Just wondering if there's any good advice for others who have played this kind of character. My main focus is on the presence skills and whatever combat capability I have will be in melee as an absolute last resort, I am going to be pretty non-combative (physically speaking) and be the face of our group. Still cooking up a background.

A lot will depend on the type of person you are, and what your personality is like.

We had a guy in an earlier campaign of ours who did something similar, and his personality is just too … whacky … to make that work well. He wanted to use Scathing Tirade as a truly effective weapon in combat, and while it can help tip the balance, it’s hard to compare that against a Heavy Blaster Rifle or a Wookiee Marauder with vibro-axes.

If you’re the type that is okay with hiding behind whatever you can and helping to support your fellow players in combat and reduce the strain they suffer through things like Inspiring Rhetoric and you actively pursue the improved versions of IR, then I think you can make the politico thing work well.

As for myself, I am currently running a face-type character in a Force & Destiny campaign, and I’m finding it very tough. My character is useless with technical things and medicine (that’s a different character). My character is also useless in combat and anything physical, and there hasn’t been any real opportunity so far to do any hard negotiations, charm, deception, or other face-type things.

I tend to be more of a combat-monster type, and so I’m definitely going against type to try to play a face. But I consider it a learning experience, and I hope to be able to get better at those things that I am personally pretty bad at right now.

But I am convinced that if you build yourself as a supporting type character and you help others to achieve greater heights, then you should have a good chance of success and having fun.

• Don't neglect Cunning as a characteristic for Deception, Perception, and Streetwise skills.

We had a guy in an earlier campaign of ours who did something similar, and his personality is just too … whacky … to make that work well. He wanted to use Scathing Tirade as a truly effective weapon in combat, and while it can help tip the balance, it’s hard to compare that against a Heavy Blaster Rifle or a Wookiee Marauder with vibro-axes.

I find that the Tirade and Rehtoric are more useful for the Blacks and Blues that they supply more than the strain that inflicts or grants. Dont get me wrong, the strain is great - and the fact that it's area effect is fun, but giving the bad guys a black for 4 turns is **** useful.

Also, the end game signature ability - the Make All Difficulties -2 <> for an encounter - is stunningly powerful. You want to sell sand to Jabba at outrageous prices? Not a problem!

I Always Play Support Characters, So I Have To Say, From That Perspective, I LOVE THIS SPECIALIZATION

Your Primary Stay Should Be Presence, Then cunning. Get Grit Quickly, As Some Of The Most Potent Talents Require You Get Strain, Plus The Extra Maneuver To Help You Get Cover. As For Weapons Just A Blaster Pistol. Keep Your Shooters Close When You Negotiate. Second Specialization I Recommend Is Trader. Sell And Buy Easier And For Better Prices. Negotiation Skill Will Help You Get Better Prices For Shipping And On Bounties.

Thanks for the info, I am going human (probably the only one in our party). My primary stat is Presence as a 4 followed by cunning at 3. I've also considered doing range light instead of melee. I am hoping that being primarily non-combative can ultimately work. My GM is a long-time friend and our group is just swapping over from the combat heavy Pathfinder AP as our last campaign, so I think we're all a little combat weary.

Keep in mind that in combat, your role is going to be almost exclusively support and avoiding getting shot. It's outside of combat that you're providing value to the party. I've found that Politico's tend to start to come into their own at 50-100 XP after character creation. At that point, they have XP to spend for decent talents and can buy ranks in a few essential skills. Not to mention the fact that they can finally start to afford survival gear (shields, armor and stimpacks).

Thinking About It I Actually Would Recommend Entrepreneur Over Trader. All The Reasons To.Get Trader, And For 10 Less XP. Start Each Session With Credits In Your pocket

Yes, I concur with the Entrepreneur! I love my Politico/Entrepreneur who always has a fat wallet compared to the other players who barely get by!

...I've also considered doing range light instead of melee...

Yeah, can't emphasize this enough. "Guns are for show, knives for a pro" but you won't be a pro playing a politico. (that rhymes)

Yeah. Knives Are A Waste. you Get No Melee Skills, And Our Brawn Is Crap. Ranged Light Is The Ticket.bbIdeally You Won't Need To Use It, Not With A Combat Heavy Crew, but Nothing Wrong With Being Able To Take Care Of Yourself.

I Would Recommend That You Take 10 Obligation To Get The Entrepreneur Specialization. This Is a Good Chance To Get It. Without Needing To Save Up For A Few Sessions.

Don't waste XP or thought on any combat skills. As a Politico, your role in combat is Scathing Tirade and Inspiring Rhetoric. Get them both ASAP so you can boost your allies and set back your enemies. If you want to use non-career skills, pick up Cool and Vigilance and help your party by getting a high spot in the initiative order.

But do not even consider wasting credits or XP on combat skills -- you're always going to suck and will have a much better option available (ST/IR) soon.

I agree, though, about Entrepreneur. It's an awesome secondary class and can provide additional heft to the party in non-combat areas. Don't think of the credits given out at the start of the session as money, think of them as chips you can spend later to activate some of the other cool things that Entrepreneurs can do (Throwing Credits, etc.). Your party may never thank you (or notice), but you'll be helping them significantly.

Politico and Entrepreneur are strong. focused classes. All the Colonist ones (except Scholar, which loses out to Archaelogist in pretty much everything) are pretty good at what they do, assuming you accept a non-combat role.

The best thing is Shouting Stormtroopers To Death. You can be in full cover while you do it too:

Politico: 'Hey stormtroopers, you suck!'

Stormtroopers: 'Hey, that really hurts! Sir, she said we suck!'

Politico: 'Hey, stormtroopers, you suck!'

Stormtroopers: 'Sir! She said it again!'

Stormtrooper sergeant: 'I know! Just.. keep shooting, 'kay?'

Politico: 'Hey stormtroopers, you suck!'

Stormtroopers: <heads explode messily inside of helmets>

Well, A Lot Of People Here Are Telling You Stuff, Id Like To Hear What You Wind Up with

I play a Politico/Trader droid, and have not made any attack rolls in the last... roughly ten sessions. (I did make a mechanics roll to remove a restraining bolt while being punched, but that doesn't count.) It's a very different style of play, but it can be a lot of fun, particularly in Eote, where you often have to make deals with people more powerful than you. It can be difficult to get used to being on the combat sidelines and still finding something to do besides say encouraging things (inspiring presence, always good though). I've handed people guns, looked around for things, helped an enemy off the ground (and out of cover) while pretending to be on their side and even negotiated a payment in return for a cease fire. It can be a lot of fun, and let the hired guns deal with the shooting people.

As a note, I don't even have scathing tirade (no willpower). We have a second character with that skill. I'm pure Charm/Device/Negotiate character with a lot of wheeling and dealing.

The best thing is Shouting Stormtroopers To Death. You can be in full cover while you do it too:

Yeah, but it takes a while to get that good at it.

You can’t do that from Day One, which is what a player tried to do in an earlier campaign that I was in.

So long as you’re okay with waiting a while to get good enough to do that sort of stuff, you should be fine.

If you want to be able to hold your own in combat better, pick up Marshal (FH, pg 28.) Ranged (Light) becomes a Career Skill, as do Knowledge (Underworld) and Vigilance. You get better at fighting and you can do some Knowledge checks, though Smugglers should be doing that better than you. It's also a Career Specialisation.

I forgot to mention, the Recruit (AoR, pg 101) allows you to get bucket loads of Career Skills. The exclusive talents near the start of the tree focus on giving you more Career Skills, like Ranged (Light), Ranged (Heavy), Brawl (possibly less useful for you) and Piloting (Planetary), just to mention a few, not including the skills you gain just by picking it up, and access to Spare Clip (always useful, that one)

Lots of great advice in this thread. As someone who once played a Politico who tried to weaponize Scathing Tirade, it just isn't worth it for the damage. Even though it feels like it's supposed to be a weapon attack that bypasses soak, the dice just never cooperate and you just can't get the damage up. That being said, Tirade and Rehtoric are great for the black/blue dice. The only problem is that they are short range, so you'll be up in the middle of the fight if you want to use them, so you might want to work on having a decent defense. My character had a Gaffi stick that was refluffed as a cane so that he had something to defend with when he was mired in melee.

If you're ok being a support character, then you're fine just running around and using Tirade or Rehtoric every round. I'm a fan of also going Doctor for the Simpac specialization so that you're also spending your actions on bumping your teammates abilities. You'll never be the best at fighting, so keep that in mind. My Politico never once attacked and didn't carry any weapon, other than his cane. There were plenty of fights where I hung back and did other things, such as watching the fight from the security room while watching other cameras for bad guys coming and warn the rest of the group.

As long as you're in the right mindset and don't mind that you don't deal the most damage, and love rocking the socal encounters, then you'll enjoy playing a Politico.