[SW Saga] Jedi

[DrGonzo]

So, we're starting a Star Wars Saga game..

I have no idea about building SW characters, only thing I know is I want to play a Jedi. Does anyone have any tips about what to do, or how to build? Or maybe someone has a link or two?

All help is really appreciated!

Edit: I have acces to the core book, all the era books, scum and villany, and the Jedi Academy book.

- DrGonzo

[AstralFire]

There are three central ways to build a Jedi:

- Focus on Charisma and Wisdom, making a 'caster' Jedi. A bit overpowered at low levels. You can deal damage to a lot of people this way and have amazing out of combat utility, but by level 15 you are starting to slightly lag behind everyone else in effective single target. Move Object, Mind Trick and Force Lightning - even for a Lightsider - are central to your offense. Your feats consist of taking Force Training a lot, and you will eventually go for the Force Adept and Force Disciple PrCs.

- Focus on Strength and whatever, making a 'melee' Jedi. Multiclass into Soldier for the Devastating and Penetrating Attack talents, as well as Stunning Strike (which has a lame prereq talent.) Take only one or Two Force Training feats at the most, getting stuff like Surge or Battle Strike. If you pick a dual-phase lightsaber - one beam with a Stun Gem and the other with an Ion Gem - from JATM, eventually you can reliably do -3 steps on the condition track to anyone with a single successful hit. You eventually go into Jedi Knight and Jedi Master.

- Focus on Dexterity and Wisdom, making a hybrid Jedi. Pick up multiple Force Training feats along with Weapon Finesse, but grab more melee or utility oriented talents. Maybe do a little bit of multiclassing, but focus on grabbing the defensive talents from the Jedi class. Your Force powers will serve as battle utility with a rare burst of offense - Surge, Battle Strike, the Lightsaber Form powers from JATM, Move Object... I can elaborate more if you go this way. You'll eventually go into Jedi Knight where you'll get Ataru and Soresu, and go on to Jedi Master. This Jedi has the least offense, but is the most survivable and is closest to a movie Jedi.

[Talya]

Jedi have a bit of a MAD problem, but it's not terrible (and in fact, it's probably necessary from a balancing standpoint.)

A bit further on Astralfire's first suggestion: The force "mage" style of jedi avoids MAD the most, and in fact, can appear to be a viable lightsaber combatant if you take the block/deflect talents. Your Use the Force skill keys off of charisma, which the jedi-mage will max out, and is used to block or deflect incoming melee and ranged attacks. This can compensate for low reflex defense from a mediocre dexterity very nicely. This will allow you to defend yourself adequately against a melee attacker while you use the force for offense.

All Jedi should take the feat "Skill Focus (Use the Force)" as soon as possible, unless your DM limits it in some way (which at low levels is a very good idea.)

It's easier to make a "caster" jedi than a duellist. I am playing a dexterity-driven jedi lightsaber duellist and have combined some various talents and feats from different books to get some synergies that are almost cheesy in effectiveness, but i spent a lot of time ironing out the details.

For reference, my now level 8 jedi with Ataru gets an attack of opportunity against every adjacent opponent that tries to hit them, then also gets her own attack the following round. Her Reflex defense is extremely high, as is her damage. As I level her up she's going to get an offhand attack as part of a standard action, and +5 to attacks of opportunity. She's also got just enough force powers to be versatile (two force trainings, 8 powers. Dumped strength, and to a lesser extent int and con, with dex, wis and cha high.) And yet she still has to be careful that a sloppily made force "caster" doesn't utterly immobilize and stop her cold.

[Starbuck_II]

Force Stun is awsome with vs Will defense. But errata made it not as awesome, but still good (vs Fort).

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

With being a Jedi, in the movie sense, you do not want to depend on your lightsabre or your Force powers to get you out of trouble. You want to talk and diplomacize your way out of a confrontation. Heck maybe even intimidate (err Persuasion) if Diplo. is not working. Save the powers and lightsabre for the ultimate end.

But, in the game sense, you are forced (no pun intended ) to use your weapons and powers every time there is a confrontational sequence. Perhaps playing a pacifist, for lack of a better term, will get you what you want. Just remember, sometimes there may be a greater reward (XP or Credits) when you talk your way out of a situation instead of carving a hole through it.

[The J Pizzel]

We've been playing SAGA since the day it came out. It's, to me at least, one of the best table tops they've made. That being said...

Jedi do suffer from MAD, but it's for balanceing reasons that they did this. All the players who've played Jedi in my games have eventually, believe it or not, gotten bored with playing a "lightsaber specialist" or a "mage Jedi". My honest advice is to take option 3 of AstralFires post. This Jedi seems to be the most fun for they players at my table. And as he said, it feels the most like a movie Jedi. Take block or deflect, maybe lightsaber throw, grab Force Training a few times to get some fun powers (Battle Strike, Move Object, Force Stun).

One peice of SAGA advice, at low levels the Condition Track doesn't seem like much of a big deal. Learn to appreciate it. At higher levels, that's all you'll be concerned with. My group can effectively bring an entire baddie down the condition track in about 2-3 hits, if they can score them.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[AstralFire]

While I think the Force Mage is probably the most mechanically effective of all the builds - especially considering it doesn't significantly slow for the overwhelming majority of the game - I have to agree with J that I've found the more archetypal Jedi who focuses on defense (which also gives them time to talk or gives more freedom to take non-combat talents, as alluded to by Quirinus) to be something I think a majority of players will enjoy more. It has the most variety of options, and Jedi are pretty functional hybrids in spite of their multiple ability score utilization.

Persuasion is not only a bigger thematic element of Star Wars than D&D, it is a bit more mechanically relevant within core.

[Talya]

In line with that, to really feel rounded out and versatile, no matter their focus, every jedi needs to take at least one instance of Mind Trick and one instance of Move Object.

My duellist feels very versatile despite her focus on lightsaber combat, and that's primarily due to her force powers.

(Battle Strike, Mind Trick, Move Object, Prescience, Phase, Rebuke, Surge. I still need to take Sever, soon.)

Also, the talent "Surge of Light" is a cheap way to reduce the need for duplicate force powers and make one a bit more spontaneous and free with using force powers.

[AstralFire]

Farseeing is an amazing Force Power for utility, and makes for great mystical characters, especially if you spend talents on its growth.

[Jack_Banzai]

Good tips all. As a matter of fact playing a diplomatic Jedi is actually very rewarding... it can be fun to possess the knowledge that you could deal out blazing electric death and telekinetic mayhem but choose not to, so that one might pursue a middle path. Good times.

Plus it keeps things real for everyone else. Nothing worse than a smart-aleck Jedi who ruins every encounter. And Jedi unchecked can give GMs mega headaches.

[Talya]

Good tips all. As a matter of fact playing a diplomatic Jedi is actually very rewarding... it can be fun to possess the knowledge that you could deal out blazing electric death and telekinetic mayhem but choose not to, so that one might pursue a middle path. Good times.

Plus it keeps things real for everyone else. Nothing worse than a smart-aleck Jedi who ruins every encounter. And Jedi unchecked can give GMs mega headaches.

Not all jedi are created equally.

The campaign I'm playing in is set five years after the events of KOTOR2, and we are ALL Jedi. We're part of the effort to rebuild the jedi order. To encourage diversity and have all our niches covered, we were all given an extra trained skill that could be selected outside of jedi class skills, and we are on a relatively high point buy.

We started at level 1 with 6 party members. We're now level 8, just knighted.
One of the six quit before I had a chance to guage his effectiveness, he was focusing on telekinesis. Another is actually primary classed soldier multi-classed jedi, he's our leader, going with battle meditation and defensive combat talents. (He spent one battle deflecting bolts with a lightsaber in his off hand, and shooting bad guys dead with a blaster in his main hand.) He works very well. Another is a physically inept force 'caster' and seer, as well as having gone deep into force negotiation and similar talents--she's devastating. (She actually went Force Adept rather than Jedi Knight at 8). I'm the melee duellist, and have been quite effective. The other two didn't specialize at all...one went into piloting a little to distinguish himself, but not enough to make himself good at it; they don't have any real niche, and they don't end up actually doing much as a result.

[DrGonzo]

Lot's of advice! This is why I love the playground!

Ok, I rolled my stats. They're 15, 14 , 14, 13, 13, 10. (no point buy, alas)

I'm really interested in the type closest to the movie Jedi, survivability will be important, since we have a party of three (one will start as soldier, going into ace pilot, and the other will be a scoundrel).

So I'm thinking WIS 15, DEX and CHA 14, INT and CON 13, and STR 10.

We are probably playing till we reach lvl 12-15. Any advice on builds that are strong all the way through?

- DrGonzo

[AstralFire]

Make your build and then post it up - then I'll offer some detailed advice. See, the wonderful thing about Star Wars Saga is that between the game's concept of balance and the type of games it lends itself to - more cinematic than dungeon crawl - it's pretty difficult to gimp yourself in whatever area you're seeking to excel.

Go and try something, have fun, then I'll check back after I'm done with volunteering and see if you missed something. :)

[Kiero]

If you're not starting at 1st level, and especially if you're playing a human (extra Character Feat, come on), don't start Jedi. Start Scout if you want a skill-monkey Jedi or Noble if you want a face/knowledge-monkey Jedi. One level and for the cost of a few hps and a single point of BAB, you now have a character who is useful outside of combat.

[AstralFire]

If you're not starting at 1st level, and especially if you're playing a human (extra Character Feat, come on), don't start Jedi. Start Scout if you want a skill-monkey Jedi or Noble if you want a face/knowledge-monkey Jedi. One level and for the cost of a few hps and a single point of BAB, you now have a character who is useful outside of combat.

...Then you have to spend a feat on Weapon Proficiency: Lightsaber and Force Sensitivity, and neither of those are class bonus feats. By contrast, every class has Skill Training on their class bonus feat list. Moreover, you can put half of the skills in the game on Use the Force if you spend a talent or two on 'em.

If you are going to be a Jedi, -always- start out Jedi. Always. If you want to be a lightsaber skill monkey, multi into Noble and Scoundrel and start blowing your class bonus feats on skill training for their huge class lists.

[Starbuck_II]

...Then you have to spend a feat on Weapon Proficiency: Lightsaber and Force Sensitivity, and neither of those are class bonus feats. By contrast, every class has Skill Training on their class bonus feat list. Moreover, you can put half of the skills in the game on Use the Force if you spend a talent or two on 'em.

If you are going to be a Jedi, -always- start out Jedi. Always. If you want to be a lightsaber skill monkey, multi into Noble and Scoundrel and start blowing your class bonus feats on skill training for their huge class lists.

Unless you are a Droid. Then you have to multi to Jedi to use Deflect talent.

[Closet_Skeleton]

...Then you have to spend a feat on Weapon Proficiency: Lightsaber and Force Sensitivity, and neither of those are class bonus feats.

Not true, read the multiclassing rules. Both of those are Jedi bonus feats and when you multiclass into Jedi you get one of them for free.

level 1: X class 1: pick up force sensitivity and train in Use the Force
level 2: Jedi 1: pick up lightsaber proficiency

Starting as Jedi is absolutely terrible because you only get 2 skills and 2 feats when every other class gets more than that. It's really easy for someone who starts in another class to catch up to someone who starts in Jedi but almost impossible the other way round.

I still start NPCs in jedi though and I'd start certain PCs in it if I didn't GM all the time.

Unless you are a Droid. Then you have to multi to Jedi to use Deflect talent.

Droids can never use the deflect talent, since it needs you to make Use the Force checks to use it.

They can still use Lightsaber Throw (but only partially), Elusive Target, Lightsaber Defence (but not Makashi or Jar'kai so there's little point), Weapon Specialisation Lightsabers (which they can get from soldier anyway) and some other okay talents.

[AstralFire]

Not true, read the multiclassing rules. Both of those are Jedi bonus feats and when you multiclass into Jedi you get one of them for free.

level 1: X class 1: pick up force sensitivity and train in Use the Force
level 2: Jedi 1: pick up lightsaber proficiency

I should have said 'or', but that doesn't change the fact that you're giving up one of your very limited general feat slots to pick one or the other back up, and no Jedi with a semi-decent Wis can get enough of Force Training.

Starting as Jedi is absolutely terrible because you only get 2 skills and 2 feats when every other class gets more than that. It's really easy for someone who starts in another class to catch up to someone who starts in Jedi but almost impossible the other way round.

To do a complete catch-up, sure, but the point isn't a complete catch-up.

Jedi starts with more HP than anything else but Soldier (It averages out to six levels of Jedi instead of Noble or Scoundrel to catch up). The issue with Jedi is more along its limited skill choices than the straight number; with two stat ups every four levels and a plethora of talents that let you assign a skill you might find really important to UtF, as well as a number of powers that let you situationally ignore the need for several checks (Stealth, Use Computer, Persuasion, Deception, Acrobatics, Climb, Jump can all fall under this).

When you have a lightsaber, you don't need a pistol or other ranged weapon most times, and armor is a hindrance past low levels unless you pump two or three talents into it. Just like in D&D, it is not to your advantage to focus on multiple weapon types.

If all you want to be is a Noble who can use a lightsaber without cutting themselves, sure, start as something else. If you want to be a Jedi with some skill versatility, on the other hand, you end up hurting your HP and retarding your Force Power growth by 3 levels.

[Jack_Banzai]

I should have said 'or', but that doesn't change the fact that you're giving up one of your very limited general feat slots to pick one or the other back up, and no Jedi with a semi-decent Wis can get enough of Force Training.

Yeah, but Skill Training is just as expensive, and if you start out as a Noble or Scoundrel it all kind of evens out. And if you're looking to use anything other than a lightsaber, or wear some armor, for Zark's sake, Soldier is a solid choice as well.

You could always wait till prestige level for your first level of Jedi... and take one of the prestige paths that give you the all-exotic-weapon-proficiency talent. I love that one. "Gaderfii? Force pike? Ryyk blade? Siang lance? Sure I can use it!"

[AstralFire]

Yeah, but Skill Training is just as expensive, and if you start out as a Noble or Scoundrel it all kind of evens out. And if you're looking to use anything other than a lightsaber, or wear some armor, for Zark's sake, Soldier is a solid choice as well.

Skill Training is on every class' bonus feat list and most people who aren't Soldiers don't have much else to spend it on. WF:L and Force Sensitivity and Force Training are on zero.

[Jack_Banzai]

Skill Training is on every class' bonus feat list and most people who aren't Soldiers don't have much else to spend it on. WF:L and Force Sensitivity and Force Training are on zero.

Yes, but Force Training is really not that important a feat to double or triple down on unless you're really aching to create a specific build of the Jedi: the mega-caster. If you are looking for a more well-rounded Jedi - which, in my experience, is always always always more fun to play in a long campaign - you're better served by having the panoply of starting skills that the Noble or Scoundrel affords.

[The_Snark]

Honestly, I think it's an even choice. Starting as another class gives you a few more skills, proficiency with non-lightsaber weapons, and of course a talent—and there are a number of handy talents with no prerequisites. You also get proficiency with blasters, if that's important to you, but generally the increase in the number of bonus feats you get is negated by the fact that you have to spend a feat to pick up Force Sensitivity; you might get more feats, but most of them are proficiencies and you don't get to pick whatever you like.

Starting as a Jedi gives you both Force Sensitivity and Weapon Proficiency (lightsabers) as bonus feats, which is handy. If you're playing a human and/or someone with reasonable Int, and there aren't too many skills you want, then it works fine.

[AstralFire]

Yes, but Force Training is really not that important a feat to double or triple down on unless you're really aching to create a specific build of the Jedi: the mega-caster. If you are looking for a more well-rounded Jedi - which, in my experience, is always always always more fun to play in a long campaign - you're better served by having the panoply of starting skills that the Noble or Scoundrel affords.

If you were talking about just the SECR, I would agree with you, but with powers like:

- Cloak
- Plant Surge (campaign situational)
- Force Track
- Fold Space
- Phase
- Technometry
- Drain Energy
- Morichro
- Force Shield

And talents like:
- Illusion
- Masquerade
- Force Harmony (to make the preceding affordable)
- Any of the various increases to Farseeing

In addition to what is in SECR:
- Surge
- Farseeing
- Mind Trick
- Move Object

A Jedi can offer a lot of versatility to her or his party - versatility that in many cases cannot even be replicated by skills or equipment. I'm not even talking about combat utility right now, these are all just things that are great to have for general adventuring or investigation. One Force Cloak power -or- a simple stealth field generator are enough to have useful stealth for casual usage, both of which cost a lot less than a whole general use feat. Unless your Wisdom is 13 or lower (Strength-heavy Jedi/Soldier multiclasses), you really do get the most bang for your buck from Force Training if it's versatility you're after.

[Foryn Gilnith]

If I were just making a generic jedi-type person, without specific lightsaber or force focus; I'd consider starting in another class. Noble or Scoundrel for feats, then pick Force Sensitivity from Jedi 1 and then start force training at third. Get a Sith Alchemical Weapon for deflection and that stuff if you want to, keep it in an off-hand while pistol-shooting your way to fun.

[Jack_Banzai]

If you were talking about just the SECR, I would agree with you, but with powers like:

- Cloak
- Plant Surge (campaign situational)
- Force Track
- Fold Space
- Phase
- Technometry
- Drain Energy
- Morichro
- Force Shield

And talents like:
- Illusion
- Masquerade
- Force Harmony (to make the preceding affordable)
- Any of the various increases to Farseeing

In addition to what is in SECR:
- Surge
- Farseeing
- Mind Trick
- Move Object

A Jedi can offer a lot of versatility to her or his party - versatility that in many cases cannot even be replicated by skills or equipment. One Force Cloak power -or- a simple stealth field generator are enough to have useful stealth for casual usage.

True but - it's still a caster build. It's not a standard Force Lightning/Drain Life build, but it's a caster build. My point was that a Jedi build without Jedi as the initial class is still viable and even desirous.

[AstralFire]

True but - it's still a caster build. It's not a standard Force Lightning/Drain Life build, but it's a caster build. My point was that a Jedi build without Jedi as the initial class is still viable and even desirous.

All Jedi should be - speaking thematically, not U R DOIN IT RONG - casters to some extent, unless they have an abysmal Wisdom. There are very few interesting (not useful - interesting) benefits from just having Use the Force, and most Jedi throughout the movies and the books are mystics, to some degree. To me, where you get heavy into caster territory is if your attack source is primarily from casting. The brutesaber is more of an exception to the rule and feels very Dark Side in nature.

[Talya]

...Then you have to spend a feat on Weapon Proficiency: Lightsaber and Force Sensitivity, and neither of those are class bonus feats. By contrast, every class has Skill Training on their class bonus feat list. Moreover, you can put half of the skills in the game on Use the Force if you spend a talent or two on 'em.

I don't get this. A human gets two feats to start with, neither of which are limited by class bonus feats. A skill monkey jedi is going to want to start scout or noble. An armored jedi is goin to want to start with soldier. With your two starting feats, you take force sensitivity and force training. Then you take jedi at level 2 and get lightsaber proficiency for free.

In the long run, this saves you feats you'd need to spend on armor proficiencies or skill trainings. A jedi doesn't take force training with every feat they can. Most rarely end up with more than 3 by level 20.

[AstralFire]

Why would you ever spend feats on armor proficiency as a Jedi? That requires a pretty big feat and talent investment to be worth it, and with 'movie Jedi' pumping two of the three defensive ability scores, getting a really good pair of defensive abilities keyed off of UtF, and very few abilities that directly attack the last defense they're weaker on... Armor is just redundant for most builds not going for Imperial Knight, and I've never seen anyone even mention playing one.

With a decent budget, you can be at least situationally useful using equipment for mechanics (5k ish creds), computer use (1.3k), stealth (2k-10k). You don't have many other things to spend your credits on as a Jedi unless your lightsaber's getting blown up every other session. Common Force powers can cover many uses of stealth, acrobatics, jump, persuasion, deception, climb, and treat injury.

For important skills, this leaves Initiative (get this), Perception (get this), Pilot (or get this instead of Init), Use the Force (you better get this). 3 skills to grab. That requires an Int of 12 (easy enough to get) or be human, or one skill training feat.

Simply put, skills are not that important to grab, and are a very minor part of the balancing factor. Losing out on a lot of HP (you're about 2.5 behind taking Jedi levels, 4.5 taking Scoundrel or Noble) and delaying your general feat progression by 3 levels to gain a very slight improvement in versatility is not worth it if you are trying to be optimal. Especially with Lightsaber Form Powers out, even most melee heavy Jedi should really be loading up on the Force Trainings, because it is really nice when you can reliably land 4 -2 condition track hits in a single turn with one Force Point and not be used up for the next round.

Saga is more than forgiving enough that yes, you -can- play this way. You can. And you should play however you find yourself interested to. That doesn't make starting off as a non-Jedi when you want to be a Jedi a mechanically superior solution, however. There is one good reason (mechanically) to start off levels in other classes - taking the wealth talent in Noble, if you're really going to turn up the money machine. The -talent- is the important part, however, not the number of skill points. And only because Wealth is better the faster you take it.

I'm also going to point out that if you start as a non-Jedi, your first level feat is specifically locked into Force Sensitivity unless you want to spend a skill training on it. You will also have to spend 3k on your lightsaber when you finally get Lightsaber proficiency (since it doesn't come free for multiclassing into Jedi), in addition to having paid for your blasters all that time, so don't think you have much of a money lead over the Jedi who's using his money on skill boosting equipment.

[Gralamin]

Wait, wait, wait. Lets consider this carefully.

If you start in Noble, you gain:

• Several More skills (Marginally useful)
• Some weapon Profs (Marginally useful)
• A Noble talent (Likely Wealth).

You Lose:

• One Feat to Force Sensitivity
• Free lightsaber from level 1 (and possibly your lightsaber for a long time. It is quite reasonable they aren't available for sale)
• 12 HP
• 1 BAB.
• 1 Jedi Talent in the long run.

If your only playing for the first 2 or three levels, you probably won't notice, but overtime that is a large lost for marginal gain.

If you start in Scoundrel, you gain:

• A few more skills (Marginally useful)
• Some weapon Profs (Marginally useful)
• A scoundrel talent.

You Lose:

• One Feat to Force Sensitivity
• Free lightsaber from level 1 (and possibly your lightsaber for a long time. It is quite reasonable they aren't available for sale)
• 12 HP
• 1 BAB.
• 1 Jedi Talent in the long run.

Scoundrel is all around a worse choice then Noble, unless you want one specific talent they have. And in that case, why not multiclass into them afterwards?

If you start in Scout, you gain:

• Quite a few more skills (Marginally useful)
• Some weapon Profs (Marginally useful)
• A Scout talent.

You Lose:

• One Feat to Force Sensitivity
• Free lightsaber from level 1 (and possibly your lightsaber for a long time. It is quite reasonable they aren't available for sale)
• 6 HP
• 1 BAB.
• 1 Jedi Talent in the long run.

Scout is a relatively good choice, but probably still not worth it in the long run.

If you start in Solider, you gain:

• One Skill (Marginally useful)
• Tons of Profs (Useful)
• A Solider talent.

You Lose:

• One Feat to Force Sensitivity
• Free lightsaber from level 1 (and possibly your lightsaber for a long time. It is quite reasonable they aren't available for sale)
• 1 Jedi Talent in the long run.

This is actually a pretty good choice if you have to, but once again, the Cons probably out weigh the pros.

---
I'm just not seeing this. At all.

Edit: Whoops, forgot about Errata.

[Kiero]

...Then you have to spend a feat on Weapon Proficiency: Lightsaber and Force Sensitivity, and neither of those are class bonus feats. By contrast, every class has Skill Training on their class bonus feat list. Moreover, you can put half of the skills in the game on Use the Force if you spend a talent or two on 'em.

If you are going to be a Jedi, -always- start out Jedi. Always. If you want to be a lightsaber skill monkey, multi into Noble and Scoundrel and start blowing your class bonus feats on skill training for their huge class lists.

No, if you're a human you can get Force Sensetivity with your bonus Character Feat, and you get WP: Lightsaber for nothing on multiclassing into Jedi.

Putting everything into UtF is a waste of perfectly good Talents which could be used for other things. Bonus Feats are better spent on lots of other things than Skill Training, that's a waste too. Plus it takes a long time, whereas starting Scout or Noble you save yourself level upon level of waiting for things to happen. Your character is multi-competent from the off.

Starting Scout means getting Evasion, which combined with Deflect means autofire and area effects are pretty much inconsequential to you. Better still, Evasion works in the cockpit as a pilot, too.

If you start in Scout, you gain:

• Quite a few more skills (Marginally useful)
• Some weapon Profs (Marginally useful)
• A Scout talent.

You Lose:

• One Feat to Force Sensitivity
• Free lightsaber from level 1 (and possibly your lightsaber for a long time. It is quite reasonable they aren't available for sale)
• 6 HP
• 1 BAB.
• 1 Jedi Talent in the long run.

Scout is a relatively good choice, but probably still not worth it in the long run.

In the game I was playing in, my Strength-based Scout/Jedi was better than the Dex-based Jedi in and just as importantly out of combat. The only areas she was absolutely superior was a minor edge in number of hit points and some Force powers.

But when it was melee combat, my character was easily her equal. Plus he had the option of switching to a blaster rifle if desired, he played the first session as a rifleman and was very effective.

It's very dependent on the kind of game you're playing, but in our game being useful in Skill Challenges (adapted from 4E) made things a lot more interesting than being stuck with little to do like our poor Jedi character.