You mean aside from the significant volume of EU lore about how building a lightsaber is a critical part of a Jedi's training and education that those opposed to the change are willfully ignoring?

But, as you've pretty much ignored what I've had to say on this topic in the past, and with zero indication you're going to change that behavior, not much point in saying much, is there? Much as with Duelist's Training, FFG's had their say via this week's Beta Update on the matter. It might change with next week's update, or it might not.

DM,

It's not that i'm ignoring you, but you and I aren't talking about the same thing.

I'm not saying sabers can't be special. They are special. for instance force users gain a bonus of .7 successes per FR to modify their crystals. THAT's HUGE. and I like that. I liked it when Hamlet or which ever person suggested it around page 5-7 of your thread about using discipline.

What I don't like is the idea that creating a lightsaber from scratch is more special than making any other single piece of gear, from scratch. that's not an EU ignoring thing, it's a common sense and application. I'm not saying that a jedi making his own saber shouldn't get a bonus, but maybe that same binus should apply for anyone demonstrating that same level of dedication.

You assume I'm not listening to you because I disagree on premise, which I don't. I disagree in application of a rule that should be available to all characters for their own, personal, scratch built equipment. The jensaraii and Mandalorians have the same relationship with their armor. Hell, the mandalorian credo actually lists armor as one of their 6 maxims, which no where in the jedi code does it list sabers.

Our core arguments in this instance are simply at odds. you believe special journey is justification for special treatment above and beyond what I do. And I'm not even looking to reduce the ruling, just make a single part of it apply to all characters equally, because giving any character a signature piece of equipment (subject to GM fiat) seems like a fun way to encourage personalization of equipment. You choose to ignore that this could easily be a broader rule, benefiting everyone, and instead should be relegated to jedi for "special journey"

I think you think I'm saying something other than what i am, and I don't know how to make it any clearer. perhaps reread what i say, and then maybe it won't seem like I'm ignoring you.

I am not too wild about the Morality change. Starting out fully dark or fully light kind of defeats the point of a narrative role-playing game. The obtainment of either should be a journey for the character giving purpose or further motivation for the player adventuring in the first place. Instead of being codified in the rule set, something like this should have been best left to house ruling, imho.

While you might be right about starting fully light, the previus rule for starting "almost dark" was pointless, because of the way morality is biased towards falling to darkness.

Starting as a dark side adept, on the other hand, is a perfectly resonable character concept.. If you want to play a redemption arc, spending the first session slaughtering children to fall first is disruptive to your concept and to the game.

Yeah, maybe. It just seems to me that the SW movies support a rise, fall and redemption motif. I am not saying you could do otherwise in your personal games it just seems to me that the default 'setting' should encourage what the SW movies have themselves set up as a groundwork. In the end, play it how you want to. I am just disappointed that the core suggests that what I believe should be a standard approach (and what the designers seemed to agree with in its initial offering) is now an optional one, i.e. a house ruled option. There. That is all.

I dont see the "Rise and fall" as a houserule because of this change- rather, the default option is 50 morality (which you can rise and fall from just fine) and extra stuff, which you can give up to start your story "in media rez," either on the cusp of Light (I would prefer this being one episode away, but FFG seems to want to have the options mirror) or shrouded in Darkness.

Yes, I considered that as well. Then it becomes a matter of how much time would a typical group have to accomplish either the fall to the dark side or the obtainment of light side mastery, as it were? For my group, starting at 50 may not be much of an issue as we can get together for a game with great frequency, i.e. once a week if not with even greater frequency. For others who may meet once or perhaps twice a month, the drift or push to one side or the other may take a great deal of time if played by the book. The advantage of starting just on the brink of either light side paragon or dark side demon was that the time it may take to reach either in a milieu that screams rise, fall, redemption, would be greatly reduced and at the same time give players something to actively work towards, i.e. provided the additional motivation for the telling of a great story.

My two Republic credits to be spent in the outer rim territories.

I like the Force Rating modifier for the check to modify the crystal, but the difficulty reduction seems to go too far for no good reason.

@Thebearisdriving: Thanks for expanding on my initial mixed opinion statement. You've said pretty much what I was feeling (more erudite than I, and with greater patience).

I think the problem is that for a Jedi and their favored weapon it is a special thing . However, ask 100 people what makes it special, you'll get 100 different answers. Mostly similar, but with some heart-held differences, that each would not see changed. Now multiply that by the collective minds generated by those at a game table... and we end up where we are at now: arguing what that special journey should be like.

Ultimately though, it all ends up in the narrative how these special journeys are played out.

I think it would have been simpler to make a sidebar mention "that there are techniques known to Jedi to use the Force to enhance the kyber crystals, and ways to craft a weapon that uniquely belongs to a Jedi." They did this with darkside pips in EotE when they mentioned that there are consequences to those who use the Dark Side too much.

They could then leave it at that.

Or, they could add some notes to the Jedi Holocron, or the Mentor descriptions, that describes how they sometimes bestow knowledge of how to craft Lightsabers better (reducing difficulties), or a mentor can show how a student can attune a crystal to themselves (add Force rating to next modification of a lightsaber crystal and add blah, blah, blah...), and so on.

For the creative players and GMs out there it would be a guide to how to handle these special journeys and enhance them as we want, and for those not so inclined, gives some general ideas of how to proceed.

The journey is *fluff*. My fluff doesn't float yours, and yours doesn't float mine.

I like it. I am a huge fan of all of the updates so far. I think it would be fair to allow the same "personal", narrative driven, GM OK'd -2 difficulty bonus to any one piece of gear. 1/player if they can really explain how their piece of Armor/Weapon/Ship is that level of personal. It would have to be story driven and I wouldn't allow a starting lightsaber to be "personal" unless I was using the Knight Level rules. Hats off to FFG. They really do listen to us!

I think it would be fair to allow the same "personal", narrative driven, GM OK'd -2 difficulty bonus to any one piece of gear. 1/player if they can really explain how their piece of Armor/Weapon/Ship is that level of personal.

It's a Callahan full-bore autolock -- customized trigger, double-cartridge through gauge. Six men came to kill me one time; the best of 'em carried this. I call it Vera...

I see no problem with a GM allowing the rules for a weapon the character themselves built. Be it their signature blaster rifle or bowcaster or customized blaster pistol.

I understand the change, and the reasons for it.

However, as evileeyore has mentioned (as well as others), it seems like an arbitrary rule made just for those special "snowflakes".

If the change applies to all modifications for all weapons that are "personalized" I can see that too. A general rule change that supports all sorts of character concepts, not just a minority.

Or, they could have set the precedence for using your rank in the combat skill as ranks in Mechanics (however, upgrade the check by one)... or, something that could be applied for all characters, not just "snowflake" ones.

Ok ok, I would say then the real reason is they don't want to break the mods up into more component attachments and this solution, while unbalanced on its face, causes the least amount of fiddling with power creep/combinations on weapons that are a small percentage of available gear thereby placing a large restriction on them.

The fact of the matter is that most characters can carry multiple weapons for different situations for not too much cost in attachments and mods. The only comparable attachment for crystals is the Retrofitted Hanger Bay with 5 mods. Whereas the lightsaber crystal is a very expensive attachment that is quite hard to come by meaning most characters able to use one aren't going to have the same weapon flexibility in general. Perhaps if they altered the rule to only apply if the lightsaber has the Superior Hilt Personalization attachment would make it seem less arbitrary?

Wowdy!

I'm not too keen on the mod reduction change, I mean, I like it, but: It only applies to this one weapon type as I understand it and it also adds force rating to the dice pool, which for say an Artisan is going to make any modifications really easy, he also always has the right tools for the job, which could depending on the GM grant a boost die too.

Something I think could help placate the naysayers here was touched upon above: Item creation rules. Now, regardless of Legends fluff on Jedi and their lightsabers, the crystal being "alive in the force" and whatnot mumbojumbo hippy silliness, this is still a roleplaying game where the game system is central, and where game balance still is considered relevant . That means some sort of "fairness" should be guaranteed, and strictly speaking it is obvious that a two difficulty decrease plus adding force rating to dice pool is neither fair nor balanced, regardless of weapon rarity, Jedi uniqueness and so on.

Jedi Ronin (I believe) also suggested a personalised item sidebar thing, which I could imagine would include rules for the cost and mechanical benefits as well as requirements for an item to be considered "personal," and therefore subject to these (or some other) benefits to the modification rules.

For proper Jedi it can seem obvious that a lightsaber is always made by the user him- or herself. Although in the FaD setting it's as possible that the item wasn't, it could be given by a mentor or found. In this case the weapon shouldn't be considered personal, right? Also, and this touched upon the item creation rules thing, making lightsabers is more or less a purely narrative event - sure there's the acquiring of the crystal that would involve adventuring and whatnot, but the actual creation of the lightsaber involves no check, nothing of a mechanical nature. Why not change this? Why not add some simple creation rules, a process, perhaps a check of some sort or other, something along these lines as a prerequisite for making a weapon "personal" ? I'm not saying the new mod rules should only apply to self-made weapons, because I'm not sure I agree with that notion however well established it is in Legends or not.

All in all I'd like a different approach to lightsaber modification. The difficulty reduction seems kind of heavy handed, perhaps a one difficulty decrease, but not two, at least as long as force rating is added to the modification dice pool, that's basically a double bonus, whether it applies to only the crystal, or the entirety of lightsaber modification.

I could imagine some simplified item creation rules - to be expanded upon in future releases I guess - plus some other suggestions or rules that guide players and GMs in the decision on what makes a weapon "personal." It is obvious that making a weapon oneself should provide these benefits, regardless of weapon perhaps, but personalising an already made weapon should also be possible. Whether through long time use and focus, number of attachments and/or modifications made to it and so on.

I know this can easily break with the over used and to some knee-jerk reaction KISS principle, but I think it can benefit a game which still relies heavily on balanced game mechanics, which this game does.

The difficulty reduction is a patch consequence of the high amounts of mods a lightsaber can get. A more elegant solution would be:

Make the base lighstaber (crystal + hilt) better, just closer to the EotE, AoR stats. In that way you can reduce the amount number of mods to a reasonable number (Bowcaster style).

I think they are trying too hard to fix a poor decision and that's making lightsabers so much weaker than they originally planned. So now they have to come up with a way for someone without mechanics but is supposed to canonically be able to create their own lightsaber to be able to do so within their game system. They should just make lightsabers do what they are supposed to do from the beginning and then if a starting character wants one they would need to choose that instead of the 10 XP.

Starting out fully dark or fully light kind of defeats the point of a narrative role-playing game.

Agree completely, not fond of it myself, but glad they made the change because now it's a viable choice and it's there for the ppl who want it. Personally, I would forbid it as a starting option, but not everyone has to play it that way.

This could be so that we have a chance to playtest the rules for Lightside and Darkside Paragons. Who knows if the rule will be that way in the final product.

Starting out fully dark or fully light kind of defeats the point of a narrative role-playing game.

Agree completely, not fond of it myself, but glad they made the change because now it's a viable choice and it's there for the ppl who want it. Personally, I would forbid it as a starting option, but not everyone has to play it that way.

This could be so that we have a chance to playtest the rules for Lightside and Darkside Paragons. Who knows if the rule will be that way in the final product.

It's basically guaranteed at this point -- bonus XP and credits are at the cost of Moral paragon status. Just imagine the nerdrage if they gave bonus XP and credits to force users for "free"...

I actually think that they are giving XP for "free". The other two games trades something that I think is important to the game. Starting in the middle of the Morality chart isn't a big deal to me.

Not that I have a problem with it. I would rather they do what they did then come up with some other kind of trade off.

I actually think that they are giving XP for "free". The other two games trades something that I think is important to the game. Starting in the middle of the Morality chart isn't a big deal to me.Not that I have a problem with it. I would rather they do what they did then come up with some other kind of trade off.

Maybe starting at 50 morality isn't a big deal to you, but it is for me. I am planning to create a dark sider as soon as I can get a character sheet on the table! Screw the XP and credits.

On the flip side, starting off with double Obligation isn't a big deal for me. I always do it for the payout.

Starting out fully dark or fully light kind of defeats the point of a narrative role-playing game.

Agree completely, not fond of it myself, but glad they made the change because now it's a viable choice and it's there for the ppl who want it. Personally, I would forbid it as a starting option, but not everyone has to play it that way.

This could be so that we have a chance to playtest the rules for Lightside and Darkside Paragons. Who knows if the rule will be that way in the final product.

One could only hope...well...at least I could...

Starting out fully dark or fully light kind of defeats the point of a narrative role-playing game.

Agree completely, not fond of it myself, but glad they made the change because now it's a viable choice and it's there for the ppl who want it. Personally, I would forbid it as a starting option, but not everyone has to play it that way.

This could be so that we have a chance to playtest the rules for Lightside and Darkside Paragons. Who knows if the rule will be that way in the final product.

True, that's why we're testing it after all.

However, some people don't want to play the fall of their character. Some players will be interested in playing the Redemption of their character, and have their fall in their backstory.

Why make a character who's only on the cusp of falling and go out of their way to rack up Conflict in ways that their character may not really do just to finally fall to the Dark Side only to start climbing back up again?

Some player want to start Dark Side, and use the Dark side rules, and play with Redemption from day one. Or not, and be evil from day one using Dark Side pips from the get go. This change allows for that.

How is that "wrong" or "not allowed"?

Again, like I mentioned earlier, 'play it how you want to'. I just wish that the original rule remained as a default setting especially for a role-playing system which calls itself 'Star Wars'. With the way it is written now, it will have to be a house rule.

I think it would be fair to allow the same "personal", narrative driven, GM OK'd -2 difficulty bonus to any one piece of gear. 1/player if they can really explain how their piece of Armor/Weapon/Ship is that level of personal.

It's a Callahan full-bore autolock -- customized trigger, double-cartridge through gauge. Six men came to kill me one time; the best of 'em carried this. I call it Vera...

Shiny!

Again, like I mentioned earlier, 'play it how you want to'. I just wish that the original rule remained as a default setting especially for a role-playing system which calls itself 'Star Wars'. With the way it is written now, it will have to be a house rule.

True, but by your preference for Star Wars this whole book would be a house rule...

Hi all

How about a Signature Item sidebar that lets each character designate one piece of equipment that gets a reduced difficulty to mod?

I think this is a great idea! Like Han Solo's modified Blast Tech DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol. Let all the players personalize their toys, within reason.

Again, like I mentioned earlier, 'play it how you want to'. I just wish that the original rule remained as a default setting especially for a role-playing system which calls itself 'Star Wars'. With the way it is written now, it will have to be a house rule.

How is starting with 50 morality a houserule?

delete

The Morality starting values... whether it's adjusted by +/-20 or +/-21 doesn't in the larger picture matter. Sure, you start out as either a paragon of the light side or consumed by the dark side with this recent change, rather than on the cusp of either falling or becoming a lightsider. My point is that both provide good roleplaying opportunities for either redemption, falling, continuing on the path, or striving towards a more balanced and harmonious midway. If you start out on the verge of falling, that's cool, but if you start out as already fallen, but striving towards redemption or that grey middle way... that's easily as cool. The same with the almost paragon vs paragon situation, being almost paragon is cool, there's the work towards the goodiestuff, to become this paragon, but then, having already become a paragon can provide a different set of challenges, remaining paragon, resisting the temptations that would have larger consequences now, or to play into this, a lightsider that is "actively" falling from grace, becoming corrupted, having lost his/her/its way... that makes the fall that much longer, possible to be roleplayed properly.

Now, sure the game mechanical argument is one thing, there's a benefit to be starting off as either, but you do so at the expense of extra resources (XP and/or credits). Still, if this is the only part that provides incentives for playing and making choices, I'd say, in my now common place elitist and normative manner: You're doing it wrong. To borrow, or at least be somewhat inspired from mr. Wick's recent blog post: If the reason for you playing roleplaying game is levelling up, customising gear and basically focus on the numbers on the sheet, you're doing it wrong, you could be playing chess instead (I'm not saying that as a bad thing, chess is a good board game). I'm not saying this part of the game isn't important or at least enjoyable, but I think that the reason for playing roleplaying games should be first and foremost to: Roleplaying; create stories with others; suspend disbelief and immerse oneself in a universe and story driven by a collaborative effort. Your character is of course important here, but again, the stats themselves are secondary to the actual character, they don't define him/her/it, it's the character that define the rest. At least I think it should be. Choices should be made based on the character, not game mechanical benefits and maximisation. I'm not saying one should avoid that at all costs, but I'm saying if it all boils down to tweaking and specialising as we see it in... oh, a certain few MMOs, then it's not the roleplaying and story-creation the game is about anymore, at least no necessarily , it becomes about having the best set and combination of numbers and rule changing extras (i.e. talents, force powers, etc).

Whether or not one of the rules is more "Star Wars" than the other doesn't factor into this, it's a non-argument, because as has been established numerous times on this forum (and elsewhere), Star Wars is very different for different people. No one (on these forums at the very least) has the authority of definition. Arguably no one has. Sure, there's the whole jurisprudence of it, but let's ignore that as it plays little into this: What I think is Star Wars, what Donovan Morningfire thinks is Star Wars, or DarthGM, Angelicdoctor, Rakaydos, Awayputurwpn or Zar thinks is Star Wars is mostly only relevant to each one of us, and our gaming groups. We all have one thing in common: Star Wars is a resource to us, it's something we actively use to create our own stories and variant of that universe as it fits with our vision and desires of how it should be, at least in our games. Perhaps there are basic premisses of what constitutes "Star Wars" but we are not in the position, when discussing a game and rules mechanics, to use (or able really) that as an argument for some position or another, it becomes a variant of argument from authority and that's just silly and pointless, or to be more precise: a logical fallacy. So, I'm not saying we shouldn't use our own vision of Star Wars as a basis for our position, but to use it as an argument (place-holder really) and a blanket generalisation:"... because Star Wars" is, when it all boils down to it (whether you're a fan of only one film or all of Legends) meaningless and a non-argument, it's perhaps an opinion (and important to you and your games), but opinions are not arguments and are -I'm going normative now- of lesser value and validity in any discussion, but particularly in a discussion on game mechanics and rules. So, keep your opinions and perspective, but avoid trying to use "... because Star Wars"-opinions as an argument place holder (I know I've done this exact thing too), find proper arguments, opinions matter mostly only to oneself, arguments provide a social opportunity to discuss, affect and be affected by others on subjects one cares about (to varying degrees), and they could matter for other people too.

Again, like I mentioned earlier, 'play it how you want to'. I just wish that the original rule remained as a default setting especially for a role-playing system which calls itself 'Star Wars'. With the way it is written now, it will have to be a house rule.

True, but by your preference for Star Wars this whole book would be a house rule...

Now, now Phil. Let us not go making generalizations.

Thus far, I have only desired that the designers return to the original rule.