New Star Wars RPG Core Rulebook Coming!

I love D6 Jedi they truly are Demi Gods, but now that we have seen the prequals we know that not every Jedi in the galaxy is capable of becoming all-powerful no matter how experienced they are.

I think the new system will work like this

You choose force sensitive
I think that maybe you will have to role a dice to get a character attribute score regarding the force (as you do for strength ect)
You now have ?Use Force?
If you have a bonus of say + 3 you can use this bonus for non trained powers
When you start training in the way of the jedi this is when you will able to learn skilled categorized under alter, sense & control (although you don?t need any feats to start learning them)

 

i think alter, sense and control might be covered as SQ's rather than feats now.

I don't think it said in that quote, but the only four base classes are Jedi, Scout, Noble and Soldier i believe.

But you'll still be able to play a level 5 rodian fringer, it just won't be a fringer 5, if u see what i mean.

Nobles are supposed to be awesome this time round too, and soldiers even more badass.

 

No Scoundrel?!

 

ooh scoundrel too! sorry, so yeah... five core classes

 

I was gonna say, they gotta have scoundrel. I don't imagine Padme being the same class as Han Solo.

 

They don't have to have "Scoundrel" (though that certainly fit within the context of the movie canon), but they could have a generic "Spacer" class.

So a Spacer would be a "fringer-in-space" and a Fringer would be a "fringer-on-land" differentiation...

 

Yeah, that's how I feel. I'm grateful that they're finally working on the RPG again, but my huge stack of SWRPG material has already had enough errata put to it. I don't want to see them make everything completely obsolete. Except for Starships of the Galaxy. That thing was obsolete the day it came out.

 

I think they will probably have a way to covert the old material. After all they are reprinting power of the jedi and the dark side source book, why do that, if they can't be used with the new game?

 

Money?

 

Some thoughts on classes:
1st ed D&D had 5 classes: Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, Thief, Bard. Bards had to have at least 15 in all ability scores, and had such weird rules that you almost never saw them except as NPCs. From there, there were sub-classes: Ranger, Paladin, Illusionist, Druid, Assassin.
2nd ed D&D improved things considerablly. The classes were now Warrior, Wizard, Priest, and Rogue, with subclasses as Paladin, Ranger, Specialist Mage (not just Illusionist, but also Evoker, Necromancer, Transmutator, Diviner, etc), Specialty Priest (War, Love, Music, Death, Art, or to specific Diety), Druid, and Bard as a Rogue subclass with much more workable requirements. From there, there were reference books for each class and subclass with "kits" which let you further tailor and refine your character concept. Some people didn't like these kits, but I did. They were optional.
3rd Ed D&D made some much-needed revisions and corrections, though they scrapped kits in favor of prestige classes. Subclasses were pretty much destroyed. Wizards could specialize or not. Clerics got minor benefits from choosing a specific diety (and the really annoying restrictions imposed by the 2nd ed system were removed). 3.5 D&D was really just correcting erratta and minor modifications to improve play balance and speed.
I expect 4th ed D&D to be coming out in the next year or so. Who knows what changes will be made to that.

Since 1st&2nd ed SW were using a completely different system, WotC has only had 1.5 versions of rules to work with. This will be only their 2nd full version, regardless of whether they call in 3.5, 3.75, or 4.0.
With that in mind, I'm sure that there will be a lot of people who love the changes, and a lot of people who hate them (mainly because, like me, they hate having to relearn all new rules). So, relax, and sit back. If you don't like the new system, continue to use the old one. I understand there are still people out there who refuse to change from the 1st ed D&D rules published in 1977.

 

Im split. I really don't see what needs to be fixed. Reprints for new players, yeah. But in all SWd20 works great. Dont get me wrong, an updated rulebook with errata a tweaks, episodes 1-3 would be cool. But if its a redo, and all my previous edition books are bunk, I'm gonna be pissed.

With all the hype about d20 4.0 around, I wonder if this new SWRPG is kinda a testing ground for it.

Unless they do something that would actually use (like a good character generator), I won't switch.

 

I wasn't sure what to think at first with Saga Edition. Words like "revamp" and "change" often lead to words like "purchase" and "obsolete". After doing a bit more reading however I think I've become convinced that the changes are a good thing. The class, VP/WP, skill, and Force revamps really sound like they are for the better. I'm also guessing that since it is still a d20 game it won't be terribly difficult to port most characters from RCR to SE.

Classes are the absolute basic type of person a character can be. Cutting the classes down makes a lot of sense. How often do you roll up a tech specialist to actually play? I just give a scoundrel a few more "techie" skills and feats and be done with it. The same goes for fringer and scout. I can see the fringer being rolled into the scoundrel and the scout rolled into the soldier. Apparently the Jedi classes are being lumped into a broader "Jedi" class which also makes sense. The specific role of a particular Jedi can be left to a prestige class.

The current VP/WP system is a little too unrelenting for heroic characters. Lightsaber battles don't last very long even between high level characters. This causes the GM to insert all sorts of little mishaps in a battle to stretch it out a bit more. Darth Maul and Qui Gon's battle in TPM would have been really boring had it used the current rules.

I also fully agree on the streamlining of skills and feats. This is for the same reason I like seeing base classes streamlined. Lots of skills are very closely related, it doesn't make sense that someone can spot something well but can't search to save their lives. A lot of times I'll simply bond related skills as a GM to make things go faster. A player shouldn't have to skirt around limitations in rules for their characters to be capable beings.

The Force revamp intrigues me. From how I've seen it described it looks like they might run it similarly to psionic powers in D&D. To manifest a power you have to declare what you want to use and then roll a concentration check and meet a few other conditions. I can see a "use the Force" skill working similarly. As long as you know how to do something with the force (powers/talents*) you can "use the Force" to manifest that particular power. Being able to dump points into a single skill means that force users can actually do things like pilot ships and find things lying in the grass. I hope the Force rules are moving in this direction, it will make more movie-like Jedi which flow much better in the game.

What I'm concerned about is RCR compatibility. I really don't want my collection of D20 SWRPG books to end up being entirely useless under the new rules. d20 is d20 so I'm sure conversions will be possible but I really don't look forward to another collection of SWRPG books. I've got more money invested into RPG books than I want to think about. Considering what happened with D&D (3E and 3.5E) I'm not holding out too much hope that WotC will go easy on my wallet.

* Talents in psionic-speak are level-0 powers. They're available to all psionics and cover the basics like minor telekinesis and simple one-way telepathy. If "use the Force" has the equivalent of talents then non-Jedi characters with force sensitivity would be able to perform actions other characters couldn't without needing any sort of real training.

 

The consolidation of the core classes makes me thingk of the d20 modern core classes. There are 6 of them(i think)and each of those classes is very flexable. You can have 2 character of the same class and same level having fairly different abilities, but they represent the same general type of person.

 

I think d20 Modern is going to be a big source of inspiration for SE. The OCR always struck me as D&D 3E minus alignment and a reword of magical abilities as feats and skills. The RCR was a big departure from that and more in line with d20 Modern. I'm hoping SE moves more towards d20 Modern as it is fairly streamlined. A problem that has always plagued Star Wars RPG games have been rules that prevent players from doing with their characters what characters in the movies did.

 

Skills crunching is another thing to look forward to. D&D 3.0->3.5 took things like "weather Sense" and "Direction Sense" and made it part of "Survival". There was a lot of hair-splitting that was removed, and it was good.

 

I think we could combine move object, force strike, and force grip into telekinesis (sp, or at least do something to that effect. I don't remember the ruling exactly, but don't you have to do a few skill checks simulate the force push and force grip effects we've scene in the movies.

 

which it should be

 

QFT.

 

There's benefits to both methods really. D20 Modern ad D&D use an HP system that tend to work out pretty well. Armor is defense based rather than DR based. SW's DR based armor works well for the WP/VP system but for the type of games the mythos might see I'm not entirely convinced WP/VP is the way to go. For all of its faults D&D's system works in an epic high-damage setting. I think a variant could work well for SW. Even though players might think I'm trying to kill them off, I don't want to see PCs not make it through an adventure. Having that process be a little easier from a GM's point of view makes the game a bit more attractive.

 

I wonder if the core classes are going to be 10 levels or 20?

 

or 40+?

 

why not

 

I believe that Rodney Thompson said that there will be 20 levels.