Lightsaber stats in Edge vs. Force and destiny

[kelbykross 0]

So, in Edge of the Empire, the lightsaber stats say 

10 damage, 1 crit, 1 Breach, Sunder, 1 Vicious

 

-but in Force and Destiny it has the base as 

6 damage, 2 crit, 1 breach, sunder

 

are we to assume the Forsaken Jedi or any lightsabers specifically found in the Edge game has the Edge specific stats?

It seems to build a lightsaber of that power for a Force and Destiny game, one would need the Extended Hilt ( +1 damage, +Vicious +1) and the Krayt Dragon Pearl (damage up to 9, reduces critical to 1, and Vicious)

 

Obviously as GM we can decide as we please, but if a lightsaber was received by a group going through an Edge game and moving on to a Force and Destiny setting, is this the build that would be assumed for the Edge awarded lightsaber?

 

[FCastor 81]

All it takes is a basic lightsaber with a fully modded Ilum crystal actually.

 

Ilum Crystal

Damage 6, Critical Rating 2, Breach 1, Sunder

Modification Options: 2 Item Quality (Vicious +1) Mods, 4 Damage +1 Mods, 1 Decrease the weapon’s critical rating by one to a minimum of 1 Mod

 

At the very least that is what the Ilum crystal description says in the FaD Beta Rulebook. Not sure if it has been changed for the Core Rulebook, though I would assume that it has not.

Edited September 11, 2015 by FCastor

[gentlemanscoundrel 152]

I think this is a case of times changing.  If this were my game anyone who had a saber using the old stats would probably get grandfathered in and in light of the new rules it would be that fully upgraded illum crystal.  With the new stuff in FnD, I would consider any new lightsaber appearing to be based on those.  Now, for simplicity's sake, most of my lightsaber wielding bad guys and girls show up with fully upgraded synthetic illums, but that's just me.     

[mouthymerc 4,483]

In Edge and age there was no Lightsaber skill (unless you introduced it) and there were no talents to support lightsabers. Because of this, the lightsaber that we got was the endgame one so it would appear to be the mythological weapon it seems to be for some. The vorpal sword if you will. If you have player(s) with one and are now allowing access to F&D abilities, you may want to reconsider the stats or be prepared to deal with a maxxed out lightsaber.

[LethalDose 628]

It's a change made to improve scaling.  In F&D, many more characters have lightsabers now, so they needed to tune down the 'crazy awesome'.  Also, in the previous cores, the 'sabers had no hardpoints. It would have been redonkulous to just add 4 or 5 HP to the monsters that were already published.

 

As you pointed out, it's totally up the GM to decide.

Edited September 11, 2015 by LethalDose

[Lorne 2,021]

In Edge and age there was no Lightsaber skill (unless you introduced it) and there were no talents to support lightsabers. Because of this, the lightsaber that we got was the endgame one so it would appear to be the mythological weapon it seems to be for some. The vorpal sword if you will. If you have player(s) with one and are now allowing access to F&D abilities, you may want to reconsider the stats or be prepared to deal with a maxxed out lightsaber.

 

Remember that it's pretty easy for "Jedi" to mod up their sabers to full power, so once they get their hands on an Ilum crystal, the genie is uncorked.  Also, all the published F&D campaign starting points pass out Ilum crystals (or equivalent) like Halloween candy, so that seems to be the baseline expectation already.

 

A clever GM could delay the inevitable (hopefully saving it for more a more dramatic time during the campaign) by having NPC dark jedi drop only un-moddlbe basic sabers/crystals...

[FuriousGuy 91]

Hey, question about that fully-modded Ilum crystal.  Isn't it basically impossible to get?  It's 7 mods.  Mechanics check difficulty for making the mods starts at P if you're working on your own saber, great, but you're still going to hit 5 purple dice on the 5th mod.  What happens when you get +1 difficulty when you're already at PPPPP?

Edited September 11, 2015 by FuriousGuy

[LethalDose 628]

Hey, question about that fully-modded Ilum crystal.  Isn't it basically impossible to get?  It's 7 mods.  Mechanics check difficulty for making the mods starts at P if you're working on your own saber, great, but you're still going to hit 5 purple dice on the 5th mod.  What happens when you get +1 difficulty when you're already at PPPPP?

 

I've actually wondered about this myself.  I'm curious to see how people answer.

[Chxckmate 47]

When you modify your own lightsaber the difficulty is not only reduced by two, but you also add a force die and pips can be used to get successes or advantages.

[LethalDose 628]

When you modify your own lightsaber the difficulty is not only reduced by two, but you also add a force die and pips can be used to get successes or advantages.

 

That doesn't answer the question.  When you apply the 5th mod, the difficulty is Formidable (PPPPP )

 

So when you apply the 6th mod, I guess it becomes "Nearly impossible" (which I think is PPPPP + you must spend a destiny point to even try)

 

And when you apply the 7th mod.... what happens?

[Lathrop 838]

A clever GM could delay the inevitable (hopefully saving it for more a more dramatic time during the campaign) by having NPC dark jedi drop only un-moddlbe basic sabers/crystals...

 

You could say any crystal they take off somebody else's lightsaber can't be attuned to the player since it was attuned to somebody else first. Make it so they don't get the difficulty decrease that way and encourages them to still try to find their own crystal, but its still able to be modded.

 

 

 

Hey, question about that fully-modded Ilum crystal.  Isn't it basically impossible to get?  It's 7 mods.  Mechanics check difficulty for making the mods starts at P if you're working on your own saber, great, but you're still going to hit 5 purple dice on the 5th mod.  What happens when you get +1 difficulty when you're already at PPPPP?

 

Few ways you can do it. One way is to just cap it at 5 Difficulty and just start requiring Destiny Point flips when it goes beyond that (similar to Impossible tasks). Another is to just let it go beyond 5 Difficulty (so 6, and then 7, and so on for however many attachments). And another, is to just start upgrading. So when it goes beyond 5 Difficulty, it becomes 1 Challenge 4 Difficulty, then 2 Challenge 3 Difficulty, and so on.

 

First way pretty much makes marginally more difficult in that players can't proceed to use a Destiny Point to alter the check. Second way continues to ramp up the check's odds of failure. Third way increases the chances of failure, but not as much as the second way, but introduces the possibilities of Despairs, which can destroy the attachment altogether.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Lathrop

[pulsedrive 0]

 

When you modify your own lightsaber the difficulty is not only reduced by two, but you also add a force die and pips can be used to get successes or advantages.

 

That doesn't answer the question.  When you apply the 5th mod, the difficulty is Formidable (PPPPP )

 

So when you apply the 6th mod, I guess it becomes "Nearly impossible" (which I think is PPPPP + you must spend a destiny point to even try)

 

And when you apply the 7th mod.... what happens?

 

I believe the Devs have answered this one and the answer is: It Depends.  It really is up to the GM.  The Devs suggested just upgraded after you hit 5P and then it goes to 4P1R and 3P2R respectively.  Or you could require them to spend the destiny point and just roll against 5P the last two times.  In our game we are just using the extra P as upgrades because it introduces the possibility of a Despair which is referenced in several places as causing the attachment you are modding to be destroyed.

[awayputurwpn 7,720]

RAW, we're talking about two separate items. 

 

EotE has the Lightsaber

FaD has the Basic Lightsaber

 

It's not so much a "change" as it is a matter of "new stats for a similar thing." Since there is more than one lightsaber in the galaxy, it'd make sense that they're not all completely identical. 

 

However, there is little functional difference between the two when it comes down to it: as FCastor explained, The EotE Lightsaber is, essentially, a fully-modded Basic Lightsaber (with an Ilum crystal) from FaD. Further, there's only a 700 credit difference between the two (accounting for the cost of the 7 mods). The only thing that's actually different is that the EotE Lightsaber has no hardpoints, whereas the FaD Basic Lightsaber has a few to play with after installing the crystal. But that's a small matter when you consider that you're basically just getting all the mods at cost

 

The other difference is that, in EotE and AoR, there's no Lightsaber skill available to the PCs, and they can either use their Brawn or Agility when making combat checks with the Lightsaber. In FaD, you've gotta use Brawn, but you can use other characteristics with the appropriate talents. I believe this is the only thing in the whole three-game system that doesn't lend to seamless integration (again, it's very minor, and only a problem if you have a PC using Agility with a lightsaber). 

 

If you had such a PC, using Agility to wield a lightsaber, who has progressing into the Force and Destiny side of things, and they actually picked up Lightsaber as a career skill, I would at that point require them to switch to Brawn (unless they went and bought one of the "Lightsaber Technique" talents, replacing Brawn with any other characteristic) as a sort of "okay, now you actually are learning how to use a lightsaber, and you've got some bad habits you've gotta undo before you can really master the weapon."

[awayputurwpn 7,720]

 

When you modify your own lightsaber the difficulty is not only reduced by two, but you also add a force die and pips can be used to get successes or advantages.

 

That doesn't answer the question.  When you apply the 5th mod, the difficulty is Formidable (PPPPP )

 

So when you apply the 6th mod, I guess it becomes "Nearly impossible" (which I think is PPPPP + you must spend a destiny point to even try)

 

And when you apply the 7th mod.... what happens?

 

 

On the Order 66 Podcast (don't have a link, sorry) the devs have explained that the Difficulty increases don't change the difficulty to "Formidable" or "Impossible."

The difficulty is simply "Hard + 2" or "Hard + 3." So the task doesn't become "Impossible" just because of Difficulty increases.  (in other words, the Difficulty informs the dice pool, not the other way around)

 

• So one way you could do it is just keep piling on the Difficulty dice, just like any difficulty increase.
• The other thing you could do, to keep it more balanced and flavorfully appropriate for the situation, is just to upgrade the difficulty once for every difficulty increase past 5 purples. Lots more chances of Despair the more you tweak your gear. 

Edited September 11, 2015 by awayputurwpn

[LethalDose 628]

On the Order 66 Podcast (don't have a link, sorry) the devs have explained that the Difficulty increases don't change the difficulty to "Formidable" or "Impossible."

The difficulty is simply "Hard + 2" or "Hard + 3." So the task doesn't become "Impossible" just because of Difficulty increases.  (in other words, the Difficulty informs the dice pool, not the other way around)

 

• So one way you could do it is just keep piling on the Difficulty dice, just like any difficulty increase.
• The other thing you could do, to keep it more balanced and flavorfully appropriate for the situation, is just to upgrade the difficulty once for every difficulty increase past 5 purples. Lots more chances of Despair the more you tweak your gear. 

 

 

I'm AFB for the weekend, so I can't look this up, but I was pretty sure the way the mechanics describe increasing the difficulty indicates that difficulty was supposed to top out at 5 Formidible, and the "Impossible" rank was for if you really needed it (a la shooting a proton torpedo into an exhaust port).  This is contrary to "just keep piling on dice".

 

But again, I'm pulling that out of memory.  I gotta say I really despise so much "official" errata buried in hours-long podcasts...

 

Upgrading is a totally reasonable alternative, I just wish it was actually addressed in the book.

[awayputurwpn 7,720]

Well it's not so much "official errata" as RAI clarifications and "this is how I'd run it." Helpful, but in almost every circumstance the devs qualify their answers with, "it's really up to the GM..."

You've got the basic building blocks present in the rules, and the system works well run a variety of ways, but the interviews with the devs help one to read between the lines when making rulings, especially on these sorts of outlying situations.

[gentlemanscoundrel 152]

So far, I have been using upgrades after hitting 5P, and it's worked out pretty well so far.  Nobody's had the dreaded despair hit, and eventually when it does come up I will probably cackle maniacally, chew on the scenery, and scream "UNLIMITED POWAH!" as their lightsaber crystal achieves the consistency of kool-aid powder.  

 

But I'm a mean man, you can ask Pulsedrive. 

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

Hey, question about that fully-modded Ilum crystal.  Isn't it basically impossible to get?  It's 7 mods.  Mechanics check difficulty for making the mods starts at P if you're working on your own saber, great, but you're still going to hit 5 purple dice on the 5th mod.  What happens when you get +1 difficulty when you're already at PPPPP?

Depends on the character build, and how patient the player is.

 

If their willing to wait until they reach Force Rating 3 and buy some ranks in Mechanics, then the task to get those final few modifications becomes more reasonable to accomplish.  A higher than average Intellect (3 at minimum) helps too, so Soresu Defenders will generally have a bit of a leg up on the other Saber Form specs, though your typical Niman Disciple probably also has an Intellect of 3 to make use of those Knowledge skills.

 

Of course, you can always just shrug off that final damage mod and just get a superior hilt customization, giving you that final +1 boost to damage as well as a free advantage on your attacks.

 

There are alternative paths to get a similar weapon, namely different crystals.  Personally I'm a fan of the Dantari and Mephite crystals as they offer better starting stats than the Ilum crystal and don't require as many Mechanics checks to get fully modified.  Mephite is one less rank of Vicious for an extra point of damage, and Dantari has a pretty nifty side benefit that can (as far as my understanding goes) tie into the various talents that let you roll Force dice when making a Lightsaber (Characteristic) attack with the trade-off being no ranks in Vicious and one less point of damage.

[FCastor 81]

The same goes for a personal favorite of mine, the Krayt Dragon Pearl, I believe. Pretty good starting stats and a total of 4 mods to take it all the way to fully modded. Though maybe not so easy to get a hold of as the Dantari or the Mephite.

[zypher 156]

I'm trapped in the middle of moving, all my books are boxed up. I SWEAR it says somewhere (at least in Edge) that if a difficulty goes above 5 "p" you just start upgrading. I've never seen an instance, outside of contested rolls, where they've had a diff higher then 5.

[LethalDose 628]

I'm trapped in the middle of moving, all my books are boxed up. I SWEAR it says somewhere (at least in Edge) that if a difficulty goes above 5 "p" you just start upgrading. I've never seen an instance, outside of contested rolls, where they've had a diff higher then 5.

 

I can't find any mention like this in the EotE core, or the others, and the wording is the same as far I can tell across the three texts.  The closest text is "In some cases the GM may upgrade one ore more of these Difficulty dice [...]" and then goes on to say this is typically reserved for "skilled opposition" or destiny point usage.

 

Well it's not so much "official errata" as RAI clarifications and "this is how I'd run it." Helpful, but in almost every circumstance the devs qualify their answers with, "it's really up to the GM..."

You've got the basic building blocks present in the rules, and the system works well run a variety of ways, but the interviews with the devs help one to read between the lines when making rulings, especially on these sorts of outlying situations.

 

beyond I don't see a meaningful difference 'official errata' for clarification and 'Rules as intended' by the developers.  

[Richardbuxton 7,319]

I'm trapped in the middle of moving, all my books are boxed up. I SWEAR it says somewhere (at least in Edge) that if a difficulty goes above 5 "p" you just start upgrading. I've never seen an instance, outside of contested rolls, where they've had a diff higher then 5.

 

I can't find any mention like this in the EotE core, or the others, and the wording is the same as far I can tell across the three texts.  The closest text is "In some cases the GM may upgrade one ore more of these Difficulty dice [...]" and then goes on to say this is typically reserved for "skilled opposition" or destiny point usage.

 

Well it's not so much "official errata" as RAI clarifications and "this is how I'd run it." Helpful, but in almost every circumstance the devs qualify their answers with, "it's really up to the GM..."

You've got the basic building blocks present in the rules, and the system works well run a variety of ways, but the interviews with the devs help one to read between the lines when making rulings, especially on these sorts of outlying situations.

 

beyond I don't see a meaningful difference 'official errata' for clarification and 'Rules as intended' by the developers.

Whilst I agree it's not the ultimate place to have the Devs clarify things, it is by far the quickest way. I think it's unreasonable to expect a system this complex to not have great areas in the books, so imagine them writing blog posts about all this stuff, they would be big and probably raise more questions than they answer. I would like an easy to search transcript of the episodes, and good chaptering to find things, but for a couple of guys who do it out of love I'm not complaining. I think it's a great thing that we get the chance to pose questions, they then answer them in a conversation where fairly knowledgeable people can dig further without a written back and forward.

[Jegergryte 1,978]

If 5 purple is the all around cap, what about heavy tractor beams? That's Tractor 6, which sets the difficulty, hence 6 purple dice... but what now? If we are to rigidly stick to this notion of NOMOARTHANFIVEDICE! It'll be five dice, even if the CRB states that the Tractor value sets the difficulty? Do we upgrade one? How about opposed checks against brawn 6 opponents? Or a Brawn 7 character (incl. cyber) in an opposed checks? These all break with this notion of (mission) "impossible = 5". Should I just ignore anything above 5? That doesn't make much sense does it? Now we could go on to argue "bad game design" or "poor wording" something like that, and while fun (for some) that's as constructive as setting fire to your own car because the ashtray's full...

 

I think the solution is pretty simple: you keep adding purple, as that is what increasing the difficulty means. Simultaneously I think: GM prerogative. If you prefer upgrades after reaching 5 dice for mod checks, go for it. If you prefer to stick it at 5 purple and require Destiny Points, go for it.

 

I've yet to come across a player modding his or her weapon that much, but I'm leaning towards just adding purple. Here's why:

1. Requiring Destiny Points is a bit much when it's obvious that these mods are intended to be accessed and added to the attachment - so I think it's a bit steep, also the difficulty remains "only" 5, which arguably can become quite much easier for the player with some XP-investment. Then the Destiny Point is a bit of a meh cost (at least at my table, Destiny Points are used quite a lot by both sides of the table) - unless the player is still FR 1, Int 2 with no ranks in mechanics of course... but then it's darned difficult anyway, so I'm not sure I'd have the heart to require that player to spend a DP to attempt a difficulty 5 mechanics check ... but as I'm adding more purple, I'm making it more difficult for the player, so I guess there's two sides to this point. Still, I think requiring DP and leaving the difficulty at 5 is a boring solution - if the most kind to the players.
2. Upgrading for each beyond difficulty 5 seems excessive too, in my opinion. One upgrade, fine, that's what we have Destiny Points for... but 2-3 upgrades? For a mod? I mean sure, it's a darned heavily modded attachment, and sure the weapon is already ridiculously lethal, but that's kind of the point... isn't it? Despair can ruin the mod or attachment, or whatever, but what if you roll 2? or 3? I wonder if that should at all be possible? How large a probability for a Despair do you want on a mod check? Just to **** up the attachment? That's not just a bit, but I'd say very Mr. Dickish. At bit like the above this solution is kinder on the PCs than just keep adding purples, upgrading only slightly increases the chances for failure (if I remember correctly) - and introduces the possibility for Despair. I'm just not a fan of (potentially) too many Despairs on a modification check...
3. Also, I take the 5 dice = impossible notion to be very much a guideline. I believe that this 5 dice difficulty cap is very much a guidelines for base difficulties (didn't Jay call it "agnostic" or something in the Order 66 interview?), before any increases and/or upgrades. So nothing (except Tractor 6 and anything with a characteristic or skill rank of 6+) should normally have a higher starting or base difficulty than 5 dice - after which upgrades, increases and setback dice are added. Otherwise it makes little sense to have mechanics for upgrading and increasing the difficulty... which I guess is the main reason for why I'm leaning towards just keep adding purple.

I would of course talk with my players about it, when/if it becomes an issue. While I lean towards increases, the alternative with upgrades is my second choice. If my players insisted on DP cost and no increase, capped at 5 ... I would maybe listen to them, depending on their arguments for why that makes the most sense.

[LethalDose 628]

 

I've yet to come across a player modding his or her weapon that much, but I'm leaning towards just adding purple. Here's why:

1. Requiring Destiny Points is a bit much when it's obvious that these mods are intended to be accessed and added to the attachment

 

Because the mods all exist on one crystal, doesn't mean all the mods were intended to be accessed simultaneously.  For all we know, the devs could have intended this to force a choice.  It's not as if the mods need to be added in a certain order.

 

Additionally, there are explicit rules for expending despair on rolls for mods.  I fail to see how it's 'dickish' to try and use them.  BTW for the 7th mod on a Jedi's own crystal, 2 upgrades would have < 16% to get 1 or more despair.  Given the complexity of what they're doing, that's very low.

 

If 5 purple is the all around cap, what about heavy tractor beams? That's Tractor 6, which sets the difficulty, hence 6 purple dice... but what now? If we are to rigidly stick to this notion of NOMOARTHANFIVEDICE! It'll be five dice, even if the CRB states that the Tractor value sets the difficulty? Do we upgrade one? How about opposed checks against brawn 6 opponents? Or a Brawn 7 character (incl. cyber) in an opposed checks? These all break with this notion of (mission) "impossible = 5". Should I just ignore anything above 5? That doesn't make much sense does it? Now we could go on to argue "bad game design" or "poor wording" something like that, and while fun (for some) that's as constructive as setting fire to your own car because the ashtray's full...

 

Frankly, the only thing that doesn't make sense is why I thought I could get a civil answer on these boards.  All I did was point out that the rules didn't say what someone claimed or I wish they had addressed this in RAW (seriously look at what I wrote above) and your response is to portray me as screaming:

 

NOMOARTHANFIVEDICE!

 

So I think this is the time where you start tell I'm "small-minded" and "can't move beyond crunchy" and "Maybe I shouldn't be playing this game" and otherwise not allowed to play in the sand box again.  

 

So should we just get that over with?

 

Whilst I agree it's not the ultimate place to have the Devs clarify things, it is by far the quickest way. I think it's unreasonable to expect a system this complex to not have great areas in the books, so imagine them writing blog posts about all this stuff, they would be big and probably raise more questions than they answer. I would like an easy to search transcript of the episodes, and good chaptering to find things, but for a couple of guys who do it out of love I'm not complaining. I think it's a great thing that we get the chance to pose questions, they then answer them in a conversation where fairly knowledgeable people can dig further without a written back and forward.

 

 

It may be fast for *them*, but I can hardly see how that matters if it's useless for us.  I don't have time to listen through a half-dozen multi-hour podcasts armed with nothing more than the hope that I may find an answer to a question.

Edited September 14, 2015 by LethalDose

[kaosoe 7,573]

I've pondered on the topic of "Impossible tasks" and it seems like a lot of people take that side bar a little too literally.

 

Is there actually somewhere in the book where it states a difficulty cannot exceed 5? Sure there's a table that lists the difficulty from simple (no dice) to Formidable (5 dice), but that's just an easy reference for setting a difficulty of any given task. In fact, the "Impossible Tasks" sidebar is only a guidance for the GM to allow players to attempt a task that would otherwise to be possible. Hence the destiny point.

 

Player: "I want to climb the crystal tower*

GM: "Okay. It's basically like climbing glass, which is impossible. But I want to see how this plays out. So just to attempt it, you're going to have to spend a destiny point on top of the 5 difficulty dice. As part of that destiny point flip, I'd like for you to describe how you'll be climbing a smooth glass tower? Did you rig up a harness or something?"

 

It seems like the sidebar has caused more confusion.

 

In the end, I agree with Awayputurwpn. Just play it as the book describes. 6 dice for the 6th mod, 7 dice for the 7th mod. Or 6 difficulty dice for Tractor 6. It's the simplest and cleanest solution and causes the least amount of friction - especially for modding equipment. A despair on a mod check could be devastating to the person who has invested all that time and money on what should become their signature weapon.

Edited September 14, 2015 by kaosoe