Forgive me if I'm completely missing this, but the saboteur seems to have a crap load of talents that restore strain. Why?

Is there some sort of power or feature they have, that I'm missing, that is spending strain?

48 minutes ago, Grungyape said:

Forgive me if I'm completely missing this, but the saboteur seems to have a crap load of talents that restore strain. Why?

Is there some sort of power or feature they have, that I'm missing, that is spending strain?

Setting explosives is stressful , they've got to deal with it somehow.

But no. The only reason they have those talents would be thematic. I don't really understand why Saboteur, but that's the way they did it.

9 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Setting explosives is stressful , they've got to deal with it somehow.

But no. The only reason they have those talents would be thematic. I don't really understand why Saboteur, but that's the way they did it.

So since I'm not seeing any, are there any good specs (non force) that "spend" a lot of strain and would pair well with saboteur?

Off the top of my head, I'd say Clone Officer, Gunslinger/ARC Trooper, and Marauder. Any melee-focused or duel-wielding character will benefit from strain talents. There are some social talents that require strain.

Frenzied Attack costs a ton of strain (especially since it's a maneuver, and likely to be the character's second), Clone Officer has several talents that cost a couple strain, and Gunslinger/ARC Trooper focus on dual-wielding, with talents that help the roll at a cost of strain.

It's important to note that Resolve only affects involuntary strain, not strain suffered to trigger talents.

I've got a character with both the ARC Trooper and Clone Officer trees, and I've been contemplating Saboteur as a fifth spec (~1150 XP at the moment) for the strain talents.

Big reason for Sabotuer to have a lot of strain is to enable them to draw and throw grenades, which is going to be one of their primary sources of damage. Or alternately, having drawn a grenade on the previous round, be able to move into short range to toss said grenade, and then use another move action to move back to medium range so they don't become an easy target for any survivors of the grenade toss, especially if you happened to miss or failed to completely take out your target(s) with the explosive you just lobbed at them.

It also enables them to more frequently do a double-aim for those cases where they're using a regular blaster, or have the time to really line up their grenade toss.

Also helps for those Mechanics checks to set an explosive that succeed but come up with a substantial amount of threat; a fair number of GMs will probably spend that threat to inflict strain, and Saboteur is better at handling that sort of intense pressure.

Personally, I would have liked to have seen the Strong Arm talent (increase throwing range to medium instead of short) in the spec, but the designers may have felt that would be too good of a benefit for a spec that already makes Blast weapons a lot more viable.

Thank you both, this helps me get a better idea!

6 minutes ago, Grungyape said:

Thank you both, this helps me get a better idea!

Yeah, I found that Saboteur was one of those specs that looks odd on paper (especially when you compare to the Demolitionist for the Hired Gun career), but in playing one (a Chadra-Fan with heavy and deliberate influences from Rocket of the MCU) it makes a bit more sense. The way it's built does lead into two combat tactics that the Rebel Alliance as a whole tends to rely upon, and that is resiliency and flexibility.

18 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

(a Chadra-Fan with heavy and deliberate influences from Rocket of the MCU)

You too? What's a Chadra-fan without serious destructive impulses?

https://swsheets.com/c/vfra9chmq-undecided-wip

On 7/31/2020 at 8:50 AM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Yeah, I found that Saboteur was one of those specs that looks odd on paper (especially when you compare to the Demolitionist for the Hired Gun career), but in playing one (a Chadra-Fan with heavy and deliberate influences from Rocket of the MCU) it makes a bit more sense. The way it's built does lead into two combat tactics that the Rebel Alliance as a whole tends to rely upon, and that is resiliency and flexibility.

I also played a Saboteur (Wookiee) and it's a fun spec that probably would have benefited from a name change.