More Star Wars Saga Edition Thoughts

Following up on my post from yesterday, while I don't think everything in the Saga Edition previews would be suitable for use in D&D, there are some mechanics that look really, really good and, with some adaptation, could be very suitable for a D&D game.

The biggest change is the removal of saving throws and replacing them with defenses. At base, I like this a lot. This is a great idea. Saving throws are a throwback to the wargames that D&D grew from, and given the current incarnation of the game they no longer make as much sense as a mechanic as they did back in the day.

At their core, saving throws are a kind of "skill check". In older editions of the game they were very specialized and they represented how well your character could resist particular types of magic, or could jump out of the way of particular types of magical effects. They were divided by magic types (and which saving throws were in the game depended on whether you were playing D&D or AD&D), representing the ability to dodge "Dragon Breath" or resist magic from "Rods, Staffs and Wands" or resist Poison attacks.

When 3rd edition came along, these were simplified down to their core, abstract principles -- how well you could dodge out of the way (Reflex), how well you could physically withstand the effect (Fortitude) and how well you could mentally resist an effect (Willpower). While this simplification seemed like a radical shift, it actually just abstracted the old system down to something similar, but that scaled more easily to more situations.

The 3rd edition system introduced a new problem (or, conversely, made apparent a problem that was already there) -- if your Reflex save represents your ability to get out of the way of a damaging effect before it hits you, how is it any different from your Armor Class, which represents your ability to dodge an attack to keep it from hitting you? Plus, 3rd edition also has true skill checks -- the question of when to use a Balance check versus a Reflex save is a real issue that, while discussed in some depth in the 3.5 edition Player's Handbook, is kind of obnoxious. If you have a high Balance or Tumble skill and you're actively trying to duck out of the way of something, why can't you make the skill check instead of the Reflex save, and why would you need some kind of feat to make it work? There's a game balance issue involved, of course, but the real problem comes from the fact that there are two different stats in the game that are attempting to describe the same thing.

Likewise, having a blurred distinction between Reflex Saves and Armor Class defense makes the action in combat stranger than it needs to be. Specifically, one-on-one effects are usually performed with a "to hit" roll -- the fighter taking a swing at an opponent, the wizard firing a ray at an enemy, etc. -- the attacker makes the roll against a set defense. Area effects, however, are performed with a "Reflex save" roll -- the defender makes a roll to avoid getting whacked by the effect. Though the actions being simulated are symmetric, the mechanics are completely opposite. Why not just have the wizard making the area attack make a "to hit" roll against the defenses of the folks within the area being targeted?

And that seems to be exactly what the folks writing the Star Wars Saga Edition asked themselves. By turning the three saving throws into Defenses and merging Armor Class (or in the case of Star Wars "Defense") and Reflex together into a Reflex Defense, they seem to have taken a big step to fixing this problem, and to making every combatant an active participant in combat whether they are making one-on-one attacks or throwing around fireballs.

This setup isn't perfect for D&D, though. Firstly, this method de-emphasizes armor immensely -- after a certain level your Reflex bonus from your class levels is going to dwarf any armor bonus you might get from equipment. For Star Wars this is fine -- almost no one in the setting wears armor and the Talents provided for wearing armor give enough of a reason for continuing to wear armor while not giving the armor wearers too much of an advantage. In "standard" D&D, armor needs to be much more important. Fighters should be the best class for combat, and that means having the best physical Defense (be that Armor Class or Reflex Defense) as well as the most hit points and best combat abilities. This needs to be taken into account if a system like this is put into D&D (though this would make a great variant for a Conan-style D&D game).

A second consideration is that the Star Wars method of improving defenses isn't a D&D-ish way of improving defenses. The Star Wars game proposes a simple +1 per character level bonus to all defenses across the board, with an additional +2 bonus based on which character class you have. This is a great, simple idea that works for Star Wars, but it dilutes the differences among classes. Additionally, this makes defense scale INCREDIBLY quickly -- a 10th level character would have over 20 for all of his defenses. This just doesn't feel right for D&D -- classes in D&D should have different feels. A more granular approach to defense improvement seems to me like it would be needed to keep D&D feeling like D&D instead of like an action movie. A fix might be to use +1/2 level for a primary defense and a +1/3 level for the secondary defenses of the class. This would keep defenses lower in general, which given a good mechanic for armor would keep the feel of D&D while simplifying the defense mechanics, though of course I haven't tried anything like this in play yet, so I'm not sure how well it would actually work in practice.