Star Wars SAGA - Diplomacy

[gnomas]

TL;DR: Are the SAGA diplomacy rules balanced out of the box?

Greetings Playgrounders! Before my question, some background. The diplomacy rules in 3.5 are, as we know, easily exploitable. It's far too easy for players to turn unfriendly thugs into their personal little helpers. This is a very real problem for me since my group includes a player will try exactly this whenever possible. He usually can do it within the rules too. That's why I tend to use the Giant's diplomacy fix or simply adjust circumstance bonuses. If I mention my position before the game, players tend to accept it.

However, the next game I run will be everyone's first star wars game, so I need to make sure we have a policy appropriate to the system. Due to time constraints I'm running Dawn of Defiance, and I just finished doing my first read through of The Traitor's Gambit. There's a lot of diplomacy encounters. So my question is, are the SAGA diplomacy fair as is, or will every social encounter be a breeze for them?

Thanks in advance, etc.

[Vance_Nevada]

SAGA has a number of advantages vs 3.5 Diplomacy.

1. Diplomacy and Intimidate have both been rolled into the Persuasion skill.

2. Thanks to how SAGA's skill system works, you gain a +5 bonus to Persuasion if trained in it, and another +5 if you take the Skill Focus feat. That's it. You can't gain all the various synergy bonuses, magic items, and etc that break DnD's Diplomacy. The only way to get your Persuasion up is to increase your level (all Heroes get 1/2 level to skill) or increase your Charisma.

3. Persuasion is rolled vs Will Defence, not a set DC. So Darth Dementor, Dark Lord of the Sith, is hard to persuade, while convincing Fallax the Nerf Header to let you bum a ride is easy.

4. You may only attempt to change the attitude of a given creature once per encounter (and you can't only change it one step). So while you might be able to take the Hostile foes down to merely Unfriendly and no longer actively opening fire on you, you'd have to spend several days actually getting to know them and working with them to push them to Helpful.

So, no, I've had no issues using it (and have played Dawn of Defiance). Many of the Diplomatic encounters you mention have people Indifferent to start with. It's not hard to a Persuasion focused character to get them Friendly (and it shouldn't be, as said Character will put most of his 1st level resources into it), but you simply can't talk the Stormtroopers out of a firefight, let alone turn them into fanatic devotees with one round.

[gnomas]

Alright, good to know! Hadn't really registered with me that all those synergy bonuses and such didn't exist.

[Vance_Nevada]

Alright, good to know! Hadn't really registered with me that all those synergy bonuses and such didn't exist.

Your mileage may vary on whether or not that's a good thing, of course. There's less focus on mechanically optimising your character. A single feat and a decent Charisma will make you as Persuasion-focused as you'll ever need to be, and frees you up to also be a Starship Pilot, or Mechanic, or whatever. It does, however, mean that you can't actually optimise your character past a certain point, which may disappoint players trying to be "The Best at X".

[gnomas]

Well at least they won't be using one skill to solve every situation.