OK, I have a few questions about the Workshop from Special Modifications .

From some of the tables I've seen online, the Workshop seems to require a Hard Point to be added to a vehicle, but there is nothing in the actual source book to support that. The book only says the work shop takes up unused space in the cargo hold, but you can use available hard points to add extra Advanced Benefits above the 3 that come with the Shipboard Workshop. So which is it?

Second, Can you put more than one full Workshop in a ship, each optimized for a different skill focus with three full Advanced Bonuses each--for example, one workshop with Skill Focus: Mechanics with Spare Parts, Comforts of Hoome, and Reclamation; one with Skill Focus: Knowledge: Lore (a library) with Comforts of Home, Research Records, and Additional Workspace (Knowledge: X); and one with Skill Focus: Lightsaber combat (a dojo) with Low Gravity, Research Records, and Additional Workspace (Brawl) --or do you have to use the Additional Workspace bonus multiple times on a single Workshop to cover the three different main Skill Focuses (Mechanics, Knowledge: Lore, and Lightsaber combat)?

First, I don't know what tables you've been looking at - I don't remember there being anything about hard point requirements in SM. If the GM allows it the player can install one additional benefit at the cost of an unused hard point, but that's strictly optional as far as I can tell.

Personally I wouldn't allow multiple workshops in a single ship but that's mostly because that smells strongly of cheese in my opinion. Mechanically there's probably nothing hindering it, but remember that there isn't even a price listed for a workshop - it's supposed to be something a techie character spends a lot of time working towards as a crowning achievement of his specialization. Having someone rack up three or four of them seems silly to me.

For the multiple workshop question I would suggest each being the purview of a different PC. Each PC has their own place in the ship to call their own. Other PC's can receive benefits from them in the normal way, but no one PC has multiple "workshops".

I think it would also be wise to require a suitable sized ship to do it, definitely Silhouette 4, perhaps even 5. This is going to be a major focus of your campaign, these locations will dictate the actions and motivations of each PC directly and expanding them will become on of the core premises of the story.

It's a cool idea, I wouldn't wast the possibilities to tell stories around them.

(I'm imagining the Serenity in firefly here, where everyone has their own space they go to for their quiet time)

Well, the tables I'm referring to are some of the online indexes which summarize available options in the books. I have one of them downloaded, but my computer at home is down, so I can't reference it directly, and I can't find it right now.

Now, the reason for the question is because I've been converting a ship my long toime SW RPG character has had since D20 that was modified into a mobile Jedi training facility, which had a library focusing on Jedi lore, a lightsaber training dojo with variable gravity, and a Lightsaber construction workshop, and, looking at the limited options in this system, the Shipboard Workshop is really the only option that works to recreate these three different of functions mechanically. since the "Workshop" is built around technically any Skill focus, providing, among other things, the "Right tools for the Job" for that skill.

And the ship in question is a YZ-900 , which is Silhouette 5.

At the moment, I have a Briefing auditorium substituting for the library (swapping out Leadership with Knbowledge) , but I don't really think that makes sense, nor really "Kosher" with the rules. I'd much rather everything be "book legal".

The book Desperate Allies has a great section on running a Rebel Base, I think it actually works better for a Jedi Training facility than the Workshop rules. I honestly expect the Consular book to have its own section on chapter 3 on a training facility for Force Sensitives (dr Xavier's school for gifted youngsters

For the most part that does seem to work. The only problem I'm seeing with it is the "training Facility" upgrade (which is almost perfect), doesn't include Lightsaber as a skill option, obviously since AoR doesn't include that skill. The only other problem is, I'm not sure if a base is even an option for being built into a Starship at all. The implications from the texts suggest it's strictly a ground-based or Space Station option, unlike the workshops which have a shipboard option.

IF I can use these options, then yes, the Training Facility (if I can legally use "Lightsaber" as the skill focus) and Research Library "upgrades" would definitely fit my ship, with the workshop being for lightsaber construction (the Armory option might work, but it doesn't say anything about allowing for the actual construction of weapons and armor, just repair and modification).

I think, like you said, it's written with an AoR campaign in mind. The lack of specific choices relating to Force Users is understandable. Being that your campaign is focused on those characters it doesn't seem unbalanced to modify it slightly to suit your needs.

As for the "only a base or space station" thing... yeah I can see the devs thought it a bit much to have an entire Rebel base being on a light freight. One idea I had for a campaign that's just come back to me is this;

The PC's have a large (Silhouette 6+) they come back to regularly, with small craft being put under their control for brief periods to complete "away missions". One session it could be a squadron of Y-Wings, next it's a stolen Lambda, then it's a tiny drop pod just to reach the surface of a planet. Some encounters happen entirely on this "mother ship". The "Mother Ship" has a regular NPC crew and captain, but the PC's maintain their own quarters, which is where the base rules come in.

This makes for a very flexible campaign that can be very episodic in nature, with the only common story thread between sessions and adventures being this Mother Ship. You can use the Duty mechanic to represent the PC's commitment to the ship, or an Obligation, or you can essentially ignore that element with upgrades being a narrative reward for completing their orders.

Now what is the background for this ship? What cover does it hide behind? How does it escape the Empire? All good questions. It could be a Rebel ship, it could be a medical facility or refugee aid ship. Perhaps it's a traveling scrap merchant or trader on the outer rim. What about a traveling circus or theatre production! There are many many different ideas.

But your the GM, until there are official rules I would suggest finding what's right for you and your group. Giving every PC the Lightsaber and Discipline skills as career skills could upset the balance of the game. But giving the PC's something material and significant to fight for will likely create a great cohesion amongst the group and can be leveraged to put Moral pressure on them quite easily.

I think, like you said, it's written with an AoR campaign in mind. The lack of specific choices relating to Force Users is understandable. Being that your campaign is focused on those characters it doesn't seem unbalanced to modify it slightly to suit your needs.

As for the "only a base or space station" thing... yeah I can see the devs thought it a bit much to have an entire Rebel base being on a light freight. One idea I had for a campaign that's just come back to me is this;

The PC's have a large (Silhouette 6+) they come back to regularly, with small craft being put under their control for brief periods to complete "away missions". One session it could be a squadron of Y-Wings, next it's a stolen Lambda, then it's a tiny drop pod just to reach the surface of a planet. Some encounters happen entirely on this "mother ship". The "Mother Ship" has a regular NPC crew and captain, but the PC's maintain their own quarters, which is where the base rules come in.

This makes for a very flexible campaign that can be very episodic in nature, with the only common story thread between sessions and adventures being this Mother Ship. You can use the Duty mechanic to represent the PC's commitment to the ship, or an Obligation, or you can essentially ignore that element with upgrades being a narrative reward for completing their orders.

Now what is the background for this ship? What cover does it hide behind? How does it escape the Empire? All good questions. It could be a Rebel ship, it could be a medical facility or refugee aid ship. Perhaps it's a traveling scrap merchant or trader on the outer rim. What about a traveling circus or theatre production! There are many many different ideas.

But your the GM, until there are official rules I would suggest finding what's right for you and your group. Giving every PC the Lightsaber and Discipline skills as career skills could upset the balance of the game. But giving the PC's something material and significant to fight for will likely create a great cohesion amongst the group and can be leveraged to put Moral pressure on them quite easily.

To be fair, the ship is question is a medium freighter, the YZ-900 is 54.3 meters Silhouette 5, The time frame is well after the fall of the Empire (New Republic/TFA era). Secondly, I'm not the GM. Currently there is none. However, I am trying to eventually organize a campaign here over in the F&D section involving players playing two characters each, the first being their old "Signature" characters that they had been playing for years converted over from previous systems (each being between 1500-2000 XP or so), as well as starting characters as "apprentices" of sorts, and potentially being a "round robin" in terms of GMing, unless I can find someone willing to be full time GM. I discuss it a little further in this thread. and would certainly love it if you were involved when I get it organized. The fact that this is my signature player character's personal ship, not an NPC ship, is why I need this to be 100% book legal.

Yeah ok, that's fair. Well right now there isn't a specific set of rules for what your looking for, so until they are released it's going to be a case of finding what fits best. Personally I think the Desperate Allies rules will form the basis of a Force User Training Facility, but being mobile is certainly not covered in those rules.

Perhaps you could allow the Workshop system as you describe, but each one only benefits the master and apprentice who maintain it. That limits the abuse of it while maintaining a common desire to protect and improve the ship.

Well, the real limit is the crew and passenger capacity of the ship, since the "passengers" will actually be students and other potential teachers, and the ship has droid augmentation to allow a single crew member to operate the ship, (gunners not withstanding). The whole point that it's designed for the training of multiple students similar to how Arca Jeth's ship, the Sungem, was set up in Tales of the Jedi. T he passenger capacity for the stock YZ-900 is 14 with a stock crew capacity of 7-8 (pilot, co-pilot, engineer, and 4-5 gunners). This is what I have for the ship so far.

Typically the crew and passenger numbers are separate and cumulative, so it would be able to have a total of 21 souls on board, which is quite a bit for a base of operations (unless your a 2000xp character!)

On a side note I have never played any of the other Star Wars systems, so I can help with this system but not in conversion.

If you look at Korath's stats, he's currently converted to just under 1900. A buddy of mine is trying to get it down to 1800, through it world mean sacrificing his second Guardian spec.

Richard, here is the stock YZ-900 upon which I built the FFG version of the Jedi Star. The mods to turn it into a mobile Jedi training facility were ones I originally added to the ship while playing D20, so the In game modification work has already been done and paid for.

I've tried asking the developers other questions regarding various rules in the past few months and have yet to get any responses back, so I'm leery about trying to ask again. Is there any way you could find out from them if the shipboard "base" options would be legally viable, and if Lightsaber would be a viable option for the "Training Facility" option? You seem to have better luck getting responses back. Also, if the Silhouette 5 ship-board "mobile base" option is legally viable, which would you think is more appropriate for lightsaber construction facilities, the Armory base upgrade or a Workshop?

Secondly, would you be interested in playing (or running full time) the campaign I'm looking to organize in the near future? And, if you are interested, what would you rule or allow regarding these Mods on this ship?

Ok very first I will say thanks for the offer of Playing/GMing. I can probably GM some of the time, but not all.

So, Jedi training facility. For reference homework I would suggest listening to this:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/order66 It's Episode 60 you need to listen to.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Order66/~3/VJY5S-quha8/Order66PodcastEpisode60-AllYourBaseInYourFace.mp3

The hosts talk in depth about this topic of Rebel Bases and even go into how that could apply to a hypothetical set of rules in a FaD book about Jedi Training Facilities. They cover it much deeper than I can here in text.

So how would I run it... I would use the Base rules from DA. As inspiration With such a tiny amount of modification they fit the needs perfectly. I would practically ignore the normal ship rules. I would make this ship capable of flying, with a few guns, but not a fully armed battle station. The story is about the people on the ship, the facility itself is already fully made so there is not much to tell there. Honestly this training Facility is a backdrop, a set piece, this isn't about the construction of the facility but rather the use of it.

So with all that in mind I would just come up with a simple list of benefits the vehicle provides, a lot like a Holocron actually. Give the ship enough to be usable when it comes under fire. Then focus more on the occupants of the vehicle and their motivations. "Great, you have this awesome facility with some of the most powerful Force Users in the galaxy flying it... but what difference are you trying to make with it? What problems does it bring?" I'm probably the wrong person to write that entire story, but there are seeds of ideas there.

To have a round robin GM seat I would make for "episodes" with each having a definitive beginning, middle and ending. Short stories so to speak. But maintain a broad overarching plot line, probably of an arch nemesis; think Claw, Magneto, Megatron, Team Rocket etc.

Those 1500xp plus PC's will be a force to be reckoned with, they will be able to do a very broad range of things incredibly well, but there's plenty of challenges they can face. They have transcended physical needs though, the ship will basically be a place to sleep, the kinds of things that challenge them will be complex, often requiring them to split up and achieve individual goals simultaneously to complete an overall objective. Political strife, safety of entire sectors, rescues of imperial prisoners... these are the characters who land on a star destroyer, clear a path to the cells, rescue a prisoner, set the power core to explode, then escape... solo!

The apprentices would be much closer to normal, they are the ones who will actually benefit from the ship, their stories would be much more focused on the ship, dealing with the needs of it, with the relationships between crew, maintaining it and hiding it. They will also be the characters who have to answer the question "The Jedi Masters are not here, so how will we deal with this problem that would be trivial if were her?"

Well, thankfully, the ship is otherwise already fully statted out, so I'm good there, especially if ship combat comes up. The only other mods it might need (if I don't need to spend the HP on the library, dojo, and armory/lightsaber construction workshop would be an actual Briefing Auditorium and the Astromech socket to add to the droid augmentation. That would fill the three HPs. As for "crew", other than Korath, the crew consists of an Autopilot droid brain, Astrogation droid brain, six Gunner droid brains (one for each weapon system), a "stock" R2 astromech droid, and Hacker (a talking "Nemesis level"/PC R2 Astromech Outlaw Slicer who was another player's PC back in the old D6 campaign, though I haven't found his old stats yet).

As for the characters, you pretty much nailed it. The idea, of course, is to have pairs like Obi-Wan and Qui Gon in TPM, with students accompanying their masters (as was standard), as well as Masters teaching students.

As for nemeses, my character, Korath, does have a nemesis in the form of Mathis Karr, the Dark Jedi who murdered Korath's Master. Of course, stats would definitely be needed for him, but that's another topic altogether.

And, while Korath stats out at 1800 + XP, he really isn't all that powerful. His XP are spread out over a lot of skills, Specializations, and Force powers, so he has a broad range of abilities, but not maxed out in any one.

But yeah, the ship is a means of transportation, as well as a means for Korath (and any other teacher PCs) to train students.

Hey, Richard, quick question. Would you think it would be a good idea (or even possible) to have both a lightsaber construction workshop (using the Workshop rules) and armory, possibly in the same place on the ship?

Sure. But you are adding a lot to the ship that is going to take away from possible reward options down the line. I guess the question should be is this going to be a part of the story? Is this a story of " we have all this stuff but things still go bad!" Basically I'm asking the question what is the purpose of all these workshops?

So would it be better to just have a generic mechanics workshop that is able to be used for all sorts of crafting rather than trying to have one workshop for each thing.

Sure. But you are adding a lot to the ship that is going to take away from possible reward options down the line. I guess the question should be is this going to be a part of the story? Is this a story of " we have all this stuff but things still go bad!" Basically I'm asking the question what is the purpose of all these workshops?

So would it be better to just have a generic mechanics workshop that is able to be used for all sorts of crafting rather than trying to have one workshop for each thing.

Well, that's a given, because " Mechanics " really can't be broken down into specializations anyway. Aside from having lightsaber tool kits as part of the equipment, t's otherwise just "flavor text". As for taking away possible "reward options", when it comes to the ship, all of the mods were done back when Korath bought the ship in the D20 campaign (I've been playing him since WEG D6).

Here's the modded ship. What do you think?: Jedi Star

It's a nice ship, quite a beast with all those guns. But I think it's balanced enough. I would probably just roll the armoury and light sabre workshop into a single room.

It's a nice ship, quite a beast with all those guns. But I think it's balanced enough. I would probably just roll the armoury and light sabre workshop into a single room.

Most definitely. Though the dojo does have several lightsabers (mostly training sabers) on the walls as seen here:

And, for the record, all those weapons are stock . for that model.

Hey, Richard, which "upgrade" do you think works better for the workshop, given its purpose, the Comforts of Home , which lowers Strain suffered by 2, or Low Gravity , which adds automatic Advantage to the Mechanics checks?

Comforts of home. It fits the theme better of these being the personal spaces of some of the crew, and sometimes you need to pull an all nighter during crunch time and those comforts will make it much easier.

Yeah, that was my original thinking too. I was just thinking that the Low Gravity might be more useful, so I thought I'd get another opinion.

Oh certainly the Advantage is more often used and more useful when it is used, but sometimes story beats minmax optimising.

Very true. Did you get a chance to check out the WIP Conversion thread for my character?