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B33Bs
2010-07-23, 02:09 AM
Hello everyone. I'm new to the forums, but certainly not new to roleplaying. I followed a google link here and found some advice on saga edition pretty helpful.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150936

Anyway, here is my question. The second poster talked about how the game is one of the most balanced they have played. That in mind, what makes the scout competitive. Does anyone have thoughts on talent builds and such that are really going to make this class shine in a campaign with Jedi and Soldiers around. What direction should I take a scout build to make it seem useful? Something to keep in mind, I'm thinking around a character concept that is going to be a wandering force sensitive. I'll be picking up Force Sensitive and Force Training pretty early. I don't want to be a Jedi, but I want to have some limited ability with the Force. What talents would help build up a good complement as a cookie cutter scout build?

Person_Man
2010-07-23, 08:54 AM
In my personal experience the Scout is the strongest 1st level class, with an excellent mix of Skills, weapons, and Evasion. The Fringe Savant Talent is one of the more efficient methods of gaining Force Points when combined with any other Talent that grants you Natural 20's. I'm AFB right now, so I can't comment more intelligently.

But note that by mid levels most (though not all) builds that need or want to use Force Powers, which are the real meat of the game.

G3N3R3L GHOST
2010-07-23, 11:37 AM
The scout is one of my favourite classes to play in Saga edition. As person man said they get good skills and feats at first level. From there they can be used to gain any force talents should you be wishing to go that direction with your character. The stealth options are amazing. A lot of it depends on how many of the books you have and where you want to go. I think with the skills and variety of talents scouts are one of the most versatile classes you could ask for.

Saph
2010-07-23, 11:44 AM
Scouts have decent HP, decent BAB, a great number of skills (second only to the Noble) and crucially, are the only base class that can pick up the Evasion talent. Their one weakness is that their skill list is mediocre.

Evasion in SW Saga is like Improved Evasion in D&D: half damage on a fail and no damage on a success. This is a huge deal in combat as area attacks such as grenades and autofire are one of the most dangerous things you're going to have to deal with. Throw enough area attacks at the rest of the party and they will go down, but the Scout can shrug it off.

Bharg
2010-07-23, 11:55 AM
I find it strange that a strong talent like Evasion has no requirements unlike some of the other rather plain talents. Like an invitation: "Hey, dip into Scout and gain Evasion and Shake it Off for free!"

Starbuck_II
2010-07-23, 12:00 PM
I find it strange that a strong talent like Evasion has no requirements unlike some of the other rather plain talents. Like an invitation: "Hey, dip into Scout and gain Evasion and Shake it Off for free!"

Well, why else would you play one?

Bharg
2010-07-23, 12:17 PM
If I wanted to play a character with good perception or initiative, some survival or stealth skills, good mobility or some mechanic skills... There are enough options and reasons to play a scout.

Just taking a single level to snatch Evasion and Shake it Off is very attractive.

Person_Man
2010-07-23, 02:55 PM
I find it strange that a strong talent like Evasion has no requirements unlike some of the other rather plain talents. Like an invitation: "Hey, dip into Scout and gain Evasion and Shake it Off for free!"

Pretty much.

And it's notable that just within the core rules, virtually all of the iconic example characters (Luke, Vader, etc) multi-class heavily. They basically made the design decision to keep classes, but assume that no one would want to go with a single class all the way up to level 20. EVERYONE multiclasses or heads into a PrC eventually.

Honestly, Star Wars really makes much more sense with a generic power system. But then it wouldn't be d20.

Bharg
2010-07-23, 03:21 PM
You have to multiclass to get better defenses and talents. For example force techniques and secrets are only available to PrCs. There are no real drawbacks, so you are encouraged to do so.
In the books they use it as a mean to represent a characters background.

Few talents have requirements. Those can be quite heavy, though, like the armor talent tree.

Something as powerful as Evasion should probably have some requirements, I think.

IdleMuse
2010-07-23, 04:08 PM
Another indicator that you should definitely multiclass is the lack of capstone abilities. No class, even, to my knowledge, prestige classes, gain a new 'special ability' at last or second-to-last level, prompting you to only stay in one class as long as you need, and to switch around to pick up extra talents.

Something else to note is how it's actually somewhat viable late-game to go BACK to a base class; if there's no PrC that grants you an 'odd-level' ability you want, and you need more feats, going something like Soldier 7/Elite Trooper 5/Soldier 3 is probably not too bad.

Regards the Scout in particular, posters above are correct in that Evasion is one of the strong talents to pick up, and Long Stride is also handy. Scouts also benefit a lot from extra books; the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide, in particular, has a lot of EXTREMELY useful talents; for instance, Blast Back, allowing you to take an immediate attack against anyone that area attacks you (so you get something even if you fail evasion), Fade Away, allowing you to move half your speed once per turn when you're hit by an attack, Swerve, which allows you to negate some AoOs (essentially making your withdraws move 1.5x your speed, rather than 0.5x).

Just looking through others, Scouts really are the masters of movement, and can really zip around the battlefield, handy, especially when you need to find cover, which they can do a lot to improve. Feat-wise, it really depends what your main offense wants to be; unless you're picking Scoundrel levels for Sneak Attack style stuff (worthwhile with your amount of movement; remember you can AoO at range with a Pistol or Carbine), it's probably avoiding the lighter weapons and going with a Rifle of some description, and taking the Deadeye line of feats. Galaxy at War has some interesting feats to make Aiming better as well. There's a talent from the Pathfinder class (Rebellion again) that lets you aim as a move if you're next to cover, and there's a couple of Gunslinger talents spread about as well that deal with Aiming (the Sharpshooter tree), although you'd have to take that one (Legacy era?) that replaces a gunslingers Pistol worship with a Rifle.

Looking at PrCs, Pathfinder and Gunslinger seem the best straight Scout can enter, but there's probably other stuff as well. Vanguard is a bit sucky.

Kiero
2010-07-23, 06:30 PM
Scouts have decent HP, decent BAB, a great number of skills (second only to the Noble) and crucially, are the only base class that can pick up the Evasion talent. Their one weakness is that their skill list is mediocre.

Man, what? Their skill list is awesome. Everything you need for combat, plus both outdoors and techie stuff.