What aspects of a Signature Weapon are active at all times, and what aspects are only active when you pay the cost to activate the ability?

The table lists what the Signature Weapons start as, but you have the option to modify them with either Dwarven or Elvish made

The basic activation adds a pre determined Weapon Attachment for the duration of the activation

The Improved Upgrade permanently adds Reinforced or the Ancient quality

The Supreme Upgrade permanently adds 2 hard points and any single attachment with a Rarity of 9 or less.

so basically the standard ability is the only thing that changes when you activate it, everything else looks to be permanent. It’s a HA primed for Secondary Effects

I’m making assumptions about the Improved and Supreme version based on the fact they have the same wording. Supreme adds hard points and an attachment, the hard points would not be required if it was only applied during the activation

5 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

The Improved Upgrade permanently adds Reinforced or the Ancient quality

Seeing as how the Ancient description grants a weapon the reinforced quality this is kind of a non choice.

True, sort of, the options are:

+ Reinforced

or

+1 Damage, -1 Crit, + Reinforced, -1 Hard Point

so you are really deciding if loosing 1 Hard Point is worth and extra Damage and lower Crit. In some cases the lowered Crit could totally be worth it, but you can do a lot with a single Hard Point so it’s still a legitimate choice to make. Blast 5 or Burn 1 Enchantments are only a single Hard Point

6 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

The table lists what the Signature Weapons start as, but you have the option to modify them with either Dwarven or Elvish made

The basic activation adds a pre determined Weapon Attachment for the duration of the activation

The Improved Upgrade permanently adds Reinforced or the Ancient quality

The Supreme Upgrade permanently adds 2 hard points and any single attachment with a Rarity of 9 or less.

so basically the standard ability is the only thing that changes when you activate it, everything else looks to be permanent. It’s a HA primed for Secondary Effects

That was my read on it as well, that you'd always have access to the base stats + craftsmanship, Improved, and Supreme upgrades. Only the free attachment and purchased upgrades activate during the ability use window.

I'm still not sure if I like this ability... the generic weapon stats are too generic, for me, but I can see why they did it for balance reasons (and simplicity). It's great for some weapons, not so great for others (especially if you're trying to stack defense).

3 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

True, sort of, the options are:

+ Reinforced

or

+1 Damage, -1 Crit, + Reinforced, -1 Hard Point

so you are really deciding if loosing 1 Hard Point is worth and extra Damage and lower Crit. In some cases the lowered Crit could totally be worth it, but you can do a lot with a single Hard Point so it’s still a legitimate choice to make. Blast 5 or Burn 1 Enchantments are only a single Hard Point

I think the Reinforced option is there for those who have no hard points left. If you have 1 or more hard points there's no need to not make it of ancient design.

Are you saying you would always forego the Hard Point for +1 Damage, -1 Crit? I know criting is the highway to minion removal but its not that great.

3 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Are you saying you would always forego the Hard Point for +1 Damage, -1 Crit? I know criting is the highway to minion removal but its not that great.

Always? No. But I'd be hard-pressed to say it's not a very tempting trade-off.

Tempting yes, but even Burn 1 will have significant benefits, or if you only have 2 HP on the item so removing one would prevent the addition of a 2 HP enchantment

A few questions on this myself:

1) Is Superior factored in already? If so, it seems a Signature Weapon sword is worse than a normal sword, at least to start.

2) Are the benefits of the free attachment automatic for the duration of the Heroic Ability activation, or do you need to spend Advantage to activate them? I’m leaning toward automatic as Heroic Abilities are once-per-session.

1. In Star Wars that has always been the case, but Superior in Genesys only adds an advantage to any check it’s used in, so there’s nothing to add.

2. The attachment is automatically added, but you will still need to activate any added qualities, which is helped by having superior.

I'm a bit disappointed by this one, tbh. The other HA let you do something special, this on just let's you do something early.

4 hours ago, Jon D said:

I'm a bit disappointed by this one, tbh. The other HA let you do something special, this on just let's you do something early.

There's is some benefit to having a weapon that you can never lose.

6 hours ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

A few questions on this myself:

1) Is Superior factored in already? If so, it seems a Signature Weapon sword is worse than a normal sword, at least to start.

2) Are the benefits of the free attachment automatic for the duration of the Heroic Ability activation, or do you need to spend Advantage to activate them? I’m leaning toward automatic as Heroic Abilities are once-per-session.

1) All Signature Weapons are superior, no need to use a hard point for it

2) The free attachment is automatic, meaning you automatically have the attachment. If said attachment grants a quality, however, you need to spend the Advantages to trigger it, like normal. But like @Richardbuxton said, it's Superior, so you have a leg up on the advantage cost. Of course, not all attachments provide an active weapon quality. The balanced hilt attachment grants Accurate 1. No Advantage cost needed!

I realised that the basic ability has no restriction on what the attachment can be! Rune of Blades and Rune of Severing are actually possible, so that duration upgrade is suddenly looking much more enticing.

You also need to consider the Craftsmanship you originally chose when deciding on the Ancient option, Elven can get you -1 Crit at the cost of a Damage Point, whilst Dwarf made can get you that extra +1 damage at the cost of an extra Encumbrance. Both allow you 4 hard points plus the attachment from the basic ability... you can make one heck of a crazy weapon with this power.

Upon seeing what’s going on “behind the scenes”, it’s a pretty nice HA. The benefits aren’t immediately apparent but they’re there.

On 4/23/2018 at 8:44 AM, Richardbuxton said:

I realised that the basic ability has no restriction on what the attachment can be! Rune of Blades and Rune of Severing are actually possible, so that duration upgrade is suddenly looking much more enticing.

You also need to consider the Craftsmanship you originally chose when deciding on the Ancient option, Elven can get you -1 Crit at the cost of a Damage Point, whilst Dwarf made can get you that extra +1 damage at the cost of an extra Encumbrance. Both allow you 4 hard points plus the attachment from the basic ability... you can make one heck of a crazy weapon with this power.

Add the Tinkerer talent to that and you get one more hp