I was thinking over the crafting rules but couldn't think of anything that links easily to crafting a jetpack. Which crafting rules best suit this, vehicles (in part) or gadgets?
Crafting a Jetpack
Neither, really. I think it would work best if you came up with a template specifically for Jetpacks with a table for Advantage, Threat, etc.
As it happens, I know of a place full of STAP parts...
So without rules I quickly borrowed from other crafting rules and produce this:
Opinions welcome!
Would you not use the vehicle crafting rules for this?
For the templates, I'd increase the jetpack's encumbrance to 3.
For Advantage etc. expenditure, maybe move the Skill Swap to "A." At the very least, I think it should be cheaper than a Triumph.
I'd either swap Speed and Handling or drop the Jetpack's speed by 1.
I'd drop the limit on System Strain.
What's the use of Quiet Engine? I think this could probably be dropped, but I'd like to see where you're going with it before I suggest that.
Add "A x4" to "T."
Can you explain what Attachment does, exactly? "Becomes an Attachment with 2 hardpoints." doesn't make much sense.
I'd make Ion-Shielded TT.
I'd make Weapon Integration A x4/T.
Is Inefficient Construction something you came up with, or something you borrowed from RAW?
Add "T x4" to "D."
I'd swap Faulty and System Drain. I'd change System Drain and borrow from Dangerously Volatile from the Ranged Weapon crafting. The thing's job is to ignite fuel, so it's pretty plausible that something could go wrong. Here's the RAW:
Dangerously Volatile: The GM may spend Despair from any combat check made with this weapon to have it explode. The weapon is destroyed, and the character holding it and each engaged chracter suffers 10 damage (this can only be selected once).
Now I'd change it to something like this:
The GM may spend Despair from any Piloting check made with this item to have it overload. At the end of the next round, the item is destroyed and the character holding it and each engaged character suffers 10 damage (this can only be selected once).
19 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:What's the use of Quiet Engine? I think this could probably be dropped, but I'd like to see where you're going with it before I suggest that.
Night-time infiltration. Right over the Hutts walls 😎
1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:For the templates, I'd increase the jetpack's encumbrance to 3.
For Advantage etc. expenditure, maybe move the Skill Swap to "A." At the very least, I think it should be cheaper than a Triumph.
I'd either swap Speed and Handling or drop the Jetpack's speed by 1.
I'd drop the limit on System Strain.
What's the use of Quiet Engine? I think this could probably be dropped, but I'd like to see where you're going with it before I suggest that.
Add "A x4" to "T."
Can you explain what Attachment does, exactly? "Becomes an Attachment with 2 hardpoints." doesn't make much sense.
I'd make Ion-Shielded TT.
I'd make Weapon Integration A x4/T.
Is Inefficient Construction something you came up with, or something you borrowed from RAW?
Add "T x4" to "D."
I'd swap Faulty and System Drain. I'd change System Drain and borrow from Dangerously Volatile from the Ranged Weapon crafting. The thing's job is to ignite fuel, so it's pretty plausible that something could go wrong. Here's the RAW:Dangerously Volatile: The GM may spend Despair from any combat check made with this weapon to have it explode. The weapon is destroyed, and the character holding it and each engaged chracter suffers 10 damage (this can only be selected once).
Now I'd change it to something like this:
The GM may spend Despair from any Piloting check made with this item to have it overload. At the end of the next round, the item is destroyed and the character holding it and each engaged character suffers 10 damage (this can only be selected once).
Thanks for the feedback, a lot of this is from RAW concepts.
I felt skill swap was a higher cost because a really agile character can apply their favourite skill but I could why it should be lower.
Quiet Engine is when you want a stealth mission on Jet pack/boots. Just a bit of flavour but I could see a lot of players liking this.
The attachment was meant that the Jet pack/boots becomes and attachment. Conceptually this felt like a nice edition to build it into existing armour.
Ion shielding was made to match the cybernetics, but I felt it would easier to apply to an external device so made it cost one less.
Inefficient Construction is the opposite of efficient Construction from RAW. Often when I make something I always need more materials than I plan for.
Good call on Faulty and System Drain.
1 hour ago, MrTInce said:I felt skill swap was a higher cost because a really agile character can apply their favourite skill but I could why it should be lower.
Especially since all three are based on the same Characteristic.
1 hour ago, MrTInce said:The attachment was meant that the Jet pack/boots becomes and attachment. Conceptually this felt like a nice edition to build it into existing armour.
What is the benefit of this? And from what we see of jetpacks, they aren't really built in to the armor, they just sit on the back. A 2 HP cost is really steep, especially when it would be easier to just not, especially with the opportunity cost of the Advantage or Triumph.
If you keep this, it should probably be 1 Advantage given the significant trade-offs.
1 hour ago, MrTInce said:Ion shielding was made to match the cybernetics, but I felt it would easier to apply to an external device so made it cost one less.
Fair enough.
There is an issue I see here in that you are mixing personal-scale with planetary-scale; Soak with System Strain. I also dislike it from a more conceptual perspective as from what we see on screen, it doesn't take much at all to disable a jetpack. I rule for my games that it is often possible to disable a jetpack with a Called Shot Aim Maneuver (situational, modified by circumstances, and generally temporary) or 3 Advantage/Triumph (result for target particular piece of gear instead of dealing damage). To mechanically justify that, one could argue that it has a HTT of 0, so any Hull Trauma puts it over its threshold. In my case, I count 1 point of personal-scale damage as 0.1 points of planetary-scale damage, so any damage would put it over its HTT.
1 hour ago, MrTInce said:Inefficient Construction is the opposite of efficient Construction from RAW. Often when I make something I always need more materials than I plan for.
Part of this is a matter of condensing the list and number of options, but I also dislike it from a mechanical perspective as if you don't have the credits for the materials, where in the process do you stop construction? Do you have to make another rarity check? Does it take longer? With the reduction in credits from RAW, it leaves none of those questions.
On 7/29/2020 at 10:13 PM, MrTInce said:I was thinking over the crafting rules but couldn't think of anything that links easily to crafting a jetpack. Which crafting rules best suit this, vehicles (in part) or gadgets?
You could use the vehicle crafting rules, as the jetpack makes the user a vehicle by the rules. So the crafting could costumize that profile.
7 hours ago, Rimsen said:You could use the vehicle crafting rules, as the jetpack makes the user a vehicle by the rules. So the crafting could costumize that profile.
It'd be very wonky to get something that works and makes sense using the RAW. You'd have to use the Speeder Bike frame and the High-Performance Repulsor Coil which has a speed of 4, 1 Defense in all zones, and a System Strain threshold of 5*silhouette, which, if you spend the Advantage for Elegant Design on the frame crafting, is 5 System Strain.
And that's before Hull, Assembly, and Advantage bonuses.
If you were saying add templates to the vehicle crafting rules, it's far easier to just make a one-and-done template, with no trade-offs as far as I can see.
On 7/30/2020 at 5:00 AM, MrTInce said:Thanks for the feedback, a lot of this is from RAW concepts.
I felt skill swap was a higher cost because a really agile character can apply their favourite skill but I could why it should be lower.
Quiet Engine is when you want a stealth mission on Jet pack/boots. Just a bit of flavour but I could see a lot of players liking this.
The attachment was meant that the Jet pack/boots becomes and attachment. Conceptually this felt like a nice edition to build it into existing armour.
Ion shielding was made to match the cybernetics, but I felt it would easier to apply to an external device so made it cost one less.
Inefficient Construction is the opposite of efficient Construction from RAW. Often when I make something I always need more materials than I plan for.
Good call on Faulty and System Drain.
First of all, awesome job on creating this custom schematic for jetpacks/jetboots.
I think the best way for you to improve this is to focus on creating list of all the attachments you can add specifically to the jet pack/boots. There are a lot of great ideas you included in your write up but I think some of them, like droid brain and built-in chute, would be better handled as attachments. I can think of a couple dozen of attachments that would be really fun for this schematic.
You would also have crafting be more like the other schematics by have the hard-points be primarily used for customizing the gear in niche roles and allow it to be modifiable in the future after being built to give players flexibility. The hard points can be primarily added when doing crafting check though a large amounts of advantage of about 3 to 4.
Also from experience, Schematic should be much higher than 3 advantage. I think 5 is more appropriate.
8 hours ago, PS-29-3 said:Also from experience, Schematic should be much higher than 3 advantage. I think 5 is more appropriate.
Though the RAW would disagree with you there. (plus, there aren't any options for 5 Advantage. Closest would be Triumph)
I think 3 for Schematic is fine as-is.
On 7/30/2020 at 11:00 AM, MrTInce said:Good call on Faulty and System Drain.
Just noticed that with System Drain, you say drop its System Strain to 0. I believe you meant to put it to 1 over the Threshold, as dropping to 0 is actually positive.
On 9/16/2020 at 4:49 AM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:Though the RAW would disagree with you there. (plus, there aren't any options for 5 Advantage. Closest would be Triumph)
I think 3 for Schematic is fine as-is.
It's true that, there aren't any options for 5 Advantages RAW. That being said, as far as I can tell for the Star Wars RPG RAW there aren't any options for 3 advantages either.
It's my person preference to go with 5 advantages, since in my experience, any player that builds a half-way decent crafter will be reducing schematic difficulty very quickly at 4 advantages. It's very easy for crafting to spiral out of control. It all comes down to each GM when they consider campaign length, out-of-session time allowed for crafting, material availability to determine balance and what works for their group.
This discussion actually helped me to give more thought to the schematic difficulty downgrade option. I'm now leaning toward keep schematic difficulty downgrade option only an option for a triumph, since it's such a significant positive result in the crafting experience and makes a lot of narrative sense. This also would require a player to be always rolling at least one proficiency dice to have a chance of getting a triumph, whereas boost or ability dice are still useful in the crafting process but stacking those will only go so far.
I look into the RAW because I remember there was some variance, here are the results.
-
RAW for Special Modifications
- pg. 77 for melee weapons is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 79 for ranged weapons is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 81 for droid chassis is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 83 for droid programming is 2 triumphs
-
RAW for Fully Operational
- pg. 81 for vehicle engines is 1 triumph
- pg. 84 for vehicle hulls is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 85 for vehicle assemblies is 1 triumph
-
RAW in Keeping the Peace
- pg. 91 for armor is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
-
RAW for Unlimited Power
- pg. 82 for potions is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 85 for talismans 4 advantages or 1 triumph
-
No schematic difficulty downgrade options for:
- gadgets, assuming because this category is very broad
- cybernetics, assuming because this category is very broad and powerful
- lightsabers, assuming because this category is very powerful and these items are rare and narratively significant
Thanks for the discussion.
6 hours ago, PS-29-3 said:It's true that, there aren't any options for 5 Advantages RAW. That being said, as far as I can tell for the Star Wars RPG RAW there aren't any options for 3 advantages either.
It's my person preference to go with 5 advantages, since in my experience, any player that builds a half-way decent crafter will be reducing schematic difficulty very quickly at 4 advantages. It's very easy for crafting to spiral out of control. It all comes down to each GM when they consider campaign length, out-of-session time allowed for crafting, material availability to determine balance and what works for their group.
This discussion actually helped me to give more thought to the schematic difficulty downgrade option. I'm now leaning toward keep schematic difficulty downgrade option only an option for a triumph, since it's such a significant positive result in the crafting experience and makes a lot of narrative sense. This also would require a player to be always rolling at least one proficiency dice to have a chance of getting a triumph, whereas boost or ability dice are still useful in the crafting process but stacking those will only go so far.
I look into the RAW because I remember there was some variance, here are the results.
- RAW for Special Modifications
- pg. 77 for melee weapons is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 79 for ranged weapons is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 81 for droid chassis is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 83 for droid programming is 2 triumphs
- RAW for Fully Operational
- pg. 81 for vehicle engines is 1 triumph
- pg. 84 for vehicle hulls is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 85 for vehicle assemblies is 1 triumph
- RAW in Keeping the Peace
- pg. 91 for armor is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- RAW for Unlimited Power
- pg. 82 for potions is 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- pg. 85 for talismans 4 advantages or 1 triumph
- No schematic difficulty downgrade options for:
- gadgets, assuming because this category is very broad
- cybernetics, assuming because this category is very broad and powerful
- lightsabers, assuming because this category is very powerful and these items are rare and narratively significant
Thanks for the discussion.
Hmm, guess I misremembered. Okay then, yes. I'd suggest 4 Advantage/Triumph. Especially because with a jetpack, how many of them are you really going to be crafting?
Your fix of requiring a Triumph is certainly not unreasonable, and your point about requiring a Proficiency die is a good one.