Ok so, I love the fluff for the Commodore, but the talents don't seem to be very useful in a party, or at least, not in the common party mix of "everyone being something unique and special" type group.

I mean, when I see Commodore, I think stuff like Honor Harrington, or the captains in Babylon 5 from the capital ships, and I love the imagery of it. But, how do you work that with a gaming group?

I mean, the Commodore is supposed to be giving orders, so they're basically in charge of a cap ship, but what if your players don't want to play as part of the crew? Does that leave the Comm alone with just a cluster of npc's to roll for?

I really want to like the spec, but I'm having trouble seeing how it would be at all practical in a typical gaming group.

Can anyone help shed some light on how to make this spec more feasible for a PC?

Thanks.

I'm playing a Commodore in an AOR game, and I use the Command and Commanding Presence talents to buff my Leadership checks in all kinds of situations. I could convince mercenaries to help the Rebel cause, talk people down from failed Fear checks, and boost the morale of the party.

On a ship I'd be able to help repair the ship with Solid Repairs, and navigate effectively Galaxy Mapper, Master Starhopper and Familiar Suns, prevent the ship from taking serious damage with Hold Together. I could direct fire with Fire Control.

Those things don't need to be done from the bridge of a capital ship, they'd be just as effective in our two-seater Y-Wing or in a commandeered Lambda Shuttle.

Yeah but the theme of the Commodore is commanding a cap ship. It even says as much in the description. So using it on snub fighters seems counter to the spirit of the concept

It can be used as you mentioned in groups that are the crew of or attached to a capital ship but there are lots of arty types which could use capships. Fighter campaigns could use a base ship. midsized or larger independent task forces could use one as a command ship. One of my groups planned campaigns involves being a group assigned to scout for new possible base locations using a modded Xanter from ETU, and you don't have to stick to just AOR ships if you don't wish too. Most EOE capital ship models are likely to end up in Alliance hands as well even the ones not in any of the current AOR material. Supply and transport or blockade running focused campaigns could use Gozantis or CR90s as could intel focused teams.

I'm not a fan of the Commodore as a first specialization. To me, it doesn't seem like a good idea for a beginning character, but it might be something to work into later (like Lee Adama did in the newer BSG series when he took command of the Pegasus). I'd have preferred something else in its place for the core rulebook and the Commodore to have been in the splat expansion, but it is what it is.

"The Great Fox will cover you" *cue turbolaser barrage past the PCs fighters*

I'm not a fan of the Commodore as a first specialization. To me, it doesn't seem like a good idea for a beginning character, but it might be something to work into later (like Lee Adama did in the newer BSG series when he took command of the Pegasus). I'd have preferred something else in its place for the core rulebook and the Commodore to have been in the splat expansion, but it is what it is.

I can kind of see your logic but its not entirely impossible for a starter or early character to have command of a capship, especially a smaller one. It would most likely happen in high start xp campaigns where the character's background involves a lot of prior service but you could always do the old new officer ends up in command due to the death or injury of everyone above him plot, done best on vessels with a small crew if you want the character to be fresh out of training (A DP20 or Consular would be perfect for this IMO). If you are in the Alliance you could also have the party or character pull a Piggy and Night Caller op then take the transfer to the Alliance Navy. Or perhaps your character discovered a graveyard of ships somehow where some of the vessels were repairable and got offered command of one in gratitude from the Alliance. Or perhaps your character comes from a rich family that was devastated bt the Empire or opposed it on principle and used the family fortune to buy a small warship or two in order to join the Alliance Navy.

While it would certainly be very rare for a new officer to command a warship in the Alliance navy it wouldn't be unheard of and the Alliance Navy is probably the fleet in the setting where this is most likely to happen outside of pirate or privateer fleets where whoever owns or controls the ship or ships gets command by default.

Yeah but the theme of the Commodore is commanding a cap ship. It even says as much in the description. So using it on snub fighters seems counter to the spirit of the concept

I dunno what to tell you man, you asked how it could be useful with a group and I feel like most of the talents are pretty useful with a group.

If you and your group want to design your campaign so that you're in charge of a capital ship, why not do that?

If not, maybe it's something you could work up to as a possible goal in your campaign. It'll take a couple of hundred XP to become an expert Commodore anyway, so maybe by that time your character will have earned a higher rank or achieved the position to be in charge of a big ship.

It's really just up to whatever you want to do in your campaign, but there's nothing that says the boosts to Leadership or Astrogation or Mechanics only work on a capital ship.

I think you have to separate the fluff from the rules here. Most AOR groups won't be set on a capital ship, after all.

The Commodore then represents a character who learned their trade in charge of a larger ship, whatever they are doing right now. The strengths of the skills and talents - navigating, leadership, ship repair - can be useful anywhere, even on a ground mission. There's nothing that says they only work on a capital ship.

The Talents are an odd mix of Mechanic, Fringer and Mercenary Soldier, but they seem to do a pretty good job of representing a James T Kirk or Jack Aubrey character.

The early (cronologically) Hormblower novels are my favorite. The ones where he is a Midshipman and Lieutenant. Those books provide great ideas for adventure for beginner leader-type characters. Such as:

-leading a gun crew during a ship battle.

-repelling boarders

-leading an away team or boarding party

-commanding the ship's boat on side missions

-taking command of the prize crew on a captured enemy ship

So, playing a non-commanding Commadore could still work. Maybe have the PCs pick a "Base of Operation" where the base is actually a large cap ship that they operate out of.

I agree that the Commodor spec may not fit with a particular group, depending on what sort of game they want to play. A Republic Special Forces infiltration squad might not need a capital ship officer tagging along, for example; and most Edge games won't find him useful at first.

If you want to play him as a Commodore and the rest of the group wants to do a campaign where at least some of it is based on ship action, why not? Hedgehobbit has a great list of possibilities; as suggested, he could be something less than the overall commander. Alternately, make him captain of a small ship (freighter-sized, or even a lightly-armed Republic cargo ship). That's not an uncommon assignment for relatively low-ranking officers, and if he's successful he can work his way up to more prestigious commands (using the Contribution rewards to get a larger ship).

I looked seriously at playing the Commodore Spec for an upcoming game, and decided it just did not fit the theme of the group, so I will be moving to one of the other Commander Specs (just not sure which one primarily). I adore the fluff, and I think it would be a lot of fun to play; but It may also be better suited to a 2nd Spec, for when the party picks up a Capital Ship, or even a freighter as a new base of operations or something. It is not a bad spec, but unless the Story will revolve around a single ship the PCs are in charge of, it may not mesh well with the story.

Kevynn

Easily see Commodore being used in a Privateer game, where you start out as a boatswain bo's'n, bos'n, or bosun in charge of a transport or shuttle

But also would be better for an NPC

I have a commodore PC in one of my campaigns and he buffs the hell out of the group. It also makes me want to find a way to give him a BIG ship with a crew, maybe the other players will be his "Away team." I don't know...

I have a commodore PC in one of my campaigns and he buffs the hell out of the group. It also makes me want to find a way to give him a BIG ship with a crew, maybe the other players will be his "Away team." I don't know...

I like that idea!

I look at the Commodore spec as simply a fleet officer. It's labeled "Commodore" but it could have been Admiral, Ensign, Fleet Officer, whatever. It's a Naval officer/leader spec. And there's plenty of room in any game for the character who used to be an officer (or still is!). I don't think it necessarily means the character is in command of a capital ship at the start of play for someone who wants it to be their initial specialization.

The other end of that idea is Tactician, which is simply an Army officer/leader.

Lack of career mechanic skill is frustrating...

Lack of career mechanic skill is frustrating...

Yeah I thought that was kind of odd as well. Of course I'm biased since many, many of my capital ship officer focused characters had strong engineering backgrounds often tied to ship design with two of my favorites coming into that from opposite ends.

The first started as a fleet focused officer with a little engineering skill from his background then focused on studying engineering and became a ship designer during a long ceasefire after the third time the ship designer he had hired to create a new frigate for his fleet was killed.

The second started as an independent freighter captain/pilot who was undergoing a self-taught course of study to become a ship designer. (He had been been studying ship design in college, and serving on a freighter that did runs through the local sector to help pay tuition when the world he lived, and went to college on got hit with a Planet Killer weapon as part of an ongoing war. After that he just hopped from one merchant ship to another until he was able to get a freighter of his own) and eventually became an officer in a combined trade and PMC organization leading a small fleet attached to their trade division. In time the trade division was disbanded as part of a treaty with another merchant organization and everyone was shifted to the PMC arm retaining their ranks. Then the PMC became the main military force of a newly formed alliance of worlds, and since they were short on flag officers and he was their main ship designer and held flag rank he was promoted and put in command of the defense fleet protecting their first major shipbuilding center. He then started studying military history, tactics, and strategy plus putting himself through every tactical simulator he could find to make sure he was up to commanding a fleet.

Both campaigns were in a Star Wars setting though the later started almost six decades after the end of the former and were run by almost completely different groups. Ironically though both characters commanded multi capital ship forces in combat for the first time during civil wars in the same system. (The first was commander of the system's defense fleet, 2 corvettes 2 frigates and a heavy cruiser when a former leader of the system who was believed dead returned to reclaim power with his personal shipping firm's security fleet, The second was commanding two patrol ships and a frigate which was part of a fleet aiding a rebellion against the local government.)

Most of my other engineer/naval officer either studied engineering as part of their military training or before they joined the military and rose through the chain of command because they were also trained and served in non-engineering roles (One started as a fighter pilot then commanded a light patrol ship then ended up as part of one of his military's fighter and ship R&D teams before transferring to capital ship duty eventually becoming XO of a frigate, captain of a second frigate, captain of a light battleship and eventually an Admiral.) though they sometimes ended up in command of a ship in combat for the first time because they were engineers who ended up being the ranking officer left active after the ship was hit hard once or twice during a major battle, or the engineering officers did shifts command during what were expected to be quiet periods and the character ended up being in command when the ship was ambushed or rarely when the ship stumbled across a major target of opportunity, an did well enough that he ended up being commended and on the command track,or the setting's equivalent of the command track.

I think this spec, like several others in all three books, is only as useful as the campaign permits. A Spy/Scout isn't as much use in a campaign set upon a predominantly urban location such as Coruscant or Cloud City, while most of the Diplomat specs are of limited utility in a campaign that's centered entirely around starship combat.

Maelora I think was right when she likened this spec to being a young James T. Kirk, someone that's been trained for command, but doesn't quite have the experience to fully back it up, much like Kirk in the most recent Trek films; he's got the smarts and knack for commanding a starship, but he lacks the experience and maturity to be a great starship captain, which was something the first part of Into Darkness demonstrated.

As for the lack of Mechanics, I think that's appropriate because the job of a Commodore isn't to be a full-time engineer like Scotty, but to have at least enough broad knowledge of various ship functions that they can make informed decisions regarding those functions as well as pitch-in and assist in a pinch. Given most Commanders I've seen have an Intellect of 3, they can do pretty well on an untrained Mechanics check for Damage Control, particularly if the ship isn't too badly beaten up, with the Solid Repairs allowing them to get more mileage out of the fewer successes that they'd get in contrast to an actual Engineer or Technician.

I still think building a piece of the talent chart around a non-career skill is frustrating. Well rounded talent would have been a better fit in place of the early tier solid repairs talent, commodore does seem to want to do and be a lot of things.

I still think building a piece of the talent chart around a non-career skill is frustrating. Well rounded talent would have been a better fit in place of the early tier solid repairs talent, commodore does seem to want to do and be a lot of things.

Well, if your character is going to really specialize in Mechanics, they can either start under a different career/spec and branch into Commodore, or simply accept the non-career penalty and buy a rank or two of the skill. For most uses of the skill, with their high Intellect most Commodores won't need more than one or two ranks in order to meet most of the difficulties for the kind of tasks they'd be performing. After all, it's not the Commodore's job to undertake major-league repairs; that's what the Engineer is generally there for.

I think one of the things is that we don't really know have the level of detail of a capital ship officer's career to know where they started out. Most known capital ship officers either started as fighter pilots then switched to capital ship operations or are already captains or flag officers when we see them.

To borrow a Trek example going off of the Trek EU and what we see on screen we know Starfleet had three tracks, and that there have been main series captains from each of the three tracks (Kirk and Picard started on the command track as helmsmen, Janeway started on the science track as a science officer then shifted to command, and Sisko started on the Operations track as an engineer.)

Whereas other then a few fighter pilots who went on to become flag officers we have no idea what roles of the capital ship officers we see in Star Wars had before commanding ships. AFAIK we have no clue what role Ackbar filled on any capital ships he served on before becoming an admiral and the same is true for Piett, and Thrawn before they became captains for task force commanders while Pellaeon's first posting was commanding a small escort craft. (I'm guessing something in the Sil 4 or small Sil 5 range) we have no idea what other positions he held on other capital vessels he served on before becoming an XO or captain.

It looks to me like the Commodore talent tree represents characters who were engineers, navigators/helmsmen, or both before becoming command officers, or at least trained in those areas as part of their command training but yeah the lack of Mechanics as a career skill is odd IMO.

I feel like a bit of a broken record on this subject, but it's definitely possible to purchase ranks in skills that aren't Career skills.

It's just 5 extra XP.

I'm aware of that but that doesn't change the fact that IMO its odd for the spec not to have mechanics as a career skill.

Of the 20 talents in the talent tree I consider 5 (Known schematic, Hold together, and 3 ranks of Solid Repairs) to be linked to Mechanics, 4 (2 ranks each of Command and Commanding Presence) to Leadership and 4 (Master Starhopper and 3 ranks of Galaxy Mapper) to Astrogation. 5 of the other talents (Dedication plus 2 ranks each of Grit and Rapid Reaction) to be tied to no particular skill, and 1 talent each to tied to Knowledge of a region of space (Familiar Suns), and Gunnery (Fire Control)

That means that of the 3 skills that I feel are tied to more then one Commodore Talent mechanics is the only skill that is not a career skill of a character with the Commander Career and Commodore as their only Specialization.

They probably considered a lot of options when developing which career skills to give the spec, and, like other people have very reasonably said, the Commodore isn't necessarily intended to be a mechanic.