Originally Posted by
AvatarVecna
A few general things:
1) Due to both the HP-to-DPR ratio at various levels, and the significant range of ranged weapons, melee isn't viable in the early game (unless, as usual, you're a Jedi and can deflect shots/pierce DR). You've gotta expect that your enemies are going to get at least one shot at you while you're closing to melee, and "one free shot for your enemies" is a much bigger deal at level 1 than level 20. Even high-level, melee is almost certainly worse than ranged, but it's at least possible to focus melee at that point without being screwed. If your DM is fond of having you fight in more closed-off locations, rather than places with solid sniper sightlines, melee becomes more viable.
2) Fighting mobs...offensively, any method of getting extra attacks, or AoEs, will serve you well; it doesn't matter if the attack/damage bonuses are super-low, because you're probably going to OHKO whoever you target, so targeting as many people as possible is ideal. Defensively, high defense scores don't actually help you as much as you think: Aid Another on attack rolls will see a crowd of stormtroopers nail your ass to the wall. Your friends here are fourfold: stealth, distance, cover, and concealment, and going prone. If they can't find you, they can't shoot you, so don't let them find you; if they find you, don't let them know what square you're in; if they know what square you're in, don't let them get close enough to shoot you except maybe at a massive penalty; if they get close enough to shoot you, don't let them get a clear shot on you; if they get a clear shot on you, minimize your profile as much as possible. Their lives are meaningless and will be thrown away for a fleeting advantage.
3) Fighting high-level individuals, your goal is very different: volume of fire will let you miss three times instead of hitting once, but past the mid-levels, hitting once a turn turns every fighting into a grueling slugfest. There are easier options - the first being to pull out weird tricks, like debuffing the enemy directly, putting conditions on them (knocking them prone, stunning them, blinding them, etc), which can be accomplished through various talents and especially force powers (if you can succeed against their defenses). The second is simple: condition track damage. Knocking people down the condition track is absurdly effective against high-level individuals for reasons of action economy: if you knock them down the track enough, they have to choose between accepting a big penalty to everything, or spending three swifts (or whatever BS they might have to do it quicker) undoing the CT damage. For this reason, basically anything improving your ability to knock people down the condition track is absolutely nuts.
(Just as an example, a Scoundrel 1 can take a stun-capable rifle and the Dastardly Strike talent; now, any shot beating DT on a flatfooted target knocks them down 3 steps on the condition track. That person is going into the combat with a -5 to basically everything (including DT, since that's based on Fort), and if they go down another two steps (like, say, from a stun shot that beats their lowered DT), they're unconscious, and the fight is over. Just those two things, available to a 1st lvl character, gives you a solid chance at two-shotting anybody you snuck up on. And it just gets worse as you gain levels: both Gunslinger and Bounty Hunter have "knock them down a step if you Aim first" talents, and you can combine them with the things I just mentioned to theoretically knock the enemy down 5 steps in one shot. Heck, three of those steps (flatfooted/aiming/aiming) don't even require you to beat DT. You could take the tiniest dumbest pistol with no stun setting, aim-snipe somebody in the surprise round, and then aim-attack them in the next round too. Congrats, you just dealt them -5 condition in a way that doesn't care about DT at all.)
Now, there's things like that for melee too, for sure. But it's...easier with ranged. Combining all three of the above points, and you get to the interesting point that a sniper build using a gun that possesses a stun setting and can switch between single-shot and autofire is going to let you dominate both crowds and powerful individuals. These points all combined are part of why sniper builds are some of the biggest BS you can pull in this game that isn't Force Wizardry.
4) Outside of those general things, you should be aware that buffing/debuffing/tanking is viable even without using the Force. Nobles have options for buffing/debuffing, Tech Specialist can turn money piles into tiny bonuses on every piece of gear everybody has, Soldiers can focus the commando tree to limit enemy targeting options...there's stuff that can work pretty well. There are certain skill roles that are best filled by droids - both because focusing on them takes away resources from your real character's ability to fight, and because droids (even non-heroic droids, just "bought off the market) just flatly do those roles better. These are the first three droid classes: medical, technical, and protocol. Nobody's going to be as good at healing/techie stuff/face skills as a droid dedicated to the purpose, and you should have better things to spend your talents/feats/money on.
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
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