Ways of the Force - an unofficial supplement for Edge of the Empire

May the Fourth be with you!

Yeah, it's a bit corny, but me being the unabashed Star Wars geek that I am, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.


Pretty much since I got my hands on the Edge of the Empire Beta, I've been toying with and tinkering on a series of house rules to expand upon what's offered for Force-users in Fantasy Flight Games' upcoming entry into the long line of Star Wars RPGs.

Ways of the Force, version 1.4

This is the result of several months' worth of design, writing, revising, play-testing, re-designing, re-revising, reviewing, and yet even more revisions.  Though I mention this in the first page of the document, this unofficial supplement is by no means intended to cover everything Jedi or even Force-related.  Frankly, if you want an RPG with full rules on playing Jedi and all sorts of weird and wacky Force Powers, I suggest you turn your attention to either WEG's D6 system or any of WotC's d20 games, in particular Saga Edition.

As much as I enjoy playing Jedi characters in Star Wars (heck, I even brought an older Jedi PC from a prior campaign out of retirement to be played in a game I'm currently in), I actually do agree with the design intent of Jay Little and his team to not have fully-trained Jedi PCs in an era where the Jedi Order doesn't exist.  So if you want full-blown Jedi careers and an exhaustive catalog of Force Powers covering all the things that have cropped up in the EU, I'm afraid you're going to have to look elsewhere.

So what does the "Ways of the Force" unofficial EotE supplement offer?

For starters, I discuss a fleshed-out Lightsaber skill, and then move onto the real meat of the supplement, a trio of brand-new Force-Sensitive universal specializations, those being the Jedi Initiate (minor Jedi-in-training, mix of lightsaber prowess and Force ability), the Dark Side Acolyte (student of the dark side intent on power and control of others), and the Force Mystic (a catch-all for those who have been trained to use the Force but aren't Jedi).  Each of these specializations come with a selection of new talents while also borrowing talents from the Force-Sensitive Exile and other careers where I felt it was appropriate.

And we end with some new Force Powers in the form of two new power trees, Injure (using the dark side for direct damage) and Healing (using the light side to help others recover from injury) as well as a handful of minor powers that don't rate a full power tree on their own, but yet were essential enough to a Force-user to be included.

In the weeks to come, I'll post some insights as to why I made some of the design choices I did, as well as some tidbits as to how this document evolved over the months.  This was definitely a labor of love and a fun project to work on.  I'll be starting a thread for this on both the d20 Radio and FFG forums, and possibly even ENWorld, so I'm curious to hear what folks think.

Edit: If you've come to this post courtesy of the opening post over at the d20 Radio Network or FFG EotE forums, there's a new version available with several revisions and updates.  Simply click the Ways of the Force tag over on the right or at the bottom of this article to get to the most up-to-date version of this supplement.

Edit 2: I should have done this a lot sooner, but I've replaced the v1.0 link with a direct link to v1.02.

Edit 3: Link updated with Version 1.03.  A few pictures look odd when viewed through GoogleDocs using FireFox, but looks fine if you download and open it using a PDF viewer.

Edit 4: And Version 1.1 is now live with the link updated accordingly.

Edit 5: Link updated to Version 1.2. Not a lot of mechanical updates, but it certainly looks a mite more professional than the older versions did.

Edit 6: Link now points to Version 1.3.  Some major changes have been to the material.

Edit 7: New version 1.4 has been posted.  Once again, various changes, some major, some minor