Magic keywords conversion for Star Wars game

[soviet]

Hi,

I've been busy writing up a conversion for Star Wars into the HeroQuest system, and I've been struggling with the 'third keyword'. In particular, I'm concerned that what I've come up with might be completely unbalanced. I have zero experience of HeroQuest so far so they are mostly just what 'seem right'.

I've found that Jedi characters fit quite nicely into Theism, so I was able to use the three generic force abilities as affinities:

Control
(Burst of Speed, Force Resistance, Heal Quickly, Hibernation Trance, Ignore Pain, Impossible Leap, Lightning Reflexes, Perfect Focus, Suppress Own Emotions, Walk Unseen)

Sense
(Anticipate Danger, Magnify Senses, Read Surface Emotions, Read Surface Thoughts, See Without Sight, Sense Life-forms, Sense Disturbance in the Force, Vision of the Future, Vision of the Past, Vision of the Present)

Alter
(Catch Weapon, Cloud Foe's Memory, Deflect Energy Blast, Force Push, Force Suggestion, Heal Others, Lift Object, Send Telepathic Message, Stun Foe, Throw Object)

A jedi gets these 3 affinities at 17 and any 3 feats. They can improvise other feats at -10 and get a flaw called 'Tempted by the Dark Side' at 15.
 
However, I've been struggling to balance this with similar options for non  Jedi. I came up with the following 'third keywords'

A) A single Bionic affinity (arm, leg, optics, etc) at 5w with 3 feats and a flaw called 'More Machine than Man' at 15. The feats are stuff like 'See in Low-light', 'Powerful Punch', 'Run Quickly' etc. Unknown feats can also be improvised at -10.

B) The character's 'best ability' is at 5w2 (yes I'm using this idea from HeroWars rather than the 20 point thing)

C) Force Sensitive - the same as a Jedi except they cannot learn feats and sometimes involuntarily improvise them

D) Completely Immune to the Force

E) any 5 abilities at 13 and one at 1w (this is probably too weak)

F) Occupation or Alien Race / Homeworld keyword can be the character's best ability (ie 5w)

G) Rebel Leader keyword at 15

H) Any other occupation keyword at 15

I) Own a starship or starfighter. This is a keyword of abilities at 15. Choose 3 extra abilities, add +10 to one and +5 to two others. Take a ship flaw at 15 and get Captain of [Ship] at 15.

J) Sidekick - homeworld / alien race keyword at 15, occupation keyword at 15, 3 extra abilities at 13, +10 to one ability and +5 to two others, gain a relationship to sidekick at 15. This is the only way to get a sidekick, btw (except maybe in-play developments)

If you would like to see the rest of the conversion please see this thread  

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=161405&page=1&pp=10

I would really appreciate any input

thanks

Soviet

[Mike Holmes]

Tough question. See, Jedi really are better than anyone else, aren't they? So what I think you have is "accurate" in terms of defining the types. The question is whether or not your players will want to play anything but the most powerful character type.

If balancing the attractiveness of the options is really a concern, then go with a base-balanced system instead. That is, everyone gets the affinities and feats, just like the Jedi. They're just used to simulate whatever type the character is. For example the starship could have Travel, Offense and Defense affinities, with the Travel feats being stuff like "Fast Take Off," "Speed Through Space" and "Jump to Hyperspace."

The point is that, while the mechanics were designed to simulate magic, they work fine for just about anything.

Mike

[soviet]

Hmm, interesting. I sort of wanted to make the Force feel different to other stuff, but then I ended up using it to solve the problems I was having with Bionics. It seems less characterful to have a 'Maneuverable' feat as opposed to a 'Solar Stabilising Fin' ability, but mechanically it would work well.

How would you handle different numbers of affinities? For example, Jedi guy gets the three Force affinities at 17, Bionics guy gets one Bionic affinity at 5w, etc. What's an affinity worth, really?

Hmmm...

Soviet

[Mike Holmes]

Well that's an extremely tricky question. I mean we can simply look at the HP costs, but I think thats misleading in some ways. Because, though the difference between havning an Affinity and not costs the same as raising it one point, the level of interest created in the character is far higher for gaining the affinity than it is to raise it up one level.

IOW, if your idea is simply to give an equal amount of HP to cover the difference in levels of ability, that's not really balancing - and I'm not sure that jacking up the amount fixes the problem at all. Certainly not without creating new problems.

Conversely, if the players are allowed to buy more Affinities with the points, I think they will. Begging the question why not simply start all characters the same, again.

Or, from another POV, you can't balance opportunity to buy with points. This is a problem that a lot of systems have. For example in Hero System templates for characters are bought with increases to characteristic maxima. But if these aren't employed, then the points spent are useless. So what happens is that all Dwarfs have a strength of 23. To avoid wasting the points invested in allowing them to take more than 20.

If you create any discrepancy in availabilities, of ability, then you create an artificial market for the keywords with the best availabilities.

Mike