So, while it might not really be so "the new thing" now, I like to think that many of us will instinctively grasp the new thing, and try to put our own spin, or print, on it. Ezra's lightsaber seems to be one such thing. Any of us who have played a Star Wars RPG have probably been there, trying to decide if their Jedi should ALSO carry a blaster, if they will need it, how much their GM and setting make an active lightsaber the "draw all enemy fire in the room" stick it can be, and wanting a good alternative, and also having to draw a weapon, now it's not the good choice, and take time to holster it, draw another weapon, take aim, and see what happens. Ezra seems to have a weapon that covers a lot of this. It CAN be a lightsaber, it CAN be a blaster, and it looks so weird, if you don't SEE a meter-long blue blade of plasma sticking out of it, you're not even sure what it is, to shoot at him for it.

Has anyone else tried to use this variant weapon in their games, and how? How well did it pan out? Once the GM is over the idea of having a lightsaber in the game, it doesn't seem so terrible an idea to also have a blaster. Would something like this work:

Lightsaber-Blaster Hybrid Upgrade

Lightsabers have been a mainstay of the Jedi Order for thousands of years, but in the Dark Times, they have their limitations, and their liabilities, to those who would still deign to use them. There are times when a different weapon is preferable, or when time in battle is a factor, and to those who mst live under constant Imperial scrutiny, wild ideas have often been born.

Base Modifiers: May function as a blaster pistol (see p.121). The blaster pistol, being an upgrade, cannot benefit from additional upgrades that a normal blaster pistol would. If the blaster pistol's power pack is depleted, the lightsaber may still function as a lightsaber.

Modification Options: 1 Item Quality (Blaster Damage +1) Mod.

Hard Points: 3

Price: 800

I'm not sure what other Mod options it might want, but it is giving you a separate power blaster, that you don't need to swap out for, and I feel that that is a very nice perk. I wanted to find a way to illustrate that it protects the hand more, maybe make it harder to be disarmed, but I can't find disarm rules, and also other lightsabers would be the primary melee disarm option, not caring what it's made of, unless it's phrik or cortosis. Also, it leaves the space for you to modify the lightsaber with whatever crystal you still wanted, which is the primary way to improve that weapon.

So, certainly not the best option for the upgrade, but a thought I had. Did anyone else find something similar? Use it? Is it good for your street Jedi to be more flexible, or did you find that it was a little case of too much?

I put a version together back over on the EotE forums a while ago.

In short, it cost 2 hard points and a couple hundred credits to have the equivalent of a light blaster pistol installed, with the stats of the blaster itself not being able to be upgraded.

Granted what I created was done long before Ezra actually built the weapon and before Kanan made very good use of it during the season finale, so I probably need to revisit that at some point. Particularly as Ezra's version was limited to stun bolts, and Kanan being able to switch modes almost at will, things nobody outside of those folks working on the show had any idea about.