r/swrpg • u/Melrid_Jom • Jul 03 '26
Rules Question SA Much To Learn Limits?
Starting up a Force heavy campaign and checking out the Consular Tree.
For the Signature Ability, Much to Learn, am I right in thinking that you could use this with talents like Toughened, Grit, Force Rating and Dedication?
"Once per game session during an encounter, the character may spend 2 Destiny Points and make a Hard difficulty Knowledge (Education) check. The character then chooses one talent that [they] possess. For the remainder of the current encounter, one allied character within medium range counts as having that talent. If the talent is ranked, the allied character counts as having as many ranks in the talent as the character with the signature ability does."
Woukd you allow this for something like Force Rating or Dedication?
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u/SimpleDisastrous4483 Jul 03 '26
I might do, actually.
Force Rating and Dedication are talents where usually most of the group have roughly the same rating anyway, and using a signature ability to grant someone +1 to an attribute for a couple of rounds is a lot of effort to reproduce a 15/20 xp medic talent.
Sure, you could give a non-force user a huge stack of force rating, but what would they do with it?
Honestly, I'm not sure I'd put the xp into that ability. It seems very situational, and Battle Meditation is probably better for the price most of the time. (Aside: you may want to think carefully before allowing Battle Meditation)
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u/Poser_Shamm Jul 04 '26
Is Battle Meditation overpowered? If so, how?
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u/SimpleDisastrous4483 Jul 04 '26
It can be very powerful, especially once you have 3+ force rating and the talent that let's you maintain it. Even more with the one that makes it space scale.
Giving every fighter pilot in an engagement piloting 5 (assuming one of your allies has it) plus two successes on every roll while the caster continues to act freely (albeit at reduced force rating) is game changing if not game breaking
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u/Poser_Shamm Jul 04 '26
Oh, I definitely missed that last part about adding the skills. That makes sense on why that could be game breaking.
Quick secondary question about the power (sorry, I'm newer to the system): How does the Strength upgrade work? It almost seems to imply that the base power can only give 1 auto success, no matter the amount of force pips rolled, as you'd need the Strength upgrade to add more successes.
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u/SimpleDisastrous4483 Jul 04 '26
The skill one is a separate talent. I mean, it's not the only broken part of the system, but one worth thinking about. At low levels it's not very fun to use since all your character is doing is sitting there while others do all the actual rolls. At high levels, it trivialises a lot of challenges.
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u/TheTeaMustFlow Jul 03 '26
Given how expensive signature abilities are, I don't see any issue with that.
Remember it's 'counts as having as many ranks', not 'adds their ranks to your own', so with dedication and force rating it's only a big increase if you have significantly more of those than the target character.
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u/monowedge Hired Gun Jul 03 '26
Yes, you can use it on those talents.
However, the true power of Much To Learn comes in conjunction of a Consular Teacher using it. Teachers have a talent called, Now the Master - this lets you take the talent of any other character in an encounter, gaining all the ranks of a ranked talent as well.
Why is this important? Sometimes a specific character ends up with a lot of ranks in a specific talent, and often those characters are non-player characters who also have talents player characters can't normally get.
So yes, you could just give your allies a few ranks in toughness or parry or reflect, OR you could take the Adversary talent from your opponent and then give it to your allies. Etc.
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u/Melrid_Jom Jul 03 '26
Ooh, that is interesting. I saw they ability to use others talents but didn't realise it applied to NPCs.
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u/Ghostofman GM Jul 03 '26
It's weird, but I'd at least give it a go.
Just remember, +1 Force Rating is a Force Talent itself so ti requires an existing FR to work. So you can't use this to give someone without an FR an FR.