So I've been tossing around this character idea for a while. Not the most creative of concepts I'll have to admit, but I think he can be loads of fun.

I want to play a Film Noir character.

And just by saying that you know him.

He's that guy; smooth talking, smoking, drinking. A common man and an entirely uncommon man. He feels like a person everyone knows, yet there is no one like this guy. He's Rick Deckard, rough and mysterious. He has this mellow gallows humour about him that's both funny and melancholic. He's Max Payne, tortured and disillusioned. He's Sin City's Marv, hell, he is the epitome of Sin City itself. Roaming the slick, littered streets of the rainy night with a very clear goal in mind yet nowhere to go. The existential crisis from your local driveway. You can practically hear the smooth, dark jazz in the background when this sucker speaks. Everyone knows this man.

A detective that can talk his way in and out of every situation. And if not pack the appropriate punch to deal with the stubborn and the deaf. Maybe more than partial to the once in a lifetime femme fatal to fall prey to. Has a sense of character, otherwise he wouldn't be much worth in his job. Though he can be fooled. All while staying as cool as the cheap scotch on the rocks. The quintessential Anit-Hero. Not too morally conflicted, yet generally doing the right thing over all, or at least convincing himself that this is true. Exactly as cynical and impressively dark as the world that surrounds him. The letter from a Jedi on the bathroom wall, just glitter and doom.

But how to construct such a man? That is the question isn't it.

I can deal with the background, I know how to act like him.. But his numbers worry me.

I have only played a melee focussed character up to now, entirely unlike this guy. Up to now it was pretty much "does it help you to hit a person with something unpleasant? If so, go ahead". With this I want to go a little more subtle, more investigative. He should still be able to defend himself, after all the streets are dangerous after dark, but he is not necessarily a fighter by choice.

Are there careers that fit him? How would you juggle his stats? If (not entirely sure about this as of now) our group was to grant new characters the same XP as all the others have, we're looking at about 140 earned XP here + the basic start XP. Probably human, but I'm open to ideas.

Oh and as a sidenote, up to now we've only been using the EotE corebook and our setting does not contain any Jedi right now. We don't plan to incorporate these in the near future either.

If you guys had any ideas on how to make this a valuable build, I'd greatly appreciate it. Otherwise I'll just try to give it a shot myself but I'm a bit nervous about that. Anyway thanks for reading through all that bubbling.

Enforcer maybe, fighter but still talky. Marshall might work. Propagandist has Well Rounded for a combat skill or two and some figure stuff out/information Talents.

Stats I would spread out, if you're wanting to be smart, talky and fighty I would think you'll need to.

I once had a convincing argument for using an Enforcer as a tough guy Noir character. That spec has the Coercion, Knowledge (Underworld), and Streetwise skills to cover all of your basic detective needs. The post can be found here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/138776-how-to-best-build-a-film-noir-protagonist/?p=1505671

Enforcer alone doesn't give you all the talk-y skills that you're looking for. I'm a big fan of running with two specs and in that post I recommended Politico as the second for the skills and access to Scathing Tirade, which can combo nice with Intimidating and Feasome. However, since then Charmer has come out and seems to be a better fit for what you're looking for. You lose Deception as a career skill (nothing wrong with still buying it up anyway, or starting as the Charmer) but gain access to charm related talents to be able to talk his way into and out of any situation.

As for the numbers and which you start as, that depends on what you value more. If you want to be a tough guy with more combat skills, then start as the Enforcer for the skills (Athletics, Discipline, Melee, Piloting (Planetary), Ranged (Light), Resilience) and Unmatched Protection ability. If you want to use your words more then start Charmer of the skills (Coordination, Deception, Perception, Piloting (Space), Skullduggery) and go for the Unmatched Fortune ability.

As for stats, I'd buy up obligation for extra starting XP and make a human with a 3 in Brawn, Agility, Presence, and Willpower. Agility would be the first I'd choose to keep at 2, followed by Brawn, if I wanted to spend the XP on skills/talents instead. It all depends on how much you value being able to shoot or how hard you want to punch.

Beyond skills, I'd probably take a handful of Enforcer talents to justify the purchase early on, such as Intimidating, Fearsome, and Talk the Talk. Beyond that I'd work my way through the Charmer talents. Smooth Talker, Congenial, and the like sound like they are exactly what you are looking for. Once you get a lot of play time in and bought your way through the Charmer talents (and Unmatched Fortune ability if you started as Charmer) then I'd go back to Enforcer to round out the character's combat surviability. (It's not a bad idea to dip back into Enforcer as you're going up Charmer anyway, to get talents such as Toughened and Defensive Stance.) Walk the Walk also looks like the type of talent you'd like to be able to "pack the appropriate punch to deal with the stubborn and the deaf."

I hope this helps.

Sounds like fun! It does sound like primarily a social character. An all-in-one spec might be Marshall or even Gunslinger, but I'd probably go Diplomat:Agitator with the Recruit spec. A lot of those film noir characters did have a military background, so the Recruit spec represents pre-game time spent in the military. This would give him needed combat skills, plus some extras like Toughened, Grit, and Well-Travelled, which would play well with a savvy "been around the block" operator.

The primary skills for such a character would probably include: Streetwise, Perception, Knowledge(Underworld), Cool, Coercion, Deception, Skulduggery, maybe Negotiation.

The Agitator has a few ranks of Intimidating, plus the ever-useful Scathing Tirade, which kind of fits a wise-cracking detective. Plus you can easily branch into the other Diplomat trees, all of which are useful to a detective, even Quartermaster.

Sounds like Cunning (Perception/Deception/Streetwise), Willpower (Discipline/Coercion), and Presence (Cool/Negotiation) are his main stats. If he's human I'd go 3/3/3 on those, and spend the remaining char-gen XP on Recruit. Or make him a Weequay and he's already got a boost in Cunning...

If EotE is the main book you have been using I would go with Smuggler Scoundrel maybe look into moving into the Marshal spec in Fly Causal for some of those Good cop Bad Cop talents but the Scoundrel is going to give you most of what you need for fast talking with a little talent in gunplay to back it up.

Stats I would play with Cunning and Agility. Quick and Clever is the way I would roll with this character.

There is plenty of good advice in here already, thanks guys. Compelling arguments as well. I'm with you on the characteristics as there seems to be a general consensus up to now. Not entirely sure onto which tree to branch out though, I'll have to think about that. Up to now I own neither anything related to Enforcer, nor Marshal. I'll have to look into that since I can't really be sure how this will develop.

Human it is then. I'm quite satisfied with that as it would've been my impromptu choice as well. Though I always thought that it was kind of sad that there are so many races with inherent brawn or agility bonus, but seldom are any naturally partial to charme. Exept if one likes to be a furry cat thingi, which kind of weirds me out to be honest.

Oh and there will definitely be an obligation; addiction for example would fitt well as would.. a lot of them actually.

I have never used multiple classes up to now so I think that'll be the way to go, both for personal intrigue and effectivity.

SInce you're working with only the EotE core rulebook, I suggest starting with the Colonist-Politico. I'd start with a 3 in Presence, Cunning, and Agility for 90 of your starting xp and use a 10 xp obligation bump to get either Intellect or Willpower to a 3. This extra obligation could reflect the fact that he's an anti-hero, pissing people off, or something too. For starting skills, pick up Charm, Streetwise, Negotiation, and Knowledge (Education) - for general laws and knowledge about everything from the career skills. Grab a second rank in Charm for free and Coercion from the Politico specialization. Grab free rank in Ranged (Light) and a second non-career skill (Perception) free rank of your choice as a Human.

With the 140 xp, buy a second rank in Coercion, Streetwise. Now buy some talents from Politico like Plausible Deniability to get Scathing Tirade ... your bread an butter talent. Kill them with Kindness too. Toughened for 5 xp is a steal making your way down to Improved Scathing Tirade. You can grab Well rounded to add Ranged (Light) and Perception (if this is used for Investigation or to resist Deception checks, etc) as career skills grabbing a second rank in each as well.

Nobody's Fool will be when this character is hard to fool ... upgrading Charm, Coercion, and Deception checks against him. Very nice! The entire bottom row is money with Intense Presence, Natural Charmer, Dedication to get Presence to 4 and Steely Nerves.

Just a quick response and didn't get to add up all the XP for you. But, something along these lines. This guy will be Charming (good in social situations and taking them down wht Scathing Tirade tree), Blastery (hold his own in combat), and Investigatory (Perception and Knowledge (Education) to put pieces of evidence together). He could be a help to his allies as well by taking Inspiring Rhetoric and investing in Leadership to help them recover strain.

Nice concept for a character!

Z

SInce you're working with only the EotE core rulebook, I suggest starting with the Colonist-Politico. I'd start with a 3 in Presence, Cunning, and Agility for 90 of your starting xp and use a 10 xp obligation bump to get either Intellect or Willpower to a 3. This extra obligation could reflect the fact that he's an anti-hero, pissing people off, or something too. For starting skills, pick up Charm, Streetwise, Negotiation, and Knowledge (Education) - for general laws and knowledge about everything from the career skills. Grab a second rank in Charm for free and Coercion from the Politico specialization. Grab free rank in Ranged (Light) and a second non-career skill (Perception) free rank of your choice as a Human.

With the 140 xp, buy a second rank in Coercion, Streetwise. Now buy some talents from Politico like Plausible Deniability to get Scathing Tirade ... your bread an butter talent. Kill them with Kindness too. Toughened for 5 xp is a steal making your way down to Improved Scathing Tirade. You can grab Well rounded to add Ranged (Light) and Perception (if this is used for Investigation or to resist Deception checks, etc) as career skills grabbing a second rank in each as well.

Nobody's Fool will be when this character is hard to fool ... upgrading Charm, Coercion, and Deception checks against him. Very nice! The entire bottom row is money with Intense Presence, Natural Charmer, Dedication to get Presence to 4 and Steely Nerves.

Just a quick response and didn't get to add up all the XP for you. But, something along these lines. This guy will be Charming (good in social situations and taking them down wht Scathing Tirade tree), Blastery (hold his own in combat), and Investigatory (Perception and Knowledge (Education) to put pieces of evidence together). He could be a help to his allies as well by taking Inspiring Rhetoric and investing in Leadership to help them recover strain.

Nice concept for a character!

Z

Pretty neat suggestion for the core book rules. I've tried to rebuild it within the Oggdude character generator and got caught up on some weird technical difficulties, but over all I really like it. It's a bit uncomfortable though; up to now I always had those wonderful yellow and green blocks, yet social skills seem to often rely on black setback dice. Yeah I know how it works, its just so unusual to me. I really like the build though.

For some species ideas:

Gran who has become comfortable in society, 3 Agility, Cunning and Presence, the rest 2

Ithorian because of bellows, but don't know about the story reason. 3 Willpower, Cunning and Brawn, 1 Agility, 2 Int and Pres.

Zabrak if you want a Charmer who also is a very cold Coercion monster. 3 a Presence, Willpower and Cunning, the rest 2

Selonian because she's a cool cat 3 Agility, willpower and either Cunning or Presence depending on your social choice and story, 2 in everything else.