For instance, Jedi would became paste if they put on a helmet and vest, since 95% of Jedi lack the all important Armored Defense Talent, causing their defense score to plummet.
Uhm, no. Actually, their Ref Def would go up by two - same as anybody else.
But at they lack the feat to maneuver in it, their attacks go down by two as do a few other skills. Jedi are the only base class that does not get
Armor Proficiency (Light) as a potenitial bonus feat. They can take that feat at third level if they so choose - or multiclass at 2nd and take it then.
Of course, their Ref Def at 2nd level is
equal to the bonus a blast vest and helmet confers on non-heroic classes anyways -- so I'm not sure why they would want to wear it.
When it comes to armor -- like weapon proficiencies -- it's about game balance. Virtually every Jedi begins the game by choosing the
Deflect talent. Nobody else can do that. When it comes to what armor MEANS in the game (not getting hit), the first level Jedi have everybody in the game beat from the get go -- by a wide margin.
Virtually every Force power used to attack was errata'd at some point.
Many were tweaked, yes. There are far more others that weren't. But more to the point, what does that have to do with anything? If that's evidence of some inherently defective design, well, OCR was changed in RCR. How is that not clear and convincing evidence that OCR
also sucks?
3.x , 3.5 and 4E and Pathfinder have all received extensive errata. Do they all suck too?
If "it needed errata" is the test as to whether the game is good or bad - I think you might want to check the length of the errata file for the RCR version of the game. The RCR errata is about three times as long as the SE errata.
Or how about we just call it a red herring?
Darth Vader is incapable of grabbing someone's neck and choking them to death, under Saga rules.
He has a cybernetic arm and the foe was helpless. SW:SE says that it takes one round to kill him with a
coup de grace. Sounds about right to me.
Saga managed to accomplish one impressive thing: It actually made me somewhat regret getting rid of my RCR materials. The RCR had a lot going for it, and it would have been easier to houserule that than to get the Saga system to do virtually anything I wanted it to.
Your tastes are your own. FWIW, Saga sold much better than the previous versions of SW (by more than a little) and won several industry awards. That doesn't change your preferences, but there is some evidence which indicates that maybe there are a lot of people who disagree with you?
As for balance, I far prefer it over the D20 versions.
It all comes down to the Jedi and whether they will overshadow and break the game -- or underwhelm and not feel like Jedi. The D20 version, much like the D6 version, underpowers the Jedi with its skill based approach to The Force, imo. Saga Edition went to Encounter based powers. Regardless of how you fell about that being reworked and applied to D&D in 4E - in
Star Wars: Saga Edition -- it works very well.
Seeing as KotoR 1 rewrote the D20 rules to make the Jedi under D20 more powerful, and seeing as a lot of people bought the guide to the KotoR 1 computer game to use as an alternative PHB in OCR/RCR for running Jedi -- it would appear that there were at least
some people who did not share your opinion.
Anyway, this is getting to threadjack land now - so I'll disengage.
[powers off lightsaber]