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2019-12-09, 12:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2016
Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
As the title pretty much says; in the last couple of years or so- I've made a few posts involving me asking for advice on Saga Edition and I notice that only a few people respond. Was it only really discussed on the WotC boards or something? Because Google searches tend to turn up very little if anything.
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2019-12-09, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
There is, but it tends to be pretty sparse; the system wasn't supremely popular even in its hayday (by system standards). Part of that's because Saga as a "system of pure mechanics", game rules completely divorced from fluff, is just kinda bad game design in a number of ways...and part of that's because some of the specifics of Saga as a system just really don't mesh well with some people's idea of what Star Wars is supposed to be. That it's not quite fitting the proper feel of SW means that it doesn't attract the huge audience some other more fitting system might, and that it's a mechanical mess means the parts of the player base that are interested in optimization have their work cut out for them. Basically anything that isn't a force wizard or a pilot takes effort to remain relevant beyond the early-mid levels.
That's not to say the community isn't there, just that it's...a bit underpopulated, and slow? Like, I'm only checking this sub-forum for Saga threads because a Saga game recently got started and I had a question of my own I wanted answered that was vaguely relevant...but I've got no answers yet. That's just how it goes sometimes.
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My Homebrew
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2019-12-10, 10:45 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
- Location
- Avernus
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
This depends on who you ask, but my anecdotal evidence suggests this, too. That said, with the pilots and force wizards ruling the day, we've found that SAGA is great for a Force Unleashed style game, where the emphasis is on the Force and kicking butt with it.
That said, most of my information for this game and ideas for builds comes from an old dead forum, and, hilariously enough, our own Mark Hall's blog/website when he used to make a bunch of builds in his Build of the Week thing.
I usually get a person or two to crawl out of the woodwork on this forum when I've had questions before. usually. This is the only forum, though, that I use. FFG's Star Wars seems to be much more popular than SAGA ever was.
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2019-12-10, 11:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2007
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- San Antonio, Texas
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Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
For a while, we had a relatively robust community, with a few long threads from SWSE, but it waned a bit since FFG came out.
Me, I'm currently running it in Savage Worlds, because my players know that and it works well for a Star Wars game.The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
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2019-12-10, 04:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2016
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
This is something I've noticed as well; this is especially true when it comes Nobles; Scoundrels; and Scouts due to how defenses scale in this game.
That sounds like my GMs style; except that it's supposed to be him kicking butt appearently.
Yeah; I've noticed how popular FFG's system is (in fact I even like it) but most of my GM's (and myself) dislike the new Canon and FFG doesn't support it. Also I had a GM try to run it and he apparently hated it (I don't think he likes it when it's hard to kill a player in a game).
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2019-12-10, 09:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
Honestly, the balance and fluff problems combined make Saga a very niche system. My very general advice to anybody wanting to play a game set in the Star Wars universe that has balanced mechanics and is largely at a power level that fits the canon much better than Saga...play Shadowrun.
The magic system is more properly balanced against everything else in it, the Luck Stat lends itself well to scoundrel-types, the cybernetics/biotech subsystem is far more intricate than what Saga offers compared to what should be possible in the lore (and that stuff even interferes with magic, the way prosthetics canonically do with the Force!). There's support for vehicles, and fantastical creatures, and weird nonhuman races integrated into a more modern+ setting, and there's even a good portion of rules surrounding the "Internet Of The Future", a thing that should almost certainly exist in some capacity within the SW universe but isn't part of the official canon because everybody's afraid of drifting too far from the original trilogy, and the Internet was barely a thing at all between '77-'83 (and even to the degree it existed, it wasn't exactly well-known in the public consciousness until...I wanna say early 90s?). Anyway, rules for that exist, and would enhance a Star Wars setting.
About the only thing that can really be truly broken in Shadowrun is Mystic Adepts that start pushing the boundaries on what is even possible through magic - but honestly, Mystic Adepts are the Jedi builds anyway; the idea that Jedi in particular can accomplish greater things in some respects than anyone else if they advance far enough is kinda baked into the setting anyway. Probably the biggest issue with making a SW hack out of Shadowrun is, you'd need to get a little creative about starting races. You'd probably also need more substantial vehicle options, particularly for larger-scale stuff, but that'd be the domain of the DM anyway.
EDIT: Also, while this isn't explicitly mentioned in Star Wars, there's at least one aspect of the originals that I feel plays well in a "space is the new wild west" feeling Star Wars kinda goes for...because SW isn't the only property that's done that, and it was explained pretty well in the other one. Traveler RPG is more or less built around the idea that ships can travel faster than beamed-through-space information, and that the fastest way to inform somebody on the other side of the galaxy about something was to send the info on a ship (similar to how you could stay ahead of news about you traveling via the Pony Express if you had a faster horse); a similar idea (that goes unmentioned in the film, and thus has been nitpicked to hell and back) more or less sets the plot of Ep 4 in motion. Bringing that in would also help, probably.Last edited by AvatarVecna; 2019-12-10 at 09:45 PM.
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My Homebrew
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2019-12-16, 04:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2016
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
Besides being a Force Mage or a Pilot; what are the optimization points in Saga Edition?
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2019-12-17, 10:52 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
- Location
- Avernus
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
Condition Track Killer. It's possible to make a character that knocks an opponent down on Condition Track 4-5 points in a single shot. It's so powerful I don't even use it against my party; and there's a gentleman's agreement that so long as they don't use it, I won't.
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2019-12-17, 04:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
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2019-12-17, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
A few general things:
1) Due to both the HP-to-DPR ratio at various levels, and the significant range of ranged weapons, melee isn't viable in the early game (unless, as usual, you're a Jedi and can deflect shots/pierce DR). You've gotta expect that your enemies are going to get at least one shot at you while you're closing to melee, and "one free shot for your enemies" is a much bigger deal at level 1 than level 20. Even high-level, melee is almost certainly worse than ranged, but it's at least possible to focus melee at that point without being screwed. If your DM is fond of having you fight in more closed-off locations, rather than places with solid sniper sightlines, melee becomes more viable.
2) Fighting mobs...offensively, any method of getting extra attacks, or AoEs, will serve you well; it doesn't matter if the attack/damage bonuses are super-low, because you're probably going to OHKO whoever you target, so targeting as many people as possible is ideal. Defensively, high defense scores don't actually help you as much as you think: Aid Another on attack rolls will see a crowd of stormtroopers nail your ass to the wall. Your friends here are fourfold: stealth, distance, cover, and concealment, and going prone. If they can't find you, they can't shoot you, so don't let them find you; if they find you, don't let them know what square you're in; if they know what square you're in, don't let them get close enough to shoot you except maybe at a massive penalty; if they get close enough to shoot you, don't let them get a clear shot on you; if they get a clear shot on you, minimize your profile as much as possible. Their lives are meaningless and will be thrown away for a fleeting advantage.
3) Fighting high-level individuals, your goal is very different: volume of fire will let you miss three times instead of hitting once, but past the mid-levels, hitting once a turn turns every fighting into a grueling slugfest. There are easier options - the first being to pull out weird tricks, like debuffing the enemy directly, putting conditions on them (knocking them prone, stunning them, blinding them, etc), which can be accomplished through various talents and especially force powers (if you can succeed against their defenses). The second is simple: condition track damage. Knocking people down the condition track is absurdly effective against high-level individuals for reasons of action economy: if you knock them down the track enough, they have to choose between accepting a big penalty to everything, or spending three swifts (or whatever BS they might have to do it quicker) undoing the CT damage. For this reason, basically anything improving your ability to knock people down the condition track is absolutely nuts.
(Just as an example, a Scoundrel 1 can take a stun-capable rifle and the Dastardly Strike talent; now, any shot beating DT on a flatfooted target knocks them down 3 steps on the condition track. That person is going into the combat with a -5 to basically everything (including DT, since that's based on Fort), and if they go down another two steps (like, say, from a stun shot that beats their lowered DT), they're unconscious, and the fight is over. Just those two things, available to a 1st lvl character, gives you a solid chance at two-shotting anybody you snuck up on. And it just gets worse as you gain levels: both Gunslinger and Bounty Hunter have "knock them down a step if you Aim first" talents, and you can combine them with the things I just mentioned to theoretically knock the enemy down 5 steps in one shot. Heck, three of those steps (flatfooted/aiming/aiming) don't even require you to beat DT. You could take the tiniest dumbest pistol with no stun setting, aim-snipe somebody in the surprise round, and then aim-attack them in the next round too. Congrats, you just dealt them -5 condition in a way that doesn't care about DT at all.)
Now, there's things like that for melee too, for sure. But it's...easier with ranged. Combining all three of the above points, and you get to the interesting point that a sniper build using a gun that possesses a stun setting and can switch between single-shot and autofire is going to let you dominate both crowds and powerful individuals. These points all combined are part of why sniper builds are some of the biggest BS you can pull in this game that isn't Force Wizardry.
4) Outside of those general things, you should be aware that buffing/debuffing/tanking is viable even without using the Force. Nobles have options for buffing/debuffing, Tech Specialist can turn money piles into tiny bonuses on every piece of gear everybody has, Soldiers can focus the commando tree to limit enemy targeting options...there's stuff that can work pretty well. There are certain skill roles that are best filled by droids - both because focusing on them takes away resources from your real character's ability to fight, and because droids (even non-heroic droids, just "bought off the market) just flatly do those roles better. These are the first three droid classes: medical, technical, and protocol. Nobody's going to be as good at healing/techie stuff/face skills as a droid dedicated to the purpose, and you should have better things to spend your talents/feats/money on.
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My Homebrew
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2019-12-18, 02:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2009
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Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
I made a list a long time ago about cheap droids. Hope it helps.
List set up is as follows:
Droid-cost-book-page-Size-movement
ASP loader-1,000-Core-211-Med-Walker
56-s/m-2000-KOTOR-89-Dim-Flyer
Serve0-800-KOTOR-90-small-hover
J9 Worker-900-Sn'V-157-med-walker
Remote-350-CW-162-Dim-hover
Pit Droid-1,300-CW-70-small-walker
PK Worker-1,000-TotG-162-small-walker
I also remember seeing rules for the following:
wire ammo packs into explosives.
A heated blade that could cut though bulkheads.
A riot shield that had a built in tazer.
Mention (but no stats for) hut power armor.
mention of using droidification on one of those large power cells to make a suicide bomb droid (this was on a forum someplace).
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2019-12-19, 03:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2013
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
When the Wizards of the coast board for saga edition went down (some?) people from over there went to http://thesagacontinues.createaforum.com/
I am not quite sure how active it still is, though at least two subforums seem to have posts from today.
There are plenty, and you can specialize in almost anything you want to do. For instance: damage & hit chance for ranged or melee or stacking a ridiculous reflex defence so your enemies have a hard time hitting you. Or stuff like grabbing skill focus in tons of skills or buffing allies with attack and skill bonuses. Also, just playing a jedi withouth going full force wizard works perfectly fine.
On a different note: Most force powers are limited to targets within 12 "squares" or so, so in cases where melee has range issues, force powers often share those issues.Last edited by Waar; 2019-12-19 at 03:54 AM.
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2019-12-19, 03:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
- Location
- Avernus
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2019-12-23, 03:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
Optimization is the art of bringing your character concepts to life in spite of the predilections of a system. Once, I wanted some scary non-Force NPCs for my Old Republic:Mandalorian Wars campaign. The melee guys were level 5 soldier/scouts, and of course they had great mobility: being Mandos and all. On the round they are introduced, three of them kill 36 Old Republic soldiers (stats per the splatbook). This is a forum-game screenshot, complete with dicerolls, from the second combat round, when they take on the Jedi PCs (as a reminder, flat-footed = no Block).
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2019-12-23, 03:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2016
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
I didn't know about number four; or how easy CT damage is... My understanding of the classes is that they started with a distinct role but diversified with every splat; to varying degrees of success.
I'll check that out;
but what about things like Move Object where it has "Line of Sight or..."
That's a lot of downed PC's ; did they win? If so; How?
I have some more question; are Bonus HP useful? What if it's once per Encounter?
Secondly; it looks like species tend be more useful then they'd be in 3.5e; I this a correct conclusion?
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2019-12-23, 04:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
- Protecting my Horde (yes, I mean that kind)
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
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2019-12-23, 07:07 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2013
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
Well, there is a fair amount of errata, especially for the core book.
But the short of it is that Move Object doesn't have unlimited range, and neither does any of the other.
(most require 12 squares and Line of Sight)
Edit:
Interesting build you got there. Combining Prudent Escape with what I assume to be greater cleave and charge bonuses. If they managed to kill 36 mooks in a single round I assume they would want Desperate gambit or somthing similar. But I do wonder which way you chose to get the extra damage dice, since rapid strike doesn't synchronize well with power hammers.Last edited by Waar; 2019-12-24 at 09:24 AM.
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2019-12-24, 04:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
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2019-12-24, 05:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2013
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
That is a pretty brutal build, but why do they have both follow through and prudent escape, just to stack them?
I think I assumed stormtrooper level armor, but against the standard issue KotOR republic troopers, enhanced energy projectors are very effective.
Either way, that is a 3 man(dalorian) wrecking ball, especially if they can stay grouped up.
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2019-12-25, 03:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007
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2019-12-25, 03:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
Act I of the campaign is a "Harry Potter"-style padawan academy, but one where the teachers are hiding a terrible secret. Act II is the outbreak of the Mandalorian Wars: the invading Mandalorians are very effective while the Republic and the Jedi Council aren't; the PCs are faced with desperate situations and perhaps they turn to the Dark Side in response, as Revan did. The final Act III depends on the PCs choices in the first two Acts.
They are useful, it's more a question of what you're giving up for them. I think I've devised at least one Force build that was able to generate a decent amount each round.
Very relative: there's some insane stuff in 3.5 enabled by species. Suffice to say choosing the right species for your concept in SAGA is rewarding.
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2020-01-07, 12:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2016
Re: Is there an optimization community for Star Wars Saga Edition?
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2020-01-08, 03:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2007