SW Saga edition. What should I know?

[archangel.arcanis]

A friend of mine is talking about running a SAGA game. I've glanced over some of the info in the core book and it basically looks like 4e and d20M had a bastard child. I haven't had a chance to really get into the book and see what all is in there, so as the title says what should I know?

I'm thinking i'll play a jedi/sith but am not dead set on it, something else may prove more interesting or we may have a party of entirely jedi/sith. Are they somewhat balanced with the other classes or do they just run the game like channelers in Wheel of Time?

What about feats/PrCs/important rule differences/etc... what are the traps to avoid, what looks the same but really works different than 3.5 or 4e, what just doesn't function?

[McPoyo]

SAGA was a 4e playtest much the way Tome of Battle was, so technically d20M and SAGA had a bastard child with some genetic splicing to get 4e

As far as USEFUL advice, I can't really tell you. I haven't gotten to play it yet (tried three times!), so I guess I'd be looking for much the same advice as you.

edit: Though this thread may help some: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=826.0

[McPoyo]

Double-post, but: Make sure you check out the errata, it's important for some of the stuff. Jedi in SAGA aren't the power-whores they were in SWd20.

[Shadowhunter]

Also this.

Jedi/sith makes great tanks and are pretty powerful.
Force usage is almost brokenly good at lower levels (Force Lightning at level 1 for 8d6 damage and an automatic push down the Condition Track. It will give you a dark side point, but as a sith you won't care), but it does decrease in value the higher you go (but it never cease to be useful).

The standard for a Jedi I think is Jedi 7/Scout 1/Jedi Knight 9/Jedi Master 3.

Pick up Block and Deflect, the talents that improve these, Skill Focus: Use the Force and the level in scout is there for the survivalist tree talent Evasion.

Now we can deflect anything but burst fire (or ginormous missiles) which will do area damage. If that attack doesn't hit our regular Reflex Defense, we'll ignore the half damage we would normally take thanks to Evasion.

[Bozwevial]

Yeah, Force Lightning really should have had a scaling effect. Don't know what the designers were thinking.

[Echoes]

I really wish the designers had made skills scale properly. Due to defenses scaling based on level while skills scale based on 1/2 level, offensive force powers are terrible at high levels unless you go Jedi Master. Personally, I would house rule skills to scale based off of level like defenses, remove the +5 bonus for having a skill trained and make untrained checks take a -5 penalty. You can probably leave Skill Focus where it is, since skills don't get a class bonus while defenses do.

For those who don't know about the Jedi Master trick, the way it works is this: you go Scout 3/Something X/Jedi Master 1. Grab Fringe Savant and use Serenity to give yourself a natural 20 on your next UtF check. This gives you a free force point in addition to refreshing all of your powers. Wander around combat alternating Serenity -> your power of choice until you win. I'm partial to force stun, but force lightning is very effective as well.

You can take the Baran Do tradition ability that lets you use your Wis modifier in place of your Dexterity modifier for Reflex defense whenever you would be denied your Dexterity modifier to bypass the downside of using Serenity.

This also has the advantage of never needing to take a particular power more than once, cutting down on how many times you need to take Force Training.

[NecroticBanana]

A friend of mine is talking about running a SAGA game. I've glanced over some of the info in the core book and it basically looks like 4e and d20M had a bastard child.

Yea, an AWESOME bastard lol. It seems to be a bit of a high powered system, especially if you go about abusing some of the force rules. specifically force push, with a high enuf check you can move a gargantuan object inflicting ALOT of damage, my players were doing this to the villains, trying to justify that there check is high enuf to do said damage, and i said no, the med. creature deals damage as a med. creature. but it is still satysfing to throw an ancient Sith mummy off a cliff.

[LordBlades]

From what I've played, the only big balance problem with the system is skill focus: use the force not having a minimum level requirement.

Since many force powers rely on rolling above your opponent's defenses, being able to start with a modifier of 10+stat vs a defense of 10-12+stat is pretty much auto sucess.

As you level up, it alls pretty much falls in line with attacks, since skills progress with 1 every 2 lvls, while defenses raise every lvl.

[McPoyo]

High end force powers can get pretty hard to land unless you focus on it, for precisely that reason.

[archangel.arcanis]

well this is finally getting back going again. Friend thinks he will be able to start after Christmas and work slows down. I know he plans on setting the game during the Clone wars. It is looking like the other players all want to be Jedi so I'll probably avoid that. I'm pondering either a Clone Trooper with a big freaking gun and just blasting everything with a good ranged setup, though that leaves the inevitable Order 66 causing trouble if I can't justify why my character would ignore it and violate his programing. I'm also considering making a tank using a Gen'Dai (sp??) and going into the elite trooper PrC for some HP and decent DR (this would probably be a martial arts guy carrying some sort of huge ass mounted blaster if I can find one).

[McPoyo]

I vote to O66 them.

[archangel.arcanis]

I vote to O66 them.

Considering I'm by far the best COer in the group, i'm only decent at it personally but they are pretty bad at being effective, they wouldn't have a chance. Besides it would likely be non-conducive to game play if I slaughtered the party or just lacking fun if I got killed due to being out numbered and them being force users.

[McPoyo]

Psh, can't Deflect or Block explosives. You can pack a lot of thermal detonators in an airspeeder.

[archangel.arcanis]

Oh more than likely I would be playing a skilled and merciless bastard who would just kill them when he was on watch and they were asleep. Nothing says get up like a bed of grenades.

[archangel.arcanis]

after some discussion with one of the other players I'm actually leaning toward a team of jedi now. They wanted to play up the lack of jedi due to the war and give the GM something to do once he issues order 66. The group would then be fighting the whole clone army gorilla style.

That said I'm pretty sure I'll go gish style and use the force to make myself a better melee character rather than abuse some poorly written powers.

[McPoyo]

after some discussion with one of the other players I'm actually leaning toward a team of jedi now. They wanted to play up the lack of jedi due to the war and give the GM something to do once he issues order 66. The group would then be fighting the whole clone army gorilla style.

That said I'm pretty sure I'll go gish style and use the force to make myself a better melee character rather than abuse some poorly written powers.

Psh, go darkside and use Force Lightning every round for 8d6 every round

[bearchucks]

Assorted thoughts:
Condition Track is the way to victory.  So doing lots of damage and finding ways of doing other CT damage (Gunslinger, Bounty Hunter, Scoundrel) are quick ways to win.
Force Gish is the way to go for a Jedi beyond, say, eighth level.
Move Object is probably the most versatile power in the game.  You want it at least once.
At higher levels, Cloak (with the Improved Cloak force technique) + Phase lets you wallhax invisibly.
There aren't very many attack-boosting powers.  That's okay, because you can get feats and talents to make a 12th level Jedi-type (Soldier3/Jedi4/Elite Trooper1/Jedi Knight4) charge for +17 at 2d8+18 and if you beat their fort defense with the damage...they go down two steps on the track and lose their standard action.

As a Jedi, your reflex defense doesn't matter if you've got a lightsaber, block, and deflect (along with Shii-Cho and Soresu at higher levels).  So go ahead and charge.  Skill Training + Skill Focus: Use the Force with a decent charisma mod makes you pretty much able to keep up with attacks.  The aforementioned Jedi had a UTF of +18.

There's a Jedi Knight Force Technique called Force Point Recovery.  Take it ASAP.  (Sadly you can only take it once).  The more FP you can bring to bear, the more silly tricks you can pull, the more low dice rolls you can adjust for.

One last thought on Jedi: take your first level in something else.  Anything else.  Since first level determines largely what skills you'll have for the remainder of the game...

Above all...SAGA makes it hard to make a BAD character.  Yes, you can make excellent characters, but so long as you -try- to play a solid character, you can do it.

[McPoyo]

Related to Condition Track, if you use the stun rifle from Unknown Regions, iirc, by level 9ish you can take someone down 4-5 steps down the condition track every round by making one good shot.  Which, in damn near all the time, means they are down.

[archangel.arcanis]

Right now I'm looking at Scout 1/Jedi 7/Jedi Knight X

I'm figuring on getting evasion with scout and taking some recon based skills. With my first pick of force training cloak, phase, and battle strike. I was planning on going dex based and getting weapon finesse and using Ataru form once I get into Knight.

Also Dark Side isn't a viable option.

[LordBlades]

See if you can pick up many shades of the force talent from the Falanassi (I think) force tradition.

It lets you pick a [Dark Side] power and remove the descriptor from it.

Then pick Imp. Dark Rage and Force Point recovery Force Techniques once you hit Jedi Knight.

With this you can have +6 attack and damage every encounter.