Hey guys,sorry if this is somewhere else, if it is let me know an I'll start posting there; but I'm looking for advice; so I have a PC who eventually would like to acquire a set of Mandalorian Armor; so I'm trying to find a fair way of correctly stating the armor, while remaining true to the power of Beskar'gam. My PC sent me a a website of some Mandalorian Armor being having stats, but I'm unsure of the system used for it... here is the link to the website that was sent to me.

http://rpggamer.org/stats.php?page=d6/d6mandalorianarmour.html&name=Mandalorian%20Battle%20Armour

Thanks guys for your help!

The heavy battle armor lists Mandalorian shock trooper armor as one of its models. I would just take heavy battle armor, give it Cortosis and be done with it. If you go to RPG.buzz and download the Spark of Rebellion fan supplement, there's a set of fan made stats in there as well.

Ancient suits might qualify as having Cortosis, but modern makes probably do without it.

Well, all the cool stuff - rocket pack, wrist laser, motion sensor, frappuccino machine - is all just equipment taking up hard points. Most of the Badassness of the Mandolorian is in the story and the setting, not the game mechanics. I'd probably just call it Laminate Armor, give it Superior, perhaps Cortosis and call it a day.

Oh boy, Mandalorian armor. OK first off, let me be extremely blunt: if your player is expecting Traviss **** armor, the system does not support this . Mind, that's largely because Traviss was more or less completely clueless when it came to Wars tech (you can debate other aspects of her writing, but this is the author who wrote verpine shatter guns were effective against Jedi because they had fast projectiles , studiously ignored the existence of stunners, and had interstellar FTL sensors on ships, to name a few examples. Its was so terrible it was hilarious). More or less directly as a result her works tech was extremely weird compared to, well, most of the rest of canon, and that definitely includes this RPG. Unless the character makes a significant appropriate XP investment (and likely credit for that matter!) they're not going to be able to shed lightsaber blows or blaster bolts the way Traviss-writing armor allowed.

Beyond that, understand Mandalorian armor is honestly more of a style then an exact set of materials and capabilities, and varies wildly from work to work and era to era (and character to character!). Generally speaking , you don't need more then Heavy Battle Armor for Fett style stuff: it has the appropriate number of Hard Points to be modded extensively, which quite honestly is more important to being Mandalorian armor then the ability to repel lightsabers. I mean, the latter comes and goes, but Mandalorian armor is always tricked out with gadgets and customization. Someone like Sabine's armor takes more work, but not much: the customizable or deflective armor templates from Keeping the Peace are a good place to start for those. Mind, 90% of the time when people ask for Mandalorian armor, they mean the classic stuff, so that's honestly less of an issue.

Now, since you mention beskar'gam, I'm just going to need to echo everyone else here: Cortosis Weave attachment from the EotE core. That's all you need to add. Or you know, just add the Cortosis quality to the Segmented Armor template (basically the same as Heavy Battle Armor)..Superior is just overkill to emphasis the 'oooh, look how special this armor' is, and quite frankly I'd limit it to a) something the PC adds themselves, or b) really storied armor to set it apart from the rank and file.

And this is where I need to talk cost and rarity, because assuming you take the Heavy Battle Armor + Cortosis Weave attachment route, this armor is going to cost 15,000 credits , be Rarity 8 and be Restricted. So that gives a solid point of comparison for cost and difficulty to find. And remember, at this time the game is set the Empire is confiscating all the beskar'gam it can get its hands on, to say nothing of any other assorted low-lives and collectors that find the stuff shiney. At this point, we're pretty much talking lightsaber hard to find, and the people who have it probably want to keep it. But its also rare enough to have a history for each suit of armor. All of this, IMHO, is great: lots of potential plot hooks in there.

Overall, mechanically it doesn't have to be that special: and the Corotis quality alone is rare enough that its virtually priceless. And yeah, a lot of Mandalorian armor isn't going to be made of beskar'gam, because Mandalorians exist beyond Mandalore, the trade in the stuff is highly restricted, the art of working it even moreso, and there is no cultural symbol of the Mandalorians like their armor. So even if they can't get traditional materials, that's not going to stop them (or copy cats) from making the symbol of their culture (and Mandalorian's with proper beskar'gam armor being horribly snobbish about it).

Now, this is all how I would handle mandalorian armor in the setting and system. My more general advise to you would be to sit down with your player and figure out what his expectations for this armor are, and tailor to that. Because that document linked has four different armors, with the usual light-medium-heavy D&D armor categorization, something this system definitely lacks, and also makes it impossible to determine what your player actually wants . With how gadget laden those stat blocks are, they might not even have heard of beskar'gam and just want a HUD and jet pack! (BTW, don't discount standard gear: jetpacks are there for one, wrist mounted blasters are off in an attachment for blaster pistols, and energy shields from The Clone Wars are off in weapons in another section).

So yeah, I could talk till my face is blue on the subject, but as it stands you haven't really given enough information for me to be sure any of it will be helpful to you and your situation. Hope some this helps anyways.

Mechanically, there's really nothing to separate a stock/off-the-shelf set of Mando armor from any other type of armor. For instance, the padded armor in the corebooks could just as easily be described as a Mando-style chest plate, while the Fett get-up is heavy battle armor with a host of weapon attachments. Sabine's armor is probably best created through the armor template system in Keeping the Peace, although you could use laminate armor as a starting point, especially her Season 2 get-up.

Mando iron is incredibly rare, and sets of armor made of that stuff are going to be very difficult to find, but mechanically it would be covered under the Cortosis quality in terms of it being able to stand up to lightsabers. Of course, bear in mind that lightsabers can easily have base damage ratings between 8 to 10, so even a full set of proper beskar'gam isn't going to completely protect you from a lightsaber strike, to say nothing of likelihood of critical injuries, which can be more debilitating in the long run for a PC than wound damage.

But by in large, Vesp pretty much hit the nail on the head.

The Mandalorian NPC in my game is currently equipped with his suit of Mandalorian armor. To get it, I actually used the Armor Crafting rules from Keeping the Peace. I used the Augmentative Armor as a baseline and rolled for the construction from there. I had him make his own, as Mandalorians generally are taught to care for their own armor and are xenophobic enough to not want anyone outside of another Mandalorian knowing how to make/maintain it (why give away one of your greatest advantages?). Alternatively, if you want to say that he bought a suit, assume that the armor is basic Augmentative stats with the crafter having rolled a Success, and start it with the base stats (which aren't bad to begin with). I ruled that the Augmentative armor types where all "specialized" armors known to only a few rare crafters - Mandalorian armor being one of these. Essentially, in order to build "Augmentative Armor" you needed a justification for it - being Mandalorian was one such justification.

In either case, if you look at Jango and Boba's armors, they are different (Jango's being 'heavier' in appearance - consisting of more plates and less fabric, while Bob's looks considerably lights in the legs and more mobile). You could easily say that any armor template can be used, and that the Mandalorian "appearance" is cosmetic.

One thing to keep in mind is that anyone wearing obvious armor is going to attract attention, so assuming that he does get the tricked out armor, the local law enforcement of most "civilized" areas should take exception to the fact that he's wearing in in there locale or at least the other locals should avoid him like the plague.

This is the big reason that my favorite armor template from keeping the peace is reinforced clothing.

Oh boy, Mandalorian armor. OK first off, let me be extremely blunt: if your player is expecting Traviss **** armor, the system does not support this .

Actually, the system does support it. The Armor Crafting rules from Keeping the Peace along with the Superior and Cortosis Weave attachments on a top-end suit does create something extremely potent.

One thing to keep in mind is that anyone wearing obvious armor is going to attract attention, so assuming that he does get the tricked out armor, the local law enforcement of most "civilized" areas should take exception to the fact that he's wearing in in there locale or at least the other locals should avoid him like the plague.

This is the big reason that my favorite armor template from keeping the peace is reinforced clothing.

Perhaps, but not every group frequents such civilized areas. There are a lot of backwaters and rough neighborhoods in the SW Galaxy that probably don't say anything about personal armor. Groups from any of the game lines have good reasons to frequent such places--avoiding the Empire being the obvious--so obvious armor on PCs isn't necessarily a problem.

Oh boy, Mandalorian armor. OK first off, let me be extremely blunt: if your player is expecting Traviss **** armor, the system does not support this . Mind, that's largely because Traviss was more or less completely clueless when it came to Wars tech (you can debate other aspects of her writing, but this is the author who wrote verpine shatter guns were effective against Jedi because they had fast projectiles , studiously ignored the existence of stunners, and had interstellar FTL sensors on ships, to name a few examples. Its was so terrible it was hilarious). More or less directly as a result her works tech was extremely weird compared to, well, most of the rest of canon, and that definitely includes this RPG. Unless the character makes a significant appropriate XP investment (and likely credit for that matter!) they're not going to be able to shed lightsaber blows or blaster bolts the way Traviss-writing armor allowed.

Beyond that, understand Mandalorian armor is honestly more of a style then an exact set of materials and capabilities, and varies wildly from work to work and era to era (and character to character!). Generally speaking , you don't need more then Heavy Battle Armor for Fett style stuff: it has the appropriate number of Hard Points to be modded extensively, which quite honestly is more important to being Mandalorian armor then the ability to repel lightsabers. I mean, the latter comes and goes, but Mandalorian armor is always tricked out with gadgets and customization. Someone like Sabine's armor takes more work, but not much: the customizable or deflective armor templates from Keeping the Peace are a good place to start for those. Mind, 90% of the time when people ask for Mandalorian armor, they mean the classic stuff, so that's honestly less of an issue.

Now, since you mention beskar'gam, I'm just going to need to echo everyone else here: Cortosis Weave attachment from the EotE core. That's all you need to add. Or you know, just add the Cortosis quality to the Segmented Armor template (basically the same as Heavy Battle Armor)..Superior is just overkill to emphasis the 'oooh, look how special this armor' is, and quite frankly I'd limit it to a) something the PC adds themselves, or b) really storied armor to set it apart from the rank and file.

And this is where I need to talk cost and rarity, because assuming you take the Heavy Battle Armor + Cortosis Weave attachment route, this armor is going to cost 15,000 credits , be Rarity 8 and be Restricted. So that gives a solid point of comparison for cost and difficulty to find. And remember, at this time the game is set the Empire is confiscating all the beskar'gam it can get its hands on, to say nothing of any other assorted low-lives and collectors that find the stuff shiney. At this point, we're pretty much talking lightsaber hard to find, and the people who have it probably want to keep it. But its also rare enough to have a history for each suit of armor. All of this, IMHO, is great: lots of potential plot hooks in there.

Overall, mechanically it doesn't have to be that special: and the Corotis quality alone is rare enough that its virtually priceless. And yeah, a lot of Mandalorian armor isn't going to be made of beskar'gam, because Mandalorians exist beyond Mandalore, the trade in the stuff is highly restricted, the art of working it even moreso, and there is no cultural symbol of the Mandalorians like their armor. So even if they can't get traditional materials, that's not going to stop them (or copy cats) from making the symbol of their culture (and Mandalorian's with proper beskar'gam armor being horribly snobbish about it).

Now, this is all how I would handle mandalorian armor in the setting and system. My more general advise to you would be to sit down with your player and figure out what his expectations for this armor are, and tailor to that. Because that document linked has four different armors, with the usual light-medium-heavy D&D armor categorization, something this system definitely lacks, and also makes it impossible to determine what your player actually wants . With how gadget laden those stat blocks are, they might not even have heard of beskar'gam and just want a HUD and jet pack! (BTW, don't discount standard gear: jetpacks are there for one, wrist mounted blasters are off in an attachment for blaster pistols, and energy shields from The Clone Wars are off in weapons in another section).

So yeah, I could talk till my face is blue on the subject, but as it stands you haven't really given enough information for me to be sure any of it will be helpful to you and your situation. Hope some this helps anyways.

I do not even remember traditional mandalorian armor worn by death watch to have cortosis weaved into the armor. It looked like lightsabers worked just fine against the armor. But to be fair, I can not remember a light saber hitting the armor in all of the clone wars series. What I do remember is that this armor has been described as essential to mandalorian culture and seeing a lot of customizations to each armor made. Basically using hardpoints to add a lot of tools and gadgets, often combined with using jetpacks for the extra mobility in combat.Now melee weapons with cortosis against jedi is a completely different thing. ;-)

I made a bad guy in some armor like that, without the weave because blowing off breach and pierce would make it hard to have balanced battles. One guy who you need rocket launchers to touch and everyone else being threatened by a heavy blast pistol is too much trouble. Of course the crew split up the gear, one guy got the armor, another his heavy blast rifle and the jet pack went to someone else.

Now, the easiest way to get something to a PC that he wants, especially when it is stupidly expensive, is to let them loot the body of a butt kicking bounty hunter looking for them. But its not good for player happiness if one guy gets the cool armor with jet pack and integral weapon systems and every one else gets a few blaster pistols and vibroknives. So you might need to drop a few cool bits for the others here and there to keep the peace to build to the moment when this player who has passed on the other cool tech that has dropped in their lap says that he'd really like the guys suit and gear.

My son is playing a force sensitive that has been slowly developing the abilities. When it came to the time to get him a lightsaber I made sure everyone got something cool as a reward when he got the holocron and the crystal that allowed the ships chief engineer to scavenge the parts and build him the lightsaber. Not to mention giving him a way to justify learning a Jedi style. Now fish boy is on he way to being Darth Squidious, unless he finds a live teacher. Hmm.... maybe he needs to say something to Commander Skywalker while he is still on Hoth so he can share the message from Obi-Wan. After all Han has just brought his buddy back from the ridge and will be giving fish boy a security briefing in this weeks game. A few weeks with Yoda would set him right. Hmm....

Actually, the system does support it. The Armor Crafting rules from Keeping the Peace along with the Superior and Cortosis Weave attachments on a top-end suit does create something extremely potent.

Potent, yes. If you use the systems there, and in the hands of a skilled armorer, your going to get something very nasty.

However, you are not going to get 'oh noes, my lightsaber is useless' armor. Which was roughly how Traviss ran it for all Mandalorian Armor (despite the NJO coming out of fighting a major war against an opponent that extensively used lightsaber resistant armor and it making no sense at all). And being entirely blunt, suggesting all Mandalorian armor is soak 4 (the highest you can get in the system) monstrosities that cost half as much as a TIE fighter is stupid. Certainly highly customized ones, sure. All of them? Ahahahaha **** no .

(You probably could make a mostly Lightsaber resistant character, but it would take substantial Brawn, Soak boosting talents, and Durable on top of your super armor.)

I do not even remember traditional mandalorian armor worn by death watch to have cortosis weaved into the armor. It looked like lightsabers worked just fine against the armor. But to be fair, I can not remember a light saber hitting the armor in all of the clone wars series. What I do remember is that this armor has been described as essential to mandalorian culture and seeing a lot of customizations to each armor made. Basically using hardpoints to add a lot of tools and gadgets, often combined with using jetpacks for the extra mobility in combat.Now melee weapons with cortosis against jedi is a completely different thing. ;-)

Obi-Wan cuts right through the stuff on at least one occasion, so yeah the Clone Wars was not going with Traviss interpretation of things (to put it mildly). Mind, Mandalorian iron being lightsaber resistant dates back to Tales of the Jedi, when Exar Kun had to get past the stuff to access Freedon Nadd's tomb. Which he did (after his first lightsaber blow failed) by grabbing the dark side, and hitting it really hard with his lightsaber. And that was significantly thicker and heavier then any armor a Mandalorian would ever wear.

There is a reason (ok, several) I find Traviss's take on beskar ludicrous and eyeroll worthy. But putting that aside, I actually agree with you: Mandalorian armor is more important as a cultural symbol, and in most media is more defined by the number of gadgets built in then it ever has been by its ability to shrug off lightsabers. Jango Fett, Canderous Ordo, Pre Vizla... none of them needed lightsaber resistant armor to be a threat. Hell, Jango Fett and Pre Vizla had considerably better fights without it! But inevitably when this come up, the first words out of people mouths are for lightsaber resistance, as opposed to the ability to fly .

Jetpacks kick posterior! I need to get one for my old clone trooper character somehow. I will lose a rifle if that's what it takes to fly around. Hmm.... I guess that means I'm trying to keep up with the Fetts.

To be fair, Cortosis is something I reserve for very rare cases of Mandalorian Armor - Mace seemed to cut through Jango's armor just fine ... (just sayin'). Despite Vesp's hatred of all things Traviss, the system does support the idea of highly specialized armors - especially in the form of crafting them.

It's important to remember that the armor of the Mandalorian warrior was always intended to be noteworthy (the only note about the "bounty hunter" in Lucas' notes was he wore the armor of the Mandalorian warriors that battled the Jedi - meaning that even at this early stage they were a significant icon). As such, it's fine to say that the cost of Mandalorian armor makes it prohibitive for anyone to possess a suit - this then gives a simple reason for it being noteworthy.

To be fair, Cortosis is something I reserve for very rare cases of Mandalorian Armor - Mace seemed to cut through Jango's armor just fine ... (just sayin'). Despite Vesp's hatred of all things Traviss, the system does support the idea of highly specialized armors - especially in the form of crafting them.

It's important to remember that the armor of the Mandalorian warrior was always intended to be noteworthy (the only note about the "bounty hunter" in Lucas' notes was he wore the armor of the Mandalorian warriors that battled the Jedi - meaning that even at this early stage they were a significant icon). As such, it's fine to say that the cost of Mandalorian armor makes it prohibitive for anyone to possess a suit - this then gives a simple reason for it being noteworthy.

Hey, I really like the idea of highly specialized armors, and Mandalorians are basically the place to do it. I just have no respect for Traviss as a Star Wars writer. Part of that is likely the last book of hers I read was No Prisoners, which was pretty terrible on a few levels, but regarding Mandalorian armor it comes from two sources: 1) her grasp of Wars tech is terrible and 2) she has very clearly defined biases in a few areas, most notably the Jedi. I just find it... interesting that the super-anti Jedi armor that has come to dominate so much of the EU perspective on Mandalorians came from a writer that basically worked to tear down the Jedi to glorify the Mandalorians, and that never really gets noted.

Sorry, I just find this subject frustrating on a lot of levels, because in a lot of ways I really enjoy the Mandalorians, but so much of Traviss's take on them came at the expense of shitting on the Jedi, another group from Wars I thoroughly enjoy. I can respect respect the amount of work she did on the culture and the language, but at the same time that's linked to stuff like 'and suddenly Jania forgets everything about fighting people wearing lightsaber resistant armor' after the Yuuzhan Vong War . And so much of it just feels unnecessary. I mean, by the time Traviss joined the Star Wars writing team, you already had Jango Fett and Knights of the Old Republic showing Mandalorians as extremely effective anti-Jedi foes, and usually in a more entertaining matter then 'I ignore all your blows and gut you, silly Jedi'. Which ultimately was the problem with beskar: it was used to cement Mandalorian supremacy over everyone else, and it largely made their victories trivial.

Now, none of that actually applies to this system, because its pretty clearly setup so armor tends to be at best mitigation unless you focus pretty hard into it. Which is actually a bit of a problem when talking about Mandalorian Armor, because people who come in as fans of Traviss's take on it want that supremacy and the system does not assume or really support it. So you get suggestions that are really in the extreme end of the system, but still might not deliver what the player wants, leaving them disappointed. And I don't really think the system should support that kind of supremacy, because outside Traviss, no other media gave Mandalorian's that much of an edge, and certainly doesn't look to be the way things are going looking forward. That's not to say those extreme end armor shouldn't exist (they really, really should) but they shouldn't be the baseline or ordinary, because that trivializes every other armor wearing/making group in the galaxy, and it makes it hard for PCs to acquire them (especially starting PCs!). Degrees of a thing are good, you know?

Mind, I don't think I'm telling you much you don't already know. You seem to have a pretty nuanced view on the subject already, and for all I know you're better read on the subject than I am. I'm just trying to explain why I'm as hard on Traviss in this area as I am. Though being entirely honest, I really do dislike her work (I tried to give it a fair shake. I really did. I just wound up finding more reasons to dislike it). But beyond that, I do think its fair to say that if you go in using Traviss's work as your baseline, you are going to get incredibly weird results in the system and the verse at large, because no one else working on Star Wars made the same assumptions she applied to her work.

Sorry, but who you are even talking about. Vesp? I thought to common consent was to ignore the EU with the start NJO or the Vong wars because it became basically bad fan fiction anyway? Some people like me would even say once KJA was allowed to write anything we better ignore the EU from that point on and traviss joined the team a decade later.

Does anyone here really know much about the writings of this Traviss? And how is Traviss more relevant than the mandalorian war comics anyway? Traviss is someone who writes GIJoe, Halo and Gears of War stories, that like taking stuff from lego star wars into the game (I admit it, I just googled the name)

I just have no respect for Traviss as a Star Wars writer. Part of that is likely the last book of hers I read was No Prisoners, which was pretty terrible on a few levels, but regarding Mandalorian armor it comes from two sources: 1) her grasp of Wars tech is terrible and 2) she has very clearly defined biases in a few areas, most notably the Jedi. I just find it... interesting that the super-anti Jedi armor that has come to dominate so much of the EU perspective on Mandalorians came from a writer that basically worked to tear down the Jedi to glorify the Mandalorians, and that never really gets noted.

Part of the problem with Karen's Star Wars tour (if you read her blog on it) is that she came from a Military Journalism background for the British Military and had no experience with the Star Wars universe. When she first came in, it was to do the Republic Commando novel tie in to the video game. This resulted in her adopting the "squad of guys" mindset, and writing it from the perspective of SAS operators (which is what she knew - i.e. comfort zone). The thing about that was that she was writing from the perspective of a wholly inclusive group that had immense pride in themselves. She was only really told two things about the clones: 1) They were clones of Jango Fett, who was Mandalorian, and he trained them to be the best soldiers in the galaxy, and 2) They would eventually betray the Jedi and fight against them.

When she subsequently tried to get more info, the only info that existed was the little that was created for the Mandalorian language Jango spoke in EpII and a little of the writing examples from the dashboards and whatnot. She was basically tasked with designing the Mandalorians and Republic Military stuff from scratch with really no exposure to the Star Wars universe at large while under a deadline to deliver the novels. This is pretty much where both your problems with her came from.

Now, that doesn't excuse it, and it doesn't invalidate your opinion or disillusionment of it either, I get what you're saying. I hope, though that it does give context to the situation, though.

I can respect respect the amount of work she did on the culture and the language, but at the same time that's linked to stuff like 'and suddenly Jania forgets everything about fighting people wearing lightsaber resistant armor' after the Yuuzhan Vong War . And so much of it just feels unnecessary. I mean, by the time Traviss joined the Star Wars writing team, you already had Jango Fett and Knights of the Old Republic showing Mandalorians as extremely effective anti-Jedi foes, and usually in a more entertaining matter then 'I ignore all your blows and gut you, silly Jedi'. Which ultimately was the problem with beskar: it was used to cement Mandalorian supremacy over everyone else, and it largely made their victories trivial.

I totally agree that its frustrating, and the stuff that came out in the whole NJO era was really awful ... crafting a good story requires more than "ratcheting everything to 11." However, the NJO mess was more about the writing team being given little tidbits without actually working together at all. Each book was being written on crazy deadlines in a bubble from each other. They were given the timeline of events "This book comes in at this phase and the key action is so and so must set up this plot device for the next book" but that's ALL they were told. As such, from one book to another there are more dropped nuances and failed logic than in most book series. Essentially, they tried to do something that Marvel's story group does now without actually figuring out how to do it. Reached too far, too fast. It was really the end of reading Star Wars novels for me, truth to tell. I'm starting to get back into it, now that Disney has proven they are capable of maintaining it, but I'm still in my "victimized" mode with it ... slow to trust it all.

Now, none of that actually applies to this system, because its pretty clearly setup so armor tends to be at best mitigation unless you focus pretty hard into it. Which is actually a bit of a problem when talking about Mandalorian Armor, because people who come in as fans of Traviss's take on it want that supremacy and the system does not assume or really support it. So you get suggestions that are really in the extreme end of the system, but still might not deliver what the player wants, leaving them disappointed. And I don't really think the system should support that kind of supremacy, because outside Traviss, no other media gave Mandalorian's that much of an edge, and certainly doesn't look to be the way things are going looking forward. That's not to say those extreme end armor shouldn't exist (they really, really should) but they shouldn't be the baseline or ordinary, because that trivializes every other armor wearing/making group in the galaxy, and it makes it hard for PCs to acquire them (especially starting PCs!). Degrees of a thing are good, you know?

Mind, I don't think I'm telling you much you don't already know. You seem to have a pretty nuanced view on the subject already, and for all I know you're better read on the subject than I am. I'm just trying to explain why I'm as hard on Traviss in this area as I am. Though being entirely honest, I really do dislike her work (I tried to give it a fair shake. I really did. I just wound up finding more reasons to dislike it). But beyond that, I do think its fair to say that if you go in using Traviss's work as your baseline, you are going to get incredibly weird results in the system and the verse at large, because no one else working on Star Wars made the same assumptions she applied to her work.

To be 100% honest though, people who come into this system wanting the pimped out Super Glowstick Wizards are going to be just as disappointed as any Mandalorian nut, and it isn't Travis' fault - it's the mind-set of the groupie not the band so to speak. This system doesn't lend itself well to power-gaming, and that's a good thing. It's also something I really don't think needs to be mentioned. Star Wars is, and has always been, about the commoner being put in very uncommon circumstances, and finding greatness in themselves.

It's not Travis' take on the armor that instilled the Bes'kar logic (Canderous Ordo mentioned it in Knights of the Old Republic two years before Karen released Republic Commando) that dates back to the Dark Horse comics that covered the Sith Wars in the mid 90's.

In the end though, that I 100% support you in your dislike for Karen's writing - its not for everyone. Personally, I don't mind it - it's far more Star Trek than Star Wars (she tended to take modern military ideas and convert them to Star Wars equivalents through applying silly names for it like they do in Star Trek) but at the end of the day, it was her interpersonal relationships within the Republic Commando series that I followed - the tech was ancillary. Personally, I get not liking a writer everyone loves - I can't stand RR Martin for anything. His writing seems like a string of dirty jokes for the metaphorically minded, and I find it hard to get too invested in any characters because they're placeholders for the next gore fest. That, however, is only my preference, and I tend not to talk about it much as it doesn't get me to any finish lines, only distracts with me with how much I would change another person's work.

I think part of the vitrol for Traviss comes in how she reacted to people that pointed out the inconsistencies her writing had with the setting as a whole. Rather than say, "you know, that's a good point. I honestly wasn't aware of that," she instead compared anyone that didn't like her work to active terrorist groups of the time, no matter how intelligently or articulate the criticism of her work was. So not exactly the sign of a class act.

For her first book, I could accept that she came in blind as it were. But she had time between those books to do the research and learn more about the setting she was writing in. But she never bothered, and continued in her belief that she was "right" and those who disagreed with her... well, they got the comparisons I noted above. Even when the statistics she suggested for the size of the GAR's clone trooper forces and Separatist's battle droids were shown to be woefully short of what would be needed for a galaxy the size of the Star Wars one, she insisted that she was right and those other folks, including some working directly for Lucasfilm, were morons. I think it's notable that the other authors that worked on Legacy of the Force generally ignored as much of what she wrote as they could in their own novels, especially her rabid fangirling over Boba Fett.

I honestly think by the time TCW rolled around, the best option they had regarding Mandalorians was to deep-six as much of Traviss' writings as they could. Apparently she never got the memo that when you wrote for Star Wars back then, everything you did came with the caveat that George Lucas can override anytime he likes. I've talked with other Star Wars authors at some length (Timothy Zahn in particular), and they all understood that their stuff could be rendered "non-canon" at any time. Traviss meanwhile got into a huff about how the Mandalorians of the Clone Wars era were being re-envisioned, and as I understand it was told that her services as author would no longer be needed for the franchise.

I generally don't like Traviss for her attitude and lack of respect towards people who don't 100% agree with her, but not all of her ideas were completely useless - at least, in terms of when I was setting down to write out the backstory for my Bounty Hunter, who is Mandalorian through and through.

Part of the issue, as others have mentioned, is the sheer amount of information on Mandalorians that can at times contradict itself. If you look at the Legends page for Mandalorians on Wookieepedia, you'll see what I mean. For my part, I took bits from canon and Legends and weaved it together into what I feel is acceptable as a backstory. Seems to fit in well with our relatively canon adherent universe for our games.

As for the armor, I used the armor in the Spark of Rebellion Rebels fan sourcebook, since I was already using the species variant for Mandalorian humans there. The stats work well, and since he's a Gadgeteer, I was able to deck out the armor with cool stuff.

All I've read of Traviss' work are her entries in the Legacy of the Force series, which all seemed very disconnected from the other books in the arc. The sense that I got then and now was one of, "This is my niche. I have co-opted this corner of Star Wars lore. I have made it mine, and I cannot and will not write anything else, nor will I balance it with the larger shared universe."

There are instances of writers making a mark on elements of a licensed property - Diane Duane's Vulcan and Romulan stories, Stackpole's X-Wing novels and comics, etc - but I just never developed a taste for Traviss' take on Mandalorians.

Anyway, getting back to the question:

As already mentioned the only model for heavy battle armor is "Mandalorian ShockTrooper Armor"

Defense 1, Soak 2, ®5000c. enc 6, rarity 7 and freaking 4 hardpoints.

Combine this with the rules for crafting from keeping the peace and special modifications and you get pretty **** good mando armor. The graphic for it looks pretty spot on too. And 4 hardpoints leave room for a lot of toys. Does the armor crafter have the option to craft the armor with cortosis quality without using the force?

Not specifically, no, however for 2 Triumphs you can add a hardpoint, then automatically install a modification without having to pay the cost or make an installation check. This might serve as a way to represent that.

Soooooo, we take the Segmented Armor template(Same stats as Hvy. Battle Armour.) and with enough Advantage, and Intuitve Improvements. We can get 8 Hard points, Two from Intuitive Improvements, Two from advantage, and a base of Four, if you had Two triumph, like Kyla mentioned above, you coulld get the Cortosis weave attachment as well, more triumph and advantage could be spent to get near Travis level armor: +4 Soak, +2 Defence, 8 HPs, 1 Encumbrance, Superior, Cortosis, +1 Advantage to either Leadership, Cool, Coercion, Vigilance, or Charm, for only 1,250 credits.

Time to get to your space workshop (reduce difficulty by one and add one automatic advantage), first craft your armor crafting tools (upgrade skill check ones, one auto-success and auto-advantage), and then finally start to craft your own personal mandalorian armor, after months and a lot of garbage produced, tons of resources spend you will have armor of legendary quality.

Sounds good to me. And so much for spending juts 1,250 credits, selling all those "failures" should give you a netwin.