I may have missed a post as I was trying to figure this out, but my players and I have enjoyed the crafting rules of the different Star Wars RPG lines for a while now. However, we noticed something quite strange while reviewing Endless Vigil on the Advanced Lightsaber construction rules. The basic lightsaber in all books is listed as having an unmodified Ilum crystal and has 5 Hard Points. Yet, the hilt for the same lightsaber WITHOUT any crystal installed has 5 Hard Points. My group tends to look at things several different ways, and I looked for some form of errata for the book. Not finding any, I have been experimenting with some slight adjustments.

At the moment, I have been allowing my players to have the hilts of all types of lightsabers as 2 higher for now.If the players us a crystal that takes up more or less HP, then so be it, but for now, it seems to work out.

Opinions?

So, this is sort of a terminology issue, although I can understand the confusion as it's not entirely well explained.

A basic lightsaber hilt has 5 Hard Points. If it has no crystal installed, 0/5 are occupied. If you install a crystal, then the lightsaber still has 5 Hard Points, it just now has 2/5 occupied. Attachments don't remove hard points from a weapon, they simply occupy "Hard Point slots." I find that's a simpler way of thinking about it.

It is specifically mentioned in the weapon descriptions in Force and Destiny, pages 176-178, "This crystal occupies two of the weapon's hard points" (and the other two books have it at 0 HP because there weren't mods for it)

Is there ever a reason to not have a crystal occupy these 2 hp? Or are their crystals that use more than 2 hp?

According to my quick search: Both Etaan and Ghostfire crystals (Endless Vigil, page 53) occupy just 1 HP.

As for more than 2 HP: Solari Crystal (Disciples of Harmony, page 53) - 3 HP, Sorian Crystal (Keeping the Peace, page 55) - 4 HP. But those seem to be rather rare exceptions!

On 1/4/2018 at 6:48 AM, TheShard said:

Is there ever a reason to not have a crystal occupy these 2 hp? Or are their crystals that use more than 2 hp?

On 1/4/2018 at 6:59 AM, VarroZinn said:

According to my quick search: Both Etaan and Ghostfire crystals (Endless Vigil, page 53) occupy just 1 HP.

As for more than 2 HP: Solari Crystal (Disciples of Harmony, page 53) - 3 HP, Sorian Crystal (Keeping the Peace, page 55) - 4 HP. But those seem to be rather rare exceptions!

Yep, @VarroZinn nailed it. There indeed are several crystals which occupy more or less than the standard two HP. This was all planned by the devs from the start.