d20 Star Wars Saga Edition news from Gen Con?

[CrusaderX]

Tech Specialist, Force Adept and Fringer classes removed, ostensibly because they weren't being played enough (as if that's a valid reason, they legitimately have roles in the setting). Yeah, because there aren't any technicians in the galaxy (and they are removing the class that was put in at fan request), and apparenlty there aren't any non-Jedi force users in the galaxy either , and both Luke and Anakin Skywalker were Jedi at 1st level and never had any adventures before being taught as Jedi. *rolls eyes*

Well, yeah. Luke's pre-Jedi career consisted of hunting a few womp rats and getting his ass kicked by a Tusken Raider. Episode IV stressed that Luke lived a boring life on Tattooine, remember? And Anakin's pre-Jedi career consisted of a few pod races years before he hit puberty. So those aren't exactly the best examples to use - it's easy to argue that Luke and Anakin really didn't have actual levels in adventuring classes before their Jedi training.

But regardless, it's noted that the classes are going to change anyway, so this argument may be totally irrelevant. Luke and Anakin lose Fringer levels, but maybe they'll be replaced by something else. Who knows? Nobody here does.

We still don't have nearly enough information on the new game to warrant eye rolls, IMO. Not deciding to play this Saga edition based upon seven very brief lines of very vague information is rather premature.

 

[drothgery]

I'll have to see how things end up, but from the little I've seen/heard, I'm completely, 100% in favor of all the announced changes.

- HP vs VP/WP; once you grok that they're both abstract damage systems, I've never understood the point of keeping two damage numbers instead of one. If they go back to armor = defense (because it works better mechanically, no matter how much more "realistic" armor as DR may be) and the revised Force mechanics don't drain HP, it'll be just about perfect.

- Minis; as long as the game works fine with a spare d4 or square of cardboard instead of a mini, I'm cool. I like tactical combat, I just don't like spending money on figurines.

- Skills; It doesn't sound like they're doing a massive skill consolidation, just the basic level that just about every non-WotC d20 game has done (i.e. stealth/awareness instead of spot & listen/hide & move silently, and probably a few other things on that level) and moving away from the buckets-of-skills mechanic for the Force. Both of these are Good Things.

- Classes; since it was pretty easy to make a better tech specialist or fringer from a scout or scoundrel, I can definitely see dropping them, especially if a bit more flexibility is built into the other non-Force classes. And Force Adept really didn't seem sufficiently generic to cover all the non-Jedi traditions out there, and was strictly inferior to both Jedi classes.

- Force Powers are their own thing; great!

 

[M.L. Martin]

We still don't have nearly enough information on the new game to warrant eye rolls, IMO. Not deciding to play this Saga edition based upon seven very brief lines of very vague information is rather premature.

Now, now. Didn't Yoda teach us that "Reason, patience, charity . . . the dark side are they"?

Huh?

He didn't?

Well, I'm sure the Master once said "Use your aggressive feelings, boy! Let the hate flow through you!"



Matthew L. Martin

 

[Shalimar]

Not all of the information was vague. HP instead of Vitality/Wound Points is very explicit. Only a single skill to cover the force is very explicit. The removal of 3 classes is explicit, they will not be in the game, those 3 classes are a lot of the flavor of Star Wars, at least in the EU.

Actually Luke's pre-jedi career included being a fairly good pilot. Anakin's consisted of being one of the best pilots in the galaxy, granted a lot of that was the force, but he was also able to build a podracer as well as a droid. Those are some fairly sophisticated feats.

 

[Inferno!]

I was at the Q&A, but didn't take notes so this is my best recollection. The panel was pretty evasive about giving details regarding the new system leaving us to interpret what they were saying.

The skill list is being reduced/simplified from fifty some skills to about thirty-seven.

They've created a damage track which is apparently similar to the minis (I don't know, I don't play minis) and removed conditions like shaken and dazed. As I understand it, as your hit points go down, you move along the damage track incurring cumulative penalties.

The use force skill will activate your ability to call upon the force, with the various force effects having difficulty codes. So a first level force user could attempt some epic power, but the likelihood of success would be nearly impossible.

My recollections may leave things clear as mud for you, but I went into the Q&A fearing the worst, and left feeling much better about what the end product will be.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

The three classes that got cut were classes I saw not getting alot of play time. So I can't say as they're wrong.

I'm one of those people that don't find VP/WP any sort of improvement over HP/MDT.

I've done the skill-compression thing for my own games, so, good improvement there.

And I'll be interested in seeing how the new Force system works (since it sounds like a whole new bag). Force is sticky wicket territory. I've not entirely liked the WEG D6 version or the D20 version, honestly. Both had places I liked better than eachother, etc.

--fje

 

[Reynard]

I never got why WP/VP were "in genre" for Star Wars anyway, at least the way they were written. I mean, sure, the system meant you could have 5th level stormtroopers (ha!) that still fell down like punks, but it also meant some random blaster bolt could take out the 20th level Jeci hero at any time. i don't recall Yoda every taking one to the back of the head... Especially since PCs take an order of magnitude more criticals than NPCs/opponents do.

 

[Greg K]

i don't recall Yoda every taking one to the back of the head...

But theoretically he could

 

[Ranger REG]

No WP/VP, back to D&D style HP.

That we don't know. From what I hear, they claimed Star Wars HP system will be far different from D&D version and d20 Modern version (which is already different from D&D version).

Mind you, the VP/WP System is also an off-shoot of the HP system.

Let me know if this is confusing.

 

[Ranger REG]

I never got why WP/VP were "in genre" for Star Wars anyway, at least the way they were written. I mean, sure, the system meant you could have 5th level stormtroopers (ha!) that still fell down like punks, but it also meant some random blaster bolt could take out the 20th level Jeci hero at any time. i don't recall Yoda every taking one to the back of the head... Especially since PCs take an order of magnitude more criticals than NPCs/opponents do.

Because the players want that sense of danger, that at any time, they could be crippled or befallen. At the same time, the allegedly elite X*-troopers are supposedly be the creme de la creme yet they keep dropping like flies from Episodes 4 and on.

Yes, it's hard to to fit the rules to the universe that is already whacked to begin with. Kids, let's thank George Lucas for ruining Star Wars with the prequels.

*Unenthusiastically yet angry kids* "Thanks, Georgie-boy."