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?

I don’t know what’s coming in the technician book, but I imagine it will look something like what we see for armor crafting in F&D.

As I see it, the difference here is like what we see between the original lightsaber as statted in EotE, versus the more nuanced version we see in F&D.

Can you use the rules in F&D to create a lightsaber that is as good as, or better than, what is found in EotE? Absolutely. But you have either the fully modded “standard” lightsaber from EotE or the one with more bells and whistles that you hand-built using the rules in F&D. You don’t mix and match those systems.

For me, likewise with the armor crafting rules.

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?

I don’t know what’s coming in the technician book, but I imagine it will look something like what we see for armor crafting in F&D.

As I see it, the difference here is like what we see between the original lightsaber as statted in EotE, versus the more nuanced version we see in F&D.

Can you use the rules in F&D to create a lightsaber that is as good as, or better than, what is found in EotE? Absolutely. But you have either the fully modded “standard” lightsaber from EotE or the one with more bells and whistles that you hand-built using the rules in F&D. You don’t mix and match those systems.

For me, likewise with the armor crafting rules.

Where are the armor crafting rules anyway? I'd like to read up on them.

Where are the armor crafting rules anyway? I'd like to read up on them.

They're in Keeping the Peace.

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?

I don’t know what’s coming in the technician book, but I imagine it will look something like what we see for armor crafting in F&D.

As I see it, the difference here is like what we see between the original lightsaber as statted in EotE, versus the more nuanced version we see in F&D.

Can you use the rules in F&D to create a lightsaber that is as good as, or better than, what is found in EotE? Absolutely. But you have either the fully modded “standard” lightsaber from EotE or the one with more bells and whistles that you hand-built using the rules in F&D. You don’t mix and match those systems.

For me, likewise with the armor crafting rules.

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?

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.

Tinkerer is the talent that lets you add Hard Points. For each rank of Tinkerer you choose an item and give it 1 hard point. Items cannot gain more than 1 hard point from Tinkerer.

Are you saying someone with Tinkerer will craft the armor, using advantage to give it an additional hard point, and then use Tinkerer to give it another? You're right. Nothing to stop that.

I think the other guy that commented on crafting vs attachments and mods was more concerned with a fully modded, super crafted suit of armor. That's all. It didn't have much to do with how many hard points it had.

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?

I don’t know what’s coming in the technician book, but I imagine it will look something like what we see for armor crafting in F&D.

As I see it, the difference here is like what we see between the original lightsaber as statted in EotE, versus the more nuanced version we see in F&D.

Can you use the rules in F&D to create a lightsaber that is as good as, or better than, what is found in EotE? Absolutely. But you have either the fully modded “standard” lightsaber from EotE or the one with more bells and whistles that you hand-built using the rules in F&D. You don’t mix and match those systems.

For me, likewise with the armor crafting rules.

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?

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.

Tinkerer is the talent that lets you add Hard Points. For each rank of Tinkerer you choose an item and give it 1 hard point. Items cannot gain more than 1 hard point from Tinkerer.

Are you saying someone with Tinkerer will craft the armor, using advantage to give it an additional hard point, and then use Tinkerer to give it another? You're right. Nothing to stop that.

I think the other guy that commented on crafting vs attachments and mods was more concerned with a fully modded, super crafted suit of armor. That's all. It didn't have much to do with how many hard points it had.

You missed Intuitive Improvements from the Artisan Spec for Sentinels. It allows a force user to add Force Dice no greater than Force Rating to craft or repair an item. It takes 2 Force Points to add 1 Hard Point with a max of 2.

Nope, that's not what I was saying at all. The crafting system allows a character have the armor gain the max of 2 hard points on the spending of Advantages and Triumphs and Tinkerer/Intuitive Improvements cannot increase it. I was talking about a force user using Intuitive Improvements to increase the max hard points for standard items.

I was asking him if he was going to disallow hard points altogether when a character with Intuitive Improvements can add +2 hard points to standard equipment. His solution does not solve the problem of armor with a base of 4 and 6 hard points to be increased through a talent to 6 and 8.

I was asking him if he was going to disallow hard points altogether when a character with Intuitive Improvements can add +2 hard points to standard equipment. His solution does not solve the problem of armor with a base of 4 and 6 hard points to be increased through a talent to 6 and 8.

Intuitive Improvements and Tinkerer are not parts of the crafting system. Therefore, I doubt that I would have a problem with them being applied to armor mass manufactured and bought through the “normal” channels. Moreover, those are both talents that existed before the crafting system, and so I feel that they were designed to be used in that way.

For me, the crafting system itself stands apart from the rest of the game.

At least, that’s my current view. YMMV, etc….

I was asking him if he was going to disallow hard points altogether when a character with Intuitive Improvements can add +2 hard points to standard equipment. His solution does not solve the problem of armor with a base of 4 and 6 hard points to be increased through a talent to 6 and 8.

Intuitive Improvements and Tinkerer are not parts of the crafting system. Therefore, I doubt that I would have a problem with them being applied to armor mass manufactured and bought through the “normal” channels. Moreover, those are both talents that existed before the crafting system, and so I feel that they were designed to be used in that way.

For me, the crafting system itself stands apart from the rest of the game.

At least, that’s my current view. YMMV, etc….

So you'll disallow increasing the hard points on crafted armor when the table clearly says you can spend advantages on it? You'll remove the hard points from crafted armor in order to disallow mods?

So you'll disallow increasing the hard points on crafted armor when the table clearly says you can spend advantages on it? You'll remove the hard points from crafted armor in order to disallow mods?

If they use the crafting rules and spend Advantage on adding hard points to the armor as they are building it, then that wouldn’t be a problem, and would not be a use of Tinkerer or Intuitive Improvements.

That would just be using the crafting rules by themselves, RAW.

So long as you keep the crafting rules separate and distinct from all the other rules that came along for armor attachments and modifications but before the crafting rules were created, I don’t see a problem.

Where I see a problem is if you try to mix-and-match those two methods, or parts thereof.

To be honest, I think I’ve been pretty consistent in this view all along. I’m starting to feel like you are intentionally trolling me, to try and get me to say or do something that we are both likely to regret.

I don’t know why you would enjoy trolling me so much in this regard, but that’s certainly what I’m feeling from you right now.

Now would be a good time for you to explain the reasoning behind your responses, and why you seem to be reaching so hard to try and push all my buttons.

So you'll disallow increasing the hard points on crafted armor when the table clearly says you can spend advantages on it? You'll remove the hard points from crafted armor in order to disallow mods?

If they use the crafting rules and spend Advantage on adding hard points to the armor as they are building it, then that wouldn’t be a problem, and would not be a use of Tinkerer or Intuitive Improvements.

That would just be using the crafting rules by themselves, RAW.

So long as you keep the crafting rules separate and distinct from all the other rules that came along for armor attachments and modifications but before the crafting rules were created, I don’t see a problem.

Where I see a problem is if you try to mix-and-match those two methods, or parts thereof.

To be honest, I think I’ve been pretty consistent in this view all along. I’m starting to feel like you are intentionally trolling me, to try and get me to say or do something that we are both likely to regret.

I don’t know why you would enjoy trolling me so much in this regard, but that’s certainly what I’m feeling from you right now.

Now would be a good time for you to explain the reasoning behind your responses, and why you seem to be reaching so hard to try and push all my buttons.

I'm not. I was asking for clarification on when you said that you would not mix the crafting and attachment rules. I apologize if you thought I was trolling you because I wasn't.

I guess the key thing is armour crafting itself is an optional module, which is availble to use or not. Personally I see a lot of gms not needing these set of rules and that's ok, armour generally isn't a huge deal in the Star Wars lore with only a handful of exceptions so unless I had a character very much into customisation I likely wouldn't bother with its implementation as it adds extra complexity. That's fine, in the same way others are fine to use it

I'm not. I was asking for clarification on when you said that you would not mix the crafting and attachment rules.

Keep in mind that I consider myself flexible on this matter, and if a player were to present me with an idea that I thought was creative and not game-breaking, then I’d probably allow it.

But they would need to convince me. Otherwise, I believe that it would be unnecessary and probably unwise to mix the two systems.

I apologize if you thought I was trolling you because I wasn't.

Fair enough. It felt to me like I was being trolled, but I like to think that I can also admit when my perception of the situation is not in line with the facts of the matter — or the intention.

I know that the thread has moved on but I wanted to say that I modified my program to start from a 2 purple difficulty, stop as soon as the desired armor

(essentially armored clothing plus 1 point of soak and an encumbrance rating of 1 instead of 3 but that has no game mechanical effect because encumbrance minus 3 or zero whichever is greater, i.e. zero in either case is what counts against the weight you are carrying)

Was achieved and on any roll where you didn't get enough triumph/advantage to make it if there was triumph onemail would be spent to on armor schematic until there were no purple dice left.... and I ran it 10,000 rather than 100 times to ensure good statistics and the median time to get a roll sufficient to make that "armored clothing plus 1 soak" was 20 attempts or 120 hours or 10 days with 2 6hour attempts each day... the translation is that there is a greater than 50% chance that you could make in under 10 days for less than or equal to 500 credits even if you weren't selling any "heavy clothing" at half price/cost of materials provided that your base pool of positive dice was 3 yellow

So I finally got around to reading the chapter about making armor. . . .

Boo Yah it's now good to be an awesome tailor in EotE.

If someone tried to pull that in my game, I would say "Knock that S off" and get back to telling a story instead of sitting around rolling dice 24 times in a row. And if the tailor really needed money that badly, I'd just give him 5,000 credits, tell him to knock that S off and get back to telling a story.

***EDIT***

That said, I don't think these rules are too crazy powerful or anything. After reading the chapter, I decided to roll some bones with my Tech (and with some conjecture on where I'll be going with her in the next 100 or so XP) and see how the system plays out.

She has 3 yellow in her Build Crap skill, and then I assumed picking up Outlaw Tech and make a beeline down towards Inventor for two blues. And then I assumed a helper also with Mechanics (for one more blue) and a workbench with tools and stuff (a fourth blue).

Even with all that against the 3 purples, I was on version 3.0 of the armor before I was able to get the difficulty to simple. 3,750 credits and six days straight later and I had a good, solid base to work with. Mind you then it was still another 7,000 credits to trick out all those hard points.

So yeah, for 10 grand and 144 hours of work, I had some bitchin' armor.

So I finally got around to reading the chapter about making armor. . . .

Boo Yah it's now good to be an awesome tailor in EotE.

If someone tried to pull that in my game, I would say "Knock that S off" and get back to telling a story instead of sitting around rolling dice 24 times in a row. And if the tailor really needed money that badly, I'd just give him 5,000 credits, tell him to knock that S off and get back to telling a story.

***EDIT***

That said, I don't think these rules are too crazy powerful or anything. After reading the chapter, I decided to roll some bones with my Tech (and with some conjecture on where I'll be going with her in the next 100 or so XP) and see how the system plays out.

She has 3 yellow in her Build Crap skill, and then I assumed picking up Outlaw Tech and make a beeline down towards Inventor for two blues. And then I assumed a helper also with Mechanics (for one more blue) and a workbench with tools and stuff (a fourth blue).

Even with all that against the 3 purples, I was on version 3.0 of the armor before I was able to get the difficulty to simple. 3,750 credits and six days straight later and I had a good, solid base to work with. Mind you then it was still another 7,000 credits to trick out all those hard points.

So yeah, for 10 grand and 144 hours of work, I had some bitchin' armor.

well the point of the program I wrote was to make a table so that you could just roll a percentile once and figure how long it would take/how much it cost... and also to look at the table and decide whether what you wanted was too ambitious because it wasn't worth "rolling the dice several hundred times" (which translates to in game crafting time, because hey with the percentile table you don't actually have to roll dice several hundred times to get to the end result) I did name the thread "accelerating armor crafting" for a reason

EDIT

and as a public service, if anyone wants me to generate a custom armor crafting percentile table just tell me what the minimum acceptable set of features is, the current difficulty, your base positive dice pool, and I post the percentile table or PM it to you

So I finally got around to reading the chapter about making armor. . . .

Boo Yah it's now good to be an awesome tailor in EotE.

If someone tried to pull that in my game, I would say "Knock that S off" and get back to telling a story instead of sitting around rolling dice 24 times in a row. And if the tailor really needed money that badly, I'd just give him 5,000 credits, tell him to knock that S off and get back to telling a story.

That's about my take in it, to the point that if a player tried that sort of stunt, I'd simply tell them to not bother showing up to the session until they intend to have their character actually contribute to the adventure. And if they stop showing up because I refuse to indulge their cheesy power-gaming efforts, so be it.

So what would count as "the right tools for the job" of making reinforced clothing, what should that cost, and what other ways could you gain a boost die, because with 2 boost dice as base it drops the time in half. I know the inventor talent but that's a little hard to get

Tool-wise, for making armor, it depends on what type of armor you’re making.

If it’s a normal soft armor, then you’d want the right heavy duty sewing machines (or SWRPG equivalent), to work with the toughened material.

If it’s a hard armor, you’d want whatever type of forge/anvil/etc… as appropriate to working with that type of hard material. If it’s a plastoid hard material, you might have to devise a special tool for that.

For armor like Sakiyan Shadowsuits, you’d want special equipment to properly handle the ultra-delicate silk from the Umbraspider.

So, my starting point would be to try to figure out what the closest real-world analog would be to handle those kinds of materials, then try to figure out what the SWRPG equivalent would be.

As to what that would cost, how expensive it would be, etc… then your guess is as good as mine.

If you got skilled or unskilled assistance from someone who was from a species that was particularly noted for being extra helpful, that could also give you an extra boost. Isn’t Drall one of those species? And maybe Togruta?

Togruta provide two boosts when providing unskilled assistance. Drall add a boost when providing skilled assistance.

my selling heavy clothing at materials cost was a little too generous, table 3-20, crafting sell prices, on page 91 of special modification says I get to make a 5% profit when the crafter has no specific buyer on the open market, for the median outcome I would have made 20 attempts in 10 days failing one getting the one outfit I wanted and having 18 sets of heavy clothing

18/4=450 credits, 5% of 450 credits is 22.5 credits to show for it... and assuming I getting by paid for my labor in food by peasants that seems about right for 10 days (but it's off camera at game beginning so I wouldn't get those credits). and I need to spend the 25 credits for the materials for my own suit which has

soak 2, defense 1/1, 1 hard point, and is sealable.

Keep in mind that I consider myself flexible on this matter, and if a player were to present me with an idea that I thought was creative and not game-breaking, then I’d probably allow it.

But they would need to convince me. Otherwise, I believe that it would be unnecessary and probably unwise to mix the two systems.

I'm hesitant to reopen this can of worms, but it seems like an odd stance to me, given that the systems are pretty clearly intended to work together. There would be no point in crafting armor with any hard points at all, much less additional ones with good rolls, if you couldn't actually use them for attachments. Moreover, in the same books that they've added crafting rules, they've also added new, moddable attachments, which further suggests that they are supposed to work together, rather than have one system supplant the other.

Setting aside the question of intent, though, I'm not sure the interaction between the two systems creates any balance problems. Armor crafting mainly seems to be able to add defense or soak or reduce encumbrance relative to stock armor. Attachments, in contrast, almost never move those numbers. With few exceptions, you can't slap an attachment on your armor and get better soak, but you can add various utility effects that don't have a direct impact on survivability. Since there is little in the way of stacking effects between the two systems, it seems more like another method for PCs to burn money than something that has an exponential impact on their power level. I'm not trying to tell you how to run your game, but I am wondering what you are seeing that I am not that has you concerned about the interplay.

At this stage, I’d have to go back and re-read the rules and see if my view has changed or not.

If it has, I’d have to look at the reasons why.

Looking again over the rules for building stuff, I think the time, skill and resources needed to put together some armor are more than enough to balance the usefulness of Mods+DIY Spiffs. Lets assume for a second you want to put together some Killer Combat Armor. 1,250 credits, a 3 difficulty and 48 hours to build it.

Lets say that we're shooting for a good enough roll to get us Extra Soak (4 advantage or a triumph) , Extra Ranged Defense (3 advantage or a triumph) and an Extra Melee Defense (2 advantage or a triumph). That's a pretty good armor on top of the 3 hard points for after market add ons.

So, our hypothetical Outlaw Tech with a 3 INT and a starting skill of 2 - probably not going to be good enough right out of the box to get the results we want. So, 15 XP to get up to a 3 skill - closer but not there yet - and a 4th rank at 20 XP. So 35 XP in the hole, and we still not ready to roll dice.

We could spend a DP to turn that last remaining skill rank into a yellow, but we want to be able to do this reliably. So down to the dedication we go, to get the 4th yellow. so another 100 points - but we get the inventor talent along the way - and since we're doing all this work, lets drop the extra 40 XP to pick up the second inventor. Our roll is now 4 yellows and two blues (and what the hell, lets throw a DP after it for a green, too).

Our first stop will probably be that sweet, sweet Armor Schematic to drop the difficulty. Now actually sitting here, rolling the dice, it took me three attempts to break the 3 Advantage barrier (actually it came in the form of a double triumph). So we'll learn the schematic and go with a Lessons Learned, to make the next roll one more easier. And I picked up a couple of advantage, so lets go with 2 more Lesson Learned to make this 4th roll a simple check.

That roll? 8 advantage, no triumphs (story of my life it seems). So we could get a +1 soak and melee defense, but not enough to bag us the ranged defense. So go with lightweight and sealable, because why waste advantages?

So - 192 manhours (nearly five 40 hour work weeks), 175 XP (assuming we do nothing but dedicate our lives to building this armor) and 5,000 credits - and we actually haven't purchased any of the mods yet. We could easily drop another eight grand filling up all the mod slots. That's a HELL of a lot of resources and time for a pretty good but not Boba Fett-ish level suit of armor.

So - 192 manhours (nearly five 40 hour work weeks), 175 XP (assuming we do nothing but dedicate our lives to building this armor) and 5,000 credits - and we actually haven't purchased any of the mods yet. We could easily drop another eight grand filling up all the mod slots. That's a HELL of a lot of resources and time for a pretty good but not Boba Fett-ish level suit of armor.

One problem with the whole crafting system is that it does something that has never been done before in FFG SWRPG — it turns time into a fungible commodity.

Before, time was like many other things in the game — purely narrative, or at least earned and spent according to PLOT as opposed to anything that necessarily must always make sense.

Now, time is a fungible commodity, basically just like credits.

Sure, the player gets something for that time, but that’s a whole ‘nother layer of added work for the GM,in order to make that part of the system work relative to all the other moving parts in the game.

It literally adds a whole new dimension to the game which didn’t previously exist.

It’s like we’re all two dimensional Flatlanders, and suddenly our entire Universe gets picked up and tossed around in 3D space. Now we don’t know what to do as we slowly start falling, but we will never again be able to achieve that normal plane of existence, because it is just gone — we are now beings who live in a 3D Universe, even though we have no experience in doing that.

Sure, as GM, you can refuse to use that part of the system. But what players are going to want to not be able to take advantage of this new shiny thing?

I know the guys at FFG have given a lot of thought to this and tried to make it as balanced as they can, because that’s just how they work.

But there’s a huge difference between adding this kind of complexity to a game system while you’re developing all the other parts in synchronization, and adding this kind of complexity when the core of the system has already been published and well-understood for years.

Oy.

Sure, the player gets something for that time, but that’s a whole ‘nother layer of added work for the GM,in order to make that part of the system work relative to all the other moving parts in the game.

Not necessarily - A GM could easily handwave the time:

"So you guys dodge the last TIE and make the jump to hyperspace."

"Cool! How long will it take us to get to Ryloth?"

"Oh, about 60 hours"

"Fantastic, I put 30 of that into working on my Bithin' Armor"

*player makes note on sheet*

"Right, so screen wipe to you guys dropping out of Hyperspace in high orbit above Ryloth. . . ."

I would figure that the onerous is on the player to track how long they've put into the armor - if you want The Thing, you should be mindful to keep the ducks in a row - so no real extra bookkeeping on the GM's end.

Or you could just throw Gonna Fly Now on the MP3 player and montage it!