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While the rules as written seem to imply that talents and feats are separate, I have noticed that a lot of guides and suggested builds (even answers on this site) seem to imply that you may choose a talent instead of a feat, without ever stating it directly.

For example, the accepted answer to Most effective lightsabre dual-wielder at low levels? suggests that a Scout 6 can have "Evasion", "Uncanny Dodge I" and "Fringe Savant", which doesn't seem possible unless you are allowed to take talents as feats, as "Uncanny Dodge I" requires the talents "Improved Initiative" and "Acute Senses", and a Scout 6 only has 3 talents.

Is this anywhere in the official rules and I just missed it? Or is it just a common house rule?

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No. Feats and Talents are not interchangeable.

Feats in Star Wars act much like feats in Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder; They provide improvements and new capabilities to your character. You choose one at first level and your class also provides several starting feats for free. You earn the rest every 3rd level starting at level 3.

Talents, on the other hand, are your class features. Each class has a selection of Talent Trees and you choose your talents from these trees on levels indicated by your class. The talent trees group abilities by flavour; the trees essentially act as archetypes to your class. You may, though, take any talent from any tree at any time you would normally gain a talent, as long as you meet the prerequisites.

For example, the Scout class alternates between bonus feats on even levels and talents on odd levels. On levels where you are supposed to gain a talent, you could not choose to take a feat instead, nor vice versa.

As far as I can tell the build in the answer you linked to doesn't work as a Scout 5 would only have Uncanny Dodge I. The talents taken at 1st and 3rd level would have to be Acute Senses and Improved Intiative as they are prerequisites for Uncanny Dodge I. It would be impossible for a Scout 6 to also have Evasion, as on level 6 you gain a feat, not a talent. Jedi, the other low level dip shown in your linked answer, do not have access to Evasion. I am also not seeing any feats that allow the character to take a talent instead, and any talents taken must be taken from the class in which you gained the level.

I'd also like to draw your attention to this line from your linked answer:

Of course... it seems that the above class is a houseruled class, so YMMV.

This, to me, implies that the multi-class build the answer provides as an example does not work by RAW and has had some of the pre-requisites removed allowing easier/earlier access to specific talents. As the link the original answer gave is unavailable***** I do not have access to the specific house-rules they were using and therefore this is only speculation towards the original intent of the house-ruling.


Source is the Star Wars Saga Edition Revised Core Rulebook as well as OP's linked answer.

*****: When I click the link it asks for a username and password, which I don't have, and there is no option for sign-up.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Pretty much just an expansion of what I said, that the answer doesnt seem to follow RAW, but that it's not clear what he means by the houserule comment. But hey, at least someone bothered to answer, and I know it's not just me missing something. \$\endgroup\$ Mar 30, 2014 at 12:22
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In a way you can take talents as feats with a specific feat called "Adaptable Talent" from Galaxy of Intrigue page 25.

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