D&D 4E Star Wars Saga Edition as preview of 4e?

[Henry]

I just wish they would have dumped the ability scores and gone straight to the modifiers, which is what is really important anyway. Having a number just so it can represent a number is downright silly; take that cow out and shoot it!

It's irrational of me, but I'd prefer to keep that secret cow around; first of all, I like the general 3-18 ability range, for random generation of scores, rather than "assigning bonuses" the way they do in True20; second, it just plain DOESN'T feel right to say you have a "-1 for Dexterity" or a "-2 for Strength"; I'd rather have zero be helpless or dead, and have positive scores from there.

 

[Hjorimir]

...as long as you admit it is irrational, Henry!

Seriously, we have a few people we are trying to break into the game (one guy's wife, another's fiancée) and I've seen them cross their eyes at ability scores vs. the modifiers. Also, seeing them struggle with the concept of ranks plus modifiers on skills just to find a skill, I'm sure they would welcome the kinds of changes we're seeing for SWSE.

 

[buzz]

Also, seeing them struggle with the concept of ranks plus modifiers on skills just to find a skill, I'm sure they would welcome the kinds of changes we're seeing for SWSE.

They don't just have them totaled up beforehand?

 

[Desdichado]

One of my buddies didn't make it to session last week, and so my friend wanted to run a pregenerated adventure (Bastion of Souls, or some such) and told us to make up 18th level characters. Sweet heavens, 3 hours later and we still had people generating. Less is sometimes a good thing.

WTF?! I don't know that I've had to generate 18th level characters real quick, but I've had to generate a 15th level one not long ago, and it didn't take me more than 15 minutes or so.

Of course, I didn't do a spellcaster. Still, the idea of generateing 18th level characters for a quick one shot seems really bizarre.

 

[Hjorimir]

They don't just have them totaled up beforehand?

Yes, they do. But sometimes, especially in the middle of combat they get confused on which column of numbers they are looking at.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I feel that WotC needs to simplify the game in order for it to survive.

It is no mystery (or it shouldn’t be) that traditional PnP RPGs are on the endangered species list of gaming. MMORPGs are swallowing up people left and right, while we see the RPG industry struggling to find ways to add new blood.

Sure, I have a stack of books big enough to kill somebody if they fell off of a shelf and I can poor over said books for hours on end if I’m in the mood to really crunch out a character, but I grew into that over years and years of experience. My wife has been playing D&D for about four or five years now and still can’t stand looking at the books due to their complexity. It isn’t like she couldn’t understand the nuances of the game if she wanted to (she works on computers all day long taking apart SQL queries and the like), but when it comes to entertainment she doesn’t want it to feel like work.

I think the more streamlined the better. Kill the numbers which represent other numbers. Eliminate needless math (however simple it may be) whenever and wherever you can. Make it so characters, irrespective of level, can easily be generated in under ten minutes. Have spell durations that don’t last rounds per level, have them so they last for one encounter. Truncate the skill list to something far more manageable.

Simplify the system: The less you have to open the books during play the better.

Once you do all of that the only thing left to do is balance each of the classes to make sure that they are fun to play at all levels and I’m sold.

As long as we adhere to the same old sacred cows we’re trapped in our own paradigm and, currently, that paradigm is set up to die slowly as those of us that picked up the hobby in its original heyday get older and older.

 

[Jer]

While I'm not yet convinced we have achieved the new holy grail in skill mechanics here, I dont think this is as much of a problem. Just have them roll all the dice at once rather then one at a time. So long as you dont have any house ruled 'The higher the result, the better the result' additions, so long as you get a single success, that's all that matters.

This is ... a really, really good idea. These aren't "n times per day" rerolls - these are every time you use a skill, you get to reroll if you fail. So why not just roll all of your attempts at once and take the best? That makes class abilities and race abilities that affect the same skill 'stackable' without affecting the flow of the game while still eliminating all of the niggly little bonuses that make me feel like I'm being beaten on by tax accountants.

I figured they'd "solve" this problem for Star Wars either by not allowing stacking of these particular bonuses (thus causing the problem that Felon was describing) OR just making sure that no class gave the same bonus as another class or race to the same skill (thus causing problems with some concepts). This is actually a workable solution.

Of course, it doesn't fix the problem with two class abilities that both allow you to take 10 for the same skill, or both allow you to substitute your Perception skill for your Initiative or something, but its something.

 

[Desdichado]

GURPS and Hero System have their own problems as to why I don't play them. However, staying on topic, I believe that it should be my choice as a player as to if a character's skill improves and the designers have no business building in any automatic improvement. Therefore, I do not consider this change to be an improvement, but rather I consider it a giant step backwards in game design .

It is. You can always choose not to level up.

I guess I'm a little confused. The whole point of levels is that you essentially get better at everything when you level. We could quibble about whether or not levels are a good idea in Star Wars--or in RPG's in general--but I think that given the assumption that Star Wars (and any other d20 game) will be using levels, I think this change is certainly consistent with the idea that characters improve as they level up.

 

[Desdichado]

I think you guys are really kidding yourselves if you don't think that substituting rerolls for numerical bonuses will cloy at a very rapid pace.

I doubt it. I've played other games that utilize a reroll feature quite a bit, notably Blood Bowl. It doesn't cloy at all.

 

[Reynard]

You know, the more I think about it, the more I feel that WotC needs to simplify the game in order for it to survive.

Because it is on life support now? I don't think so. AFAIK, it is still riding on top of the industry as a whole, which fluctuates with various economic trends and forces.

 

[Greg K]

Hobo,
I don't have a problem with leveling. I have a problem with leveling making you essentially better at everything.