Star Wars: To Modernize The Force Or Not To Modernize The Force?

[Angel Tarragon]

For the D20 future game I am working on, I want it to be science fiction but I want to integrate The Force from Star Wars. I'm not sure how to approach this. I was first thinking of breaking down the Force Adept and Jedi Guardian classes and the rebuilding them as Advanced Classes. Now I've realized that there are plenty of alien races, prestige classes, lightsabres and other Star Wars stuff that I want to use as well.

So my quandary is this: Do I rework Star Wars for D20 Future or do I rework D20 Future for Star Wars? I know that in the end it really comes down to what I really want to do, but if you were in my shoes which do you think would be less work?

 

[Turanil]

Less work would probably be of buying the 5$ or 6$ PDF that reworks psionics 3.5 to fit into d20 Modern (forgot the name of that PDF), then of adding two homebrew advanced classes of Jedi plus lightsabers.

Now, you could maybe just use the Jedi classes and Force rules from Star-Wars d20 as is into a straight d20 Future game. After all, Jedi are said to be trained from childhood into becoming Jedi, and thus could be the exception besides basic Strong / Tough / Smart, etc. heroes.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Less work would probably be of buying the 5$ or 6$ PDF that reworks psionics 3.5 to fit into d20 Modern (forgot the name of that PDF), then of adding two homebrew advanced classes of Jedi plus lightsabers.

Okay. This most likely the more plausible route for me to go, as part of my desire was to modernize to 3.5 psionics anyway.

If someone could link me to this PDF, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It's called Restless Dreams and it's at RPGNow. It doesn't have psionic base classes, though, they're all advanced. I think this is a good thing.

IMO Annakin Skywalker clearly had levels before he began his Jedi training. (Let me see, he won a pod racing competition against dangerous adults, was a really good pilot, could create a protocol droid, etc...) The only Jedi thing he had was the Wild Talent ... or Force Sensitive feat.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I agree that you should just go with Psionics. The Force comes with a lot of baggage, such as Vitality/Wounds, Force Points, and Dark Side points, that all work together. Remove one, you turn the whole thing inside out.

 

[Von Ether]

Check out Green Ronin's Psychic Handbook. It's basically the Force rules with the serial numbers rubbed off. It includes rules for "pscyhic grappling" mind bombs and includes a cyberkinsis power for SF games.

There are also several suggestions on ways to tweak the system for the prefered power level of the game.

It also incude a Psychic AdC, but you need the errata for the Def score and such.

 

[Kanegrundar]

There was a thread in here a few months ago dealing with this very thing. They converted the Jedi to Modern. It was a pretty good port, solving alot of the problems that Ankh-Morpork brought up. I use it in my Modern/Future games right now.

Kane

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Kanegrundar, could you please email me the port?

Frukathka [at] yahoo [dot] com

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

It's called Restless Dreams and it's at RPGNow. It doesn't have psionic base classes, though, they're all advanced. I think this is a good thing.

IMO Annakin Skywalker clearly had levels before he began his Jedi training. (Let me see, he won a pod racing competition against dangerous adults, was a really good pilot, could create a protocol droid, etc...) The only Jedi thing he had was the Wild Talent ... or Force Sensitive feat.

See, this is why I DON'T like AdCs for the Force, because Anakin and Luke are supposed to be oddities in the Jedi. Most children are caught very early and trained from a very young age to be Jedi, but Anakin was a slave and Luke was born in an era after the Jedi had died out. By making them AdCs and presupposing non-Jedi experience before they start gaining levels you chop out any possibility of using the system for earlier era StarWars gaming.

Maybe I'm overly worried about that, but I'm contemplating some sort of Tales of the Jedi era game and it would seem pretty odd to do it with AdCs when the Jedi supposedly had been training from young children.

--fje

 

[Kanegrundar]

I have been thinking about adding a Force Sensitive Base Class to remedy the very problem that Heap is talking about. It would allow for some basic Force Abilities, and allow a more easy transition into the Jedi Knight or Forcce Adept AdvC's. Just an idea I've been toying around with, but haven't gotten around to actually putting anything down on paper yet.

Kane