Does the difficulty for mods continue to go up, or does it cap somewhere? Is making that last roll for a fully upgraded Ilum crystal PPPPPPPPPP?

According to Sam Stewart on the most recent O66 podcast, you'd actually upgrade the difficulty for every difficulty die past Formidable (5 purple). So to get that 7th modification on your Ilum crystal, you'd be rolling against a Formidable with four upgrades, for a pool of 4 red and 1 purple. Better not screw it up

Thank the maker we finally have an answer for this.

Deadly Accuracy + Lightsaber + Tinkerer + Jury Rig = Profit

One solution to the problem of upgrades so improbable as to be accomplished less than never would be to simply reduce the total number of upgrades required. Doubling-up, for example, on the Vicious and damage bonuses for the Ilum crystal goes from an absurd max of 7 upgrades to a daunting, but perhaps possible, 4.

One solution to the problem of upgrades so improbable as to be accomplished less than never would be to simply reduce the total number of upgrades required. Doubling-up, for example, on the Vicious and damage bonuses for the Ilum crystal goes from an absurd max of 7 upgrades to a daunting, but perhaps possible, 4.

That's not a bad idea, though it does carry the concern of making modifications to a lightsaber crystal far more potent than upgrading any other weapon, with each crystal modification making the weapon that much more dangerous and thus hitting the "holy balls that weapon's nasty!" level that the EotE/AoR lightsabers were at.

There's also the question of crystals that provide modifications other than damage and vicious, such as the Lorrdian crystal which provides Defensive and Deflection; should those be doubled-up as well?

The Lorrdian only had 3 mods, so it's reasonable within the system as written. Ilum, as it strains to bridge the "baseline" gap between Edge and Destiny seems the worst offender. But there are others; dragite has like 5, right?

I'm suggesting they need to revisit how these crystal mods are structured and scaled if they're not going to dramatically change the rules for modding. (e.g.: 100 credits is nothing when a 15,000 credit crystal is on the line.)

You do realize as the GM you could just hand wave the dice rolling mechanic.

Player wants to upgrade his LazerSword's Crystal but is worried he'll break it? Okay Mr. Glowyswordguy, you can tinker with it during your characters downtime for the entire next mission, but it's in pieces for the mission on you tinkering table and it'll be ready by the follwoing mission (or maybe not, who knows!).

You do realize as the GM you could just hand wave the dice rolling mechanic.

Sure, but that's (a) tantamount to just awarding a fully-modified crystal since the mod costs are trivial and (b) completely beside the point of the discussion which is how to meaningfully preserve the risk vs. reward of the mod system vis-a-vis crystals.

One option is to simply replace some of the mods with "double up" mods for that particular crystal. E.g.: the Ilum crystal, instead of having up to 4 damage +1 mods, could simply have 2 damage +2 mods... sure it doesn't entirely match other mods, and you lose a bit of granularity, but it does help reduce the difficulty with minimal change.

One option is to simply replace some of the mods with "double up" mods for that particular crystal. E.g.: the Ilum crystal, instead of having up to 4 damage +1 mods, could simply have 2 damage +2 mods... sure it doesn't entirely match other mods, and you lose a bit of granularity, but it does help reduce the difficulty with minimal change.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

One option is to simply replace some of the mods with "double up" mods for that particular crystal. E.g.: the Ilum crystal, instead of having up to 4 damage +1 mods, could simply have 2 damage +2 mods... sure it doesn't entirely match other mods, and you lose a bit of granularity, but it does help reduce the difficulty with minimal change.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Right, I'm with you now. I'm not quite sure what I thought your original post meant, but it wasn't the above for some reason!

I'm just not seeing where the rules need adjusting in this case.

Adding that many mods is very difficult, and it should be.

You want an "easier" check? Be One With The Universe while your making it. Be a Master Artisan. Flip a Destiny. Have everyone aid you.

I'm just not seeing where the rules need adjusting in this case.

Because it's not obvious that the RAW <-> RAI. Mr. Stewart even mentioned/hinted to this on the Order 66 podcast when the topic came up. This is a beta -- we're supposed to sniff-out cases like this.

Maybe there ought to be a take extra time be extra careful rules. Ie character takes the time to make sure something is done right. Something t o lower the difficulty.

Maybe there ought to be a take extra time be extra careful rules. Ie character takes the time to make sure something is done right. Something t o lower the difficulty.

This does have a basis, as Luke took a lot of extra time when constructing his lightsaber on Tatooine to ensure that he got all the steps right and didn't accidentally blow himself up because the galaxy's biggest idiot couldn't follow a simple diagram. Granted said material is from Shadows of the Empire, which is currently in the Legends category, but it does provide justification. And Luke's been shown to be no slouch when it comes to fixing things (not as good as some dedicated mechanics, but he's not incompetent either).

Perhaps tweak the modification rules in general so that if the person spends a full day on the modification, it decreases the difficulty by one, minimum of Average? Or that perhaps the character can choose to spend multiple days, up to their rank in Mechanics (or Discipline for 'saber crystals if that suggestion gets adopted) to decrease the difficulty by one degree per day, again to a minimum difficultly of Average? This way, it allows for lightsaber crystals to be fully modified, but the character needs considerable down-time to get the full benefits of said crystal, but it's still a tall order to get the full suite of modifications. And, if applied to all modifications, would allow less tech-savvy PCs the chance to do at least a couple modifications to their own gear without relying upon the party's tech expert (presuming there is such a PC in the group).

Perhaps tweak the modification rules in general so that if the person spends a full day on the modification, it decreases the difficulty by one, minimum of Average? Or that perhaps the character can choose to spend multiple days, up to their rank in Mechanics (or Discipline for 'saber crystals if that suggestion gets adopted) to decrease the difficulty by one degree per day, again to a minimum difficultly of Average? This way, it allows for lightsaber crystals to be fully modified, but the character needs considerable down-time to get the full benefits of said crystal, but it's still a tall order to get the full suite of modifications. And, if applied to all modifications, would allow less tech-savvy PCs the chance to do at least a couple modifications to their own gear without relying upon the party's tech expert (presuming there is such a PC in the group).

I was looking at the Artisan tree and noticed that Master Artisan has something similar to this, where once per round take the incidental and you can take 2 strain to decrease the difficult of a Mechanics check by 1 down to Easy. It ain't much since they can sleep the strain off, but you can probably let them, either once a day just keep popping Master Artisan consecutively, or let them use it once or twice a day and let it stack over multiple days, and then let them do the check. Similar effect, except now it requires a decent investment into both a tree and talent made for craifting/modding.

Alternatively, if somebody doesn't have the talent, or is using it in conjunction, I would personally just give them maybe a boost die for each full day they spend working on the mod, since taking your time shouldn't really make something easier (since modding already takes a few hours as it is), but it does give you more time to plan around how to not mess something up.

So basically, you get the multiple decreased difficulties, you get the requirement of multiple days to use it, but instead of making a more general thing anybody can do, you've got something that only the better crafters/modifiers have access to. This could also leave the high number of modifications as is, so that they're still fairly obtainable, but people will just have to wait until a character grabs the talent, and have to wait until they have enough free in-game time to let the Master Artisans stack up through the days.

A Scientist/Force Sensitive Emergent/Artisan could approach the roll with:

Inventor x3: +3B

Intense Focus +1 Upgrade

Touch of Fate: +2B

Master Artisan: -1 Difficulty

Throw in a boost for some assistance and a Destiny Point.

Making for a check (assuming Intellect of 4 and Mechanics 4) of 5 Proficiency and 6 Boost (PPPPPBBBBBB) vs. 4 Challenge (CCCC)

I think that provides for a pretty good chance of success. However the crystal might develop a few quirks if a despair surfaced (pretty likely), even if the roll succeeded. Although, in this case, triumphs might negate successes.

I'm confused as to where all this talk of upgrading difficulty is coming from. Any task beyond Formidable—an Impossible task—just requires a Destiny Point expenditure to try, no upgrades mentioned (F&D17).

-EF

I'm confused as to where all this talk of upgrading difficulty is coming from. Any task beyond Formidable—an Impossible task—just requires a Destiny Point expenditure to try, no upgrades mentioned (F&D17).

-EF

Because of this:

Which is the recommended way of going past 5 difficulty in the case of modding at least. The 5 difficulty and destiny point thing is a general recommendation, much in the same way that it also suggests just throwing in more difficulty dice, past 5, if you feel the task warrants it.

A Scientist/Force Sensitive Emergent/Artisan could approach the roll with:

Inventor x3: +3B

Intense Focus +1 Upgrade

Touch of Fate: +2B

Master Artisan: -1 Difficulty

Throw in a boost for some assistance and a Destiny Point.

Making for a check (assuming Intellect of 4 and Mechanics 4) of 5 Proficiency and 6 Boost (PPPPPBBBBBB) vs. 4 Challenge (CCCC)

I think that provides for a pretty good chance of success. However the crystal might develop a few quirks if a despair surfaced (pretty likely), even if the roll succeeded. Although, in this case, triumphs might negate successes.

Depending on how you want to handle Master Artisan, you could probably knock it down to 3 Challenge and 2 Difficulty dice instead since the upgrades are because of increased dice. Then instead of the Destiny point to upgrade, you can swap it out and bring it to 2 Challenge and 3 Difficulty. Still a chance for a Despair though (which would break the entire crystal), but with that many boosts, it's probably preferable to try and bring as many reds down to purples.

I'm confused as to where all this talk of upgrading difficulty is coming from. Any task beyond Formidable—an Impossible task—just requires a Destiny Point expenditure to try, no upgrades mentioned (F&D17).

-EF

Because of this:

According to Sam Stewart on the most recent O66 podcast, you'd actually upgrade the difficulty for every difficulty die past Formidable (5 purple). So to get that 7th modification on your Ilum crystal, you'd be rolling against a Formidable with four upgrades, for a pool of 4 red and 1 purple. Better not screw it up

Which is the recommended way of going past 5 difficulty in the case of modding at least. The 5 difficulty and destiny point thing is a general recommendation, much in the same way that it also suggests just throwing in more difficulty dice, past 5, if you feel the task warrants it.

…

I don't suppose anyone has a timestamp on that? I don't want to be listening to 3hrs+ of O66 for one tidbit. I did listen to this episode (I mean I didn't, because I never listen to the Order 66 Podcast ) and all I remember hearing is Sam saying you follow the normal rules for going over 5 difficulty dice. I don't recall him saying upgrading dice past 5 difficulty.

Also, you say it's the recommended way. Where would I find said recommendation?

Thanks again!

-EF

EDIT: 2P51 posted a timestamp list here. I'll re-listen at 2:08 and see what I can hear.

I just listened to the segment, the answer is at ~2:22. And it's contradictory. He says the GM can follow the normal rules for difficulties above 5…but then goes on to talk about upgrading dice, which isn't the normal rules according to F&D17.

Is the upgrading of dice a common enough houserule that most think it's RAW? Or is it RAW and I just can't find where that rule is?

-EF

I think the particular GM could make the case for upgrading one, possibly two, di©e to a Challenge die to represent the delicate nature of the latter modifications.

And, either leave the rest of the Difficulty dice as is, or limit the entire pool to 5 Difficulty/Challenge.

This way there's a chance to get a despair and ruing everything, but it's not an almost certainty.

Deadly Accuracy + Lightsaber + Tinkerer + Jury Rig = Profit

I don't like this. I honestly don't think that Mechanics should be a part of the construction of a lightsaber. And I don't like the idea that upgrading a lightsaber has a big chance of going wrong. Creating your lightsaber has been part of the Knighthood of a Jedi. And being able to switch out the crystal or retune it with the Force shouldn't be 3 red and 2 purple. If that was the case then that shouldn't be the most common lightsaber found in the Edge of the Empire.

I agree. I feel that the mechanics check(s) for the components should be rather routine. I would like a Will+Discipline check that gets harder based on the crystal related improvement but is still reasonable.

In the TCW cartoon, only one of those kids had any serious mechanical ability. They were all at the early padawan or initiate stage of their force training. I doubt they could have managed more than 3 to 5 dice to throw at a Will+Dicipline check and much less for a mechanics check.

Chances are those kids will use that lightsaber unmodified for most of their careers. There is nothing in the movies or cartoon that suggests jedi tinker with their lightsabers much over time. Most of them, seem to make maybe one or two serious changes to their lightsaber during their career. Usually as they transition from padawan to knight or knight to master. In those cases, I see the jedi creating a new lightsaber because they are stronger in the force not because they just graduated from advanced lightsaber metal shop.

Does the difficulty for mods continue to go up, or does it cap somewhere? Is making that last roll for a fully upgraded Ilum crystal PPPPPPPPPP?

Also remember that when you fail at modding an attachment (or crystal) and fail, you can't attempt that mod again.

So they aren't expecting you to succeed at all those checks, there is some room for error, thus the 7 available mods. And if you fudge most of the modding attempts, then you may find yourself wanting a new crystal/attachment to try again.

I agree. I feel that the mechanics check(s) for the components should be rather routine. I would liThere is nothing in the movies or cartoon that suggests jedi tinker with their lightsabers much over time.

Of course if it just stayed in the video games I probably wouldn't feel that way.