I am looking to make a new character and have always been interested in the "economy game" within EotE, however I can't quite decide how exactly I want to build my guy.

As of now I am looking to have good negotiation, streetwise/knowledge underworld and charm. Non-Force User. This character will be atrocious at combat, most likely 1 Brawn 1 Agility; but will instead use his charm and cunning to avoid being in anything too hairy. Drall or Zeltron as my race.

However, I am at a loss when looking at career choices. Smuggler-Charmer seems to be a good fit as it will allow me to do something in battle that will benefit my group. However that does not really give me any of the trader perks. I'm looking to be able to find rare items, negotiate a good price when we shop but also run my own business outside of the groups funding that deals in larger orders, oddities, illegal items ect. This will be something I work towards obviously, I'd look to start just with simple items until I could work in the rest.

So my question would be, with that character mold would it be better to start out with Smuggler or instead with say Explorer-Trader, Colonist-Entrepreneur or even Ace-Rigger (to gain my freight ship for example).

Any help would be awesome and let me know if you want more details.

Vas

The Colonist/Entrepreneur gets you the "sound investments" and "wheel and deal" perks which are a tidy little boost. This would basically be a "negotiation" build, sort of a sound investment kind of character.

The Smuggler/Charmer sounds a bit more like what you want. While the Entrepreneur concludes transactions (and probably makes more money) the Charmer seals deals. The Entrepreneur leaves them wondering why they paid so much. The Charmer leaves them snickering about what a great deal they got on that deed to a time share on Coruscant.

The Entrepreneur leaves them wondering if they got ripped off. The Charmer leaves them feeling like they won something but actually just standing there without their pants.

I’d consider starting out as a Colonist/Entrepreneur, then buying into the Colonist/Politico or Colonist/Performer trees. Both give you plenty of options to fast-talk people. Politico will let you use Scathing Tirade in combat, whereas Performer gives you Melee as a career skill plus Distracting Behavior.

Firstly, make sure you tell your GM your intentions. Some GMs will not be pleased with "economic adventures", i know mine wasn't.

As much as it might, go against character, there is going likly going to be a time where your going to want to shoot someone in the face. Consider an accurate pistol.

That said i've got a soft spot for quartermaster from AoE, it seems to have everything i wanted in a "trader".

To be complettely honest, what you want can be done with a lot of specs, the more interesting question would be what your characters career starter should be instead of what you want to make out of that career later. Getting equipment is mainly done via Negotiation and Streetwise. Or the Knowledge skills if your GM allows it.

Trading itself is another Negotiation thing, overall you really do not need any talent perks, and you can gain the Negotiation career skill even by just opening a business (far horizons) and go from there. It sounds like you would like to play a colonist campaign where you are the guy who can get all the stuff for the group and his follow citizens of the new colony. If that is the case you should ask your group and GM first if they are interested to play such a survival / wild west campaign themselves.

If I am mistaken the explorer: fringer or trader could suit your taste very well as both are traveling merchants. Quartermaster is always good if you want to focus on getting stuff for a dedicated group, be it an alliance unit, a bounty hunter group or a band of smugglers, it does not matter, the Quartermaster knows who to buy or steal the needed equipment, he always Knows Somebody is a Smooth Talker, Natural Negotiator and Master Merchant, he is a strong source for getting equipment and strong in social encounters as well and comes with some leadership qualities as well, a good start to expand later on with a second spec. Analyst for example is a very strong diplomat spec to add later, or modder to make him the tinkerer who always knows were to get parts for his creations.

I agree with everyone saying Colonist - Entrepreneur is you best bet for your starting Career. From there I would probably take Colonist/Politico, Explorer/Trader, and Smuggler/Charmer as additional specializations once you fill out a good portion of the Entrepreneur talent tree. The Colonist has more useful specializations for an "Economic" type character and all of the social skills as career skills.

I'd also suggest looking at some of the less traditional species. I played a Hutt Entrepreneur in the last game I actually got to be a player in and he made a load of money. It was a lot of fun RPing that character. The Toydarian would be perfect also for what you describe since it has characteristics of 1/1/2/2/3/3. With Starting XP maybe increase Cunning and Intellect, or Cunning and Presence and you can end up with 1/1/3/3/3/3 or 1/1/2/3/3/4 and maybe either Brawn or Agility by 1 point as well. That would be an extremely capable trader right from the start.

Also, because I love the "economics" side of Star Wars: Trade Route Economics Tool

Firstly, make sure you tell your GM your intentions. Some GMs will not be pleased with "economic adventures", i know mine wasn't.

As much as it might, go against character, there is going likly going to be a time where your going to want to shoot someone in the face. Consider an accurate pistol.

That said i've got a soft spot for quartermaster from AoE, it seems to have everything i wanted in a "trader".

By the economic game I mean my GM has okay'd the use of this type of setup https://npccast.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/edge-of-the-empire-trading-sub-game/

A way to RP my character and earn some credits on the side doing so; since he wont be combat beneficial for awhile.

Sounds like a high Will/Cun/Pres character build. Can't go wrong with Coercion for those time you need "discounts" and especially when you are using Know (Underworld).

I agree with everyone saying Colonist - Entrepreneur is you best bet for your starting Career. From there I would probably take Colonist/Politico, Explorer/Trader, and Smuggler/Charmer as additional specializations once you fill out a good portion of the Entrepreneur talent tree. The Colonist has more useful specializations for an "Economic" type character and all of the social skills as career skills.

I'd also suggest looking at some of the less traditional species. I played a Hutt Entrepreneur in the last game I actually got to be a player in and he made a load of money. It was a lot of fun RPing that character. The Toydarian would be perfect also for what you describe since it has characteristics of 1/1/2/2/3/3. With Starting XP maybe increase Cunning and Intellect, or Cunning and Presence and you can end up with 1/1/3/3/3/3 or 1/1/2/3/3/4 and maybe either Brawn or Agility by 1 point as well. That would be an extremely capable trader right from the start.

Also, because I love the "economics" side of Star Wars: Trade Route Economics Tool

As of now I have a Drall with 1/1/4/3/2/4, after taking on the extra obligation exp. That's a cool link, would love to work that into my game so thanks.

If I am mistaken the explorer: fringer or trader could suit your taste very well as both are traveling merchants. Quartermaster is always good if you want to focus on getting stuff for a dedicated group, be it an alliance unit, a bounty hunter group or a band of smugglers, it does not matter, the Quartermaster knows who to buy or steal the needed equipment, he always Knows Somebody is a Smooth Talker, Natural Negotiator and Master Merchant, he is a strong source for getting equipment and strong in social encounters as well and comes with some leadership qualities as well, a good start to expand later on with a second spec. Analyst for example is a very strong diplomat spec to add later, or modder to make him the tinkerer who always knows were to get parts for his creations.

This character will be joining the main group of PCs we've had meet up so far, we're filling out a largish ship and plan on using the characters to fit what the mission we might face will need.

I really like the Quartermaster into Analyst, my only holdup is I really like Unmatched Fortune.

A question on Smooth Talker, it doesn't seem that good to me. Spending a Triumph for, assuming I grab both ranks, 2 successes seems lackluster. At least as of now I haven't had a roll where I really wished I could spend a Triumph differently, especially if it was restricted to 1 skill.

A question on Smooth Talker, it doesn't seem that good to me. Spending a Triumph for, assuming I grab both ranks, 2 successes seems lackluster. At least as of now I haven't had a roll where I really wished I could spend a Triumph differently, especially if it was restricted to 1 skill.

This can actually save you quite a bit. It say to spend a triumph for 1 success. You don't have to succeed initially, so this could change the result from failure with triumph to success with no triumph. That can be very important.

I definitely think the Entrepreneur and Quartermaster are the best for what you want, it takes a lot of the work of calculating how much you have earned out of the equation. If you then wanted to role play out using those credits for making more money that would be fine. When combined with either the Politico, Charmer or Performer you really have a great character. It's probably a 600xp character by the time it's completely filled out, so it's a longer game character, but the good bits of Entrepreneur can be gotten quite quickly.

But after all that if what you want is to Role play the earning of credits by moving between systems and making deals then the Trader is the way to go, it covers so many bases, and combined with Fringer is a great social negotiator and traveling salesman

If I am mistaken the explorer: fringer or trader could suit your taste very well as both are traveling merchants. Quartermaster is always good if you want to focus on getting stuff for a dedicated group, be it an alliance unit, a bounty hunter group or a band of smugglers, it does not matter, the Quartermaster knows who to buy or steal the needed equipment, he always Knows Somebody is a Smooth Talker, Natural Negotiator and Master Merchant, he is a strong source for getting equipment and strong in social encounters as well and comes with some leadership qualities as well, a good start to expand later on with a second spec. Analyst for example is a very strong diplomat spec to add later, or modder to make him the tinkerer who always knows were to get parts for his creations.

This character will be joining the main group of PCs we've had meet up so far, we're filling out a largish ship and plan on using the characters to fit what the mission we might face will need.

I really like the Quartermaster into Analyst, my only holdup is I really like Unmatched Fortune.

A question on Smooth Talker, it doesn't seem that good to me. Spending a Triumph for, assuming I grab both ranks, 2 successes seems lackluster. At least as of now I haven't had a roll where I really wished I could spend a Triumph differently, especially if it was restricted to 1 skill.

It doesn't seem useful...until you fail a roll because you didn't roll enough successes, but you do have that Triumph sitting there. So you can then choose to "Fail but do something else kind of awesome" or "Succeed at what you were trying to actually accomplish, at the cost of something extra and awesome". Personally, I think any ability that increases the chance of your succeeding is worth the investment.

And if I'm not mistaken, if you had 2 ranks in the skill, that would mean a Triumph would technically be worth 3 successes.

1 suxx: For it simply being a Triumph, and they count as a suxx as well.

2 suxx: because you have 2 ranks in the talent.

Someone with access to one of the books confirm that for me if you could? I might be wrong, but I think I'm remembering it correctly off the top of my head.

3 successes basically lets you guarantee you will accomplish this task, if you happen to roll a triumph.

To your main question though, I guess it depends on how you want to be a "trader". Do you plan on dealing in black market goods and smuggling? If so, you'll probably want a class that helps with deception and skullduggery, to forge ship manifests and lie to customs agents and other things.

Do you want to be a legitimate, above board trader? Then stuff that gives Charm and Negotiation, and helps you with getting better deals on the Rarity chart for buying/selling.

I'm going to suggest a Drall, and I'm going to be unorthodox here and suggest Quartermaster and Outlaw Tech.

The high Intellect will help, and if you can't fight, then fix and modify. Generally this would involve wheeling and dealing to get funds, parts, and equipment. Modify it for the team to keep them potent and capable.

If you have access to Special Modifications, consider building a droid or two for security or scouting purposes. Something to shore up any areas the group is weak in.

Everyone will love you.