I'm going to do an experiment here. Lets see if I can Build Luke from character creation and just go through the movies.

So without futher adu, Part 1. Character Creation.

So, beginning of A New Hope, I'm going to actually argue that Luke begins A New Hope as an Ace: Gunner

Here is my justifications: #1 The only personal scale weapons Luke uses in A New Hope are Rifles. At first he has a long barreled Hunting Rifle when he's going to find R2-D2, and later he uses a Stromtrooper Blaster Rifle with no problem.

#2. Luke makes the Comment about Bullseyeing Womp Rats. His position at the head of the fighter formation is making the trench run has more to do with his ability to make a precise shot.

So at character creation Luke is a Ace: Gunner.

He takes free Career skills in Gunnery, Mechanics, Piloting (planetary), Piloting (Space). With his bonus skills he takes Gunnery again and Ranged Heady.

He spends his starting XP on 3 Brawn, 3 Agility, 3 Cunning and takes 2 in his other characteristics. With his 10 remaining XP he picks up a rank in Durable, which comes in handy later when he gets assaulted by Sand People. He also spends 5 XP on Debilitating shot, and 10 XP on True Aim.

Luke spends his starting Credits on a Slugthrower Rifle for 250 (which we never get to see him use because the Sand People steal it from him before he can even fire it). He gets a Utility Belt for 25 Credits. Macrobinoculars for 75 Credits, and Heavy Clothing for 50 Credits. That leaves Luke with 100 Credits left over so that he can head down to the Toshi Station and pick up some Power Converters.

I like it, though I feel I should mention that Luke uses a pistol as his primary ranged weapon the rest of the time

Part 2: First Session and Experience.

So for Luke's first Session, he spends a most of the session role playing and getting to know the droids. When he goes in search of R2-D2 later, Luke succeeds on his perception check to spot the Sand People in the the canyon, but he also rolls 3 threat on the roll and fails to notice Sand Person attacking him directly from the front (should have put some ranks in Perception eh?)

Luke is disarmed before he can even fire his rifle, and he pretty helpless to actually stop the Sand Person and what would look like a fair fight on paper quickly becomes a 1 sided beat down. Luckily Luke has a rank in Durable. When the Sand Person reduces Luke's Wound Threshold to 0 the roll for the Critical injury is less than 10, so Luke is only rendered unconscious. Later he's saved by Obi-wan and given his Father's Lightsaber and he finishes up the first session with a call to action when he finds that his family has been killed by the Empire.

Luke gets 20 experience for the session. When he joins Obi-wan he tells him he wants to be trained to be a Jedi like his Father. At the end of the 1st session spends all his XP and buys Force Sensitive Emergent.

I like it, though I feel I should mention that Luke uses a pistol as his primary ranged weapon the rest of the time

Yep, but not during a New Hope. There is a 3 gap between Empire Strikes Back and a New Hope.

Why Cunning? Luke has never struck me as being an especially cunning individual. Willpower would make some sense, since it contributes to Discipline, which will be big for him later, and helps save against fear, which he does a fair job of resisting through his career: someone else might have been terrified after losing their aunt and uncle like that, or a little fearful of the Sandpeople, etc...

Also, you noted that he fails his Perception check (though, his vigilance isn't too hot, either).

Two reasons:

1. The Full Throttle Tallent in the Pilot tree is increases maximum speed of a vehicle equal to ranks in Cunning.

2. Luke Eventually learns and masters Shien over the course of Empire Strikes Back and the beginning of Return of the Jedi, which keys off of Cunning. Over the course of his Adventures.

I Haven't forgotten Willpower, it's just that Luke doesn't need it yet, and probably doesn't get around to increasing it until later.

Luke actually succeeds in his perception check to spot the Sand People. He just rolls tons of threat and fails to notice the one sneaking right up in front of him.

I'd say he's a Warrior/Starfighter Ace at creation. Why? Because he's a min/maxer and he wants those force ratings.

I'd say he's a Warrior/Starfighter Ace at creation. Why? Because he's a min/maxer and he wants those force ratings.

Sure as hell isn't because he's a good pilot. He **** near crashes everything he pilots...

-Cal

Hey, every landing that you can go out walking is a good landing

I bet Dak has words to say about that...

You have a good point

By the way, great experiment, strongarm85! You'll complete the Luke's journey through all the Ep IV?

No way... Luke is a Explorer: Fringer who gets Force Emergent and Recruit during A New Hope, grabs Ace: Pilot and ends up a Protector for Return of the Jedi.

Basically, he's just a guy with a lot of XP for all those cross-career specializations

Yeah I plan on going through all the movit's eventually.

If you heard the Radio drama of ANH, Luke worked as a farmer mechanic, but also liked working on his T-16 and the land speeder and modifying them to perform better. Very similar to American Graffitti in the Radio Drama has Luke going to Tosche Station with Windy and meeting up with Fixer, Deak, and Camie. Fixer brags he can beat Biggs time through "The bottleneck" in Beggars canyon, and when Luke mouths off to him he should "thread the stone needle like Biggs did, that should take a few seconds off your time" Fixer challenges Luke to a race.

I doubt Luke would be racing if he didn't think he was a good pilot. he would needed some of the Talents to help him, skill jockey, full throttle, lets ride (he used the last two when he went back home after seeing the blown up Jawa transport), dead to rights or the Improved version would have been great for womprats.

Nor would they let him fly an X-wing at the Battle of Yavin if he wasn't a good pilot, especially since he never really flew one. he would have needed a couple of ranks of skilled jockey

heck, Luke wasn't that good of a gunner when he was at the Turret of the Falcon.

The "Bullseyeing" Womrats comment is the naivety of Luke who has never faced space combat

Even Obi-wan knew Luke was a good pilot.

No.. he was a pilot, probably had a lot of the tier 1 talents before he even saw two ships battling it out in orbit above tatooine. I really don't see Luke being a "0 XP" character at the start of the movies. I could see him having a lot of the Pilot tree talents taken up to the third tier, and ignored galaxy mapper (he used THOSE eventually to find Dagobah)

So. what you are saying Kinnison, is that Luke started at Knight level , with 150 xp to invest in his skills and talents before beginning the session. It makes sense, and allows him to get a second specialisation too, so i'd say fringer/pilot works well for him, and being pretty focused in his talent allocation he should have enough xp to get high up the pilot tree.

Nope, sticking with gunner. Luke is too handy with a Blaster on board the Deathstar not have a usable ranged Heavy skill. Specifically Luke's 2 Ranks of True aim he can roll 4 proficiency dice and a boost after taking an aim manuver.

Luke is pretty much the quintessential Fringer at the start of ANH. Sure, he doesn't start with 0 XP, he's been around for a little while, but that's where he begins. He gets a good chunk of XP from the first third of the movie and then invests in Force Sensitive Emergent aboard the Falcon when he has some time with Obi-Wan; maybe even picks up the base talent of the Sense tree as well. His shooting aboard the Death Star and during the escape can be easily chalked up to a decent Agility stat and flipping a Destiny point or two to upgrade. Then, once they reach Yavin, he invests some of the XP from the Death Star to get the Ace Pilot or Gunner tree as well.

Luke could get heavy from his 2 out of career free skills for being human. He would be ace pilot.

I would say that Like is an Explorer with the driver specialization. It gives him access to all the skills he shows in the first movie as well as a decent selection of defensive talents that got him through the dogfight to get to the deathstar. Under Kenobi's training he enters the emergent specialty and learns the enhance force ability.

This is a fun idea. I really like where you're going with this, strongarm. And I agree - Ace seems like a fitting choice. I think people are letting the names of specializations lead them a little too much. Lives on the outskirts of nowhere? Must be a fringer. Not an actual fighter pilot for the rebellion yet? Can't be Ace, then. But ignoring the names on the specializations, I think they're a good fit.

I liked the comment about being a min/max'er so warrior - ace it is from me, mainly cus he's the son of the chosen one and the force is already strong in him even if he doesn't know what he's doing.

Nope, sticking with gunner. Luke is too handy with a Blaster on board the Deathstar not have a usable ranged Heavy skill. Specifically Luke's 2 Ranks of True aim he can roll 4 proficiency dice and a boost after taking an aim manuver.

Yes lets ignore any contradictory evidence or material and just have tunnel vision.

Even in the write up in WEG for Luke at the end of ANH his best skills are piloting. His template is "Brash Pilot"

1. The Gunner still has Piloting Space as a Career skill.

2. The talents in the Gunner tree still work inside the cockpit of a Starfighter.

3. The main non-force Tallent you need to flesh out Luke by the End of A New Hope, is the "Exhaust Port". Luke needs this talent in order to overcome the Death Star's Massive Rating. Hitting the Death Star is easy. It's so big you can't miss it. The difficulty is that the Death Star would have something along the lines of Massive Rating 10. Exhaust port is an powerful tallent in that it allows you to ignore Massive Ratings entirely.

But Luke doesn't hit the exhaust port because of one of his "gunner" skills, he hits it because of he is powerful in the force. Turning off his targeting computer, remember?

But Luke doesn't hit the exhaust port because of one of his "gunner" skills, he hits it because of he is powerful in the force. Turning off his targeting computer, remember?

That's conjecture and not exclusive of the need to have "Exhaust Port." Obi-Wan's lesson to "Let go" - was an extension of his "act on instinct" lesson earlier. Mechanically, it could be said that what Luke did was give himself a boost through "Touch of Fate" to add two blue - probably not by itself enough to overcome Massive 10. Other pilots probably had "Exhaust Port" as well, but that wasn't enough, because they needed the better chance afforded by "Touch of Fate." It's possible, that as a targeting array upgrades a die, Luke was already upgraded as far as he could be, and thus would receive no benefit. Instead, by using "Touch of Fate" he was able to increase his pool size and thus achieve the needed successes.