My main group has expressed an interest in saber mods that can mimic the unstable and compressed effects from the force unleashed. Of course in the game they are only visual effects, but I put together these ideas on the fly. we won't actually be testing them out in play until after the beta is over, but I thought I would see what people thought.

Unstable Emitters

A long lost creation by fallen jedi during the Jedi Civil War, Unstable Emitters were the result of trying to augment the light saber blade to pass more easily through a normal light saber blade. While they had limited success, they found modulating the containment field to fluctuate and be less contained produced a destabilizing effect increasing the effort of enemies to parry the blades. Of course, this also made the blades prone to collapsing if over stressed, causing damage to the emitters. This side effect convinced most to ignore these, but the most fanatical duelists would seek every advantage.

Base Modifiers: Attempts to parry an attack made with this weapon suffer 1 additional strain (this can not be reduced)

If an attack with this weapon results in 3 threat or a despair, those can be spent to to damage the weapon 2 steps.

Modification Option: 2 Weapon Quality (Disorient +1)

Hard Points Required: 2

Price: Not Available for Sale (1500 R)

Compressed Emitters

The use of War droids and special armors by Sith and Dark Jedi have long plagued the knights of the order. To help minimize this, a forgotten artisan attempted to improve the focus and power of the light saber to an unprecedented level. By tightening the blades focus and increasing the intensity, the blade was made to cut through materials even easier than a normal blade, but at the expense of contact time resulting in slightly reduced wounds.

Base Modifiers: Attacks with this weapon treat the target's defense as 1 lower (minimum 0).

The weapon damage is lowered by 1.

Modification Options: 1 Item Quality (Accurate +1), 1 Item Quality (Breach +1)

Hard Points Required : 2

Price: Not Available for Sale (2200 R)

I feel like these add some flavor and customization (a compressed sapith crystal could be fearsome to even vehicles), without really increasing the power of the items (or aatleast being in line with some other items. The breach is powerful, but once you already have breach, adding additional is pretty situational.

Any way, hope people enjoy.

EDIT: I changed these around from crystal qualities to emitter qualities. For my group that jus seemed a better fit. YMMV of course.

At first glance, these both look like reasonable attachments, and I am definitely in favor of more options for lightsaber customization beyond what's currently in the beta book. Thanks!

I'd think these would be better suited to being types of synthetic crystals rather than emitters. I know you're pushing for emitters to be added as a replacement for some of the damage mods on the existing crystals, but again I think these work better as crystals, particularly the unstable one.

I guess it's a couple things.

A. I want to have choices other than crystals. Crystals are nice and all, but it makes these one note and unless the hard points get changed on a saber in between now and publication, those 5 HP are just going to waste.

B. By making them crystal types, I'm denying players the freedom to want and choose many of the awesome crystals in the book. I'd rather not have my home brew overshadow the actual rules.

C. The crystals have no actual effect in force unleashed, treated as cosmetic options independent of the mechanical effects of say the rubat crystal. So I am following that by minimizing the impact of the unstable and compressed states.

D. The beauty of this IMO is that whether or not emitters get broken out, these can still work. And if emitters do get broken out, players would need to make a choice on which one to use. All in all, win win.

But thank you for your opinion. Not constructive. But an opinion for sure.

I know that you don't like (essentially) any of my home brew. So I never really expect you to like anything I suggest.

I don't expect FFG to split anything or change direction. But a little musing on something outside the scope of what will probably ever be officially published seems like something fun. To each his own.

The main problem I see with these is "why wouldn't my character take them?", particularly the compressed emitter when combined with a Sapith crystal, or even just in general since getting Breach 2 opens up the chance to inflict a critical hit on far more vehicles, particularly when combined with a high-damage crystal like the Krayt Dragon Pearl or Mephite Crystal and a superior hilt. One it's own it may not be too bad, but when put in tandem with other attachments it starts to become too good of an option.

The unstable emitter only becomes an issue when facing threats other than minions, as minions typically won't have much in the way of traits to upgrade the difficulty or add more than one setback die (which the emitter removes to begin with), making the chance of having 3 uncancelled threat rather slim, particularly if the PC is rolling multiple proficiency dice.

So the main issue with the compressed mechanics seems to be breach. That's fair, as I waffled on this a lot, and added the minus to damage as part of that equation. But that same chance exists with the sapith crystal presently, which damage wise isn't so far behind the other crystals that it couldn't perform the same feats. That being said, that is one crystal compared to most all, so there is something to consider there. Also, note that the superior hilt and this emitter aren't installable on a saber at the same time, since the saber's don't have the HP. Unless intuitively improved or tinkered, that would be a choice between those two.

The Unstable emitter's down side only comes into play when facing more powerful adversaries, but it's upsides only come into play when facing opponents that are more powerful (as most minions and rivals won't have the parry option). Otherwise, it's a really expensive way of adding disorient, which is a fairly small ability (though of interest for characters with Prey on the weak). The trade off with this is that you would either choose unstable emitter, or superior hilt, which I think is a decent question.

We haven't yet tried these out, so the breach may or may not come up, but thank you for your feedback. I was unsure about breach myself.

The difference with the Sapith Crystal is that it doesn't get quite the damage bonus of the Krayt Pearl or Mephite Crystal, while the compressed emitter pretty much lets a PC stack the main draw of the Sapith Crystal (Breach 2) onto another crystal (such as the Lorrdian Gemstone, allowing the player to really pile on the bonuses), and do so as an entirely separate modification; at least with the Sapith crystal, getting the second rank in Breach is one of four modifications, which means an increased chance of failing to get one of the other mods if the party doesn't have a major tech-head in the group.

There's also a question of would these stack with the training lightsaber emitter, which per the name is an emitter just as your proposed offerings are.

As to the training emitter... no, I don't see them stacking. But if some one else out there wanted them too....what's the harm?

I'm not sure how many people are using training emitters AND looking to max out their sabers...

Again, I'm really on the fence about Breach, but I suppose it's a question of scale. despite the ability of the saber wielder to crit high armor vees, That jsut seems a corner case to me. Basically any well modded Saber worth it's salt can crit an armor 2 vee, a sapith with some luck (or falling avalanch can crit an armor 3 vee...but in any case where you're taking on vehicles, you're also facing off against their weapons, which are more the trouble. take an ATST. that Light blaster cannon makes short work of PCs, and that 150 structure is a tough call to tear through, even with Breach 3.

So far the largest arguement against breach that hits me is what does this do to sapith? breach 3... I'm not sure there is any good reason to go for that, as even trying for breach 2 is questionably useful (most PC scale targets aren't rocking more than 10 soak). To an extent it's a mountain out of a mole hill, but adding the breach quality is something that maybe should remain in the purview of the sapith crystal.

Again part of my intention with making these non-crystal attachments is that they shouldn't invalidate any crystals in the beta. If this makes sapith less attractive, than that is food for thought.