Star Wars Saga - How to calculate CL?

[Klaus]

If I understand correctly, levels in heroic classes = CL of the opponent, so a Soldier 6 is CL 6.

But how do you calculate the CL of beasts, nonheroics, droids and starfighters?

And how much credits should a character of a given level have. I'm creating 4th-level characters and I'm trying to gauge how much equipment to give them. It's 3 PCs, so I'm thinking of hitching them with a used ARC-170 with an astromech droid.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

Ordinaries are CL1 per 3 levels of ordinary. Beasts are a little more tricky. Use the Beasts in the book as a guideline.

There is no guide for how much equipment the PCs are supposed to posses (wohooo!). You will have to decide for yourself how hard an encounter is with the equipment available to the party and modify CL from there.

 

[gribble]

But how do you calculate the CL of beasts, nonheroics, droids and starfighters?

Sorcica has nonheroics covered.
Beasts are beast level -1 (except the Reek for some reason...).
Starships/vehicles use the CL of the vehicle (listed in the book - for new ones you pretty much have to eyeball against what's there or use the conversion guidelines - but note that the vehicles in the book are modified by the crew rating, as per the sidebar/table on page 174).
Droids use the same formula as characters (heroic level or non-heroic level / 3).

Hope that helps.

 

[Klaus]

That does help.

But now a new question, this time to the designers who drop by: was this information cut from the book, or was it never in the original plans?

 

[Henry]

According to the errata just released, they changed the "CL1 is appropriate challenge for 1 character of same level" rule to a "CL1 is appropriate challenge for 4 characters of same level" rule. Looking at the numbers, and having run several combats in this system, now, there's NO WAY that's true. I can believe the first rule, but 4 first level characters will mop up a Stormtrooper without even blinking once.

A CL1 challenge is a good fit for one character - he might miss, or the trooper might get lucky and roll a 20 - but four characters of level 1, from what I can, tell face NO threat from a Stormtrooper or a Battle Droid. It would be like shooting a little black-and-white fish in a barrel.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I disagree with Henry in the context of WotC's d20 philosophy.

An equal CR battle is "supposed" to be appropriate (but obviously one NPC is disadvantaged; two NPCs that together match the CR is more appropriate). However, I disagree with WotC (and thus agree with Henry) on what is considered appropriate. IME, "appropriate" CR battles are pushovers, and I usually stick to core rules and deliberately avoid unbalanced stuff.

 

[Particle_Man]

Let's look at the other end:

Would Emperor Palpatine be an appropriate challenge for a 20th level character?

Would Emperor Palpatine be an appropriate challenge for 4 20th level characters?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Let's look at the other end:

Would Emperor Palpatine be an appropriate challenge for a 20th level character?

Yes. (Probably. Assuming no cheesy high stats, etc.) By philosophy he's a "tough challenge".

Would Emperor Palpatine be an appropriate challenge for 4 20th level characters?

By philosophy, yes. In actual game play, no. He certainly couldn't be a boss for a 20th-level party unless he had backup. Two 18th-level Sith would do a better job, although still a bit of a pushover.

 

[Klaus]

As for the credits thing, from what I could gather in the Gamemastering chapter, a character needs five "CL = Level" encounters to level up. Each encounter should yield "CL x 2000" credits. So a character should have CL x 10,000 credits. Of course, throughout his career he'll spend bits and pieces of it, in addition to buying equipment.

Does that make sense?

 

[Asmor]

Appropriate challenge typically means something will use 25% of a party's resources, in D&D at least.

25% x 4 characters = 100% x 1 character, so in essence an "appropriate" encounter neutralizes a single character in the group.

Similarly, two characters of the same level (non-NPC classes) have the same CR, so theoretically a CR X creature should be pretty difficult for a single level X character... In fact, it should be a 50/50 chance as to which one of them is walking out and which is carried out in a body bag, all other factors aside.

That said, a first level SWSE character is far more powerful than a first level D&D character, while a CL 1 with non-heroic levels is a bit more powerful than a CR 1 creature in D&D since a CL 1 would have 3 non-heroic levels, while a CR 1 would have 2 npc class levels, and non-heroic and npc class levels seem comparable in power.

Assuming every CL 1 the level 1 jedi faces has 3 non-heroic levels, and not less, I'd guess the truth is somewhere in the middle... A critical hit from either will likely kill the other, but otherwise it should take a few attacks for either one to actually go down... I think it's moderately stacked in favor of the jedi, though.