Nine Hands
Explorer
My opinion is that reusing things from popular movies/TV shows/etc has lots of problems unless you disguise it well. If you are going to use Jedi, NEVER EVER let your players know what it is. If you disguise it as something else and use the same rules, great. That is both saving you time and helps draw the players into the game more. As others have suggested avoid similar sounding names, although it may seem cute, it is a subtle hint to the players and they may pick up on it, which ruins any suspension of disbelief.
From a game mechanics standpoint, the use of Vitality for powering force powers does present a slight problem. Converting to a Vitality/Wound Point system is an idea, but it is lots of work. Instead I suggest using non-lethal (subdual for 3.0) damage. Have the Sith take the vitality loss as non-lethal damage instead. Others have suggested the same thing and I have to agree. Avoid using light sabres (they are WAY to identifiable nowadays), but instead allow them to channel energy into thier melee weapons instead. Give it a vitality cost or something if you need to balance it. Be careful with Brilliant Energy, it is VERY powerful and to give that ability to a race could be dangerous to your game. You could give them the ability to channel one of the four energy types into the weapon instead (cold, electricity, fire or acid) to do an additional 1d6 damage of that energy type (just like the magic weapon enhancements)
If you are still looking for something different, check out Chaositech by Malhavoc Press. Its a really cool take on science fictionish items that makes them niether science nor magic. You may want to put the two ideas together, coming up with something completely alien
From a game mechanics standpoint, the use of Vitality for powering force powers does present a slight problem. Converting to a Vitality/Wound Point system is an idea, but it is lots of work. Instead I suggest using non-lethal (subdual for 3.0) damage. Have the Sith take the vitality loss as non-lethal damage instead. Others have suggested the same thing and I have to agree. Avoid using light sabres (they are WAY to identifiable nowadays), but instead allow them to channel energy into thier melee weapons instead. Give it a vitality cost or something if you need to balance it. Be careful with Brilliant Energy, it is VERY powerful and to give that ability to a race could be dangerous to your game. You could give them the ability to channel one of the four energy types into the weapon instead (cold, electricity, fire or acid) to do an additional 1d6 damage of that energy type (just like the magic weapon enhancements)
If you are still looking for something different, check out Chaositech by Malhavoc Press. Its a really cool take on science fictionish items that makes them niether science nor magic. You may want to put the two ideas together, coming up with something completely alien
