I was excited about the addition of the crafting rules in the latest book, particularly with the addition of the 'modder' that was described as being the guy that customized all the things. I got the book last night and while the crafting system could be fun I was rather disappointed with the Modder. Adding in the vehicle stuff is nice but I was really looking forward to more ranks of Inventor. Which given how the crafting works makes a lot of sense for the modder to have. Not only does the modder /not/ have inventor it doesn't have any way of adding blue dice or advantages to crafting/modding. At least the droid and cyber person have a new talent that lets them swap hits for advantage which would have been awesome for the modder as well but wah wah, no dice. I do enjoy the book and a lot of the gear will come in very handy as soon as I can scrounge up the creds but I am stuck with going outside of my profession in search of more inventor I'm afraid.

What do you guys think? Like the new Modder class? Hate the gear?

I give the book thumbs up still, just a little let down by the part I was most excited for.

I didn't know what to expect from Modder. I don't know how many ranks of Inventor you really need though, between a good Mechanics rank and Intellect and a couple ranks of it in Outlaw Tech, there aren't many modding scenarios that are going to be particularly hard. In the end I'd say it's #3 of the 3 for my tastes, but not a bad spec.

Great book overall.

What kills me a little is how much gearhead you can get your hands on. If you think 2 blue dice are plenty just how many blacks do I really need to get rid of?

I was really hoping that the Modder was going to be this super cool Macguyer tree, but really I think the Outlaw Tech is the superior Macguyver tree. While the vehicle aspect is cool, it's the Tool Belt talent that tips the scale for me.

What kills me a little is how much gearhead you can get your hands on. If you think 2 blue dice are plenty just how many blacks do I really need to get rid of?

I think most folks agree, as do I, the 'ditch setback' Talents are not all that exciting, and it gets to the point where you have to include a ton for the sake of PCs not feeling like they wasted xp on them.

Outlaw tech is the MacGuyver guy.

'Modder' seems to be the EoE version of the Rigger in some ways.

No reason you can't take 'em both. They are clearly intended to be complimentary.

I really dig the coat O tools in the armor section. I'm hopping if I get that and spend the extra on the custom tool set that he'll let me use those with the coat so I can the extra blue that way as well. Have to wait and see when I can save up enough. Neither are cheap!

No reason you can't take 'em both. They are clearly intended to be complimentary.

Well, other than I have WAAAAAY too many things to buy and not nearly enough points to go around! If my engineer doesn't wind up being 1,500 points by the end of the campaign, I'd be shocked.

No reason you can't take 'em both. They are clearly intended to be complimentary.

Well, other than I have WAAAAAY too many things to buy and not nearly enough points to go around! If my engineer doesn't wind up being 1,500 points by the end of the campaign, I'd be shocked.

Fair enough, but our Outlaw Tech loved taking Modder.

I get the impression most 'movie characters' like Lando would be 1000-1500 XP, three Spec characters anyway.

It's all about Custom Grip...Just think, that w/ Blaster Actuating Mod, and Poof no more Black Dice!!!

MUHHUHUHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

If I work at a garage, am I good in construction of vehicles? Inventor is rightfully not there...

I wasn't really interested in Modder, more of what Droids I could make, and the book was kind of lacking in that department. I wanted just an Rival chasis for a combat droid, since my mechanic is garbage at combat. But there really doesn't seem to be a good way to make a combat droid unless its the advanced combat nemesis. I guess I was just hoping for something in between the two. I am looking forward to making some extra cash from selling my droids though. What are your guys thoughts?

I don't think the devs wanted PCs able to crank out packs of combat droids on the cheap or it would get unbalanced pretty quick. Just my thoughts.

Seems like the inbetween would be the labor chassis. Labor droid converted for the combats. Just need to a hand full of those pesky advantage to up agility, add a little armor and your off to the races.

Modder was the spec I was looking forward to the most. It's not bad, but the Signature Vehicle side is sorta lacking.

I don't have all the vehicle attachments memorized, but I'm not sure 2 Hard Points is likely to equal everything that Rigger can add to their vehicle:

+2 Handling

+1 to all Limited Ammo

+1 Armor

+1 Hull Trauma

+2 System Strain

+1 Massive

I'm personally quite surprised at the obvious gap right in the middle of the ranged weapon crafting rules. The 'Heavy Energy Rifle' template has the stat-line of a heavy rifle, but has Gunnery as a skill and seems to take the place of an actual heavy weapon template. I'm looking at a weapon crafting ruleset that is unable to duplicate a repeating blaster, barring enough luck on advantages and triumphs that you accidentally make one with the weight of a rifle. Also, the melee weapon crating templates conspicuously lack anything that doesn't scale with Brawn, which is a bit odd (albeit less glaring).

GMs can, of course, fix these oversights, but the ruleset exists to make fewer house rules necessary in the first place.

Done a few die roll testing and I am still of the opinion that modder needed inventor and/or eye for detail. 3 purple pretty much blow even a decent die pool out of water in terms of advantage. Not a deal breaker, I do like they added the ship stuff but for a specialty kinda geared toward the crafting rules they didn't get much love.

Done a few die roll testing and I am still of the opinion that modder needed inventor and/or eye for detail. 3 purple pretty much blow even a decent out of water in terms of advantage. Not a deal breaker, I do like they added the ship stuff but for a specialty kinda geared toward the crafting rules they didn't get much love.

Eye for Detail is so good for Crafting it's almost required. I almost wish they had a sidebar saying "If you want, you could swap this talent into the original spec trees in location X and Y."

Done a few die roll testing and I am still of the opinion that modder needed inventor and/or eye for detail. 3 purple pretty much blow even a decent die pool out of water in terms of advantage. Not a deal breaker, I do like they added the ship stuff but for a specialty kinda geared toward the crafting rules they didn't get much love.

I am sure something can and needs to be done except a raw roll. Any source for Boost dice (or upgrades, if your GM is extra nice) that would enrich the story. After a few unwanted prototypes, in your elite workshop, with that specific arcane part, and you'll get your perfect creation.

Modder definitely gets less on the vehicle improvement side than Rigger, but it also gets more stuff that the Technician can use at the personal scale. I could see myself picking Modder as a starting tree in a game where we were starting with a cool ship, but it wasn't clear how much action would happen while piloting it. In contrast, I would need to be very confident that a campaign was going to be heavily focused on vehicle combat before I picked Rigger as my starting spec.

Bear in mind also that Modder gets Natural Tinkerer, which is a great thing to have in your back pocket when you flub that roll to modify an attachment or build an item that you've gone through the trouble of laying groundwork for with prior crafting attempts. And if you do screw up that modification roll, Resourceful Refit basically nullifies the cost of replacing the attachment so you can try again.

Ah, isn't the key in the name, though?

Not to be Captain Obvious, but a Modder modifies things. They take something existing and change it to suit their needs. They don't invent new things. That's really where Modder shines, maximizing the potential of an existing weapon or ship so they can slap more mods on it.

Fair Blackbird888, I can buy that for not having 'eye for detail' as it dose nothing to help mod an attachment but inventor does help with modding attachments and would have been a great replacement to Resolve which .... doesn't really fit imo. Or better yet a couple more red abilities aimed directly at modding attachments beyond just pulling an old one off to put a new one on. Just feels like it didn't quite make it to the right spot. That being said I do agree that it is a good first specialization and I wish my game had started a few weeks later!

But they have Gearhead, which removes the setbacks on all Mechanics checks, and reduces the cost of buying attachments. Resolve is a bit floaty, but it's kind of like Grit/Toughened, and wouldn't it prevent suffering strain on rolling Threat? And seeing as they can take a combat role (Gunnery and Piloting (Space)) it's a useful thing to have in that area.

Question about Sensor Drones//decoys...

Are the for 1 Decoy/500 or is it a set or some other number of them?? Please clarify!

It says it must be reattached after being jettisoned, so I'm guessing it's a single device.