The Gaming Den

I've skimmed through a few of Star Wars TTRPGs, especially but not exclusively the crappy d20 version and its crappy descendent, and I'm underwhelmed. The games keep getting a few basic things wrong.

1.) The vehicles. The vehicle design in Star Wars has been one of its strongest assets. If you were going to make a top 10 list of the most famous vehicles in fiction half of the list would be made of Star Wars and they'd probably occupy all of the top three slots, too -- Star Destroyer, Death Star, Millennium Falcon. Hell, the only reason why AT-STs and TIE Fighters don't occupy slots 4 and 5 would be because people would feel guilty. This is the goddamn money shot of the game and the game designers treat it as an afterthought.

2.) Party design. No Star Wars TTRPG I've seen really has a good idea of what an ideal or even a representative team would look like. You basically have Han Solo-clone, Jedi, and droid and then people basically run out of ideas. If people can't mine the canon works for a good idea of a party then the game should make their own classes. I don't care if your particular Star Wars game decides to use riggers, monster trainers, and squad officers as the standard archetypes, but they should be there and the game should be clear about it.

3.) Scenario design. The Star Wars movies and games posits plot arcs in which the protagonists can affect big changes in the universe by their personal actions and without being superpowerful. That's extraordinarily helpful for a TTRPG and is again one of the settings' biggest selling points. The idea that Solo + Kenobi + Skywalker + R2D2 + Chewie + C3P0 can infiltrate the biggest, baddest ship in the empire, rescue the most dangerous prisoner in the galaxy, and then lead a strike force against it sounds quite doable but it's... really difficult to do right. You don't want people to walk into a TPK, you also don't want things to feel like a level treadmill after they show up for the next game, but you don't wan't to have your players fight rats for several levels before you allow them to infiltrate the Death Star. Hell, I don't have a satisfactory answer for this trichotomy. But it needs to be front and center.

The issue with role protection is very tricky. Luke, with less XP than Han, has better BAB, can wiled better weapons, and, with zero experience piloting vehicles in freefall, manages to score a hit that, according to Han, was a lot less likely than a natural 20. All that, plus at-will Telekinesis, Tremorsight, and Charm Person. That's like, Super Saiyan Quadratic Level 3.

Seems like the best bet would be to let people swap characters all they want, Ars Magica style, so everyone has a Jedi character, who has to spend 99% of their time meditating in order to improve.

Star Wars Saga played to the limit of optimization is an incredibly fun game. It is without doubt the most enjoyable Star Wars RPG experience I've been able to have in any SWRPG game I've tried. It accidentally solves most problems that the base game has. Role protection is accomplished by their being very few builds that could be considered high powered and they all require abusing very specific avenues of the game space in order to break it. The high power builds I can think of are:

Iron Man Bounty Hunter: A Straight Soldier build who focuses his combat build on being able to use armor very effectively and get as many shots per round as possible and his out of combat build on being really good with mechanics and computers. He then gets a Combat Implant from the KOTOR book which eliminates weapon non-proficiency penalties and then starts modifying his gear like CRAZY with the Scum and Villainy rules. By the mid levels this character can fly, go invisible, make holograms, shoot rockets out of his arms half a dozen times a round, take on spaceships IN SPACE, and have a dozen weapons for specific situations loaded into his personally modified Heavy Armor suit.
Deadeye Bounty Hunter: The game uses a condition track that bypasses hitpoints entirely and KO's a creature if you move them down the entire thing. SAGA's version of the Rogue is a bounty hunter who stacks abilities that let him drop something from full to KO in a single deadly shot. With setup he can alpha strike 2 or 3 enemies no matter how tough to death. He's great against named enemies but suffers against groups.
Melee Robot/Jedi: There are a couple very powerful melee builds in the game. Either becoming a Giant robot with huge punchfists and nigh invulnerable armor or a lightsaber Jedi who gets so many attacks he can blend enemies up to and including vehicles. Both are fun and powerful for the guy or gal in your group that likes Barbarians.
Force God Jedi: There are some fairly abuseable force powers in the game. I'm the least familiar with this track but it's the most popular way to build powerful characters in SAGA because Jedi's are "broken". That's bullshit of course, their power ceiling is no higher than several other broken builds but it's easier to see ways that you can just spam save-or-lose powers and win combats that way than figuring out how to make an immortal droid, speaking of which
Immortal Everyman Droid: Awesome character. You can make droids immortal if they invest in the right upgrades and options. The player can play as shells of the one true droid which you can hide off in deep space where no one will ever find it. Basically you're a lich, so beating you only slows you down. These options also mesh well with the Droid options that allow you to reprogram yourself if you get good enough with computers (so do that) which allows you to change your classes and feats virtually at will. So this droid is unkillable but it is also able to be almost any other character it wants to be if given a little notice. This character is the Batman Wizard of SAGA, able to do anything if it knows about it far enough in advance.
Millionaire Crafter: The last build is the simplest, gear is power in the Saga game and you can make characters that are naturally rich and can make incredible gear of whatever type they desire. The crafter character itself won't feel that powerful but having just one in a SAGA party increases every characters effectiveness by about 30-40% across the board.

Those are all incredibly fun builds I've seen and those were from just a couple games. If you start up a Saga game with every rulebook allowed and nothing banned you will absolutely have a great time. It is an incredibly fun ruleset.

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, while full of problems, is a fairly decent game.

Dean wrote:The high power builds I can think of are:

There is the Body-Snatcher build missing...

Korwin wrote: I am Immortal from Lvl. 3 on (would be possible from Lvl. 1 on, if you really wanted it)
Race: Something with + to Cha and/or Wis (like an Yakura)
Essential Skills: Use the Force
Level by level (talents and Force techniques are in italics, feats are in bold), Base Attack Bonus is underscored

1. Soldier 1 - Armored Defense, Soldier Starting Feats, Force Sensitive, 1
2. Soldier 2 - Skill Focus Use the Force, 2
3. Jedi 1 - Transfer Essence Lightsaber Proficiency, Force Training, 3
4. Soldier 3 - Improved Armored Defense, 4
5. Soldier 4 - Brink of Death, 5
6. Soldier 5 - Juggernaught, Unstoppable Force, 6
7. Soldier 6 - Heavy Armor Prof., 7
8. Sith Apprentice 1 - Sith Alchemy**, 8
9. Sith Apprentice 2 - Force Point Recovery 1, Grand Army of the Rebublic Training*, 9
10. Sith Apprentice 3 - Cause Mutation, 10
11. Sith Apprentice 4 - Improved Dark Rage, 11
12. Sith Apprentice 5 - Sith Alchemy Specialist, Force Training, 12
13. Sith Lord 1 - Folded Space Mastery, Fearles, Temtation, 13
14. Sith Lord 2 - Force Secret 14
15. Sith Lord 3 - Force Secret, Dark Healing, Force Training 15
16. Sith Lord 4 - Force Secret, 16
17. Sith Lord 5 - Force Secret, Impr. Dark Healing, 17
18. Sith Apprentice 6 - Impr. Sense Surroundings, Force Regimen Mastery, 18
19. Sith Apprentice 7 - Dark Healing Field, 19
20. Sith Apprentice 8 - Language Absorption, 20

* Did his time in the Army in the Body of an Clone-Trooper (was hiding in the open).
** Sith Alchemy is now an new Talent-Tree by itself

I dont understand the complain. Both the new Edge of Empire and the old WEG Star Wars are pretty decent games. Eeven SAGA is not that bad either.

Compare that to all Shadowrun editions and you ll see Star Wars is pretty wel served rules-wise.

Sakuya Izayoi wrote:The issue with role protection is very tricky. Luke, with less XP than Han, has better BAB, can wiled better weapons, and, with zero experience piloting vehicles in freefall, manages to score a hit that, according to Han, was a lot less likely than a natural 20. All that, plus at-will Telekinesis, Tremorsight, and Charm Person. That's like, Super Saiyan Quadratic Level 3.

I think you have to ignore the source's blatant character favoritism when you're creating a team-based RPG. PC Jedi should get to start at apprentice-level with much less impressive/reliable abilities, and mundanes should get to rise to Jango Fett competence where they really are competitive with full Jedi.

Star Wars Saga Edition has the scenario design problem pretty much nailed. Stormtroopers are CR1 baddies, they are the giant rats you chew through at low levels. Role diversity works out pretty well, too, as has already been mentioned.

Dunno exactly what you want from a vehicle section. Saga Edition has vehicle rules, they work as well as the rest of the game, and everyone gets to participate in them, but I can't really be sure if they meet your standards unless I know what those standards are.

I'm curious as to which TTRPGs don't treat vehicle rules as an afterthought.

Edge of the Empire tries to give everyone at the table something to do during starship/vehicle combat.

Concise Locket wrote:I'm curious as to which TTRPGs don't treat vehicle rules as an afterthought.

Edge of the Empire tries to give everyone at the table something to do during starship/vehicle combat.

...And fails miserably.

Hey let's make the jump to lightspeed! Great idea since you're a pilot and you dumped XP into the ability that reduces the time to get jump coordinates from the Navicomputer by 50%! That's awesome! So how long does it take?

You've got me. It's not in the core book. There's all kinds of missing shit like that.

EOTE is a *boring* game.

Dean wrote:
Immortal Everyman Droid: Awesome character. You can make droids immortal if they invest in the right upgrades and options. The player can play as shells of the one true droid which you can hide off in deep space where no one will ever find it. Basically you're a lich, so beating you only slows you down. These options also mesh well with the Droid options that allow you to reprogram yourself if you get good enough with computers (so do that) which allows you to change your classes and feats virtually at will. So this droid is unkillable but it is also able to be almost any other character it wants to be if given a little notice. This character is the Batman Wizard of SAGA, able to do anything if it knows about it far enough in advance.

This is supported in cannon too. It's explicitly ig88s goal and tactic.

Any chance you can post some level by level build break downs? I'd enjoy seein them, the only one I ever used/saw was the condition track auto drop guy.

Op- this is the best Star Wars rpg you will see. It's not awesome, but how many RPGs are? The vehicle rules are in fact tacked on, but with enough splats you can at least fiddle with a bunch of neat gear stuff to be entertained.

Edit*My bad, fixed

Dammit I thought quotes breaking the forums was fixed.

Concise Locket wrote:I'm curious as to which TTRPGs don't treat vehicle rules as an afterthought.

Edge of the Empire tries to give everyone at the table something to do during starship/vehicle combat.

Car Lesbians.

Their vehicle rules are incredibly sparse, but it's the core of the game (along with making out with hot women).

Concise Locket wrote:I'm curious as to which TTRPGs don't treat vehicle rules as an afterthought.

R-r-. Goddammit, I can't say it. Ri-

Rifts. Well, really Robotech came first Mega Damage and all, but Rifts qualifies I suppose.

Fuck. I feel dirty. The rules are horrible but you have to give credit that vehicles do not feel tacked on. Hell, with hit locations for people, and people having Structural Damage Capacity it feels like the non-vehicle rules are the afterthought. Vehicle rules are quite sparse, but given the rest of the system that's a bonus.



More seriously. Battlestations?
It's almost so much vehicle stuff that people might not consider it a RPG. But it is. You build characters, you level up, you get new equipment.

Your only vehicles are spaceships (and boarding missiles I guess), but that's like half the ruleset.

Heavy Gear and its variants integrate the vehicle rules, but it's a giant-robot-pilot game at core. I assume Mekton and variants are similar in that regard.

An RPG with vehicle rules that don't seem "tacked on"?

Would an RPG where sometimes, the most practical way to defeat the battleship with the resources provided is to fly fighter jets at it, then leap out of the jets at the last possible moment to slash the battlecruiser to bits with powerful swords as the jets explode from anti-aircraft fire behind them count?

Yeah, I think I might not be quite addressing the question, but not being tacked-on is really just a matter of having vehicles interact with the main game engine, so basically anything other than Shadowrun chase rules.

Spycraft has the best chase/pursuit rules I've ever seen in an RPG. There is a metric fuckton of issues with it, but for any D20 system I'd rip that sub-game out completely and use it. I used it more or less in tact in D20 star wars and it worked pretty well and kept the game enjoyable.

It just doesn't handle furball fights with like half a dozen fighters mixing it up. I don't know of any RPG rule set that would cover that without becoming a mind-numbing exercise in tedium.

Brikwars!

Really? Half a dozen? Pshaw. Half a dozen doesn't have to be a problem at all. Once it gets up to a full dozen though you might need to be a bit more careless with your ruler though.

Krusk wrote:Any chance you can post some level by level build break downs? I'd enjoy seein them, the only one I ever used/saw was the condition track auto drop guy.

Yeah totally. Do you just want the Immortal Droid or everybody? The ones I remember well are the Immortal Droid, Iron Man, The Crafter, and the Punch Robot. I'll list how to do them but they aren't really level by level builds. The droid for instance makes a mockery of normal builds by just saying that it can totally rewrite every skill, talent or feat it's ever picked at will. It can be a combat specced character in the field, a crafter at home, an ace pilot out in the black, and the party diplomancer in negotiations.

I can totally provide a how-to guide on making any of those characters they just won't be a normal level by level guide because they just don't work that way.

I'd say more is better honestly. I guess something a little more specific is helpful, just to help give an idea of how to do it would be nice.

I think the WEG star wars system was fairly good for vehicle rules. It had a problem instead where the pilot played his own minigame, but that's at least true to the source material.

Yeah, please give us all of them, Dean.

The Immortal Everyman Droid: This character exists entirely because of rules in the droid equipment sections, his class abilities are inconsequential. The only thing that is important in his actual build is that you make sure his Use Computer score is nice and high. Because according to page 188 of the main rulebook "A droids trained skills, feats, and talents can be reassigned with the Use Computer skill". All you need to do is be able to beat your own will save with a Use Computer check and you can rewrite your character sheet given a half an hour. The one thing you can't alter is your actual class choice, so pick something broad. Luckily there's only 4 classes so they each cover a lot of play space. Scoundrel in particular can give a lot of different builds.
The important upgrades are a remote processor, a remote reciever, a remote reciever signal booster, a backup processor, and a hidden core. This means that your droid character can be adventuring anywhere in a 6000 mile radius of their hidden core which can be another little droid of its own. Because by the Scum and Villainy rules you can droidify any object. Your droids hidden core mini-droid can be invisible, in a hologram, underwater, and mobile. With that kind of radius your core could be in Japan while you are in New York. The space you could operate in would make finding your droid phylactery totally impossible. If it was found and destroyed it would reboot in 1d6 days because of the hidden core unless the destroyer found it and said the words "I am searching for a hidden core" and then rolled a great perception check.
The important upgrades for adventuring are a SR 15 Shield Generator with a Shield Expansion module, a Holoshroud, Stealth Field Generator, a Silence Bubble, and a Jetpack. This gives you a vehicle grade shield which you can share with a buddy, the power to rock stealth encounters, and fly.
So you've got a set of basic capabilities that are pretty utilitarian and then you can customize your every feat and talent to handle whatever scenarios you think are coming up. Take space combat feats to handle ship combat until you get planetside then change up your feats to become a combat character. Whatever you want.

EDIT: One note, make sure to say your Droid is made by the Barrowan Arms manufacturer. This gives you +1 to one ability score for no reason.

I'll do Iron Man next.

Iron Man: The Iron Man character runs off of the Scum and Villainy gear modification rules and some ingenuity. His build is simple, he's a Soldier with a one level dip in Scout. He should take heavy armor talents and keep his mechanics skill high because that's what you use to interact with the gear modification rules which can let you upgrade your weapons and armor using upgrade slots gear naturally has. Weapons normally only get one upgrade slot but you can get more by making the weapon larger or by making it an exotic weapon requiring a proficiency all its own. Making the weapon larger is usually a bum deal and making it exotic would be even worse if it weren't for one piece of equipment in the KOTOR rulebook called the Combat Implant. The Combat Implant costs just a few grand and it makes your character never suffer negatives for non weapon proficiency. This means the Iron Man character staples a chip into his brain and then joyously jumps into weapon modifications by making everything exotic and doubling the resources the system thinks he should be able to invest. Also in the Kotor book are Gear templates which are a weapon modifiers dream. For instance the Rakatan template which gives a weapon +1 to hit and upgrades the weapon's damage die by one step with the drawback of the weapon becoming exotic. Adding these weapon templates on top of weapon modifications onto specifically chosen weapons will allow Iron Man to deal a level of damage that makes him competitive with Starfighters in Saga. For instance a pair of miniaturized Rakatan Missile Launchers installed in the forearms of his armor can let him make 3 extremely accurate missile attacks a turn for 6d8+3 damage apiece, each in a 10ft radius, or he could fire a single shoulder mounted homing Rakatan Proton Torpedo launcher for 12d12+3 which even on poor rolls could still wipe out a Tie Fighter in one hit.

You may have noticed that Iron Man only uses AOE weapons, and that is because in Saga AOE weapons are the bomb. All you have to do is hit the AC 10 ground and everyone in the area is hit unless they are scouts and took evasion, and most people aren't scouts.

For defense the Iron Man character is going to get in a suit of Heavy armor, Katarn armor is good, and build it out of Stygian Triprismatic Polymer (a gear template) making his armor give him a +12 to AC which puts him beyond the hittable range of almost everyone. He'll also be sure to dip one level in scout to solve that AOE problem we just mentioned. After that he's going to put an internal shield generator in his armor, and then add two KOTOR energy shields integrated into his suit which provide better protection but are limited use. By integrating lots of defensive gear into your armor through the Scum and Villainy rules you make it so that you never have to worry about what's in your hands or drawing or sheathing equipment. It's all available all the time. The characters AC should be in the high 20's by level 6 with a SR 10 shield and two backup SR 15-20 shields in his suit if things get ugly.
Finally, for utility the character should integrate into his armor a jetpack, a stealth field generator (a stealth booster), shadowskin modifications (stealth booster), a sound spounge (stealth booster), and a holographic projector. Then wear a "thinsuit", which is a second set of armor expressly talked about as being able to be worn under other armor and still function. The thinsuit normally gives you protection from extreme heat and cold but you will put a gear template on it that makes it give you DR 2 against energy attacks which makes your character even tougher and, combined with your jetpack, makes your character completely capable of surviving and even fighting in empty space.

All in all this character can take on legions. It is virtually invulnerable to any weaponry below starship grade and it can kill whole squads of men every round. He can take on spaceships in space and even compete with cruisers and heavy vehicles thanks to his small space and high AC though a couple lucky shots would snuff him. He can become almost totally undetectable thanks to his armors stealth buffing qualities pushing him totally off the RNG and should a situation require a very specific mode of attack he can spend a few days and a few mechanics checks changing the weapons and gear in his armor to reflect that missions needs.

The Iron Man character turns flipping through the Saga rulebooks into a whole new minigame. He has a certain number of gear slots available and you need to find the best dozen things to put in them at any one time. Combining that with his ability to add gear onto other gear or use gear templates to change gear's basic abilities means that puzzling through the equipment sections for what new inventions you could make is both fun and thoroughly satisfying. Of all the characters I've ever played I found playing an Iron Man character in Saga some of the most fun I've ever had in an RPG. I can't recommend it highly enough.