So, you may have heard me start this spiel before, but my campaign takes place 1,000 years after the end of the NJO novels in the Legends continuity, with a resurgent Jedi Order working with a Second Galactic Empire. Now, since this is a Jedi Order at the height of its power and knowledge, and not, as Force and Destiny assumes, a Jedi Order recently destroyed with all information about it actively suppressed and survivors hunted down, I was thinking it made sense to make lightsaber construction a little beefier, since this knowledge would easily be passed on to a student in the Order, rather than them having to piece it together for themselves.

The thought I have is this: When constructing a or modifying a lightsaber only (any variant), roll Force Dice no greater than Force Rating as part of the dice pool. One Force Point can be spent to negate a Failure or add a Success, two Force Points can be spent to turn one Success into one Advantage, and three Force Points can be spent to turn one Advantage into one Triumph. All these can be done as many times as the character has Force Points to pay for them, so you could upgrade a Success to a Triumph for five Force Points, or straight-up add a Triumph for six.

Thoughts?

Get the force power manipulate?

Do recall that when a PC is working on their own personal lightsaber (generally the one they've built for themselves), the difficulty to modify attachments is reduced by 2 (minimum of Simple difficulty). In addition, when modifying a kyber crystal, the PC gets to add their Force dice to the check, and can spend FPs as either successes or advantages. Both of these are in the core rules.

Also, bear in mind that FFG has offered two additional methods of lightsaber construction, one set found in the GM's Kit (PC makes a Hard Mechanics or Knowledge: Lore check to build a basic hilt) and Endless Vigil (choose a hilt template, make a Mechanics check against the difficulty, spend advantage/triumph/threat/despair to modify), with a basic hilt being Average difficulty (something most PCs can accomplish, especially if they have a boost die or two).

Per the corebook, there's no roll involved in assembling the lightsaber, only a Streetwise check to gather up the necessary parts. Which, if the PCs have ready access to the parts to build a lightsaber hilt and have learned how to do so from a teacher/mentor, they don't need to bother with and they can just assemble it.

I think trying to shoehorn Force dice into building the base hilt is asking for trouble, especially for those PCs that took specs which double-down on increasing Force Rating (such as Seer, Sage, and Hermit).

If you really do want to make things easier for the PCs to build lightsaber hilts due to having more/better resources than F&D assumes, it's simpler to reduce the difficulty by one.

I recall neither of those rules, about mods or crystals. I'll double check. I'm familiar with both crafting rules sets, and we're using the Endless Vigil version (as an aside, I find it mildly annoying that three books are needed for the complete item crafting rules). But in my limited experience, getting good lightsabers, with more than one or maybe two add-ones at construction, is rather difficult unless the character is really skilled in Mechanics, and the main Mechanics character in this campaign is a droid. Since I won't be allowing assists on lightsaber construction, I want to make it a bit easier to get good rolls.

So, Force Power Manipulate allows adding Force Dice to Mechanics rolls as one of the powers, and isn't that pricey to get to.

If you are (for some reason) banning the assist rules for lightsaber construction, then you could lower the difficulty by two, as top of page 196 F&D Core does for modifying attachments. As per side bar on page 196, Force users can also add Force dice when modding crystal attachments (but I'd stick to just the crystals, for thematic reasons).

Well, constructing a lightsaber is the final step in a Jedi's training, the last trial to prove their mastery of the Force, the last test of their skills, knowledge, wisdom, and power. Saying "here, droid, gimme a hand with this" seems wrong to me.

17 hours ago, ErikModi said:

So, you may have heard me start this spiel before, but my campaign takes place 1,000 years after the end of the NJO novels in the Legends continuity, with a resurgent Jedi Order working with a Second Galactic Empire. Now, since this is a Jedi Order at the height of its power and knowledge, and not, as Force and Destiny assumes, a Jedi Order recently destroyed with all information about it actively suppressed and survivors hunted down, I was thinking it made sense to make lightsaber construction a little beefier, since this knowledge would easily be passed on to a student in the Order, rather than them having to piece it together for themselves.

The thought I have is this: When constructing a or modifying a lightsaber only (any variant), roll Force Dice no greater than Force Rating as part of the dice pool. One Force Point can be spent to negate a Failure or add a Success, two Force Points can be spent to turn one Success into one Advantage, and three Force Points can be spent to turn one Advantage into one Triumph. All these can be done as many times as the character has Force Points to pay for them, so you could upgrade a Success to a Triumph for five Force Points, or straight-up add a Triumph for six.

Thoughts?

Why not follow the pattern of spending pips to add success or advantage, if they spend darkside pips they turn the crystal into the corrupted crystal in disciples of harmony and having a crystal attuned to them in the lightsaber that they're modifying is a prerequisite for being able to spend force pips on the roll.

10 hours ago, ErikModi said:

Well, constructing a lightsaber is the final step in a Jedi's training, the last trial to prove their mastery of the Force, the last test of their skills, knowledge, wisdom, and power. Saying "here, droid, gimme a hand with this" seems wrong to me.

Not really. While in the old Legends stories, lightsaber construction was part of the final trials of Knighthood, as of the Clone Wars , it is part of a youngling's training not long before they become Padawans.

That was a special case, if you're referring to the pair of episodes I think you are. It was noted as such.

On 12/14/2017 at 0:42 AM, Tramp Graphics said:

Not really. While in the old Legends stories, lightsaber construction was part of the final trials of Knighthood, as of the Clone Wars , it is part of a youngling's training not long before they become Padawans.

OP is running a Legends continuity game, so Legends rules are in effect and Lightsaber construction is one of their final steps towards knighthood.

I'd just use the Endless Vigil rules and add boost die, a lot of them. Let's count:

1 for high quality materials

1 for clear instructions

1 for high quality tools

2 for having an entire day to spend on their assembly at the least

A failure here might not necessarily mean they don't get a saber, either (you need to keep the story going). If one of four players fails for example, let them still assemble their saber and spend advantages/triumphs/threats/despairs as normal, and make their saber short out or fail during an important scene in the future, requiring them to make repairs later.

On 12/13/2017 at 6:34 AM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Do recall that when a PC is working on their own personal lightsaber (generally the one they've built for themselves), the difficulty to modify attachments is reduced by 2 (minimum of Simple difficulty). In addition, when modifying a kyber crystal, the PC gets to add their Force dice to the check, and can spend FPs as either successes or advantages. Both of these are in the core rules.

Also, bear in mind that FFG has offered two additional methods of lightsaber construction, one set found in the GM's Kit (PC makes a Hard Mechanics or Knowledge: Lore check to build a basic hilt) and Endless Vigil (choose a hilt template, make a Mechanics check against the difficulty, spend advantage/triumph/threat/despair to modify), with a basic hilt being Average difficulty (something most PCs can accomplish, especially if they have a boost die or two).

Per the corebook, there's no roll involved in assembling the lightsaber, only a Streetwise check to gather up the necessary parts. Which, if the PCs have ready access to the parts to build a lightsaber hilt and have learned how to do so from a teacher/mentor, they don't need to bother with and they can just assemble it.

I think trying to shoehorn Force dice into building the base hilt is asking for trouble, especially for those PCs that took specs which double-down on increasing Force Rating (such as Seer, Sage, and Hermit).

If you really do want to make things easier for the PCs to build lightsaber hilts due to having more/better resources than F&D assumes, it's simpler to reduce the difficulty by one.

The droid instructor from the clone wars cartoon is one option for skilled assistance