As a veteran of the West End Games D6 StarWars, I guess I liked the fact that the character had more to do with their ship than the D20 Saga does. Was hoping someone had come up with something to rectify this. But I see your point in using certain talents and feats on the ground as well in AT PTs, etc.

So I've seen in another game that a jetpack is not considered a 'vehicle'. Any other thoughts on this? Can Vehicular Combat be used with a Jet Pack? Can maneuvers?

Pretty much a GM judgement area and Wizards never did give an answer about it despite being asked a few times.  Since the rules don't explicitly say the jetpack is a vehicle it's unwise to assume it is until your GM has rules otherwise.  As for maneuvers, almost certainly no.  You can only use maneuvers in a starship or airspeeder, or when firing a vehicle weapon of any kind for gunnery maneuvers.  Even if it's ruled a vehicle there's no reason to think a jetpack should be ruled an airspeeder.

Cool. Just getting a feel of the vague community opinion. They certainly didn't seem to have  'Rocketeer' style maneuverability in the movies.

If I were going to make a quick ruling on it, I'd say that they are equipment not a vehicle. My reasoning for this is that vehicles make that jump in size that requires you to attack objects/parts of the vehicle when using personal sized weapons. Jetpacks (as Han Solo showed us in Jedi) are susceptible to small arms fire.

The way I understand how Jetpacks work is that maneuvers take the Pilot Skill, but landing requires the Jump Skill.  The kinds of Starship Maneuvers you can use with a Jetpack are very limited.  It's not like you have enough juice in them for a dogfight, and you certainly don't have Starship Weapons.  It's basically a means of getting from Point A to Point B, usually over terrain or obstacles that would make getting there on foot impossible.

Eh, jump isn't involved in a jetpack, just pilot.



But yeah, no real reason to make a jetpack a vehicle.  The only reason I suggest it at all is because a pilot can make those pilot checks and thus get a bit more utility than other characters.  If you want your vehicular combat on the ground just get an AT-XT, Republic Troop Transport, or Shelter Speeder.  One rocks due to it's low price and awesome firepower, the other two are inexpensive airspeeders that benefit from your maneuvers.

Now if you were to develop some sort of Ironman-like suit that actually gives the wearer total cover and has an Int modifier of its own... I'd probably consider that a vehicle (tiny- most likely). Unfortunately it would probably also be one of those things that the Imps are building a prototype of and a rebel cell is sent in to steal the plans and either steal or destroy the prototype... I think a may have started writing my next campaign...

I believe those were DarkTroopers...

I thought the dark troopers were somehow force sensitive? Then there were the other ones that were more like oversized droids.

Don't recall any force sensitiveness. Phase 1 were droids. Phase two were a sort of super 0-G Stormtrooper suit. Phase three was a super upgrade of both. A droid body that could open up and have a pilot inside. All were lightsaber resistant though.

DarkTroopers are just droids... really tough battle droids.  They couldn't possibly be Force Sensitive.  Now Kyle Katarn, the hero of Dark Forces, he was Force Sensitive.

The Iron-Man suit is something totally different.  That would be a modified suit of Power Armor, something good like Scout Armor that has a built in Repulsor flight system.  It then would have Blasters built into the arms and the droidification modification so that it has a computer that can talk to you.  But it remains armor, even if the Droidification can make it walk on its own.  Using it would require Armor Proficiency (Medium or Heavy) depending on how much defense you want it to give.  Flying in it would take the Pilot Skill.  As for Jump Skill, I've been looking through all my books, and yeah, I did borrow that part from Revised Edition.  It makes sense to me.  Boba Fett never made landing look easy.  His legs took a lot of impact and there are moments when he looks like he's going to fall over.

Naw, Jurnee has the right of it.  Rebellion Era Campaign Guide page 128:

"The original Dark Trooper project uses droids rather than living beings wearing power armor.  However, Dark Trooper phase II and III models are designed to work as both independent droids and wearable suits of armor."

The force sensitivity, I seem to recall that in some EU comic of something but just about everything is called force sensitive at some point in some EU bit of fanfic.

Now if you got a collection of Shards (Jedi Academy sourcebook; see Iron Knight alternate tradition) and put them into an army of Dark Trooper suits, THEN you've got one powerful force sensitive droid army.

Do you think Jedi who grow up in a temple (ya know, the younglings who do it right, were trained from the time they were 2 or whatever it is...), should have a Force Training Feat at 1st level, free?

(On the basis of, if you're growing up in the Temple, under Yoda and whoever else is teaching the younglings, how do you even get picked as a level 1 Padawan without it?)

"What level are you born with" has always been a thorny question for DnD but it's a bit of an edge case.

I'd expect a typical level 1 padawan to take 1 level of Jedi for class and force training as her first level feat.

Sure, but that limits 'Strong in the Force' to humans, as you must start with that, or you never get it, as I understand it.

The logic of having a free Force Training is similar to that of getting the Block and Deflect Talents free. That is, they're not letting you out of the Temple without those things.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:19, Sun 06 Oct 2013.

It's entirely possible to become a Jedi Knight and never take Block or Deflect. Anyone with an inkling of the Force and a lightsaber can scoot a blaster bolt or two, or parry an incoming attack. That's narrative stuff, while Block and Deflect are mechanical representations of telling someone their attack was just moved to the side outright. Just comes to what aspect of the character class you want to focus on.

Likewise, a level 1 Jedi, someone who's been accepted for going on missions but has no practical experience and is far too young to be lifting X-Wings out of swamps, isn't going to need Force Training. They'll have training in Use the Force, which gives all kinds of appropriate powers, but Force Training shouldn't be free. It isn't even on their bonus feats list. You only get it as a character feat, not a class feat. That is, level 1/3/6/etc.

If you want to make characters more powerful than normal, you could give them Force Training for free. I'd just suggest giving non-Jedi something equivalent to keep up.

In reply to PC Angelalex242 (msg # 32):

This is, in general, why I don't want to play in level 1 games, you can't actually fit most concepts with so few resources to spread around.  But in this specific case, that's. . . not what the feat says and there's no errata on it.  It's not even really a Jedi feat much.


In the case where a PC's background says they came from the temple (Unlike, say, that one droid with Jedi levels or that Luke guy), giving them a free feat due to backstory sets a bad precedent.  Should Nobles who specify they're actually royalty get Wealth free, because no Royal is going to be dirt poor?  Should Scoundrels who say they're smugglers get a free starship, because you can't smuggle stuff any other way? (actually that last one might not be a bad idea).  If so, isn't that punishing players who choose other backstories, by making them weaker in comparison?

On the other hand, I will note that first-level Jedi are somewhat weaker than other classes (scoundrel is also a bit weak), and I wouldn't be opposed to houseruling all Jedi another class starting feat or skill slot, to make the Jedi a bit more appealing as a first level class.  I see a lot of effective Jedi builds start out in another class and then multiclass to Jedi, to get around Jedi's pitifully small number of starting skills and feats.

Edit: Bah, ninja'd by Nintaku with almost the same points.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:07, Sun 06 Oct 2013.

Well, those background feats you mentioned aren't entirely a bad idea either. All characters might get a free 'background feat' or 'background talents' based on where they grew up and how they lived before the game started.

It just...produces a level of 'sameness' between Jedi if all Jedi have their first, 3rd, and 6th level feats pre determined to be Force Training (so as to be properly trained in time to be a Knight by level 8)

Admittedly, a Human Jedi hellbent on learning his craft could be done at level 3, though, if he spends his human feat on Force training, along with his level 1.

But it's quite true...all the bigshot feature jedi...Anakin, Luke, Palpatine...start out as a NON jedi class, and later go into jedi or sith apprentice or what have you.

Free Force Training for 1st level Jedi would balance out the 2+int skills they get, I think. And discourages people from making their first level anything but jedi, in order to game the system for 6+int or 5+int skills.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:18, Sun 06 Oct 2013.

Hmm, on the one hand I note that all the Jedi in the movies are basically the same.  All of them have block/deflect as talents and move object, mind trick, and battle precognition as force powers and most sith take force lightning as well.  You just don't see a whole lot else.  Ultimately without delving into a lot of EU stuff or fighting styles that are hard to even notice if you're not told they're there, it's hard to tell Aayla Secura from Obi Wan Kenobi in terms of any mechanical options that you could throw together to mimic what they do on-screen.

On the other hand, just because it looks that way in the movies doesn't mean it's fun to play as your character, I consider fun to trump genre emulation at a certain point.  Part of the problem, then, is that Force Users are still inherently a much narrower field than the other types of characters.

Just going soldier, for instance.  A character says they're a soldier and pulls out a sniper rifle, it's good.  He pulls out a starship, yeah he's a combat pilot.  A medkit, totally a battlefield medic.  All perfectly good soldiers.  But if somebody says they're a Jedi and doesn't pull out a Lightsaber, they're already deviating hugely from the archetype.

Well, maybe I should open this up, as 'free Force Training' may not be the only way to balance things.

What would you say is powerful enough to discourage a Jedi from taking 1 level of noble, or scout, as his first level, and instead encourage him to take his first level as jedi?

Remember, in the worst case scenario (Noble), that's /4/ extra skills, or 4 skill training feats...you're trying to make up for.

Not quite as one-sided as all that.  Noble gets 4 more trained skills. . . and 12 fewer HP, less a point of BAB (which can never be replaced), and one of their bonus feats is Linguist, widely considered one of the most worthless feats in the game which can be casually replaced by cheap equipment.  And you're not getting into Jedi Knight at 8th level because you lost a point of BAB there, that's a very serious loss.

I would say one good feat would be sufficient for the Jedi.  They lack skills but they have a plethora of talents that let them replace X skill with "Use the Force" which effectively dramatically increases their actual skill range despite their small starting number, and allows them a high skill check despite not having the right attribute for a given skill, such as a clumsy spaz being an awesome pilot with force pilot.

Scout is a whole 'nother issue.  Everybody wants it for Evasion and not much else.  It has a lot of skills but the skills it can actually train in aren't that attractive or useful, once you've got stealth, perception, and initiative you've probably got most of the good skills (oh look, it can add jump and swim, how special).  Noble kind of has the same issue, all it's skills are either knowledge, social, or a couple of technical skills like mechanics, there's not really that many good skills to train unless you're specifically a social butterfly.  Ultimately I usually see every build devolve into Base 3/Base 4/Prestige Class X.  No base class is really attractive for more than a few levels and easy multiclassing is a feature of the system.

One extra feat on top of what's already there?

Well, maybe something like Weapon Focus Lightsaber, if you feel Force Training's just too powerful to start with as a freebie?

Or Force Boon? Strong in the Force?
This message was last edited by the player at 20:46, Sun 06 Oct 2013.

That's the thing about House Rules.  They exist so that GMs can adjust the feel of their games and/or manipulate the decisions players make as to what kind of character they want to play.  For example, if the GM wants to run a low-level game for Jedi but have them face epic-scale odds, then the GM will want to give Jedi characters who were raised in the Jedi Temple that Force Training Feat for free.  It would be designed to make players want to play Jedi as opposed to a Scout or a Soldier.  On the other side, if the GM doesn't want a slew of Jedi characters in his game, he won't give Jedi characters a free anything so that players see that there are better options to playing Jedi.

The spirit in which this question is asked is something I agree with totally.  Jedi Suck!  Saga Edition really gimps what a Jedi is capable of.  I mean, I know they were trying to create a balance between the character classes.  But when you watch the movies, where's the balance?  Jedi are supposed to be unbalanced.  It just means that when GM want to have Jedi characters in there game that actually feel like the Jedi in the movies, then the GM has to come up with House Rules.  There's just no way around it... other to make a game for really high level characters.  But that's a whole different sort of trap.  High level characters need high level opponents.  And high level opponents take so long to kill.  And long combats in rpol slow to such a crawl that players leave the game.  Thus to speed up combat, more House Rules need to be written.