I was wondering if someone with the book could list the different specialities for the Careers. Also, how much impact does choosing a speciality have on the character? Are these choices final, or are there some kind of cross training between the specialities?

-Eirik

I would also really appreciate something like a basic career/specialization list. I have ordered the book but don't have it yet, and I would really like to start planning my games so we can start playing as soon as we get it. Knowing the options available to the players would go a long way to giving me enough information to plan a basic story.

Damocles346 said:

I agree entirely, being in the same boat. Any help would be appreciated!

Here we go:

Bounty Hunter: Assassin, Gadgeteer, and Survivalist

Colonist: Doctor, Politico, and Scholar

Explorer: Fringer, Scout , and Trader

Hired Gun: Bodyguard, Marauder, and Mercenary Soldier

Smuggler: Pilot, Scoundrel, and Thief

Technician: Mechanic, Outlaw Tech, and Slicer

There is also the Non-career: Force-Sensitive path that can be taken outside the normal acreer path as any of the others may be opened to your character with XP.

Thanks Gobbo! Very useful.

Cool! Thank you so much for this, this will help me and my players a lot!

This is so cool.

Each Talent Tree [including the Force one] has 25 talents in it. 4 each of 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 XP cost abilities.

The force also has 3 sub-sets of Force Powers [sense, Influence, and Move].

Gobbo said:

I admit that some of the profession/speciality pairings make me go "huh?" Others make a bit of sense but maybe could be better named, maybe switch names like the Smuggler is a specialty of the Scoundrel career instead of the other way around. And the highlighted… having a dedicated technician career pleases me after seeing how WotC made an absolute mess of the techie classes in SAGA edition. Why does this bother me? Well… always was a major cogboy in the WH40k RPGs and Star Wars was always supposed to be the original SCIENCE-fiction setting.

You also can only have a max of 3 specializations. Besides the first the other two do not have to be from your career. If you decide that you don't like the specialization you can get a new one but if it's more than the 3 you have to get rid of one and any of the talents you took from that tree. At least thats what I got from reading it.

I agree that the smuggler/scoundrel pairing seems a bit wonky, and pilot/thief doesn't seem to sit well under this. NOt sure what the alternatives should be though?

First thoughts are that it should be Scoundrel - Thief, Smuggler, but I don't know if pilot fits? I would be keen to see Grifter added in to this but I guess that is what they were going for with Scoundrel?

Would the Politico specialization be the one to do nobles. Like, say "Princesses" and such as well?

lupex said:

Much like Saga (and most other class-based system that are NOT D&D) it will be important (and legal) to focus more on the types of abilities a career contains rather than get hung up on their titles. For example, in order to build a that had certain piloting abilities from the Scoundrel class in Saga it was important (and quite legal) to take levels in that class even if the character had never broken a law or was ever remotely deceitful. It was also quite acceptable (and legal within the rules) to take levels of the Jedi class in order to gain certain abilities even if the character had never been trained by a Jedi (it was legal even for a Droid, which could not be Force Sensitive under those rules, to take levels in the Jedi class*).

If the ability fits the character, and it makes sense for them to have learned it, take it without concerning yourself with how the title affects the character's theme. Look at the mechanical aspect of the trait affects the story and let that help define what your character is good at, rather than take the title of the career as a definition of what mold your character has to fit.

Think of it as the difference between a smuggler (lowercase "s") and a Smuggler (upper case "S"). A smuggler is a character in the game world that smuggles stuff. A Smuggler is a character in the game system that has the Smuggler career even though they may never smuggle a single item in their lives.

*The original designers of Saga wanted to give General Grevious levels in the Jedi class to represent his training in the Jedi arts of lightsaber combat. It would have been legal per the rules and would have nicely framed how flexible the system could really be. In the end, however, they chose not to because they felt there were be too many arguments about how General Greviious was not a Jedi.

Dulahan said:

That would be my take on it.

The Colonist is someone described as being from the Core Worlds, which gives them access to talents that require higher education. It would certainly be possible for someone to have political talents even if they weren't formally educated, though, so the Core Worlds aspect wouldn't be necessary, I'd say.

For those of us still waiting on our books to be shipped, what kinds of things to Talents do? Are they "powers", do they give bonuses to skills, skill training,etc.?

Implication of Specialty is following:

1. Give you free skill level
2. Allow you access of the Talent tree

In Class specialty can be bought for 5 EXP, and Out of Class Specialty can be bought for 10 EXP.

Think Talent as D&D's feat, and you will be set for most of the time.

Talents can give new active abilities, increase stats, and provide passive abilities (ie ignore one penalty die due to fog when using skill x).

fjw70 said:

In many if not most cases, the talents will modify the dice pool (either by adding to it or upgrading).

Can someone give a brief, story setting style blurb about each of the classes and their specialties? I don't need to know specific abilities or talents, but something like

Technician - science based character, mechanical and technical based skills. Covers everything from inventors to hackers to droid repairmen

*Slicer - expert in avoiding and shutting down security systems.

I ask because I'm joining a campaign on Saturday. I can pick up the mechanics as we play/have them explained by the GM, but I wanted to have a couple character ideas already in my head to speed up character creation.

GoblynByte said:

It certainly won't present a problem during play or character creation and is easy to work around but as we are at an early stage it would be easy to change the careers and specialisations to match narrative concepts. I would say that the current Smuggler career focuses on characters that have already stayed into the shady side of things and are happy to skirt the law.

Thus I propose that this career is changed to something like Outlaw, with the 3 specialisations being changed to - Smuggler, Grifter and Thief (I believe these would match up well with Pilot, Scoundrel and Thief but I won't get my book until tuesday so i can't check to see how this would match with the talents that these specialisations get?)

lupex said:

I don't exactly disagree. It is difficult, especially for entry-level players, to separate the career titles with functionality. But "Smuggler" has name recognition. A similar argument could be made with Bounty Hunter and mixing it in as a specialization of the Gun for Hire career. Bounty Hunter is more of a proper name much like Smuggler and you aren't exactly one until you actually smuggle something (or hunt someone for a bounty, in the case of Bounty Hunter). But naming these careers Smuggler and Bounty Hunter scratches the itch many entry level folks will have when asking "I want to play a Smuggler!" or "I want to be like Boba Fett!"

In any case, if they do change the title of the Smuggler career, I would recommend going back to the original suggestion of "Scoundrel." Outlaw again implies that the character has already broken the law and that will run the danger of pigeonholing any character created with that career. In other words, you'd be shifting the assumptions of the Smuggler title to assumptions that would come with the title of Outlaw. Players approaching their career choice will just assume a Smuggler is a smuggler and that an Outlaw is an outlaw. And, well, I would be willing to bet that 99% of the characters created in this RPG will be outlaws by Imperial definition anyway.

Scoundrel avoids some of those assumptions. It implies a way of life and an attitude towards a more nefarious approach to problem solving without being too overt regarding their propensity to break the law or hide things in their ships.

I have now had a chance to peruse the book and I have an addendum to my earlier comments about the Smuggler Career, it seems that all of the specialisations under this career are of nafarious intent, but nobody calls themselves a bad guy. So my suggestion would be to change the pilot specialisation to Smuggler and to change the career to Free spirit (or something like that)?.

However, I would like to see an addtional Career for The Pilot, with specialisations for Freighter Captain (of the honest sort) and Speeder/Swoop Jockey/Racer, as these seem to be Archetypes that are difficult (but not impossible) to model with the current careers/specialisations. I would persoannly fill the third specialisation with the (new) Smuggler Specialisation and then under the (new) Freespirit Career include a new Outlaw specialisation, as this is another Archtype that seems difficult to model. Outlaw would include ex-imperials that had a change of heart, robin hood types, and revenge driven characters reacting to the deaths of family members etc.

Ok, so here is how it would look;

Career; Freespirit, specilaisations - Outlaw, Scoundrel, Thief

Career; Pilot, specialisations - Freighter Captain, Smuggler, Speeder Jockey

At the moment these could all be made but i think that I might have to do some jigging about with skills to come up with the archetypes I need, unless someon can come up with a logical build without fudgeing the system?

I think FFG should look into doing a Lawman (Law Enforcement) type Career and I can even envision two Specializations being named Security and Privateer. I think this would fit in with the theme of the game and provide an option to possibly different types of stories.

A lawman career could be good, but I think is better suited for an expansion book then the first run, somewhere where the new adventure types and associated talents and equipment could be expanded on.

That would be cool. Lawman Career with specializations as Ranger (Space and long range combat) , Braceman (short range, live capture, enforcement), and Investigator (deduction, knowledge, surveilance). Some of that can be reproduced, but a lot of it would be novel. Great Thought!

-WJL