This is kind of a loaded/rhetorical question, but my group -- who have now played 3 sessions, and we're starting a new one -- is struggling to balance their role choices with what they anticipate will be the scenarios they will face.

I have been very open with them in saying they can all choose Assassins if they wanted and I would still GM the group with a smile. But they're experienced gamers (well, 4 of 5 of them are), and want some general input on what they think will be the best balance without being too prescriptive.

There are 4 PCs in this group (5 players in our circuit, but typically only 4 at a session at any one time).

To the end of letting them feel they're filling solid "gaps", I am going to recommend they consider four broad "areas". Based on my own (admittedly limited experience), it seems to me that the critical pieces are:

-- A Talker

-- A Fighter

-- A Healer

-- A Techie

I don't think my group will have any trouble settling on how to hurt others, so the Fighter piece is easy to solve.

The Talker bit offers a similarly fun selection. Trader-talker, Diplomat-talker, Scoundrel-talker, etc. I think they'll see the logic in the role.

Techie's a bit trickier. Based on my play so far, there's solid choice here, but the gravity around Outlaw Tech and Slicer seems pretty strong. Am I missing something? I know Gadgeteer would be fun if the party was only 2 people and they needed to fill a Fighter/Techie role, but in a group of 4, is there any reason a party would want to go with Gadgeteer over Outlaw Tech? (Thinking purely in terms of specialization -- not player choice.)

So I would think this division still leaves room for some good options...with the possible exception of the Healer bit. So is there any way a balanced group should NOT take a Doctor? They seem almost too good to overlook. No other specialization seems to offer what they do, in terms of more-than-skin-deep medicine options.

Am I thinking about this wrong?

Anyways, input would be appreciated.

I always advice people to go with the character they want to play, but sometimes groups want to make sure all the bases are covered. To be honest I think your list is lacking a sneaky person, but that is a matter of taste.

As for the doctor, yes, having one is very useful. But having someone with decent Intellect and a rank or two in Medicine or a medicine droid NPC and buying a bag full of stims is fine too. I would certainly not say a "healer" is essential in this game, unlike, say DnD.

While not a wrong way to play if that is your group's choice, it's not the only way. One character can cover multiple roles easy, and EotE careers options can be pretty rounded.

For my quintessential Star Wars experience, a ship is at least required (although I don't enforce this as GM), so I would throw 'pilot' in as a necessity, but that depends on the game.

You need real Doctors once you start getting multiple critical wounds piled on you. There’s a variety of ways that can happen, but you only get one chance per in-game week to try to heal a crit, so if you’ve got multiple crits that can take a very long time.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily have to be a PC, but you’re going to need to find them somewhere. Stimpacks are fine for healing minor bruises and nicks that are represented by your Wound Threshold, but crits can end your party fast, if they’re not taken care of properly and quickly.

If you’re going to go with a ship-based game, then you’ll certainly need a pilot.

But you don’t have to do a ship-based game. You could just always take the shuttle, or hire people to take you somewhere, or maybe the pilot and navigator are both droids.

Ship combat can be complex and difficult to understand, and depending on the party mix and the type of ship they have, ship combat can leave many or most of the players sitting on their hands and twiddling their thumbs while the pilot does all the real work.

So, if you’re going to do a ship-based game, you want to do a good deal of reading, be careful what kind of ships you’re using, and make sure that most or all of the PCs have something to do while in ship combat.

Thanks guys. I guess I have been taking the ship angle for granted, given that my party hasn't engaged in that element yet (they've only played sessions on one planet). But in the longer term, yes, I can see the need.

I guess having a sneaky person is important too -- they'll certainly find that appealing.

Assuming they pass on the Doctor role, what have people found to be the specializations with the most inherent skills/talents synergy with healing/medicine? Some Scholar Talents seem like they could apply well, and the same could be said for Traders.

Personally I'm a fan of "cross-core" career usage, so if you're not averse to some AoR careers, the Soldier:Medic does a pretty good job.

The Engineer:Mechanic is also useful for combat, since Ranged(Light) and Brawl are career skills.

Just give them Obligation like any other EotE character and it's seamless.

IMHO if every characteristic is covered by at least a 3 then you have a balanced party. It's only Agility you probably need 2 players with a 3, for shooting/piloting.

It's the way a PC combines their primary characteristics and skills that give this game such PC diversity. A fast talking mechanic? Presence or Cunning with Intelect. A sneaky underworlder? Cunning and Willpower. A tough fighter? Brawn and Agility.

For me, talents are just spice to what the character wants to shine and be cool. Every role takes its important skills and characteristics, and then finds its flavor through careers/specializations.

I really like how the Spec system works in EotE. If you have access to all the career books released so far, each career has at least 1 "talker/face" spec and 1 "combat" spec. Yes, even Hired Gun has a talker spec - Enforcer. Better yet though, with the skills system being what it is, you just need to have ranks in a skill to fulfill the main functions of a "standard" RPG party role. Nothing is preventing the Face from taking ranks in Mechanics, the Fighter taking Medicine or a knowledgeable Tech.

As for the need for a doctor character, only if that is what someone wants to play. An intelligent character with a few ranks of Medicine fits that role fairly easily or better yet, just buy a 2-1B, GH-7 or FX droid. In the group I have been GMing, the Explorer Archaeologist has Int 3, 2 ranks of Medicine, a Medpac and does the job of team healer fairly well.

An intelligent character with a few ranks of Medicine fits that role fairly easily or better yet, just buy a 2-1B, GH-7 or FX droid. In the group I have been GMing, the Explorer Archaeologist has Int 3, 2 ranks of Medicine, a Medpac and does the job of team healer fairly well.

And Combat Medic is basically the role I was in the process of filling out with my Wookiee Marauder, at the time that campaign was put on indefinite hold.

With the FFG SWRPG Attribute and Skills system, anyone can at least try to do any skill in the book. You may not be very good at it, but you can at least try.

Even if that skill is outside your Career and/or Spec, if you’ve got a good underlying Attribute in that area, you can serve as a reasonably good amateur in that respect, without any specialist skills.

And if you don’t have much in the way of Attributes there, but you want to be able to perform that role as a backup, you can pretty much always buy a few ranks in the appropriate skill, and at least be reasonably decent.

This is one of the things I like best about this game.

Star Wars is a team game and though I try to build the character I want to play, I do build them so they'll contribute to the team and not step on anyone's toes. (If that's meta then so be it. )

With that in mind, I think less about essential specialisations and more about essential skills . Stuff that almost every group in almost every RPG has to roll at some point.

Noticing trouble - Perception, Vigilance

Avoiding trouble once you've found it - Stealth

Talking your way out of trouble once it's found you - Deception, Charm

Running away when that doesn't work - Athletics, Coordination

Getting out of the secure location where trouble is occurring - Skulduggery, Computers, Mechanic

Getting the first shot in when that isn't possible (or only shot, if you're Han) - Cool, Vigilance

Getting back on your feets when that didn't work so well - Medicine (or Mechanic, for the synthetics among us) , Resilience

(This last one I find less vital in FFG's Star Wars games. Most of the time things are either moving so quickly that we don't have time to stop and patch each other up or, between adventures, the GM tells us we've had time to heal up - it's adventure fiction after all, so the nitty gritty doesn't matter so much.)

If a group has most of these covered there aren't many situations they can't get themselves out of. I say "most" because lacking some of them can force some interesting improvisation (so perhaps a completely balanced party isn't always preferred).

I think having a Doctor is also dependent on your party composition. In my group we quickly decided we needed a specialized medic because only one of us is particularly good at combat, meaning we can't end fights decisively, and hardly any of us have decent soak values. After our first real combat we realized that we were either going to need to dump a lot of credits into stimpacks or have someone cross-specialize (thus my astromech droid, who is the only member with high Intellect, has been taking a crash course in "organic repairs"). If our characters were all a bit better on combat, we could probably get by with stimpacks and a couple ranks in Medicine. And in a different sort of campaign, there might not be enough combat in general to justify a dedicated medic.

This human has a bad motivator!

This human has a bad motivator!

What about that blue one? The Chiss. We'll take that one.

There are 4 PCs in this group (5 players in our circuit, but typically only 4 at a session at any one time).

Four character archetypes? The answer is obvious:

(Subtitle: Face, Hannibal, Murdock and BA Baracus from The A-Team )

Thread over. A-Team > any other explanation.

Thanks for coming out, everyone.

Although I'm inclined to let it stand at the A-Team, my recommendation is:

1) Let the players do what they want BUT

2) Make sure they don't overlap too much (everyone should get a moment to shine) AND

3) Fill in any perceived gaps with NPCs or even gear

We did a 10-year Star Wars game using various d20 editions. The players were:

1) Gunslinger: A+ in ranged combat; also, a decent pilot

2) Jedi: A+ in melee, also, the Force (of course!)

3) A Zabrak pitfighter: B+ in all manner of combat, also good at stealth

4) Bothan crimelord in training: the "face" character, but also solid with a pistol (the fourth character actually rotated multiple times, with different players, but was typically a talker)

None of the players had an interest in focusing on "boring" things like mechanics or healing, so I rounded out the ship's crew with a number of (generally non-combatant) NPCs.

We just started a new campaign - EotE rules set, but the Firefly 'Verse as a setting - and, surprise surprise, after almost 15 years straight of d20 (my Star Wars campaign rotating with two different 5E games), the PCs look VERY different (same player order as above, except for #4, who is a different player):

1) A mysterious slicer with a wide range of knowledge

2) The ship's owner, who is sort of a jack of all trades (not QUITE a face character, good with a gun but not amazing)

3) A cowardly, hayseed mechanic

4) A pilot who is also decent with a gun but prefers fisticuffs

One of the challenges early on as that two players (1 and 3) both wanted to play non-combatant techies., so I had to make sure to steer them in very different directions to make sure they could both have areas to excel in. We're only a few sessions in, but it seems to be working out.

Obviously, the type of characters the PCs want to play in each campaign had influence on tone. Although I had originally envisioned the Firefly campaign as potentially rough-and-tumble and combat-driven, it's become more of a "run away!" game where, when combat occurs, it's deadly. (In three sessions, the only real firefight lead to two of the players being seriously wounded and their NPC ally taken out of combat early). That's okay, though, and we've already discussed a bit that this group may be less the crew of Serenity and more the crew from Leverage.

This human has a bad motivator!

What about that blue one? The Chiss. We'll take that one.

We started our Edge of the Empire game before the Chiss were an option. When their book did come out our pilot really wanted to be one but had also developed his character quite a bit. We often joked about risking him or letting him die or that we'd straight up trade him for a Chiss if he screwed up again.

The first question to ask is what is this parties occupation? Smugglers? A travelling con party? Hiest masters? Bounty hunters? One thing you should always talk about before starting a campaign is the occupation that these guys typically occupy. Not every group has to do the same tired DnD formula and be able to be experts at everything between them. This system makes it fine to be fairly specialised yet retain a degree of broad focus.

To date we haven't needed a doctor in our party; that unfortunate job was left to the party FS/Mechanic and a soldier who once picked up some trips in the field; after a bit of time we got a bacta tank for the less "urgent" cases. XD

I agree on the healer thing. You can go a long way with stimpacks and a few dots in Medicine and/or high Int, unless your job is to get shot at a lot. Or filleted. Or stomped. Or exploded.