Hello Force and Destiny™ beta testers,

In this fourth week of the Force and Destiny beta, we have our third round of updates (pdf, 308 KB). Now that people have had some time to build characters and submit feedback, we’re pleased to post some updates on our specializations and talents.

Not all of the specializations are seeing changes, but there are some substantial modifications to the Protector, Soresu Defender, and Aggressor, with some minor changes to the Makashi Duelist and Shadow. The Soresu Defender gains Improved Reflect (a potent addition to this highly defensive form) while the Protector gains two ranks of Center of Being. This means it’s possible to build a Protector that is unlikely to suffer critical injuries. Meanwhile, the Aggressor gets a new talent that lets him inflict additional damage when attacking disoriented targets. Not only does this talent offer nice synergy with his Terrify talent, it also allows him to inflict additional damage with any type of combat check, meaning the Aggressor can make more effective use of blasters, blades, lightsabers, or even his fists.

We also made some necessary changes to talents such as Duelist’s Training, and added some clarifying language for talents that specify Lightsaber (characteristic) combat checks.

A Word on Morality

One thing we’d like to mention is that a lot of you have expressed opinions about the option of starting with a lower Morality, specifically that the assumption is that starting with a lower Morality is strictly “bad,” and it should come with a beneficial tradeoff or not be an option at all. However, when we came up with these starting options, one of our design goals was to not assume that everyone would want to play light side Force users (even though we’d like to think most of you play “good guys”). Instead, we had to assume that some people would want to play dark side Force users, and that this was a perfectly reasonable choice for them to make. In this case, any reduction of Morality in exchange for credits or experience would only be a boon for someone who was going to push his or her Morality as low as possible as fast as possible.

For these reasons, we had to assume that any change in starting Morality (whether up or down) would be considered desirable to someone, somewhere, and thus it couldn’t be coupled with additional benefits as well. However, we’ve also revised the status effects for having a low Morality to offer dark side Force users more of a balanced tradeoff for their decisions; they get tougher even as they lose their inner peace.

Looking Forward

We look forward to hearing your feedback on this week’s changes, and we continue to welcome your feedback on character creation and specializations in general. Meanwhile, we plan on focusing next week’s update on gear and equipment. Please give us your thoughts on the new gear and items that we have in this book, with particular focus on lightsabers and lightsaber crystals.

Once again, thanks again for all your hard work and dedication!