I’ve been working on something new lately. I don’t want to say too much about it, but I’ll tell you a few things, if you’re interested. First, it’s based on Saga, in a loose sense. Some of the mechanical ideas are similar, and many of the goals are the same, but I’m going about it in a different way. For one thing, I’m using playing cards instead of dice. I’m trying to simplify and streamline wherever I can, too. Also, I’m designing it with a setting in mind (Wild Blue), so it’s not really a generic system like Saga is intended to be.

One thing that this has shown me is that the simple decision to use cards instead of dice opens up a lot of interesting possibilities. Concepts like face cards and suits create lots of gameplay mechanics that dice simply don’t allow for.

At any rate, I’m having fun creating the system, and hopefully it’ll give me the kick in the ass I need to finish Wild Blue, finally. Time will tell.

Yesterday, I played a three-player game of HeroCard Orc Wars. If you’ve read my review, you’ll note that I assess it strictly as a two-player game; this is because I didn’t own the expansion packs at the time of the review, and I still don’t. When I played with my friends Tad and Chris yesterday, Chris played as the orcs, Tad played the Paladin, and I played as the Ranger, using the Ninja deck from Rise of the Shogun. I still plan on posting a second part to my review, assessing it as a multiplayer game with the decks that it’s meant to be played with, but I thought I’d post some preliminary thoughts based off of the game I played yesterday. In no particular order:

• As a multiplayer game, Orc Wars is something of a mixed bag. I enjoyed it, and I think there’s a lot of potential fun there, but my problem is with the player elimination mechanic. As a rule, I’m not generally a big fan of player elimination in multiplayer games. In a two-player game, it’s fine; once a player is eliminated, the game ends. Yesterday, though, Tad was eliminated twenty minutes or so into the game, and had to watch me and Chris play what had effectively become a two-player game for another thirty or forty minutes. How is that fun for Tad? I’ve always thought that, regardless of whether you win or lose, a good game should be fun for every player as much as possible. The other issue with the player elimination mechanic is that, once a player is eliminated, the orcs are at a huge advantage. Once Tad was eliminated, Chris and I were effectively playing a two-player game; however, he was able to reinforce his armies based on the number of elves at the start of the game, and he got a bonus draw whenever I drew cards based on the same thing. This puts the remaining elves at a pretty severe disadvantage, and it almost makes it feel like you’re just trying to delay defeat as long as possible, rather than trying to really win. Of course, this may vary based on scenario. To combat these problems, I’d like to try Orc Wars with a modified multiplayer system, one that eliminates the player elimination aspect of the game. Some possibilities:
  • A mechanic similar to the one used in Descent: Journeys in the Dark could be used. Instead of each elf having a wound track that results in elimination when it’s filled, perhaps the elves have a collective pool of tokens equal to their total wounds. Each time an elf suffers a successful attack, they discard a wound counter; when they have no more left, the game ends and the orcs win.

  • Perhaps an elf whose wound track is full could suffer a sort of ‘disabled’ condition. Upon receiving his final wound, that elf skips his next action phase, but then plays as normal afterward. Any time the elf takes another wound, he suffers the same effect, skipping his action phase. The elf might also suffer some constant debilitating effect, like the value of any attack sequence he plays being one or two points lower for as long as his wound track is full. When all elves have full wound tracks, the orcs win.
• The more elves there are, the more it is to the elves’ advantage to accomplish their objectives quickly. Tad and I spent a couple of rounds trying to kill off a squad of orcs, but because Chris could reinforce his armies more effectively in a three-player game than in a two-player game, the orcs were reappearing almost as quickly as we could kill them. By the time the game had ended, Chris had four full squads of orcs on the board; that’s twenty orcs against my lone elf! We were playing The Relics, and if we had been trying to get the treasures on the board a little more quickly, we might have stood more of a chance.
• If you don’t own the expansions for this game but you do own other HeroCard games, the ones from Rise of the Shogun make good thematic approximations of the Ranger and Sorceress. Thematically, the Ninja is a pretty good match for the Ranger, and either the Prince or the Miko would work well for the Sorceress. For me, playing as the Ninja helped to minimize the thematic disconnect that I would have felt had I played, say, the Cosmic Cult from Galaxy or the Cryptomancer from Cyberspace.

In all, I feel like Orc Wars is really optimized for two players as it is, though I think I need a few more multiplayer play-throughs to truly get a good sense of the game. The game scales well on the orc side, allowing the orc to still be a viable player, but the player elimination aspect has some problems.

First, there was the World of Darkness. Then, there was the second World of Darkness. Now the approach of Monte Cook’s World of Darkness is imminent, and I must say I’m pretty excited about it. I’m one of those people who likes the new Vampire game, enjoys the lack of bloat and reduction of typecasting. I’ve read a few previews on Pen & Paper Games for this new product, and I’m salivating already.

It’s been a little while since my last post. I’d like to blame it on our impending move and, in truth, that might have something to do with my motivation issues, but truthfully I think that lack of stuff to post is the prime culprit. Things have been a little slow, gaming wise. I will post on a few gaming-related things, as usual, in no particular order.

1. I played Arkham Horror last weekend with some friends. We normally play with the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh and Dunwich Horror expansions, but last weekend we also got the chance to play with the King in Yellow expansion, too. We lost, and I think that expansion had something to do with it. It certainly adds some cool new toys to the mix; one of the players got a spell that granted him a sort of controllable lycanthropy, which was useful. I also got a journal that allowed me to reduce the Terror Track once. However, the expansion does ramp up the difficulty somewhat, and it succeeds in adding an extra level of tension to the game.

2. I’ve been playing Dungeon Siege 2 lately; picked it up cheap along with its expansion pack, and I have not regretted that decision. DS2 does all the same things right that the first did, but it adds more depth and a somewhat more interesting storyline (though it’s still pretty generic and somewhat predictable so far). The game is not, by any stretch of the imagination, realistic. It is, however, extremely fun, providing that combination of mindless combat, party management, and carrot-on-a-stick character advancement that makes it so appealing.

3. Lately, I’ve been reading Secrets of Xen’drik a campaign supplement for the Eberron setting that deals with that mysterious continent. It’s not like other campaign supplements I’ve read. When I first found out about it, I viewed it with some trepidation. Kieth Baker, the setting’s creator, had always been very clear that he didn’t want to detail Xen’drik too fully, that he wanted to leave it mostly open for individual DMs to fill in with their own imagination. Would a supplement pull back that curtain too much, reveal too much of what should remain hidden? Thankfully, it doesn’t. The supplement is a sort of campaign toolbox, with a variety of settings, encounters, and even adventure frameworks that are flavorful, but generic enough to be easy to place anywhere on the continent. The book stays away from specifics and metaplots, allowing the DM to create his or her own plots and mysteries.

HeroCard Orc Wars is the latest in TableStar Games’ flagship series, and it’s a good one. The game is a departure from other HeroCard games in a number of different ways, though some of them are not in the scope of this initial review. I should note before I begin that currently I only own the core game, not the expansion packs. TableStar has informed me that the expansion packs are on their way, though, and I will review them (and the multiplayer aspects of this game) in Part 2 of this review, at a later date.

The Decks
Orc Wars comes with two Hero decks, the Paladin and the Orc King. The Paladin is fairly straightforward, with some powerful base attacks and some decent mods and blocks, but he does have a few tricks up his sleeve. “Pious Protection”, for example, is a base block with a value equal to the cost of a base attack that you already have in play; very useful for when you’ve already lead an attack with “Magical Blade”, which costs 6 Body. Other good cards include “Tactical Insight”, which allows you to draw three cards immediately, and “Divine Sacrifice”, an incredibly versatile card that functions as either an attack mod or a block mod with a value equal to twice the number of cards you discard from your hand when you play it.

The Orc King is similarly straightforward, and is designed such that none of his cards cost more than 4 points of any given attribute (more on why later). Again, like the Paladin, he’s got some tricks up his sleeve. “Avenging Sword” is a potent base attack with a value equal to the value of a base attack that an opponent has in play, allowing you to use your opponent’s cards against him. “Rending Fangs” functions as an attack mod with a value one higher than another attack mod that you already have in play in the current attack sequence, which makes for a mean one-two punch with the Orc King’s numerical attack mods.

The artwork on the cards is very good and extremely appealing, and the combination of card names with pictures serves to enhance the theme and feel of the game while playing. It’s very cool, for example, how most of the Orc King’s cards feature his minions doing things, rather than himself, which reinforces the idea that he’s sitting back and commanding his orcs to do his bidding.

The Game
Orc Wars is an asymmetrical combat game. What do I mean by that? One player plays the Paladin, a single elf hero pitted against the other player’s squads of orcs, and possibly the Orc King, as well. In any given game, the Paladin will be vastly outnumbered by the orc player’s forces. However, orcs are individually much weaker than the Paladin is, and the Paladin is capable of killing multiple orcs with a single attack.

Technically, I suppose the elf player can choose any of the three roles that come with the game, though only the Paladin deck is available in the core box. The elf Role Cards allow for different play styles on the part of the elf player. The Paladin role, for example, kills all adjacent orcs of the same clan on a successful attack and can take an additional wound (each time the elf suffers a successful attack, he takes a wound; when he’s taken enough wounds, he’s dead). The Ranger can intersperse movement with actions (whereas other players must move first then act), and can make multiple attacks in a single round (the others are generally limited to one). The Sorceress can attack orcs that she’s not actually adjacent to, can kill an extra orc if her attack is good enough, and can kill all adjacent orcs of the same clan if her block is good enough. The Paladin makes a good tank, and should be wading into battle at every opportunity. The Ranger is a skirmisher at heart, and excels at hit-and-run tactics. The Sorceress has a good balance of offensive and defensive capabilities.

The orc player, by contrast, has control of squads of orcs. As the orc player, you can draw from five different clans of orcs, and you can arrange them into squads; a squad is a contiguous group of orcs of the same clan. There are three different kinds of orcs you can recruit, too, and each lends certain attribute points to the squad as a whole: brutes grant 4 points of Body, tacticians grant 4 points of Mind, and shamans grant 4 points of Attribute X. When you recruit orcs, you take the appropriate orc punch-out figure and put it on the appropriate clan base, and place that orc on the board; there are five of each clan base, which means that a given squad will have, at most, five members, and there are seven of each orc type, which means that drawing too heavily from one type for one squad may leave you short on that attribute in another squad.

Each round, the orc gets to replenish his forces in some way or another, either by flipping over a squad marker (which can grant him anywhere from 1 to 4 orcs of the same clan) or by reinforcing an existing clan with a single orc. Reinforcing allows you to continually strengthen your existing squads, while flipping squad tokens allows you to bring new clans onto the board, effectively increasing the total number of orcs that you can bring to bear by five for each clan present. However, you only get a limited number of squad tokens, and once they’re all flipped, all you can do is reinforce your existing squads.

In addition to amassing a small army, each clan gets its own movement and action phase, and each clan can attack on its own. Each clan also has its own attribute stack (one stack for all attributes), though the orc player still only gets a seven-card hand, and doesn’t have any hand-replenishing cards like the Paladin does. Often this means that two or three modest attacks might be more effective than a single, powerful attack, as the Paladin likely only has so many base blocks in his hand; eventually something will get through.

All this means that, interestingly, the orcs are meant to be played defensively; the longer they can delay contact with the Paladin, the stronger their forces will be. It also means that, because the Paladin cuts great swaths through the orc forces, the orc player will want to arrange his squads so that the Paladin is adjacent to the fewest orcs possible, though he’ll still generally get to kill two in a given attack due to the hexagonal nature of the board. Orcs start the game at a bit of a disadvantage and gain more advantage as the game progresses.

The orcs are also somewhat more complicated to play, and require a lot of strategy and forethought to bring to bear effectively. Knowing that new players might have trouble with this, TableStar included eight Dirty Trick cards with the game. The first time you play a scenario as the orcs, you get three Dirty Tricks from this deck, at random, and subsequent plays net fewer cards, especially if you did well on your previous plays. The Dirty Tricks, themselves, are always very useful to the orc player. “Expendable Recruits” allows you to cancel the effect of an attack, which can save several orcs. “Black Venom Dart” eats up the Paladin’s precious attribute points and is very difficult to get rid of. “Taunt” allows you to move the Paladin three spaces, which can buy you a whole round with which to strengthen your forces.

The elves have some things on their side, too. An elf can pick up a treasure token from the board in certain scenarios, and the five treasures in the game can make a big difference. The “Adamantium Shield” grants you a base block of 2 against every attack, effectively increasing your block value by 2 at all times. The “Boots of Speed” give you an extra movement point, which can be very useful on scenarios that require you to accomplish an objective and escape. The “Wand of Slaying” is particularly potent, killing orcs in a straight line with no attack necessary, but it can only be used once.

The game is scenario-based, and comes with five scenarios. “The Prisoners” is an introductory scenario, designed to familiarize players with some of the orc mechanics. It’s pretty different from the other four scenarios, as it puts the orcs on the offensive and the Paladin on the defensive, and eliminates recruitment, treasures, and Dirty Tricks from the game entirely. “Orc Camp” has the Paladin moving from the top of the map to the bottom to kill the Orc King, then moving back to the top to escape. “The Relics” gives the Paladin the job of gathering up three treasures from around the map and escaping. “Bounty Hunters” is somewhat more straightforward, having the Paladin trying to kill one orc of each clan. “The Great Hunt” introduces wild boar to the game, which are apparently sacred to the orcs. The Paladin must kill some of these boar in order to win. In all of the scenarios, the orcs must simple kill the Paladin to win.

Personally, I’ve played the first three scenarios, and I played “Orc Camp” as both the orcs and the Paladin (I played as the orcs in the other scenarios). The game is lots of fun and strategically deep, though it doesn’t take long to familiarize yourself with the rules, especially if you already know the HeroCard system. The modular, scenario-based gameplay allows for a lot of replay value, as does the fact that each side plays so differently.

Components
I’m pretty impressed with the components in Orc Wars. There are ten terrain tiles, six to seven of which are used in any given scenario, and they can be arranged in a number of different configurations to create your own scenarios, as well. In addition, each tile is double-sided, featuring an above-ground side (which includes underbrush hexes, which only elves can move through) and a dungeon side (which is claustrophobic and generally gives the advantage to the orcs, I think). The cards themselves are, as always, good quality card stock, and the artwork is fantastic throughout, and very thematic and evocative. Spelling errors and rules ambiguity are at a minimum in this game, as well. The Paladin figure is a high-detail sculpt, similar to the sculpts in other HeroCard games. All of the other pieces (clan bases, orc figures, wound tokens, squad tokens, treasure tokens, and wild boar) come on rigid plastic punch-out cards, and are in full color. TableStar could have gone with cardboard here, but they went with high-quality plastic instead, allowing for much better durability and a more attractive look overall.

It should be noted that there are a lot of pieces in this game. I’ve enlisted the aid of a bead storage box (obtainable from any craft store, or even from a store like Target) to organize all of my pieces, and I’ve found that not only does this allow me to keep things like the Orc King, the boars, and the clan bases assembled at all times, it also speeds up play because every piece has its own place, so I never have to hunt for anything. I would recommend doing likewise to anyone who buys this game.

What I Liked: Just about everything. The pieces, the artwork, the gameplay, the modular design; it’s all very, very good, and quite possibly my favorite HeroCard game yet.

What I Didn’t Like: Not a whole lot. It’s not precisely clear when the orc should draw Dirty Tricks (and this can make a difference in initial strategy); my ruling was after squad tokens have been placed but before the game starts. Also, it’s not clear what happens when you play two “Divine Sacrifice” cards as a set. Does each discarded card get you +4, or is the extra “Divine Sacrifice” effectively wasted?

The Bottom Line: If you’re a fan of other HeroCard games, you’ll probably like this one. The mechanics are great and it’s a lot of fun to play. If you haven’t liked the other games, it’s still possible you’d like this one, though not necessarily likely. The gameplay mechanics are different enough from other HeroCard games that the only real similarity is the card-driven combat mechanic. At any rate, I highly recommend this game, and at only $20, it’s a pretty good deal.

As should be clear by now, I’m really digging on Star Wars Saga Edition. A lot of the rules changes are really slick, and I think that D&D would benefit from them. Some people are saying that Saga Edition is the herald of 4th Edition D&D, and that a lot of the rules changes are indicative of what’s going to be in that game. If that’s the case, then it’s going to be very, very good. However, I can’t wait that long to start using these rules in D&D. The problem is, I don’t really have the time or inclination to rework the whole system, and there are quite a few supplements that I’d like to be able to use after modifying the system. So, I’ve created a short, three-page document presenting some rules modifications for D&D, strongly influenced by Saga Edition. I’ve left a lot of stuff alone; skills, feats, classes (for the most part) are pretty much the same. What I’ve changed are broadly applicable rules rather than specific ones. Anyway, enjoy.

D&D Rules Modifications

Just a few things, in no particular order:

1. I’ve been fiddling around with making characters in Star Wars Saga Edition, and it’s very easy, quick, and satisfying. Things like picking skills and such take a lot less time than they used to (or do in other d20 games), and the talent-and-feat-based class system allows for a lot of customization. So far I’ve created a dark side Jedi, a failed Jedi-turned-bounty hunter, and a combat droid with two extra arms that serve as blaster mounts. It was all pretty darned easy. The only complaint that I have is that the official character sheet doesn’t have space for enough information. As such, I created my own (available in PDF and MS Word formats). It’s pretty plain-looking, but it’s more functional than the official sheet. If anyone would care to fancy it up some with graphics and such, I’d gladly host it on my site.

2. I just got my review copy of HeroCard: Orc Wars in the mail today. I’ve played it once already (the introductory scenario, “The Prisoners”), and it was fun, though I don’t think the introductory scenario is a good indicator of what the game’s going to be like, as it removes a number of the more interesting rules and systems. I plan on playing it some more over the next few days, and I’ll have a review up soon. I do not have the Ranger or Sorceress expansion decks, so I’ll be reviewing it strictly as a two-player game. If TableStar decides to send me the expansion decks sometime in the future, I’ll post a second review, treating it as a multiplayer game.

3. I’m moving soon. We got an offer on our house, and we hope to make an offer on a house soon. So we’ll probably be moving soon. Exciting, but nerve-wracking, too.

Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition has gotten me more excited than many other RPG products that have come out in the past, and that excitement reached a fever pitch while I was reading it. For those who don’t want to read this whole review, let it be known: this review is primarily positive. If you like role-playing, and you like Star Wars, go out and buy this book. I’ve already geeked out about the book a little bit, so I’m going to go through the book in more depth now, chapter by chapter, and tell you what works and what doesn’t, as well as my overall impressions.

Foreword, Introduction, and Chapter 1
I’m rolling these three segments of the book into a single one because, quite honestly, they’re the least heavy on actual content. The Foreword discusses the whys of the Saga Edition, and is pretty interesting. The introduction is a bit more useful. Aside from containing the whole “What is a Roleplaying Game?” section that every Wizards game contains, as well as explanations about those funny dice and the core mechanics of the game, the introduction contains a nice example of play as well as an outline of the character creation process. This starts out standard enough for a d20 game: generate ability scores, choose your species, choose your class, assign your ability scores, etc., but this is the section where some of the changes to the system first become apparent. Wait, a 1st-level soldier gets 30 hit points? Reflex defense? Fortitude defense? Damage threshold? What do they mean by ‘trained skill’? There’s not a lot of hard crunch in this chapter, but there are a lot of tantalizing hints about what’s to come. Chapter 1: Abilities is similar. Most of it is familiar; the same six abilities that existed in previous editions (or in D&D, for that matter) exist in this game. Again, though, we see hints of what’s to come.

Chapter 2: Species
Don’t want to be a human? Fine; there are sixteen additional species to choose from (though to be fair, one of them is Ewok). They’re the same sixteen species that were in the Revised Edition, but they’ve been updated to suit the new rules system. Many of the species, for example, gain access to conditional bonus feats, feats that they only get if a certain skill is trained. Also common are species abilities that allow skill re-rolls. These re-rolls are not limited other than you can only make one re-roll per skill check, and you usually have to take the newer result, even if it’s worse. Some species have special abilties, such as the Gungan’s ability to hold his breath or the Ithorian’s ability to bellow for a cone of sonic damage, or the trandoshan’s ability to re-grow lost limbs. Most species also have ability score modifiers (only the Human and the Zabrak do not).

Chapter 3: Classes
I was most excited to see these, and I was not disappointed. There are now only five base classes (called heroic classes in this game): Jedi, noble, scoundrel, scout, and soldier. Each of these classes gains access to four talent trees, and each class gains a talent from one of these trees every odd-numbered level. Talents are a lot like feats, except that they’re restricted to specific classes and tend to be, maybe, a little bit more potent. The classes also get bonus feats, chosen from class lists, on each even-numbered level.

Some of the biggest changes, though, come in what you don’t see in the class tables. Base attack bonus is there, but there are no iterative attacks listed. Class skills are there, but you get a certain number of trained skills (more on that later) instead of getting skill points. Saves are conspicuously absent from the table; instead, each character has three ‘defenses’ (Fortitude, Reflex, and Will). These defenses are calculated with the following forumla: 10 + heroic level (total number of levels in heroic and prestige classes) + ability modifier (Con, Dex, or Wis) + class bonus + any other bonuses. So, each of your defenses has a bonus equal to your level added to it, but it also has a static class modifier. Scouts, for example, get a +2 to Reflex Defense and a +1 to Fortitude Defense, while Jedi get a +1 to all three. Also of note are the facts that you get triple hit points at first level (maximized, as usual), and you increase two ability scores every four levels instead of one.

Further, multiclassing no longer carries any kind of XP penalty. You don’t get full benefit for your first level in a new class, though. Each class has a list of three to five starting feats (generally proficiency feats, though sometimes not). You don’t get all of these if you multiclass into a new class, but you do get to choose one of them. You also do not get maximized, tripled hit points for multiclassing into a new class, and of course you don’t get that class’s starting credits. Other than that, it’s free multiclassing. The system doesn’t penalize characters for branching out, but it also doesn’t encourage cherry-picking by granting three or four new feats for a single level.

Chapter 4: Skills
Skills have been re-vamped considerably. The list of skills has been slimmed down, and several skills have been rolled into broader skills (like Spot, Listen, Search, Appraise, and Sense Motive being rolled into Perception). Further, all of your skills more-or-less level up with you. Every skill’s bonus is equal to half your heroic level plus the key ability modifier, plus 5 if you’ve chosen it as a trained skill. Some skills (like Mechanics) cannot be used untrained, while others can be used freely untrained. Many can be used in some ways untrained, but becoming trained in a skill grants you more abilities with it.

The first part of the chapter goes over the basics of skill use, including familiar mechanics like taking 10 and 20 and circumstance modifiers, but also covering new things like skill re-rolls. Because many skills have been combined, synergy bonuses are gone. The bulk of the chapter is taken up by individual skill descriptions (there are nineteen skills in all, including Knowledge, which is broken down into seven sub-skills). The chapter lays out what you can do with each skill in plain, easy-to-understand language, and specifically calls out what you can and can’t do without training, as well as when you need special equipment to perform actions with a skill.

Of note is the Use the Force skill. The skill can be used untrained, but requires the Force Sensitivity feat (which, in turn, makes it a class skill for anyone with the feat). However, if you’re trained you get access to some very cool abilities, like the ability to enter a recuperative trance and the power to move light objects with your mind, as well as the ability to use force powers (more on that later). Also of note is the fact that, with certain talents, Jedi can use the Use the Force skill in place of other skills, like Perception, Persuasion, or Initiative (that’s right, Initiative is now a skill).

Chapter 5: Feats
There are some familiar feats here, but there are a lot of new ones, too, and many old feats have changed. Virtually all of the feats are potentially useful. Even feats like Skill Focus, which I never really considered getting before, now grants a +5 bonus, which is notable. In addition, the Skill Training feat allows you to select another class skill as a trained skill.

Fighting with two weapons has been simplified. You now suffer a -10 penalty when doing so (to all attacks), but you can reduce or even negate this penalty with a chain off three Dual Weapon Mastery feats. And remember when I said that iterative attacks were gone? They’ve been replaced by the Double Attack and Triple Attack feats, which add additional attacks at the cost of accuracy. Rules like the bantha rush and grappling have been converted into feats, and there are several feats that allow you to add to your defenses or increase the number of damage dice you roll.

Chapter 6: The Force
This chapter discusses Force points (a lot like action points in d20 Modern), which allow you to improve skill rolls and also power many Jedi abilities, as well as the Dark Side, Force powers, and other Force abilities.

Force powers, gained by the Force Training feat, allow you single-use Force abilities that tend to be pretty potent. Each requires a Use the Force roll, and most of them have tiered effects, with higher rolls granting bigger benefits. Some are called out as Dark Side powers, while others are called out as Light Side powers. While these are single-use abilities, they are limited per encounter rather than per day. This seems to be a theme in the game; I only found a handful of per-day abilities in the whole book.

There are also Force talents, which any Force Sensitive character can select from when he gains a talent from a class. This is where Control, Sense, and Alter went; along with Dark Side, they are each talent trees in the new game. Force techniques, usable by Jedi Knights and other Force-using prestige classes, improve the way your Use the Force skill works, or even your ability to use Force points. Force secrets, usable by Jedi Masters and other, really powerful, prestige classes are like meta-magic feats for Force powers.

There’s also a discussion of various Force-using traditions, such as the Jensaarai or the Witches of Dathomir, along with accompanying talent trees for characters who want to belong to those groups.

Chapter 7: Heroic Characteristics
This chapter talks about height, weight, personality, and other such things, but it also discusses a new mechanic: destiny. If you so choose, your character can have a destiny. When you move towards that destiny, you gain short-term benefits, while when you move away from it you suffer short-term penalties. If you fulfill your destiny, you gain permanent benefits. You also get a destiny point at every level, which you can use to do things like automatically score a critical hit or act out of turn, effectively breaking the rules for a round. The section discusses specific, example destinies that you can give your character, as well as what happens when a destined character dies (with specific, mechanical effects).

Chapter 8: Equipment
Though simpler than in previous editions, this chapter contains pretty much what you’d expect. It talks about money, commodities, restricted items, and the black market, then dives right into weapons. Weapons tend to do a lot of damage in this game, probably to facilitate quicker more tense and exciting combats. A standard blaster pistol, for example, does 3d6 points of damage. There are a few pages of weapon descriptions, along with tables of stats for them, and then the game discusses explosives and armor. Armor grants a bonus to your Reflex Defense, though this bonus supersedes the bonus you get from heroic level unless you have certain talents. Some armor also grants you an equipment bonus to Fortitude Defense, as well as to some skills.

Some rules have been made more general. Range increments, as we know them, have been eliminated, opting instead for four increments: point blank, short, medium, and long, each having an associated penalty. These have been made generic across type, as well; all pistols have the same range, for example. Similarly, armor penalties only apply if you’re not proficient with the armor, and all light armor offers the same penalty, as does all medium armor or all heavy armor.

There is also a discussion of various pieces of adventuring gear in the chapter, and the list of adventuring gear has been trimmed down to only the stuff that’s actually important to the game. Prices for clothing, for example, are not present. Finally, there is a list of services and some discussion of encumbrance. Encumbrance follows a Strength-based formula that probably will require a calculator, but it is discussed as an optional rule, and is given very little real estate on the page.

Chapter 9: Combat
This is where the bulk of the changes have been made, and they have resulted in a slimmer, easier to understand, and probably faster game. Actions that you can take in a round are spelled out in a very clear and easy to understand way, and swift actions have been incorporated into the game. Characters now get a damage bonus equal to half of their level, too, which brings me to the next part: the condition track.

There is now a condition track on the character sheet, with Normal at the top, Helpless at the bottom, and various levels of penalty in between. When you suffer more damage than your Damage Threshold, you move down a step on the condition track. But that’s not the only way that it’s used. Conditions are used for poisons, diseases, starvation, radiation, dehydration, and countless other special cases, and the mechanic serves to make such cases much easier to work with, requiring less memorization of obscure rules. Characters no longer have to deal with negative levels or ability score damage; instead they have to deal with persistent conditions, which are lifted in logical ways. A persistent condition from starvation, for example, is lifted by eating a nutritious meal.

Negative hit points have also been eliminated. Instead, if you take damage that drops you to 0 hit points and that damage exceeds your Threshold, you die. If you are unconscious, you make Constitution checks to wake up; fail by 5 or more and you die. If you die, you can spend a Force point to instead by unconscious. It’s simple and elegant, and I can’t wait to use it. It also means that hit points are not the only thing you have to worry about; it is possible to die when you still have hit points, even from normal damage.

The bulk of the chapter is taken up with definitions of various terms and explanations of how they work, as well as a clear list of what actions you can take in combat. Attacks of opportunity have been simplified, as have things like cover and concealment. Nonlethal/subdual damage is gone (replaced, instead, by stun damage that moves you down on the condition track). There are pictures using Star Wars miniatures used to illustrate things like line of sight and attacks of opportunity, and the game is very miniatures-friendly (it even lists speeds in ‘squares’). However, it’s probably also pretty easy to play entirely without miniatures and a battle map, due to the simplified range and attack of opportunity rules. In fact, I think that’s how I’m going to play it.

Chapter 10: Vehicles
Vehicles, too, have been simplified. Instead of using their own systems and statistics, they use statistics and rules already familiar to players, seeking to make the experience as seamless as possible. There are a few new things to keep track of, but nothing too complicated. There’s also a list of vehicles that you can drop right into your game, complete with crew bonuses and Challenge Levels.

Chapter 11: Droids
In addition to playing one of the seventeen available species, you can play a droid, and this chapter has rules for either playing a stock droid or creating your own, unique model. Again, droids follow many of the same rules as normal players, though the creation of a droid does follow a point-buy-esque system, buying various components with credits to create your ‘species’. You can then add character levels, as normal. If you don’t want to go through all that, you can take a standard droid off the shelf and add levels to it.

Chapter 12: Prestige Classes
In so many games, there seem to be wasted prestige classes, classes that simply don’t pack the oomph of the others. That is not the case in this game. There are twelve prestige classes in Saga Edition, and each one of them is both viable and really, really cool. Prestige classes get talent trees of their own, but the also allow access to talent trees that belong to various heroic classes, allowing you to mix and match your abilities a bit. They do tend to be much more specialized than the heroic classes, but they also tend to be a little bit more powerful, granting more hit points on average, more Force points, and overall more potent, if more specific, abilities. They do not grant new class skills, though; in this system, they really don’t need to.

Chapter 13: Galactic Gazetteer
This chapter imparts information on a dozen or so planets in the Galaxy. This information is imparted in the form of Knowledge check DCs, so that it both gives the GM when he needs to know and allows him to determine what the PCs know easily. There’s also a discussion of travel in the Galaxy, outlining the hows of astrogation and hyperspace travel.

Chapter 14: Gamemastering
A good chunk of this chapter is generic material, talking about the hows and whys of GMing. If you’re a new GM, a lot of it will probably be useful. If you’ve GM’d a few times before, most of it will be review. There is a discussion of experience rewards, as well as a table of how much experience to award per Challenge Level (again, much simpler than in previous editions). There is also a section on hazards, such as acid, falling objects, poisons, diseases, vacuum, and smoke, as well as sections on gravity and visibility. Most of the hazards utilize the condition track, and most are very easy to use.

Chapter 15: Eras of Play
This chapter discusses the three core eras of play: Rise of the Empire (Episodes I-III), The Rebellion (Episodes IV-VI), and the New Jedi Order (the expanded universe from the novels). There’s a lot of useful information here, as well as statistics for various characters in the movies. While most people probably won’t actually use these stats, it’s nice to see the rules put into practice in this way; it provides a frame of reference.

Chapter 16: Allies and Opponents
Finally, a discussion of beasts and nonheroic characters, as well as examples of each. There is a generic beast class used for constructing your own beasts, as well as examples like the rancor and the wampa. The nonheroic class is used to build the extras and cannon fodder, and there are a number of examples of these characters, from stormtroopers to clone troopers to street thugs.

What I Liked: Just about everything. This book is a new and intriguing step for the d20 System, and I think it’ll do a great job of capturing the fast-paced, epic feel of the Star Wars universe.

What I Didn’t Like: Not much. I’m not crazy about the fact that distance is usually expressed in squares, but it’s pretty easy to multiply that by 1.5 for meters or 5 for feet. The book does have its fair share of typos and formatting errors, but they don’t detract overmuch from the experience.

The Bottom Line: If you like Star Wars and roleplaying, then go buy this book. Go. Buy. This. Book.

I just got the Star Wars Roleplaying Game: Saga Edition a couple of days ago, and I’m totally geeking out about it. I’m about halfway through the book, and in no particular order, here are some things that I really like about the game:

• The changes to the skill system. Instead of the huge laundry list of skills found in most d20 games, Saga Edition has a slimmer list of broader skills. Instead of having separate skills for Bluff, Disguise, and Forgery, you’ve got Deception. Instead of having Tumble, Escape Artist, and Balance, you’ve got Acrobatics. Also, your skills automatically improve with your level instead of requiring skill points to be spent, with your trained skills always being at least +5 better than your untrained skills. It’s simpler and maybe offers a little bit less flexibility, but I think the end result is better in that it will dramatically reduce character creation time (always a plus for the GM).
• The condition track. Hit points still exist, but now there’s a condition track that you move up and down on when you take large quantities of damage. Moving down causes you to suffer penalties to just about everything, and if you move down far enough you’re unconscious (or maybe dead). It allows the designers to very elegantly do away with ability damage, negative levels, specific penalties for things like starvation and sleep deprivation, and it gets rid of negative hit points. And it’s very, very slick and easy to use.
• The changes to the way the Force works. There’s now one skill, Use the Force. You can’t use it unless you have the Force Sensitivity feat, but you can use it untrained if you have that feat (at least, you can use certain aspects of it). There are also a host of Force talents associated with the Jedi class, as well as with simply having Force Sensitivity, and with various other Force-using traditions. Also, there are Force powers, which have a “use-them-then-lose-them” effect similar to D&D spellcasting, but much better. In effect, you make a Use the Force check to use a Force power, after which it’s used up. However, you can spend a Force point to get a used Force power back, and if you roll a natural 20 when using a Force power, you get all of your Force powers back. Also, you basically get them all back after an encounter ends and you get a chance to rest.
• Force points and Destiny points. Force points are a lot like action points in d20 Modern, and can be used in many of the same ways. Destiny points are way more powerful and way more rare. You can choose a Destiny for your character, too; furthering it gives you temporary bonuses while running away from it imposes temporary penalties; completing it gives permanent bonuses. It’s a cool, mechanically-driven instant plot hook for the GM.
• Starting hit points are tripled now, in addition to be maximized. If you get 1d10 + Con modifier in hit points every level, you get 30 + Con modifier at first level. Very cool; it improves survivability at those low levels. Watch out, though; weapons tend to do more damage in this game. A blaster rifle does 3d8 points of damage, and that can be increased to as much as 5d8 with a feat. Ouch!
• Defenses. The concepts of AC/Defense and saves have been rolled into a single concept of Defenses. A Defense acts as a DC for attacks and effects that might hinder you, and is basically the sum of your heroic level + a class-based bonus + your relevant ability score + 10. Reflex helps you avoid attacks, just like Defense or AC would in other d20 games. Fortitude helps you resist poisons, diseases, radiation, and similar hazards, and also acts as your Damage Threshold (if you take this much damage from one attack, you move down on the condition track). Will protects you against Force powers and mind-affecting effects, and acts as the DC for skills like Persuasion or Deception.

I could go on. Believe me, I could go on. But I won’t just now. Suffice to say that, so far, just about everything’s been streamlined and polished and coated with awesome, and I can’t wait to play this game. I may do a full review once I’ve read the whole book and played it once or twice, but honestly I think you know what I’m going to say already.

Microsoft is creating a tool to facilitate communal memory through online photos. Viva la hive mind!