Considering a Star Wars SAGA House Rule...

[Randolpho]

Basically, I'm concerned with the lack of re-use of force powers in combat. Yes, there are ways to get your powers back, but I worry they're too rare or expensive. Therefore, I'm considering the following house rule, essentially an additional bullet to the "Regaining Force Powers" section:

- As a free action, you can sacrifice the use of a Force power in your power suite to regain the use of a spent Force power.

Basically, this rule makes the use of the Force a little more flexible -- you can essentially use any power anytime but you are limited in the total number of uses to (1+Wis)x#Force Training feats. It changes the mechanic slightly by alleviating the need to take the power more than once in order to use it more than once.

I'd appreciate feedback and comments.

Too powerful? Good idea? Bad idea?

 

[ValhallaGH]

Basically, I'm concerned with the lack of re-use of force powers in combat. Yes, there are ways to get your powers back, but I worry they're too rare or expensive. Therefore, I'm considering the following house rule, essentially an additional bullet to the "Regaining Force Powers" section:

Have you actually run the rules as written? I'm in a group (currently 6th level) with a Jedi that took Force Training twice. She's a beast, able to solo locations that the rest of the party finds painful. Even with the hefty investment she's had to make, she's a very powerful character just coming into her real strength.

It's actually quite terrifying to realize that her character has a decent chance drop the entire rest of the party. She's about as tough as the rest of us (all level 6 soldiers), has a better defense, equal attack and better damage (we're all shooters), topped off by a suite of Force powers that let her rock the casbah. Our best chance is to engage her at long range and hope to whittle away at her before she can get into melee with us. Once that happens, things will get ugly for the four of us.

And you want to make her Force powers even more flexible?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

That sounds like my old group... SW WEG, but there were 3 of us players who were in a kind of 'cold war' arms race..unspoken of course..where we each had the idea that at some point the other would slip over the edge {either Dark Side in the case of the Jedi, megalomania in the case of the other bounty hunter, or CyberPychosis in my case...} and we looked for tactics/methods/plans to be able to wipe the other out as quickly as possible...

Which of course elevated the concern of the other two and made them ramp up the potential first round lethality... etc.. etc..
Our GM didn't mind so much since we tried to keep the lethality hidden from the others and only blasted NPC opponents full force when we had too... but those occasions were just priceless to see the other players reactions...{like the encounter with Darth Vader that lasted all of 2 rounds, and the parties Jedi weren't even there... }

Fortunately we have not yet gathered again to continue the game and needed to find out

But yes, please look at the current balance of power before tweaking. My understanding of Saga is that Jedi are pretty powerful as written.

 

[Randolpho]

Have you actually run the rules as written?

No, unfortunately. I'm still digesting the rules. It won't be my turn to GM for a little while, anyway.

I'm in a group (currently 6th level) with a Jedi that took Force Training twice. She's a beast, able to solo locations that the rest of the party finds painful. Even with the hefty investment she's had to make, she's a very powerful character just coming into her real strength.

Did she purchase a power more than once? When you ran combat at lower levels (say 2/3), how often did she have to spend a force point to use the same ability twice in a row? Say, tossing droids back one round, then tossing some more back the next round?

Also, how often did she level?

I suppose I should have mentioned this before, but I tend to slow level progression down a bit when I GM, so I worry my Star Wars players will run out of Force points long before they level. That's happened to me with Action points in an Eberron game.

And you want to make her Force powers even more flexible?

Well, it's more about the feel of Star Wars than balance that matters to me. To me, it just doesn't feel Star Wars to limit the Jedi to one power use per encounter.

I suppose this is a case of my confusing the rules with the setting. I've accused others of doing it, and now here I am having the same problem.

 

[Nifft]

You recover all your Force powers when you roll a natural 20 on a Use the Force check. So, I suggest you invest in Talents that allow you to Use the Force in place of other skills. The more you roll, the more you win!

Cheers, -- N

 

[Asmor]

The more you roll, the more you win!

You sound just like my dirty hippy uncle!

 

[ValhallaGH]

No, unfortunately. I'm still digesting the rules. It won't be my turn to GM for a little while, anyway.

I wish you the best of luck in that. It's a fun system and I've had a blast with it.

Did she purchase a power more than once? When you ran combat at lower levels (say 2/3), how often did she have to spend a force point to use the same ability twice in a row? Say, tossing droids back one round, then tossing some more back the next round?

When she hit third level she took Force Training a second time, and spent most of those on doubling her uses (she's very fond of Force Push).
As for Force Points, my character has spent the most of those, boosting his Burst Fire attack rolls mostly. Her character is running a close second, mostly due to pulling up another use of powers, but she still hasn't caught up to me and I haven't run out of Force Points yet.

Also, how often did she level?

Our GM has been using the experience chart in the book, which is actually a fairly slow progression for a party of five characters. Given the types of encounters we have, we've leveled pretty quickly, but that's because we've faced a lot of tough encounters. Either there are multiple squads of mooks (for twenty to thirty stormtroopers) or there are a few Big and Bad things (Darth Maul's force ghost, for example). Even so, the lowest anyone's force points have gotten is 2.

I suppose I should have mentioned this before, but I tend to slow level progression down a bit when I GM, so I worry my Star Wars players will run out of Force points long before they level. That's happened to me with Action points in an Eberron game.

Well, if you're very slow about giving out new levels but not about increasing the challenges then it is likely to happen. You should probably institute a house rule (after a few sessions to see if it's actually needed) that allows characters to regain a few force points for acts of heroism that didn't call upon either force points or destiny. Things like gathering up the orphans trapped in the burning building and just swinging them across to safety without calling upon either your character's force points or his destiny.

Well, it's more about the feel of Star Wars than balance that matters to me. To me, it just doesn't feel Star Wars to limit the Jedi to one power use per encounter.

To each their own. I do remember Jedi rarely using the same power twice in a single encounter, so it seems fine to me to limit things the way the designers did.

I suppose this is a case of my confusing the rules with the setting. I've accused others of doing it, and now here I am having the same problem.

Well, in this case it seems to be a reasonable demand. The rules were supposed to accurately portray the setting.
Just don't get confused into thinking that the Obi-Wan from Episode I was a level 1 Jedi. That boy was at least level 5 and probably level 7. Level 1 Jedi are very rarely seen in the films (if ever) because they aren't heroic enough to stand up to the rigors of a Jedi's more active missions. As such, anyone that expects a level 1 character to be on par with any character other than Luke Skywalker (before he left Tatooine) will be disappointed.

 

[robberbaron]

So, SWRPG has been out, like, weeks and you already feel the need to houserule stuff.

You guys have way too much time on your hands.

And you seem impossible to please.

 

[Randolpho]

So, SWRPG has been out, like, weeks and you already feel the need to houserule stuff.

You guys have way too much time on your hands.

And you seem impossible to please.

Are you kidding? I remember when 3e came out, back when this website's granddaddy first came into existence. There were dozens of house rules suggested for every rumor Eric Noah posted!

I'm frankly surprised at the *scarcity* of house rules for Star Wars Saga, even given the excellent quality of its rules.

 

[Randolpho]

You should probably institute a house rule (after a few sessions to see if it's actually needed) that allows characters to regain a few force points for acts of heroism that didn't call upon either force points or destiny.

In a way, that's already planned. I've given out something similar to Force points as a reward for good heroic roleplaying since way back in 2e. It always seemed better than XP rewards.