[RPG] Most effective lightsabre dual-wielder at low levels

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It's been implied that my current Jedi character in SWSE might die/be handed in by the party, whilst the GM plays him as an NPC. In that eventuality I'd like to bring out another Jedi but focus on dual-wielding. However looking at the dual-wielding feats, this approach looks horribly ineffective. My character will be level 5 when I bring them in, restricting them to just the first DW feat, with a massive -5 penalty. The second in the feat tree requires BAB=6, and thus is off-limits for level 5 .

Is using feats the only way to approach this build, or is there another avenue I can take?

Best Answer

A Human with a shoto:

another possibility (this is what one of my players did) is to get a standard lightsaber and a shoto then get the Shoto Focus talent (from jedi academy). So long as you wield both and just attack with the shoto you get +2 attack. Then you can build towards having the dual-weapon fighting feats to get more attacks. Feats-wise you can't go wrong with weapon focus (lightsabers). If you're going two-weapons then Dual-weapon fighting 1 is a good choice to build towards future feats, alternatively Force Training could be useful, especially with Battle Strike and a lightsaber form (I'd recommend twin strike if you're going with two weapons).

At low level, you'll mainly just be holding two light sabers. But with the build, you'll be attacking with shoto focus or a twin-striking lightsaber form.

Looking here:

You'll probably want to start multiclassed for skill versatility.

Like everything, your build and powers depends on what you want to do. But in general, SWSE rewards multi-classing. Starting with Scout, Scoundrel, or Noble will give you much better starting skills and feats then a Jedi. Multiclassing gives you more Talents. And multiclassing lets you cherry pick the best Talents.

A standard untouchable Jedi build goes something like Scout 1/Jedi 1-3/Scout 2-5/Scoundrel 1/Jedi Knight X/Jedi Master Y. This gives you Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Fringe Savant (all Scout), Block, Deflect (Jedi), Fool's Luck (Scoundrel), Skill Focus Use the Force (feat), Soresu, Shii-Cho, (Lightsaber Forms, and yes, you can use more then one at a time) + Serenity (Jedi Master).

Evasion + Uncanny Dodge + Block + Defense + lightsaber forms gives you untouchably strong defenses.

While the untouchable build is outside your nominal requirements, it does seem like an excellent thing to build towards at the early-game to allow you to survive to get the mid-game dual wielding feats.

Also, ewoks apparently make excellent dual wielders. Your chances of party-kill go up to 110% but... sacrifices must be made?

It looks like most of the options that you want are located in the Jedi Academy Training Manual. (Handy list of lightsaber forms)

Critically:

Form VI: Niman You use a very general form that covers all the bases. This is the "jack-of-all-trades" style of lightsaber combat. Prerequisites: Wisdom 13. Form I: Shii-Cho. Weapon Proficiency(Lightsaber) Benefits: You gain a +1 bonus to Reflex, Will, and Fortitude Defense. You also gain an insight bonus to attack rolls equal to your Wisdom modifier.

This should allow you to overcome the penalties of dual-weapon fighting (to a playable degree at 1st) without an overly-onerous feat investment, especially with the Shoto (or ewok dual shotoing) design.

Of course... it seems that the above class is a houseruled class, so YMMV.

Looking here we again see reference to the shoto and specialized crystals.

It looks like the answer to your question is:

At early levels, use a shoto for mainly defense and blocking, and improve your agressive stance with it by going into the jedi knight PrC as well as the dual wielding feat line.

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] Most levels of Cleric recommended

20th-level cleric spellcasting is optimal

You may not want 20 levels of the cleric base class. You absolutely want to cast as a 20th-level cleric does, however. That means no other base classes, and only prestige classes that offer “+1 level of existing (divine) spellcasting class” at every level that you take.

Aside from spellcasting, cleric level only affects your ability to Turn or Rebuke Undead, and potentially the power of domain granted abilities. If you pick domains that don’t care and aren’t interested in controlling an army of undead with Rebuke, those don’t matter much to you.

But even if those aren’t important to you, cleric spellcasting is so good that it’s (much) better to just keep taking cleric levels than it is to miss out on cleric spellcasting. For example, in core, you probably want Cleric 20 just because your options for prestige classes are fairly lackluster (loremaster does advance your spellcasting, but the entry requirements are very steep).

So there’s no solid level for when cleric as a class stops being a good choice. It is always a very good choice. It is possible that some prestige classes are better choices for you, but that depends on your feats and skills.

For a good run-down of what prestige classes are available to you, there’s a handbook for that. Probably also worth taking a look at the general cleric handbook as well.

A single level of cleric works surprisingly well

There are a lot of characters that you wouldn’t expect to want a level in cleric, who actually benefit from it dramatically. Even with insufficient Wisdom to actually cast any cleric spells, the domain granted abilities and the fuel for Divine feats are both exceedingly valuable, plus you can swap a domain for the corresponding Devotion feat (Complete Champion), for things like the excellent Travel Devotion (move-as-a-swift-action for the next minute, once per day plus once more for every two uses of Turn/Rebuke you burn on it). Cleric is thus probably the best single-level dip in the entire game, and there is actually an entire handbook devoted to just a single level of the class.

Your build

The biggest problem with your build is not Cleric 9, but rather Fighter 1. By level 10 you shouldn’t need a feat that badly, nor does its full BAB matter overly much at that particular level. Bone knight certainly requires neither. Thus, Cleric 10/Bone Knight 10 is better. There may be even-better options to replace some of those cleric levels, though.