This kind of dissonance is something that a GM should come down on. "I'm sorry, but if you want your Wookiee to be a total ladies'-being, you're gonna have to increase your Presence, or wait until your Charm skill is higher. Otherwise he's going to think he's in good with the ladies when, in reality, he is not."

Next character concept: A comically inept lady killer. Grossk is trying all his best pickup lines, but all the Twi'lek dancing girls see is a hulking Trandoshan screaming Dosh at them. This is going to be awesome!

I've been playing a Hired Gun in my and Ineti's campaign, and it's a pretty lethal career in my opinion. I built him as a short-range damage dealer type and he can really dish out some punishment.

If it's combat effectiveness you want, I think it's a great choice.

Remember all the powerful talents I was boasting about in the Mercenary Soldier? Well, the AoR book gives us the Sharpshooter specialization of Soldier. It gives us True Aim 2 and Deadly Accuracy (twice if you like) and all of that is still just in the first three rows. It lacks the leadership of the Mercenary Soldier, but for pure firepower it's pretty awesome.

Hired Guns are extremely focused. They are the 'fighter' class and they are very good in combat.

If you're playing a mostly combat game, they will probably feel overpowered. They are very easy to min/max.

But ideally, EoE games are intended to be more than just fighting and should have opportunities for other classes to shine.

And I never like to hear the word 'build' outside the construction industry.

More than most, FFG's SW games are meant to be narrative.

Remember all the powerful talents I was boasting about in the Mercenary Soldier? Well, the AoR book gives us the Sharpshooter specialization of Soldier. It gives us True Aim 2 and Deadly Accuracy (twice if you like) and all of that is still just in the first three rows. It lacks the leadership of the Mercenary Soldier, but for pure firepower it's pretty awesome.

You could combine it with gunner for even more ture aim (2 more) and jury rigged

The marauder is powerful by virtue of less of damage and more of critical injuries. This becomes more true the longer you play. At higher xp, with the proper weapon (a vibro-axe with a monomolecular edge, and preferably a balanced hilt) it's pretty likely for a marauder to have enough lethal blows and advantages on his roll to rack up enough +10s to his crit roll to make instant death nearly certain. As long as he does at least one point of damage past soak (which he will) he can crit, most characters/creatures don't have protection from crits. Very powerful.

This gets out of hand if your GM decides to allow each crit activation to auto-kill a minion. The rules are a little fuzzy on what to do about multiple crit activations and minion groups, and that's the ruling our GM made. I agreed with it at the time, but in retrospect I think it was a mistake.

This gets out of hand if your GM decides to allow each crit activation to auto-kill a minion. The rules are a little fuzzy on what to do about multiple crit activations and minion groups, and that's the ruling our GM made. I agreed with it at the time, but in retrospect I think it was a mistake.

Both our Wednesday and our Thursday night groups do auto-kill for minions who get hit with crits. But if you keep them in small enough groups, and you allow only one crit per blast or weapon, then that limits the number of crits that the minions can get hit by. And you can at least partially compensate by throwing more minion groups at the party, each of which is larger.

Rivals and Nemesis adversaries can do a really good job of fighting a Wookie Maurauder to a standstill, as I found out tonight. If the bad guys have enough Soak and enough ranks of Adversary, it’s going to take the entire party a long time to take them down, and that will be one hell of an Epic fight — even if your Wookiee is rolling five yellow dice with ultra-nasty vibro weapons that have Molecular Edge and Balanced Hilt.

The marauder is powerful by virtue of less of damage and more of critical injuries. This becomes more true the longer you play. At higher xp, with the proper weapon (a vibro-axe with a monomolecular edge, and preferably a balanced hilt) it's pretty likely for a marauder to have enough lethal blows and advantages on his roll to rack up enough +10s to his crit roll to make instant death nearly certain. As long as he does at least one point of damage past soak (which he will) he can crit, most characters/creatures don't have protection from crits. Very powerful.

This gets out of hand if your GM decides to allow each crit activation to auto-kill a minion. The rules are a little fuzzy on what to do about multiple crit activations and minion groups, and that's the ruling our GM made. I agreed with it at the time, but in retrospect I think it was a mistake.

Sharpshooter has two instances of Lethal Blows within the first three rows, in addition to all the damage adders.

What do you all think about mixing the Mercenary Soldier spec with some Heavy spec for a combat monster? I'd like to also maybe take some of the Pilot spec from Smuggler since I have been the default pilot in our group.

I'd consider what you want out of spec, before purchasing it.

All you really need a couple ranks of pilot (space) and a good agility to do most the piloting.

Saying that pilot has some, very nice talents in it if you get to use them.

I'd consider what you want out of spec, before purchasing it.

All you really need a couple ranks of pilot (space) and a good agility to do most the piloting.

Saying that pilot has some, very nice talents in it if you get to use them.

If you're mixing it up in space combat, you'll want to have bought into a pilot spec. Beyond GtA, your Piloting skill is going to be surprisingly unimportant compared to the talents you have.

I have a Mandalorian Hired Gun Enforcer/Marauder. He is absolutely brutal in close combat with a slightly modified vibrosword thanks to Lethal Blows, Feral Strength, and Frenzied Attack. He's also useful in social situations, since the Enforcer is the best specialization if you wanted to be a scary, scary monster. He can downgrade the difficulty of Coercion checks, Loom, and re-roll a failed Coercion once per session. Forcing minions to make Fear checks when you get in close is nice too.