Okay, we (our RPG group) is requesting your opinion on this subject and no one is a better expert on your opinion than you!

Setup:

In our campaign, we have two force sensitives who have a mostly off screen mentor who shows up occasionally to provide instruction and direction for our two force sensitive characters.

Most recently, this mentor, got our force sensitive characters hooked up with their kyber crystals via a "spirit walk" or by attuning themselves to a preferred kyber crystal. There are some Star Wars cartoon episodes that feature this "spirit quest" and the FnD book mentions this Jedi exercise briefly as well.

So in our last session we had a cool exposition type of encounter for the force sensitives and using the force, both were able to find an nicely attuned kyber crystal. (Yay!)

Here's the question:

Should we give these characters some sort of lightsaber upgrade quality for them individually because the crystals are attuned to them individually? And what would that upgrade be?

I have an opinion, but I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Isn't there some mechanic in the rules relating to modifying the lightsaber crystal that lets you substitute/upgrade the Mechanics skill for something like FR or Discipline? Doesn't that same segment mention some degree of attunement?

I believe information is only in the GM kit but it says that after making your own lightsaber hilt and adding a crystal you get a free modification on the crystal attachment. This attunement could provide a similar free modification. Another idea would be to give them a crystal better than Ilum (normally a starting crystal).

A simpler way of doing it would be to allow a boost or upgrade when using it.

Also the side bar in the FaD core. If modifying a crystal which is attuned to the character they reduce the difficulty of the Mechanics check by 2 to a minimum of Simple. They may also add their Force Rating to the check and spend Force Points to add Success or Advantage to the check.

Honestly that's rather powerful on its own.

Also the side bar in the FaD core. If modifying a crystal which is attuned to the character they reduce the difficulty of the Mechanics check by 2 to a minimum of Simple. They may also add their Force Rating to the check and spend Force Points to add Success or Advantage to the check.

Honestly that's rather powerful on its own.

Pretty much this.

The benefits for a "finely attuned" kyber crystal aka a personal crystal as Richardbuxton noted are plenty enough of a perk without needing to add anything else, Especially as said rules exist with the notion that the PCs would be going on a quest to obtain their crystal and not just plopping down a massive sum of credits at the corner market.

The only other major perk that might be worth considering in this vein is the GM Kit construction rules, which pretty much let a PC get a free modification the first time they construct a lightsaber hilt using that particular crystal.

There are also the more detailed hilt construction rules in Endless Vigil, but that has nothing to do with the crystal itself.

Find a bunch of cool things in the book, make a percentile table to roll on and let your PCs roll. In the case of one of my groups recent adventures those of us who are Jedi recieved lightsabers that (without a crystal) ignore Cortosis, this applies unless the hilt is modded which I will have to ask for clarification on since some mods (long hilt) in theory shouldn't negativly effect the hilt.

The mods on the lightsaber crystal are specifically attunement, and because of that are rolled with reduced difficulty and force dice thrown in the pool. So, what I would do is only allow players to take those rolls if they have actually played through some kind of attunement process. Since the difference between an attuned and an unattune lightsaber crystal is pretty huge that's the only mechanic you really need.

I'm going to need to recheck FnD* core again. When I read the rules about Force Sensitives working on their own lightsabers they received the reduction to the modification challenge because they were familiar with their own equipment. Not because they were specifically attuned to a specific kyber crystal.

Again, something I'll need to double check.

I like the idea of a free modification. That might do the trick. But with all things, it's going to be up to the GM.

I'm still open to comments and ideas as "no crystals will be set to hilt" before Friday Jan 20th.**

* Is the Acronym FnD or FaD? I've been using FnD this whole time. Was I wrong?

** It's a stretch, forgive the punniness. "Set in Stone?" "Set in hilt?" No? Too far?

* Is the Acronym FnD or FaD? I've been using FnD this whole time. Was I wrong?

You were wrong. Repent!

A bit off-topic, but with mods to lightsabers, how do you keep combat from turning into nothing but one-shot kills? With a 10-damage saber plus Ataru or Niman form, it seems like you would basically one-shot even Nemesis-level opponents unless they have decent Parry or cortosis armor.

Jetpacks. Always jetpacks. Lots of grenades...

A bit off-topic, but with mods to lightsabers, how do you keep combat from turning into nothing but one-shot kills? With a 10-damage saber plus Ataru or Niman form, it seems like you would basically one-shot even Nemesis-level opponents unless they have decent Parry or cortosis armor.

The thing is that for most PCs, getting a lightsaber to 10 damage is a tall order, especially if the GM sticks to Ilum crystals.

Against minion groups and lesser rivals, it's not that much different than dealing with a PC that can routinely deal 10+ damage with a Pierce weapon (especially if said weapon can attack from medium range or further), as against most rank-and-file adversaries, there's not that much difference between Breach 1 and Pierce 2 or 3. But then again, your PCs have modded their lightsabers to get to that point, so why be a ******-nozzle of a GM and deny the players their chance to be awesome?

In an AoR game that I'm in, my Shii-Cho Knight with his Damage 9/Crit 1 beatstick isn't the party's major damage dealer, not by a long shot, as that honor belongs to the BH/Gadgeteer with the tricked out heavy blaster rifle from Dangerous Covenants that has Pierce 2 and has since been modded to heck.

As for major villains, consider that in the source material, about the only thing that could routinely stand up to a lightsaber-wielder was generally someone else wielding a lightsaber. So in this system, if you don't have a significant investment in Parry or a set of cortosis armor, then yes you are going to get wrecked by a lightsaber. Ranks of Adversary can go a long way, and I've found that Ranks in Adversary = PC's Ranks in Lightsaber skill minus 1 tends to be a good benchmark for making a BBEG difficult for a saber-monkey to fight. Ranks in Defensive Training don't hurt either.

That said, if you need to protect your BBEG, then look up the squad rules from the AoR GM's Kit, as that pretty much lets the GM use a very large minion group as a meatshield to soak up those lightsaber attacks.

Yeah, fair enough. I guess the only thing I don't like about that whole way of doing things is that it's the weapon making you so powerful and not the skills. That's fine with a Gadgeteer who advances into gadget-building talents, but for a Jedi it seems off to me. The movies never indicate that different lightsabers are appreciably different in effectiveness. I never had the sense that there was a significant difference in effectiveness between Luke's lightsaber and Obi-Wan's or Vader's. Darth Maul's saber was only different because it had two blades. The idea that better lightsabers=much better damage seems un-Star Wars to me.

Edit:

And even for Boba Fett (a Gadgeteer if there ever was one) I never felt like his main weapon was any different from anyone else's. His gadgeteering gave him lots of different abilities other characters didn't have, catching Luke in a cable and jet-packing around, but was his gun supposed to be any better than a stormtrooper's gun? I'm skeptical of damage-increasing weapon mods in general. They don't really feel like Star Wars, and they can make combat go by much too fast.

I might try a house rule that cuts back on the number of mods people can put on a crystal just to avoid that problem. Probably let them use not-mechanics in exchange.

The downside is it punishes artisans and users of Ilum crystals

For the most part the F&D lightsabers are a downgrade from how they are listed in the other books, and you need to fully attune them to attain parity, so you shouldn't look at it as people building lightsabers that are outside the norm powerful, but rather as people building lightsabers that are worse than a typical Jedi lightsaber was, and gradually refining them to be about equal.

In this game equipment tends to be a lot more powerful than skills in general, especially given that equipment can include entire battleships. The thing is, when this becomes a problem it's really not a flaw in the game, but just a flaw in how people think about gear. Years of video game RPGs and D&D have trained people to think of a character's gear as simply part of the character. This idea of gear being sacred is what causes the problem in games where gear isn't balanced, but some things are simply more powerful than others to represent real power differences in that universe. If you play the game like gear can always be destroyed or taken away for good the dynamics shift drastically. Suddenly having a few unremarkable Ilum crystal lightsabers rather than one uber rare spectacularly modified weapon makes perfect sense.

Make it clear to players that confiscated weapons are sometimes simply melted down or shipped off world instead of being conveniently stashed in the room right next to the easily escapable jail cell. Gamorrean guards will activate the Sunder quality on their vibro axes happily. When people roll despairs their weapon will take damage. Let's not forget that if an enemy ever rolls double triumph on their attack you will follow the table and outright destroy their target's weapon or armor permanently. Also feel free to invoke the called shot rules to make enemies directly target the player's equipment if they have anything that any reasonable opponent would want out of the fight, and yes, it is appropriate to deal a point of damage to a weapon that was shot out of someone's hand.

You'll notice a drastic change in how this game works when gear is no longer sacred. People won't be anywhere near as eager to build some kind of overpowered uber-item once you make it clear to players that you will not grant people's equipment impenetrable plot armor. It shouldn't be easier to lose a limb than to lose a lightsaber.

Good, that sounds like a good way to address gear as a balance issue. For me, I have the additional problem that making gear more powerful than skills doesn't fit with my idea of Star Wars. My personal solution as a GM is not to allow any modifications of gear and encourage players to avoid classes that power up their gear extensively. Certainly not for everyone, but in my case the PCs agree with my take so it works.

I don't think you should disallow modified gear, you just have to make it clear to players that if they sink 10000 credits into a gun you're not going to give that gun special protection beyond what the very lives of the characters enjoy. If at any point an NPC has the players in their power and they carry such an item it's gone, as it should be.

After reading (or rather listening to, since it was an audiobook) Star Wars: Ahsoka, and reading through this thread, I'm beginning to wonder about dark side Force users and their lightsaber crystals. If they have to steal their crystals and dominate them until they submit to the will of the user - and since these dominated, "bleeding" crystals still call out to their intended user - are their crystals ever truly attuned?

* Is the Acronym FnD or FaD? I've been using FnD this whole time. Was I wrong?

You were wrong. Repent!

Yes. I find his lack of "a" disturbing.

For the most part the F&D lightsabers are a downgrade from how they are listed in the other books, and you need to fully attune them to attain parity, so you shouldn't look at it as people building lightsabers that are outside the norm powerful, but rather as people building lightsabers that are worse than a typical Jedi lightsaber was, and gradually refining them to be about equal.

In this game equipment tends to be a lot more powerful than skills in general, especially given that equipment can include entire battleships. The thing is, when this becomes a problem it's really not a flaw in the game, but just a flaw in how people think about gear. Years of video game RPGs and D&D have trained people to think of a character's gear as simply part of the character. This idea of gear being sacred is what causes the problem in games where gear isn't balanced, but some things are simply more powerful than others to represent real power differences in that universe. If you play the game like gear can always be destroyed or taken away for good the dynamics shift drastically. Suddenly having a few unremarkable Ilum crystal lightsabers rather than one uber rare spectacularly modified weapon makes perfect sense.

Make it clear to players that confiscated weapons are sometimes simply melted down or shipped off world instead of being conveniently stashed in the room right next to the easily escapable jail cell. Gamorrean guards will activate the Sunder quality on their vibro axes happily. When people roll despairs their weapon will take damage. Let's not forget that if an enemy ever rolls double triumph on their attack you will follow the table and outright destroy their target's weapon or armor permanently. Also feel free to invoke the called shot rules to make enemies directly target the player's equipment if they have anything that any reasonable opponent would want out of the fight, and yes, it is appropriate to deal a point of damage to a weapon that was shot out of someone's hand.

You'll notice a drastic change in how this game works when gear is no longer sacred. People won't be anywhere near as eager to build some kind of overpowered uber-item once you make it clear to players that you will not grant people's equipment impenetrable plot armor. It shouldn't be easier to lose a limb than to lose a lightsaber.

I think I'm too nice because if a player goes through a lot to build their rare and lovely implement of hurty, I just can't bring myself to break it. I'll damage it, steal it or such but they can always repair or retrieve it. I'm especially soft on lightsabers as they're very difficult to get. My players are extremely awesome about not being boobs when it comes to gear, though. They are perfectly fine with disarming if the logic of the fiction demands it, such as not arguing that wearing battle armor and carrying a heavy gatling blaster on the streets of Courscant is OK. You get the idea. Your way is not wrong at all, though.

I wonder how hard this is going to get used to.

FaD Fad. (Opps). FaD.

FnD? Soooo much easier on the FSK.

I'll work on it. Thanks.

I think I'm too nice because if a player goes through a lot to build their rare and lovely implement of hurty, I just can't bring myself to break it. I'll damage it, steal it or such but they can always repair or retrieve it. I'm especially soft on lightsabers as they're very difficult to get. My players are extremely awesome about not being boobs when it comes to gear, though. They are perfectly fine with disarming if the logic of the fiction demands it, such as not arguing that wearing battle armor and carrying a heavy gatling blaster on the streets of Courscant is OK. You get the idea. Your way is not wrong at all, though.

It's not like I go out of my way to destroy people's lightsabers, and even if you do destroy a lightsaber, you can always rule that the crystal can be recovered from the remains of it. I do however try to make it clear to people that super expensive items shouldn't be used frivolously with the full expectation that the DM won't touch them. If you care about an item then play like you do. If a character is about to be arrested for example they could throw their lightsaber into a storm drain or something, and get it later, rather than simply assuming the empire will stash it right next to the prison cell and not take it to Byss or the imperial palace.

It's also worth noting that even if a lightsaber is destroyed, the crystal (with all of its mods) may well be salvageable from the ruins of the hilt.

Also, apart from lightsabers (which pretty much requires a double Triumph to outright destroy), it's not exactly easy to completely destroy a piece of equipment. Despairs on a combat check only damage the weapon one step, and the Sunder quality requires 1 advantage per degree of damage, and damaged gear can be repaired with time and credits, with that second one being the trick for a credit-hungry group of PCs.

Another note on this point is that lightsabers are immune to Sunder (at least that is my read of "lightsabers cannot be sundered") so you'll have to take the long way to damage them.

I wonder how hard this is going to get used to.

FaD Fad. (Opps). FaD.

FnD? Soooo much easier on the FSK.

I'll work on it. Thanks.

I prefer F&D myself.