Star Wars using Hero...?

[massey]

Let's throw out some basic stats just for the sake of argument.  Empire Strikes Back era.  I don't have a character designer program right now so we'll guesstimate heavily.

 

Blaster:  2 1/2D6 RKA.  Things blow up good when you shoot them.

Lightsaber:  Multipower with 3D6 AP HKA and Missile Deflection as slots.  Non-Force users at -2 OCV.

 

Stormtroopers/rebel fighters -- 5/5 Armor and 3/3 PD/ED, 10 Body 20 Stun,  2 Spd.  4 OCV.  Armed with a blaster.

Princess Leia -- 8/8 PD/ED, 9/9 Combat Luck. Rapid Healing.  15 Body, 35 Stun.  7 OCV/DCV, +1 with blaster, 2D6 Luck, Wealth, lots of Contacts, Rank, high Ego, high Pre.  Armed with a blaster.

Han Solo -- 8/8 PD/ED, 9/9 Combat Luck, Rapid Healing.  15 Body, 40 Stun.  8 OCV/DCV, +2 with blaster.  2D6 Luck.  Vehicle: Millennium Falcon.  High Pre.  Deadly blow w/ blaster.  Armed with a blaster.

Chewbacca -- Freakish physical stats.  35 or 40 Str.  Good tech skills.  Also contributed points to the Falcon.  Deadly blow with energy crossbow thing.  Armed with energy crossbow.

Luke -- Comparable physical stats to Han.  +2 with Lightsaber instead of blaster.  30 or 40 point Multipower "Force Powers".  Mental Awareness.  Perk: Rebel pilot (i.e., it's not his X-Wing).  High ego.  Armed with a blaster and a lightsaber.

 

 

So let's assume that you don't have to pay for your weapons in this pseudo-heroic game.  You buy weapons with money.  Lightsabers are hard to find, so you might need to actually build it, or at least hunt for rare parts or something.  But if blasters and stuff don't cost points, a lightsaber really shouldn't either.  Remember that Han doesn't really seem that impressed by them when he sees them.  "Ancient weapons and hokey religions are no match for a good blaster by your side, kid."

 

But if you don't have to pay for the lightsaber, then suddenly Luke looks fairly even with the others.  His Force abilities are useful, but he's not overpowering.  Most of the stuff in his Multipower is gonna have "concentration" or "extra time" on it.  Just steer clear of video game Jedi and you should be fine.

[Ninja-Bear]

Massey I would say that you would have to pay for light saber. Same thing as in fantasy or pulp where a character has technology of greater power or unique than others in the world.

[massey]

Massey I would say that you would have to pay for light saber. Same thing as in fantasy or pulp where a character has technology of greater power or unique than others in the world.

 

I wouldn't say it's greater technology.  It's just something most people don't use.  Han seems to think it's an outdated weapon.  The reaction that we have where we're like "holy crap, it's a lightsaber!" doesn't exist within the universe.  Cool as it is, most people would pick a blaster.  In fact, most of the time, Luke uses a blaster over the lightsaber.

[Wardsman]

I think Hero Star Wars would really emphasize the imbalance between Jedi and regular characters.  Because everything is quantified and specific, you can't handwave away having superheroes and space cowboys in the same story as easily.

Do something similar to Mythic Greece.

They had Heros , Lesser demigods, and greater demigods. Very different power levels. But the guys with powers had otherworldly forces  running interference with their actions(Disads or complications). That is how you do the jedi.

[Vanguard]

But, that's really no different from fantasy where, Folk in full plate armor are balanced against magicians who can fly. Who can rain fire down on the battle. But this works in fantasy and esp Fantasy Hero. Because we stick to the core philosophy of the system. That allows for no absolutes, nothing that is a 100% defense. That means that the Jedi Blaster Bolt Deflection isn't ever going to be perfect. The Lightsaber doesn't really HAVE to be the ultimate weapon just as long as it's deadly enough.

 

I would turn one of your comments back on you. "Compare them in Hero terms not "I love this story" terms"  Build stuff to be the Star Wars Flavor, not slavishly trying to exactly show what you saw on screen. I would rather have a fun game with the flavor of star Wars, than a game that followed some interpretation of the movies so close that it wasn't fun for everyone. When something switches medium sometimes compromises have to be made for the medium you are converting for (ie RPGs). 

 

Oh and nearly no one wants to play the side kick. They want to play the Hero(ine). This is HERO, you CAN make an awesome RotJ Luke and still have Leia, Lando, Han and Chewie be able to keep up with him. It's ok for everyone to be awesome. It won't take away from the Jedi's awesomeness.

 

I'm not sure how it is in your fantasy games but in all the ones I've played it starts out with the Fighters ruling the roost until the mages can start casting more than 1 spell a fight.  The more spells the casters are able to cast, the more they start outstripping the sword and shield folks.  Until it gets to the point where the fighters (and their players) might as well just stay home.

 

 

About the lightsabers.  Even the canon stories themselves seemed to realize how over the top it was to have a weapon that "could cut through anything". So much so that they started included things that were resistant to lightsabers.

 

The other thing making a Star Wars game at least attemptable is, again, the "no absolutes" rule that Hero has.  You pointed out the Deflection ability and that's a good example.  Sure, a character can buy lots and lots of additional CV to be able to deflect more shots/things but eventually they're just going to get overwhelmed.

 

It's nearly, nope that's not right. It's impossible to build something exactly as you see on screen.  You have no basis for doing so.  There's no baseline to work with.  Just using the lightsaber as an example points out the futility of the act.  Especially trying to recreate it in Hero. if I asked, I'm sure everyone in this thread could produce a write up for a lightsaber.  And I'm thinking that no two would be the same.  What I think the problem is that even building to the flavor causes issues because that's subjective.  In this case it's trying to decide where the compromises lie and how to make them work so that the flavor is preserve for everyone.

 

No one's saying that you can't make an awesome RoTJ Luke and have the rest be able to keep up with him.  I think what's being said is that Luke would wind up being more expensive that Han, Leia or Chewie.

 

Edit: And Jango really didn't "stand his own" against Obi-Wan.  Everything he did slowed Obi-Wan down just so he could run away.  If he was really able to stand his own against a Jedi, he would have lasted more than a second or two when facing off against Mace.

[Tasha]

Heck in the first of the prequels, the lightsabers could cut though thick bulkhead, but it wasn't a fast process. I think that people forget that certain weapons take some time to do their devistating things. ie Star Trek Phasers are nearly as powerful as the Lightsaber, but some of the biggest effects (ie Disintegration) usually took a few seconds before they happened. With that in mind I tend to make Iconic weapons more balanced so they don't overpower other weapons that are included in that scifi world.

[NuSoardGraphite]

The thing is, Jedi should be no more competent than an expert warrior without The Force. They train as often as any martial artist or military veteran who likes to keep their skills sharp. Their skills and Characteristics should reflect this. Luke's Characteristics and skills shouldnt be superior to Han's at all. In fact, while they are probably fairly even as pilots, Han should be a much better gunfighter than Luke.

 

Its when you add The Force that things begin go tilt in the Jedi's favor.

 

Danger Sense prevents the Jedi from falling to sneak attacks.

 

Missile Deflection prevents the Jedi from being taken out by casual blaster bolts

 

Mind Tricks (Mind Control) allows the Jedi to easily bypass weak minded guards and opponents.

 

Telepathy allows a Jedi to ascertain an opponent or suspects motives and to sense hostility before violence is initated.

 

And Force Guidance (Overall Skill Levels) gives the Jedi access to The Force to guide their actions to improve their skills.

 

These abilities among others is what allows a Jedi to surpass the mundane warriors of the galaxy, but by no means does it make them invincible. In the Prequels, Jedi were killed by overwhelming odds. During the arena fight on Geonosis, dozens of battledroids were able to overwhelm and kill many Jedi by massing their fire and making it impossble to deflect everything coming at them. Jango Fette killed a Jedi in direct combat with his superior reflexes and fast draw skills, taking the Jedi by surprise. And during Executive Order 66, the Clones were able to dispassionately turn on the Jedi instantly, killing most of them in minutes because the sudden betrayal didnt resonate in The Force strongly (there was no hate or strong emotion behind it. They were simply following a preset order by their Commander in Cheif) and only the strongest of Jedi were able to sense it coming.

 

You absolutely can run Jedi and non Jedi in the same party. In fact without the Force, the Jedi will be LESS competent than the mundanes because of the pool of points that have to be diverted to Force Powers.

 

I usually have Jedi character purchase The Force as a Multipower, the pool points dictating a characters advancement as a Jedi. 15pt pool is a Youngling. A 30pt pool is a Padawan. A 45 point pool is a Knight and a 60 point pool is a Master.

 

Also the first slot in every pool is a special Force Focus slot which consists of 10pt Overall Skill Levels which Cost Endurance that gives the Jedi their famous hyper competence. It is these which allow the Jedi to fight like master swordsmen. It represents a Jedi allowing the Force to flow through them and guide their actions to improve their capabilities. It works great.

 

Me personally, when I run Star Wars, I like to have all the PCs be Jedi, not because of differences in power level (no worse than fantasy hero wizard) but because I think everyone would have more fun playing with Force Powers amd my games often revolve around the nature of The Force and a Jedi's role within it. They turn out better if all the players can contribute to the theme with their own perspectives.

[Wardsman]

I agree  NuSoardGraphite up to a point. I think  most force users should take set complications with the package.

Jedi are watched and controlled by the council and have code. Not allowed to marry etc

Probably a watched or hunted by their enemies. Make it any dark side users and raise the level.

 

Have I missed a few?

[bigdamnhero]

Any setting where one "character class" (for lack of a better term) is clearly meant to be more badass than any other creates challenges for RPG purposes. Think Buffy Hero, where I get to be The Slayer and you have to play...Cordelia.* Or Watchmen, where I get Dr. Manhattan and you get Moth Man. Or countless other examples I could name.

 

I've seen three different ways of handling this:

 

1) Everyone plays Jedi/Slayers/Whatever. Problem solved. Might narrow the types of stories you can tell, but it can be fun.

 

2) Embrace the fact that the PCs are not going to be balanced, or at least not in combat. As long as the player getting handed Cordelia doesn't mind being useless in combat, it can be a lot of fun to roleplay the snarky bitch who distracts the bad guy with her screaming while the Slayer attacks from behind. But you have to make sure all players are cool with that, and even then the novelty can wear off after a couple episodes. Or...

 

3) Acknowledge that the Bad Ass Class isn't going to be quite as overpoweringly bad ass as portrayed in the source material, and let the points fall where they may. In my experience, this approach tends to work much better for most RPG groups. Everyone gets the same number of points to play with, the Jedi player sinks most of his points into Force Powers, while the other players load up on Super Skills, Talents, etc. Just make sure the player running the Jedi PC isn't going to grumble about being under-powered for the whole campaign.

 

* Early version, before she got actual combat training in later seasons of Angel.

[bigdamnhero]

Re lightsabers: I believe SW canon is inconsistent on this point* but in some versions each lightsaber is a custom job tuned specifically to the individual user's force aura or whatever. So while anyone can turn a lightsaber on and wave it around, they're not going to be able to do any fancy Jedi tricks with it. And while a Jedi can use someone else's lightsaber, it won't be as efficient or effective as using their own.

 

* Go figure, right?

[Storyarama]

I know this post hasn't updated since July, but I have a question regarding Star Wars Hero and thought someone might have a good answer.

 

My gaming group has been running D20 Star Wars and getting really frustrated by the limitations of Jedi in the game, because they've really nerfed Jedi to bring them in line with the other classes. So, the GM asked me about doing the game as Hero since I've been running a Champions campaign for them, and the Star Wars GM thinks it would be a good system to use for Star Wars. So, since there is no official conversion available, what do you think is the best conversion on the web? Doing a web search, I see a few options available and just wondered if anyone had used them and what they thought of them.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well, your first concern is whether you believe you can create a plausible setting in which a guy with a gun can compete with a guy with a gun and superpowers.  There are several approaches you can take, as I see it.

 

1) The Mage approach where Jedi are super powerful but wear no armor and need people to watch their back

2) The nerf approach (which d20 does) so somehow having superpowers doesn't make you any better than those who do not

3) The SWTOR approach where you give non-force users so many abilities and special tricks that they basically are as powerful as force users

4) The Story approach where the game is less about combat and so the edge having the force gives in that is less significant

5) The heroic approach where guys like Vader and Luke are unusually gifted and normal Jedi just can't do all that stuff so easily, making them less awesome

6) Everyone plays a different sort of Jedi, so the balance issues don't matter

7) The Academic approach, where Jedi are very powerful, but spend so much of their lives learning to control the force that they are basically worthless in other areas like engineering, flying a ship, interaction, etc and those skills balance them out in other characters

 

Hero is a system that will very easily let you build your Jedi and give them all the powers you want, but they will cost quite a bit, so the best approach is probably for the Jedi to start out as an oldish padawan (you know, not a little kid) who learns as the game goes along.  This will give them a few things like a force shove and some overall levels to demonstrate the force guiding them, but not the full suite of powers right away.

 

 

*edit: eliminated 8 which was a repetition of 6!

[Storyarama]

Well, your first concern is whether you believe you can create a plausible setting in which a guy with a gun can compete with a guy with a gun and superpowers.  There are several approaches you can take, as I see it.

 

1) The Mage approach where Jedi are super powerful but wear no armor and need people to watch their back

2) The nerf approach (which d20 does) so somehow having superpowers doesn't make you any better than those who do not

3) The SWTOR approach where you give non-force users so many abilities and special tricks that they basically are as powerful as force users

4) The Story approach where the game is less about combat and so the edge having the force gives in that is less significant

5) The heroic approach where guys like Vader and Luke are unusually gifted and normal Jedi just can't do all that stuff so easily, making them less awesome

6) Everyone plays a different sort of Jedi, so the balance issues don't matter

7) The Academic approach, where Jedi are very powerful, but spend so much of their lives learning to control the force that they are basically worthless in other areas like engineering, flying a ship, interaction, etc and those skills balance them out in other characters

8) All Jedi are NPCs so there is no balance concern

 

Hero is a system that will very easily let you build your Jedi and give them all the powers you want, but they will cost quite a bit, so the best approach is probably for the Jedi to start out as an oldish padawan (you know, not a little kid) who learns as the game goes along.  This will give them a few things like a force shove and some overall levels to demonstrate the force guiding them, but not the full suite of powers right away.

Well, do you know which conversions on the web take which approach? That way I can tell him which one to look at based on what he approach he favors.

[Hyper-Man]

I believe there is another option not mentioned.  Since one of the core ideas in HERO is that you get what you pay for I posit that even an average Jedi would have so many points tied up in just basic Force and Lightsaber abilities that non-Jedi characters built on equivalent points are going to be pretty badass in their own different ways (ex: Han).

 

Here is a link to a 5e Jedi Template I made a long time ago to illustrate what I mean.

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/86704-sith-lord-vpp/?p=2298653

 

HM

[TheDarkness]

I believe there is another option not mentioned.  Since one of the core ideas in HERO is that you get what you pay for I posit that even an average Jedi would have so many points tied up in just basic Force and Lightsaber abilities that non-Jedi characters built on equivalent points are going to be pretty badass in their own different ways (ex: Han).

 

Here is a link to a 5e Jedi Template I made a long time ago to illustrate what I mean.

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/86704-sith-lord-vpp/?p=2298653

 

HM

I agree. Leia was in command of a rebellion and had political influence, Han had a great ship, great piloting skills, was the best shot(in a universe of bad shots), Chewie had a powerful weapon(and good relative accuracy in a universe of inaccurate enemies), and later was a General.

 

In the original trilogy, there is almost no scene in which Luke's ability with the force trumped the other's roles. He was a good pilot aside from the force, but the falcon was a better ship. Most of the time he wasn't able to use his light sabre to do all the things he did in ROTJ, and deflecting blasters is not an automatic win, nor does it automatically get you within lightsabre range. When outnumbered by troopers with blasters, he would have to run like anyone else, elsewise a stormtrooper might accidentally hit him.

 

He also apparently had to be close to choke people(making it suspiciously like just choking people normally), and could only control the weak willed.

 

He could leap, sure. So could a lot of creatures.

 

Yes, in close range, the light sabre is about the toughest weapon there is. In close range. And there were weapons able to deal with it, just not cause as much damage.

[TheDarkness]

Aside from the light sabre, low level mind control with the limitation it would not work on anyone above a certain Ego, levitation, but any starting character would be a ways away from a combat offensive telekinesis, after some experience choke at choking range(eating up points for a power that they already could do with their hands) requiring concentration, after a bit of experience leaping, after a bit of experience seeing the future(for what good it will do), social complication: uses the word 'youngling' in conversation. Perhaps once per game can "Act with the will of The Force" to boost an action in some way after a successful 'feel the force' roll.

 

Deflecting blasters should not be a perfect shield at all. Probaly tied to a 'feel the force' skill roll. This, in a world full of blasters, means you have a close combatant who quickly needs to close, and, if facing enough people with blasters, will need to find cover and/or retreat like anyone else before they fail a roll.

 

In fact, 'feel the force' would likely be a mitigating factor in many of their actions. And so, their powers, at the start, should hardly be automatic.

 

One element I did like in the prequels was the tendency of Kenobi to prefer living steeds, as opposed to Annakin and Luke, who favor vehicles. These are skills eating points.

[massey]

You could also just make Jedi characters have more points, but require that those points get tied up in expensive Force powers.  And then they get all the bad stuff that goes with the Force too, like being a huge target for all the evil Sith Lords out there.  You instantly get like 100 points of Hunteds, a bunch of Psych Lims, all these restrictions on how you're supposed to behave, stuff like that.  You can be drawn to the Dark Side if you don't behave right, and then your character becomes an NPC.  Taking Force powers is akin to telling the GM "hey please screw with my character".

 

So everybody gets built on 150 points (5th edition), but if you become a Jedi you get another 150 that you have to spend on all these expensive and heavily restricted Force abilities.  A lot of them get No Conscious Control, or take gobs of Extra Time and Concentration, and they don't make you that much better in a fight.  And as soon as you take them, the campaign's chief villain instantly decides you're his target.  Being a Jedi is a lot of trouble.  You also have to face a lot of Jedi problems alone.  Han gets to run around with a bunch of rebel troopers backing him up.  You have to go face Darth Vader alone and pass the GM's "test of honor" or whatever for the sole privilege of getting to continue to play your character.

[TheDarkness]

Additionally, what about when your force sensitivity tells you that what you want to do is not the will of the force, or it is not the right time.

 

The force was not an internal battery for the jedi the same way it was for the sith. The overall trend of the force trumps individual power. It should be modelled as such. Force sensitivity is a double edged sword.

 

Further, I think a lot of the powers are modelled way to powerfully. Deflecting individual blaster strikes as they come one by one happened. This is not an automatic defense that can be applied to multiple blaster shots at the same time. And almost no one except the most powerful jedi and sith had combat telekinesis in any of the movies.

 

Kenobi had less power than Vader, but greater sensitivity to the will of the force, and it had him win one fight against vader, and choose to die in the next.

[Doc Democracy]

This as always comes down to player preconceptions.

 

The films are not much use as they do not seek to balance jedi with anything else and power levels fluctuate depending on the demands of the story. 

 

Just look at the Jedi fighting in the arena - there were a huge number of Jedi and they were losing until the clone trooper reinforcements arrived - overwhelming force (not Force!) was apparently enough to potentially wipe out the Jedi.

 

The big element in getting the Jedi across will be in the "Cool Tricks" arena.  Obviously one Jedi cannot take on a whole platoon of storm troopers unless he happens to be a seriously powerful one and even then he will eventually be overwhelmed by numbers.  However, creative use of powers with boosts to PRE attacks should make the display of power enough to make time for all kinds of last minute escapes - the GM has to remember the psychological effect of the use of Force powers on everyone else.

 

I think I would look at having the Jedi be able to do the same things as other players but in cooler ways - they do not use armour but instead deflect and dodge (both of these things can be built in HERO in exactly the same way - through the use of small modifiers such as armour costs END and deflect and dodge requires skill rolls the added PD/ED should 'feel' different in play).

 

The thing is to have a list of those cool Jedi tricks for players to pick from and, in HERO, if the player really likes one of them it is a simple matter to allow practice to make those things really good.  For example, the player loves the deflect and dodge stuff and begins to put practice into that area and in time not only dodges and deflects but actually reflects some bolts back at the person firing the shot...  That can be done in other systems but in HERO you can watch the development of the power.  To bring it in on cost there might be big limitations on the power such as higher END cost, range effects, limitations on what power of blast could be deflected, and anything else that seems appropriate - even succeeding on a relationship style roll with the Force.  Each of these can slowly be bought down until it is a really cool power.

 

HERO is a crunchy system.  I do not think I would rely on narrative story modes helping balance out over-powered force users from everyone else.  What you need to do is build in the cool stuff to the crunch and find other ways for the social points spent by other characters make them important to the game.  You also have to allow the ranged combat characters to be important and have the Jedi be specialist close combatants and have particular areas where they might become actively detrimental to either the more dubious plans of the players or hindrance to stealth ("I feel the Force moving strongly in someone close by....")

 

Doc

[E Nymton]

I'm not sure how to reflect this mechanically, but Jedi face a problem non-jedi don't. The lure if the dark side. Jedi may be more powerful, but they can not use their abilities as freely.

 

Maybe could have more points but also have more complications as well?

 

Or the Grimoire has a bit about the corrupting effects of black magic, which could be adapted.

 

Also has anyone got any links to any conversions, I'd be interested in having a look at some, but my Google skills obviouls are't up to the task of finding them.

[TheDarkness]

Actually, an idea just struck me that kills two birds with one stone.

 

The jedi are not just force users without sith powers. Sith power is constantly at their beck and call, if they want it.

 

So require the purchase of what would essentially be a very tempting 'push' of various powers. A power they must buy, but never use.

 

The use of it leads to a complication, lured by the dark side, that, if the dark side is used enough, then leads to the complication becoming more powerful, which leads to more use of the dark side power, which leads to NPC land.

 

Implement a reasonable power level for them. Light sabres SHOULD be deadly, but I really think allowing things like light saber blocks to be modelled as largely all purpose armor works better for supers games than non-supers. It seems just like a deflection to me, not sure why this isn't how it should be modelled.

 

Again, the only people in all six movies who have anything that one could equate to much in the way of combat level telekinesis are the most powerful and most experienced: every one else seems to have a shove power at slightly further than arm's length. Besides that, they mostly use it to reclaim their lightsabers.

 

Force choke also has extremely limited range, Vader does do a mega-scale one, but he's kind of the king of the force choke, and much more experienced than anyone else we see do it.

 

Leaping, simple enough. It's not a massive leap in many cases.

 

As far as their actual powers, the normal jedi really aren't that powerful, if they are modelled as they are shown in most of the movies. Too many are modelled like the best, most powerful, or most experienced jedi. This is why I see the deflection as more fair to the other characters than blanket pd/ed or other ways of modelling it, but I may not be following the reasons for that type of modelling. It seems like literally a deflection with the limitation requires the light sabre.

[Ninja-Bear]

Well, do you know which conversions on the web take which approach? That way I can tell him which one to look at based on what he approach he favors.

The conversion I ran across is D6 to Hero. D6 WEG really nerfs Jedis. But since it was designed from the Orginal trilogy, there is a reason why there was no powerful Jedi left.

 

From what I seen from D20, you have a slow progression of Jedi powers. Is the slow progression what your players chafing.against?' With Hero, you could give the players access with more powers just keep them low.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I believe there is another option not mentioned.  Since one of the core ideas in HERO is that you get what you pay for I posit that even an average Jedi would have so many points tied up in just basic Force and Lightsaber abilities that non-Jedi characters built on equivalent points are going to be pretty badass in their own different ways

 

That would be option 7 I gave above; Jedi put so much time into learning the force they aren't great at other stuff.  The force as explained makes you better at everything, though, like overall levels: you get hit less, hit more often, etc.

[Storyarama]

The conversion I ran across is D6 to Hero. D6 WEG really nerfs Jedis. But since it was designed from the Orginal trilogy, there is a reason why there was no powerful Jedi left.

 

From what I seen from D20, you have a slow progression of Jedi powers. Is the slow progression what your players chafing.against?' With Hero, you could give the players access with more powers just keep them low.

 

   They're not chafing against the slow progression of getting powers, just the fact that they can barely use them more than a couple times a day. It's set up that if you use any of your Force powers you take Vitality damage, which is sort of their version of STUN. But unike STUN, which you can just recover by taking a recovery, Vitality takes much longer to recover, like hours. So, you can only use the good Force powers a few times before you run out of Vitality and can't use the Force for hours. Plus, attacks against your character also damage your Vitality, so getting hit a couple times can leave you unable to use your Force powers either. It's very frustrating being a Jedi when a simple punch to the face can leave you unable to use The Force at all.

 

   Basically, I think my GM is looking for something like low powered Champions but Star Wars instead. Reading earlier posts in this thread, I see that some suggested using Ninja Hero to let the non-Jedi beef themselves up without the Force, and that seems like a good idea. After all, in the Star Wars setting The Force is in all things and creatures, so even the non-Jedi may use the Force, just not conciously  as a Jedi does. A smuggler might have Danger Sense as that gut feeling when something's wrong. That bounty hunters exceptional skill with a blaster might be her subconciously using the Force to guide her aim.  That diplomats instinctive ability to dodge blaster fire might be him subconciously using the Force to know where those shots are going to land. Etc. So, there's no reason that non-Jedi can't also have special powers, they just wouldn't be as obvious or showy, because they don't even know they're using the Force.

 

So, if my GM uses Star Hero for the Equipment, Vehicle, and Weapon stats, and Ninja Hero and The Ultimate Books for special abilities for all the characters, that should probably work. Any powers with visible special effects, or mental powers, either in the Main book or the Ult. books can only be used by Jedis or Sith, unless your race has that ability as a racial ability. So, how does that sound for workability?

[TheDarkness]

Seems a sensible route.

 

Man, that vitality rule is terrible. Yeesh.