statting a lightsaber

[Michael Sandy]

So you have this wizard who can craft items with 8 shifts of power.

He makes a 'lightsaber' that is a 4 shift weapon, always on.

He then uses what skill to attack with it?  Weapons?  Discipline?  The characters offensive Spirit control?

If he uses Discipline or Spirit control skill to attack with it, can he also use that skill to defend with in melee?

How about a stunt similar to the 2 seconds in the future stunt in the OW books to allow the Spirit control skill to be used in the place of dodge?  "I am parrying bullets with my lightsaber"

Yeah, I saw the Mythbusters episode, human reflexes aren't anywhere near fast enough to intercept bullets.

[EdgeOfDreams]

I think at this point you're stretching/abusing what the enchanted item rules are supposed to allow.

In general, the enchanted items rules don't do 'always on' effects (I think they did in the beta PDF but those rules got nixed in the final release).

[Tsunami]

Firstly: there is no longer any such thing as an always on item.
Like EdgeOfDreams already said, always on items are a remnant from the Early Bird PDF's.
That makes the question of defense more or less moot. Since the Energy blade only exists for Attack purposes for a short moment, there is no way to defend with it.

What Skill: you define the Skill used when creating the Item. A Magical Gun could use Guns to aim, a sword Weapons, a wand with charges of fireballs in it could be using Discipline.

Extending on the Defense question: I would allow such a weapon, that is a physical handle with an energy blade extending from it, to be used for defense, but only is the user has already attacked with the weapon in the current round or expends a charge to defend, which would then allow him to attack if his initiative is still to come. Basically you can only defend if you expend a charge in the current round.

The Skill to be used for defense would be Weapons. Unless you have a stunt that says otherwise.

If you make a physical blade that is magically enhanced, the defense issue disappears. It could be used for defense like any other blade.

I made a stunt like that once

Its was something like

-1 Master Parry (Weapons) You can use Weapons to defend against ranged attacks that could be conceivably be stopped by a melee weapon. Things like bullets, Arrows or other small-enough items. No defense against Energy Attacks or things like Thrown Cars or similar things.
You can easily replace the Weapons skill with anything you like for this stunt.


Nobody cares about Mythbusters here when it comes to stunts :-)

[Becq]

The item you are trying to make should probably be an IoP, not an enchanted item.  For parrying bullets, your IoP might have an ability that allows you to use Weapons to 'dodge' gunfire, rather than Athletics.  Of course, you'd need to come up with a story for how you came by such an item, and how the item works.  The Jedi techniques that make such abilities work in Star Wars might well be Law-breaking in DFRPG (ie, sensing the future in order to block incoming attacks).

[InFerrumVeritas]

IoP

Lightsaber[-1]
Obvious IoP+2
Cut Through Anything: Weapon 4, conceivably cut through any thing other than another Lightsaber.-1
Parry Anything: Can defend against any attack using Weapons.  Includes Riposte stunt, able to be used on energy attacks parried with weapons.-2

[Sanctaphrax]

My build would be something like this:

It is what it is: weapon 4 melee, strength doesn't count.
+1 rebate
-1 Parry Everything (Weapons Footwork)
-1 Armour Penentration (Ignore two points of armour)
-5 Lethal Reflective Damage Shield (See either custom powers thread)
Total cost -6

[EldritchFire]

Weapon:4 that can be used 5 times per adventure. Then a second item that is, say, Block 6, 3 times per encounter. If you want more uses, you can always take 1 mental stress...or put a few more slots into additional uses and duration for the block.

-EF

[Michael Sandy]

IoP

Lightsaber[-1]
Obvious IoP+2
Cut Through Anything: Weapon 4, conceivably cut through any thing other than another Lightsaber.-1
Parry Anything: Can defend against any attack using Weapons.  Includes Riposte stunt, able to be used on energy attacks parried with weapons.-2

This one looks promising.  Since normally it is one refresh for +2 damage or +1 to hit, what is "cut through anything" besides being +1 to damage over 'it is what it is' Weapon 3 IoPs?

[InFerrumVeritas]

This one looks promising.  Since normally it is one refresh for +2 damage or +1 to hit, what is "cut through anything" besides being +1 to damage over 'it is what it is' Weapon 3 IoPs?

A one handed sword would be Weapon 2, so the Weapon 4 would be +2 damage.

[Katarn]

My build would be something like this:

It is what it is: weapon 4 melee, strength doesn't count.
+1 rebate
-1 Parry Everything (Weapons Footwork)
-1 Armour Penetration  Be (Ignore two points of armour)
-5 Lethal Reflective Damage Shield (See either custom powers thread)
Total cost -6

I prefer Sanctaphrax's write-up.  I really dislike the idea of an Enchanted Item (specifically for a long-term battle against a lot of enemies).  Being a Jedi/Sith/Force User would typically be beyond Submerged (with force powers and such), and the net refresh isn't ridiculous, but expensive enough to make sense.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'd be inclined to let it be weapon 4 for 0 refresh. You can get a weapon 4 mundane gun, after all. So a weapon 4 mundane lightsaber isn't unreasonable. (This assumes that Strength bonuses don't apply.)

PS: @Katarn: What does the code-like-thing in your signature mean?

[Samael]

@Sactaphrax - Dresden Files Geek Code

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,20198.0.html

[Sanctaphrax]

Thank you very much.

Wish there was something between DVRPG++++ and DVRPG+++++ for me. (Also, why is it DVRPG instead of DFRPG?)

[Samael]

I am guessing either

a) typographical error on knn's part.
b) possibly stands for Dresden Verse Roleplaying Game

I am leaning towards the former myself, but it could be the latter just as easily.

[ways and means]

I'm not sure about the zero strength bonus to weapons with lightsabers most of the Extended Universe stuff implies stronger lightsaber wielders are harder to fight for a given value of hard and lightsaber is still a fulcrum of force. There are several examples of Jedi's basing thier whole fighting style on their strength the obvious example being Darth Vader. Darth Vader used the strength of his strikes to make up for his lack of manoeuvrability in his tank like suit by just overpowering his enemies defences. So at the very least lightsaber fighting should gain some advantage from strength though perhaps this would be better shown by allowing might modification of lightsaber weaponry rolls than actually adding the damage rating.