When you guys make Knight level characters, do you prefer to focus on buying new ranks in skills, buying new talents from your class tree (s), or try to strike a balance between the two? Why do you prefer to allot your XP as you do? Do you always focus on one thing or another when making a Knight level character, or does it vary from case to case?

In character creation I always prioritize Characteristics above everything. When going Knight level I often go more for talents getting a rank or two in a skill to complement the talents (i.e. if i get slicing talents I'll probs get a rank or 2 in computers)

Again this is just what I do. Many people do it differently, but I feel talents (if bought correctly) are more effective at making your character more effective at what he does.

If in force and destiny I almost always try and get a second force rating and maybe a third putting skills last.

It's pretty shortsighted not to advance a few skills to rank 3 at Knight Level, IMO. I always try for at least 2 skills bumped up to 3 ranks each.

Personally, my first priority whenever I make a Knight level character is to buy a second ability tree, and then to fill both trees equally, give or take 10 - 20 XP. On occasion, I put two ranks into one of the class skills from my second tree if I got it to spread my character's focus a bit more. As an example, I recently made a Skrilling Colonist (Performer) named Kurkip, and grabbed the Outlaw Tech tree from the Technician. Since @SavageBob let them use Willpower for Charm and Negotiation in his Movie Alien writeup thread, I wanted to make a character that really took advantage of the Skrulling's unorthodox social skills. The group in the game I was joining, however, also had need of a mechanic, so I had to diversify a bit, and threw 30 xp into Mechanics and some points into Outlaw Tech.

It depends on what you want to do with the character. If you really want that dedication or Force Rating 2, you might be tempted spending most of the XP on Talents to get there and spend on skills later. If not, it is usually a good idea to pump up a few key skills for the knight-level XP.

Yeah it really depends. Tech charecters rally since when you have 3-4 ranks, my knight level artisan has resisted the urge to take a second spec and I've been happy.

However usually with knight level, I'm already wanting to diversify so i take a second spec and get at least one tree close to fr increase or dedication.

Techs usually want their computers/mechanic skills at at least 4. They simply want to roll those triumphs. Pilots at the other hand have such a rich talent pool to make them more resilient and striking faster and harder in space combat that the actual skills "should" be an afterthought (at least if your matching characteristics are at least 4, if not you again need to skill up first). Force users imho usually should invest FR2 and force powers to feel a bit more rounded, so the extra XP is gone super faster.

Naturally this all depends on personal taste, so your guess is as good as mine, but not all specs are equal in their XP spending needs to become efficient.

8 hours ago, Degenerate Mind said:

As an example, I recently made a Skrilling Colonist (Performer) named Kurkip, and grabbed the Outlaw Tech tree from the Technician. Since @SavageBob let them use Willpower for Charm and Negotiation in his Movie Alien writeup thread, I wanted to make a character that really took advantage of the Skrulling's unorthodox social skills.

Just a followup on that decision: The preview for the Sleeper Agent spec in the upcoming Cyphers and Masks has 5-point talent that lets the Sleeper Agent use Charm with Cunning instead of Presence, but it costs 2 strain to use. If I were to write up Skrillings now, I'd impose a similar penalty on their Willpower-based Negotiation.

9 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

It's pretty shortsighted not to advance a few skills to rank 3 at Knight Level, IMO. I always try for at least 2 skills bumped up to 3 ranks each.

Depends...I'd rather have YYGG than YYY, so if only getting the second rank gets me that much closer to Dedication (assuming I start with 3/3/3/3/2/2 or something like it), I'll take that option.

1 hour ago, SavageBob said:

Just a followup on that decision: The preview for the Sleeper Agent spec in the upcoming Cyphers and Masks has 5-point talent that lets the Sleeper Agent use Charm with Cunning instead of Presence, but it costs 2 strain to use. If I were to write up Skrillings now, I'd impose a similar penalty on their Willpower-based Negotiation.

...That seems fair.

I never got into the actual details about what the character does, did I? The Skrilling Performer (Kurkip) is essentially a travelling mechanic that works diligently to spread a ling-dead personality cult centered on the man, the myth, the legend, Jedi Master Coleman Trebor. Since there's so little solid lore on the guy - you know, dinosaur/horse-faced Council member that tried to attack Dooku in AOTC and was immediately tag-teamed by Jango and gravity - I decided that much of his celebrity appeal was tied to a Heinlein-style "pay it forward" campaign that Trebor popularized in his earlier days as a Jedi Knight.

Anyway, my guy owes his education as a mechanic to this guy, so he's pretty insistent on paying that favor forward to everyone that needs it. When he eventually gets Biggest Fan, that'll be his way of guilting ordinary people into continuing his obsession across the stars! It'll be interesting to see in action.

2 hours ago, whafrog said:

Depends...I'd rather have YYGG than YYY, so if only getting the second rank gets me that much closer to Dedication (assuming I start with 3/3/3/3/2/2 or something like it), I'll take that option.

The thing is, sometimes you want to push skills in areas where your characteristics are bad, assuming you have for example a 2 or even 1 point dumpstat characteristics and don't plan to put dedication into it, so going with skills in that area will be a good choice. So as you said, it depends, either way aiming for at least 4 dice in stuff that you want to be good at is a sound plan. Long term 5 dice should be the goal, does not matter if based on characteristics or skills.

So the DLDR for the whole topic is "Depends" anyway

Obviously, use your base XP to max out characteristics. The stuff from knight level can't go towards that.

Personally, I would say get 3 ranks in the skills you are using frequently (so combat skills, social skills for faces, knowledge/technical skills for techs, etc.), 2 ranks for things for things you know you ought to have but don't want to focus on, and 1 rank in anything that is a career skill you think is remotely useful. Unless absolutely critical to the concept, I wouldn't dabble in non-career skills. Do remember you can't exceed 3 ranks using knight level xp.

Past that, I would advise talents, and perhaps picking up a single spec tree you think might be useful (particularly if it opens up more skills you want). I would focus getting talents that put you as close to other talents that you want to branch into asap.

I would use the XP to ensure that future advancement is fun. So rather than try to beeline to Dedication, I would get a couple of the talent branches to ensure that once the game is going, I have something useful to spend XP on. Nothing is worse than having 30xp banked, but having to buy 35 xp of talents you don't want just so you can get that one 25 xp talent you actually want.

Okay ladies and gents. Got a new character joing a knight level game. Trying to find a tree that goes good for a weapons operator in the second seat of a Ywing. Not to many that i have seen are great, or stand out, as limited range gunnery.

Gunner

With my Archaeologist, I raised four Characteristics to 3s; purchased Talents (primarily Intelligence-based) to reach Dedication, then raised Intelligence to 4. I bought a second rank in Lore, but that was about the extent of it, at creation.

17 hours ago, XGrifterX said:

Okay ladies and gents. Got a new character joing a knight level game. Trying to find a tree that goes good for a weapons operator in the second seat of a Ywing. Not to many that i have seen are great, or stand out, as limited range gunnery.

Gunner and sharpshooter together... having 4 upgrades on your dice pool for RL RH AND GUN is great.

Another great combo for it is SShooter and heavy... although I'm not sure how much use auto fire talents would be in a y wing.

Of Course if you want the character to be able to fly too then start with gunner and add sharpshooter as a second spec. That's all they will be able to do well, but they will be dang great at it.

6 hours ago, jayc007 said:

Gunner and sharpshooter together... having 4 upgrades on your dice pool for RL RH AND GUN is great.

Another great combo for it is SShooter and heavy... although I'm not sure how much use auto fire talents would be in a y wing.

Of Course if you want the character to be able to fly too then start with gunner and add sharpshooter as a second spec. That's all they will be able to do well, but they will be dang great at it.

Thanks thats the combo stuff i was looking for. Gunner by itself just seemed lackluster, with only the one column being intresting.

My sharpshooter doesn' do much ship combat so i went with SS heavy and commando. Not quite as good at upgrades as I would like but he is great at most forms of combat and has decent survivability... And when he gets an autofire rifle... muah ha ha ha ha.

On 4.11.2017 at 3:17 PM, XGrifterX said:

Okay ladies and gents. Got a new character joing a knight level game. Trying to find a tree that goes good for a weapons operator in the second seat of a Ywing. Not to many that i have seen are great, or stand out, as limited range gunnery.

Gunner/sharpshooter or sharpshooter/gunner. 4 ranks of true aim and overall great synergie for a gunner in and out of the ship.

On 5.11.2017 at 3:11 PM, XGrifterX said:

Thanks thats the combo stuff i was looking for. Gunner by itself just seemed lackluster, with only the one column being intresting.

Gunner comes with two jurry rigged, two ranks of enduring, two ranks of durable and heroic fortitude as well. That's on top of that one column of being especially interesting which you goes straight down to the as well very interesting last row of the three. ;-)

I mean come on, you get soak +2, can modify two autofire weapons with jury rigging AND get two ranks of true aim. Sure, a lot of the stuff is "boring stat boosts", but it's about what you can do with those stat boosts, because you become a mean sob with all those stat boosts

To the original question

I spend as much species +morality/obligation/duty xp as possible on attributes, I generally try to have at least 3's in brawn, agility, and willpower possibly a 4 in one of them (green nikto and klatooinians are great combat specs for this)

Every build i've planned has been at least a 2 spec build and i've usually gone into the second spec with knight level xp.

My favorite starting specs in random order are gadgeteer, martial artist, operator, demolitionist, niman disciple and sentry

A build i've been wanting to try out is a gang operator squadron leader, I honestly think ganks make the best pilots because of the narrative justification to get the agility boosting arm or pair of legs and the avionics interface which means down the line you could have a 7 agility and 6 skill ranks for pilot space (or pilot planetary when piloting an airspeeder). Operator provides offensive driving squadron leader gives him 2 ranks of defensive driving (from squadron leader), give him 2 other cybernetic attachments (e.g. gank com implant) and the put him in the cockpit of an aggressor assault fighter and watch out. The build I put together with knightlevel xp had a 5 agility or was it 6? 4 starting, 1 for the cyber arm, and I can't remember if I got to the dedication with knight level xp. In this build I went for a single spec operator with the knight level xp and bought a lot of talents, I'm pretty sure that I got offensive driving with the starting xp, didn't put much if any xp into skills but a 5 or 6 agility "pilot" type doesn't need to do much not covered by agility.