I've been playing a makashi duelist recently in a campaign with a couple friends. Its a really fun character, because I get to play both the figurehead and fighter of the group. But when it comes to fighting, I seem to have a few glaring weaknesses. Both my lack of reflect and low FR have made it feel more like a fighter than a magus, if I were to put it in DnD terms. I recently war captured by a sith rebel, who wants to train me as an apprentice in the game, which means I'll have an opportunity to rank up, get xp. I was wondering where you guys think I should expand as to minimize my weaknesses? Should I go for a more force based character, IE seer, or a better lightsaber career, like niman?

Yea, sometimes it's a bad idea to bring even a knife made of plasma to a gun fight.

It's an easy trap to fall into with this system; virtually everyone is a glass cannon.

What Force Power(s) do you have, as-is? What's your Willpower/Discipline like? If you enjoy being the fighter and the face, and aren't too interested in going into a more utilitarian Force use role, Shien could of course round you out nicely with the full range of Reflect and other goodies, as well as having some more social skills synergy in it with the Cunning focus.

Niman would be a good transition to a more Force-oriented role, cuz you could pick up Reflect and wouldn't be "forced" into any more Parry to do it, but it's a long XP path to that Force bump. Are you setup to be a competent Force User (good WIL or Discipline)?

Of you want to feel like a magus, you might consider Magus...

It's a bit on the dark side, but that's really the best place to be anyway.

If you haven't done so already, I strongly recommend completing the left side of the Sense tree for the defensive benefits. That alone will mitigate a lot of hits.

7 hours ago, player3168361 said:

I've been playing a makashi duelist recently in a campaign with a couple friends. Its a really fun character, because I get to play both the figurehead and fighter of the group. But when it comes to fighting, I seem to have a few glaring weaknesses. Both my lack of reflect and low FR have made it feel more like a fighter than a magus, if I were to put it in DnD terms. I recently war captured by a sith rebel, who wants to train me as an apprentice in the game, which means I'll have an opportunity to rank up, get xp. I was wondering where you guys think I should expand as to minimize my weaknesses? Should I go for a more force based character, IE seer, or a better lightsaber career, like niman?

Makashi Duelists are, as the name suggests, specialists in one on one lightsaber duels. They're not really suited for mass combat, nor facing off against ranged attackers. IF you want that, you'll need to study a secondary style, such as Soresu or Shien, both of which grant lots of Reflect, and its Improved and Supreme variants.

8 hours ago, player3168361 said:

I've been playing a makashi duelist recently in a campaign with a couple friends. Its a really fun character, because I get to play both the figurehead and fighter of the group. But when it comes to fighting, I seem to have a few glaring weaknesses. Both my lack of reflect and low FR have made it feel more like a fighter than a magus, if I were to put it in DnD terms. I recently war captured by a sith rebel, who wants to train me as an apprentice in the game, which means I'll have an opportunity to rank up, get xp. I was wondering where you guys think I should expand as to minimize my weaknesses? Should I go for a more force based character, IE seer, or a better lightsaber career, like niman?

Which is more important to you both in terms of character concept and player preference? Being a badass with a lightsaber (not unlike what we see in the Prequels) or being a powerful Force user?

If you want to focus on Force usage, I'd suggest going into Seer, as it offers up two Force Rating talents, pushing your FR to 3 which in turn means you'll have a Force die to spare to commit to Sense to give yourself a defensive boost vs. ranged attacks.

If you'd prefer to focus on lightsaber and not having such a glaring hole in your defenses re: ranged attacks, either Shien Expert or Sentry (from Endless Vigil) can help you out, as they both offer ranks of Reflect and eventually Improved Reflect as well as Saber Throw, in addition to Toughened and more Grit (hard to go wrong with more strain to fuel your Parry/Reflect abilities) and a rank of Dodge for an "as needed" defense boost.

If you still want to try have a mix of the two, then Sentry is a viable choice, as you will (eventually) get your Force Rating to 2 (which helps with using Force powers more than one might initially think), it offers two very easy to get ranks of Reflect along with earlier access to Saber Throw, and you don't have to buy through a second Form Technique talent just to advance further into the spec. There's also Arbiter (Disciples of Harmony) which eventually offers two ranks of Reflect (and an extra rank of Parry) while also building on your character's prowess as a face with things like Nobody's Fool and Savvy Negotiator, as well as a rank of Calming Aura to make it just a bit harder for bad guys to target you with big Force effects.

Thanks everyone! I really like the suggestions so far! Out of curiosity, do you think that eventually getting higher force dice and powers can help fix said glaring weaknesses?

I was thinking

Bind for a long-range attack

As some already said, left side of sense

Enhance, force jump side to engage enemies

And as a force spec, which do you think is the best?

Ascetic

Sage

Magus

Hermit

Don't worry about the tax on buying new specs from different careers, my GM doesn't play with that (don't know why)

On 2/5/2019 at 5:51 PM, player3168361 said:

Thanks everyone! I really like the suggestions so far! Out of curiosity, do you think that eventually getting higher force dice and powers can help fix said glaring weaknesses?

I was thinking

Bind for a long-range attack

As some already said, left side of sense

Enhance, force jump side to engage enemies

And as a force spec, which do you think is the best?

Ascetic

Sage

Magus

Hermit

Don't worry about the tax on buying new specs from different careers, my GM doesn't play with that (don't know why)

I like ascetic or sage. Ascetic has the best strain management in the game especially if you keep your enc to 2 or less which isn't as hard as it seems. When you wear armor it counts as 3 enc less so armor is "free" (you can craft a set of reinforced clothing, keeping the peace, FaD guardian book, with 3 4 6 or 7 advantage you can get 1 or 2 hp for 3 or 6 advantage and 1 advantage gets you special embellishment negotiation, then buy armor inserts they're in cyphers and masks the aor spy book, you'll eventually be able to get to 3 soak by nodding the armor insert and adding the superior armor customization attachment, modding it can also get you to defense 2 which will help with you not getting hit so much), you can get a whole lot of gear for absolute zero enc by getting a jedi utility belt, 1 enc for a lightsaber, maybe 1 enc for a blaster pistol, you can get rapid reload as a scar talent (last 2 or 3 pages of AoR soldier book forged in battle) and never worry about running out of ammo, and then you can have 9 additional zero encumbrance items (e.g. 5 stim packs, an amulet of protection ring, unlimited power FaD mystic book, an emergency repair patch so you can slap it over the seam of sliding doors to keep them closed) plus 2 others and still qualify for the cool talents in ascetic. Sage is the cheap way 2 get 2 force rating talents and it will help you face.

Here's the thing about this ascetics empty soul talent, with 2 force dice and a free white pip you will commonly get 1 black pip on each of the force die and have 1 white pip that you can't do much with because most force powers require 2 force pips to do something interesting. Where it'll help the most is when you get 1 force die with 1 white pip which isn't that likely or it can make you more awesome when one of your force die comes up with 2 white pips. Having 3 force die actually make it more likely that you'll get the minimum neccessary 2 white pips