All,

I've played RPGs for over 20 years and in all that time, I've never played healers. I've always played the damage inducing Wizard or Combat Special Forces Trooper, so lots of dice throwing, blowing things up and killing people. I finally got tired of it. So, I decided to try something completely different. I created a Jedi Healer/Seer using the Force & Destiny rules who is a Doctor. I absolutely LOVE role-playing this character! I never imagined playing a healer could be so much fun and rewarding, but he has no combat skills whatsoever. The problem that I am running into is this character is almost a strict pacifist. His emotional strength is Mercy and his emotional weakness is weakness. He has no skills in blasters or lightsaber. Lots of skills in Intellect though. I am advancing him down the Consular: Healer & Mystic Seer trees alongside Force Power Tree: Heal/Harm & Foresee. As I said, I love this character. I just need help figuring out how I can expand my vision of what he can do to help the group. I wish I could take a pic of my character sheet so I could show you.

My GM & I along with some really good friends must have talked for over an hour last night about my character because I really feel kinda useless when the group wants to infiltrate into an Imperial Base or ship to kill Imps & steal stuff for the Rebellion. I told my GM that I felt that the D6 Star Wars was so much more Jedi friendly and I feel so lock stepped into what I can and cannot do. He insists that I am looking at it all wrong. I want this character to suceed.

Please help me out.

Thank you.

If you don't mind taking a second out of career specialization, the Soresu Defender works off Intellect and focuses on defending those around you rather than outright offense, allowing you to use Parry and Reflect and even take hits for squishier party members. It could fit thematically with a pacifist doctor.

It depends firstly what you mean by " pacifist ." When your friends "want to infiltrate into an Imperial Base or ship to kill Imps & steal stuff for the Rebellion," do you feel useless, or are you affronted by the idea? A true pacifist would have problems even helping his friends when they are committing violence.

Furthermore, Jedi are not strict pacifists . Jedi are protectors, peacekeepers. They laud mercy and compassion, but true pacifism is antithetical to the Jedi way of life. So there may be some setting-based conflict going on here that you'll have to deal with. Are you a true pacifist, or are you simply committed to nonviolence? Are you actually a Jedi, or just a Force user who tries to find nonviolent solutions at the expense of all other means?

Assuming that you are okay with combat, since you're traveling with a group of combatants:

Going forward, just grab the Mystic's two Force Rating talents and then start focusing on the Protect power. That'll stand you in good stead.

Until then, there's the Bind power (available at Force Rating 2) that you can use to incapacitate foes without harming them. You can also buy down the Move power tree and pick up the upgrade that allows you to rip weapons from people's hands, disarming them and precluding further violence with no actual harm being done. You can be very impressive with this once you pick up a second or third Force Rating

How about the Protector talent tree? Stick close to your friends: Bodyguard, Stimpack Specialization, and Physician are great for that! They don't stack well with the Heal power, but just use the XP saved there to buy further down the Foresee tree!

Do you use a Lightsaber? Protector has the Circle of Shelter talent, which combines really nicely with either Supreme Parry/Reflect (Soresu Defender and Shien Expert, respectively). Since you're unlikely to be making any combat checks, the Supreme versions of Parry and Reflect seem like they're right up your ally!

There's also Influence and Misdirect Force powers. The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded...and you can literally just hide yourself or your friends from view with Misdirect.

The great thing about Seer is that they have two ranks in Force Rating. By the time you are done with that tree, you have a Force Rating of 3. There's a lot you can do with 3 Force dice.

Bind, Heal/Harm, Protect/Unleash, and Move are all powers that allow you to be directly offensive. Especially bind, which allows you to take NPCs out of combat via strain or immobilization with conflict just for using it (note: if you do spend dark pips on it, you can deal wounds as well.)

If you are going for true support. Take a look at Battle Meditation. Essentially you can be a commanding presence to your party and spend each round buffing them and spreading skill ranks around. Though, if you go this route, you may want to invest in Leadership and Presence.

A lack of skill in Lightsaber does make some of the options listed by awayputurwpn a little further down the road, but remember a lightsaber is as much if not more a symbol of the order, a literal light shining in the darkness to offer hope to those who see it as it is a glowing, soak ignoring, murder stick.

If you -really- don't want the lightsaber at all, I can understand and respect that. In which case you rock and roll full on utility Force Wizard. Bind to restrain not harm, move to disarm (sooo satisfying to do that, i will say) or position cover or things that block line of sight or even just to pick people up and move them out of reach, battle meditation to hand out successes, and while this may not be in line with the name of the power, sometimes the enemy you face is time. Need to get your ship up and running before you get caught with nowhere to run? Go deep battle meditation, hit that final mastery, don't use any DSP, and you go from having one master mechanic in the party to everyone is a master mechanic with an extra success to boot. Try and use Forsee to head off trouble before it even begins, and Sense to read the minds of your opponents and make them reconsider how much fighting they want to do against someone who knows what their next move is going to be.

Another thing to look at is if you imagine the battlefield as a living, breathing thing, that means there are always options. Caught in a bar brawl in a Wretched Hive of Fun and Merriment? All spacers love deep fried everything, right? I bet that fryer hasn't had a good cleaning in a while so crank up the heat past the flash point of oil, and POOF! A cloud of billowing smoke to try and fight through! If your friends prefer to fight in places with higher health and safety standards, try triggering the sprinklers to discourage the fight. Or, you know, use the light switch which is probably way easier to get to. Carry smoke grenades which just obscure vision. Grab that technician droid over there and use his lubrication dispensing unit to create an oilslick. If the fight is happening somewhere with innocent bystanders run to them and get them out of harm's way!

Another truly stellar noncombat option for a Healer is Calming Aura and Improved Calming Aura. "Oh, you want to force lightning my friends? How about no."

Anyway, hope this helps.

If you want to be involved in combat, make yourself a Training Lightsaber and pick up Soresu Defender for the Soresu Technique talent. Instant stun only beat stick based on your highest Stat (Int is your highest isn't it?).

Influence does direct strain (i.e. non-lethal damage, much more likely for your character to accept than severing someone's hands). Move is superb for disarming, as awayputurwpn said. Misdirect to turn virtually invisible... Sense to be like Daredevil... Your can be soooo useful to your friends, in many ways...

But oh boy, does Battle Meditation rock...

Need to infiltrate? Battle Meditation!

Being caught in a space battle? Battle Meditation!

Someone needs hard to pass a Computer/Mechanics/Whatever roll? Battle Meditation!

Dealing with the jawas to get some pieces for your engine? Battle Meditation!

After the beer party you need to go to the loo? Battle Meditation!

It needs you to have a decent FR, but since your char doesn't seem to like saber trees, that won't be too tough a problem!

Battle Meditation is allowed for ages 9-99.

Call now!

May contain traces of nuts or milk protein.

Battle Meditation is allowed for ages 9-99.

Restriction this makes Yoda sad very.

Battle Meditation is allowed for ages 9-99.

Restriction this makes Yoda sad very.

Yoda is 90 years old. Only his years are longer.

@ Tyluvean, I don't want to teach you to suck eggs, with rp's should be fun etc but it's so very easy to say "my character can't do anything...." and easy to also say "I have no motivation to help anyone here because of my strong beliefs".

Effectively you are trying to make the story about your character rather than your character being part of the story. As a GM of over 30 years I can tell you this happens a lot. A player has a desire to play in a certain way that from a GM perspective is counter productive to the story, and switches the focus from achieving a task into how to convince Player A into taking part, and spenidng valuable RP time perhaps meta gaming by trying to convince the Player rather than the Character.

So looking at your story, the team needs to infiltrate bases, and frequently get into combat situations... These are dangerous activities and have every likelihood of party members getting injured. With you along you can view yourself of keeping them safe.

As a pacifist you would wish to achieve you objectives with as little blood shed as possible, so stealth and subterfuge is the perfect to achieve these ends.

Example, there are 2 corridors to get to a ship - the quickest route has a regular patrol of stormtroopers - the other longer route passes through the engine rooms, mostly monitored by droids. Killing stormtroopers may be high on the teams agenda - but you would recommend the less violent route.

Also as a pacifist you are not stupid, indeed many people who play extreme personalities seem to decide that the character is a moron and must do this like this because of the personality. The reality in life is that many folk have to make a choice on the lesser of 2 evils, neither particularly palatable. F&D has morality to enable you play this out.

Lets look at the Example above again, but lets add a further factor, time. You have 5 rounds to make it to the ship or it's game over. Now the choice is quick route - fighting stormtroopers, which means you would get to the ship by a charge in 2 rounds movement, maybe longer down to the narrative. Alternatively risk the longer route that may get you there in exactly 5 rounds time assuming no wrong turns...

It's a tough choice, both will require dice rolls, a combat and pretty much guaranteed to make it to the ship, or risk the sneak round approach, manoeuvre rolls, and perhaps a locked door or 2 to get through.

Both offer cliff hangar possibilities in different ways, and in truth there is nothing stopping your char taking the alternate route even if the players charge the Stormtroopers, making a kind of double dramatic conflict,.

Again you need to put your character in the story, and perhaps consider that you are taking the character to the extreme.

Many folk see Gandhi as the ultimate pacifist, the following are his words which have massive resonance with the SW universe:

“I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence,” ( Doctrine of the Sword )

…He who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully …

[When violence] is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission. ( Between Cowardice And Violence )

Finally if you want to see a pacifist doctor in action take a look at Firefly, Simon Tam - the doctor is a pacifist, and he gets involved pretty much all the time.

This. (I was actually about to post a link to a quote from the first link, but FatPob beat me to it, and with better links.)

There is a *huge* difference between pacifism (the belief in not *instigating* violence), and pathological victim-hood (the belief in always appeasing violence). Even an absolutely non-violent conscientious objector who refuses to harm others in any way, can still have a meaningful role to play in a combat-focused unit (medic, and slicer and some examples).

In the Star Wars universe, they even have a simpler way out of the conundrum than we do in the real world. Use stun weapons exclusively.

I never imagined playing a healer could be so much fun and rewarding, but he has no combat skills whatsoever. The problem that I am running into is this character is almost a strict pacifist. His emotional strength is Mercy and his emotional weakness is weakness. He has no skills in blasters or lightsaber.

This passage in particular just strikes me as... odd.

He has no skills in blasters or lightsaber... Okay, then *take* some skills in blaster or lightsaber. Or use them unskilled. You can also reach out to Niman Disciple to grab a bunch of defense talents.

And the character is only a pacifist if you play him has a pacifist. You point out that your emotional strength is Mercy, but "Mercy" doesn't mean "Kitty" (and "Kitty" doesn't mean kitty). Heck, unless you're putting the character in a position where he's a threat, he can't really show mercy (or be taken advantage of in a moment of weakness).

You're also in a position to toss around a LOT of force dice if you start grabbing FR talents in Healer and Seer, so you could branch out to more force powers (Bind, Battle Med, Move or Sense may be good ones for you) to feel more useful.

I gotta say, the addition of Seer seems odd, I assume you're there to grab all the perception/forewarning skills, but... eh. It feels like trying to do too much with the character that you're not happy with.

Not sure if that helps... It really sounds like you're not very satisfied with how your character turned out; You may want to discuss a respec with your GM.

If you've ever read "With Strings Attached or The Big Pink Job", it has quite a bit of pacifist-protagonist plot. It's pretty epic.

I never imagined playing a healer could be so much fun and rewarding, but he has no combat skills whatsoever. The problem that I am running into is this character is almost a strict pacifist. His emotional strength is Mercy and his emotional weakness is weakness. He has no skills in blasters or lightsaber.

This passage in particular just strikes me as... odd.

He has no skills in blasters or lightsaber... Okay, then *take* some skills in blaster or lightsaber. Or use them unskilled. You can also reach out to Niman Disciple to grab a bunch of defense talents.

And the character is only a pacifist if you play him has a pacifist. You point out that your emotional strength is Mercy, but "Mercy" doesn't mean "Kitty" (and "Kitty" doesn't mean kitty). Heck, unless you're putting the character in a position where he's a threat, he can't really show mercy (or be taken advantage of in a moment of weakness).

Yep. You're actually incapable of doing harm, even to defend yourself or others, you're not a pacifist, you're a victim. To be merciful, you must actually have the option of *not* being merciful. To be 'weak', you must have the option of being strong.

It's like trust. To trust someone, they must be in a position where they can betray you. If they can't betray you, any 'trust' you claim to have in them is meaningless.

You trust a good friend with a key to your house, not because he *can't* take advantage of it, and rob you blind, but because you don't think he will. You don't have to trust a random stranger with your key, because you wouldn't *give* it to him in the first place.

You trust a doctor not to leak your private medical information, but you don't trust your child's best friend's swimming instructor with it, because they don't have access to it in the first place.