d20 Star Wars Saga Edition news from Gen Con?

[M.L. Martin]

And the same goes for the Holiday Special, where Chewbacca's dad Itchy had virtual reality sex with Jefferson Starship, and Bea Arthur is a bartender in Tattooine.

Nope. Sorry. The Holiday Special has been officially disavowed. While elements of it have been folded into EU canon, the whole does not exist.



I've never seen it. I don't want to see it.

Matthew L. Martin

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

I've never seen it. I don't want to see it.

Then count yourself amongst the blessed. I've managed to purge the images of that atrocity from my memories, but that required entirely too much acid and tequila.

 

[genshou]

(This same character also killed a gargantuan Rancor on round 1 with a critical from a blaster rifle... my dice rolling for him is pants most of the time, but when it is really vital, the force is DEFINITELY with this guy )

Cheers

You sure we're playing the same d20 Star Wars? A Huge rancor has 46 wound points, and there's no way you're dealing 56+ damage with a 3d8 blaster rifle. :\

 

[trancejeremy]

Seriously, don't you think that if Bea Arthur were a bartender, she would fit in Tattooine pretty well? She could intimidate a Wookiee.

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

You sure we're playing the same d20 Star Wars? A Huge rancor has 46 wound points, and there's no way you're dealing 56+ damage with a 3d8 blaster rifle. :\

That would depend on whether the Rancor had any Vitality Points to begin with, and that the GM used the Rancor stats from the RCR.

If no VP to start with, then it fails under the category of non-hero characters, where a successful critical hit drops the target regardless of wound points left (aka the Hollywood mook effect). Under that scenario, dropping a Rancor with a single blaster rifle shot is plausible. Not an expected outcome, but within the realm of chance.

 

[Plane Sailing]

That would depend on whether the Rancor had any Vitality Points to begin with, and that the GM used the Rancor stats from the RCR.

If no VP to start with, then it fails under the category of non-hero characters, where a successful critical hit drops the target regardless of wound points left (aka the Hollywood mook effect). Under that scenario, dropping a Rancor with a single blaster rifle shot is plausible. Not an expected outcome, but within the realm of chance.

Exactly the situation.

I was surprised to say the least when the Rancor toppled, but the GM explained that the Rancor had no wound points, and thus a critical hit drops it straight away.

It was a scene of much un-jedi-like high-fives and whooping

 

[Psion]

Gathered from various quotes:
1. Still d20.

Good.

2. More Mini friendly

Oy.

3. Classes
-Some classes removed
-Some classes get new features

Fringer, Tech Specialist, Force Adept REMOVED, their abilities are given to the other classes (the classes weren't played enough according to the seminar)


Gack! Another case of using tourney play as a sole basis of game design decisions? Bad.


4. Skills
-Reduced # of skills with some skills being combined
Move silently + hide now become stealth, etc

Catching up with True20 and Spycraft, I see. Generally good...


5. Force Powers will be undergoing a change to avoid some force powers working like skills and others like feats.
All force skils and feats are combined into the Use Force Skill


GACK!


6. New force powers

7. changes to combat. The sound on the video was not great. I think I heard something about a damage track, because dealing with conditions is too confusing for many people.


So far okay...


The system will also be discarding VP/WP in favor of HP


Ew. Dubious. I've live with HP so can live with this, but there are some things I genuinely feel VP/WP handle better.

Overall, "I have a bad feeling about this." This may be enough for me to cast off the ropes and adopt other systems. It's a little early to tell, but this does not look promising.

 

[Vigilance]

The system will also be discarding VP/WP in favor of HP


Ew. Dubious. I've live with HP so can live with this, but there are some things I genuinely feel VP/WP handle better.

Right, but whatever your feelings about HP in general and likes or dislikes for the VP/WP system, it was a bad fit for Star Wars, so it's very good that it's going away.

When was the last time a main character was dropped by a mook in ANY piece of Star Wars fiction?

Random Stormtrooper knocks Han out of the fight with a lucky shot.

It just doesn't happen. At least, not in the fiction it doesn't. There's one example I can really think of and that's Leia getting shot in ROTJ. So in all the comics and movies and novels I've read, I can recall one example of it happening.

With the VP/WP system, it happened in SW games I have ran ALL THE TIME. And not just knocked out or seriously injured. "You're running across the tarmac toward your freighter, Stormtroopers firing away *roll roll roll* ouch! Player 2, your character's head disappears in a fine mist of blaster fire and drops to the tarmac, dead".

It happened with a fair amount of regularity, which you'd expect, because VP/WP is MORE gritty than HP.

Which is, again, fine and all, I have used VP in military games to great effect. But it's a singularly bad fit for SW.

Also, in Moridin's post he said not to think in terms of D&D HP and not even REALLY to think in terms of d20M HP. So maybe they're going to give us something new?

In conclusion, too early to tell how MUCH of an improvement this will be over VP/WP, but *anything* would be closer to the feel of the movies than WP to me.

Chuck

 

[Shalimar]

I thought WP/VP were a much better fit then HP. HP give you the sense that higher level characters are just flat out phyiscally tougher. They can shrug off blasters, etc. The thing about Star Wars is that a human is a human is a human, getting hit in the chest with a blaster is bad for everyone, quite probably fatal. HP just don't give me that sense and they ruin my feel for the setting. They are also the reason why I avoid Dungeons and Dragons for the most part, having shifted entirely to Mutants & Masterminds 2E, Exalted 2E, and Shadowrun 4E. HP are just to jarring to me.

 

[Psion]

Right, but whatever your feelings about HP in general and likes or dislikes for the VP/WP system, it was a bad fit for Star Wars, so it's very good that it's going away. When was the last time a main character was dropped by a mook in ANY piece of Star Wars fiction?

RotJ.

If they use MDT, this particular aspect is not going to change that much. Indeed, it'll be worse, because it will change the "trigger" from how good you are (crits are unlikely if you can't confirm them) to how big your gun is, which is even MORE against the star wars feel.

As I've blithered about before, I see VP/WP as handling 4 conceptual hangups with HP. MDT actually addresses the "invincibility syndrome" in almost the same way as VP/WP are, so they aren't that far apart.

It's the other three hangups that give me heartburn.

Also, in Moridin's post he said not to think in terms of D&D HP and not even REALLY to think in terms of d20M HP. So maybe they're going to give us something new?

Like I said, too early to tell, but I'm still dubious.