I have been thinking of doing a consolidation of the generic sci-fi elements of these two d20 games (i.e., minus the Force, magic, and setting-specific bits), in order to create a sci-fi campaign universe of my own design in which civilizations of many different levels of technology may be encountered.
Disclaimer: I'm not very familiar with DS yet but I like what I've seen so far.
Core class selection doesn't seem too difficult. Combine the Star Wars non-Jedi classes with the Pilot and Mechanist from Dragonstar (though with the new SW update, the Mechanist may become unnecessary). Since DS is closer to D&D in terms of things like HP and critical hits, at least two classes will have to be modified to make the system uniform.
Skill and feat consolidation should be a snap since their game mechanics don't really vary from one d20 game to the next.
What I'm most concerned about is the hit point model, the firearms model, and whose set of weapons & armor to use. Which options should I go with? I like SW's HP model (but am not really a fan of its class bonuses to AC), while DS's firearms model seems cleaner, and my "uber alles" philosophy favors using both DS and SW weapons and armor. Of course this will require some homogenization. The greatest change I foresee ATM will be the loss of the critical hit multipliers for DS/D&D weapons, to bring them in line with SW's HP system. The question is whether/how I would account for this loss of detail? ATM, my solution for this is for the damage die of x3 weapons to be increased one step (eg punching dagger d4/x3 = d6) and for x4 weapons to be increased two steps (eg heavy pick d6/x4 = d10).
Has anyone else considered combining SW & DS in this fashion or attempted to do so? If so, what did you come up with? In those cases where the two game systems conflicted mechanicswise, which rules subset did you eventually decide on?
Disclaimer: I'm not very familiar with DS yet but I like what I've seen so far.
Core class selection doesn't seem too difficult. Combine the Star Wars non-Jedi classes with the Pilot and Mechanist from Dragonstar (though with the new SW update, the Mechanist may become unnecessary). Since DS is closer to D&D in terms of things like HP and critical hits, at least two classes will have to be modified to make the system uniform.
Skill and feat consolidation should be a snap since their game mechanics don't really vary from one d20 game to the next.
What I'm most concerned about is the hit point model, the firearms model, and whose set of weapons & armor to use. Which options should I go with? I like SW's HP model (but am not really a fan of its class bonuses to AC), while DS's firearms model seems cleaner, and my "uber alles" philosophy favors using both DS and SW weapons and armor. Of course this will require some homogenization. The greatest change I foresee ATM will be the loss of the critical hit multipliers for DS/D&D weapons, to bring them in line with SW's HP system. The question is whether/how I would account for this loss of detail? ATM, my solution for this is for the damage die of x3 weapons to be increased one step (eg punching dagger d4/x3 = d6) and for x4 weapons to be increased two steps (eg heavy pick d6/x4 = d10).
Has anyone else considered combining SW & DS in this fashion or attempted to do so? If so, what did you come up with? In those cases where the two game systems conflicted mechanicswise, which rules subset did you eventually decide on?
