Some of my players brought up they feel lightsabers start off too well with critical being only a 2. One of them used the case of someone needs to be skilled to fully use a saber and the fact that they start with a lower base crit requirements says otherwise.

Anyone think making sabers crit on a 4 as a base but then giving all sabers vicious 1 as a base would show you need more skill to pull off a critical but when you pull it off they are more deadly? That or even a base crit iCal of 5, but them vicious 3? Then all crystals could make it one less and a mod on some might make it even one less

Some of my players brought up they feel lightsabers start off too well with critical being only a 2. One of them used the case of someone needs to be skilled to fully use a saber and the fact that they start with a lower base crit requirements says otherwise.

Anyone think making sabers crit on a 4 as a base but then giving all sabers vicious 1 as a base would show you need more skill to pull off a critical but when you pull it off they are more deadly? That or even a base crit iCal of 5, but them vicious 3? Then all crystals could make it one less and a mod on some might make it even one less

Lightsabers are incredibly powerful, and they are meant to be. They also aren't meant to be starting weapons outside of Knight Level play.

Honestly, though, a starting character with Knight Level resources can easily get a weapon that's far nastier than a base lightsaber, in terms of both raw damage output in addition to the Critical rating. At that power level, that's just part of the game--for both the PCs and their adversaries.

By the time your Jedi has a saber your marauder should have a moderately tricked out Vibro axe (or the like) which could be just as deadly, or more so.

Well, that depends. GM Lucas saw fit to hand Luke a lightsaber almost immediately. His father's, as it turns out.

Well, that depends. GM Lucas saw fit to hand Luke a lightsaber almost immediately. His father's, as it turns out.

Yes, but not everyone had a Jedi for a father.

For standard starting characters they should all have weapons of around the same capability. No one should start with a weapon that is massively better than other player's weapons. That said, I agree with Rikoshi and Split Light. By the time a Jedi character has acquired a light saber the other characters should have their own powerful items which keeps everyone equally capable.

I actually wasn't asking on a game balance concern as much as what one of my players was saying on a skill question.

It goes both ways though, you need skill with the lightsaber to hit reliably and such, but at the same time you can easily lose a limb (or two) due to lack of skill, I think the crit value can help illustrate that.

Well, that depends. GM Lucas saw fit to hand Luke a lightsaber almost immediately. His father's, as it turns out.

Sure, but then Luke doesn't use it at all for the entire adventure.

He doesn't use it until he actually gets some training in the second adventure. (ok, he used it once on a wampa, but that was an emergency, and I think he had already recieved training between adventures then.)

Luke uses it quite a bit between Ep IV and Ep V if you accept the current Marvel comics and that dreadful canon novel he's in.

Unskilled use of a lightsaber means despairs cause loss of your own limbs..

Its an incredibly lethal weapon which has a high chance of lopping off limbs, but unskilled use does not increase the difficulty of lopping off your opponents limbs it increases the chance you will lop off your own limbs.

Speaking as a GM, a player using a lightsaber is a good opportunity to rid yourself of excess Dark side Destiny points.

I guess, the first point is that 'sabers don't really start with a crit 2, they start with crit -- and only do stun damage. Unless your characters are starting at "knight level play" they should have 'sabers with crystals, just training emitters.

Also, the importance of scoring crits is pretty lopsided, i.e. players activating crits on Minions and Rivals is no big deal (and should be 90% of the combat rolls) but players getting crit is a much bigger issue.

As a GM, you shouldn't expect Minions and Rivals to survive an encounter, so players with low crit weapons is just a matter of how fast your characters are mowing down the opposition. It's a much bigger issue when Minions and Rivals are scoring crits on the players, because the players are persistent and will start to accrue more critical injuries, making later injuries more severe. But the majority of Rivals and practically no Minions shouldn't be touting full on lightsabers, which really mitigates the issue.

Nemeses, on the other hand, SHOULD have the opportunity to accrue critical hits, and SHOULD be slinging sabers where appropriate, but should be infrequently be going toe-to-toe with the heroes.

Finally, remember you can only score one crit per hit (and it's one hit per attack with a lightsaber unless you're dual wielding, using saber swarm, etc). One crit kills one minion. Whoopedy Doo. and one crit just crits a Rival, which will typically put the rival at a pretty slight disadvantage, but it's unlikely they will survive long enough for that crit to matter on later crits.

Basically, low crit weapons in the hands of players just aren't that big of a deal. Its when the villains' flunkies get the low crit weapons that stuff gets screwy, and for lightsabers, that shouldn't be a frequent issue. (Autofire weapons, on the other hand... that gets messy for players FAST).

Yes, but not everyone had a Jedi for a father.

The "rub" seems to be credits as money can do a lot! My PCs had a windfall and the Force-user (who had aquired a second lightsaber) made them both Superior and then Paired them. Both had the enhanced critical rating as well. Deadly? Incredibly! However, the player wasn't even close to being abusive of the power, so it worked out.

As for Luke in ANH, I'd say the GM started the campaign at Knight Level. Han and Leia are certainly no slouches in their areas of endeavor, though we don't get to see that much of it in the film.

But otherwise, for most groups the best they can hope for as starting tier PCs is the training lightsaber, which is Damage 6, Stun damage only, and no crit rating.

As LethalDose said, the PCs having weapons with low crit ratings isn't that big a deal, as in most fights a crit generally means an extra defeated minion or a hampered Rival, both of whom typically won't show up again after that fight. Plus, we've got how many years of lore citing the lightsaber as this incredibly dangerous weapon? Granted, the lightsaber tends to get watered down pretty heavily in video games to the point of really just being a fancy glowing club. The various d20 Star Wars games took this same approach, and WEG's d6 did as well (at least where the basic lightsaber was concerned); OCR/RCR d20 had a lightsaber get more dangerous as the Jedi gained levels by adding more damage dice (up to ridonkulous levels if you built the character right) while WEG had the Lightsaber Combat power that could be brutal for a highly experienced PC.

FFG however opted to give the basic lightsaber some off its cinematic deadliness but not having it be too potent. Damage 6, Crit 2, and Breach 1 makes for a very powerful weapon, something I doubt anyone would disagree with. But there are nastier weapons out there, such as anything with the Autofire quality to say nothing of disruptors, which have both a low Crit rating and a minimum effect on the critical injury chart that's pretty nasty.

Honestly, if your PCs aren't at Knight Level, a true lightsaber in this system should be something that they are working towards , not something they count as just another piece of starting gear.

I'd actually say that Luke's a starting character, and, until the duel on Bespin, his lightsaber's merely a thing sitting in his inventory for flavor, like my 5E bard's rank insignia patch. He doesn't actually use it as a weapon until that duel. He trains with it, certainly, in ANH, but that short training session is the only time he's seen on screen wielding it in the first movie.

In ESB, he uses it to cut the wampa's arm off, but it's a fairly unskilled swipe. He uses it to cut open the AT-AT's hatch to throw a grenade inside (i.e. as a tool). When he shows up on Bespin, he's still going around with his blaster in his hand. It's not until he meets Vader in the freezing chamber that he really truly uses it as a weapon for the first time.

Really, I think Han's the only one out of the big three that has any real experience previous to the start of the movie. Leia's got some skill with politics, but no more than any other person would have at 18, having grown up a Senator's daughter. Luke's somewhat skilled with tech, and he's a fairly good pilot, but he's basically a starting character, too.

Han's got 10 years or so on both of them, and he's accrued a fair amount of experience in that time.

Han's got 10 years or so on both of them, and he's accrued a fair amount of experience in that time.

Not to mention his bloodstripes... regardless of what is left in canon, that seems to always be consistent. You don't get those without some outstanding combat and heroics... and usually posthumously...

Chewbacca is a veteran of the Clone Wars. I'd say he has considerably more XP than Solo.

Unskilled use of a lightsaber means despairs cause loss of your own limbs..

Its an incredibly lethal weapon which has a high chance of lopping off limbs, but unskilled use does not increase the difficulty of lopping off your opponents limbs it increases the chance you will lop off your own limbs.

Have we ever seen any evidence to support the myth that untrained lightsaber wielders risk lopping their own limbs off?

Unskilled use of a lightsaber means despairs cause loss of your own limbs..

Its an incredibly lethal weapon which has a high chance of lopping off limbs, but unskilled use does not increase the difficulty of lopping off your opponents limbs it increases the chance you will lop off your own limbs.

Have we ever seen any evidence to support the myth that untrained lightsaber wielders risk lopping their own limbs off?

The understanding I had was that untrained users or non-Force sensitives could have trouble adjusting to the weightless blade, so mis-timed or mis-aimed swings could travel farther than anticipated and come back around to bite the wielder.

Unskilled use of a lightsaber means despairs cause loss of your own limbs..

Its an incredibly lethal weapon which has a high chance of lopping off limbs, but unskilled use does not increase the difficulty of lopping off your opponents limbs it increases the chance you will lop off your own limbs.

Have we ever seen any evidence to support the myth that untrained lightsaber wielders risk lopping their own limbs off?

The understanding I had was that untrained users or non-Force sensitives could have trouble adjusting to the weightless blade, so mis-timed or mis-aimed swings could travel farther than anticipated and come back around to bite the wielder.

OK, but is there actually any evidence of this occuring? Do we see any characters that have had this happen, or is it just an in-universe urban legend?

Well, the difference in feel of a lightsaber is a good reason why it takes a bit more effort and training to get used to, (and why skills/most talents don't cross over in this game system) and sure, accidents are bound to happen with any weapon, but non force-sensitives are still capable of fighting with them .

It's really just the blocking blaster shots that really require force sensitivity.

I'm not as familiar as some with the Star Wars Expanded Universe, so I can't point to particular instances where that might have happened. It's a trick used in other RPGs, though. I seem to recall a microfilament (or monomolecular) whip in Cyberpunk 2020 that could do the same thing, should you be unlucky enough to fail a roll. (I might be misremembering, though.)

Have we ever seen any evidence to support the myth that untrained lightsaber wielders risk lopping their own limbs off?

AFAIK Its somewhere in between: Its a rule from an old RPG system. The first instance I can cite is as follows:

"While a very powerful weapon, a lightsaber is dangerous to an unskilled user -- if an attacking character misses the attack difficult number by 10 or more points, then the charact has injured himself with the weapon and rolls damage against his own Strength " - pg 39, Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2nd Ed, Revised and Expanded , 1996

FWIW I recall this rule was also in previous editions, but I just don't have those books.

I have no idea what source material they pulled it from, but it exists as more than a "myth".

Unskilled use of a lightsaber means despairs cause loss of your own limbs..

Its an incredibly lethal weapon which has a high chance of lopping off limbs, but unskilled use does not increase the difficulty of lopping off your opponents limbs it increases the chance you will lop off your own limbs.

Have we ever seen any evidence to support the myth that untrained lightsaber wielders risk lopping their own limbs off?

The understanding I had was that untrained users or non-Force sensitives could have trouble adjusting to the weightless blade, so mis-timed or mis-aimed swings could travel farther than anticipated and come back around to bite the wielder.

Hence the fact that Lightsaber is its own skill, and not part of the Melee skill. And while it's true that the Average Joe might have problems with it, the PCs are Big Dâmn Heroes, not Average Joes. It's pointless to have a rule for the 'saber that doesn't affect PCs just because "that's how it's always been."

-EF

Have we ever seen any evidence to support the myth that untrained lightsaber wielders risk lopping their own limbs off?

AFAIK Its somewhere in between: Its a rule from an old RPG system. The first instance I can cite is as follows:

"While a very powerful weapon, a lightsaber is dangerous to an unskilled user -- if an attacking character misses the attack difficult number by 10 or more points, then the charact has injured himself with the weapon and rolls damage against his own Strength " - pg 39, Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2nd Ed, Revised and Expanded , 1996

FWIW I recall this rule was also in previous editions, but I just don't have those books.

I have no idea what source material they pulled it from, but it exists as more than a "myth".

WEG could have made it up. A lot of ear material was fabricated whole-cloth for the RPG line, and this could be one of those things.

-EF