New Player Soresu Defender build questions.

By Godric_Barbarossa, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

You decided against seer and sage?

Armorer would give you Mechanics, Force Rating, and the armor talents to increase your soak.

3 hours ago, TheShard said:

You decided against seer and sage?

I love those classes, but I am playing as a Seer with another character, so I didn't want to dip into that again. If I were power gaming and wanted a hardcore force user, I would definitely go Seer.

3 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Armorer would give you Mechanics, Force Rating, and the armor talents to increase your soak.

Absolutely and I did consider it. It would be a very nice complementary class for a pure fighter, but it's very one dimensional. I am already slaying stuff with 1-2 hits, so I didn't need any more combat proficiency.

Another I would consider as a specialization is Protector. It synergizes well with Soresu Defender and gives you medicine, which is another good high int skill.

I may have missed this somewhere, but are you going to be starting off with a lightsaber? This matters a lot because if you don't start with a lightsaber, in many ways it would be better to start with a different spec and then buy into Defender once you get the lightsaber. It would also make more sense from a story standpoint.

Double bladed lightsabers are cool, but only circumstantially useful (mostly against something like multiple rivals if they happen to be bunched up). Against minions or nemesis opponents, you're probably going to be better off using your advantages to crit, especially if you get your crit rating down to 1. A double-bladed lightsaber costs twice as much as a regular lightsaber, so unless your GM is generous, if you hold out for one you may be delayed in getting your lightsaber.

1 hour ago, Kirdan Kenobi said:

I may have missed this somewhere, but are you going to be starting off with a lightsaber?

You do if the GM allows you and you're at least Knight Level, F&D pg104, 322. However, you can buy a training lightsaber, which deals 6 stun damage and costs around 300 credits. It's not great, but it is a lightsaber.

On 11/12/2017 at 11:31 AM, EliasWindrider said:

If your're aiming for ascetic (iron soul, empty soul, etc.) I'd forgo the double bladed lightsaber because the awesome talents are only going to work if you keep your total encumbrance to 2 and a double bladed lightsaber has encumbrance 2 all by itself.

True but I will be constructing my own lightsaber first chance I get. One advantage and I can make that double bladed saber lightweight reducing its encumbrance by one.

10 hours ago, Kirdan Kenobi said:

Another I would consider as a specialization is Protector. It synergizes well with Soresu Defender and gives you medicine, which is another good high int skill.

I may have missed this somewhere, but are you going to be starting off with a lightsaber? This matters a lot because if you don't start with a lightsaber, in many ways it would be better to start with a different spec and then buy into Defender once you get the lightsaber. It would also make more sense from a story standpoint.

Double bladed lightsabers are cool, but only circumstantially useful (mostly against something like multiple rivals if they happen to be bunched up). Against minions or nemesis opponents, you're probably going to be better off using your advantages to crit, especially if you get your crit rating down to 1. A double-bladed lightsaber costs twice as much as a regular lightsaber, so unless your GM is generous, if you hold out for one you may be delayed in getting your lightsaber.

I was planning on staying with training saber for backstory reasons.

Correct me if I am wrong but a double bladed lightsaber is a lot better at clearing minions than single bladed. Let's look at some examples. Let us assume 8 damage and Crit 1. No matter how many Advantages the single blade can only incapacitate 2 five WT minions. One for the hit one for the Crit. With two Advantages the double blade can incapacitate 3 five WT minions with two strikes dealing a total of 16 damage. With three Advantages the double blade takes out 4 five WT minions, three with damage and one with a Crit. With four or more Advantages the double blade can hit twice crittig with each hit incapacitating 5 five WT minions.

5 hours ago, Godric_Barbarossa said:

Correct me if I am wrong but a double bladed lightsaber is a lot better at clearing minions than single bladed. Let's look at some examples. Let us assume 8 damage and Crit 1. No matter how many Advantages the single blade can only incapacitate 2 five WT minions. One for the hit one for the Crit. With two Advantages the double blade can incapacitate 3 five WT minions with two strikes dealing a total of 16 damage. With three Advantages the double blade takes out 4 five WT minions, three with damage and one with a Crit. With four or more Advantages the double blade can hit twice crittig with each hit incapacitating 5 five WT minions.

It's possible there has been an errata or official ruling on this issue since I last looked into it (which was some time ago), but it depends on how your GM handles crits and minions. One interpretation is that for each time you crit, you kill a minion. Another interpretation, which is the one you are following, is that you can only crit a minion group once. I haven't looked at this game for a while, but when edge was new, one of the popular ways of being a combat monster was going marauder with a vibroaxe, putting a mono-molecular edge on it (crit rating down to one + vicious 3) and getting as many ranks in lethal blows as you could. Assuming you dealt one damage, which wasn't too hard, you could make a character, given enough xp, that could more often than not 1 hit most nemesis, and with the common interpretation being one crit=one dead minion, every advantage killed a minion. You can do this with a lightsaber just as easily as a vibroaxe, though you won't have the lethal blows most likely.

If your GM rules that you can only crit a minion group once, then indeed a double bladed lightsaber is better.

31 minutes ago, Kirdan Kenobi said:

It's possible there has been an errata or official ruling on this issue since I last looked into it (which was some time ago), but it depends on how your GM handles crits and minions. One interpretation is that for each time you crit, you kill a minion. Another interpretation, which is the one you are following, is that you can only crit a minion group once. I haven't looked at this game for a while, but when edge was new, one of the popular ways of being a combat monster was going marauder with a vibroaxe, putting a mono-molecular edge on it (crit rating down to one + vicious 3) and getting as many ranks in lethal blows as you could. Assuming you dealt one damage, which wasn't too hard, you could make a character, given enough xp, that could more often than not 1 hit most nemesis, and with the common interpretation being one crit=one dead minion, every advantage killed a minion. You can do this with a lightsaber just as easily as a vibroaxe, though you won't have the lethal blows most likely.

If your GM rules that you can only crit a minion group once, then indeed a double bladed lightsaber is better.

I can't speak to how it is worded in EotE or AoR but FaD p 165 makes it pretty clear that it is one Crit per hit with additional crits just adding +10 to the roll on the critical injury table.

It looks like the wording has been cleared up, but the interpretation came as a result of "minions are killed instantly by critical injuries."

On 11/14/2017 at 3:51 PM, masterstrider said:

Haven't chosen yet. In my opnion, the Soresu Defender is very much the "default" Lightsaber specialist. It does it's job well, but doesn't really develop any other parts of the game other than combat. It's great as a mono-class, but it can be a bit bland. In saying that, I have considered the following as potential options:

Colonist - Politico : Adds all the social skills as career skills and you can choose a few more with the Well Rounded talent.

Mystic - Advisor : Same reason as above, minus Well Rounded, adding Force Rating +1.

Consular - Ascetic : This paired with the Soresu Defender specialisation would make for an awesome and very iconic Obi-Wan style character. The Ascetic has a talent called Iron Soul that replenishes all strain at the end of an encounter, provided you carry less than 2 encumbrance. That's pretty nifty and very thematic, representing the "tireless Jedi" standing vigil over his companions, dispatching enemies without even breaking a sweat. It also has a lot of Grit, which is also handy for tanking and using your Soresu abilities.

Sentinel - Artisan : Gives access to a fairly cheap Force Rating +1 and adds Mechanics and Computers as career skills, which is very handy for someone with Int 4.

All the lightsaber forms are really there for combat, good thing is that the guardian career gives you other specializations to choose from just like all the other careers with lightsaber forms do. My character is a Soresu defender second, and Armorer first. Armorer give my character all kinds of stuff to do outside of combat that has to do with Mechanics. In fact I'm busy doing mechanical stuff more for the group than myself. Stuff to do with ship mx, armor, weapons and even the ability to use it on some of the npc's and pc's that are droids. Also since my intellect is high I can use computers to a decent degree as well as medicine witch has been used allot in our game. Since Soresu defenders main stat is intellect they have a ton of skills that go off of intellect. Stuff dealing with knowledge, lore, history, medicine, and more. in fact there are more skills in this game that deal with intellect than any other stat.

Edited by Metalghost

Since you are coming from D&D i really recomend giving the order 66 podcast a listen. Specifically the kung pow chicken episode. Resetting expectations. This game does not play like D&D.

Holy Necro Batman!

So I just figured I'd give an update and make a few comments. I ended up going with Arkanian Armorer and it was a blast. I liked being useful in numerous situations with all the Int skills and being able to stand well in a fight. Supreme Armor Master was more useful than I ever imagined.

So for all the "play the character not the stats crowd." Man, you come off as condescending. No duh, play the character not the stats. As a long time GM while I make the combat interesting for the players it is often so-so for me. The real fun lies in the story and making the PC's squirm to make tough decisions to tell a story as a group.

Sorry if me only posting the short paragraph of my characters back story wasn't enough. I just didn't think people would be interested in the three page version. I know how tho craft a good character and story. Those things are system agnostic. It was the mechanics of this system that I was asking for help on.

The reference to the wonderful Order 66 is especially good and ironic since they also do detailed stats for there Isn't that Special characters with full 200+ XP development (at least as far as I've listened in the podcast).

Regardless, thank you to everyone for the advice.

On 9/25/2019 at 3:16 PM, Godric_Barbarossa said:

Holy Necro Batman!

So I just figured I'd give an update and make a few comments. I ended up going with Arkanian Armorer and it was a blast. I liked being useful in numerous situations with all the Int skills and being able to stand well in a fight. Supreme Armor Master was more useful than I ever imagined.

So for all the "play the character not the stats crowd." Man, you come off as condescending. No duh, play the character not the stats. As a long time GM while I make the combat interesting for the players it is often so-so for me. The real fun lies in the story and making the PC's squirm to make tough decisions to tell a story as a group.

Sorry if me only posting the short paragraph of my characters back story wasn't enough. I just didn't think people would be interested in the three page version. I know how tho craft a good character and story. Those things are system agnostic. It was the mechanics of this system that I was asking for help on.

The reference to the wonderful Order 66 is especially good and ironic since they also do detailed stats for there Isn't that Special characters with full 200+ XP development (at least as far as I've listened in the podcast).

Regardless, thank you to everyone for the advice.

Min relatively new to this site but the one thing I’ve noticed is that, ,and this doesn’t apply to everyone but there is a lot of less than helpful advice aimed towards playing the character and not the stats. Yes I have a character in mind with a story but if the story is he I should the best dang mechanic in the galaxy he either has to have the stats to back it up or be a charmer smuggler. Sometimes we do want to play a character who has a good backstory and skills.