Hey all,

I'm trying to plot out a long-term character and I'm having a lot of difficulty with what specs/career to start with. The group is a Falleen Performer, Human Scoundrel and Gank Enforcer. I'm up between a Mountain Nikto and Human for species. I'm thinking high brawn/high cunning and using melee as my main combat skill.

For careers I was thinking of Commando: Trailblazer and FSE or, Seeker: Hunter. I like the Ambush and Cunning Snare combos, but they seem situational along with Prey on the Weak. The Hunter tree has Soft Spot and some really nice strain control.

Warrior: Shii-Cho Knight - Has all the melee power that I'm looking for, but I don't know if this should be taken first or later in-game. I also plan on picking up Force Sense. I've got about 250 total XP to work with for this character. I'm planning to use the survival skill to craft all my equipment.

I just need help with optimizing the build as this is my first F&D character.

If you want to go with a FaD Forcee, start as a FaD forcee. The Force rating on FaD characters is attached to the Career, not the specialization. So if you start with an AoR career and then add a FaD spec, you'll also need either Exile or Emergent to get a Force rating.

Really run the numbers on The Force. It's very powerful, but also very demanding on your XP budget. So usually taking the force also means waiting a little longer to do other things. If that's important to you, go for it. If you'd rather be the guy that flips out and stabs every Stormtrooper to death in one move, skipping the force and taking Hired Gun: Marauder and the appropriate Sig ability may be more what you're interested in.

Also note you can play the system a little. For example a non-force using melee focused Character can take Makashi Duelist as a secondary spec and get pretty nasty, as he can buy down and get all those ranks in Parry, only wasting a pittance on unusuable force talents....

Hunter, Pathfinder are more ranged base, trailblazer requires making good use of cover so once again ranged based combat character.

Alright, I can grab Ranged Light as my primary and melee as my secondary.

Executioner from the Savage Spirits book is an excellent wilderness Melee character with the flexibility to use bows, it does lack the talents of Trailblazer though.