It's that time of they year when we rant about security.

[Sundance]

Improvised weapons can be balanced by a number of things, such as flair (looks cool but not actually that much better than a plasma shard), functionality (not great damage, but you can hide it up your sleeve, has far reach, etc), time to produce (if going down the material route), cost (if going down the the buy/sell route) or relialibity (falls apart after frequent use)

It's actually really not that hard to balance, the trick would be to make desirable. A staff assistant may want to craft/buy it, but it would pale in comparison to a traitor weapon.