Ok maths time.

Human.

Standard starting XP, +10 because.

All 2's option:

We get 8 ranks in skills for free, and none can be above a PP roll. Let's assume we are lucky and 2 of them can be made PP for free, that makes 2 PP skills, 4 AP skills, and 27-28 skills at AA.

But we have 120xp for talents and skills. The cheapest Dedication is 75, including 4 cool talents along the way. So there that goes since a flush of 2's is unremarkable. Leaving 45 for some more skill ranks and other talents. That dedication can at best raise 11 skills to a 3 dice pool (Intelect in AoR), worst case scenario is Brawn with 4 Skills (and a WT and Soak).

Now let's somehow go best case scenario, 35xp to raise 2 skills from 1 to 2, 1 skill from 0 to 2 and 10xp left for fun. With a knowledge focused junky we have these skills 5 APP, 6 AAA, 2 AP(human out of career skills) and 21 AA...

That to me is a little underwhelming and very limited even if those 4 talents we got are cool.

Let's now analyse the 2,3,4,2,2,2 build.

Using the same hypothetical career, we spend 100xp on our characteristics, leaving us with 20xp and:

2 AAPP skills, 2 AAAP skills, 7 AAAA, possibly 4 AAP, 3 AAA, and 16 at AA. Then 20xp for talents gives us 2 tier 1 and a tier 2.

The difference gets even more extreme if you introduce other species, where 4,3,3,2,2,1 is doable. So I just don't get the idea that XP on Skills is better than XP on Characteristics.

Mainly what you say Richard is that investing in a Characteristic is "cheaper" because it affects more skills rather than putting it into the skills directly.

I dig that and i am on your side here.

Edit: Maybe i should just open new threads about this as the latest posts here are more about Characteristics and less about Discipline and Force?

2 questions:

1) What are your guys thought about raising a characteristic to 5 at character creation?

2) I am entertaining myself with the thought of creating a Dathomiri Witch based around the Heal/Harm power. She should be very much like your thoughts of a witch in the swamps where she uses guile and looks to sway you in but her main focus is Healing/Harming through the force ("nothing is free, one takes life to give life"). So far the best combo i found was a Pathfinder/Hermit for increasing the force rating and the survival aspect of leaving in a swamp, but i am not sure how to maximize or at what point is it enough to invest in the Heal/Harm force. Meaning, what combo of, INT, Medicine, Force Rating, Heal/Harm upgrades is best? (for a starter character it seems not enough XP so lets assume knight level?)

1. Typically creates game balance issues when a party does that....

2. Heal is expensive you will want to start with a 4 int at least 1 medicine and buy up ranks later

Your big expense is going to be heal which is a long term xp sink.

All 2's option:

We get 8 ranks in skills for free, and none can be above a PP roll. Let's assume we are lucky and 2 of them can be made PP for free, that makes 2 PP skills, 4 AP skills, and 27-28 skills at AA.

I have a little question there. How do you get those 8 free rank? You have 2 from Human, 3 from the Career and 2 from the Specialization. Since I am very new to the system, I might likely have missed something in the rules.

2 questions:

1) What are your guys thought about raising a characteristic to 5 at character creation?

No matter what you're raising a Characteristic to w/ Dedication, it costs the same XP. Raise a 1 to a 2, costs the same via Dedication, as raising a 4 to a 5. So you're getting more from your invested XP by raising higher attributes w/ Dedication, and "saving" (spending) your chargen XP on diversification/low-mid characteristic raises.

Aristide, maybe he meant for a non Force user the initial skills are 8 and not 7.

emsquared, that's a good point about the diminishing returns... but the way the careers are made now you would really have to take a lot of "junk" on the way in order to get to that dedication talent (yeah, sorry, that's my thought, it's really hard for me to build characters in FFG SW without making concessions all the time because everything is so go **** expensive. Not only that but the trees sometimes actively block you and make it a pain to get to the talent you actually want which makes it a drag).

emsquared, that's a good point about the diminishing returns... but the way the careers are made now you would really have to take a lot of "junk" on the way in order to get to that dedication talent

But presently, you're saying as a rule you just don't go for Dedication Talents? What is your advancement strategy? If you jump around from Spec to Spec, cherry-picking Talents, you're losing dozens of XP just paying for the transition. So that doesn't really seem like a good plan, I'd rather get marginally useful Talents on my way to a huge dice-count bump (Dedication) than literally nothing.

Oh i didn't insinuate a plan or avoiding dedication, on my current shadow character i am working towards the dedication slot to increase his cunning to 4. I was merely saying that even to get there i need to make a lot of "tough choices" of spending my XP which sucks and it affects the concept of the character. It's like everything "good" is so expensive that by the time you will reach there, you are half the character concept you set out to be and the campaign is over (this really bugs me but maybe the trouble is with me).

All 2's option:

We get 8 ranks in skills for free, and none can be above a PP roll. Let's assume we are lucky and 2 of them can be made PP for free, that makes 2 PP skills, 4 AP skills, and 27-28 skills at AA.

I have a little question there. How do you get those 8 free rank? You have 2 from Human, 3 from the Career and 2 from the Specialization. Since I am very new to the system, I might likely have missed something in the rules.

Apologies, I should have focused on FaD due to this being that forum. This hypothetical character is an Age of Rebellion character, there is an additional Knowledge(Warfare) skill in AoR to help exaggerate the difference. In Edge & Age the careers also provide 2 additional career skills and PC's can choose 1 additional free rank at the start.

Building a Force User is slightly different, it's very tempting to get some way of using your Force Rating from the beginning. They are quite cheap so you can actually get one directly after the first session, but it's still tempting.

I should also be clear that plenty of people, including me some times, choose to only have 3's at the start, but usually 3 of them at least. Then their first dedication goes to a 4 in the primary. I got sick of this as I either GM or play in short games, so I want the bigger pool to start with.

Mentor + Farsight = 0 xp base power.

Isn't the Mentor a 5xp minimum thing? cool if its not!

On the topic of starting with a 5, yes its an option. Its ok in a hyper focused character, or in a Characteristic that can me used regularly in different encounters (Agility, Intellect, Cunning). but when you consider that those 50xp can get you 4 rows down in a talent tree its often better to stop at a Characteristic of 4 then spend 25-50 earned xp on getting a Dedication in the first few sessions.

So there is this happy middle ground of a couple of 3's, perhaps a 4, then a bit of xp on talents/skills/force powers.

Isn't the Mentor a 5xp minimum thing? cool if its not!

No minimum specified. When they wrote the CRB, all the basic powers cost at least 10 XP, so it's probably not something they thought about.

But it must have been considered when Farsight was created, so a free force power, that's cool.

But it must have been considered when Farsight was created, so a free force power, that's cool.

IIRC, Word of God says that it can't be made free. I believe this was on the Order 66 podcast; I haven't listened to it myself, but it comes up on occasion. (I sort of marathoned the entire forum when I first showed up, so I can't point you to any post in particular.)

But it must have been considered when Farsight was created, so a free force power, that's cool.

IIRC, Word of God says that it can't be made free. I believe this was on the Order 66 podcast; I haven't listened to it myself, but it comes up on occasion. (I sort of marathoned the entire forum when I first showed up, so I can't point you to any post in particular.)

Yep, Rules as Intended are that it's 5 xp, mentor discount or no. Now, that said, I might give a discount on one of the upgrades after they bought the power...