Hi there,

once again I need your advice.

For some reason one of my players had the idea of using the talent Jury Rigged on a effect a the weapon in question doesn't have.

To be precisely: he wanted to use it on his (BASIC)Lightsaber for reducing needed for the effect "linked"

hi intention in this case was to reduce this so he would only need one to actvate linked when ever he would be Using "Saber Swarm"

While I'm quite sure you can use "Jury Rigged" only on effects the weapon allready has, he insisted that the Rulebook doesn't state this.

AoR CRB p.150

"He may increase the Weaponsdamage by 1; decrease the advantage cost on its critical, or any other effect by one to a minimum of one[...]"

For this time it was no big deal, since this Idea came up at the end of the session, but I would like to avoid any trouble on the next session.

Any thoughts on this problem might be helpfull.

Thanks in Advance.

I would think the weapon would have to have Linked to begin with for Jury Rigged to reduce its cost. Jury Rigged isn't going to just give a new effect or quality to a weapon.

RLogue177 has the right of it. Jury Rigged only affects items and only effects that it already has. Without Saber Swarm (which must be activated), a weapon does not gain the linked quality.

The weapon doesn't have the Linked quality ever, the Saber Swarm Talent gives the next attack Linked (edit; more specifically it gives the next Lightsaber Agility check the Linked quality). Jury Rigged doesn't apply to Attacks it only applies to weapons that can be used for attacking.

Yeah, have to agree with the others that trying to use Jury-Rigged on the Linked quality provided by Saber Swarm is a no-can-do, primarily because the lightsaber itself doesn't have Linked to begin with, and Jury-Rigged can't be assigned on the fly.

Maybe it will help to explain Jury Rigged as a step-by-step process to the player to help them understand how it works.

1) You choose a personal weapon or piece of armor. So it can't be a starship or vehicle weapon, and it must be something the character owns.

2) If it's a weapon, you can do one of the following things:

• Increase the weapon's damage by 1.
• Decrease the advantage cost to activate a Critical by 1 to a minimum of 1.
• Decrease the advantage cost of an effect initiated by a weapon's existing active qualities by 1 to a minimum of 1. So look at a weapon's qualities, look up that quality's description in the book and see if it is active or passive. Active qualities include Auto-Fire, Blast, Burn, Concussive, Disorient, Ensnare, Guided, Knockdown, Linked, Stun, and Sunder. Most, but not all effects cost 2 advantage to start with (one exception is Guided which usually costs 3).
• Decrease the encumbrance of the weapon by 2 to a minimum of 1.

3) If it's armor, you can do one of the following things:

• Increase melee defense by 1.
• Increase ranged defense by 1.
• Decrease the encumbrance of the armor by 2 to a minimum of 1.

4) The bonus only applies for as long as you have it in your possession. So if you give the weapon or armor to another person, they don't get the benefit imparted by Jury Rigged, unlike the benefit given by an attachment, mod, or other such upgrade.

5) If the item is lost or destroyed you can pick a new piece of armor or weapon to apply Jury Rigged to.

6) You can take the Jury Rigged talent multiple times, but each time you take the talent you have to choose a different item to apply it to. You can't give a single item multiple Jury Rigged benefits.

The weapon doesn't have the Linked quality ever, the Saber Swarm Talent gives the next attack Linked (edit; more specifically it gives the next Lightsaber Agility check the Linked quality). Jury Rigged doesn't apply to Attacks it only applies to weapons that can be used for attacking.

Came here to say this. Someone beat me to it.

I think by Raw I would agree with the above posters but thematically and mechanically I do not think it wouldn't cause anymore of a problem then autofire does. On a lightsaber it might actually be mechanically weaker then lowering crit to a 1. I have seen some +60 rolls from channeling 7 advantage into crits that have been devestating to a nemesis villian.

I also think its pretty creative and I would allow it in my game.

Thematically you can say he adjusts the lightsaber to make it easier to do something he can do with it. Characters do not differntiate between things they know how to innately do with a lightsaber and things they learned to do with a lightsaber when adjusting them with jury rig. They are just going to change a few things to make it easier for them to do what they know how to do with it.

I think by Raw I would agree with the above posters but thematically and mechanically I do not think it wouldn't cause anymore of a problem then autofire does. On a lightsaber it might actually be mechanically weaker then lowering crit to a 1. I have seen some +60 rolls from channeling 7 advantage into crits that have been devestating to a nemesis villian.

I also think its pretty creative and I would allow it in my game.

Thematically you can say he adjusts the lightsaber to make it easier to do something he can do with it. Characters do not differntiate between things they know how to innately do with a lightsaber and things they learned to do with a lightsaber when adjusting them with jury rig. They are just going to change a few things to make it easier for them to do what they know how to do with it.

Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily game breaking. It just might not be RAW.

Well, compared to using Jury-Rigged to reduce the advantage cost of Autofire, very little is well and truly "game breaking."

I don't care for it because it skirts the spirit of what Jury-Rigged is meant to do. That and Saber Swarm is already made very powerful by the Hawk-Bat Swoop talent, and it'd be the extremely rare Ataru Striker build that didn't have both talents before long given how well the two synergize with each other.

While Hawk Bat swoop and saber swarm do synergize very well together the thing that adds to them best is + force rating. There is no spec that gives both + force rating and jury rig so I actually doubt many players will take it. I bet the few that do were created before Force and Destiny came out and go something like gadgeteer/force exile/ataru striker.

While jury rig does let you use linked up to your force rating for 1 adv per

A force rating boost increases the odds of free advantage AND raises your linked limit by 1.

Not to mention how incredibly versitile a force rating boost is when you use it with the sense tree in combat.

It honestly seems like something Anakin would do to give him the edge because he started with several pre jedi specs and jury rig was almost certainly something he would have had.

Plus linked only works on 1 target so woot congrats you kill 1 rival so bad his body becomes paper mache. The autofire guy kills 4 rivals. The Disruptor riffle guy with lethal blows crits and does a +130 roll (with advantage) to crit the main bad guy. Oops mist. Maybe you hit the main bad guy and disruptor guy frags a rival who cares as long as its dramatic people are having fun and it is within the spirit of the game I say go for it. This combo is LESS overpowered then raising force rating so go to town.

Don't overlook the value of Linked 2+ when dealing with Nemeses.

I played an Ataru Striker in a high XP oneshot, taking Seer as his second spec to pump up his Force Rating and using a fully-modded Dantari Crystal lightsaber. Linked 3 is nothing to sneeze at, and hitting a Nemesis with a Breach 1 weapon that does a minimum of 10 damage per hit, and getting to use those Force dice on the attack roll (thank you Hawk Bat Swoop) just made it even worse.

A major component of game balance is that you can't look at a particularly combination in a vacuum. So while allowing Jury-Rigged (which so far hasn't shown up in any FaD specs that I'm immediately aware off) to be used with the Linked granted by Saber Swarm when the PC has a Force Rating of 1 doesn't look so bad by itself, it's when you start factoring in things like increased Force Rating (Seer, Sage, and now the in-career spec of Hermit all offer two Force Rating boosts) and the Hawk Bat Swoop talent. Combined into a single attack, said PC is going to make mincemeat of what should generally be a serious threat to the party, and can lead to the vicious cycle of the GM having to build threats that are so insanely tough just to challenge that one PC that any PCs that aren't combat-optimized won't be able to defeat that foe and are more likely to get creamed.

But you are making my point for me. As the game stands right now taking seer is the natural choice for an aratu striker. Because force rating +2 is so much better for a striker via sense hawk bat swoop and saber swarm. This is why I don't mind giving somone who likely started gadgeteer because ANY non force rating tree after or before striker is just sub optimal.

Jury Rig is suboptimal to +FR for the combo until you get to about force rating 5 when it could earn you 5 advantage and even then frankly I'd rather have Force rating 6 instead because its so useful for other things as well. Even if you were doing base 12 damage 48 wounds breach 1 should be enough to stop anything making 60 breach 1 uneeded.

If they ever make a +1 FR spec with jury rig I will eat my words but they took GREAT CARE not to do that even in the jedi armorer spec, which would have been entirely appropriate to have it.

If I thought jury rig in this combo was early better then +1 FR I would just call bs on it.

But lets look at it this way

Aratu striker gadgeteer linked 1 from FR 1 who cares if its 1 less ADV

aratu striker seer linked 3 from FR 3= pain to enemies

aratu striker/gadgeteer/seer linked 3 requires 3 less advantage missing out on linked 4 and potentially 0-2 more free advantage from a +1 FR spec

SO min 120xp in aratu striker 130xp in seer and then you choose to grab another force spec/power or you dip 55xp to take gadgeteer for 40 and jury rig for 15xp

I don't see many power gamers going jury rig when they could grab enhance or sense tree instead.

Basically I am really lax at my table with appropriately themed sub optimal combos and if these suboptimal combos become OP later because of newly printed material I don't mind changing a decision to keep the game fun for everyone.

It strikes me as min/maxing abuse of a Talent meant to alter items not other Talents. I wouldn't allow it.

Well, compared to using Jury-Rigged to reduce the advantage cost of Autofire, very little is well and truly "game breaking."

I have a guy in my game running with a Heavy Blaster Rifle that he's Jury Rigged to have Auto-Fire 1.

It's ridiculous. Like, almost game-breakingly so.

A common observation.

Isn't there a consensus that autofire is the most broken thing in this game (and by broken I mean most easily min-maxed)? So, it may not be best comparison when thinking whether something is game breaking. Better comparison would be less broken thing. But I'm a bit unqualified to speak about broken things or anything combat oriented, because the group I play with has thus evaded all combat encounters.

Isn't there a consensus that autofire is the most broken thing in this game (and by broken I mean most easily min-maxed)? So, it may not be best comparison when thinking whether something is game breaking. Better comparison would be less broken thing. But I'm a bit unqualified to speak about broken things or anything combat oriented, because the group I play with has thus evaded all combat encounters.

I'd say it comes up the most. There are a few topics that come up routinely where the rules could be massaged and/or better explained I think.

Isn't there a consensus that autofire is the most broken thing in this game (and by broken I mean most easily min-maxed)?

I'd say so, at least for anything ground-combat related. I think the general gist of things here is "Saying that using Jury Rig on the Linked provided by Saber Swarm isn't as game-breaking as using Jury Rigged on Autofire is like saying that something isn't as wet as the ocean."