2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The novel shows an example of what can happen when someone neglects his or her weapon assuming that his or her skill will make up for it. That is what makes it relevant.

We’re talking about balance in a game. Your example didn’t happen in this game, and can’t be replicated in the game without rigging the situation, which would defeat the entire purpose of the exercise. I’m not bringing up John Wick’s (the character from the movies of the same name, not the RPG designer) pencil killings either - because they also don’t have any bearing on the mechanics of this game.

3 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

We’re talking about balance in a game. Your example didn’t happen in this game, and can’t be replicated in the game without rigging the situation, which would defeat the entire purpose of the exercise. I’m not bringing up John Wick’s (the character from the movies of the same name, not the RPG designer) pencil killings either - because they also don’t have any bearing on the mechanics of this game.

Actually, yes, it can, if the lightsaber used has a Cracked Crystal from Disciples of Harmony . The crystal won't necessarily cause the weapon to explode, but the crystal can shatter on a Despair during combat, and that can lead to a character getting seriously injured or killed as a direct result of that. A Cracked Crystal was essentially what Tenel Ka had found. It was a volcanic gem with several cracks and flaws in it. This created a very unstable blade, which failed her while Jacen Solo's blade was pressed against hers, causing her blade to overload and allowing Jacen's blade to pas right through, cutting off her arm just above the elbow. Essentially, she rolled a Despair and her crystal shattered, leaving her open to a (inadvertent) critical injury inflicted by Jacen. This can happen in game as well, with a Cracked Crystal.

5 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Actually, yes, it can, if the lightsaber used has a Cracked Crystal from Disciples of Harmony . The crystal won't necessarily cause the weapon to explode, but the crystal can shatter on a Despair during combat, and that can lead to a character getting seriously injured or killed as a direct result of that. A Cracked Crystal was essentially what Tenel Ka had found. It was a volcanic gem with several cracks and flaws in it. This created a very unstable blade, which failed her while Jacen Solo's blade was pressed against hers, causing her blade to overload and allowing Jacen's blade to pas right through, cutting off her arm just above the elbow. Essentially, she rolled a Despair and her crystal shattered, leaving her open to a (inadvertent) critical injury inflicted by Jacen. This can happen in game as well, with a Cracked Crystal.

First, that would be rigging the situation. Second, unless I missed an erratum that’s not what happens when a Cracked Crystal shatters (I think you may be conflating the Blade Drain’s mechanics with the crystal’s). Third, it still has nothing to do with needing an optimized saber to deal with primo armor and ranged weaponry.

Just now, nameless ronin said:

First, that would be rigging the situation. Second, unless I missed an erratum that’s not what happens when a Cracked Crystal shatters (I think you may be conflating the Blade Drain’s mechanics with the crystal’s). Third, it still has nothing to do with needing an optimized saber to deal with primo armor and ranged weaponry.

When a Cracked crystal shatters the weapon returns to the stats it would have without a crystal . In other words, a deactivated hilt . Without a crystal, a lightsaber doesn't function at all.

48 minutes ago, Rogues Rule said:

Do you mean this Developer Answered Question?

Question Asked by Jegergryte :

I have a question concerning the Cortosis quality in the Star Wars RPG line. It states that weapons become immune to Sunder whereas armour becomes immune to Pierce and Breach. So, can you still Sunder an armour with the Cortosis quality?

Answered by Sam Stewart :

Rules as written, that is correct. You can Sunder the armor with Cortosis.

This is one of the rare occasions where the devs answer does not make any sense, IMO. The hole wording of sunder does imply, that it is meant to be used against weapons and equipment. Also the following chapter about weapon maintenance and repairing gear is only written with weapons or tools in mind. The "penalties for use" make no sense for armor. That is why I am quite sure, that the cortosis quality does not state that armor becomes immune to Sunder, because the Sunder weapon quality was never ment to effect armor anyway. We have Pierce and Breach for that.

Just because something does not explicitly say that you cannot do it, does not mean you can. Otherwise you open the door for countless loopholes.

It's clarified in the Order 66 Podcast episode 107 (starting about 1 hour, 1 minute in). The hosts basically called up Sam Stewart (who is the RPG uber-dev-in-chief at FFG, I think) who clarified that all armor, including cortosis armor, is vulnerable to sunder. The setback/difficulty dice from damaged equipment should be applied to checks for moving around.

To me, it makes sense, as armor wouldn't be 100% made of cortosis. There would still be vulnerable straps and such to cut.

49 minutes ago, Rogues Rule said:

And I guess the PCs that spent a lot of credits, XP and weeks of ingame time to craft their personal armor will be very unhappy, if 4 advantages are all it needs to destroy their armor.

I am curious, how many GMs here let sunder effect armor in their game and why?

PC gear isn't sacred. Besides, players tend to spend as much, if not more on weapons, which are rarely immune to sunder (lightsabers and the odd cortosis weapon excluded) and break just as easily as armor. Also, as far as I know, as of yet, there is no way you can add the cortosis quality to weapons via attachments.

Balance-wise, it kind of makes sense. Soakmonsters are already quite horrifyingly imbalanced and pretty much the only thing that keeps them in check is breach or generous amounts of pierce. Making them immune to that, with no other ability to deal with that immunity would just add to that.

Also, in a combat situations, there really is no point in spending that fourth advantage on destroying an item. Three makes it completely useless, and unless you're bathing in advantages or are just being petty, why spend a fourth to permanently wreck it? Besides if the players are willing to spend cash on acquiring the best stuff, they should be prepared to have to spend a little to keep it in good working order.

1 hour ago, Rogues Rule said:

Concerning weapon qualities: As long as we have Auto-Fire, do we really need to put so much thought into lightsabers being overpowered? ? 

Indeed. In the campaign I play in, jury-rigged was banned from auto-fire right out of the gate. I haven't made a decision yet in the campaigns I run, but then again, no one is playing a Heavy in them.

13 hours ago, penpenpen said:

Normally I'd agree, but I've seen the stats in question.

I just realized, that what I said may have come across as unprovoked trash talking, it was originally intended as a justification/support of @Tramp Graphics claims that a massively tricked out lightsaber was a necessity at least for him, while also noting that I didn't expect it to be true for everyone. The second post was intended to justify my claim that Tramp's character build was inefficient which he contested claiming it was a min-max vs. generalist build philosophy dispute. @penpenpen thank you for confirming that what I said was true. And I apologize to @Tramp Graphics and the readers of this thread for me (unintentionally) coming across as an unprovoked attack against Tramp.

9 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

I just realized, that what I said may have come across as unprovoked trash talking, it was originally intended as a justification/support of @Tramp Graphics claims that a massively tricked out lightsaber was a necessity at least for him, while also noting that I didn't expect it to be true for everyone. The second post was intended to justify my claim that Tramp's character build was inefficient which he contested claiming it was a min-max vs. generalist build philosophy dispute. @penpenpen thank you for confirming that what I said was true. And I apologize to @Tramp Graphics and the readers of this thread for me (unintentionally) coming across as an unprovoked attack against Tramp.

Sincerity and civility on the Internet. Excelsior!

On 6/6/2018 at 9:22 PM, EliasWindrider said:

You're character isn't even a good generalist, a jack of all trades is a generalist, a 7 of all trades is not. If that's what you were shooting for you should have dumped all your starting xp into attributes and a lot less total xp into skills for starters. Your attributes are so poor you can't make good use of talents (one of many examples is Korath's 2 cunning and the whole full throttle tree, coupled with a sil 5 ship so you can't punch it, coupled with an entirely unimpressive piloting check so you can't reliably maintain full throttle... that's not a generalist pilot, if you had 4's in agility and cunning and no ranks that would be an effective generalist pilot) with the amount of xp you have you could easily have a 3 as your lowest attribute and 2 4's or a 444332 spread, while having at least as many force dice. Your build tries to specialize in a lot of things before achieving basic proficiency in them. If you'd like me to demonstrate what a generalist Korath would look like I'd be happy to

@Tramp Graphics Trying to provide some build advice that I think fits the flavor of Korath a little better than your current build, now I know that some of these weren't options when you converted Korath, but they are options now and maybe the current GM will allow a respec...

Guardian: Soresu Defender/Padawan Survivor/Racer/Teacher (if xp permits a dip into another class to obtain instinctive astrogation and maybe another force rating)

starting attributes are Agility 3, Brawn 3, Intellect 3, cunning 2, willpower 3, presence 2

Guardian starting skill ranks Discipline, Vigilance, and either brawl or Resilience

don't know what you want to do with your 2 human ranks, I'd recommend ranged light/heavy/gunnery, or computers

Soresu Defender starting skill ranks: Discipline and Vigilance

15 xp spent to get 2 ranks of lightsaber

all of Soresu defender talents except the 20 xp Defensive stance (so 280 xp spent on talents)

Soresu Defender dedication increases Intellect to 4.

Padawan Survivor (he might not have been alive at the time of Order 66, but he had a jedi master that was killed during the dark times so close enough)

Talents: top 2 rows, bottom row, parry 15, balance (instead of the ebb/flow force power), disorienting strike, uncanny reactions, 230 xp spent on talents, 20 xp spent to take the spec, dedication increases willpower to 4

Racer: top row of talents, all of second row except conditioned, 3rd row is only improved full throttle, 4th row is supreme full throttle and force rating, 5th row is dedication and improved short cut, so 155 xp on talents and 40 xp to take the spec (can optionally take freerunning and improved, and intuitive evasion if xp allows). Dedication is spent to increase agility to 4.

Teacher: sense danger and well rounded from the top row of talents, encouraging words, nobody's fool, and grit from the second row, 3rd row toughened, skilled teacher, 4th row: wise warrior & improved, grit; 5th row, skilled teacher and force rating, so 180 xp spent on talents and 50 xp spent to take the spec. You'll want to bump lore to 4 or 5 ranks for 50 or 75 xp (helps with lightsaber crafting due to padawan survivor, secrets of the jedi and improved)

may want to take dedication for another 25 xp, not sure which attribute you want to put it in, there's a good argument for any except brawn or agility, my personal experience (from roleplaying with you in person) is that Korath has low presence, and I think you want a low cunning (he's not duplicitous), but I'd recommend either intellect, cunning, or willpower. since you claim to want a generalist I'll say raise cunning to 3 (as it will help with perception, deception, and full throttle)

you might want to put 2 skill ranks in mechanics (15 xp), pilot space (15 xp), a third rank in discipline (15 xp), and a 3rd rank in lightsaber (another 15 xp).

xp spent so far

soresu defender talents: 280

Padawan Survivor (spec & talents ? 250

Racer (spec & talents) 195

Teacher (spec & talents including dedication): 255

lightsaber: 30 xp

lore: 50 or 75 xp

mechanics 15 xp

pilot space: 15 xp

discipline: 15 xp

so either 1105 or 1130 xp spent so far (depending on whether you have 4 or 5 ranks in lore)

attributes are agility 4, brawn 3, Intellect 4, cunning 3, willpower 4, presence 2,

force rating: 4

parry: 6, reflect: 4, improved parry, improved reflect, supreme parry

toughened 3, grit 5, which means you have 19 wound threshold and 18 strain threshold

nobody's fool 2,

constant vigilance and uncanny reactions means your initiative pool is always 2 yellow, 2 green, and 1 blue

lightsaber pool is 3 yellow, 1 green before contributions from saber construction

discipline check is 3 yellow, 1 green,

lore check is either 4 yellow, or 4 yellow and a green,

mechanics check is 2 yellow, 2 green before gear

pilot space check is 2 yellow, 2 green

you're a pretty decent shot (and stealthy) based on attributes alone (but you also have sleight of mind for stealth, instead of misdirect)

let's look at force powers now (trying to keep with your preferences instead of mine, I wouldn't invest in this many personally, all of these assumes no mentor bonus which would reduce the listed cost of everything except farsight by 5)

Battle Meditation: basic, magnitude, range: 25 xp

Enhance: basic, control coordination/piloting planetary/piloting space, and the force leap/vertical/range: 55 xp

Farsight: basic: control, medium range details, transparent, duration, every direction: 30 xp

Foresee basic: 10 xp

heal/harm basic: 15 xp

influence: basic, magnitude, use as part of coercion, charm... check: 30 xp

move: basic, 2 strength, 1 magnitude, 1 range, hurl, pull: 55 xp

protect/unleash: basic power 20 xp

seek basic power 10 xp

sense: basic, full defense upgrade, control, range: 55 xp

so 305 xp spent on force powers and you could reduce that by up to 45 xp with a mentor bonus.

so total cost of the build is 1365-1435 xp and it's a much better generalist than your 1800+ xp build, and have several areas of focus (could be a "queen" or "king" as opposed to jack in them)

On 6/8/2018 at 1:53 AM, penpenpen said:

It's clarified in the Order 66 Podcast episode 107 (starting about 1 hour, 1 minute in). The hosts basically called up Sam Stewart (who is the RPG uber-dev-in-chief at FFG, I think) who clarified that all armor, including cortosis armor, is vulnerable to sunder. The setback/difficulty dice from damaged equipment should be applied to checks for moving around.

Thank you for the link! ?

On 6/8/2018 at 1:53 AM, penpenpen said:

Balance-wise, it kind of makes sense. Soakmonsters are already quite horrifyingly imbalanced and pretty much the only thing that keeps them in check is breach or generous amounts of pierce. Making them immune to that, with no other ability to deal with that immunity would just add to that.

You definitely have a point here.