Star Wars Saga Character Help

[Cantapuppy]

Hello all ^-^

As the title says (and I hope this was the right area, as Saga is a d20 system offshoot), I could use some help with a character I'm building.

The game is set in the Legacy Era, and we've been told we can use pretty much anything from any book, within reason.

Starting is level 5, and I've already decided to be a Cathar Jedi (and planned for a rank of something else, probably scout, to cover what she was doing while 'hiding' her identity, so, something like Jedi 4/Something 1), and was hoping to get a little help in some useful paths, stat builds, etc, I suppose.

I wouldn't mind going into dual-wielding, but am more than willing to also just be single saber (melee focused either way, but different tangents) if its 'easier' that way.

I haven't touched Saga in years, and was a tad whelmed when shown just what had been added since I looked at it last. So, I guess one could say I'm just looking for some guidance from those who know what they are doing...since at this point, I'm basically the person who took the 'general' classes and ended up getting tossed in AP xD
Thanks for your time and any help is greatly appreciated ^=^

(Remaking this from another area...which I hope is ok, as it wasn't quite the right spot for it. The other one can be removed/closed, of course.)

[Alejandro]

Hello all ^-^

As the title says (and I hope this was the right area, as Saga is a d20 system offshoot), I could use some help with a character I'm building.

The game is set in the Legacy Era, and we've been told we can use pretty much anything from any book, within reason.

Starting is level 5, and I've already decided to be a Cathar Jedi (and planned for a rank of something else, probably scout, to cover what she was doing while 'hiding' her identity, so, something like Jedi 4/Something 1), and was hoping to get a little help in some useful paths, stat builds, etc, I suppose.

I wouldn't mind going into dual-wielding, but am more than willing to also just be single saber (melee focused either way, but different tangents) if its 'easier' that way.

I haven't touched Saga in years, and was a tad whelmed when shown just what had been added since I looked at it last. So, I guess one could say I'm just looking for some guidance from those who know what they are doing...since at this point, I'm basically the person who took the 'general' classes and ended up getting tossed in AP xD
Thanks for your time and any help is greatly appreciated ^=^

(Remaking this from another area...which I hope is ok, as it wasn't quite the right spot for it. The other one can be removed/closed, of course.)

Welcome! This is definitely a place for Saga help.

Important Note: The build below, technically, will not have you owning a lightsaber unless the GM overrules it and lets you have one, or you acquire one, etc. If none of that happens, you'll be crafting your own saber in two levels, and you won't be able to use a lot of the abilities below. So, talk to your GM.

Let me toss out something 'unconventional' first: Perhaps, consider Something 1/Jedi 4, instead! One of my players did this, so they could have a much larger amount of trained skills than the pitiful selection the Jedi get.

Exploring this, let's try a Cathar Scout 1/Jedi 4. Starting as a Scout, you'll have 5+Int trained skills, opposed to the Jedi's 2+Int. This is a much better deal, even though one of the skills is going to be UtF (Use the Force.) Train other skills as appropriate to the character and what non-combat tasks you will have (such as being a pilot, using medpacs, talking to NPCs, etc.)

So, Scout 1. Spend your first level feat on Force Sensitivity. Train your 5+Int skills, make sure one of them is UtF. If you can, make sure your Con is at least 13 and you train Endurance, so you can pick up the feat Shake it Off for free, which will come in handy in your nasty melee scraps later. Spend your Scout talent on Evasion (more on this in a bit.)

After this, add your 4 Jedi levels. The first Jedi level, you can pick up Lightsaber proficiency for free, though you won't actually have a lightsaber yet. Again, as above, your GM might overrule this and let your PC own a lightsaber when play begins, as you are starting at level 5. Make sure to check with the GM.

Since you want to melee, be sure to pick up the Block talent, and you may as well get Deflect as well, since a lot of enemies will be shooting at you. Again, it is important to note that Block and Deflect are only usable with lightsabers, talk to your GM as above.

Spend your 3rd level character feat on Force Training, and pick some Force powers. For melee, Battle Strikes are always fun, but there are many good choices depending on what you want to do. As for your two Jedi bonus feats, perhaps explore taking Martial Arts I and II, since the Reflex bonus will be very beneficial to you, and as a Cathar you already do 1d6 with your claws; this will boost it to 1d10. :)

Wield your lightsaber (hopefully) in one hand, and leave the other empty. (In the future, maybe you could go into Melee Duelist for bonuses specific to this fighting style.) Take advantage of your high Cathar move speed to reach enemies (perhaps lots of charging?) and slash them. When you hit, use your 1/enc ability to take a free unarmed attack on the same target, dishing out another 1d10+X damage. :) After you've used that ability for the encounter, switch to using the saber two handed, especially if you have a good STR bonus. Use Battle Strike, etc, as necessary to inflict nasty damage.

Finally, many enemies will try to counter a Jedi by showering them with area attacks, like automatic fire and grenades. Deflect can partially help with automatic fire, but it is not as good as Evasion. This is where said Evasion will serve you well, and anger the GM. :)

[Cantapuppy]

We were told to make a backstory, so, my character has already built a saber and has been holding onto it, and also has her now deceased Master's saber in her position, as he gave it to her before he succumbed to a 'force disease/plague' something or other.

This is very helpful so far, Alejandro, thank you ^o^ I wasn't expecting such a...well, comprehensive answer as one of the first replys, but I'm not complaining. That certainly gives me a much better idea of how to work it than I had previously. Any other advice anyone can give, like what sort of stat build I should go for?
If I recall, I need Wis and Cha for Force stuff, and the physical stats for obvious reasons, being a melee focused Jedi (Sounds a bit MAD to me). Its 30 point buy, so, I have some sort of wiggle room, anyway

[Hyena]

Do you happen to want armor? Do you want dex or str based jedi?

[IdleMuse]

I'm gonna type up a reply about being good with dual-wielding at low levels, but I need to do some research first. Alejandro covered one-saber quite well :smallwink:. But I will say right away that a dual-wielding build needs all the attack bonus you can get, so you might wanna consider (if going down that route) trading the Scout for Soldier, or straight Jedi, for the BAB.

More to come.

[Alejandro]

We were told to make a backstory, so, my character has already built a saber and has been holding onto it, and also has her now deceased Master's saber in her position, as he gave it to her before he succumbed to a 'force disease/plague' something or other.

This is very helpful so far, Alejandro, thank you ^o^ I wasn't expecting such a...well, comprehensive answer as one of the first replys, but I'm not complaining. That certainly gives me a much better idea of how to work it than I had previously. Any other advice anyone can give, like what sort of stat build I should go for?
If I recall, I need Wis and Cha for Force stuff, and the physical stats for obvious reasons, being a melee focused Jedi (Sounds a bit MAD to me). Its 30 point buy, so, I have some sort of wiggle room, anyway

If you are a melee focused Jedi, you will want Dexterity to be your main stat. In fact, you might consider taking Weapon Finesse, so your Dex can be applied to your lightsaber attacks. Your Wisdom and Charisma should be OK, but not spectacular, as you won't be a mainly-Force-powers Jedi, and you can always take Skill Focus: Use the Force later. Strength is great for wielding a weapon with two hands, but you can take it or leave it, especially if you go Weapon Finesse. Constitution is important for every character. Int is the least important stat for most Jedi, your mileage may vary.

Armor is rarely worth it for Jedi, other than some neat mods you can put on it. The investment to get good at it is not worth it overall.

IdleMuse will no doubt give you a great workup for dual wielding, though I am of the personal opinion that it's of limited use, as most of the time you'll be needing to move from enemy to enemy, and thus not having the full round action to attack with more than one weapon in the first place. There are ways to address that, and I am sure IdleMuse will, though possibly not at your level.

[Cantapuppy]

While I did like the idea of dual-wield Jedi, I actually forgot about the Cathar getting the claw attack if they have a hand open. So, single saber with the occasional claw swipe works for me, honestly, since I can always double hand the saber for the str bonus when I need it.

I'm guessing armour restricts their ability to use force powers or something, like a magic user in most other games?

Dex based could work, though I'll probably have to spend points in Int to keep it from getting too low (+2 dex, -2 int for the Cathar), and Str is also possible, or at least to have some, for extra damage

[Hyena]

I'm guessing armour restricts their ability to use force powers or something, like a magic user in most other games?
No, it's just a sucker to get. Armor is not cheap and requires some investment to use effeciently.

[IdleMuse]

To be frank, unless it's going to be your main schtick, armour is useless beyond about level 3 or 4. I mean, there are some obvious instances where you'd want to wear specific types of armour for their bonuses (like, thermal resistance or something), but in terms of plain old protective value, SAGA's deliberately designed to make armour obselete unless you specialise in it.

[Cantapuppy]

Hmm, I see. I suppose the general point is to avoid getting hit in the first place in this system :p

I do have 7.5k creds to use, and since I don't need armour or other weapons, I'll have to figure what to spend it on

[Alejandro]

One other benefit of armor is raising your Fort as well as your Reflex defense, and thus your damage threshold. This has applications, depending on the character and type of armor worn. Armor is also very useful for certain situations where there is an environmental hazard, like gas, smoke, radiation, vacuum, etc, and this is actually partially what stormtrooper armor is meant for.

But, your PC won't need it. I suggest investing your money in various tools and toys to increase your options: If you're trained in Pilot, get a jet pack. If you're trained in Treat Injury, get some medpacs and other medical toys. Get a good blaster if your multiclassing makes you proficient (Scouts can use pistols and rifles, in my build.) Get a few grenades for area attacks, and you can always Use The Force to float a grenade somewhere you need it to be, or pull its pin. :)

[Cantapuppy]

Makes sense to me, and the mental image of an explosive floating beside someone before it goes 'boom' is somehow amusing to me

So, stat wise, I guess Int can be my 'dump' stat (use two points to make it 10, so the racial makes it 8 again, rather than 6), make Cha and Wis high enough for the sake of prereques and skills, pour the rest between Con, Dex, and Str?

[Alejandro]

Keep all your modifiers at +0 or higher if you can. Int can be 10, that's fine. Focus on Dexterity, then Charisma, then Wisdom. If you are planning on learning more Force powers at level 6, then Wisdom over Charisma.

[IdleMuse]

Right, dual-lightsaber wielding at low levels has some problems, though it does depend on what sort of enemies you face and what sort of encounters your GM runs. As with any melee build, it has problems with Saga's general proclivity towards ranged combat. For instance, I ran an encounter in a one-shot a while back where the players are ambushed in a small hangar; the doors clang shut, and they're standing on the floor in the middle of the hangar bay. Around the sides and back of the hangar are gantries from which thugs start unleasahing blaster fire hell. In this case, I had positioned packing crates around the hangar for them to take cover behind, and steps up to the gantries if they were brave enough to make the dash for them, but it could have just as easily been a ranged-combat-only encounter. So it's really important for melee types to have answers to that sort of situation. In this build, we'll address this mostly by use of the Surge power, which lets you jump about a fair distance.

Another problem is one Alejandro commented on above; Dual-wielding only really has an effect when you can make a Full Attack, and this uses up all your actions for the round, meaning you can't do it if you need to move to get into reach. We'll address this in several ways here, but primarily through use of the excellent Twin Strike force power (found in the Jedi Academy Training Manual). Wanting many copies of this, as well as Surge, means you're really going to want to boost your wisdom score as high as possible, or possibly even take Force Training twice.

So right, here's the build I suggest for this sort of character. It may not be quite what you're looking for in the end, but hey, it's a fun exercise anyway :D

Jedi 1| Force Training (at least Surge, Twin Strike x3), Mobile Combatant

Here is one place where the Cathar's speed will play well into your hands; Mobile Combatant (Force Unleashed CG) lets you follow people who try to withdraw, essentially, free movement. It does take a Swift action to activate, but you'll most likely be using it the same round you Move (into range), and Twin Strike (standard), so you do have a spare swift action.

Jedi 2| Skill Focus (UtF) (if available; many GMs will restrict) or Weapon Finesse
Jedi 3| Follow Through, Lightsaber Throw
Jedi 4| Weapon Finesse or Dual Weapon Mastery I

Follow Through is from the JATM again, and is another core part of this build. You can pair it with Cleave at later levels if you have the feat slots, but frankly it's fine as it is; the free movement you'll get from it is invaluable in moving you around the battlefield. And you should certainly be knocking people down to zero with dualwielding, as long as you can hit them, which is where Weapon Finesse comes in; maxing your dex is essential to this build. I'd see if you can get an 18 at least (Maybe 20 with the Cathar bonus) although that might mean taking big hits to Intelligence and Constitution.

Lightsaber throw is something that works well with Dual-wielding (especially as you take the line of feats up to reduce the penalties), as (by my reading) you can attack once with one saber and then throw the other if you take the opponent down. Admittedly, this will only come online as really good later, especially if you didn't have the feat slot to but Dual Weapon Mastery yet. In that case, you might want to consider something else, like Adversary Lore (JATM).

Jedi 5| What talent you take here is up to you; there's a bunch of good options; Block or Deflect, for instance, Force Intution if you couldn't afford to train Initiative, or DR10 from the Force Talents in the core book. Prime Targets is a great damaging one, and the aforementioned Adversary Lore for encounters where you can afford to take a Standard action in advance of attacking. You could even take a Soldier level and pick something up from that; or the Scout options explored above (taking into account the delayed BAB and thus delayed entry into Jedi Knight).

If you didn't drop your BAB, at Level 6, you should definitely take Dual Weapon Mastery II, since you now qualify for it, with one of your lvl6 feats. This allows you to really start dishing out the damage when you do get to full attack (rather than Twin Strike, which you should be using far more often, in practice). Depending on how high your Dex is, the Ataru talent should be your first priority when you hit Jedi Knight, although Multi-attack Proficiency (Lightsabers) does the same thing as Dual Weapon Mastery III for a talent rather than a feat (and feats are more precious in this build; you should also try to pick up Weapon Focus at some point), and would be worth picking up too. Ignore Jar'kai, it's pretty useless and a waste of talents and actions to get it to do anything.

Suggested stats for a Cathar, 30pt buy;
STR 10
DEX 20 (17 base, +2 species, +1 lvl)
CON 8
INT 8 (10 base, -2 species)
WIS 16 (15 base, +1 lvl)
CHA 13

If you can't get SF(UtF) then it is probably wise to drop the Dex to 20 or the Str to 8 in order to buff Cha a bit.

[Cantapuppy]

I wasn't expecting anything that extensive xD

Thank you, though. I might still consider this sort of build, as it looks like it could be interesting (and part of me wishes the ability to use dex for damage came sooner than on a PrC), but will probably go for single saber duelist or something of the like...which, honestly, seems like it would be 'easier', build wise, in comparison, anyway. Still, I don't have to have the finished character in yet, so...maybe

[IdleMuse]

Heh, you're right that it's certainly 'easier'; you have very little choice of feats in a dual-saber build (although there's some talent flexibility). One of the great advantages you have for it is that you've chosne Cathar, and their 8sq move works really well with Follow Through and Mobile Combatant.

The upside, of course, is much higher damage output.

[Alejandro]

Note: It would also be very easy for this character to be a martial arts dual wielder, and skip the lightsaber (or even being a Force user) entirely, and simply focus on making unarmed strikes with both clawed hands.

Obviously, that is not what you asked for, but it's definitely doable.

[Cantapuppy]

True, very true

For now, I'll try and make the single saber user that makes the occasional claw swipe before two-handing the weapon and see how that goes for me. Thank you all of you who have offered advice ^-^

For stats, I came up with, for the single saber duelist
Str: 14 (+1 from level, 13 base)
Dex: 18 (+2 from racial, +1 from level base 15)
Con: 14
Int: 8 (-2 from int, base 10)
Wis: 13
Cha: 13

I feel its a bit MAD, but was trying to touch on everything I'd need

[IdleMuse]

True, very true

For now, I'll try and make the single saber user that makes the occasional claw swipe before two-handing the weapon and see how that goes for me. Thank you all of you who have offered advice ^-^

For stats, I came up with, for the single saber duelist
Str: 14 (+1 from level, 13 base)
Dex: 18 (+2 from racial, +1 from level base 15)
Con: 14
Int: 8 (-2 from int, base 10)
Wis: 13
Cha: 13

I feel its a bit MAD, but was trying to touch on everything I'd need

Can't see any reason not to start with Wis 14 and Cha 12, if you're going for Force Training, or the other way around if focussing on Block/Deflect. 13s seem inefficient.