Star Wars Saga edition RPG review
Yesterday, I got my package that had Star Wars Saga edition RPG and A Few Demons More by Kim Harrison. I spent half the day transferring my character to the new system, but I didn't like it, so I'll be playing the last bit of this game in the old system. It is pretty hard to translate a 17th level character from one system to another. I think it would be easier to just start in the new system.
For those who are curious, the system is very different. First of all, you have twice as many attribute increases for 20 levels (10 instead of 5). Every other level in each basic class you get a bonus feat from a fairly broad list. The base classes are Jedi, Scout, Noble, Scoundrel, and Soldier. They got rid of fringer and tech specialist and made force adept a prestige class. At first level you get a talent and you get a talent every odd level in the base classes.
Since there are different talent trees, you have quite a large variety and could make up a different character every time even taking the same class.
Prestige classes: Bounty Hunter, Ace Pilot, Crime Lord, Elite trooper, Officer, and Gunslinger for non-force classes; Force Adept, Force Disciple, Jedi Knight, Jedi Master, Sith Apprentice, and Sith Lord for the force classes.
For those who are curious--gunslinger is new (somewhat like the sharpshooter class from the last edition's Hero's Guide) and ace pilot is a re-vamping of starship ace.
The talent tree is very similar to the talent trees in D20 modern, but they aren't the same talents or anything just the concept is the same. As an example, for Scoundrel class, you have four trees--fortune, misfortune, slicer, and spacer talents. In the old game, you'd play a soldier to get to starship ace, but in this game you play a scoundrel to access the spacer tree as the soldier tree is mostly for gun bunnies or tacticians.
Skills are different as well. You start off with a limited number of skills you can get. At first level you get anywhere from 2 (for Jedi) to 6 (for nobles)+ your int bonus (remains the same from previous edition so an 18 gives you a +4). You have a list based on your class (and yes all the lists are different) with scout getting 12 skills out of 19 to choose (unless the character has force sensitive which would give 13 to choose from). If you multiclass, you get the skills from that class to choose from as well. However, you must select all your skills at first level, so how do you get a new skill. Two ways--one you raise your int by two to get an additional plus one and you can select a new skill, or you take the feat skill training which allows you to train any skill on your class(es) list. So if I'm a solider with an int of 12 I'd get to select 3+Int (1)=4 skills to train.
Training gives you the ability to always use the skill (mechanics cannot be used untrained while all other skills can be used untrained up to a certain level). Skill training gives you a +5. To get your skill rank you add 1/2 heroic level (not class level)+5+ability modifier+skill emphasis or species bonus if you have it.
Defensive bonuses are different as well. You basically take the highest bonus out of all your classes. You add the highest bonus+10+heroic level+ability mod (+size or natural armor or regular armor for reflex) and (+equipment bonus for fortitude).
Hit points are a little different, you get more hit points at first level ranging from 18 (nobles/scoundrels) to 30 (Jedi/soldiers)+con modifier, then you roll a die+con modifier for each level afterwards.
There's a condition track that you use if you incur a debilitating attack such as a stun grenade, forced march, venom, disease, or extreme temperatures. I haven't studied this part of the book too much, but it seems to replace the old Wound points and there are no points to it, you have a track with 6 levels (reminiscent of WW old injury penalties in LARP).
Now the Force is different in this book as are Force points. If you want to be a Force user, you take Force Sensitive as a feat. If you want to gain any Force Powers, you take Force training which allows you to select 1+wis modifier number of penalties. You can take the Force training feat multiple times, so that if you want you can eventually get all the powers with a high enough wisdom. And if you raise your wisdom you automatically get +1 ability per force training feat for every 2 points put into wisdom (unless you have an odd wisdom to start then it would be 1 point).
The Force powers include farseeing, force grip (the choking thing which isn't considered a dark side power), move object, several different force powers that cause stun or injury, battle strike (gives you one really powerful attack), dark rage (dark side), force lightning (dark side), mind trick, negate injury (causes one energy attack to not effect you if you make a check equal to the damage), rebuke (deflects/absorbs one force power), sever force (keeps someone from using force points and makes force powers difficult to use), surge (jumping and speed), and vital transfer (heal another person).
If that hasn't confused you, no matter whether you want to play light or dark side, you have to start off as a base Jedi (if you want more cool force related talents you do, but if you want to get talents from other classes, you don't have to start off as a Jedi). As a Jedi, you can pick off the jedi consular talent tree, jedi guardian tree, jedi sentinel tree, lightsaber combat tree, or one of the four force talent trees (alter, control, dark side, and sense) that anyone with Force sensitive may choose regardless of class (yes if you play a non-Jedi class you can choose off of these trees for you talent when you get that option). If you are a member of the Jensaarai or a witch of Dahomir you can choose from their talent trees as well.
Now if you are playing a force user, you will want to go for a prestige class (all require a 7th level plus variations of other things for the three lower prestige classes). If you're a Jedi, you go for Jedi Knight, a Sith, Sith Apprentice, another Force tradtion, Force Adept. When you make one of these three classes, you get access to Force techniques such as the ability to regain Force points (yes, you have to get them back), force power mastery (allows you take 10 on one Force power, and various improvements on Jedi abilities (improved force trance, move light object, sense force, sense surroundings, and telepathy).
Each prestige class has additional talent trees and alternates between a talent and a Force technique for the lower level Force user prestige
class. To qualify for Jedi Master, Sith Lord, and Force disciple, you need to have learned at least one Force technique and be 12th level plus different requirements for each level. Each one of these high level prestige classes, gives you a force secret 4 out of 5 levels. These abilities magnify force powers: devastating power (damage dice increased by 50%), distant power (range is multiplied by 10), multitarget (allows one additional target for force point 1/four levels for destiny point), quicken power (speeds up the power), and shaped power (you can change the area effect of a power or how it is used on an attack).
The last thing of note is destiny. Your character may or may not have a destiny to start the game. You can come up with something at the start of the game, or the GM can come up with a secret destiny (I kind of like that one). You get a destiny point at 1st level and one every level. If you don't choose a destiny, then you can't use destiny points, and yes, some of the force secrets at their higher level require destiny points. Examples listed: Padme is to give birth to the twins, Anakin is to bring balance to the force, Leia is to save the Rebellion from annihilation by the Empire, Luke to redeem Darth Vader, Palpatine to corrupt Anakin. Once you fulfill your destiny, you can get another one. If you are a force sensitive and you die fulfilling your destiny, you can become a Force spirit--Obi Wan's death at Darth Vader's hands is an example. They list several sample destinies with the bonuses you get, penalties you get (for going away from it), and what you get for fulfilling your destiny (bonuses and penalties only last for 24 hours and are given if you do something towards or against your destiny).
Feats are changed somewhat with them being awarded every other level by class (non-prestige) as well as the standard feats at 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 18th (once you take levels in prestige classes you no longer get bonus feats only for base classes). You still have the shooting feats and melee feats. They got rid of starship operation and added vehicular combat (yep if you have Pilot or Force pilot talent you can fly anything), skill focus is a +5 instead of +3 and a must for the skill you use the most. They've added a few other feats, but the coolest ones I saw were acrobatic strike which gives you a +1 if you tumble past an opponent, and dual weapon mastery (I, II, III) at III you have no penalty with two weapons. Also, the weapon proficiency groups have changed: advanced melee weapons (includes vibro blades), heavy weapons (includes starship/vehicular weapons), lightsabers (yep no longer exotic weapons proficiency for each type of lightsaber you can use them all including the nifty double bladed one that Darth Maul has), pistols, rifles, simple weapons, and exotic weapon by individual weapon (bowcaster, flamethrower,atlatl, amphistaff, and cesta,).
Also, you can custom make droid characters. The book lists one type of each droid class and shows you how to build a droid from scratch.
The game also lists the same base species from the old book, includes a galactic gazetter (the planets of each species plus Coruscant, Nar Shaddaa, and Tatooine), Gm chapter, info on the three base eras of play with the main characters from the two trilogies (Han, Leia, Luke, Darth Vader, Obi-wan, Padme, Chewbacca, Lando, Yoda, Palpatine, C3PO, R2D2, Boba Fett, and General Grievous)
Lastly, I haven't read it because frankly using those little hex things bores the ever loving crap out of me, but the combat system is compatible with the miniatures game, and the miniatures are really cool if you are interested in that sort of thing. Me, I like to describe what my character is doing and be freeform, but if you like to use a square mini map, then you'll be drooling here. Character movements are listed in spaces, but I'm sure you can convert that to feet or meters (just use the old system measurements of 10m for medium size).
The game is pretty cool. It looks like it was made with the pure roleplayer and wargamer in mind. If you don't like the wargaming aspect, you can flat out ignore it, and I suppose if you just want to wargame it, you can ignore the whole destiny aspect. I think the game is well done, and it is definitely a cinematic style game with more added feats and attribute increases.
Overall, I'd rate it 3 1/2 stars out of 4. They left out the star map, didn't have enough starships (only x-wings, y-wings, tie fighter, tie interceptor, 4 clone wars era fighters, YT 1300 transport, Corellian corvette, and Imperial I Star Destroyer), didn't have enough of the signature characters. Oh, and if you aren't a new game the intro can be skipped (gosh 2 pages out of that would have gotten us the star map). I've heard they plan on supplements so no doubt we'll see more characters and ships in those, but they should have left in the star map as it is something that I referenced all the time (Fortunately, I have it in the old book and in one of my Star Wars reference books).
For those not reading the cut, I liked the game and if you like Star Wars and roleplaying you should get it.
For those who are curious, the system is very different. First of all, you have twice as many attribute increases for 20 levels (10 instead of 5). Every other level in each basic class you get a bonus feat from a fairly broad list. The base classes are Jedi, Scout, Noble, Scoundrel, and Soldier. They got rid of fringer and tech specialist and made force adept a prestige class. At first level you get a talent and you get a talent every odd level in the base classes.
Since there are different talent trees, you have quite a large variety and could make up a different character every time even taking the same class.
Prestige classes: Bounty Hunter, Ace Pilot, Crime Lord, Elite trooper, Officer, and Gunslinger for non-force classes; Force Adept, Force Disciple, Jedi Knight, Jedi Master, Sith Apprentice, and Sith Lord for the force classes.
For those who are curious--gunslinger is new (somewhat like the sharpshooter class from the last edition's Hero's Guide) and ace pilot is a re-vamping of starship ace.
The talent tree is very similar to the talent trees in D20 modern, but they aren't the same talents or anything just the concept is the same. As an example, for Scoundrel class, you have four trees--fortune, misfortune, slicer, and spacer talents. In the old game, you'd play a soldier to get to starship ace, but in this game you play a scoundrel to access the spacer tree as the soldier tree is mostly for gun bunnies or tacticians.
Skills are different as well. You start off with a limited number of skills you can get. At first level you get anywhere from 2 (for Jedi) to 6 (for nobles)+ your int bonus (remains the same from previous edition so an 18 gives you a +4). You have a list based on your class (and yes all the lists are different) with scout getting 12 skills out of 19 to choose (unless the character has force sensitive which would give 13 to choose from). If you multiclass, you get the skills from that class to choose from as well. However, you must select all your skills at first level, so how do you get a new skill. Two ways--one you raise your int by two to get an additional plus one and you can select a new skill, or you take the feat skill training which allows you to train any skill on your class(es) list. So if I'm a solider with an int of 12 I'd get to select 3+Int (1)=4 skills to train.
Training gives you the ability to always use the skill (mechanics cannot be used untrained while all other skills can be used untrained up to a certain level). Skill training gives you a +5. To get your skill rank you add 1/2 heroic level (not class level)+5+ability modifier+skill emphasis or species bonus if you have it.
Defensive bonuses are different as well. You basically take the highest bonus out of all your classes. You add the highest bonus+10+heroic level+ability mod (+size or natural armor or regular armor for reflex) and (+equipment bonus for fortitude).
Hit points are a little different, you get more hit points at first level ranging from 18 (nobles/scoundrels) to 30 (Jedi/soldiers)+con modifier, then you roll a die+con modifier for each level afterwards.
There's a condition track that you use if you incur a debilitating attack such as a stun grenade, forced march, venom, disease, or extreme temperatures. I haven't studied this part of the book too much, but it seems to replace the old Wound points and there are no points to it, you have a track with 6 levels (reminiscent of WW old injury penalties in LARP).
Now the Force is different in this book as are Force points. If you want to be a Force user, you take Force Sensitive as a feat. If you want to gain any Force Powers, you take Force training which allows you to select 1+wis modifier number of penalties. You can take the Force training feat multiple times, so that if you want you can eventually get all the powers with a high enough wisdom. And if you raise your wisdom you automatically get +1 ability per force training feat for every 2 points put into wisdom (unless you have an odd wisdom to start then it would be 1 point).
The Force powers include farseeing, force grip (the choking thing which isn't considered a dark side power), move object, several different force powers that cause stun or injury, battle strike (gives you one really powerful attack), dark rage (dark side), force lightning (dark side), mind trick, negate injury (causes one energy attack to not effect you if you make a check equal to the damage), rebuke (deflects/absorbs one force power), sever force (keeps someone from using force points and makes force powers difficult to use), surge (jumping and speed), and vital transfer (heal another person).
If that hasn't confused you, no matter whether you want to play light or dark side, you have to start off as a base Jedi (if you want more cool force related talents you do, but if you want to get talents from other classes, you don't have to start off as a Jedi). As a Jedi, you can pick off the jedi consular talent tree, jedi guardian tree, jedi sentinel tree, lightsaber combat tree, or one of the four force talent trees (alter, control, dark side, and sense) that anyone with Force sensitive may choose regardless of class (yes if you play a non-Jedi class you can choose off of these trees for you talent when you get that option). If you are a member of the Jensaarai or a witch of Dahomir you can choose from their talent trees as well.
Now if you are playing a force user, you will want to go for a prestige class (all require a 7th level plus variations of other things for the three lower prestige classes). If you're a Jedi, you go for Jedi Knight, a Sith, Sith Apprentice, another Force tradtion, Force Adept. When you make one of these three classes, you get access to Force techniques such as the ability to regain Force points (yes, you have to get them back), force power mastery (allows you take 10 on one Force power, and various improvements on Jedi abilities (improved force trance, move light object, sense force, sense surroundings, and telepathy).
Each prestige class has additional talent trees and alternates between a talent and a Force technique for the lower level Force user prestige
class. To qualify for Jedi Master, Sith Lord, and Force disciple, you need to have learned at least one Force technique and be 12th level plus different requirements for each level. Each one of these high level prestige classes, gives you a force secret 4 out of 5 levels. These abilities magnify force powers: devastating power (damage dice increased by 50%), distant power (range is multiplied by 10), multitarget (allows one additional target for force point 1/four levels for destiny point), quicken power (speeds up the power), and shaped power (you can change the area effect of a power or how it is used on an attack).
The last thing of note is destiny. Your character may or may not have a destiny to start the game. You can come up with something at the start of the game, or the GM can come up with a secret destiny (I kind of like that one). You get a destiny point at 1st level and one every level. If you don't choose a destiny, then you can't use destiny points, and yes, some of the force secrets at their higher level require destiny points. Examples listed: Padme is to give birth to the twins, Anakin is to bring balance to the force, Leia is to save the Rebellion from annihilation by the Empire, Luke to redeem Darth Vader, Palpatine to corrupt Anakin. Once you fulfill your destiny, you can get another one. If you are a force sensitive and you die fulfilling your destiny, you can become a Force spirit--Obi Wan's death at Darth Vader's hands is an example. They list several sample destinies with the bonuses you get, penalties you get (for going away from it), and what you get for fulfilling your destiny (bonuses and penalties only last for 24 hours and are given if you do something towards or against your destiny).
Feats are changed somewhat with them being awarded every other level by class (non-prestige) as well as the standard feats at 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 18th (once you take levels in prestige classes you no longer get bonus feats only for base classes). You still have the shooting feats and melee feats. They got rid of starship operation and added vehicular combat (yep if you have Pilot or Force pilot talent you can fly anything), skill focus is a +5 instead of +3 and a must for the skill you use the most. They've added a few other feats, but the coolest ones I saw were acrobatic strike which gives you a +1 if you tumble past an opponent, and dual weapon mastery (I, II, III) at III you have no penalty with two weapons. Also, the weapon proficiency groups have changed: advanced melee weapons (includes vibro blades), heavy weapons (includes starship/vehicular weapons), lightsabers (yep no longer exotic weapons proficiency for each type of lightsaber you can use them all including the nifty double bladed one that Darth Maul has), pistols, rifles, simple weapons, and exotic weapon by individual weapon (bowcaster, flamethrower,atlatl, amphistaff, and cesta,).
Also, you can custom make droid characters. The book lists one type of each droid class and shows you how to build a droid from scratch.
The game also lists the same base species from the old book, includes a galactic gazetter (the planets of each species plus Coruscant, Nar Shaddaa, and Tatooine), Gm chapter, info on the three base eras of play with the main characters from the two trilogies (Han, Leia, Luke, Darth Vader, Obi-wan, Padme, Chewbacca, Lando, Yoda, Palpatine, C3PO, R2D2, Boba Fett, and General Grievous)
Lastly, I haven't read it because frankly using those little hex things bores the ever loving crap out of me, but the combat system is compatible with the miniatures game, and the miniatures are really cool if you are interested in that sort of thing. Me, I like to describe what my character is doing and be freeform, but if you like to use a square mini map, then you'll be drooling here. Character movements are listed in spaces, but I'm sure you can convert that to feet or meters (just use the old system measurements of 10m for medium size).
The game is pretty cool. It looks like it was made with the pure roleplayer and wargamer in mind. If you don't like the wargaming aspect, you can flat out ignore it, and I suppose if you just want to wargame it, you can ignore the whole destiny aspect. I think the game is well done, and it is definitely a cinematic style game with more added feats and attribute increases.
Overall, I'd rate it 3 1/2 stars out of 4. They left out the star map, didn't have enough starships (only x-wings, y-wings, tie fighter, tie interceptor, 4 clone wars era fighters, YT 1300 transport, Corellian corvette, and Imperial I Star Destroyer), didn't have enough of the signature characters. Oh, and if you aren't a new game the intro can be skipped (gosh 2 pages out of that would have gotten us the star map). I've heard they plan on supplements so no doubt we'll see more characters and ships in those, but they should have left in the star map as it is something that I referenced all the time (Fortunately, I have it in the old book and in one of my Star Wars reference books).
For those not reading the cut, I liked the game and if you like Star Wars and roleplaying you should get it.