In january i'll be participating in an SW:AoR campaign for my first time. I've played several other RPG's previously, but have not played any Star-Wars ones. I've decided to make a Commander with the Tactician specialization, and i'll probably end up with characteristics of 2,3,2,1,2,3.

Now, my main issue is that i dont really have much of a clue yet as to which skills will be most useful for my character. The campaign will have a military focus, and focus more on land-battles than ship-to-ship stuff.

Leadership and Discipline seems like natural ones for a Commander, and i'd like my Ranged (Light or Heavy) to be up there aswell, but which other skills would you recommend for a SW:AoR first timer ? Both at initial character creation, but also for the next couple of sessions ?

Take this with a grain of salt, but I'm still relatively new in this game (the campaign that I am participating started about 6 months ago).

My first question; Is this going to be a long term campaign or is this campaign likely to be short? (Two or three missions tops)?

If you're looking at a longer campaign it would be better to spend your beginning Exp on Attributes and less on Skills. If you're looking at a short campaign, then you should spend less on Attributes and more on Skills.

The skills you use are going to be highly dependent on what you character is designed to do. My character is an engineer and most of my skill checks are Mechanics (Repairing stuff) and Computers (Slicing stuff).

To prep for combat, I'd recommend Cool, & Vigilance along with the combat skills you will be using.

If you're looking at a longer campaign look forward to buying up Talents. Talents can be game changers.

So that's my advice based on my limited experience.

Even if it's a short campaign, I'd still spend most of my XP on attributes...maybe a bit less to buy some extra skills or talents, but not much. Those 3s come in handy...

Knowledge (Warfare) would seem important for a tactical commander. That skill covers strategies and knowledge of machines of war.

Thanks for the replies so far!

The campaign is planned to be a longer-term one, though since i've not played with this group before, you never know, we might hate eachother on sight

I've been debating abit with myself about how much to put into Characteristics, and the book recommends spending quite alot, my GM actually recommended to not spend alot there. Probably because i'd be more useful earlier in the campaign with abit more skills and talents and i can always increase the characteristics (1 for each spec) later on.

So far i've ended up with the following skills:

Coercion 1,

Cool 2

Discipline 2

Leadership 2

Negotiation 1

Perception 2

Vigilance 2

Brawl 1

Ranged - Light 1

Ranged Heavy 2

Knowledge Warfare 2

Thanks for the replies so far!

The campaign is planned to be a longer-term one, though since i've not played with this group before, you never know, we might hate eachother on sight

I've been debating abit with myself about how much to put into Characteristics, and the book recommends spending quite alot, my GM actually recommended to not spend alot there. Probably because i'd be more useful earlier in the campaign with abit more skills and talents and i can always increase the characteristics (1 for each spec) later on.

So far i've ended up with the following skills:

Coercion 1,

Cool 2

Discipline 2

Leadership 2

Negotiation 1

Perception 2

Vigilance 2

Brawl 1

Ranged - Light 1

Ranged Heavy 2

Knowledge Warfare 2

Bumping your characteristics up after Chargen will be way more expensive since you'll have to buy into new specializations to get down to the Dedication. It is your GM's game but my players felt much more effective having the higher Characteristics than having Skills and Talents to start.

Hmm, which Characteristics would you prioritise to bump up ? Presence, Agility or something different ? (both of those are 3 already)

With a human and the right Duty bonus you can get four 3s at chargen. I would go with at least three 3s, or a 4/3/2/2/2/1 spread. Looks like your PC isn't a human (the 1 is a telltale), so you might even be able to swing a 4/3/3/2/2/1 spread, depending on the species.

Edit: the only thing is if all the players follow your GM's advice, you'll probably be better than some of them even outside your core areas of expertise. Perhaps your GM has a specific reason for his advice, but it is counter to most people's practices (not everyone of course), so it could be they are just new to the system. Throwing 3 green dice gives you better odds of success than even 2 yellow dice, although when you do succeed with 2 yellows, you will usually have more advantages to play with (and definitely more triumphs). But it could be irritating for, say, a slicer to feel all good with his 2 yellows, and you come along with your 3 greens and have less trouble. So you might want to either revisit this with your GM, or make sure your character is more in line with what everybody else is doing.

Spend all of your points on attributes.

Spend all of your points on attributes.

The only other thing I would suggest is saving 20 XP or the first 20 xp you earn be used on getting Recruit. It's very useful.

Hi Gelanin,

[channeling my inner munchkin]

Knowing now that you're involved in a potentially lengthy campaign, I'd recommend shaving all of the extra points you spent on skills and tweak up the characteristics, because after character generation, it is very expensive and difficult to increase the characteristics. They can only be increased inside talent trees.

Skill development, on the other hand, is relatively inexpensive and easy to do later.

As a point of experience, in the campaign that I've been involved in, I was the one player who dumped all of my Exp into Characteristics and had the minimum number of skills. My highest skill as of character generation was a 1. Okay all of my skills were at level 1.

Yeah, the "experienced" player told me that I was being foolish, but I've got an Agility of four and Ranged Heavy skill 0. I can still out shoot most of the rest of the group with those 4 green die.

My Intelligence is a 3 and with only 1 skill in computers, I'm actually a better slicer than the groups dedicated slicer. And though I only have the one point in Astrogation, I'm just as good at astrogation as the ship's Astrogator.

The rest of my character's characteristics are 2 and I'm not unhappy with the results I'm getting. I have to make sure I don't go toe-to-toe in combat, but with my high agility, that's usually a done deal. Plus I'm surrounded by melee tanks in this group, so that makes that even easier.

In game, I'm finding that the character is a pretty solid member of the team, and while I'm not excelling in anything that anyone else specializes in, there are tons of opportunities for my character to provided skilled assistance. I guess I'm ending up with a Buffing, Blaster.

And though my Mechanics started at just 1 skill, I just spent enough Exp last session to bring up my Mechanics to skill level 3, (So, yeah, 3 yellow dice for Mechanics checks. Oh, yeah! My character is a wiz-bang with the spanner and spinner. Got something broken? Not anymore you don't)!

Yep, I found the "insert smiley" tool.

(Edit Note: Changed Int to 3. Mis-reported that Characteristic as a 4).

've been debating abit with myself about how much to put into Characteristics, and the book recommends spending quite alot, my GM actually recommended to not spend alot there. Probably because i'd be more useful earlier in the campaign with abit more skills and talents and i can always increase the characteristics (1 for each spec) later on.

I'll reiterate what others have said: post-generation the only way to buy up attributes is with the Dedication talent - you can only use XP for it at chargen - so it's much more cost-effective to focus on them with your chargen XP. (Whether this is a feature or fault in the system can be freely debated, but it's the way the system works.) While there are exceptions, having more dice is generally preferable to having bigger dice, and the only real way to get more dice early on is to have higher attributes, since they can easily be raised to 3 or even 4, while skills are (with very few exceptions) capped at 2 ranks and much more specific.

Being really good at something is also more a matter of talents than of having yellow dice. The yellow dice help, and there's no question that a timely Triumph can make a big difference, but talents provide a lot of qualitative improvements to your skill use that can't be matched (or at least can't be reliably matched) simply by having more/better dice to throw at the problem.

Spend all of your points on attributes.

Do this. At the very least get Brawn up to 3 and Cunning to 2 or 3.

The only other thing I would suggest is saving 20 XP or the first 20 xp you earn be used on getting Recruit. It's very useful.

Recruit seems very useful if you pick a career that is not combat focused, but with my Commander:Tactician choice, picking up recruit does not at first glance look too good.... perhaps i'm missing something ?

Now, assuming i spend every single XP on characteristics, i could theoretically get to something like:

2, 4, 2, 1, 2, 4

3, 3, 2, 1, 2, 4

2, 3, 3, 1, 2, 4

2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 4

3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 3

3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 3

But it would take me down to 6 skills with rank 1, so not alot.

I guess perhaps a nice compromise would be to increase 1 more characteristics, but still have 1 rank in most/all of the Career & Specialization skills.

Now, assuming i spend every single XP on characteristics, i could theoretically get to something like:

2, 4, 2, 1, 2, 4

3, 3, 2, 1, 2, 4

2, 3, 3, 1, 2, 4

2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 4

3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 3

3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 3

But it would take me down to 6 skills with rank 1, so not alot.

I guess perhaps a nice compromise would be to increase 1 more characteristics, but still have 1 rank in most/all of the Career & Specialization skills.

Yep. Again, skills can be bought very quickly and cheaply later on and having more green die to throw at a dice pool is way more helpful in the short run.

Don't sweat that you only have the 6 "skills" and just because your character doesn't have a "skill" don't let that stop you from attempting to do something.

On pain of repeating myself but my character has a 4 Agility and 0 skills in Ranged Heavy, but my character has a MUCH better chance of hitting a long range target with 4 green than our "heavy gunner" who gets to attack with 1 green and 1 yellow.

Which begs the question . . . why haven't I picked up a ranged heavy weapon yet? I think I need to go shopping the next time I have an opportunity.

Those 1s in Cunning aren't going to do your Perception any good, neither will your low Willpower help with Discipline or Coercion. However, the low Cunning could make a good "story", as you can still build up your skill ranks: your commander is gullible, but eventually learns the hard way...

Personally I'd go with option 5, but switch Brawn for Willpower, e.g.: 2/3/3/2/3/3. Option 3 is also pretty good, but but the time you get down to the Field Commander talent, you'll probably have enough ranks in Leadership to handle that quite well. I wouldn't go with a 4 in Presence (at least at the start of the game) unless I was playing something like a Politico or Ambassador, where it's more useful earlier in the career.

Option 1 is interesting, but you'll likely be a better shooter than the dedicated shooter, and a better pilot than the dedicated pilot, at least at the beginning.

Having 6 skills with rank 1 is fine. Having a single yellow is a good thing, and you can easily in the first few sessions pick up a skill rank in every career skill, which makes you pretty well rounded. At only 5XP per, it's a no brainer.

After some more thought i do think going for 2,3,3,1,3,3 might be a good idea, and i think it goes fairly well with my current plan of later picking up the Instructor specialization for some medic skills, assuming noone else in the group wants to cover that role.

GM usually require characters to have atleast one rank in each career & specialization skill, but think i might be able to convince him to accept this idea/character-concept.

GM usually require characters to have atleast one rank in each career & specialization skill

Your GM has some funny ideas

GM usually require characters to have atleast one rank in each career & specialization skill

Your GM has some funny ideas

Yep. They sure do. I don't have 40% of my career skills with any points spent in them, and I've been working with this character for 6 months.

And truth be told I don't think I ever will drop skill points in those skills. Ever.

It's your character. Play him how you want.

GM usually require characters to have atleast one rank in each career & specialization skill, but think i might be able to convince him to accept this idea/character-concept.

Nowhere is this mandated in the system and it seems like a thoughtless "requirement" to throw at the players.

You get some free ranks in those skills (4/2, or 3/2 with a force-using career) and can buy more at-cost rather than paying extra. That's it.

Seems like your GM has some strange house rules governing character creation. If I where you I would talk to the GM to clarify just in case you misunderstood it may have been just a misunderstanding or interpretation, also if that's not it would be a good time to find out what other house rules there playing with before the game begins.

OK with that said if you still have to gimp your self at character creation like that then I would suggest changing your species to Droid because they get to start out with more skills in career and specialization that way you won't be to hindered from those house rules.

I like starting with 3's in brawn (+1 wound, +1 soak, +1 enc), agility (good for shooting even as a star ship gunner and piloting), cunning (perception and being able to lie, etc.), and willpower (+1 strain, vigilance). Now since you're going to be a leader maybe go for a 3 in presence instead of cunning. You might want to consider playing a pantoran (from the fad book endless vigil), if you want a 3 or higher in presence playing a pantoran, is really a no brainer, from a game mechanical stand point, unless you want to look like a baseline human

Edit: there is a lack of blue skin near human female wotc miniatures, but there is a pretty badass looking chiss mercenary miniature that you could use as a male pantoran.

Thanks for all the tips and ideas.

Think i've decided on a final "setup", which will be a 2,3,3,1,3,3 setup and the rest into some skills/talents.

Gelanin, are we going to get some more details once you have completed this character of yours? My curiosity is piqued!

Gelanin, are we going to get some more details once you have completed this character of yours? My curiosity is piqued!

Sure, this is the character (so far atleast).