Okay so if you are going to bring this back up.

Since lightsaber is not an option on this book why would they bother listing it in the spec trees.

My GM and I both agree that a lightsaber IS a melee weapon and thus marauder works for them as well. Its fancy and may use a specil named skill but it is still a melee classed weapon.

Now 2 years later it is an option. My group is not playing a strictly EotE setting. We are using a more play what you want setting where all three books are options and thus all their rules.

I have a training saber. The shadow jedi has a duel bladed training saberstaff. I am not going to mess in his story elements or steal his thunder. I am rebuilt saber training droid. I am the jedi's companion.

Not likely to get anything like a real lightsaber anytime soon. And If I do I am only going to treat it as a hull carving knife or a fun way to hack up droids and hard targets. I have been slapping things around with brawling otherwise. I figure a training droid might do that kind of thing.

And thank you for pointing me to that stuff about the F&D traits/talents.

But I am also not very sold on my current idea.

A lightsaber is unequivocally a melee weapon, but not a Melee weapon. EotE and AoR make that clear by not giving it a skill at all and FaD (which was in development well before AoR was released) has that skill specifically outlined in the Skills chapter. For any character from the EotE and AoR sets of books when they use a Lightsaber they never get to roll Proficiency Dice when using a Lightsaber, unless the GM creates a custom skill that is not Melee or Brawl.

Not sure why a custom skill is needed when its clearly set up in F&D. Its also a skill our shadow jedi has.

So why is there a need to go beyond what is already provided?

Each book is its own setting. We are not using a single limited setting. Too many years of playing WEG D6 Star Wars to limit the scope and imagination to "you are all criminals, or jedi, or republic soldiers".

Already after reading the books i can see playing a version of the three books in one setting and you dump the obligation and duty stuff, give everyone a equal ammount of exp based on how their races are built up and giving everyone a similar starting budget. Just keep morality for tracking darkside build up.

Might be interesting to see how that might work to reflect a open setting.

Because prior to FaD there was no skill for the use of Lightsabers. one of your main arguments for why the Marauder talents should work with a Lightsaber is because the Lightsaber book was not yet released they didn't have the skill so didn't list it, but would have if the book with Lightsabers was already released:

Since lightsaber is not an option on this book why would they bother listing it in the spec trees.

My GM and I both agree that a lightsaber IS a melee weapon and thus marauder works for them as well. Its fancy and may use a specil named skill but it is still a melee classed weapon.

Now 2 years later it is an option. My group is not playing a strictly EotE setting. We are using a more play what you want setting where all three books are options and thus all their rules.

My argument is that they knew full well that a Lightsaber skill was coming and they deliberately didn't include it in the first 2 core books. There are talents that work with some "melee" attacks and not others, some only work with "Brawl", others only "Melee", others agin only "Lightsaber". But from what your saying anything that affects "melee" related skills should affect all "melee" related skills, with no differentiation.

Defensive Training works on all three by calling out each separately in its description

Knockdown works with any "melee" attack by not specifying any skill but merely saying "melee"

Ferral Strength and Lethal Frenzied Attack only work with "Melee" and "Brawl" attacks

Lethal Blows work on any combat check that inflicts Critical Injuries (ie NOT Critical hits on vehicles, but definitely on Lightsaber attacks at personal scale)

Stunning Blow only works with "Melee" not melee, so not "Lightsaber" and its redundant on "Brawl" because Brawl checks can already inflict Strain.

If Feral Strength was intended to affect all "melee" attacks it would have been worded using the same language as Knockdown instead of specifying the Skills, they knew they didn't want those 2 talents to apply to Lightsaber 4 years ago when the system was first being designed

On a different note, check out Commando, it goes really well with Marauder too if you want an unstoppable wall as a PC.

I looked it over. Didnt catch my eye very well.

This might be a good place for us to end this thread.

I have gained a great deal of info and i seem to have come across as a big jerk.

Sweet. The other that goes well is Assasin, extra Lethal Blows (6 total, add a Vibro weapon and kill away!), Quick Draw is handy, and Precise Aim works with any combat check.

How does that make no sense? It's simple. Droids can take Talents from Specializations that help with using a lightsaber, but because droids cannot have a Force Rating, they can't use the Force Talents. However, in some of the lightsaber trees, you have to buy a Force Talent to get to the next usable Talent(s) - so therefore, the droid must buy a Talent he can never use.

Sorry but it is not fair, logical or cool to make someone waste experience points on something they cannot and will not ever use.

What other characters have to waste their points?

All characters who raise non-career skills, like for example ace astromechs who raise their computer skill to 5, bam 25 xp wasted. Players who have no interest in the force, but would like to take a lightsaber spec. Sure unlike droids they could spend the xp force emergent or exile, but this alone can cost them huge amounts of xp when buying other specs. So they might indeed as well avoid that and never use those force talents.

Oh and for the fanboi argument, it is none as all force related lightsaber abilities are either force talents or force powers. Lightsabers are indeed just a very specialized close combat skill and thus there are many, many talents which work on melee and lightsabers. The team decided that lightsabers are powerful enough as is and allow stacking of talents furthermore with or example the marauder tree. That seems a pure mechanical decision, the system is very gamey and thus FFG designs should be concerned with balance. If that is no problem with your group just go full speed ahead. Speaking of full speed ahead, you could allow aswell to skip those force talents instead of wasting xp on them. Apparently people in this forum enjoy pointing out the obvious freedom of playing a pen & paper RPG. Rules say otherwise, but how cares about them when they stand in your way of having fun?

I guess it is a tad unfair, though to get the best out of a couple lightsaber trees it's a bit of a trade off game; in exchange for some really powerful immunities and extra soak droids can't use the force and have limited characteristics. I think it's still a fair exhange provided one is careful in their progression.

These trade offs happen all the time between races. It's difficult to make a drall marauder, a trandosian gunslinger or a klatoonian charmer. Most races sacrifice something for something else and even humans sacrifice a strong speciality in exchange for strong generalisation. Droids have a really rough trade and are difficult to make well, but it's a trade that reflects what droids are in this universe; the ultimate specialist that is absolutely hopeless outside its trade.

And stat wise really needs those extra Cybernetics to work, add 2 to Brawn or Agility and a further 1 to Intelect and they catch up a long way, craft your own enhancements and they get very good.

And stat wise really needs those extra Cybernetics to work, add 2 to Brawn or Agility and a further 1 to Intelect and they catch up a long way, craft your own enhancements and they get very good.

Oh yes, having brawn one and still getting 6 implants is super strong. On top of that droids get all those handy tools internalized (think bender) and are in general very versatile within their trade and toolsets.

I sat down and worked out the benefits that droids get and attributed an approximate xp cost based on similar talents and to be honest they worked out pretty good, you definitely want a spec and career match where you can double up 2 or 3 ranks on skills to really max out the skills , can't think of any you can do 3 with offhand though. The xp range worked out to be about on par with a humans 110xp and 2s in starting stats

They definitely do tend to be specialists in maybe 1 , or 2 things but in those paths they can spread the skills around a lot. Example enforcer or warden can concentrate on brawn/willpowerwillpower and dump stst the rest. Marshall can choose perception or cunning along with willpower and manage quite well. Very few specs NEED more than a 3 in 3 characteristics, It just that outside these 2 or 3 they are not very good. Given a power source they do not need anything else to operate and even after 10 years can power back up. I'm not one for playing them but I've done a few concept builds I wouldn't turn my nose up at either