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

[Greg K]

It struck me more as Bo9S maneuvers with being able to get them back after resting. Likely a way to avoid Sith "casting" force lighting every turn and also avoid the Self Kill effect the last edition had.

Well, Bo9s maneuvers and how they are allocated still reminds me too much of Vancian. Recovery aside, you start with x maneuvers and gain new maneuvers as you level doesn't seem much different than you start with x spell slots and new spell slots as you level.

 

[Stalker0]

Really, I don't care to save 10 minutes every few months while leveling up a character vs. losing all that ability to make it MY CHARACTER.

We can't look at it in a vaccum. While skills may be more simplistic, we are also gaining a new talent section of character creation that will help customization. And heck, skill focus might be a feat you actually see people take, leading to more differentiation in skills. Further, we don't know how multiclassing is going to work yet. That often opens up entire new areas of customization. Let's not worry too much yet

 

[Sir Brennen]

Well, Bo9s maneuvers and how they are allocated still reminds me too much of Vancian. Recovery aside, you start with x maneuvers and gain new maneuvers as you level doesn't seem much different than you start with x spell slots and new spell slots as you level.

"Vancian" normally refers to the "fire-and-forget" nature of D&D magic, particularly in prior editions (before the Sorcerer and Warlock class experiments). Recovery can't really be put aside, because it's part and parcel of the Vancian magic concept, where you "unforget" the next day. The Recover-per-encounter is what makes Bo9S and the upcoming SECR different, because having X of *anything* which increases with level is a function of a level-based RPG, not the Vancian approach to spell casting. Even warlocks have a limit to the number of invocations they can know, even if they can cast them at will.

The Saga rules, IMHO, seem like they'll do a good job of recreating the cinematic scenes where a Force user pulls out a few tricks, but doesn't just keep doing the same one over and over and over. Otherwise, why do anything but sit back and Force Choke someone every round? The rules avoid this boring technique while also not falling into the D&D trap of "I'm out of spells. Let's stop and rest for 8 hours." Mechanically it's also a more dynamic and interesting resource management approach, where a character can do a little more than just spending his "slots" for the day.

 

[SteveC]

Can someone tell me what compensates characters for losing iterative attacks? Is there anything, or is it just gone?

Well, like I said earlier, I imagine that actions like "mighty strike" or "rapid shot" cause extra damage and will take your entire turn to perform. I imagine you might have "greater rapid shot" with a requirement of BAB 11+ and "super-duper rapid shot" for characters with BAB 16+.

So it is a damage increase of a sort.

--Steve

 

[pawsplay]

Two comments. Vancian magic refers first of all to "fire and forget" spells but also secondarily to having a specific spell do a specific thing. For instance, a detect poison spell detects poisons, and always does so in essentially the same way. Each time Evard's black tentacles is cast, the spell produces tentacles in a certain area that behave a certain way. You can't use detect poison in a variant fashion, however, to determine which of two kegs of wine is more vinegary, or use Evard's tentacles to move furniture.

Second comment. Jedi sure use a lot of the same trick over and over again. Dooku and Palpatine are crazy about the lightning, and there are scenes were individual Jedi use the force to knock over a half dozen or more droids. In Empire, Luke and Vader both repeatedly make some very acrobatic moves.

 

[Greg K]

because having X of *anything* which increases with level is a function of a level-based RPG, not the Vancian approach to spell casting. Even warlocks have a limit to the number of invocations they can know, even if they can cast them at will.

No. The slot system is the,imo, horrible approach that WOTC is stuck on using. There are alternate (and, imo, better) implementations that can and have been used in d20 by other companies.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Second comment. Jedi sure use a lot of the same trick over and over again. Dooku and Palpatine are crazy about the lightning, and there are scenes were individual Jedi use the force to knock over a half dozen or more droids. In Empire, Luke and Vader both repeatedly make some very acrobatic moves.

And the rules and comments (mainly on the WotC boards) from the designers so far seem able simulate these things. But these aren't the only things they do, they're part of other actions in the battle. If they could just keep doing it, why resort to lightsabers?

Also, I was speaking more from a game perspective that by making Force abilities a limited resource, players have to be a little more diverse and tactical in their choices in combat, which again emulates the movies better. Sure, a character could probably use Force Lightning every round in combat with the right build, but even this sounds like it uses other resources, which may not replenish encounter-to-encounter. Plus, boring.

No. The slot system is the, imo, horrible approach that WOTC is stuck on using. There are alternate (and, imo, better) implementations that can and have been used in d20 by other companies.

As I pointed out, not all "magic" systems that WotC puts out are slot-based - warlocks, Bo9S class abilities, the upcoming Star Wars Force rules - but, as a level based system, they are all still resources which increase in some numeric value as a character progresses in levels. And, more to my original point - that's not the "Vancian" part of D&D magic, it's the level based part.

 

[Brian Gibbons]

We know that there are such a thing as 'class skills' still, and presumably trained skills are a subset of your available class skills - but I can't see enough data yet to make an educated guess at how the number of trained skills might be set or changed.

If they're giving automatic bonuses to skills, I'm surprised they don't differentiate between class/non-class skills, e.g:
- Your base bonus for a non-class skill is half your class level + Stat bonus;
- Your base bonus for a class skill is your class level + Stat bonus;
- You may train in any skill (class or non-class), which gives you a +5 bonus.

Then again, this system would essentially require listing the skill bonuses for all skills so that the players could keep them straight, which goes against the implicit goal of simplifying character sheets.

 

[pawsplay]

And the rules and comments (mainly on the WotC boards) from the designers so far seem able simulate these things. But these aren't the only things they do, they're part of other actions in the battle. If they could just keep doing it, why resort to lightsabers?

Why does Darth Maul resort to kicking when he has a lightsaber?

 

[wolff96]

Why does Darth Maul resort to kicking when he has a lightsaber?

Didn't that kick knock down the Jedi in question? I'd say that was a use of the Improved Trip feat with Maul kicking because the Lightsaber isn't a "Trip" weapon.*

I have to say, I'm still mostly a fan of D6 Star Wars, but this Saga Edition has me really insterested in the new mechanics.

*Except in the sense that people tend to fall down when you sever one of their legs.