Saga balance issue

[Talya]

I love the whole style of Star Wars Saga Edition rules, first of all. There is so much there that works so nicely. And I could talk forever about what I like. That's not the point of this thread.

Here's my issue, and I can't think of an easy set of house-rules to solve it.

Many times, skill use (particularly Use the Force) is rolled directly opposed to a defense score, or an attack roll.


The progression of these abilities is not even, however. For example, Use The Force typically starts off as somewhere between +7 and +14 at level 1 (depending on charisma score and whether they took skill focus). At the high end, this is rather unbalanced, actually. A +14 to mind trick vs. an average will defense of 11 or an attack bonus of +3 is pretty bad. Skill Focus should probably have a level requirement. But it doesn't stay in the favor of the skill...not at all. Midway up the line, it balances again, as skills only increase at 1/2 your level, while your defenses and attack bonus increase at your full level (or at 3/4 level, for some classes attack bonus.) By level 20, you've got attack bonuses that are significantly higher than your maximum skill bonus, and defenses that are unreachable. (Try to hit a defense score of 45 with a skill bonus of +24, for example.)

It infuriates me, but I can't find an easy way to balance it out. I'm experimenting with the idea of "Skill Focus" giving a bonus of 1/2 your heroic level (rounded up) right now, I'm not sure how it will work. It's a difference of -4 at level 1, and +5 at level 20, so it might be what I need.

[Hallavast]

But won't that set things up so that a character would have to take skill focus to even have a chance at succeeding?

[Talya]

But won't that set things up so that a character would have to take skill focus to even have a chance at succeeding?

They already do, at upper levels, and usually it's still not enough.

Note that this doesn't change the target numbers AT ALL.

All this does is make the skill bonus from skill focus range from +1 at level 1, to +10 at level 20.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

The way it is built, if you wanna use the force with impunity, you need to be trained and have the skill focus. Now, any real force user will be trained....that pretty much is a no brainer. If they are trained, they will be having a 50% chance...maybe slightly better...at effecting most people at first level. If they are skill focused, they pretty much just have to not roll a 1.

mid level, yeah, they need to get focused or fall way behind, and high levels they are just hoping that they have recieved enough buffys through extra stuff to have a better skill check than the basic.

Do note that characters in armor, or with bonuses to fort, or those with improved damage threshold at first level will be pretty hard to push around for a 1st level force user...even if they take skill focus.

Do note that the force is ment to be powerful...not an instant 'I win' but very potent. There is a reason in the fluff jedi take on sith alone and tell others to run...one trained jedi is usually a match for the other...but one without the force is going to be severely hampered.

[Draz74]

I heard this was on-purpose. That at low levels, when melee is still a pretty risky strategy, they wanted to make Force powers work pretty reliably so Jedi don't all get blasted to smithereens; but at high levels, they wanted to make sure what you're paying attention to on a Jedi is his lightsaber, not him winning important (non-mook) encounters solely thru Force Push or whatever.