STAY ON TARGET update

Added Career Specialization and Signature ability trees from Stay On Target.

my short review of this book:
     STAY ON TARGET is o.k.  it's about what we have all come to expect from these supplements.
 The Xexto race is pretty cool.

personal woe:
I was annoyed that the Ship pictured on the front of Stay On Target was NOT a modernized ARC-170 like I had hoped. Instead it's not even a spaceship, just an air speeder, and a bomber, not a fighter. I can forgive that. what i can't forgive is that it's stat block is missing the Twin medium lasers AND twin Large lasers that are CLEARLY depicted in the picture. In a book for Aces, that's a rookie mistake...

oh well. they still got my money :P

Far Horizons update

Added new Colonist Career Specializations as well as Colonist Signature Abilities.

Added an  "ALL" tree.
for those like me, who just like to know ALL the options.

Also updated the PDFs of all specializations.
Now when you check a Non-ranked Talent, it will mark it off on any other page you have in the pdf.(more useful when you use the new ALL pdf or when you combine multiple pdf together)
Made some spelling corrections to a few things.
Made some background changes to the form fields to help keep track of things more easily.
corrected a few other errors in the content.

have fun. 

death star super laser in game?

I was doing some stuff with ships the other day and playing with weapon damage when I had a thought...

how much damage (in terms of game mechanics) can the Death Stars super laser do?

Had anyone else been around they probably would have seen my eyes glaze over as I quickly became lost in this question and how I might answer it. As soon as my brain had even a slight plan, I set to work. Here is basically my thought process.

a little research suggests that the only full power shot the death laser ever made was at Alderaan.
ok so a full power shot can destroy a planet we all know that... but how much damage is that in game terms?
Damage is taken as Wounds or as Hull Trauma. Ships and large scale objects seem to use Hull Tauma. so now the question is, what is the Hull Trauma Threshold (HTT) of Alderaan?
before that, we have to ask what does Hull Trauma represent?
HTT is a reflection of the objects construction and ability to sustain damage while continuing to function.
ok....  but how do we even start to calculate how much a planet has?
I'll start with an well established baseline for comparison.
Imperial 1-class Star Destroyer on pg 281 of Age of Rebellion is a well documented ship.
It has a HTT of 145.
so whats the HTT of an equivalently sized (average) chunk of Alderaan?
Construction quality?
well Alderaan presumably isn't made of hardned steel and other alloys, but it is relatively solid as compared to the Star Destroyer which is mostly empty space.
Ability to keep functioning?
The star destroyer has a lot of fancy tech that needs to keep working where as the chunk of Alderaan just has to keep being a chunk of Alderaan.
So it seems like the Alderaan chunk likely has a significantly higher HTT than the star destroyer. The Alderaan chunk may lack armor, but its a solid piece of planet and will keep being a solid piece of planet for longer than a star destroyer continues to be a star destroyer.

so an Imperial 1-Class Star Destroyer sized chuck of Alderaan has a HTT of 300 (just picking a number that sounds 'right-ish')
ok. so how many of those chunks make up the whole planet?
Alderaan has a 12,500km diameter. a volume of ~ 102,000,000,000,000 cubic kilometers (3/4πr^3)

An Imperial 1-class Star Destroyer has a volume of... hmm.
got a length of 1600 meters, a beam (width) of ~880 meters and a hight of ~455 meters.
so its basically a flying pyramid..  ok, lets cut off the tower thing so that its 364 meters tall (more of an 'even' pyramid).  V=(LWH)/3
An Imperial 1-class Star Destroyer has a volume of ~ 171,000,000 Cubic Meters or 177,000 Cubic Kilometers.

 (102,000,000,000,000 / 177,000)
Alderaan is approximately 596,491,228 Imperial Class-1 Star Destroyers.

(300 * 596,491,228)
Alderaan has a Hull Trauma Threshold of ~ 178,947,368,421

That means the Death Star laser does just shy of 179 BILLION damage.

wow. so that's pretty impressive.

the other way to math it out.
*figure out how much energy a Turbolaser (heavy) uses.
there are so many different takes on this but i'm going with the largest estimate i saw of 200 gigatons per shot. some other fun references for this that i didn't use are here and here.

*figure out how much energy it takes to blow up an earth sized planet.
nicest figure i saw was 2.2 x 10³² joules. check this guys maths out.

*divide energy to blow up planet by energy of Turbolaser (heavy).
after converting gigatons to joules and dividing we have a result of  262,906,309,751 Turbolaser shots to equal the energy of one death star shot.

*Multiply result by Turbolaser (heavy) damage of 11.
easy enough.  the Death Star Laser does 2,891,969,407,266 Damage.
            2 TRILLION 892 Billion !!!!

there is a pretty big discrepancy here.
the second method seems like it requires fewer assumptions.. but the assumption of how much energy a Turbolaser uses is a pretty big one..

in the end not sure what i think about either of these...
but i'm pretty sure that the Death Star super laser is one bad-ass laser


at the end of the day, i would probably go with my first 179 Billion damage calculation.
yeah, its the smaller of the two and that's a bit less cool.
BUT
Lets not forget that the game includes things like Critical Hits, and other weapon properties.
Lets not forget either that the Super Laser of the death star functions differently from a normal turbolaser. The super laser uses exotic materials pulled from Hyperspace to cause more damage than normal. It also causes material it hits to be pushed into hyperspace causing a sort of 'hyperspace' bubble which then 'pops' causing extra damage in real space.

i'm fine with the low end of the damage calculation.
since the super laser likely has several special Keywords or unique critical capabilities that help it be super destructive...
you know... because 179 Billion damage isn't always enough.


last note..
I am not a mathematician. I know I made assumptions. I could, quite possibly be wrong, on everything I did. No I do not need to be corrected on any of it.
 I had fun so who cares.

FOCUS: Aratech Repulsor Company

adding a bunch of Aratech Repulsor Company vehicles.

74-Y speeder Bike

93-B Hovercraft

101-C Medium Military Hover

105-K Lancer Bike

109-Z Armored Cargo Hover

Arrow-23 Landspeeder

Conjo Y41-4LC Fighter

Conjo Y41-C2LC Fighter

Conjo Y41-T Trainer

GX12 Hovervan

REPSUB repulsor-equipped Submersible-Carrier

SkySlayer

Urban Navigator

Z-12 Cargo Master Speeder Truck

Hammered out the rest

Managed to hammer out the Universal Trees Recruit and Force Sensitive Emergent as well as the two new force powers.

Recruit is pretty cool..
It feels and sounds like the kind of thing that you would START as... too bad the rules say you have to pick a career first, then buy in to the Recruit tree. that makes it expensive to start in this tree. The tree is obviously meant to be a Military Recruit, not like a noob character starter spot, so I suppose I can forgive the fact that its initial impression doesn't line up with its actual play style. Of course, if your an already established character, then the real appeal of the Recruit tree falters since you should already have many of the skills it grants access to, and probably one or two of its other Talents.
so, i guess Recruit is... only... kind of cool?...
cool in concept.

Force Sensitive Emergent is.... basically Force Sensitive Exile, with a couple different force only Talents. naturally, they are neat talents. over all though, the only significant thing this tree has to offer is a +1 force rating.

Force Power Enhance is circumstantially mediocre. If you invest heavily it could one day save your life and the rest of the time it will still provide you with a neat trick to grab the attention of every imperial who sees you .... oh..

Force Power Foresee.
If your a player this is awesome.. get to know bits about your future, and become the master of initiative and going first, maybe even going first before you go first.
If your a GM, you're going to hate this power with a passion. Get ready to call a time out and think up some way to give your force using character a hint good enough to let him feel his power was useful, without giving him enough to completely murder your carefully laid plans. why does the hint have to make him feel his power was useful?? because there isn't a limitation on it.. 
If i was a Force user with Foresee, i would spend the vast majority of my time in meditation... basically just rolling a Foresee check as often as possible to troll for information before my GM finally gets mad enough to tell me I have to spend a destiny point in order to use the power at all. of course, maybe you'll get lucky and your players won't be dicks... maybe....

anyway... the point is.. I got all the Careers, Specialization and Force powers up on the Fillable Sheets page.
You no longer have a good excuse to purchase the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook.
you're welcome.

rest of the base AoR careers.

The Diplomat.
The Engineer.
The Soldier.
The Spy.

These are all great classes that take a bunch of the material released in EotE, reorganize it and compile it in a way that makes way more thematic sense. Each career has only a few new things but don't worry. They make up for the lack of new material by using their efficiency of organization to make your EotE character seem like a fool who cant find real direction in life.

The only reason not to like these classes is that each new class takes a bunch of the material released in EotE, reorganize it and compile it in a way that makes way more thematic sense. Each career has only a few new things. They make up for the lack of new material by using their efficiency of organization to make your EotE character seem like a fool who cant find real direction in life.

You can look at any of them on the Fillable Sheets page.

Ace and Commander

The first two careers out of Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook have been added.

look for them on the fillable sheets page.

The Ace is a nice career.. focused and to the point.. very cohesive concept. Fly anything and be able to shoot shit while you do it.

The Commander is a nice career too. you can lead your fleet, or your squad and do it well. only complaint here is that the three specializations within this one career, seem to have a lot of Talent overlap. Talent over-lap can be good, or not...  I'm not sure yet in this case.

anyway.. I will try to get all the new Careers done up as soon as I can.
I want to do my part to make sure no one else really needs to buy Age of Rebellion.

Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook: review 2 of 2

a book so duplicitous I had to review it twice.

Review 2.

Assumptions:

1* The buyer is not new to role playing games.

2* The buyer owns the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook (possibly some other edge of the empire books as well) or at the very minimum is aware of and familiar with (has played extensively) FFG’s Edge of the Empire product line.

YOU DO NOT NEED THIS BOOK.

I remember when I was a kid maybe 7 or 8 years old. I was obsessed with action figures, specifically alien and predator action figures. I waited for the new ones to come out, kept track of the Toys-R-Us delivery schedule to make sure i could get mine. Each time a new one came out I was ecstatic. My favorite was the special mail away Cloaked Predator figure. it was AWESOME... then I started growing up, and suddenly had the realization that... wait a second.. this is the same exact figure as one that I had from a different pack... then i realized that several of the things i owned were just re-paints of other figures.. and i thought... wow.. I've sort of been cheated here.. i payed money for this stuff that they marketed as cool NEW products... but they are the same damn thing, they just slapped a different color on it and called it by a different name. And my fancy Cloaked Predator that i mailed away for was the worst culprit..  i thought i had something super special and new and different.. when really.. they tricked me in to paying more money for something that in the end, was basically an unfinished version of something i already owned...
That is basically what buying the Age of Rebellion core rule book feels like.
except, now I'm an adult and the regret/disappointment/anger was virtually instantaneous.

Age of Rebellion contains no compelling new material.

If FFG can sue themselves for plagiarism they should.
Here is the first paragraph from chapter 9 'the game master' in the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook.

 Welcome to the first step in becoming an EDGE OF THE EMPIRE Game Master. While running a role-playing game can be challenging, it is also rewarding in ways different from those associated with playing individual characters. This chapter walks new Game Masters through the information needed to become an accomplished and entertaining Star Wars GM. Novice and experienced GMs alike should find useful information and advice for running this game from both a storytelling and mechanical point of view.

and Here is the first paragraph from chapter 9 'the game master' in the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook.

Welcome to the first step in becoming an Age of Rebellion Game Master. Running a role-playing game comes with both challenges and immense rewards. This chapter focuses on helping a new Game Master get the information needed to run a successful Age of Rebellion game that captures the feel of Star Wars. Both novice and experienced GMs should find that this chapter contains useful information for handling both the rules and the storytelling aspects of the game.

Seriously? This is reminiscent of high school book report plagiarism and the vast majority of the book is like this. Ok, so lets ignore for a moment that you already purchased the vast majority of the information in this book when you bought the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook and try to focus on what new and different things the Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook brings to the table.

Here is the grand total of NEW material you will receive from the Age of Rebellion core rulebook.
1 new Skill.
6 new Careers, comprised of 13 new Specialties.
17 new Talents.
3 new Items.
2 new Universal Specialty trees.
2 new Force Powers.
21 new ships.
1 new ship attachment.
47 new bad guys.
1 Story.

ok so now your thinking "hey, that's a fair bit of stuff there guy. I think I probably DO need this book". but... sadly, your WRONG. i'll explain. i'll go point by point on the new stuff.

The new Skill is Knowledge (warefare). Sounds neat but the skill itself is somewhat vauge. It might help support your character to say he has the Knowledge (warefare) skill. If roleplay is your focus though, what knowledge the skill does represent can easily be folded into the other skills like Lore and Education thus making this skill completely un-neccessary.
The new Careers aren't too bad really. they offer new progression options and their Specialty trees are more focused to help support the concepts of each career far better than in Edge of the Empire. You still don't need the book though.. because the Specialty tree pages can be copied and you can find them freely on the interwebs (i'll have my own versions up soon). So, you don't need the book to get 90 percent of the info you need to utilize these new Careers. there are 5 duplicated Specialty trees :(
New Talents is always good, they are a sweet honey that we all desire. there are only 1.3 new talents for each new Specialization tree, so that's kind of a bummer. You don't need the book for these either though. Like most talents the blurbs in the Specialty tree lists contain the gist of each talent. You can use the Specialization tree you copied or found on line to get the idea. if you have a question about the details, someone will have answered it already on the forums i bet.
the new items are: Anti-Vehicle Mine, Anti-Personnel Mine, Armor-Piercing Grenade. These are all extremely circumstantial and not terribly likely to come up very often, so feel free to improvise if you like.
The Universal Specialty Trees are the Recruit and the new Force Emergent tree. both pretty cool but again, they are Specialty trees and free to copy. Get yours on-line.
New Force Powers include Foresee and Enhance. I look forward to hearing of all the games ruined by the Foresee power, but once again, you can get these on line just like the Specialty trees.
New ships. ok, there are fair amount of new ships.. and i do love me some ships.. you get some really iconic stuff stat'ed out here. like the AT-AT or star destroyers. not a lot of small or mid-range stuff though. so unless you're group is in the habit of hunting down giants, these aren't likely to come up. If they do, there is ONE new rule called 'Massive' and a couple new ship actions to help you deal with their immensity. When they do though, you'll likely be running from them anyway, so having them all stat'ed won't be insanely important to your game experience. "holy fuck! a star destroyer showed up, lets get the fuck out of here.   it's shooting towards us!   I know! that's why we are leaving!" and then you're gone or dead or captured, and I'm guessing any way that plays out, the stats of the ship weren't super important.
The new ship attachment is the upgraded Comms Array..  nice.. but..... not necessary. There's other important shit you need those hard points for anyway.
New bad guys. 47 new bad guys. most of them are naturally from the rebel and imperial ranks. I admit, that having pre-made baddies on hand is incredibly helpful and useful. Sadly, most of these aren't all that interesting. I know that making bad guys yourself is a pain, but really, you can do it and if you do, your baddies will likely fit your story, your objectives and your needs better than the pre-made guys anyway.
The new story. the 21 page Perlemian Haul story is... well, i'll let you make up your own mind. You don't NEED it though... you can make up your own damn story (isn't that half the point of these games).

so yeah... if you already own the Edge of the Empire Core Rulebook...
  YOU DON'T NEED THIS BOOK.
Maybe you have a friend, who is a sucker like me and already shelled out the money.
if that's the case then YOU REALLY SERIOUSLY DON'T NEED THIS BOOK AT ALL as you can simply borrow it for a moment to fill in the gaps.

don't get me wrong though, the new material is compatible with all the old material, and it does allow you a few more options. options are nice. variety is nice.. variety...
This book is a virtual carbon copy of the first core rulebook.
It provides very little new material. The new material it does provide is superfluous, or easily obtainable (legally) without purchasing this book. This book has NO defining characteristics to separate it from EotE or justify calling it a Core Rulebook.

I will use this book... but every time I play my Ace character, i'll shed a small tear inside that will slowly drip down in to the pool of disgust and distrust that is building in my gut for the FFG star wars role playing game franchise(s)

Star Wars Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook:   3/10
DO NOT BUY

Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook: Review 1 of 2

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book.. so I decided to review it twice.
you may see why after reading both reviews.

Review 1.

Assumptions:

1* The buyer is new to role playing games.

2* FFGs’ Star Wars: Edge of the Empire product line does not exist (or at minimum, the buyer has and never will have any desire to purchase or utilize any of that product lines material.)

                

 Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook provides everything needed for both players and Game Masters alike to jump in to the Star Wars universe at one of its most exciting times. From the introduction, the reader is thrown into the Rebel ranks and sets the on an adventure to defeat the evil Empire.

The rules clearly state that the focus is on Role-Play and the heavy use of Narrative to keep things moving along smoothly. Like most RPG’s the rules can take a while to master but in Age of Rebellion they are clearly written and you will quickly pick up the basics. The dice system is interesting as well as dynamic, supporting the narrative style of the game and pleasing those of us who enjoy throwing fistfuls of dice down as frequently as possible.

As players begin to create characters they will find several options from race selection to careers and specializations. There are 8 familiar and recognizable races to choose from including the Gran, Droids, and even the race of our beloved Admiral Akbar, the Mon Calamari.

There are 6 Career path options each with 3 specialization trees as well as a ‘universal’ tree for those who are just starting out, or just can’t decide yet. Maybe you’d like to be a Diplomat who dabbles in computer hacking, or maybe augment you’re Ace Pilot’s skills by learning some Scout Talents. With the games system designed to let players branch out however they like over time, players will find there are plenty of options to keep them interested for quite a while. The special abilities you gain from your Careers Talent trees help separate you from the commoners, but don’t forget your basic skills.

A large list of Skills are the core of what your character can do and how well it gets done. Purchase up to 5 ranks in a skill to roll more dice and have the advantage. Skills vary from combat skills such as Melee and Gunnery, to more esoteric skills like Knowledge (core worlds) and Astrogation.

The skills are described in detail. You’ll learn what each one is good for, what it can and in some cases can’t, do. The book even gives options on how to interpret dice results for certain kinds of skill checks, which helps both players and Game Masters keep things moving smoothly.

Once you get past the character creation, there is a fairly standard fair of gadgets and gizmos, arms and armor that are available to the players. Save up and buy that fancy armor, if you don’t you might want to invest in a Bacta Tank. Even the weapons and armor in this game can be further modified. The modification options are somewhat limited, but even the small selection dramatically increases the overall number of ‘options’.

Of course, no Star Wars universe would be complete without some of those iconic Spaceships and imperial walkers. Fear not, Age of Rebellion provides stats for speeders, AT-ATs and even Star Destroyers. The ship combat rules are a bit less streamlined than the rules for personal combat, but they still get the job done. I imagine that most combat would not be ship combat though as player characters would be hard pressed to purchase a ship that would last more than a round against a star destroyer. Even in smaller ships though it’s still a generally dangerous and final a prospect to have your ship blown up in space seeing as how, when that happens you rapidly go from ‘meat bag in a box’ to ‘meatsicle out in the cold depths of space’ assuming of course that you aren’t immediately turned into ‘meat mist’ by the initial blowing up part…. Aaaanyway.

One thing that is likely to disappoint players is the apparent lack of Force related powers or abilities. There is a singular Force related Talent tree, and three basic powers you can acquire. You can move things with your mind, use the force to enhance your own physical abilities, or see the future. The powers here can be quite powerful, but the players won’t be able to just pick up a lightsaber and have the powers of Vader. Of course, that all makes some sense, since the Age of Rebellion is set in a time when there are no Jedi and the Force is a nearly forgotten thing.

The Age of Rebellion Core Rulebook has a nice section to help Game Masters set things up and lead a group of players. It’s not the most in depth help I’ve ever seen, but it’s a start.

There is a starter story in the back, a short mini-campaign that your GM can run called the Perlemian Haul. Its got bad guys, good guys and other stuff I won’t spoil for you, but it’s pretty well done even if it is fairly short.

When your done with the Perlemian Run, there is also a moderate helping of bad guys and locations to choose from that are already stat’d up and ready to go.

All the pieces are there. Good concepts, good rules, lots of choices, no glaringly horrible oversights, a little bit to get you started and a boat-load to keep you going.

For new GMs and new players who love the Star Wars universe Age of Rebellion is going to be a ton of fun.

-1 for not having more… stuff (just in general, more stuff is nice)

-1 for minor gripes about ship combat rules and very minor gripes about the books organization.

As far as Core Rulebooks for a new RPG goes, this is pretty great. 8/10


Review 2 still in the works. Should find time in the next couple days.

Links aren't working?

This is a result of DROPBOX removing access to certain types of hyperlinks due to a discovered vulnerability.
This is not related to me.

Dropbox has indicated that there is a workaround, and that there is a permanent solution in the works.

I will re-create and re-share all information once the issue has been resolved and I have some time.

Skill Focus

I was thinking about how vague and broad the skills are in Edge of the Empire...
it seems like some skills can be used to do an absurd variety of tasks.
ok, so I know you can't have the same variety as real life, it's a game and it needs to be pared down to be managable.
I thought maybe though i could create some skill focus type skills that might help to identify or at least narrow down what it is that a character is actually good at SPECIFICALLY within his general skill knowledge base.

So here is what i came up with....

SKILL FOCUS

At first I was completely in love with this idea. I admit that I am sort of a power gamer and I love any opportunity to be just that much better at something. sadly, as I really thought about this 'skill focus' thing a shift occurred and I decided I'm actually not such a big fan of it.
Not because it can't make me better at stuff, but rather because the game designer in me was forced to accept that it doesn't really "mesh" well with the formatting and style of the rest of Edge of the Empire.
At the end of the day I think a lot of these little bonuses would be better off as Talents in a specialization tree somewhere.

But hey, I did the work and made the damn thing... and it isn't terrible...
so why not share it with everyone :)
If you like it, use it.
If not, whatever.

I will say that if your campaign is particularly low-tech or the GM is stingy with the credits, this Skill Focus option might be a nice way to get some extra good dice into the mix.
If your GM is stingy with the XP though .... may the force be with you.

Just some more ships..

Updated the Consular-Class Cruiser
then added Charger c70 retrofit Consular-Class This is the Clone wars combat version of the Consular-Class.  The Consular class is still one of my favorite designs. Now i feel that the designs are more accurately represented. yay.

also added, 

Deep-X Explorer

DPx Yacht

DPx-500 Yacht

Freighter Type C

ISP Swamp Speeder

Storm Skimmer Patrol Sled

Dangerous Covenants Update 2

Took me a while to get to this one.
I have changed some of my custom weapons to better reflect the new rules sets.
Specifically, bombs and Anti-Armor mines.
These are now listed as Explosives.
They are a little more powerful than some of the explosives shown in Dangerous Covenants (but hey, they are supposed to be military grade).
I also added the Cluster property to items. Allows for some hard hitting action.

Not a big update, but one I thought was important.

now, maybe I'll end up with some more free time and I can get back to the projects that really have me excited.

Dangerous Covenants Update

I added all three new career trees
Demolitionist
Enforcer
Heavy

as well as the two new signature abilities
Last One Standing
Unmatched Protection

added into my fillable Sheets page.

Dangerous Covenants Review

Got my hands on a copy a couple days ago. I read it and let it sink in a bit.
so here we go.

opens with some nice history and background info on the galaxy. neat stuff.
Hired Gun backgrounds and obligation options are talked about. Not my favorite use of space, but there is some cool stuff that can help inspire when one is feeling un-original.

New Species ( Aqualish, Klatoonian and Weequay) YAY! More species options are always good and they did a good job with these. They fit well with the Hired Gun career (including the new options). I think perhaps my favorite aspect of these new species entries is that they have 'subspecies' options. For instance, if you are an Aqualish you may be a Aquala, Ualaq or Quara Aqualish each with slightly different traits. They are presented simply and concisely within the relevant species entry. This was something I mentioned in my review of Suns of Fortune having been disappointed with the human subspecies entry there in. I suggested doing exactly what they have done with the species in Dangerous Covenants. I'm sure they had this book in production well before my review, and i'm sure no one at FFG reads my little blog, but i'm going to go ahead and just take credit for this anyway. Thanks for listening guys ;)

New Specializations.
Enforcer.  This one is all about putting on a show about how tough you are and using it to your advantage. The class doesn't provide much in and of its self to help you back up those tough guy claims though, so you'll want to get into another specialization if you want to actually BE the tough guy.
Demolitionist. Blowing stuff up is cool... super cool. so, Demolitionist must be a cool specialization right? eh.. sort of.. It will help you use those explosives, as well as help you keep yourself and allies alive when they inevitably blow up in your face. The fact of the matter though, is that Explosives are dangerous, very dangerous and expensive. If you want to be a good Demolitionist, expect to spend lots of money. Also expect to spend a lot of time NOT using your Demolitionist abilities. Call me crazy but as much as I really wish that every problem could be solved with a few proton grenades, the reality is that most of the time this will just get you and your party into worse trouble. Also, it might seem like a good idea to use your down time during a long hyperspace flight to rig up your Baradium charge, but when you blow a hole in the side of your spaceship the rest of the party is sure to frown at you. You don't want to be frowned at do you?
Heavy. The Heavy talent tree is the serious bread and butter of the new specializations. "overwhelming firepower" is right on the money with this one. Carry more guns, bigger guns, and deadlier guns. This specialization verges on being pretty OP all by itself, but combine it with the other hired gun specializations like marauder or even Bounty Hunter Assassin and were talking about a serious bad ass dude. They may have gone a little too far with this one... maybe.
Another note on the Specializations. I am a little disappointed that there wasn't any more support for those of us (like me) who enjoy a nice personal 'civilized' knife fight. I really was hoping for more Melee combat options.

New Signature Abilities.
hmm... the first one enables you to kill virtually every bad guy in a fight just by spending some destiny. as an added bonus you get to ruin your GM's plans for the day. so, i'd say it's pretty good.
The second can make you virtually invulnerable to damage from anything but ship scale weapons for an entire encounter. It's less of a GM plan killer, but still pretty powerful. "oh no, a rampaging rancor!" ....  "no need to worry Ms....  I got this".

New Equipment. man there is a lot of it. Definitely supports the new Heavy and the generally Ranged dominated combat of SWEotE.
the two most notable new things are the new Explosives category and the variations they added for warhead types on missiles.
I like the new ammo type options guys! I already created a bunch of ammo types for missiles and grenades and the like to help add variety, so its nice to see FFG on board with this idea.
The Explosives.....  hmmm.  I like them in concept. It will be interesting to see how they really play at the table. The rules for explosives may take a couple read throughs before it all sinks in but once it does they seems pretty decent.
There is a lot of new equipment and attachments. Too much to talk about but most of it is good stuff. I'll just say that it's nice to see more armor and weapon attachments and i hope to see even more in the future.
My only real disappointment in the new equipment category was with the new Powered Armor. I't seems a little lackluster. I feel like it could have been a way cooler thing that it is.

More vehicles. They put in a little bit of mostly everything to create a nice new selection. There are a couple new ships for which i had already made stats. I cant help but notice that many of the ships that FFG stats out, seem to be underpowered when it comes to arms when compared to the 'canon' entries for those ships in other places. I have some hunches on why this may be, but that doesn't mean i have to like it.

The last section of the book is a little more geared towards the GM. It provides options for how to set up Hired Gun (combat mostly) encounters, plot ideas and other suggestions to help deal with your blood thirsty/money grubbing Hired Gun players.

All in all, I really like this addition. It may only clock in at 95 pages, but they are jam packed with cool new stuff.
8/10

Another Talent Tree Addition

I noticed that there was something just not quite.... 'complete' about my Talent trees...
AHA!
Signature Abilities!

According to the rules Signature abilities have to be "attached" to a talent tree PRIOR to being able to actually spend XP on and then use the signature ability. Once a Signature Ability is "attached" to a talent tree it can never be un-attached..
that seems like kind of a big deal...

So..  I added a space at the bottom of each Talent tree to "attach" a Signature ability.
I also added to the signature ability trees a place to show what talent tree it is attached to.

Wheeeeeeee!
Enjoy

zZip Product Concepts

Need a landspeeder to get you there safely and in style?
Astral-8 Landspeeder is the one for you.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Those walkers you see in the gladiatorial arena all the time, ever wonder what that was?
it was the Gladiator Walker from zZip of course. Relatively low cost, able to stand up to lots of punishment and easy to repair when it doesn't you can't go wrong!
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Atmospheric air superiority is the game? the K-222 Aero-Interceptor is the name. This little baby packs one hell of a punch.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Back on the civilian side of airspeeders, the Orbitblade 2000 offers a little bit of everything.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

On land, if versatility and sheer cool factor are important to you, the X-X Landspeeder is your go to vehicle. customizable, fast and with an aggressive sporty look, it's sure to impress.
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

FINALLY! something real!

So I did a review of Suns of Fortune the other day.. but before that it had been a while since my last real update.
Life...  blah..
anyway..
I have been ... very slowly...  working on something and It's finally done.

I made printer friendly (no background image) of my character sheets.
neat, but not a HUGE deal...
the thing that took forever was Career and talent tree stuff.

But it's done. I have all the career and talent trees entered and good to go. Up and running...
It took forever because while I saw some other very nice (much nicer than mine honestly) home made renditions of the talent trees, i wanted my own. Not only so that i didn't have to ummm.. 'borrow' someone else's work, but also because i have some more plans, and i wanted to have the groundwork set up for those.

Anyway.. the point is.. i finally got something done and i'm on my way to more..

Check out the trees on the Fillable Sheets Page

Suns of Fortune Review

I wasn't terribly impressed by Enter the Unknown, but Suns of Fortune is a different story..

At 144 pages, Suns of Fortune has Enter the Unknown beat for page count. Whats really impressive though is just how jam packed with great material these 144 pages are.

This book is exactly as advertised. It explores and helps inform us on the Corellian system and sector of space.

Chapters 1 and 2. (exploring Corellia and the Corellian sector)
There is a plethora of information and back story on many locations that can help a GM plan a session, or a player plan a character background. The artwork is nice and the information is top notch.
Perhaps my favorite aspect of this whole book is found in these first two chapters. what is my favorite aspect you ask? the baddies..  the number of monsters, npc characters, and other opponents that are provided in these chapters is impressive. It's always helpful to have a big list of pre-made baddies/npc to pull from and Suns of Fortune expands this list immensely over released material so far. Even better, all these baddies are presented in a way that keeps them relevant to the core concept of the book ie: exploring Corellia and the surrounding area.

Chapter 3. (player options)
My single largest complaint/issue with this book is Corellian Humans. In a universe like that of Star Wars, there is such a huge plethora of alien species to draw from that creating an offshoot of a species that has already been covered (humans) is, in my opinion a wast of page space. You can get across the point that the Corellian sector is 'different' in other ways. If it's the stat/bonus combo that you liked, you could have called the Corellian Humans something else, given them different artwork and left the stats the same... it would have felt even more 'different' and region specific than the Corellian Human. leave altering already existing races and creating off-shoots to players and their GMs at home.. lets see more of that Star Wars variety.
I have heard some people complain about the quality of the weapons in Suns of Fortune, claiming they are under-powerd or unimpressive. I feel like while they may not be the best for those power gamers out there, they are varied and interesting in design and capabilities. I personally like some of the new weapons.
New gear....  there is a fair amount of it. I am happy to see another cybernetic, and i look forward to more in the future. The rest of the equipment is neat and definitely up to snuff.
There are lots of new vehicles, most of them only so-so in quality or capability. I always like to see more vehicles, after all I am a huge vehicles fan. What i would like to see, is more vehicles with increased modularity, as well as more interesting vehicle capabilities. Ships like the A-36 Pathfinder-class or the E-9 Explorer-class (from Enter the Unknown) with their unique ship capabilities come to mind.

Chapter 4. (modular encounters)
Won't say much about this chapter other than this; more bad guys is good, modularity is good, nice job.

All in all Suns of Fortune is a huge step above Enter the Unknown. I like its format, I like its content.
a nice 8/10 on this one. Good job FFG guys.

Bigger than Small but smaller that huge

Mostly a random assortment of new ship. Several from old republic times. Not really sure how to handle a thousand year tech gap given the rules, so i just kind of said "eh" and didn't bother thinking about it much.
anyway...  enjoy some new stuff.

Corona-Class Frigate
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Defender-Class Light Corvette (gunship)
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Fortitude-Class Assault Shuttle
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Liberator-Class Republic Starfighter
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Nexus-Class Corvette
(can not verify canonicity)

Strike-Class Medium Cruiser
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Thranta-Class Republic Corvette
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Virgil-Class Corvette
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

Don't run.... Walker

Sorely missing from the field is the assortment of iconic Star Wars universe Walkers.
So here are some more.


AT-AHT All Terrain Armored Heavy Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-AR All Terrain Advanced Raider
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-AT All Terrain Armored Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-RCT All Terrain Riot Control Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-RT All Terrain Recon Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-ST All Terrain Scout Transport
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE

AT-TE All Terrain Tactical Enforcer
read a bit more about it, check it out on Wookieepedia HERE