I am looking at the essence of space opera and science fiction. Most space operas have an abundance of strange pc species.

Every one of them seems to have the Strong/ tough race. Star Treck has its Klingons Star wars has Wookies and Hoar Mass Effect has its Krogan.
Are there any other re-occuring themes in alien construction?
I notice that most rpgs don;t feature a species/ race that gets an intelligence boost.

Others I find are the "Female" race that everyone has sex with.

Well, quite a few space operas adhere to the Five Races Trope. (WARNING: TV TROPES LINK. MASSIVE TIMESUCK AHEAD.)

Also, it is true that most RPGs don't feature an intellect boost. There are frequently intellect penalties though.

If there's a race that's smarter than all the others by a significant degree, then they're either some sort of precursor race or something Dragon-esque.

One might think that Robots or other artificial "races" could gain an Intelligence Boost. While this may not necessarily be true in real life (most AI programs are pretty dumb) in game mechanics terms intelligence is mostly used for remembering facts or figuring out a particular problem and doesn't necessarily relate to actual IQ. If you're a robot, why not have a couple TerraBytes devoted to a fact database?

The only RPG I can think of off of the top of my head that has races with intelligence boosts is Star Wars: Saga Edition. But there are over 50 playable races, so I guess it had to happen eventually.

I don't remember what the name of the game was, but I had a friend who's character was a floating brain and all it got were intelligence boosts. I'm gonna have to ask him about that, if he even still remembers...

There is actually a race, kind of like that in Star Wars: Saga Edition. And they're mostly force users, which seems even weirder to me.

Found the game. It was actually a homebrew of D20 future and the race was simply called the "Disembodied".
According to his mythology, they were humans who attained such enlightenment that they shed their bodies and existed only as semi-corporeal consciousnesses...

It was a pretty elaborate universe he created.

And brains being force users? totally makes sense to me. They manifest their will by using the force and thus can actualy do stuff without the use of hands...

Should be the Celegians if I recall the spelling right. Talked through telepathy, almost all force users, native environment is a toxic gas, and they had to be in their container all the time outside of their homeworld.

I just started playing Star Wars : Saga Edition with my SR group, and have an answer to this question.

The Givin! They are a race of Skeleton looking humanoids. They have exoskeletons, and are frail (-2 Strength) but have a propensity for Math (+2 Intelligence and free reroll on knowledge skill tests). They do not breath, and can survive unaided in the vacuum of space. One of the few races in Saga Edition to keep their DR (2 points).

My current character is a Givin Soldier. With his high intelligence, he is trained in all the major technical and intellectual pursuits... Piloting, Mechanics, Medicine and Hacking. He is specialized in unarmed combat, but in his frail Givin body he is quite unassuming. He carry's no weapons and passes off as the groups mechanic or Doctor, depending on the situation.

When the action gets hot, he can disarm the closest badguy and tear things up with a stolen blaster.


On a side topic... is it just me, or are lightsabers extremely underpowered in Star Wars RPG Saga Edition? A lightsaber only does 2d8 damage (alot more than the default 1d6 a martial artist does with their hands) but a Heavy Blaster pistol does 3d8 damage!? Seems a little off to me...

Darnit, wish I had that PDF with me. I know in the older D20 system, Lightsaber damage was directly enhanced by abilities gained through Jedi levels. Did they keep that in Saga?

In Saga edition, half of your Heroic levels are added to your Damage, no matter what weapon you are using.

There are various Talents and feats you can get to add damage to your melee weapons, such as Weapon Specialization (+2 damage).

Honestly though, Lightsabers are just decent damage weapons with DR penetration.

A gamorean with one of their Axes does 2d12, + twice their strength bonus, and can get all the same damage bonuses as a Jedi throughout their levels.

Its all good. Powering down the sabers is not a terrible idea. They did a good job of making Jedi powerful, but every class gets plenty of awesome things they can do. In Saga edition, a Soldier with an automatic rifle and some distance destroys a jedi.

Which is good, it never really sat well with me that Jedi were frikin immune to blaster fire since they could deflect the bolts. Screw that!

New from Imperial Blaster Technologies: Slug Lasers! With all the speed and precision of a tiny, mucous covered gastropod with Parkinson's Disease! Get yours today!

Yeah, they handle deflection well in Saga. Jedi makes a use the force skill check against the attack roll. If he beats it, its deflected. Every successive deflection he has to do each round he makes with a -5 after the first, then a -10 after the second, etc.

Autofire weapons are technically area affect attacks, so they are treated like grenades. If you miss, they still take half damage. There are talents and feats that let you take no damage from area affect... if they dont hit your reflex armor. Jedi CANNOT deflect them though.

Really all it takes is two or three people focusing on one Jedi, and he will likely get hit unless he burns up alot of force points (which everyone gets, even scoundrels).

It seems like a good system. My group has only played twice, but so far I have enjoyed the outcomes. Negate energy is awesome, as is force slam. I still love being the scientist/doctor though. I have knocked out players gone mad, saved dying people, rigged a floater wagon to flip itself over, fixed up a broken swoop we found and used it for making a quick extraction of an injured player... fun stuff.

My favorite part still is that the game is so balanced. In shadowrun, within 5 runs several of the characters are virtually invincible, while other characters are still very vunerable. It makes it hard to challenge the party without killing off the non-pimped characters. There are just so many holes for exploitation in Shadowrun, but the d20 system really caters to a balanced out party... so long as they are within a level or two of each other.

Okay...with the mention of "Reflex Armor" in the post above...

Is Saga edition by chance based off of fourth edition DnD? Or 4e D20, whatever its called...

As with the previous version of SW: RPG, it is in that bizarre space between editions. When old star wars rpg came out, it had a bunch of things that would be in 3.5 a few years later. SaGa is the same, but with 4.0. It has different armor scores, a similar skill system, but if I recall it does not solely rely on combat, nor does it always say "you have x per day powers, here is your ability list!" It takes a few interesting concepts from 4th ed, before 4th ed was even out, but most of its aspects are similar to 3.5/

If you need an alien species that's got an Intelligence boost compared to humans, there's the fraal from the d20 Future game book (accessory to the d20 Modern, based on D&D 3.0). They suffer a -4 to Strength and Constitution, but get a +4 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The artwork makes them the Roswell Grays.

Then there's the vrusk that gets a +2 bonus to Intelligence & Wisdom, but a -2 to Strength. They look more like an upright grasshopper with two arms and eight legs.

Yes, Saga edition feels like 3.9 in a way.

You dont have an armor class or saving throws. Instead you have a Reflex, Fortitiude, and Will defense score, and that is your opponents target number to hit you with attacks/powers.

Also, they have alot of 'Encounter' based powers, including all force powers, which are 1/encounter. Encounter is defined as a period of action connection by less than 1 minute in pause. For example, if you are being chased by stormtroopers, you may fight some in this room, then fight some in the hallway, then fight more in the hangar... it is all one encounter. But if you get into an elevator and have at least 1 minute to rest, the encounter is over and any more combat will be considered a new encounter, so all your force powers/feats that are encounter based are restored.

IIRC, Jedi can deflect autofire. Check the errata.

SAGA without house rules isn't well balanced. The game system as it is written heavily favors Force users. At low levels you can easily get Skill Focus: Use The Force. Many offensive Force powers use the UTF skill as an attacking stat. While your friend has full BAB and a decent score in his attacking ability, he might only have a +5 to his attack roll at level 2. At level 2, a Jedi can have +13 on his UTF check.

They can half the damage with deflect.

Indeed, Skill Focus in UTF is pimpedness. The jedi are strong.

I still say three stormtroopers starting 300 spaces away will pwn any jedi levels 1 through 10. Honestly, two good shots and most characters drop. One good crit from a blaster rifle will do it too.

In our last game, the battle began in a hangar bay. The jedi had to spend 2 full rounds navigating to the enemy so he would be within the 12 space range to use his powers on them. In those two rounds the battle was almost over.

Force powers are neato, but not gamebreakers in my opinion. Oh, and while Jedi can get Skill focus in UTF, there are feats that make anyone more resistant to the force. One that gives you +5 to will and fort against any force power. Can be taken at level one.

Want to talk about broken... just have a mage overcast a manaball in RAW. Someone had a brain fart the day they gave Direct Damage that bypasses armor a super low drain.

Deflect for half damage if hit, Deflect for none if miss.

3 normal (CL1) stormtroopers? By level 8, they should be outclassed. I have had 10 stormtroopers blasting away at a lone level 8 Jedi Knight from 20 squares away, with an officer boosting their rolls. 3 rounds and 2 crits later, only minimal damage to the JK.

Honestly, if the player knows what he is doing, a force user in SAGA is a mage in SR.

Hey, anyone can get lucky. Im glad your Jedi survived. Statistically speaking, it was just luck though... unless he was hiding behind cover and not fighting back, in which case anyone could survive.

Or the Game Master was being kind, perhaps.

Stormtroopers have base AB of +4 with rifles. Lets say the officer only gives them +1. The first round they all use simple single shot attacks. The jedi likely has +2 reflex, and +7 ac from level, so we will say he has 19 ac. That means they have 30% chance of hitting apeice. 10 people attack, 3 hits with rolls of 19+. The jedi has deflect so he rolls his UTF skill with +2 from attribute, +5 for trained, +3 from level. 1d20 +10, woo hoo! Very nice. He has 40-60% chance of blocking the first blast. Then 15-35% chance of blocking the second, and 5-15% chance of blocking the third. Lets say he uses three force points (he should have 8 at the most) and gets LUCKY and blocks all three hits. Very lucky, considering using a force point just adds 5 to 30% chance to his success rate.

Second round, the troopers smart up, and go full auto. This reduces their attack by 5, so they only have a 10% chance of hitting... except if they miss the jedi still might take 1/2 damage. He has to deflect all 10 attacks, or take serious damage.

Lets say only one attack is a hit, and the jedi uses a force point to raise his chance and blocks it. Deflecting 9 misses is impossible for any jedi (Even tough for Vader!). He has to beat their attack rolls with a 1d20+10 skill check, but every time he tries to deflect he gets -5 to his rolls, so after 6 rolls, he can only deflect on a roll of 20 or higher.

Lets be super nice and say he takes 1/2 damage from the one hit (which he deflected so its only 1/2) and then blocked 6 of the misses. He only takes damage from 3 of the misses. Total is 3d8x4/2. Between 3 and 31 damage (assuming the troopers still havent rolled any 20's, which means they hit with double damage). Lets be kind and say he only take 15 damage. A level 8 Jedi with 14 con will have an average of 60 hp, so he is now 1/4 dead.

Third round the jedi takes cover, so the troopers all throw their frag grenades. (According to the book they all carry at least 1). He now cannot deflect, cannot dodge... he simply takes 10 x 4d6 damage, we will say divided by two because every single attack misses (unlikely, but lets be kind). He takes 20 to 120 damage. With extreme luck all ten roll 1 on 1d6 four times each, so he only takes 20.

He now has 25 hp left. So long as the troopers dont attack anymore, this lucky as spit Jedi can surrender. He could attack them and at most kill 2 per round... or use an area affect force power and kill maybe 3-5 at a time if they are clustered (unlikely) but any force slam will KILL troopers, which earns the Jedi 1 dark side point per dead trooper (using the force to kill). If a jedi does that much at all, he is going to be kicked out of the council and cease taking Jedi levels. If he is lucky that is. If his dark side points surpass his Wisdom score (probably 12 to 18) he loses control of his character, as he is consumed by the dark side.

Yeeeeaaaahhh. So um, a Scout with evade who takes cover and shoots back has much better chances of defeating 10 troopers. Jedi are neat, but no where near overpowered.

I like your story though. Sounds epic... 10 troopers shooting at a jedi for 3 rounds and him surviving. The epic stuff of legends. In Saga Edition, it is an impossible scenario. Sounds like a story told by Rodian scoundrels to keep their children scared of the Jedi boogie man.

Level 8 Jedi Knight. You got the +2 Reflex from the class right but the level wrong. You can only enter into the Jedi Knight prestige class at level 8 because the prerequisite is a +7 BAB, you have to have the +7 before you enter. Use The Force modifier 5(trained) +5(skill focus) +4(level) +4(soft max Charisma mod, remember at level 8 you would have had 2 attribute increases) = +18 If he has a piece of equipment that is Superior Teched for UTF, he gets an additional +2 equipment bonus. Using a guard shoto, it gives +2 equipment bonus to Block/Deflect, +4 if Solari crystal, +6 if Solari and Sup Teched.

Energy Resistance Force power = Average roll of 10 with lower than average roll of 2 for Force point (if without equipment) = 30 Giving DR15 against energy.
Average 3D8 = 13 < 15.
Average autofire 3D8/2 = 7 < 15.
Force Shield Force power = Average roll of 10 or 12 with equipment = SR15 or SR20
Total damage reduced per attack - 30 if energy > 24 assuming 3D8 max, 15 if using frag grenade

Level 8 JK Talent - Soresu or Shii-Cho Either reroll or -2 per Block/Deflect

With respect to DSPs, using guidelines from Jedi Counselling 111
1) Harmed a living sentient being
2) No, target/s was not at one's mercy.
3) Yes, would have caused serious harm.
4) No, targets were trying to kill him.
5) Yes, if intention was to kill instead of stopping the targets from attacking him.
At worst, it is a dubiously evil act (minor transgression).

Your example assumes a stupid jedi. The jedi in my game are not stupid. A Jedi Knight with Block and Deflect at +18 UTF (+ 24 conditionally), Redirect Shot, +2 class defense to Ref +8 level +3 Dex bonus for a total of Ref Def 23. Not much luck required.

Ehh.. Force Shield. Yes, it could protect the Jedi from most damage from grendaes (at 4d8, probably not all damage), but maintaining it is a standard action. So your jedi is going to do nothing but Shield himself, MAYBE he will outlast their grenades.

Energy Resistance... DC 30 is hitaable, especially if you have all the of gear and feats to maximize your UTF checks.

You are forgetting crit hits. With 30 attacks each having a 5 % chance of critting for double damage, that DR is going to only stop so much.

Also, the shield DR gets dropped by 5 every time the DR is penetrated. That means the first grenade that pierces it (which can happen even without a crit) is going to drop it to 10 DR, then the next grenade will have an easy time of dropping it to 5.

So what your saying is a Level 8 Jedi with Max Pimped Gear, and powers focused on Defending, could stand around and do nothing but shield himself, and may survive 3 rounds against 10 level 1 baddies. Indeed, very nice. That jedi has a CHANCE of surviving, if he does not attack, and the enemy rolls like crap and does not reduce his SR, and they dont roll a single critical hit. At the end of those three rounds, the jedi is likely down several force points, has taken plenty of damage, and there are still 10 troopers waiting to gun him down.

My point stands, Jedi are no where near invincible. Their powers are handy, but even a group of low level goons with guns are a serious threat to them.

Shield does take a Standard Action to maintain but it can be used as a Reaction. So until he sees a grenade come flying his way, he doesn't need to use his Force Shield. You have 20 attacks that have to penetrate the Energy DR and 10 that can bypass it. With a Ref Def of 23, an unboosted Stormtrooper has to roll a 19 to hit. That is 10% of hitting. So out of that 20 attacks 2 hit and 1 crit.
Let say the crit is not autofire so that it has a chance to penetrate that DR. That crit has a hit roll of 24 (25 boosted). Which a UTF skill-focused level 8 Jedi with non-Sup-teched Solari crystal (which is not one of those pimped crystals like Mantle of the Force) guard shoto can Deflect with a roll of 2 (3 if boosted). This gear is nowhere near maxed pimped. Max pimped is Superior Teched Legacy(Superior Teched) Heirloom Solari Guard shoto with an Education Destiny bonus to UTF.
Out of that 10 grenades, 1 may hit (hopefully with a critical). Those grenades that miss will have to suffer half damage, 7 damage on average with a max of 12 damage, which at maximum is less than 15. The last grenade crit hits and let's be kind to the poor stormtroopers and say that they catch a very lucky break, the 4D6 rolls max. 48-15 = 33 (average 4D6x2 = 28, after Shield, it is 13), the Jedi takes damage and moves -1 CT and fails his UTF check to sustain the Force Shield and Damage Resistance. So after 3 rounds of intense fire, the Jedi is down 33 HP, 1 CT and 2 Force Powers.

My point stands: Jedi are not invincible, as much as mages in SR are not invincible either.

You are making the bad assumption that the troopers will attack the way you want them to. The issue is, SR is penetrated before you calculate DR, which means once the shield is up to stop a grenade, any laser attacks will hit the shield before they are absorbed by the energy absorption, and your chance of one breaking its DR is very high. One HP of damage getting through the SR ends it for the jedi... the SR drops by 5, and now the next shot has an even better chance of penetrating.

Like I said, if you get lucky, maybe. But it would require none of the attacks hitting until the very end so the SR can resist all of the damage. Its very unlikely, and there is nothing the Jedi can do with the force to affect how much damage they roll.

I am not saying that the story you told was false, I am just saying it is VERY unlikely. Any level 8 character facing 10 troopers is going to have it rough, and I believe a Jedi without a gun is screwed most of the time.

Jedi have neat powers, but they are not overpowered. Anyone can use the force in Saga edition... you dont have to be a jedi. Jedi get to deflect ranged attacks, but with autofire and grenades that is not nearly as useful as just having Improved Evasion.

So yes, maybe 10% of the time the shield will hold out long enough for 3 rounds to pass. So if the Jedi eats up his force points, uses some of his force powers, he can live for 3 rounds and not kill any Stormtroopers. Its not something to brag about, and its not game unbalancing.

Nothing compared to a Mage with an Edge Overcast combat sense and a spirit Channeled to give him 12 points of Immunity to Normal weapons. Star wars is FAR more balanced that Shadowrun. Shadowrun is fun, but its nice to take a break from the Milspec Armor Cybertroll and uber buffed Possession Mage, and see some players actually forced to use tactics to survive when they are stopped by a few security guards.

It's funny. I've *never* played in a game of SR in the 20 years I've been playing that had a stuper armor cybertroll or invulnerable mage. I must really be lucky. Hell, most unstoppable situation we had was due to a *team* of runners that just complimented each other very well. (SR2/3 days, Hermetic Albino Elf with 4 F5-6 elementals on call at all times, a bear-shifter adept, one mystic and one physical adept... we were surprisingly effective. Decking/rigging was *always* NPC'd back then)


On topic, don't let this devolve into a "This system is so broken" "No, this system is great" argument. State your opinions and move on. We don't want the mods locking this down because we got too heated.

Its all about feat selection, Rapid strike makes this very cool. basically add another d8 to any attack you make with the thing for a -2 to hit.

The lightsaber adds Strength (or Dex if you have Ataru) and ignores DR. Additional damage if you use the lightsaber with 2 hands.

I made no assumptions. I was simply following the sequence of attacks that you laid out initially. First round, normal fire, second round, autofire and third round, grenades.

At 4D6 penetrating SR15, the grenade has to hit. Grenade AOE damage (max 12) won't reduce the SR. Neither would autofire damage from a blaster rifle (3D8/2, again max 12). Only direct hits would have a chance of reducing SR. Which in this case translates to a direct grenade hit, since a direct blaster rifle hit is Deflected easily when it hits.

As you have noted, anyone can use the Force in SAGA. All it requires is Force sensitivity and training in the skill. A multiclassed Force sensitive scout3/jedi5 would probably not have much trouble against in the above scenario.

I'm gonna violently wrench this topic back to what I thought it would be about when I read the title (since that happens to be a topic I like thinking about):

The funny thing is, by Earth standards humans are the enormously tough race, or at least the one with ridiculous endurance. Just as an example, we can kill antelopes simply by running them down until they collapse of exhaustion. I also think that the usual conception of humans as the slick diplomats and idealistic community-builders of the galactic scene is really quite poorly founded if you compare us to the other species on Earth. Sure, we feel proud about ourselves when we live in peace between different people of different races - but we don't spend a lot of time thinking about how much it helped that we are far less genetically diverse than most other species. Is it really so difficult to find common ground as we make it out to be, when there's so much of it to go around?

If I were to design a sci-fi RPG with human and alien species having their own stats, I'd say we should get a diplomatic penalty to dealing with other different intelligences, a bonus to being whipped to action by charismatic leaders and maybe a small extra boon for sheer cussedness

Yeah... but it doesnt really make sense. A toddler who picks up a lightsaber and makes a wimpy pass at your torso would chop you in half. Str really should not effect the damage of a saber... it cuts or it doesnt, and its not sharp, so added force does not make it cut better. Only time... burning through slowly perhaps if a swing doesnt cut it.

Admittedly, strength should add to its attack bonus, because its alot harder to block Arnold swinging a saber than to block a toddler. But damage should be independent of the wielders strength.

And the DR penetration is nice, but it has no effect on super armored soldiers, who get a reflex bonus but no DR. The weapon just needs to do more damage, period.

Its balanced the way that it is. And simple. It just doesnt match the effect of sabers shown to us in the movies, books and comics.



Its so hard to imagine what qualities humans have that is unique when the only self-aware semi-intelligent race we can compare ourselves to is 1000 word signing apes.

I agree about our 'Charismatic Leaders' bonus. The media system is integrated into our society in a way that really boosts Patriotism and helps brainwash young minds into being susceptible to being Whipped into an Enemy hating frenzy.

And yeah, we are really cussed too.