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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great SAGA edition sourcebook, December 24, 2007
This review is from: Starships of the Galaxy (Star Wars Roleplaying Game) (Hardcover)
It is too bad there is a version of this book for the old StarWars roleplaying rule set that shares the same name and general content. I don't own that piece but have seen it and this new book is MUCH better.
SotG may have far fewer pages than the Core Rulebook for just a slightly smaller price but it is packed full of information that is useful for any RPG campain that values space combat or even travel. After a short introduction Champer 1 covers the basics of starships in adventuring; this includes answers to questions like "how much does it cost to opperate my ship?" and clarification on how various thing work in starship scale combat. In addition to clarifing how some corebook material works SotG also gives us some new talents and feats to use for our space going characters.
Chapter 2 covers Starship Combat. This includes a new maneuver system that is similiar to how the core book uses force powers. Additionally, this chapter gives advice on creating interesting space encounters and tips on how to keep players interested but not overwhelmed.
Chapter 3 is the section on modification. This chapter is a virtual shopping list of things that can be added to or changed on starships. The end of the chapter even gives a "stock ship" and cost for various ship types that would allow players to build their own ship.
Chapter 4 covers the last two-thirds of the book and contains an extensive Codex of ships found in the StarWars universe. These range from small light fighters up to the Eclipse Super Star Destroyer from the Dark Horse Comic Series. Each of these many ships is given RPG stats, a brief writeup about its history and abilities, and most also include a color illustration showing what the ship looks like. The list doesn't cover everything which is nearly impossible given the size of the SW Universe but does include ships from all eras of play.
Someone not into the roleplaying game may like the Starship Codex. For the roleplayer, I'd say this book is a must for any group that deals with space combat regularly.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best Starship Compendium yet, December 31, 2007
This review is from: Starships of the Galaxy (Star Wars Roleplaying Game) (Hardcover)
This is easily the most complete starship compendium for a Star Wars RPG so far.
What I loved: Templates for starships. You can take an exisiting ship and make it an "advanced" version, an "archaic" version a "prototype", etc. This is a fantastic idea and saves the GM at lot of work.
The range of ships: All eras of play are covered nicely. There are omissions, probably because of space reasons. (I'd like to have seen Grevious's starfighter, for example. Also the capital ships from the KOTOR era, not just the Sith interceptor. The Sun Crusher is mercifully absent. Good call on that.)
The character options are well done and a lot of attention has been taken to give everyone something to do in a starship. In some games in D6 SW, oh so long ago, everyone except the pilot and the gunners used to sit back and wait for the starship combat to end. Now, nobles can demand surrender from enemy ships, scoundrels can disrupt the enemy, etc.
Building rules, custom rules. The rest of what you'd expect. I do wish they'd have added another 60 pages or so and made the book truly complete for the ages.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More options to spice up vehicular combat, February 23, 2008
This review is from: Starships of the Galaxy (Star Wars Roleplaying Game) (Hardcover)
After picking up the Star Wars SAGA roleplaying game from Amazon, I went to the Wizards of the Coast website to look up any potential printing errors in the book. While I was looking around, I read about an up and coming supplement dealing with starship options. It piqued my interest, so I pre-ordered a copy of it on Amazon.
A month later, the book arrived and after spending about a week using it, I can say it was very much worth the money.
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"Starships of the Galaxy" is at heart a gathering of ship statistics, paragraphs of ship descriptions within the Star Wars timeline and pieces of art sprinkled throughout.
There's good variety here: most if not all of the movie ships were covered, including the medical frigates (seen at the end of The Empire Strikes Back and during Return of the Jedi), Cloud Cars (seen in The Empire Strikes Back), Super Star Destroyers (around the middle to end of Return of the Jedi) and more. In addition to what was seen in the six films, there are also entries that come from the Expanded Universe novels, like Xizor's Virago (from Shadows of the Empire). These were a nice touch that managed to cater to both casual and hardcore fans.
In some cases, the descriptions were a little skimpy - you'd either read about who used the ship, or when and where it was conceived, but rarely both. Mostly though, they did get the basics of the vehicle across.
The art is a mixed bag in terms of style - some were very straight, bright and blocky, giving the ship a technical drawing feel (like the X-Wing, and it appears the artists did work for the d20 Modern supplement "d20 Future"). Others were a bit blurry, colorful and seemed to make the ship look like it was engaged that moment in the heat of battle (such as the Virago). Both were done well, however. So, consistency aside, I was very pleased.
Though smaller than the rest of the book, there is a section on starship maneuvers and tactics. While these are reserved for campaigns set primarily with vehicle combat as the main conflict, there are some good single options that work for a mixed theme campaign.
To top it off, the covering is solidly build and the pages aren't thin and easily bent. The low page count (160) might turn some away (and I was skeptical myself after Wizards lowered the average from 192 to 160) but as long as the content stays at this level of quality or rises, the cost will be justifiable.
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