Ahead of the new book, I wanted to get people’s ideas on the Sentinel career and how it stands up to the others.

Only one of our players wanted to play one, and – while the character is very enjoyable and the player loves to role-play, the character itself always seems to lag behind. This is probably a problem with her ‘build’ as the player just gets what’s cool and doesn’t pay much attention to synergies or Force powers. So much so I’m considering to allow a ‘rebuild’ when the new book comes out, if the new concepts suit the character better.

Anyway, I wanted to pick your brains on what we have already, and hear about any characters in your groups. The Sentinel originated in the original KotOR I believe, and didn’t make it into the SAGA game, as Jedi were split between warriors (Guardians) and mages (Consulars). I actually liked the concept and the Bastila character, so I’m very glad they kept it alive for the F&D game. So the idea is to have a more ‘thiefly’ Force user, potentially one who is good with tech and sneaking around. How does it measure up to the concept? (I’m not considering synergies with other specs, I’m considering how it works alone. Frankly if you need another 5-6 specs to make one look good, it probably needs reworking).

First, the base career skills. Having only 6 as opposed to 8, they really need to make these count, and also take specs that can add to the base skills. I can’t really argue with them here – Computers, Know/Core Worlds, Deception, Perception, Stealth and Skulduggery. Everything you need to play a sneaky and tech-savvy character, assuming they are an urban city type.

Onto the specs. I first note that there are no combat skills (outside of Lightsaber) in any of the current specs or main career, and no Discipline… This kinda hurts them in comparison to the other Jedi careers as so many Force powers depend on Discipline checks.

The Artisan has a reputation at my table as being underwhelming. With the advent of the invention rules, I’m thinking we should take another look. The skills like Astrogation and Mechanics, and talents like two ranks of Fine Tuning and 3 of Solid Repairs suggests an onboard co-pilot or engineer. Not a particularly desired role at my table, but certainly a good niche and the Artisan does it pretty well. The right side of the tree, with Technical Aptitude and two Defensive Slicing, really needs you to make adventures that will use these elements – you really need the ‘decker’ rules from Special Mods, and adventures where it’s important to hack a system quickly. Not bad abilities, but ones that need a GM to write to these strengths. Master Artisan and Natural Tinker are nice tech skills, and Inventor can help with the new crafting rules from Special Mods. What about the Force stuff? Well, Imbue Item feels very cool, along with Mental Tools, the character can feel like a magical tech savant. Comprehend Technology is a capstone ability that can really make up for a lack of combat skills… With 3 or 4 Force rating, you can wield that heavy blaster or vibrosword as well as your warrior buddies! (One assumes a lightsaber type would just take Shien). Intuitive Improvements is the other unique capstone here, and WOW does it seem powerful… A potential +2 hard points to anything you repair or build? I don’t think my players have read this as they didn’t take it! Does that apply to other people’s stuff too? It’s only once per item but that seems crazy-powerful if it does. All in all, probably an under-rated spec I think.

‘Shadow’ seems to be the meat of the career, the Spec that defines a Sentinel, and our PC has filled this tree. Good underworld type skills, and double-down on Stealth and Skulduggery. Mental Fortress early, and two ranks of Indistinguishable and Dodge to keep you out of trouble. The best thing here is Well-Rounded, I feel, allowing you to take Discipline and a combat skill, which the career seriously needs. Master of Shadows and Anatomy Lessons are great capstones for those ninja-like characters. What about the ninja ‘hand-magic’? Well, there’s Shroud, which is amazing in our games, where all Force-use (bar Influence) is flashy ‘biotics’ and anyone with Sense can detect a fellow Sensitive. The power to cloak your magic is pretty awesome really. Two ranks of Sleight of Mind is great, and ‘Now You See Me’ is the ultimate vanishing trick. A great spec; nobody can argue that it isn’t. If you want a magical tricky ninja, this is it.

I’ll admit I don’t know much EU stuff, so I have no idea about lightsaber styles in canon – the movies didn’t dig that deep. But I like the concept a lot. Shien is the ‘sneaky’ style then, and a very defensive one. How about that branch on the far right? Three ranks of Reflect, plus Improved and Supreme, for a mere 75 XP and no wastage? Yes please. Plus two Parry if you spread out a bit. Side Step and Defensive Stance help the overall emphasis on staying alive. Shien Technique is worth it, as Cunning is likely to be high for all the sneaky skills. But if you didn’t neglect Brawn, there’s always Falling Avalanche. How looks the Jedi stuff? Djem So lets you close quickly, and Saber Throw is always fun. Counterstrike is nice, and the capstone of Disruptive Strike really screws up a foe, especially in a duel. All in all, not a bad spec at all. I’d only question the use of Skulduggery AGAIN though – why the need to double-down here, how often will a lightsaber expert be picking pockets or locks? I’d REALLY prefer it to have Coordination, which seems more fitting to the concept of a slippery fighter, and the spec actually has talents like Conditioned that make use of it.

So in closing, it seems a pretty good career, neh? Maybe our Sentinel just sucks and we assume they all do. As to ‘Endless Vigil’, I’d assume Racer synergises well with Artisan, adding actual vehicle skills to the latter's repair talents. I’m guessing Sentry is a good fit for Shadow, making a Batman type. And Investigator probably works well with both of these. Sentry is also a ‘saber spec, I think, so it will synergise well with Shien, as Armourer did with Soresu.

Anyone have any thoughts or Sentinel stories to tell?

Marcy

I'm currently playing a Sentinel/Shien Expert in a buddy's TFA era campaign, and I must say I'm very much digging the career and specialization.

I've liked the general feel of Sentinel, with the only skill I don't fully agree with them having being Knowledge (Core Worlds), but I'm not 100% certain what I'd replace it with either; Underworld seems too simple a choice, though maybe Streetwise to bolster their info-gathering capabilities? Yeah, the lack of Discipline kind of hurts if they want to be Force wizards, but their primary focus isn't to be Force wizards any more than it is for Seeker or Warrior.

I've never been one for techie-type PCs, so the Artisan never really struck a chord with me, though like you said with the publishing of item creation rules in Special Modifications, that spec will probably get more love.

Shadow is almost the Batman spec to me, with the only thing really lacking are combat skills, but the Well-Rounded talent takes care of that. Only thing that I kinda feel is missing is Vigilance as a career skill in order to be alert and react quickly to sudden threats; maybe could have swapped out Skulduggery? Then again, Well-Rounded is there to add it as a career skill if the player feels they really need a lot of ranks in it.

In contrast to Maelora, I am quite an EU buff when it comes to the Lightsaber Forms, even going so far as to compile a list of possible talent and feat combos for a PC in WotC's Saga Edition. Shien Expert is a bit of an odd duck in that I do think it's trying to cover a lot of ground in one spec in being two aspects of Form V (Djem So for melee combat, Shien for ranged protection), but overall I think it does pretty good at what it's trying to do. Having Skulduggery as a bonus career skill for the spec is a bit of an odd choice, though I'm not entirely what I'd swap it out for, since the two skills that I feel would best fit are Athletics and Resilience, which it already has; don't want to say Vigilance and certainly not Discipline, as two of the primary Form V users we see in media (Anakin and Ahsoka) really don't come across as being particularly self-disciplined during the Clone Wars, and by the time we see them again in Rebels, they're both a lot older and much more experienced than their younger selves; I suspect Rebels!Ahsoka would bemusedly shake her head at the brash antics of TCW!Ahsoka.

As for play experiences, as noted earlier I'm playing a Sentinel/Shien Expert, a reworking of my original EotE PC Valin Starsmore (a Force-sensitive street rat that entered play long before we heard anything about Ezra Bridger). He's not had a lot of opportunities to bust out the lightsaber (training version), which suits him fine as he's trying to keep a low profile; not out of a direct fear of being hunted by the Knights of Ren (this version of Valin was a student at Luke's Jedi temple before Kylo and crew wrecked the joint, surviving through the good fortune of being on a solo meditation assignment when the attack went down), but more a lack of self-confidence that he's simply not good enough to be considered a Jedi. This Valin was still a street rat for much of his youth until he got picked up by authorities for a petty crime and was flagged as a Force-sensitive, and then wound up going back to his roots after the temple was destroyed (which from near as we can tell, was about five years prior to the events of TFA).

So far his "best moments" have been 1) using Skulduggery to temporarily sabotage the party's ship so that when we told the town leader we couldn't leave right away it'd be believable (PC owner of said ship wasn't thrilled, given the ship's a jalopy that makes the Falcon look pristine in comparison), 2) using Move to get the very nasty taser-baton that a First Order trooper was using to seriously smack down the Soldier/Medic, and 3) spending a Triumph from a Lightsaber combat check to thwack the jetpack worn by a Chiss mercenary and send him careening off into the hills, but only after rushing the guy's position and arranging it so that nobody else saw Valin break out the beatstick. He's also got a serious crush on a fellow PC, a very attractive (of course) Tapani-born noblewoman (Mystic/Advisor) that's a bit older than him but is generally quite sweet and helpful (she serves as a nurse for the "traveling free clinic" that the Soldier/Medic operates out of the ship, and has charmed quite a few older folks along the way, including making a friendly contact out of a surly barkeep).

He's been a fun character to play thus far. with his mix of deadpan snarkiness, lack of self-esteem/confidence, and as-yet-to-be-revealed combat prowess (much of his XP thus far has been going into talents, and he's primed to pick up Improved Reflect, but thus far as mostly used a light blaster untrained). The GM is on a bit of hiatus due to needing to focus on last minute organizing of a con in his area (CK Expo up in Canada), but I'm looking forward to us resuming this campaign, as he's put a lot of work into the setting and laid a number of interesting plot hooks at our party's feet.

While I'd love to participate on the same detailed level as the two of you, I actually don't have as many thoughts on the Sentinel as a career as you do. In the game I'm running, we have a Twi'lek Sentinel (Shadow/Force-Sensitive Exile/Shien Expert) and, aside from forgetting that she's a Space Wizard quite often and not using her Mind Trick at all, she's pretty good at what she does.

Both Shadow and Shien Expert seem to be helping a lot. Because of the nature of the circles our group runs in, the lightsabers have not actually come out at all yet, so I can't give a detailed in-game report for how Shien's talents help in combat. The Shadow, however, has been extraordinarily helpful, with Now You See Me, Codebreaker, and Sleight of Mind getting the most useage (along with Force Rating, of course).

Sorry, that's all I got at the moment. With one major exception, I typically reserve judgement of a career until I can see all six specs and the signature abilities.

I have plenty of thoughts on the subject, but NDA....

That aside, Sentinel is my favorite of the Force and Destiny career. The Jedi Path mentions that they're not just the "sneaky Jedi", They're the Jedi that tend to focus less on lightsabers and Force powers and more on practical skills like piloting and slicing and such. Luke even annotates that of all the Jedi that survive Order 66, most of them were Sentinels, because they could better blend in a crowd or had practical skills they could fall back on without using the Force.

I thought that the career skills were unattractive. Computers doesn't seem like a function of the career, but I could certainly see it for specific specs. I wondered why Streetwise was not a career skill. I have mixed feelings about Knowledge (Core Worlds) as I don't really see any hard link between Core Worlds and urban, even though this seems to come up a lot. I would have preferred if this was Knowledge (Underworld). Unfortunately, I see Sentinel as being unfocused, much like the Explorer from Edge.

Summary: I would have liked this career a lot more if the career skill set had been: Deception, Knowledge (Underworld), Perception, Skulduggery, Stealth, Streetwise.

The problems with shadow boil down to these:

1. No bypass Security replace that second 20 point code breaker with bypass Security

2. Slight of Mind should also give a bonus die on deception checks. (These are not the droids you are looking for)

Artisan has its own faults which are mainly that its a terrible tree to be called Artisan.

Artisan invokes this artistic hand made crafting vibe like the Navajo Indian Jewelry crafters or those Irish Silversmiths you find at Ren Fairs.

1. Astrogation??? More like Lore or Survival

2. Technical Aptitude, Defensive slicing? I'm sorry but I don't meet many Silver smiths, black smiths, bakers or Brewers who are expert computer hackers. I'm sure that the Hand Crafted Furniture was totally drafted out on a holographic computer display before he broke out the old tech hand tools...

3. Imbue Item cool idea a Jury Rig for Force users. I don't even mind the whole commiting force dice, but the spend a strain a round you have it active is overkill.

The reason Shadow has computers is well umm see Batman has a giant computer he uses to solve crime and used to be a hacker until Oracle, but she's better now so I guess he has to have mad computer skills again and well lots of Locks and security systems are computer based. Yes Knowledge Underworld makes more sense then Knowledge core worlds...

I thought that the career skills were unattractive. Computers doesn't seem like a function of the career, but I could certainly see it for specific specs. I wondered why Streetwise was not a career skill. I have mixed feelings about Knowledge (Core Worlds) as I don't really see any hard link between Core Worlds and urban, even though this seems to come up a lot. I would have preferred if this was Knowledge (Underworld). Unfortunately, I see Sentinel as being unfocused, much like the Explorer from Edge.

Summary: I would have liked this career a lot more if the career skill set had been: Deception, Knowledge (Underworld), Perception, Skulduggery, Stealth, Streetwise.

Computers is something the original Jedi Sentinel had, in Knights of the Old Republic . Comparing what The Jedi Path says, it's not that they don't have a focus, it's that they have too broad a focus; most careers have a pretty narrow focus, comparatively.

Artisan has its own faults which are mainly that its a terrible tree to be called Artisan.

Artisan invokes this artistic hand made crafting vibe like the Navajo Indian Jewelry crafters or those Irish Silversmiths you find at Ren Fairs.

1. Astrogation??? More like Lore or Survival

2. Technical Aptitude, Defensive slicing? I'm sorry but I don't meet many Silver smiths, black smiths, bakers or Brewers who are expert computer hackers. I'm sure that the Hand Crafted Furniture was totally drafted out on a holographic computer display before he broke out the old tech hand tools...

The name Artisan originated elsewhere . Besides, Artisan is synonymous with craftsperson, meaning " a person who practices or is highly skilled in a craft," with craft meaning " an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill, especially manual skill."

Yeah, a bit like Explorer (though I don't hold that career in as much contempt as some), Sentinel is a "jack of all trades" type of concept. Looking at the specs for it, it covers a very wide gamut of archetypes, from the sneak (Shadow) to the crafter (Artisan) to the combat expert (Shien Expert) to the pilot (Racer) to the sleuth (Investigator) to whatever Sentry winds up actually being. Guardian and Seeker had a tad more focus in their specs, with the former being protective combat and the later more focused on surviving and exploring harsh situations. Time will tell if how Mystic, Consular, and Warrior will shake out, but of those three I suspect Mystic to be somewhat broad while Warrior (offensive combat) and Consular (intellectual) will be a bit more focused.

I can see Computers being viable, given how much information is stored electronically in Star Wars, and even if slicing isn't a primary focus for some Sentinel builds, I can see it being handy to have if you need to dig up the dirt on a person; in the first adventure in that TFA campaign, having a rank or two might have helped when Valin (my PC) tried to find out what happened to electronic records of a local orphanage (First Order had arranged to "buy" the children to conscript them for stormtrooper training). I agree with HappyDaze that Streetwise would have been a nice skill to have, but it can be worked around. Valin took a rank as one of his bonus Human skill ranks (the other was Discipline), and if I need a second rank, I'll bite the bullet and pay the extra 5XP for it being a non-career skill, but he's got a decent Cunning so I've been able to get by pretty well thus far with 1Y2G for a dice pool as well as removing a setback die, and we've just crossed the 100XP earned threshold.

It's actually my favorite, but I like sneaky sneaky stuff sooooo. My play experience with it has been positive so far. I think if you build to the strengths of the individual careers then you'll be fine. So namely when playing a Shadow build upon the sneaky street rat aspect. With the Artisan play heavily on modding stuff for your team. I guess the biggest problem is the lack of combat skills but I have a sinking suspicion that Investigator and Sentry will likely have at least one.

As an aside, Sentinel was in Saga edition. It was the OCR and the RCR that it didn't appear in.

Artisan has too many vehicle-specific talents (Solid Repairs and Fine Tuning only apply to vehicles) for my liking and not enough general "crafty" talents. For the latter, I think Armorer works far better.

I played an Artisan/Shien Expert in what ended up being a 300+ XP game and I always found myself with something to do. I modded the group's equipment to give us a bit of an edge, we had a dedicated pilot so the ship specific talents were useful plus all of the basic mechanic/computer ship actions, the career skills were nice even if I didn't have the talents to really capitalize on them (we had a devoted sneaky guy/infiltrator so I was able to tag along in case he got caught, so he wasn't alone), and by the time we ended the game my lightsaber's Ilum crystal was almost completely modded. Add that with the lightsaber style and I was actually really handy in a fight as well as long as I wasn't too reckless. It's a nice, well rounded career in a game that favors well rounded characters a bit more than other systems.

Unfortunately, I see Sentinel as being unfocused, much like the Explorer from Edge..

Low blow, Happy! It seems underwhelming, but did it deserve that?

Let's compare it to Scholar too (Archaeologist beat Scholar up and stole all his stuff...) so the whole career can slink into a corner and cry its heart out...

On a serious note, what's the limit with Intuitive Improvements? Does it really apply to other people's stuff too? It feels like 'Supreme Improve Jury Rigged' if it does.

On a serious note, what's the limit with Intuitive Improvements? Does it really apply to other people's stuff too? It feels like 'Supreme Improve Jury Rigged' if it does.

My understanding is that it does affect other people's stuff.

It's not quite as nifty as Jury-Rigged, at least in my view, since all it does is add an extra hard point, and even that requires 2 Force Points. And while the maximum increase is +2 hard points, you can only ever use the talent once on an item (per the full description on page 145). so if your only spec is Artisan, then you'll need to generate 2 force pips on both of your two Force dice to get the full perk; more than likely the Artisan is only going to generate 2 FPs.

While i agree that an extra hard point can be nice, there's still the matter of the user needing to acquire the attachment and then modify it. Compare to Jury-Rigged, which instead gives a fairly broad but automatic benefit to a single item, I don't feel that Intuitive Improvements is really all that much of an improvement.

Imbue Item could be seen as "Jury Rigged on vitamins" since it can provide the perks of Jury Rigged to any ally, but has the cost of committing a Force die and costing the Artisan strain each round that die is maintained.

I think Sentinel is one of those careers that benefits greatly from balanced stats and a splash into some other career's Specialization. Force Sensitive Emergent is a good second spec, It can probably satisfy the Sentinel's need for better Perception and Vigilance checks.

Armorer from the Guardian book is comparable to Artisan but with better defensive talents, some overlap with Shien Expert so you might not want both.

Shadow is an excellent specialization I think, no complaints there.

Artisan drives me nuts that it requires you to take ship specific talents to get through the tree. I don't like that there are essentially 3 themes to the tree and you have to take talents that aren't necessarily connected to what you want to do in order to progress in the tree. They have ship talents, crafting talents, and computer talents... you MUST take ship talents to get to tier 3, you MUST take crafting talents to get your Force Rating, and you MUST take computer talents to get the Dedication. It just feels both rigid and wasteful if that isn't your character concept. Personally I would have left the computer stuff to the Shadow, I would put crafting on one side, ship stuff on the other side, and allow either side to access the Force Rating and Dedication talents.

The Shien Tree has a ton of good talents, so much so that when I play with the character generator I end up potentially wanting to take every talent in the tree. I do have an issue though that there are essentially 2 separate mini-trees since there are no connectors down the middle.

I think part of the issue with Artisan is that it's really the only "techie" spec in the core rulebook, so in that regards it had to cover not only building things, but also repairing vehicles and starships. Otherwise, the only other spec that's capable of fixing up the party's ride (not all groups are going to start with a mentor or a holocron) beyond having ranks in Mechanics is the Starfighter Ace (2 ranks of Solid Repairs), and if the campaign's not going to feature a lot of space combat, there's not nearly as much incentive to take Starfighter Ace, especially as the Warrior career leans more towards close-quarters fighting and doesn't really offer much return on investment for favoring Intellect. Sentinel on the other hand can benefit for a higher-than-average Intellect (3+), seeing as how it's got Computers as a career skill, and both Artisan and Shadow have useful skills that key to Intellect (with Shadow having the option to add two more thanks to Well Rounded).

The Shien Tree has a ton of good talents, so much so that when I play with the character generator I end up potentially wanting to take every talent in the tree. I do have an issue though that there are essentially 2 separate mini-trees since there are no connectors down the middle.

There is a rather interesting reason for this: Form V is two very similar forms in one, Shien and Djem So. The left tree of Shien Expert represents Djem So, while the right represents Shien.

So I have played a sentinel to the 600 earned experience range (585) and I've gotta say that they are not the same kind of character as a Guardian or Consular. You really can't think about them the same or really play them the same. That being said the OP mentioned a character lagging behind. I have seen multiple times other people in my group play sentinels now and they had some issue because it is such a diverse career choice. I feel like it is very important to not think of sentinels as the "rogues" of Jedi or even force users in general. I feel like they share with seekers a necessary role based upon the society in which they want to inhabit more than what they do. I feel in some ways that it may be harder to play one in games that don't allow you to play to your focus but they have the wider available focus areas available.

That being said, force powers can be very powerful and Sentinels don't come about force rating fast. They do have more ability with a lightsaber than any of he other starting paths in that Shadows can use the week rounded to take it, provided they are allowed, and they have another specialization that has lightsaber along with their style which is ridiculous in the right proportions. The variety of skills are also good and depending they can have some of the best lightsaber a in the game with artisans. That being said if you want a complete action movie character, you may be disappointed. Please keep in mind that this isn't D&D or pathfinder. There aren't classes you have to stick to. Sentinels, however, do suffer from build inefficiency if you aren't careful and play with a lot of min/maxers.

Imbue Item + buddy with a heavy blaster rifle = autofire all the things. ALL OF THEM

The Artisan isn't up to par with the other crafting type specializations in the game I think. Not having a single rank of Jury Rigged or Tinkerer and getting weird force versions of them instead just kind of ruins it. (It's the same with Guardians having no Armor Master and getting an inefficient force power instead)

Imbue is just flat out worse than Jury Rigged in every way. Why the hell would you want to use a power that takes a committed force die and makes you take strain every single turn to do the same thing as one that has no downsides at all? This is completely absurd.

Intuitive Improvements is interesting because there is no limit to the number of items you use it on, but on the other hand, the item limit on Tinkerer is specifically there because engineers are supposed to have tricked out gear that other character's don't have, with Intuitive Improvements there is no reason not to try and up the hardpoints on every item your party owns.

On top of that it's just an awkward tree. Building a character who's a mechanic and not a slicer? lol, no dedication. Building a character who's a slicer and not a mechanic? lol, no force rating.

The very fact that you can add up to two hardpoints to everyone's gear is why I prefer intuitive improvements over tinkerer. And, if you want it all, take the Armorer spec as a second spec.

Now that Endless Vigil is on shelves, I think that book opens up some very interesting possibilities for Sentinel PCs.

Taking the combo of Shien Expert + Sentry is going to result in a character that's pretty well protected from ranged attacks (5 ranks of Reflect) while having a pretty potent ranged attack of their own (Saber Throw), and with Sentry having a Force Rating talent that's not too difficult to reach, that means your ability to use Saber Throw reliably becomes much better. That you can use Deception (a career skill) to quickly remove minion groups from a fight is super-handy, and generally worth the 1 point of automatic Conflict you get each session. Dodge helps shore up Shien Expert's general lack of melee protection, since those extra challenge dice can help get Counterstrike to trigger, even more so if combined with Disruptive Strike.

Sentry by itself is pretty good, though perhaps a little heavy on ranged defense. Uncanny Reactions is good for ensuring at least somebody on your side gets in the first shot, even more so once you get Constant Vigilance. Sleight of Mind is good for being sneaky, and makes combining this spec with Shadow a very potent combination; maybe not as great at combat as Shien Expert, but Sentry+Shadow gives you the potential for a dangerously capable assassin that's trained to use one of the more potent melee weapons in the game.

Racer itself is pretty interesting, as it's a solid piloting-based spec that has viable applications outside of piloting, something that a lot of piloting-based specs generally lack.

For those players that enjoy playing sleuths, the Investigator is indeed right up their alley. Can make for a pretty decent noir-style hardboiled private eye thanks to 2 ranks each of Toughened and Grit, as well as things like Street Smarts and Talk the Talk so that you've can ensure you've got a good skill rating when making plot-important Knowledge checks. Keen Eyed is always nice, as is that rank of Uncanny Senses. Only downside is the lack of any sort of combat skill as a career skill, but that's not too insurmountable of an obstacle to overcome. Sense Advantage and Valuable Facts are both very useful support talents. And the value of Unrelenting Skeptic should be pretty clear, though it's hampered a bit by the lack of Vigilance as a career skill.

The very fact that you can add up to two hardpoints to everyone's gear is why I prefer intuitive improvements over tinkerer. And, if you want it all, take the Armorer spec as a second spec.

It's great for powergaming, but from my perspective it kind of goes against the spirit of a tinkerer as a class if tricked out gear simply becomes the baseline for all player characters.

The Artisan isn't up to par with the other crafting type specializations in the game I think. Not having a single rank of Jury Rigged or Tinkerer and getting weird force versions of them instead just kind of ruins it. (It's the same with Guardians having no Armor Master and getting an inefficient force power instead)

Imbue is just flat out worse than Jury Rigged in every way. Why the hell would you want to use a power that takes a committed force die and makes you take strain every single turn to do the same thing as one that has no downsides at all? This is completely absurd.

Intuitive Improvements is interesting because there is no limit to the number of items you use it on, but on the other hand, the item limit on Tinkerer is specifically there because engineers are supposed to have tricked out gear that other character's don't have, with Intuitive Improvements there is no reason not to try and up the hardpoints on every item your party owns.

On top of that it's just an awkward tree. Building a character who's a mechanic and not a slicer? lol, no dedication. Building a character who's a slicer and not a mechanic? lol, no force rating.

Guardians have Armor Master through Armorer in Keeping the Peace .

Armorer also offers Guardians a chance to build an effective Brawn based character. And the new lightsaber construction rules in Endless Vigil can also benefit Brawn characters that want to use Double Sabers.

I keep buying all the Source and Destiny books and I have not been disappointed. I have used content from all of them in the game I run for my friends.

I haven't bought all the supplements yet, but that's definitely an improvement over Force Protection, which is a joke. If they ever do a revision of the core books they could change Force Protection to something like "Commit FD FD to give all soak you gain from your Brawn the cortosis quality". That would actually be handy in a lightsaber fight.

(This forum should really have emoticons for the various dice)