Hello! I need some help understanding how the lightsaber modification work. I'm sorry if this question pop up often but I just can't find a clear answer to it on the forum and in the books.

My character just aquired a crystal from ilum and made his first lightsaber. I see in the rule book that there is some option to upgrade the lightsaber, but how does it work exactly? And what is the cost related to that? In the modification section of the ilum crystal I see these informations refering the mod options: 2 Item Quality (Vicious +1) Mods, 4 Damage + 1 Mods, 1 Decrease the weapon’s critical rating by 1 to a minimum of 1 Mod.

I understand that those are the modification options and that each further upgrade is harder to install, therefore augmenting the difficulty. I am also aware that modding your own lightsaber reduce the difficulty by 2 to a minimum of simple, but what I dont understand is how it is done. For exemple, the cost of an ilum crystal if 4000 credit, does it mean that 4000 is the cost for trying to install each upgrades? And what if you fail to upgrade it once, can you retry again or is it over?

Also what does the ' 2 Item Quality ' mean? And why is the third upgrade talking about a minimum of 1 Mod? Does this mean that you can take this upgrade more than once, therefore reducing your critical rating to 0 and always doing a crit when you hit?

I'm sorry if those questions sound a bit dumb, but as you can see I am utterly lost. I would very appreciate the help!

If I recall, it works the same as modding any other piece of equipment.

To install a mod, player must have access to a tool kit and suitable work area.

100 Credits to buy the parts and equipment for the mod

Must succeed in a hard mechanics check (As you pointed out, the difficulty is reduced by 2 if it's your own). A failure means that mod cannot be applied. A Despair means the crystal is broken.

Each additional mod beyond the first increases the difficulty by 1, and the cost by an additional 100 credits.

2 Item Quality means it adds to that particular item quality. so a "2 Weapon Quality (Accurate +1)" means, you can further modify the crystal 2 times to raise it's accurate property by 1 each time.

Crit rating drops to a minimum of 1. If the base crit is 2, and there are 2 Weapon Quality (reduce crit rating by 1) mods, then the second is probably there incase the character failed the first.

It's important to note that each separate mod (on one attachment) costs 100 credits. The difficulty increase is cumulative, but the cost is always 100 credits.

IIRC, if the mod is not successful, then there is no credit cost.

also if you are modding your lightsabers crystal you add your force rating and decrease the difficulty to mod by 2. This is top of the page 196 of F&D and in the sidebar on the same page.

9 hours ago, Kakouk said:

Also what does the ' 2 Item Quality ' mean? And why is the third upgrade talking about a minimum of 1 Mod? Does this mean that you can take this upgrade more than once, therefore reducing your critical rating to 0 and always doing a crit when you hit?

This is a matter of grammar and punctuation, which is admittedly confusing here. I'll rephrase and see if it is clearer.

2 "Item Quality (Disorient +1)" Mods, 1 "Decrease weapon critical rating by 1 to a minimum of 1" Mod.

(I added the quotation marks) If you cut out the sections with the quotation marks, you see that it is "2 Mods" or "1 Mod" and the part in the quotation mark is the adjective for Mod, telling you what the mod does.

Ok now it make much more sence, thank you very much for taking the time to explain! I'm still unsure how one can get a despair though, since upgrading the difficulty simple augment the number of difficulty dice and they have no despair icon on them.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

This is a matter of grammar and punctuation, which is admittedly confusing here.

The way they put this in the text seems almost deliberatingly confusing. A much clearer way would be to eliminate the word "mod" at the end of every mod option, and clarify the the first cypher of each option represents the number of times that specific option can be taken; something like this:
Modification Options: 2x Item Quality (Vicious +1), 4x Damage + 1, 1x Decrease the weapon’s critical rating by 1 to a minimum of 1. <--IMHO, that makes it a LOT clearer what is going on.

18 minutes ago, Kakouk said:

I'm still unsure how one can get a despair though, since upgrading the difficulty simple augment the number of difficulty dice

That is a really good question... I would imagine that the GM either flips a Dark Destiny Point to add story tension and drama to the mod roll, or if the PC tries to mod their lightsaber under particularly difficult circumstances (on a starship in the middle of a battle or aboard a landspeeder during a chase, or whatever) the GM might upgrade the difficulty "for free" as with any other check. But there's no built-in situation where modifying a lightsaber adds a challenge die to the difficulty as far as I can see.

18 minutes ago, Kakouk said:

I'm still unsure how one can get a despair though, since upgrading the difficulty simple augment the number of difficulty dice and they have no despair icon on them.

There is an important difference here in the language used: Increasing the difficulty adds a Difficulty die. For each successful mod, you Increase the difficulty once. Upgrading changes a Difficulty die to a Challenge die and does not add any dice to the pool.

Like @angelman2 said, that would be from a Destiny Point or when under particularly difficult circumstances.

A lot of the time, a Despair result is unlikely to even be an option, and that is the case here. Breaking a crystal (I assume that is the effect? That's what happens for regular attachments) is a very serious consequence.

7 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

There is an important difference here in the language used: Increasing the difficulty adds a Difficulty die. For each successful mod, you Increase the difficulty once. Upgrading changes a Difficulty die to a Challenge die and does not add any dice to the pool.

Remind me, isn't there a 5 (6?) difficulty cap, and each "increase" after that becomes, in effects, an"upgrade"? I guess that could become an issue if you want to add a lot of modifications to a lightsaber that isn't your own. (Or, did I dream this?)

18 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

The way they put this in the text seems almost deliberatingly confusing. A much clearer way would be to eliminate the word "mod" at the end of every mod option, and clarify the the first cypher of each option represents the number of times that specific option can be taken; something like this:
Modification Options: 2x Item Quality (Vicious +1), 4x Damage + 1, 1x Decrease the weapon’s critical rating by 1 to a minimum of 1. <--IMHO, that makes it a LOT clearer what is going on.

Their tendency to list talents, abilities, and traits in paragraph form does save space, but makes things much harder to easily digest.

4 minutes ago, yoink101 said:

Their tendency to list talents, abilities, and traits in paragraph form does save space, but makes things much harder to easily digest.

Fair enough.

If they really wanted to save space, though, the could've gone for something like this:
Mod Options: 2x Vicious +1, 4x Damage +1, 1x Crit -1 (to a minimum of 1).
...rather than...
Modification Options: 2 Item Quality (Vicious +1) Mods, 4 Damage +1 Mods, 1 Decrease the weapon’s critical rating by 1 to a minimum of 1 Mod.

6 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

Fair enough.

If they really wanted to save space, though, the could've gone for something like this:
Mod Options: 2x Vicious +1, 4x Damage +1, 1x Crit -1 (to a minimum of 1).
...rather than...
Modification Options: 2 Item Quality (Vicious +1) Mods, 4 Damage +1 Mods, 1 Decrease the weapon’s critical rating by 1 to a minimum of 1 Mod.

I think adding quotation marks (like I did) or parentheses would solve the problem. I think the amount of precision they put into the descriptions is good for cutting down on the potential for confusion.

20 minutes ago, angelman2 said:

Remind me, isn't there a 5 (6?) difficulty cap, and each "increase" after that becomes, in effects, an"upgrade"? I guess that could become an issue if you want to add a lot of modifications to a lightsaber that isn't your own. (Or, did I dream this?)

No. This is the difficulty scale: Easy, Average, Hard, Daunting, Formidable, Impossible. Impossible is the same number of difficulty dice as Formidable, but requires a Destiny Point and GM approval. Anything past Impossible is literally impossible and cannot be attempted. So if you successfully install 3 mods (Hard, Daunting, Formidable) and then a fourth with a DP flip, then you can't install any additional mods.

I have entertained the idea of a houserule that upgrades any modding rolls past Formidable, but never actually implemented it. You can get some pretty broken things with that, modding is usually supposed to be an opportunity cost.

On 6/4/2020 at 11:28 AM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I think adding quotation marks (like I did) or parentheses would solve the problem. I think the amount of precision they put into the descriptions is good for cutting down on the potential for confusion.

No. This is the difficulty scale: Easy, Average, Hard, Daunting, Formidable, Impossible. Impossible is the same number of difficulty dice as Formidable, but requires a Destiny Point and GM approval. Anything past Impossible is literally impossible and cannot be attempted. So if you successfully install 3 mods (Hard, Daunting, Formidable) and then a fourth with a DP flip, then you can't install any additional mods.

I have entertained the idea of a houserule that upgrades any modding rolls past Formidable, but never actually implemented it. You can get some pretty broken things with that, modding is usually supposed to be an opportunity cost.

I read it is nothing is past impossible. Impossible is impossible is impossible with a destiny point beomes formidable and the GM is within his right to make some of the difficulty dice challenge dice without flipping dp's. But I had forgotten the bit about jedi and their own crystal being 2 dice easier and adding force dice.

On 6/4/2020 at 7:28 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

No. This is the difficulty scale: Easy, Average, Hard, Daunting, Formidable, Impossible. Impossible is the same number of difficulty dice as Formidable, but requires a Destiny Point and GM approval. Anything past Impossible is literally impossible and cannot be attempted. So if you successfully install 3 mods (Hard, Daunting, Formidable) and then a fourth with a DP flip, then you can't install any additional mods.

You would still be able to install a fifth mod or even more. But like you said it would always require a DP and GM approval. And the GM will most likely upgrade more and more difficulty dice. Everything past formidable is impossible but there is more than "one impossible".

4 hours ago, Rogues Rule said:

You would still be able to install a fifth mod or even more. But like you said it would always require a DP and GM approval. And the GM will most likely upgrade more and more difficulty dice. Everything past formidable is impossible but there is more than "one impossible".

Okay, fair enough. The GM can always just say "no" I guess.

The way I read it, you can install six or seven crystal mods.

In the hidden depths rules, you get one free mod when you build the lightsaber. If you count this against your total mods installed, then you get difficulties two through five and one final mod at impossible. If you don’t count the free mod against your total, you can bring it up to seven.

The reason I let players get to seven is because of the Ilum crystals total of seven mods.