This isn't to dispute that Lightsabers aren't the best melee weapon ever. But has anyone considered alternatives? Either to keep a low profile or out of personal preferance?

My character, Tobin Stryder, was a gunslinger long before he discovered the Sith tradition from a ruined lightsaber and a sith spirit. For the longest time in the allience he was the gadgeteer with a modified dueling pistol (for six shots instead of 1) and a Lightning Gun found in the ruins where he found the saber. After that gun was lost in a landslide in the defence of a revellion base, he switched to favour pistols as his primary weapon, relying on his quick draw and sniper shot to land impossible shots with the guidance of the force. After raiding Kathlos vault, his primary weapon is the dueling pistol he forged so long ago and a Nova Viper.

That being said, he has recieved basic training on using a lightsaber and has killed two inquistors and survived a third. As a fringer turned rebel fanatic he weilded a pair of them when advantagous to him, the fact that he is a genune rebel fanatic and a Sith in training makes for quite a interesting combination.

The game does support the idea that, realistically, acquiring a lightsaber is hard and having one has consequences if you are not careful with it (legally). Even the preview of Keeping the Peace mentions including blasters for Force-users.

The biggest draw of the lightsaber—beyond it's iconic nature—is that you can use it with any characteristic you want, as long as you take the right talent. Any other Melee or Brawl weapon relies on Brawn. When making a character who does other things and wants to have Brawn be the "dump stat" can't use melee weapons that well, but is killer with a lightsaber, even if their only characteristic above 2 is Presence.

But it's not impossible to be a lightsaberless Force user. Many powers can help with skill and attack checks that don't use a lightsaber, and most of the non-reflect talents can be used without a lightsaber in hand.

-EF

Heck, most of the careers have non-Lightsaber combat skills as Spec skills, if not Career skills. It's highly viable to never take Lightsaber training and still be a potent Force User.

My FaD beta character strongly avoided using his lightsaber for the longest time, and he generally prefers to engage targets with a blaster carbine or rifle before pulling out the ol' glowstick. The only time he's really relied on his lightsaber is when he doesn't have a ranged weapon, is engaging a higher-level lightsaber-wielding foe, or is trying to look the part of being a Jedi.

Don't overlook the benefits of the training emitter:

• the trainer is legal and not likely to get the police after you
• the training saber is just as intimidating to people until you hit them - might good for a bonus on intimidation checks
• you can use your lightsaber based skill (if you have them) and not kill/mangle on abduction missions
• useful if your character doesn't like the sight of blood

My Beta Pathfinder was actively afraid of lightsabers. Not only because they were a piece of technology she didn't understand (being from a primitive society), but her first encounter with one involved an Inquisitor practically annihilating everything she knew and loved. She used a slugthrower for the entire campaign, and even as the other PCs got their sabers assembled (a large plot of the campaign) they actively restrained from using them to keep from freaking her out.

Eventually she got used to them, but she never wielded one (had to actively persuade the GM to change that character moment for her).

Don't overlook the benefits of the training emitter:

• the trainer is legal and not likely to get the police after you
• the training saber is just as intimidating to people until you hit them - might good for a bonus on intimidation checks
• you can use your lightsaber based skill (if you have them) and not kill/mangle on abduction missions
• useful if your character doesn't like the sight of blood

Trainers are just as illegal in my book as the real thing. An Inquisitor and storm trooper aren't gonna be oh he has a trainer let him go

Don't overlook the benefits of the training emitter:

• the trainer is legal and not likely to get the police after you
• the training saber is just as intimidating to people until you hit them - might good for a bonus on intimidation checks
• you can use your lightsaber based skill (if you have them) and not kill/mangle on abduction missions
• useful if your character doesn't like the sight of blood

Trainers are just as illegal in my book as the real thing. An Inquisitor and storm trooper aren't gonna be oh he has a trainer let him go

Don't quite get why training sabers aren't illegal.

Don't quite get why training sabers aren't illegal.

Maybe FFG Star Wars lore takes the Futurama approach to them.

A lot of the talents in the lightsabre trees don't need a lightsabre just a melee weapon so you can use them without a lightsabre and still be effective, just not as effective as if you did have a lightsabre or a dedicated non-jedi combat tree.

Now if you want to use a sword or staff to parry a lightsabre you will need it to be made out of cortosis or similar.

I know in the d20 version (and backed up in the old cannon by Master Vodo-Siosk Baas in the old Tales of the Jedi comics) had talents that let you imbue weapons with the force so they would stand up to lightsabres and act as a lightsabre for talents. In the current version it could be a long lost technique that some old masters knew that with an action imbue any melee weapon with the lightsabre quality while they hold it. One for rivals or nemisi.

While a lightsaber is a very potent weapon in this system, it is quite possible to have a very successful group of PCs where there's not a lightsaber to be found. EotE and AoR have been doing it since they got released, and it's almost a universal truth that Autofire weapons in the hands of a very skilled shooter (4 or more dice, 3 of which are Proficiency) are devastating, especially when fired at short range.

Thing also with the lightsaber is you need one of six specific specs to really get the full mileage out of it, where a heavy blaster pistol or blaster carbine are far more ubiquitous, don't draw nearly as much attention, and can still dish out a pretty decent amount of damage.

You've also got the Hunter specialization for the Seeker career, which in the Beta has a talent that enables you to add your Force dice to Ranged (Heavy) attacks; I had a Gand PC in a FaD campaign I was running that had a heavy blaster rifle and combined with this talent he was devastating in combat; last session of the campaign had him wiping out an entire minion group (5 baddies each) each round thanks to that talent and a Force Rating of 2, while the two PCs with lightsabers weren't nearly so deadly. Though to be fair, only one of those two PCs had put any real effort into being actually skilled with the lightsaber and had split his focus between two separate specs, diluting his combat efficiency.

Aggressor's another pretty brutal combat spec that doesn't require a lightsaber to be effective, and would do quite well with just a basic vibro-ax, as enough ranks in Fearsome means the Aggressor's enemies are going to suffering from the effects of Fear. Tack on Marauder from the EotE corebook and upgrade the vibro-ax with things like superior customization and mono-molecular edge, and things will get very ugly for the bad guys in short order, as a single crit will have a substantial bonus when rolling to determine the exact injury.

And if the EotE career splatbooks are anything to go by, we'll probably see new specs that also have additional combat features that don't require a lightsaber to be effective.

A lot of the talents in the lightsabre trees don't need a lightsabre just a melee weapon so you can use them without a lightsabre and still be effective, just not as effective as if you did have a lightsabre or a dedicated non-jedi combat tree.

Now if you want to use a sword or staff to parry a lightsabre you will need it to be made out of cortosis or similar.

I know in the d20 version (and backed up in the old cannon by Master Vodo-Siosk Baas in the old Tales of the Jedi comics) had talents that let you imbue weapons with the force so they would stand up to lightsabres and act as a lightsabre for talents. In the current version it could be a long lost technique that some old masters knew that with an action imbue any melee weapon with the lightsabre quality while they hold it. One for rivals or nemisi.

The Sentenal:Artisan tree has Imbue: commit (force die) to imbue armor, weapon, or item with a "quality" - so yeah, commit to have the cortosis quality temporarily added to something.

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Aggressor's another pretty brutal combat spec that doesn't require a lightsaber to be effective, and would do quite well with just a basic vibro-ax, as enough ranks in Fearsome means the Aggressor's enemies are going to suffering from the effects of Fear. Tack on Marauder from the EotE corebook and upgrade the vibro-ax with things like superior customization and mono-molecular edge, and things will get very ugly for the bad guys in short order, as a single crit will have a substantial bonus when rolling to determine the exact injury.

A tricked out vibro ax can be a scary weapon in any brawny person's hands - a tricked out Mono edge gives pierce 4 & a crit of 1 - add in the balanced handle & you can be rolling w/ 2 extra (bl) - the superior essentially gives you a crit with every hit. Problem is, someone like a Drall it's not going to do a lot of damage, same if you have a Medic or tech who's statted up Int & Wil or Cunning.

The damage independent of Brawn is a huge advantage for a lightsaber if your character isn't a primary hitter. The option to take 45 xp & be able to use your best stat is even better.

The Sentenal:Artisan tree has Imbue: commit (force die) to imbue armor, weapon, or item with a "quality" - so yeah, commit to have the cortosis quality temporarily added to something.

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You'll want to check the long description, you have specific options you can use, which I think may be the same options as Jury Rigged.

A tricked out vibro ax can be a scary weapon in any brawny person's hands - a tricked out Mono edge gives pierce 4 & a crit of 1 - add in the balanced handle & you can be rolling w/ 2 extra (bl) - the superior essentially gives you a crit with every hit. Problem is, someone like a Drall it's not going to do a lot of damage, same if you have a Medic or tech who's statted up Int & Wil or Cunning.

The damage independent of Brawn is a huge advantage for a lightsaber if your character isn't a primary hitter. The option to take 45 xp & be able to use your best stat is even better.

Donovan was more of pointing out that Lightsabers are great, but that they aren't the end-all be-all weapon if you're out for pure killing potential, particularly for Force Users. Not arguing against the accessibility of the Lightsaber.

Share-time! Huzzah! We're currently playing WEG d6 2 ABY, so carrying around a lightsaber is not exactly the safe and sane thing to do. I mean, we're not gods of the battlefield like Obi Wan anyway, or formally members of the rebellion, so we never built lightsabers. We use vibro weapons instead, as well as largely remaining inconspicous and 'just another face in the crowd'. Uses of the force are fairly subtle as well. When someone dies, there has to be a plausible explination, we either use blasters, or engineer 'accidents' that can be explained in other ways.

Given that, we're probably going to fall to the dark side eventually, but c'est la vie!