On page 32 of Dangerous Covenants is the Talent "Improvised Detonation", which allows the character to make an explosive device out of available materials, once per session, based on a Hard Mechanics check.

When our group was playing Long Arm of the Hutt a few months ago, they were at the mining camp and they wanted to take some of the explosives used in mining and rig up a remote detonator to a speeder, so they could drive the speeder into the enemy camp and explode it with a remote control.

I forget the details of the check, but I basically ruled that it was a Hard Mechanics check, maybe with a Setback or something.

Basically my question is, what does Improvised Detonation give you that you wouldn't already have? What would you do if they wanted to improvise an explosive device but they didn't have Improvised Detonation?

One possible guess on my part is that the check might be harder, especially if there are no specifically explosive materials nearby. In our case, they were at a mining camp so I ruled there would be some explosives which could be jury-rigged this way.

What do y'all think?

I would replace the talent with a different talent entirely. In my opinion, the talent Improvised Detonation has no business being in EotE.

I don't have Dangerous Covenants, but it sounds a lot like Familiar Suns (EotE Core)

"Once per session, may perform this talent to make a hard Outer Rim or Core Worlds check to reveal current type of planetary environment and other useful information"

Except Familiar Suns is probably even more ridiculous. The talent belongs to a Scout. If I had a scout at my table, and he wanted to tell his companions what the environment was like, because, he'd been there (knowledge check?) I sure as hell wouldn't make it a required talent that can only be performed once per session!!

In your case however, your team didn't exactly make an explosive device. They made a remote detonator. Read as intended (without actually being able to read it), the Improvised Detonation talent probably suggests that you can create an explosive, not the detonator (but you could probably detonate it with a blaster, if the explosives were unstable).

Anyways... I'd throw out Improvised Detonation, and I'd throw out Familiar Suns. They're just horrible. The talents seem to break away from the "narrative/do anything you want" spirit of EotE, or even RPGs for that matter. I don't want to have to tell a Smuggler Pilot that he can't talk about what a planet is like even if he has the proper knowledge, or that he can't make an explosive device, without having the talent.

I mean look at the talent: A Hard Mechanics check, with the proper materials? As a GM, wouldn't you allow a player to already create an improvised explosive device with the proper materials, on a hard check? The check mostly depends on what materials you provide.

prog, can you write down verbatim what the talent says?

Edit: A better thing to do than take out the talent entirely is probably just to replace it with

"Explosives Skill Talent- You gain one rank in the skill of explosives."

This basically means that in lieu of purchasing a talent, the player simply spends his XP on a new skill called Explosives, and he also gets to move up the talent tree at the same time.

I don't have the book yet, but I'd interpret this talent to be cooking up (or "MacGygvering") explosives out of household chemicals, a negative flow coupling and a positive flow regulator, or something similar. What your players did at the mining camp was to take actual explosives and rig a radio detonator. That's something else entirely.

Mechanics is an increasingly useful skill (it comes up a lot for us - but I've modded just about every bit of kit any member of our team owns). I think Krieger22 may have the right of it for this specific Talent.

The ones like it though... they seem designed to neuter skills which rarely crop up in "normal" adventuring, anyway.

"Can I roll 'Know: Lore' to know something about these ruins?"

"Do you have 'Museum Worthy' (and Education for some reason)?"

No love for the non-fighty specs... I think you're 100% right, in general - ignore and move on.

I don't have the book yet, but I'd interpret this talent to be cooking up (or "MacGygvering") explosives out of household chemicals, a negative flow coupling and a positive flow regulator, or something similar. What your players did at the mining camp was to take actual explosives and rig a radio detonator. That's something else entirely.

Pretty much this. It's the same with Contraption in the Mechanics' tree. The player gets to make something useful (probably a single-use item) once a session out of nothing, and they get to set the difficulty at something relatively easy.

I'd have to agree this is the proverbial rabbit from the magic hat thing. My only issue is precisely what is so overpowered about this talent that it needs to be limited to once a session? The scenario itself may limit the use of it to that anyway, but it just seems like it's a fairly reasonable thing for a skilled mechanic to be able to do as much as they like. If they can repeatedly patch strain holes in a shot up hyperdrive in the middle of a space battle, I don't think whipping up some grenades in the garage is that big a deal myself.

Not so much overpowered, but limiting it prevents it from becoming goofy through overuse.

Jim goes into the bathroom... and makes a bomb from the cleaning products.

Then he goes next door... and makes a bomb from parts in the garage.

Then he goes over to the local office building... and makes a bomb in supply room out of toner.

(Just how much of a firebug is Jim, anyway?)

I don't think overuse would be an issue though unless a GM runs a game where people have time to wander and shop mid story. Plus the things needed to make improvised explosives and incendiaries are readily available in a ton of retail outlets.

Thanks, folks, that does make a lot of sense actually.

I like the idea that it's more 'improvising an explosive from stuff that's not already explosive'. This makes sense to me for it to be a special ability that can be used once a session.

If they wanted to do it more than once per session, I'd have it be a Mechanics check but maybe a Daunting one instead of a Hard one. And the possible damage would be less than what it is with Improvised Mechanics.

What our characters did in Long Arm of the Hutt, if they hadn't been on a mining facility where explosives were a reasonable expectation, then it would have been a much harder check.

As for 'Familiar Suns', I would say it would allow the Explorer character to come up with a lot of information even for a world they've never been on before or encountered before.

I'd make it a lot more useful than looking out the window and saying "it's daytime" or whatever.

I'd be interested to hear some about the intended function of Museum Worthy, because I agree it *does* seem like the kind of thing you'd be able to do with a Knowledge check *without* needing a Talent.

In Col Orange's example, I'd say maybe if it's a very rare or obscure ruin, relic or piece of history, then it might be a Daunting Lore check (and perhaps an Impossible Education check), but with Museum Worthy you can make that into a Hard Education check.

And maybe play that as your character combining together several disparate things they learned in various classes they've taken and coming up with a new conclusion about whatever it is they're studying. This conclusion might even be something which hasn't been arrived at before--"This Temple wasn't settled by Rodians originally, based on these carvings it was settled by Aqualish!"

And that information itself could be worth something to the right person.

Whereas if they didn't have Museum Worthy, then perhaps a successful Daunting Lore or Education check might tell them "These carvings look a bit more like Aqualish than like Rodians, but they're quite stylized so it's hard to draw any specific conclusions."

I'm running an exploration-based campaign right now so I'm very alert to the possibilities of learning from relics, tombs, temples, etc, and of the information involved being a tangible commodity.