I am having trouble justifying a build I have. I was thinking if other players have the same problem we can put it on the forums for a group discussion, sort of a "many heads are better than 1" situation.

anyways for my part I have a shadow that has a rank in the recruit universal specialization (from age of rebellion) the easy justification for a rebel campaign is "he joined the rebellion" but it gets harder if he is in an EOTE campaign or FaD for both of those the things I can come up with is "took recruit training to be a local constabulary" or "took recruit training during the clone wars" or "took recruit training to be a bounty hunter" (since when do bounty hunters have bounty hunter college!??!) anyways what do you guys think? have any characters you are in a crunch with? maybe we can work out your crunched character too. (within reason, entertainer turned tech specialist, turned bounty hunter, turned rebel commander, turned mystic seems kinda off the wall)

The good thing about specializations is they are archetypal. The easy answer for justifying Recruit is joining the Rebel Alliance, but that's not the limit -- they could be a(n ex-)Recruit for the Imperial Army, they could be a Recruit for a planetary or sector military (such as the Corporate Sector Authority, or what's the one that protects Corellia again?), they could be a Recruit for a militia group, they could be a Recruit for a private military corporation, or you might even be able to justify a criminal organization or some kind of warrior cult.

Pretty much, if you can think of something that matches "a character that is or once was recruited into an organization of some sort that imparted to them martial training," then you're golden.

You're doing it the wrong way around.

Try thinking of the concept first and choosing specs based on that.

I am having trouble justifying a build I have. I was thinking if other players have the same problem we can put it on the forums for a group discussion, sort of a "many heads are better than 1" situation.

anyways for my part I have a shadow that has a rank in the recruit universal specialization (from age of rebellion) the easy justification for a rebel campaign is "he joined the rebellion" but it gets harder if he is in an EOTE campaign or FaD for both of those the things I can come up with is "took recruit training to be a local constabulary" or "took recruit training during the clone wars" or "took recruit training to be a bounty hunter" (since when do bounty hunters have bounty hunter college!??!) anyways what do you guys think? have any characters you are in a crunch with? maybe we can work out your crunched character too. (within reason, entertainer turned tech specialist, turned bounty hunter, turned rebel commander, turned mystic seems kinda off the wall)

What is the idea behind why the PC took Recruit? I mean, regardless of where they started, if they take that spec, joining the Rebellion is pretty straightforward justification. As to any other odd pairings, nobody is interested in just one thing. Sure someone might be a bounty hunter, but that doesn't mean he isn't also interested in ancient history or some such, and thus took the Scholar/Archaeologist spec. Or happens to be a convincing public speaker, and thus took a politician related spec.

If the PC has an interest in some topic/subject/field of expertise, they can decide to start learning it. You really don't have to justify it beyond "My character is interested in this subject" honestly. He picks up a few data chips about a subject and spends his weeks in hyperspace reading them on his datapad. He has a friend who knows a guy who knows a guy who can teach him some of the basics about how to do some kind of ...whatever he's learning about. And he's able to talk to the person via holonet every so often for brushing up on his skills.

Remember, Luke got very little training on how to actually use the Force, most of it he just picked up on his own. No reason this benefit can't apply to other character concepts.

Recruit is just the name of the Spec, don't take it literally. It's the mechanism through which a character with a Noncombat career and spec can have combat capability added.

A Recruit is no more a Recruit for the Alliance then a Consular:Niman Disciple is a diplomatic agent who follows and spreads the teachings of Jedi Master Bork Niman...

You're doing it the wrong way around.

Try thinking of the concept first and choosing specs based on that.

Yes, yes, to Maelora you must listen.

One mistake that a lot of folks new to the system make is getting hung up on the names of the specs, when they're more akin to the Pirate's Code in that they're what ye might call guidelines

This is one of the things I have had... well "problems" with. I made a force user. But I didn't want to make him into someone who has been really trained. He's more of a self-learned character. Thus he learns force powers slower as well and such.

I ended up using Shii-cho Knight (because it's the basic form), Aggressor (fits his low tech upbringing, as in his planet he felt that being the apex-predator was the best way to survive and to show dominance was ideal way for him to do that) and for the last bit I couldn't figure out what to do with the character. I was thinking of going for Hunter or Pathfinder, but I don't know if the trees fit the character once I actually get there anymore. And the skills on those trees aren't that appealing to me nor fitting the character that well. I might go for Jedi Exile or something... But we'll see.

But I'm going to avoid planning TOO much and just go with these two trees for now.

Yes, yes, to Maelora you must listen.

Heh, I'm probably more Maz than Yoda, but yeah

Donovan has it right that you're not tied into the title of the class, and in fact the splatbooks present a lot of options for such characters. We have a 'Smuggler' who doesn't actually own a ship or smuggle contraband.

(my table also has some Specs like Emergent that really do tie in to in-game societies, but that's just a house rule thing and not RAW...)

Another common mistake I see a lot of is that - because of the relatively easy multi-classing - players want a 'bit of everything' like 3rd edition D&D. I often hear 'I want to be a great pilot and have really good stealth skills... and also be very strong in the Force, and be really good with a lightsaber, and...' Starting characters won't have anywhere near the skill levels of established film characters, and Force-use in particular will eat up most of your XP if you want to be good at it. This is a deliberate design, allowing the Boba Fetts and Han Solos to largely be better than the glowstick guys when it comes to skills and talents.

It's not a bad idea to have focus, especially at the start. Just being a mechanic or a doctor, say, is a perfectly viable choice in this game. Not everyone has to be a 'Jedi'.

You can always grow into new things later.

You're doing it the wrong way around.

Try thinking of the concept first and choosing specs based on that.

While I agree in principle (in particular with Donovan's "don't trip up on the specialization names"), I often find it much more fun to create a character that plays the way I want (or just does an appropriate number of interesting things) and develop a narrative around that. Constraint breeds creativity, as they say.

Plus, sometimes you just can't get the mechanics to behave in a way consistent with a concept you have rolling around in your brain. This isn't nearly as much a problem in SWRPG as it is in other systems, although sometimes players have a specific vision of what they want to be able to do with the Force and be unable to fit that in due to the way the system is written.

That's simply my personal preference, obviously. I always feel like I have a character that I'm happier with and one that's better tied into the setting when I do character creation "backwards."

Well sometimes it is fun to come up with a particular build concept first, and then flesh out a background around it. I've been known to do that myself. Hell, with White Wolf stuff, most of my favorite characters were first inspired by simply reading a specific Legacy or Lodge and it's mechanics, and it sparking the idea for a character based on those abilities. So I get what you mean.

But it's also good to have an idea first, and then find the specs that best fit it.