In my game I started to make some custom crystals for my players which fit their specialization, character goals related to the current story. When making these I try to keep them balanced and started to think about how the crystals now being the living crystals. This made me think of giving the crystals locked abilities that will become available later on as their owner progress. Unlocking them when different goals are achieved, here are some thoughts:

• Gain a Force Rating
• Become a dark sider or light side paragon
• Visit a force convergent planet.
• Near Death experience

What do you think of this idea? can you think of any other events you can think of which may trigger for unlocking a Crystal mod?

Why? The best existing corrupt crystals do is give a dark side pip at most. Soooo i think these are all over powered

Definitely overpowered.

Could be an interesting idea. Is this for a Force and Destiny style game, or is it something for all Force-sensitives in all of your games?

Your four examples are triggers? I'd like to see an example of a custom crystal tailored for one of the characters.

Yes, all of the characters are force Sensitive in the game. I kept the number of mods the same on the crystals and Gave all of the crystals a power that will generate conflict. Another way to try and tempt the players to the Dark side.

This is the crystal for the player whose character is a gambler:

Name - Caprinaen Crystal

History:

Caprinaen – ancestors of the Iktotchi race who had precognitive abilities. When the user is in tuned with the crystal it can bestow some of it abilities to the user. Found it the Candorain Wyerns of Ktotchi, these are rare crystals to obtain, but have been know to be hunted for before the fall of the Jedi order. The beasts are very rare on the plant due to the advance society and them being creatures of desire for their crystals.

Installing this crystal changes a lightsabers base damage to 7 and critical rating to 3 and the lightsaber gains the breach 1 and sunder weapon qualities, if the crystal is removed the lightsaber loses these qualities and reverts to its previous base damage and critical rating.

In addition while the Caprinaen crystal is installed in the lightsaber they can use the ability Improved 2nd chances -(Can use 2nd chances 1 additional time per encounter, with adding an additional Skill dice to the roll. Gain 1 conflict to use this ability.

Mods

• ·1 Item Quality reduce Crit (by 1)
• ·1 Item Quality (Defensive +1)
• ·1 Item Quality (Reflection +1)
• ·1 Innate Talent (Reflect)
• ·1 Innate Talent (2nd Chances)
• ·1 Innate Talent (Sense Advantange)

This is the Crystal for the Pistol character, he has a mod to turn his saber in to a blaster:

Kraken Crystal

History - Unknown

Installing this crystal changes a light sabers base damage to 7 and critical rating to 3 and the lightsaber gains the breach 1 and sunder weapon qualities, if the crystal is removed the lightsaber loses these qualities and reverts to its previous base damage and critical rating. In addition while the Kraken crystal is installed in the lightsaber they owner gains the ability – Kraken Pulse -(Once per encounter can add +1 Breach when making an attack with the Crystal. Gain 1 conflict to use this ability. )

• ·1 item Quality reduce Crit (by 1)
• ·1 Innate Talent (Prescient Shot)
• ·1 item Quality Damage +1
• ·1 Innate Talent (Prophetic Shot – 1st Despair can't be used to hit Allies when shooting in to combat)
• ·1 Innate Talent (Lethal Blows)
• ·1 Innate Talent (Lethal Blows)

I don't know the author of the post, but I took their Idea of adding crystal Mods upgrades the check versus increasing the difficulty. If they get a despair they can add that mod again until they reach an achievement. This way they can fill their crytals, where upgrading the difficulty really limits the number of upgrades.

Sorry this is so long, but let me know what you think.

One other though I had is when adding mods to the crystals some mods will add conflict. If the mod is an offensive mod it will add 1 conflict, if it is a defensive mod then no conflict is added.

These are super over powered. Worse then you original post.

So overpowered is a very general statement, what part or parts of it do you see as over powered? and do you have any suggestion to balance it?

1. Crystals growing with the character?
   1. Too many ways to trigger or not big enough events to trigger a change
2. Custom Crystal
   1. Too many Mods
   2. Talent conflict too powerful
   3. Or just don't like doing custom crystals
3. Alternate rule for handling Mods
4. Earning conflict for choosing offensive Mods

Thanks!

On 3/23/2019 at 3:20 PM, damnkid3 said:

In my game I started to make some custom crystals for my players which fit their specialization, character goals related to the current story. When making these I try to keep them balanced and started to think about how the crystals now being the living crystals. This made me think of giving the crystals locked abilities that will become available later on as their owner progress. Unlocking them when different goals are achieved, here are some thoughts:

• Gain a Force Rating
• Become a dark sider or light side paragon
• Visit a force convergent planet.
• Near Death experience

What do you think of this idea? can you think of any other events you can think of which may trigger for unlocking a Crystal mod?

If I understand this correctly, I like the idea of unlocking mods when different goals are achieved during gameplay. Regarding what mods would I allow, that's another issue. I would stick to the regular crystal at the moment.

I honestly dig the idea of crystals growing as your character hits milestones.

The idea is cool and unique. I like it.

However, in the two examples, I'm not seeing how the bonus abilities are connected to the dark side of the Force. How are these crystals connected to the dark side? Why does using the ability give a point of conflict?

Also, is the special ability the final mod that can be unlocked, or can it be unlocked right away?

5 hours ago, damnkid3 said:

So overpowered is a very general statement, what part or parts of it do you see as over powered? and do you have any suggestion to balance it?

1. Crystals growing with the character?
   1. Too many ways to trigger or not big enough events to trigger a change
2. Custom Crystal
   1. Too many Mods
   2. Talent conflict too powerful
   3. Or just don't like doing custom crystals
3. Alternate rule for handling Mods
4. Earning conflict for choosing offensive Mods

Thanks!

Well look at what the existing crystals do. Keep with in that range. Yours give a bunch of talents and other stuff that is way more powerful than the other crystals. A good yardstick is "why would i not take this" your crystals have no real trade offs.

For most of the crystals there is no reason not to have it, versus you have something better. The cracked or corrupted are the only 2 that fall in to reason to not have.

Special ability come with base crystal doesn't need to be unlocked. The conflict for drawing extra power for breach or taking the easy way with re-roll. My players are very good at avoiding conflict so I wanted to add an ability to try and tempt them.

48 minutes ago, damnkid3 said:

For most of the crystals there is no reason not to have it, versus you have something better. The cracked or corrupted are the only 2 that fall in to reason to not have.

Special ability come with base crystal doesn't need to be unlocked. The conflict for drawing extra power for breach or taking the easy way with re-roll. My players are very good at avoiding conflict so I wanted to add an ability to try and tempt them.

And you missed the point. Why would you not choose your crystals. The in.game ones have comparable trade offs. Some give you benefits in one area and are less in other areas. Ypurs are just way way too good.

On 3/24/2019 at 1:40 PM, damnkid3 said:

So overpowered is a very general statement, what part or parts of it do you see as over powered? and do you have any suggestion to balance it?

1. Crystals growing with the character?
   1. Too many ways to trigger or not big enough events to trigger a change
2. Custom Crystal
   1. Too many Mods
   2. Talent conflict too powerful
   3. Or just don't like doing custom crystals
3. Alternate rule for handling Mods
4. Earning conflict for choosing offensive Mods

Thanks!

Okay. As you've presented them, your crystals are overpowered, relative to the other crystals in the game. Now, I think it should be emphasized that these are crystals customized to the character and the game. As such, I'm assuming they're not meant for all games.

Now, I love the general idea, and if your party only consists of these two PC's, it's a bit more palatable (they probably need help in combat). However, if you have a mixed group with non-force users, these will make the force users far too powerful, and if you have more than these 2 PCs, it could get out of hand very quickly for you.

Point by point though:

1. Like I said, cool idea, (might steal it for my solo campaign, as my player isn't interested in the crafting/mod rules at all). Depending on the campaign, using the Force convergent planet rule could stack up modifications real quick (if you're doing a galaxy hopping Indiana Jones style of campaign), but since you're in control of the campaign, you can mitigate this.

2. 1.I think there may be a few too many mods, just for bookkeeping/simplicity sake. The only lightsaber with as many mods as you are proposing is the straight kyber crystal, and it's offset by the (relatively) low starting stats and the increasing difficulty for modding the crystals (but more on this later).

Also, unless the "mod to turn lightsaber into pistol" removes Breach, it's broken. Full stop. On it's own it's relatively more powerful than any other weapon in the game.

2. 2. The talent conflicts are too powerful. One lets you roll up to 4 positive dice a second time an encounter, and the other turns a lightsaber into a ranged weapon literally more powerful than a shaped charge (missile tube, etc). Able to crit an armored vehicle. There are only 3 weapons in the game with Breach 2, all of them are cumbersome/slow-firing/prepare/limited ammo. All of this for 1 conflict. Which is equivalent to: Lying for personal gain, and knowing inaction. Super powerful abilities for an incredibly low cost. If you want to tempt your players, it's better to do it in-story than with mechanics.

3. I'm split on this. On one hand, it's great if no-one in your party is interested in mechanics/modding, and I like how it ties the growth to the story, but a) If anyone in your party is an armorer/tech, it takes that opportunity away from them. b) it makes it certain that the crystals will be fully modded (whereas there is a chance that they will fail the mechanics check to mod the crystal), making them, again, unbalanced compared to stock crystals.

4. This can be interesting, but I could see that it could lead to table arguments over "What counts as offensive or defensive?" It's more arguing than I'd want at my table.

Also, are you considering it a "one time" conflict cost to choose the mods, or are they like conflict talents, which incur a conflict every session just for knowing them? One side seems inconsequential, the other seems like it may be too harsh. Like I said, I might just toss this idea in general. I still think that choices are better than mechanics (apart from the obvious use of dark side pips)

Now that all that's been said, if you do still go with these crystals, might I suggest "Redeeming a dark side force user/turning a light side force user (not in the party)" as another "Crystal Growth Milestone"?

Maybe instead of "visiting" a convergent planet make the milestone "Cleansing a Dark Side Vergence" or "Corrupting a Light Side Vergence"?

awesome post @oneeyedmatt87 . I just wanted to add that, the possibility to mod a crystal without a roll and without risking to damage the crystal should be considered in the equation. After the 4th mod (considering the ownership rule) you start to risk damaging your crystal.

But even considering this, I think is a great option for modding the crystal.

Onesye thank you for the feedback.

The group is is low on combatants, they are force users but not Jedi.

For the crystal with breach. If it is used as a gun it loses the breach quality, to balance the benefit of range attacks. In game I made it slow fire 3 to keep it from being used to often as well as the conflict. The talent to not shoot people is to try and protect my other players. Especially if the get hit by a super blast.

The crystals are built to player and not meant to be standard crystals.

I appreciate you well thought out and organise response to this topic. I liked the idea foe the crystals to advance since the players connect with them now, it helps keep them from just keeping them until the next cool crystal shows up. Maybe brining the mods down to 4, then add more through the life events.