[SWSE] Should Jedis get Persuasion as a class skill?

[drothgery]

I see the Jedi class as not defining what a Jedi is, but what a person who spent most of his time (=level) training in the use of the Force gets.

Err... it's what a person who spent most of his time (=level) training in the use of the Force in the Jedi or a Jedi-derived tradition and/or lightsaber combat gets. I'm about half-convinced they should have dropped the Jedi class entirely, built members of the Jedi order like other Force traditions, and statted a stereotypical Jedi as noble 1/soldier X with the Force Sensitivity and Weapon Proficiency (lightsabers) feats.

 

[Skywalker]

I see the Jedi class as not defining what a Jedi is, but what a person who spent most of his time (=level) training in the use of the Force gets. .

That's exactly right.

 

[the_myth]

So I'm statting up the first of 16 pregens for a one-shot adventure I'm making... a twi'lek jedi who's supposed to be good at deceiving people (i.e. jedi mind tricks).

Anyways, I give her the adept negotiator talent, which requires a persuasion check to use... and it's not a class skill!

Ignoring the fact that this practically makes the adept negotiator talent useless to a 1st level jedi, and only slightly more useful to higher level ones (since they're more likely to have targets who won't get +5 just for being higher level...), one of the roles it seems like jedis are trained in is that of a diplomat... They work for peace and the betterment of society, they try to win over people to their cause, etc.

Anyways, for the sake of the game I'm going to be giving her persuasion trained, but I think that not having it already is a bit of an oversight.

Can't Persuasion be used untrained?

Isn't that one of the facets of the SAGA system detailed here? http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/SagaPreview2

I understand if there might be certain facets of Persuasion that might not be usable untrained, but as others have stated, the character will have to multi-class or wait a few levels.

There is supposed to be a difference in the skill sets of a 1st level character and a 5th level one. The assumption that a 1st level character is a fully fledged, totally trained, just not-quite-competent characters is not a model usable with a level-based rules system.

 

[the_myth]

Err... it's what a person who spent most of his time (=level) training in the use of the Force in the Jedi or a Jedi-derived tradition and/or lightsaber combat gets. I'm about half-convinced they should have dropped the Jedi class entirely, built members of the Jedi order like other Force traditions, and statted a stereotypical Jedi as noble 1/soldier X with the Force Sensitivity and Weapon Proficiency (lightsabers) feats.

AGREED!

Or just made a class called "Force Adept" to reflect ANY character with devoted, diligent, persistent training in Use the Force.

Of course, then it wouldn't be Star Wars without a class called "Jedi."

To me, Jedi reeks of a Prestige Class. Which I guess it is now, of sorts...

 

[Stalker0]

Adept Negotiator isn't completely useless without training. Many Jedi are charisma based after all. Even untrained, beating a 1st level guys will save isn't THAT hard, especially for nonheroics.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

IIRC, there are a lot of so-called "Dark Jedi" in the EU which were never actually trained as Jedi. So for me, the Jedi class definitely implies just intensive training in the force. Since you proficiency with Light sabers guaranteed at first level, I would assume that 1st level Jedi characters always have a Jedi Philosophy background (or maybe Sith). Which makes sense, since there seems to be no example of another Force philosophy that so stringently trains force users... But if you take the Jedi levels later on, you could have any background...

I wouldn't be surprised if the design team first considered naming the Jedi class differently (Maye Force User), but decided against it - the term Jedi is just so important in the Starwars universe that it would feel strange not having a core class for it, even if it is actually meant to be more flexible than that...

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

It sounds like they've really blurred the lines of Force-using traditions in this edition, which I'm fine with. Specifically, the Jedi class has a lot less intrinsic meaning when compared to Force-users as a whole, who can really just take the Force-sensitive feat and go from there. Seems fine to me, considering that Saga has really blurred the lines of Class (capital C) as well.

With that in mind, I don't really see an issue with keeping the Jedi class. The lines have been blurred with liberal multiclassing rules. A level of Jedi means "character who is Force sensitive and knows lightsabers." I'm cool with that. Maybe he really is a Jedi. Or a Sith. Or an Academy washout. Or whatever.

 

[Henry]

There's an even better way to emulate the concept at 1st level... a Twi'ilek Noble with Force sensitivity as a feat picked. He can already deceive people by virtue of his Noble skills, he has a smattering of force abilities if he picks Use the Force as one of his class skills (which he gets if he picked force sensitive as a feat) and voila! He's on the road!

At level 2, he picks up Jedi 1, gets the Lightsaber Prof. feat, gets adept negotiator as a talent, and he is set. Technically, he's set from Level 1, except that he doesn't sport a lightsaber yet; at level 2, I believe he still gets the free lightsaber.

 

[pawsplay]

Ignoring the fact that this practically makes the adept negotiator talent useless to a 1st level jedi,

You're ignoring the fact that that isn't a fact. Many, many Talents allow characters to do things competently in areas where they don't normally have trained skills. It's still a good Talent. If you want to be an expert negotiator at 1st level, be a human Noble and take Force Sensitive and weapon proficiency (lightsabers), or be an alien and just take Force Sensitive. However, assuming you take Force Persuasion at 3rd, you're bending over backwards for practically nothing.

Jedi Consular is not the same as "all Jedi, all the time, plus able to out-Noble the Noble." An Adept Negotiator is a better negotiator than other 1st level Jedi, and that's good enough.