So, in preparation for a potentially long term campaign, I came across a very intriguing weapon I have heard of only a small handful of times in passing only.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Soulsaber

The Soulsaber, the ultimate edge-lord weapon

In all seriousness, I plan to probably insert at least the core idea of this lightsaber into my campaign, which is based several centuries past the timeline of the movies and even the EU books. For context, it's more meant to be a plot device/weapon that the PCs could come across (no guarantee), but will probably end up in the hands of BBEG in one way or another.

Because of that last part, I need to stat it out in some fashion. The base lightsaber stats aren't a problem and could literally be based around almost any other saber focused around high damage, but what has me stuck is the"corrupting to the dark side" nature of the weapon. From what I've seen of various lightsabers and crystals, there are useful aspects for certain crystals being dark or light, but never TURNING from light to dark.

TL;DR cool lightsaber concept I want to have more technical wording for when the PCs run into it so there will be consistency and possibly be an incentive to cause conflict over this particular weapon

Well, according to the article, it's not a lighsaber, it's just has the shape of a lighsaber.

It doesn't look like it even has a crystal. It's not tech, it's literally a magical artifact, a demonic sword if you will.

As for its effects...

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It was a nexus of dark-side energy, and its presence could be felt by anyone standing within ten meters of it. Non-Force-sensitive beings felt very uneasy in its presence, while Force-sensitive beings experienced great discomfort in the form of headaches or nausea, finding it difficult to concentrate on a particular task...

Seems pretty severe.

I'd say that non-Force Sensitives within close range suffer two setback dice on all actions, can't recover strain, and, while in combat, suffer 2 strain per turn. This applies to friend and foe alike, as well as fauna and flora.

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The Soulsaber was created not only to destroy life, but to corrupt Force-sensitive beings to the dark side. Simply igniting the weapon filled the wielder with negative emotions, such as anger, aggression, and fear, and the wielder heard a dark whisper of great power inside their head.

You can do this mostly narratively. Maybe require two destiny points + 2 strain to use light side Force points, even for light side paragons.

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In combat, the Soulsaber provided its wielder with the Force ability Battlemind, giving them greater prowess in battle through enhanced concentration and commitment.[6] The wielder's stamina was augmented so that they could continue fighting even at the brink of death, but at the price of never knowing how close they were to dying at any point. The Soulsaber could also siphon Force energy from any being it struck and temporarily channel it to the wielder;[1] energy could also be drawn from the wielder's surroundings.

This mostly just seems to give the wielder access to parts of Battle Meditation, Endure, and some custom vampiric power.

@micheldebruyn @GameboyAK

To your first suggestion, it looks like you left out how it would effect Force Sensitives? You only mentioned the effect for non-Sensitives. For Force Sensitives, I would probably find one of the Critical Injury results on the chart, that closest represents "great discomfort in the form of headaches and nausea as well as difficult to concentrate ." I don't have my books with me, at work, so I would probably just say "ok, so you are all now suffering from whichever Crit Injury replicates those effects." I'd probably only inflict one, if multiple would cover all of them, just because that would be pretty unfair. Also, removing the Crit Injury effect, wouldn't require a medicine/heal check, they would just need to leave the area of influence for it to fade. I would probably allow a Discipline check, (for anyone really, Sensitive or Non) to try and remove, or mitigate the penalties, but it would be a 4 difficulty check at least. This thing is supposed to be really powerful, so it wouldn't be an easy check for anyone. But a person, who has studied heavily in Disciplining their mind against the effects of the Dark Side? Yeah I'd say that's the kind of PC that would have a chance to counter the effects of that item.

To your second suggestion, if it's trying to push them to the dark with it's very presence, like radiation exposure, then I would say it would be more easily reflected by applying Conflict to the target, instead of just strain. As Conflict is what has the actual chance to push someone's Morality down towards a Dark Side User. Perhaps something like "any Force use while in the effect of this artifact, automatically applies +1 Conflict, on top of any other points you might engender just from the roll/power/etc." Implying that the pervasive nature of the Dark just seeps into everything, and taints all access to the Force in it's presence. I'd probably allow any PC's that succeeded at my above mentioned Discipline check to ignore the extra Conflict, but would probably still require the strain cost, and/or the Destiny Point flippage.

Third point, I can't really comment on. I haven't read those powers in a long time so I can't say how to best replicate that point.

On 11/1/2019 at 5:39 AM, KungFuFerret said:

I would probably find one of the Critical Injury results on the chart, that closest represents "great discomfort in the form of headaches and nausea as well as difficult to concentrate ." I don't have my books with me, at work, so I would probably just say "ok, so you are all now suffering from whichever Crit Injury replicates those effects." I'd probably only inflict one, if multiple would cover all of them, just because that would be pretty unfair.

I like this suggestion. I think the closest representation would be a combination of the Scattered Senses crit (remove all BOOST die until end of encounter) and the Slightly Dazed crit (Disoriented until end of encounter(which equates to one SETBACK die)). Knowing my players, they are going to have a large mix of melee and ranged fighters, and with how strong melee combat has become, I'll probably have both in place until closer to introducing it when I have a better idea of their current builds and dial back as needed (or just keep it all because they love a good challenge and my tough boss fights), especially since I'll be implementing the range to these effects.

On 11/1/2019 at 5:39 AM, KungFuFerret said:

Perhaps something like "any Force use while in the effect of this artifact, automatically applies +1 Conflict, on top of any other points you might engender just from the roll/power/etc." Implying that the pervasive nature of the Dark just seeps into everything, and taints all access to the Force in it's presence. I'd probably allow any PC's that succeeded at my above mentioned Discipline check to ignore the extra Conflict, but would probably still require the strain cost, and/or the Destiny Point flippage.

The Conflict, again, a great idea. I'm not a huge fan of strain/Destiny Point usage to use Force powers straight out. I'm thinking of making it a bit more interactive, especially since I normally include a Discipline roll for a Force power check, something along the lines of "Whenever a Force Power check is made within Long Range of the Soulsaber, the GM may spend one Threat to turn one light side Force point into a dark side Force point." Again, may change the cost depending on their overall abilities at the time, but still show the corrupting nature of the weapon without outright taking away their power.

On 10/31/2019 at 6:33 PM, micheldebruyn said:

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In combat, the Soulsaber provided its wielder with the Force ability Battlemind, giving them greater prowess in battle through enhanced concentration and commitment.[6] The wielder's stamina was augmented so that they could continue fighting even at the brink of death, but at the price of never knowing how close they were to dying at any point. The Soulsaber could also siphon Force energy from any being it struck and temporarily channel it to the wielder;[1] energy could also be drawn from the wielder's surroundings.

This mostly just seems to give the wielder access to parts of Battle Meditation, Endure, and some custom vampiric power.

As for this, I'd say it's closer to the Enhance Power in actual gameplay mechanics, along with Endure, and Ebb/Flow. Battle Meditation more affects allies and enemies than it does oneself. Enhance gives some basic combat advantages, but one could argue the use of some Imbue upgrades as well as the Control upgrades for Sense. This part could be interpreted in a lot of different ways.

39 minutes ago, GameboyAK said:

The Conflict, again, a great idea. I'm not a huge fan of strain/Destiny Point usage to use Force powers straight out. I'm thinking of making it a bit more interactive, especially since I normally include a Discipline roll for a Force power check, something along the lines of "Whenever a Force Power check is made within Long Range of the Soulsaber, the GM may spend one Threat to turn one light side Force point into a dark side Force point." Again, may change the cost depending on their overall abilities at the time, but still show the corrupting nature of the weapon without outright taking away their power.

Yeah I did away with the Destiny Point requirement for using Dark Side points a long time ago, though I do still require the strain cost, to reflect the unnatural feeling of tapping into the Dark.

Thing's description reads like a fan-fic mary-sue...

That said, the stamina and not letting you know how close to death you are sounds amusing... Something wherein the first handful of Wounds and Crits you suffer in an encounter are somehow delayed or something. So like you fight it out, but then roll everything at once when the encounter ends to find out how bad you were actually hurt...

1 hour ago, Ghostofman said:

Thing's description reads like a fan-fic mary-sue...

That said, the stamina and not letting you know how close to death you are sounds amusing... Something wherein the first handful of Wounds and Crits you suffer in an encounter are somehow delayed or something. So like you fight it out, but then roll everything at once when the encounter ends to find out how bad you were actually hurt...

It's meant to be the primary weapon of the end BBEG but the players will have the chance to temporarily acquire it.

But the source material is apparently an adventure from the WEG SWRPG but I can't find stats or the adventure hence resorting to this

7 minutes ago, GameboyAK said:

It's meant to be the primary weapon of the end BBEG but the players will have the chance to temporarily acquire it.

But the source material is apparently an adventure from the WEG SWRPG but I can't find stats or the adventure hence resorting to this

Probably because it's from WotC's RPGA products and not WEG's. You can kinda tell just by reading the description. WotC, for obvious reasons, tended to treat the Force much more like traditional high fantasy Magic, where WEG kept it a bit lower key. So a "magic item" like this is certainly more WotC's style.