I'm coming back to EotE after a several-years-long hiatus, and I'm struggling with the best way to build out a character concept with an eye towards a long-term campaign.

The concept is that of an educated but rakish Core Worlds doctor who's come out to the Outer Rim seeking adventure, and will reinvent himself as a gentleman gunslinger over the long run -- think of a Star Wars version of Firefly's Simon Tam to start, and gradually morphing into more of a Doc Holliday-type.

If I build him as a Smuggler/Scoundrel, I'm better set up for the long run in terms of career skills and signature abilities, but unless I spend a bunch of XP to add the Doctor specialization from the jump, then I'm going to have to backfill the character's medical expertise after play begins ("Of course I'm a doctor. Who has no real aptitude for medicine until three sessions into the game."). And if I *do* spend a bunch of XP to add the Doctor specialization from the jump, then I'm going to have that much less available to improve starting attributes and skills, and buy talents.

On the other hand, if I build him as a Colonist/Doctor, then it's a much more natural advancement path -- buy the Scoundrel specialization later, after play begins, to represent the character's growth into the gentleman gunslinger role. But if I do that then I'm locked into the Colonist's signature abilities (which aren't a great fit for the concept) and saddled with the Colonist's career skills (which are suboptimal in the long run).

I'm open to any advice or suggestions other than, "Try building the character using this other archetype from Age of Rebellion/Force and Destiny." This is strictly an Edge campaign.

I'm start off with Colonist/Doctor since that's what your character currently is . You can play up the gunslinger/scoundel angle with some skill point choices and role-play and pick up those sorts of trees later on as thats what he is angling to become. And what your character wants to be can always change based on how the game plays.

As for signature abilities, I'd suggest talking to your DM about allowing you to use a signature ability from another tree.

With only Edge to choose from the only "solutions" that come to mind are:

1. Start with Doctor and add Marshal later for an interesting base to build on (i might be wrong, but combat checks are considered skill checks and Unmatched Expertise can be interesting for a gunslinger)

2. In case the Career-Skills from the Cybertech are more to your liking, this could also provide a solution. Although Cybertech is quite complicated with all the "More Machine than Man" spread over the tree when taking cyberware is not on your wishlist.

I like option 1 quite a lot in theory, but I don't know if you really would be happy with it, when thinking about it (over a whole campaign) already makes you question it.

This kind of issue comes up almost every time someone tries to make a character with the default character gen XP. I really feel that the default rules don't reflect the multi-talented individuals we see in Star Wars--even "inexperienced" characters, like Luke (in ANH), Solo (in Solo) and Amidala (TPM) are way beyond starting at 0XP, and Rey seems even farther from 0XP than the rest to me. After the first campaign I ran, every other awarded added XP (not "starting XP") in the range of 150-300XP. I even started one game off with a 450XP push, and everything worked out just fine.

I am planning on using a Genesys approach and opening up characters to being able to play what they see as their character as opposed to what they have to work around and wait for. I don't sweat OP, there are always reinforcements....

27 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

This kind of issue comes up almost every time someone tries to make a character with the default character gen XP. I really feel that the default rules don't reflect the multi-talented individuals we see in Star Wars--even "inexperienced" characters, like Luke (in ANH), Solo (in Solo) and Amidala (TPM) are way beyond starting at 0XP, and Rey seems even farther from 0XP than the rest to me. After the first campaign I ran, every other awarded added XP (not "starting XP") in the range of 150-300XP. I even started one game off with a 450XP push, and everything worked out just fine.

I remember, in a long-ago thread on these boards, expressing frustration about this. Characters built under the RAW have always felt kind of "flimsy" to me -- underqualified and underequipped, even for people ostensibly at the dawn of their adventuring careers living job to job on the fringe. But I also find a lot of the "just give more starting XP/credits" solutions to this equally unsatisfying; I feel like it's a failure of the ruleset if I have to houserule character generation just to make a character that feels plausibly competent.

Maybe the problem I'm having is another manifestation of that, I dunno. Appreciate all the suggestions!

TBF that might be a result of a good chunk of the FFG RPG team coming from Dark Heresy/Only War, where 'You start off as a scrub' is very much a desired feature. I don't think you're too underpowered with starting XP if you spend it all on stats (a 4 agility character is very effective at lots of things even before they buy ranks), but a free second career (with 2 free skill ranks from it) and 30xp worth of free talents is probably a good way to start a character off with more bite.

2 hours ago, Malashim said:

Start with Doctor and add Marshal later for an interesting base to build on (i might be wrong, but combat checks are considered skill checks and Unmatched Expertise can be interesting for a gunslinger)

This is precisely what I’d do. And I’d try to get a rank of Ranged: Light in at creation if possible, especially if you make a human and get a couple of non-career skills to pick from. That way you have something to do in a fight until you start focusing more on combat.

First of all, is a "Doctor" simply a person who takes the Career Spec or is it simply someone who uses Medicine to heal other people? A person with a 3 or 4 INT is going to do just fine at Medicine checks for that kind of healing.

I look at it this way. To do this Doctor/Gunslinger crossover, it's going to cost and extra 30 points to do the non-career spec. By getting that Doctor Spec, you can get 3 Ranks of Surgeon for 45xp. So, your medicine check is going to do, let's say, YYG + 3pts of Healing. Is it worth the 75xp to do that or would you just rather begin as a Smuggler/Gunslinger, have a 3 INT, begin as a Human (+1 Rank in Medicine), and then purchase a non-career 2nd Rank of Medicine (15xp) to do YYG? You can do that and then just call yourself a Doctor. (Bank the other 60xp). Is getting that +3pts of extra healing worth it? Do you value the Stim App Talent, too?

I think it is easy to pigeonhole ourselves into titles, and such. Can't you just be a "soldier" by the way you carry yourself and shoot a gun rather than having the AofR Career? Can't you just be a thief by having a 4 Cunning and stealing stuff in the game rather than being the Career/Spec Smuggler/Thief? Can't you just be a doctor because you have a good INT, a few ranks in Medicine, and carry around Stims and Medpacs for others? Just something to think about. #FreeYourMind

@DurosSpacer that's a fair point, and I suppose there are narrative opportunities to be found that way, too. "That dude who's been calling himself a doctor isn't actually a real Space M.D.; he just took a couple of extension courses on emergency medicine from Tattooine Community College and started running around calling himself 'doc'." Lynch mob ensues.

Is the idea to see this change happen over the course of the campaign? Then start as a Doctor and go from there. Talk with your GM about the signature abilities. Bite the bullet on the career skills. He was trained to be a doctor, not a blasterslinger; it's always going to be a bit tougher for him, and that reflects in the few extra XPs it will take to train up the later-life skills.

If the doctor-to-blasterslinger story is already complete at the start of the game, then go straight to the Smuggler/Scoundrel route and don't worry about Medicine. Doc Holliday never again practiced dentistry once he moved out west and became the gambler and gunslinger he was infamous for being. Maybe just keep some stimpacks handy when he feels like "practicing."

Are you expecting a long lived campaign, or a shorter one? Long campaign, option 1. Short campaign, option 2.

Is the character expected to be the group's only physician? Option 1. Is he expected to be one of the team's primary range artist? Option 2.

58 minutes ago, centerfire said:

@DurosSpacer that's a fair point, and I suppose there are narrative opportunities to be found that way, too. "That dude who's been calling himself a doctor isn't actually a real Space M.D.; he just took a couple of extension courses on emergency medicine from Tattooine Community College and started running around calling himself 'doc'." Lynch mob ensues.

3 in intellect with 1 medicine for an NPC is totally acceptable average doctor, so why not for your PC's backstory? You could use for example your human non career skills to put 1 on medicine and 1knowledge edu/ xeno, then choose smuggler and start to build up your character.

3 hours ago, Rimsen said:

3 in intellect with 1 medicine for an NPC is totally acceptable average doctor, so why not for your PC's backstory? You could use for example your human non career skills to put 1 on medicine and 1knowledge edu/ xeno, then choose smuggler and start to build up your character.

No, it's really not. Professional level capability has been defined as 3 ranks of a skill. A backwater doc with atrophied skills might get by with 2 ranks, but 1 rank hardly qualifies as an average doctor.

5 hours ago, Rimsen said:

3 in intellect with 1 medicine for an NPC is totally acceptable average doctor, so why not for your PC's backstory? You could use for example your human non career skills to put 1 on medicine and 1knowledge edu/ xeno, then choose smuggler and start to build up your character.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

No, it's really not. Professional level capability has been defined as 3 ranks of a skill. A backwater doc with atrophied skills might get by with 2 ranks, but 1 rank hardly qualifies as an average doctor.

Yeah, that's like a combat medic level. Just the bare level of qualification to get by, using the skills learned from your first aid merit badge in the boy scouts.

An occasional source of confusion IRL is the use of "doctor" as a title by someone with a PhD, leading to the incorrect assumption that they're a medical doctor. In the right (wrong) circumstances, this can have life-threatening consequences.

However, you could certainly use this for RPG-worthy confusion and/or comedy; the character has a doctorate in something completely unrelated to medicine, thus the title.

Or somewhat subvert it: they have a doctorate in something unrelated to medicine, but they're ALSO reasonably competent at medicine. Just not as much as people would assume the title "doctor" to mean.

4 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

No, it's really not. Professional level capability has been defined as 3 ranks of a skill. A backwater doc with atrophied skills might get by with 2 ranks, but 1 rank hardly qualifies as an average doctor.

3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Yeah, that's like a combat medic level. Just the bare level of qualification to get by, using the skills learned from your first aid merit badge in the boy scouts.

Hmm. This makes me think that I might be able to make this work by tweaking the concept a little bit. Maybe, at campaign start, my dude's not a full-fledged Space M.D. yet. Maybe he's a thrillseeking Space Med Student who's been neglecting his studies in order to get his scoundrel on. That not only justifies his lack of professional-level capability in Medicine, but also makes it more plausible to back into the Colonist/Doctor specialization later.

Some general advice... try to accomplish what you want to do with the character in 2 specs... a third if the game goes long...

Look at archeologist (explorer) particularly the left side there's a 5xp well rounded that will let you pick up both medicine and ranged light

You may like the unmatched mobility signature ability too.

Also look at assassin which has anatomy lessons and bunch of stuff that will help a gunslinger... if you can put a 4 in int to start you'll be able to function as the party medic without any ranks in medicine.

Maybe look at arkanian or chiss for your species. Arkanian kind of has the appearance of a weathered gunslinger and comes with a free rank in medicine.

And unmatched devastation is a pretty good signature ability for a dual wielding gunslinger.

For an AVG Medicine Check:

• GGG = avg. result is 1.14 Successes.
• YGG = avg. result is 1.30 Successes.
• YYG = avg. result is 1.46 Successes.
• YYY = avg. result is 1.64 Successes.
• YGGG = avg. result is 1.84 Successes.
• YYGG = avg. result is 2.02 Successes.
• YYYG = avg. result is 2.22 Successes.

Y'all knock yourselves out going for that extra "0.34" or "0.18" success per roll just so you can be a "Professional". Yeah, I'm ' tellin' you the odds'.

GGG

Yes, and now add only 1 setback and see how often you do not succed, either fail or 0 success.

I do not want to have this doc on my team.

13 hours ago, DurosSpacer said:

For an AVG Medicine Check:

• GGG = avg. result is 1.14 Successes.
• YGG = avg. result is 1.30 Successes.
• YYG = avg. result is 1.46 Successes.
• YYY = avg. result is 1.64 Successes.
• YGGG = avg. result is 1.84 Successes.
• YYGG = avg. result is 2.02 Successes.
• YYYG = avg. result is 2.22 Successes.

Y'all knock yourselves out going for that extra "0.34" or "0.18" success per roll just so you can be a "Professional". Yeah, I'm ' tellin' you the odds'.

A big part of being a "doctor" is the accompanying talents, the consistency of success, and, importantly, potential for Triumph. Triumph is particularly potent on Medicine checks, allowing you to heal wounds on a check to heal a crit, or heal a crit for "free" when you are trying to heal wounds.

16 hours ago, DurosSpacer said:

For an AVG Medicine Check:

• GGG = avg. result is 1.14 Successes.
• YGG = avg. result is 1.30 Successes.
• YYG = avg. result is 1.46 Successes.
• YYY = avg. result is 1.64 Successes.
• YGGG = avg. result is 1.84 Successes.
• YYGG = avg. result is 2.02 Successes.
• YYYG = avg. result is 2.22 Successes.

Y'all knock yourselves out going for that extra "0.34" or "0.18" success per roll just so you can be a "Professional". Yeah, I'm ' tellin' you the odds'.

How about GGGG (it's pretty close to YYY but I'm forgetting the exact number, and technically this is an average, not the probability/odds of success)