Perhaps no release in Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars roleplaying game system has been as highly anticipated as the most recent: the Force and Destiny Core Rulebook. Ever since the Edge of the Empire Beta dropped (suddenly!) at Gen Con 2012, fans had been clamoring for the character-building resources to play full-fledged, saber-wielding Jedi, but we all knew we had to wait for the third and final core release for the system before that day would come.
Now, that day has indeed come–though given how the Beta release of Force and Destiny has been out since last summer, most of the tools were already in the hands of eager players and GMs everywhere. Still, both Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion before it both saw some noteworthy changes between the end of their respective Beta periods and the official releases, and there was every reason to suspect that the same would be true for round three as well.
Indeed, there have been some changes to the final Force and Destiny Core Rulebook. How sweeping are these changes? Is it time to put the Beta book away for good? Let’s have a closer look.
(Editor’s Note, for a full review of the Force and Destiny Core Rulebook check it out here)
At First Glance
One of the first changes that you’ll see comes before you even open the book. Yes, the metallic bronze color for the title lettering has been changed to a bright, solid yellow.
Now, I know that’s probably not even close to the most exciting change that could happen between a Beta and final release, but it’s one that stands out the instant you see the book. This shade of yellow, against the black background, makes Force and Destiny the most “Star Wars”-looking Star Wars RPG rulebook I’ve ever seen, and while I might be alone in feeling this way, I find that it makes the book look pretty special before you even open it up.
Once you do, it’s back to all of the visual goodness you’d come to expect from a Fantasy Flight Star Wars title. This book is packed with some truly amazing artwork (some of the best the company has put out, in my opinion), and it hits the game’s theming spot-on. The cover features Darth Vader and Ben Kenobi, and the inner pages feature images of some of the franchise’s most beloved Force-users, with classic trilogy greats like Luke Skywalker and the Emperor, more recent entries to canon like Ahsoka Tano and (to my own great and happy surprise) Kanan Jarrus, and even fan-favorite Legends characters such as Mara Jade.
Really, Force-sensitives of every stripe adorn these pages, including saber-wielders, Force mystics, and everything in between. Members of different species are played with and against type, and even just thumbing through the book casually, it’s clear that this is indeed the book for folks who have been jonesing for more Force-based goodness that was lacking in both Edge and Age.
Fluff and Stuff
At 448 pages, the final core rulebook clocks in at nearly 200 pages longer than its Beta predecessor. While the fundamental rules of the system itself have been set ever since Edge of the Empire several years ago, the rest of the book is packed with plenty of great material, and all told the book as a whole feels much more different from either of its two predecessors than those books felt from one another.
Fans of the old Expanded Universe, rejoice! As with both Edge and Age, plenty of Legends material is packed within the book’s pages, including an entire section on the history of the Jedi, the Sith, and other Force traditions throughout the galaxy. It’s couched in a very fun way, too, reminding players and GMs that those Expanded Universe stories, settings, and themes we knew and loved didn’t just vanish into thin air, and still make for great fodder for a roleplaying game in the Star Wars universe (where, after all, imagination reigns supreme).
The chapter on “The Galaxy” is written with an eye toward the Force-using theme of the book as a whole, too, with the planetary write-ups focusing on the mystical and historical (though the struggle against the Empire is still quite prominent). An entire new section on notable planets with a history related to the Force or various traditions is included, providing lots of great hooks for GMs looking to plan adventures and players wanting some character backstory ideas that might be new, different, or unorthodox.
Also, while Fantasy Flight Games did recently renew their licensing contract to include material for Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, nothing of that sort has been included here, which is perhaps unsurprising, but still bears mentioning.
Crunch Time
Now for the part most of you probably came here for: what has changed mechanically since the Beta?
Honestly, not much, as it turns out. With the main rules having already been in place for a few years, and the Beta period itself bringing a number of sweeping changes as well, there wasn’t a whole lot left that needed changing. Still, there are a number of things that have been altered (most of which are simple tweaks), but they’re worth going over, especially for the curious. Please note, however, that what follows is a look at the most noteworthy of these changes; it is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every change in the book.
First, the optional rule of rolling to trigger a character’s Morality is still there (and still optional), but rather than involving a single d10 and matching a single digit, the GM now rolls a d100 and finds the character with the Morality score closest to the number rolled. This means that, unlike Obligation or Duty, someone’s Morality will be triggered every session (though it is still an optional rule).
The rules also now clarify that characters who are absent or who don’t meaningfully participate in a session (from being unconscious, for example) do not roll for a Morality increase at the end of a session. Otherwise, the effects of having Morality triggered are the same as in the Beta, as are the rules for Dark Side and Light Side Paragon characters.
There were some minor changes to Specialization Trees and a handful of talents. The Protector tree, which already underwent some significant restructuring during the Beta, has been restructured yet again–though only in terms of linkages between talents; the talents themselves are unchanged. The Shien Expert lost its rank of Defensive Training in favor of a rank in Side Step. The Saber Throw talent now allows the lightsaber thrown to be more easily returned to the wielder’s hand, and Healing Trace was changed yet again to take effect every 12 hours when used outside of discrete encounters.
Other talents have had some wording changes as well, mainly for clarification purposes, such as Draw Closer specifying that Engaged is a different range than Short, and Now You See Me specifically working to Medium range. Also, the Terrify talent’s Conflict cost now comes with its own unique denoting symbol; no other talents in the book have such a cost, but this is likely future-proofing for later supplements.
Some Force Powers have seem some changes as well. Perhaps the biggest change has been to Heal/Harm, which had two upgrades (one Range and one Magnitude) removed completely, and some of the remaining upgrades moved around slightly; there are also some minor changes to activating some of Harm’s Dark Side effects. Battle Meditation received a minor but important change as well, in that the base power can now only be activated once. The Move power no longer explicitly mentions using Discipline as the skill for making ranged attacks with the power; however, the description of the Discipline skill itself makes this clear, and so the power is unchanged from how it appears in Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion.
The Adversaries chapter saw a few entries removed, but had more than twice as many added back in (with the new Nemesis-level Chiss Mercenary being a personal favorite of mine); many adversaries have also had their stats tweaked. Also, the Y-Wing, X-Wing and Victory-class Star Destroyer have been added to the starship lineup, allowing GMs to include some Galactic Civil War flair without having to own a copy of Age of Rebellion.
Auxiliary Power
With the release of Force and Destiny itself comes the release of the Force and Destiny Game Master’s Kit. Like the two entries that came before it, this kit includes a GM screen, an introductory adventure, and some additional rules for the GM. It’s the announcement of what these additional rules contained–lightsaber construction rules and suggestions for Knight-level play–that got the fans wondering the most, however.
More specifically, fans wondered if the rules on these subjects included in the Beta had been ‘broken out’ and included in the GM’s Kit instead of the core rulebook. Happily, this is not the case; the material in the GM’s Kit is all new, and the sections in the core rulebook about lightsabers and Knight-level play are still intact.
The rules about lightsaber construction in the kit focus on tracking down the parts to construct an actual hilt, and include options for adjudicating the associated dice rolls. The existing rules for modifying lightsaber crystals are still in the core rulebook–and have, in fact, been expanded to include a sidebar about including Force die results as part of the process as well (good news for characters who want to be in tune with the Force without having to dump too much XP into the Mechanics skill).
Lastly, the section on Knight-level play in the GM’s Kit is mainly advice and considerations for Game Masters running a game at that power level; the Knight-level rules themselves are still presented in the core rulebook as they appeared in the Beta.
The Bottom Line
There are some pretty interesting changes to the final release of Force and Destiny, but no dramatic, sweeping changes that are epic in scope. If it’s a game you’re serious about playing or running, you definitely owe it to yourself to upgrade to the final release over the Beta, but don’t expect any major changes to the way the game works.
If you’re already running a Beta game, there probably isn’t anything in the changes that will drastically affect your game or the balance thereof. Following the new rules for individual talents shouldn’t be a huge issue, and with the exception of the Protector, the trees themselves are largely the same (and even in the Protector’s case, it’s doubtful to affect game balance in the long run).
With this third and final core rulebook finally released, the full Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG experience is now available. Force and Destiny proves itself to be a more than capable entry in the series, and is sure to finally scratch that Force-using itch that a whole lot of players have been waiting the last few years to get their hands on.
So get out there, folks. Your destiny is waiting.
Kevin Frane
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