[SW: Saga] Character help

[Sidmen]

Hi everyone! I'm starting what I hope will be a long-term Saga campaign, and would like some character planning help.

To get it out of the way, we're playing at the dawn of the Jedi Civil war, as Revan returns from the Mandalorian wars as a conquering hero. My character has expressed mixed emotions regarding him, and doesn't think we can just write the whole group off - they're heroes for Skywalker's sake! We're all Jedi, and the campaign basis is to play through our rise from Padawans, to becoming Knights, and eventually Masters within the order.

Anyway, the first session saw us hunted by a Twi'lek Sith and a shipload of troopers while stopping off on a corporate-owned world. We eventually eluded her long enough to make our way to a ganglord's manor to steal his ship. We ended the session with a battle between us and the sith, taking her prisoner after successful uses of the Force Stun power and a Training lightsaber (we haven't gotten ours from our masters' yet). Taking her, and a drug lord prisoner before jetting off in a star yacht.

We leveled up to lvl 2. Since we're all playing Jedi, I want to try and stay away from stepping on others' toes; one is playing a Duros Force-Mage, and the other a Wookiee 2-handed saber master. So, I figure a good place for me would be a Ninja-like character. Here is what I've got:

Race: Cathar
Strength: 11, Dexterity: 19, Constitution: 13
Intelligence: 13, Wisdom: 16, Charisma: 11

Feats: Force Sensitivity, Force Training, Lightsaber Proficiency, Weapon Finesse
Powers: Surge (Story gift), Cloak, Force Stun, {Unassigned}, {Unassigned}
Talents: Armored Defense (house rule), {Unassigned}
Trained Skills: Use the Force, Pilot, Stealth

I have a few unassigned things; that's because I'm free to change stuff that I wasn't happy with after the first session. I initially had Convection and Combustion as force powers; and the Illusion talent - but none of them jived with my play style (and poor UtF skill).

I'm looking to crowd-source some suggestions on how to be effective without stepping on others' toes. In the future, I will likely be founding the Jensaarai tradition (several thousand years early, but meh) and will be taking a talent or two from there.

[IdleMuse]

How open is your GM to letting you take Force Talents from random obscure traditions? Because the White Current Adepts have all the 'Force >> Stealth' stuff in their tradition tree.

But you essentially have everything right so far! The biggest problem with an all-jedi game, as you have identified, is that it's too easy to step on people's toes, or worse, be completely average at everything and have specialists do things better than you at every turn. You've done well to pick a niche that isn't covered by your friends.

In terms of actual suggestions, well, with good wis and dex, you probably want to hybridise between force powers and lightsaber use. Do pick up Skill Focus (Use the Force) as soon as you can (many GMs will delay this until level 6 or so), because it really helps pulling off force powers and talents like Block or Deflect (both of which are solid choices).

Don't feel like you have to stick with the Jedi class all the way to 7 (When Jedi Knight becomes pretty essential). I'm AFB right now, but both Scoundrel and Scout will offer you attractive talents for being sneaky and ninjary. Force Power-wise, you've chosen some great ones so far. I'd also suggest, for your spare ones, Phase, which is just so useful for sneaking about, and, unless your Force Sage Duros friends has really loaded up on this, Farseeing. The other great option is the Lightsaber Force Powers from JATM; Draw Closer or Saber Swarm are great at low levels, but have a flick through and see if anything attracts you, none of them are really terrible.

In the realm of Talents, you really can't go wrong with DR10, it's pretty amazing in a pinch. Illusion did jump to mind for me to, but there's plenty of alternatives if you didn't find that played out well. Sentinel Strike is good for sneaky characters? And there's a couple of talents and feats that can be used to re-flatfoot opponents later in a fight.

I hope that's been of help! I can give more suggestions when I'm back with books, and know more specifically what you're stuck with. In terms of general effectiveness, I think you're on the right path though! You won't be able to output as much raw damage as your Wookie friend (who should be looking at dipping Soldier at some point), nor will you have the flexibility of a Force Wizard, but infiltration and subtlety have value in an of themselves. In fact, along those lines, if you aren't required to be a pilot by background or circumstances, then training in Perception instead fits your concept well!

Good luck!