HAH There is some form of new Dark Side rules!! Vindicated!!!

I also ran a game where knight level XP + fr2 was involved. It made for a more interesting game imo, the players were less risk adverse.

Was it Yoda's vision? That would put it at S6 when he was roaming the galaxy learning how to be a force ghost. Jeez..been too long since I've watch the series.

That episode confirmed that, Dooku and Yoda...and maybe Qui-Gon were all there. What was odd about it, Dooku was still of around the same age he was in Attack of the Clones. Reading your link it doesn't specify when Palps decided to tempt Dooku, so being after Maul is a very viable option since there is a 8ish (?) year gap between TPM and AoC.

Fair enough. Clone Wars confirmed Dooku was Jedi once, I believe it was in one of the episodes involving Mortis and it was a flashback. He appeared to be close to the age before Anakin decapitated him based off the series design.

I'll bite, where and when does this happen? I was under the impression based off some of The Clone Wars series that Dooku took off around or maybe before Maul and was attached to Sidious that way. I haven't read any of the books or comics from that era.

If we operate off that, we have to consider Starkiller and his relation to Vader and even Maul since he held the Darth title, he seems to have been recruited/trained concurrent to Dooku.

Was Ventress intended to become Sitih? I was under the impression (Clone Wars) she was merely an adept trained to be an assassin.

In theory by 27 they'd be Knights which based off the general shot in the dark around the forum puts them around 300 - 500 XP.

I'm sure there are plenty of house rules, real rules no. On to the questions: what age are your players starting? any specific area of TOR? Statement: Consider using a more rapid progression depending on age or pick an amount of XP to give starting. The 'Knight Level' (don't laugh too hard) does a decent job of reflecting a youngling or recently promoted padawan. My suggestion is to tell your PCs to use their racial starting XP all on stats use whatever is left over from that plus the Knight Level 150 for skills and tech tree stuff. From there decide what you want to give them. Were I to do a new game where my PCs start as recently promoted padawans I'd give them a couple ranks in light saber plus their light saber tree for free. In the end the result is two tech trees plus one or two ranks in light saber before that 150 XP is touched. Follow RAW for skills and ability scores. By doing this your PCs can easily get a few 3's (generally around 90 XP 30 + 30 + 30 =90) or a 4 and possibly two 3's (generally 70 + 30 =100 or 40 + 30 + 30 =100), or maybe one 5 (if starting with a 3: 40 + 50 = 5 @90xp)

having run into this in the past, if I recall correctly using a power against a living thing generally takes a check on their part to see if it effects them. it's far more reliable to use an inanimate object against a NPC than to use a power directly against them.

Been there, planned that. Cliffs version was adding/upgrading based on additional forces. In my case it was for a medic to solve the proverbial plague mystery and come up with a cure. He had a base of something, every couple of NPCs he added gave him an extra green, an exceptional NPC gave him an upgrade to yellow. Boost dice included for possible NPCs looking to get added to the unit. Had I fleshed it out a bit more (which I still might), the adding and upgrading would have been varied based on the rest of the group and how certain situations they dealt with were handled.

Just started a game around the time Phantom Menace ends.

*kicks soapbox in* Rule of 2 was designed to breed stronger Sith every generation and it worked well. Between Revan (who first noted the Sith were doomed to fail due to backstabbary) and Bane who executed on it (HEEHEE I made a killing joke), the design was to prevent a group of weak Sith from taking down a stronger opponent and in turn weaken the whole. If I recall correctly Revan laid out his reasoning in KOTOR when the PC is at the Sith academy. Bane...well he was Bane and read Revan's holocron.

For making maps, do you use minis or not? If no make maps out of butcher's paper because it's cheap and expendable. If you prefer reusable go buy a wet erase vinyl grid/hex map (should be ~$20 USD for 2.some x 2.some feet and there is a larger one). If you use minis decide if you want/need 3d terrain and if so you're in for a much more expensive haul but it's cool as ****. If not use butcher paper or mats. Also if you do minis you'll need to consider how to acquire them, generally one per PC, then decide if you want to use a bunch of Stormtroopers or if one can represent a single group. Then we can talk about ships too. Yes this can get very spendy very quickly.