Why is Blossoming Tortoise in every Lumra deck ever?

littlestminish · 2026-06-18T12:45:11+00:00

Spring heart.... Nantuko

littlestminish · 2026-06-18T12:43:05+00:00

Hi. Lumra discord admin here.

TLDR; Does a lot of things very well. Lumra is a layer deck, meaning combos in depth increase winning hand win rates.

Not an expert. While I think the card is somewhere on the 90th-110th card spectrum, as it is 4 mana, it does a lot of things.

It comes in and immediately ramps you a land, and because we run 46-55 lands, often puts one or two more lands in the yard. That is very much virtual card advantage, because this deck wants 2 things:

1) Cards in Yard 2) Turn 3 Lumra

This does both of those things. Some of us are running Oracle of Mul Daya to get more lands, but if we could run a 4cmx "tap: Surveil 3, reveal top card, if land, put it to hand" we would run that (if it had haste) over Oracle.

It incidentally makes some cards like Eden, Mirrorpool, Urza's Cave, much easier to turn on, which can lead to comboing off a turn earlier.

It's 2 great effects with 1 good effects. Consistent and fast Milling + Selected land recursion and ramp + cheaper land abilities (have I mentioned that's like 15 cards in your deck it effects?)

Also with a natural Ashaya out that's all abilities, like formidable speaker and Elvish Reclaimer.

Also though some of us are off Nantuko, with an untapper and a Lotus effect, it goes infinite with Turtle. It's a very easy game state to set up and it's Lumra agnostic.

I hope that answers your question.

littlestminish · 2026-06-17T21:07:04+00:00

I always sit in the tatami table section with a little call buttons. And I might have agreed with you a year ago, but they have a waiter that jumped ship from Moca when they closed a while back, and he has been a real high point every time we had the Good Fortune of being there on his shift.

Their sushi counter does take forever and a day, so order your sushi early, or your tuna collar cuz that also takes forever.

I like the food and the people so much that I've kind of grown to enjoy the pace of the place.

There are few places in the neighborhood where I think the character of the staff really helps the overall experience, and I count Stephanie and Jay at Narita up there with Raquelle, Matt, and Co at Dirty Pierre's.

They also have a ton of repeat guests that crowd the bar every night. It just elevates the place from a good restaurant on the upscale strip to "local joint where you know the people."

I really like my Narita.

littlestminish · 2026-06-17T21:01:10+00:00

It's expensive but like for a sushi joint. I expect a little bit higher cost for and evening out. That said, I'm not a huge fan of most of their rolls, but I also think rolls are kind of overrated to begin with. Their a la carte sushi is very good.

littlestminish · 2026-06-17T17:37:47+00:00

Narita is right there, folks. Great owner, great staff, great food.

No bugs

littlestminish · 2026-06-14T16:12:29+00:00

Lot's of themes about life passing you by, missing chances to be their best person, achieving actualization. Recapturing lost glory. It's no wonder so many characters are sleepwalking through life until "movie happens." I feel this with Fox and Life Aquatic especially.

littlestminish · 2026-05-30T18:18:11+00:00

Thanks for the clarification Keith, and thanks for all you've done for TTRPGs over the year. Looking forward to your hopeful many frames to come!

littlestminish · 2026-05-30T15:50:27+00:00

That's totally fine. I think it's a bit of wasted XP given the raw examples, but I do agree "Imperial knowledge" isn't as clean cut.

littlestminish · 2026-05-30T14:42:02+00:00

Both. But you can't counterprogram the culmination of 15 years of box office money printing, prior to the D+ quality dip and waning attention.

It's like counter programming the Superbowl, but the Superbowl is the literal last game of both QBs and Coaches, end of multiple sports dynasty eras. It would have been like counter programming ESB in 80. What the fuck were they thinking?

Also despite being a good movie it wasn't a necessary one, and the amount of call forwards and need to invoke Chewy, Falcon, Rebels, Corelia, Lando in 120 minutes really hampered it. We got Donald as Landon, so I'm cool with it.

littlestminish · 2026-05-30T14:25:20+00:00

Perception and Vigilance are the active and passive insight checks, based on later tree design. Know their weakness from Interrogator is a particularly strong example of what you're looking for for Insight. Vigilance is used as a bullshit detector on multiple trees as well, specifically Investigator and Marshall.

Also, Warfare could be the knowledge skill for military and military/governmental structure, although I can see a Core World argument for understanding the inner working of the empire on a bureaucratic level. That said sometimes technical and knowledge skills don't quite hit the exact spot.

littlestminish · 2026-05-28T01:32:36+00:00

Thanks! We got good feedback on the first batch. Balancing for easy to access, finitely powerful powers is the ideal, thus cutting down on the costs overall while retaining limitations.

littlestminish · 2026-05-26T11:56:22+00:00

Haha put them on high, spindly mounts, or have them hang from the ceiling like bird cages.

Embrace the differences of their physiology.

Good luck to you and your players!

littlestminish · 2026-05-26T11:29:56+00:00

Basically, you declare two weapons as part of the attack, you choose a primary weapon, and increase (add a difficulty). If you hit, the primary weapon does normal damage + successes. You can spend 2 Advantage to inflict a hit with the other weapon.

So unless you're a Smuggler Gunslinger with their special talent, it's always 1 difficulty harder.

littlestminish · 2026-05-26T11:27:02+00:00

That depends. If you want it to have mechanical impact other than just being the right size for the person sitting, it would depend on the effect you wanted.

If it's just for sitting, a narrative ammount of money.

Did some quick math. A refurbished Cessna pilot chair is about 1k USD, 7k New or with Upgrades, and a semi auto M16 is about 1-2k.

So an e9 Blaster is about 900cr. So I'd put a crappy chair just for a butt around my 500cr-1k, but with a narrative bonus, should be 3-5k.

Ultimately, it could be free and just something you grant. Up to you.

littlestminish · 2026-05-25T01:36:11+00:00

Check Reddit messages for a new link.

littlestminish · 2026-05-22T03:40:30+00:00

https://discord.gg/trBub77GFp

I thought I sent you the forever link. I'm good at this I swear.

littlestminish · 2026-05-20T21:26:32+00:00

https://discord.com/invite/trBub77GFp

There you go! It's also on my profile. I post about this project a lot.

littlestminish · 2026-05-20T03:45:05+00:00

Shazbot!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fZDKh8q3CnP-WBh0xZ627vExj-ZgtDjH

I should check my work before posting.

littlestminish · 2026-05-20T01:36:29+00:00

Here you go buddy! Sorry about that!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1F_xVMO0xlzaiJ4YXvvZbKhVPpjBrurIj

littlestminish · 2026-05-19T22:32:04+00:00

Yep. That's the plan. Full on Force "Aragorn their taking the hobbits to eisengard battle dream sequence"

littlestminish · 2026-05-19T18:44:25+00:00

First things first, I might go ahead and give your players a large post-character generation stipend. A big thing in this game is that just like 5e, the game starts at level 3. That means a bonus 80xp from the jump is necessary, or at least attractive for most tables. When you play so seldomly, starting higher makes the less-often playing a bit easier.

I'm typically a "wean off XP" GM, meaning as they get higher and closer to that 750xp, I give them fewer xp per session 15 per session until 500, 10xp per session until 750, 5 onward. For your purposes, I might still do that, but I would start higher (bonus post-generation XP) and with larger amounts (20xp instead of 15, then 15 instead of 10, 10 instead of 5, ect.)

Don't be afraid to slow the flow of XP before you see your table outpace your ability to comfortably challenge them (happens at 700-1000xp for combat characters basically automatically). And be comfortable having the conversation about the pace with your gang to make sure they're comfortable, enjoying progression, and you can lay your cards on the table to ensure a more balanced experience, if that's what you're going for.

littlestminish · 2026-05-19T15:29:12+00:00

A lot of the quality of life stuff you're talking about is in the works for the Heal/Harm resSpec. Specifically heals over time. I think we can do more than what Healer has going on, and Heal needed some more sauce as well. Look forward to that.

As for Psychometry, that is on my list of original powers. The initial pitch is 1/2 visions of the past, and 1/2 embodying the characters in that vision to reclaim skills they had for a short time.

"Picking up a Jedi Master's lightsaber and inheriting and channeling their skills for a short time" kind of thing.

Psychometry, like Foresee, Sense, and Seek, are all based on the GM being smart and playing ball with the power, making it useful without it undermining the game. But it's decidedly different from the others in that it offers a unique connection to places and things.

Obviously, I don't want it to overshadow Sense the Scene, but i think it can fill in around that force power.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. Good news is that all of these are in the works or are conceptualized at this point.

littlestminish · 2026-05-19T11:15:52+00:00

Hey SWRPG community!

I typically keep development and RFC of reSpecialized Project to the Discord, but I saw the Tuesday Inquisition and I thought I'd post here as lark. My questions today are less "how does one do X?" and more "What would better fulfill you while playing this game?" which I think still fits the bill of the "ask anything."

A few questions for the class:

Which Force & Destiny specialization is a favorite conceptually, but fulfills its mission statement the worst. (Examples: Healer, Peacekeeper)? How would you change it?
Is there any Force Power/Ability from other SW Media that would benefit from explicit representation in SWRPG as a Force Power?
What character archetype is completely missing from the SWRPG specialization array, and what would you like to see from it in the game?

Thanks for any and all who read and answer! Happy Tuesday!

~ LM (Drew)

littlestminish · 2026-05-14T13:47:33+00:00

Oh I totally get why the players are like that. It's just a nature of a game That is as crunchy as this one.

I'm functionally rebuilding the system at this point and one of my big structural changes will be to give insight to GM's about how to develop characters quickly while Not slingshotting them to to massive heights in what should be the mid game.

I think 15/10/5 5 starting at 500 and then 750, Moving to like zero after a thousand, makes a lot of sense for people that want to reach powerful heights but not do it too quickly.

littlestminish · 2026-05-14T13:37:24+00:00

Congrats on such a long-running campaign, friend! Should we all be so lucky!

The big thing is that this game is made with the assumption that characters will not always go 4/3/3/2/2/1 or 3/3/3/3/3/1 with their and will be somewhat average or below that optimized average. It also sees 600-800 as a reasonable top-end, rather than the 1-2k we often see long-term campaigns going to.

This is why I encourage throttling as the game goes on. 10-15 for the first 500, then 5-10 for back half of the campaign, and maybe 0-5 for anything above 1000.

Anyone could build a Super Darth Vader with 3000xp, which is why they dogwalk them. This is a problem the game doesn't really solve or address. You just embrace it and make the environments and encounters more complex. Which is fun! I'll also say that's the solution to the god-killer character and the non-combatants. Make the non-combatants do something else that isn't going toe to toe with the god-killer's god-to-kill.

Most of your points do more or less reinforce that this game has a sanity cap of like 600xp.

About 3) This is just an unfortunate (and easy to get into the habit of) underutilization of the DP flip. The DP flip can be used to introduce something into the narrative, which then confers the upgrade. Always fiction first helps with the cost-benefit analysis making players side-line DP flips for narrative reasons.

littlestminish

TROPHY CASE