So I'm getting my materials together for a Darkstryder run and wanted some opinions from anyone who might be familiar with the campaign. (Anyone who isn't familiar is of course welcome to comment as well, though I tried to keep the below spoiler minimum, so there's some missing info. If you have any interest in playing in this campaign, be it with me or another GM I suggest not Wookieepediaing it as most of the entries are almost pure spoiler) .

While most of the stock characters are pretty straight forward in their translation from D6, Lt. Dajus is a bit of a trick. Her official role in the crew is "Tactical Adviser" with the backgound being that as a former Imperial shuttle pilot for Moff Sarne she "heard stuff."

Stats-wise though she's not appropriate for the Tactician Spec. She's more of a sneaky jerk then leader. This doesn't really change her role in the crew, as she did know stuff, and has ways of always knowing stuff (more on this later) but I want to keep the statting and character functions reasonably consistent to the source material.

Her apparent top skills (translated) are Know:Outer Rim, Piloting:Space, Deception, Perception, Vigilance, Computers, Stealth, and Skuduggery.

While nothing seems to match perfectly I think I'm down to Either Smuggler:Thief, or Explorer:Fringer (with Scout being a close 3rd).

As an additional note (for anyone making suggestions) she's also a Force user that doesn't know it, with her "powers" typically manifesting as sudden bursts of intuition. Mechanically this half of her is pretty clear fortunately. FSE will cover her forceness, with the various uncanny's and Sense this n that being thematically appropriate. Tossing in a little Sense or Forsee, and maybe a touch of Enhance or Misdirect if things wanna get interesting...

So what you guys think? If you were handed an ex-imperial shuttle pilot with too many secrets that was statted out as a Smuggler:Thief with FSE would that sound interesting, or is there another Spec that might fit the above description better?

I see you didn't get much feedback here, @Ghostofman, but it's a very interesting issue. So, what did you end up with in regards of Jessa Dajus? And, possibly more importantly, how would you stat her today (with 5 years worth of additional FFG SW sourcebooks to chose from)?

About Lt. Dajus...

She's a sneaky, tech-savvy Force-sensitive. Doesn't that scream Sentinel/Shadow-Artisan? Her career/spec skills would practically be all the stuff she's supposed to be great at. Shadows even get Well Rounded to, well, round out her other skills like Piloting.

18 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

About Lt. Dajus...

She's a sneaky, tech-savvy Force-sensitive. Doesn't that scream Sentinel/Shadow-Artisan? Her career/spec skills would practically be all the stuff she's supposed to be great at. Shadows even get Well Rounded to, well, round out her other skills like Piloting.

Looks like that fits pretty well, @micheldebruyn

On 10/4/2019 at 3:49 PM, angelman2 said:

I see you didn't get much feedback here, @Ghostofman, but it's a very interesting issue. So, what did you end up with in regards of Jessa Dajus? And, possibly more importantly, how would you stat her today (with 5 years worth of additional FFG SW sourcebooks to chose from)?

Yeah, kinda eclectic topic.

In the end I went with Smuggler:Thief + FSE Exile, and I don't recall if I, or the player, added Recruit as well to boost her combat abilities. That gave her most of the right skills to match her role and concept. Furthermore the Smuggler Signature Abilities of Narrow Escape and Unmatched Fortune both fit the character concept well had the player gone that way.

Dajus is a tough nut to crack as you get the feeling she's supposed to actively participate in almost every adventure. As such she's needs a very diverse skill set while still keeping in that role of sneaky, a-hole, possible spy, ect.

That weird mix did work out pretty well though. Dajus was the player's default for most serious missions, and her skills and abilities came off well. I'm extra happy with her force-use, as with the whole campaign fleshed out in advance I had some epic moment where she'd roll Foresee and I'd be able to regurgitate a tip that both applied in the immediate future while also foreshadowing something a lot further down the road.

On 10/4/2019 at 4:25 PM, micheldebruyn said:

About Lt. Dajus...

She's a sneaky, tech-savvy Force-sensitive. Doesn't that scream Sentinel/Shadow-Artisan? Her career/spec skills would practically be all the stuff she's supposed to be great at. Shadows even get Well Rounded to, well, round out her other skills like Piloting.

When I was working this problem F&D was still in Alpha and Beta (and I'd actually started development and conversion well before even that), so Sentinel wasn't really an option I felt comfortable looking at, as I didn't want to build the character and then have to redo the whole thing when they reshuffled all the talents, or swapped out a skill. Additionally EV was also way off in the distance, so I didn't know what the Sig Abilities would look like. That was a good call as Unmatched Vigilance would work for Dajus ok, but My City would be a total waste. By comparison the Smuggler SAs both work for her just fine.

Dajus also presents a challenge in that even though she's force sensitive, she doesn't know it. Indeed in the original WEG Stats, she had no force dice or powers at all, just a note to the GM saying "Drop her a hint now and then, and give her nightmares related to the endgame." I'm even reasonably certain that she's not supposed to actually get force abilities at all over the course of the campaign as originally designed.

While Shadow kinda works, Artisan not as much. Her tech skills are more related to bypassing security and such than actual repair work, and imbue item and Intuitive Improvements even require force dice, which again makes her feel more like a Forcee and less like someone who's just a little lucky and knows things.

As such, giving her FSE, and Foresee actually worked out for better I think. FSE talents aren't blatant, just a boost here, remove a setback there. Nothing that screamed Force User.

Indeed it wasn't until we were well into Season 2 that the other players even noticed Jessa was force sensitive at all.

If you're not familiar with Darkstryder I should also mention that Dajus is supposed to be the only force sensitive on the ship. While you can run the campaign with other force sensitives, the guide strongly discourages it, and in fact doing so would generate some spoilers about Dajus pretty easy. If she's the only one, a lot of her force-related footnotes and scenes can be played off as knowing stuff, being lucky, and even a little PTSD. If some wanna-be Jedi is having a lot of the same problems, then the connection isn't hard to make.

Jessa does illustrate the challenge of the conversion process, especially with the weirdness that is Darkstryder. Characters will have odd skill mixes, mechanical character roles that don't match their job descriptions, and secret backstories that explain it all.

Some characters are pretty straight forward in their build. Krudar the ace gunner is pretty obviously an Ace:Gunner. He shoots the big guns, his WEG skillset matches that, and his secret backstory is only a few sentences long and more of a personal footnote than career/stat altering epic tale.

Others will have a situation where you'll have someone listed as a Master Technician, but then a statblock that screams Colonist:Performer, and a backstory of "Suzy was a professional singer and dancer that got stranded on Kal'Shebbol. She worked the local cantinas scraping enough together to get by, and even once performed at one of Moff Sarne's Empire Day Receptions. Though she'd never seen a hydrospanner in her life, when the FarStar put out a call for technicians, she bought some tools and coveralls at a second hand store, spent a few days reading technical manuals and industry publications, and landed the job anyway. Fake it till ya make it, LOL!"

I remember one such situation where a player was running a character like that. He rolled something that's supposed to be 100% in the character job description. He got like 4 failure, 3 Advantage, and had no applicable talents. The other players were all "WTF?!?!" and he was just "... yeah, that's about right for this guy."

Likewise sharing backstories with other players required they be redacted in a ton of cases. There's one guy with a full page character backstory, but after redaction it's just "This guy is a technician. He's ok at his job."