I've been considering changing up the rules a little bit on just how crystal modifications apply. In the current rules, once you attempt an upgrade, it's permanent, whether you succeed or fail, and it applies to anyone who picks it up. Now, that's fine for a blaster or something, but lightsabers are personal weapons, and if you botch a couple important upgrade rolls, you might want to go find a new crystal and start all over.

With my tweak, each crystal is attuned to a specific person. Only that person benefits from the crystal upgrades (my group just finished Chronicles of the Gatekeeper, and so they have the fully upgraded lightsabers of both Suljo Warde and one of the Jedi from Cato Neimoidia, both quite a step up from their own). To take true possession of a lightsaber, the new user will have to reattune the crystal to herself. Doing so clears all of its upgrades (even failed ones!) and gives her the ability to assign her own upgrades at the reduced difficulty.

Note that the original owner is also allowed to reattune his lightsaber, and will generally do so to clear failed upgrades, after increasing his skill and Force Rating, so that he can upgrade it completely.

The Difficulty would be based on how attuned the crystal is, how powerful the original owner was, if his morality opposes the new user's and whether he's still alive. Trying to reattune the Emperor's lightsaber is going to be very difficult, and may well act like a beacon to your location, if you roll a despair.

I'm on the fence about whether the lightsaber's upgrades should only work for the one to whom it's attuned. After all, Palpy's saber should be terrifying in anyone's hands. The other option would be to waive that rule (but you still need to attune it to yourself to upgrade it), but in that case, I'll just never hand out fully-upgraded crystals.

Thoughts?

I like having a means to 'heal' a crystal so that you never lock yourself out of fully upgrading your personal, ultra-rare item.

I also like the thematic flair of your idea; the soul of the Jedi is his saber, and the soul of the saber is its crystal, so having to purge or reset a crystal before making it your own feels true to the lore.

I don't like this.

If the soul of the Jedi is his saber, then by reattuning a crystal in the way you describe, basically mindwiping it, you're essentially wiping out the soul of another Jedi. It strikes me as an act of vandalism or worse. There's probably a reason why, canonically, only dark siders do a form of this.

I certainly don't see the Lightsaber as a Jedi's soul, but it is a very personal weapon. What's more, we already have rules ( Disciples of Harmony I think) for purifying a Sith crystal, this is kind of an extrapolation on that idea.

Mostly, I never liked the idea of sending my players on a quest for their lightsaber crystal, then having them blow a couple key rolls to be stuck with something they don't want. I should also note that re-attuning and upgrading would be a specific downtime activity. Between sessions, or when you have some time during a session, you can make one ore two rolls to upgrade this thing, but that's about it. You can get a perfect crystal eventually, but it's going to take time, and you may want to reattune it at some point if you fail a roll.

21 minutes ago, The Grand Falloon said:

I certainly don't see the Lightsaber as a Jedi's soul, but it is a very personal weapon. What's more, we already have rules ( Disciples of Harmony I think) for purifying a Sith crystal, this is kind of an extrapolation on that idea.

Thing is, the Sith don't have crystals. Kyber crystals are quasi-alive and innately attuned to the light side. What the Sith do to turn them red is basically torture them until they break. "Purifying" it is just healing it.

"Resetting" a crystal because you made a bad roll just seems... wrong somehow. Especially on a crystal you found yourself as opposed to a second hand one.

18 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

I've been considering changing up the rules a little bit on just how crystal modifications apply. In the current rules, once you attempt an upgrade, it's permanent, whether you succeed or fail, and it applies to anyone who picks it up. Now, that's fine for a blaster or something, but lightsabers are personal weapons, and if you botch a couple important upgrade rolls, you might want to go find a new crystal and start all over.

With my tweak, each crystal is attuned to a specific person. Only that person benefits from the crystal upgrades (my group just finished Chronicles of the Gatekeeper, and so they have the fully upgraded lightsabers of both Suljo Warde and one of the Jedi from Cato Neimoidia, both quite a step up from their own). To take true possession of a lightsaber, the new user will have to reattune the crystal to herself. Doing so clears all of its upgrades (even failed ones!) and gives her the ability to assign her own upgrades at the reduced difficulty.

Note that the original owner is also allowed to reattune his lightsaber, and will generally do so to clear failed upgrades, after increasing his skill and Force Rating, so that he can upgrade it completely.

The Difficulty would be based on how attuned the crystal is, how powerful the original owner was, if his morality opposes the new user's and whether he's still alive. Trying to reattune the Emperor's lightsaber is going to be very difficult, and may well act like a beacon to your location, if you roll a despair.

I'm on the fence about whether the lightsaber's upgrades should only work for the one to whom it's attuned. After all, Palpy's saber should be terrifying in anyone's hands. The other option would be to waive that rule (but you still need to attune it to yourself to upgrade it), but in that case, I'll just never hand out fully-upgraded crystals.

Thoughts?

I like the house rule

I can't say I'm a fan of this, as it kind of undercuts the value that might come from finding/inheriting a legacy lightsaber, such as the Skywalker lightsaber passed from Anakin to Luke to Rey. Both Luke and Rey were able to make use of Anakin's old lightsaber without any issue or the weapon losing any of it's performance. Heck, Finn was able to pick and use that lightsaber fairly well given his latent/dormant/untapped Force sensitivity during the events of Episode 7.

Granted, nowhere in any of the Star Wars media do we really see folks "modifying" their lightsaber crystals, as they simply tend to receive the crystal (or the lightsaber with the crystal already in it) and carry on.

If the core intent is to prevent your PCs from getting their mitts on lightsabers with highly modded crystals, the easier solution is to simply not create encounters/situations where the PCs would be able to claim them as loot.

By RAW, if a character wants to modify a crystal that's not attuned/personalized to them, they simply don't get the benefit of the reduced difficulty. In that vein, if you do want to make it more difficult for them to further modify a modded crystal that they're not attuned to, simply upgrade the difficulty by one or two, which now introduces the chance for a Despair and for things to go really badly for the PC.

There's also the issue of that if you simply allow your players to get do-over on modding crystals they are attuned to, then you're kind removing the risk factor that comes with modding them, and if the risks are mitigated to that extent, why are you really even having them make the rolls in the first place, as the only thing they'd really be out are credits, and unless you as the GM are extraordinarily stingy with credit awards, that's really not much of an issue.

My house-rule, which extends to all modifications, is that mods are only lost on a failed roll with Despair. And then instead of increasing the difficulty, the difficulty upgrades for every current mod.

Makes lost potential far less likely.

As far as the issue of handing out maxed-out lightsabers... I don't currently have a way around that, unfortunately. I can think on it.

On 5/15/2020 at 7:42 PM, Absol197 said:

A s far as the issue of handing out maxed-out lightsabers... I don't currently have a way around that, unfortunately. I can think on it.

It's easy enough to just not hand them out, really.

I think I'm going to have to consult my players on a particular subject: after that first quest to get your Lightsaber crystal, whether it's fun or tedious to have another session for basically the same thing. This whole houserule was basically an attempt to head off a task that I'm assuming nobody would want to do, but I suppose that's not a great assumption. Obviously going on a new quest for a crystal every other session would be lame, but hunting down a Krayt dragon or seeking a way to commune with the spirit of the Jedi whose saber you found could be interesting. Might be tougher if you're in the middle of a tight narrative, but I think there should always be some freeform sessions between story arcs.

I personally do not like this because, as others have indicated, it undoes the sort of legacy sabers that are throughout the setting. I like the idea of Darth Marr finding Tulak Hord's lightsaber and it being an incredible work that he felt vindicated to even posess beyond it's status symbol. Luke having Anakin's saber similarly.

There are rules within endless vigil for personalised sabers granting issues to others so if you find the saber of 'Hero789' Legend of your campaign setting...then maybe using it because you are not him grants setback die or automatic threat because you're not using it right.
If anything I would find a way to apply that logic to crystals rather than simply wiping them.

16 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

It's easy enough to just not hand them out, really.

I think I'm going to have to consult my players on a particular subject: after that first quest to get your Lightsaber crystal, whether it's fun or tedious to have another session for basically the same thing. This whole houserule was basically an attempt to head off a task that I'm assuming nobody would want to do, but I suppose that's not a great assumption. Obviously going on a new quest for a crystal every other session would be lame, but hunting down a Krayt dragon or seeking a way to commune with the spirit of the Jedi whose saber you found could be interesting. Might be tougher if you're in the middle of a tight narrative, but I think there should always be some freeform sessions between story arcs.

As for "repeating quest to obtain a crystal," the first question to consider is "do my PCs have ready access to a source of kyber crystals?"

In Rebels, there was no big to-do about Ezra Bridger getting a replacement kyber crystal for his new lightsaber after his original one was destroyed by Vader at the end of season two. Heck, there wasn't even any fanfare over Ezra having a new lightsaber, as the show just assumed that during the time skip he somehow just had a new lightsaber.

For instance, in a campaign that began using the adventure from the F&D Beta, the PCs would have ready access to Athiss Cave crystals, so if they needed a replacement, they can just pop over to the planet, visit the location, and procure a new kyber crystal. Similar could be said if the PCs got their kyber crystals from the GM screen adventure (Hidden Depths I think it's called), though the PCs might have to take some pains to avoid Imperial patrols, but that'd be the extent of it.

Now, if your PCs went after the more exotic crystals, like a Krayt Dragon Pearl, then yes getting a replacement (especially if all they did was flub a check for a mod) shouldn't be as simple as a walk down to the corner store, and should involve them going through a difficult process to replace said exotic crystal.

On 5/14/2020 at 6:19 PM, The Grand Falloon said:

I've been considering changing up the rules a little bit on just how crystal modifications apply. In the current rules, once you attempt an upgrade, it's permanent, whether you succeed or fail, and it applies to anyone who picks it up. Now, that's fine for a blaster or something, but lightsabers are personal weapons, and if you botch a couple important upgrade rolls, you might want to go find a new crystal and start all over.

With my tweak, each crystal is attuned to a specific person. Only that person benefits from the crystal upgrades (my group just finished Chronicles of the Gatekeeper, and so they have the fully upgraded lightsabers of both Suljo Warde and one of the Jedi from Cato Neimoidia, both quite a step up from their own). To take true possession of a lightsaber, the new user will have to reattune the crystal to herself. Doing so clears all of its upgrades (even failed ones!) and gives her the ability to assign her own upgrades at the reduced difficulty.

Note that the original owner is also allowed to reattune his lightsaber, and will generally do so to clear failed upgrades, after increasing his skill and Force Rating, so that he can upgrade it completely.

The Difficulty would be based on how attuned the crystal is, how powerful the original owner was, if his morality opposes the new user's and whether he's still alive. Trying to reattune the Emperor's lightsaber is going to be very difficult, and may well act like a beacon to your location, if you roll a despair.

I'm on the fence about whether the lightsaber's upgrades should only work for the one to whom it's attuned. After all, Palpy's saber should be terrifying in anyone's hands. The other option would be to waive that rule (but you still need to attune it to yourself to upgrade it), but in that case, I'll just never hand out fully-upgraded crystals.

Thoughts?

I love it! It’s characterful, interesting, and fits my vision of force users. I also really like the idea of a lightsaber being less effective in the hands of some rando than it is in the hands of the attuned Jedi/Sith. I mean, damage 6 with breach will still mess up just about anyone, but this way that deadly sith assassin will be much more lethal with it.

I think one way to keep a bunch of extra crystals out of the hands of the players would be to have dark side crystals ‘burn out’ if light side force users try to attune to them.

Maybe give an option for someone to attune to a lightsaber with the modifications it had for in tact? That way legacy lightsabers could be a thing if you want?