Hey all,

I was reviewing my Smuggler Pilot the now and was wondering what Talents (not traits!) people would agree are best/worthwhile to start off with?

Here's a quick description of my character;

Name : Drace Daymont

Age : 27

Sex : Male

Species : Human

Story : Drace is a strong willed, surely character from the Out Rim, who was previously a pawn of a large smuggling ring. He gained a reputation of being a first-rate pilot, who delivers on time, with experience in handling risky cases.

Motivations : He wants to prove himself and demonstrate that he's as good a smuggler/pilot as anyone out there! He takes pride in his work and maintains a (semi-)professional appearance. He looks to acquire the best of what's available to achieve his goals and constantly seeks improvement.

Defensive driving & Tricky target are far better choices for keeping you and your ship alive. I would start with one of those lines on the right side and just work your way down, then when at the bottom row move towards Master pilot & Dedication

Can I take Full Throttle (Supreme) without having to take the previous stages since i can go across the bottom line from Brilliant Evasion across to Master Pilot and then start working backwards to Grit and then Full Throttle (Supreme)?

Skilled Jockey is always nice if your ship has a Handling penalty or you randomly wind up in a vehicle with one.

Can I take Full Throttle (Supreme) without having to take the previous stages since i can go across the bottom line from Brilliant Evasion across to Master Pilot and then start working backwards to Grit and then Full Throttle (Supreme)?

I would rule No, but i'm only an amateur rules lawyer. Wait for one of the pros to chime in

Edit: What Kshatriya said (V)

Can I take Full Throttle (Supreme) without having to take the previous stages since i can go across the bottom line from Brilliant Evasion across to Master Pilot and then start working backwards to Grit and then Full Throttle (Supreme)?

You can buy anything that you can trace a path to from the top tier, no matter how circuitous the path. So yes, you could start with Let's Ride and trace down and over to Supreme Full Throttle. But you can't actually do anything with it til you have bought the baseline 5 XP Full Throttle. You can't even use Improved Full Throttle unless you've bought the basic Full Throttle. Both Supreme and Improved Full Throttle modify a Full Throttle action, which you can't perform unless you've bought the 5 XP Full Throttle Talent.

As I understand it, you shouldn't have Obligation to another PC?

Motivation is okay, but Obligation should be outside the party?

Otherwise it gets a bit 'Path of Whatever I Was Gonna Do Anyway'?

Hmm... The Full Throttle question is a really good question. You can certainly purchase the talent, nothing in RAW prevents you from doing so, but if I was the GM, I don't think I would let you user the improved/supreme version since they specifically allow you to user the "Full Throttle" action with added benefits. Unfortunately, without the original talent, that action is not available to you.

If someone could throw that question to a CSR, that would be nice.

As usual Maelora is in good form. I would recommend tying your obligation to an outside factor. Something (typically from your past) that keeps coming up and biting you in the rear. As it stands now, your obligation appears to act as your motivation, and I believe it's important that the two ideas are distinct.

As usual Maelora is in good form. I would recommend tying your obligation to an outside factor. Something (typically from your past) that keeps coming up and biting you in the rear. As it stands now, your obligation appears to act as your motivation, and I believe it's important that the two ideas are distinct.

Thanks! Links to other PCs are very important, and make great Motivations, but I think Obligations should be an external thing...

Otherwise it's going to be hard to 'lower' a PC Obligation, I think.

Our wookiee has a Motivation that deals with his Life Debt to the ship's captain, a PC. It's what keeps him in the team, really. But his Obligation is 'Duty' to his people back home, where he was a guerrilla leader of a rebel band. So his life debt keeps him involved in the smuggler consortium, but sometimes his people are going to call on him regardless, and he'll have to answer that call...

As I understand it, you shouldn't have Obligation to another PC?

Motivation is okay, but Obligation should be outside the party?

Otherwise it gets a bit 'Path of Whatever I Was Gonna Do Anyway'?

I think it depends on the obligation, as well as the players. I wouldn't feel comfortable w/ something like Favor or Debt, but Family could absolutly work. The Obligation probably isn't going to go anywhere (outside of character death which would have its own implications) and as far as lowering it goes, well who knows? If the PC's in question each started it at 10, they could through adventuring togetherr and saving each other lower it to 5 or so, and if frictoin rose between them it could increase as well. Their other obligations could rise and fall, but this would be a very comfortable "required" obligation for them. the same could be said for a married set of characters.

That still seems like a better Motivation. Obligation seems intended to be an outside, NPC factor and something that causes indirect PC conflict ("You want to pay off your debt with this haul? I say we give it to the Alliance!") rather than a direct PC-owes-other-PC type thing, which can lead to hierarchical resentment within the player group if one character is seen as having objective authority over others.

Obligations can also reflect priorities. If the party gets split, or something rude/inapropriate happens to the bearer of said obligation, how does the PC react? Do they step in, creating a more volatile situation for the group, or do they stay silent, increasing their Obligation as the supject feels "betrayed"

It could have some interesting implications.

Thanks for all the responses.

I originally rolled for the obligation and i could choose between Family or Responsibility (by inverting my dice roll). I choose the latter and asked the GM if i could have an Responsibility to a fellow PC and he was enthused with the idea.

My characters original 'Ambition' is 'Expertise', hence the write-up for the part about wanting to improve himself as a smuggler/pilot and create his own smuggling empire.

The obligation part is a separate and different entity to my characters motivation of 'Expertise'. It could be argued that it's a motivation but then what obligation isn't a motivation? If you are obligated to something, you'll have personal motivation to maintain that obligation regardless.

Once i've spoken to my fellow PC about a defined backstory, i feel i could really make this work as i'll more than likely look to keep him out of harms way the best i can, which could put me into dangerous situations, in order to defuse potential problems. It would mean that yes, he would step in to defend his responsibility when needed, even at the cost of causing further issues, though ideally i would look for a compromise that would suit all parties (however if that wasn't an option, he would side with his responsibility).

Eventually, i would look to buy off the 5 point Responsibility once it has been determined that my character feels his fellow PC is back on his feet and acting responsibly. My mate who'll be playing the PC even stated that he'll be very brash, problematic & outspoken at first as his character has an issue with trusting people, which will help work the idea. Eventually when the character is more settled, the game will change whereby i'll pick up other obligations depending on the arc of the story or the responsibility could even change into a different obligation.

Hmm... The Full Throttle question is a really good question. You can certainly purchase the talent, nothing in RAW prevents you from doing so, but if I was the GM, I don't think I would let you user the improved/supreme version since they specifically allow you to user the "Full Throttle" action with added benefits. Unfortunately, without the original talent, that action is not available to you.

If someone could throw that question to a CSR, that would be nice.

I think the rules are pretty clear. You can only take the Full Throttle Action if you buy the 5 XP Talent. Improved Full Throttle turns the Action you can take into into a Maneuver and reduces Difficulty at the cost of a point of Strain to fuel it. Supreme Full Throttle modifies the speed boost of Full Throttle (regardless of Action or Maneuver).

Also at that point, if you don't have the base Talent, you're cheaping out over spending 5 XP. A session is supposed to give, what, 20 XP? I'd not be sympathetic.

Ask yourself, when is that speed going to matter. Not much if you are in space, possibly with ground vehicles. I have only seen it useful for either very slow ships under 3 speed, or for a 4 speed ship to get up to 5 to travel quickly/escape. So if you are like most groups and in a 3 speed freighter, may want to hold off for now.

Remember the extra speed you get with Full Throttle doesnt let your ship do things it couldnt do normally. So no using it on a stock light freighter to able to use 'Gain the Advantage' maneuver

Hmm... The Full Throttle question is a really good question. You can certainly purchase the talent, nothing in RAW prevents you from doing so, but if I was the GM, I don't think I would let you user the improved/supreme version since they specifically allow you to user the "Full Throttle" action with added benefits. Unfortunately, without the original talent, that action is not available to you.

If someone could throw that question to a CSR, that would be nice.

I think the rules are pretty clear. You can only take the Full Throttle Action if you buy the 5 XP Talent. Improved Full Throttle turns the Action you can take into into a Maneuver and reduces Difficulty at the cost of a point of Strain to fuel it. Supreme Full Throttle modifies the speed boost of Full Throttle (regardless of Action or Maneuver).

Also at that point, if you don't have the base Talent, you're cheaping out over spending 5 XP. A session is supposed to give, what, 20 XP? I'd not be sympathetic.

I'm not trying to cheap out. It was a genuine question because you can move backwards through the tree. After reading people confirming that i have to atleast have Full Throttle as a skill as the higher versions modify the original talents, it now makes perfect sense to me which im happy with.

However to confirm, i would need to take the Full Throttle at 5pts then i could take Full Throttle (Supreme) at 20pts later on?

I'm not saying YOU in particular were trying to cheap out. I'm saying if someone argued that they had Supreme FT so they could take an action that is only described in another Talent that they hadn't bought, I'd lol at them.

I think you could buy Supreme Full Throttle before buying Full Throttle, as you said going down the right side of the Specialization, across the bottom and up. I don't think you'd get any benefit for having Improved/Supreme without the baseline Full Throttle though. As in, it'd be 20 points you spent but which wouldn't actually benefit you til you spent 5 more on Full Throttle.

Yeh i agree with what you're saying. I think i've decided to skip Full Throttle for the time being so now trying to decide whether Let's Ride or Galaxy Mapper would be more useful. I haven't bothered with adding to my Astrogation skill as i understand that would be the co-pilots job to arrange this? When we were creating characters, i did mention to my group that someone else needs to have the ability to be able to competently do astrogation checks since my main focus will be piloting.

However, is it possible that i complete both an astrogation check while also piloting the ship under pressure? If so it would mean i would take the talent as i could attempt it while piloting the freighter or even if piloting a lone star-fighter, while under fire.

However, is it possible that i complete both an astrogation check while also piloting the ship under pressure? If so it would mean i would take the talent as i could attempt it while piloting the freighter or even if piloting a lone star-fighter, while under fire.

Yep, the Astrogation check would be your action, but most piloting is done via Maneuvers. It might be slightly inconvenient once in a while, but most of the time it won't cause a problem.

My current character is both the Pilot and Astrogator. Kinda has to be, actually, in a 4 person party with two in the turrets and one in the engine room; luckily those were two areas I was planning on focusing on anyways!