Star Wars Saga Edition [SECR] Preview #6 is Up

[gribble]

If you want to make it at least a little challening for the PCs, they will think twice about getting into close melee with a droideka once it grapples them. Once the grapple happens, none of the above will help them escape like it would in a fire fight.

Ok, granted - it *might* be a valid tactic where the PCs are outnumbered by droidekas and/or other opponents at least as bad as a droideka. Even in that situation though, the best the droideka can achieve is to take a single PC out of the fight at the expense of taking itself out of the fight. It might leave the other enemies free to attack the remaining PCs, but at the same time it leaves the other PCs free to concentrate on the other droidekas!

The melee character will only be able to engage/take out one droideka at a time anyway, in fact, melee characters might hope that a driodeka *does* grapple them, because then it's doing a lot less damage to that PC - not to mention the other PCs - than it would be if it was using autofire (which is a higher amount of guaranteed damage each round), and that melee PC has done his job by taking one driodeka out of the fight!

So it still doesn't seem like the best offensive tactic for the droideka to use - it certainly wouldn't be the first tactic droideka I play will use!

 

[Victim]

Based on the other preview, it seems like grappling has massively changed. Being grabbed seemed to impose only a minor penalty without extra feats and such. So without those feats, the droideka probably is best off using its grapple score defensively.

 

[ohGr]

And considering the fact that anyone can shut down a droid with a Mechanics check while it is grabbed, it seems to me that a high grapple modifier would be near-mandatory for a droid, if only for defensive purposes.

 

[RigaMortus2]

And considering the fact that anyone can shut down a droid with a Mechanics check while it is grabbed, it seems to me that a high grapple modifier would be near-mandatory for a droid, if only for defensive purposes.

Which preview of the new rules is this located?

 

[ValhallaGH]

Which preview of the new rules is this located?

The one on droids.

 

[RigaMortus2]

The one on droids.

To shut down an unwilling droid, you must grab the droid and make a successful Mechanics check (DC equal to the droid's Will Defense) as a standard action while it's grabbed.

I am not talking about a PC grabbing a droid. I am talking about a droid grabbing a PC.

You cannot shut down an unwilling droid with locked access unless it is disabled or otherwise helpless.

Any idea what this means? I assume this is up to the GM, whether they want certain droids to be "locked" or not. I think this is like at the end of Episode 1, where they had to turn the droids off in the battle stations...

 

[ohGr]

I am not talking about a PC grabbing a droid. I am talking about a droid grabbing a PC.

But why would it? Preview 7 shows that grabbing in Saga is no where near as crippling as grappling is in the current rules/3.5; a droideka is far better off just blazing away with its dual auto cannons. Worse, by initiating a grab, it's putting itself in danger of its target pulling off the Mechanics check and shutting it down. (Setting aside the "lock out" mechanics for now, as we don't know how that works.)