Posted by Jer at 7:15 AM on
Friday, May 11, 2007
There's a new preview for the upcoming Star Wars Saga Edition RPG up at Wizards of the Coast's website. This one's all about the rules changes to make droids viable player characters in this edition.
I think this is a good approach -- making droid a "race" in the game rather than coming up with a bunch of exceptions to the standard rules to make droids usable as PCs. The description given at the website seems to be a combination of the warforged character traits (from the D&D Eberron setting) mixed with some new rules specifically for the Star Wars setting (such as Ion weapons, the ability to reallocate their skill training, their "rest" requirements). I especially like that droids get to use Force Points. Since Force Points are an abstract "Drama Point" mechanic in the game, not allowing droids access to these points limits their capabilities as a PC. Plus, it makes little sense -- R2 was one of the luckiest characters in the whole movie series. Without having access to the Force Points mechanic, someone playing an R2-like droid character couldn't hope to even come close to replicating the little guy's performance.
I wish that droids could be Jedi, though. I know that's a limitation of the Star Wars universe (after all, they're not alive, so they can't have any "midichlorians" running through their system), but still. The image of a golden protocol droid in Jedi robes completely amuses me for some reason.
A number of folks have been looking at these previews as indications of what may be coming up for a new "Fourth Edition" of Dungeons and Dragons. I'm not so convinced. I think some of these rules changes may make it in, but a lot of these changes are just to make the d20 system feel more like Star Wars. It seems like now, 5 years after this whole "d20 Star Wars" experiment got started, Wizards is finally making the system fit the setting. That's a good thing in my mind, but there's no indication that what works to make d20 more "Star Wars"-like would also work to make d20 more "Dungeons and Dragons"-like. Time will tell, I suppose.
I think this is a good approach -- making droid a "race" in the game rather than coming up with a bunch of exceptions to the standard rules to make droids usable as PCs. The description given at the website seems to be a combination of the warforged character traits (from the D&D Eberron setting) mixed with some new rules specifically for the Star Wars setting (such as Ion weapons, the ability to reallocate their skill training, their "rest" requirements). I especially like that droids get to use Force Points. Since Force Points are an abstract "Drama Point" mechanic in the game, not allowing droids access to these points limits their capabilities as a PC. Plus, it makes little sense -- R2 was one of the luckiest characters in the whole movie series. Without having access to the Force Points mechanic, someone playing an R2-like droid character couldn't hope to even come close to replicating the little guy's performance.
I wish that droids could be Jedi, though. I know that's a limitation of the Star Wars universe (after all, they're not alive, so they can't have any "midichlorians" running through their system), but still. The image of a golden protocol droid in Jedi robes completely amuses me for some reason.
A number of folks have been looking at these previews as indications of what may be coming up for a new "Fourth Edition" of Dungeons and Dragons. I'm not so convinced. I think some of these rules changes may make it in, but a lot of these changes are just to make the d20 system feel more like Star Wars. It seems like now, 5 years after this whole "d20 Star Wars" experiment got started, Wizards is finally making the system fit the setting. That's a good thing in my mind, but there's no indication that what works to make d20 more "Star Wars"-like would also work to make d20 more "Dungeons and Dragons"-like. Time will tell, I suppose.
Labels: d20, dungeons and dragons, rpg, star wars
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