The Path Less Traveled is a regular series in which I’ll be examining a single specialization from the Star Wars Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion/Force and Destiny lines of games. The purpose and hope is to take a look at a specialization that perhaps many players might overlook, or ones that are somewhat new to the game lines. We will look at strengths and weaknesses, synergies with other species and specializations, roles in a party, how to incorporate them into a campaign, and perhaps some uses which are not always obvious at first glance.
I’m very excited and pleased at the reaction that The Path Less Traveled series has been getting. It has been well received and I’ve been getting requests of different specializations to cover. As is the intent of the series, most of the requests are specializations that might not often find their way to the table, specifically as a primary character concept. So in that vein comes the next installment of The Path Less Traveled, an examination of one of the first specifications from Edge of the Empire, the Fringer.
Species
Species selection, unless you’re aiming for a specific character concept, revolve around characteristics that would lend themselves to a strong build based on what you’d like to play. For the Fringer, as we’ll see in the skills and talents area, focus around Intelligence and Agility. If a third must be added to that list, Cunning would make the most sense. As we’ll get into it, knowledge, piloting, and coordination are things the Fringer does well, so Intelligence and Agility should be at the top of the list of characteristics to focus on.
So, for species that have a strong Intelligence and Agility to begin, there are several choices. There are three species that begin with 3s in both Intelligence and Agility: the Chadra-Fan, the Shistavanen, and the Verpine. Of these, the Verpine has a Cunning of just 1, so you might consider that when choosing. After that, any species with a 2 in either Intelligence or Agility, and a 3 in the other should be your top choices. There are many of those, so I won’t list them out. Some species like the Sathari or Selonian or Aleena get a free rank of Coordination, which lends itself to the build nicely as well. Keep those characteristics and such in mind and you should be in good shape picking a species.
Skills and Talents
The Fringer is in the Explorer career, which means that Astrogation, Cool, Knowledge (Lore), Knowledge (Outer Rim), Knowledge (Xenology), Perception, Piloting (Space), and Survival are all career skills for the Fringer. But then the Fringer adds another potential rank of Astrogation, with career skills in Coordination, Negotiation, and Streetwise. This gives the player a pretty solid piloting build to start. Simply make sure that Agility is a focus of species selection above, and you can build a strong pilot without having to head for one of the more traditional piloting specifications.
Aside from the piloting skills, your character can make a great Knowledge check specialist, something ALL my PCs ignore to a fault, aside from Knowledge (Warfare) that they all seem to gravitate towards. But, for a Fringer, a great amount of their usefulness to the party will be the Knowledge checks, or it should be at least. This requires a good player who can creatively use Knowledge checks in their games. Add the Negotiation and you can have a good face character in certain situations, and then Perception, Cool, and even Coordination can make for a feisty PC who can really hold their own in battle as well.
For talents, the Fringer has three distinct areas or paths down the talent tree. The first one is a closed off set of talents in the upper left corner. These do not connect to the bottom two rows, or right most columns. These are the master astrogation talents. Galaxy Mapper and Skilled Jockey are staples for pilot builds, and Defensive Driving makes for a great defensive talent when flying in combat. Master Starhopper is the big talent here, which decrease the difficulty of Astrogation checks in exchange for strain.
The second path starts at the top of the third and fourth columns and snakes down and to the left. It does not connect to other paths. This path can be described as your combat skill path. This is where Grit, Toughened, and Rapid Recovery populate the path, with Jump Up in there as well.
The third path is pretty much the rightmost column, heading straight down. This is where some of the more advanced combat skills lie for the Fringer. Toughened and Durable make you harder to take down, and two ranks of Dodge at the bottom make you quite hard to hit. So at first glance, the Fringer doesn’t seem able to handle himself well in combat, but head down the right paths and make the right build, and you can make a quite formidable fighter.
Specialization Synergy and Character Concepts
So I generally like to explore how other specializations combine with the one we’re looking at. So, what kind of characters can you build with a Fringer involved? For my money, there are a lot of fun possibilities.
The first sort of obvious, but powerful synergy, is with the other pilot builds. Some pilot builds like the Hotshot, Gunner, and Rigger are all fantastic pilot builds, but they lack a lot of the piloting talents and skills the Fringer has like Astrogation and navigation based elements. So if you have a pilot you’re making, but have holes in the skills and talents we’ve seen above, consider the Fringer tree to round out the character’s abilities, and throw in a bit more combat abilities as well. You could use it for the other pilot builds, but be careful as you’ll have multiple ranks like Skilled Jockey and Galaxy Mapper that become redundant after a while. There are only so many setback dice you need to really remove from a check.
Bounty Hunters are another area where Fringers can fill out a good build. Until No Disintegrations came out, there really wasn’t a piloting-based skill tree for the Bounty Hunter. And while the Operator specialization now fills that gap, the others still need help being a good pilot if you’d like your Bounty Hunter to have his own cool ship to fly around in. So if you’re an Assassin, Skip Tracer, Martial Artist, or Gadgeteer, you might seriously look at the Fringer too. You can get rounded out with some basic advanced combat talents like Dodge, and have a lot of piloting talents to pull from too in order to round out the build.
Smugglers can easily benefit from a Fringer build added on. The Scoundrel, Thief, Gambler, Charmer, and Gunslinger can all benefit from a hybrid pilot/combat build. Add in Negotiation skills from the Fringer and you can really add on to the theme of a Smuggler quite easily.
Looking in the Age of Rebellion lines, I think the Tactician from the Commander career could be fantastic. Imagine a combat focused Tactician who has great skills on the ground in battle, keeping the team together coordinating actions, but now add piloting skills as well as the ability to stay up in a fight and dodge out of harm’s way. I think that’d be a fantastic build.
To that end I also believe the Commando or Medic could have some fantastic builds when combined with the Fringer. You get a combat focused character, but one that can hold their own in the sky and stay up more on the ground. The Fringer doesn’t look sexy, but combined right you can make a stout character.
In the Force and Destiny lines, one could focus on quickly on a Starfighter Ace and Fringer build. The reason is, the Starfighter Ace doesn’t have a lot of the traditional piloting talents that you’d duplicate. Skilled Jockey and Galaxy Mapper appear but not often, and the way the tree is arranged, you can dodge them for the most part if you need. This would make a well-rounded pilot and navigator in the stars, and add to the combat and physical prowess of the Starfighter Ace.
The Seeker’s Hunter specification also looks tempting. It’s a career with native piloting career skills, but the Hunter’s tracking, hunting, and combat efficient talents get supplemented with more skills to keep the character up and out of harm’s way. It will also take the skill ranks in piloting skills and put them with talents of navigating the stars. Now the Hunter can hunt on land and in the skies.
There are obviously many other combinations but these were some of my personal favorites. Have any of you put a Fringer on the table? Found any good combinations that worked well at your table? Maybe next time you draw up a build, you won’t skip past the Fringer!
Scott Alden
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