Our group has just started playing. The campaign is a rebellion war campaign, though I've allowed Force Users from F&D.

One of my players is an Artisan. He is heavy on the skills, weak on the offense and wanted to get the most out of Ranged Defense. At first I had suggested that he work toward a Curved Hilt and finding a Lorrdian Gemstone before realizing that Defensive and Deflection were two different things (as I said, brand new). So we went digging for items that provided Deflection. We found exactly 2, the Riot Shield and Cortossis shield.

That was a long way to ask this question:

Would it be overly powerful to homebrew a crystal similar to the Lorrdian and a hilt similar to the Curved except flavored for ranged defense, giving them the Deflection quality rather than the Defensive? Or is Deflection meant to be a rare quality for balance issues?

Cortosis curved hilt with a Lorrdian gemstone crystal?

Always wondered about Sith Alchemy, why no Jedi Alchemy or Dathomir Alchemy for example?

Have the Artisan imbue that crystal with a Deflection talent or whatever in essence create his/her own reputation with an artefact that becomes a plot point later in the game for example that crystal holds a splinter of his essence allowing that character to function like a force Ghost or holocron gatekeeper eventually would that sound great to you?

The Lorrdian provides both Defensive -and- Deflection (through mods)... It can provide 2 of each itself. Therefore, it's effectively the same as a shield itself.

In Keeping the Peace, there's a Guard Shoto Hilt that -also- provides 2 Defensive and 2 Deflection (which can add shield-like properties to any crystal).

There's some debate (and a question in to the devs) about whether (and how) the Lorrdian gemstone should be able to be combined with a Guard Shoto and what the resultant defensive and deflection properties would be. The curved hilt mod allows another Defensive +1 mod, and its interactions with the hilt and gem are also currently up for debate.

Keeping the Piece also has the Shield Gauntlet, which has Deflection 2. The Sixth Sense talent also exists, which is +1 ranged defense. The Jury-Rigged talent can be used on armor to increase ranged defense by 1. The Imbue Item talent can duplicated Jury-Rigged temporarily, at the cost of strain each round. Crafting custom armor using the rules from KtP can also create armor with extra ranged defense. The Improved Armor Master talent adds 1 to both defenses if you are wearing armor that has a soak of at least 2.