Star Wars Saga Edition: Homebrew Yoda's Species Stats

[wingsandsword]

As a project I decided to write up species rules for Yoda's race for SWSE.

Just because George Lucas has decided to be mysterious about this issue (I guess this is to Lucas what the fate of the Entwives and Tom Bombadil's true nature was to Tolkien in terms of the great mystery of the setting the creator will never reveal) and therefore the official RPG can't have stats for it, that doesn't mean that we can't make our own.

After some research on Wookieepedia and reading through other SWSE species descriptions I've come up with this homebrew write up that adheres to known Star Wars canon and has gone out of it's way to avoid making assumptions that may be contradicted. Feedback and commentary would be appreciated.

Tridactyl

Tridactyls are members of a diminutive reptilian race that is found throughout the galaxy. The Tridactyl race is shrouded in mystery. Even the name "Tridactyl" is a descriptive term first applied to them by Republic scientists because of their three-fingered hands. The Tridactyls have no apparent knowledge of their homeworld, heritage or even a name for themselves (or at least none that they share with outsiders). They first appeared in known space several millennia ago in small numbers, and still live in isolated communities where they stay away from the galactic mainstream. Their reclusiveness has lead to many myths, rumors and wild speculation. The Tridactyls are often mistaken for Lanniks, or even Whills, although they are a distinct species.

The Tridactyls are naturally talented with the Force. While they are not all Force Sensitive (contrary to common belief), force sensitivity is much more common in Tridactyls than in other races and they tend to be very powerful Force users.

Personality: Tridactlys are humble, playful, and slow to anger.

Physical Description: Tridactyls average about 0.7 meters tall. They are green or greenish-brown skinned with large pointed ears and three digits on each hand, with small vestigial claws. Hair tends to be sparse and white or grey.

Homeworld: Unknown. The home of the Tridactyl race is lost to history and even the Tridactyls do not seem to know where they originally came from. A few small and hidden communities of them have been documented throughout the galaxy, tending to be on undeveloped worlds on the Outer Rim or in Wild Space.

Languages: Tridactyls speak, read, and write Basic (although often an idiosyncratic dialect using non-standard grammar and sentence construction). They often learn other languages as well, including obscure ones.

Example Names: Yoda, Yaddle, Minch, Vandar Tokare

Adventurers: Tridactlys are reclusive and few of their already small number go on adventures. Their natural inclination towards the Force means that most Tridactyls that leave their communities for the greater galaxy become Jedi.

Tridactyl Species Traits

Tridactyls share the following species traits:

Ability Modifier: +2 Wisdom, +2 Intelligence, -2 Strength. Tridactyls are insightful and bright, but are physically frail.
Small Size: As Small creatures, Tridactyls gain a +1 size bonus to their Reflex Defense and a +5 size bonus on Stealth checks. However, their lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of Medium characters.
Speed: Tridactyl base speed is 4 squares.
Conditional Bonus Feat: Tridactyls have a natural aptitude for using the Force. A Tridactyl with Use The Force as a trained skill gains Skill Focus (Use The Force) as a bonus feat
Bonus Feat: Tridactyls gain Strong In The Force as a bonus feat.
Automatic Languages: Basic

 

[fireinthedust]

Speed: I don't know why small creatures are *that* much slower in SAGA than in 4e. Bah.

Pretty straightforward, but I'd give them their own language to explain the grammar use of Yoda. Apparently, or so I'm told, he uses the sentence structure of Latin, while everyone else uses modern English.

I wonder if his homeworld was destroyed by some earlier version of a world-destroying Death Star. It would explain why he's the only one we know of, especially if his people (like hobbits) never left home (without prompting, I guess).

I also wonder if he shouldn't have a Jump skill bonus, or dexterity rather than Int. Wis for sure is good.

I don't think Yoda used the given standard array, so I don't think we can deduce racial modifiers soley from that. Wis would be one, tho, as the 21 is high enough. Possibly the 19 Cha, or the 16 Dex; but the 15 Int, if left alone from level 1, would be a bizarre choice, and would make the other, higher stats impossible with that array. Ergo, no help there.

But are they a *Yoda* race, or is he an unusual example? It would change the style of the race, or open up other avenues. If they were frequent Force-users, why disappear? In itself that would seem enough of note that at least other Jedi would know of them.

Unless they were deleted from the archives like Camino

 

[Blackrat]

Apparently, or so I'm told, he uses the sentence structure of Latin, while everyone else uses modern English.

Indeed, true this is. At least mostly

It would explain why he's the only one we know of

He's not. Even in the movies, we see another one of his species in the Jedi Council in Episode 1, not to mention the expanded universe where there's at least one in the KOTOR.

But are they a *Yoda* race, or is he an unusual example? It would change the style of the race, or open up other avenues. If they were frequent Force-users, why disappear? In itself that would seem enough of note that at least other Jedi would know of them.

Unless they were deleted from the archives like Camino

Indeed this is a good question. All the known instances of the species have been extremely strong in the Force but since there's only a handful of those can we really say that the species as whole is attuned to the force?

What I'd guess on the matter of their unknown origins is that the species itself is primitive, the same way as Ewoks. So the few that have left their homeworld have been more curious about the outsiders than their species normal. And after they have been "civilised", they've become determined not to let anyone disturb the natural life of their kin. But this is just speculation and fanfic that I would use in my own game if the need would rise.

 

[Plane Sailing]

He's not. Even in the movies, we see another one of his species in the Jedi Council in Episode 1

Do you mean row 2 column 1 in this picture?

http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/2800000/The-Jedi-Council-star-wars-2884888-1024-768.jpg

Ah, found a better picture of Yaddle here

http://img490.imageshack.us/img490/9553/yaddleid4.jpg

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yaddle

 

[wingsandsword]

We know there is a race of them: besides Yoda there was Yaddle (a female of the same race) seen in the prequels. Vandar Tokere was seen in the KOTOR games, and Minch was the member of the race that fought the Dark Jedi of Bpfassh on Dagobah (the event that created the dark side cave found there, and Lucasfilm has explicitly said Minch was a different person than Yoda). There was also a statue of a Jedi of Yoda's race in the Valley of the Jedi in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight. There was also a trading card that was produced by Topps of a small congregation of beings of that race engaged in some kind of worship service.

I was not going to assume his physical prowess while lightsaber duelling was his normal stats, since we saw Palpatine doing inhuman acrobatics as well while dueling, and he probably doesn't have a 20+ DEX either. His inhuman agility during duels is probably a Force ability. When not in Force-augmented combat he seems pretty frail (although he's of an old age category, the only one we've seen that wasn't old was Minch, and he seemed to be of average agility). Honestly, I was debating between the additional +2 to INT or to CHA, just that he should have a WIS bonus, and probably a STR penalty.

I was going out of my way to not make fanfic assumptions about their homeworld or past. This was an exercise in making game rules to reflect the race, not writing speculative fan fiction about them.

Yoda's known backstory shows that not all members of the race are Force Sensitive, as he didn't know he was until the Jedi found him, but all members of the race we have seen have been powerful Jedi so they probably do tend to be more powerful in the force than other races.

Personally, I wouldn't call his odd speech a completely separate language, since it is intelligible to those who speak normal Basic, albeit it's somewhat eccentric. Nobody had to use a Language slot to understand Yoda's speech, which they would if it was a separate language like Shriiwook or Huttese. Vandar Tokere spoke normal Basic without an odd word order, so that's a "usually" and not "always" thing for this race as well.

The article on Wookieepedia (the Star Wars reference wiki) about his race gives what canonical information we have about the race (Yoda's species - Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki), which is what I used as the main reference in making these stats.

 

[fireinthedust]

Personally, I wouldn't call his odd speech a completely separate language, since it is intelligible to those who speak normal Basic, albeit it's somewhat eccentric. Nobody had to use a Language slot to understand Yoda's speech, which they would if it was a separate language like Shriiwook or Huttese. Vandar Tokere spoke normal Basic without an odd word order, so that's a "usually" and not "always" thing for this race as well.

Oh, for sure! What I meant was 1) related to what the film-makers did to make him sound ancient (ie: Latin grammar), and 2) that we in-character can assume Yoda's species has their own language with a grammar structure that influences their use of Basic.

If they have such an insular nature, they don't speak galactic common/basic. Ergo, they have a "grammatical accent" to their use of Basic. It on its own is not a new language, but is their use of it.


I think your work so far seems to make sense. Granted, in that Jedi game with the statue of a "Tridactic", are we sure it isn't Yoda himself? He's been around a while, and is a "living legend" among the Jedi.

 

[wingsandsword]

Granted, in that Jedi game with the statue of a "Tridactic", are we sure it isn't Yoda himself? He's been around a while, and is a "living legend" among the Jedi.

We are very sure of that.

Yoda was 900 years old when he died in the year 4 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin). He was born in 896 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin).

The Battle of Ruusan (the event that, among many other things, lead to the planet Ruusan becoming a major Force nexus and made the Valley of the Jedi where the statue was into a legendary site) was in 1000 BBY. In other words, that statue had to have been built at least 104 years before Yoda was even born. The only canonical member of that species known to predate the Battle of Ruusan was Vandar Tokere (from the KOTOR games).

 

[lukewarner]

What would the Age groups be? I would imagine 900+ would be venerable, but what about the other age groups? I'm trying to fully implement them into the wikia site, and that's the only thing it's missing.

 

[robus]

This thread seems a bit misplaced?

 

[Morrus]

This thread seems a bit misplaced?

And also 8 years old...