venkelos said:

The removal of Breach from lightsabers was an admitted "oops!" by FFG courtesy, and all further updates (Weeks 4 thru 6) list them has having Breach, and there's been no official movement on FFG's part to remove the Breach quality in later updates. So far, the only change to lightsaber has been the removal of Defensive and Deflection qualities; the thing still crits like nobody's business, with a decent roll being able to score an additional +20 on that Critical Hit result on top of the Vicious 2 quality, plus Soak is pretty much meaningless. And the removal of Defensive and Deflection just paves the way for a Jedi specialization talent to add those qualities back in, making part of the lightsaber's awesomeness be due to the skill of the person wielding it rather than the Classic D&D route of "a character is only as awesome as their magic items," and let's face it, in Star Wars, a lightsaber is about as close to a magic item as you're generally going to find.

As for making the weapon "difficult and dangerous to use," some of that could very well tie back to WEG, where if you failed the basic attack difficulty by 10 or more, you wound up hurting yourself. Personally, I don't care for it as it adds an extra and frankly unnecessary level of complexity, but it's not exactly a brand-new idea either. As is, lightsabers are difficult enough to use because of the lack of an official combat skill, leaving most players with using just their Ability Dice.

And in all seriousness, maybe you are the one that needs to get over your bias towards a game and setting that is specifically not about Jedi, and right from the outside said that it wasn't going to be about Jedi.

After all, WEG did booming business for years with nary a peep about Jedi, and quite a few old-time gamers have some very fond memories of WEG adventures, back before Star Wars gaming became "all about teh Jediz!" We've had two separate game systems (OCR/RCR and Saga Edition) where if you weren't a Force-user, you could get left in the dust pretty quick if the ones playing the Jedi/Force-user PCs were power-gaming assholes.

Maybe it's time for a change in perspective, to veer away from Jedi being the only characters that "really matter" in the game, and letting the other folks shine for a change. One of the great strengths of the Original Trilogy was that it was an ensemble cast, with everyone able to contribute to the overall success of the Rebellion, where one of the larger complaints about the Prequels was "if you weren't a Jedi, you pretty much didn't matter," a fate that befell even Amidala, going from an active leader figure in TPM to a walking incubator in RotS, with most of her really good scenes ending up on the cutting room floor. Yes, it was Luke that took out Emperor by giving Anakin the impetus to redeem himself, but Luke didn't do diddly in terms of taking out the Endor Shield Generator or blowing the 2nd Death Star. Hell, the best **** starfighter pilot from the Rebellion Era onwards (Wedge Antilles) isn't even remotely Force-Sensitive.

Again, this is coming from a guy whose favorite character in the Original Trilogy was and remains to be Luke Skywalker, so I'm the last person that could be called "anti-Jedi." I just don't see the need for full-blown Jedi Knights or even multiple Jedi specializations at this stage in the game's development. The canon (movie and EU) has established that properly-trained Jedi are a rare and unusual thing, not dime-a-dozen like the post-combat-upgrade days of Star Wars Galaxy had where anyone and their grandma could be a Jedi if they wanted to.

I doubt any of the above is going to change your tune, but it might be something to consider instead of presuming that Jay Little and his crew as strong an anti-Jedi bias as Karen Traviss has a fangirlish crush on Boba Fett and all things Mandalorian.

venkelos said:

Lightsabers have always been described as extremely dangerous in untrained hands and I saw this as a way to showcase this. It makes them no harder to use by those actually trained in their use. They are only dangerous to those untrained in them.

mouthymerc said:

This is true, all the way back to the days of WEG. It required at the minimum difficulty of 20 to hit with it, and if you failed by a certain amount, you dealt damage to yourself.

This makes sense. It's a (debatably) weightless blade of frakkin' energy. It's not weighted like a vibroblade. You don't point the business end at someone and pull a trigger to get your result. It takes skill to use properly, and that skill takes discipline to master. 99% of the galaxy will probably never even *see* a lightsaber, even at the height of the Jedi Order. You're **** right it's harder to use than every other weapon out there.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Glad about Breach, since it helps cut through vehicles and doors, and such. I remember playing WEG d6, and my Jedi character was fun. He wasn't broken, by any stretch, and my only complaints were never rolling good damage (my 5d6 could HIT like I had a scope, but my dice always rolled crap for damage, which I can only blame on me) and the impsssibility of improving my Force powers without a teacher, who, between Ep 4 and 5 is nigh impossible to find.The poor drunk, washed up old Knight was still great fun to play, like a Kota before he existed.

I can certainly appreciate it that some of the lightsaber's awesome is based on the player, rather than the weapon; I just can't see that yet, with said book being a distant phantom.

As for full-blown Jedi, I don't need them, either. They are my preferred class, obviously, and my first choice in WEG, d20, revised d20, and Saga Edition. Force-Sensitive is also a nice option; it just saddens me that the base character concept I have for a game like this seems rather impossible. The idea is a guy who, during the fall of the Jedi was a fresh Padawan. He barely had any training before he had to be secreted away, and had to make his own way in the world, picking up other traits, and hiding his Jedi stuff from everyone for 20 years. It easily explains the class choices, the seemingly not so impressive Force powers, and to some extent, the lack of much, or any Lightsaber skill, but I was informed that this is a bad character idea, and that I am just clinging too much to what I want out of the game, even though, as you said, it's what the game is directly trying to veer away from. i don't want to seem as if I think they are anti-Jedi, in the publishing department, but I do wonder why someone said "let's make a Star Wars game, but without Jedi." It can work, certainly, but I can't be the only fanboy confused by their choice. D&D isn't likely to publish a game that says Clerics in, Fighters in, Monks in, Rogues in, Wizards and Sorcerers out; 4th Ed tried, by nerfing the wizard to a point where 5th Ed is already in the works, to save it, but the class was still present. If they wish to stay away from Jedi, they could have made Star Trek, Stargate, Andromeda, Firefly, or any of several other similar franchises (I know some of them already have books, but most are done, and FFG might've as easily bought those rights.)

Oh well, I often do come off as a super fan, the whiny kind, when I talk about these things, so I guess it isn't likely to change.

mouthymerc said:

I prefer them saying "hard to use = Exotic Weapon Proficiency, or it's own Skill." A dire flail is very hard to use, and also maybe kind of stupid to use, but I've never seen a game where the thing had a built in "you screw up, you hit yourself for 1d8 + SB", or whatever. on the other hand, I can see why that might be a reason for young students to use training sabers, either less powerful lightsabers that singe, but don't bisect, or the dumb shock rods one starts with in SWTOR MMORPG. Still, I prefer thinking that Luke never came that close to removing his limbs, himself.

I think it was partly to explain why Han Solo is a bit uneasy about it when he uses it at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back to slice open the Tauntaun.

Of course it would be quite dangerous, as it just destroys anything it touches, which means the slightest slip up with the blade can be fatal. Think how chainsaws can be dangerous if mishandled, but about twice as bad, and you don't even have the weight of the thing to judge it. You are also using it in risky combat situations, unlike a chainsaw, which you will only really use carefully with proper safety measures.

I also think it was at one point stated somewhere that the blades also generate some sort of gravity anomolies which only someone with trained force ability can compensate for properly, but truthfully I don't know if it is still canon (if it ever was) and frankly… what?

borithan said:

While I certainly see what people are talking about, more often, at least to me, it just works more as a mechanic for the player to hurt themselves, and be punished for picking the weapon maybe the GM didn't want them to have. Yes, they are dangerous, yes you could get hurt, but it can really kill the effect of the scene when, despite the odds, you are holding your own against insurmountable odds, only to maim yourself, and be defeated. Your foes will likely never share your problem; the GM can say they were trained, and so negate the rule, or roll behind the screen, and be a ****** about it. If your GM was being "fair", it would be just as bad, possibly, if the NPC accidentally hacked off a leg, because lightsabers are friendly fire, masochist's best friend weapons.

Back in the old days, I think it was that the lightsaber handle was 20+ lbs. Lucas expected all Jedi to always use two hands to hold it, and swinging something with that much localized weight, but a business end 3 feet away is odd; there's really no other item like it to compare to. Vader did one handed against Luke, I believe, mostly out of a lack of concern for Luke's skill, coupled with his enhanced strength. The first lightsabers were cable-bound to your belt, where their archaic power pack hung, and it was good to keep your arms close in, so you didn't snap the cable, or expose it as a silly target.

mouthymerc said:

That came from the original RPG, to keep everyone from using them. The original RPG informed most of the EU afterwards.

There wasn't anything in the films before that to imply that they were hard or dangerous to use.

venkelos said:

I don't know who gave you that advice, but it was dead wrong. Not only is that character concept perfectly valid in EotE, you have all the rules to cover it and I have a PC in my game that is very similar.

So there you go - problem solved.

Doc, the Weasel said:

So? I have seen people using the WEG game and the EU to point out how much we need Jedi (and lightsabers) and all that goes along with that in the game, or it isn't Star Wars. Therefore it doesn't make my suggestion any less valid.

gribble said:

The one thing that you can not have, unless a GM allows for it, is a lightsaber. Which is usually part and parcel of anyone wanting to play a former Jedi in hiding. Besides, any player who could have his character get his hands on a lightsaber would try to use it whenever he could, even with only attribute dice. It is just too uber a weapon to not try and use it.

mouthymerc said:

Sadly, I'm rather inclined to agree. In my WEG play, my character DID have his lightsaber, and one whole Force power. With the no self-learning rules, that meant that the Force power would never improve, but my lightsaber was at 5D, so at least he was good at that. His character concept, though, had him distance himself from the Force, the Jedi, and stuff, so the party didn't even know I had one till near the end, when we were in the final mission to save the B-Wing prototypes. I managed to make due with a blaster pistol for the rest of the game. I used the "this weapon attracts all the wrong attention" rules throughout.

In EotE, I would, of course, want said character to have one, but as he was new to the Order when the fit hit the shan, he certainly hadn't made one, and maybe his Master hadn't presented him one, or some such. That would give him a very nice milestone to reach, finding one, or being Force-inspired to build one. If he did get one, either way, he'd hide it most of the time. My characters usually have some secret the party is unaware of; my D&D group still don't know that I am their exiled King, or that I have Spellfire, as I've done a good job of hiding these details, so I have some experience with it.

Lightsabers being what they are in this game, a powerful weapon of destructive cheese, and a legend held by the dead, more than a weapon "regular" people see or hold, I probably would elect to start the game without one, since their ridiculous cost is hard to waive, and it might be fun to have that to strive for the future.

mouthymerc said:

Those are the key words "unless a GM allows for it". Sure, it is at GM discretion, but I'd probably allow it if the PC had a good backstory. Of course, I'd prefer the backstory to include recently losing the lightsaber, which comes with both built in Obligation and/or Motivation and a good reason for the "Jedi" to suddenly come out of hiding…

I also wouldn't allow the Lightsaber skill until the "Jedi" found a teacher, which would sort of balance the weapon a bit. That and the fact that using it where anyone can see it will bring Imperial attention down on the wielder's head.

gribble said:

This feels like the usual plan for the weapon. I have a Jedi character, named Ender, who is my most recent PC creation, and I really wished I could fabricate a variant of him, for this game, but he is rather cheesetastic, any way you look at it, and until they print another book with more Force powers, he'd be missing a few important ones. To that effect, I came up with a bit of a variant to him. This very different version was barely a Padawan near the end of the Clone Wars. His Force training was laughable, and he barely knew how to hold a lightsaber. He got foolishly injured, and needed medical attention, but the only nearby facility was in Separatist space, so they went under cover. Said cover held, but then she (his Master) got a call that Grievous had been sighted, and she went to engage him. She had Ender's lightsaber, to maintain his disguise, and took it with her, planning to come back later, either with Grievous destroyed, or having not been there, at all. Sadly, she didn't survive that encounter, and Grievous captured several more sabers.

While Ender recuperated, the Clone Wars came to an end, and it became very dangerous to be a Jedi. For X years (I don't know exactly where EotE claims to fall, between the end of the Clone Wars, the Force Unleashed games , and the main movies, but I like to hope that the Rebellion is beginning to form up), he lived his life as a nobody, not using his Force powers, learning other skills, and surviving out on the Rim. Finally, when the game starts, he has made a decision, to see how strong the Empire's attention still is. He can't restart the Order, he knows that, but he could reclaim his birthright, and help topple the evil behemoth that now rules. He needs to reclaim his lightsaber, though, as a test of the self. He has been researching things, and knows that Grievous fell on Utapau. He would go there, and see if he can learn what happened to Grievous, and his saber cache, after his defeat (Kenobi didn't have them, because his Clone Commander returned his). His travels through space, with the party, could be a great opportunity to find and follow leads, and the work with said group could pay his way. It was a rough idea I had, at work last night, anyway.

I suspect many of the GMs who let their players "have a lightsaber", will try to work something like this into it; it keeps the weapon from unbalancing things, and, as said, provides built-in RP opportunities, and Obligation/Motivation mechanics.

venkelos said:

I couldn't tell you where I heard/read this, but pretty sure it's set by default right after the destruction of the first Death Star (i.e.: between the end of A New Hope and the start of Empire Strikes Back).

venkelos said:

Nice idea. I could see tracking down Grevious' lightsabers as the focus for a campaign actually… hmmm…. thanks.

gribble said:

Yeah, in a universe where making them has never been simple, even the Black Market might have ONE, and it costs a ship, the Empire controls the primary source of crystals, and owning a lightsaber is effectively a death sentence, finding an existing cache Jedi-made sabers could go a long way toward reforging the Jedi Order, or at least giving you, or some of your group, some nice, cheesy weapons to use, depending on your scope, and allegiances. Also, I don't particularly remember them ever actually saying what happened to them/Grievous, so it could be a nice, gray area, ripe for in-game interpretation. Kenobi went from once saber to no saber, then back to one, then to "running for his life", so he didn't have 8 on him, and starting out Jedi will need starting out sabers, even if Luke does figure out how to build them.

Silly, odd, little quandary for folks. I am very pleased that lightsabers get Sunder, seeing as that's what they do (Breach + Sunder), but how easy is it to sunder something? Is it a real worry, if you have a lightsaber, and they have one, that your priceless, "good luck replacing THAT weapon" lightsber is going to get cleaved in half, leaving you in the unique position of not being able to readily replace a lost weapon? I mean, if your gun breaks, and you survive, you go buy a new one, but lightsabers aren't so easily waved off like that, especially in this setting. What's the breakdown here? Thanks.

venkelos said:

As a GM, I would never, ever arbitrarily break a characters lightsaber. Like you said, breaking a blaster pistol or a vibroblade isn't as big a deal - you pick up something off a badguy to use until you get get to the next weapon's dealer or sporting goods outfitter to get a replacement. You can't do that with a lightsaber, and that's something you're going to have to take into account and enter an agreement with your GM or player.

In the entirety of the six movies, I believe we see four instances of characters who have their lightsabers damaged or lost - Darth Maul gets his cut in half during his fight with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Later in that same fight, Obi-Wan's saber is kicked down the reactor shaft by Darth Maul. I believe Dooku was disarmed of his weapon before he was more literally disarmed (okay, dishanded). Finally Luke lost his lightsaber when he lost his hand. It's possible that Vader's was destroyed when Luke returned the favor on the second Death Star, but I don't know for sure.

If I was going to deprive a character of a weapon like a lightsaber, I'd make sure to have a **** good story reason for it, and make it clear to them that they are going to get another one. It may just take a little bit of time.

Doc, the Weasel said:

Not true. Maybe no one mentioned it in the films (Which I'm struggling to remember, I THINK it was, but I could be very wrong on that) but there was only one type of person who could use them, no one else did, except special cases and they got taken out REAL fast.

Chris Brady said:

Do you know of an actual example? In the films there is nothing about it (Obi Wan and Han imply that they are simply outdated, in the same way that we don't use swords anymore), and Han uses it without any consequences. Hell, the prequels show a bunch of children swinging them around.

As a side note, I think that lightsabers suffer from katana syndrome. There is so much mystique built around them that people start to think that they are the uber-weapon. I don't see them doing so much more than blasters. People get one-shotted by both left and right. I get giving them breach and sunder, but everyone wants to heap all this other stuff onto them. They are just laser-swords.

Doc, the Weasel said:

Han uses it to cut open a tauntaun. That doesn't mean they're not dangerous and at that point he is probably more familiar with having spent time with Luke. The sabers used by the kids are training sabers and not lethal. Sting a bit yes, but nowhere near on the level of an actual saber.

Doc, the Weasel said:

I completely agree that they have been blown out of proportion. But they are known, now, to be extremely difficult and dangerous in the hands of untrained . Whether from WEG or the EU, this is a point of information on them now.

Cyril said:

Don't forget Anakin's lightsaber getting cut in half during the droid factory scene in Episode II. "Not again…Obi-Wan's gonna kill me.." I'd say a particularly bad set of rolls, with a Despair or two thrown in there; coupled with your Obligation being active; would be sufficient to disable/break a lightsaber.

Of course, that example is during a time when lightsabers can and replaced be made without too much hullabaloo. In any case, I agree with the "**** good story reason" sentiment.

mouthymerc said:

Dangerousness aside, they are iconic of the "fabled Jedi." The mystique is more contained in what they represent, not what they are inherently capable of. Even so, in the minds of masses, I'm sure that particular line is blurred (and kept blurry by the Jedi Order during their time), resulting in all kinds of different views of what exactly a lightsaber is.

Two little questions, and one is cheese/munchkiny, so I'll apologize, in advance:

1: I think I can see the benefit, or at least the justification, in making Defensive something to get the lightsaber later, through a Talent, perhaps, to reflect the training the user has burned, but then what is the deal with getting to keep it on the vibrosword? What's so much easier about blocking a weapon with that weapon than the lightsaber, once one has overcome the added expense of training with the lightsaber? I don't see why the vibrosword can keep it, when the similar shaped, even if more complicated weapon, the lightsaber, now cannot.

2: (MUNCHKIN ALERT!!!) So, eventually you might actually be able to use a lightsaber to block an incoming attack. In that case, might there be a way to activate the Sunder ability the lightsaber already has? It's not a tricky argument, at least to me, that anything hitting a lightsaber should be treated as if it was hit by the lightsaber. No one in the movies charges a Jedi, swinging their melee weapon, usually because, unless it, too, is a lightsaber (or made of phrik, Mandalorian Iron, laced with Cortosis), it won't survive, whether it is because the Jedi flicked their wrist, and snapped the weapon in half with the lightsaber, or just because it hit it, and biffed it. While this is certainly also another illustration of how a lightsaber might be problem in your game (it can render all other melee weapons useless against a Jedi, which, in many ways, is true in Star Wars; only Jedi really use melee weapons, and the occasional Hutt thug, while everyone else attacks from the "relative" safety of blaster range), mechanically, could it be possible? Curious, thanks.

venkelos said:

On question one, probably a case of lightsabers being decreed as "way too awesome," and FFG trying to scale it back a bit. Though I do agree with the sentiment that a weapon with negligible mass would be a lot harder to use defensively than a more typical weapon design with weight/mass spread throughout the weapon. On an official rules front, I suggested that the Defensive and Deflection qualities be kept but have an added note under lightsabers that you only get access to them when trained. Unofficially, I just created a Lightsaber Defense talent to add those back in, at a rate of 1 rank in each for each rank you have in Lightsaber Defense.

For question two, not really, although the Despair option of dealing damage to a weapon or tool could be used to reflect this, but that requires you to have forced your opponent to roll challenge dice. But since Sunder is pretty cheap to activate (1 Advantage per damage level), I don't think it really needs to be something the player can trigger at will when their attacked, as that would push lightsabers back towards the broke-tastic end of the scale.

gribble said:

It is in the introduction for GM to read to the players the adventure in the book. It refers to the first Death Star just having been destroyed.

DERP… two different posts… bloody tabs making me loose track of what I was replying to.

Doc, the Weasel said:

I think part of the thing is to explain why it is so unique in the background (or at least was in the original films). Other than that most passing of use (and the user looked scared while using it) we don't see any non-Jedi use the things. Why not? It could be down to effectiveness, as no one but a Jedi is actually going to be able to deflect blaster bolts with it, and if you are not doing that you are generally going to be at a disadvantage against someone with a blaster. Or it could be due to rarity. Almost no one knows how to make the blasted things, and so they are very hard to get hold of (and those that people do have are probably considered items in a prized collection, rather than personal weapon). Or it could be because it is extremely difficult to use, and dangerous to the untrained.

The second doesn't really seem to apply after the prequels. Jedi seem to spam the buggers out as needed. Ok, I know the EU has something about Force powers being needed to activate the crystals or something, but why no force users churning them out for general use? The first could apply of course, but then why is Han scared of the thing while using it? That leaves the third reason, or more likely, a combination of the various reasons.