The differences between OCR/RCR and SWSE Part I: Dovin Basals

I've had the distinct pleasure thus far of doing a large amount of equipment, droid and vehicle design.

On the New Republic/Jedi side, there isn't much new. A couple of X-Wing upgrades, a few pieces of specialty equipment, a few new droids, and a couple of new starships not currently made in Saga Edition.

However, on the Yuuzhan Vong side, and to a lesser extent the Killiks, the numbers of things we've needed to design are legion.

In the case of the Killiks, no previous edition covered the various equipment and vehicle designs. The dartship gets a write up in The Unknown Regions, and that's it.

For the Yuuzhan Vong, a primary source for this book is the old, Original Core Rulebook supplement, The New Jedi Order Sourcebook. Additionally, there are a few items that got writeups in Web Enhancements and various WotC web articles, all of them predating Saga Edition by years.

The process of converting starships has been mostly straightforward. I say mostly because there are conversion rules from OCR to RCR, and then from RCR to SWSE to make most of the process for existing designs easy, with the exception of two pesky exceptions, dovin basals, and yammosks.

The dovin basal, for those unfamiliar with NJO, is effectively a living creature that can manipulate gravitics on a molecular, or even submolecular level. In effect, it acts as propulsion, shields, gravity well projectors/interdiction field on larger ships, and even as an offensive weapon for Yuuzhan Vong vehicles and starships (mainly due to its ability to disrupt shields).

In the OCR days, there were extremely complex rules, where the hapless GM could spend way too much time trying to figure out how to allocate shield points to a myriad of tasks to simulate the dovin basal. Adapting those rules directly to Saga, as written, would be a major break with the style of the game system, and particularly with regard to Saga's easy and fun Starship/Vehicle combat rules. I wasn't going to go there.

In SWSE, so far, there have been two treatments of the dovin basal. The dovin basal's effects are listed with regard to their presence on the coralskipper, a living starfighter analog that got a write up in Threats of the Galaxy. More of the effects of dovin basals (particularly with regard to their ability to take down shields), and unlike the coralskipper entry, varying by size, can be found in the Living Ship Template present in the Legacy Era Campaign Guide.

The rules for the dovin basals will in effect, be a blend of the rules from these two limited sources, combined with the writeup of gravity well projectors from the Interdictor Cruiser entry, also found in Threats of the Galaxy. The net effect is a far more elegant, and easy to run system for simulating dovin basals than the cumbersome one found in the old NJO Sourcebook.

Next Time: Yammosks, and Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology.

Call for Playtesters

This post is crossposted at the Order 66 Podcast Forums:

Hey gang.

Work continues apace on The Embrace of Pain, the New Jedi Order to Legacy of the Force Sourcebook.

At this point, Equipment and Droids are done, and Yuuzhan Vong ships and vehicles are getting close to done.

And that means, we're close to the time of needing playtesters to put these designs through the paces...and what better way to get some of the Gamer Nation involved.

Although we are still a few weeks away from needing them, consider this a formal request for playtesters.

Should you decide to become a playtester, we need you to consider the following:

1. We need active playtesters. We don't need people who are just wanting to look at the material and never give feedback. The stuff is going to be doled out piecemeal as it's designed for a while, which means that we really need your feedback. If you don't give feedback, you'll find yourself politely kicked off the playtest team.

2. Prior RPG design and playtest experience is helpful, but not necessary.

3. We need your commitment to keep the material you are given to review confidential. Eventually, everything we do will be free for download to anybody who wants it. However, we'd like to keep the beta-test stuff from seeing a wide release, since some of it will doubtless need revisions, and quite possibly heavy revisions in some instances.

Also, if you have a desire to do some design work in the area of character stat blocks, AND have access to the old OCR New Jedi Order Sourcebook, give me a yell. I may have an opening for some design work for you.