You have stated that Korath was a ginzu with a lightsaber, strong in the force, strong willed, a jack of all trades, drill sergeant of a jedi master, and I have seen you roleplay him as that and more across decades and across systems. The ffg build you put together for Korath did not measure up to that concept and you drained the destiny pool to upgrade your combat checks while fighting mooks. I encouraged you to use a build that fulfilled your concept using 400 to 500 fewer xp than your build for Korath at the time. I have optimized most of my characters for broad utility (Jack of all trades with an area of elevated focus) with interesting novelty gimmick abilities that correspond to a narrative schtick for the character, and my character optimization has always been second place to and in support of how I have roleplayed the character. I can and have "always" (for as long as you have known me) optimized my characters in a way that enhances the story rather than detracting from it. So say that all I do is look at the numbers is at best a highly incomplete statement, and when you say mechanically best it's false because I as noted usually optimize my characters for broad utility with the goal of being second best at as much as possible so I can round out and support a party rather than hog the spotlight. For the context of why I was trying to help you build a character that matches your espoused concept (i.e. what follows is an explanation not an attack) You don't fit the definition of a power gamer but you most certainly are a metagaming power player, and you "always" (standard disclaimer on always but I've never seen you not do this with a character) try to control the narrative so that Korath (or Rei) is "always" in the spotlight/at the center of the story in a position of power so that characters that do not defer to him (or her) are either put in their place or forced out of the game. That's the kind of metagaming that detracts from (and kills) games, not building well rounded characters. And i was hoping that if you had a character that could mechanically pull his own weight/live up to your espoused concept then maybe you wouldn't feel the need to metagame the narrative to get enough time in the spotlight.

1) I've never min maxed a character I intended to play, I usually prefer broadly capable characters, and this one was mostly broadly capable other than the few weaknesses I design into him (social awkward, and brawn and DeX at 2 because he was a little klutzy and weak not being fully mature physically yet), btw this character started with a 4 in int, 3 in willpower (or maybe it was a 3 in int and 4 in willpower, I'd have to check) and +20 morality rather than +10 xp so yes to that question. 2) niman-disciple is not the best lightsaber form, ataru striker is, niman-disciple is the second best lightsaber form and the one with the most utility, and as noted in the previous bullet I generally optimize for broad utility. 3) it's not all a numbers game to me. I start with a concept a work the numbers to help fulfil the concept. Concept has "always" (standard disclaimer on always) come first on any character I intended to play. 4) I watched her video start to finish before my first post in this thread, she designed her character to be effective at fulfilling her concept which is optimization. 5) optimization of rpg characters does not mean choosing the most powerful or capable build although those are possible objective functions. 6) i always look at the numbers but it's not all/only about the numbers. Not quite everything is optimization, but designing to fulfill a purpose/concept is, so everything could benefit from optimization.

@Bellona @MrTInce @P-47 Thunderbolt @RuusMarev @SuperWookie Get 5 xp (the prodding came before midnight)

1) unless "sub-optimized" character is in scare quotes (which is possible) she is optimizing her character to fulfill her concept, and that means building in weaknesses to better fit the concept 2) optimal does not mean most powerful or most capable, in the context of rpg characters it means best fulfilling a concept, the concept maybe a specialist, jack of all trades, or a fish out of water among an infinite list of other things. 3) the only thing I've advocated as the "right way" to build a character is the one that best fulfills a concept, regardless of what concept the player chooses for the character is 4) be careful with "always" and "never" because both are rarely true 5) it's impossible to maximize everything, and while it is true that I usually prefer broadly, capable jack of all trades characters with an area of elevated focus that means no strength actually gets maximized, as second best at as many things as possible is the goal (making your characterization of me even "usually" false), I have on occasion played against type, just one example is I built an awkward book smart fish out of water wunderkind mid teenage jedi knight with scraggly facial hair a cracking voice that was frequently discounted by "adults" as a "just a padawan" and the build had a few noticeable deficiencies, sadly the campaign didn't happen.

That seems a bit like over the top hyperbole... not sure if you're joking or serious.

I find that amusing coming from you but I kind of already did that too Some people mistake the idea of optimization in terms of rpg characters to mean only the most powerful or most capable character, while those are certainly possible objective functions a player could choose for their character build... the general statement is the objective function is for the character to be effective at fulfilling a character concept. I.e. pick a concept and then build to support /fulfill that concept so that the character build helps create the desired roleplaying experience. If the concept is badass fighter/spell caster/face/pilot/jedi so be it, but that's going to be boring if that's all the character is. However, I've never done that... if you remember back from 2005 under wotc RCR, Elias was a Ysanna with the whole aspect of practicing a force enhanced martial art handed down, and honed through the generations, and that was seen by his people a the intersection of the natural and supernatural. He was the eldest son of the chief of chief of his tribe and his reason for leaving Ossus was to learn the ways of the jedi (his people's ancient answers) and bring those teaching back to his people to restore their heritage. Under RCR he started consular with the build plan including soldier to reach defensive throw (the only effective way under RCR to combine martial arts and lightsaber into an effective fighting style, defensive throw being a way to interrupt a multi attack) so when rebuilt for ffg, niman-disciple and steelhand adept were narratively appropriate parts of his build, as were jedi specs and padawan survivor (Ysanna being survivors of ancient jedi on Ossus when the chron cluster went supernova). The point of that his concept came first and his build was optimized to support that concept... optimization and roleplaying are not either or propositions.

The words "epic" implies consequences far beyond the characters.... so determine the stakes for the encounter and work backward from that on both sides of the conflict. The PCs don't have to win all on their own there can be massive allied npcs in the background.... just determine some critical task the PCs need to accomplish that will turn the tide... scope that as a small encounter and everything else happens in the background.

Sure.

As of this past Friday no it does not but maybe it had one before that.

Thanks for the shout out, btw @salamar_dree has helped me with the nubian design collective...the nubian design collective whole vehicle crafting handbook is more suited to building a ship from scratch but there's no reason you couldn't stat the ship as if it were a modification on another ship.... I started work on them almost immediately after fully operational was released and the design goal for the rules is to be the minimum neccessary and simplest departure from RAW needed to be able to reproduce 95% of official ffg ship stats with a 95% quality match. Currently @salamar_dree and @Gordian Naught are helping me build a big list of official ships so that I have the data I need to set up a least squares problem to solve for pricing.

I remember that to.

Maybe you could dial the mockery/hostility down a notch or 10 and help make this forum a friendlier place.

Next encounter is in the hanger.

I think I was able to futz with crew and passengers to get it right plus or minus 2 a while back

1) you ROLEPLAYED him as an uber character that everyone else was supposed to hold in awe and respect, and complained "loudly" (it was pbp so "loudly" doesn't necessarily mean audible volume) when that wasn't the case. And drained the dp pool trying to keep up which prevented other players from using talents and abilities with a dp flip. Which was highly inconsiderate to other players. 2) in the bolded underlined section of your post you have conceded the point I made a long time ago.... there was a more efficient way to achieve your objective. Welcome to the world of optimization.

I was speaking "hypothetically" (because we both know the context behind your original post)

You may be missing the points I was trying to make (not sure)... 1) stats should support the concept, *whatever* that concept is 2) the lady in video actually did optimize her character but for a unusual objective function 3) there is nothing wrong with playing a farce character if that is your concept, and a don quixote style character could be a lot of fun. But you can't have it both ways at the same time, the character is either a farce or he/she isn't. But hypothetically would you agree if there was an 1800 xp character who the player intentionally diversified but in the most inefficient way possible (ending up a 7 of all trades instead of the jack), thereby "failing on purpose" to be good at what the player actually and truly intended for the character to be good at would it then be unreasonable for said player to vehemently object out of character to their character not being treating with awe and reverence, particularly if they drained the destiny pool trying (and yet still failing) to live the lie and thereby prevent other players from using their talents/abilities which require destiny point flips?

I'll comment that all characters should be built to effectively fulfill their concept, and that in no way opposes the point of the video. Playing a character who is narratively flawed and statted accordingly... is built to effectively fulfill the concept. Building an 1800 xp character that is s narratively the most badass uber jedi that everyone else is in awe of, that a well built well rounded (i.e. optimized for utility not power) 700 xp character can trounce in *everything* the narratively uber character is supposed to be good at, and a well built specialized starting character can trounce in the the narratively uber character's area of focus, well that 1800 "narratively uber" character is not effective at fulfilling their concept, and a hypothetical player who built such a character should not be surprised when other players at the table don't treat him/her with awe and reverence after he proverbially writes a bunch of checks the his/her stats couldn't cash.

I didn't know that... we can move the freaky b'omarr encounter to jabba's palace when you drop off the huttling. Btw part of our campaign became cannon today on the mandalorian episode that dropped on Disney+... jango was a foundling adopted by mandos.

The b'omarr built jabba's palace on tatooine as a monastery and didn't resist when jabba moved in so he let them stay in the sublevels.... if memory serves a b'omarr monk spider droid appeared in rotj in jabba's palace and someone fleshed that out into the b'omarr order. Therefore the b'omarr order wouldn't have resisted when the separatists took over this monastery either and I'm assuming they were allowed to stay here too. But speakers on the spider droid brain transporter rather than telepathy.

@P-47 Thunderbolt can you work in a non violent but freaky encounter with b'omarr monks https://swg.fandom.com/wiki/B'omarr_Monk who provide some informational assistance about how to save the huttling, maybe as faster route or something.

@Gordian Naught could you put rarity in it's own column? Then we could eliminate the weapon cost columns from the master table (I could look up costs from the weapons table, as long as the column name on the master table identically matches. Also the repetitive stress injury in my right wrist is acting up so it could be a while before I update the pdf again.

No. Least squares is method of curve fitting that finds the coefficients of basis functions, frequently polynomials, of known variables that minimizes the sum of squared errors between the data points and the curve. For example drawling a line that best fits a cloud of points). The "y" values of the points are the price of vehicles, measured in credits so all of the coefficients (costs of the components/crafting upgrades etc) will be in units of credits not rarity.

Thanks a lot... the least squares fit may be able to determine pricing (but not Rarity) for the red letter. Items

I thought I mentioned it the last time he/she (@MrTince /Ker'see) used farsight.... and was just not repeating information that I already gave him/her... unless I forgot to tell him/her that last time