>>95891436Magic in it uses different resources that spells/day the way old D&D did. You commit resources that you get back and can "torch" your character to burn resources higher than what you've got. Using them inflicts system strain that causes you or your target to become a vegetable or nutjob if you blow things up.
Regarding hit dice, SWN provides far lower hitpoints than even old editions of D&D so a child with a pistol can be just as deadly to your fifth level soldier as a fork was to a wizard in old D&D. Combat is much, much faster and more lethal than any edition of D&D ever has been.
Also SWN uses skills and a 2d6 system for difficulty checks in a way very unlike any edition of TSR's D&D.
Plus its method of handling ship-to-ship combat loops in the whole party and is completely novel to any D&D-based system.
It's quite good and really the only thing it keeps from D&D are the basics of attributes, to-hit and damage. It ejects virtually everything else D&D-like and replaces it with new systems purpose-built to the setting with the goal of things like "making psionics cool instead of just refluffed magic" and "making combat between spaceships exciting for everyone instead of just the guy who moves the model." It's well done and very unlike D&D.
