A Star Wars TTRPG worth playing.

[Wulfbanes]

You want Soldier first level due to all the proficiencies. Value of Int (skills) and feasability of Iron Man depend on how disempowered your GM wants you to be during social events, and their prevalence. Is it 'not done' to be in armor during talks, etc.

The best skill in the game is Initiative. The rest doesn't do a thing, unless you got a solid GM, in which case Use Computer, Mechanics, Knowledge (tactics) and Knowledge (Galatic Lore) are worthwhile, as are Persuasion and Deception.

Most builds are feat heavy more than they are stat dependent.

[Dean]

Yeah stats being smaller than feats is correct. That's why human is usually best. Stats are just numbers and as a general optimization principle abilities are more desirable than numbers.

As far as pitfalls go if Kotor equipment is case by case you'll want to ask point blank about the Combat Implant item. The Iron Man uses it a lot. If the combat implant is unlikely or just not something you'll see for 10 levels just use a bog standard missile launcher for a while. The basic missile launcher is still one of the deadliest weapons in the game even if you can't upgrade it six ways to sunday. I also recommend some basic blaster gear to use while you get your funds situated in the early levels. The Iron man build should start coming online at levels 4-8 but until then and for a while in between its good to have a basic blaster attack. Even once you've got arm missiles use them sparingly for a while so you can acclimatize your GM to the amount of damage you can put out when you want to. Be open with your GM about your willingness to have AT-ST's thrown at you to take on with your missiles while the group battles the ground troops. If you make it feel like your role is "anti-vehicle" that will make it feel less to others like you outshine them and more like you have a niche. You don't. You will be the invicible Iron Man.

[Korwin]

The best skill in the game is Initiative. The rest doesn't do a thing, unless you got a solid GM, in which case Use Computer, Mechanics, Knowledge (tactics) and Knowledge (Galatic Lore) are worthwhile, as are Persuasion and Deception.

Don't agree here, Pilot is a thing too. Even without Starship combat an armed hoover bike is an nice thing if you can use it.
Mechanics* is allways usefull, if Tech Specialist is in. And without if you have Droid PC's it's an must have.
Treat injury* is also almost an must have. Only if you have an all force user Party, it's not as necessary.

* OK, you could outsource those two to an NPC Droid. But they thend to get destroyed at the wrong time.

I like Soldier as first Level, it's not an must. But for an amored build it's very likely the best choice.

[PhoneLobster]

...acclimatize your GM to the amount of damage you can put out when you want to. Be open with your GM about your willingness to have AT-ST's thrown at you to take on with your missiles while the group battles the ground troops. ...

How to be the biggest fucking asshole at the table 101.

IF the build works like that, and I doubt it because Dean can't write a punching robot build that is allowed to actually punch things, then it's a build you should not use.

Don't be the asshole who brings a character to the table that needs to fight opponents 5 or 10 CL higher (I no longer have the reference) than the rest of the party. Don't then be the asshole who openly patronizes the group and the GM with discussions about "acclimatizing" them to your awesome dumpster dived damage wang no one asked for that you are jabbing into their attempt at a co-operative role playing game.

And don't be the guy who is the strawman poster child of draconian backward GMs everywhere when they are making up excuses to "Rocks fall you all die" to deal with "troublesome players".

For fucks sake.

Just be a soldier or a jedi. Take a few cool options (to the limited degree they exist). Be better than everyone else without breaking everything, without requiring a combat apartheid policy, and without being as much of an obvious dick about it.

Seriously. Your group already just came out of a failed campaign? Don't be the guy who is at fault for another one and liable to be blamed for both.

[Ghremdal]

I don't want to be "the guy". Since, the build is equipment dependent I can adjust my character to the group power level while having the option to jack it up if needed (or if one of the two planned jedi's decides to go OP) I can upgrade the gear and match him.

And the 5e campaign didn't fail because of character optimization or something like that. It died because 5e is a giant steaming pile of shit.


So I want I tech specialist with a option for tankyness/ranged damage.
This is what I got so far:

human male soldier lvl 1
Background:Academic
STR 13
DEX 15
CON 12
INT 15
WIS 8
CHA 8

Skills:
Mechanic
Use Computer
Knowledge Galactic lore
Perception
Endurance

optional (depending on party choice, as so far we have no pilot)
Initiative
Pilot
Stealth

Feats:
Point blank shot ?

GM ruled I get another trained skill if I bump INT up. Is it safe to dump WIS/CHA like I did, or do I need them later for something?

[PhoneLobster]

And the 5e campaign didn't fail because of character optimization or something like that. It died because 5e is a giant steaming pile of shit.

If your group can't handle RPGs that are steaming piles of shit then I have bad news for where your SAGA game will be going.

(and as stupidly over detailed as it is, you should probably read that entire review, it will be a better preparation for and general guide to SAGA edition than any mere minor build advice)

Or you know, short and lazy minor build advice. Unless you have it at 13 for a specific prerequisite, dump more Str.

Don't treat Initiative as an "optional" skill.

Some of the best things a soldier can do involve having lots of HP. Get more Con if you can.

Your entire skill list should read as optional (except for Initiative). That is probably too many optional skills. You can afford to cut back int a bit more if you want to. Probably in return for more Con.

Endurance is a mostly useless skill. ... except for, I think I recall, being a pre-requisite for some not so useless stuff. If you plan to take that stuff, it is must have, but if you aren't planning to take that stuff either look it up and change your mind... or dump Endurance.

It is unclear to me if the optimal way for a group to play SAGA edition is to have them all have Pilot, to have 1 have pilot, or for everyone to go out of their way to make sure NONE have pilot. However this is mostly unclear because SAGA edition itself seems to have no fucking idea or advice as to precisely how it's vehicle rules are supposed to interact with the rest of the game. So whatever, take pilot if and only if you feel like it without regard to others. But only if you have already taken Initiative first.

Dump stats probably don't matter to the point that you can dump more of other things too. But it's SAGA edition. +1s matter and entire levels worth of character abilities will be nothing but conditional +1s to one thing only. If you plan to actually DO things related to any given base attribute every +1 counts A LOT. If you don't plan to do those things... pretty much whatever goes. But in the end, hell, if you don't plan to invest basically your entire career in incremental +1s to those specific activities eventually whatever you started with won't matter either.

[Mechalich]

It is unclear to me if the optimal way for a group to play SAGA edition is to have them all have Pilot, to have 1 have pilot, or for everyone to go out of their way to make sure NONE have pilot. However this is mostly unclear because SAGA edition itself seems to have no fucking idea or advice as to precisely how it's vehicle rules are supposed to interact with the rest of the game. So whatever, take pilot if and only if you feel like it without regard to others. But only if you have already taken Initiative first.

I always got the impression that the writers for SAGA didn't really even want to include vehicle or starship rules at all and wanted to make tabletop rules for KOTOR but felt obligated to offer a vehicle system to meet expectations. It just doesn't...anything.

If the party only needs ships to get from point A to point B, you can buy a piloting droid - it will be on the ship with you so it can't exactly blow up with TPKing the party. If you actually intend to engage in space combat um...I don't know. When GMing SAGA I avoided space combat like the plague, there wasn't any benefit to stuffing the characters into starfighters.

[PhoneLobster]

I always got the impression that the writers for SAGA didn't really even want to include vehicle or starship rules at all and wanted to make tabletop rules for KOTOR but felt obligated to offer a vehicle system to meet expectations. It just doesn't...anything.

Yeah, there were worse rules in the SAGA core book, but having read the vehicle system before I found them I will have to say I WAS surprised to find a section hands down worse than it in there.

So I should probably clarify my Pilot skill advice. Not so much take it if you like. More... take it if you DARE.

[Ghremdal]

So assuming I won't have access to KOTOR stuff and most especially Ratakan stuff, what would the better options for equipment be? Especially the heavy weapons stuff. Is there a way to more quickly brace weapons?

[Dean]

Missile launchers all the way, go straight missile launchers. Heavy weapon proficiency and anything that lets you get more shots is straight up power. If you're firing missiles you're winning, they hit everything on AC 10 so youll always hit and deal big damage so the only thing that matters is getting as many shots as possible.

Here's my Reaction Jackson build as a fun way to do that
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=417868

[Ferret]

Did the Force Sensitive character already get detailed? I always want to be a space wizard when given the opportunity to be a space wizard.