Is Force Unleash or Force Harm the equivalent of the Force Lightning that the Emperor uses? If so, which one?
FFG Developer Answered Questions
On 17.08.2015 at 1:00 AM, bradknowles said:Folks,
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25 minutes ago, Ender07 said:Is Force Unleash or Force Harm the equivalent of the Force Lightning that the Emperor uses? If so, which one?
Unleash , specifically its Mastery upgrade. THis is specifically spelled out in its full description.
Please refrain from answering questions posted here. It is not very helpful towards keeping posting discipline.
You might consider pming the supplicant, while reminding them not to post their questions here.
Thank you so very much!
So, I tried to contact the developers at the URL shown above ( https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/contact/rules/ ), but I got the error shown below. Has anyone else had this problem?
Do you get the error when you load the page or when you submit the question? I haven't submitted for a few weeks but didn't have any problem then.
So asked questions, got same-day reply form Sam so sharing the knowledge; some of this maybe a repeat, I apologize but even with the lovely indexing at the beginning 12 pages is a LOT to process through...
Q: Crafting Rules ; I see there are basic templates but is there a way to craft our own templates? I ask because there is no template for Crafting a Multi-Goo Gun nor is there a way to actually craft modifications, just improve purchased ones.
Samuel Stewart: Endless Vigil. Column 2, Paragraph 1 under Crafting Rules: Step 1 answers your question. (As do the crafting rules that show up in all of the supplements.)
Q : More Crafting; FFG SW's dice system is built for a certain amount of random drama which is all well and good for action scenes...but crafting shouldn't be so dramatic. After making one item he should be able to re-make the same item repeatedly without worrying about flaws being introduced. I see right now the only use for more than one success is to reduce time. A craftsman worth his skill should know that MORE time = better end result. So I'd like to see an option where you can trade extra success for extra Advantage (Maybe 3:1 or 4:1?). Or allow them to increase the Time Increment for extra Boost Dice (MAX number of increments = to Skill Rank). And the same for trading extra Advantage for Triumphs (4:1 or 5:1?). I know it has the potential for munchkinism, but once the rabbit hold of modification has been explored balance is kind of out the window. But I think this would better reflect the real process of a working craftsman. I know this is potentially house-rule territory but wanted to get the Devs thoughts on the subject.
Samuel Stewart: The Cyber Tech and the Droid Tech in Special Modifications have access to a talent called Eye for Detail which does what you’re asking for.
Q : Double/Staff Sabers; can they be wielded in one-hand? Much of the fiction and media I've seen seems to indicate it (General Krell) and it does NOT say "Requires Two Hands" in the description.
Samuel Stewart: Yes, a double-bladed lightsaber can be wielded one-handed. You could potentially dual-wield them, but besides the significant costs involved, your GM is more than welcome to rule that trying to control four lightsaber blades with two hands is going to result on several Setback dice being added to all of your combat checks.
Q: If so, then one could potentially dual or quad-wield them, if a 4-armed being, right?
Samuel Stewart: When dealing with a four-armed creature, their four arms give them a second free maneuver (but no more than two maneuvers a turn), but do not override the rules for two weapon combat, which is limited to two weapons. If you want to house-rule it, you’re more than welcome to do so. However, if you keep adding +1 Difficulty for each weapon beyond the first, I think you’ll find that your chances for success (much less your chances for scoring multiple hits) go way down.
Q: A friend and I who are currently trading off GMing figured the penalty for Quad-wielding would be +1diff for each additional weapon past the first, but would there be any potential additional penalties?
Samuel Stewart: If you dual-wielded two double-bladed lightsabers, you would need to spend two advantage for a hit with the second weapon, then two more advantage for a second hit with the second weapon. To score four hits, you would need six advantage total. In addition, unless you are a creature like a Besalisk, your GM can rule that trying to manipulate four lightsaber blades with only two hands is complex enough that you would need to add several Setback dice to each of your combat checks.
Q: To trigger Linked normally requires 2 advantage, and 2 more for Dual-wielding. I'd assume that for Quad-wielding that would be an additional 4 per side? 4e - Paired weapons reduces the advantage cost for dual-wielding by 1. Could you apply a sort of "Improved Link" Mod to reduce the cost for Saber-staves? Again this is likely a house rule thing...and while I'm not likely to pursue this route unless we decide to go full beardy cheese...inquiring minds and all that...8D
Samuel Stewart: You could potentially apply some sort of paired weapon mod to saber staves to reduce the advantage cost, but yeah, that would be in the region of house-rules, so I can’t really say whether it would be balanced or abusive. You and your friend are in a better position to decide that for your group!
Edited by GandofGand
This next one was more about design philosophy.
Question:
Can Deadly Accuracy be applied to the Lightsabre skill? It says "choose one combat skill", but there is no Lightsabre skill in Edge of the Empire, and there is no Force and Destiny specialisation with the Deadly Accuracy talent. I assume that it's just a coincidence, but would be very interested if there is a deeper game design related reason for this.
Answer:
It does work. However, it is very powerful, which is why we left it out of any and all Force and Destiny Specializations (if you want to combine them with a career or specialization that gets the Lightsaber skill or is good at fighting with them, you at least have to cross classes). I would also talk to your GM before going for this, because like I said, it is very powerful.
QuoteOn p. 30 of Savage Spirits, under the description for Essential Kill, it reads: "When making a combat check that does not involve either using the Gunnery skill or operating a non-starship weapon..." Is this an error? It more or less implies that it can only be used with vehicle weapons that somehow don't use Gunnery, while the shorter talent description on p. 25 simple states "a non-Gunnery combat check."
QuoteYes, the wording there needs improvement. The intent was that you can’t use the talent with weapons that have the Gunnery skill, or when firing starship/vehicle mounted weapons; it should be personal weapons only. It will get cleaned up in the next reprint.
Hope this helps and thanks for playing!
Tim Huckelbery
I always felt kinda weird about how Sunder and armour interact, so I sent a question in for some more clarification. Got some really useful insight. Apologies if this has been addressed before, haven't pored over the whole thread.
Q: In the rules text for Sunder, it mentions that you can choose "One item openly wielded by the target (such as a weapon, shield or item on a belt)" to damage with the effect. Would I be correct in assuming this means armour is an invalid target for Sunder? It's not exactly openly wielded. I assume this is the case considering Cortosis on armour doesn't protect against Sunder, but it does on weapons, but I thought it'd be best to ask.
A:
QuoteHi,
Sunder is ability where it does take a little common sense reasoning to determine what can be sundered, and that’s why we gave the clarification of “openly wielded” (because obviously, you couldn’t use your lightsaber or vibro-ax to reach into your opponent’s backpack and selectively destroy a single piece of gear!).Armor is a tricky case for two reasons. The first is that you don’t make many checks to use armor, so sundering it only matters if you destroy it. Second, it’s hard to imagine attacks that destroy the armor but not the person inside, and it’s also hard to imagine situations where the attack somehow stops the armor from “working” (i.e. providing soak and defense) across the entirety of the opponent’s body at once.There are some exceptions to the rule, however, and these make a lot of sense for Sunder. If the person is wearing a personal deflector shield, it’s easy to imagine sundering that. Likewise, if someone it wearing one of the suits of armor that has a power supply and has special rules for what happens when it is unpowered, you could argue that you’re not sundering the entire suit, you’re just destroying the power supply. So really, it’s up to you and your GM.Hope this helps!Sam StewartRPG ManagerFantasy Flight Games
On February 24, 2017 at 11:33 PM, Richardbuxton said:Do you get the error when you load the page or when you submit the question? I haven't submitted for a few weeks but didn't have any problem then.
I ran into the bug when trying to submit the question. But maybe this is a temporary problem that has since been resolved. I’ll try again.
Thanks!
Hi Everyone,
I sent a question regarding lowering racial stats at character creation, which was precipitated by a character idea I had. I found this robust thread on here discussing it, with no formal answer.
As such, I sent the question (below), and Sam Stewart was kind to reply within an hour of posting the question.
Thanks for the opportunity to share!
- Chris
Initial question:
Hello,
As a new member of the FFG Star Wars community, I had a character creation question.
If I wanted to lower a stat at character creation (to show a weakness in a generic area for the race such as strength, willpower, etc), how much XP would be appropriate for a credit due to lower the stat (ex: lower brawn from 2 to 1)?
Thanks for your help!
- Chris
Sam Stewart:
Hello Chris,
Rules as written, you cannot lower your characteristics during character creation. There are a
If you and your GM want to create a house rule that allows you to lower characteristics for XP, however, you can assume that lowering a characteristic would net you experience equal to the amount that it would cost you to raise it in the first place. Your GM would have to approve it, however, and it would eliminate one of the primary differences between different species. So your GM may have a good reason not to do it.
Hope this helps!
Sam Stewart
RPG Manager
Fantasy Flight Games
Me:
Thanks Sam! I appreciate the help.
In the case of the difference between a stat level of 1 to 2, how "weak" is a 1 compared to a 2?
That is, a person with a Brawn of 1 vs 2 (Twi'lek for instance), can they lift most things a Human can lift (weapons, boxes, etc) or should the narrative be more aligned with someone who has difficulty with most objects? Is the stat number really restrictive in this way?
Another example for an Intelligence of 1 vs 2 (a Gamorrean or animal, for instance), is a 1 equal to someone who is mentally slow in some way (too many blaster bolts to the helmet) or more akin to someone with bright ideas but who has a hard time focusing or retaining knowledge?
Thanks again for your help!
- Chris
Sam Stewart:
Hi Chris,
Because characteristics are so broad in what they represent (we are trying to distill sentient consciousness and personality into six numbers, after all!) a high or low stat can represent a number of different things. That’s where you, the player, come in. So a character with a Presence of 1 could be off-pointing to the extreme, withdrawn and introverted, or just not quite sure the best way to interact with others (or any number of other options). The choice is yours.
The best way to think about it is that having a “1” means your character is worse than average in some way. What that way is, is up to you. But it doesn’t have to be severe. To take another of your examples, Twi’leks can probably pick up most things that humans can, and you probably have plenty of Twi’leks who are as strong, or stronger, than the average human. But as a species, they tend to be a little less robust and a little physically weaker than others.
One thing I would consider is that skills do play a major role in this game, more-so than characteristics do on their own. You never make a characteristic test, after all, you always make skill tests. So I would let your skills define your character’s strengths and weaknesses just as much as your characteristics do, and I might only consider your character truly deficient at something if they’re both lacking in skills and have a low corresponding characteristic to match.
Hope that helps!
When will the UK & Europe receive copies of No Disintegrations?
2 hours ago, ExpandingUniverse said:When will the UK & Europe receive copies of No Disintegrations?
Use this thread to post answers to questions you have asked the developers.
Do not use this thread to post questions that you still have.
Here is a link to contact the developers for your questions.
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/more/customer-service/
When you have a response from them, be kind & share both the question you asked & the answer you received.
QuoteThe Aqualish (Dangerous Covenants) have the following ability: "All Aqualish are capable of breathing underwater." Is this intended to be the same as the Amphibious ability other species, such as the Mon Calamari, have, or is it intended to be different?
QuoteThis means exactly what it says; if they are submerged, they can still breathe underwater. However, they do not gain the benefits of Amphibious, which also lets characters move through water without any penalties.Hope this helps!Sam Stewart
On 6.6.2014 at 5:06 PM, kaosoe said:Answered by Sam Stewart :
We are currently re-evaluating how personal scale defense works in the game, and may have a more comprehensive answer in the future. So at this point, we cannot answer your question.
Did this re-evaluation even happen? Any new official word on this?
In an otherwise very good rules system, Defense still seems to cause a lot of frustration in our campaigns.
-E.
On Episode 96 ("Bounty Hunting for Fun And Profit") of the Order 66 podcast, FFG Developer Max Brooke (lead developer for "No Disintegrations") clarified what "unarmed" means in the context of several martial artists talents, the gist is
you can make "unarmed attacks" with natural weapons such as claws and have the martial artist talents that say unarmed attacks apply
when the talent says "unarmed attack" it doesn't apply to talents made with brawl weapons
even when wielding 2 weapons you can make unarmed attacks (e.g. kicks, headbutts) but it uses the unarmed attack profile
unarmed parry works if you have at least 1 hand (a grasping appendage) free, my take away from this is that you can use unarmed parry while wielding a 1 handed lightsaber and you'd want to do this because unarmed parry cost 1 strain less than regular parry
But to make it easy for you to hear for yourself, I used audacity to trim the several hour long podcast to just the relevant section (a few minutes), here's a link to it
Question asked:
QuoteDoes (R) always mean Illegal? That's the stance most people take, but when you see things like the Ardos Disks or the HWK-1000, that wouldn't make sense. HWKs were sold legally after they were mistakenly made, and I find it difficult to believe that a character would be arrested, or have an ardos disk confiscated by the imperials. (R) means restricted, right? Not available through normal Channels. Not necessarily illegal, but you aren't going into a shop and just buying one. Or am I wrong?
Answer:
QuoteR does refer to the item being restricted. Often, this means it's illegal, althogh sometimes, it may just be licensed, restricted to government use, or something of that nature. Whether or not it's truly illegal depends on the item in question and your GM, however even if it's not truly illegal, your PCs are going to get in trouble for having it unless they have papers or something else to prove they're a lawful owner.
I have a question to add:
Question:
|
Sam Steward:
The phrase “far too unwieldy to fire effectively without a tripod, unless the bearer has truly remarkable strength” is descriptive. If your character has a Brawn 5, they can ignore the Cumbersome penalty (although I would point out that a Brawn of 5 probably qualifies as “remarkable strength.”)
Hope this helps!
Two more:
Rules Question:
My question regards the term unarmed, as it applies to the pressure point and iron body talents. If a species with claws uses those to brawl, does it still qualify as unarmed, such that it could benefit from those talents? E.g., could a trandoshan get crit 1 with two ranks of iron body, or a whipid get +2 damage with pressure point?
Sam Steward: In short, yes.
Rules Question:
My question regards the use of the Z50 Grenade Launcher (Dangerous Covenants pg 42). It is listed as encumbrance 5, limited ammo 6. Its standard ammunition is 6 frag grenades, each with an encumbrance of 1. So does the loaded weapon actually have an encumbrance of 11? or do the grenades magically lose their encumbrance when loaded into the launcher? RAW, the grenade launcher projectiles are not quite the same as the hand grenades (they cannot be thrown), and the rules on pg 46 say that the grenade launcher can use any type of grenade, replacing its damage, critical rating, and weapon qualities with those of the new grenade, but there is no mention of taking the corresponding grenade's encumbrance. So one could posit that the grenade launcher projectiles are lighter, or even weightless, because there encumbrance is listed nowhere. Interestingly, missiles have no encumbrance. The alternative, however, of using 1 encumbrance per shot just makes the weapon pretty useless. TL;DR version: What is the encumbrance of the ammunition for the z50 Grenade Launcher, and does the ammo in the gun count?
Sam Steward:
The encumbrance of the grenade launcher is 5 when it is loaded. (It is still 5 when it is empty, since encumbrance is a measure both of weight and of bulkiness, and the launcher’s size does not change when it has fired all of its grenades). This may create some odd situations, but generally it should not affect gameplay too much.
Questioner's Note: He doesn't answer the question about ammo outside the gun, which is just as important if you're looking to reload or carry multiple types. Personally, I think the fact the missiles don't have encumbrance says grenade projectiles don't either.
Question Asked:
QuoteIs reforging, as described in Endless Vigil, limited to lightsabers, or is that a rule that would be applicable to other weapons and campaigns as well? (I.E a blaster pistol or Vibrosword from EotE that the player owns)
Answer:
QuoteTechnically it's limited to lightsaber hilts, but there is no reason why the group can't adopt it for other items too. Sounds like a great idea!
How long does an astrogation check take during combat?
3 hours ago, Tanis Frey said:How long does an astrogation check take during combat?
Please read the first post in this thread. This is a collection point of questions that the devs have already answered, not a place to ask questions. You can either start a new thread asking the same question in the forums, search the forums to see if you can find an answer, or submit a
Rules Question
to the developers here if answers you find on the forums are unclear. If you do so, feel free to throw their answer this way so that the rest of us can benefit from the wisdom
Hello Bob,
On Jun 10, 2017, at 9:15 PM,
[email protected]
wrote:
Yes.
Hope this helps!
Sam Stewart
RPG Manager
Fantasy Flight Games
Message from:
Bob Brophy
Rules Question:
I am making a Coercion check as a result of using the Scathing Tirade talent. I have the 15 XP control talent upgrade on the 3rd rank of the Influence tree (add FP to specific ‘social skills', including Coercion). Can I add my force pool to this specific Coercion check?
8 minutes ago, Magnus Arcanus said:Hello Bob,Yes.Hope this helps!On Jun 10, 2017, at 9:15 PM, [email protected] wrote:Sam StewartRPG ManagerFantasy Flight GamesMessage from:
Bob Brophy
Rules Question:
I am making a Coercion check as a result of using the Scathing Tirade talent. I have the 15 XP control talent upgrade on the 3rd rank of the Influence tree (add FP to specific ‘social skills', including Coercion). Can I add my force pool to this specific Coercion check?
Wonderful. Now Sam has answered the same question 2 ways. https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/108101-ffg-developer-answered-questions/?page=11