Hi there,

Star Wars and RPG veteran but F&D newbie here. I read through the character creation part and it seems to me that you should put most if not all of your starting xp into the characteristics. Is this correct? And if yes, what would be better. To increase one attribute to 4 and one to 3, or take the 10 extra xp from Morality and increase 3 attributes to 3 ? I'm thinking about playing a guardian protector and either use brawn 4 and willpower 3 or go for agility, brawn and willpower 3.

Any advice ?

Kind regards

Ala

Spending most or all of your starting XP in characteristics is definitely a good idea. High characteristics provide broad competency in a variety of skills and are sometimes used to power Talents. As for whether to go for a 4 or multiple 3's, that all depends on how specialized your character is. With your example of a Guardian Protector, high Brawn and Willpower gives you good wounds, soak, strain threshold, and better odds of using Coercion successfully when you need to contribute socially. That already gives you some decent flexibility. Agility would improve your ranged combat skills, piloting, and some other Agility skills which are not on your career skill list. So the question you need to ask yourself is, how often am I going to be attacking using a blaster instead of a melee/brawl weapon, and do I need to be above average at any of those other Agility skills. Something else to bear in mind is that if you are using Bodyguard a lot, you likely won't have the flexibility of using your best skill to attack, as you will be anchored to whoever you are trying to protect.

The other thing to consider for that specific build is whether you're going to pick up Soresu Defender eventually, and if so, how invested you're going to be in using the Lightsaber (Intellect) talents in the tree. That said, by that point you'll be able to pick up a Dedication talent or two to shore up Intellect if it becomes necessary. While buying characteristics at character creation is important, Dedication means you don't need to worry about spreading your characteristics out among all the abilities you're ever going to want the character to be good at.

Protector's will gain the most benefit from Brawn (Wound Threshold, Lightsaber), Willpower (Strain Threshold [many talents use Strain]), and Intellect (Medicine Skill [important for recovery]). In some ways, pumping up Willpower will do you a lot of good.

Characteristics are a great place to put your starting XP. As Kaigen said, it gives you the most bang for the expenditure. Dedication is the only way to pump up your stats and it will cost at least 75 of in-game XP to get it (and you may have to sacrifice some cool talents to take that straight path).

Seriously, though, build the character you see in your mind and don't be afraid to pick up another specialization to shape the character how you see them best. If you see them as Agile, go for it. This system stresses role-playing.

Often, members of the community may ask for help with character creation. Typical requests focus on how best to spend their experience points (XP). For our community to be the most help, we need some helpful information with which to make informed decisions.

For example, most people may suggest spending most, if not all, XP on raising Characteristics. The main reason for this plan is because players cannot ever easily improve these base characteristics. At the end of the day, characters built this way have average-to-above average skills in many different situations. However, these characters are far less likely to be wielding a lightsaber and parrying blaster bolts, or far less likely to have Force powers or specialization talents. In short, these characters are well-rounded and will all look mostly the same aside from species choices.

Another example will suggest building a specialist. Specialists sink a smaller number of XP on characteristics because they invest in very specific talents, Force powers, etc. A lightsaber user may be rolling six dice in combat, but a single die when making a Survival check, for example. In short, these characters make for very interesting yet very narrow experiences. In large groups, these players lean on others to cover their weaknesses while adding their super-skills when needed.

We could end the lesson here, but the BEST advice is offered when we know how scare XP will be in your game. If you meet once a month for two hours and earn 10 total XP, I suggest making a specialist. They will do a lot of what you want them to do, and probably stink and everything else. However, when they shine, they're a lighthouse beacon for specialized goodness. On the other hand, meeting every week for an hour with 10+ XP may give your characters the time needed to grow their skills, talents, and Force powers from their inflated characteristics.

So, how scare is XP in your game?

All the xp into characteristics. Can't tell you what to raise though without knowing more of the concept and how you intend to play him. Some concepts can get away with one 4 and a 3 and then 2's elsewhere. Others work with three 3's. It boils down to what you want the character to grow in and style of play. Also species. Sometimes switching to a better species gives you more bang for your xp buck depending on what stat spread you're looking for.

For instance

With this character I wanted him to be broadly good in three area's. So he has three 3's. I could have put one at 4 but I felt it more important to be competent in more area's than to be too specialized.

With this character I did the opposite. I went with one 4 and one 3 because I really only cared about two areas. I want him super specialized in one area and the rest didn't matter.

With this final character I wanted a bit of both. So I opted to play a species that would already grant me a 3 in a desired skill which make having one 4 and two 3's easier. I take a 1 in one of my attributes but I don't care about that and consider it one of his weak points (and play accordingly).

But most of those stat choices were being made with how I intend to play the character in mind and what I felt he needed to be good at. We'd need to know what you are trying to do in order to better recommend where to spend.

Yes Xp on Characteristics is important, usually somewhere between 60-100% of whats available including the additional gained through Obligation/Duty/Morality options.

Sounds like your building a Human too, don't forget Humans only make up 2 of the 60ish species in the entire system so far. Humans excel at being generalists, with 4x3's and 2x2's, but other species have more ability to specialise, some can have a more interesting (IMHO) spread of 1x4, 2x3, 2x2 and 1x1. You then have a flaw to play with during the game, and some strengths spread further out.

Length of campaign is important too. If this game is likely to be only a couple of months long then you definitely want a 4 in something since you may never even get that Dedication, or it will be at the expense of other interesting talents. If on the other hand your game is looking to be long or is starting as Knight Level then you have more flexibility and can afford to save some xp at character creation, use it on boosting skills/talents then go for the dedication with that extra 150 that Knight Level provides.

here are a couple of examples of different approaches to creation:

Captain Jack is a Knight Level Human Commodore, 90 starting xp on Characteristics to allow boosting of skills. Of particular note i didn't spend 30xp on Intellect 3, instead opting to spend 25xp on Astrogation, it seems odd, but allows Jack to not be overly reliant on Intellect for other skills and gives him a reason to work with others. It also means if he provides skilled assistance on Astrogation he is much more useful.

Duran is Knight Level Drall Demolitionist. A ridiculous character with 1 Brawn and 1 Agility, but 3 Intellect and 3 Cunning, Willpower and Presence make him a formidable PC. The 3 Ranks of Range Light make him much more effective in combat, and that high Intellect allow him to make a raft of improvements to his gear... and 17 Strain is insane.

Scrug, a basic character, is an example of devoting yourself to Characteristics. With a spread of 2,3,4,2,3,2 he has huge dice pools, but practically no skill ranks and zero "helpful" talents. But from the beginning he can do plenty, even if his likelyhood of Triumph is much reduced. Then with just 15xp (the first session) in Soresu that Ancient sword will be deadly. This is an example of a character built for a longer campaign, but easily modifiable for a one shot if you threw Knight Level at it.

Finigan is a character made in a very different way. Instead of pumping up Characteristics only 60 was spent to rais the 2 most important ones. this allowed 2 thematic Force Powers and some extra skill ranks in areas the character would lack otherwise. his dice pools are all lower as a result, but his ability to fix and heal are still solid. Not pouring Xp into characteristics also allowed me to get the extra 2500cr at the start, significantly improving his gear. Its also important to not i would normally have made the droids and gear for this character using the Special Modifications rules, but i chose to instead use off the shelf stuff to simplify things.

(Edit: i had the same idea as Kael, but beaten to it! either way there are plenty of examples there to look over)

You can also play against type, though it is costly. For this character I wanted to play a Mirialan but I also wanted him to be good at hunting, which to some extent relies on Cunning for things like Survival and Perception. Ideally you wouldn't go with a species that starts with a 1 in one of the stats you value as important. So I have to sink most of my xp into raising that 1 to a 3 and then opting to raise the other important skill for the concept (Agility) to 4. Had I wanted I could have picked something that didn't have a 1 in a core stat and thus would have allowed me to have more leeway in raising abilities but I kinda sorta liked the species in question for this concept. Had I decided to go with a species that didn't have a 1 in a core stat for the concept I likely could have created a spread closer to Drask with one 4 and two 3's.

You can also play against type, though it is costly. For this character I wanted to play a Mirialan but I also wanted him to be good at hunting, which to some extent relies on Cunning for things like Survival and Perception. Ideally you wouldn't go with a species that starts with a 1 in one of the stats you value as important. So I have to sink most of my xp into raising that 1 to a 3 and then opting to raise the other important skill for the concept (Agility) to 4. Had I wanted I could have picked something that didn't have a 1 in a core stat and thus would have allowed me to have more leeway in raising abilities but I kinda sorta liked the species in question for this concept. Had I decided to go with a species that didn't have a 1 in a core stat for the concept I likely could have created a spread closer to Drask with one 4 and two 3's.

On that, if there is only a single Skill associated with the Characteristic then leaving it at one and increasing skill ranks is a very viable option, but its costly just as Kael said if you have more than one skill in this position.

Yeah, had I not needed both Survival and Perception for the Hunting concept raising Cunning to 2 would have been fine and I could have compensated with just skill points. On the upside one can say he's cunning for a Mirialin.

Thank you all so much, that helped me a lot. I went for the 4 times 3. I am not sure about my last skill, I have taken Computers at the moment, but also considered Gunnery, to help in Space Combat.

I'll post my current version of the character as soon as I figure out how to upload attachments .

And again thank you to the community for all the nice answers.

Ala

If you need an online character sharing tool go here and create an account. it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but enough to be good.