I am very cool with Mechanics being used for all of the other mods, but the Crystals themselves have always had a near mystical quality to me. As has been suggested by others, I think that a good alternative would be using the Discipline skill to modify the Crystals themselves. This could easily be modified further by adding boost dice equal to force rating. A lightsaber is a special, mythical even, weapon that has always seemed to require focus and Force Sensitivity to craft. Otherwise it would be a lightfoil, right? But the heart of the blade itself is the Crystal.

As another suggestion, the Lightsaber skill itself could be used in place of the mechanics check, especially for the more mundane attachments. I like the idea of using Ranged (light) to perform a mechanics check on your pistol. Perhaps at a higher difficulty though. This represents familiarity and focus on that particular item, rather than spending ranks learning how ships, droids, and computer hardware works.

I'm in favor of adapting it to the character building - with a tinkerer having Mechanics cover it, a sage more in tune with the flows using Discipline, or perhaps turning it into a quest.

I'd rather see the synergy give boost die than the check take its place - if the 'drive' skill were to cover basic maintenance of a vehicle, it wouldn't necessarily let someone know how to assemble a car out of the pile of parts.

Discipline is something that makes sense and is supported by the devs as a reasonable alternative. I personally would keep it as Mechanics. Yes you're interacting with this thing on a spiritual level (probably, really depends on the narrative) but the intended result is to get this thing to put out more power on a technical level.

It's an interesting idea, but I also think it gets into "certain point of view" territory. For you it's a mythical magic weapon, for me it's a tool, a nifty one that requires difficult to acquire parts, but a tool nontheless.

It's like making the argument that Obi-wan uses force-heal on Luke after the Tusken Raider attack. Some people saw him use the force to heal Luke, others didn't.

And from where I come from comparing a lightfoil to a lightsaber is like comparing a Harley Fatboy to a MoPed. They'll both get you around, but one is not the other.

Discipline and the Force.

Maybe allow one modification to be done with another skill? But Mechanics as the baseline. Or a talent in the Artisan or Seer trees? I like that actually.

Crystal Attunement: You may perform Mechanics checks to apply Modifications to Lightsaber Crystals using Willpower as your base characteristic, rather than Intellect.

That limits lightsaber crystal mods to only being available to that/those trees. I can see a talent in either or both that assists you - say adding boost or removing setback dice - but not making it exclusive to one or two specializations.

Discipline and the Force.

I still hold fast to what I've said earlier, Mechanics roll with FR = Boost dice.

But with that argument that you use the force like that and roll discipline, I can see it work and I would maybe allow my players to roll Discipline with a higher difficulty.

But another thing can be made for the "use the force" thing when constructing the lightsaber. It would by RAW also need the 'fine manipulation" upgrade in the Move power tree to be able to play with the lightsaber like that. (And if the GM is an A-hole, a lot of magnitude upgrades to control all the parts )

So every Jedi is a starship level engineer if they want to mod their own Lightsaber with any certainty they are expected to build? Seems clunky and inappropriate to me.

My suggestion to Sam Stewart at GenCon was that a Force user could instead choose to use Discipline for modifying a lightsaber crystal.

Given that the various crystals are loaded with modification options (the standard Ilum crystal has 7), perhaps to take a page out of my Ways of the Force supplement is to let Force users add 1 boost die per point of Force Rating. This gives them a slight edge in attuning a 'saber crystal, but not a very big one, especially as all but one of the Lightsaber Form trees doesn't have a Force Rating talent entry in them.

So every Jedi is a starship level engineer if they want to mod their own Lightsaber with any certainty they are expected to build? Seems clunky and inappropriate to me.

Nope but a 3 in Int and 2 or 3 in Force rating would give a fair chance for at least a few of those mods. Use advantages to allow for a new roll even though failed, or lower difficulty on the next roll if successful. Flip a DP, constructing and modding ones lightsaber is surly an important event in a Jedis life. One could also say that if someone has the Move power, that works as "the right tools" for it and that would give a boost die. 1 rank i mechanics would come in handy, and would hardy make someone a starship engineer though not necessary. Assistance could be given if GM allow it, TCW surely does that with the droid telling the children how to construct it, and skilled assistance gives a few more dice for most PCs or at least introduce a few yellow ones. Even against formidable difficulty this could be done a few times.

Also I do see a small balance-issue with allowing discipline. Why change the rules to allow more or less all force users to max out the mods using a skill that is most likely maxed out and already really important for them. Hired Guns aren't allowed per se to use Gunnery to mod their HRB. Sure some say it "magic" and the crystal is "magical", and I agree, in part with that. I agree that a Force user must attune the crystal with the force to make it useful in a lightsaber, but beyond that the lightsaber is a technological weapon with a magical hearth. I don't think you can attune the crystal more or fill it upp with more force to make it super-modded-crystal, but it's tweaking the technological parts to max out the potential of the crystal.

Well I'm not going to go back and forth with people endlessly in these forums. This has been pretty beat to death already I think. I'm just going to write up my opinion for a Beta report and see what comes of it. DM said Sam liked the idea. We shall see.

We'll just have to agree to disagree this time

I think that we will see something like yours (and others) idea with discipline i RAW later though. It seems like a lot of people likes it, especially Sam.

Yeah, I think Mechanics covers everything but the crystal itself pretty well. An argument could be made on how mechanics might work on modifying a crystal, but honestly I don't see how it fits very well. Why is it so common for Force users to have a lightsaber and so rare and special when a non-Force User has one? A mechanic hell bent on crafting one can sure do so... but according to these mechanics it is not really any harder than putting together a blaster pistol with a high rarity part.

I'll admit that I am jaded by Legacy EU and previous RPGs. Perhaps it is as simple as, most people don't find a lightsaber practical when blasters exist. Kind of like we do with swords today. The shift in perspective is difficult for me.

Constructing the hilt is a task everyone with the knowledge (schematics) could do.

Modding an already attuned lightsaber crystal is something everyone could do (try)(and again with the knowledge(schematics)

Attuning the crystal is something only a force user could do, ergo quite rare to build your own lightsaber without being a force user.

That's at least how i see it. Which by now, i think would be quite clear.

As far as building the initial lightsaber, Poseur does have a point in that it's a matter of simple mechanics to put the various pieces together (enough so that the game doesn't ask for any checks to build a hilt or install a crystal).

It's improving the crystal that I feel Discipline should either be the skill to use or an alternative option for those mechanically-minded Jedi, like Anakin who was said in the EU to be almost constantly tinkering with his lightsaber (and ships and cybernetic arm and quite a few other things he could get his hands on during his early Padawan days).

Beyond what I've already said about attuning the crystals. Before you can make them work you need to imbue them with the force and I don't think you can imbue them more and more and more. It would be like overcharging a battery or filling an already full glass of water.

Another thing is that each mod requires credits to be spent, in the form of supplies and components, so unless it's free of charge to mod the crystals, I'll keep arguing about mechanics and that modding the crystals don't actually mod the crystal, but the hilt to make better use of that one particular crystal ( each is unique).

But soon I'll feel like an egghead that can't leave and argument, or worse, a troll.

So I think I lurk the thread until I've actually have something else to say that doesn't just support my argument.

So every Jedi is a starship level engineer if they want to mod their own Lightsaber with any certainty they are expected to build? Seems clunky and inappropriate to me.

Well...in that TCW episode, the students are being instructed by a droid teacher, and the impression I have is that most Jedi build their first lightsaber with some tutelage, so you could be looking at a skilled assistance check, using the teacher's Mechanics skill to aid in the check.

I do think Force rating should come into play for this, either simply allowing a character to roll their Force dice on the check to generate Success or Advantage, or, as Donovan suggested, as a Boost die per rating.

Also I do see a small balance-issue with allowing discipline. Why change the rules to allow more or less all force users to max out the mods using a skill that is most likely maxed out and already really important for them. Hired Guns aren't allowed per se to use Gunnery to mod their HRB.

This is an excellent objection, and I'm glad someone raised it.

Gun attachments cost about 1,000 credits.

Saber crystals cost about 10,000 credits.

Number of mods available per gun attachment is 2 to 3.

Number of mods available per saber crystal is about 3 to 6.

There is a huge disparity of costs and risks that Hired Guns and Jedi take with regard to modifying their gear.

I think it would at least make a very cool "Optional Rule" sidebar insert (Perhaps at the bottom of the "Lightsaber Crystal Attachments" sidebar)

Attuning a Crystal with the Force

A GM may wish to add more mysticism to the game by allowing Discipline to be used in place of a Mechanics check when modifying a Kyber crystal. Before making the check the player must spend one Destiny Point and then adds a number of boost dice to the check equal to the characters current Force Rating.

Also I do see a small balance-issue with allowing discipline. Why change the rules to allow more or less all force users to max out the mods using a skill that is most likely maxed out and already really important for them. Hired Guns aren't allowed per se to use Gunnery to mod their HRB.

This is an excellent objection, and I'm glad someone raised it.

Gun attachments cost about 1,000 credits.

Saber crystals cost about 10,000 credits.

Number of mods available per gun attachment is 2 to 3.

Number of mods available per saber crystal is about 3 to 6.

There is a huge disparity of costs and risks that Hired Guns and Jedi take with regard to modifying their gear.

I guess you're spot on.... since difficulty increases with each mod you add to your attachement, then it will become increasingly difficult to add more mods... the base lightsaber in EotE or AoR are both fully modded Ilum crystals... that's 7 mods.... no player could hope to get that many mods without a few fails and more...

If they want to nerf the "existing" lightsabers, they should just drop the base stats from 10 damage to 6 or 7... and if they want to make moddable crystals more atteinable, then they should raise their base stats and give them less mods...

One more thing... in EotE or AoR, when modding weapons and armors, we give the job to the team tech.... since only the artisan spec has any chance of succesfully modding a crystal multiple times, most jedis will just give their crystal to the team tech to mod it.... I find it quite strange...

For this reason alone, i'd vote to have discipline has the crystal modding skill.

I have some questions about Modding and would like to ask them here as opposed to creating a new thread.

It says you make a Hard (<><><>) Mechanics Check on the first mod, with each additional mod increasing the difficulty by 1. So an Illum Crystal has 7 optional mods - that last check is 3+6 = 9 (<><><><><><><><><>)? That seems inordinately difficult, or is there some limit? There is a section on Impossible Tasks where it looks like 5 is the limit and after that you have to spend a destiny point to try. Does that come into effect here, so that the fourth mod on would be difficulty Formidable (<><><><><>) + Destiny?

Secondly, it says that the cost is 100 credits for the first mod, and each additional mod costs an additional 100 credits beyond the base cost. I had previously thought the costs went 100, 200, 300, 400..., but now I think it says 100, 200, 200, 200... Which is it?

I spoke with Sam Stewart about the increasing difficulty, namely if once a check goes past the Formidable (5 purple) difficulty, does a PC keep adding purples or do they start upgrading them?

His answer was that either option works, but he was also under the impression that base difficultly for doing any modifications started at Easy (1 purple) rather than Hard (3 purple). So this may be addressed either in a Beta update or in a future errata i the intent was indeed for the difficulty to modify all attachments to start at Easy. Then again, might just be that Sam was thinking of something else from earlier in the process (or maybe even a house rule he uses in his games).

Yeah, I'm sure it was a non-issue before attachments started having 6 mods...