Hey all, so I don't see a whole lot of these kinds of threads, but I was hoping for some input from some folks with more (diverse?) F&D experience than myself, especially in the realm of a few specific Talents and Force Powers.

We just concluded our first F&D campaign a few weeks ago, when the GM had to start prioritizing work over RPGs. Lame, I know. And we're beginning to discuss the next one. My first Force user was a Seeker Pathfinder, focused on using his blaster rifle, Force Move, as well as hoping one day to befriend a rancor. Sucked with a Lightsaber, as much as one can with a Breach 1 weapon, but he still used it when convenient.

This time I want to make a Lightsaber specialist. But really focused on survivability (as I've seen that be a problem for our previous LS specialist), and therefore perhaps Lightsaber-defense specialist (I did a Gadgeteer in our EotE campaign, so not interested in Armor-tanking either), since lightsabers have a bangin' offense all on their own, really, without any bells and whistles.

Here's what I'm thinking (oh yeah, Knight Level start);

Species: Iktotchi

B3 (30), A2, I2, C2, W3, P1

Wound Threshold 15

Strain Threshold 16

Career 1: Guardian

Specialization 1: Soresu Defender

Talents 1:

Parry 5, Parry 5, Parry 15

Defensive Stance 5, Defensive Stance 20

Reflect 20, Reflect 20

Toughened 5

Grit 10

Specialization 2: Seer 30

Talents 2:

Uncanny Reactions 5

Keen Eyed 10

Rapid Reaction 10

Force Sense Basic 10

- Control, Upgrade Difficulty 10

- Duration 10

- Strength 10

Force Move Basic 10

- Strength 10

Soak 5

I took the 10 XP, for my Morality. I'm taking the Lightsaber for Knight Level play. I spent my base 500 cred on Padded Armor. After getting enough XP for my second Force Rating in Seer, I plan on going for Dedication in Soresu, for a Brawn bump.

Now, my question to the community is; is Force Sense (with my upgrades - commit a Force die, receive 2 upgrades to difficulty of attack targeting me) worth it? Or is that 40 XP better spent on other Powers or Talents for defense? Are Parry and Reflect worth it? Or do you just eat through your Strain and go down to that? Any other thoughts on improving this approach to a PC?

Thanks in advance!

Well, first off, you can't take two Careers. However, taking non-Career Specializations is perfectly fine. They just cost an extra ten XP above the normal cost.

Ok first thing to note is your 2 Intelect, not a good place to start if you want to use either of the Soresu special talents. Both Strategic Form and Defensive Circle require you to use Lightsaber (Intelect), you can not use Lightsaber (Brawn) for those checks.

Sense Upgrdes are a fantastic way to improve the chances of triggering Improved a Parry/Reflect. Combined with Defensive Stance it's a brutal combination. High Defence also helps a lot.

The Seer tree seems tempting for the 2 Force Rating talents, but honestly I think you would get a lot more out of Niman Disciple. It has 1 FR talent to help there, but it's got a bunch of Reflect and Parry talents too. Combined and well invested you would be able to decrease melee damage by 10 and Ranged by 9. With Improved of both and Supreme of Parry that's serious tanking. Then there's the Force Assault talent, letting you use Move on the same turn you miss with a Lightsaber(Willpower) check. This combo would be a really powerful combination.

Ok first thing to note is your 2 Intelect, not a good place to start if you want to use either of the Soresu special talents. Both Strategic Form and Defensive Circle require you to use Lightsaber (Intelect), you can not use Lightsaber (Brawn) for those checks.

Sense Upgrdes are a fantastic way to improve the chances of triggering Improved a Parry/Reflect. Combined with Defensive Stance it's a brutal combination. High Defence also helps a lot.

The Seer tree seems tempting for the 2 Force Rating talents, but honestly I think you would get a lot more out of Niman Disciple. It has 1 FR talent to help there, but it's got a bunch of Reflect and Parry talents too. Combined and well invested you would be able to decrease melee damage by 10 and Ranged by 9. With Improved of both and Supreme of Parry that's serious tanking. Then there's the Force Assault talent, letting you use Move on the same turn you miss with a Lightsaber(Willpower) check. This combo would be a really powerful combination.

Heh, wasn't planning on taking either of the LS(Int) Talents, just using Soresu for its open advancement and heavy defense oriented tree. Was planning on avoiding all LS(other) Talents actually, hence going heavy into Brawn.

Seer has a bunch of good supplemental Talents and 2 FR. Great Initiative boosts, Sense Danger, Force... Ally, Natural Mystic... I really liked Move and I want to be able to use that reliably simultaneous w/ Sense, so I need the FR.

My first draft of this PC was going to go into Niman (first, Soresu later), but the synergy tween Brawn and Soak, and generally just loving Soresu, guided me this way. I dunno. I might play with a reversal, see how it comes out (like not needing Soak if one can Parry 10 pts of damage ), but for now I think I want the FR.

Remember too that soak is useless against Lightsabers, obviously not everyone you face will have one but it's worth remembering.

It's also interesting to me that you only spent 30xp on Characteristics. It's a little unorthodox since it has far reaching effects on the entire life of the character.

My idea would be this:

B4, A2, I2, C2, W3, P1 (70xp)

Soresu talents, in this order;

Parry 5xp

Parry2 5xp

Defensive Stance 5xp

Grit 10xp

Parry3 15xp

Defensive Stance 2 20xp

Reflect 1 20xp

Improved Reflect 25xp

Reflect 2 20xp

Improved Parry 15xp

Reflect 3 10xp

Talents total: 150xp

Remaining XP on Sense, to commit to defence and make those Improved Parry/Reflect more likely.

This character can parry/reflect 5 damage each, with possible retaliation.

Upgrade incoming melee attacks by as much as 4

Upgrade incoming ranged by as much as 2

It's very focused on that one thing at the moment, but essentially your done in the Soresu tree, letting you then move into all sorts of options, Seer is great, but don't overlook Hermit either, with Harass and Menace you can make triggering Improved Parry/Reflect even more likely.

Doesnt seem very soresu to me as you seem to bit into it for just parry and reflect talents. Since you are going brawn you might be better served with shien expert instead as you get access to djem so etc.

Doesnt seem very soresu to me as you seem to bit into it for just parry and reflect talents. Since you are going brawn you might be better served with shien expert instead as you get access to djem so etc.

Yes, all Soresu must have a high INT, and be selfless, and there's only one way to properly create a character, an that is as a stereotype. Thanks for your valuable input.

Remember too that soak is useless against Lightsabers, obviously not everyone you face will have one but it's worth remembering.

It's also interesting to me that you only spent 30xp on Characteristics. It's a little unorthodox since it has far reaching effects on the entire life of the character.

My idea would be this:

B4, A2, I2, C2, W3, P1 (70xp)

Soresu talents, in this order;

Parry 5xp

Parry2 5xp

Defensive Stance 5xp

Grit 10xp

Parry3 15xp

Defensive Stance 2 20xp

Reflect 1 20xp

Improved Reflect 25xp

Reflect 2 20xp

Improved Parry 15xp

Reflect 3 10xp

Talents total: 150xp

Remaining XP on Sense, to commit to defence and make those Improved Parry/Reflect more likely.

This character can parry/reflect 5 damage each, with possible retaliation.

Upgrade incoming melee attacks by as much as 4

Upgrade incoming ranged by as much as 2

It's very focused on that one thing at the moment, but essentially your done in the Soresu tree, letting you then move into all sorts of options, Seer is great, but don't overlook Hermit either, with Harass and Menace you can make triggering Improved Parry/Reflect even more likely.

Hermit also has a rank of Enduring, it may be a seriously good choice for this build. But it is your character so you know what talents are interesting to you.

Never seen the Hermit spec/tree

Oh fair enough, it's in the Savage Spirits book. Some forum members have created PDF versions of the Specialisation trees, you could get a preview of it there, I'll try finding a link later on.

The low down is it's a tree with +2 Force Rating, and a fair amount of survival stuff. It also has the animal bond talent from Pathfinder but with some new talents to use with the animal; one can add a setback to opponents attacks, the other can upgrade them once. It also has the Shroud talent seen in Shadow, although it's a bit more expensive.

Doesnt seem very soresu to me as you seem to bit into it for just parry and reflect talents. Since you are going brawn you might be better served with shien expert instead as you get access to djem so etc.

Yes, all Soresu must have a high INT, and be selfless, and there's only one way to properly create a character, an that is as a stereotype. Thanks for your valuable input.

I think you missed my point, the reason to chose soresu over shien here would be to get talents tbat are unique to soresu, shien gets falling avalanche (add brawn to dmg) soresu would be worthwhile if you were to take even one talent that was unique (like improved and supreme parry), if thst is the intebtion to pick those up, I would pick those before moving to the second spec. Otherwise if all that is being taken csn be picked up in Shien, then Shien offers the better potential for a higher brawn character.

There is nothing wrong with a high Brawn soresu defender, if it takes advantage of at least one talent unique to soresu (or will take).

Soresu is the only tree with both Improved Parry & Improved Reflect. But I do agree it's a bit of a waste no utilising one of the Lightsaber (Intelect) abilities, even if they are 2 of the less useful Lightsaber talents. But it it is the only Lightsaber tree where you can get everything without buying the specialist talents, it's kind of made to be the universal defence spec where Shii-Cho is the universal attack spec(obviously with some defence).

If you really want to leverage Move, you might want to reconsider the Niman first path. In addition to providing a lot of defensive talents, dedication, and Force Rating, Niman has Force Assault to allow you to hit an enemy with a Move when you miss with a lightsaber attack (with enough advantage). Combine that with your desire to take a 2 FR tree and the fact that your main interest in Guardian is getting defensive talents from the Soresu tree, and a Consular career is starting to look better. You're already planning on above-average Brawn and Willpower, so making Willpower-based lightsaber attacks should come easily.

All that being said, if you really like the flavor of the Guardian career, you can definitely make that work, but I think you might have to let go of Move as an alternate offensive option. Speaking from experience, it's hard to use Move consistently unless you're willing to take Conflict every time or you have 3+ FR, and that's hard to manage if you are also committing Force dice and focusing on lightsaber trees without FR talents.

Soresu is the only tree with both Improved Parry & Improved Reflect. But I do agree it's a bit of a waste no utilising one of the Lightsaber (Intelect) abilities, even if they are 2 of the less useful Lightsaber talents. But it it is the only Lightsaber tree where you can get everything without buying the specialist talents, it's kind of made to be the universal defence spec where Shii-Cho is the universal attack spec(obviously with some defence).

Actually, Ateru is the "universal attack" specialist, not Shii-Cho. Shii-Cho, is basic lightsaber 101. It's the fundamentals upon which the other styles are built from. My character, Korath (an in progress conversion from D6/D20) is a specialist in both Ateru and Soresu, covering both offense and defense.

I think you missed my point, the reason to chose soresu over shien here would be to get talents tbat are unique to soresu, shien gets falling avalanche (add brawn to dmg) soresu would be worthwhile if you were to take even one talent that was unique (like improved and supreme parry), if thst is the intebtion to pick those up, I would pick those before moving to the second spec. Otherwise if all that is being taken csn be picked up in Shien, then Shien offers the better potential for a higher brawn character.

There is nothing wrong with a high Brawn soresu defender, if it takes advantage of at least one talent unique to soresu (or will take).

Basically, see RBs response the LS(Int) Talents are useless toward my goal of PC survivability, but Soresu is loaded with Defense otherwise, and doesn't require the alt attribute.

If you really want to leverage Move, you might want to reconsider the Niman first path. In addition to providing a lot of defensive talents, dedication, and Force Rating, Niman has Force Assault to allow you to hit an enemy with a Move when you miss with a lightsaber attack (with enough advantage). Combine that with your desire to take a 2 FR tree and the fact that your main interest in Guardian is getting defensive talents from the Soresu tree, and a Consular career is starting to look better. You're already planning on above-average Brawn and Willpower, so making Willpower-based lightsaber attacks should come easily.

All that being said, if you really like the flavor of the Guardian career, you can definitely make that work, but I think you might have to let go of Move as an alternate offensive option. Speaking from experience, it's hard to use Move consistently unless you're willing to take Conflict every time or you have 3+ FR, and that's hard to manage if you are also committing Force dice and focusing on lightsaber trees without FR talents.

I used it to pull targets from behind cover for ease of blasting, to move them closer to me or other party members to dispatch with an LS, to bring the environment down to provide me or others cover, to nab McGuffins from hands or high places ...as utility. And it was always a huge factor. At this time it sounds like I may be the only Force User in this group, as players can make PCs from any book, and everyone is wanting to try something no one has before, and Move was the single most important/oft used Power in our last campaign so it's hard for me to let it go if no one else will have the opportunity to get it. I anticipate having no problems leveraging it as a valuable tool, as I already know how to do that. My short term plans for Move were to have the Strength upgrade, and to have the first Range upgrade, so I can move a person at Medium range - 3 pips. That's why Seer. Out of combat, I'll be able to use it reliably w/ 3 FR, in combat, possible w/ 2, but tough/minimal Conflict.

As I mentioned my initial draft of this PC was Niman, but again, my focus is survivability. Niman is weaker than Soresu for this. It has several useless (for a non-social oriented PC) Talents, it just wasn't right for what I decided my priority should be - not dieing to blaster fire and melee attacks. By my reckoning, nothing can compare to Soresu for defense.

I see what you're saying re: Move and can see why you want to keep it in there.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with your assessment vis-a-vis survivability of Niman vs. Soresu. Niman's only lacking in one rank of Parry relative to Soresu, but adds (Improved) Center of Being, making it harder to crit you. It trades Defensive Stance for Defensive Training, which is a superior talent because it applies to all attacks, doesn't cost strain (a tight resources if you're parrying/reflecting a lot), and doesn't require you to spend a maneuver. And while it does have two social talents, one of those (Nobody's Fool) is defensive in nature, meaning it will come in handy even for a non-social specialist, because saying "I'm not the party face" isn't going to stop the GM from having NPCs flatter, threaten, or lie at you. And Sum Djem's disarm is powerful in its own right against enemy lightsaber users (or anyone with a powerful weapon, really). Soresu does have the advantage of building on its defense with offensive talents like Improved Parry and Improved Reflect, but you don't seem terribly interested in those.

That being said, switching to Consular Niman is perhaps of limited use in terms of the broader build calculus, as Seer seems more useful for your build than Sage. On the other hand, Sage does have 3 ranks of Grit and Balance, which will help your strain economy, and has a slightly cheaper path to the second Force Rating talent than Seer. If you're not interested in having better knowledge checks (and Valuable Facts) and being able to contribute to social encounters, though, the talents you'll be picking up on the way will be of lesser utility.

I am interested in the Improved Parry and Reflect, just weren't priorities for me to have them at the start of the game, though Rich may have convinced me otherwise... And while Soresu may have a similar number of Talents I don't care about to Niman, I can completely avoid them and still get literally everything I want from it and literally nothing I don't - this is huge from an XP-efficiency standpoint and from a build standpoint, I cannot do this with Niman, I have to swallow a ton of crap to get a ton of quality. Soresu is just one metric ton of quality, cut the crap. The Niman-Soresu tandem, with stacks of Parry and Reflect, is tempting, but I also don't want a complete one-trick pony. Seer allows me to branch out into the Force more by giving me the FR to use it, while still having some excellent combat and utility Talents.

Sage was definitely on my list and very well could be my 3rd spec, it just didn't have the density of pertinent Talents on the way to those Force bumps, which would be my 2nd priority. I am worried about the Strain economy, but about all I can think to do (while still achieving my main goal) is go heavy into Brawn and rely on generating plenty of Advantages to try and keep up. That and use those Talents judiciously. This problem, Strain, is a large part of why I made this thread. Wondering what ppls experiences are with managing it, and generally staying alive as the guy wading into melee with a LS - which tends to draw a lot of attention.

Well seems you don't want Input on your build, you just want a that-a-boy so there's not much to say.

RB has provided a lot of good input that has shifted my approach, and others have said things that have made me go back to examine Talent trees and evaluate my thoughts, they've explained their rationale, I've explained my rationale, that's what a discussion is. There hasn't been much "I have a PC that has 3 ranks in Reflect, 16 ST, and he's still constantly passing out from that."-type input.