So, I have a new player joining. This is his STARTING build. BEFORE he has spent 180xo to bring him to everyone elses level.

He is going for a Gank Shii-Cho Warrior.

It looks reasonable to me. I would still encourage him to invest in characteristics. He'll be tough, but not very exceptional considering his characteristics and low skill ranks.

Nah. It's not overpowered. It's kind of underpowered actually. As is he's going to be having a bit of a tough time sticking to close combat, particularly in survivability since he's not backed with soak or Parry/Reflect (though Reflect only works with Lightsabers). And if his goal is to start tossing objects at people at some point, he's going to be having issues with that too with low Willpower and no Discipline.

Kaosoe is pretty much on point. Needs to focus more on Characteristics with the initial xp, and then Skills.

He is specifically trying to downplay the force stuff. Its part of his concept, which is about odd..

What worries me, is he is putting out more damage as a starting character as above, then the groups Marauder with 180 xp.

As soon as he applies that xp to level up, he could be a total monster right?

I have told him about upping his stats, but not had a reply yet.. it might be intentional

Wait a minute: what are the bonuses he selected at the start?

I'm still not sure. IT depends on what he invests his XP on. He'll be tougher, certainly, but combat isn't everything. He may be bored during non-combat encounters. Depending on the player.

He is a very experience Player and GM. He was asked to join to bulk up the parties lack of Melee capable characters, and he said he would build something that wasnt a 'true melee character, but would be capable in that capacity'

However, he is currently dealing more damage than the groups dedicated melee chracter (Selonian Marauder with a Glaive). Dealing out 1-2 points more damage minimum, BEFORE he spends the extra XP to bring him up to the groups level.

I dont have enough experience to know if this build will become a monster or not.

Has he ever played this game before? Not that important but you say he's an experienced player...

Second, what are the bonuses he selected? XP, creds and that stuff? What was his starting Obligation and how much did he take on?

Hes never played this system, but is a SW fan.

He took +10 Ob for extra cash. I believe to pay for his Attachments, but not had a chance to really talk to him yet. I got all this via email.

He is a very experience Player and GM. He was asked to join to bulk up the parties lack of Melee capable characters, and he said he would build something that wasnt a 'true melee character, but would be capable in that capacity'

However, he is currently dealing more damage than the groups dedicated melee chracter (Selonian Marauder with a Glaive). Dealing out 1-2 points more damage minimum, BEFORE he spends the extra XP to bring him up to the groups level.

The thing about a good Marauder is not the amount of minimum damage done, but the crits. Crits are what take out minions with a single hit, no matter how much damage done. Crits are what will take down the BBEG Nemesis, once you plow through their Minion meat-shield.

That said, maybe your Selonian Marauder could use some beefing up. Feel free to compare against my Wookiee at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79813707/SW-EotE/Sheets/Chewnawa%202014-04-27.pdf

I have a question, if he wants to down play the Force aspects then why did he put so much into Enhance at the beginning? I think if one were to downplay their Force powers that would be better represented by fewer Force related abilities.

Also I do agree with others, I think he should focus more of his starting xp into his stats. Sure he may be doing a minimum of 7 to 8 damage before we add in his xp but all things considered ....it looks like that's the only thing he'll be doing and that may leave him in a lurch outside of combat. Unless this is a combat heavy game I'd be less worried about his minimum damage and more worried about if he's going to jeopardize the team in all non combat situations.

Hes never played this system, but is a SW fan.

He took +10 Ob for extra cash. I believe to pay for his Attachments, but not had a chance to really talk to him yet. I got all this via email.

The problem might be gear based.

With the gear he has spent and the credits he has left over, he had 5250 credits. If you used the F&D bonus system, he can start with no more than 3000 credits, and no XP bonus. If he was using the bonuses from Edge, he could maybe start with 4000 of he pushes it, which I don't think he did, and he could pull off the gear purchases, but not with 1700 left over. If you think or he thinks he can take a bonus from each system because he uses both, this is faulty thinking.

Also it's worth noting that without seeing the Maruader build it's hard to say if him doing more damage is a bad thing. The Maruader may be doing less damage but may overall be a better character that contributes more to the party than just pure damage output.

Outside of combat, he'll probably do lots of nothing, that's a pretty small Skill set, and he appears to have not noted the free skill ranks granted at character generation. Have you informed him of this?

A Marauder should be easily out damaging the Shii-Cho Warrior which seems like a fairly standard brawn 4 man with vibrosword.

The could have been a brawn 5 and still be hitting 8 base damage with a improvised weapon.

Other GMs might have different opinions on this, but I wouldn't allow both a monomolecular edge and a serrated edge on the same weapon. That's like trying to put two types of barrels on the same rifle.

Aside from that, it seems like you've given him a crazy amount of credits.

No, I didnt give him the credits, he seems to have used the Bonus credits from Morality AND Obligation... which I missed.

Ill update when I hear back from him.. ive pointed him to this thread, and laid out my concerns.

Also to put this in prospective...Joe Smuggler with a Heavy Blaster is doing a minimum of 8 damage on a hit (base damage 7 + 1 for the initial success).

To me it looks like he picked the Talents and the Force Powers specifically so he could have them regardless what sort of training was available to him after play begins.

Have you ruled on what talents/force powers you can spend XP on without having to search for training opportunities?

As a suggestion, raising his Willpower to 3 would make him a bit better at Coercion and Move and give him a higher Strain Threshold.

He did some mistakes on his weapon attachments; the Stun Pulse is for bludgeoning weapons only. I would suggest he go for the Electrostaff instead; it's only a little bit more than he already spent on his weapon and I assume he will be given a little bit of extra cash in addition to the extra XP?

That gives him a reason to raise his Agility to 3 too, and the weapon is definitely worth it. However, in the long run I think he should consider going for Lightsaber instead, even if he can get a Melee 2 right off the bat. Sarlacc Sweep is just too good to pass up.

I would round it off by increasing his Presence to 2 so that his Cool is a little bit more effective. That leaves him with 100 XP to spend as he likes; with a more well-rounded set of attributes he could look into a couple of force powers.

Is that so bad to make the character operate at a bare minimum of how the player would like them to at the start of the game?

As for making judgments on what you need specialized training for, the game does not require it for anything. The player just needs a justification for it. Which based on the OP's description, the character in question HAD training and then was embarrassed by it and stopped using his powers.

Again this build should really be a non-issue as (aside from clerical errors):

Anyone with a Heavy Blaster can do a minimum of 8 damage

Anyone with a Blaster Rifle can do a minimum of 9 damage

Anyone with a Heavy blaster Rifle can do a minimum of 10 damage

That is with just the base weapon damage and no extra success and no talents.

There's a reason that Marauder gets Lethal Blows, Survival and Coercion. That's because ranged weapons in this system can really outdamage melee ones, and so that they can fill additional niches, not just pure melee everything