Customer Reviews

Starships of the Galaxy (Star Wars Roleplaying Game)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an avid Star Wars fan and game master / player in several role playing games (Star Wars and others) I was thrilled when Wizards announced this title last year. The wait is finally over with mostly good results.

The sections in the book are well written and Wizards has used the space well. They seem to be supplementing the material in their source books with their magazine "Star Wars Gamer" Which is cool - so we should see a "Star Ship" adventure in the current magazine and not wasting space in this book.

The sections on ship construction, costs and modification are worth the price alone AND the deck plans are GREAT! They are modulure and can be used for making plans for a limitless number of ships. There are new prestige classes, skills, feats, manuvers AND ways to incorporate some old skills and feats into starship combat. With a few slick uses for some Jedi abilities to boot. The section with hints and advice for running combat situations was welcome, but not anything that a good G.M. wouldn't have already thought of. The list of ships statistics was fairly thurough and covered the whole range from Star Wars canon to expanded universe stuff and beyond.

The only thing that I don't care for and the reason I only gave this book four stars instead of five is the "new" combat system that was promised I think that was deceptive because it's not new at all, just and expanded version of the "abstracted combat already published". I have not talked to one person that cares for the "abstracted combat" from the core rules. It was hard for my group of players to wrap their brains around and we created our own "house" version of starship combat instead. All this book does is clarify the "abstracted combat" rules a little bit more (which was welcome) and add a new system of "abstracted distance" for combat. I was very dissapointed in the fact that they didn't have a optional version of ship combat with hard numbers using grids or miniatures for those of use who would prefer this.

Other then the "abstracted combat" part of the book - it's a gem and worth the wait. I would highly recommend Starships of the Galaxy for your Star Wars game.

Campaigns set on one planet are fine, but what if you want to step offworld, or duke it out with Tie Fighters? You could hop into a Corellian YT-1300 or an X-Wing Fighter for the Nth time, but what if you want some spice?

Starships of the Galaxy gives you all sorts of options. That's what most of this book is about. There are a few new feats, the mandatory prestige classes, etc., but most of SotG is dedicated to building starships and giving stats to Established ships of the Star Wars Universe.

SotG is an excellent reference book, and great for building your own ships. The rules for modifications are scant, but they are there and can be worked with.

The new space combat rules are about 50/50--They can help as much as they hurt. It's nice to have the options, though, and they are strictly at the GM's discretion.

This is a must-have for any Star Wars D20 GM/Gamer who wants to keep it fresh or build their own ship for gaming purposes.

It is out of date. The Starships of the Galaxy worked with the original rules for Star Wars RPG d20. Since the revised rule book came out, many of the things in this book are no longer valid, just as the range increment or even the Starship record sheet. But is it still worth it? well that's for you to decide.

I write many different types of campaigns, and one of the types i write cater towards those people who put a lot of points in Pilot and Astrogate skills, as well as those who ventured into the Ace Pilot or Jedi Ace prestige classes. With this book i have managed to come up with so many varieties of craft and made so much available to my heroes. This book gives you guidelines for creating small craft (starfighters and transports) capital class (Star Destroyers, Frigates) and space stations (Executor, Hosk). It comes in very handy when for a reference on how to modify a craft. I use it a lot when writing these types of campaigns to try and provide a craft for the heroes on a budget. It list out many things about creation of starcraft that i wouldn't be able to write these modules without it.

It lacks in many departments as well, partly due to the outdated rules it was based off of. First of all, the combat system for space combat and airspeeder combat has changed dramatically, from abstract to a grid. So range increment is no longer needed and now the Speed needs to signify how many squares the ship can move. Since Ramming is the fastest Ion engine in this book, you're left wondering why a Ramming-class ion engine in the X-wing only moves 10 squares while the Ramming-class ion engine in the Millennium Falcon moves 12 squares. (RCR p 277 & 230). There is no clarification for this. As well many craft have a different atmospheric speed, this book doesn't even mention that. Another smaller problem are the prestige clases, they're outdated and you have to get the official Errata from WoTC.

Final verdict? I use it a lot when writing. I use it for the creation purposes of starships, capital to small, and even installations. I've already created my own starship record sheet. See if you can find this book for a cheaper price... becuase right now it really isn't worth what many places are asking for it...

Starships of the Galaxy finally delivers some truly new content for WotC d20 Star Wars rpg. Unlike many of the previous supplements, which while nice to look at, SoG is not a re-tread of West End Games material or a retelling of things most fans know from the movies and novels.
Let me say it now, the old Smugglers Guide was one of my favorite West End supplements for their SW game, if only because it allowed us to customize our starships (would Han Solo be as cool w/o the Millenium Falcon?). However, you couldn't build your own, and you could only modify light transports like the YT-1300.
SoG, however, gives you the tools to create new ships from scratch, from a small fighter to a massive space station, and then follows up with rules to modify existing ships.
The book also includes updated, more detailed ship combat rules that are a great improvement over the ones included in the core-rulebook.

Things I would have liked, but weren't included:
Economic rules, like how to finance your purchase, or deal with loansharks, blackmarket cargos, etc. I can do without the rules, since it would add at least another chapter to the book.
Things I think they should have included, and cannot fathom why not:
They provided stats, cost and flavor text for a various ship types. Some are new to d20, some are merely updated. What they did not do, however, was include the build points for given ships, which would make comparisons and modifications much easier. This would only require a few more lines per ship. As it is, you know how many guns a stock YT-2400 mounts, but you don't know how many it could mount after modification.
Also, a ship building worksheet would have been nice. Much nicer than the add for other SW products that takes up the last page of the book...
All in all, I'd have to say it's well worth the money, esp if you like to go beyond the movies in your game.

Decent mechanics for generating your own ships. A few examples of ships for the new SW d20 system. I would have prefered to see a few more examples of ships, and some guidelines for ships in the different eras of play.

This could have stood to feature more starships, but it is useful for a lot of GM NPC ships and the like. The new combat system is confusing, but my RPG group ignores it anyway, and uses the original system from the Core Rulebook.

This features many lesser known vessels, including the recently-added Defender Star Destroyers, and offers some help for customizing and modifying vessels. For those who can't find the YT-1300, you are just too lazy to actually read the Core Rulebook. The YT-2400 is nice to see, but others like the older Clone Wars vessels, YT-2000 and YV-666 would have been nice to see. Overall, if you just want to yank a lesser seen vessel into an RPG, this is helpful.

If you want a book to tell you all about different starships in the Star Wars universe, give you plenty of D20 RPG stats, and tell you how to modify ships, this book is for you.
If you want a book that gives you playable rules for space combat, you are out of luck. The new combat system is just as screwed up as the main RPG version. For Space Combat, go see Star Wars Gamer magazine #8.

This rendition of Starships of the Galaxy for 3rd Edition Star Wars is severly lacking in any real detail. The Original for the WEG edition of Star Wars which is D6 instead of d20 had more detail, but still left a lot to look for. WotC needed to add more of the equiptment stats for ships, such as cost and actually add a sample of every "stock" ship since it is called Starships of the Galaxy and it only has a few of the lesser ships and doesn't even have the standard YT1300 that the Millenium Falcon is based on. I would only recomend this if you wanted to completely your set NOT as an actual reference or source book.

When I bought the Star Wars RPG from Wizards of the Coast all I could think was WOW this is Great!!!
When I purchased this book all I could think was WOW what a waste of money!!!
This book contains little to nothing that is needed to run a good Star Wars RPG and it almost seems as if WotC just put it out there to see who would buy it. This book contains no generic starships, no better space combat system (than the original RPG) and no new or interesting character building materials.
Just a waste...

Where to Begin...
This book is not what you want. Granted, this book has About 150 or so Spaceships described, With Basically full stats and a short biography for each, There are very few inaccurate pictures of Each. Each picture may contain up to 7 ships, with merely a sidebar to say what ships are included in the picture.
While i don't actively play The Star Wars RPG, I am interested in simply learning the rules so that it may be adapted to D&D, or some other RPG World. This is Not what i expected. I expected More ships to be explained, More pictures, and better descriptions. If your looking for an indepth book thats worth the time to invest money in, Look somewhere else.