I have a friend who is about to start playing with our group, and was thinking of rolling up a Selonian Thief. I gave him all the standard advice - all points into Attributes and so on - but actually advising him on what attributes are important - well, I've not played a theif, so I'm just guessing here.

Looks like Cunning is the attribute to lean heavy on, so he probably should go all in on it, raising it to a 4? That leaves everything at stock - the 1 Presence concerns me slightly, but there's not much thieving skills there.

So you guys think a 3 Agility, 4 cunning, 1 presence, 2 brawn 3 willpower, 2 Intellect will be survivable?

Or should we spread it out a touch, raising one 1 to a 3 and one 1 to a two? Something like this: 3 Agility, 3 cunning, 2 presence, 2 brawn 3 willpower, 2 Intellect

trying to figure out why you couldn't do both cunning and presence to 4 and 2?

cunning from 2 is 30 to 3 and 40 to 4 for 70 points total..

Presence from 1 to 2 is 20 points... that is a total of 90 points to raise stats...

Do Selonians (not sure which book they are in) some how get less than 90 experience to start?

If they get at least 90 then raise both the cunning and Presence.

If I run a Thief.. i prefer to have a least a average chance of schmoozing my way out of trouble.

Selonians are in Suns of Fortune - p.91

80 XP to start.

mmkk 8- exp.. take an upgraded obligation (not unreasonable for a thief Background) for an additional 10 exp and there ya go.

You (or he, as it happens) should absolutely go for at least 3 in Cunning. 4 would be useful, but I'm not sure if I'd do it with a Selonian build - that might be better for a species that starts out with 3 in Cunning. Agility is also very good, but Selonians start with 3 there, so no problems. Getting Presence up to 2 could also be useful, especially for Cool and Charm which can be very useful for a thief, but hardly essential.

I think I'd say that if it's a short campaign then go for 4 Cunning, but if it's going to last longer I'd spread the points around a bit more and use my first Dedication to bump Cunning up a notch.

Why is your friend dead set on Selonian? It's non-optimal for thiefs. Plus, you already have to take the extra 10 xp from Obligation to -get- to 4 cunning, since it starts at 1...

Consider Chadra-Fan, Gossam, Klatooinian, Togruta or Weequay instead.

Why is your friend dead set on Selonian? It's non-optimal for thiefs. Plus, you already have to take the extra 10 xp from Obligation to -get- to 4 cunning, since it starts at 1...

Optimization... puh! Space otters are cool and that's all that matters.

Why is your friend dead set on Selonian? It's non-optimal for thiefs. Plus, you already have to take the extra 10 xp from Obligation to -get- to 4 cunning, since it starts at 1...

Optimization... puh! Space otters are cool and that's all that matters.

Then why ask about building one? Whatever the player feels like will be fine.

You can get to 3 agility, 3 cunning, 3 willpower, 1 presence and either 3 brawn or 3 intellect on a Selonian using base XP. Taking the extra 10 obligation/duty/morality can get you to a 4 agility, cunning or willpower, but leaves brawn and intellect at 2.

If the plan isn't to optimize, then any of these choices is equally fine. If the plan -is- to optimize, pick a species that doesn't start out with a 1 in a careers' primary stat (cunning).

The fluff and look of a species matters just as much as their statblock. In this case, it mattered more to the player. Desslok asked the community to build a Selonian thief. Those were the two parameters that are set. Let's stick to those and help him out.

I agree with Krieger22. A 4 would be great, but you can do a lot with a 3, plus it will give you some XP to round out the character some. I would go with 2/3/2/3/3/2 and use the leftover XP to beef up the thief's skills. Stealth, cool, deception, and skullduggery are a must. They should all have at least one rank in them, and maybe a couple should have 2. Secondary skills to look at would be perception, streetwise, piloting planetary (for a getaway), charm, and knowledge (Underwold).

The thief tree has some good stuff in it, there's not much there that is essential, so I would l recommend to your player to maybe focus more on skills.

In that case: 2/3/3/3/3/1 - Smuggler: Thief, Smuggler skills: Coordination, Skulduggery, Streetwise, Vigilance, Thief skills: Skulduggery, Vigilance, XP (from Ob/Du/Mo): Stealth 1, Bypass Security

Yields 3 skills at YYG (Coordination, Skulduggery, Vigilance) and decent starting pools for everything else save presence-based skills (which thieves that aren't grifters shouldn't be talking to too many people).

What sort of thief does he want to play?

A slicer who breaks into high security areas? A second-story cat burglar? A pickpocket? A ninja?

My apologies to any ninja who is offended that I referred to a warrior as a thief.

I think I'd say that if it's a short campaign then go for 4 Cunning, but if it's going to last longer I'd spread the points around a bit more and use my first Dedication to bump Cunning up a notch.

It's going to be a longer term game, and he's coming into something already established, so after the character gen, I'll kick him an extra hundred points which - sounds like - he'll spend 75 getting to Dedication and then picking up the pilot tree with the left over points.

I agree with Krieger22. A 4 would be great, but you can do a lot with a 3, plus it will give you some XP to round out the character some. I would go with 2/3/2/3/3/2 and use the leftover XP to beef up the thief's skills. Stealth, cool, deception, and skullduggery are a must. They should all have at least one rank in them, and maybe a couple should have 2. Secondary skills to look at would be perception, streetwise, piloting planetary (for a getaway), charm, and knowledge (Underwold).

The thief tree has some good stuff in it, there's not much there that is essential, so I would l recommend to your player to maybe focus more on skills.

The 2/3/2/3/3/2 would have been my 3rd choice. The OCD nature in me was trying to figure out how to get ride of all the XP into attributes. But yeah, this sounds more rounded and viable.

Why is your friend dead set on Selonian?

Pretty much because he likes the race. Cuddly Space Ferrets for the win!

What sort of thief does he want to play?

A slicer who breaks into high security areas? A second-story cat burglar? A pickpocket? A ninja?

Actually he's thinking of playing Mr Gone in 60 seconds, a speeder thief.

if he's thinking about a speeder thief your original suggestion is spot on, and he sould invest in computers and pilot planetary, then get indistingushable and codebreaker talents asap. He should also multiclass in driver asap.

Actually on the Order66 podcast talking about the thief they actually build a shipjacker inspired by Gone in 60 Seconds, you could listen to it to get ideas.Or direct your player there.

A speeder thief. That's a cool concept.

So he needs Computers and/or Mechanics to slice/hot wire the vehicle, and Piloting (Planetary) to make his get away. Intellect and Agility for that set.

Then he wants to maybe get rid of the hot speeders, which would be Streetwise and/or Lore (Underworld). Cunning, and Intellect again.

Or maybe he wants to engage in some chop shop activity and modify the speeders for whatever purpose. Mechanics again, with the Intellect.

With those things in mind, I'd say Intellect, Agility, and Cunning are his most important Characteristics. For 80 points, he gets 3s in all those. Not bad!

If he's going for a speeder thief, might I suggest Driver over Pilot? They're a little handier for piloting atmospheric vehicles, and flavour-wise it might suit the concept better.

If he's going for a speeder thief, might I suggest Driver over Pilot? They're a little handier for piloting atmospheric vehicles, and flavour-wise it might suit the concept better.

They also get Mechanics, yeah? Fits right in.

Good point on the driver vs pilot - I was thinking strictly in terms of what was affordable on the build points + 100 bonus Keep Up points. I'll have to take a look and suggest it when my friend gets his lazy ass out of bed and working on his character!

It would not be out of character for him to have a 1 in presence, if he then wanted to improve cool, charm or negotiation then he has to practice and gain skill ranks, he will just never roll more than 1 yellow.

Yeah, the speeder thief build is a thief/driver combo. And the fun thing is that most of driver's talents don't make a difference between piloting space and planetary, so it also makes a very good starship thief,