I've been watching this growing debate with a certain ammount of interest. Barring the flame war that almost started to eat us all up, I think this whole idea has a certain validity.
Here are some things that I've taken out of this as regards the necessity of tech.
- Luke's Lightsaber
- Repairs/Upgrades on the Millenium Falcon
- The construction of C3-PO
People want a chance to replicate those sorts of things and feel the rules don't allow for it.
Disregarding that, I think its part of the nature of players to want something like that. To be able to customize in a way how cool their character is. Think about how hard I worked to get my Fighter/Mage's Mage level up high enough so that I could make a pair of electric-gauntlets for him. There was no way I was going to find those in a random treasure horde. It helps make the character 'special'.
I have to say this, I don't think the game needs a Tech-Class. As has been often hinted at in the movies, Technical know-how is often a side-effect of the force. I don't have the book on me at the moment to remember if there was anything referenced there about Tech in either Alter or Control.
The simplest and best way to run a Tech savy character is the Feats: Force Sensative> Sense > New Feat: Technical Savant.
I'm not going to write up what the Technical Savant feat does... that's up to people with better skill than me to work on. But I think it allows most characters to have that extra skill with technology while emphasizing that in general it was the Skywalker family that put these things together. This will be even more useful come Episode II where I've heard rumors that Anakin get's badly burned and starts construction on the 'Vader Armor'.
