Another book, another Developer show!

The Order 66 Podcast is excited to be welcoming back Lead Developer Tim Huckelbery and RPG Manager Sam Stewart to the show to discuss the release of Endless Vigil - A Career Book for Sentinels.

As we have done before, the Order 66 Podcast is collecting questions from you, the listeners, for any queries you have about the book. Got a production question? A rules dispute about a talent? A piece of gear that doesn't make sense? Looking for insight on the Sentinel's Signature Abilities, or want to ask about something in the Investigation section of the book? Or is your question about Lightsaber Crafting?

We'll take questions until Wednesday night, November 16th.

The show will be on November 20th at 8pm Central, and we'd love to have you join us in our chatroom, Echo Base, for the show!

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As usuall, we are only taking and fielding questions about this book, Endless Vigil. We won't really have time to ask about any questions relating to other books, and of course Sam and Tim can't answer questions about products that have not been announced yet.

Finally, please limit replies in this thread to questions for the Devs only. If you would like to discuss something brought up in this thread, please start a new thread elsewhere and discuss the matter there.

Thanks for your time and your questions!

Could we get clarification on the hard points for the two new lightsaber crystals? They're listed as 1 HP each, but the writer said they had intended them as 2 HP.

What was their reasoning for the selection of options in the lightsaber crafting? Specifically, they made crossguard something you could spend advantage to get rather than a base type, there are no options to increase defensive options, and as it currently stands, there is no method of replicating the existing Guard Shoto Hilt using this crafting method. Also, the existing rules for lightsaber hilt crafting in the GM Kit specified that you could use Mechanics or Lore to build it, but this only mentions Mechanics. Is that intended that this method is purely Mechanics oriented, and if you want to use Lore, you must use the GM Kit style?

Thanks for your time!

Pantorans: Are they supposed to have 110 XP?

Lightwhip: Most other whip-type weapons clarify that the attack difficulty is average (2), and I assume that caries over, but I'd just like to check.

The Manipulate power. There are eight Control upgrades listed, but only seven in the tree. The one missing from the tree is the one that allows the power to heal strain from droids. Was this dropped, and they neglected to remove the text? Or was it supposed to be in there, and it just got left out of the tree? If it's supposed to be in the tree, where?

Also, the upgrade that allows for inflicting strain or system strain instead of healing it. How does this work? Was it meant to be like the Influence basic power, where it's an action in and of itself that deals strain, or is it an add on to an existing combat check? Is a valid combat check required to use it (i.e. can't use this upgrade at short or greater range unless you have a weapon that can hit at that range)? Or can it be used without a weapon if needed?

And finally, the Fear the Shadows talent. This seems excessively potent: a single Hard check could effectively deal 20+ Wounds, depending on the size of the Minion group. What was the thinking on this talent? As written, or has no limit on how often it can be used; was this left out?

How much influence did Batman and the noir genre have on this book?

Racer seems like a name that didn't quite fit but was the closest option to the overall vision of the spec. My understanding from the description is that it's not just a character that's fast at driving, but is living life always in the fast lane. They are always one step ahead, always moving both physically and mentally, and going with the fastest flow around them. Sort of an extreme sports personality. Where there any other names that the team had on the table and could you go into the concept a little more please?

Freerunning, and Improved, is obviously the Parkour talent and is awesome thanks for a cool integration, but I have a question. Since it allows a character to move to "any place within Short (or Medium) range" does that include another Engagement? Can this talent allow a character to disengage one opponent then engage another within the talents range limitations for a single manoeuvre and some strain?

Thanks again for your great podcasts

On page 60, the podracer engine description says that engines must be in pairs and it requires two hard points. Is that two hard points per engine or two hard points for the pair?

Swoop bike entries are spread out among many books and I have been wanting to add a racing element to my character. Thank you for putting all the podracers in one book, it's so convenient! Unfortunately, I'm playing a droid Technician: Mechanic and my GM has ruled that droids can't take classes from Force and Destiny so I won't be able to pick up Sentinel: Racer with this character. Is there a developer ruling about droids and Force and Destiny specializations? Obviously, droids can't use the force abilities but the tree forces the purchase of force Talents to reach Improved Shortcut. Does this imply that Improved Shortcut is dependent on the ability to use the force? That would back up my GMs ruling if it was.

Thanks for your time!

When one is constructing a lightsaber if they select the Inbuilt option and build it into a blaster pistol can the blaster have its own set of attachments and mods?

Does the Etaan Crystal's 1 Innate Talent (Parry) Mod give the wielder the Parry ability at 1 even if they have no ranks in Parry themselves (same question for the Reflect Mod)?

Does the wielder of an Etaan crystal lightsaber have to be force sensitive to benefit from the Innate Talent (Reflect) Mod?

Is Table 3-11: Lightsaber Template Profiles (pg 86) wrong about the number of hard points available in the functional sabers? They all match the number of hard points in the matching hilt, but shouldn't the hilt have more hard points since the lightsaber already has a crystal in it?

With the Racer Specialization did you consider a freerunning/parkor/footracin talent in one of the 25pt slots? If so why did you choose to go with 2 Piloting(Planetary) [superhuman reflexes and Intuitive Evasion] , 1 Both [improved shortcut] and Dedication?

Lightsaber Crafting Question:

1) When crafting a lightsaber hilt, you can spend an advantage to make it "Two-Handed: Increase the lightsaber's damage by 1 and encumbrance by 2; it now requires two hands to wield (this can only be selected once and cannot be selected for a two-handed lightsaber). All of the one-handed hilts start are encumbrance 1, so this option would increase the encumbrance by 2 for a total of 3. However, all of the two-handed lighsabers hilts, double bladed and pole lightsaber, are encumbrance 2. It seems odd that this change would increase the encumbrance above that of what is likely a bigger hilt. Was this meant to be increase encumbrance by 2 or increase encumbrance to 2?

2) the "Defensive Lightsaber Hilt" in table 3-11 provides that the hilt has the special Defensive 1 and -1 damage to installed crystals. Table 3-10 provides that an example of this type of hilt is a Guard Shoto (no other example is given). In Keeping the Peace, the Guard Shoto is listed as Dfensive 1. Deflection 2, Unwieldy 4, and 1 less damage to installed crystal. Is this meant to be the same hilt or a different version? (Note: there are similar inconsistencies with some of the other templates vs. hilts in other sources)

Force Power: Manipulate Questions:

One of the Control Upgrades provides that "When making a Mechanics skill check, the user may roll a Manipulate power check as part of the pool. The user may spend [force points] to gain [success] or [advantage] (user's choice) on the check. The user may activate this multiple times, adding additiona [success] or [advantage] to the check each time."

1) The basic power talks decribes this power as the "user shapes machine components ona molecular level, alloweing better crafting and repairing items." Can this Control Upgrade be used to make a Manipulate power check when crafting items that don't involve machines, computers or the like, for instance non-powered armor or many melee weapons? Can it be used for all Mechanic's checks, regardless of what is actually being done?

2) In the Core Rulebook, when a character is modding a lightsaber crystal attachment (Core book p. 196), they may similarly roll force dice equal to their force rating and spend force points to add success or failure. If the character is modding a lightsaber crystal and has this Control upgrade, would they roll force dice twice, once for the Control Upgrade/Manipulate power and once for the general rule? How, are these rules meant to interact, if at all?

Last days to get your questions in, folks. We're cutting off questions as of midnight tomorrow night (11/16/2016)

I've always wanted to have a lightsaber whose hilt is about the size of that of a double bladed lightsaber and a lightsaber comes out of one end and the other end is basically a regular/heavy blaster pistol/ essentially a double weapon, and then they fight with a lot like a double bladed lightsaber (using both ends). It was somewhat inspired by a force lance from gene roddenberry's starship andromeda

If someone where to use this the two weapon fighting rules say that for a pistol in one hand and a lightsaber in the other you would use the worse attribute and the worse skill and increase the difficulty by one purple for a double attack. (So you would want to have the Aturu technique and dynamic fire talents, but that's beside the points)

the lightsaber crafting upgrade "inbuilt" would let you build a lightsaber into a mon calamari battle batton (page 105 of strongholds of resistance) but doesn't quite get me to what I'm looking for because you'd have to spend a manuever to switch between attack modes.

As developer advice on house ruling the construction of such lightsaber/blaster staff, would it be ok to start with a double bladed lightsaber hilt in Endless Vigil (linked 1, unwieldy 3), use the "inbuilt weapon" upgrade from cybernetics crafting on page 85 of special modifications) and then have the character use the smaller of agility and lighstaber skill attribute and the smaller of ranged light and lightsaber and the difficulty set at the larger of 2 purple (melee) and the ranged light difficulty determined by distance without adding the extra purple die for making a second attackbecause you still need two advantage to activate linked to get the blaster attack?

Observation: Endless Vigil: A source book for Sentinels, or how to make play Star Wars Batman (or BATMAN IN SPACE!!!)

Seriously, give Batman/Bruce Wayne access with the Force and he would say in the Sentinel career.

Canon Question: The Ahsoka novel has possibly changed how Lightsaber crystals are created/discovered. Will that change the current rules for the RPG?

Secondary Question: Star Wars: Uprising has been taken offline on 17NOV2016. Would FFG be dealing with this game, possibly bring the story to the RPG setting if possible?

Unmatched Vigilance seems to be really powerful for "boss" battles. Would this be a fair assessment?

Alright, guys! Thank you for all your questions! At this point, we're (metaphorically) locking this thread, so we can compile our questions.

AND - an update! This was announced on the show, but since no one ever listens to the Order 66 Podcast, it's worth saying here that the episode will be delayed by 24 hours. Due to the committments of our guests, the episode will live broadcast and record on Monday, Nov. 21. That's right - the show will be Monday night at 8:00pm CST.

So be sure to tune in then, for live chat with our guests and hosts! http://www.ustream.tv/channel/d20radio

See you all then!

Thank you for your time and your questions. We hope you'll join us Monday night with Sam Stewart and Tim Hucklebery at 8pm Central, or download the show and listen in later next week!