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While I may not be able to answer from the admin’s point of view, I would like to interject as a former Jedi FL. Having the rank of Padawan (or equivalent) exist is...often very inconvenient in a word. Often times new members think that because they’re new they need to have Padawans when in reality it is far more difficult to RP one. This results in members wanting to create and RP exceptionally powerful or experienced Padawans. Imagine if we had 7 or 8 Ahsoka-snowflakes running around! Another issue which people don’t realize is that very, very few people want to be masters or instructors. During my several months of leadership and even throughout the entire current TL, I have seen only one Padawan become a Knight. Even still, that was due to the time skip and after having gone through multiple Masters.As someone who was really looking forward to playing a Padawan next TL I gotta say this is kinda a deal breaker for me :/...
I should preface this with this is my opinion, but hopefully you guys will still hear me out. This is pretty dear to my heart, so I guess I still want to try and make an argument for Padawans next TL.
So, here it goes.
Though I understand where you guys are coming from with the levels system, I don’t quite understand the lore rational or even why it is a problem logistically in the first place.
Let's start with the lore. If the Jedi have been decimated by a chaotic line of successions from their ranks, why in the world would they ever decide to just make everyone a knight? That seems like the single stupidest thing they could have ever done. The whole danger of the sith/exiles (I understand there is a difference but for the purposes of this post I am going to use the terms interchangeably) is that they can corrupt from within, turning entire segments of the Jedi order to their side with only words/temptation. Surely the best way to combat this is to A. put more oversight upon members of the order who are not trusted (e.g padawans, younglings, and even some knights) and B. not give those untrusted individuals any power that they could use when/if they turned to the dark side (Such as making them full blown Jedi knights with all the privilege and access to battle plans, troop movements, and restricted archives that entails). In legends the Jedi understood this, even at their lowest the Jedi never abolished the rank of padawan/apprentice/disciple; indeed when the threat of the Sith grew stronger they gave padawans MORE oversight not less. Take the early old republic, before the rise of the exiles and sith. In that time period many masters would train entire groups of Padawans/disciples far away from the centralized Jedi temples (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_training/Legends), but as the Sith rose in prominance this practice decreased and was eventually abolished, essentially ending by the time of the rise of the first galactic empire and the time period of the SWTOR game. This is because the Jedi were quick to realise that not only could these masters often not properly judge if their students were ready for the rank of Jedi Knight and all the responsibilities it held, but also because such lack of oversight fostered corruption and paved the path to the darkside (notice the reference to corruption/savagery in some of these lone master’s trials on the wookieepedia article). The rank of Padawan is critical to feeling out who is and who isn’t ready/prepared to be a true Jedi, it is to find any lingering seeds of darkness and (all things being perfect) stamp them out. By the time a Padawan has become a knight they should be loyal to the Jedi order and be able to resist the temptations of the darkside.
But that isn’t even the most fundamental problem with taking away the rank of Padawan, the most fundamental problem is that it isn’t who the Jedi are. The entire point of the Jedi is that when threatened they don’t lash out, but instead consolidate. With the near total decimation of their order at the Seventh Battle of Ruusan they didn’t decide to open up the Jedi order to more students/promote unworthy students to ranks they hadn’t achieved, they passed the Ruusan Reformation, cracking down on their training programs and reinforced stringent oversight on members not trusted completely. And the Ruusan Reformation is the perfect analogy to how the Jedi react in strife, sure there will always be a few who branch out (e.g Revan or Jedi Lord Hoth), but on the whole the Jedi are a conservative faction, they will always favor control over power. Padawans are the perfect embodiment of that control and it is not one I can see the Jedi ever discarding.
Now let's talk about the logistical problems with having Padawans in the game. Frankly, I don’t think their are any, as long as it is made clear what playing a Padawan entails. If you are willing to play a Padawan you have to understand your limitations. No, you are not going to defeat a Sith lord (/Exile lord) in one on one combat (assuming no trickery is involved of course). No, you are not going to be the bad ass Jedi murdering whole swaths of troopers (/whatever ground forces the exiles have, if any). You are the puppy fighting war hounds, you have to be willing to play the captured target or the student thrown way out of their league. You have to be willing to have your character have serious limits. This is something that can work wonderfully in rp, a Jedi Knight/Master who brings their Padawan with them into conflict (as I assume most would if we were going to use Padawans) would have to keep an eye on their Padawan as they fight, probably needing to help out on occasion. This dynamic makes the combat that much richer, and would probably foster a fun interplay otherwise absent from most combat encounters.
I haven’t talked much about the levels themselves yet, but how would they work into this? Much the same way as any other non combat character, a padawan's levels simply relate to how well known she is within the faction. At level 1 perhaps the padawan is just one of the hundreds of other padawans, perhaps a few people known him/her, but overall they are a relative non entity in the faction. By level four however, the majority of the faction knows who they are; think of Ashoka by the end of the clone wars, she was only a padawan, yet the majority of the Jedi council knew who she was and a large portion of the republic military did aswell (even if it was just in terms of knowing her to be Anakin’s padawan). Am I saying that level has zero bearing on combat? Not quite, obviously a level one padawan is going to probably lose to a level four padawan in combat, but the extent to which a padawan can reach is far diminished. For example, a level four padawan is probably about on par with a newly initiated knight. These are simply truths that anyone playing a padawan needs to accept, they are simply part of playing a padawan. If you want to play a PvP god, padawan is probably not the rank for you (as would make sense realistically speaking).
Last up, let's talk about how to deal with Padawans who become knights. This is probably the one situation where I do see the level issue arising and being truly difficult to deal with. In terms of faction recognition, this would be a non issue, of course a padawan who was well known to the faction would not suddenly lose that notoriety when she/he became a knight, it is when we deal with combat power that things get tricky. As I said a padawan is straight up not as powerful as a knight and thus their levels don’t mean nearly as much, however, if a padawan were to be level 3 or so then be promoted to a knight, would they be considered to suddenly have the combat power of a Jedi counselor? Obviously not, but how to regulate that kind of thing? Well, in my view, though it might seem to be a very very large problem, it really isn’t quite as bad as it may first seem. The amount of people who will actually play a padawan into knighthood for long enough that they reach higher levels like 2, 3, or 4, obviously are not the kind of people who are going to whine if their characters are less powerful, nor are their going to be that many of them in the first place. These special cases should probably be handled on a case by case basis (as I said, I doubt there will be enough of them to warrant too much of a kerfuffle), but generally I would recommend the newly minted knights to voluntarily reduce their combat power to what they/admins deem realistic, until they have accumulated more experience as a knight, simple as that.
Ok, that is my long winded argument over. I really hope this changes some minds about the padawan issue, but if not, I’m glad you at least took the time to read my rambling nonsense and take it into consideration. :)
P.S Sorry about any grammar mistakes, I didn't have much time to reread this, so I'm just gonna assume I made some large mishaps in terms of punctuation at some point or another. Hopefully my rambling is still somewhat legible!
Essentially, I understand your point of view and the Admin’s. And I understand how strange and how crazy it sounds for Padawans not to be allowed. However, the amount of RPers who truly understand how to play as a Padawan and realize they might have to RP on their own most of the time...well, it’s pretty rare. Imho, I think playing a Padawan should be a case-by-case exception to the rule, not the standard.
/2cents