LightSabers and Mandalorian Armor

[Ash Draven]

Hey everyone. I am new to the forums, I am glad there is still an active Star Wars D6 forum. I have been playing this game since the "Blue Book" was released. Believe it or not, I still have the same character.

Anyways I have a few questions that have never really been answered since I started playing the game.
First off whats the deal with Mandalorian Iron? I know that Boba Fett has +4D/+3D for his armor statistics, but that isn't Mandalorian Iron. According to some recent books, he had just now gotten Mandalorian Armor. So what do you think the statistics would be for Armor that is made from Mandalorian Iron? +5D/+5D?

Also if it is supposedly very hard for a lightsaber to cut through Mandalorian Armor, how come every character I have ever had in my campaign, can cut through it like Butter?

Characters in my game will commonly add there force powers to their Lightsaber Skill and Lightsaber damage by using Lightsaber Combat. If a character has 10D Control and 10D Sense, and a Lightsaber Skill of 8D, then they usually end up hitting a Mandalorian with 15D damage. How can Mandalorian Iron resist an attack like that?

I tried making my players, make called shots to vital areas like the neck, at a -1D to their attack. If they didn't go with this option, then I didn't let them add their Sense to their Damage die code. Do you know of any official rulings for these situations?

I suppose this would go for Vong Armor as well, except it would be harder for the jedi to cut through it, (since they do not have their control to add to the attack)

[Jamfke]

You have to consider that a beginning Force user won't be able to increase their damage by much when using a lightsaber unless you've allowed them to start out with many more dice than the game allows. A standard lightsaber does 5D damage, and properly forged Mandalorian Iron gives, as you said, 5D/5D protection. So, a character with 3D Strength wearing Mando armor with 5D/5D has 8D protection against attacks.

A Force using character with higher skill levels in the Force would be able to penetrate the armor much easier, but it would still be difficult. Of course, a character as high in levels as 10D, practically master level, as you suggested should be able to cut through the armor like butter, it's just the nature of the game.

Of course, I am no expert, I'm sure others will have their own opinion on this.

Gry Sarth, I summon thee!
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[Ankhanu]

Mandalorian Armor is not a concept that WEG Star Wars incorporated. But, if you think about it, armour of +2D is more resistant to a lightsaber than armour of +1D+2... You don't always need rule caveats to to represent the fluff text. Something like Boba Fett's armour is highly resistant to a lightsaber blade; that doesn't mean that it's impervious.

In the hands of a powerful Jedi using the Force to enhance their ability to use the saber and its damage, of course it's going to cut through most anything like butter. If you struck, again we'll use Fett as the example, Fett with a lightsaber without the Force, chances are he'd shrug it off... as the Jedi gets more powerful, the chances of overcoming that resistance increases to the point where it isn't much of a hinderance at all for an extremely strong Force user, like the one you stated (10D/10D/xD).

Lightsabers supposedly cut through most materials like butter... but they're no more effective against anything than a blaster rifle according to the rules. There're no caveats for materials being weak against saber blades, likewise there's nothing written for materials that are resistant to them... WEG opts towards rule simplicity and generalized rules, rather than having tables upon tables of specific instances...

You could try house ruling Lightsaber Combat a little, putting a cap on the Force Dice going in to enhancement, or perhaps halving the power's effectiveness (add 1/2 of your Sense or Control dice, rather than all of them) or what have you... A lightsaber blade is just an energy weapon, just like a blaster in a loop, it's not inherently special... anything that's resistant to lightsabers will be equally resistant to other energy sources. I think that's largely taken into account with the standard armour ratings.
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[Gry Sarth]

I hear thy call, and cometh.

Well, I don't really have much knowledge on Mandalorian Armor, but from reading what Wookieepedia offers it seems that Ankhanu is right that it can be dealt with with a simple approach. Mandalorian iron seems to be the Star Wars equivalent to Mithril, as light as a varactyl's feather and as hard as a lava dragon's scale. It's supposed to be lightsaber-resistant and deflect blaster bolts. I'd say this could be dealt with big STR bonuses, and having the energy bonus higher than the physical bonus. I'd set it at somewhere between +4D/+5D physical and +5D/+7D energy. This way it would still be better than Boba's non-mandalorian iron armor, but not ridiculously so. It's not impervious to lightsaber damage, a Master can still slice it with relative ease, but then this is not cortosis.
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