I'm waffling between two character concepts that I like. I've never played, or even seen the game played, and I was hoping the community might weigh in on which will be more useful to the average party. Both are Colonists.

I don't really enjoy playing combat-based characters, so I'm leaving that for the other players who I know love it. That said, I do want to be able to have some sort of support role when the fight DOES break out.

One concept is a Droid "Doctor" based on the GH-7 medical analysis unit, with maxed out Intellect. He would have no real combat abilities (beyond maybe a stingbeam), but he could boost characteristics and heal people (real well, with the help of the Surgeon talent).

The other concept is a Twi'lek Politico aiming for a spot in the Galactic Senate. He'd have maxed out Presence and would always be trying to negotiate first. But in a fight, he could use Inspiring Rhetoric to restore allies' lost Strain.

Initially the Doctor seems way more useful. Why just heal Strain when you can heal Wounds. AND boost characteristics. I guess the advantage of the Politico is that you could divide the "healing" more easily? And use it any number of times? Anything else that would make the Politico useful in combat?

Don't max out a single characteristic, that's a waste. A four is solid and leaves you points to raise a number of other stats.

Dr.'s have the ability to use Brawl very effectively with Pressure Point coupled with Medicine skill, so you don't have to be completely non combat. Politicos can be good with Scathing Tirade and Inspiring Rhetoric. Really boils down to which you would rather play. Healing wounds isn't really that hard. Someone with a good Intellect and no skill along with a med pack will do just fine.

Yes, don't go over a 4 on attribute. You're better served diversifying a little. SInce you probably feel you'd enjoy either, I'd break it down to how often your character would practice their speciality. Medical comes into play usually only during or after a fight, while a Politco is usually responsible for most of the interaction with NPCs. If it is just based on specialty time I'd go Politico. But again, it's about what you enjoy playing.

I play a Doc in one of my games. While I love it, healing is not regularly needed for the other players. I ended up picking up a Force Sensitivity specialization just to make it more interesting.

I will echo what the others are saying. Definitely spread your characteristics around a bit. Try and work your character to have 1 or 2 other decent shticks besides his or her main thing.

As your GM and fellow players what kind of campaign they plan on playing. If everyone wants a combat-heavy campaign, you might be happier with the Doctor. If they're looking to play an intrigue-heavy or investigative or explorative based campaign, then a Politico might not be a bad choice.

Basically, you want to first make sure that you're even playing the same game that everyone else is playing.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I think there's a good 50/50 chance that the GM will be starting with a modification of the adventure in the boxed set. I haven't really looked at it beyond the characters. After that, knowing my friends, I suspect most games will involve breaking in somewhere to steal something, escaping from prison, kidnapping a politician, or otherwise being well-intentioned criminals. I see violence in our future. I'm really comfortable with not shining in combat, leaving that for the others. I just want to make sure I have something to do to contribute, and I feel like I can't gauge how useful Inspiring Rhetoric will be. How commonly does Strain damage come up? Enough that I'll regularly be using Inspiring Rhetoric to "heal" people?

Regarding getting a 5 in a characteristic, I'm willing to accept that bumping up something else to a 3 is probably a more generally useful investment. But I just really like the idea of being a prodigy at something.

Healing strain becomes more of an issue later on when people develop more and more talents that require them to burn increasingly larger amounts of strain to activate. That's when IR becomes more useful.

My ongoing group burns Strain like candy up till they're about 2/3 towards their threshold. Then they try to get a couple rounds of Advantages to bring it back down before pushing it up again.

If the bothan in the group would go back and grab Inspiring Rhetoric off the Politico tree (his starting spec) the rest of the group would love him. Alas, he's plowing the Marauder tree (his 2nd spec) instead... which is funny in a Coen Brothers movie sort of way.

I'll echo the sentiment expressed by other replies to your post b/c from play experience it's good advice. Make sure you have a secondary schtick for your character beyond just the medicine or inspiring rhetoric.

The early game of this system rewards diversity with mild specialization. Once you've got a hundred xp in to cover your bases, it becomes more rewarding to plow specialty. High specialization at chargen only works if the players as a group work it out, but then you suffer from characters being utter rubbish at anything outside of their narrow focus and forces players to get sidelined more often which is not fun gameplay IMHO.

Regarding getting a 5 in a characteristic, I'm willing to accept that bumping up something else to a 3 is probably a more generally useful investment. But I just really like the idea of being a prodigy at something.

You might be taking your cues from other games, but try to take a fresh view with this one. As others have said, 4 in this game is plenty prodigious. Put two skill ranks at chargen in the thing you want to excel at, and you'll regularly be wowing with Triumphs, while still keeping a bit of breadth. Really, it's the number of yellow dice that make things awesome. I have a Duro NPC sidekick with only 3 agility and 3 ranks in Ranged Light, and he regularly blows minion groups apart. One of my players has Presence 3 and Charm 3, and regularly sweet-talks tough customers. If you want to be great at something, take Characteristic 4, Skill 2, then feed all your early experience into the skill. With your first 35XP you'll be rolling 4 yellow dice for that skill, but meanwhile you'll appreciate it when you can contribute directly to 50% of the game rather than 15% of the game.

Thanks for the advice. I've played a decent range of systems, but none that were like this. I'll definitely reconsider hyper-specializing.

So does no one shoot to start with a 5?

It just isnt necessary to be good. A 4 and 2 skill ranks in something and you are going to be consistently very successful.

So does no one shoot to start with a 5?

Not that I've seen. There's another difference to this game, and that is that there really aren't any dump stats or skills. If you play through any of the FFG modules, most of the skill groups get tapped, and it's helpful to be able to assist.

So does no one shoot to start with a 5?

I have with a droid before, but generally it is just not worth the cost. You're looking at 120 XP to get a stat from 2 to 5, or 90 if you're getting a stat from 3 to 5. For one more die to a specific set of checks. I'd say the only Characteristic that might be worth taking to 5 is Intelligence, and as a droid (I've seen a droid do this and he was very effective at a wide range of things). Aside from that, you use up your entire XP pool (and then some, in some cases) and are pretty mediocre everywhere else.

It's not necessarily important to be a jack of all trades with everything at 3. I typically aim for a spread of 4/3/2/2/2/X (where X is either 1 or 2 depending on Species). Just because you don't want to feel useless outside of your main shtick, especially if that main thing is combat. I've been there and it can be very un-fun when you see you've pigeonholed yourself (but even then, good RP and just Aiding people can go a long way to contribute both story-wise and mechanically).