Saga Encounter Building by XP Budget, Revisited

[The_Gneech]

A while back I built an "XP Budget" model of encounter building in Saga Edition to a) take advantage of one of 4E's stronger concepts, and b) plug what I felt to be a major hole in the Saga Edition ruleset.

Well, some time has passed, and particularly with the new Battlestation Rules in Galaxy at War, I decided that it was really in need of a serious update.

So here it is!

Building Encounters by XP Budget in Saga Edition

This handy document is everything you need (well, other than stat blocks) to build an encounter custom-made for your party...

1) Determining your XP budget for a given encounter
2) XP Budget costs for encounter elements
3) Figuring in vehicles, or building all-vehicle encounters (such as space battles)
4) 4E-style skill challenges in Saga Edition
5) Traps/Hazards by CL, including baseline damage ranges and DCs
6) NPC/creature quick-customization (adding/removing CLs on the fly)
7) "Starship Rescue" -- a practically-complete mini-adventure for SWSE built with this system.

Comments and suggestions welcome and encouraged. Rotten fruit, not so much.

-The Gneech

 

[El Mahdi]

I'm surprised nobody has commented yet. At first glance it looks really good. I'm going to keep it with my copy of your Sword & Sorcery SAGA rules. Thanks.

By the way, I can easily convert it to pdf, but others may not. Can you put it in pdf format?

 

[The_Gneech]

I haven't tried converting HTML to PDF before, but it shouldn't be too hard. I'll put that on the to-do list!

-TG

 

[SpydersWebbing]

I figured since this is where people seem to know what they're doing I'll ask: how do you figure out party level for space battles? Because each ship has their own CL, and I'm not sure how that impacts the PCs.

A little help? Cause the Core rulebook doesn't answer the question well at all.

 

[The_Gneech]

I figured since this is where people seem to know what they're doing I'll ask: how do you figure out party level for space battles? Because each ship has their own CL, and I'm not sure how that impacts the PCs.

A little help? Cause the Core rulebook doesn't answer the question well at all.

The party's level stays the same -- but the foes' CLs are lowered. It's in Starships of the Galaxy, but here's a quick summary:

For battles where the characters are in vehicles, you need to determine the "Vehicle Difficulty Modifier" (VDM), which is:

{(CL of their ship) - (crew quality modifier)} / 2, rounded down

For instance, a YT-1300 transport has a CL of 6 and a normal crew (quality modifier + 0), so if the party is in one of those, their VDM is:

{6 - 0} / 2 = 3

That number is then subtracted from the CL of any opponents they'll be facing. So for example, if they were up against a TIE Interceptor (normal CL 8), it would have an effective CL of (8 - 3 =) 5. If they were up against a Star Destroyer (normal CL 20), it would have an effective CL of (20 - 3 =) 17.

If the heroes are in multiple ships, use their average VDM for the encounter. For example, if they were in an X-Wing with a VDM of (CL 10, -1 for skilled crew = 9, 9 / 2 rounded down =) 4, an ARC-170 with a VDM of (CL 12, -2 for expert crew = 10, 10 / 2 =) 5, and Corellian Corvette with a VDM of (CL 16, -1 for skill crew = 15, 15 / 2 rounded down =) 7, then for the encounter their effective VDM would be ({4 + 5 + 7} / 3 =) 5. TIE interceptors would therefore be CL 3, and Star Destroyers would be CL 15.

Hope this helps!

-The Gneech

 

[SpydersWebbing]

That gives me a headache, but I'll have no choice but to roll with it, won't I?

 

[The_Gneech]

It looks worse on paper than it is in practice. The short version:

"Subtract half of the players' ship CL from the enemy ships' CL."

Just remember to remove the "default crew" modifier from the players' ship CL first.

-The Gneech