I am new to the game and roleplaying in general. I have recently purchased the beginner games for EotE and AoR. My group will keep a story going with these for a month or two until I can save up for the books to be able to play actual the game. My initial purchase schedule would have been both of the core books out of the get go and the respective career books down the road. However, one of my players wants to have a Mando character. Do I have to buy any source books for this, or will I be fine with just the core books?

You will be fine with the standard human.

If you want, however, the adventure module "Friends Like These" has information on the Mandalorians (including variant species stats).

Cheers!

Nonhumans can be Mandalorians too, you racist.

1 minute ago, Yaccarus said:

Nonhumans can be Mandalorians too, you racist.

I guess that would depend on which sources the player is wishing to reference. Legends has the being humans AND nonhumans, but canon not so much.

9 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

I guess that would depend on which sources the player is wishing to reference. Legends has the being humans AND nonhumans, but canon not so much.

The Wookiee does, canonically, allow for a few exceptions in a " predominantly human ethnolinguistic cultural group ", I presume.

33 minutes ago, Yaccarus said:

Nonhumans can be Mandalorians too, you racist.

All Mandalorians look alike to me.

@Felswrath : Also, the Mandalorian armor is in "No Disintegrations", the Bounty Hunter career book.

22 minutes ago, salamar_dree said:

@Felswrath : Also, the Mandalorian armor is in "No Disintegrations", the Bounty Hunter career book.

Technical the heavy armor from the core books includes Mandalorian armor as well, though we get a special one too, with slightly better stats.

Back to Mandalorians as player characters.

Human stat line 222222, WT 11 + Brawn, ST 10 + Willpower, 105 XP (that is a heavy penalty compared to humans 110!) and "Mandalorians begin the game with their choice of either one rank in a combat skill of their choice, or one rank each in two knowledge skills of their choice. They still may not train these skills above rank 2 during character creation.

The 105XP hurt them pretty hart because it means they lose 1 point in characteristics during char generation, imo allowing them at least reach rank 3 in a skill via their racial ability would suit the loss of 5xp better. The combat racial represents here the old mandalorians, while the knowledge skills are rather fitting to the pacifist New Mandalorians.

Either way, as you might have noticed, I am not completely happy with the FFG stats, you basically pay a small tax for your mandalorian heritage. Still if your player likes this still, you could as GM reward this easily with a few scenes here or there showing the special reputation mandalorian warriors have or making it easier to gain access to mandalorian armor. But that really depends on your playstyle.

As a GM I would rule that Mandalorian Humans could also remove the (r) on Purchasing Mandalorian Armor as part of that offset.

And the free Combat Skill of Choice is pretty nice, allows you to play a class that otherwise had no Combat Skills and surprise people with your competence...8)

8 minutes ago, GandofGand said:

As a GM I would rule that Mandalorian Humans could also remove the (r) on Purchasing Mandalorian Armor as part of that offset.

And the free Combat Skill of Choice is pretty nice, allows you to play a class that otherwise had no Combat Skills and surprise people with your competence...8)

Humans (baseline) can already do the latter twice as well. As for removing the Restricted, I'm not seeing much sense in that at all.

Or you could just not focus on the mechanics and build for Role-play...so what if you're missing 5xp, You'r ea Mandalorian...run with it.

Mandolorian armour is armour that a mandolorian wears. Nothing more, nothing less. A player could wear anything and it would still be considered their mandolorian armour. Being of a particular culture doesn't entitle you to the absolute best that culture can offer. Personally, the idea that there is this "standardised mandolorian armour" is rather silly in my opinion.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

Humans (baseline) can already do the latter twice as well. As for removing the Restricted, I'm not seeing much sense in that at all.

But not with a career skill. The Manalorian can ensure they get a 2nd rank with a weapon skill , or get 2 2nd rank knowledge skills. There are not many races offering a choice of skills that can be paired up with the majority of specs to provide a second rank, you usually have a limited choice of races where you can pair up with a career to get a 2nd rank, this wide range does provide a significant advantage in my opinion.

18 minutes ago, syrath said:

But not with a career skill. The Manalorian can ensure they get a 2nd rank with a weapon skill , or get 2 2nd rank knowledge skills. There are not many races offering a choice of skills that can be paired up with the majority of specs to provide a second rank, you usually have a limited choice of races where you can pair up with a career to get a 2nd rank, this wide range does provide a significant advantage in my opinion.

Sure, there are some cases where it can work out, but I find the baseline human better in general, and I don't feel the game benefited from the inclusion of the Mandalorians (sure, sales benefited) over another species.

18 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Sure, there are some cases where it can work out, but I find the baseline human better in general, and I don't feel the game benefited from the inclusion of the Mandalorians (sure, sales benefited) over another species.

Mandalorian Marshall or Gunslinger that starts with 2 ranks of ranged light , not possible with pretty much any race combination

Colonist with 4 knowledge skills at rank 2

I could go though them all but there is a massive amount of possibilties that are only available to a select few races that are available to Mandalorians.

edit to clarify Im meaning with free ranks.

17 minutes ago, syrath said:

Mandalorian Marshall or Gunslinger that starts with 2 ranks of ranged light , not possible with pretty much any race combination

Colonist with 4 knowledge skills at rank 2

I could go though them all but there is a massive amount of possibilties that are only available to a select few races that are available to Mandalorians.

edit to clarify Im meaning with free ranks.

I know what it can do, I'm just not impressed by it. I don't like the human subspecies method that FFG went with. I don't think that it is a positive feature.

8 hours ago, Yaccarus said:

Nonhumans can be Mandalorians too, you racist.

I really want to see a Mandalorian Ithorian now.

Comes down to how you view Mandalorians.

If you go by the Legends approach that Mandos are more of a cultural identity than a specific "species" then you can just pick whatever species you like, say they're members of the Mando culture, and you're off to the races.

If you go by the new canon's approach that they're pretty much all Humans, then you can go with the standard Human or the species stats in the AoR adventure Friends Like These. While the official species stats aren't super-amazing, they're pretty decent, since that free rank in a combat skill can every easily get you two ranks in your character's preferred means of hurting people, be it blaster rifles, blaster pistols, vibro-weapons, or just your bare knuckles, plus an extra point of wound threshold doesn't hurt either. It's five less XP than the base human, but really only matters if you're obsessed with having four of your starting characteristics be at a 3, since most PCs can get along just fine with only having three of their starting characteristics at a 3 and having 2's in the other three. Oddly enough, Mandos could make for pretty solid scholarly types since you can stack those two free Knowledge skill ranks onto other Knowledge skill ranks that you'd get from your career or specialization, enabling a Commander/Tactician to easily have two ranks in Knowledge (Warfare) or a Hired Gun/Enforcer to have two ranks of Knowledge (Underworld) without spending XP. Or a Diplomat/Analyst that's got two ranks in at least two of their many available Knowledge skills right out the gate.

My own opinion, but I think a lot of the dissatisfaction with the Mando Humans species write-up in Friends Like These comes from the simple fact that they're not above the board better than regular Humans, though at least they're generally better than Corellian Humans in Suns of Fortune, which is really only viable if you absolutely must have a PC that starts out with 3 ranks in a Piloting skill.

4 hours ago, GandofGand said:

Or you could just not focus on the mechanics and build for Role-play...so what if you're missing 5xp, You'r ea Mandalorian...run with it.

5xp itself is not a big deal. 5xp at character generation in this case costs you one point in a characteristic. This is a little annoying. Not that my own character did not waste 2 points himself, but that was by choice.
Having a rank at 1 is worth 10 points´ for non-career skills, in case that you get rank 2 it worth still just 10xp because you know have the skill as career skill for sure. Getting back that missing characteristics point? Overall usually more than 100 points of XP as investment, even if we take the face value of dedication, that's still 25.

Mandos are either a screw up or intentionally bad to keep them rare. Not a fan of that, especially as the corellians turned out GREAT. Allowing for a 3rd rank is a fair deal. It's great, it gives them a special flavor, it fits the lore and theme as well. (Check out the best pilots in the galaxy and count who is corillian (Soontir, Wedge, Han, Dengar, etc), and the best part, it doesn't cost you any points in your characteristics.

On 31/08/2017 at 10:53 PM, SEApocalypse said:

5xp itself is not a big deal. 5xp at character generation in this case costs you one point in a characteristic. This is a little annoying. Not that my own character did not waste 2 points himself, but that was by choice.
Having a rank at 1 is worth 10 points´ for non-career skills, in case that you get rank 2 it worth still just 10xp because you know have the skill as career skill for sure. Getting back that missing characteristics point? Overall usually more than 100 points of XP as investment, even if we take the face value of dedication, that's still 25.

Mandos are either a screw up or intentionally bad to keep them rare. Not a fan of that, especially as the corellians turned out GREAT. Allowing for a 3rd rank is a fair deal. It's great, it gives them a special flavor, it fits the lore and theme as well. (Check out the best pilots in the galaxy and count who is corillian (Soontir, Wedge, Han, Dengar, etc), and the best part, it doesn't cost you any points in your characteristics.

The rank in a non-career skill may save you 10 xp however it isnt situationally better than a free rank in a potential career skill. It benefits the generalist rather than the specialist who can use those free ranks to get either up to 3 or 4 rank 2 skills (btw also worth 10 xp).

Humans are better generalists because of the non career skill options or you can take the long term view and take a rank in a future career skill.

Mandalorians are the only species who could, for example get 4 rank 2 skills in knowledge without spending xp, and one of the few who can get rank 2 in any weapon skill for many race/spec combinations, or is able to get 2 rank 2 skills for many who can only start with 1. Personally I dont see many races that offer that flexibility for two major character archetypes (knowledge and combat)

Edit and just to point out there is only one set of stats that they cannot get that are available to standard humans 432222 333222 etc are all possible the only one which isnt is the 333322 stat, which also requires you to get +10xp option, which in edge isnt always possible as you may have a +5 xp limit if you havd 5 or more starting PCs in an edge campaign. So even a stat block of 333322 isnt always possible for a standard human

11 hours ago, syrath said:

The rank in a non-career skill may save you 10 xp however it isnt situationally better than a free rank in a potential career skill. It benefits the generalist rather than the specialist who can use those free ranks to get either up to 3 or 4 rank 2 skills (btw also worth 10 xp).

Humans are better generalists because of the non career skill options or you can take the long term view and take a rank in a future career skill.

Mandalorians are the only species who could, for example get 4 rank 2 skills in knowledge without spending xp, and one of the few who can get rank 2 in any weapon skill for many race/spec combinations, or is able to get 2 rank 2 skills for many who can only start with 1. Personally I dont see many races that offer that flexibility for two major character archetypes (knowledge and combat)

Exactly, which is why I love the Mandalorian Human's stats.

I have now had a request for Muuns. Does anybody know of any sources that list where to find species and this one in particular?

1 hour ago, Felswrath said:

I have now had a request for Muuns. Does anybody know of any sources that list where to find species and this one in particular?

Muuns are in Endless Vigil . It's the Sentinel sourcebook for Force and Destiny.