I am looking for some help with my Force & Destiny character please. My character is the descendant of a character I played an entire campaign as in Star Wars Saga Edition. That original character was a Jedi Master who made it to max lvl, lvl 20 in that game. Now in FFG Star Wars my new character is a descendant of that original character and is following the force in his father's footsteps as he uncovers the secrets of the force through things his father left behind and through the force spirit of his father.

I created this character as a Guardian - Protector. I just do not know exactly where to go in terms of how I want to build him so I am asking you all out there for advice and possibly even builds to help me achieve what I'm looking for. My goals for this character are as follows: I want him to be a great lightsaber combatant, to be very good at using force abilities (hopefully getting to a 3 Force Rating eventually...although not sure how to do that without taking Mystic - Seer....possibly could settle for Force Rating 2), and I would like to be able to pilot a ship effectively.

I do have the ability/permission to re-map the character into a different career and specialization if need be with the GM's permission given in advance. I can also re-map his ability scores too if needed. His ability scores are: BRAWN: 2 AGILITY 4 INTELLECT 2 CUNNING 2 WILLPOWER 3 PRESENCE 2. I originally spent a lot of pts at character creation to get Agility to 4 because I thought I could easily gain an ability to use Agility for melee attacks with a lightsaber but I found out later I would have to take Ataru Technique under the Seeker career to make that happen, but as I said, I can change my starting career and spec if need be.

So far my character has earned 22 xp.

So, Protector to Guardian is a very solid route to a good Lightsaber combatant, but you'll want a bit more intellect. If you want a great pilot, you almost certainly need Starfighter Ace. On skills alone, you could be a decent pilot, but to be a great one you'll want the talents. So my suggestion would be to start with Warrior/Starfighter Ace, and when you're ready to focus on Lightsaber combat, hop over to Ataru Striker. It's out of Career, but it works off Agility, which you'll need for Piloting.

Your difficulty is that you're focusing on multiple paths. Lightsaber, Piloting, and Force Powers mean you need high Agility, high Willpower, high Force Rating, and a lot of XP in your various powers. If you want to focus more on Force Powers, you might spend your Starfighter Ace Dedication on another point of Willpower, then take Niman Disciple. It doesn't have a lot of tricks, but it's a very solid spec, and contains another rank of Force Rating. You'll be agile and strong-willed. You'll be an excellent pilot, a competent lightsaber fighter (though not amazing), and have both the Will, Discipline, and Force Rating to sling Force Powers around.

It's an expensive route, but I think it would work pretty well for what you're doing.

My order of priority are:

1) Lightsaber combatant

2) Force Rating

3) Piloting utility

We have a primary pilot in the group who is flying our stock light freighter currently but I would like to be able to fly well when needed as well but this takes a second seat to my abilities with the force and with a lightsaber.

So, Protector to Guardian is a very solid route to a good Lightsaber combatant, but you'll want a bit more intellect. If you want a great pilot, you almost certainly need Starfighter Ace. On skills alone, you could be a decent pilot, but to be a great one you'll want the talents. So my suggestion would be to start with Warrior/Starfighter Ace, and when you're ready to focus on Lightsaber combat, hop over to Ataru Striker. It's out of Career, but it works off Agility, which you'll need for Piloting.

Your difficulty is that you're focusing on multiple paths. Lightsaber, Piloting, and Force Powers mean you need high Agility, high Willpower, high Force Rating, and a lot of XP in your various powers. If you want to focus more on Force Powers, you might spend your Starfighter Ace Dedication on another point of Willpower, then take Niman Disciple. It doesn't have a lot of tricks, but it's a very solid spec, and contains another rank of Force Rating. You'll be agile and strong-willed. You'll be an excellent pilot, a competent lightsaber fighter (though not amazing), and have both the Will, Discipline, and Force Rating to sling Force Powers around.

It's an expensive route, but I think it would work pretty well for what you're doing.

So how would you re-do my ability scores I listed above if I were to remain Guardian - Protector and then buy into Seeker - Ataru Striker? Should I possibly drop Willpower down 1 and increase Intelligence up by 1?

Never underestimate the value of a lot of 3's in various ability scores, rather than a single 4 and a 3.

By the time you finish the protector and starfighter ace talent trees, you'll have your 3 Force Rating.

Finally, take a look at the Niman Disciple tree for your lightsaber spec. They're not the best duelists, but you get plenty of parry and reflect in it, plus an extra Force Rating to boot.

So if I drop my 4 from Agility I could potentially have 3's in 3 stats, correct? Based on the ability scores I presented above in my first post that I currently have, of course. In that regard, how practical do you think it would be for me to start out as Guardian - Protector then take some of the saber stuff from Guardian - Soresu Defender and then later buy into a bit of Seeker - Ataru Striker? If I had Agility 3 and Intelligence 3 I could be pretty wicked eventually with a lightsaber after having bought through some of those 2 trees. Somehow along the way I would hope I could get to 3 or 4 Force Rating and if I ever get enough xp I could buy into a bit of Warrior - Starfighter Ace.

Do you all think I should sacrifice Ataru Striker or Soresu Defender and go for Niman Disciple instead?

If you take extra XP at chargen you could have 3s in four stats.

If you take extra XP at chargen you could have 3s in four stats.

I did take extra xp at character creation but I think I dumped it into the Force power Move and increasing the silhouette by 1.

So....the consensus is to change my ability scores I listed above from having a 4 rating and a 3 rating and all else 2's to having three or four 3's at character creation?

That might allow me just enough Agility and Intelligence to stay Guardian and move toward doing Soresu Defender and Ataru Striker. Is it kind of dumb pursuing 2 lightsaber styles? I could potentially do Soresu Defender as my saber style and then buy into Warrior - Starfighter Ace to be a good pilot.

So potentially endgame I'd be looking at specialization trees of Protector, Soresu Defender, Starfighter Ace.

So....the consensus is to change my ability scores I listed above from having a 4 rating and a 3 rating and all else 2's to having three or four 3's at character creation?

That might allow me just enough Agility and Intelligence to stay Guardian and move toward doing Soresu Defender and Ataru Striker. Is it kind of dumb pursuing 2 lightsaber styles? I could potentially do Soresu Defender as my saber style and then buy into Warrior - Starfighter Ace to be a good pilot.

So potentially endgame I'd be looking at specialization trees of Protector, Soresu Defender, Starfighter Ace.

If you have four 3s you won't have any xp for talents or force powers so you'll be a jack of all trades, but having only three 3s you'll save enough xp to get some talents and maybe 1 force power, being slightly less broadly competent but having some solid abilities will set you apart from the rest of your group.

Well having 2 saber trees makes you extremely specialized, and limits you to FR 1 as both Soresu defender and Ataru Striker don't have any FR talent. The Starfighter ace would be better in that regard. Also if you're planning on being an Ace you might prefer to go for Ataru Striker as you'll get more use for your Agility. But Obi-Wan was a Soresu master and no slouch as pilot, so everything is doable.

Remember that you will probably want some Force powers too and using them reliably requires more than FR1.

So....the consensus is to change my ability scores I listed above from having a 4 rating and a 3 rating and all else 2's to having three or four 3's at character creation?

That might allow me just enough Agility and Intelligence to stay Guardian and move toward doing Soresu Defender and Ataru Striker. Is it kind of dumb pursuing 2 lightsaber styles? I could potentially do Soresu Defender as my saber style and then buy into Warrior - Starfighter Ace to be a good pilot.

So potentially endgame I'd be looking at specialization trees of Protector, Soresu Defender, Starfighter Ace.

If you have four 3s you won't have any xp for talents or force powers so you'll be a jack of all trades, but having only three 3s you'll save enough xp to get some talents and maybe 1 force power, being slightly less broadly competent but having some solid abilities will set you apart from the rest of your group.

Well having 2 saber trees makes you extremely specialized, and limits you to FR 1 as both Soresu defender and Ataru Striker don't have any FR talent. The Starfighter ace would be better in that regard. Also if you're planning on being an Ace you might prefer to go for Ataru Striker as you'll get more use for your Agility. But Obi-Wan was a Soresu master and no slouch as pilot, so everything is doable.

Remember that you will probably want some Force powers too and using them reliably requires more than FR1.

Well, we have gained 22 xp since character creation as well.

If your goals are in that order I would suggest:

Soresu Defender --> Sage --> Hotshot

Because Soresu means you can live forever in combat, with enough strain. Lo and behold, both Sage and Hotshot offer a LOAD of Grit talents.

My advice would be to use all initial EXP to get some attributes up, and then put skills into things you are going to use most. Odds are, you'll be in close combat more than starfighter combat, so you can push Hotshot out to third place, as you wanted.

Sage is awesome for using the Force in fun ways. Plus it syncs so **** well with Guardian's Soresu requiring Intellect. Valuable facts, for instance, is just silly good.

If you want to get more in depth, let me know man, I GM and am playing a Guardian right now in a mate's game, so have a lot of experience.

So you would prefer Sage to go with Soresu Defender since I am also trying to maximize some of my force abilities? That might work well because we also have a Mystic - Seer in the party too.

If you're looking for best bang for buck, yeah. It's pretty tough to make a really good all rounder in FaD without dumping heaps of exp in (my character has 550 already and is nowhere near done) so to get the Force Ratings, the defensive abilities and eventually pilot talents, it's the fastest route.

But remember, characteristics always beat skills always beat talents.

You can get 5 Boost Die on a roll, but it may only be adding to 2 Green. You still won't get a Triumph without that Yellow.

You could always go Armorer and start with a 4 in strength and a 3 in either agility, intellect, or willpower.

You'll be pretty good with lightsabers and have good defenses.

That will give you 20 points left to take some skills or force powers or start on a 2nd tree.

Or you could take the starting 5k money.

if you took armorer and sage you could get Force rating 4 with only 2 trees.

If your primary role is Guardian why do you want to stack Agility? I understand that you want to be a good pilot as a secondary role but looking at your list of priorities there I think Agility is way off.

I would go with Brawn 4, Ag 3, Will 3 as your top 3 stats. Forget about cross classing so that you can stack Agility, its going to do you no good in your primary role.

My suggestion would be take the Warrior Career and Focus on Shi Cho Knight and take Starfighter Ace as your secondary. Take the specialisations first so that you can make use of the dedication talents to improve your Brawn for free.

Then take the Enhance Force Power which works very nicely for the concept.

Check out this sheet I made quickly as an example.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5uj5n4v816ai5ur/Guardian%20-%20Human%20Warrior.pdf?dl=0

If your primary role is Guardian why do you want to stack Agility? I understand that you want to be a good pilot as a secondary role but looking at your list of priorities there I think Agility is way off.

I would go with Brawn 4, Ag 3, Will 3 as your top 3 stats. Forget about cross classing so that you can stack Agility, its going to do you no good in your primary role.

My suggestion would be take the Warrior Career and Focus on Shi Cho Knight and take Starfighter Ace as your secondary. Take the specialisations first so that you can make use of the dedication talents to improve your Brawn for free.

Then take the Enhance Force Power which works very nicely for the concept.

Check out this sheet I made quickly as an example.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5uj5n4v816ai5ur/Guardian%20-%20Human%20Warrior.pdf?dl=0

Originally I did not know that Guardian's talents do not work off Agility. My thinking initially was to have a high Agility because I will be using blasters primarily until I can hopefully construct a lightsaber one day. Also, I was trying to be a good pilot and I have Gunnery so I can man weapons on our light freighter.

I like your suggestion for the most part but I'm afraid to do that proposal because we have another force sensitive in the group who is a Warrior and uses Enhance to make himself a melee monster, using essentially brace knuckles to ravage opponents. I'm afraid he would think I'm copying his concept. I could take to him about it in advance maybe.

There are a number of specialization trees which are extremely similar to others but brake off in slightly different ways so having two players with similar specialisations wouldn't be a problem.

Where as the other player would be using brass knuckles you would use a lightsaber. You also have the added distinction of the Starfighter Ace as the secondary tree. So your concept would be very different and shouldn't step on his toes.

Talk to your friend about it, show him the sheet I made and say thats what your working towards and see how he feels about it.

If your primary role is Guardian why do you want to stack Agility? I understand that you want to be a good pilot as a secondary role but looking at your list of priorities there I think Agility is way off.

I would go with Brawn 4, Ag 3, Will 3 as your top 3 stats. Forget about cross classing so that you can stack Agility, its going to do you no good in your primary role.

My suggestion would be take the Warrior Career and Focus on Shi Cho Knight and take Starfighter Ace as your secondary. Take the specialisations first so that you can make use of the dedication talents to improve your Brawn for free.

Then take the Enhance Force Power which works very nicely for the concept.

Check out this sheet I made quickly as an example.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5uj5n4v816ai5ur/Guardian%20-%20Human%20Warrior.pdf?dl=0

What about force powers? I really like your build but I'd love to get my Force Rating eventually to a 3 or maybe even a 4.

Have you considered maybe starting as a Sage and changing ability scores around?

What do you all think about this plan? I could start with the character being a Guardian and going through the Protector line, which includes a +1 force rating. I can also add talents from the Armorer line under Guardian to make myself a defensive beast, which also includes a +1 force rating. For my lightsaber style I will simply buy into Soresu Defender, which will increase my survivability. Then at some point in my career I will buy into Warrior - Starfighter Ace to get some nice piloting abilities and another +1 force rating.

What do you all think of this plan? This would require me to have good stats in Intellect and Agility.

Do you think this could be a good plan? What starting ability scores would you recommend at character creation for this if I use the option of extra xp to use on ability scores from Force & Destiny?

There are a number of specialization trees which are extremely similar to others but brake off in slightly different ways so having two players with similar specialisations wouldn't be a problem.

Where as the other player would be using brass knuckles you would use a lightsaber. You also have the added distinction of the Starfighter Ace as the secondary tree. So your concept would be very different and shouldn't step on his toes.

Talk to your friend about it, show him the sheet I made and say thats what your working towards and see how he feels about it.

Is there a way I can get the character creator file for that warrior build? You can email it to me at [email protected].

Also, when would you be available to discuss my upcoming Battlestar Galactica campaign? Do you have Skype? What is the best way for us to talk?

What do you all think about this plan? I could start with the character being a Guardian and going through the Protector line, which includes a +1 force rating. I can also add talents from the Armorer line under Guardian to make myself a defensive beast, which also includes a +1 force rating. For my lightsaber style I will simply buy into Soresu Defender, which will increase my survivability. Then at some point in my career I will buy into Warrior - Starfighter Ace to get some nice piloting abilities and another +1 force rating.

What do you all think of this plan? This would require me to have good stats in Intellect and Agility.

Do you think this could be a good plan? What starting ability scores would you recommend at character creation for this if I use the option of extra xp to use on ability scores from Force & Destiny?

What do you all think?

Any opinion?

What do you all think about this plan? I could start with the character being a Guardian and going through the Protector line, which includes a +1 force rating. I can also add talents from the Armorer line under Guardian to make myself a defensive beast, which also includes a +1 force rating. For my lightsaber style I will simply buy into Soresu Defender, which will increase my survivability. Then at some point in my career I will buy into Warrior - Starfighter Ace to get some nice piloting abilities and another +1 force rating.

What do you all think of this plan? This would require me to have good stats in Intellect and Agility.

Do you think this could be a good plan? What starting ability scores would you recommend at character creation for this if I use the option of extra xp to use on ability scores from Force & Destiny?

What do you all think?

Any opinion?

If your goals are in that order I would suggest:

Soresu Defender --> Sage --> Hotshot

Because Soresu means you can live forever in combat, with enough strain. Lo and behold, both Sage and Hotshot offer a LOAD of Grit talents.

My advice would be to use all initial EXP to get some attributes up, and then put skills into things you are going to use most. Odds are, you'll be in close combat more than starfighter combat, so you can push Hotshot out to third place, as you wanted.

Sage is awesome for using the Force in fun ways. Plus it syncs so **** well with Guardian's Soresu requiring Intellect. Valuable facts, for instance, is just silly good.

If you want to get more in depth, let me know man, I GM and am playing a Guardian right now in a mate's game, so have a lot of experience.

What is your Guardian Build?

So far I'm Protector and doing Soresu Defender. I plan to later grab Starfighter Ace from Warrior and then later either Mystic or Sage.

Sorry for the delayed reply, I've been busy and not had much time to get on forum.

In my personal opinion if you are playing a sentinel or a guardian then you don't need a huge force rating conceptually. I like to limit myself somewhat in the creation of my characters because it makes the game challenging. For me personally, being equipped to deal with every single situation the the GM presents is not fun especially when you are working with a team.

So if you are playing a guardian, essentially the tank of the group, then I would leave the force rating and force powers to the sages and the healers.