Some doubts on Lightsaber Mods

By WickedWicks, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

Tramp, you're making about as much sense as arguing that a German shepherd is an animal not a dog because the veterinarian rpg has rules for treating animals not dogs and nothing in the German shepherd's stat block says it's a dog even though the fluff describing the German shepherd animal says it's a dog.

The truth is that a German shepherd is an animal and is a dog even though "animals are dogs" is a false statement. But that becomes correct if you add some "some animals are dogs" and those that do have dog parts.

Similarly the truth is that a training emitter is a crystal and an ultra low output power generator.

Edited by EliasWindrider

The rules say that the Raining Emitter is a lightsaber crystal. It is a single attachment that takes up two hard points . It is not two separate attachments. So yes, by RAW , the training emitter is a lightsaber crystal.

5 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The rules say that the Raining Emitter is a lightsaber crystal. It is a single attachment that takes up two hard points . It is not two separate attachments. So yes, by RAW , the training emitter is a lightsaber crystal.

The burden of proof that you need to meet is proving that RAW explicitly states that a single attachment training emitter is not composed of an ultra low output power generator and a crystal. The reason the burden of proof is on you is because the official write up says it does consist of an ultra low output power generator AND a crystal, and because the RAW name training EMITTER strongly implies that it is more than just a crystal (as in it's an EMITTER).

No one is contesting that a training emitter is a crystal so proving that it is a crystal is pointless. You need to prove that the RAW explicity contradicts the official fluff text by explicitly stating the training emitter is not (a crystal AND an ultra low output power generator as a single attachment).

Until you can do that, you're just plain wrong; and claiming otherwise doesn't change the fact that you REALLY ARE just plain wrong. So as the saying goes it's time for you to "man up or shut up" (no offense intended).

Edited by EliasWindrider

Well... Don't you think it's time for both of you to agree to disagree on this subject ? You both have said all you had to say on the subject multiples times and neither of you will change the other opinion. So, please, give us a break and give it up.

On 1/20/2019 at 6:50 PM, EliasWindrider said:

The burden of proof that you need to meet is proving that RAW explicitly states that a single attachment training emitter is not composed of an ultra low output power generator and a crystal. The reason the burden of proof is on you is because the official write up says it does consist of an ultra low output power generator AND a crystal, and because the RAW name training EMITTER strongly implies that it is more than just a crystal (as in it's an EMITTER).

No one is contesting that a training emitter is a crystal so proving that it is a crystal is pointless. You need to prove that the RAW explicity contradicts the official fluff text by explicitly stating the training emitter is not (a crystal AND an ultra low output power generator as a single attachment).

Until you can do that, you're just plain wrong; and claiming otherwise doesn't change the fact that you REALLY ARE just plain wrong. So as the saying goes it's time for you to "man up or shut up" (no offense intended).

No, Keith. The rules state that the training emitter is a lightsaber crystal, nothing more, nothing less. It takes up no more slots than most other crystals.

17 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, Keith. The rules state that the training emitter is a lightsaber crystal, nothing more, nothing less. It takes up no more slots than most other crystals.

Seriously, I have no idea why you would ASSUME a statblock's description contradicts the statblock unless there were rules that EXPLICITLY contradict the description. And to date you have been UNABLE to show an EXPLICIT contradiction. So I'm calling your bluff. Show me where the rules EXPLICIT SAY that the training emitter is in your own words "nothing more" than a crystal. You seem to partaking in the logical fallacy that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, which is particularly absurd in this case because the official write up says both a low power output generator and a crystal are required, so it's not even an absence of evidence.

If you can't show an EXPLICIT contradiction, then you're STILL just plain wrong because of the statblock's description. Denying that you're wrong doesn't change the fact that you REALLY ARE just plain wrong. So as the saying goes "Man up or shut up" (no offense intended).

Edited by EliasWindrider
4 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Seriously, I have no idea why you would ASSUME a statblock's description contradicts the statblock unless there were rules that EXPLICITLY contradict the description. And to date you have been UNABLE to show an EXPLICIT contradiction. So I'm calling your bluff. Show me where the rules EXPLICIT SAY that the training emitter is in your own words "nothing more" than a crystal. You seem to partaking in the logical fallacy that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, which is particularly absurd in this case because the official write up says both a low power output generator and a crystal are required, so it's not even an absence of evidence.

If you can't show an EXPLICIT contradiction, then you're STILL just plain wrong because of the statblock's description. Denying that you're wrong doesn't change the fact that you REALLY ARE just plain wrong. So as the saying goes "Man up or shut up" (no offense intended).

The stat block provides all of the game mechanics. The "fluff text" is just that;" fluff ". And it wouldn't be the first time mechanics has contradicted fluff text, and it won't be the last.

So that means I can train a Krayt Dragon by feeding it kathracite crystals, right?

Because kathracite = training, and krayt dragons swallow crystals and make them the best crystals. If krayt dragons make crystals awesome, it logically means that training crystals train (tame) krayt dragons.

IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE AND ALSO IT'S RAW.

Edited by penpenpen

On 1/20/2019 at 10:38 AM, Tramp Graphics said:

The rules say that the Raining Emitter is a lightsaber crystal....

Personally, I had no idea that it could be raining emitters, let alone crystals. That's fascinating and this thread has taught me a lot! ;)

7 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The stat block provides all of the game mechanics. The "fluff text" is just that;" fluff ". And it wouldn't be the first time mechanics has contradicted fluff text, and it won't be the last.

You're partly right, the stat block only contains game mechanics, the ultra low output power generator if fluff that has no effect not included in the training emitter. But it takes quite a leap in "reasoning" (term used loosely) to go from that to it's not part of the emitter at all when the official text says it is.

Let's recap... you made an as of yet unsupported ASSUMPTION that there is a contradiction, so that you could discard evidence, so you could (falsely) claim that there was no evidence, so that you could partake of the logical fallacy that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, so that you can claim that your preferred house rule is RAW, so that maybe you can attempt to force a GM to let you use it?

You're jumping through a lot of obviously ILLOGICAL hoops just to make a claim that your house rule is RAW, and I'm like why? No wait, down that path lies madness and also I really don't care why you're making ILLOGICAL assumptions that you can't back up.

So where were we? Oh yeah, until you can cite RAW that explicitly contradicts the official statblock's description, you're still just wrong. And claiming that you're not wrong doesn't change the fact that you REALLY are wrong.

4 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

Let's   recap... you made an as of yet unsupported ASSUMPTION that there is a contradiction, so that you could discard evidence, so you could (falsely) claim that there was no evidence, so that you could partake of the logical fallacy that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, so that you can claim that  your preferred house rule is RAW, so that maybe you can attempt to force a GM to let you use it?

You're jumping through a lot of obviously ILLOGICAL hoops just to make a claim that your house rule is RAW, and I'm like why? No wait, down that path lies madness  and also I really don't care why you're making  ILLOGICAL assumptions that you can't back up.

It makes perfect sense if you're thinking through a straw.

It was an entertaining read. But back to the OP.

I use a house rule that if a character fails to attune their crystal for a specific mod(s), that upon the PC raising their Force rating they can attempt to attune a single mod again. The concept being that with their expanded connection to the Force the PC will have additional insight and the bond they've made with their crystal over time has taught the PC how to better interpret the path to crystal attunement. The difficulty is raised once per previous time the PC has attempted to attune that specific mod. I follow the normal mod difficulty position that mod had when first attempted. So if the PC failed to attune the mod that was at the hard difficulty; 3 purple and this is their 3rd (2 previous failures) attempt to attune it, the 3 purple become 2 red and 1 purple. However, the ruthlessly dreadful despair can ruin a crystal.

The other factors I use with mod attunement is the time taken grows exponentially for each mod after the characters current force rating from when they first attuned to a specific crystal. I typically do this for many mod upgrades paths, though not RAW, it represents the tinkering a PC does during downtime tweaking their assorted equipment in whatever form it takes.

If this was combined with the earlier post of upgrading for additional mods it would negatively affect my house rule.

Best part is they are both right in a sense. The wicked word battles of fluff and raw can take many divergent paths.

My take is interpret the rules for your game, decide what rules fluff or RAW.

IMHO as just a fellow Star Wars enthusiast here is my take on the Training Emitter: a training emitter is a standard crystal housed and focused differently than a standard crystal would be typically housed and focused in a normal light sabers. This standard crystal can be re-housed and re-focused to produce a typical normal standard light sabers using that crystals default levels within the training emitter, but has limitations (see below). This would be an average difficulty mechanics check. Typically training emitters limit or reduce the lethality of the standard crystal type they house by reducing the overall amount of energy that can pass into the standard crystal type they house. Accordingly accidents do happen when a crystal placed in the training emitter in not properly housed and focused and more than one youngling or padawan has ended up maimed or killed. It takes roughly 5 minutes with the right tool(jedi multi tool) (average mechanics check) to perform the process of setting a training emitter to either a lethal or non-lethal level. Training Emitters never allow a standard crystal to access attuned modifications as an extra safety feature, thus light sabers or other weapon that can house a training emitter will either act as a standard non-lethal training emitter or a standard non-attuned crystal of its respective type.

Often the most inexpensive and common Kyber crystals are used. These crystals are still rare, but are found at much higher levels than those a padawan would typically use to build their own light sabers. During the days of the Empire however, these training emitter based light sabers are all a hopeful force user can hope for. Learning to modify a training emitter to its lethal mode is a hard LORE check.

BTW the right tool is the jedi multi tool. All others add 1 setback to the pool.

It could be added above how much or what overriding and limiting mods a training emitter places on the standard crystal it has specifically housed and focused in non-lethal mode. But keeping a simple design and using the default training emitter levels makes book keeping easy.

Edited by doktor grym
rearrange my paragraphs