So given the popular demand for more mechanical discussion posts, I thought I'd write up some things I've been thinking about recently.

In my current campaign I play a Sentinel Artisan, and have really dug into the crafting rules as a result. I quickly learned that a well built crafting character in this game can be incredibly strong for a party. Even ignoring the obvious cheese like stacking schematics over multiple builds of the same item, allowing for the creating of even more powerful gear, player made armor/weapons/tools are almost always better if you can reliably get a small number of advantages.

Now I don't think this is negative per se, my character's down time goes almost entirely to crafting and designing things. Until recently obtaining a lightsaber and a form that uses int, he was useless in combat one on one. He still hasn't used his sabers in a fight once. It also allows other party members, most of all the ones built for combat, to shine even more. When your bounty hunter has a technician built automatic heavy blaster rifle and 3 soak crafted armor (1 extra soak is not that hard to get off the advantage/triumph table) it allows them to reach even greater heights.

So that's the system as written, I think it makes a great baseline and gives a good general idea of how the system rates the cost and power of someone dedicated to crafting. My group has taken to houseruling some things with crafting however, from homebrewing our own items/gear to reworking droid programming into something more complicated to flesh out my character's droid companion.

For example, our Bounty Hunter Gadgeteer really wanted something similar to Jango Fett's grapple launcher he uses on Obi-Wan, something that could ensnare and tie up an opponent. A useful tool for a bounty hunter. Nothing in any of the books really captured what he wanted, because he wanted it wrist mounted like Jango, so we used the effect of the Bolas and made a Bola Wrist Launcher. It's been a highlight, succeeding in tying up a chameleon gundark for multiple rounds, turning the fight.

The other example is my character's droid companion, JRC. My character has spent a lot of time and resources (and backstory) upgrading and taking care of him, and he is quite proficient in computers and medicine, essentially complementing my character. I'm building him a new chassis so I can push his capabilities further, and over time the gm is awarding him small amounts of discretionary xp towards the Analyst tree of Diplomat, as I've been developing him towards tactical analysis. It's a bit more of a vague example perhaps, we're still feeling out how it will function, but it's in line with the general intent of droid programming to me. While droid programming only comes in specific 'packages' per RAW, it includes talents from trees you would expect droids in that specialty to have if they were player characters. I can however understand why they wouldn't include any way to do this in RAW, being ripe for powergaming. I've found it fun, and kept him having skills in the same things my Int based character is already good at, making it redundant in many cases.

So what do you think of the crafting rules as written?

Do you have any particular homebrewed or houseruled changes or additions to the crafting system to share?