So I just obtained a Force Crystal this past week, helps with talent and force power conflict costs, and I was curious if anyone else has seen or gotten Force Crystals in game? From what I can tell not many GMs (the ones I know personally at least) have utilized them in game.

2 hours ago, Corvax Curze said:

So I just obtained a Force Crystal this past week, helps with talent and force power conflict costs, and I was curious if anyone else has seen or gotten Force Crystals in game? From what I can tell not many GMs (the ones I know personally at least) have utilized them in game.

Do you mean a kyber crystal?

4 minutes ago, Daronil said:

Do you mean a kyber crystal?

They technically are, but I’m referring to the more artifact type Force Crystals. They’re mentioned in the CRB briefly.

9 hours ago, Corvax Curze said:

So I just obtained a Force Crystal this past week, helps with talent and force power conflict costs, and I was curious if anyone else has seen or gotten Force Crystals in game? From what I can tell not many GMs (the ones I know personally at least) have utilized them in game.

Sounds like your GM is doing a house-ruled thing, as most GMs (to my knowledge) only go so far as kyber crystals in regards to "Force crystals," and certainly not anything that provides any sort of Conflict-reduction bonus like what you're referring to.

To be honest, the notion of Force crystals (apart from kyber crystals) starts straying a bit too much into D&Desque magic items for my preferred style of Star Wars.

There's a player in my group that made a copy of Thanos (from Infinity War) as his character but with a Star Wars species. I plan on making things fun for him and awarding "Force Crystals" or Kyber Crystals that can give him abilities and enhance abilities he already possesses. Obviously it won't be as powerful as the Infinity Stones for game balance purposes but I see nothing wrong with there being a handful of Force Crystals that are rare and powerful. The Star Wars canon has living mountains and Force Vampires after all... There's really nothing that is too far out there regarding what the Force can accomplish.

20 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Sounds like your GM is doing a house-ruled thing, as most GMs (to my knowledge) only go so far as kyber crystals in regards to "Force crystals," and certainly not anything that provides any sort of Conflict-reduction bonus like what you're referring to.

To be honest, the notion of Force crystals (apart from kyber crystals) starts straying a bit too much into D&Desque magic items for my preferred style of Star Wars.

Eh, I think the fact that the different types of kyber crystals have traits at all already smacks of "D&D magic items" to be honest. The idea that they are somehow different enough to warrant different stats like +defense, +parry, more viscious, etc, when they are all being passed through the same equipment just screams " gamers will want to have different types of magic swords, so let's give them some variations"

The idea of having crystals that have a benefit that doesn't require being passed through an energy emitter and focusing lens doesn't really bother me at all. I've seen enough examples in the various shows of a Force user having a connection, and seeing a tangible reaction to just the crystal sitting there by itself, to feel it's justified that it might further react just due to contact and channeling the Force through it.

I mean let's be real, the kyber crystals are already heavily relying on the Magic Stone trope in the first place, with the level of mystical significance they are given in the stories and shows. There's far more to them than just their mineral composition, so the idea that they might have traits that operate outside of a lightsaber? Yeah, that doesn't really bother me.

Now, that being said, depending on what stats they are given, they can be very OP, but that's a fault of the GM not homebrewing them properly, and overcooking them.

But something like "Gives +1/-1 Conflict on your end of session roll" (whether it's a Light or Dark crystal for example) seems fine. We've got talents that apply +1 Conflict, so there is precedent for it.

Or maybe something like "Gives you +1 Force pip per Force Rating (Light or Dark, based on crystal nature) per session. To recharge, you must succeed at a Hard Discipline check (meditation)" seems fine.

Or maybe allowing the Force user to reduce the difficulty of a Force related skill check once per session, if they succeed at an Average/Hard Discipline check prior to the check.

Those all seem like reasonable ways to give a player who really isn't all that fond of playing with a lightsaber (like myself), and is far more interested in actually playing a Space Wizard (again, like myself). If you don't plan on using a saber much, if at all, then the stats for getting one are basically useless to you for the most part. There might be like ONE type of crystal that is kind of helpful, sure, but compared to the benefits of +1 Breach, or +1 Viscous to someone who is playing a martial class? Yeah, far less helpful in the long run.

I'd much rather have a "magic amulet" that actually helps my spell casting, which let's be honest, that's basically what we're doing, than a Magic Sword +1 when I never use a sword.

KungFuFerret,
Fair point about kyber crystals as written in the rules already treading into the realm of D&D magic items. Then again, with lightsabers at least the players aren't always looking for the next major item upgrade to the same degree, especially with earlier editions of D&D; 5e's toned it down a bit, but not by much as there's still something of an arms race find/acquire items with better pluses, as opposed to SWFFG's lightsabers where the PCs are enhancing the same crystal and generally not swapping out crystals just because they found a shiny, newer, objectively "better" one.

I guess my concern with the "magic amulet" approach is that as you inclined, it can lead to an issue of imbalance to say nothing of players potentially treating what should indeed be rare and special items as nothing more than trinkets that are viewed with little to no difference than most characters would view a blaster pistol or set of armor, in that it's just something that provides a particular bonus and could easily be tossed aside if something that provided even a marginally superior bonus was encountered. Granted, that last part is under the purview of the GM, but for me at least, it just doesn't feel appropriate to Star Wars if the characters, Force users and mundanes alike, are constantly on the hunt for newer and objectively better items.

5 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

Eh, I think the fact that the different types of kyber crystals have traits at all already smacks of "D&D magic items" to be honest. The idea that they are somehow different enough to warrant different stats like +defense, +parry, more viscious, etc, when they are all being passed through the same equipment just screams " gamers will want to have different types of magic swords, so let's give them some variations"

The idea of having crystals that have a benefit that doesn't require being passed through an energy emitter and focusing lens doesn't really bother me at all. I've seen enough examples in the various shows of a Force user having a connection, and seeing a tangible reaction to just the crystal sitting there by itself, to feel it's justified that it might further react just due to contact and channeling the Force through it.

I mean let's be real, the kyber crystals are already heavily relying on the Magic Stone trope in the first place, with the level of mystical significance they are given in the stories and shows. There's far more to them than just their mineral composition, so the idea that they might have traits that operate outside of a lightsaber? Yeah, that doesn't really bother me.

Now, that being said, depending on what stats they are given, they can be very OP, but that's a fault of the GM not homebrewing them properly, and overcooking them.

But something like "Gives +1/-1 Conflict on your end of session roll" (whether it's a Light or Dark crystal for example) seems fine. We've got talents that apply +1 Conflict, so there is precedent for it.

Or maybe something like "Gives you +1 Force pip per Force Rating (Light or Dark, based on crystal nature) per session. To recharge, you must succeed at a Hard Discipline check (meditation)" seems fine.

Or maybe allowing the Force user to reduce the difficulty of a Force related skill check once per session, if they succeed at an Average/Hard Discipline check prior to the check.

Those all seem like reasonable ways to give a player who really isn't all that fond of playing with a lightsaber (like myself), and is far more interested in actually playing a Space Wizard (again, like myself). If you don't plan on using a saber much, if at all, then the stats for getting one are basically useless to you for the most part. There might be like ONE type of crystal that is kind of helpful, sure, but compared to the benefits of +1 Breach, or +1 Viscous to someone who is playing a martial class? Yeah, far less helpful in the long run.

I'd much rather have a "magic amulet" that actually helps my spell casting, which let's be honest, that's basically what we're doing, than a Magic Sword +1 when I never use a sword.

Yeah it’s essentially a force artifact is how my GM treated it. (For those curious it reduces the innate conflict from talents by half. Then I got to “atune” to the crystal which lets me use dark side Force results by only suffering strain instead of strain and converting destiny points) Considering we are at almost 800xp deep it seemed pretty tame for this group. (I play with two different GMs) The character in question is a Quasi-Jensaarai (Gray Force user) so the crystal helps him keep balance.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

KungFuFerret,
Fair point about kyber crystals as written in the rules already treading into the realm of D&D magic items. Then again, with lightsabers at least the players aren't always looking for the next major item upgrade to the same degree, especially with earlier editions of D&D; 5e's toned it down a bit, but not by much as there's still something of an arms race find/acquire items with better pluses, as opposed to SWFFG's lightsabers where the PCs are enhancing the same crystal and generally not swapping out crystals just because they found a shiny, newer, objectively "better" one.

I guess my concern with the "magic amulet" approach is that as you inclined, it can lead to an issue of imbalance to say nothing of players potentially treating what should indeed be rare and special items as nothing more than trinkets that are viewed with little to no difference than most characters would view a blaster pistol or set of armor, in that it's just something that provides a particular bonus and could easily be tossed aside if something that provided even a marginally superior bonus was encountered. Granted, that last part is under the purview of the GM, but for me at least, it just doesn't feel appropriate to Star Wars if the characters, Force users and mundanes alike, are constantly on the hunt for newer and objectively better items.

I can see the concern for the “Magic Amulet” thing. This character is a “sort of, wanna be” Jensaarai (Gray Force user) and for them the armor they wear is the equivalent to a typical Jedi’s Lightsaber as far as value and personal attachment. And as such one of the traditions for Jensaarai is hand crafting their armor, (Think mandalorian armor but lighter and much more personalized) and my character inlaid the crystal into the armor so it’s both important as a force artifact and as his traditional armor.

8 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

There's a player in my group that made a copy of Thanos (from Infinity War) as his character but with a Star Wars species. I plan on making things fun for him and awarding "Force Crystals" or Kyber Crystals that can give him abilities and enhance abilities he already possesses. Obviously it won't be as powerful as the Infinity Stones for game balance purposes but I see nothing wrong with there being a handful of Force Crystals that are rare and powerful. The Star Wars canon has living mountains and Force Vampires after all... There's really nothing that is too far out there regarding what the Force can accomplish.

That’s actually a really cool concept, one of the Warrior source book specs is called a Steel Hand Adept and they basically just punch the **** out of people. I can see those two things going hand in hand. (get it?)

But wait, Force vampires? Wut...

7 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

KungFuFerret,
Fair point about kyber crystals as written in the rules already treading into the realm of D&D magic items. Then again, with lightsabers at least the players aren't always looking for the next major item upgrade to the same degree, especially with earlier editions of D&D; 5e's toned it down a bit, but not by much as there's still something of an arms race find/acquire items with better pluses, as opposed to SWFFG's lightsabers where the PCs are enhancing the same crystal and generally not swapping out crystals just because they found a shiny, newer, objectively "better" one.

True, the FFG system for crystals doesn't really encourage ever increasing stats for the crystals. But you only have to look at SWTOR to see it's something that could very easily happen.

But you could easily say the same thing about the magic amulet aspect too. There are plenty of stats you could give one that would make it always be useful to the character. Not necessarily something that scales as they grow in power, but just something that is always handy.

7 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I guess my concern with the "magic amulet" approach is that as you inclined, it can lead to an issue of imbalance to say nothing of players potentially treating what should indeed be rare and special items as nothing more than trinkets that are viewed with little to no difference than most characters would view a blaster pistol or set of armor,

Yeah, I agreed that it's very easy to make an OP item since it's entirely homebrew, just like it's easy to make an OP specialization that's homebrew, we've seen plenty of examples of that. But that's not a flaw with the concept itself, that's a flaw with the execution and construction by the GM. You could just as easily have that same result with kyber crystals. And frankly, I don't see too many players who actually view their crystal as anything more than a means to an end. It gives them their glowstick of death, and some extra stats, and they don't really go beyond that. But those two problems you mentioned, which are valid concerns, are a problem of the GM and players. It's not hard to make a "magic amulet" that is on par with what a special kyber could do, mechanics wise, without being broken. And if the player doesn't actually care about the crystal, or the significance of it, i doubt the location of the crystal, either in a saber or out of one, is going to improve that mindset. That's just a materialistic gamer, and everything to them is just something to be viewed as no different than a blaster pistol.

7 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Granted, that last part is under the purview of the GM, but for me at least, it just doesn't feel appropriate to Star Wars if the characters, Force users and mundanes alike, are constantly on the hunt for newer and objectively better items.

I agree, which is why at no time did I suggest or even mention that the "magic amulet" use of a crystal would need to be constantly upgraded. I am curious why you think that's an assumed aspect of that kind of use, compared to using them in a saber though? I mean, there isn't anything special about putting the crystal in a hilt, when it comes to the bonus stats it gives you. That's just the physical housing. If it's fine to keep the same one if it's in a hilt, why wouldn't it be the same with the amulet style? If the bonuses it provides are good, and stay good throughout the life of the PC, why replace it?