Soldier Class in Star Wars Saga Edition

Character Class Introduction for the Star Wars Role Playing Game

Jan 5, 2009

The Saga Edition of Star Wars lists five starting character classes. Of these, the soldier class is designed for characters who have been trained in modern combat.

Whether a character is a serving member of the military, working security for a crime lord, or preventing corporate espionage of the bloody sort, a character that has trained and prepared for combat is a soldier, and hopefully a good one.

Soldier Character

The core book lists Dexterity as the most crucial ability for a soldier, based on how much of combat involves long range weapons. The reasoning is fairly sound, so maxing out Dexterity is worth serious consideration.

Constitution and Strength are listed in the core book as good to have, but not as important as Dex, with Intelligence and Willpower being . . . useful. Charisma doesn't even rate a mention, unsurprisingly.

Soldiers roll 1d10 to determine new hit points each level, so slacking on Constitution a bit shouldn't hurt a character too badly. On the other hand, while Soldiers start with massively high hit points, compared to some other classes, they also tend to be getting shot at a bit more than most, so keeping the Constitution up is probably a good thing.

Strength is primarily of use in melee combat. It doesn't have a place in ranged combat at all. So what is more important for a soldier - Strength, Intelligence or Wisdom is probably something of a tossup. Intelligence and Wisdom figure pretty prominently in the Soldier class skills, and strategy and tactics are rated as Knowledge skills - good stuff for a soldier to have.

The Armor Specialist talent tree is probably of most use to high level characters. The name describes it very well, and the talent that is a prerequisite for everything else on the list is definitely a blessing for high level characters - with it they can continue to add their character level to Reflex defense while wearing armor. Normally a character needs to go without armor, or lose the benefit of the bonus from character level. The rest of the talents make armor a very nice thing to have indeed.

Some Soldiers just can't help mixing it up - up close and personal that is. That's why there's the Brawler talent tree. These talents are designed to increase a Soldier's skill in hand to hand mayhem, including a talent that lets a ranged weapon be used as a melee weapons - bayonets anyone?

Every military needs its specialists, and they take their training off the Commando talent tree. From moving silently, to blowing stuff up, this talent tree is designed for the Soldier that no one wants to meet.

The Weapons Specialist Talent tree gives bonuses when using one type of weapon - players choice. Whether rifles, pistols or lightsabers, the character that stocks up on these talents is dangerous.

Soldiers get access to pretty much every Feat except the Force specific ones as potential bonus feats.

The copyright of the article Soldier Class in Star Wars Saga Edition in Games is owned by Jessica Burde. Permission to republish Soldier Class in Star Wars Saga Edition in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.