SWSE houserules: broken?

[Belial_the_Leveler]

I want to capture the feel of "The Force Unleashed" and KOTOR 1 and 2 games in my SWSE games. How unbalancing would the following houserules be:

1) Spontaneous Force Powers:
Power uses/day are generic; you only have a single point pool and any force power uses up that pool. However, you don't get powers known and power uses based on your wisdom modifier. You get only powers known. Power uses are equal to your force training feats x your charisma modifier.

2) Enhance Force Powers:
A character of 8th level and higher can pay an additional use instead of a Force point when enhancing the effects of Force powers or using Force-enhancing abilities. This doesn't apply to enhancing your Use The Force skill rolls.
A character of 12th level and higher can do the same with Destiny points, paying 4 extra uses. This only applies to effects that specifically enhance Force powers, not automatic criticals, automatic misses or any other general uses of destiny points.

3) Exhaustion:
If you use the above rules, you regain force power uses equal to your charisma modifier every time you'd normally regain all your force power uses. Fully regaining force powers takes 10 minutes of rest.

[zerombr]

I'd say yes, they are broken, heck Star Wars invariably focuses on the Jedi characters so much that the Jedi are broken (though mostly accurately portrayed) I've played a few campaigns as a non-Jedi, and it frustrated me entirely how quickly the Jedi characters would just destroy everything in their path...The last thing we need is more broken feats and rules for them.
All in all, from what I looked at, it seems to fit the style of play you're looking for, just don't expect any non-Jedi to enjoy the game at all. Pretty much, you're making it a game for one player, though i'm admittedly irked by my experiences with it, that that as you will.

[Mando Knight]

I'd say yes, they are broken, heck Star Wars invariably focuses on the Jedi characters so much that the Jedi are broken (though mostly accurately portrayed) I've played a few campaigns as a non-Jedi, and it frustrated me entirely how quickly the Jedi characters would just destroy everything in their path...The last thing we need is more broken feats and rules for them.

This is SAGA edition, pal. Force and Not-Force are more balanced, even in damage output. A level 8 Soldier can deal 5d10+5 damage at no attack penalty from about a hundred meters away, or 3d10+5 damage at no attack penalty to a group of clustered enemies at the same range. Jetpacks are only 300 credits each, so almost any Soldier could pick one up. With the Armored Defense talents, a range-Soldier becomes much more formidable than a Jedi in terms of Reflex defense, as well.

[Darth Stabber]

Taking wisdom out of the equation unnbalances them even more. As it stands now the only dump stat for Jedi is Int (well str to if you use Weapon finesse and Ataru), which balances out some of their strengths. Making forcepowers pick and choose on the fly is dangerous to, and since they have more power uses (since those are now based on your prime stat) You have a guy that has the force power he wants when he wants it, Usually my jedi chars will have 1 instance of rebuke @ higher lvls, Under this system they will have one for pretty much every force power that targets them. If he's not fighting jedi, just about every attack will be battle strike enhanced, or every movement will be surge enhanced. If all the PC's are jedi it won't seem broke, but the rest of the classes will never keep up and your jedi will rock any lvl apropriate encounter without a second thought. Jedi is a class that if done correctly requires a lot of thinking and balancing of abilities to play correctly, this upset that balance making them not just the best but the easiest to play. And in kotor Force points were based on wisdom, save DCs based on wisdom and Charisma. So if you are going to go through with this massive unbalancing of forcepowers you should make Force power uses still based on wisdom.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

The changes above are based on the following, assuming mid-level characters in combat:


A player that focuses his character build on the Force regenerates all his force powers when he rolls 20 on a Use the Force check. When does he have a chance to do that? Let's assume level 10 or so;

1) Each time he actively uses a Force Power, twice if he's entitled to a reroll for his favorite power. (mastery talent)
2) Twice each time he uses Block or Deflect-so 4 times/round if he gets attacked twice. (soresu, which almost everyone gets)
3) As a move and swift action (minor move object mastery)
4) As a reaction when he uses a defencive force power like Negate or Rebuke so probably another 1/round.

That's, on average, 8 times per round.

This means that once per 3 rounds, he'll probably roll a 20 and regain all his Force Powers. So if he has 4 uses of his favorite power, he probably never runs out.

[The_Snark]

I'm not quite sure I like that calculation, Belial; it relies on characters picking a very specific set of talents, being attacked multiple times per round (you're including two from Block/Deflect/Soresu, as well as a defensive Force power), and on using their spare actions to randomly move objects around, which I really don't like. Doing that strikes me as very silly and metagame-ey.

Also, I'm not sure where you're drawing the talent that lets you re-roll a chosen power's check from. There's a Force technique that lets you take 10 with a given power's roll, but that's obviously less than useful here. There's a Force Adept talent that allows spending a Force point to re-roll a Use the Force check with a given power, but you aren't going to be spending Force points every round. Moreover, your example would need to have levels in both Jedi Knight and Force Adept: that isn't a common combination fluff-wise, and it's impossible to achieve that at level 10 and still have all the other talents you're using.

I suppose the calculation works, if you want to set a default Force-user at the level of the most highly optimized Force-users of the basic system. I don't really like that, but it is in keeping with your source material, I guess.

As for your actual changes... like Stabber says, I'm a little concerned about basing your uses on Charisma, since a character without a wide repetoire of powers. On the other hand, we have three key parts (powers known, power pool, and skill modifier) and only two attributes; having Wisdom govern both powers known and power uses could also be broken. It would also make it impossible to have a character with a larger power pool without giving them a large number of powers known, which is annoying.

In the end, I feel it would probably be more balanced if Force Training didn't simultaneously increase your powers known and your power uses pool; I would separate that into two feats. To make up for the sudden increase in feats you need to be a powerful Force-user, one of those feats could be added to the list of bonus feats; if you do that, though, you open the door to Force-users who have no feats other than Skill Focus (Use the Force) and these two feats... which would irritate me, at least, since I really like the fact that even the most Force-focused Jedi has room for two or three non-Force feats built in.

[zerombr]

This is SAGA edition, pal. Force and Not-Force are more balanced, even in damage output. A level 8 Soldier can deal 5d10+5 damage at no attack penalty from about a hundred meters away, or 3d10+5 damage at no attack penalty to a group of clustered enemies at the same range. Jetpacks are only 300 credits each, so almost any Soldier could pick one up. With the Armored Defense talents, a range-Soldier becomes much more formidable than a Jedi in terms of Reflex defense, as well.

apologies, goes to show how easy one can make an arse out of himself when he doesn't read properly :smalleek:

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Nevermind. I was thinking of dark siders rerolling dark side powers. As for the light objects, you're throwing them around for 1d6 more damage per round. Remember Darth Vader in the Cloud City?

In any case, the usual rolls if you only fight with the Force should be 5: 1 from a single Force Power, 2 from deflecting a single attack OR 1 from deflecting and 1 from rerolling the dark side force power you used if you're a sith apprentice or a dark side adept, 2 from moving and throwing minor objects. You still regain all force powers every 4th-5th round. That's block, deflect, soresu, light object mastery, 2x force training, UTF focus and wisdom 16 to get 8 force powers so you could go those 5 rounds straight with Grip/Whirlwind/Lightning/Blast. 4 talents, 3 feats, minimum character level 8 with still (counts) 4 feats you could spend on other stuff.


Wanna know what's really silly though? Move Light Object to throw stuff on yourself just so you can get the double deflect roll from Soresu. :smalltongue:


@Everyone:

How about this then:
Power uses are equal to your force training feats x your charisma modifier /2. (effectively half the number of total uses compared to now but spontaneous)

[KillianHawkeye]

This is why you need to check the errata. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/sagaederrata) You no longer regain your Force Powers when you roll nat 20 on any UtF roll, just UtF rolls used to activate a Force Power.

There are also a ton of other things that have been fixed. Such as stun damage, weapon familiarity, only being able to take Force Point Recovery once, and the whole "only one reaction per action" thing, among many others.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

WotC doing a sub-par job as always then mopping up after the fact. Oh well. At least they did fix it, unlike with the 3.5 edition rules. :smalltongue:

[KillianHawkeye]

Yeah, the SWSE errata is critical, since there were so many mistakes in the book. Not to mention balance issues. But things have been much improved now, thanks to the power of The Internet! :smallamused:

[Ascension]

There have been quality control issues with all the Saga books, really. Somebody needs to get them an editor, stat.

[Darth Stabber]

Taking wisdom out of the equation unnbalances them even more. As it stands now the only dump stat for Jedi is Int (well str to if you use Weapon finesse and Ataru), which balances out some of their strengths. Making forcepowers pick and choose on the fly is dangerous to, and since they have more power uses (since those are now based on your prime stat) You have a guy that has the force power he wants when he wants it, Usually my jedi chars will have 1 instance of rebuke @ higher lvls, Under this system they will have one for pretty much every force power that targets them. If he's not fighting jedi, just about every attack will be battle strike enhanced, or every movement will be surge enhanced. If all the PC's are jedi it won't seem broke, but the rest of the classes will never keep up and your jedi will rock any lvl apropriate encounter without a second thought. Jedi is a class that if done correctly requires a lot of thinking and balancing of abilities to play correctly, this upset that balance making them not just the best but the easiest to play. And in kotor Force points were based on wisdom, save DCs based on wisdom and Charisma. So if you are going to go through with this massive unbalancing of forcepowers you should make Force power uses still based on wisdom.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

How about this then: the system stays exactly as it is for picking powers and power uses but:

Force Enhancement: Instead of paying a force point to enhance the effect of a force power where the power's text allows it or with force talents, force techniques or force secrets, you may expend an additional use of that power. Instead of paying a destiny point for the same, you may expend three additional uses of a force power. This second use of Force Enhancement increases the power activation into a full-round action. Force Enhancement can't be used rolls of UTF for power activation or any other use that would expend force or destiny points.

Force Affinity: Instead of expending a use of a force power from your power suit, you may expend two uses of other powers.


BTW, I understand that I may have gone a bit too far into force use but my 6th level human character (rolled stats, effectively 29 pts point-buy) has the following force powers in the current system:
force lightning x3, force grip x2, force blast x2, move object x1, fear x3, energy resistance x2, rebuke x3
The only published characters with more force powers than her are Palpatine and Darth Traya. Calculations show that at 20th level she'll have 56 force powers, more than Darth Traya, Palpatine and Yoda combined.

[Mando Knight]

BTW, I understand that I may have gone a bit too far into force use but my 6th level human character (rolled stats, effectively 29 pts point-buy) has the following force powers in the current system:
force lightning x3, force grip x2, force blast x2, move object x1, fear x3, energy resistance x2, rebuke x3
The only published characters with more force powers than her are Palpatine and Darth Traya. Calculations show that at 20th level she'll have 56 force powers, more than Darth Traya, Palpatine and Yoda combined.

...and how long do you expect encounters to last? The reason why the canon characters don't have that much Force Training is because they realize they don't need that many uses of Force powers. If you have 56 Force powers, the only way you're going to spend them all is to spend around 4 to 6 minutes doing nothing but using the Force. You can recover all of your Force powers by resting for just one minute, or getting a natural 20 on a UtF check while using a Force Power. Most combat rounds will last only around 10 or 20 rounds at the longest, so their relatively small number of Force Powers frees up their feats for utility and Lightsaber abilities.

Notice that the canon characters are good for more than just Using the Force: They're all beasts with lightsaber combat (Palpatine slightly less so because of his Noble levels), and Palpatine and Traya have high Deception/Persuasion modifiers...

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Yeah, but I'm not doing it to optimize. It's flavor mostly; a force sorceress relying solely on the force. You gotta admit it's cool

BTW, their spooky lightsaber skills? Resist Energy 20 plus SR 25 from force powers plus Soresu+Shii-cho. Unless they critical hit and it doesn't get deflected, they're never going to deal damage. And if they do deal damage, absorb with Negate. So in the end it is only a Force duel-in which they run out of Rebuke in a couple of rounds.