Saga Edition Thread III: Saga Academy

[Gamgee]

The Sith are definitely still alive 300 years later for TOR. They are even a playable race.

[RandomLunatic]

I'm looking for usable talents for a high level gunslinger build. I don't have Galaxy of Intrigue, Unknown Regions, or Galaxy at war (the big one).

If someone could help me track down descriptions of these talents that are usable for a game I'd be eternally grateful.

Talent
Autofire assault (soldier)
Backstabber (misfortune)
Bullseye (gunslinger)
Champion (soldier)
Ferocious assault (elite trooper)
Full advance (soldier)
Ghost assailant (scout)
Grizzled warrior (soldier)
Nimble dodge (soldier)
Pistol duelist (gunslinger)
Reckless (soldier)
Stinging jab (soldier)
Swift shot (gunslinger)
Warriors awareness (Soldier)
Warriors intuition (soldier)

EDIT: I also want to say that there is a feat that allows you to boost your weapon for the encounter by using a standard action but I can't find it.

Try the second link in the OP. You can also look into this, which is a very handy sortable list for Excel. I swear by it for character creation.

As for the second question, that sounds like the Personalized Modifications talent, which is in either Starships of the Galaxy or the Tech Specialist web enhancement.

[Bobb]

Thank you sir!

[Bellberith]

I need help with 3 things....

First is a way to be able to use kinetic combat without having to make the use the force checks whenever i get hit by something.

And second is a way to stack morale and insight bonuses using the Kissai racial ability from KotOR if the character is by himself (self-buffs for the most part).

Last is a way to make unarmed combat work with weapon finesse.

~Thanks

[Nerd-o-rama]

Last one seems like a "talk to your GM", at least. Unarmed attacks aren't technically classed as light melee weapons, but there's no reason you shouldn't be able to say they are (perhaps at the expense of being able to use Echani Training or whatever feat it was that lets you add 2*Str to unarmed attacks under certain conditions.)

The "combined feats" rule in KOTOR Campaign Guide doesn't quite get around talking to your GM entirely, but he could reasonably ask you to take Weapon Focus: Unarmed Strike as an additional feat tax as a compromise if he for some reason thinks Weapon Finesse on unarmed attacks is somehow unbalancing.

By the way, I have continued my Dawn of Defiance campaign. Haven't quite finished the first module (I spent half a session on an irrelevant sidequest since two players were going to be busy until halfway through, and finished the last session with the Scout Trooper vs. Kybuck chase setpiece), but thus far my players are doing the two things I really wanted them to:

1) my powergaming Force Sensitive Noble player is spending his Wealth money on the rest of the team's equipment and his Noble bonus feats on supplementing his buffs, rather than pimping himself out
2) they are following the plot rails nicely (even if they kind of extorted more money than really necessary from Senator Organa, they have at least done things like make nice with Switch and the Felucians. I may have threatened to be liberal with DSPs beforehand).

One thing I like about DoD is that, even if the encounters aren't really that challenging, there are neat aspects to most of them - nice maps with lots of cover, environmental hazards, optional objectives for the skill monkeys who suck at combat (especially important since that's my wife's character), etc. Combined with suggestions from the WotC board archives it's kept the encounters nice and fun and not "I stand back and shoot them with my blaster" x5 every round.


Only thing I'm having trouble with is wearing down their HP from combat to combat, but I'll burn through the Noble's medpac budget eventually...

[RandomLunatic]

I need help with 3 things....

First is a way to be able to use kinetic combat without having to make the use the force checks whenever i get hit by something.

The only way I know to avoid that check (other than not getting shot, natch) is Vo'Ren's 4th Cadence, hitting the top DC of 38 (!) and then spending a Force Point. Although the lesser DCs of that regimen do give a small bonus to the sustain roll.

And second is a way to stack morale and insight bonuses using the Kissai racial ability from KotOR if the character is by himself (self-buffs for the most part).

Typed bonuses will not stack with each other. If you're looking for a way to get some on yourself, you could go Officer and share one of the others-only buff talents with an ally to us on you. Or grab Noble's Self-Sufficient talent, which lets you use Inspiration talents on yourself (which, for your purposes, is just Inspire Confidence). Or you go off the beaten path and find some talents that do work on yourself. Find Openings springs to mind.

Last is a way to make unarmed combat work with weapon finesse.

They already do. If you check the FAQ linked upthread, you'll find unarmed strikes are considered light, simple weapons.

Q: What weapon group includes unarmed attacks? Are you automatically proficient with unarmed attacks? Can you use them with combat feats like Double Attack? Can you use them with talent trees like Weapon Specialist and Weapon Mastery?

A: Unarmed attacks are considered light melee simple weapons and can be finessed, used in a grapple, or dual wielded.

[Philistine]

Only thing I'm having trouble with is wearing down their HP from combat to combat, but I'll burn through the Noble's medpac budget eventually...

With the once per character per day limit on First Aid, the party's medpac budget isn't normally the major limiting factor on healing unless the group is very resource-starved.

[Nerd-o-rama]

With the once per character per day limit on First Aid, the party's medpac budget isn't normally the major limiting factor on healing unless the group is very resource-starved.

Haha, whoops, there's my problem. Completely missed that rule.

I don't even have the excuse of "written in a screwy way" like Heal Damage and Install a Cybernetic Prosthesis being subheadings of Perform Surgery despite not being formatted as such.

[Philistine]

Yeah. I've seen a couple of GMs houserule First Aid to remove the daily limit, because it makes healing sufficiently scarce and slow to be a major problem for some parties. Second Wind is another once-per-day, and the Force powers Vital Transfer and Dark Transfer both have significant per-use costs. And that's it for in-combat healing: the next fastest option (Heal Damage with Surgical Expertise) takes a minimum of ten minutes to grant its benefit, and the next fastest after that (Put Other in Force Trance) requires at least a full hour of downtime. A party on the run might already have difficulty making time for those; but for a low level party, or a party without a trained surgeon or Force user in the group, recovery time for a single firefight might be measured in days or weeks.

[Agrippa]

I'm working on a project to file the Star Wars serial numbers off of Saga edition and open it up to other settings. One of the thing I'm trying to do is renaming the main Jedi talent trees. I've already renamed Jedi Sentinel to Occult Hunter and Divine Speech for Jedi Consular. Help with any other Jedi/Sith/general Force based talent trees would be welcome.

[LibraryOgre]

Kinda depends on what sort of setting you're going for... it sounds somewhat like Fading Suns, but more detail would help to decide.

[Bellberith]

If i am using Kinetic Combat and wielding Dual-Phase lightsabers do i get the -2 to reflex defense for using them with Kinetic Combat? Or only if they are being used in hand?

[Mando Knight]

From reading Kinetic Combat, the power does not benefit from anything that would increase reach: the attack is explicitly only against targets adjacent to the lightsaber's square, not those within reach. In essence, KC replaces reach in that manner. Similarly, you are no longer wielding the dual-phase lightsaber manually, so you would not suffer the penalty associated with trying to use the negated benefit.

[Agrippa]

Kinda depends on what sort of setting you're going for... it sounds somewhat like Fading Suns, but more detail would help to decide.

If you really want to know what sort of setting I'm going for it wouldn't hurt to start with these links of mine. I'll explain more tomorrow when I can.

Coming up with a world for the Burrwood Institute
Cities for the Burrwood setting
On making an adventuring academy hub thread

[Agrippa]

So, is that enough detail for you Mark Hall? I have some more here if you want it.

[chainer1216]

Hello all! I have an up coming game and have a pretty clear idea of what I want to play but I'm not sure on how to put all the pieces together to make something functional.

Level: 7
Race: Nagai
Force sensitive: yes
Idea: the character is going to be a mandalorian focused on infiltration, sabatoge and "selective target removal" so I want to me good at stealth, mechanics and computer use. I know I want the force powers of cloak and phase, and that I want my main method of fighting to be with the nagai's tekla blades.

Any ideas on how to make this all work?

[Nerd-o-rama]

You might be trying to do a few two many things, but let's see...

This sounds like a Scoundrel/Scout build aiming for Infiltrator to me, with a level or three of Soldier not being out of place. Let's see...

For abilities, focus on Dexterity, followed by Charisma, and just keep everything else out of the negatives. 10/17/10/12/12/13 after racial modifiers is more than sufficient with 25 PB. Put any additional starting points in Con or Wisdom and level up points into Dex and either Wis or Cha

Scoundrel 1 | Feat: Force Sensititive | Talent: Dastardly Strike | Skills: Mechanics, Perception, Stealth, Use Computer, Use the Force
Soldier 1 | Feat: Armor Proficiency Light | Talent: Force Cloak
Scout 1 | Feats: Weapon Proficiency Rifles (unless by some miracle you manage 13 Con, then take Shake it Off), Weapon Finesse | Talent: Improved Stealth
Scout 2 | Bonus Feat: Skill Focus Stealth
Scout 3 | Talent: Hidden Movement
Scout 4 | Feat: Force Training (Cloak x2) | Bonus Feat: Skill Focus Use the Force
Scout 5 | Talent: Shadow Striker

And that sets you up to take Infiltrator, with nice talents like Concealed Weapon Expert (make sure the GM counts Tehk'las for that, which he should), Creeping Approach, and Silent Takedown, and the Lead Infiltrator class feature, which lets you make Stealth checks for (Charisma Bonus, then 2x Charisma Bonus) allies at once, synergizing nicely with your Nagai hotness.

As an alternative, if you want to skip the Force-using aspect, it'll free up three feats and a talent from the above build, letting you pick up some Martial Arts (to synergize with Infiltrator's Unarmed Stun feature) and let you go Scoundrel 1/Scout 3/Soldier 3 to pick up Stunning Strike and make your BAB slightly less terrible.

[Blackdrop]

So, quick ruling question:

The Suppression Fire feat (TotG 91) says: "When you use the aid another action to impose a penalty to an enemy's attack rolls and your attack roll exceeds the target's Will Defense, that enemy must end it's turn in a position where it has cover from you if possible."


How would you say that interacts with the Coordinated Attack feat (SWC 83), which allows you to automatically succeed on the attack roll when aiding an ally's attack or suppressing an enemy? Would it be:

A)You apply both the attack roll penalty and the target has to find cover automatically.

or

B)You apply the attack roll penalty automatically and have the player roll the attack roll to see if the target has to find cover

My gut and rules-lawyer fu tells me that it's option A, but I was curious about what you guys thought.

[Mando Knight]

Option B.

Coordinated Attack is a free success against the Reflex 10 for Aid Another, regardless of distance. A free success against Will Defense, even for an effect as relatively minor as Suppression Fire, is too much for a single Feat + Talent combo.

[Blackdrop]

Option B.

Coordinated Attack is a free success against the Reflex 10 for Aid Another, regardless of distance. A free success against Will Defense, even for an effect as relatively minor as Suppression Fire, is too much for a single Feat + Talent combo.

It's four feats actually (Coordinated Attack + Suppression Fire, which needs Burst Fire, which need Heavy Weapon Proficiency), so the earliest a non-Soldier could complete the Combo is level 9 (level 6 for a human non-soldier and non-human soldier, level 3 for a human soldier) and Coordinated Attack is only against adjacent and point-blank targets, so I disagree that it's too strong.

[Mando Knight]

You're still letting the Coordinated Attack change an attack roll to an auto-success... it's the three-feat chain to get the option of Suppression Fire, and then one more feat to change it into an auto-success?

Coordinated Attack as-written just lets you auto-succeed at the basic applications of the Aid Another action in point-blank range (I had forgotten that stipulation earlier)... you'll always succeed at the DC10 attack roll regardless of other penalties or rolling a 1--it is essentially setting your minimum result to 10. Suppression Fire explicitly calls out comparing the attack roll to the target's Will Defense, which is a separate step to succeeding at the Aid Another check itself. The leap from the effective "Result is always ≥ 10" to an actual "Result = Arbitrarily High" is a bit much in my opinion, when the DC is as low as it is and the text of Coordinated Attack ignores the step (making an attack roll) called out by the text of Suppression Fire.

[Blackdrop]

You're still letting the Coordinated Attack change an attack roll to an auto-success... it's the three-feat chain to get the option of Suppression Fire, and then one more feat to change it into an auto-success?

I might just be tired, but I'm having a hard time understanding your second paragraph. However, the answer to the above is yes, I think auto-succeeding on what amounts to a -2 to Attack + move to cover that requires you to invest a decent chunk of your character build resources to accomplish is fairly reasonable, particularly now that I've looked over Suppression Fire and it doesn't affect anything higher level then you and it's a mind-effecting fear affect, which means there are whole swaths of enemies that it wouldn't work against anyway.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Going to run my last session of Dawn of Defiance: The Traitor's Gambit tonight and it took me until just now to realize how similar the whole mission is to the prologue of Metal Gear Solid 3, i.e. trekking through the jungle to snatch a defector from a suspiciously poorly-guarded facility. I only point this out because I'm an enormous MGS fan, especially of 3.

Oh well, I still have time to get a tree frog joke in. And possibly a cardboard box.

[Scowling Dragon]

Say, Im a GM, who likes having stuff like leadership in my games.

I like the followers as a concept, but don't like their execution. How would one recommend I go about making them more worthwhile?

What my ideas come too is reducing the actions required to make them do stuff, and upping their HP.

[Sith_Happens]

Oh well, I still have time to get a tree frog joke in. And possibly a duracardboard box.

Fixed that for you.

[Nerd-o-rama]

No duracardboard was used, but they did successfully infiltrate the facility, rescue the totally not an obvious plant, and blow the facility to smithereens. Thanks to an overall dice roll average between me and the players of about 5, it took long enough that I didn't get in the vehicle chase scene I wanted for my pilot character at the end, but all's well that ends well.

Note to self, though - my Zygerrian Soldier character has taken the mentality of "shoot the officer first to the exclusion of all else". With that combined with low HP totals for human enemies, I'll have to have my dudes with names/Noble levels standing outside of his LOS, or at least behind three directions of cover. At least the mutant Felucians weren't one-shotted, and I did make two players use Destiny Points to avoid a couple of lucky crits and a grenade (I made the Force Sensitive Noble use one to Move Light Object a frag grenade without a readied action/that grenade defense talent. Saved 80% of the party from taking 4d6/2d6 on the first round of combat while they were clustered in an elevator, though).

Anyway, a good time was had by all and I and everyone else are very hype for A Wretched Hive and various criminal shenanigans. Thus far in downtime emails my Trandoshan Soldier has acquired 1) Heavy Weapons Proficiency 2) a Miniaturized Blaster Cannon and 3) stuck his vibrobayonet on the end of that. To which I can only say "why didn't I ever think of that?"


Ah, and I did have a question unrelated to my campaign, specifically about the interaction of Far Shot, a Targeting Scope, and a Rangefinder.

1) Far Shot reduces range penalties a step, i.e. PB/Short/Medium/Long are now 0/0/-2/-5
2) Targeting scopes do the same thing, reducing range penalties as if the target is one step closer, but only while aiming: 0/0/-2/-5
3) Rangefinders simply eliminate the penalty at Short Range, but unlike scopes doesn't require you to aim, giving you 0/0/5/10

So I get that Far Shot and a Rangefinder wouldn't really stack: with Far Shot, you've already permanently eliminated the Short Range penalty and reduced the Medium and Long ones. What about Far Shot while aiming through a Targeting Scope, though? Would the reduction of the penalty and the reduction of the effective range increment stack, i.e. treating Medium as Short (so 0) and Long as Medium (so -2), giving you range penalties of 0/0/0/-2 total?

I'm asking because sniping is fun, as is kitting out a rifle with accessories.

[Philistine]

Yes, they stack. They also stack with Accurate weapons, if you ever find yourself with a need to hit targets 300 squares away without a range penalty.

In practice, though, weapon ranges are long enough in character scale that you rarely have to worry about range penalties anyway - you'll almost never have a shot longer than the point blank bracket for pistols. So it's pilots rather than snipers who get the most mileage out of Far Shot.

[Sith_Happens]

Query: What if I wish to make a shot to the knees at 120 kilometers?

[Nerd-o-rama]

Query: What if I wish to make a shot to the knees at 120 kilometers?

You'll need an Aratech rifle with a tri-light scope, and love.

Yes, they stack. They also stack with Accurate weapons, if you ever find yourself with a need to hit targets 300 squares away without a range penalty.

In practice, though, weapon ranges are long enough in character scale that you rarely have to worry about range penalties anyway - you'll almost never have a shot longer than the point blank bracket for pistols. So it's pilots rather than snipers who get the most mileage out of Far Shot.

Yeah, I can see that. I'll recommend it to my pilot Jawa, since it'll also make his pistol more effective at hitting across some of DoD's larger battlefields.

I wouldn't think they'd stack with Accurate, though, since those (like Rangefinders) just eliminate the penalty at Short Range, which Far Shot already does.

[Philistine]

Not quite. You're correct about the effect of Accurate, but eliminating the penalty for Short range is only part of the effect of Far Shot (or of a targeting scope, with Aiming). Far Shot reduces the effective range by one category, allowing you to shoot into Medium range as if it were Short - and with an Accurate weapon, you attack targets at Short range with no penalty. Meanwhile Long range is still treated as Medium range, so you go straight from no penalty to -5, skipping the -2 bracket altogether and pushing the -10 bracket right off the table. Then add a targeting scope, spend two Swifts to Aim, and now your modified Medium range (which used to be Long, before you took Far Shot) is now also effectively reduced to Short range... which gives no penalty, due to your Accurate weapon.

Rangefinders don't work in the above combo because their effect is the same as Accurate (eliminating a penalty rather than reducing effective range categories, so that combining the two has no effect), and the text explicitly disallows using a rangefinder in combination with a scope. But there is no such prohibition against combining a rangefinder with Far Shot, which opens up an amusing possibility WRT Heavy Weapons. I can't think of any Accurate heavies, and many of them want you to spend your Swift actions bracing them (meaning you can't Aim). But if you put a rangefinder on an Inaccurate weapon (which can't hit at Long range anyway), then put it in the hands of a character with Far Shot, you get no-penalty shooting out to the maximum range you can reach - which is still pretty far, even with the entire Long bracket truncated.

But as I said before, this all sounds a lot stronger than it is. In practice the extra accuracy at >100 square ranges almost never matters; indeed, it's rare enough for accuracy beyond 20 squares to come up in play. That's partly because it requires freakin' enormous maps, and partly because super-long-range sniper fights typically aren't very interesting for the pistoleros and melee folks (i.e., the majority of most parties).