# Input for starting a Star Wars Saga Edition game?



## Quickleaf (Jul 1, 2012)

I just bounced the idea of starting a Star Wars game with my irregular gaming group come July/August, and they were very receptive to the idea. Two of them have really gotten into the Old Republic MMORPG, and they were excited by the idea of a Knights of the Old Republic era game.  

Any advice Star Wars Saga GMs / players can offer? Is there a good repository of online resources? The stuff on the Wizards site has all been taken down...

What books should I invest in? All I have right now is the core rulebook, but I'm looking at picking up Threats to the Galaxy (the monster book) and Galaxy of Intrigue (for skill challenge rules) once we start.

How do you run starship battles? Do you use the rules in the core book or from the Starship Battles game? What sort of map do you use for starship battles?

And what sort of rules hiccups or house rules should I anticipate making? For example, I probably would lump Climb/Jump/Swim into an Athletics skill. Overall the rules look solid, but maybe play experience reveals some flaws that my read-through doesn't?

Thanks a lot for your input


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## Stormonu (Jul 1, 2012)

I don't have much advice for SAGA (I much prefer West End D6 version), but I can tell you not to bother with the Starship Battles game - it is utter crap.

Back in the early Star Wars d20 time, they did adapt the Silent Death rules for starship combat, and from what I read, it was fairly popular.  There is also Star Warriors, which handled extensive starship combat for the D6 game.  However, the latter could easily consume an entire session in itself to work out a decent-sized combat.

<edit>  Isn't there an Old Republic book for Saga?  And, while I've only played a handful of SAGA sessions, the books I would recommend would be the core book, Scum and Villainy, Threats to the Galaxy, and if you're planning a lot of space travel/battles, Starships (not the mini game, the book).

Also, we found that force powers like telekinetics, lightning and the like were far more powerful than anything you could do with a lightsaber.  Especially when hero points and destiny points are factored in.  It's a little to use to get the Use Force skill into the range where it's basically an autohit from level one (I seem to recall my Cerean Jedi character had at least +12, I want to say +16 to Use the Force skill checks.


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## delericho (Jul 1, 2012)

Stormonu said:


> <edit>  Isn't there an Old Republic book for Saga?




There is, but it's hard to find and expensive. (Actually, all the Saga books seem to be quite easy to find except the core rulebook, the "Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide", and "Starships of the Galaxy".)

I'm inclined to suggest that a SWSE GM should consider getting "The Scavenger's Guide to Droids", "Threats of the Galaxy", and (if you can) "Starships of the Galaxy". I'd recommend those based on their crunchiness - for fluff, Wookieepedia is frankly a better resource anyway. And once you've got a representative number of stat-blocks, everything else is little more than a matter of reskinning.

(Now, that said - I have all the SWSE hardbacks, and certainly don't regret the purchase. I just don't think they're actually all that necessary. Especially once you realise that so many of the stat-blocks are _very_ minor variations on the theme.)

As for actually running the game, my advice would be to be clear to the players _right at the start_ that this is _you're_ take on Star Wars, and that you're going to use some material from EU*, ignore some material from EU, and morph some material from EU out of all recognition. Because you can almost guarantee that you'll have at least one player who knows the EU better than you do, and the last thing you want is to be constantly having the "actually, in the EU it works like this..." conversation.

* Expanded Universe, of course. Not European Union. 

Oh, and I'm afraid I don't have any good advice regarding starship combat. Try as I might, I've never quite been able to run a truly satisfying space battle using the system (or Serenity, for that matter). I don't know if that's because of the rules, or if it's just me.


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## [OMENRPG]Ben (Jul 1, 2012)

I'm a long time Saga player and GM, and I've had a blast with it. Over the years, I've made a good chunk of house rules and on-the-fly decisions, and I think Saga is pretty forgiving for these types of things.

I would get as many of the books as possible if only for the available Talents, Feats, and other class features available to the players. I would definitely get the Jedi Training Academy book if there are going to be force players (Jedi or not) in your campaign, as it really fleshes out force powers and various force training techniques. 

As far as the rules go, yes I would combine those more granular skills into Athletics, also I give everyone the ability to add their Armor bonus to Reflex or their level. This allows people to still wear the armor they want to look cool and have some other tangential bonuses (such as being able to survive in a vacuum) and not hampered because they're level 7. My good friend gives everyone the soldier talent for free at first level that lets you add half your level AND your armor bonus, but he runs really meat-grinder intense war scenarios that I tend to shy away from.

Some general advice: pick a time period that your players are less familiar with but would still enjoy. Most of my games have been in a timeline I've crafted with my friends that we call "Destinies" which is about 150 years after the "Legacy" era, which in turn is about 100-150 years after the movies.

The KOTOR period is also arguably the most "exciting" as sith and jedi are just running around willy nilly, and most of the major powers are still out and swinging (Hutts, Trade Federation, Republic, Rakata, Sith etc).

As far as resources, the starwarsrpgindex.com site is extremely valuable to find some quick rule things, such as certain weapons/talents/feats. They have a list of everything's location in which book and what page. Also on the site is a pretty comprehensive list of all of the classes and their benefits. 

As far as gameplay goes, Star Wars is one of the few systems that I strongly encourage leveling rather quickly at the onset rather than slowing it down quite a bit. In D&D I like to keep things more gritty and low power, but Star Wars is pretty high up on the list for super-heroics, so I tend to level my players once every session or two up to about level 7 or 8, at which point I slow it down quite a lot (maybe level every 3-5 sessions). 

Another tip/piece of advice: beware of money. Money in SW, like most high tech universes, is king. I've had players buy entire fleets of ships, man them with piloting droids, and use those ships to fly at hyperspeed and crash land into enemy fortifications, space stations, and even planets. 

I've had people hack the commerce guild (spending destiny points to do so) so that they could have a billions of credits put into their account, only to plan galactic domination. 

This can be very fun and really broaden the scope of play for the players, but it can quickly become a mind-boggling game of SW Mogul instead of SW adventuring. 

If you do have players who wield the force, I also encourage a lot of flexibility with powers. One of my favorite characters that I've ever played as was a pacifist Kaminoan (the long - neck guys from Ep II) jedi who was very adept at Force Grip and Move Object. He would break the power supply in an enemy's weapon with a Force Grip or lift a giant piece of durasteel and use it as a shield for the party. 

That being said, don't let the force users steal all of the spotlight. There should be plenty of times that a jedi or force user is either incapable of helping or they are neutralized by some other means (other force users such as sith, jedi-hunting droids, waves and waves of small enemies, or space ship/vehicle combat). 

One way to help deter the super powerful jedi character is to either remove or nerf the "Skill Focus Use the Force" feat. RAW it adds +5 to UTF, and can be taken at first level. This means that a character who has an 18 Cha (from species or rolling or whatever) could have +14 - +16 bonus at level 1. When the highest DC for Move Object is 30, which moves a COLOSSAL OBJECT (think capital ship) that first level Jedi becomes a force god. 

My solution is that it adds +1 per level from the level taken to a max of +5. So if they take it at level 1, it is just +1, at 2 +2 etc. Or, you can do as my other GM/friend does and just remove it entirely from the rules. 

I also tend to up the DCs for UTF and Use Computer. It is quite easy for someone to hack the Death Star at even level 2 or 3, and trust me, they will be more creative than trying to stop garbage compactors. 

As far as space ship combat goes, I use a modified version of my own OMEN system, which unfortunately I can't really talk about. But, to put it simply, I use just a theater of the mind with slight mini placement on a freeform table/grid just to get relative placing figured out. Three dimensionality is measuerd by placing the minis on cups or other objects to lift them up. Generally though, theater of the mind works just fine for most people I've encountered. 

Sorry for the ramble, but if you have any other Saga questions, feel free to PM me. Other than just regular ol' D&D it is my most familiar system.  

Have fun and just try to keep it fresh and exciting.


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## Umbran (Jul 1, 2012)

And, here I am tidying up before folks arrive for our SWSE game.  I'm a player, not a GM for this one.

As for resources:
Star Wars RPG Saga Edition Online Index

This has a master index for the game.  The text of powers and talents are not there (for copyright reasons), but there are enough books for the game that a master index is terribly useful.

As for hint:
Some GMs are apparently strongly tempted to say, "take anything you like, from any book".  My GM does this.  I, however, would advise against it.  Narrow down the number of books you're using for any particular game.  Make powers and stuff from other books rare, subjects of quests to recover lost information, and the like.

In our game, *everyone* is force sensitive (it was one of the game conceits - we're rebuilding the Jedi Order after one of it's historical falls, some 5000 years before the movies).  I would also recommend against this - when everyone is a force user, the GM is tempted to make every enemy a force user.  The power of battles ramps up quickly, and they all start looking kind of similar, and you start losing space for folks who *don't* want to spend an entire session flinging force powers in fights.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 1, 2012)

So what character sheets do you guys recommend? Right now I'm looking at one of these two:
Tam's sheet: http://saga-edition.com/wp-content/tams-se-character-sheet-113.pdf
Emma's sheet: http://dawnofdefiance.wikispaces.com/file/view/Star+Wars+Saga+Character+Sheet+1.0.pdf



[OMENRPG]Ben said:


> I'm a long time Saga player and GM, and I've had a blast with it. Over the years, I've made a good chunk of house rules and on-the-fly decisions, and I think Saga is pretty forgiving for these types of things.



Did it ever seem like players were strapped for talents? They only get one every odd level, and with all the new talents introduced by sourcebooks I'd think players would feel a little shortchanged? Would making the feat at levels 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 instead be a feat OR talent be a reasonable house rule?



> I would get as many of the books as possible if only for the available Talents, Feats, and other class features available to the players. I would definitely get the Jedi Training Academy book if there are going to be force players (Jedi or not) in your campaign, as it really fleshes out force powers and various force training techniques.



I'm considering making a master list of talents for the 5 base classes. Would a good list of player options include the 5 "class splats" (Jedi Academy, Galaxy of Intrigue, Galaxy at War, Scum and Villainy, Unknown Regions) plus whatever campaign book we decide on (probably Old Republic) ?



> As far as the rules go, yes I would combine those more granular skills into Athletics, also I give everyone the ability to add their Armor bonus to Reflex or their level. This allows people to still wear the armor they want to look cool and have some other tangential bonuses (such as being able to survive in a vacuum) and not hampered because they're level 7.



Wait I'm confused how armor works. I thought armor always gives you an armor bonus to reflex? And characters without armor add their heroic level to reflex (as well as all defenses)? Is what you're saying different somehow?



> As far as resources, the starwarsrpgindex.com site is extremely valuable to find some quick rule things, such as certain weapons/talents/feats. They have a list of everything's location in which book and what page. Also on the site is a pretty comprehensive list of all of the classes and their benefits.



That's a great resource, thanks 



> As far as gameplay goes, Star Wars is one of the few systems that I strongly encourage leveling rather quickly at the onset rather than slowing it down quite a bit. In D&D I like to keep things more gritty and low power, but Star Wars is pretty high up on the list for super-heroics, so I tend to level my players once every session or two up to about level 7 or 8, at which point I slow it down quite a lot (maybe level every 3-5 sessions).



Is that a natural product of the XP progression and nature of challenges, or is it something you bend the rules to accomplish?



> Another tip/piece of advice: beware of money. Money in SW, like most high tech universes, is king. I've had players buy entire fleets of ships, man them with piloting droids, and use those ships to fly at hyperspeed and crash land into enemy fortifications, space stations, and even planets.



Wow  Besides starting credits, is there some resource with "appropriate" wealth by level? 



> One way to help deter the super powerful jedi character is to either remove or nerf the "Skill Focus Use the Force" feat. RAW it adds +5 to UTF, and can be taken at first level. This means that a character who has an 18 Cha (from species or rolling or whatever) could have +14 - +16 bonus at level 1. When the highest DC for Move Object is 30, which moves a COLOSSAL OBJECT (think capital ship) that first level Jedi becomes a force god.
> 
> My solution is that it adds +1 per level from the level taken to a max of +5. So if they take it at level 1, it is just +1, at 2 +2 etc. Or, you can do as my other GM/friend does and just remove it entirely from the rules.



Actually a colossal object is DC 35 with the Move Object force power, at least according to the core book without errata. But with the ability to burn force points to increases the max size, it's a scary power.

I've heard folks on the Internet say force users in SWSE are the most powerful characters. I don't know whether that's true or not, but is that what your tweak to Skill Focus (Use the Force) is meant to mitigate at lower levels?



> I also tend to up the DCs for UTF and Use Computer. It is quite easy for someone to hack the Death Star at even level 2 or 3, and trust me, they will be more creative than trying to stop garbage compactors.



So now I've got to ask about DCs - are they balanced overall? I mean the Death Star would be a "secret" system (DC 30) right? So no way a 1st level character is going to hack it unless they roll a 20.



> As far as space ship combat goes, I use a modified version of my own OMEN system, which unfortunately I can't really talk about. But, to put it simply, I use just a theater of the mind with slight mini placement on a freeform table/grid just to get relative placing figured out. Three dimensionality is measuerd by placing the minis on cups or other objects to lift them up. Generally though, theater of the mind works just fine for most people I've encountered.



Did you ever try running space ship combat using the core rulebook vehicle rules? Or did you jump into your own system right away?



> Have fun and just try to keep it fresh and exciting.



Thanks!



Umbran said:


> And, here I am tidying up before folks arrive for our SWSE game.  I'm a player, not a GM for this one.
> 
> As for resources:
> Star Wars RPG Saga Edition Online Index
> ...



Checking it out now. Good resource, thanks 



> As for hint:
> Some GMs are apparently strongly tempted to say, "take anything you like, from any book".  My GM does this.  I, however, would advise against it.  Narrow down the number of books you're using for any particular game.  Make powers and stuff from other books rare, subjects of quests to recover lost information, and the like.



I'd like to provide the players with a little more choice besides only the core rulebook, particularly the two very familiar with SW Old Republic. How many/which books would be appropriate? Is Core + 5 class splats + Old Republic campaign guide too ambitious?



> In our game, *everyone* is force sensitive (it was one of the game conceits - we're rebuilding the Jedi Order after one of it's historical falls, some 5000 years before the movies).  I would also recommend against this - when everyone is a force user, the GM is tempted to make every enemy a force user.  The power of battles ramps up quickly, and they all start looking kind of similar, and you start losing space for folks who *don't* want to spend an entire session flinging force powers in fights.



Ben gave some interesting advice about GMing for force users: he recommended using waves of minions, other force users, jedi hunter droids, and starship battles. From a player's perspective do you think those types of enemies provide sufficient challenge to force users?


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## wingsandsword (Jul 2, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> Wow  Besides starting credits, is there some resource with "appropriate" wealth by level?




No.  I think the Heros Guide for the RCR d20 Edition had suggested starting wealth for characters above 1st level, but that's a pretty obscure table, and wasn't widely used.

IMO, money isn't that powerful in Star Wars.  If you have hundreds of thousands or millions of credits, yeah you could buy starships and try to do crazy things with them, but I've never had PCs with more than a five-digit sum of Credits.

Until you start getting hundreds of thousands of credits (enough to by brand new heavy starfighters or buying light freighters and doing some serious upgrades), there is really no difference in practice between having a few thousand credits, and a few hundred thousand.  Once your party has plenty of weapons and armor, and has a good transport with some nice upgrades, money becomes basically "just for show" typically.

IME, campaigns don't hit the point where buying capitol warships becomes even discussed  I did have a group once capture an ISD, but they were New Republic Intelligence agents with stolen code cylinders and access codes, and the PC group leader was a Jedi apprentice who had disguised himself as an Inquisitor.  Once it was captured (or more accurately, intentionally ordered by the PC's into a trap lying in wait where ion cannons would disable it for the waiting New Republic boarding parties to take the ship), it was handed over to the New Republic, not becoming their new base of operations.

Even if a PC manages to buy/hijack or steal a capitol starship, they'd still have to get a crew.  An Imperial Star Destroyer (for example) takes a crew of tens of thousands, that even with a fortune would have to be trained and raised.  Even smaller capital ships take thousands of crewmen.

There is one canonical example in SW lore of a privately owned ISD: the Errant Venture, and even the wealthy businessman Booster Terrik had a lot of trouble operating it over the years, both in maintenance and staffing, but the huge regulatory issues (the ONLY reason it wasn't seized by force by the New Republic was it was stripped of all but a small fraction of its firepower and it took many permits to get that).

Think how real-world governments would react to a private citizen buying/acquiring an aircraft carrier or nuclear submarine.  Even if you could buy the craft, keeping it staffed and supplied, and being able to defend it against professionally trained and equipped ships that will seriously outnumber you isn't going to happen.

In other words, don't be afraid to have whatever government is in power: Old Republic, Empire (ESPECIALLY the Empire), New Republic or Galactic Alliance show up and have a very poor sense of humor about privately owned capital warships.  The various cartels of the Separatists (Trade Federation, Commerce Guild, ect.) had private warships in the decades before the Clone Wars, but that was full-on planet owning megacorporations combined with a corrupt and inept galactic government that let it get that far (and from the look of things, every galactic government after the Clone Wars has taken a VERY dim view of private heavy warships).  The Separatists could afford it because they had gone past being businesses into being governments of entire sectors of space.

The heaviest warships that are commonly privately owned would be more like Nebulon frigates, and they still have the issues of manning and such.  If PC's start being jerks with a starship, don't shy away from using Qui-Gon's "There's always a bigger fish" lesson.  Even an uprated Nebulon Frigate with a full compliment of starfighters won't last long before an Imperial Star Destroyer OR an MC-80 series cruiser.


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## Umbran (Jul 2, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> I'd like to provide the players with a little more choice besides only the core rulebook, particularly the two very familiar with SW Old Republic. How many/which books would be appropriate? Is Core + 5 class splats + Old Republic campaign guide too ambitious?




My thoughts are mostly in relation to Jedi powers and abilities.  Most of our characters are not spending many levels on non-force-using stuff, so I cannot speak to them with personal experience.  




> Ben gave some interesting advice about GMing for force users: he recommended using waves of minions, other force users, jedi hunter droids, and starship battles. From a player's perspective do you think those types of enemies provide sufficient challenge to force users?




You have to be careful with starship battles - if the group, as a whole, hasn't decided to put together characters who have roles in starship combat, then starship combat really only involves a couple of characters, and the rest sit and wait for the combat to be over.

In general, there's no problem challenging Force users.  There can, however, be a problem challenging a combat-oriented force user that has access to any power in any book, while not steamrolling a character not optimized for combat.  

What I suggest is what the rules themselves suggest - pick the books relevant to the era you're playing in, and use those (so, class spats and one Era book), and add other things *sparingly*.


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## [OMENRPG]Ben (Jul 2, 2012)

Yeah I pretty much agree with Umbran if you're trying to keep the power creep down to a minimum. Era plus the class books is probably fine, as typically I've allowed talents from almost every book as long as it made sense for the character to have.

Right, 35 not 30. But with force points, still not hard to do. I do the skill focus feat nerf to help minimize super force wizards as well as master slicers for use computer. 

Characters can add their level to their RD if they are not wearing armor, OR they can add their armor bonus. This sucks if the character wants to wear a light armor flight suit for its sealed vacuum qualities but is level 4, as there is no mechanical benefit now. I just let them keep the extra benefits and use whichever is higher, their level or the armor bonus for their RD. 

The natural wealth progression is pretty slow, but the character driven, creative wealth progression is generally exponential. One small example was a team of my players decided to start a smuggling business. Only one guy was force sensitive, and not a jedi, and he put some serious points into mind affecting force powers. 

At the onset, they were able to "convince" customs agents and the like to allow them on to planets that otherwise would not, and made a quick fortune selling illegal items and weapons that they had taken from some other pirates and the like. 

In a few short weeks in game time, they were managing a full-scale business with a dozen smuggling crews, five or six hacking crews, three crews of skilled mercenaries, and a coven of assassins. All in all, with good management and the party stepping in to help on really tough jobs, they were clearing a cool 2-5 million a week. 

Once they hit about level 10 (probably about 3 months in game time) they were billionaires and incredibly powerful. This made things interesting, as the level of enemies they now faced were much more powerful than they, often many levels higher. For example, they earned the ire of the Black Sun by forcing them out of some of their more profitable regions, and one by one the party was eventually targeted by various highly skilled assassins to take them out. 

After three of the six party members were killed, the other three burnt up all of their resources, bought a bunch of war ships and battle droids, and basically declared war on the Black Suns. It was not a pretty fight, and by the time the three original PCs and the newly rolled up additions (from the three earlier casualties) they all died around level 15, separated, broken, and broke. 

Even though they definitely lost, it was a good lesson to be learned on all sides, that if you grow in money too quickly, you also grow in power, and therefore enemies, too quickly too. 

As wingsandswords says, money in Star Wars can pretty much mean nothing for certain campaigns based upon the character's principles and your reaction as a GM. Buying a used freighter in the books is about 50-100k, with buying the necessary 2-10 piloting droids costs another 5-30k. So let's say 130k and they have a capable freighter ship, which, in and of itself, isn't that dangerous. It is just the exponential growth of turning a little bit of money and power into a lot of money and power that is dangerous. 

I never had any issue with such a thing when my parties were "heroes," just when they decided to go the smugger/mercenary route. If you have a team of republic soldiers accompanied by Jedi, then they should have all of the resources they need simply given to them by the republic anyway (within reason/balance, of course).

As far as DCs, I think they are a little on the easy side. Especially for really key things, and the 5 + 1/2 Level Force Points every level, makes it possible for characters to do really large scale stuff, especially force users. 

That being said, ultimately the GM has a lot of leeway with what effects happen with a success. I like large-scale, epic set piece battles and things for my SW games, and so I pretty much follow the DCs as written and elaborate quite largely on upper degrees of success. 

For example in a particular space battle, the party's leader who was a Jedi Consular (very high UTF) was standing on the bridge of their warship, and using Move Object to shove objects at other nearby enemy ships, or to physically move his ship or the enemy ships away/into danger. It made him feel important and useful, but not overpowerful as the rest of the party manned weapons / systems vital to the ship combat.

As far as Umbran said with the ship combat, I would typically disagree but it is a matter of GMing style. I always find things for my PCs to do unless they are just being a poor sport and want to sit tight and hang on (their own choice.)

Some things I've had non-tech / non-starship combat oriented characters do:
- Roll perception to assist in incoming attacks/formations
- Roll perception to "insight" enemy intentions /future formations
- Knowledge tactics to assist with flanking maneuvers / positioning
- Various lore/knowledge skills to help with enemy tactics, weaknesses, combat types
- Use computer to help run systems and sensors to locate incoming attack types, jam communications, lower enemy shields, make cyber attacks on enemy command structure, or overall just hack the enemy ship to try to take it over/cause damage
- Force users can hurl objects (all they need is line of sight/effect but force powers can go through walls and long distances a la Vader force choking over a screen) or use other powers at distance to assist with the ship's maneuvers/combat
- Soldier types can use their own attack roll (this is a house-rule I've created) as opposed to the ship's when manning manual-fired guns
- Leader types can roll Persuasion and other checks to boost the overall speed and efficiency of the crew, the accuracy of its gunmen, and the capability of its defenders
- Try to do boarding operations so the melee/soldier types can actually get onto another ship and do some damage (or the reverse, have bad guys board their ship)

In all but a handful of ship battles (maybe hundreds) I've only had a few players not engaged in some way. I'm sure you can come up with lots of creative ways to keep everyone focused on the battle, even if nothing else, if the ship gets damaged and parts start decompressing or having power failure, simply just surviving is a skill challenge in and of itself. 

Again, have fun and I'm sure you and your players will be doing lots of improvisation.


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## Lwaxy (Jul 2, 2012)

Our SW games usually had most of the groups as Froce users of some sort, or at least Force sensitive. However, we didn't encounter too many Force users but a lot of intrigues and puzzles, and the occasional starship battle on smaller scales. I kept this up when taking over as GM and I think the sessions where the PCs have to puzzle out conspiracies or find out who did what and why are the most fun for the players. Sure there are enough situations where Force abilities make all the difference but skills are picked from all over and at least we didn't get any power creep. 

I agree on what's been said about money. When the PCs are Jedi who don't have to pay to get from A to B it is one thing, but when the smugglers make enough profit to buy a whole planet it kinda takes the fun out of things, at least for the GM.


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## vagabundo (Jul 2, 2012)

I started a GMing a Saga game last year. So this is still pretty fresh for me.

There are a tonnes of online fan-made PDFs out there I use while gaming on my laptop. I'll collect some links and post them later.

For the start I'd limit the books. Keep to the Core and maybe an era book. Add books later as you see fit, as players get more comfortable with the rules etc.

Star Wars really benefits from props (pictures , music, etc) for setting the Star Wars mood. Creating interesting free form encounter and getting Players into that mode is the key. It took a bit of practice and prep, but it really pays off. One thing I found hard at first was learning all the Star Wars lore. I knew the films pretty well and a little extra, but running a game there requires you to get into the nitty gritty of the setting or just improvising stuff. Wookiepedia is great for all the background research.

The D20radio Order 66 Podcasts are a fab resource. Start from the 1st episode, they are a little geeky, but easy to listen to and cover tonnes of mechanics. They gave me loads of encounter/story ideas and cleared up some of the finicky rules for me.


The only rules issue I've had is my power gamer gravitated to Jedi and it is easy to trick out a very powerful Jedi character. He tried to use Mind Trick a lot to bypass social encounters. Dark Side points and Jedi code are the only ways to keep Jedi in check, but you need to put some thought into it if you see a player going that way. The Order 66 podcast have some good episodes covering Dark Side points and well worth a listen if you find a player going that way.

I would stay away from Star ship battles for a few levels. Start with throwing in some land vehicles into combat first. Once you get to using Star Ships you will need Star Ships of the Galaxy.

I haven't really used any House Rules yet, because the core rules are pretty good. Most of the minor niggles are worth the hassle of house rules. The only one I did add was a power config rule for star fighters for an encounter, very similar to the X-Wing PC games and that was because most of my players had played those, but I abandoned it as it was way too powerful (we still had a blast though). I would possibly add in mooks/minions rules in some form.

Sorry this post is disorganized, it is just a brain dump.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 2, 2012)

[OMENRPG said:
			
		

> Ben]As far as Umbran said with the ship combat, I would typically disagree but it is a matter of GMing style. I always find things for my PCs to do unless they are just being a poor sport and want to sit tight and hang on (their own choice.)
> 
> Some things I've had non-tech / non-starship combat oriented characters do:
> - Roll perception to assist in incoming attacks/formations
> ...



Great inspiration! Yeah after reading thru the vehicle combat sectionwith the different roles (pilot, gunner, systems operator, mechanic), about how to make starship battles interesting in Starships of the Galaxy, and the skill challenge rules in Galaxy of Intrigue, I think it shouldn't be too hard to run starship battles that keep all the players involved.

So maybe I could get some feedback on the house rules I'm considering so far? I haven't come up with a solution for the Skill vs. Defense issue that I'm happy with yet though.

*Proposed House Rules for SWSE & Reasoning*

*Defenses:* Advance +1 per every two levels (instead of +1 per level) so that defenses don't outstrip attack bonuses at higher levels. Also I'm doing what 4e does where you take the better of CON/STR for Fortitude, DEX/INT for Reflex, and WIS/CHA for Will.

*Hit Points:* Use a set +HP / level instead of rolling and adding CON modifier; for the same reason 4e does this, to avoid character HP disparities and not make CON exponentially important for survival. Instead CON modifier only applies to HP at character creation.

Jedi, Soldier +6 HP/level
Scout +5 HP/level
Noble, Scoundrel +4 HP/level

I derived these by taking half of the classes' hit die and rounding up.

*Class/Trained Skills:* All skills are class skills (except for Use the Force for non-Jedi who must take the Force Sensitivity feat as normal), allowing more diversity and making multi-classing less necessary.

Characters begin with more trained skills because I want to allow players to take unusual skills that round out their PCs without sacrificing utility to the rest of the group. PCs don't add their INT modifier to their number of trained skills. Instead, PCs with Intelligence 16 gain 1 bonus trained skill and PCs with Intelligence 18+ gain 2 bonus trained skills.

Jedi 4 trained skills + Use the Force
Noble 8 trained skills
Scoundrel 6 trained skills
Scout 7 trained skills
Soldier 5 trained skills

Effectively I'm treating all PCs as if they have an INT modifier of +2 as a given for the purposes of bonus trained skills. And I'm giving Jedi Use the Force as a bonus trained skill for free.

*Advancement Option:* At levels 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 when a PC gains a bonus feat they may instead choose a bonus talent. Just following my gut instinct that my players will feel short-changed when it comes to talents, especially with all the cool options in the class splats.

*Athletics:* Replacing Climb, Jump, and Swim with Athletics skill just like 4e. So action oriented characters don't have to burn scarce skills just to be competent at action scenes like rooftop chases, leaping after the escaping Sith, etc.

I'm not sure if I'll need to do anything for the Skill vs Defense issue, but I'm looking at options from a Skill Attack Modifier Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible, to introducing an Insight skill and disallowing Skill Focus (Use the Force). I'm just not sure. Our group isn't that heavy on powergaming, so it may not even be an issue.


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## Umbran (Jul 2, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> Great inspiration! Yeah after reading thru the vehicle combat sectionwith the different roles (pilot, gunner, systems operator, mechanic), about how to make starship battles interesting in Starships of the Galaxy, and the skill challenge rules in Galaxy of Intrigue, I think it shouldn't be too hard to run starship battles that keep all the players involved.




It really depends on the skill and proficiency choices in the party:

The pilot role calls for Piloting skill.  The gunner should have heavy weapons proficiency.  The system operator ought to have Use Computer, and the Mechanic requires Mechanics skill.  

Some of those skills are restricted to certain classes - if that class isn't represented in your party, or if the player of that class has a concept that doesn't really include that skill or proficiency, you're a bit stuck.  My group, for example, completely lacks Use Computer and Heavy Weapons proficiency among the PCs.  And it isn't much fun watching NPCs fight your battles for you.

This is what I mean by, "if you plan ahead, it can work", but I find the recommendation that you can get everyone involved a bit glib if it wasn't considered during character generation.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 3, 2012)

[MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] I never claimed anything of the sort. Actually I realized the same thing about key skills for starship battles, and that's one of the reasons I want to house rules out class skills (see above post).


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## Umbran (Jul 3, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] I never claimed anything of the sort. Actually I realized the same thing about key skills for starship battles, and that's one of the reasons I want to house rules out class skills (see above post).




Ah.  Well, that seems like a heavy approach to me.

If the players are into starship combat, it shouldn't be difficult to get them to stat up with that in mind.  They just may not realize they ought to if they haven't played the system before.  A simple, "Guys, remember there may be starship fights, and that you want to be able to have something to do in them," should do the trick.  

If the players aren't into starship combat, then you don't want to use it much, challenging Jedi or no.


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## Umbran (Jul 3, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> *Proposed House Rules for SWSE & Reasoning*
> 
> *Defenses:* Advance +1 per every two levels (instead of +1 per level) so that defenses don't outstrip attack bonuses at higher levels. Also I'm doing what 4e does where you take the better of CON/STR for Fortitude, DEX/INT for Reflex, and WIS/CHA for Will.




Beware of unintended consequences.

In my experience, defenses don't generally outstrip attack bonuses in SWSE, like AC can outstrip BAB in D&D.  The soldier and Jedi types keep up like they are supposed to, largely because there are relatively few ways to improve Defenses in SWSE.  

Also note that attack bonuses are not the only thing that goes against those defenses.  Many Force Powers are "roll Use the Force against the target's X Defense" - and if you cut those defenses, you are making the characters more vulnerable to those powers. 



> *Hit Points:* Use a set +HP / level instead of rolling and adding CON modifier; for the same reason 4e does this, to avoid character HP disparities and not make CON exponentially important for survival. Instead CON modifier only applies to HP at character creation.
> 
> Jedi, Soldier +6 HP/level
> Scout +5 HP/level
> Noble, Scoundrel +4 HP/level




We use the class values you use above, but we apply con modifiers, and find that works well.  Some of the things in SWSE do a lot of damage when characters get rolling.  You might not want to cut their hit points overmuch.



> *Class/Trained Skills:* All skills are class skills (except for Use the Force for non-Jedi who must take the Force Sensitivity feat as normal), allowing more diversity and making multi-classing less necessary.




In D&D, multiclassing is a pain because it gets in the way of spellcasting ability.  Note that in SWSE, this is not the case.  



> Effectively I'm treating all PCs as if they have an INT modifier of +2 as a given for the purposes of bonus trained skills. And I'm giving Jedi Use the Force as a bonus trained skill for free.




I don't know how this will work out, but color me skeptical.  I am, however a "least change to get the desired result" kind of guy.



> *Advancement Option:* At levels 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 when a PC gains a bonus feat they may instead choose a bonus talent. Just following my gut instinct that my players will feel short-changed when it comes to talents, especially with all the cool options in the class splats.




This will lead to power-bloat, especially for Force users.  The cool options are limited for a reason. 

[/quote]I'm not sure if I'll need to do anything for the Skill vs Defense issue[/quote]

See above about Defenses.  I don't know what issue you're referring to.  Some folks think that Defenses outstrip skills*.  But, above you've already cut the growth of Defenses to the same rate as skills.  Are you sure your issue still exists after that change?




*Defenses grow as +1/level, and skills as +1/2levels.  I think it just means that at higher level, a character who wants to directly affect another character with skills has to work at it (back up the skill use with their stat raises with level, feats, talents, or Force powers) if they want to be sure of success.  To me, that looks like a feature, not a flaw - those who focus on doing a thing should be better at doing that thing.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 3, 2012)

Umbran said:
			
		

> See above about Defenses. I don't know what issue you're referring to. Some folks think that Defenses outstrip skills*. But, above you've already cut the growth of Defenses to the same rate as skills. Are you sure your issue still exists after that change?
> 
> *Defenses grow as +1/level, and skills as +1/2levels. I think it just means that at higher level, a character who wants to directly affect another character with skills has to work at it (back up the skill use with their stat raises with level, feats, talents, or Force powers) if they want to be sure of success. To me, that looks like a feature, not a flaw - those who focus on doing a thing should be better at doing that thing.



My understanding - not from actual play yet, just from copious forum reading - is that at low levels Skill Attacks (Use the Force, Persuasion, Deception) vs. Defenses have a really high chance to hit (easily 85-95%). At mid-levels apparently it evens out a bit, but then at high levels Defenses become hard for anyone but optimized soldiers & jedi to hit. At least, that seems to be the consensus from what I can gather.


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## [OMENRPG]Ben (Jul 3, 2012)

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] that is also correct from my point of view, although really the only characters who should be "hitting" anything with skills are Jedi or computer users. 

As far as heavy weapons proficiency and everything for ship combat, I still allow the players to use teh weapons even if they don't have the ability, just at a non-proficiency penalty (I think I've used -2 to -4 before). 

I think that allowing Talents will make your party devastatingly too powerful. Talents are uber buff, especially the Prestige class talents. 

Hit Points shouldnt' be nerfed too hard unless you want your players to really feel the pain in survival type of situations, as eventually (depending on the era) most parties will get enough medical equipment to kind of make healing not really matter. Big giant fights, or lots of little ones, or really long ones, are pretty much the only way to kill the party (other than space mishaps.) 

Some of my advice is a little hyperbolic, but I tend to run pretty "high impact" games with SW, since the players like feeling incredibly heroic. 

Sadly, just last night, my current SWSE game ended in a TPK. My first and only ever TPK in SW. They made the foolish mistake of sending a lone pilot to pick up an ally on a planet, that pilot was summarily killed, and the ship reprogrammed with the main ship's coordinates (where the rest of the PCs were located) and hyperspeed collided into it. They were all vaporized. 

I think that your defenses solution is valid similar to 4e, I've done it both ways. Problem with that is you get characters who then min-max more appropriately to consolidate the power into attributes that are the core for their build. 

Anyway, star wars is hard to not have fun in (in my experience) so whichever route you go, I'm sure you guys will enjoy it. We're rolling up another game (as our fun side-game from OMEN playtesting) this Monday, and I'll let you know how that goes.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 3, 2012)

[MENTION=6677983][OMENRPG]Ben[/MENTION] Nasty tactic! Are there rules for that kind of "starship hyperspeed collision" as a deliberate attack? Or how did you rule it?

I poured over the attack vs Defense numbers in light of [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] 's point, and I think I'll keep defenses as "+level" since otherwise it does seem to encourage more optimization (eg. Average 13+ to hit at 14th level with full level bonus, versus an average 9+ with half level).

And I'll heed what you both said about not allowing talents in place of bonus feats. Sigh.

So I've done a bit of brainstorming on the overall setup/setting of the KOTOR game I want to run... I'm going with 3636 BBY (or in the timeline used in the MMORPG, 17 ATC), which is 5 years after the events of the MMORPG and the  Fatal Alliance novel (with the Sith Emperor missing and presumed dead, Sith cultists scattering across the worlds). I'm leaning toward this time period because there are two players in my group who are into the MMORPG, and because there isn't much in the way of canon to constrain us.

I'll post the "crawl text" in a bit to convey the feel of the setting...I'm still researching and writing it out. But I do know that the earlier adventures will involve the PCs looking for an old hyperspace beacon from before the Mandalorian Wars with navigational data for some secret location that a Sith/Mandalorian alchemist is trying to find as well. Empress Teta in the Deep Core and the carbonite trade will factor in somehow.

For now I'll keep it to broad strokes until we get together in august to make characters. So I've got a month to hammer out my ideas


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## MerricB (Jul 4, 2012)

It should be noted that the skill system is broken when you start using skills as attack rolls (Force Powers, mostly). You need to do something to fix the wonky maths there.

Also, I'd advise some house ruling (I'd use healing surges) if you run a combat-heavy game, because healing in SW is a pain - it's too difficult given the genre and how much damage you take in combat.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 4, 2012)

MerricB said:


> It should be noted that the skill system is broken when you start using skills as attack rolls (Force Powers, mostly). You need to do something to fix the wonky maths there.



Yeah I'm torn about how to handle it; the main 2 solutions I've seen on the net are (1) ban or tweak Skill Focus (Use the Force), or (2) adopt a skill attack modifier rule.

One idea I have would actually tie into the story/setting I'm working on, and that would be for everything to be kept RAW, but Skill Focus (Use the Force) means your character is hyperaware of disturbances in the Force, weakened in dark side sites, and susceptible to telepathic bombardment by a certain villain.



> Also, I'd advise some house ruling (I'd use healing surges) if you run a combat-heavy game, because healing in SW is a pain - it's too difficult given the genre and how much damage you take in combat.




I never would have realized that without playing, so thanks for the heads up! What house rule do you use?


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## MerricB (Jul 4, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> Yeah I'm torn about how to handle it; the main 2 solutions I've seen on the net are (1) ban or tweak Skill Focus (Use the Force), or (2) adopt a skill attack modifier rule.




I'd make it into a separate attack roll - Base Attack + CHA* modifier vs appropriate defense, with possession of Skill Focus (Use the Force) giving a +1 modifier to hit.

(*or whatever ability score governs Use the Force. I can't remember off-hand).



> I never would have realized that without playing, so thanks for the heads up! What house rule do you use?




We didn't - despite playing through all of the Dawn of Defiance campaign (levels 1-20), but if I were playing today, I'd adopt the following:

* Each character has 8+Con modifier healing surges. (A surge regains 1/4 of their hp).
* A character may use his "second wind" as a swift action once per combat to regain HP equal to a surge. (effects that allow more second winds/day apply instead to each combat)
* Between encounters, a character may rest and spend as many surges as they like. 
* After an extended rest, the character regains all healing surges
* A character brought to 0 hp or below loses all healing surges and cannot regain them until restored to full HP through medical attention. 

That last I'd alter to fit circumstances (and see how it goes in play). The basic idea is that in Star Wars *very* few hits are actual hits. And there are precious few glancing hits as well. So using healing surges to represent the character's luck/fatigue/momentum seems to work well. And saying that on an 'actual' hit (KO) that all surges disappear also seems to fit the genre.

Cheers!


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## Umbran (Jul 4, 2012)

MerricB said:


> It should be noted that the skill system is broken when you start using skills as attack rolls (Force Powers, mostly). You need to do something to fix the wonky maths there.




We haven't noticed that much trouble there, honestly.  I'm not sure where the problem comes from.

Defenses go at +1/level
A full BAB is +1/level
So, a full BAB character keeps up with defenses.

Skills got at +1/2 levels.
So, without the skill and skill focus, a Force user will eventually fall well behind defenses.  

Now, a young character could stack Skill Focus in early, and be pretty darned impressive for bit, but that will even out with time.  You can fix that by giving a minimum level for Skill Focus, if you really wanted to.

Me?  I'm running a character who is trying to play a Jedi with a Charisma of 10.  If I didn't have access to Skill Focus, I might as well just give up on anything that directly affects other people.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 4, 2012)

Umbran said:


> We haven't noticed that much trouble there, honestly.  I'm not sure where the problem comes from.



The problem appears to come from optimized Jedi characters, from what I've gathered.



> Now, a young character could stack Skill Focus in early, and be pretty darned impressive for bit, but that will even out with time.  You can fix that by giving a minimum level for Skill Focus, if you really wanted to.



Hmm, that's another solution, maybe requiring 10th level would work.



> Me?  I'm running a character who is trying to play a Jedi with a Charisma of 10.  If I didn't have access to Skill Focus, I might as well just give up on anything that directly affects other people.



Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but if your 1st level Jedi is trained in Use the Force with Charisma 10 then your skill check is +5; average defenses at 1st level are between 12 and 14, so you should be hitting with force attacks 60%-70% of the time. Not ideal, but certainly not requiring Skill Focus to be functional! If your Jedi had Skill Focus, this would jump to 85%-95% which is definitely past the sweet spot (~75% success rate).

Same scenario at 10th level, you've got +10 Use the Force (trained, Charisma 10, no skill focus) vs. average defenses of 21 - 23. Now you've got a 40%-50% chance to hit. If we say you take Skill Focus at 10th level (using the house rule you suggested), that jumps to 65%-75% chance to hit which seems like just below the sweet spot.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 5, 2012)

I've done some more brainstorming about the main villain for our upcoming game/campaign: Uvam-Oror. He's an adult (300-400 years old) member of the long-lived innately-telepathic Draethos species who joins the Mandalorians after exile from his home planet. 












Uvam-Oror is greatly influenced by the works of Demagol (as well as his apprentice Pulsiphor), and to a lesser extent Sith alchemy. Demagol theorized there was a biological root to a Jedi’s power, not mysticism, while his apprentice and sometimes rival Pulsiphor theorized ancient artifacts bestowed power to Jedi. Based on their research, Uvam-Oror developed a radical theory: that Force-use was innate to all creatures of the galaxy but that some kind of biological inhibitor prevented most species from accessing this connection.

So he's sort of the ultimate Star Wars conspiracy theorist. His driving motive is understanding who/what caused this "biological inhibitor" and finding a way to undo it thru his foul experiments. He's able to awaken Force sensitivity in himself, though it's unclear whether that's because of his innate telepathic ability as a Draethos or his techniques have proven successful.

During the first adventure the PCs are going to pursue an old hyperspace navigational beacon for data on a hidden planet/asteroid (possibly Port Nadir). I'm thinking Uvam-Oror is seeking a way to use hyperspace beacons to boost his telepathy across the galaxy...

Not sure about his specific abilities or the extent of his power within the scattered Mandalorians yet. Anyhow, that's what I've got so far!


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## Umbran (Jul 5, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but if your 1st level Jedi is trained in Use the Force with Charisma 10 then your skill check is +5; average defenses at 1st level are between 12 and 14, so you should be hitting with force attacks 60%-70% of the time.




I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the average defense at 1st level.  Between starting stats, racial modifiers, and class modifiers, I'd expect the typical defense to be a bit higher than that.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 5, 2012)

Umbran said:


> I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the average defense at 1st level.  Between starting stats, racial modifiers, and class modifiers, I'd expect the typical defense to be a bit higher than that.



Sure it's not exact, but it's in the ball park isn't it?

Anyhow, it's not something I wanted to belabor. On a different note, I just put together a Fiasco-style list of relationships for Star Wars (my recent group sometimes need a little prompting to come up with ways their characters connect to each other...character building in a vacuum).


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## Fifth Element (Jul 5, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> What sort of map do you use for starship battles?



A 4-dimensional one. It's _awesome_.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 5, 2012)

Fifth Element said:


> A 4-dimensional one. It's _awesome_.




Picture or it didn't happen


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## MerricB (Jul 5, 2012)

Umbran said:


> I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of the average defense at 1st level.  Between starting stats, racial modifiers, and class modifiers, I'd expect the typical defense to be a bit higher than that.




It isn't. And, to make things worse, Force Users get to attack Will a lot of the time, which is really bad for most characters. Indeed, during Dawn of Defiance my noble was attacked vs Will - his best save - and the Dark Jedi still had a 60-70% chance of success.

At first level, your average Wookie Soldier will have a Will save of 10. The Dark Jedi is wandering around with a +12 to that check (trained, skill focus, 14 Cha). The Dark Jedi picks up the Wookie using Move Object, hurling it another character - a Noble with a Reflex defense of 12. Both characters take 2d6 damage - and couldn't avoid it unless the Dark Jedi rolled less than 3 (in which case he failed the basic check).

By tenth level, the Wookie has managed to get his Will save up to 19, and the Dark Jedi has a +17 to his check. Still favours the Dark Jedi.

By twentieth level, the Wookie is at Will of 29, and he Dark Jedi is at +22. Still favours the Dark Jedi! (Actually, using skill bonuses, the Dark Jedi may well be at +24...)

Ultimately, the fact that the skill system and attack/defense systems are built on utterly different scales undermines the Use the Force skill; and why I would strongly recommend using a variant of the 4E attack system for the Use the Force attack powers.

The maths is still problematic, but it's much easier to judge than the basic version.

Note also that a basic jedi can use these powers:
* Force Slam (vs Fort)
* Force Grip (vs Will)
* Move Object (vs Ref)

It's not very hard at all to target the weak defense of a character - and it'll be weak.


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## Fifth Element (Jul 5, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> Picture or it didn't happen



You want a 4-dimensional _picture_? You're blowing my mind.


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## MerricB (Jul 5, 2012)

Just found the stats for the 14th level version of my Star Wars character:

Miles - Noble 10/Officer 4
Fort 25, Ref 29, Will 30.
Best skills: +21.
Attack: blaster +13
Relevant feats: Improved Defenses.

At this point, my best defense (Will) is giving a 50/50 chance against a regular Force User. However, I'm still utterly weak with Fort.

14th is about where the maths finally begins to work for skills vs defenses, btw. That's a lot of levels where it *doesn't* work.


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## Umbran (Jul 5, 2012)

Quickleaf said:


> Sure it's not exact, but it's in the ball park isn't it?




Thing is, it is a pretty small ballpark.  If the estimate is off by two, we're dropping from talking about a 50/50 chance (which some folks find acceptable, though I find a bit short for what is basically a PC encounter power), down to a 40% chance - which is where most folks will just punt and try something else if they can.



MerricB said:


> It isn't.




Your assertion is noted.  

It does not match my personal experience - and that makes sense, because "typical" in this case is a matter of encounter and adventure design.  If your GM isn't pitting you against the equivalent of PCs of your own level, this assertion may not be relevant.



> At first level, your average Wookie Soldier will have a Will save of 10. The Dark Jedi is wandering around with a +12 to that check (trained, skill focus, 14 Cha).




I already said that yes, if they stack it on early, that feat gives people a big pump up for a while.  We'd already mentioned that a level limit might do the trick.



> By tenth level, the Wookie has managed to get his Will save up to 19, and the Dark Jedi has a +17 to his check. Still favors the Dark Jedi.




This is kind of a cherry-picked, worst case example, isn't it?  

I would like to remember that we are talking about what _house rules_ should be applied.  That "people" (generic masses) can abuse the point isn't really relevant, because for this one game, we are talking about a handful - a handful the GM may know personally, and at least can speak to before play begins.

That a thing *can* be abused, in a general sense, doesn't matter when you can determine if it *will* be abused in your particular case, does it?



> By twentieth level, the Wookie is at Will of 29, and he Dark Jedi is at +22. Still favours the Dark Jedi! (Actually, using skill bonuses, the Dark Jedi may well be at +24...)




Yes, and meanwhile, how many droids can that same wookie tear apart with his bare paws?  

We have to be careful when we consider balance in game design - do you really want balance that says, "No choice you make in building your character can leave you vulnerable"?  Yes, the Wookie has a low wisdom.  That player chose to be a wookie, though, and he's gotten benefits from it that are being ignored in this analysis.  The wookie is vulnerable to the Jedi, but someone else is vulnerable to the wookie.  Rock-scissors-paper is one form of balance that is often seen as acceptable.



> It's not very hard at all to target the weak defense of a character - and it'll be weak.




Well, here's the thing...

If a *PC* took that spread of powers, so he or she could *always* target the weak save (which assumes he knows which one is weak), that PC... now can't do a whole lot else.   Jedi *stink* for skill choice, so you've now created a one-trick-pony character.  Yes, it is very good at what it does, and it doesn't do a whole lot else.  How bored is that player going to be?

And yeah, he's sure to get his one power hit in.  But he only gets the one good shot for the encounter, unless he starts spending force points.  And that one shot can be countered by one not-dark Jedi with Rebuke.  

So, to me it isn't so clear-cut as the one example may make it seem.



MerricB said:


> Just found the stats for the 14th level version of my Star Wars character:
> 
> Miles - Noble 10/Officer 4
> Fort 25, Ref 29, Will 30.
> ...




Yes, but... what's your best skill give you against that force user? 

You look like you're playing Miles Vorkosigan, there.  Miles is an intelligence officer and fleet commander type.  So, that skill should give him... a mercenary fleet against that Jedi?

The Deflect talent is notably weak against fire from capitol ships, you know.  



> 14th is about where the maths finally begins to work for skills vs defenses, btw. That's a lot of levels where it *doesn't* work.




Correction - that's where the math begins to work - *if* the force user takes Skill Focus very early.  In my party, none of us took Skill Focus at 1st level - when player behavior and choice is a large part of the question, it isn't only a question of maths, and you may not need to fix the rules to get what you want out of the game.  

I know the OP didn't want to belabor this point, but I got here for a reason - to make the point that you don't necessarily need to beat the rules into submission just because math doesn't work in some theoretical cases. Those cases may not appear in your game!


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## Quickleaf (Jul 5, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Thing is, it is a pretty small ballpark.  If the estimate is off by two, we're dropping from talking about a 50/50 chance (which some folks find acceptable, though I find a bit short for what is basically a PC encounter power), down to a 40% chance - which is where most folks will just punt and try something else if they can.



So it sounds like with you're saying with non-optimized Jedi characters keeping Skill Focus (Use the Force) doesn't imbalance the math. I think I'm going to go with a flavor tweak to Skill Focus (Use the Force) which makes the Force-user hyper sensitive to disturbances in the Force, dark side corrupted places/objects, and telepathic bombardment (maybe with the caveat that a 10th level Jedi can control this sensitivity). This way it's a trade-off for either optimized or non-optimized Jedi characters, and becomes a question of "do I want to create extra grief for my character? does it fit the concept I have?"



> I know the OP didn't want to belabor this point, but I got here for a reason - to make the point that you don't necessarily need to beat the rules into submission just because math doesn't work in some theoretical cases. Those cases may not appear in your game!



I do appreciate your input, and you inspired me to look more closely at the math for myself. It's nice to be coming into a time-tested game which has an active helpful community around it 

Turns out the house rules I'll use are brief, simple, and make characters a bit closer to 4e D&D (the last game we played).


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## Votan (Jul 5, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Yes, but... what's your best skill give you against that force user?
> 
> You look like you're playing Miles Vorkosigan, there.  Miles is an intelligence officer and fleet commander type.  So, that skill should give him... a mercenary fleet against that Jedi?




I think that this observation is the key point.  It is perfectly okay if powerful Dark Jedi are capable of doing nasty things to you if, in parallel, you can do nasty things to them.  The Noble likely has allies and friends.  The Wookie can do very savage things to the Dark Jedi if he gets next to her.  

In this you have balance.

My bet is that the Use the Force skill focus and progression was designed to make force powers really effective agaisnt weak opponents.  But make high level characters better dealt with via lightsaber.


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## Quickleaf (Jul 6, 2012)

Doing a bit more prep for the game, and I came up with the following "Where is my character from?" table for players not familiar with Star Wars and The Old Republic era. 






Everything is canon, except for the Mandalorian Aliit, which is my version of what Mandalorian Space has become in 3636 BBY (17 ATC).


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## Quickleaf (Jul 6, 2012)

I just realized that there are no Astrogation travel times for hyperspace in the core rulebook - apparently they're supposed to be on page 237 (according to the Vehicles section description of the hyperdrive multiplier of starships). But they're not there. I checked the errata and they're not there either. I'm puzzled.

Nothing crucial, but I'm trying to put together a map of the galaxy with hyperdrive travel times making it easy for the player to understand. I've based it on Star Wars Chronicles - Holonet (which I believe is from the West End Games d6 Star War RPG?).

Here is my first draft of the hyperdrive map...


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## Quickleaf (Aug 14, 2012)

After much planning and consulting the d20 radio SWSE boards, I've completed my handsome writeup for the group's first adventure. Here it is for those who want to steal it for their own games. As always, advice/critique is welcome. 

Cheers!


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## fireinthedust (Sep 26, 2012)

I'll read over that adventure soon.  Thanks for posting it!

Amazing thread, folks!  I really do learn a lot by listening to various sides of a debate, and you lot have a lot of great perspectives.

I'm talking someone into running a SW game (with my help with books and stat blocks), and we're likely going to do things in a... well, a version of SW set during the trailers to the SW:TOR game, which were amazing.  I like the setting: sith empire vs Jedi Republic, and the potential to have Sith show up by the ship-load to attack the Jedi Temple, or lead patrols of droids and soldiers in battle, well, it's exciting stuff.  

I was thinking about some heavy house rules myself, but I may suggest we go relatively RAW, but with skill focus UTF/Use Computer being at higher levels.

What level would you suggest for SF:UTF?  And for UC?

Also: I'd really like some great stat blocks, especially for Sith at various levels.

And what do you think of porting over gear from d20 Future and d20 Cybernetics?  With the obligatory number swapping (saving throws, spin them around into attacks on defences, etc.), could adding to the arsenal of non-force users help balance them out?  Or make the game more fun for bounty hunters and smugglers?


What do you think of creating a mash-up class for Smugglers, Scouts and possibly Nobles?  I don't like that Scoundrels are at a disadvantage what looks like) for gun-slinging at higher levels.  As well, I know that Nobles can dominate social interactions, but without multiclassing perhaps a single, unified scout/noble/scoundrel class could give these characters more of something to do?  They'd still have access to the various talent trees on a case-by-case basis (ie: are they a noble scion?  No?  Then no lineage talent for the outer rim moisture farmer).


And tips for creating Dark Jedi/Sith would be helpful.  If they have their own Order and planets and empire, I assume using the Jedi class would be fine.  Is the weapons expert a good option for them?


Sorry for the disorganization, I'm also brain dumping.


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## Spatula (Sep 26, 2012)

FWIW, my experience with the game matches Merric's and not Umbran's. Using skills to target defenses is crazy over-powered except at the upper levels, and healing really, really sucks. The UtF thing isn't even really a matter of abuse - all the force characters in the book have Skill Focus: UtF, and why wouldn't you? +5 to hit! At 1st level you're rolling +12 (not even an optimized build!) or more to hit and your non-force buddies are rolling around +3 to hit. Fights are a breeze up until the jedi runs out of juice, at which point they become a chore. To me, it's a bizarre design decision that drags down an otherwise okay game.


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## Quickleaf (Sep 26, 2012)

[MENTION=51930]fireinthedust[/MENTION] 
I do have a great pdf full of SWSE NPCs and monsters, formatted like 4e monsters. I believe this is the download link: Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

I can't answer your other questions because I don't have enough experience yet. But from the few sessions I've run, multi-classing hardly penalizes you at all - pretty much all of my players multi-classed - it was more a matter of deciding which talents they wanted and then taking levels in that class.

EDIT: I added the 4-part image file of the airspeeder shaft to the post on the previous page where I posted the adventure PDF. They go with the "Underworld Airspeeder Raid" encounter.


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## fireinthedust (Sep 26, 2012)

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]:  Thanks!  I like the pdf, and the way you write out the action-by-action tactics, as well as the "this is what this attack does" blocks (in the 4e style), is very helpful.  Too bad the actual game didn't do this!  I really appreciate the use of illustrations, many of which are bang-on.  

How is the campaign going?


I think the UtF issues make sense.  I did have a game on these boards a while back, and the jedi exploded every last battle droid easily... they weren't mean about it, but as a GM I hate seeing people blow through challenges on me.    That said, banning them makes it a game of d20 Future, imho.  Having an all-Jedi group likewise seems boring to me.   A good ensemble is important.

What if you added a -5 penalty to every UtF check use per round, not just per deflection or block?

I see the appeal of the Cha-attack for force-users.  I'll have to try the game out in RL, though.


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## Quickleaf (Sep 27, 2012)

[MENTION=51930]fireinthedust[/MENTION]
Thanks! I've been gaming deprived since April/May, hence trying to start up a SWSE game through Meetup.com, but even then I got 3 interested players and 1 of them left ao we decided to hold off until the group filled out. However this particular group choose to play no jedi and went for a "scum and villainy" vibe instead as smugglers and bounty hunters. I posted a playtest report on the d20radio forum, I'll dig up a link for you. We only got thru the first encounter, with a bit of recon in the docking bay, and an impressed airspeeder chase *into* Coruscant's Underworld where they're now wanted criminals.


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## fireinthedust (Sep 29, 2012)

Hey, that's okay too.

And a good chase scene can be fun.  I hope you don't mind stealing from other systems for that: Pathfinder has a great chase mechanic that I think could really help with speeders and with ship chases.  You could use, let's say cue cards, and line them along the table.  Each card is a skill check needed to get past an obstacle of some kind in order to get through that space, and the card is one move action distance (so two moves per round).  Characters can leap over a boulder or UtF to move it, or blaster x damage to obliterate it.  If the chasers get to the heroes' card (the one they're on) they can start combat.  If the heroes get to the end first (or whoever they're chasing in turn) that person gets away some how.

I kinda hope my group goes scum and villainy when we play: I want to be the only Jedi  

I'm supposed to be getting ready for the game tomorrow, (D&D) but I'm going to start by making up my own Jedi with a spread of levels from 1 to whatever.  


My question:  Should Scoundrels have full BAB, or at least for blasters?  I really think they should.  They're supposed to be gunslingers, and half-bab for Han Solo is just mean.


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## Quickleaf (Sep 29, 2012)

fireinthedust said:


> Hey, that's okay too.
> 
> And a good chase scene can be fun.  I hope you don't mind stealing from other systems for that: Pathfinder has a great chase mechanic that I think could really help with speeders and with ship chases.  You could use, let's say cue cards, and line them along the table.  Each card is a skill check needed to get past an obstacle of some kind in order to get through that space, and the card is one move action distance (so two moves per round).  Characters can leap over a boulder or UtF to move it, or blaster x damage to obliterate it.  If the chasers get to the heroes' card (the one they're on) they can start combat.  If the heroes get to the end first (or whoever they're chasing in turn) that person gets away some how.



Oh, i treat everything as a mine for creative endeavors, so the PFSRD rules, the Big City rules, the rules GM Garett posted on d20 radio - they're all game. Since it was impromptu, it was by the seat of my pants...I think I was tracking successes/failures as if it were a skill challenge, but pretty much ended it when the evening was getting too late.



> I'm supposed to be getting ready for the game tomorrow, (D&D) but I'm going to start by making up my own Jedi with a spread of levels from 1 to whatever.



Check out the Jedi Academy Training Manual - lots of goodies in there, like lightsaber force powers.



> My question:  Should Scoundrels have full BAB, or at least for blasters?  I really think they should.  They're supposed to be gunslingers, and half-bab for Han Solo is just mean.



I think you're aiming for the gunslinger prestige class. Until then a high Dexterity and Weapon Focus (pistols) plus your Scoundrel BAB will keep you on par with others.


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## DerekSTheRed (Sep 30, 2012)

I ran a long running SWSE campaign (see my sig) and now I'm playing in an another one. I heavily house ruled to fix a lot of the items the thread has already mentioned. To fix Skill Focus: UTF, I changed it so that it allows you to add your level to the skill bonus instead of +5. Normally you add half your level. This means a smaller boost at low levels and a bigger boost at high levels. The math seems to work better this way.

Healing is also a problem IME. One of the Variant Rules WotC published on their web site made the second wind more like surges. I implemented those rules. In this case every character got 1 second wind + class bonus to fort + constitution modifier per day. I allowed them to use them more than once per encounter but still had to be less than half their hitpoints and no more than one per round. Out of combat though they could use them without having to be below half. This requires changes to thing like medpac rules and possibly transfer vitality (didn't really use the last one IMC).

As for advice, I would always liked having one vehicle fight/chase scene and one combat at least per session. I would then add in either another fight or a skill challenge. Second winds made them a bit tougher per fight but they were still fragile on a per day basis. Consequently having the vehicles/starship soak damage helped.

The biggest problem I have with the starship rules was that it was very repetitive. The engineer did the same mechanics check every round. The computer use guy did the same check every round. Sometimes even the pilots and gunners did the same thing every round. Even though everyone was participating, it wasn't fun for everyone. I found it much better if everyone was a pilot in their own starships or you paired everyone into a fighter + pilot team. I realize this isn't feasible for all groups.

This blog post by Rodney Thompson on the Dawn of Defiance retrospective was very spot on analysis of what works and what doesn't work in SAGA.



> let's face it: if you're the systems operator, right now, you're doing one thing every. single. round.


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## fireinthedust (Oct 1, 2012)

neat article.  Was it written using the Starship book?  I wonder if there are any helpful rules in there.

I wouldn't have more than one vehicle chase in a game if the rules for ship combat are that boring.

A land-based chase would be better for sure.



I'm going over my Jedi build, with a lightsabre combat focus, and looking for holes.  Gotta say, I don't see much point in more than one level of Jedi Master: the force secrets aren't that exciting.


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## DerekSTheRed (Oct 1, 2012)

It's not that vehicle or starship combat is boring. It's that it is boring if you are not a pilot or gunner.


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## fireinthedust (Oct 1, 2012)

DerekSTheRed said:


> It's not that vehicle or starship combat is boring. It's that it is boring if you are not a pilot or gunner.




Think we could help others with shield dr or sensor sweeps or other buffs?  That could help.

Trek had it right with transporters: mid battle boarding parties could keep the others busy.

Sent from my GT-I5510M using Tapatalk


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## Spatula (Oct 1, 2012)

DerekSTheRed said:


> This blog post by Rodney Thompson on the Dawn of Defiance retrospective was very spot on analysis of what works and what doesn't work in SAGA.



Interesting how some of the GM/mechanical problems he notes would have been solved if the game was based on 4e instead of (basically) 3e. It's occurred to me in the past that 4e D&D would have been much better suited for Star Wars than SAGA, and SAGA would have been much better suited for the next edition of D&D than 4e was...


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## fireinthedust (Oct 2, 2012)

Spatula said:


> Interesting how some of the GM/mechanical problems he notes would have been solved if the game was based on 4e instead of (basically) 3e. It's occurred to me in the past that 4e D&D would have been much better suited for Star Wars than SAGA, and SAGA would have been much better suited for the next edition of D&D than 4e was...




Mmmm... I don't know about that.  Re-skinning isn't the same as making a game that fits the material.

4e is a fun game, and for 2 years I actually had an easy time GMing it.  That is the goal the writer of the retrospective was aiming for, but I don't know that 4e is quite the right solution for SWSE, even if SWSE was a design note on the road to 4e.

The problem, as I see it, is that players have the ability to just make a character they like, while GMs have to pander mathematically to the players.  As a GM I'm thinking about what will challenge the heroes and make for a fun encounter: if the player has an attack that does 3d6 a round, can my villains last for at least three rounds in that combat?  And the way they survive, will it be entertaining for the heroes?

The design of the game assumes that Jedi are amazing, and fight each other almost exclusively, while the other characters mop up the minions and vehicles.  Realistically, Jedi beat up everyone, and the GM is constantly chasing them: all foes are aimed at the Jedi, while those aimed at the rest of the party are probably running from the Jedi.


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