I'm new to this SWRPG stuff, but I have lots of plans for campaigns. In most of them, the players are not rookies but rather relatively seasoned operatives. I was wondering if anyone knew what effect Knight-level play might have on this. Obviously I'd block off anyone but the actual Jedi (if playing cross-book classes) from taking a lightsaber, but has anyone experimented with this as a starting approach? Did it work? My example would be an elite Rebel fighter squadron, but it can be applied almost anywhere.

Thanks

It works beautifully with any Career and Specializations in every setting I've seen so far. Elite Starfighter Squadron, undercover group of Jedi Padawans, smuggler-turned-Rebel infiltration team...I feel like I'm forgetting some. But yeah it totally works.

The only danger I can see with Knight level is some people might to use it to completely max out an area of expertise, while completely ignoring others. They might end up bored because a few challenges are too easy, and they're completely useless for the rest. Encourage some breadth...

The only danger I can see with Knight level is some people might to use it to completely max out an area of expertise, while completely ignoring others. They might end up bored because a few challenges are too easy, and they're completely useless for the rest. Encourage some breadth...

Actually, one of the Beta Updates made it so you can only go up to rank 3 in Skills with the Knight-Level XP. Players can still min/max the best they can with talents, but at least you won't see any one skill being beyond what it might be after 1-2 sessions starting from scratch.

Done it, it works, but with the min/max issues Frog mentioned.

It runs smother for non-forceys if you as the GM really get nasty about requiring the players build balanced characters with more flex then firepower. Forcey's are a little easier to balance since they gotta buy those force powers and usually double spec (1 main, 1 saber form) and that burns up a lot of XP. Even so you gotta watch it, or they will build Capt. Lightsaber.

A campaign I'm currently running actually has each player with three character they switch back and forth between, each at a different starting level. No problems of any kind so far, though I did make the Knight and "Padawan" (+75XP) characters pre-gens, so that may be helping since I made them with balance in mind.

I have 300-XP starting characters but I only allow skills up to rank 3, and only talents costing 15xp or less. It works out fine for cinematic characters and they really aren't too powerful for the written adventures.

The only potential problem area with Knight Level play is that 9000 credits is a lot of disposable income for a PC to have in one go. Invariably, if the PC doesn't take a lightsaber then they are going to either wind up with either their armor/primary weapon having the Superior Customization attachment or they'll have a lot of very useful gear without having to reduce their starting Duty or pile on additional Obligation. Personally, I'd suggest lowering the starting funds to either 7500 or even as low as 6000 credits if the PC's going to opt-out of having a lightsaber when the campaign begins.

In terms of the XP value, I've not seen a problem, as the award is generally what a character would earn after 6 to 10 sessions (depending on how much XP the GM awards). Yes, a number of PCs will use that starting XP to beef up their "key" skills or buy a lot talents... but let's be honest, they were going do that anyway with the XP awards had you started the PCs out at the default starting level. All Knight Level does is go past that "initial build-up" point and lets the PCs be very capable at what they feel their character's primary strengths are.

I gave my players 200 exp to remake their characters. We were using Saga, and everyone had just reached 8th level when we switched over. It allowed them to more or less recreate their same characters at the same power level, so everyone was happy. I've not had any problems challenging them; when in doubt, add more minions.

I do regret allowing a certain level of min/maxing, but that is also being resolved. All of my players quckly learned the value of habing at least one ranked social skill, and have spent subsequent exp to round themselves out some.

Yeah my group usually starts our campaigns at a boosted experience level in most systems unless we are learning the system so we're fine with Knight level.