Sell Me On SAGA

[Captain_Bleach]

I have glanced at people's opinions on the Star Wars SAGA Edition around these threads, but there was no central thread about the game that I could find, so I decided to make one.
In my opinion, it seems like a very good system, except with a few problems:
1.) There are so many talents that duplicate each other's abilities or do the same thing, but better, that eventually, when players gain a new level, expect to hear "ANOTHER generic +1 bonus?"
2.) Force Lightning. Deals an unmodified 8d6 force damage, making it much more powerful than other Force Powers, such as Battle Strike. Dark Side my posterior, power-gamers don't care about "virtues of the Light Side" and all that jazz.
3.) The Noble's Inspire Confidence does exactly the same thing as Born Leader, except that Born Leader can be used once per encounter, and Inspire Confidence still works if the allies lose their line of sight to you.
4.) I like the Condition Track; it does away with "Save or Suck" and just cuts to "move this many steps along the Condition Track." I am thinking of importing this to D&D because I am getting so damn tired of "Save or Suck" spells which are usually restricted to the full casters.

[Manxome]

There was a prior thread on Saga back here. Don't know if that's helpful or not.

[Catharz]

Using a force power with intent to harm gives you a darkside point. Getting your wisdom in darkside points makes you an NPC.

So, you get to use Force Lightning maybe 15 times.

[Captain_Bleach]

As long as somebody makes more versatile talents that do not overlap, then I will be happy. At least the "Force" doesn't have Save-Or-Suck effects.

[IbanezNinja]

There are no save-or-suck unless you count Force Grip, which limits your opponent to a swift action each round if you beat their threshold. And depending on how high you trick out your use the force (fools luck from scoundrel, education destiny, a friend with skillful advisor) you could potentially take someone out in one fatal swoop with force stun.

[RandomCasualty]

Saga has some decent changes, and while a lot of those changes could improve D&D somewhat, it still has some pitfalls.

First, it still uses hit points and as such is a terrible futuristic game. This makes it poor to run Star Wars, which the system was designed for.

While the underlying concepts of Saga are kind of good (non-divergent saves, simpler skill system), the system itself is still unpolished, and lots of the talents simply suck as class abilities.

Overall Saga as a system is fairly nice, Star Wars Saga edition as a game is rather crappy though.

[PhoneLobster]

Back when 3.0 came out I gave it a big giant A++ for at least making an attempt at being its own little D&D revolution. It did a lot of things second edition bitches didn't want it to do that were good for the game.

Now Saga tries to pretend to be a revolution for d20 (again, what is that now, 3.5, modern, etc...). And it makes some changes, RC thinks they are good changes, me I'm not so taken.

But I think it comes down to what Frank was talking about recently to do with their new play testing/design methodology.

Saga is a system designed exclusively by means of knee jerk poorly implemented responses to complaints on the WOTC forums. You know the ones, "waah waah waah, rogues are too good, everyone should suck like a fighter, feats are too powerful, there aren't enough different non stackable +1's to my pitifully low saving throws that I can permanently invest character levels in"

And it IS successful in the design goal of reducing complaints because as a result it is just plain dull and no one cares about it.

Really, NO ONE. If it were in any way a notable d20 revolution in a good way then This old link I put in the crying thread a while a go wouldn't be DEAD TOWN.

Also note the caliber of suggestions coming from the people on that and related threads. The people who think SAGA is so good its ideas should be brought in to core include those who think it would be a quick and easy fix for spell casters to get 2 full levels of spell casting advancement at the cost of one talent that another character would spend on a +1 to Fort defence...

[Captain_Bleach]

So what if we spruced up the talents and found mechanics to implement the genre better than hit points? Would that make SAGA a good game, or would we need more?

[virgil]

Meh, I don't see why hit points are so horrible, especially since they tend to go up faster than damage output (making condition track damage more significant). As for talents being spruced up, you could have a bit of trouble actually creating a sufficiently large list for actual variance; as I believe that most of the +1 talents are extras for when you already took the major ones.

[Fuzzy_logic]

I've run a few sessions of SAGA recently. My play group was two 12 year olds, but it was still enlightening.

From a design perspective, it's nothing special. But it's off the shelf playability seems pretty good, and it does a decent job replicating the genre. I especially like the fact that combats resolve *really fast* -- though that may be a result of having 2 PCs.

It does have its flaws, but a lot of the complaints listed here seem like quibbles. Yes, many talents are a waste of time, but there are mroe good ones than you can take. Force Powers aren't as good as you think. Sure, Force Lightning deals 8d6 at level one -- but at level one, a 3d8 blaster rifle ought to one-shot any opponenets anyway.

BTW, Catharz -- you can buy off darkside points with force points, which means they're not that big a deal.

[RandomCasualty]

1186973447[/unixtime]]Meh, I don't see why hit points are so horrible, especially since they tend to go up faster than damage output (making condition track damage more significant).

Hit points work fine in fantasy settings where tougher beasts deal more damage. When you convert it to a modern setting, you go from "tougher beasts" to "bigger guns" and you arrive at a problem.

High tech settings generally have to make guns better than knives or swords by a large amount. So you're throwing huge amounts of damage at lower levels. This leads to a few problems:

-Hit points don't grow as fast as gun damage. Gaining a level and gaining 6 hp will probably help you soak another blow from a sword, but from a 3d8 blaster, it probably won't even make you care in the least.

-First, because guns are so much better than knives, you can't use a knife without sucking completely. This problem is slightly better in Star Wars, because they have upgraded melee weapons, but it absolutely cripples D20 modern.

-It forces people to just find a big gun and use it. This is contrary to almost all modern and sci-fi settings, including Star Wars, where the main characters use blaster pistols, in some cases, light blaster pistols, and not giant blaster rifles. This is because in the Star Wars universe, any blaster is enough to kill someone on a successful hit. Of course, in the SW game, when you're facing someone with a lot of hp, you want a gun that does more damage.

As for talents being spruced up, you could have a bit of trouble actually creating a sufficiently large list for actual variance; as I believe that most of the +1 talents are extras for when you already took the major ones.

Yeah, that whole "crap once you took the major ones" theory needs to go. That means that your high level abilities are worse than your low level ones. And that just... sucks.

[Fuzzy_logic]

1187029502[/unixtime]]

-Hit points don't grow as fast as gun damage. Gaining a level and gaining 6 hp will probably help you soak another blow from a sword, but from a 3d8 blaster, it probably won't even make you care in the least.

HP grow faster than damage. At level one, one or two blaster shots kills you. If you're gaining 6 HP per level, you're gaining HP faster than damage per shot increases. Thus, you can eventually survive three or four shots.

-First, because guns are so much better than knives, you can't use a knife without sucking completely. This problem is slightly better in Star Wars, because they have upgraded melee weapons, but it absolutely cripples D20 modern.

The Reason to use a knife in d20 modern isn't power; it's that carrying a knife is less likely to get you into trouble. Yeah, it still sucks. But there aren't many game systems in which using a dagger makes sense, so whatever.

-It forces people to just find a big gun and use it. This is contrary to almost all modern and sci-fi settings, including Star Wars, where the main characters use blaster pistols, in some cases, light blaster pistols, and not giant blaster rifles.

This is totally false. First off, Nobles and Scoundrels aren't proficient with big guns, and do just fine with 3d6 guns. Force Users, of course, use the Force or a lightsaber. Among combat specialists, the Gunslinger class exists specifically to give you a reason NOT to use big guns, which it does pretty well. Some of those talents are *nasty*.

Seriously, in your typical four-person group, probably one person uses a giant gun. Maybe two.

As for talents being spruced up, you could have a bit of trouble actually creating a sufficiently large list for actual variance; as I believe that most of the +1 talents are extras for when you already took the major ones.

Yeah, that whole "crap once you took the major ones" theory needs to go. That means that your high level abilities are worse than your low level ones. And that just... sucks. [/quote]

It seriously isn't an issue. With the exception of Scoundrel, every base class has a good number of talents you'll use. Remember, if there are three talents you want, that's five class levels. After that, you take another class for a few, then a PrC. I've done several 20-level builds without taking any of those +1 talents.

[Voss]

It struck me as good for mining, but pretty stupid as a system. The condition track (with some modifications) might be good for stealing. (at least for someone like me who hates the abstract-yet not nature of HP, with nothing like wound penalities).

The skill system is... odd. I can see how it can speed of NPC creation for the DM, but... eh. Training + Skill focus makes every other modifier pretty much irrelevant. Its almost an auto-pass, depending on how much the DM screws with the DCs on skill checks, and it also means you never have to actually care about skills.

The force thing. Yeah. Once again, I'm going to stamp a big 'FAIL' on this part of the system. Which is good in away, since I hate the concept beyond all reason or rational explanation. But consider, you've got a Jedi character, you want to do Force Stun.

At level 1, you've got training in the use the force skill, skill focus (UtF) {because you aren't an idiot} and, assuming the elite array, a 15 wis.
So your check at level one is at +12 (+5+5+2+0 (half level, round down))

Assume you are using it on a 1st level character with a 14 wis and a good will save. Your DC is 10+1 (level)+2 (good will save at 1st level) +2 (wisdom) = DC 15. You succeed on a fvcking 3. A first level character has a 90% chance of success against a fairly optimized defense. Furthermore, you push him further down the condition track for every 5 points you exceed the DC by. And other one for spending a force point. You can push him down to -5 (to checks/rolls/saves) by rolling an 8 and spending a force point.

Now, at 8th level, it looks like this:
Your check is +5+5+3 (wis increased) +4 (half level) = +17
You DC on our sample character is 10+2 (good will) + 2 (wis) +8 (level)
= DC 22. You now only succeed on a 5. After 8 levels, you are 10% worse at affecting a CR appropriate enemy.

At 20, its +5+5+5+10 = +25 vs
10+2+2+20 = DC 34.
Succeed on a 9. 30% worse than what you had a 1st level.
And that assumes the target never increases his wisdom or takes any feats or talents that increases his save AC.
Its even worse with force lightning, since there are a lot of feats that increase your reflex AC (each of the martial arts chain, for example).

What the hell kind of system is this? You get worse as you get better?
Unless there are a hell of a lot of bonuses hidden in the Jedi class and prestige classes, Jedi are the biggest losers in the galaxy. (They're definitely the unskilled labor of the galaxy, since they get the fewest trained skills, and one has to go to 'Use the Force'). And of course, the class isn't even viable without training in the skill and Skill Focus.

Feats are still terribly screwed up. Weapon focus (and others) give you a +1, while something like greater rage, takes the wookie rage bonus from +2/+2 to +5/+5!. Combine that with extra rage (and everyone has feats to burn in Saga), and you've got a dedicated combat monster in every fight.

But theres a lot of stuff that someone should have sat down and run the numbers on. Is an additional die of damage really equal to +5 to skill checks? To +1 to hit with a specific weapon? To a higher damage threshold? To weapon specialization? Power attack? Would some form of consistency killed anyone?

Thumbs down. Strip and modify the stray good ideas that must have wandered into the system by mistake or blind luck, because clearly those bloody monkeys took a break from writing Shakespeare.

[PhoneLobster]

Actually though you are right in that force powers that revolve around skill checks against defence scores DO get worse over time in theory due to rather divergent level based contribution to those numbers its not exactly as you paint it.

If a jedi really wants to be stun man he should be able to walk in with about +14/+15 at level one probably with a reroll and match that up against defence scores which will generally be lower or equal to that bonus (at level 1) They should average three steps on the condition track per use of the power.

Being a dark jedi they can pick up a force talent at what? Level 2 or 3 then that lets them stun again in the same round and now the condition track penalty should apply to defence and they should pretty much manage a guaranteed KO.

If they continue to invest everything and I mean pretty damn close to EVERYTHING in their offensive force powers they should actually be able to keep generally about the same sort of advantage against anyone who wasn't stupid enough to invest EVERYTHING likewise in very specific and generally otherwise useless Will defence. Because there are a lot of +1 this and that and rerolls or extra action, better force boost, longer range, free force points, etc... effects the jedi can pick up to fight against that extra +1/2 level defence scores are trying to lord over them.

It does mean the divergence is going to be all over the place and almost impossible to predict or comprehend, I mean you'll be all, king of level 1, less so at 2, kick ass at 3, weaker and weaker till 6 or 7 then bam, back on track with a new reroll or something, then drifting drifting... you get the idea...

So if you decide to build Julius Stunnington Taser the 3rd, dark jedi at large, you can forgo the fairly predictable world of "I take 2 to 8 boring vanilla attack actions to smash every enemy I ever meet" and instead enter a strange skill check twilight land of "Hello, you are unconcsious" which requires ever more convoluted background accounting and a larger number of rolls (but not rounds) to pull off as you level up.

[Modesitt]

Training + Skill focus makes every other modifier pretty much irrelevant. Its almost an auto-pass, depending on how much the DM screws with the DCs on skill checks, and it also means you never have to actually care about skills.

That's deliberate. If you require a substantial feat investment for something to not suck, you pigeonhole characters. Competent people are also, well, competent. A starting pilot can actually fly a starfighter without plowing into asteroids. The downside to the streamlined/powered-up system is that droids are more overpowered than ever.

Unless there are a hell of a lot of bonuses hidden in the Jedi class and prestige classes, Jedi are the biggest losers in the galaxy. (They're definitely the unskilled labor of the galaxy, since they get the fewest trained skills, and one has to go to 'Use the Force')

Jedi have access to several talents through their core class and prestige classes that let them use Use the Force in place of a skill(Initiative, Pilot, and Persuasion). They also get a laser penis and all that comes with it, such as the ability to use their Use the Force check to negate the attacks of others.

[endersdouble]

Seriously? In a Star Wars game, Jedi just might be cooler than all of you put together? Stop the fucking presses.

It may not be good game design, but that is kind of the theme of the source material.

[PhoneLobster]

The theme of the source material was "Harison Ford is cool" but in the games if you play his character you suck like Ja Ja.

[Voss]

1187044401[/unixtime]]
That's deliberate. If you require a substantial feat investment for something to not suck, you pigeonhole characters. Competent people are also, well, competent. A starting pilot can actually fly a starfighter without plowing into asteroids. The downside to the streamlined/powered-up system is that droids are more overpowered than ever.

Thats one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is that you *must* be trained and have skill focus to not suck at something. And of course, you can train for the next 500 years (or 20 levels) and not meaningfully increase your abilities.

Mr Rookie can compete with Mr 8th Level (who by the normal d20 scale of things, should be roughly 8 times better), but hey, guess what. Mr Rookie is at a +12, while MR 8th Level is only at a maybe a +17. Goodness.... such a disparity in skill.

Look at it this way, 4 1st level computer hackers (3 using aid another actions) are going to be better at hacking than an 8th level character. Of course, he can slaughter them all without blinking in combat... It leads to some bizarre situations.

@Phone - so it sounds like the jedi have to be one trick ponies to be effective, while everyone else can wander around and do whatever.

@endersdouble- actually, it sounds more like Jedi can completely suck unless you build them exactly right.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Actually, the Force system is, as a player, one opf my favorite parts. Sure, it's wonky -- the different scaling of defenses and UTF checks is disturbing, but it works out better than you would think. Certainly better than D&D casting. Force powers, but not, so far as I can tell, unbeatable.

Your Stunner build is a level one Human Jedi with no other feats. In other words, he has a lightsaber, a couple force powers, and like three or four skills. He DOES NOT have Treat Injury, Computer Use, Mechanics (pre-errata), Persuasion, Stealth or any of the skills you care about. He does not have a ranged attack.

With a good roll, and a Force Point, he can insta-kill a Stormtrooper.

You know what else insta-kills a stormtrooper? A Blaster Rifle. They seriously have 10 hit points. A Rodian Soldier can easily be +6 which means he kills a stormtrooper every other round without spending force powers or force points.

Oh, and the Dakr Side Build doesn't work. You don't have Swift Power at level 1 because it requires Power of the Dark Side. You don't have Power of the Dark Side at level one because you have Deflect, because you put your highest numbers in CHA and WIS, and without Deflect, you *die*. By level five, maybe, you have Swift Power and can indeed totally kill bosses in a very unfair way.

However, you now suck against mooks. Sure, you can now *usually* insta-kill stormtroopers, but the Soldier is seriously jacking them up with a machine gun and he doesn't care.

At high levels, you can't even reliably *hit* the bosses with your Stun.

[PhoneLobster]

so it sounds like the jedi have to be one trick ponies to be effective, while everyone else can wander around and do whatever.

Not entirely, since contrary to fuzzy_logic's, er, fuzzy logic, making yourself REALLY good at force stun also happens to make you really good at everything else force use related.

Like the deflect he feels you cannot live without.

You can make a pretty organic jedi build that does things like force stun, force lightning, or mind trick or whatever, and does it with auto successes for MOST of their career, and uses what few spare resources they have to pick up the odd deflect, force use skill substitute for skills they don't have, so they can care EVEN LESS about not having something dumb like treat injury or stealth, or just to get a bit better with the light saber.

And though you really DO want to pump piles of your character resources into being the best you can be on force checks and make as many as you can as fast as you can there will be a few gaps in your build because there really aren't enough good options that contribute directly to that.

And its all a bit silly really because who cares if blasters and light sabers drop storm troopers (less reliably). Because you ALSO have light sabers and blasters, and though you are massively better when you use force stun (and friends) you are only marginally worse when you use sabers and blasters.

And storm troopers? Who cares? The MINOR mooks like Ja Ja can take them down. You walk in and end every fight with the major big bads in one round. No meglomaniacal speaches for your group. "Now I am the ma....*thump*" "I am your fa...*thump*".

Now I hardly know the system backwards, or more than I can help at all after noting how weak it was, but it doesn't take too much to see that the way the maths of it are though using force use in place of attacks LOOKS like it gets weaker over time it kinda doesn't.

See now its important to understand that there will always be a divergence between offensive investments and defensive investments. Force use STARTS out of the ball park compared to defensive attributes with an about +11 or so points more than they will have.

Now defence scores can catch up, because they get +1/2 CL more than force use does. And potentially attribute bonuses and about as many stupid talent mini bonuses as force use can get.

But Boosting force use makes you a better offensive character, and you invest heavily and work. Boosting defences costs three times as much and makes you suck.

So in reality it won't be until something like at least level 15 at all before defences seriously catch up with force use, and thats if you aren't pumping wierd shit like improved force point expenditure. And when you all hit level 20 and they have +10 level bonus advantage compared to your +6 or so attribute and gimcrack bonus advantage and are up 4 points or so on defence and you have maybe a 3 out of twenty fail on your checks you just laugh and laugh and laugh...

And by 20th level you are doing this with free force points while remote viewing from the other side of the god damn solar system (now vader doesn't even get to do monologues without the heroes around, "I find your lack of faith... *thump*") so really the already flawed "but its OK because you get worse at it later" design principle is a bit questionable in a lot of ways.

[Fuzzy_logic]

At 20th Level, you have +20 to a skill you FOcus in. If you're an ithorian, you might have 22 CHA. So that's +26. If you Are willing to invest a technique and multiple Force Points pe rround, you can get another +4 or so from FPs. That's +30.

You fight a 20th-Level UberSith. He has +20 for Level, +3 for Class, +3 for Wisdom and Improved Defenses. His Will is 37. So assuming, again, that you burn 2 FP per shot, you fail a third of the time; when you hit, you move him two or three steps.

Except -- oh, wait! He also has Rebuke +23 AT LEAST. So that's another decent chance for him to avoid his fate.

And I could be meaner. He could be a Force Disciple with Force Talisman and a Will over 40. Or he could have Equilibrium.

Now, in fairness, not all high-end enemies are dark jedi. You might be fighting a 20th-level Rodian Soldier, in which case you'd better hope you one-shot him because otherwise he just busts out Indomitable.

In the meantime, back in low-level play, you have problems. yes, you can kill bosses easy -- stupid easy, in fact. And that might be a problem with the game. On the other hand, that doesn't mean your character is good any mroe than the fact that a tricked out wizard can one-shot a Balor means Scorching Ray is good. You dramatically underestimate the difficulty of ordinary adventuring.

First-levle characters, at least in my games, don't fight a lot of boss monsters. They fight a lot of mooks. And the explicit design intent of SAGA is for fighting mooks to be a mjaor part of play at almost all levels.

And belive me, you may be level three or even five, and if you aren't careful, stormtroopers will still jack you up. The regular ones are tougher than you think, and the heavies are totally crazy. Even if you have Deflect does 6 points a round to you regardless of your Reflex until you're smart enough to grab Evasion or seek cover.

I'd be looking at Force Slam rather than Force Stun, myself.

[Voss]

Oh was that a design principle? I just thought they dropped the ball again.

So the game boils down to how well (or poorly) you built your character. Surprise.

[RandomCasualty]

Really how skills should work in Saga is that

a skill roll is 1d20 + character level (instead of half char level), and being untrained is a -5 penalty, and being focused is a +5 bonus.

That tends to bring things back into line with saves, BaB and everything else in the system.

[PhoneLobster]

At 20th Level, you have +20 to a skill you FOcus in. If you're an ithorian, you might have 22 CHA. So that's +26. If you Are willing to invest a technique and multiple Force Points pe rround, you can get another +4 or so from FPs. That's +30.

You fight a 20th-Level UberSith. He has +20 for Level, +3 for Class, +3 for Wisdom and Improved Defenses. His Will is 37. So assuming, again, that you burn 2 FP per shot, you fail a third of the time; when you hit, you move him two or three steps.

Except -- oh, wait! He also has Rebuke +23 AT LEAST. So that's another decent chance for him to avoid his fate.

Your numbers seem a bit wonky. Charisma should probably be about 4-6 points higher for a start.

And you pick yourself a variety of will defense specialists. Which is dumb for several reasons.

1) A force use specialist can target moret than just will defense and STILL benefit from all their specialist attacks, defense investment isn't quiet as versatile.
2) So what? Its still a more reliable more damaging attack at that level than direct damage BY A LONG SHOT.

First-levle characters, at least in my games, don't fight a lot of boss monsters. They fight a lot of mooks. And the explicit design intent of SAGA is for fighting mooks to be a mjaor part of play at almost all levels.

I'd be looking at Force Slam rather than Force Stun, myself.

How the heck do I explain this? You can still fight the mooks using the same build and even the same power without even investing as many encounter/adventure resources like force points and you are still AS effective or more so than a guy that shoots them.

Really, force stun, once, without force points or your dark side extra force use for the round or whatever is as good or a better way to knock down a mook as anything any other level 1 bumbling fool is likely going to try with a blaster.

You want multiple targets stuff or force slam, go ahead, its all pretty much the same build though with the same stupid stupid STUPID skill/defence divergence.

Even a deflect character benefits from crazy investment in force use.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Dude. Your First-Level Stun Jedi can use Stun at most 3 times per fight. That's probably enough, but it means he has no other force powers. On a roll of 10, he gets a 22, which is enough to give the stormtrooper a -5 penalty to everything. That stormtrooper, if a regular stormtrooper, is effectively out of action... until he spends a turn recovering.

On a roll of 7 or less, you only give him -2 to all rolls, so he's still a threat.

A if the Rodian with a gun rolls a 10, he hits for 3d8 damage, probably killing that stormtrooper. He also And All I've assumed in my build is 17 DEX and Weapon Focus. He still has a feat and a talent to do something cool. PLUS skills like Treat Injury, Mechanics, and Use Computer.