I don't like spamming something in general, but I wouldn't stop it. I would do one of two options though.

1.

P1: this is what I want to do <snip>

GM: ok, roll.

P1: didn't get it.

GM: ok, that's your character for the day, everyone else, what are you doing?

P2-5: we're investigating those leads.

<two hours of gameplay later...>

GM: Ok, P1, it's the next day try again....

P1: <sigh>...

2. Taking a hint from my d20 days and the roll 20 skill options I would calculate the odds of success and the maximum time. For example 1Y has a 1 in 12 chance of a triumph. 2Y has a 1 in 144. So If you needed two triumph it takes you 144 tries. This represents someone taking their time and working towards something without rushing and no chance of catastrophic failure. If it takes the character a year to make it, then so be it. There's a reason companies have entire teams of engineers working years on new projects. One character, no matter how talented, would take a long time unless they wanted to go with option one above.

As far as selling off unsuccessful attempts, I might give 10%. Because this isn't about making the same thing over and over again and learning to do it better, it's experimenting and prototyping on how to make something better. So the character would have unfinished copies and attempts that didn't work out. Some, would be functional enough to sell normally to the open market like any other collected gear, but a lot of it would not be.

Here is the armor that my character had custom made. It's not cheesy in the slightest and only slightly better than what you get for mass produced Heavy Battle Armor.

Base Template

Segmented Armor Template

• Encumbrance: 6
• Hard Points: 4
• Rarity: 6/R
• Price: 32,500
• Soak: 2
• Defense: 1
• Time: 72 hours
• Check: Daunting Mechanics

Je'Daii Heavy Armored Robes (Stealth)

• Encumbrance: 2
• Hard Points: 6
• Rarity: 6/R
• Price: 32,500
• Soak: 3
• Defense: 2
• Features:
  • 1 Skill (Stealth) Mod that adds 1 Advantage.
  • Vacuum Sealable

It is only better than Heavy Battle Armor in four areas which are Encumbrance, Defense, Soak, and the 1 Advantage to all stealth checks. The ones made for Sharke is almost the same, except it lacks the 1 Advantage. The extra hard points can be done by any character that has the appropriate talent to increase hard points on armor and equipment. However, the hard points put it at the max for the item, so they cannot be increased further.

Now here is the fully modded suit with all the attachments added to the hard points.

Je'Daii Heavy Armored Robes (Stealth)

• Encumbrance: 2
• Hard Points: 6
• Rarity: 6/R
• Price: 43,600
• Soak: 4
• Melee Def: 2
• Ranged Def: 2

Features: 1 Skill (Stealth) Mod, Attachments: Vacuum Sealed ( Allows the user to ignore the effects of vacuum or poisonous atmospheric environments for up to 10 minutes. ), Multi-Band Comlink (A long range comlink is integrated into helmet.), Superior Armor Customization (Quality (Superior) Mod), Enhanced Optics Suite (1 Skill (Vigilance) Mod, Removes up to 2 Setback added to all Perception, Vigilance, and combat skill checks due to darkness, smoke, or other environmental effects that obscure vision. ), SmartMed 2000 Integrated Med-Systems (1 Increase Encumbrance by 1 Mod, 2 Successful Medicine checks heal +1 wound Mods, Once per session, may apply stimpack as incidental., All Medicine checks made to heal wearer gain 1 Boost.), OmniScan 3 Integrated Scanner (1 Skill (Perception) Mod, Built-in general purpose scanner, Adds 1 Boost to Perception checks to detect movement or hidden enemies.)

Hardly game breaking.

EDIT: Added the base template for comparison.

Depends entirely upon how you want to define "not cheesy in the slightest and only slightly better" ... better soak and better defence, plus negligible encumbrance, stealth bonus and more hardpoints ? Only "slightly"? I'd say that's a lot better (and the fully modded one is cheesy, but that's kind of the point with attachments I guess ), it also comes cheaper - but that's kind of the point I guess.

What template did you use to make that really heavy (but light weight) battle robe? Away from book... I wonder how you landed on the cost, rarity and so on.

Well tinkerer doesn't have a cap I think the most HP on that armor would be 7.

I think a lot of how crafting works will depend on how you handle down time between missions in your game. If after a big heist your group lays low for a while at their hideout then I see no reason not to allow a few rolls on armor, or knowledge checks on looking up something important to the character, or just about anything the players want to do, maybe tracking down leads on the holonet for a black market stealth devices.

I look at down time as very important and should pass relatively quickly during a session, with players summarizing what they do between missions in a short write up.

A good use of downtime regarding armor would be something like this

The jedi artisan spends time preparing to create the armored robe type he wants spending money and time and going through several prototypes to craft armor for the group at simple difficulty.

The jedi sage spends his time in libraries and talking to other scholars finding out components that were used in such armor, getting an identification of some items, which would provide automatic advantage or even a triumph on crafting checks if you use them.

The lovable scoundrel, finds that some of the really good components the sage researched are being held in a musem on a core world and manages to aquire some blueprints.

The badass slicer ends up making false id's for the team so they can gain access during the day and he also finds some camera blind spots in the ventalation system to hide the party until the museum is closed.

And now you have an awesome heist adventure that may end up with your players getting +1 soak or +1 defense and a few hard points, but also makes them feel badass and like a team working together to gain power and prestiege.

Now lets say your characters basically want to make a little money on the side crafting armor, if they burn their downtime give them some credits, if a dancer wants to work at a bar give her some too, just don't let it unbalance your game.

Depends entirely upon how you want to define "not cheesy in the slightest and only slightly better" ... better soak and better defence, plus negligible encumbrance, stealth bonus and more hardpoints ? Only "slightly"? I'd say that's a lot better (and the fully modded one is cheesy, but that's kind of the point with attachments I guess ), it also comes cheaper - but that's kind of the point I guess.

What template did you use to make that really heavy (but light weight) battle robe? Away from book... I wonder how you landed on the cost, rarity and so on.

The GM decided on the cost for the custom armor which was a base of 25,000, but since we wanted the armor faster we paid an extra 7,500 per suit. Here's the comparison stats for Heavy Battle Armor.

Heavy Battle Armor (Mass Produced)

• Encumbrance: 6
• Hard Points: 4
• Rarity: 7/R
• Price: 5,000
• Soak: 2
• Defense: 1

The encumbrance is easily justified since the suit is custom made to the wearer. This allowed the armorsmith to ensure that the armor fitted the character perfectly and distributed the weight evenly. That is not something that you can get from mass produced armor. The better soak and defense is easily justified by him using superior cloth and armor plating in the construction. The hard points are maxed from the base version of the Heavy Battle Armor.

For the custom armor we used the Segmented Armor Template as that is the exact base stats for Heavy Battle Armor. We used the rarity of the armor template.

The custom armor we had made is 6.5 times more expensive for the base armor than Heavy Battle Armor.

Heh heh. This conversation so reminds of the days of discussing Craft over on the D&D boards in days gone by.This and the discussions on Conflict and the Force (Alignment) make me nostalgic for WotC's old boards.

Some more questions Patriot: did you or one of your companions craft this? Or did you order it through an in-game armour smith? If it was made by an NPC, did the GM make a roll? Did he roll in front of you?

While you can easily justify stuff by throwing in whatever arguments (or computer game rpg jargon) about "quality material" or what "custom made" means (and what level of effect it can have), it doesn't make the justification any good.

For instance I doubt the customisation of fitting is good enough to justify a 4 drop in encumbrance (but of course enough advantages would justify that). Although, my point isn't whether or not the stats are ok or justifiable by in-game jargon (you make the roll, then you made the roll)... my point is simply this: to call this "slightly" better? That's an understatement, to put it mildly...

Combine that heavy battle robe thigny (modded or unmodded) with the armorer spec, the soak and defence is increased even more, and the armorer can shrug off critical injuries with ease... and if you cross-spec into a spec with Unstoppable ... and well...

For instance I doubt the customisation of fitting is good enough to justify a 4 drop in encumbrance (but of course enough advantages would justify that). Although, my point isn't whether or not the stats are ok or justifiable by in-game jargon (you make the roll, then you made the roll)... my point is simply this: to call this "slightly" better? That's an understatement, to put it mildly...

Combine that heavy battle robe thigny (modded or unmodded) with the armorer spec, the soak and defence is increased even more, and the armorer can shrug off critical injuries with ease... and if you cross-spec into a spec with Unstoppable ... and well...

Apparently, I have already used up my quota for “Likes” for today, so I literally cannot “Like” this post enough.

So, I guess I’ll have to do the next-best thing.

Some more questions Patriot: did you or one of your companions craft this? Or did you order it through an in-game armour smith? If it was made by an NPC, did the GM make a roll? Did he roll in front of you?

While you can easily justify stuff by throwing in whatever arguments (or computer game rpg jargon) about "quality material" or what "custom made" means (and what level of effect it can have), it doesn't make the justification any good.

For instance I doubt the customisation of fitting is good enough to justify a 4 drop in encumbrance (but of course enough advantages would justify that). Although, my point isn't whether or not the stats are ok or justifiable by in-game jargon (you make the roll, then you made the roll)... my point is simply this: to call this "slightly" better? That's an understatement, to put it mildly...

Combine that heavy battle robe thigny (modded or unmodded) with the armorer spec, the soak and defence is increased even more, and the armorer can shrug off critical injuries with ease... and if you cross-spec into a spec with Unstoppable ... and well...

To help with this, it's worth keeping in mind that this is the same group that has a concealable, arm mounted sidewinder cannon. Needless to say, slightly seems appropriate! Gahahaha

That being said I'm all for slices of madness, my squad for the rebellion have a tendency to rob ship. So far...

One citadel class

One wayfarer

Two tie prototypes.

Three imperial shuttles

Four tie raptors**

One xwing*

One hwk-290

Hwk-1000

A pleasure yauht

One speeder bike

Three at-st*

One At-AT*

A yt-1000

A speeder truck.*

A speeder limo.*

Two rental speeders*

An imperial assault carrer*

*a temporary hijacking. Often being abandoned after/during escape.

** only one made it back home.

And soon, a decimator!

This is over a period of two years. Xd

All criticism aside, it's nice to see someone getting into the armour crafting and sharing their stuff. It shows how powerful it can be.

Now whether or not super-armours are game breaking or not depends on groups and GMs, while a gadgetteer or armorer will be extremely damage proof in one of these, that's kind of their thing too, to be beardy in armour.

Considering the cost, the time and the effort involved, and the choice to divert resources to stuff like this, I guess it's more or less fair.

I'm still not at all buying into the assembly line production of armour, at least not as part of character creation. If you want to use the fellowship phase (to borrow a term from ToR) to make super many sets of armour... that's a different matter, maybe... it's still kind of weird and outside the SW-feel, as I see it. Focusing a lot on making one, makes more sense...

Some more questions Patriot: did you or one of your companions craft this? Or did you order it through an in-game armour smith? If it was made by an NPC, did the GM make a roll? Did he roll in front of you?

While you can easily justify stuff by throwing in whatever arguments (or computer game rpg jargon) about "quality material" or what "custom made" means (and what level of effect it can have), it doesn't make the justification any good.

For instance I doubt the customisation of fitting is good enough to justify a 4 drop in encumbrance (but of course enough advantages would justify that). Although, my point isn't whether or not the stats are ok or justifiable by in-game jargon (you make the roll, then you made the roll)... my point is simply this: to call this "slightly" better? That's an understatement, to put it mildly...

Combine that heavy battle robe thigny (modded or unmodded) with the armorer spec, the soak and defence is increased even more, and the armorer can shrug off critical injuries with ease... and if you cross-spec into a spec with Unstoppable ... and well...

The GM let us do the rolling, see the campaign journal in F&D forum titled Campaign: A Twin's Tale . He had the armorsmith have a mechanics skill with 4Y 1G and got 2B for having a quality workshop and special tools. When I rolled for Sneake's armor sets, I never had a single failure and ended up getting a lot of advantages with triumphs. I wisely spent my advantages to get the stuff I needed on the armor that can only be chosen once then used the rest of them for dropping the difficulty for the next roll and adding boost dice.

My justifications are in-universe explanations. A custom item that is built for a specific person will always be better than a manufactured mass produced item. Stating that the armorer used quality materials and custom made is real world terms for tailored made specifically to a person. It is the same as going into a tailor's shop to have a custom suit made to order that uses silk and cotton or wool instead of polyester for the cotton and cotton for the silk. The materials are truly better than the off the shelf suit has. It has nothing to do with video games.

Jedi/Je'daii and other force using groups that wear armor had always had the ability to shrug off critical injuries. That's canon and lore in Legends. It's not my fault that you lack the ability to see proper counters to the armor and think it's overpowered. It's not especially given the type of game I'm playing.

As others have mentioned, it doesn’t make much sense for someone to craft non-stop. I split crafting time between the amount actually spent on the item and the time that can be allocated per day while still going about normal business. In my campaign, due to training time and various ship duties, crew members can generally devote 6 hours per day to armor crafting without disrupting regularly scheduled activities. However, shifting rosters with colleagues and digging into free time can increase that to 12 hours a day. Doing so upgrades the check and adds 2 setbacks, along with optional Obligation to the crew members who covered shifts.

• Lowest tier template, normal time investment, 1 attempt per day

• Highest tier template, normal time investment, 1 attempt every 20 days

• Highest tier template, double time investment, 1 attempt every 10 days

Game time is roughly equivalent to real time, so in between games, we shop and craft with rolls on RPol. As for repeated attempts and boosts, I don’t mind so much, since the cost of trying again and again becomes prohibitive, especially for the higher tiers.

Even during play, it's not uncommon for starships to spend a few days in hyperspace. On a light freighter, there may not be much to do to pass the time aside from handcrafting armor in a small shipboard workshop.

1) ... I wisely spent my advantages to get the stuff I needed on the armor that can only be chosen once then used the rest of them for dropping the difficulty for the next roll and adding boost dice.

2) My justifications are in-universe explanations. A custom item that is built for a specific person will always be better than a manufactured mass produced item. Stating that the armorer used quality materials and custom made is real world terms for tailored made specifically to a person. It is the same as going into a tailor's shop to have a custom suit made to order that uses silk and cotton or wool instead of polyester for the cotton and cotton for the silk. The materials are truly better than the off the shelf suit has. It has nothing to do with video games.

3) Jedi/Je'daii and other force using groups that wear armor had always had the ability to shrug off critical injuries. That's canon and lore in Legends. It's not my fault that you lack the ability to see proper counters to the armor and think it's overpowered. It's not especially given the type of game I'm playing.

1) So, if I understand the implications here correctly : you first spend X time to craft a full suit of armour, spending advantages on cool stuff on the armour, including decreasing the difficulty of making that template again and adding boost dice. Then you make the check again, to make another suit of armour. Now this is where I'm uncertain: does the stuff you added to the first suit of armour with the first check "carry over" to the next one you're making, and this time you can add new (the other) stuff? I wasn't under the impression that it worked that way. Neat.

2) I think you ignored something I wrote, more or less any in-game justification acceptable of course (doesn't make them good, but definitely necessary). I questioned your choice of words: "slightly better" (which you have now removed, I see). As armour goes, it is quite a bit better than a heavy battle armour I'd say.

3) As for legends material, sure there's lots about armour, canon on the other hand, not very much (but definitely some). This question is irrelevant though. That this piece of armour is powerful remains (over powered, where did you get that from?), which is pretty cool, I was, or am, just uncertain about the rules working like that (it's pretty cool if it does). Where your assumption that I cannot challenge/counter high soak and defence characters comes from I cannot fathom. Yes, I am aware you're playing a type of game different than I do myself.

1. Yes, it carries over to the next suit until you finish with your crafting the base template if you want to think that way. The other way of thinking about it is a single suit of armor that is being crafted and the crafter is improving it.

2. It's better than mass produced Heavy Battle Armor, but not as good as Power Armor.

3. Fair point.

1. Yes, it carries over to the next suit until you finish with your crafting the base template if you want to think that way. The other way of thinking about it is a single suit of armor that is being crafted and the crafter is improving it.

2. It's better than mass produced Heavy Battle Armor, but not as good as Power Armor.

3. Fair point.

1) I'll have to reread the rules.

2) True, but imagine what you could do with the most difficult template (I cannot recall what it's called just now)... that could be truly devastating.

3

1. Yes, it carries over to the next suit until you finish with your crafting the base template if you want to think that way. The other way of thinking about it is a single suit of armor that is being crafted and the crafter is improving it.

2. It's better than mass produced Heavy Battle Armor, but not as good as Power Armor.

3. Fair point.

1) I'll have to reread the rules.

2) True, but imagine what you could do with the most difficult template (I cannot recall what it's called just now)... that could be truly devastating.

3

The most difficult template is Augmented Armor.

Those bonuses do NOT transfer over to the next set you make. Each attempt is for a unique piece of armor. The only thing that would transfer is the difficulty reduction, as it says "permanently".

Those bonuses do NOT transfer over to the next set you make. Each attempt is for a unique piece of armor. The only thing that would transfer is the difficulty reduction, as it says "permanently".

This is what I thought too.

Those bonuses do NOT transfer over to the next set you make. Each attempt is for a unique piece of armor. The only thing that would transfer is the difficulty reduction, as it says "permanently".

Which our GM stated that it was for making the template better. I'll stick with his decision on the matter.

Understandable enough, I'd do the same

Still, we should perhaps throw the devs a question on this matter? It's always nice to distinguish RAW from house-rules, or the common third option: it's not RAW, but you could do it that way, just beware of the consequences (whatever they may be). Which I guess is the most agreeable answer - and a consideration your GM has already considered.

Understandable enough, I'd do the same

Still, we should perhaps throw the devs a question on this matter? It's always nice to distinguish RAW from house-rules, or the common third option: it's not RAW, but you could do it that way, just beware of the consequences (whatever they may be). Which I guess is the most agreeable answer - and a consideration your GM has already considered.

One thing to remember about the suits we had made by an NPC is that he was highly skilled. Unless a player sinks that many points into Mechanics then they will suffer failures, despairs, and threats that will make the armor have flaws. Their armor may never be as good as what an NPC armorsmith can do. Hence this armor should cost roughly what our group paid for the base suit.

Now the tables for Advantages/Truimphs and Threats/Despairs do not indicate that it is for only one suit of armor. The wording leaves one to believe that this is for actually adjusting the template that you started with and allows you to improve it. It does state that there are options that can only be taken once or twice, but the remaining options are open ended that leads one to believe that this is a continual process of improving the template. This isn't counting the entries for lowering the difficulty for the next roll, the permanent difficulty down by 1 (can be taken once), and the boost dice for the next roll. The same is true for the Threats/Despairs.

This makes it sound like there is a more fleshed out item creation rules set some place outside of the edge of the empire book. Is that correct? Is an edge of the empire version what we should expect from the new technician book coming out in a few months?

Understandable enough, I'd do the same

Still, we should perhaps throw the devs a question on this matter? It's always nice to distinguish RAW from house-rules, or the common third option: it's not RAW, but you could do it that way, just beware of the consequences (whatever they may be). Which I guess is the most agreeable answer - and a consideration your GM has already considered.

One thing to remember about the suits we had made by an NPC is that he was highly skilled. Unless a player sinks that many points into Mechanics then they will suffer failures, despairs, and threats that will make the armor have flaws. Their armor may never be as good as what an NPC armorsmith can do. Hence this armor should cost roughly what our group paid for the base suit.

Now the tables for Advantages/Truimphs and Threats/Despairs do not indicate that it is for only one suit of armor. The wording leaves one to believe that this is for actually adjusting the template that you started with and allows you to improve it. It does state that there are options that can only be taken once or twice, but the remaining options are open ended that leads one to believe that this is a continual process of improving the template. This isn't counting the entries for lowering the difficulty for the next roll, the permanent difficulty down by 1 (can be taken once), and the boost dice for the next roll. The same is true for the Threats/Despairs.

The only quirey I would add onto this is I assume these same rules would also apply to any flaws accumulated in the creation of the armour? I namely ask because I don't have that particular book at hand so can only assume either way and from multiple perspectives.

That being said, I'm beginning to make progress on my first suit of armour, so I will probably report here when it's done, about 5 weeks later in real life. XD In RP the session's are rapidly approaching the battle of Hoth and it's immediate fallout and a close call with the Lord of Sith so my character doesn't really have the time to manufacture multiple suits, just the one out of raw materials he's acquired through a life of crime.

EDIT: And you just convinced me that my next House Rule shall be:

“There is absolutely no cross-over between the Crafting system and the Attachment system. Use one or the other, but you can’t use both.”

This makes it sound like there is a more fleshed out item creation rules set some place outside of the edge of the empire book. Is that correct? Is an edge of the empire version what we should expect from the new technician book coming out in a few months?

Problem is that even without using the crafting system for armor you will still have characters that will be able to add 2 Hard Points to armor and weapons through their talent. You haven't solved the problem of Heavy Battle Armor having 6 Hard Points or Power Armor having 8. Are you going to disallow attachments all together?

EDIT: The only thing that crafting changes is the addition of +1 Soak, +1 Melee Defense, +1 Ranged Defense, and dropping the Encumbrance, to the base template, down in comparison to pre-manufactured armor. That is it.

Yes, the flaws do accumulate if they are able to be taken more than once or twice.