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

[Acid_crash]

I am really bothered by the inconsistencies in the skill section. To take a (not random) example, the Treat Injury skill a numerous uses that appear to be trained only but are not noted as such, while having several uses that include rules for using them untrained but are still Trained Only.

I'm confused by what you are saying here... I've got the book, but not with me, and not therefore am I allowed to look and see what you are trying to say about this skill.

Are you saying that this skill is Trained Only, or that only certan aspects are Trained Only and they are just not mentioned as TO in the skill uses option, or what???

 

[Acid_crash]

The Good - Square book, streamlined rules, condensed classes and skills and feats and force powers, complete versatility in character design.

The Bad - Reliant on the miniatures rules for the new combat rules and having speeds listed as squares instead of meters or feet.

The Ugly - Lack of Galaxy Map, having a pull out map in the middle of the book, a typical WotC gamemaster chapter that does absolutely nothing to help design adventures or campaigns (about as useless as that ole DMG book for D&D).

These are my choices as of right now.

The Good outway the Bad and Ugly by a factor of 10 and this is the first Star Wars game that I can actually see as equal to, and in some aspects, better than WEG Star Wars. It's about time WotC.

I will forgive you if you rerelease the Galactic Campaign Guide in a new future book for this latest incarnation of Star Wars, cuz that was the best Gamemaster Guide book I've ever read, especially for Star Wars, and just for gamemasters in general.

 

[Felon]

My main beef is not being able to take a skill cross-classed. You have to multiclass and then spend another feat on top of that. The easiest fix is to make the skill training feat let a person take any skill.

This is another "band and ugly" design decision. If you multi-class, you don't get more trained skills, even if the class you're training into offers more trained skills than the one you came. Going from noble to soldier is a quantifiably better deal than going from soldier to noble--in fact, doing the latter is almost foolish, because the noble very much needs those face-man that it probably didn't get as a soldier.

I can't think of any reason off-hand why they restricted multi-classing this way. What is wrong with just letting the character gain class skills if the number he currently has is less than what he'd get from the class?

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

This is another "band and ugly" design decision. If you multi-class, you don't get more trained skills, even if the class you're training into offers more trained skills than the one you came. Going from noble to soldier is a quantifiably better deal than going from soldier to noble--in fact, doing the latter is almost foolish, because the noble very much needs those face-man that it probably didn't get as a soldier.

I can't think of any reason off-hand why they restricted multi-classing this way. What is wrong with just letting the character gain class skills if the number he currently has is less than what he'd get from the class?

To be fair, going from noble to soldier, you end up with 12 less starting hit points than if you went from soldier to noble. I imagine that's why they didn't just automatically up the number of class skills (that and the fact it would pretty much ALWAYS be a no-brainer to take one non-jedi level if you were a jedi).

Also, one thing I've noticed in making characters to explore the system is that, if you don't multiclass or take a PrC, you rapidly run out of bonus feats other than 'Skill Training' and 'Skill Focus.' So it's not much of a loss, having to take Skill Training multiple times.

 

[Felon]

Scoundrel gets one of the best first level bonus feats: Point Blank Shot. Useful on its own especially with the massive increase to PB range, and a prereq for other good feats. Combine that with the misfortune tree with its sneak attack and dastardly strike, and the scoundrel seems much more offensively focused than the scout (with Shake it Off and mostly defensive/skill related talents). Scouts need Con 13 and Endurance to even get their starting feat. The scoundrel skill list also seems better than the scout's with Acrobatics, Deception, and Computers over Survival and Climb/Jump/Swim (why aren't you a single skill?).

Well, you're entitled to opine as you please of course, but I think any suggestion that getting Point Blank Shot as a bonus feat is adequate compensation for the discrepency in hit dice and skills is kind of spurious, especially when the Scout gets one more bonus feat than the Scoundrel (not to mention Point Blank Shot is on its bonus feat list).

The Sneak Attack and Dastardly Strike feats aren't the powerhouses they were in D&D, and they won't provide the same character-defining niche.

And I think it's kind of questionable to argue that getting a better skill list is compensation for having fewer trained skills, since only your trained skills actually matter (there is no inherent benefit for a skill being on your class list without training).

 

[Felon]

To be fair, going from noble to soldier, you end up with 12 less starting hit points than if you went from soldier to noble. I imagine that's why they didn't just automatically up the number of class skills (that and the fact it would pretty much ALWAYS be a no-brainer to take one non-jedi level if you were a jedi).

Well, if you multi-class into a skill-oriented class, it seems sensible that you'd actually get skills. You call it a no-brainer deal for the jedi to take a non-jedi level, but as it currently stands it's a no-brainer for him NOT to. If he takes a level in a skill-oriented class, he loses out on hit dice and BAB. He gains...well, pretty little actually. He can pick up proficiency with pistols, I guess.

 

[Felon]

Another thing I'm noticing is that there is no real "smart hero" class. If I were to try and create a brainiac character--say an engineer or doctor--I don't think any of the classes would be a good fit. The only class that's really educated is the Noble, and the class skill list is oriented towards social skills, not technical ones. I guess nerdy smart heroes aren't very Star-Warsy.

IIRC, they dropped the techie class from this revision, but they didn't really give it anywhere to go. IMO, what they call the "Noble" class would have fit the bill. They just shouldn't have called it "Noble". To borrow paraphrase Braveheart, what the heck does it mean to be "noble"? It should have been boradened into a general expert-oriented class.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

Having gotten a good look at it in the FLGS, some thoughts, on the thought that this is a 4e preview:

* For all the griping about allocating skill points for high level characters, the game still keeps the other gripe about high level characters: rolled hit points. A sacred cow that is stupid and inefficient, adding a variable where one need not exist. Give a bonus for size for everyone instead of the max at first level, which makes no sense since there's no roll.

* The idea of half level plus trained plus Skill Focus is great, and needs to be used more. Add this to combat. Make some UA-style weapon groups and call them skills, and let fighters pick from all of them and wizards from none of them and have defenses work the same way. Let armor have a nerfed armor bonus (+1 light, +2 medium, +3 heavy) that always applies to trained users always and everyone gets DR from it; you might want to keep the Reflex Defense skill away from classes that have great armor (like fighters). This is the Core Scaling to go with the Core Mechanic. Doing this makes the epic-level phenomenon of attack bonus outstripping armor class go away.

* This isn't a criticism of the book per se, but can Wizards make a full-size version of the character sheet on its site, instead of one at the size of the book? I understand the issue of including a full-size one with the book, but no such limitation comes with electrons. Oh, yeah, and it's ugly too.

* Can someone playtest the Damage Threshold? I'm intrigued.

 

[Vigilance]

I say this is poorly done, and definitely counts as both a "bad" and an "ugly". Someone go start a thread on the WotC board so we can maybe can official excuse...err, explanation.

Since there was playtesting done, maybe you should, heck I dunno... PLAY IT AWHILE before you decide it needs an official "excuse"?

Eyeballing balance is a skill almost no one has, in my experience.

I'll see how it plays before declaring anything broken.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Scoundrel does seem like the weakest of the five core classes, but with that said, it *does* seem to have probably the best talents.

Fortune's Favor is absolutely brutal. Since combat seems to be geared toward 'less time per round, more rounds per combat' with the increased hit points and streamlined system, I wouldn't be surprised if it averages out to an extra action every other combat.

Also, why is sneak attack not defining in this system? At 1st level, a sneak attacking scoundrel's average damage with a blaster pistol (14) is better than a jedi's with a lightsaber and 15 Str (13) or a soldier's with a blaster rifle (13.5). If the scoundrel sticks with sneak attack, he should be able to consistently stay ahead of the damage curve of all other characters (unless the party force user discovers the power of the dark side and starts busting out force lightning ).

Also, unlike D&D's version of sneak attack with its list of 'does not works,' Star Wars sneak attack works against EVERYTHING - including, unless I missed a reference somewhere, droids and vehicles. The tradeoff being it doesn't work on flanking, which is, admittedly, a big minus, but I could certainly see a damage-oriented scoundrel taking sneak attack and dastardly strike being competitive with other damage-dealers.