Armor Penetration.

[Jedi Skyler]

It depends. According to the Tales of the Jedi Companion, Jedi lightsabers did varying degrees of damage, based on the crystal used to focus the energy. The damage ratings ranged from 3D+2 up to 5D+2. Even with the lesser rating, it stands to reason that the lightsaber blade should still cut through armor- but that's going to be subject to dice rolls...

[Boomer]

I always ruled that a regular blade cuts through everything, ignores armor, et cetra.

It'll do 5d or more, no matter what. That's guaranteed maiming to any regular bloke who picks one up and starts swinging like crazy.
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I'm Boba the Fett!
And I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt,
to finance my 'vette!

[Jedi Skyler]

...Provided, of course, that he doesn't lop off an arm, or something even more important of his own first...

[Boomer]

Lopping off an arm is maiming.

It's getting a 1 on the hit location table and lopping off a head that'll be a problem.
_________________
My backpack has jets!
I'm Boba the Fett!
And I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt,
to finance my 'vette!

[Jedi Skyler]

Sorry. I thought you meant maiming someone ELSE...

Glad to see we're (almost) tracking...

[Vartax]

What about the energy resistance of armour with lightsabers?

[Boomer]

Doesn't count. If it's matter, the light-saber cuts right through.

You need an energy shield. And the limitations of that were mentioned on another thread. Eenergy shields have a limited capacity, after a number of hits they will weaken, there will be damage getting through during this whole time, and your lucky if you live long enough to see the shields fail.

Than again, the above is a scenario where you just stand there letting your 3d personal shield be wailed on by a lightsaber.
It's possible to use that sliver of survivability as an advantage and run, or find some way to win.
_________________
My backpack has jets!
I'm Boba the Fett!
And I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt,
to finance my 'vette!

[Argamoth]

Lightsabers can cut through anything, but it still takes some time if the material is dense enough. So armor should protect.

Though against 5D, you'll have to be pretty tough or have some good armor...

[Jedi Skyler]

Yeah, like some cortosis weave armor. Works like a charm!

[KageRyu]

Lightsabers take time to cut through things (granted not a lot of time) but they should not ignore armor. Armored characters should still add their armors energy resistance to their damage resistance rolls. Against a lightsaber, this may not help much, but not every hit with a lightsaber is a maiming hit. Even in the movies, Luke connects with Vader a number of times without cutting through, or dismembering anything. A lightsaber's base damage is 5D, which is already impressive, most armored character's will be looking at 3D to 4D to resist damage, with armor.
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"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[Vartax]

And as the armour gets damaged then the protective dice goes down. Until it gets fixed that is.

[Boomer]

But anyway, back to the subject at hand.

For very important reasons, reduce the dice of the armor when using armor piercing/ignoring weapons. Let's say someone only has 2d armor, don't let them roll 2d and add 3d to the weapon damage. Just drop the 2d from their roll.
These weapons pierce armor, which does not always (in fact, hardly ever) mean they do more damage.

For the explosive tipped ammo mentioned, they do in fact do more damage hitting armor. In which case I would not reduce the amount of armor at all, but increase the damage done.

It involves some basic laws of probability here to simulate real life effects. The last thing you want is for the math of adding or taking away dice unneccessarily to kill a character, let him live, or just take everything a weird way it would not have gone otherwise, due to the numbers getting too high or low on one side.
_________________
My backpack has jets!
I'm Boba the Fett!
And I bounty hunt for Jabba Hutt,
to finance my 'vette!

[scott2978]

I agree with this:

Explosive tipped projectiles that only detonate when making contact with hard surfaces (ie: armor, vehicles, ect) doing additional damage.

Armor piercing projectiles (or beams) that ignore certain dice worth of armor but do not do additional damage.

But I do not agree that:

Lightsabers cut through everything.

Armor is completely innefective against a lightsaber.

I had a game once where the PC's got their hands on a sword made of "unidentifiable metal-like material" that was immune to lightsabers, but otherwise being a normal sword. Imagine the PCs surprise when he didn't die the first time a dark jedi tried to kill him :)