Lightsaber Damage

Item #721 on my "things to change in SWSE" list (if I were ever actually going to rewrite the game, which is where this list is heading) is lightsaber damage. It's something I missed in my read-through of the first d20 Star Wars, in my read-through of the Revised Core Rulebook, and in my read-through of SWSE... and indeed in all the games I've run in the system so far. But lightsaber damage in the d20 Star Wars games is actually incorrect. And that's not a case of "I don't like this" - I'm pretty sure it actually is incorrect under the parameters of the system as it stands.

Here's the thing:

d20 systems, of which Star Wars is one, initially had a bunch of weapons that were, essentially, a matter of muscle power in some form. And they invariably did one die of damage: 1d4 for a dagger, 1d8 for a longsword, etc.

Then along came "d20 Modern", which added modern firearms to the game. And these all did two dice of damage: 2d6 for a pistol, 2d8 for a rifle, etc.

And then there's "Star Wars" (and also "d20 Future") which adds blasters and other futuristic energy weapons. And these all do three dice of damage: 3d6 for a blaster pistol, 3d8 for a blaster rifle, etc.

So far, so good.

However, the various Star Wars d20 games also include powered melee weapons (which had been omitted from "d20 Modern") - the vibrodagger, the vibroblade, and so on. And these all did two dice of damage, which was nicely consistent with the firearms of "d20 Modern" - although we don't really have such things (except the chainsaw, of course), it makes sense that a technology-backed melee weapon would match up with a technology-backed ranged weapon. And so, a vibrodagger does 2d4 damage, a vibroblade 2d8, and so forth.

But the lightsaber isn't a vibration-based weapon; it's an energy-based weapon. As such, it's the melee equivalent of the blaster, rather than of the firearm.

The lightsaber should really do 3d8 damage, not the 2d8 that it does in the various Star Wars d20 games.