I'm currently reading Heir to the Jedi, a Disney Canon book about Luke during the FFG "post first Death Star" era. I found this sentence to be strange.

"Though it wasn't a strictly prohibited weapon, it's association with the Jedi would tend to make one guilty by association in the eyes of the Empire." - Luke Skywalker about his lightsaber.

I have always thought lightsabers were very VERY prohibited (Restricted). This seems to lighten that to an "ok... but... " rather than "zOMg!!! Call it in and kill it with FIRE!!!". What do you all think?

Honestly, I always thought the "death to anyone with glowsticks" really only applied to the first five or six years after Declaration. I mean, after that there are more in the hands of bounty hunters then Jedi, and more with noble collectors then both of those put together. (We have EU examples of several of both of these). So really, that fits right in with how I viewed them, myself.

FFG has no real creation rules for a Lightsaber (yet) other than "...PCs wanting to construct their own lightsaber should start with a hilt. If the PC wants to construct their own hilt out of available materials, the GM can still have the PCs make a check to find the hilt based on its rarity and pay the cost. This represents them finding and paying for the raw materials. Then it is simply a matter of spending a few hours putting the materials together to build the hilt—no checks are necessary."

Not a big deal since F&D characters all have a FR of 1, but according to this book "...aligning those crystals by hand would be impossible-I sensed it had to be done with the Force, and only through the Force would I know if it was aligned properly or not." And "...without proper focusing there was no telling what would happen if I tried to turn it on. It might explode."

To me that means a PC without a Force Rating (probably of 2, as in this book Luke can't even) there would be a check to craft the lightsaber, and it would be an "impossible" check! (And maybe upgrade the check for every FR under 3?)

To me that means a PC without a Force Rating (probably of 2, as in this book Luke can't even) there would be a check to craft the lightsaber, and it would be an "impossible" check! (And maybe upgrade the check for every FR under 3?)

Wouldn't that just be impossible with two upgrades, always, unless you have FR2?

Personally, I think the rules are fine as is (Especially if you just don't let people build lightsabers willy nilly but make it part of the story). But... I'm also not sure your current suggestion is the right way to go about it, as that would lead to training sabers being just as hard to build as actual lightsabers. You might want to tie in your increased difficulty to the crystal itself.

I think you are right. The book is referencing wafer thin "extra crystals" which to me sounds like modding the crystal (crystal wax) and that is already made easier thanks to the Beta Update using the Force. I think for my games non-FS PCs will have to perform the impossible check to craft one (a light-foil?).

Also bear in mind that Luke has very little actual training beyond a fairly brief crash course while en route to Alderaan by this point, as the majority of his Jedi training won't come for a couple years under Yoda's guidance.

Since we've got Jedi Initiates (who probably aren't much past Force Rating 1) being able to properly construct a lightsaber as per The Clone Wars, it'd really be a matter of "does this person have the proper instruction to know how to build a lightsaber?"

For Luke, the answer is "not really" along with a large dollop of uncertainty; after all he didn't really start learning anything about the Force until he was an adult.

In contrast, we've got Ezra from Rebels who was able to build his own unique lightsaber, though likely getting tips/pointers from either Kanan or the holocron along with his own tech savvy.

For PCs in a Force and Destiny game... that depends on the character, their backstory, and possibly even what group resource was chosen. If the group took a holocron that offers Lightsaber as a career skill, then I'd say odds are pretty good that said holocron can impart the knowledge necessary to build a lightsaber as well as properly wielding one. A PC whose backstory includes being tutored for more than a few days by a Jedi survivor might also have that knowledge, especially if they've taken one or more ranks in the Lightsaber skill.

I agree that getting the crystal should be something the PC generally has to earn (particularly if starting at the default for a new character and not at Knight Level), but once the crystal is acquired then putting the hilt together shouldn't be that complex a task. Particularly as most 'saber wielders aren't going to be trained in Mechanics or have a high Intellect score.

Just a curiosity. Would you give any "Skywalker" trait to Luke, Leia or Vader? Which one?

Just a curiosity. Would you give any "Skywalker" trait to Luke, Leia or Vader? Which one?

Nope. Because they're NPCs and such don't need the kind of "special snowflake" treatment they got in OCR/RCR of a "Skywalker Heritage." One very nice thing that Saga Edition did was not give those three any sort of "special snowflake" benefit; their stat blocks were all things that could be accomplished by a PC (albeit one with some lucky dice rolls on generating their ability scores).

If a PC wanted to be of the Skywalker lineage (say in a Legacy Era campaign) I also wouldn't give them any sort of special bonus when it comes to using the Force, primarily as by that point the "potency" of Anakin's genetic legacy has been pretty throughly diluted by such a point, and is probably at the point where the main perk provided is "the PC is Force-sensitive" which is already covered by taking a Force and Destiny career or buying Emergent or Exile if the PC was insistent on starting with an EotE or AoR career.

I'm currently reading Heir to the Jedi, a Disney Canon book about Luke during the FFG "post first Death Star" era. I found this sentence to be strange.

"Though it wasn't a strictly prohibited weapon, it's association with the Jedi would tend to make one guilty by association in the eyes of the Empire." - Luke Skywalker about his lightsaber.

I have always thought lightsabers were very VERY prohibited (Restricted). This seems to lighten that to an "ok... but... " rather than "zOMg!!! Call it in and kill it with FIRE!!!". What do you all think?

In ROTJ Vader tells Luke "indeed you are powerful" right after commenting that Luke constructed a new light sabre. This tells us you have to have some strong proficiency in the force to create one. so that comment in Heir Seems like it is saying if one has a light sabre in their possession the empire would like to investigate how someone came into it to ensure that individual is not a Jefi or even knows one. The emperor wants All the Jedis dead remember..

And talking about lightsabers and the act of making them...

In the book, where they tell you everything about modding weapons, they state that if you fail the roll for modding you can't make that mod.

As in, EVER? I mean, a lightsaber crystal is difficult enough to obtain to just have bad luck and fail your "lower crit by 1" mod. You are then stuck with a subpar sabre, or someone else has to mod it for you, which is difficult (not having the difficulty reduction and the Force die) and awkward ("Welcome to Moe&Mandy's Mods, we mod your saber and many more!"). ¹

I would think that you should probably be allowed another attempt once you improve your skill and knowledge about the matter (be it the proper Skill or even your FR, since the Force is so tied to it, or maybe even meditating about it in a special crystal cave in a long forgotten planet, you name it).

What do you guys think about it?

Edit:

1 Though I can totally picture Marn Hyerogryph doing that

And talking about lightsabers and the act of making them...

In the book, where they tell you everything about modding weapons, they state that if you fail the roll for modding you can't make that mod.

As in, EVER? I mean, a lightsaber crystal is difficult enough to obtain to just have bad luck and fail your "lower crit by 1" mod. You are then stuck with a subpar sabre, or someone else has to mod it for you, which is difficult (not having the difficulty reduction and the Force die) and awkward ("Welcome to Moe&Mandy's Mods, we mod your saber and many more!").

I would think that you should probably be allowed another attempt once you improve your skill and knowledge about the matter (be it the proper Skill or even your FR, since the Force is so tied to it, or maybe even meditating about it in a special crystal cave in a long forgotten planet, you name it).

What do you guys think about it?

The difficulty isn't exactly harsh for it though. If you're modding your own crystal in your own saber it's actually pretty darn easy.

And if you're also willing to stack the deck in your favor by getting better tools, making a lore check or something to "prepare" hopefully giving you an advantage or triumph to use, and spending a Dpoint for an upgraded roll...

Saber modding already has a lot of advantages compared to conventional modding, it doesn't need any more.

Thank you. You might be right, it is quite easy, but I guess we're a bit ****-scared about screwing it because we've been rolling quite some sh*tty results on our dice - the difficulty dice keep trolling us bringing up tangas everytime and jeopardizing our goals.

Ghostofman's pretty much got the right of it, in that if you're willing to do some prep-work, or be a little patient, it's pretty easy to stack the deck in your favor when it comes to modifying a lightsaber crystal. The fact that you not only reduce the difficulty twice but also get to add your Force Rating to the check helps a great deal on those Mechanics checks, especially once you've gotten your Force Rating up to to 2 or 3.

Also, don't be afraid to look outside the default Ilum Crystal in terms of what focusing crystal to make use of. The Dantari Crystal and Mephite Crystal are both pretty solid for a combat-focused lighsaber wielder, having a better base damage and can be just as easily modified to reduce their critical rating, and won't get the same knee-jerk "hell NO!" reaction that the Krayt Dragon Pearl tends to draw from GMs. I'm playing in a friend's Dawn of Defiance campaign that's being run under this system instead of Saga Edition, and I've gotten a +1 boost to damage and -1 to crit rating thus far with only Intellect 2, Force Rating 1, and no ranks in Mechanics. I'm holding off on that final +1 to damage until I get Force Rating 2, both for a better chance to succeed and so that I've got a goal for upgrading my character's primary weapon. True, I don't have any ranks of Vicious, but given that most opponents get dropped after two or three hits from a lightsaber, it's not really that useful at the moment (might change when the campaign's BBEG makes his proper introduction).