Ok so I'm thinking scientist looks like half way between the master crafter of outlaw tech, with a bit of mechanic and droidy stuff so I'm leaning

scientist/slicer/ and eventually modder

Hmmm... That darn scientist spec

I definitely agree Scientist is the generalist you need.

One piece of helpful advice to bestow is don't get hung up on the names of specializations, and I was guilty of discounting specs based on names. For example I spent a lot of time trying to build a Jason Bourne type character, even to the point of creating custom specs which is almost certainly going to be a Mary sue disaster the first time you try it, but then I went through and looked at every spec in the game and found what I think is a pretty awesome starting spec that I hadn't even considered before because of the name: demolitionist. For a skill list >vd drop melee for either perception or stealth but otherwise perfect. If you ignore the big boom talents, what's left are pretty useful to just about anyone, and as a starting spec it provides access to the last one standing signature ability. And I had completely passed it over because of the name "demolitionist".

The next 2 specs in the planned build were gadgeteer (one of the best generalist specs ever) and mercenary soldier (pairs well with demolitionist).

When I get my hands on no disintegrations , i'm going to see about reworking the build to include martial artist.

Would it be crazy to do this:

Start as a cybertech and only plan on getting 2 talents?

And still pick up 3 other specs?

What's so hard

What scientist over outlaw tech?

Both have two inventor specs and both got speak binary...

Hmm...

The brilliance of Droid Tech and Cyber Tech are the talents that reduce the cost to make those things, truly that would be the main reason to dip into those trees. The increase in cyber cap is also awesome obviously.

I still think Scientist has the best starting skills for the entire character concept though, it has Combat in Ranged Light, Piloting, Mechanics, Medicine and Computers. Then an awesome spread of useful talents as well.

1 minute ago, Richardbuxton said:

The brilliance of Droid Tech and Cyber Tech are the talents that reduce the cost to make those things, truly that would be the main reason to dip into those trees. The increase in cyber cap is also awesome obviously.

I still think Scientist has the best starting skills for the entire character concept though, it has Combat in Ranged Light, Piloting, Mechanics, Medicine and Computers. Then an awesome spread of useful talents as well.

I think engineer:saboteur has a slightly better set of starting skills for the entire character concept, but when talents are considered that tips the balance in favor of scientist.

10 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

I wouldn't rule out saboteur because of the talents in the tree. You'd be taking it as your first spec for the skill selection and the top 2 rows (the cheap ones) of talents which focus on strain management. There's nothing that says you have to purchase any talents in a tree that you have. Normally you would want to from an xp point of view but having the perfect set of skills from character creation is huge in terms of xp savings, it means you're NOT paying the out of career cost for any of your skills, and the early game performance is dominated by how many ranks you have in the appropriate skills.

The maximum cost in terms of xp for a 3 spec build is (70-50=) 20xp (relative to buying 3 specs in the same career) which is equivalent to buying only 4 out of career skill ranks instead in career ranks. Also you get the savingsame early in the game and pay the price when you purchase your 2nd and third spec.

Also engineer has ranged light as a career skill which means you can be OK with a blaster from day 1, so you'll always be able to contribute in combat if you need to.

Also you should take a look at engineer:scientist it can get you some Droid (speaks binary) and crafting stuff in the right half the tree, has some pretty awesome talents in the lower left corner of the tree. What it doesn't have in terms of skills is stealth and skulldugery, but it does have an acceptable set of starting skills for your build.

In real life I would probably be statted as an engineer: mechanic/scientist (it gets me the right mix of skills and talents)

Edit: my primary criteria for picking my first spec (which determines career) are the skill list and choice of signature abilities, talents are generally a nice extra.

Good post.

One thing to add to this. Our Ace: Rigger astromech bought nearly immediatly Scientist, just for that computers career skill, 20 xp spend, and pushed directly afterwards computer to 5, 25 xp saved and ignored afterwards the scientist three for 300 xp completely. So if you want to plan ahead your character development, and as static and inflexible the system is, you clearly want efficient builds, you can grab missing career skills with by grabbing 2nd and 3rd spec early and ignore talents quite happily.

Ignoring talents itself is imho one of the keys in building a generalist, ignoring skills in which you have good characteristics would be the other. You won't roll this way on half your checks a triumph, but you will make this way nearly every check successful, just grab yourself a pair of 4s, or triple 3s, add a few dedication, cybernetics or enhance to those, while grabbing 4 or 5s in skills based on your characteristic dumps. Agility 1 and piloting 5 are still 5 dice. And you can still shine if you add talents to the mix, which basically gives you three ways to shine in certain areas:

• Combine 4+ Characteristics with 4+ Skills to constantly roll triumphs
• Combine 4+ Skills with talents to modify the results beyond the normally expected to compensate for the lack of triumphs
• Combine 4+ characteristics with talents modify the results beyond the normally expected to compensate for the lack of triumphs

If you do not try to constantly accomplish the impossible you should to fine with just having as big as possible dice pools, because it really is not the quality of the dice that counts, but their quantity.

For reference, 5 providence dice against one a hard (ddd) check give you a ~86% chance of success. 5 Ability dice on a hard check have 72% chance of success. And a providence dice with three greens and 2 boost has a 76% chance of success on a hard check(ddd). You basically pay a lot of xp for small gains when you upgrade your dice pool to mainly providence dice. Which is super awesome for a complete specialist, who sucks on anything which is not related to his main field, but is totally unhelpful for a generalist, who needs to spread out his xp between stuff he is just talented for (characteristics) and stuff which he trained hard for (skills).

For reference to understand the dice system and what dice pools give you what results:
http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=5&difficulty=3

Ok so what about scientist thief modder

Does engineer have signature abilities or are we waiting for the source book?

1 hour ago, TheShard said:

Does engineer have signature abilities or are we waiting for the source book?

Waiting for the source book