Staaarr Warrrs! Tell me 'bout STAAAAR WAARRS?

[Mystery Man]

So I got this game for my Xbox called Knights of the Old Republic and haven't been able to stop playing. I'm thinking to myself that Lucas should have looked these boys up before he decided to write a screen play (its that cool) for the new SW movies.

But anyway, its got me interested in the D20 tabletop version and I was wondering if there are any here who play it and what do you think?

How well do the d20 rules work? Is it 3.0 or 3.5ish? Is there an officail setting book to pull from?

Etc..?


Tell me what you think.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Hey...

I don't know how much help this will be but...

I am still relatively new to D&D and I found the Star Wars D20 very easy to learn, and the D20 rules seemed to be pretty easy to follow. My group is putting or FR campaign on pause for a while and playing Star Wars. We did a one shot with some characters the DM made up for us. I can honestly say that it was very easy to understand my character (I was a 4th level human scoundrel, which is pretty similiar to a rogue in D&D).

I don't really have the details, as it's been a month or so since played the one shot. In a few weeks we switch over and play SW as our main game. But here's what I recall from the one shot...

The game was fun and I felt that it involved a lot more PCs working together, since it takes more than one person to handle the big ships. For instance, I was manning weapons that when they hit disabled the enemy ships internal systems making them unable to move or fire. One guy was piloting the ship I was in. The other passenger in the ship was rolling for computer skill checks which , if he made it, added , I think, a +2 to my attack rolls. The other ship had a pilot and a guy who fired for damage to the otehr ships which could destroy them. He also fired missiles , which, in a rather amusing turn of events ended up backfiring when after all the targets were destroyed, one remaining missile locked onto his ship and he actually got a critical hit on himself...

It was a little confusing keeping track of the ships stats, but overall, not much different than keeping track of a PCs stats.

You also deal out more damage with a missile than say, with a sword in D&D, so there is more rolling involved.

It was different, as the setting is obviously vastly different from the FR which I'm used to, but really fun and easy and the D20 stuff struck me as very similiar to D&D.

I wish I could remember more from the one shot. I'll probably post more about it when we start the long term campaign.

Have fun.

 

[Bleys]

I played the d6 SW RPG quite a lot, back in the day, and enjoyed it. When I got my hands on the d20 version I liked it even more than the d6...

When they put out the Revised Core book it got even better, IMO.

All in all, I think it does a good job of capturing the more cinematic feel of the movies while giving you a lot of flexibility. The Core book has just enough (but also not quite enough for my tastes) to get started on a campaign for any of the three "major" game settings (Prequel Era, Original Trilogy Era, or Expanded Universe Era). Various other books have come out which give more information for each of those Eras as well as little things here and there, but I must admit that I've only picked up a small handful of anything else.

If you played the WEG d6 version, ever, the d20 version does "fix" the fact that a starting Jedi character was pretty much useless... though it almost goes to the other extreme with a Jedi Guardian being almost too useful at times (especially when in combat, but hey, that's what we've seen in the movies )

All in all, I give it three thumbs up... no, wait... I only have two thumbs... so I give it two thumbs up!

 

[Mystery Man]

For instance, I was manning weapons that when they hit disabled the enemy ships internal systems making them unable to move or fire. One guy was piloting the ship I was in. The other passenger in the ship was rolling for computer skill checks which , if he made it, added , I think, a +2 to my attack rolls. The other ship had a pilot and a guy who fired for damage to the otehr ships which could destroy them. He also fired missiles , which, in a rather amusing turn of events ended up backfiring when after all the targets were destroyed, one remaining missile locked onto his ship and he actually got a critical hit on himself...

Cool, I'm curious though:

Jumping in fresh like that how cumbersome or easy was it to keep track of running all aspects of the ship? Was the DM able to do all of that on his own or did it bog down the round?

All in all, I think it does a good job of capturing the more cinematic feel of the movies while giving you a lot of flexibility.

How does the jedi compare from low to high levels? Does the system hold up well after say level 12?

 

[Henry]

Moved to d20 Systems games.

 

[Wikidogre]

The SWD20 is actually more related to d20 modern.

it uses the wounds/vitality system. armor only give DR, and that is only applied if you are hit with a crit against your wounds.

It is a very good system, and the force is very simple to use, it is Skills n Feats system, you need certain feats too gain access too certain skills and such...as for combat, simple D20 combat, with minor changes, all in all if you want to play some Starwars D20 the Revised rule book is well worth the price, and this is coming from a die hard Starwars d6 fan.

 

[Henry]

Having played Star Wars (both the old d6 WEG version, and now the d20 version) fairly extensively, I must say:

The d20 version (especially the revised rules that came out in May 2002) is definitely fun, easy to learn, and fast.

If you've played D&D, the basics are the same (basic 6 stats, about 7 races, a bunch of core classes to choose, no multiclassing penalties). The main differences:

1) The vitality/wound points system. Vitality is hit points, they are true "near misses," etc. Wound points = your CON and if you lose them all you die. Critical hits subtract wounds instead of multiplying their value.

2) Jedi types are not penalized by multiclassing the same way spellcasters are in D&D. The force powers are feat-and-skill based, so it costs more to purchase them with, say, scoundrel skill points, but still doable.

3) I haven't played it this way yet, but the revised rules re-insert attacks of opportunity. When we've played, we've left them out of the game, because it speeds it up a bit.

The new ship-running rules are cool because they keep all players involved each round, and they become very easy to follow with repetition. They aren't perfect, but ships MUCH BETTER represent the feel of Star Wars ship combat, now. It still doesn't beat the feel of the old WEG version, which played with ranges and maneuvers very loosely, but it does work well.

Basically, just as in the old Star Wars RPG, keeping the Star Wars feel is up to players and GM; they rules do not stand in the way, though they don't go out of the way to enhance it.

 

[Desdichado]

See, I actually thought the unrevised Star Wars ship combat rules felt much more cinematic and movie like than the newer ones.

 

[Ranger REG]

Only if you use it for chase encounters, although I prefer the Spyrcraft chase rules more than that OCR's.

 

[billd91]

d20 Star Wars is a pretty decent game. Some interesting use of force skills and powering them with your vitality (read: hit points).

If there's anything I'd house rule, it's critical hits and wound points. As pointed out above, critical hits go right to your wound points and you get relatively few of those (equal to your Con). So successful crits can be highly deadly.
I would suggest being very careful about letting any effects that increase threat ranges stack. I heard one horror story about this in which some character managed to get a threat range of 12-20. Very nasty. There's a reason improved critical and keen weapon improvements to threat ranges no longer stack in D&D 3.5.
Having wound points = Con also makes the stat pretty highly valued. I would consider giving all PCs a straight 12-15 for wound points, maybe adding their Con bonus to determine wound points. Let's face it, a character with a low Con already has to suffer some penalties to vitality and Fort saves, having their total survivability based on it as well whenever they suffer a critical hit seems to overemphasize that weakness in the character.