Hi all,

I think that this is my first post on these boards (might have posted once before).

I'm a big fan of Jason Bourne, including the amnesia thing so the character concept is that this guy woke up in a bacta tank and can't remember anything before that (I as the player would provide some back story parameters to the GM and he/she [i'm also looking for a game, I'm in Albuquerque NM and I am up for an online game] would make up the details of my character's past that I as the player wouldn't know.] The motivation is discovery:self. The obligation is blackmail and maybe debt. What this character knows is that he was a severely injured (including shrapnel to the brain) saving the life of his current employer a Hutt. When he gets out of the bacta tank the Hutt is quick to catch on to and take advantage of the fact that "Jacen" can't self identify and uses the secret of his true identify as leverage to keep Jacen working for him, basically "I'll tell you who you are just as soon as you pay me back for your medical care" and of course given how little the hutt is paying him Jacen will be an old man before he learns who he is. Which is really what the Hutt wants out of Jacen, the medical bills are just a pretext; Jacen's previous contract with the Hutt covered his medical expenses which Jacen suspects but can't prove it, so he keeps working for the Hutt while he is taking side jobs and hoping for the big score that will let him pay off the last of what he "owes" and learn who he was.

So that's the back story/character concept, the question is how do I build him? (Yes I'm coming from Saga edition, where "build" was really important, and I get that it isn't quite such a big deal in FFG, but I still like optimizing builds)

Bounty Hunter:assassin fits Jason Bourne thematically, and it also has the career skills and talents closest to what I want him to be able to do of any specialization in Edge of The Empire or Age of Rebellion so far. But where do I go from there? Soldier sharpshooter? Gadgeteer, saboteur, scoundrel, commando? (Choose 2 for best synergy please explain pro's and con's). I'm looking for strain management, survivability, combat awesomeness, career skill expansion (mechanics, ranged light, deception) and will wear an armored flight suit from suns of fortune later on.

Thanks for your advice (and you don't have to restrict yourself to just those specializations if you can think of something better)

If you want a combat focused character I would just pick a combat career and stick with it. Dangerous Covenant pretty clearly showed they are fleshing out the Careers with complimentary specs in the expansion. I would go with Bounty Hunter, it's light on Strain stuff, but I bet its splatbook will address that.

Assassin and sharpshooter together would make the ultimate personal scale ranged combattant... they've got a lot of overlap with ranked talents that results in wow. And sharpshooter has 2 grit. But I am eagerly awaiting the bounty hunter splat book.

Recruit is the best fit, IMO. Especially the Creative Killer talent. That screams Jason...er, Jacen Baurn.

I would go for a mix between the Marauder, that has survival; resilience, melee and Coercion. Which are, in my opinion, the core of what Jason Bourn is about. And Assassin that gives Stealth and Ranged Heavy.

When taking the Hired Gun career as career with the Marauder as Specialisation, you end up with Athletics, Brawl, Discipline, Melee, Ranged Light, resilience, Coercion and Survival.

Then add Assassin over that and there you have, a twinkled sprayed Jacen Baurn character axed around ranged light, melee and survival.

Edit : And if I may add, the talents works well for it aswell, thing such as Frenzied Attack etc.

Do a "NPC build style". Feel free to pick up what do you need if its an advanced character

Spy: Infiltrator (Age of Rebellion)

+Recruit with earned XP

He's a loner - a one man team even - so you're going to be spread pretty thin (Recruit does a great job of filling in gaps in fightingness (good call, awayputurwpn)). Take the extra obligation or duty for the XP (probably obligation if you're hunted) and spend all of your starting XP on stats (Agility/Brawn/Cunning/Willpower at 3 would be my guess). To make him better in the wild, branch out into Scout. To make him better with tech, go to Slicer.

You can take the free ranks in Skulldugery and Deception from both the Spy career and Infiltrator specialisation for a small points break.

Recruit is the best fit, IMO. Especially the Creative Killer talent. That screams Jason...er, Jacen Baurn.

So go from bounty hunter assassin to recruit? (I don't think characters can start as recruit) or are you recommending a different (than bounty hunter assassin) starting specialization?

Spy: Infiltrator (Age of Rebellion)

+Recruit with earned XP

Take the extra obligation or duty for the XP (probably obligation if you're hunted) and spend all of your starting XP on stats (Agility/Brawn/Cunning/Willpower at 3 would be my guess).

I was thinking starting as infiltrator, but it doesn't have ranged light as a career skill. Doesn't have any piloting either and pilot are awfully hard to pick up as career skills.

So if I started as infiltrator, how would you recommend that I proceed from there, scout is a good call but he needs to pick up range combat ability

EDIT: I missed your comment about recruit... that does seem to work well with infiltrator thanks

Spy: Infiltrator (Age of Rebellion)

+Recruit with earned XP

Take the extra obligation or duty for the XP (probably obligation if you're hunted) and spend all of your starting XP on stats (Agility/Brawn/Cunning/Willpower at 3 would be my guess).

That was exactly how I was planning to spend the starting XP

I was thinking starting as infiltrator, but it doesn't have ranged light as a career skill. Doesn't have any piloting either and pilot are awfully hard to pick up as career skills.

So if I started as infiltrator, how would you recommend that I proceed from there, scout is a good call but he needs to pick up range combat ability

EDIT: I missed your comment about recruit... that does seem to work well with infiltrator thanks

If you're Human you get 1 free rank in two non-career skills. There's a talent in Recruit that'll get you Pilot: Planetary so Pilot: Spaaaaaace may be a good species skill for you.

For the other Charm or Coercion or Mechanics are perennial favourites to round a guy out.

I was thinking starting as infiltrator, but it doesn't have ranged light as a career skill. Doesn't have any piloting either and pilot are awfully hard to pick up as career skills.

So if I started as infiltrator, how would you recommend that I proceed from there, scout is a good call but he needs to pick up range combat ability

Just a general note, you can't really "be Bourne" as a starting character. The guy's talent list is too long and skill set is too broad. If I remember the movie correctly, Bourne himself was a captain before signing up for this special ops unit, so already had a lot of training. So to become a Bourne-like character you'll probably have to settle for "not remembering" several skills at first.

I like the Infiltrator/Recruit idea, but you may find some of the Recruit Talents a waste if you take other specs in the future that give you those skills.

You have a lot of XP to spend in the BH trees first to begin with, quite a few sessions. I think your plan should remain tentative and see what the future holds for the BH spec book. The BH trees give you nearly all that you are looking for and I'm sure the splatbooks will enhance that. All that bouncing around from career to career gets quickly expensive, those +10s add up quick.

The BH trees give you nearly all that you are looking for and I'm sure the splatbooks will enhance that.

Can't wait for the 'Hunter book. Oskara needs to learn ways of tracking an aquisition down that doesn't involve beating on people.

The BH trees give you nearly all that you are looking for and I'm sure the splatbooks will enhance that.

Can't wait for the 'Hunter book. Oskara needs to learn ways of tracking an aquisition down that doesn't involve beating on people.

It's a living........

To be honest, if I was building the character, I'd probably go Soldier/Commando and then branch into Recruit, and give him Obligation like was earlier suggested.

1. A starting character will not be able to do what Jason Bourne can do. So keep that in mind.

Otherwise the skills I think of most from the movie are Athletics, Brawl, and a Knowledge skill (I'd suggest either Underworld or Education). Maybe bump up Brawn, Cunning, and Intelligence.

2. I would suggest looking at a Commando/Infiltrator.

You'll get a good group of skills and talents that I think fit that type of character. Again, you won't have everything, but that's okay. You'll be tough, good at punching people, and moderately sneaky.

1. A starting character will not be able to do what Jason Bourne can do. So keep that in mind.

There's nothing wrong with laying the groundwork to eventually beoming your 007-ish super spy, tho. You cant start there, but you can get there eventually.

That said, the Spy is probably a good fit. I'm away from my book so I cant cite passages for sure, but from what I remember, it's not too far from your target.

Finally cracked the book, and it seems to me you could stay in the BH career and get almost everything you want. Gadgeteer gives you that mechanical familiarity (he's always taking stuff apart and putting it back together in new ways...screams Jury-Rigged to me); Survivalist gives you all that...ahem, survivally stuff. Staying in career is 10XP cheaper for each tree too. It also gives you Brawl as a skill, which is more "Bourne" than Melee IMHO, and Talents that can make good use of it. It's a bit short on Grit, but if you get your dice pools up in the skills that Strain-heavy Talents make use of, you'll be more likely to recover that strain through advantages.

Only a couple things missing: Deception, which the Bourne character makes heavy use of, though some of what he does could be classed as Skulduggery; and Discipline (for controlling for fear and social challenges). The latter at least can be had through the Recruit tree, which also has some useful Strain boosters (Grit and Second Wind).

Edit: somehow I missed 2P51 saying that already...

Right now I am thinking of starting with spy:infiltrater, then recruit, then soldier:sharpshooter. A lot of the sharpshooter's combat awesomeness applies to all (or choose a few) combat skills rather than only ranged. And I think that would net me 8 grit and 2 rapid recoveries (if I am remembering the trees correctly) for recruit I'd take basic combat training but skip tactical combat training. I think that the recruit would only cost me 20 XP to cross spec into because it is a universal specialization. I was thinking of putting the human skills into pilot space and ranged light so that I would have two green and one yellow to start with. I think I can train in non career skills but it just costs more. Is that correct?

I'm also thinking about mechanics and athletics

Sorry about all the spelling errors... I'm doing this on my smartphone and it auto mis-corrects words on me when I space bar past the end of them

Recruit would cost whatever going into another career spec would cost, so if it was your first spec purchased after chargen it would be 20xp. Yes, it just costs the +5xp per level for each non career skill in addition to the level cost.

How is this for an initial build?

http://www.mediafire.com/view/la0p7822ba57bs9/JacenBaurneStartingInfiltrator.pdf

Pretty solid foundation.

If I go recruit then sharpshooter, which attributes should I increase through dedication and by how much? I'm thinking agility and/or cunning

Yeah looks like a fun character to play!

Assuming the GM would let me have 2 replilimb prosthetics for free (because it makes me vulnerable to ion damage and keeps my character from using his fingerprints to identify himself) should I take them or maybe just say that the hands were badly burned in the explosion and that prevents me from using finger prints... the only advantages the replilimbs would give me is not leaving fingerprints/DNA on stuff that I touch.

Supposing I got hit by ion damage and my hands stopped working until the end of the encounter,... I wouldn't be able to fire a blaster or wield a knife but I could still brawl right? My hands would basically be clubs attached to the end of my forearms...

Or would it be better to say that one hand got blown off and the other one was horribly burned which scarred the fingerprints beyond recognition?

But that seems almost like not enough penalty for not leaving fingerprints DNA on stuff that I touch