It's a mixed bag. I'm obviously heavy on brawn, but I'm more interested in having a 4 in will than a 7 in brawn, and I'll probably bump my agility a little at some point too. One of the other players has built his character almost entirely around having a 7 intellect and using intellect to do basically everything, another one of the players has either a 6 or 7 agility, and then our remaining two players are more well-rounded with a variety of 3s and 4s. This is our first campaign with this system, so we're all still learning the system, but to be honest we actually started off as a well-rounded group and the system pushed several of us toward more min-maxing. My starting stats were the same as they are now, only my brawn was 4. The 7 intellect player started with a more well-rounded character, but after getting a few sessions under his belt asked the GM to let him rebuild. And the agility player built this character after her first more well-rounded character died. We were all just failing at everything way too often when we were relying on 3s and 4s. Of the two remaining well-rounded characters, one of them still fairly reliably botches things he's built to do, and the other is a new player who has only played two sessions so far, so we'll see how she feels after a few more.

I wasn't thinking you were going to Brawn 7 as 6 is the cap. I mean, with a group of built they way you guys did, I can see why the GM spends a lot of his threat on causing you strain.

Sounds like the GM is playing a little different to how most groups play, but is providing a significant challenge. if its fun then just do what feels right for you and what sounds fun.

It definitely sounds like you should be getting Supreme Parry, use Move to bring cover to you rather than attacking, or moving other PC's out of harms way, instead of attacking.

Guarded Stance is probably a maneuver you should be using a lot of too, adding as many Setback to you opponents attacks to trigger Improved Parry will reduce the need to directly attack. it has no strain cost either which is a great option when facing weaker opponents.

Also the Heal Force Power is a great option for you. Its an Action to use it, and one of the Control upgrades allows you to recover strain equal to wounds recovered, with the 2 strength upgrades that stacks up quickly. and the strength upgrade can be triggered more than once

Dantari Crystal. Not as sexy as a Krayt Dragon Pearl, but oh so good for getting strain back round by round. With supreme reflect or parry you can go all day.

Yeah, nobody had higher than a 5 from starting xp (probably no higher than a 4, honestly), but again this game is set during Knights of the Old Republic, so we're using knight-level play, and each had 150 bonus xp at character creation. As a result, some people managed to get 1 or more ranks in dedication before we ever actually played. We're kind of a freaks and geeks jedi squad, mostly recruited out of slavery or otherwise unsavory circumstances by our unconventional gamorrean jedi master. My character is a gank, and I got some of the other party members into cybernetics, which explains the 7s. I'm pretty confident we understand the rules governing starting and maximum characteristics and have been following them.

Most things we attempt seem to have difficulties between 2 and 4, with occasional harder tasks. In combat, on the other hand, it's not uncommon for nemeses to be in the ballpark of one or two red dice, two purple, and three black. 3s and 4s fail pretty routinely against 3 or 4 difficulty, and you can imagine how hard it was for us to hit anyone during a hard fight. It took some of us from wide-eyed well-rounders to shameless min-maxers very quickly.

Whats the GM doing to make combat a Daunting difficulty with 2 upgrades? Thats just beastly! I guess 1 increase is for your 2 weapon combat, is he throwing Sense on the NPC's with 2 ranks of adversary too? Most GM's just rely on Adversary and Defence for protecting the BBEG's, that frees up the NPC's resources for offensive and interesting actions.

I'm pretty sure it's just adversary and defense. I'm not two-weapon fighting.

Ok, I play a Guardian currently and try to give you some thoughts.

-First of all, I don't know how do you make use of a Dantari crystal. The Dantari strain recovery combo is based on you rolling Force Dice as part of a combat check, and I can't find a way you're rolling that with the Protector + Guardian trees. I suggest you use a different saber. I use a Lorrdian one, which adds 2 setback to all incoming attacks for free (his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see).

-The Guardian makes use of a pair of talents who profit a lot from you having a high INT, and they're key for protecting your buddies.

-Strategically knowing what to absorb and what not is key, since your resources are limited and in this game offense>>>defense. So a tank here is not about lasting for long, but lasting for time enough for the threat to be eliminated.

-You fight as a group, so try to use your friend's abilities to help you at your task. Try to suggest them ways of helping you: the party doctor can cure you once per combat, and advantages on his Medicine roll cure you strain, for example. If the party face is an ambassador, he can use a talent (whose name I can't recall now) to cure strain, also.

-If you're set on dealing damage, Supreme Parry/Reflect might not seem as useful, but they are, because you aren't probably attacking every single turn. The turn you can't attack, for whatever reason, you're parrying/reflecting thrice the number of attacks for the same price.

-Pick as much Reflect/Parry ranks as you can. Once you're paying 3 strain to reduce damage, make it count. 3 strain to reduce 3 or 4 damage = meh, 3 strain to reduce 8 or 9 damage = awesome, added to your already high soak. Imagine if you reduce 9 damage for only 1 strain, plus your 10 soak that would be 19 shrugged off damage for only 1 strain... now we're talking, auto-fire guy!

-Try to combine Supreme Parry/Reflect with things that let you advance the fight, even if it is not attacking. Strategic Defense, buffing/unbuffing with talents or force powers, etc. (It will be awesome also if you need to spend actions to commit dice at the beginning of the fight). The Heal power let's you cure yourself and recover a same number of strain, for example. Don't be afraid to take a non-sensitive tree if you feel there's a talent which goes with your combo. Have a look at the new Guardian trees from Keeping the Peace.

-Sometimes, preventing the attack is the best way of protecting. I was lucky enough to find a Dragite crystal, so I keep a secondary saber with it, but there are some other weapons with the Concussive quality. You are a Guardian, you can afford to sink some xp on Melee or Brawl.

This is a typical first turn of combat in our group (I am Artisan/Soresu/Shien currently, so I can parry/reflect for 8 damage and can present a soak of about 6 and about 4 defence normally):

-The guy with Foresee grant us Initiative bonuses and +2 defence for the first turn.

-Buffers do their buffs (currently we have no buffers since our Tactician quit).

-Damage dealers do their stuff (Sharpshooter, Gunslinger, Ataru).

-I call a Strategic Defense (those of you familiar with MMOs might know it as Taunt ), targeting enemies that haven't yet acted and are seen as big threats (no 1-member-group of minions, for example). I probably use Side Step or Defensive Stance, as needed. This way, when the bulk of enemies act (the ones remaining after our initial volleys), they'll be forced to face a guy with 3 or four upgrades plus 6 setback dice to be hit, plus 6 ranks in Parry/Reflect which he can use for 1 strain each time and able to use their Improved versions.

Even so, I can only target a few number of enemies with Strategic Defense, so I'll need to position myself so as to attract some fire and, most importantly, my teammates and I need to assume they're going to be attacked. My job isn't taking all damage, is taking damage enough so next turn they can all do their things again. By that time, I can usually afford to attack some weak enemies (the weakest the better, to roll more advantages) and recover (and at the same time sparing the heavy hitters from spending actions on taking them down).

I hope my thoughts have been useful to you, sorry if I overextended a bit.

Is he making combat an opposed roll then? melee combat is standard an Average (PP) check. Adversary upgrades that, so Adversary 3 would be RRP, Adversary 5 is RRRP. Defence is adding the Setback obviously. You did say your facing some tough opponents i guess.

Thanks! That's definitely helpful. Unfortunately, it's too late for me to go the intellect route. Defensive circle and strategic form both seem great, but they're not really an option for me. I do already have access to a concussive weapon, my repulsor fist (also the source of one of my ranks in defensive stance). And as for the dantari crystal, I have significant investment in move, so I recover strain with my crystal by tossing people or objects at each other. I have a lorrdian crystal in the lightsabre I wear on my belt to honour my fallen party member, Wooj, but it wouldn't stack with my cortosis shield.

Is he making combat an opposed roll then? melee combat is standard an Average (PP) check. Adversary upgrades that, so Adversary 3 would be RRP, Adversary 5 is RRRP. Defence is adding the Setback obviously. You did say your facing some tough opponents i guess.

I'm not sure of the details of the NPCs. I trust him to be following the rules, because I know how thorough he is as a gamer. You may be right that it was more like RRP. I can't think of a way it would have been RPP or RRPP unless the NPC had some talent through a specialization I don't know about that allows for difficulty increases. The dice pools also frequently include extra black dice because I'm really accomplished at failing fear checks.

And yeah, I'm talking about the really hard NPCs. We ended up running away from a particular pair of sith twice, after all nearly dying both times. It wasn't until our third run-in with them that we were finally able to best them (last game). I'm pretty sure our party diplomat just succumbed to the dark side as a result of conflict earned in combat with these two. One of them's a talker...

And yeah, I'm talking about the really hard NPCs. We ended up running away from a particular pair of sith twice, after all nearly dying both times. It wasn't until our third run-in with them that we were finally able to best them (last game). I'm pretty sure our party diplomat just succumbed to the dark side as a result of conflict earned in combat with these two. One of them's a talker...

If they (as a pair) were Nemesis opponents this sound pretty darn appropriate really. Even if they are individually two rivals that seems pretty cool to me. I mean, now you have a story about these two powerful Sith that you had to really work to overcome. Had to live to fight another day and improve yourselves before you could finally deal with the threat they posed and you've become a better (or at least stronger) Jedi for it.