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[Darvi]

Or anything with force nullification properties.

You called?

[Tarran]

A mage is a party member who uses magic to heal people and shoot fireballs all over the place. A Jedi is a superhuman who can fly, use telekinesis, shoot lightning from his fingertips, trick people with psychic suggestion, run at super speed, and carry around a bitchin' laser sword.

How is that something that mages cannot do?

Heck, mages can even do things that Jedi cannot do (polymorph, make entire creatures, use Ice, use earth), and yet, people still play non-mages.

So yes, it's certainly feasible to have people in the party who aren't Jedi, but the Jedi players are just going to end up stealing all the glory and outclassing the others. The point of an adventurer party in a RPG is that everyone fills a role. Having a member of the party who's simply better than everyone else at everything undermines that.

Of course. There are plenty of places for non-jedi:
Engineers, snipers, skirmishers, pilots, grenadier, anti-armor, stealth...

There are plenty of roles.

A Jedi is nothing but the best qualities of all three of those without any of the drawbacks. There's no way to balance them without removing what makes them cool in the first place.

Oh, you're going for 'cool' (which does not include 'fun', I might add). I can't argue with you further then.

[Gatleos]

I'm not saying that they're immune because they're cool. I'm saying that it's extremely difficult to include them without alienating the other players. It's a mage that isn't physically weak. It's a fighter that can use magic. If you include it as a class, you have to severely limit it to make sure it's balanced. And then it's not the same anymore.

The trick to writing a good RPG campaign is to make sure all the players are having fun. The best way to do that is to make everyone feels like they're contributing. The best way to do that is to make sure that they can contribute. When one player can take the role of fighter, mage and thief simultaneously and is vastly more powerful than the others, they're not having fun because their role isn't important anymore.

I'm not telling anyone that they can't include Jedi. You just have to be careful and limit them just enough to make them a normal character class. If you don't, any class that's created just to be outside the Jedi's ability set will be too niche to be useful that often.

[kisame12794]

Or make them specialize in certain force techniques. Because learning how to throw things around would take a lot of practice, so it would make sense that they wouldn't have time to practice mind control.

[Tarran]

Perhaps have them also be more "Higher profile" than the mundane guys. Meaning 75% of the bullets will go after them.

You could also give the Jedi a tradeoff: They can specialize in the same things as mundane people, and will do slightly better, but they can only specialize in one thing, and a specialized non-Jedi is better than a non-specialized Jedi.

For example: Jedi A is specialized in in Engineering. He is slightly better than Engineer A. But only slightly.
However, Jedi B is specialized in Healing but not in Engineering. He is without a doubt worse than Engineer A.

[Gatleos]

What if "Jedi" wasn't a class at all? A character of any class could learn Jedi abilities if they focused on it, but there's a limited amount. You could follow different paths on a skill tree, and some of the skills on the tree just happen to be typical Jedi skills.

For instance, one character could go the way of the traditional Jedi and choose Super Dexterity (skill to use a lightsaber without cutting your own arm off), Super Jumping, Projectile Lightning, etc. as they leveled up. But another could choose skills related to engineering, choosing abilities to allow them to hack electronics and build laser weaponry, but also choose a single Jedi-related ability like Jedi Mind Trick at one point.

That way, the abilities aren't limited to one OP character class and anyone can mix and match Jedi stuff with more utilitarian skills.

[monk12]

Monks don't use (laser) swords.

You haven't been in my apartment.



RE: Jedi- I've gotta agree with Gat on this one. Having 75% of the bullets go after the Jedi doesn't help when the Jedi can deflect them with their sweet laser sword, and that's just another way of saying "The Jedi is more important than the rest of the party, and they are unimportant." Which isn't helped by the story, since Jedi ARE more respected and awesome than everyone else by default. There's a reason any game that has Jedi in it tends to run heavy on the cortosis ore when it wants to be challenging.

Were I to do it, I would definitely enforce an "All Jedi or No Jedi" rule, and I'd probably decide which before I even started in order to write a plot that plays to the different power levels involved.


NINJA!

Actually, that's probably the better way to do it. Just eliminate classes altogether, and institute a tree of skills/abilities. Part of the reason Jedi Knights are awesome is because they've been training since they were 8, increasing their abilities, learning diplomacy, all that fun stuff.

I think the big thing there would be to make sure the skill tree itself is balanced- it isn't just that Jedi abilities are powerful because they are a package deal, but because Force powers are inherently awesome. "I have enough telekinetic ability to lift a gallon of milk with the Force, which is more than enough to crush your windpipe." Unless you can dodge the Force, which is just strange to me.

/ramble

[Powder Miner]

(DnD joke) Only duelists can dodge the Force.

[IronyOwl]

Unless you make anti-jedi. Or anything with force nullification properties. Or tanks.

No, no, no. "Jedi win, unless there's Anti-Jedi in which case they lose" is a horrible, horrible balancing strategy. Unbalanced things need to be balanced, not have things which are unbalanced in the opposite direction occasionally thrown at them.

Perhaps have them also be more "Higher profile" than the mundane guys. Meaning 75% of the bullets will go after them.

Also bad, both for the reasons Gatleos mentioned and the ones I just did.

That way, the abilities aren't limited to one OP character class and anyone can mix and match Jedi stuff with more utilitarian skills.

Ideal but hard to pull off, since you have to come up with discrete, roughly balanced abilities for, well, everything.

There's also issues regarding someone who doesn't want to be a Jedi having access to stuff it's hard to say no to for what they're trying to do. A diplomat could gain a lot from mind-related powers, a smuggler could really use the ability to hurl themselves up onto ledges, etc.

[monk12]

It also makes the whole party potentially Force-sensitive, which is odd for flavor reasons.

Although that last bit is just a matter of providing viable, equally useful alternatives to Jedi superpowers. That phrase is why I'd still limit either Jedi or Non, but for the sake of argument- consider the diplomat example. A diplomat could either take the "mind control mook" power, or a similar ability that is less potent but works on those who aren't simpletons/clones. A smuggler could choose from Jedi Superjumping or Boba Fetts Jetpack, which is mechanically more prone to failure and difficult to disguise but is also, y'know a freakin Jetpack.

It'd be hard as hell to implement and balance, but it could theoretically be done. For my time and effort I'd still say "All Jedi or None."

[Scelly9]

I started up my lucid dreaming game if anyone's interested.

[Dermonster]

Just have everyone be a Jedi, but add a second thing as like... a hobby.

Just cause you got telekinesis don't mean you can't dissect electrical items and such in your spare time.

[Tarran]

I don't see how that deals with the problem of people not wanting to be Jedi.

[Gatleos]

Ideal but hard to pull off, since you have to come up with discrete, roughly balanced abilities for, well, everything.

There's also issues regarding someone who doesn't want to be a Jedi having access to stuff it's hard to say no to for what they're trying to do. A diplomat could gain a lot from mind-related powers, a smuggler could really use the ability to hurl themselves up onto ledges, etc.

It would be pretty difficult to balance, yes. But it lends a lot more flavor to the player party when they can specialize in mechanics, or laser weaponry, or any other non-Jedi skill. Lumping it all into a point-based system is the best way I can think of to do it; the goal is to allow for players to pick and choose Jedi powers, or choose none at all.

And like monk mentioned, this also requires non-force-powered alternatives for at least most Jedi powers. A player should be able to forgo anything force-related and still be just as useful those who chose them.

It also makes the whole party potentially Force-sensitive, which is odd for flavor reasons.

When it really comes down to it, I'd heartily obliterate Star Wars canon for the sake of fun. Want to be a Wookiee Jedi, even though they tend to not be force-sensitive? Go ahead! In my Star Wars universe, anyone can learn force powers!

Of course, after a certain point of ignoring canon to make the game more fun, it might as well just be a super hero RtD with customizable powers. It's the Star Wars flavor that makes it what it is.

[Dermonster]

I don't see how that deals with the problem of people not wanting to be Jedi.

Hands up, who here doesn't want to be a psychic paladin with a laser sword?

The answer is three times as many hands as there are people.