SW Saga What books do you recommend?

[msalzer]

I plan on running a Star Wars Sage game (might be the Dawn of Defiance or a homebrew), and I was wonder what books aside form the core book would I need or be handy to have. Any must have books regardless of the era?

Thanks

[Ghostwind]

Threats of the Galaxy would be a good one to make your life as a DM easier.

[ValhallaGH]

Short version: Almost any of them can be useful, regardless of era, depending upon what sorts of things you and your players tend to do in the campaign. Here's a breif rundown on the books I'm familiar with.

Starships of the Galaxy: Good if you're going to have a lot of space combat. The ship maneuver rules are really useful if characters will spend a lot of screen time flying their ships. If you're going to go there, this book is almost essential.

Threats of the Galaxy: A lot of stat blocks (that don't follow the rules) organized in a poor fashion (WotC never repeated that book-layout style) and with tons of "hidden" sidebars containing mechanics of questionable game balance. I really can't recommend this one, unless you just need to have reems of stat blocks for things to kill.

Knights of the Old Republic: Tons of equipment and cultural information for the major groups of the era. This includes Mandalorians, Sith, and the Republic military. Useful for the organizations and equipment, as well as some of the generic foes. Again, there's some difficulty getting the designers to follow their own rules (but not much).

The Force Unleashed: Filled with some of the most over-the-top force mechanics in Saga, this book also has a lot of great information about the organization and structure of the Empire and associated criminal groups. Great background and fluff, but the utility depends upon how prominent the Empire or organized crime will be.

Scum and Villainy: A lot of new equipment mechanics, as well as a host of non-Force abilities for characters. Some great background on criminal and bounty hunter groups as well. Probably one of the most generally useful books, unless you campaigns center around the Force.

I hope that helped some. Good luck.

[drothgery]

The only thing that's really a must-have regardless of era is Starships of the Galaxy if you're going to be doing more than a little bit of space combat. Other than that, every campaign setting has a fair amount of non-setting specific rules info, and they've all introduced new subsystems; it's ulikely any setting book will be completely useless for any campaign (well, except maybe Legacy in an Old Republic game).

[bert1000]

I echo Starships if ship time is going to be high. Otherwise, I think the Era books are very well done and have a lot of use across Eras. In every book, there are new feats and talents that are era-independant.

Here are some other non-Era specific things that are pretty useful:

Old Republic: Equipment templates (mods by origin)
Clone Wars: Mass and sqad level combat rules, lots of droids
Dark Times (unleashed): some of the better force powers, introduces concept of "organizations"; unleashed/destiny point heavy
Legacy: don't have it yet
Scum: outlaw tech (equipment upgrading); lots of info on how bounties, smuggling, etc. works; fleshed out seedy spaceport; some of the better new talents

[Donovan Morningfire]

Aside from the corebook (be advised, there is a 2nd printing with the October 2008 errata incorporated into it), the only book I would say truly qualifies as being essential is Starships of the Galaxy.

Scum & Villainy is helpful if you plan on running a Fringe style game in the vein of Firefly/Serenity, not to mention it has the equipment upgrade rules if your players are interested in that sort of thing.

The Era campaign guides also have some neat stuff, but they are far from essential, especially if you're not playing in that particular era. Yeah, Legacy Era and KOTOR guides are pretty sweet, but neither of them is of much use if your game starts a couple years after the Battle of Endor.

As for Threats of the Galaxy, sometime in the next week or so (I hope), the boys at d20 Radio should have gotten the latest version of my massive NPC file (over 150 NPCs as well as some new equipment) set up as a download. While version 1.2 does draw from a lot of the different sourcebooks (earlier versions pretty much stuck with the corebook), they can easily be tweaked to suit your needs as a GM. I've also tried to update and correct as many of the prior stat block errors as possible; it may not be 100% accurate, but it shouldn't be too far off either (the biggest complaint about TotG is the sheer volume of errors in every single stat block). And best of all, it's free

Once I get word from GM Chris or GM Dave that it's been uploaded, I'll update my sig with the link.