I know there was a thread on power use in the movies, but I can't quite find it.

I was wondering on what people's thoughts are regarding Luke using the Force to destroy the Death Star. I have two ideas, but I'm not sure either is terribly realistic.

1) Like uses Sense with the Control upgrade to upgrade a die during combat.

2) Luke uses Enhance with the Control upgrade to improve his Agility by 1.

The reason why I don't think these are unrealistic is because both upgrades are end of tree purchases. Luke would need to have Gaines a pretty fat amount of XP saving Leia in order to pick up the power and upgrades.

Other options include him using the Intense Focus talent (also end of tree, relatively speaking) or simply flipping a Destiny point over, both of which would also upgrade his check. Or, you know, he just rolled better, but that's hardly a Force thing.

What are your theories?

The Force is also kind of an unknowable magic thing, so in my opinion it is just something that happens.

Possibilities are:

1) Sense to ignore the penalties of not using a Targeting Computer (i.e. to see things around him, like he did with the training remote).

2) Flipping a Destiny Point.

3) Possibly something with Foresee? I don't have the power nearby, so I don't know.

4) A really good roll from Han to give Boost dice.

5) An unknown power that we won't see until Force and Destiny.

6) Enhance to increase the roll.

That's all I have off the top of my head without breaking out my books.

Yeah, the game mechanics are just a close approximation, not a direct representation.

Buttttttt... If you want to run the numbers...

Say daunting difficulty, setback for no computer, aim twice for two boost dice, upgrade with a d point, (assuming han/chewie scored a roll with at least 1 success,3 advantage, and 2 triumphs to get vaber out of the way) a add a boost from Hans 1 advantage, add another for 2 more advantage, upgrade from Hans second triumph.

So lukes gunnery (say 3:2) gives you what?

1g,3y,4b vs 4p,1blk

Looks viable to me...and I didn't even use a force power...

In the Age of the Rebellion forum the thread, "Ep IV-VI Force powers used?" force use in the movies is fairly well covered. Though I think it's lacking when it comes to this explanation. In the films it looks like a port at the bottom of the trench that couldn't be seen by a pilot. Farsee seems to only be about seeing the future, and Sense reads, "sense all living things within short range (including sentient and non sentient beings). An exhaust port is not a being. So far there seems to be no force power that allows this. As Luke was not a high level character but could have sensed a target droid through a blast shield with the basic Sense ability, I would judge that it could be used to negate the penalty for not being able to see the exhaust port. In all probability it was just given a very high difficulty and all the bonuses mentioned allowed him to to score a success. Oh, and no using targeting computers when you're relying on the force.

That's true, the attack bonus for dedicating two force dice would give a two dice upgrade. If you throw in something like a 4 Agility, 2 Gunnery skill, Touch of Fate, a Destiny Point, and maybe allowing aiming, and a Formidable difficulty could be achieved.

Don't forget the Exhaust Port talent of Ace Gunner!

Force Sense to boost attack roll.

Touch of Fate to add 2 Blue die.

Aim x2

Force Push to vector the proton torpedoes.

Han adds assistance with his encouragement.

Luke clearly has gunnery skills for bulls-eyeing womp rats in his T-16.

5 Purple for "that shot's impossible."

Add one black for R2 being shot

Remove up to 2 black with Sense Danger

Spend a destiny point to add one more yellow

So let's say conservatively:

Force roll to add a yellow.

4 yellow, 5 Blue VS 5 purple

Those odds yield a pretty decent 83% chance for a simple success. I can't speak for advantage, threat or triumph. Well... with 4 yellow dice there's a 33.3% chance for a Triumph.

It may not be one in a million, but the odds were definitely in Luke's favour by the time he took the shot. Don't forget he could have also made a "Stay on Target" maneuver with Vader cleared off his backside.

I think he just flipped all hs Light Side tokens in his Destiny Pool

I always thought that during the trench run the torpedoes were set to "Bombing Mode" that is they had a set course when launched and only a precise shot within the 2 meter radius would they go in. The targeting computer was only used as a ranging device because with all the jamming of a battlestation the size of a small moon, computer guidance would be useless.

Luke really only had about 5 or 6 encounters after the trip from Tattooine. Not enough to get him deep into the tree's

Obi-wans ghost, and Han were definitely aiding luke at that time. Not to mention flipping a destiny point. But with the current rules Luke really didn't use the Force to do anything.

Honestly, this is more of "you defeated all the enemies, and this is the epic finish, you win" kind of thing

I don't think the existing trees can help anyone completely reverse engineer Luke. I mean Ace (Pilot/Gunner) + FS Emergent will get you a good part of the way, sure. But he's the chosen one of the original trilogy. He is unusually strong in the Force (extra Force die/dice) and even before [play/A New Hope] begins he's got more XP than a starting EotE or AoR character would have.

All the other heroes map out pretty well. You want to build someone who's as good at piloting as Han? Sure, if you survive long enough to get the XP required for the build. If you're playing in the canon universe though, Luke, Vader, Yoda and Palpatine have advantages your character won't ever get.

Simple answer is that Luke rolled a Triumph on a successful attack roll, with the GM having predetermined that in order to sink the torpedoes, the shooter needed both a successful attack roll and had to trigger a critical hit. Note Red Leader's bit of dialogue after it looked like he'd made the shot ("negative, it didn't go in, just impacted on the surface...") Or, the GM could have set the difficulty as being "impossible" and required the expenditure of a Destiny Point just to have a chance of making the shot; in Red Leader's case, being an NPC, the GM opted not to flip a Destiny Point for fear of potentially stealing a PC's thunder, and so the "impacted on the surface" was just a bout of descriptive fluff since the damage from such an attack really wouldn't cause any significant damage to the Death Star.

As for how Luke pulled that off...that's a matter of debate, as this thread aptly demonstrates. My thought is that he simply used the offensive Control Upgrade for Sense, upgrading his Gunnery dice pool dice twice, spent a Maneuver to Aim, and quite probably used either Sense Danger to negate some setback dice or Tough of Fate to add some boost dice to his check, depending on which talent he'd have by that point (I'm pegging him as an Ace/Pilot/Force Emergent for the moment, though F&D may offer some non-Jedi options to reflect his life prior to meeting Ben Kenobi). He's likely got an Agility of 3, and picked up a rank of Gunnery before plopping into that X-Wing, so with the Sense Control Upgrade he'd be rolling 3 Proficiency dice. Given that Han probably had two or more ranks in Gunnery, if the GM allowed for an assisted check, Han would be providing skilled assistance, letting Luke use the smuggler's Gunnery ranks instead of his own, and then upgrading those with the Sense effect. Kenobi's phantom encouragement was either the GM's not-so-subtle way to tell Luke's player to drop the Sense defensive Control Upgrade he'd been using through the fight and switch over to the offensive one, or perhaps more likely Luke's in-character justification for switching which Ongoing Effect he was using; the targeting computer really wouldn't have any game effect other than perhaps removing the Guided quality from being a thing.

Luke has the most powerful Force power of them all. Plot immunity.

I actually prefer the notion that Luke wasn't consciously using the Force like a true FS user would. Obi-Wan is advising him, it's all very subconscious and based on faith and trust. Really to me that sounds like a decent Gunnery roll plus GM fiat, not consciously activating several powers.

C'mon; I can't be the only one who thinks it was an inside job?

I actually prefer the notion that Luke wasn't consciously using the Force like a true FS user would. Obi-Wan is advising him, it's all very subconscious and based on faith and trust. Really to me that sounds like a decent Gunnery roll plus GM fiat, not consciously activating several powers.

In a narrative sense, it could be described several different ways.

The upcoming Rebels TV series has a character (Ezra) that's noted as being able to unconsciously and unknowingly use the Force when in a tight spot, but terms of game mechanics he'd be activating various Force powers/abilities even if that's not what the character thinks happened.

It is that moment during the session when a GM simply allows a player to do something epic cause it is good for the story and looks nice (something makes big bum!).

It is that moment during the session when a GM simply allows a player to do something epic cause it is good for the story and looks nice (something makes big bum!).

You forgot the difficulty of going Full Throttle...Doesnt that add 1 or 2 Black Die on top of what has been said here?

So 4 Agl 2 Gunn 3 Pilot Space something w/ the Force & a Destiny Pt?? Along w/ Assist from Han & 4 or 5 purple die??

Just for giggles, since everyone has different opinions about how Luke would look, I made him up, based on what everyone's been saying and... well, just whatever I decided to give to him. I tried to keep his XP fairly low at 340 earned, so he's reasonable.

Take a look and tell me what you want modified. I'm using my character generator, so it's easy to change <--- BLATANT PLUG

Luke Skywalker, Human Ace Pilot

I'll keep updating the same link with any changes. We'll see what he eventually morphs into with everyone's input

Sense to upgrade Gunnery twice, plus an obvious use of Touch of Fate (it was kind of his fate to "blow that thing", after all) and perhaps Intense Focus to boot.

At the start of the game for Episode IV Han, Leia, Obi-Wan, Chewbacca, and R2 [1] were clearly not beginning characters. To balance this out the new guy playing Luke started the game with hundreds of unspent XP's and the GM let him spend 100 a session. Therefore his character, Luke, got powerful fast.

[1] I'm not so sure C3PO is a PC, I think R2 just drags him along to translate from binary for him.

As a humorous observation, we have two different camps. One is the "Luke did something with the Force" (be it a power, talent, or just a destiny point), and the other is "Luke is a dirty lier and just got a lucky shot" (a mundane talent, big pool, or a triumph). Use the Force indeed.

But seriously, there's been some really interesting ideas so far. Obviously, there's more than one way to blow up a Death Star. Keep the theories coming.

At the start of the game for Episode IV Han, Leia, Obi-Wan, Chewbacca, and R2 [1] were clearly not beginning characters. To balance this out the new guy playing Luke started the game with hundreds of unspent XP's and the GM let him spend 100 a session. Therefore his character, Luke, got powerful fast.

[1] I'm not so sure C3PO is a PC, I think R2 just drags him along to translate from binary for him.

So that makes C3PO R2's "droid companion".

I was wondering on what people's thoughts are regarding Luke using the Force to destroy the Death Star.

What are your theories?

Luke did nothing.

What actually happened was that Darth Vader had a very hot curry and really needed to use the toilet. Having done his business, he tried to flush but it was a captain-sized log. He got more and more angry, used more and more force which caused pipes to bend and twist, causing a spark and igniting the heavy cloud of methane. With a loud bang, Vader was sent spinning from the Death Star into the cold of space while fires started to spread. Choked by the foul smell, their eyes burning and filled with tears from the fumes, nobody was able to act to put out the fire. Too late it reached the big gun and BOOM!

That's my theory anyway.