They mention Jar Kai...But no rules for it. Yet. But I suspect when we start getting splat books we will see a couple more lightsaber forms. like the Seeker or Sentinel career I suspect will get Jar Kai. Maybe warrior will Vapaad. What else we missing?

There's also Trakata (which is really more of a technique than a Form), which revolves around making use of the lightsaber's blade being able to be switched on and off. There's also Sokan, which is really more of a mindset than a true Form, and revolves around making full use of the environment to gain the advantiage in a fight.

As for Vaapad, that's more of an off-shoot of Juyo that Mace Windu developed and really didn't share with anyone outside of a couple of Jedi Masters, so any potential LS Form spec that's based off of Form VII will likely use Juyo in the name.

Lastly, there's Trispzest, which is an arial-based lightsaber combat style, and is really freaking uncommon, having shown up in the old Marvel Comics and an opponent in one of the Jedi Knight games. This one I doubt will get a full spec.

About the Shoto, one potential application is to use that and a Lorrdian Gemstone to replicate the Lightfoil. Even without further modifications, at base it's Damage 5, Crit 2, Accurate 1, Breach 1, Defensive 1, Sunder.

The modern Tapani version (which was noted as not being as of high-quality as a Jedi-built lightsaber) might lose the Sunder quality in exchange for an overall price reduction. JegerGryte and I each took stabs at a lightfoil in our respective fan supplemants, but in light of lightsabers overall being reduced in general power, I'm thinking the above stat line would work, though with the number of hard points set to 1 and a note that the lightfoil can't make use of 'saber crystal attachments as it uses an inherently synthetic crystal that is intrinsic to the weapon.

Or, set up the modern lightfoil as separate hilt, with a -1 damage modifier and adds one rank each of the Accurate and Defensive qualities, but only has 3 hard points (2 used up by a crystal), and on a Despair the weapon completely shorts out until the end of the user's next turn. After all, the Tapani lightfoils were notoriously unreliable in the fluff, with the WEG version shutting down completely if the player rolled a 1 on their Wild Die.

I want to point out to the developers that a Jedi shouldn't need Mechanics to modify their lightsaber. It should be all based on their ability to feel the force. There needs to be a Mechanic that they are able to spend White Pips and/or Destiny points to gain successes in creating the lightsaber. And it really shouldn't be super hard to get a lightsaber up to the standards that are seen in the movies.

I'm going to point out to the devs that Jedi can craft their Lightsabers just fine as the rules are already written.

However to keep with some people's concept of the EU fluff, Lightsabers need to be only modifiable by the Lightsaber user themselves. Also, keep it mechanics to keep the power-gaming munchkins in line.

I want to point out to the developers that a Jedi shouldn't need Mechanics to modify their lightsaber. It should be all based on their ability to feel the force. There needs to be a Mechanic that they are able to spend White Pips and/or Destiny points to gain successes in creating the lightsaber. And it really shouldn't be super hard to get a lightsaber up to the standards that are seen in the movies.

I could see adding Force dice equal to Force Rating to the Mechanics check to account for "being in tune with the Force" for the crystal modification process, with each LS pip equaling a success on the check.

While it'd give the Force user crowd an advantage over the mundanes, it'd be balanced out by the fact that the PCs that are going to be most interested in buffing up the performance of their lightsaber aren't likely to have access to Mechanics as a career skill and that five of the six Lightsaber Form specs don't offer the chance to increase the PC's Force Rating.

Over on the d20 boards, another notion that got brought up was having the difficulty to modify a lightsaber crystal be reduced a number of times equal to the character's Force Rating, with the minimum difficulty still being Hard. Again, it provides a boon to those PCs that want to trick out their lightsabers ( particularly if using an Ilum Crystal), but unless they've spent a truckload of XP on boosting their Force Rating, it'd only be a difficulty reduction of one or two dice with it being a lot cheaper to simply jack up Mechanics.

It'd be a decent balancing point I think, as it doesn't favor a skill that the 'saber-users are generally going to be focused on (either Discipline or Lightsaber) and doesn't give them an overwhelming advantage unless they've sunk a lot of XP into not only buying additional specs to raise their Force Rating, but also buying a number of other talents unrelated to lightsaber usage to get to those Force Rating talents.

Now both of those suggestions I can get behind. Especially if the emitters were broken out, and the bonuses only applied to the crystals, but even then, RAW beta with either of those suggestions is good.

Now both of those suggestions I can get behind. Especially if the emitters were broken out, and the bonuses only applied to the crystals, but even then, RAW beta with either of those suggestions is good.

As I noted over on the d20 boards, the one problem I have with there being an emitter attachment to cover some of the +1 damage and +1 Vicious modifications is that those crystals that didn't offer them to start with (such as Lorrdian Gemstone) get to make out like a bandit since they now have a means to get a decent damage bonus as well as ranks in Vicious while the crystals that did offer +1 damage modifications don't get quite as much of a perk.

That said, if the focusing crystals that didn't have any +1 damage modification options to start with had their base damage dropped by a like amount, such as Lorrdian being dropped to Damage 5 if the emitter provides a +2 bonus to damage with modification.

Which was always my suggestion when using mods. As shown earlier in this thread.

The only area I see as being dangerous is using the for game balance is using the difficulty lowering option, combined with the lowered difficulties of the mod options being split between two items. Ilum in this instance would be painfully easy to mod up to 10 damage, compared to any other weapon.

I think I like the idea of using the boost dice the most, or use the above suggestion about modifying difficulty, but instead of decreasing difficulty, downgrade difficulty. this way, while difficult to modify, and still requiring skills and raw attributes, you are saved from ever possibly rolling despair. But that's some nitpicky stuff. even if none of this sees entry into the actual core (meaning none of our suggestions apply, and the beta becomes core) those are nice house rules.

Who suggested that?

Over on the d20 boards, another notion that got brought up was having the difficulty to modify a lightsaber crystal be reduced a number of times equal to the character's Force Rating, with the minimum difficulty still being Hard. Again, it provides a boon to those PCs that want to trick out their lightsabers ( particularly if using an Ilum Crystal), but unless they've spent a truckload of XP on boosting their Force Rating, it'd only be a difficulty reduction of one or two dice with it being a lot cheaper to simply jack up Mechanics.

Earlier in this thread (or, possibly another thread entirely) I brought up the idea of adding a talent to a few of the Lightsaber trees that would allow something of this nature. This was based on Doc, The Weasel's suggestion that only Lightsaber wielders should get (or should have to invest for) these additional abilities.

Now, that I think of it, what about adding this to the various Lightsaber technique talents:

" Force talent. When making a Lightsaber skill check, the character may use [characteristic] instead of Brawn. In addition, when installing a modification to a Lightsaber attachment they may use [characteristic] as ranks in Mechanics."

This gives a nice boon to those who invest in a Lightsaber form when it comes to modifying their Lightsaber attachments, but not too much.

If, in addition, Force Rating can be used to mitigate difficulty, or grant success, when modifying a Kyber Crsytal , it makes it more likely a devote practitioner of a particular form would be able to modify their Lightsaber to the fullest.

Over on the d20 boards, another notion that got brought up was having the difficulty to modify a lightsaber crystal be reduced a number of times equal to the character's Force Rating, with the minimum difficulty still being Hard. Again, it provides a boon to those PCs that want to trick out their lightsabers ( particularly if using an Ilum Crystal), but unless they've spent a truckload of XP on boosting their Force Rating, it'd only be a difficulty reduction of one or two dice with it being a lot cheaper to simply jack up Mechanics.

Earlier in this thread (or, possibly another thread entirely) I brought up the idea of adding a talent to a few of the Lightsaber trees that would allow something of this nature. This was based on Doc, The Weasel's suggestion that only Lightsaber wielders should get (or should have to invest for) these additional abilities.

Now, that I think of it, what about adding this to the various Lightsaber technique talents:

" Force talent. When making a Lightsaber skill check, the character may use [characteristic] instead of Brawn. In addition, when installing a modification to a Lightsaber attachment they may use [characteristic] as ranks in Mechanics."

This gives a nice boon to those who invest in a Lightsaber form when it comes to modifying their Lightsaber attachments, but not too much.

If, in addition, Force Rating can be used to mitigate difficulty, or grant success, when modifying a Kyber Crsytal , it makes it more likely a devote practitioner of a particular form would be able to modify their Lightsaber to the fullest.

I would make a small modification that they can do that only for their personal lightsaber. not for anyone elses.

I would make a small modification that they can do that only for their personal lightsaber. not for anyone elses.

Yeah, makes sense.