Which lightsaber form career specialization will you recommend me for double lightsaber user?

I am planning to create a knight level character, who survived Order 66, based on the Jedi Temple Guard.

I was thinking of Niman or maybe Soresu due their defensive and protective duty...

Purely mechanically, or character concept wise?

In Legends, Exar Kun pioneered the double-bladed lightsaber, and was a practitioner of Niman. Other, more aggressive characters also use them (like Maul, a practitioner of Juyo (although that's not in the game; try Shii-Cho Knight); others include Savage Opress and Pong Krell). Some Jedi Sentinels and Jedi Shadows have also used them (so, maybe try Shien Expert).

As far as pure mechanics go, double-bladers have Unwieldy 3, and Ataru Striker benefits from Agility, so...

Duh, how did I miss the link?

Shien Expert, for a Temple Guard (maybe Sentinel, if starting fresh). Seeing as their most common threat would be blaster wielding opponents, so an emphasis on Reflect.

Altought Shien is my favorite style I was not sure about the career skills for the character... Maybe Shien as a second career...

I think maybe Protector/Shien.

Shame Keeping the Peace is not out, Armorer/Shien could have been a interesting combo...

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Duh, how did I miss the link?

Shien Expert, for a Temple Guard (maybe Sentinel, if starting fresh). Seeing as their most common threat would be blaster wielding opponents, so an emphasis on Reflect.

I think I will go with pure Shien then spice it up later, thanks for your recommendation.

Ataru might be useless initially.

Saber Swarm gives the next Lightsaber (Agility) check the Linked quality equal to Force rating. But the double-bladed lightsaber already has linked one, so until you increase your Force Rating (which you can't with Ataru Striker alone), the talent will not be useful to you.

However, the rest of the tree is a lot of fun.

Though I'm not sure which I'd go with for pure mechanics, based on the lore, I would go with either Soresu or Shien. Both are more defensive styles, though shien is all about turning the opponents attacks in on themselves, and thus has a measure of offense to it. Soresu mostly seems to aim to outlast the opponent(s), either deflecting bolts back at the enemy until they take too many unjuries/casualties to continue on, or in a duel, to wait for them to tire and make mistakes that you can exploit. Though you wouldn't see this so much today, as the help that comes is usually not going to be friendly to anyone that looks like a jedi, Soresu is also excellent at standing your ground and waiting for help to arrive.

I personally think supreme parry should have been under Shien and supreme reflect under Soresu, as Soresu is supposed to be especially effective against blaster fire.

Unless you plan on taking both (which is certainly a valid option), which you take (or take first) should probably be determined by which stat you want to use for your lightsaber skill. Apart from that, a couple things Shien has is Disruptive Strike (add failures to target's next action) and supreme reflect (if you don't attack, use reflect for 1 strain instead of 3). Soresu has Defensive circle (lets you add defense to yourself and allies based on a hard lightsaber check) and supreme parry (if you don't attack, use parry for 1 strain instead of 3). Another consideration might be if you want other specs from the career, as that makes it cheaper. Protector and Soresu go nice together in my opinion, for some good ally/group protection. Niman and Shii-cho also make really good specs for lightsaber specialists.

Hi there!

I´m starting a Star Wars game and my character is a human jedi. This is the first time for me and I have some doubts.

These are the things I would like to have:

- Untouchable by blasters, and if it´s possible untouchable by melee attacks too. I think is more frequently face enemies with blasters.

- Classic force powers: move, jump, mind tricks, sense the force.

For these requeriments I think the Soresu and the Shien specializations fit, but the soresu specialization is less effective against blaster than Shien specialization, right?

So this is my current thought:

- Start the game with Brawn 4, becuase I need it to increase my soak stat and my expertise with lightsaber. So, talents like shien technique, niman technique,... seems to be a disadvantage instead of an advantage

- Start the Shien Expert specialization to get: side step, all ranks in reflect, improved reflect and supreme reflect.

- Take an additional specialization that could be Niman disciple that have defensive talents and force rating.

What do you think?

Thanks!

Hi there!

I´m starting a Star Wars game and my character is a human jedi. This is the first time for me and I have some doubts.

These are the things I would like to have:

- Untouchable by blasters, and if it´s possible untouchable by melee attacks too. I think is more frequently face enemies with blasters.

- Classic force powers: move, jump, mind tricks, sense the force.

For these requeriments I think the Soresu and the Shien specializations fit, but the soresu specialization is less effective against blaster than Shien specialization, right?

So this is my current thought:

- Start the game with Brawn 4, becuase I need it to increase my soak stat and my expertise with lightsaber. So, talents like shien technique, niman technique,... seems to be a disadvantage instead of an advantage

- Start the Shien Expert specialization to get: side step, all ranks in reflect, improved reflect and supreme reflect.

- Take an additional specialization that could be Niman disciple that have defensive talents and force rating.

What do you think?

Thanks!

Just real quick, but what's your motivation behind being 'untouchable'? Because wounds in this system represent something a little different than others.

In all cases, what you're talking about is a massive XP spend. If you keep grabbing spec after spec, especially from other careers, you won't have an XP to spend on powers. Using Parry and Reflect continuously is a constant drain on your strain, so you'll need that high. Furthermore, only one of the lightsaber specs, Shii-Cho Knight, rely on Brawn -- all the others allow you to utilize another characteristic; Brawn 3 and padded armor will grant a pretty decent soak for most things.

Being able to avoid any and all damage is not something a PC is going to be able to achieve without spending a lot of XP, as Blackbird888 alluded to. "Quickest" method (using that term loosely) is to start in Soresu Defender, which has a great talent (Defensive Circle) that adds setback dice to combat checks that target you as well as multiple ranks in Parry and Reflect with the Improved versions of each. After that, buy into Niman Disciple for more Parry and Reflect, as well as Grit talents to help your strain threshold, which is going to be heavily taxed by frequently using Parry and Reflect.

And even then, you're still going to take damage from the far more powerful weapons, especially if they've got a solid attack roll behind them. A minion group of stormtroopers with blaster rifles (base 9 damage) is going have a decent chance of exceeding the Jedi's soak value even after Reflect is accounted for.

When I said untouchable I wanted to mean a character with enough soak and reflect ranks to don´t suffer wounds against blaster attacks. I know that I will need to pay strain points (easy to recover after combat) to do it, but with "supreme reflect" talent (Shien Expert) I only have to pay 1 point per shoot.

Problems of each specialization:

- Soresu: expensive reflect talents, no supreme reflect talent, no force rating talent, soresu technique (If a need spend xp in brawn to increase soak, I prefer use brawn instead of intellect, so I think this talent is useless).

- Shien: expensive parry talents, shien technique (the same), counter strike and disruptive strike (both use cunning), no force rating.

- Niman: no supreme reflect talent, no improved reflect talent, niman technique (more useful than the soresu and shien because some force powers use willpower/discipline)

I can´t decide, there is not a complete jedi specialization...

Soak example: 3 (brawn) + 2 (armor) + 8 (6 reflect ranks) = 13. Isn´t enough to stop a stormtrooper group?

Well, think of it as a group of stormtroopers all standing in a loose cluster directing fire at you; not shoulder to shoulder, but not spread out over medium range. You don't see many Jedi stand against that, but they generally will take cover and try to stay out of the line of fire, or back up into a group to help cover each other.

And, too, wounds is more like strain than it is like HP. Critical injuries is more like an actual injury a character would take, in narrative. Anakin or Luke getting disarmed is a critical injury, or Obi-Wan getting his shoulder nicked, or Leia getting shot. Other things you see in a fight -- getting kicked, or pushed down, or getting something thrown at you as a distraction -- represent wounds.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/108101-ffg-developer-answered-questions/?p=1807571

When I said untouchable I wanted to mean a character with enough soak and reflect ranks to don´t suffer wounds against blaster attacks. I know that I will need to pay strain points (easy to recover after combat) to do it, but with "supreme reflect" talent (Shien Expert) I only have to pay 1 point per shoot.

Problems of each specialization:

- Soresu: expensive reflect talents, no supreme reflect talent, no force rating talent, soresu technique (If a need spend xp in brawn to increase soak, I prefer use brawn instead of intellect, so I think this talent is useless).

- Shien: expensive parry talents, shien technique (the same), counter strike and disruptive strike (both use cunning), no force rating.

- Niman: no supreme reflect talent, no improved reflect talent, niman technique (more useful than the soresu and shien because some force powers use willpower/discipline)

I can´t decide, there is not a complete jedi specialization...

Soak example: 3 (brawn) + 2 (armor) + 8 (6 reflect ranks) = 13. Isn´t enough to stop a stormtrooper group?

If there were a "complete" jedi specialization, from the way you seem to be thinking of it (take one and done) wouldn't that make that specialization more powerful than all the others? And remember, these specializations are balanced not just against each other, but against the specs from AoR and EotE (at least that's what I have been led to believe).

When I said untouchable I wanted to mean a character with enough soak and reflect ranks to don´t suffer wounds against blaster attacks. I know that I will need to pay strain points (easy to recover after combat) to do it, but with "supreme reflect" talent (Shien Expert) I only have to pay 1 point per shoot.

Problems of each specialization:

- Soresu: expensive reflect talents, no supreme reflect talent, no force rating talent, soresu technique (If a need spend xp in brawn to increase soak, I prefer use brawn instead of intellect, so I think this talent is useless).

- Shien: expensive parry talents, shien technique (the same), counter strike and disruptive strike (both use cunning), no force rating.

- Niman: no supreme reflect talent, no improved reflect talent, niman technique (more useful than the soresu and shien because some force powers use willpower/discipline)

I can´t decide, there is not a complete jedi specialization...

Soak example: 3 (brawn) + 2 (armor) + 8 (6 reflect ranks) = 13. Isn´t enough to stop a stormtrooper group?

What you see as a "not a complete jedi specialization" is a disconnection between your assumptions and the game's assumptions, when you think of what a jedi is capable of you assume jedi in the prequel trilogy but the game assumes the jedi in the original trilogy.

I believe that the "Knight" level is really a padawan level (as we see Ashoka Tano in TCW) and you need a lot more xp to be able to replicate the things we saw jedi knights doing in movies like revenge of the sith or TCW cartoon as opposed to the jedi "knight" we see in the original trilogy (return of the jedi), there we see Luke using the force with any degree of competence and frequency and that's it, his lightsaber skills aren't anything to write home about and he still uses a lot of his piloting skills.

I believe that the "Knight" level is really a padawan level (as we see Ashoka Tano in TCW) and you need a lot more xp to be able to replicate the things we saw jedi knights doing in movies like revenge of the sith or TCW cartoon as opposed to the jedi "knight" we see in the original trilogy (return of the jedi), there we see Luke using the force with any degree of competence and frequency and that's it, his lightsaber skills aren't anything to write home about and he still uses a lot of his piloting skills.

Totally agree. If you want to become a badass Jedi at the level of prequel era Jedi Knights (mastered at least one lightsaber style, maybe more, got a basic spread of powers and the ability to use them) you're looking at mastering about half a dozen skill trees at least. The so called "Knight Level" play is the bare minimum you need to be even slightly competent (you need at least Force Rating 2 to have more than a 50% chance of pulling off even the most basic force powers). It is effectively the starting level of FaD games, but non-Knight Level play is left in to let players start games in balance with EotE and AoR characters.

Basically if you want to be an actual Jedi Kngiht you need tonnes and tonnes of XP, one specialization alone isn't going to cut it.

I agree with you lot, that you need alot of xp to build a jedi at the prequel level... And have not a problem with it. I enjoy when my character journey is long, fun and challenging. Good advices here.

Personally, for my character I will start with Shien, add armorer (for flavor, when spec is available) and from there I will build up. Take Soresu or Niman down the road to hone my parry and reflect and later a little bit of Shii-Cho Knight and Makashi to refine dueling skills.