Hi - first time poster and newbie player here.

According to the CRB (p.177), all that is required to craft a lightsaber is credits, materials, your character's crystal, and time - no skill checks. If these costs are covered, it doesn't seem that there is a 'failure' state.

Apparently, there are rules in a splat book called Endless Vigil which introduces a subsystem of making Mechanics checks during construction - additional successes allow characters to add mods or mechanical benefits. What I'm not clear on (I don't have access to the splat), is whether the rules of this subsystem are optional, or whether specific overrides general.

If your GM is using Endless Vigil as part of their campaign, does this mean that there is now a 'failure' state for lightsaber crafting? Or is it still possible to default to the CRB method if your character has no interest in mods or benefits, and just wants a standard glowstick? Would like to clarify this before I spend EXP on training the Mechanics skill.

Any help is much appreciated!

Ask your GM. I believe these rules are presented to be optional, but your GM may like them and require them for crafting. Or alternatively, your GM could hate them and decide to stick to the CRB or the rules presented in the GM kit for crafting lightsabers.

Somehow, that didn't even occur to me. Oops.

Will try to muster up the courage to ask. I've got a pretty bad case of new group nerves.

There's also yet another variation in the GM kit.

Personally my interpretation is the CRB method is to explain why someone could "buy" a lightsaber on the open market while simultaneously ensuring that even a technically inept Jedi could still get access to their own lightsaber once they got their hands on the crystal.

Also, consider that they're speaking of putting the parts together which doesn't require a roll. The crystal is just an attachment for the hilt. So, "assembling" the lightsaber is simple. But building a hilt or modding a crystal takes a rolls.

If the GM is using either the Endless Vigil or GM Kit rules, then yes there is a "failure state" when it comes to building a lightsaber. But it's worth noting that both of those build rules are options that the GM or player can employ, and are not the default assumption.

If you've got zero interest in the bells and whistles that the EV build system offers, then I would suggest talking with the GM and flat out say that you're just after a standard hilt, and if you can skip the roll.

Really, the only reason to use the EV build rules is to get various fancy options for your lightsaber hilt, and personally about the only part of those rules I use is the costs and difficulty for hilts, and instead use the GM Kit method, where the roller gets to pick between Mechanics or Knowledge (Lore), and the only thing advantage/threat do is modify the time taken or costs required. But again, that's my choice as the GM, and I had one player request to skip the role entirely for her character, even though she's got the best Know (Lore) check out of the party and would have undoubtedly crushed the difficulty for a basic lightsaber hilt, a request I granted as I want my players to have fun and enjoy the game, not worry about getting bogged down in rules minutia.

Yeah if you're not really going to focus heavily on lightsaber combat with your character build, and you just have the saber as a status symbol for being a Jedi, then there really isn't much to interest you in the guts of the building rules. I've made several Jedi on various sites for pbp games, and they've always had a basic saber hilt with a basic crystal, because I was playing a more cerebral/social type Jedi, not a combat oriented one. So it really wasn't a big deal. If that's the kind of Force user you are making, I wouldn't really worry about the rules. Just understand it means your saber won't be Super Awesome, stat-wise. But the basic lightsaber is still a terrifying glowstick of death, so it's hardly a huge sacrifice you will be making