[RPG] How to pimp the Jedi

star-wars-saga-edition

I've just joined a group, starting up a Star Wars: Saga Edition game, beginning at. Naturally, I picked a Jedi, and I've decided to be a Zabrak. The one thing that worries me is, I'm not going to be as awesome a Jedi as I thought I would be.

This is what I've rolled (after the +2 from my level):

Str – 07
Dex – 16
Con – 10
Int – 12
Wis – 12
Cha – 16

I know these aren't optimal, but it's what I've got. I'm going to attribute the 7 in Str to an injury from the battle of Order 66, but I'm not opposed to moving it around, and the GM isn't enforcing roll in order.

Firstly, I was expecting talents to be easier to get. At level 4 I only have two talents, making it hard to feel like an iconic Jedi, whom I've seen using the Block and Reflect talents ubiquitously. That's two talents that have an immense Jedi feel to them, gone already. And I'm not even thinking of focusing on Lightsaber combat. How can I make the most of my Talents, and still feel like a proper Jedi?

Secondly, on the subject of force powers. I will only be getting two, due to my low wisdom score. It feels like some are too good not to have, like Negate Energy, even though it isn't the feel I want, and I'm worried I won't survive without it. I've picked up Vital transfer, as we don't have any sort of party medic, leaving me with only one power left. I'm torn between either Force Slam/Force Push and Surge, as I was going to aim for Form VI lightsaber fighting. How can I pick powers to complement my abilities, and style?

I think my best hope it to use the skill Use the Force like a crutch and make as many things reliant on that as possible. I've noticed Force Perception, but I can't tell if it's going to be useful.

In summary I wanted to make a Diplomat/Knight style Jedi, but I'm worried I don't have enough Powers, Talents and Feats to represent this concept whilst staying useful to the party.

How can I pimp my Jedi?
The thing is I will enjoy playing a sub-optimal character (~bad stats, few powers) but I don't know if my party will, so I want to make the most of what I've got.

Edit:

I've seen a lot of good ideas in the answers and their comments. If they could be collated I could assign a correct answer and my bounty!

Best Answer

First off: If you want to be iconic Jedi, I'd say emphasize your lightsaber prowess. Problem is, with that 7 crippling you, it won't be easy as Jedi more-or-less need all stats.

However, here's another idea: Keep the 7 STR, and instead, become a Force-focused Jedi.

The Force powers can be massively powerful, and you should take full advantage of them. I suggest changing your stats to the following:

STR 7 DEX 12 CON 10 INT 12 WIS 16 CHA 16

Now, at levels 1 and 3, take Force Training as your feats. Bonus feat should be Skill Focus (Use The Force), maybe more skill trainings, or Force Boon (extra force point) Also talk with your GM about making Diplomacy a class skill for Jedi, since I see no good reason why it isn't. Be trained in that.

Next, talents. Force Focus is AMAZING. As a full-round action, recover a spent force power. So useful, both in and out of combat. Skilled Advisor grants any ally a +5 on a skill check, if you spend a full-round action. Very useful. The Telekinetic tree (telekinetic Power, TK Savant, TK Prodigy, etc) are also pretty good.

Alternatively: Dip noble for a level, pick Exceptional Skill for UTF. If you ever roll between 2 and 7 on a UTF check, it's now treated as an 8. Every time. It's stupid useful.

Powers: Move Object is a must. Negate Energy is a must. Force Grip restricts enemies to a minor action. Useful. Force Shield is wonderful in a pinch. Enlighten is maybe the most useful thing of all. Roll a UTF check. Congrats, you or an ally can use that roll in the place of something - attack roll, skill check, or defense, as a one-time switch. If your UTF modifier is high, it's a godsend. Sensitive, one-time thing, such as a diplomacy check, or disarming a bomb? Roll Enlighten, and give it to the person. If they roll better, great. If not, they use your result. Combine this with the above mentioned Force Focus and you are immediately one of the most useful party members.

With this, you've got a pretty damn powerful Jedi. Iconic? Not as much. But useful to the party? Hell. Yes.

As an alternate idea, but you'll need to start it now. Renew Vision + lots of Farseeing uses + Prepared for Danger. Prep For Danger lets you spend a Farseeing use and regain any already used power as a swift action. Renew Vision lets you regain all spent uses of Farseeing. The other WatchCircle talents (see the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide) are also immensely useful, but that combo right there? you can't do it until level 8 at the earlier (as Prepared For Danger is a Jedi Knight talent), but when you can...hooo boy.

Also, if you reeeeally wanna optimize? Drop Zabrak, become a Miraluka. Free Force Training at first level if you're trained in UTF, which you will be as a Jedi.

Also also: Someone on the Wizards forums went and made indicies. So, so, SO very helpful. Here's the link: http://www.mediafire.com/?w7mlg0lq70gnd90

Wizards hasn't shut down the thread yet, so they seem okay with it, as the indicies don't contain all the specifics - just general stuff and tags.

I hope this helps! I've made lots of Force Users in Saga Edition, so this is my area of expertise.

EDIT: Since you asked, here you go:

Iconic Jedi are proficient in both Force Powers and Lightsaber ability - Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi were both accomplished duelists as well as Force masters.

The problem here is that without being very high level, your character cannot be good at both, especially with those stats.

If you want to maximize your ability for both, however, here's what I suggest. Assuming level 4 Jedi, with the stat build I gave you.

Talents: Deflect & Force Focus. Deflect will protect you from ranged fire, and you can work your way to the Praetoria Ishu talent which is from the Imperial Knight prestige class in the Legacy book. That talent lets you use it on others.

Force Focus has many uses outside of combat, and is a good emergency talent to have in combat in case you really need is.

Feats: Force Training, twice. This gives you 8 Force powers to choose from.
Bonus feats: Skill Focus (Use The Force) and Weapon Finesse, if you want. Take advantage of your DEX mod for your lightsaber, if or when you need it.

Powers:
- Move Object - no brainer
- Vital Transfer - good for healing, but have medpacs on hand as well
- Enlighten - the ultimate in helping the party. Use it often, recover as a full round when outside of combat (or in combat).
- Negate Energy - just in case.
- Mind Trick - Another classic Jedi power.
- Force Grip - can more-or-less disable on enemy in a round, plus decent damage at lower levels.
- Force Slam - a good area effect power.
- Surge - the movement bonuses can be very, very handy to have

Related Solutions

[RPG] How to make the most of Use the Force

Looking at the Talent Summary, there are a preposterous number of items that involve "use the force."

Here are the ones I consider most cheesy:

Adept Negotiator -> Force Persuasion: replaces persuasion, can pacify people by rolling it
Consular's Vitality some healing at the expense of a penalty to use the force
Far Seeing-> "watchCircle Initiate" and its tree: replace farseeing with use the force, add force points to allies, UtF versus will to reroll ally missed attack, and boost to reflex
Force intuition: UtF instead of initiative. Cause that's balanced.
Clear mind -> : avoid detection via UtF, greater levels provide party invisibility
Block: Blocks melee using UtF
Deflect: Deflects ranged using UtF
Shii-Cho: penalty to blocking/deflecting only -2
Soresu: get UtF reroll
Illusion tree: Does what it says on the tin.
Move Massive Objcet: throw huge things with UtF

Here are the UtF "replace" skill talents:

Will to resist: UtF -> Will
Force Perception: UtF -> Perception
Instinctive Navigation: UtF -> Use Computer (for astrogation)
Charm Beast: UtF -> Persuasion for animals
Force Treatment: UtF -> Treat Injury. Medpacks are for sissies.
Insight of the Force: UtF -> Knowledge
Force Deception: UtF -> Deception
Folded Space Mastery: UtF to shove an object through hyperspace without a hyperdrive.
White Current Adept: UtF -> Stealth

From here:

> Fluidity (shapers of kro var talent) - acrobatics 
> Force Deception (sith talent) - deception 
> Force Intuition (jedi talent) - initiative
> Force Perception (sense talent) - perception 
> Force Persuasion (jedi talent, pre-req adept negotiator) - persuasion 
> Force Pilot (sense talent) - pilot 
> Force Treatment (jedi knight or force adept talent) - treat injury 
> Insight of the Force (jedi knight talent) - knowledges
> Instinctive Navigation (sense talent, pre-req force pilot) - use computer for astrogation 
>White Current Adept (white current adept talent) - stealth

Short version: There exist more talents than you can take. What kind of specialization are you interested in?

[RPG] Star Wars Saga Edition for the 3.5 player

This answer by gomad and the link to the wikipedia article it contains may be useful to you. While that question is about the diferences between Star Wars D20 and saga, the similarities between AD&D 3.5 and Star Wars D20 could make that a valid answer.

ok, I managed to find somebody with a rulebook from saga to borrow, so I'll try to adress your questions.

Force Points: Every character has a pool of force points with size equal to 5 plus has half his character level (rounded down), regardless of class. Certain feats and prestige classes increase the size of this pool. A level 1 character start with its pool full of points. When you gain a level, your pool refills, but if you have force points over your maximum, the excess points are lost. Force points can be used the following ways:

You can spend a force point as a free action to gain 1D6 to a skill check, ability check or attack roll. Going up in levels increase the number of extra dice granted by force points(2D6 at 8, 3D6 at 15), but you can keep only the one with the higher result when rolling them.
You can spend a force point a swift action when receiving damage that could kill you. You instead end with 0 hit points and unconscious.
You can spend a force point a swift action to lower your dark side score by 1 permanently.
Also, you need force points to activate or enhance certain force powers, if you are a force user.

Usually, you can only spend a force point per round.

Destiny Points: Destiny points is part of a optional system in the game. If the DM allows it, you may choose a destiny for your character (or the DM chooses one, and he does not have to tell you which one). This does not have to happen at level one. A destiny is a long term goal for your character, and it gives you temporal but substantial benefits when your actions follows the path marked by your destiny, temporal but substantial penalties when your actions oppose your destiny, and a permanent benefit when it is finally fulfilled. Those benefits and penalties are the only clue that a character to discover his destiny if the DM choose to keep it secret. Also, having a destiny grants you the ability to gain and spend destiny points. Destiny points are gained at a one per level gain (including level 1, if the character starts with a destiny). Destiny points can be spent to gain benefits like: turn attack checks into automatic critical attacks,turn received attacks into missed attacks,change your initiative, shielding others from damage, partly refilling your force pool and empowering certain force powers.

Improving Skills: Skill now are either trained or untrained. At first level You select any number of skills from you class list equal to your intelligence modifier plus class modifier, which become trained. Later in their career, the character must take the feat Skill training to be able to select a skill from his class list(or lists, if he has more than one class ) and make it a trained skill. Note that a skill check is D20 + ability score modifier + training bonus if applicable (+5) + half your character level. So apart from taking the feat to gain new trained skills, you improve all your skills just by levelling.

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Best Answer

Related Solutions

[RPG] How to make the most of Use the Force

[RPG] Star Wars Saga Edition for the 3.5 player

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