Star Wars Saga, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Donovan Morningfire]

As was said, they do well. They're resourceful, they're capable, they've got heart. But are they really deadly warriors elite? Not so much.

Maybe I missed something while skimming through the various posts on this matter, but isn't that what SECR was trying to do? To make it so that characters that aren't "combat elites" as you put it are still capable of holding their own in a fight? Based on the stats presented in what I've seen so far for the NPCs I've drafted and characters made for my campaign, that's certainly been accomplished. Even the straight-classed Noble proved able to hold her own alongside the four Jedi characters (campaign is set 500+ years before Ep1).

I agree the Sarlacc Pit encounter wasn't a great example of showing how a party of characters interact, since it was mostly Luke dominating low-level non-heroics, with him and Han getting a couple of lucky shots off against Boba Fett, who really was the only big threat in that "encounter." As for Lando, according to Rodney when he was rolling out the combat, Lando should have bought the moisture farm in the first round based on the splash damage from the uber-cannon on the sail barge. Back to Luke, his dice were hot that night, as I don't think he blew a single skill check.

 

[NilesB]

Another thing I'm noticing is that there is no real "smart hero" class.

The main effect of the "smart hero" type class(es?) in earlier editions is to define everyone else as dumb; Even when they manifestly shouldn't be.

IIRC, they dropped the techie class from this revision, but they didn't really give it anywhere to go. IMO,

It goes anywhere and everywhere.
Anakin is a Jedi with strong technical skills, Chewbacca is a Scout with Strong technical skills, R2 is a scoundrel with strong technical skills.

In Star Wars having technical skills doesn't preclude being good at other things. Having a Tech Expert class made having technical skills preclude being good at other things, thus it made the game less Star Wars.

 

[Victim]

The main effect of the "smart hero" type class(es?) in earlier editions is to define everyone else as dumb; Even when they manifestly shouldn't be.

It goes anywhere and everywhere.
Anakin is a Jedi with strong technical skills, Chewbacca is a Scout with Strong technical skills, R2 is a scoundrel with strong technical skills.

In Star Wars having technical skills doesn't preclude being good at other things. Having a Tech Expert class made having technical skills preclude being good at other things, thus it made the game less Star Wars.

Well, that is a bit of a problem, since there's not really a good way for Anakin to get his strong technical skills - his write up doesn't include a way for him to get Mechanics.

But yeah, Anakin is (at least mostly) a Jedi with strong technical skills.

 

[Shalimar]

Saga edition is suppoused to cover all of the eras, and in the later eras, New Republic and New Jedi Order there are a few characters who's only levels should be Jedi who are mechanically oriented in addition to Anakin Skywalker. Jaina Solo and Lowbacca were continuously rebuilding and upgrading crashed and damaged ships. They went into Lukes Academy young, and she was using the force as young as 2 or 3. There would be no reason for her to have any other class but Jedi, and yet she has to take another class to get the mechanics skill. By the rules as written, Obi Wan and Anakin couldn't have the mechanics skill, and yet they perform tasks like repairing a ships hyperdrive, jury rigging repairs to a submarine, and buildng a droid and a pod racer from scratch.

If the rules don't reflect the movies, then the rules are insufficient.

 

[iwatt]

Well, you've homed in on why Endurance won't come up every session and won't be of vital importance. Not for most folks anyway. In all the years of playing 3rd edition, I've found it's a rare thing to have a DM ever invoke the fules for forced marches, extended running or swimming, extreme enviironmental conditions, or malnourishment. That seems odd on face value, because long treks across wilderness is par for the genre. Yet, the DM generally doesn't even take note of how many miles the party can travel in an hour. It's usually "a day/week's travel", and then cut to the chase. Maybe there's a random monster encounter before getting there, but that's about it. And this is a game where characters lack mundane means of fast travel.

I suspect the DM simply views theses rules as nuisances rather than challenges. They're in dsifavor much the same way traps seem to be falling into disuse. The DM doesn't want the character to *not* get to where the adventure is. He doesn't want the party starving to death, dying ignominiously from exposure, or giving up and going home.

Wow, generalize much? So basically, since you've never enforced the Endurance rules, the feat/skill is useless?

Personally, I've always used the forced march/fatigue rules, and any PC in my games who takes the Endurance feat/skill get's to see it shine. Maybe it's just because I always enjoyed when Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas chased after the orcs who took the hobbits, but long distance chases, sleep deprivation, etc... are typical in my games.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I haven't looked at the rules in depth, but is it possible maybe some of you are setting the book up to fail? It sounds like the rules reflect the movies very well. But even so, it's not going to have everything. F'rex., if there's a Jedi PC whose shtick is "strong apptitude for mechanics," is it really that much of a stretch to allow the player to choose it as a class skill?

If the book has largely nailed the look and feel of the movies, I'd say they achieved their design goal. If they did not manage to include every single nuance, I would not necessarily say that's a deficiency.

 

[Skywalker]

I haven't looked at the rules in depth, but is it possible maybe some of you are setting the book up to fail? It sounds like the rules reflect the movies very well. But even so, it's not going to have everything. F'rex., if there's a Jedi PC whose shtick is "strong apptitude for mechanics," is it really that much of a stretch to allow the player to choose it as a class skill?

If the book has largely nailed the look and feel of the movies, I'd say they achieved their design goal. If they did not manage to include every single nuance, I would not necessarily say that's a deficiency.

I agree with you. A PC can be an expert in Saga in any skill with just 1 level of multiclassing and 2 feats (you don't need to stay in the class to spend those feats).

So the extent of the issue of granularity seems to be that 1st (and to an extent 2nd) level PCs can not dabbled more in one non-class skill than other non-class skills and that you can't dabble a little more in one skill more than others over a long period of time.

 

[Felon]

Wow, generalize much? So basically, since you've never enforced the Endurance rules, the feat/skill is useless?

So, lemme get this straight. You go "wow, generalize much?" and then proceed to follow that remark up with "so basically..." and go straight into a generalization of your own. And not just a generalization, but one that actually misconstrues what I said, which was "it's a rare thing to have a DM ever invoke" the aforementioned rules.

 

[pawsplay]

If the book has largely nailed the look and feel of the movies, I'd say they achieved their design goal. If they did not manage to include every single nuance, I would not necessarily say that's a deficiency.

Well, I don't think that the fact Vader can't pick up Palpatine and throw him into the reactor shift is not just a "nuance." Or that you have to be 3rd level or higher if you want to cherrypick skills.

 

[Felon]

I haven't looked at the rules in depth, but is it possible maybe some of you are setting the book up to fail? It sounds like the rules reflect the movies very well. But even so, it's not going to have everything. F'rex., if there's a Jedi PC whose shtick is "strong apptitude for mechanics," is it really that much of a stretch to allow the player to choose it as a class skill?

Should it just be treated as a given then that every GM will make that allowance? Or is it possible that feelings of disappointment might be justified on the grounds that a GM won't make such alloances simply because he wants to go by the book?

Regarding "setting it up to fail", stating that a book is perhaps disappointing in some respects isn't the same thing as saying it's failed altogether. Some folks are so quick to be overwhelmingly positive--to want to give it a billion-star review--that they brook no criticism. They magnify any criticism out of its original context, and then tell the critic he's blowing stuff out of proportion. There's been a lot of snark in this thread because of that attitude.