Read First: Character Creation Discussion

You should add your status as such to your backstory and your player notes.

Done.

I'm going to try to get Tajanna's backstory (or at least a rough draft of it) written out and posted by tonight. Just to run some ideas by the GM, I was thinking of Tajanna's military role being somewhat akin to an assassin/recon-type, sneaking around ahead, finding potential opportunities for the group to exploit, acquiring targets, and, of course, killing targets, and for Tajanna to be the scion of a minor Sith noble house, descended from the intermingling of the handful of Chiss, both Sith and muggle, who followed Vhrall Akrulta on his exodus to Akrultos.

Edit: Also, can I have my Obligation be A Score to Settle with a rival Sith, who trained under the same Master I did?

Also, for my lightsaber construction, I have no training in either Mechanics or Discipline, so here goes nothing.

Not a promising first roll, there.

OK guys, thought I would put this out to the group of experience minds rather than hold everyone up while I try to work it out. At the moment I am considering a couple of possibilities, I just don't know the mechanics well enough yet to know if my preferred option is viable.

Are there viable alternative weapons in the game for force users or should I just go with the light saber? I am considering playing a Trandoshan Hired Gun Marauder who has been trained to use Force powers, probably through Shii-Cho Knight as a cross career specialization (not even sure about the cost and if it works). I have this picture of this huge lizard looking monster, soaking up damage and creating havoc with huge melee weapon(s), but I don't know enough to know if I am just headed towards a sub par melee character. Given the fact that the Lightsaber bypasses a bunch of soak and it looks like it can break other weapons, I suspect I may be headed toward the latter. Thoughts?

Also, are there any gaps skill/role wise in the group atm? I am happy to put some points toward skills to shore up gaps. At the moment I am looking at Brawn and Willpower as a 4 and a 3 at character creation. I was thinking possibly of buying a level of medicine as part of a back story idea I had

Technically speaking, everything is viable, at least mechanically. Whether it would work well for the setting is something to be discussed.

Part of the way Force and Destiny has been put together compared to the other two (EotE and AoR) is that the force using characters will not be inherently more powerful or more useful than a non-force user. They simply have access to different abilities.

If you wish to create a powerful melee character who doesn't use a lightsaber, this is easily doable. Highly modified vibroweapons can get through most enemies soak, plus you can end up doing so much damage that soak won't help all that much.

As for the force wielder portion, it sounds interesting but I think it will be somewhat difficult mechanically to pull it off well at this stage of the game. Non-force users can take force user specializations like shii-cho knight, but they can't take talents that require a force rating (indicated by the sort of explosion in the corner of the talent box). In order for you to use those powers you'd also have to take a specialization that grants a Force rating, like Force-Sensitive Exile, which means to get both of those specializations, you'd have to spend 60 exp just to have access to both, which is a significant investment early on.

Everything else you said is good, but this may be a bad choice of career and specializations. Non-lightsaber melee weapons can be pretty strong, non-Force and Force characters are well balanced, mainly because buying Force powers costs a ton of XP, and most of them aren't really better than using that XP to buy Talents or Skills instead, and cross-career Specializations simply cost extra XP to buy.

The issue with starting with a non-Force career, then multi-speccing into a Force Specialization, is that your character will not start with a Force rating (which all Force careers get in place of a starting skill), which will mean that your character can't actually use the Force, until you buy a Force Rating Increase talent, which are invariably located at the bottom of any Specialization tree that contains one, with the exception of the Force Sensitive Exile and Force Sensitive Emergent universal specializations (i.e. counts as a career specialization for all careers).

Personally, I think either starting as a Warrior/Shii-Cho Knight and then multi-speccing into Marauder, or starting as a Hired Gun/Marauder and ignoring the Force entirely, are both mechanically-superior options to what you proposed.

Also, I believe we don't have a Brawn-focused character at the moment, so I wouldn't worry overmuch about overlapping skillsets. With your high Willpower, some ranks in Coercion would give you some oopf in social, non-combat encounters, as well.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING THE GAME


I’m mentioning this here simply because it’s where all the talk is as of now.

I’ve added some very important information to the ‘Game Structure and Abences’ thread. Please take a look when you get the chance. After reading both of the posts (‘Game Structure and Expecations’ and ‘Absences’) please create your own post on the same thread showing you’ve read them and understand. You don’t have to write anything special, it’s more like a simple yay or nay concept.

Not so. Having grown up on Akrultos, given the crossover he is considering, he could have been a late bloomer force wise. As such players who have access to Sith training (primarily meaning you haven't gone out into the galaxy yet) can crossover without taking Force Sensitive Exile.

Also, as far as melee, goes, when it comes to soak not much compares to a lightsaber as it cuts through 10 soak with breach. you would essentially have to get a highly modified weapon with a pierce rating of 10 to be an equivalent.

Not to mention that one of the greatest strengths of a lightsaber, and what makes you Sith so dangerous with them, lies in the Reflect Talent (as I am allowing non-force users to take Parry).

With the Reflect Talent, a character can automatically stop some, or all (given enough ranks in Reflect) of the damage from happening. From all attacks, assuming you have enough strain to do so (cost of 3 strain per Reflect, or Parry for that matter).

Mechanically speaking, those are both better options. However, as detailed in another post of mine, due to the uniqueness of the characters origin, prior to leaving home, your character can start in an EotE career and pick a specialization from F&D. Force Sensitive Exile, etc, is not required to do so.

Also, considering XP costs for any future specializations as well, keep in mind where you imagine most of your XP will be spent. Meaning, it is cheaper to take a new specialization from within your career (10 multiplied by the number of specs you will have including the new one) than it is to purchase a specialization from outside of your career (10 multiplied by the number of specs you will have including the new one, [u]plus 10[/u]).

So, if you're planning ahead and know that you're going to take every specialization from the Hired Gun career, that would be a better place to establish your career from, while adding a F&D specialization to it.

With this in mind, the only way I'd allow a non-force character to access a F&D specialization after beginning the Conquest is exactly what Squeek described above: you would have to take Force Sensitive Exile first. Further, I would only allow the character to learn lightsaber techniques that a fellow PC knew, reflecting training taking place on board the ship during downtime such as hyperspace travel, etc. Of course, another way to access a variety of teaching would be if the group had the right holocron on the ship, containing lessons from the past...

Given the recent barrage of posts I just put up, I will also say this. I appreciate trying to see if your character meshes with the group, considering roles and helping the team. I'm inclined to do the same thing. At the same time, your character should be one that appeals to you, and you want to play.

That said, make a smart one. During the game, don't be a clown and expect me to pull you out of the fire.

For those that missed it (somehow?), I will kill your characters.

I don't mean to say he can't take the specialization. That's stated in the rules that you can take force specializations even if you don't have a force rating. I simply mean mechanically, without a Force rating, you can't make use of the force talents in a talent tree like Shii-Cho Knight. All the training in the world doesn't just make you force sensitive, you have to have a Force rating to be considered force sensitive. Many of the force specialization trees do have increase force rating talents that he could make use of to gain a force rating and become force sensitive but (using his example of which lightsaber form specialization he was interested in) Shii-Cho Knight isn't one of those, so even if he mastered the tree he still wouldn't be able to use the force talents.

Ah, okay. I misinterpreted you.

Also, I don't want to be to rigid on the character development.

Players can, regardless of career, pick a specialization from either F&D or EotE. However, putting some of those talents on trees to work does require a force rating, which is not granted for choosing a F&D specialization alone. Purchasing Force Sensitive Exile, from EotE does, however, grant a Force rating to a character who doesn't have on yet.

Beyond that, we'll leave add this: to learn a lightsaber form will require a teacher of some kind. As far as players being teachers, those who have 3 skill ranks or more can teach a lightsaber style they know.

Having natural talent won't qualify for this, even if you're dropping 6 green dice for attacks; your natural talent is just that, talent. Skill Ranks are more representative of a degree of knowledge or experience. In this case, technique and form regarding lightsaber form.

Mrvain (in fact, everyone should take heed)

A NOTE ON COMBAT AND CHARACTER CREATION

Having warned you of possibility of death for your character, there are multiple ways that can happen, the most likely of which is during combat. Having said that, I don't want any of you to feel like you need to make a one dimensional combat machine to survive. As stated before, I highly recommend creating a character that you want to play who is prepared for combat. It;s Star Wars.

That said, the point is this: if you make a one dimensional character (say the combat monster) you may potentially find yourself bored between battles, feeling like you don't have anything else to contribute. At the same time, that largely depends on you and what you enjoy. Also, Brawn via the Athletics skill can be very useful for running someone down, climbing, swimming, generally anything physcial outside of the purview of Coordination. Resilience, also part of Brawn, would be useful to resist toxins, gong without sleep, prolonged physical activity, and handling harsh environments and lack of sustenance/h2O. Also, if you need to just bash someone without showing off the lightsaber, then Melee and Brawling would be useful as well.

ON DICE POOLS, SKILL CHECK, AND DIFFICULTY OF CHECKS

For those that aren't aware, adding another green dice to your pool is almost always better than converting a green to yellow. What this means is that more dice is almost always better. The only time this isn't true is when it comes to comparing 3 yellow vs 4 green for example (in this case, 3 yellow is just a few percent better). In other situations, 1 yellow and 2 green is not as good as 4 green dice.

What this means is that probability wise, for example, is that a character with 4 green dice in a check actually has a few % better chance to succeed at a task than a character with 3 yellow and 1 green. Skill ranks are not the end all and be all of success. They allow for Triumphs, and Triumphs do not mean you succeeded, just that something good accompanied your roll.


How you should perceive your character's abilities:

Consider the below comments while remembering that an Average difficulty check is 2 purple dice, a Hard check is 3, Daunting is 4, and Formidable is 5 purple dice.

4 dice, even if they're all green, is an excellent place to be as far as considering your character good at something. 3 dice, all green means you're above average. Two green dice are simply average; making them both yellow improves the situation, but not by much.

In sum, as you consider the game and its difficulty, especially in regards to your character, you shouldn't consider your character to be really good at something unless they've got a pool of 4 green dice or 3 yellow. If you like to be thought of us really excelling at a skill or ability, then you should be going for 5 dice or 4 yellow, a place where you can reliably count on your skill to be effective.

Consider making that Hard check. Do you really want to go at it with just three green, or 1 yellow and 2 green? Or what if you're dealing with a skill check that is truly difficult, and considered Daunting at 4 purple (examples from the F&D CRB are picking a sophisticated lock or making a shot at extreme range). Throwing 4 green against 4 purple is a coin toss; a 51% chance of success.

Here's a dice roll probability table for those that are interested in Mechanics and increasing their odds of success, and consequently survival.
FFG Star Wars Dice Roll Probability Table


REGARDING THE GROUP, ROLES, ETC

Roles and skills that have been expertly addressed, or have been to some degree:

Keep in mind that an Average difficulty skill check is 2 purple dice.

Lissewa (played by Squeek) is social skill oriented, a manipulator. Full of Charm and a Negotiator of some talent. Anything related to Presence she has fairly well covered with a 4. She's also got a 3 Agility and Intellect, making her above average in those skills. A decent shot with a blaster, she also brings a droid to the party.

As a side note: Squeek, don't think of her as being good at Deception, given the above comments on skill checks. 2 yellow is only slightly above average, and getting caught in a lie is usually bad. Keep in mind that any social interaction where you lie, even a little, will require Deception for a skill check. You can pair it with other social skills as well.

For example: lying and being charming at the same time could produce results where perhaps your lie succeeds "I've got a reservation" but you fail to sway them to like you, so you don't get that table you wanted. Another example, maybe the lie fails, but you're so charming (with a Triumph you put to good use) that, even though you didn't have a reservation, they'll let you in.
Again, lies can be very condemning, so don't expect this to happen a lot. It's far more likely that the failed Deception will hurt the Charm.

Hawke (played by Meribson) is your tech guy. I know he is focused on Mechanics, but really with 4 dice in Intellect, he's got everything Intellect related well-covered. Also, having taken the Soresu lightsaber form, he can carry his own weight in combat as well, with some ranks in Reflect as well as Parry, supported by his laminate armor. A durable type helps make a good medic, a role he capable of (Medicine), given the proper supplies or a first aid kit of some kind.

Tajanna (played by Tefmon) is bringing Cunning to the group, with a 4. Perceptive, Streetwise. A Survivor, capable of tracking others down. Good at lying over covering her tracks with Deception (? - I haven't seen anything that indicates gender, sorry if I'm wrong). Skullduggery lets her handle some locks and security measures (depending, as some electronic/complex security measures require Skullduggery, Computers, or Mechanics, or a combination of the three... some things are really hard to break into, which teamwork can help overcome). Having taken the Shien lightsaber form, (s)he uses 4 dice with Cunning for combat, making him/her no slouch given that the added Reflect and Parry as well.

Lexi (played by Dramasailor) brings a 5 Agility. Top notch pilot, in a starship or a speeder. A crack shot with any ranged weapon or gunnery system. Supremely Coordinated. Extremely Stealthy. Her 3 Willpower also lends itself to being intimidating (Coercion) Vigilant, and Disciplined (used for many force applications like Move, Influenc, etc; when in doubt, Discipline is often the go to Skill for using the force). Having learned the Ataru lightaber form, she uses 5 dice via her Agility for lightsaber attacks (potentially 6 if she increases her Agility via the Enhance force power). Combined with some Reflect she is quite capable in combat.

And we still have two more characters to add to the group. :D

Your guess is correct, Tajanna is female. I guess I haven't actually mentioned that anywhere yet.

We're good at 6, I don't think I'll expand from there.

I left it open at 8 to make room for others who wanted to take a look. Also, not to sounds pessimistic, but the final group may be less than 6. My original intention was 4, but those that wanted to join after that I really didn't want to turn down, ans I considered the possibility of players disappearing.

Starting with 6 adds some durability if some of you bail. At the same time, if you do, there's a short list waiting to get in, and I like 6 for the group size. The list isn't a threat to you, to be clear. But in case we need more players, for any reason, I want to be organized and ready for it.