I just got my Core Rule Book Monday. First things first, holy crap what a great piece of art. I want a print of almost every picture that is in this thing. These guys really did a bang-up job with the visuals.

Now on to my question. I wanted to make a character that was a master at hand-to-hand combat, in particular I wanted to make a Teras Kasi master. I know I wouldn't be able to start out as a master but I want to eventually reach that level.

What are your thoughts? Should I just use the skills that are present or should I ask the GM to make a new Teras Kasi skill?

Brawl is intended to be used as martial arts as well as boxing. I would use it as a skill, and take Marauder with plenty of talents to improve H-t-H combat. Perhaps your GM would be kind enough to create a martial artist specialization with it's own talent tree.

The skills that are present can simulate a TK just fine. Look at defensive talents, pressure point etc. Perhaps refluff some other talents and explain the effect by your training :-)

Making new Talent trees is sort of an iffy thing for me. Just using the basic trees, its possible to simulate a lot of different character concepts, and it really feels like people should look through those first. As FangGrip said, the Marauder tree is excellent for any Brawl or Melee combatant (I don't necessarily advise going for Pressure Point because having read that, it makes the GM in me want to fix it, it's a little too good in the right build).

Although Marauder is a good starting spec, I would also recommend the far-less-intuitive Gadgeteer. Bounty Hunter/Gadgeteer is the only combo that can net you 2 free levels of Brawl to start, and the chain that begins with Defensive Stance is definitely intended for punching folk, if you ask me.

If I went the Bounty Hunter route, I would probably move fairly quickly into Assassin to pick up some of the talents there. I think both the Gadgeteer/Assassin and Marauder are good martial arts builds. Depends on your focus.

Thanks for all of the feedback. I was going into this thinking that I would just use what's already provided in game but wanted to see if anyone had any other thoughts.

Yeah, Marauder's good for just sheer beatdown, but gwek's suggestion to instead use Bounty Hunter and the Gadgeteer and Assassin specs would better fit a Teras Kasi fighter.

That said, I'd be surprised if we didn't see some kind of "martial arts expert" specialization for the Hired Gun down the line. But if FFG is only releasing one EotE sourcebook per quarter (a pattern indicated by Beyond the Rim being Q3 2013 and Exploring the Unknown being Q4 2013), then it might be a while before the Hired Guns get their splatbook. Alternatively, we could see such a thing in Age of Rebellion as part of that book's listing of "combat-focused careers."

As for building your own specialzation, trust me when I say it's trickier than it looks. I went through a lot of revisions of my Force-Senstive spec trees way before I put "Ways of the Force" up on the web, and I know folks that have created their own homebrew specs have done the same.

Making new Talent trees is sort of an iffy thing for me. Just using the basic trees, its possible to simulate a lot of different character concepts, and it really feels like people should look through those first. As FangGrip said, the Marauder tree is excellent for any Brawl or Melee combatant (I don't necessarily advise going for Pressure Point because having read that, it makes the GM in me want to fix it, it's a little too good in the right build).

Pressure point is not a little too good. It's very overpowered if abused. I house ruled it. Max base damage is 3 + medicine + successes. Add an ectra difficulty die to the pool when using it to bypass soak.

Curious now that all the books are out what people are doing with hand to hand or non lightsaber melee weapons

14 minutes ago, Kilcannon said:

Curious now that all the books are out what people are doing with hand to hand or non lightsaber melee weapons

Mostly, they are still using them to inflict Damage and Critical Injuries at Engaged range. So, IOW, nothing's changed.

There's the Martial Artist from the No Disintegration book. I created a Teras Kasi Universal Specialization.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r4sta49aj4zpl8t/TKM universal spec.pdf?dl=0

4 hours ago, Archlyte said:

There's the Martial Artist from the No Disintegration book. I created a Teras Kasi Universal Specialization.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r4sta49aj4zpl8t/TKM universal spec.pdf?dl=0

Why is the first row each 10 pts per talent and second row 15 pts per talent?

1 hour ago, Kilcannon said:

Why is the first row each 10 pts per talent and second row 15 pts per talent?

It's powerful so I bumped up the XP.