[Star Wars Saga Edition] Suitability for historical action?

[Kiero]

This is a spin-off of this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15137572) about hacking a D20 game to suit. I figured a clean slate was a good idea rather than drift the discussion.

I note that someone has already done a Swords and Sorcery Saga Edition (http://www.gneech.com/swordandsorcery/), which is a partial inspiration, along with a thread of old (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?431136-SWSE-D20-Saga-ized-Fantasy) started by our main GM.

My group is burned out on D20, but they did like Star Wars Saga Edition when we played it a while back (this is five years ago). We eventually ported the game to FATE, because the crunchiness was driving an unaccepable level of rules referencing in play for us. That's still something to be mindful of, but I'm hoping what I intend will be simpler.

So changes I have in mind (which are less drastic than was necessary with 3.x):

Drop the Jedi class and the Force in its entirety.
Apply an E6-style cap on level progression; after 6th level the only things you gain are Feats and Talents.
Given the big wad of hit points you get at first level, I may drop the progression from 2nd to 6th - that will obviously have impacts on other parts of the combat system. I guess there's also a danger of encouraging people to start Warrior if they want lots of hit points.
Alter the skills list; Climb/Jump/Swim get merged into one Athletics; Initiative, Use Computer and Use the Force disappear; Knowledge skills are reflavoured, Mechanics, Pilot (now for ships) and Treat Injury renamed.
Initiative is a fixed property; probably a Dex + Wis + (class modifier) addition to a D20 roll.
Alter skill allotment - Soldiers and Scoundrels get 5+Int, Scouts and Nobles get 6+Int (the latter get Knowledge: Literacy free).
Epoch in the thread linked above has some interesting thoughts on changing the way the four fighting styles work; I want to apply those so that two weapon and one-weapon are mobile, but sword-and-board and two-hander don't need to be.
Some tinkering with Feats and Talents - some consolidation in places to collapse tiering a little. I may borrow this Feat list (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?431136-SWSE-D20-Saga-ized-Fantasy&p=9791004#post9791004), at least until I review the lot myself.
Drop ability scores and just use modifiers, True20 style.
I'm unconvinced on the utility of the Condition track; maybe I just need to get more comfortable with it.
I don't remember what the natural healing rate is in Saga; that may need altering.


Some other things that need consideration, and having only played a handful of sessions of Saga Edition and not having my books to hand, I wonder if someone might have an informed view.

How easy would be it to apply the existing rules on vehicle combat to mounted combat (on horses, camels, elephants, chariots - are there stats for any of those things in Saga?) and naval combat (massed archery, artillery, ramming, oars-shearing, boarding actions)?

Does Saga have mass combat rules, and are they any good? I'm looking at from tens of combatants on each side up to potentially thousands.

[Mando Knight]

I believe mounted combat things are in Unknown Regions, and rough mass combat rules are in The Clone Wars Campaign Guide.

If you're going to increase skills allotted like that and then mash together and eliminate skills, you're going to find people either dumping Int or having a lot of different Knowledge skills... the Warrior would only have 6 non-Knowledge class skills, for example.

The intention of the Condition Track is to try to avoid Critical Existence Failure (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CriticalExistenceFailure), that is, being able to continue fighting at full strength even when you have severe wounds, just because you still have 1 HP.

[Kiero]

Something I'm wondering about in my quest to consolidate and pare down the number of Feats is those which just grant access to "advanced maneuvers" like Power Attack. Give them to everyone for free, or just give them to people with Soldier levels? Or pick specific ones (Power Attack and Melee Defense come to mind since they're just options rather than advantages) that everyone should get.

Or something more controlled (like every Soldier gets Shield Proficiency and Combat Expertise at 1st level, Power Attack at 2nd level, Melee Defense at 3rd level and so on).


I believe mounted combat things are in Unknown Regions, and rough mass combat rules are in The Clone Wars Campaign Guide.

Thanks for that.


If you're going to increase skills allotted like that and then mash together and eliminate skills, you're going to find people either dumping Int or having a lot of different Knowledge skills... the Warrior would only have 6 non-Knowledge class skills, for example.

One of those Knowledge skills (which will be on everyone's list) is Literacy. Don't pick it up, your character can't read or write (a lot of people couldn't, after all).

But I'm less worried about characters having lots of skills than the current situation where the Soldier gets stiffed for no reason. Don't forget this is all-human, so everyone would have an extra skill anyway.

I'm not sure how you work out 6 non-Knowledge anyway; I count Athletics, Crafts (Mechanic), Endurance, Heal (Treat Injury), Perception, Riding, Sailing (Pilot) and I'm tempted to add Survival. I'm considering adding Intimidation to the list, and thus add that to the Soldier/Warrior set.

Aren't languages based on Intelligence? That's a reason to have a decent one right there.


The intention of the Condition Track is to try to avoid Critical Existence Failure (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CriticalExistenceFailure), that is, being able to continue fighting at full strength even when you have severe wounds, just because you still have 1 HP.

Has anyone done a simpler Condition Track? Perhaps something that's automatically triggered at 50%/25%/10% hit points or something? It's the business of having a separate resource to track (and adding all the Feats/Talents that target it) that is bothering me.

[Kiero]

In the time the fora have been down, this has mostly been superceded. I'm now looking at Adventurer, Conqueror, King (a "second generation retro-clone" of Expert D&D) to do the job. It has the advantages of already having a mass combat system, domain management, and fundamentally much simpler combat than the D20 standard.