectiveness even incrementally (or even something that just lets you reroll a broader bullshit skill use).
Command Beast – Needs Charm beast. Improves your diplomancy over beasts. Then gives you permission to ride a tamed beast as if you need to take this talent for that which is total fucking bullshit. You might invest in charm beast but you sure as hell don't throw good money after bad specializing in it with this, and this talent is basically just an unexplainable cock slap to the face to anyone who wants to ride space camels.
Flight – As a swift action AND a force point to fly at your land speed. Some extra crap But, you basically fly. It's pretty cool. But then again there are a LOT of ways to fly in this game and this one comes without armour, hundreds of hit points and giant laser cannons, also the options that do come with those things don't cost a Talent, and don't use force points as fucking fuel. You CAN just get a jet pack. And this requires the crappy adept spell caster so... yeah....

So THOSE were some astoundingly shitty talents... on the two obscure weirdo force traditions, the actual Force Talents include some of the fucking bees knees. At least as far as this game goes.

[DSMatticus]

Calling something a Gish Gallup is an exercise in failure. Either people believe the arguments are stupid (so calling it out gains nothing), or they believe they are valid, and batch answering "nuh-uh" makes you look whiny.

I think you should go read Dean's post again. Because he does not call gish gallop and walk away, he calls gish gallop and criticizes specific arguments PL has made for being shitty and dishonest. In exactly the same way when we accused Zak S of gish galloping, we provided examples of shitty and dishonest arguments. You will note that that is not a batch answer of "nuh-uh," and is instead an argument intended to dissuade readers of the notion that the gish galloper is making valid arguments. Which leaves me wondering what the hell are you trying to bitch about.

You can just not read it because it is a waste of your time, but by doing so, you pretty much basically completely give up on any right to criticize the thing. Just like Dean's criticisms come off as just thread shitting with no value to anyone who wasn't involved earlier when he talks about stuff in other threads.

PL's already talked about evasion in the review on page one. If you really want, I guess you can kind of sort of get annoyed that specific arguments from other threads are being referenced and that's inconvenient to new readers, but the general topic of evasion is pertinent insofar as PL has repeated the claims from those threads. Which means it's basically like every other review thread in which disagreement about something happens somewhere, except because it's PL some people are also talking about what a dishonest asshole he is.

I do not think it is threadshitting to point to parts of PL's review and call bullshit. How you feel about taking the step from "that's bullshit let me tell you why" to "PL is a dishonest fuckwit" I guess would depend on whether or not you think PL has earned that particular reputation and what you think it means for this thread. And the answer, of course, is that he has and it means this thread is shit:

content free personal vendettas.

Dean's posts contain demonstrations of why evasion is useful using examples from the game. My post explains that PL needs to compare evasion to some other way of preventing or recovering from the damage that would have been prevented by evasion before he can call it ass even in the context of those encounter building guidelines. You cannot describe those as "content free," but especially not Dean's, since it literally contains an analysis of the contents of the book.

PL is doing what he always does, which is to make shitty and deceitful arguments on the internet and whine about how persecuted he is when people call him out. Or is that last part a new thing? Did we accidentally give him a persecution complex? Oops, I guess?

[Seerow]

Force Lightning [DARK SIDE TAGGED!] - Has really short range, gee. Might as well walk over and hit them with a lightsaber. Use the force is now your attack bonus vs reflex, and on hit you deal 8d6 damage and a condition step. On a miss it's just half damage. This isn't a AoE or blast so it ignores Evasion but you might be able to have a stupid argument about it being a ranged attack for Deflect. You do NOT use the special option to spend a force point for an extra -1 condition track.

Is it really a stupid argument to be able to Deflect it?

I am nearly certain there's actually a shot in one of the movies (most likely the prequel trilogy. I think Yoda vs Dooku) with a Jedi deflecting force lightning with their lightsaber.

[Kaelik]

I do not think it is threadshitting to point to parts of PL's review and call bullshit. How you feel about taking the step from "that's bullshit let me tell you why" to "PL is a dishonest fuckwit" I guess would depend on whether or not you think PL has earned that particular reputation and what you think it means for this thread. And the answer, of course, is that he has and it means this thread is shit:

You misunderstand my criticism. When Dean talks about things in this thread that is better than when he talks about things in other threads. That is the point.

[PhoneLobster]

Is it really a stupid argument to be able to Deflect it?

Probably?

I think all in all you probably could win the argument that Deflect should work on Force Lightning.

But the argument probably will happen. Mostly because Force Lightning is never explicitly defined as a ranged attack and Deflect normally rolls against normal attack rolls, not substituted skill checks. I don't think that's enough to stop Deflect from working there, but it's vague enough to be uncertain and there ARE star wars fan boys, that against any number of source material examples WILL want to leverage that vagueness into "rawr how dare you NOTHING blocks force lightning, not even absorb energy let alone measly Deflect!!", though in a better circumstance it will be more just "... but does it?" until explanations on your theories about implicit ranged attack status are explained.

[spongeknight]

Force Lightning [DARK SIDE TAGGED!] - Has really short range, gee. Might as well walk over and hit them with a lightsaber. Use the force is now your attack bonus vs reflex, and on hit you deal 8d6 damage and a condition step. On a miss it's just half damage. This isn't a AoE or blast so it ignores Evasion but you might be able to have a stupid argument about it being a ranged attack for Deflect. You do NOT use the special option to spend a force point for an extra -1 condition track.

Is it really a stupid argument to be able to Deflect it?

I am nearly certain there's actually a shot in one of the movies (most likely the prequel trilogy. I think Yoda vs Dooku) with a Jedi deflecting force lightning with their lightsaber.

Yoda blocks force lightning, as does Mace Windu. But just because iconic characters do something doesn't mean the shitty ass game system of SAGA edition lets you do it.

[DSMatticus]

I do not think it is threadshitting to point to parts of PL's review and call bullshit. How you feel about taking the step from "that's bullshit let me tell you why" to "PL is a dishonest fuckwit" I guess would depend on whether or not you think PL has earned that particular reputation and what you think it means for this thread. And the answer, of course, is that he has and it means this thread is shit:

You misunderstand my criticism.

Yes, yes I did. With the affirmative consent discussion, that is like the third time in a row we've managed that.

[ishy]

Do tell, how do you criticize someones work without reading it?

There are several reasons this is funny. The first is that I actually have read PL's review. You keep repeating a claim he made, based on nothing, which is wrong: Accepting his claim made you wrong,

Let me stop you right there. I was not repeating PL's claim. I was just pointing out how dumb Virgil was, when he made the claim you can create a review of something you have not read.
Then RadiantPhoenix misunderstood me or the context and started talking about something else. So I referred to your post solely to put my mocking of Virgil's stupidity in context.
And then YouLostMe doubled down on stupidity.

I was not talking about the validity of PL's or your post at all.

[virgil]

Do tell, how do you criticize someones work without reading it?

There are several reasons this is funny. The first is that I actually have read PL's review. You keep repeating a claim he made, based on nothing, which is wrong: Accepting his claim made you wrong,

Let me stop you right there. I was not repeating PL's claim. I was just pointing out how dumb Virgil was, when he made the claim you can create a review of something you have not read.

First, fvck you. Second, I can't help but notice that you're including a quote that actually wasn't directed at or in response to me, but at ...You Lost Me (weakens your claim that I was your only target). Third, I never made the claim you stated I did; my claim was that when part of your thesis is that something is a gish gallop, you are not obligated to read everything. And the one part he did read/comment was in actuality not invalidated by some other passage in PL's hate-manifesto, as has been stated already.

[name_here]

Both the prequel movies and a number of instances in the Expanded Universe have people block force lighting with their lightsabers.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Both the prequel movies and a number of instances in the Expanded Universe have people block force lighting with their lightsabers.

Yoda, of course, blocks it with his bare hands.

Like a boss.

[Insomniac]

Have you ever played the game? Things like Dark Rage and Move Object are like the crème de la crème of the damn core book. +6 to attack and damage is huge in a game low on boosts and Move Object can have you hurling Space Stations. Furthermore, you can continue to Move Object lock a guy out for 6d6 damage all the time and throw it into hazards. Its a great power.

I don't see why somebody would dump this much dirt on a game when it is pretty clear they've never played it. Mocking Nobles and Crime Lord as weak, mocking strong Force powers, making majorly wrong statements about the game as it is typically played like dismissing autofire and burst fire, saying Multiclassing is a trap option when it is so mechanically advantageous that everybody does it, etc.

[...You Lost Me]

My bad, ishy. I thought you were bringing something of mild worth to this discussion by criticizing Dean's review. It appears that you were instead looking to score some Internet Points by vaguely snarking someone's throwaway one-liner. Good job, go to the kitchen and I'll bet your mom's got a hot plate of cookies waiting for you.

[PhoneLobster]

Mocking Nobles and Crime Lord as weak, mocking strong Force powers...Have you ever played the game? Things like Dark Rage and Move Object are like the crème de la crème of the damn core book.

Oh really now? I'm afraid "have you played" isn't really an explanation of your claims.

How is dark rage so good when it's bonus size is conditional on a roll, it has 1 turn duration without burning fucking force points, and you can only use it maybe 12 times ever before it's dark side point gain turns you into a fucking NPC? Compared to say, you know fucking Wookie rage, which comes free with being a Wookie which altogether is FAR better and probably not compatible due to rage action limitations. Hell, even Battle Strike is better, at least you can use it more than 12 times ever. What fucking explanation do you have other than "I totally played the game, it's not like that, trust me!".

Why move object to stun lock people when you can Force Grip or even Force stun? "I totally played the game this one time trust me"

What the hell is good about nobles? "Just trust me".

What on earth is good about Criminal Masterminds? The consensus from "just trust me!" idiots in the past has been their ability to have minions that turn out to be MASSIVELY behind the party average level curve to the point of complete obsolescence, which seems kinda stupid in an RPG where you presumably can just have allies (or buy droid slaves) significantly better WITHOUT the insanely limited Talent. Your elaboration? "Just trust me, I played it, no really".

In the mean time you know how close I got to playing this game? Myself and several RPG/Star wars fans sat down shortly after it's release at the invitation of the local Star Wars GM who pre-ordered this piece of shit with massive enthusiasm planning to play a game a few weeks later and everyone would make cool characters first.

Not ONE of us, not even the enthusiastic GM, could find ANYTHING we actually wanted to do with it. NO ONE. Could find a character they wanted to play, not after a week, not even after a month, not even the GM. The game never got off the ground because the book was an uninspiring, insipid piece of shit made out of uninspiring insipid abilities devoid of selling points. THAT is my play experience with the game.

[PhoneLobster]

"I totally played it and having a rage power you cannot use is way better than rage powers you can use!" arguments aside...

The Prestige Class Chapter Strikes Back
So Force Rules Dealt with, back to the Prestige Class Chapter!

Force Adept
You need use the force and Force Sensitivity, and you seven fuck you just wait already levels behind you. Also you need any three Force Talents. Which you can get with any talents from any class once you have Force Sensitivity. This means you are probably a Jedi, or at least started as one, and that you have been taking force talents instead of regular ones rather a lot (3 of the 4 standard unless you multi-classed, probably to soldier, and missed bonus feats (presumably for a proficiency feat?)). If you don't take Jedi first it's an extra feat, if you don't take jedi at all its an extra two feats.

You get Scout HP (or in other words bad prestige class HP). You get bad BAB, but you don't mind so much because you are a force adept who took lots of force talents, presumably your big thing is force use. Sort of.

Your Shitty Incremental Talent You Lose Five Feats Over 10 Levels to gain?
What? No you use the force, you get a force technique every second level and those are basically more talents. Congratulations! Still no bonus feats for you though.

More Force Talents Techniques
Oh hey look HERE are the Force Techniques from the force chapter, they are basically just some of the talents in this class. But they got shunted off to another chapter for no reason other than to pretend they didn't just reprint the same set of talents several times on several prestige classes.
Force Point Recovery – Get back 1 Force Point at the end of each encounter, take it multiple times for more. You might well do this if you have a good way to burn force points.
Force Power Mastery – Take 10 on Use The Force Checks with a nominated power, take it multiple times for multiple nominated powers. Take this when you've abused your front loading and bullshit incremental stacking enough to guarantee strong results on powers with fixed DCs.
Improved Force Trance – Force Trance, a bullshit thing Use The Force trained characters can do, heals you faster out of combat. And no one cared or wasted a level on this one.
Improved Move Light Object – Improve the minor telekinesis tricks you can do with Use The Force skill. Apparently. Use The Force really is the swiss army knife of skills.
Improved Sense Force – Sense the force with a faster action type. Yawn.
Improved Sense Surroundings – free instead of swift “Sense Surroundings” with Use The Force. Does this skill ever stop having stuff, and does this talent upgrade it in a notable way, lets see, 1 free instead of 1 swift. BARELY.
Improved Telepathy – Reroll attempts at Telepathy with Use The Force (yep that skill never stops delivering). But do you need this reroll? Really?

So you are a Force Adept so you probably take Force Point Recovery and Force Power Mastery. But. To be fair. Basically everyone who gets access to Force Techniques picks those ones, repeatedly, instead of the others.

Dark Side Devotee Talents
Unlike your regular Dark Side Force Talents... you don't need to actually have Dark Side points to be allowed to use these talents. Which is odd.
Channel Aggression – In the biggest “fuck you” yet to the sneak attack Scoundrel... this ONE talent gives you up to 10d6 sneak dice on damage AND your sneak dice are un-nerfed ones so you get to do it on flanking too. It costs a force point, but despite that HOLY CRAP. What a gigantic steaming shit all over the Scoundrel and any other sneak attacker in the game.
Channel Anger – Requires Channel Aggression (but that's quite good so why not). And it's... wait don't we already have a dark side rage ability as a Force Power. Well, whatever here is another one as a talent. It makes you rage gives you a tiny bonus to attack and damage, but lasts a bunch of rounds and knocks you down a condition step afterwards. It's crappy but probably better than the Force Power, you might be able use this with the Force Power and stack them, but only if you use the force power FIRST and THEN this and then burn Force Points maintaining the force power because you can't initiate it while raging.
Crippling Strike – On a critical hit only you may spend a force point to cripple the target making them lose half their base speed until they are fully healed. The effect is nice but the crit condition cripples this ability and the force point cost is too damn much on top of that. This ability IT'S A TRAP. It requires Channel Aggression too, just to make it more pricey.
Embrace The Dark Side – Take the good sneak attack one, and the bad rage one, then you can take this one. Ban yourself forever from light side powers, then get free rerolls on dark side powers. The light side powers are crap, rerolls might be nice, but there aren't all that many dark side labelled powers, and various dark side related Talents aren't going to count, and Channel Anger is a shitty requirement so you skip this one to save you two talents.

Force Adept Talents
Wait... you get a talent tree that is just... “Your Class Title” flavoured. OK. Naming schemes in this game are terrible anyway so whatever.
Force Power Adept – Nominate a force power, may opt to spend a force point for two rolls and keep the best. LAME. I mean it's a bonus, but we are back to boring incremental territory here. Take multiple times for multiple powers MORE LAME.
Force Treatment – Use force in place of Treat Injury Now. Only better because you don't need as much equipment. Use the Force the skill that can do ANYTHING and screw the rest of the stupid broken skill system!
Fortified Body – You need Equilibrium which was fairly nice. But then this makes you immune to many of the things that talent treats. Considering it makes you immune to the RARE ones. You shouldn't take this talent if you have it's requirement because the requirement makes this talent largely unnecessary.

Force Item Talents
Whut?
Attune Weapon – Spend a force point to attune a weapon. Full round action... Only Works for you personally. Hey, unlike the shitty Armour one from that weird furry force tradition tree this doesn't stack infinitely, by chance they used wording that gives it a bonus type in a way that won't stack. But it only gives you a +1 bonus so AAAAAAAAAH!
Empower Weapon – And this time force point, full round action... only works for you... permanent... deals an additional damage die... OH, and look, wording lets it stack to infinity. That couldn't be a problem, adding 5 or 6 +1/2 character level DICE to your lightsaber forever every god damned level. Yeah and its light saber because its melee weapon only.
Force Talisman – Usually attune bullshit, this one also remembered to not stack and also prevent you using more than one item with it... and it gives you +1 to one defense so it's like every time they remember to make it not stack they also remember to make it a shitty literal +1.
Greater Force Talisman – Needs Force Talisman, now your force talisman adds a shitty +1 to ALL your defenses. Yay for incrementing...

Your Legacy Options Are...
None, they usually give out about the equivalent of three average sized talent trees and just use the legacy thing because they can't be assed writing new ones to fill the (sometimes remembered) quota. This one gets it's own written in because they care about Jedi types I guess?

No Bonus Feats
As usual you should get the idea by now.

What You Do With A Force Adept
You enter it as a specialist force power user, it gives you some force power things, like force techniques, and talents you can and possibly even should swap for even second rate generic force talents.

Or you come in as a melee jedi, grab some more bullshit incremental bonuses, OR take sneak attack damage that shames non-force sneak attackers and then abuse Empower Weapon's open wording to stack damage to infinity and beyond.

Or you do a proper stealth damage build and it's all "ewok, Jedi, this" and you take the BAB hit from this class for the best not so nerfed Sneak Attack effect in the game... eventually.

Even a specialist force user might well enter this class, if for no other reason than repeatedly taking that free force point talent/technique.

[virgil]

THAT is my play experience with the game.

So you can't have fun, how is this news?

[PhoneLobster]

Force Disciple
TOTALLY different to Force Adept because... yeah sure...

Requires you to have 12 levels behind you, so the game is over by now. (assuming unlike most people who played Saga you even got past 1 session). Requires Use The Force, Force Sensitivity, Two Talents from a long list that turns out to just be the class talent trees for Force Adept, the Far Seeing Force power, and finally any one force technique, which you CAN'T avoid if you have at least two adept force talents already. So basically the requirement is flat out “at least 3 levels of force Adept” because that meets all the damn requirements other than “wait until you turn level 13 bitch”.

So this is one of the places Force Adepts go to get the hell out of Force Adept. D8 or in other words crap hit points for a prestige class, bad BAB. +6 and +3 class defense bonuses, and Force Points at base 7 +etc... so I guess “later tier” prestige classes are automatically "better" in similar incremental motivator ways as the early ones?

Notably only five levels long, but lets face it you are lucky to even see the first level of this class, let alone the last, even at 5 levels long.

You get to be Immune to Mind-Affecting Stuff free
Nice. Ish. I mean it's mostly Mind Trick and one or two minor talents we don't care about. But it's basically free at level 1.

Free Destiny Bullshit
You can have 2 free Destiny Points instead of the “usual 1” every time you level up. But you know. Those are SUPPOSED to be an optional rule. The game keeps forgetting that.

You can trade in the extra destiny point to demand the GM give you prophetic visions of the future and the chance to “change your destiny” in a way related to what the GM tells you (and presumably then a way the GM wants you to, or after an argument). But that doesn't mean much to us now. However notably the prophetic visions here, unlike the talent enhanced farseeing prophetic visions you could pull off before, are NOT noted to be potentially inaccurate or able to be altered by actions intended to change the future. But who knows how you pull that off.

Your Shitty Incremental Talent … no wait this one is different...
So still no bonus feats, but it's only five levels long you get a talent every level AND you get a force secret for 4 out of 5 levels (but not the first level) even when you do get a talent the same level.

Even More Force Talents Techniques Secrets
This “totally not a talent” stuff is getting stupid.
Devastating Power – A force point for +50% damage dice when force power damages or a Destiny point for double that? Game once again forgets the Destiny points were supposed to be optional? Seems a costly ability. But then, you were a Force Adept so you DO get some free force points to throw around each encounter...
Distant Power – Multiply force ranges by 10 for a force point, or extend them to “star system” for a Destiny point. But you still need line of sight. So either Farseeing or remote cameras give you that or the system range option is just broken on first principles. Also. Force Slam with “entire System” range CONE, take that one shitty power upgrade and selectively ignore up to your wisdom bonus in targets IN A SOLAR SYSTEM SIZED CONE. But aside from that. Expensive on resources gained way too late in the game, requires abilities or resources that may not even do that/exist in star wars in the first place, and otherwise is a mess. I mean IF the second part of it does anything you totally want to force choke all your enemies the moment your stealth transport ship hits the outer solar system, but... I don't think that's happening unless we can pull destiny shenanigans, and they are tight enough with mere force points.
Multi-Target Power – 1 force point for one more target on a one target force power, or 1 Destiny point for a WHOLE SOLAR SY... no wait 1 more target per 4 character levels. Yeah um no. You might use the force point bit but the destiny bit seems dumb and less good than Distant Power.
Quicken Power – Force point to Force Power a standard action force power as a move action instead. Destiny point for making it a Reaction instead (why not just call it a free action? Really?) anyway. This is worth it. You take it. You sometimes use it. It may even be of key importance fairly regularly especially for a Force Stun jedi.
Shaped Power – Modify a force power with a cone area (you know, the ONE force power that has that, FORCE SLAM, oh look they name it as an “example” again), for 1 force point and you can make it into a Lightning Bolt area. Or blow a destiny point to effect any number of targets selectively within the cones usual length in range. Hmm... nope noipe nooooiiiipe nup nope.

So you take Quicken power at level 2 and maybe Distant Power at level 3, and then you say “well ok its not like there is ANYTHING fucking else for me in the game and stick around to level 4 and take Devastating Power. But fuck it, then you are out. There is nothing else for you here even as a Force User.

Your Legacy Options...
Are all three of your talents, They come from Force Adept tree... or any Force Talent Tree... only the way force talent trees work is that you can ALWAYS add “or any force talent tree” onto the end of your next talent choice so... bleh. So getting the hell out of force adept into this... well you get better base stuff (and force secrets) but your talents are the same old shit and you LONG since took all the good ones.

What You do With Force Disciple
Your dedicated force user who became an adept now becomes a force disciple. But it's not as great as it is cracked up to be. You are looking to break the universe with solar system slams or trans planetary choke holds, but that probably doesn't really work sensibly so you just sorta show up and blow your force point budget on double force lightnings, force stuns, and force grips and stuff which is not far off what you have been doing since level 1 only it's boring as hell now still doing it in the mid teen levels.

And really you could have done an awful lot of pretty good force using and just taken the straight lightsaber jabber fighting jedi class progressions anyway.... so... yeah... sad times really...

Also, Fore Adepts have their draw backs and you may want out of them even before this class becomes your escape destination, this class is basically just more Force Adept, why wasn't this class (and better) the back end of Force Adept to keep you in it? Why? Because it's Saga Edition and even the guy's who can have relatively nice things don't get to have actually unqualified nice things.

[PhoneLobster]

Gunslinger
The requirements are “wait until your 8th level bitch” and a pile of shooty feats. Almost anyone could theoretically enter this but unless you are a human you HAVE to get at least one of those feats from a starting class feat or a bonus feat. If you are an Ewok or a Gamorean you are one behind even if you would otherwise get the very common Pistol Proficiency as a starting feat.

And it's rather a lot of feats, regardless of where you get them you have about 6 feats before entering this class other than starting proficiencies, and this list is half of them (other than an additional starting proficiency feat, hopefully).

You get bad HP (for a prestige class), But at least you get good BAB.

Your Shitty Incremental Talent You Lose Five Feats Over 10 Levels to gain? Trusty Side Arm
Incremental +1s to pistol damage every second level. Star Wars Incremental +1s edition!

Gunslinger Talents
Debilitating Shot – If you use the aim option your shots deal an extra condition track on hit. This sounds familiar.... Is it because this is like every 2nd talent in the game that isn't a bullshit skill reroll? It was crap every other time, it's crap once again this time. And it can take it's aim requirement with it!
Deceptive Shot – 2 swift actions (so no movement) for Deception vs Will to deny dex on a target for your attacks only until your next turn. A vehicle finally for delivering the nerfed sneak dice? And at a mere character level 8? Yeah a bit late, but suddenly your sneak attack scoundrel hand gunner guy could function. Or maybe you just give this to a Force Adept Jedi who took the better 10d6 in one talent option as part of some bullshit overly elaborate cherry picking for what is probably an Ewok Jedi.
Improved Quick Draw – Might be one of the most clumsy wording fumbles yet. So. Drawing a weapon is normally a move action. You have Quick Draw as a feat if you entered this class so it is a swift action. During a surprise round, if NOT surprised you get ONE action, so even with quick draw you in fact cannot NORMALLY draw and shoot. THIS ability is clearly INTENDED to let you draw and shoot REGARDLESS of whether you were surprised in the surprise round. BUT the wording is fumbled so you actually ONLY get to draw and shoot IF YOU ARE SUPRISED. If you are not surprised then you revert to “as normal” and you can no longer draw and shoot in the surprise round. Presumably the optimal build revolving around this ability is to dump perception, stop paying attention, and TRY and be surprised as much as possible.
Knock Down Shot – If you Aim (grrr) then you add Knock Down to your attack on hit. Doesn't work on Tie Fighters and up in size (well, its relative, but you are a human or human with forehead bumps...). Possibly a marginally good ability, so you definitely give up your ability to move (using aim) to MAYBE make your target give up their ability to move (because they may need to standard up). Why does everything in this edition want to remove mobility and dynamism from combat?
Multi-Attack Proficiency (Pistols) – It's that one from Elite Trooper only this is where you go to get the pistols only version. Incremental removal of attack penalties for shooting a lot with pistols. Bland, stupid and maybe one of the best abilities in the god damn class.

Actual Good Talents -
Oh wait this class with it's five talent selections only gets five talents to select from (and legacy crap). Oddly you still probably take Multi-Attack more than once.

Your Legacy Options...
Are the Scoundrel Fortune Talent Tree (bleh) and the Scout Awareness Talent Tree (still bleh but the one you go with if you must). Of course getting better perception screws over your “super quick draw in surprise round but ONLY if you are surprised” thing...

What You Do With A Gunslinger
You are SUPPOSED to do is be a Scoundrel/Scout Gunslinger and cop about a net -3 BAB before entry and suck for your entire career.

Alternatively you are a build revolving around Sneak dice and you enter gunslinger almost exclusively for the Deceptive Shot that lets you actually have it. But then you are either a 7 Scoundrel with only 4 sneak dice and NO OTHER CLASS ABILTIES on entry, and it only works at 6 squares range, and you are 2 BAB behind on a shooty class. OR you are a Force Adept who gets their sneak dice from Channel Agression (with no range limit!) and you ALREADY have a delivery mechanism because you are an Ewok Jedi with Mind Trick, Haze and Stealth, and you don't need to dip this ability and if you do you lose out on your sneak dice because it's based on “Take Class Levels Bitch!”

In practice you are probably a level 7 Soldier/? Gunslinger and you mostly only enter this class for the Multi-Attack Proficiency and incremental pistol damage bonus so presumably this class exists mainly just for soldiers who want to use pistols and shoot many times in a turn. Rather vanilla boring stuff for levels 8 through 18, but that's Saga Edition for you.

[PhoneLobster]

Jedi Knight
It's a fighty class so fuck you it's +7 BAB requirement instead of levels, so if you take any levels of the trap base classes they put you behind on entering this.

Aside from that it wants Use The Force, Force Sensitivity, Weapon Proficiency LightSabers, AND you need to have built your own lightsaber because??? (which just requires you to be a level 7 character with the other requirements of this class), AND you must be a member of the Jedi Tradition (which at that point just means the GM doesn't inexplicably say no, but has an excuse to if he really hates you).

And all that basically just works out to “Be a Level 7 Jedi” because that meets all qualificiations and does so in the best and most efficient way. Though level 7 Jedi/Soldier builds could get you in (if you had a way to build your own lightsaber) but are probably pointless and risk losing qualifier feats if taken in the wrong fucking order because remember, that's a thing.

That now nets you all round +2 class bonuses to defenses, “medium” prestige HP (or the best base class HP), and good BAB.

Your Shitty Incremental Talent You Lose Five Feats Over 10 Levels to gain?
Nah, screw that, you are a jedi, you get selectable class features instead. 5 force talents techniques, one ever second level.

You and Force Techniques...
You pretty much still just take Force Point Recovery and Force Power Mastery because the rest are shit. You probably lean more toward the point recovery. Well, EVEN more towards it.

Duelist Talents
Are about hitting things with light sabers.
Force Fortification – Spend a force point to negate a critical hit against you, but you still take normal damage because... well because this ability bloody well sucks doesn't it?
Greater Weapon Focus (Light Sabers) - +1 moar attack with light sabers. Requirements, all incremental predecessors. YOU BASTARDS!
Greater Weapon Specialisation (Light Sabers) - +2 moar damage. Requirements, all incremental predecessors. Damn you Saga Edition writers, damn you all to hell!
Multiattack Proficiency (Light Sabers) - “These Classes just write themselves now! All you have to do is take bland incremental attack bonus type 17, cross out one word and put in another, BRILLIANT”
Severing Strike – Hey look, NOT AN INCREMENTAL BONUS. You get to cut off limbs. But you CAN ONLY USE THIS ABILITY IF YOUR ATTACK WOULD HAVE KILLED THE TARGET. Then you can opt to NOT KILL THEM, but you can cut a limb off. WHEN IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A USEFUL THING TO DO?????.

Lightsaber Forms Talents
These talents are also about hitting things with light sabers. But are a different tree to Duelist because... wait, why is that?
Ataru – Ah, it must be because of the dumb names. It's dex instead of str to damage for light sabers. Because just fuck it whatever.
Djem So – Djem so what? Djem so you can spend a force point for a free attack on someone who just hit you in melee. Seems too pricy. But hey, you ARE getting force points per encounter every second level of this class. Also you are a next to untouchable Jedi Knight with Block, who the hell just HIT YOU in melee?
Jar'Kai – Doubles the incremental trap bonus to defense from Light Saber Defense. IF you wield two light sabers. The net outcome, +6 defense potentially isn't bad, but for 4 talents and being a melee dual wielder? The talent cost alone is just too much. All your character will be is an incremental bonus to defense for holding light sabers, you CAN just have deflect and block at 2 whole talents and each ONE is better.
Juyo – J'you get a once per encounter nominate a target for 1 reroll (first attack only) on them per turn. I YAWN VERY LOUDLY AT THIS TALENT. Then I point out it it requires an incremental attack bonus feat, and incremental damage bonus talent and BAB +10. Fuck Juyo too talent, fuck Juyo.
Makashi – One light saber only gives you +2 more deflection bonus from Light Saber Defense. Well that's just dumb. It also means for 2 talents you can have +3 defense compared to the +2 defense of a Jar'Kai user with only 2 talents blown on trap incremental bonuses. But at 3 talents invested you break even and at 4 talents down the toilet Jar'Kai finally pulls ahead by a whole incremental +1. It still sucks. But it has weird comparisons for no reason.
Niman – +1 to ref and will defense with a light saber in hand NIMAN!!!!
Shien - +5 to attack when redirecting blaster bolts with Redirect Shot. It's still an incremental bonus, but pretty big (when it applies, which you don't really control) and on the most interesting (if not incredibly optimal) thing you can do yet in this class. Would be better if it let you redirect more shots.
Shii-Cho – This is what you enter this class for, a significant incremental reduction to the incremental penalty for blocking or deflecting multiple attacks with your Block and Deflect.
Sokan – Take 10 on Acrobatics even in combat, and you can tumble through threatened squares at normal speed in a really ass worded way.
Soresu – To prevent a case of Sor-Ass-U you can now reroll failed Blocks and Deflects. Marginally better than other rerolls in bullshit non-standard way with “reroll failed” instead of “keep best” or “keep second even if worse”. You'll take it... but it won't be exciting when you do.
Trakata – Requires Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation, BAB +12, the monkey king as a traveling companion, and that you read a long paragraph of useless fluff just so you can feint as 2 swift actions (once again abandoning all movement). Another very high level delivery tool for sneak dice that suck to acquire and which (If you are a Jedi) you have other lower level ways to deliver already.
Vaapad – A ladies hygiene product that lets you crit on 19s as well with light sabers, only not with autohit. Yes. It's another incremental increase that will average a relatively small boost to damage probably in the +2ish range (without checking the math because it isn't actually interesting enough to be sure). Requires weapon focus, weapon specialization, BAB +12 AND the boring Juyo Talent. Just to guarantee you'll never take this even though you otherwise might.

Your Legacy Options...
You are the most vanilla of hitty stick Jedi so you get more talent trees, two very long ones in this class AND the base Jedi Light Saber talent tree and the base soldier Armour specialist tree... wait... what? Oh AND you get “can't believe it's not force talents” in the form of Force Techniques.

Armour Specialist talents, well, the ones that EVER do anything start doing anything about early to mid your career as a Jedi Knight, BUT... you only get 5 talents in that career, and you have Block and Deflect and stuff so you damned well don't spend them on that. You just get your block and deflect upgrades and when you are done if you want the damn armour stuff you just take some late Soldier levels.

Still No Bonus Feats...
And you might actually want them, being basically a glorified light saber fighter, well too bad.

What You Do With A Jedi Knight
You go in as a straight jedi, maybe a Jedi/Soldier, but probably a straight jedi since everything about this is “hit it with lightsaber”. You are probably a straight “hit it with lightsaber” build, but frankly you are a jedi, you can arrange to Use The Force for almost any skill roll you care to name, you could have just about any build/goal in life and still take this class to increase important background stuff like, predominantly your Block and Deflect abilities which pretty much anyone who carries a light saber might reasonably want.

[Seerow]

Point I am confused on after reading all of this:

What is the actual resource schedule for getting force powers and using them?

Like I get that some force powers require force points to either use or augment, and those are very limited (unless you take that one talent that a few times so you can use a force point every round of combat and not care). I get that talents seem to come every other level, with base classes getting feats on the opposite levels and prestige classes getting their special feature (or more talents) in place of those feats.

But I have no idea where you actually get your force powers. Once you have the Force Sensitivity feat, does that just start giving you force powers with every level up? Do you spend feats or talents to get them? Something completely different? How often can you actually use force powers normally? It sounds like maybe once per encounter per force power, with talents that increase that number, but I'm not entirely clear on it.


On a similar note, what are destiny points? As far as I've noticed, this was mentioned at the very beginning, and then later under the Force Disciple prestige class, as they apparently get bonus destiny points. It was mentioned that they are an 'optional' rule, but I have no idea what any of their uses might be except for the ones mentioned in that one prestige class, how many a character might have, how they recharge, or anything else along those lines.

[PhoneLobster]

But I have no idea where you actually get your force powers. Once you have the Force Sensitivity feat, does that just start giving you force powers with every level up?

I've sorta mentioned it, but was going to cover it again in the Feats section.

Because like too many costs in the game, it's a feat. 1 Feat = Wisdom Bonus per encounter uses of your choice of force powers.

And yeah, you need to have taken Force Sensitivity first. And yes Wisdom bonus per encounter means that the "schedule" is "fuck knows random".

On a similar note, what are destiny points?

There are basically "force points but bigger" and tied into the "Select your insane character desinty option!" mechanics. There is what amounts to a whole chapter pretty much just on them later, and it's a doozy. Which is possibly why it's hidden in the back of the usually nothing but fluff character description chapter.

[Insomniac]

Mocking Nobles and Crime Lord as weak, mocking strong Force powers...Have you ever played the game? Things like Dark Rage and Move Object are like the crème de la crème of the damn core book.

Oh really now? I'm afraid "have you played" isn't really an explanation of your claims.

How is dark rage so good when it's bonus size is conditional on a roll, it has 1 turn duration without burning fucking force points, and you can only use it maybe 12 times ever before it's dark side point gain turns you into a fucking NPC? Compared to say, you know fucking Wookie rage, which comes free with being a Wookie which altogether is FAR better and probably not compatible due to rage action limitations. Hell, even Battle Strike is better, at least you can use it more than 12 times ever. What fucking explanation do you have other than "I totally played the game, it's not like that, trust me!".

Why move object to stun lock people when you can Force Grip or even Force stun? "I totally played the game this one time trust me"

What the hell is good about nobles? "Just trust me".

What on earth is good about Criminal Masterminds? The consensus from "just trust me!" idiots in the past has been their ability to have minions that turn out to be MASSIVELY behind the party average level curve to the point of complete obsolescence, which seems kinda stupid in an RPG where you presumably can just have allies (or buy droid slaves) significantly better WITHOUT the insanely limited Talent. Your elaboration? "Just trust me, I played it, no really".

Move Object is used a lot because it is a Telekinetic power with Telekinetic Savant and other feats and talents, it can be pretty good. Obviously Force Grip is amazing but that doesn't mean Move Object is bad.

Getting modifiers is rare and defense outscales offense in the system. Getting to where you can reliably get +6 to attack and damage is crucial. Other things in the system let you jack that all the way to +12/+12 on every attack for a full encounter. It is a great Force power. Nobles have many strong Talents to boost the party, move people down condition tracks and the like and easily the best way to get money in the Wealth talent, which can provide hundreds of thousands of credits in wealth.

Crime Lord gives access to Talents, which are roughly as strong as two Feats by the system's reckoning, every single level. Many Talents later on in the game are quite strong for Nobles and it lets you get deep into Talent Trees very quickly.

So your play experience is to angrily rant that you never even played the game, not even with an enthusiastic GM? Compelling stuff!

[PhoneLobster]

Jedi Master
Yeah... remember that thing a few classes ago where the Force Adept sorta tapered off to nothing before it ran out of levels and suddenly there was “Force Adept ++” in the form of the Force Disciple? And that was basically the same thing only it called it's Force talents Techniques “Force Secrets” instead.

Yeah well that concept is back this time basically for the Jedi Knight.

So it's 12 levels behind you minimum and you enter this at level 13 maybe about 3 levels after even a very optimistic campaign ends. Your requirements are largely “be a jedi” and the only thing they add is “know a force technique” which probably means 2 levels in Jedi Knight or Force Adept (or Sith Apprentice, but they aren't jedi tradition so good luck with that).

You get +3 all round class defense bonuses, soldier/jedi/medium good for a prestige class HP, and good BAB.

You get to be immune to fear from level 1 because???
But anyway, it's possibly worse than the Force Disciples near on copy pasta class feature of immunity to mind effecting things.

Your shitty incremental ability for a mere 5 level class but you still trade your Bonus feats for Is... Serenity
You blow a Full Round action to enter a trance where you are “aware” but flat footed, and then you blow a swift action to come out and your next Use The Force or Attack Roll is a natural 20 automatically. Limited combat utility, potential crazy out of combat bullshit with the broken skill system and the fact that you can Use The Force for just about any roll. But even then contriving for some guy to ignore the round and a third of meditation in the middle of a negotiation so you can fail a Persuasion check then reroll the force with a natural 20 to win a haggle or something... It's kinda dopey territory. Taking a turn and a half out of real combat for a natural 20 force lightning, not a great deal. At a stretch you use this, and the fact that you get your uses per combat of force powers back on a natural 20 to... get all your force uses back in a long combat, but it's going to have to be a Looooong combat...

Your New Talents Are -
Screw you no new talents, go back to Jedi Knight and take the incredibly shit talents from the Duelist tree OR go take any force talent which this class pretends is a special option it offers, even though you can do that with any talent from any class ever if you are a force user.

Jedi Masters and Force Secrets -
You get force secrets. The same ones as Force Disciples do. Congratulations, you are REALLY a lot like a copy pasta of the Force Disciple, only very very slighlty different. Force secrets are sort of bad and all focused on Force Power enhancement, and so if you ARE a stabby Jedi there is nothing here you would really want over a level of base Jedi or Jedi Guardian or even a base Soldier level. I suppose you get net +1 all round on defense and fearlessness?

What You Do With Jedi Masters
I guess you go in for the minor defense buff. Well, maybe. There isn't actually anything else nice in here but base stats staying on progression.

The go to build for someone who MUST be a Jedi Master is you are the guy who uses Use The Force substitution talents to Use The Force for like, EVERY fucking skill in the game, and then you take this class JUST to get fucking Serenity so you can, in border line time sensitive scenarios where normal take 20s don't work, just Use The Force with a natural 20. Which is marginally utility even for that build, which is, frankly, a joke build.

Jedi Knights just stay in god damn Jedi Knight or go to ANY other class or classes with good BAB instead.

[PhoneLobster]

Crime Lord gives access to Talents... every single level.

Like I said? Only you know they have to select those talents off specific (shit) lists, unless they are force users, who probably should be going with something else as a chassis for Force Techniques.

Noble is good trust me blah blah WEALTH!

Your noble defense is especially inadequate what with it being "nuh uh, the talents you described are just like that only they are totally good in ways!" and seriously WEALTH, the class level dependent ability to cash in permanent character class ability for fucking CASH that is your go to ability there? THAT is a good thing about noble or this game? What the fuck is wrong with you?

But nothing in your post even begins to approach this...

talents which are roughly as strong as two Feats by the system's reckoning

Because if that's what the system recons, then the system recons wrong.

I've been through this book backwards and UNIVERSALLY it seems that the template the designers used for "how powerful should a talent be?" is literally Weapon Focus OR Weapon Specialisation NOT BOTH AT ONCE. To the point that there are talents in the game which literally ARE Weapon Specialization or Greater Weapon Focus (and NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME).

A conditional +1 to attack is the baseline power level for talents and, just no, that is NOT worth two fucking feats, are you crazy?. No I don't care if the designers tried to spin their talent system as having more potent options than it has, this particular design element is utterly blatant in the final product and you should not have been able to miss it considering how obvious it is.

Are you sure that you have played this game?