On the subject of the changes in the errata: I'm liking everything so far. :) Glad to see that advice is being included and used.

On lightsabers… I think I might include both versions in my playtest, and see which one best adds to the feel of the game - the ubersaber, or the more play-friendly one. Either could work - I'll let my players decide which.

Anyone else notice that they gutted the Disruptor weapons?  They can no longer disintigrate body parts or people.  

Uh. Yeah.

Disruptors need to be able to disintegrate parts or people. They're nasty and illegal for that very reason! That's why Vader says "No disintegrations!" to Fett in Empire! They're illegal, dangerous, rare weapons! Why were they gutted?

Lightsabers need to be able to cut through things. I can see why they took Breach off, I can, because Breach was amazingly powerful. I'd really prefer if they gave the sabers Pierce 2 or even Pierce 3, because no Piercing or Breach makes absolutely zero sense considering what we see lightsabers do.

Lightsabers are capable of cutting through anything, given enough time.

Qui-Gonn was cutting through doors and blast doors, but not in a single stroke. He abandoned his time-consuming task when other concerns required his attention.

Single strokes of a lightsaber are capable of cutting through wrists, necks, and battle droid parts but not everything the lightsaber comes into contact with.

The rules represent the latter with Sunder and the easy Crits.

Breach as a quality implies that the lightsaber could immediately cut through anything and that is not a quality of a lightsaber.

TheRedBaron said:

There is a very easy way to overcome this, of course: merely add the quality to lightsabers in your own game. :) I plan on keeping Breach, or replacing it with Pierce 2, at least until playtesting proves either course to be ill-advised or unfitting.

blittlepage said:

Breach implies that the lightsaber could immediately cut through anything character scale. Qui-gon was cutting through the bridge door with ease before the vehicle scale blast doors were closed. Even then, it was only going to take several rounds to cut through. Depending on how blast doors are implemented, and how damaging objects is implemented, this could actually mean that lightsabers are actually Breach 2 or more.

Thing is, once you have breach 1, more breach is actually not going to affect character scale combat.

Looking at the vehicles tho, few of the speeders have armour at all, and they have few hull integrity. It isnt until you want to cut up TIE fighters that the breach is actually going to come into play.

Has anyone seen how the lightsaber act in actual play? and how the changes affect that?

I'm still not sure why the lightsaber is Defensive.  Or any melee weapon for that matter.

GM Chris said:

Agreed on the loss of Breach for lightsabers.  Loss of Deflection is fine, as that really should be a "Jedi only" trait rather than an inherent weapon quality.

As for the Vicious, perhaps it's a case of the lightsaber cauterizing as it cuts, where the vibro-ax (or really any of the vibro-weapons) is more akin to getting slashed at by a chainsaw; i.e. a lot messier and more painful?

As for the re-pricing of several weapons, the lowered cost of the light blaster and blaster pistol makes the default/official starting allotment of 500 credits less of a sticking point for me, so that's good.

Disruptor weapons losing the "insta-kill" ability is also fine, though I still thing the slugthrower weapons should have their range categories boosted one degree, even if it means a corresponding increase in cost (maybe double, triple at most?).

Hello everyone,

In the matter of lightsabers, the intention was to remove Defensive 2, and leave Breach 1, which we unfortunately mixed up (along with the "close" range in most of the grenades). Consider it changed to reflect this, as it will be in the next week's update.

Again, sorry for the confusion. Our intention was to keep it with Breach to represent the lightsaber's cutting ability, but remove qualities that the lightsaber should only have in the hands of a skilled (and possibly Force sensitive) user. 

Thanks!

selderane said:

In the case of lightsaber, it's probably more of a case that anyone attacking a person wielding a glowing energy stick capable of lopping off limbs is going to be wary of leaving themselves too open when making their own close-quarters.  Also, swords historically are noted for being a decent balance between defense and offense without outright sucking at either; for instance, the axe is a primarily offensive weapon, ill-suited for parrying incoming attacks but great and hewing through a foe's defenses.

FFG_Sam Stewart said:

Thanks for the update, that makes a lot more sense. 

FFG_Sam Stewart said:

Good call. I recommend talents (possibly ranked) that a Jedi/Force user can buy to up melee defense when using a saber and to use a saber to deflect and ultimately target enemies with blaster deflections.

Perfect. I'm totally happy with Breach 1.

FFG_Sam Stewart said:

Question then. If lightsabers are losing the Defensive quality, then what about Vibro-swords, which are still listed as having Defensive 1?

As I noted in response to another poster, if any weapon in the Star Wars setting would be well-suited for defending oneself in melee, it'd be a lightsaber.

If I might make a suggestion, perhaps put the Deflection and Defense qualities back in for Lightsabers, but add a caveat under the Lightsaber's entry in the equipment chapter that only a trained user (i.e. someone with one or more ranks in the Lightsaber skill) can make use of those qualities.  Alternatively, require the wielder to have a Force Rating of 1 or better to trigger those qualities, to re-inforce that this is primarily the weapon of an elite group of individuals.

This way, it's still a deadly weapon in the hands of a trained user, but an untrained user (most PCs) aren't going to be quite as fearsome with it.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Those things came to my mind too.

For defensive I can see it for the vibrosword because you can feel its weight. Anyone can use a sword to stop someone from punching you. I think the trick to a lightaber is that it's not natural to use as there is no weight to give it an actual feel. You need to sense its position and speed by other means. The Force helps.

I was thinking about thresholds to activate those qualities too but that's adding new rules. I think the same can be accomplished by requiring talents and Force levels to up defense and deflect. I think the xp cost will help balance Jedi too.