Everything you'd ever want to know about Correllian frigates, Lambda-class shuttles, Mon Calamari cruisers and of course the classic TIE fighters and X-wings. The Firespray-31 Patrol Craft? The basis for Boba Fett's Slave I. The bulk of the book consists of descriptions of almost any ship that you might encounter in the game, including archetypes that we saw in the movies. Of course, it doesn't mean that the pilot is any good - think of Obi Wan in the opening sequence of Revenge of the Sith - he flew in combat, certainly, but he complained the whole time.
Many a space-based RPG session degenerated into boredom because only one PC could fly the ship. I was happy to see that the book openly says that most players can pilot ships in combat. Hyperspace travel, ship-related skills and feats, as well as ship combat. This book teaches you everything you need to use ships in your Star Wars RPG campaign. In a game that involves space battles and interstellar travel, the starship is king. As I mentioned, you really don't need any book but this one, unless you need more background info - the ship book's coverage of space travel and combat is invaluable. The book concludes with vehicles, droids, prestige classes and other stuff for the GM like a gazeteer of planets and tips on game mastering. Speaking of combat, the book comes with a table map and the system encourages use of the Star Wars miniatures Wizards sells. The following chapters provide lists of equipment and explains the combat system. Then the book discusses the Force, a topic worthy of its own chapter. The first chapters cover character creation, races, skills, feats and so forth. A lot of games - such as its cousin, D&D 4E, can't say the same. What you get with this resource is everything you need to play the game collected in one book. Was a lot left out? Sure, but that's what expansion books are for. It presents the game system simply and edits down a vast amount of background info into a clear and sensible summary of the game universe. This is one of the most neatly and clearly laid out rulebooks I've seen. While not very canonical, this mechanic is a clear necessity and the rules system handles it well. With this system, such matchups will be far more common. For a non-Jedi to be able to fight Jedi and win was pretty remarkable in the movies.
In a way, this makes Jango Fett's movie character a little less interesting. For instance, he's only about twice as powerful as Aayla Secura, a relative no-name Jedi. Mace Windu is described as a Jedi 8/Jedi Knight 6/Jedi Master 5 which makes him not much more powerful than some of the less remarkable Jedi. Case in point, the all-powerful Jedi needed to be taken down a notch. Cinematic heroes who do everything right tend to make boring RPG characters. One of the most expected changes was that the films' characters were toned down a bit. The same applies to Star Wars, where the Jedi have no more feats than Smugglers or Ace Pilots, just different ones. Now, a 20th level rogue pretty much has as many abilities and powers as a 20th level sorcerer. In the old days (there I go reminiscing like an old man!) the classes were unequal - a fighter was far tougher than a magic-user at lower levels, but was soon left by the wayside as the wizard became ultra powerful. The big question I had when checking out the game was, how well did Wizards even out the classes? When you think about it, why would anyone want to play anything but a Jedi? The core mechanic that evens out the classes is the feats and powers system inherent in D20, the game's underlying rule system.
That, plus the absurd amount of background information, makes this game as complicated as you'd like it. Actually, when you add in all the prestige classes, not to mention 17 races - including humans, Ewoks, Mon Calamari and Wookiee - you have many complex options for making characters. That, combined with the game's friendly system and familiar setting might make you think it's almost overly simplistic - not so. It's such a fan favorite that when Wizards announced it would be updating the system to reflect 4E sensibilities, D20 publisher Paizo elected to convert their products to their own flavor of D20 rather than make the transition.Īt first glance the Star Wars RPG seems simple, with only five basic classes: Jedi, Noble, Scoundrel, Scout and Soldier.
D20 is kinda like the Unix of roleplaying games - almost certainly the most tested and stable of all systems.
If you've played D&D anytime in the past decade plus, you already know how to play Star Wars. The system uses D20's classic architecture, which has been around since 2000. If you're looking for the excitement of the Star Wars universe in a tabletop game, there's nothing better than Wizards of the Coast's latest version of their Star Wars Roleplaying Game.