15 hours ago, Aetrion said:

The crafting system is unfortunately a hotbed of cheese in this game, and the only real way to reign it in if you play strict to the rules is to stringently enforce the time requirements for crafting and make sure they only craft during the session.

The problem is power gaming—as shown to be true in the OP but when you treat the rules with common sense, as the rules expect, you shouldn't have to worry about cheese.

I'm glad they gave us crafting rules. But I also think that this player went way out of bounds when he rolled his crafting checks at home.

All that should be required here is a simple "no." He'll probably be disappointed, so be sympathetic ; but stand firm on the requirement that these things need to be observed and properly narrated for fairness, verisimilitude, and group cohesion.

TL;DR: stand by your ruling and reign the player in, but there's no need to be a jerk about it

So I'm looking at Special Modifications trying to find this rule that lets you have two weapons in one device and all I'm seeing is the "Integrated Attachment," which gives a free hardpoint and a weapon applicable attachment requiring 1 or fewer hardpoints. Now, for the Gadget crafting, there is the Inbuilt Weapon feature for 4 Advantage/Triumph. However, I was under the impression this chart applied to gadgets only, not other types of devices.

30 minutes ago, Oden Gebhac said:

So I'm looking at Special Modifications trying to find this rule that lets you have two weapons in one device and all I'm seeing is the "Integrated Attachment," which gives a free hardpoint and a weapon applicable attachment requiring 1 or fewer hardpoints. Now, for the Gadget crafting, there is the Inbuilt Weapon feature for 4 Advantage/Triumph. However, I was under the impression this chart applied to gadgets only, not other types of devices.

It's part of light saber construction, for like 4 advantage they can make it in such a way that the hilt is part of another tool or weapon.

Well, of course having the crafting rules is better than not having any, but there are some things that get runaway powerful even if you don't even intend to powergame. Like a cybertech being able to craft cybernetics at a fraction of their actual cost when they are already a system that provides a straight money to power pipeline that completely changes the power level of any given game. I'm not a big fan of that sort of thing, because if you make a Cybertech without any intention of powergaming you still get trapped in a system where your character can act 100% within plausible motivations and still end up really minmaxed and broken.

I mean, there is a significant difference between powergaming when it flat out flies in the face of playing a plausible character and making a perfectly well played character who ends up way too powerful. This also happens a lot in F&D, where a lot of the choices you make in the beginning of the game, like buying 35 XP worth of Influence because you want to be able to be decent at social checks by throwing your two force dice suddenly turn into this absurd game-breaking thing a couple hundred XP down the line where no mere mortal can ever say no to you again.

I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion before @Aetrion but in any case, I'm okay with heroes being amazing after a few hundred XP. And I'm okay with then having shticks. I haven't run into a combination in play that I think is particularly broken yet. They are all vehicles to to tell awesome stories.

Which is why it's so insulting when a player goes and tries to power-up his character with at-home rolls, without GM knowledge or permission. Like, it's a collaborative game; stop trying to win it and start communicating with me.

PC's are glass cannons even when they try and toughen up so I don't generally worry too terribly much about them being untouchable, my issues are almost always the opposite. It's challenging them without killing them I find the biggest chore as a GM. They can be offensive as they want, big galaxy, lotsa bad guys.

That being said an entry in any game that uses a word like "appropriate" is a word requiring the engagement of the GM to determine. PCs don't get to decide what is and what is not appropriate, that is precisely what a GM is for. They can beg and plead and whine, but the GM makes the call and not asking is just begging for a big No hammer.

1 hour ago, awayputurwpn said:

I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion before @Aetrion but in any case, I'm okay with heroes being amazing after a few hundred XP. And I'm okay with then having shticks. I haven't run into a combination in play that I think is particularly broken yet. They are all vehicles to to tell awesome stories.

The problem is when some characters are way more amazing than others, and being able to design encounters that don't turn half the characters in your party into stains on the floor while the other half just giggles about their soak ratings.

20 minutes ago, Aetrion said:

The problem is when some characters are way more amazing than others, and being able to design encounters that don't turn half the characters in your party into stains on the floor while the other half just giggles about their soak ratings.

This system manages split parties incredibly well, give the combat characters a fight that's simply a distraction so the others can get the real work done. Splitting the party can also allow you to craft the encounters to their abilities; the Heavy may need to retract a bridge that the Mechanic would laugh at, meanwhile the Mechanic has a single minion guard blocking their way that the Heavy would have eliminated in their sleep.

This is how I get the spotlight on characters who are "the backup". Everyone has a character who is decent at a few things, but the party specialists usually take over because they have a better dice pool... well when the specialist is off doing their own thing then the backup gets to actually perform.

Well yea, you can always try your best to run adventures in such a way that you avoid the weaknesses in the system, but at the end of the day a classless game like this would have heavily benefitted from some normalization in its mechanics that ensures that nothing ever stops posing a challenge all together.

1 hour ago, Aetrion said:

Well yea, you can always try your best to run adventures in such a way that you avoid the weaknesses in the system, but at the end of the day a classless game like this would have heavily benefitted from some normalization in its mechanics that ensures that nothing ever stops posing a challenge all together.

Well it kinda does. Even at max you can still bomb-o or be cancelled.

And the crafting system requires better than just a simple success to really work.

The problem comes from not applying the crafting system. If you just roll off the base difficulties every time and don't work it into play then it's kinda weird and wonky. On the other hand if you apply setbacks, spend D-points to upgrade (or just upgrade cause the GM says so) and factor in the time to build this stuff into your game it starts to balance out a lot. You can still nail a roll, but if building a heavy energy rifle takes 24 hours of work, you gotta find 24 hours. If the GM is running an actual adventure then finding 24 hours isn't gonna be easy as it's likely you've got something to do and somewhere to be.

Think about it... "Oh... yeah I'll take C-3PO out to track down R2-D2 in a couple of days. I'm sure Uncle Owen will be way more impressed that I spent my time and money building really sweet suit of combat armor."

Depends on what kind of game you run. I like the kind of "Die Hard" adventure where suddenly you're surrounded by bad guys with no gun and no shoes, and there is a hard time limit for pulling your butt out of the fire, but not every adventure can be like that. Sometimes it does have to be the players turn to do the planning and set things in motion. Every time you do a hyperspace jump to another system that's potentially a week or more of downtime too, unless you're using Rogue One class 0.0001 hyperdrives.

14 hours ago, Kamin_Majere said:

It's part of light saber construction, for like 4 advantage they can make it in such a way that the hilt is part of another tool or weapon.

To be honest, I had yet to crack open Endless Vigil because the two Force Users in my group had already acquired Lightsabers. That is an interesting thing to see. If they lose them or want to build another, I'll make sure to have this handy.

This reminds me of the old school days where you rolled a few d6 for your stats. And there was always the one guy who rolled at home and somehow managed to get 18, 18, 16, 14, 14, 7 on his rolls. And he'd claim that you know he didn't cheat because why would he get a seven?

Its just BS.

On 4/21/2017 at 6:13 PM, awayputurwpn said:

TL;DR: stand by your ruling . . .

I keep seeing the Acronym "TL;DR:" and my interpretation is "Tech Level; Damage Resistance" but that doesn't fit. So what does this mean for everyone else?

8 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

I keep seeing the Acronym "TL;DR:" and my interpretation is "Tech Level; Damage Resistance" but that doesn't fit. So what does this mean for everyone else?

T oo L ong; D idn't R ead

3 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

I keep seeing the Acronym "TL;DR:" and my interpretation is "Tech Level; Damage Resistance" but that doesn't fit. So what does this mean for everyone else?

Haha, yeah it's like, "in summary..."

5 hours ago, Genuine said:

This reminds me of the old school days where you rolled a few d6 for your stats. And there was always the one guy who rolled at home and somehow managed to get 18, 18, 16, 14, 14, 7 on his rolls. And he'd claim that you know he didn't cheat because why would he get a seven?

Its just BS.

Totally. A player did that once when we were playing Saga, and I was like, "Sorry man but those are wasted rolls. You can do point buy if you want to build at home, but the rolling needs to happen at the table. It's part of the social contract."

3 hours ago, Tear44 said:

T oo L ong; D idn't R ead

Thanks. I feel edified.

On 4/21/2017 at 6:10 PM, Aetrion said:

Well yea, you can always try your best to run adventures in such a way that you avoid the weaknesses in the system, but at the end of the day a classless game like this would have heavily benefitted from some normalization in its mechanics that ensures that nothing ever stops posing a challenge all together.

Isn't that precisely the job of the GM?

As a GM for a structured living campaign our team knew that it was equipment that was going to really make or break the game. So we had to make some house rules. Like starting out you couldn't get any item of a rarity higher than 5, this included crafting gear. All gear crafting also had to be done in front of a GM no exceptions.

He was frustrated but he understood where I was coming from and rerolled the checks. The stuff still turned out similar so his reported checks may have been accurate but it made the rest of the group feel better about it to have me there to see it.

32 minutes ago, HistoryGuy said:

He was frustrated but he understood where I was coming from and rerolled the checks. The stuff still turned out similar so his reported checks may have been accurate but it made the rest of the group feel better about it to have me there to see it.

Glad it turned out well.

New character: where did he even get the money to create the objects in question?

Also one rule I enforce with my groups is the game starts when we meet up and ends when we close for the day and no one is to touch it unless it is at the table with the GM.

11 hours ago, HistoryGuy said:

He was frustrated but he understood where I was coming from and rerolled the checks. The stuff still turned out similar so his reported checks may have been accurate but it made the rest of the group feel better about it to have me there to see it.

Glad it worked out.

10 hours ago, BipolarJuice said:

New character: where did he even get the money to create the objects in question?

We did knight level play and he took the extra 1000 credits.