So I'm planning on playing a character who I would describe a Shaolin monk meets Jedi (consular: niman disciple/martial artist) that combines lightsaber, telekinesis, and martial arts in to a fighting style. FFG developer max brooke has said that to use unarmed parry you just need to have 1 hand free so a lightsaber works.

By the way the character lost his arm in a lightsaber training accident (his backstory for an RCR campaign I'm converting him from) and has a repulsor fist (which makes niman disciples 2 ranks of defensive training always apply), and in the exchange he picked up "steely nerves" as a crippled => "impressive scar" scar talent. If he commits one of his force die to sense then melee attackers would face a difficulty of 2 red and 2 black. He could use a winded or bowled over critical hit to pick up a rank of dodge (doesn't require a maneuver to use), which would make the incoming melee difficulty 2 red, 1 purple, 2 black... which make triggering the martial artists overbalance talent reasonably likely.

And I was thinking about a third spec, and ascetic fits the theme, but for iron soul (heal all strain at the end of the encounter, useful for dodge and parry and free maneuvers, 5 ranks of grit really helps with that) and empty soul (one free LS and DS pip to force power checks, especially useful since one force die is committed to ) to work you have to be carrying 2 enc or less.

So that got me thinking, how much gear can you actually carry with only 2 enc

so my character would have a wing commander flight suit (1 soak, 1 defense, and -3 enc for wearing it means it contributes 0 enc to the total)

a basic lightsaber is required so that's 1 enc

a jedi utility belt gets you, a jedi multi tool, comlink, glow rod, aquata breather, and emergency medpack for ZERO enc and increases your enc capacity by 1

but the character still has 1 enc left so pick up a dragoon cavalry blaster (or military holdout blaster and model 58 concealment holster), but you can't carry an extra reload (the only piece of gear I'd have to drop)... so.... use a winded or bowled over critical injury to pick up "spare clip" as the third scar talent.

field rations and stimpacks are zero enc so other than the extra reload and grapnel harpoon launcher, I can keep all the gear I had chosen before DoH came out.

But how much gear can you hold with 2 enc or less?

Beware of the 0ENC items as it does call out that carrying enough of them (from memory either 6 or 10l) can equal 1 enc, so speak with your GM as it may be that will be all you can carry. Normally it isnt important to track this unless it matters, but it does become critical as an ascetic.

Also apparently mind bleed also is subject to the 2 Enc limit.

This could mean you have a problem with ranged combat but to be honest if you can get to FR 3 and keep yourself a lightsider you can take the right hand side of the protect tree to get protect mastery. This gives you a pretty good chance of being able to avoid the first energy damage hit for your soak+8 or so dmg , and with a good force roll, you can apply it to all damage types until your next round and/or reflecting that damage back at them. Even if some damage does get through you can spend some strain on mind bleed, and the defensive dice you also get from protect can trigger overbalance.

If you end up being darkside just go all unlimited power on them and use force lightning for your ranged attacks.

Remeber though overbalance only works with engaged enemies.

If you gain access to it, the Burly talent actually reduces the Encumbrance value of the weapon you're carrying, so you might be able to get a bigger gun. If not, there are a couple of ways to build a small one into your saber.

I really hate the "Scar Talents" introduced in FiB, it breeds a silly amount of cherry picking and an "I can just get what I want" mentally with no real reason or story behind them.

If a player came to me and said "I ran out of ammo, then I couldn't slow the BBEG so they got the upper hand and got away leaving me bleeding on the ground... my character is never going to run out of ammunition again" then that's cool.

If on the other hand an Ascetic decided they wanted to carry more stuff but still benefit from their talents there would be stern words about being too reliant on your gear. The whole point of Ascetic is that possessions are meaningless and you only really need oneself.

But that's just MHO, every Gm and every table will be different.

4 hours ago, syrath said:

Also apparently mind bleed also is subject to the 2 Enc limit.

Correct.

2 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

I really hate the "Scar Talents" introduced in FiB, it breeds a silly amount of cherry picking and an "I can just get what I want" mentally with no real reason or story behind them.

Of course, the battle scar rules are limited to GM fiat. Application of it should only be to tell a cool story and make for interesting character quirks, not to power game.

Remember, the Encumbrance of armor only counts after you reduce it by 3 for actually wearing it. So any armor with a base Encumbrance of 3 or less (or 4 or less if you make it Superior) doesn't count towards what you're carrying. So most light armors, like robes of most varieties, are freebies.

EDIT: Ah, silly me, you already took that into account. Sorry !

Although I have to echo Richardbuxton about the scar talents. You should not be able to plan a build, and especially not start a game, around the fact that you will/already did take those critical injuries. If you want a talent, buy a tree that's got it. If, in the course of play you take a critical injury that dramatically and narratively critically impacts the story, then sure, we can discuss it. But otherwise, no. No planning builds around "free" talents like that.

(All in my opinion, of course; sorry if I got a bit preachy)

I can see a "standard issue" Jedi utility belt (and the normally more but in this case 0 enc gear that comes with it) not being a philosophical issue for an ascetic Jedi from a narative standpoint (particularly in the KotoR era, when "standard issue" jedi utility belts really were "standard issue")... there's no emotional attachment to "standard issue" gear which likely "belongs" to the Jedi order not the ascetic carrying it.

The other planned zero enc gear,

Concealment Holster (I don'the believe carrying stowage counts toward the zero enc gear, but if it does i'l drop the utility belt and holster bring me up to 9, one less than the magic number of 10)

2 field ration packs (the awful tasting ones which mean you don't have to eat for a week, very in keeping with an ascetic)

5 stimpacks

That's 7 zero enc items , 2 under 10.

I did previously have the character carry a backpack (no point of that just in case now), military belt pouch (retrieve 2 zero enc items as an incidental), extra reload, and grapnel spike launcher (he had one in his RCR incarnation) but the extra reload and grape spike launcher only brought him to 4 enc (out of a possible 13 I think), so even from a meta perspective he traveled light.

More on that, the rcr incarnation had a blaster built into his cybernetic arm that fired from the palm of his hand iron man style, i switched to a repulsive fist because it's what he would have had if it was an option). But a straight conversion would have had an inbuilt blaster which would have been 1 enc less so he would have been able to keep the grape spike launcher and still meet the ascetic requirement

For a on planetary vehicle I preferred the folding utilitarian undicur jump speeder bike (endless vigil in the starship section)

He drank green tea and was very zen, didn't say much but went for the meta solution

How do you get into the cargo bay on a cloud city like floating city restricted to traders, get a trader license/badge to get in (I think the gm was expecting us to sneak in). The whole group of padawans get collective punishment of having to clean out the stables, when he hadn't participated in the action resulting in the punishment... he was perfectly OK with that.

So like I said becoming an ascetic with the 2 enc requirement is a minimal change to gear for the character. And it always fit the theme of the character.