I know we'll be getting official stats on the Inquisitor Lightsaber when Ghosts of Dathomir is finally released, but from the sounds of it, that might still be a while. With that in mind...

Thematically speaking, the Inquisitors in my campaign have the same style of lightsaber as what we've seen thus far in Rebels. To me, it makes sense for the Inquisitors to have more standardized lightsabers than the Jedi Order, and for their lightsabers to be more gimmicky to make up for lack of skill. Take this quote from Dave Filoni, for example, "The lightsaber for the Inquisitor is like a cheat-mode for a lightsaber. It does a lot of things that Maul could do on his own. To have a weapon that cheats those abilities and makes up for a lack of ability in some ways is very representative of who he is."

Filoni basically says that the Grand Inquisitor doesn't have the skill of Darth Maul, but that his lightsaber helps make up for that lack of skill by letting him accomplish similar things. So far, I haven't bothered properly trying to stat such a lightsaber out in my campaign. The one Inquisitor my players have faced didn't use the spinning feature of his lightsaber at all, instead opting to use it as a standard double-bladed lightsaber. I basically treated it like a Temple Guard's Saberstaff, giving it Defensive 1 on top of the typically Linked 1 given to double-bladed lightsabers. This was to account for the hand protection offered by the metal ring around the handle, which we saw protect the 5th Brother and 8th Brother from getting their hands chopped off in the Season 2 Finale (not that it saved either of their lives, but it almost did save the 8th Brother). However, even though I've already come up with a basic homerule for that one Inquisitor, I'd love to have more thorough rules for the Inquisitor's saber before season 2 of my game kicks off (since there's a real possibility of one of my players joining the Inquisitorius).

So, with the idea that the Inquisitor's Lightsaber makes up for lack of talents, how would you homerule the weapon? I'm thinking "Innate talent: Reflect 3" and Linked 3. Gives them some defensive skill, and makes up for lack of Saberswarm (Which, for what it's worth, linked and auto-fire trigger off of extra success rather than advantage in my game). To offset how powerful that might be, I'd also have it increase the difficulty of all attacks made with the weapon. Does that sound about right? For the record, I'm also most definitely not going to give it a flying feature. Helicopter sabers were over the top.

What about you guys? Have any of you tried homebrewing the weapon in question? If so, what stats did you give it? And did you add any neat perks?

Honestly, I'd say just treat it as being a double-bladed lightsaber, and use the Inquisitor abilities Intimidating Presence and/or Terrifying to account for the fear factor that the spin-sabers give them over their opponents. At most, I might suggest giving the spin-sabers a rank of Defensive and a rank of Deflection, but since the latest dev answer is that multiple sources of defense don't stack, it wouldn't give them much of a benefit since Inquisitors default to either armored clothing or armored robes, both of which already give the wearer a point of melee and ranged defense.

Since I give my Inquisitor builds both Parry and Reflect (they need both in order to survive combats with a mixed party I've found), the GM can just narrate that the high value they have in those talents is only partly training but is also a benefit they get from their spin-sabers. Or, there's a lightsaber attachment in Endless Vigil that grants the user an extra rank of Parry or Reflect at the cost of spending an additional point of strain when using those talents; given Inquisitors have a rather monstrous strain threshold, that extra point of strain isn't nearly as big a deal for them as it would be for a PC, so you can just mimic the attachment.

All that being said, the problem that comes with loading up too many inherent abilities into the spin-sabers is that you increase the desire for your players to want one of those weapons for themselves. So if you give an Inquisitor's spin-saber too many inherent benefits, that's a weapon that could very well wind up in the hands of a player, giving them an huge edge over the other PCs that they've not really done anything to earn, especially if we're talking increasing the Linked quality above a 1. Linked 1 on a lightsaber is already quite powerful, since even with just a basic unmodded Ilum crystal that's potentially two hits of at least Damage 7 that the majority of targets aren't going to be able to absorb since the Breach 1 quality ignores their soak value. That there's a 20XP talent in the Ataru Striker tree that has you jump through some hoops to be able to add Linked = Force Rating (and with Force Rating talent in the spec itself, that means buying additional specs in order to get Linked greater than 1 through the talent, itself a significant hoop to jump through). And from both test combats and play experience, I can tell you that Linked 1 on a double-bladed lightsaber, especially in the hands of a wielder that's rolling at least four positive dice (especially if three or more of them are proficiency dice) can be devastating unless the target has the means to seriously jack up the difficulty. Linked 2 or 3 is pretty much a recipe for a PC to get taken out in a single round, as even with several ranks in Parry, that's still a substantial number of wounds and a lot of strain the PC has to burn through, and any PC that doesn't have Parry (or the ability to use it) is utterly hosed.

To be honest, I'm kind of dreading Ghosts of Dathomir for the concern that the spin-saber is going to be a munchkin's dream weapon. I'm hoping the concern is unfounded that that it's either no different than a standard double-bladed lightsaber, or that it's not that much of an improvement over said weapon.

The problem with building an innate Talent into the saber is after the battle your PC(s), who actually have that Talent, now have that 'saber and it's Talent. Getting 3 more Ranks in Reflect out of a 'saber would be absolutely huuuge.

Bit off the topic... but man, Revan isn't canon, but helicopter lightsaber's are!?

Crazy...

What if the weapon comes with an XP cost to unlock its inherent talent(s)? That could still be an advantage, as you don't have to invest in a whole specialization to get better at using this weapon. And NPCs don't have to worry about XP, so it's not a factor there.

What if I were to keep the same innate talents, but only while spinning. And also add on Unwieldy 4 and increase the difficulty to use it by 2 while it is spinning? So you would want Agility 4 to use it effectively, and even then would be rolling against 4 purple when you try to attack while the blade is spinning. Also, spend a maneuver to switch between the standard double bladed mode and the spinning mode. At that point, triggering the extra hits from linked would be pretty rare, and it would mostly only be used defensively.

I'd be very hesitant to hand anyone Linked 3 with a lightsaber.

The Inquisitor's saber is definitely a "screw the rules" weapon, so giving it an advantage makes sense, but equally I'd agree that you'd need to give it a downside. You definitely need to consider what happens when/if the players lay their grubby little mittens on these things.

On ‎29‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 1:01 PM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Since I give my Inquisitor builds both Parry and Reflect (they need both in order to survive combats with a mixed party I've found), the GM can just narrate that the high value they have in those talents is only partly training but is also a benefit they get from their spin-sabers. Or, there's a lightsaber attachment in Endless Vigil that grants the user an extra rank of Parry or Reflect at the cost of spending an additional point of strain when using those talents; given Inquisitors have a rather monstrous strain threshold, that extra point of strain isn't nearly as big a deal for them as it would be for a PC, so you can just mimic the attachment.

That'd be a nice idea. It sits well within the rules, and it lets you parlay a strain threshold (which a lot of players won't have access to) into more effectiveness

16 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

That'd be a nice idea. It sits well within the rules, and it lets you parlay a strain threshold (which a lot of players won't have access to) into more effectiveness

I like that idea too - adding additional strain requirements to it's use.

Additionally, given that it is supposed to be a gimmicky weapon, I'd probably also say that it could break (at least the spinning part) on a despair. Sure, you've got an uber-saber, but it's just got a basic Ilum crystal and no spare hard points, and if you ever roll a despair than you lose everything but basic saber stats.