Quote from: CRKrueger;572709So by the time the Jedi gets to full Wuxia/Sorcery madness like SWTOR on youtube the other characters are at least as good if not better in their respective fields.

Yes. It's basically extremely time consuming to raise a Jedi to levels that are comparable to Obi Wan, with 8-10D in each Force skill, and that alone is an investment you're basically not making in other areas, while the other characters don't have to bother with Force skills themselves. So you may play for a long time before the power of the Jedi becomes really awesome, and when it does, usually the kind of separate problems and choices for the characters Gleichman alludes to show up organically in the game.

The best SW system I've enjoyed is the Buffy/Angel system. That really worked incredibly well for Jedi vs. Non-Jedi.  Like Slayers, the Jedi are uber-badass and they are the gods of battle BUT the supporting cast characters never felt unimportant.

Quote from: Benoist;572689Yup. And I'm not going to be suckered into it.

Me either.

Saga Edition works fine for my needs. I sure don't need three different RPGs to do what I can do with one...and if I ever decide Saga Edition is broken, there's at least half a dozen really good Savage Worlds hacks.

So old school games are going to be good for modeling this.  Basically if we all get the same amount of experience you can't be as good of a Jedi and a pilot, if I'm just working on being a pilot.  

If Jedi powers themselves are also more costly, then I can be Han, Chewy and Lando for the price of a Kenobi.  Niche protection organically through the realism of the setting.

How about d20/Saga?  How did the class systems deal with Jedi in actual practice?

So if we have a party consisting of, say, a jedi, a smuggler, a cocky pilot and a noble that's three core books? For something that's pretty close to the party in the original movie?

I think not. I've no problem per se with having different sorts of campaigns in the same universe having different core books, but I do when the classic concept of the setting can't be run without all three of them.

Quote from: D-503;572838So if we have a party consisting of, say, a jedi, a smuggler, a cocky pilot and a noble that's three core books? For something that's pretty close to the party in the original movie?

I think not. I've no problem per se with having different sorts of campaigns in the same universe having different core books, but I do when the classic concept of the setting can't be run without all three of them.

Han Solo/Chewbacca/Lando/Greedo/Boba Fett = Book One
Wedge/Elephant Nose who ratted out the Falcon = Book Two
Obi-Wan/Luke = Book Three

Nobles have no clue, my guess is Book One or Two

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;572732Me either.

Saga Edition works fine for my needs. I sure don't need three different RPGs to do what I can do with one...and if I ever decide Saga Edition is broken, there's at least half a dozen really good Savage Worlds hacks.

How does Saga do Jedi?

I think the original trilogy did alright with the jedi.  Luke, by RoJ, may have been pretty flashy, but he still needed lots of help at Jabba's palace.

The thing with Darth Vader was that he was a good pilot AND a jedi master, the two don't have to be linked. He's a high level character villain NPC type.

Quote from: CRKrueger;572857How does Saga do Jedi?

They are more powerful than in d6, but Saga tries to emulate Prequel Jedi over Original Trilogy Jedi.

They have their own Talent Trees, and the Force Training Feat gives them powers. They don't technically become a Knight until they take the Jedi Knight Prestige Class, but PrCs in Saga Edition are muuuuuuch more accessible than in D&D3/.5.

Quote from: Spike;572861I think the original trilogy did alright with the jedi.  Luke, by RoJ, may have been pretty flashy, but he still needed lots of help at Jabba's palace.

I don't know what other iterations of the SW RPG have been like; all my experience is with the WEG versions.

In WEG SW, there were two problems: one, the "official" writeups of the canon characters were ludicrously, insanely, turned-up-to-11 overpowered.  I ran the numbers once and you'd have to play every week for ten years to earn enough experience to get to Han Solo's stats as of ANH.

Second, as was already mentioned, Jedi start out useless, take forever to get anywhere, and by the time they do they and everyone else is godlike.  Also the mechanics for resolving any Force power are fiddly and so time-consuming that they kill the flow.

A further problem is that in episodes IV-VI, the jedi were chambara samurai/bene gesserit.  In Episodes 1-III and TOR, they're wu xia wire fu ninja.  That's a serious escalation in the assumptions about what a Jedi is capable of.

How I handled Jedi under WEG Star Wars: first of all, there is exactly one Jedi/Force Sensitive in the party; second, the Jedi can just add their Control/Sense/Alter dice to any skill roll where the Force would help - no special Force Power required for things like Force Jumping, Lightsaber Combat, or "these aren't the droids you're looking for".  Third, all Force Powers require the roll of only one Force skill.  Since we pretty much always played in the Galactic Empire period, there are no teachers and so advancing Force skills is almost always double cost.  Jedi Powers that don't map to an existing skill (Force Lightning, Telekinesis) roll just the Control/Sense/Alter dice.  Force Skills can be specialized.  As a general rule, any Force Power not show on screen in the original trilogy isn't available.

We also used the D6Legend rules rather than the half-die mechanics, so buying a new die tended to take a long time.

This combination of rules let Jedi be Jedi early on without overshadowing everyone else, and kept them from running roughshod over the other PCs.  It also kept the use of any Force Power from being the point where everyone else went for snacks.

Quote from: CRKrueger;572857How does Saga do Jedi?

Saga focussed on bringing balance with Jedi by boosting ther classes rather than holding Jedi back. Jedi could be good at pretty much anything, but a Soldier was more deadly in combat, a Noble better in dealing with people etc than an equivalent level Jedi. This was somewhat undermined by the Jedi add ons in the supplements.

As for powers, they had certain powers they could use all the time but most combat powers were what is now known as Encounter powers (i.e. replenish after a 5 minute rest).

IMO the best part of Saga was the starship combat rules. I just loved how it treated Capital Ships as terrain, rather than trying to allow for direct cross scale conflict all the time.

Quote from: CRKrueger;572856Han Solo/Chewbacca/Lando/Greedo/Boba Fett = Book One
Wedge/Elephant Nose who ratted out the Falcon = Book Two
Obi-Wan/Luke = Book Three

Nobles have no clue, my guess is Book One or Two

Exactly, so for a fairly typical in-setting party you need three core books, the last of which is due some two years after the first.

This does not seem to me to be in all respects an optimal approach.

Quote from: D-503;572902Exactly, so for a fairly typical in-setting party you need three core books, the last of which is due some two years after the first.

This does not seem to me to be in all respects an optimal approach.

Yeah. I don't mind split rulebooks where it makes sense. I don't find splitting character types in Star Wars to make any sense.

Epic Fail on FFG's part.  Bullshit gimmick dice.  Bullshit gimmick product lines.  Bullshit assumptions behind those bullshit gimmicks.  Utter failure to adhere to the KISS principle.  For fuck's sake, the various d20 System versions are all better than this shit- especially if the final products are in the same vein as what FFG's done with 40K.  Gonna stick with older editions for my use.

Quote from: CRKrueger;572733How about d20/Saga?  How did the class systems deal with Jedi in actual practice?

In Saga, you in effect have Encounter powers, that you fire off, and then you're spent till you've had time to rest (or with one Talent, get a nat 20).

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;572882They are more powerful than in d6, but Saga tries to emulate Prequel Jedi over Original Trilogy Jedi.

I'd actually strongly disagree with that.
In Saga, Jedi start off very powerful (especially if they take "Skill Focus: Use the Force", which is the roll that triggers all Force Powers), but as the game progresses, Force powers become less and less impressive, due to increasing Defenses. WEG's d6 had Jedi start off as chumps, but become unto Gods themselves at high level play.

I like Saga better in that regard, because it explains why all these high-level Jedi/Sith typically engage in swordfights, rather than spell battles.