[SAGA] The Red Knights [PEACH]

[Strormer]

This is my first attempt at building an alternate force tradition and it is filling in a plot hole for my upcoming legacy era game. What I'm looking for is critiques on if this is balanced with similar force traditions. Thanks in advance!

Red Knight

Species:

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The species known as the Red Knights, the same name given to their force tradition, are near humans that deviated from stock humans centuries ago when they bred with the native Sith of Korriban. Though they are very similar to stock humans, they have a number of odd variations. Firstly their skin is always a deep crimson color. Their hair tends to be greyscale running the gamut from jet black to snow white. They tend to be taller than stock humans by about half a foot and powerfully built. Also, for unknown reasons all Red Knights are left handed naturally, though they can learn to use their right hands just as a right handed creature could learn to use its left.

Traits:

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Ability Modifiers: +2 Charisma, Red Knights are natural leaders and good at influencing others
Speed: 7
Size: Medium
Enhanced Pheromones: A Red Knight may reroll Persuasion checks made to influence the attitude of others and make keep the better of the two results.
Languages: Sith

Force Tradition:

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The Red Knights follow a variation of the Sith tradition. They follow the code of the Sith as it was written by Darth Bane, but they are not all evil. They also do not hold to the rule of two, though they do keep two Sith as the High Darth and Darth of their tradition and allowing no other Sith to bear the title until he has taken it from the current holder. Strangely, assassination and betrayal are highly irregular among the Red Knights.

They believe that the Sith followed their aggression too far and lost sight of the true source of the power of the dark side, passion. To a Red Knight, intense love is equally as powerful as intense hate. It is through this belief that Red Knights gain their most potent skill. They access the dark and light sides of the force as extensions of their own tradition.

Red Knight Talents:

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The Grey Path: You treat any force powers you know with the [light side] descriptor as though they did not have the [light side] descriptor.

Passion Over Rage: You treat any force powers you know with the [dark side] descriptor as though they did not have the [dark side] descriptor.
Prerequisite: The Grey Path

Heritage of Sith: You may take talents from the Sith talent tree without meeting prerequisites involving your dark side score.
Prerequisite: Character Level 7th

Sith Practitioner: You may utilize equipment as though your dark side score were equal to your wisdom score even if it is not.
Prerequisite: Heritage of Sith

Child of Antithesis: You may spend a force point to gain a +5 force bonus to your defenses to resist force powers with the [light side] or [dark side] descriptors until the end of the encounter.
Prerequisite: Heritage of Sith, Passion Over Rage, The Grey Path, Dark Side Score less than your Wisdom score

[IdleMuse]

It all seems balanced to me; although it's all on the _good_ end of balanced. I'd be careful with the movement on the race, that's pretty good on what's already a good species. I would however add another (unrelated) ability to them; at the moment, they just feel (mechanically) like they're... We are good at talking... and also Very good at talking! Most species have, like, some unrelated ability as flavour, it rounds them out and makes them feel less like an optimiser's design.

The talent tree is again pretty generic; I like Sith Practitioner, as this is a pretty unique ability, but the rest do feel a bit, like, meh. The only character who will take these is one who takes all of them, and I think it's good to encourage variance in build options.

So, overall, there's nothing wrong with it, mechanically, but it's all just a bit generic. See if you can't find a little bit of sparkle to add to the whole thing, a bit of uniqueness.

[Seatbelt]

You describe them as larger than stock humans but don't do anything to reflect that mechanically. Maybe the force tradition prefers to use two-handed sabers because it reflects a more passionate use of the weapon and give them some kind of bonus.

Or maybe something like..

[Strength of Ego]
Red Knights delight in personal success and use that joy to catapult them to new levels of strength.

1/encounter if an attack would miss the Red Knight they may gain 2x the difference between the attack roll and the Red Knight's relevant defense score.

[Sith_Happens]

I don't know much about SAGA, but I can comment on the fluff side of things.

First off, if this is Legacy era, then the Sith species has been all but extinct for much, much longer than "centuries ago," and their bloodline has long since been diluted to the point of insignificance. So that's already a huge problem with the Red Knights as a species. It can still work, but they'll need to have existed for at least 4000 years or so and been completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy until right around the time of the campaign (think the Lost Tribe of Sith, but with more red).

On the Red Knights as a Force tradition, from your brief description so far it sounds like you're just taking all the "cool" parts of the Dark Side and Sith Order and leaving out all the "Usually [X] Evil" bits. Altogether it comes off as rather bland and uncreative, not to mention that you're just begging for your players to call "Drizz't clones IN SPACE" on the whole species/order.

Basically, the concept as a whole needs reworking. If these guys are supposed to be Sith, then call them Sith and they need to act at least somewhat like Sith. If they're supposed to be anything other than Sith (or Jedi), they need to be turned into something much more unique/distinct than any existing Force traditions. I'd also stay away from the "Light Side and Dark Side together" thing. That's Revan's shtick, and let's just say it didn't end well even for him.

[Strormer]

Yes, perhaps you're right about everything being a little too samey. The big gist of their abilities is that they can call on the dark side of the force and the light side of the force through something of a neutral mechanic. They lose the light and dark side descriptors in order to show that they utilize the force as a singular entity, not as one of two options, but I broke it into two because I felt that losing the dark side descriptor (and thus the associated dark side score increase) was far more powerful than losing the light side descriptor which really has little attached to it that I've found. I like the two handed saber thing though. I might toy with that a little more.

They are larger than stock humans, but not so much as to have a serious effect. Perhaps a variation on DND's powerful build mechanic?

As to the fluff:

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This post is actually a very watered down description of the red knights as they are intended to be, but I see what you're saying. The greater detail is that they are essentially based on Joseph Campbell's three knights. The white knight is uncompromising order, the black knight is compassion, and the red knight was to represent passion. The red knights were a group of rogue Jedi who joined the Sith tradition some time shortly following the time of Darth Bane.

They picked up a large amount of Sith knowledge and practices, but they saw the force more unified than the Sith and Jedi did. They saw the Jedi and their association with the light side as the force put through a filter of justice and order and the increasingly aggressive Sith and their dark side as the force through the filter of blind dedication to uncompromising opinion. Their views were that the force was the culmination of life and as such was all aspects of life rolled into one. To be force sensitive was to be chosen to live exceptionally by being part of this great whole. In this way they felt that there was no specific will of the force, but instead a beautiful cacophony of various moments and experiences that they had to embrace to become truly one with the force.

They took the rule of two from DB as well, but interpreted it to mean that there could be one master and one apprentice, but many acolytes and believers. Obviously DB would've disagreed violently as he was wont to do, so they escaped to a distant planet in the unknown regions. There were some red Sith among their number, but the group was not large enough to sustain an independent population on their own. They gathered together those they could convince and set up a new world of their own. Through Sith magics they managed to place a dark side haze about their entire world and for all intents and purposes they disappeared from history.

Their arrival in the legacy era causes a great deal of trouble for all the major players, particularly Nihl's One Sith. (Game begins after the events of Legacy: War.) And they are equally out of touch with what has happened over the past couple thousand years due to their Sith induced exile.

They do not truly call on the light and dark sides of the force in balance, though that is an easy way to sum it up. It's more that they utilize the force as a single whole and do not break it down into categories. Force Lightning to them would be no more evil than a blaster. If they must be described simply, they would be more like force hedonists, living in the force for the sheer experience of it. They will end up making their base of operations on Zeltros where they fit right in almost too well.

Not sure if that sums them up any better than my shorter description, but that's the idea. They are the passion of the force and the embodiment of all that the lives therein bring to the force.

[Mando Knight]

From a lore standpoint, it doesn't fit. To date, there have been no Force users who have dedicated themselves to passion and not turned evil. It is difficult when pursuing passion to not be controlled by it, which is one of the major pitfalls for the "tragic hero" type of fallen Jedi.

They are larger than stock humans, but not so much as to have a serious effect. Perhaps a variation on DND's powerful build mechanic?

Powerful Build is a serious effect.

[Seatbelt]

I'd have to agree -using D&D alignment anyone who persues pleasure for pleasure's sake is chaotic neutral at best. Someone who pursues pleasure for pleasure's sake and ignores the means to achieve pleasure is probably chaotic evil.