Battle Meditation as it is presented in FAD does not appear to represent Battle Meditation as I understand it.

The first problem I have is it being an engaged-range power more suitable to close-quarters ground combat, and every instance that I can think of where Battle Meditation was referenced in Star Wars was space combat, and probably at extreme range. I am sure people with more knowledge than I in the Expanded Universe will be able to find contrary examples, but to me the iconic examples are Palpatine and Bastila Shan controlling space battles.

The second question I have is the Mastery power. I have difficulty believing that a Dark Side Force user would not be able to increase his allies' skill. I also don't understand whether his allies will automatically rebel if they make their discipline check. It seems like Mastery should be a thing no Dark Side Force user would ever take, but I am quite certain Palpatine had it as mastered as it could be. I would suggest that Mastery be rewritten to "If the Force User did not spend a Destiny Point to generate Force Points on this check, he may spend a Destiny Point to choose one skill..." and continue to the end of the sentence and stop, removing the line that begins "If the Force User spent Dark Pips ..."

One other thing that I would like to ask about is how this power effects Minions and Minion Groups. In general, I would say it must affect the entire group, because they only make one roll. But how many "affected targets" does that count for? I would suggest that a Minion Group would count as a target, which allows powerful Force Users to boost many troops' abilities, and is more in-line with the massive space battle idea that permeates Star Wars.

Of course, I understand that, for the sake of a game with smallish numbers of people on the field at a time, the power can't affect large numbers of people as it does in the wider universe, though certain NPC's may appear to have this ability.

The Range Upgrades for Battle Meditation can be activated multiple times. So if you have all 4 Range Upgrades then you can extend to Extreme range by using one Force point. If you keep spending them, you could keep extending the range past Extreme into the range band of "maybe-still-technically-planetary-but-really-really-really-extremely-freaking-far."

As far as the Mastery power... to me someone who isn't using the dark side to activate the power is saying "Hey there, let me help you friend, rally and lets do this together!" and someone using the dark side is saying "OBEY ME, WORM!"

As far as the number of people you're affecting... The Magnitude upgrades can be activated multiple times too. But for some of the super grandiose situations you're thinking about, you don't have to necessarily think of massive space Battle Meditation as affecting everyone on the battlefield at exactly the same time. You might use Battle Meditation to boost Squadron A over here on their bombing run, and then next round you might switch to boosting Squadron B in their dog fight. Focusing your Battle Meditation to give the biggest boost to your allies where it is needed most when it is needed most.

Ok, I see what you're saying for points 1 and 3 (though I still want to know how to handle Minions), but I must be misunderstanding how Mastery is supposed to work.

(In the games I play in, the house rule has been that the next range band after personal-scale Extreme range is Planetary-scale Close range. I believe this is implied or hinted at, but never explicitly stated.)

It looks to me like a Dark Side Force user who has Battle Meditation will likely always use a Dark Force Pip to activate the power, because the only exception would be when only Light Force Pips were rolled and the character had to spend a Destiny Point to spend Light Force Pips. Because of this, the characters being directed would always have to "make an Easy Discipline check to resist obeying orders." Since the check is Easy, the characters would almost always disobey the orders.

This makes no sense.

A Dark Side Force user would therefore never get Battle Meditation: Mastery.

I see how it works for a Light Side Force user, and I may be OK with that... I haven't decided. But for a Dark Side Force user it is always worse to have Battle Meditation: Mastery than it would be to not have it.

As with Makashi Duelist, I have a problem with things that cost characters points and make them worse.

The other possibility is that I don't understand what's supposed to happen, which is my hope.

The talent isn't well worded, in my opinion, but what it means is you can force your targets to do something they normally wouldn't and if they are unwilling they have to make a check.

For example: A faction of your own army has split off in betrayal. Your allies are trying to bring them to justice peacefully, with stun weapons and such, but you'd rather they act with lethality. If you're lightside, too bad, they're doing what they want. If you're darkside, you can probably control their weak minds to bend them to your will.

Because of this, the characters being directed would always have to "make an Easy Discipline check to resist obeying orders." Since the check is Easy, the characters would almost always disobey the orders.

They make a discipline check if they try to resist obeying the orders. The orders might seem fine to them. I'd assume it's fairly easy because it's spread out among potentially lots of people and mind tricks work most effectively on the weak minded.

I understand what you mean about it seeming to only sort of be a penalty in a way if used on your own forces, but I think that may just be part of separating the light side aspect of the power from a dark aspect. If you're a master(y) and you fuel the power with the dark side, you might try to bend people to your will more than you intend. Keep in mind though that Battle Meditation can be used on your foes (that's maybe the way a dark sider would focus on using it anyhow), and you can give detrimental orders to your more weak-minded enemies. Order enemy starfighter pilots to fire on their own squadron leader, etc. It's potentially very very powerful. I think that's why the Discipline check can't be too difficult. Otherwise it could probably get kind of insane from a game balance perspective.

Edit: Whoops, I must have misread or combined trees in my mind, this may not actually be possible. Researching now.

No, yeah, I'm totally wrong, I mixed up trees. It can only be used on allies.

Except the wording is that they MUST make the check to "resist obeying the orders."

The wording is poor, but I believe it means that they MUST make a check, and if that check succeeds they do not obey the orders.

Except the wording is that they MUST make the check to "resist obeying the orders."

The wording is poor, but I believe it means that they MUST make a check, and if that check succeeds they do not obey the orders.

The wording is a little bit ambiguous, but I've interpreted as that if they'd like to try to disobey the order, they must make a check to wrestle control of their will to do it. Not that they automatically have to make a check no matter what. They might be perfectly fine with the orders. I believe it's to help signify that the light side user is trying to help their ally out and the dark side user is inherently trying to dominate their subordinates. Some might be fine with the domination, it isn't necessarily all detrimental to their personal health on the battlefield... unless the Sith using Battle Meditation tells the pilot to turn their starfighter into a suicide missile and crash-land square into the bridge of a capital ship. You miiiight wanna try to resist if that's the order...

My current thought is that the problem is that the check is a flat Easy check. If it were Hard or based on your Force Rating, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Example:

"... each affected character must make a Discipline check with the difficulty equal to your Force Rating if they wish to disobey the orders."

My current thought is that the problem is that the check is a flat Easy check. If it were Hard or based on your Force Rating, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Example:

"... each affected character must make a Discipline check with the difficulty equal to your Force Rating if they wish to disobey the orders."

I think it's Easy because it's... basically direct mind control. It's stronger in many ways than the Misdirect or Influence Force powers. Mind tricks are supposed to 'work on the weak minded', not 'work on the weak minded unless you're really strong and then everybody is your slave and they're totally screwed'. :-P

My current thought is that the problem is that the check is a flat Easy check. If it were Hard or based on your Force Rating, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Example:

"... each affected character must make a Discipline check with the difficulty equal to your Force Rating if they wish to disobey the orders."

I think it's Easy because it's... basically direct mind control. It's stronger in many ways than the Misdirect or Influence Force powers. Mind tricks are supposed to 'work on the weak minded', not 'work on the weak minded unless you're really strong and then everybody is your slave and they're totally screwed'. :-P

Which is why my suggested change (posted while back) was that the darksider could use 2 force pips to add a setback die, repeatedly. So an 8 force die emperor might be able to make it Pbbb reliably, but anyone with a good willpower and dicipline trainin should still be able to shrug him off.

My current thought is that the problem is that the check is a flat Easy check. If it were Hard or based on your Force Rating, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Example:

"... each affected character must make a Discipline check with the difficulty equal to your Force Rating if they wish to disobey the orders."

I think it's Easy because it's... basically direct mind control. It's stronger in many ways than the Misdirect or Influence Force powers. Mind tricks are supposed to 'work on the weak minded', not 'work on the weak minded unless you're really strong and then everybody is your slave and they're totally screwed'. :-P

Which is why my suggested change (posted while back) was that the darksider could use 2 force pips to add a setback die, repeatedly. So an 8 force die emperor might be able to make it Pbbb reliably, but anyone with a good willpower and dicipline trainin should still be able to shrug him off.

I must have missed your post, Rakaydos.

The problem with the it being Easy is that everyone will shrug him off, almost all the time. That's what Easy means.

Demigonis, so what you're saying is that the Control power is superior to Mastery, because although the Control power does not require the affected ally to obey, the Mastery power requires the affected ally to disobey. This makes no sense.

Furthermore, reading the power, I see that Imperial Troops "benefiting" from the Emperor's Battle Meditation are less scary, more likely to flee in the face of danger, act sluggishly in combat, and are compelled to refuse the Emperor's orders.

How can I make such an outrageous claim? Because they're Willpower has been reduced by 1 and the Emperor's Mastery requires them to disobey.

This power is totally bizarre. The more I look at it the more I think it is entirely wrong. Back to the drawing board!

My current thought is that the problem is that the check is a flat Easy check. If it were Hard or based on your Force Rating, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Example:

"... each affected character must make a Discipline check with the difficulty equal to your Force Rating if they wish to disobey the orders."

I think it's Easy because it's... basically direct mind control. It's stronger in many ways than the Misdirect or Influence Force powers. Mind tricks are supposed to 'work on the weak minded', not 'work on the weak minded unless you're really strong and then everybody is your slave and they're totally screwed'. :-P

Which is why my suggested change (posted while back) was that the darksider could use 2 force pips to add a setback die, repeatedly. So an 8 force die emperor might be able to make it Pbbb reliably, but anyone with a good willpower and dicipline trainin should still be able to shrug him off.

I must have missed your post, Rakaydos.

It's on the second page of the Game Mechanics forum, here: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/114297-benifits-to-darkside-battle-meditation/

It doesn't require them to disobey. I don't know why you're clinging to that. The dark side mastery essentially adds a mind control element that they have to make a check against if they want to disobey the orders.

If they're going to resist the orders they must make a roll, there's no roll necessary if they carry out the orders willingly.

It doesn't require them to disobey. I don't know why you're clinging to that. The dark side mastery essentially adds a mind control element that they have to make a check against if they want to disobey the orders.

It is written that they must make the check. Success on the check means that they disobey the order.

Therefore they must disobey . That's how it's written.

I know it's wrong; it needs to change. That's the point of this conversation.

Again, if it said, "... must make a [] Discipline check if they attempt to disobey the order," then the rules would be written to mean what you said, and I think we can all agree that's probably what was meant.

Also, the difficulty should not be Easy - because that's a practically guaranteed success. I'd say Average is also too easy - it's a Mastery power of a difficult Force Power. But probably the best plan would be to have the difficulty scale with the capability of the user.

The power is very poorly written, and does not appear to have been properly thought out. I believe the author had a particular viewpoint in mind when writing the power, and did not consider the wider implications and how the power has been shown to be used in Star Wars material to date.

The text may seem a bit confusing on it's own, but it makes perfect sense within the context of the rest of the tree.

Namely, the Control upgrade that introduces the idea of sending commands, but notes that they can be disobeyed.

Then comes the Mastery that introduces a check in order to disobey. The reason the text for Mastery does not clarify it's only when the target attempts to disobey is because disobeying is covered earlier in the tree, this just adds to that.

Easy might be a little low, but it's certainly not guaranteed, especially when everyone is already taking a -1 Willpower. You also don't want this to be too hard of a check for balance reasons. Otherwise you could end up with an awful player at the table who decides he wants to mind control the party from now on. Game over, man.

Easy might be a little low, but it's certainly not guaranteed, especially when everyone is already taking a -1 Willpower. You also don't want this to be too hard of a check for balance reasons. Otherwise you could end up with an awful player at the table who decides he wants to mind control the party from now on. Game over, man.

This is a perfectly good point.

After all, not every PC is going to make Willpower a priority to increase, or even take any ranks in Discipline. You put this power in the hands of a player that's enough of a ****, and they can use it to force the other players to do things their way, particularly as there's on inherent resistance to avoid being subjected to Battle Meditation in the first place, as the basic power allows you to affect "friendly targets."

The Easy difficulty of the Discipline check also seems to correspond to the Easy Leadership check required in order to be able to send orders in the first place. If you're going to increase the difficulty of one, probably best to increase the difficulty of both.

I completely and unequivocally disagree with Revanchist and Donovan in their interpretation that Easy is an acceptable difficulty.

1) At the point at which a character has Mastery in Battle Meditation, they have at least Force Rating 2 (by requirement) and 100 XP spent in Battle Meditation (assuming only the line to get to Mastery + Control). They likely have Force Rating 3+ and a whole mess of other powers and such. This character has several hundred XP and is extremely powerful.

2) The character's allies (or troops, in the case of e.g. Palpatine) are not going to be slouches either. Even Minion Stormtroopers have Willpower 3 (less 1 because DS use of Battle Meditation - more on that in a moment).

3) The power really ought to be more effective than the radio. "Tie Squadron 1, you are ordered to break off your attack on that freighter and attack the star cruiser." And that's what they'd do, because they're military and they follow orders. And if they were having second thoughts, they'd essentially be Coerced (a skill that probably works well over the radio in these circumstances).

4) -1 Willpower makes no sense . Like so much of this power, it is completely unreasonable and does not match what we see in the movies or the Extended Universe . If the penalty were "-1 Willpower to resist your Social Skills and Force Power effects", I could see that. But Stormtroopers are not less capable when under the effect of Battle Meditation - they are more capable. That's rather the whole point. They are not less scary (loss to Coercion), more likely to disobey or flee from battle (loss to Discipline), or more likely to fall asleep at their post and more sluggish in combat (loss to Vigilance).

It makes no sense . Can we agree that it is broken and needs to be fixed ? I believe the author wrote the power from the point of view of a light side character, and while that's fine for what it is, it completely disregards how the power is shown in many sources and the fact that it was used quite effectively by Dark Siders such as Palpatine.

The Easy difficulty of the Discipline check also seems to correspond to the Easy Leadership check required in order to be able to send orders in the first place. If you're going to increase the difficulty of one, probably best to increase the difficulty of both.

These two checks are completely unrelated, though I wouldn't mind having the Leadership check being Hard, but I've got a better idea:

How about the user making a Leadership check per the rules on p.81? No special difficulty, no special rule to resist, no need for negatives to Willpower or anything else.

Change the Control power to "The user may make a Leadership check combined with the Battle Meditation power check...", and in the longer description they can point the reader to the Leadership skill description, and possibly remind players that orders which could result in harm to the ordered require an opposed check.

Change the Mastery power to omit the sentence, "If the user used Dark Pips to generate Force Points..."

And, in the Basic power, remove the sentence, "If the user used Dark Pips to generate Force Points..."

It still would be far from ideal, but at least it'd be reasonable for a Dark Side Force user.

I completely and unequivocally disagree with Revanchist and Donovan in their interpretation that Easy is an acceptable difficulty.

1) At the point at which a character has Mastery in Battle Meditation, they have at least Force Rating 2 (by requirement) and 100 XP spent in Battle Meditation (assuming only the line to get to Mastery + Control). They likely have Force Rating 3+ and a whole mess of other powers and such. This character has several hundred XP and is extremely powerful.

2) The character's allies (or troops, in the case of e.g. Palpatine) are not going to be slouches either. Even Minion Stormtroopers have Willpower 3 (less 1 because DS use of Battle Meditation - more on that in a moment).

3) The power really ought to be more effective than the radio. "Tie Squadron 1, you are ordered to break off your attack on that freighter and attack the star cruiser." And that's what they'd do, because they're military and they follow orders. And if they were having second thoughts, they'd essentially be Coerced (a skill that probably works well over the radio in these circumstances).

4) -1 Willpower makes no sense . Like so much of this power, it is completely unreasonable and does not match what we see in the movies or the Extended Universe . If the penalty were "-1 Willpower to resist your Social Skills and Force Power effects", I could see that. But Stormtroopers are not less capable when under the effect of Battle Meditation - they are more capable. That's rather the whole point. They are not less scary (loss to Coercion), more likely to disobey or flee from battle (loss to Discipline), or more likely to fall asleep at their post and more sluggish in combat (loss to Vigilance).

It makes no sense . Can we agree that it is broken and needs to be fixed ? I believe the author wrote the power from the point of view of a light side character, and while that's fine for what it is, it completely disregards how the power is shown in many sources and the fact that it was used quite effectively by Dark Siders such as Palpatine.

1. So?

2. They're not necessarily going to be high-stat characters. Also, so what if they were? Is it unreasonable to assume a high-will character will have a harder time being mind controlled? Mind control is a HUGE deal from a balance stand-point.

3. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, that issuing regular orders works better than mind-controlling? Well obviously. (Although not in all situations) Dark siders don't have to do the whole mind control thing, they can issue orders as normally and still gain the benefits of the core power.

4. I totally agree with the "-1 Willpower to resist your Social Skills and Force Power effects" idea, though I don't think it's fatally flawed as it is. Although, even that doesn't fix your issue with them being more easily Coerced. Honestly, as a GM, I wouldn't allow a mind-controlled NPC to be coerced out of their orders anyway. That's the point, they're mind-controlled, their orders take priority over threat to their livelihood.

The Easy difficulty of the Discipline check also seems to correspond to the Easy Leadership check required in order to be able to send orders in the first place. If you're going to increase the difficulty of one, probably best to increase the difficulty of both.

These two checks are completely unrelated, though I wouldn't mind having the Leadership check being Hard, but I've got a better idea:

How about the user making a Leadership check per the rules on p.81? No special difficulty, no special rule to resist, no need for negatives to Willpower or anything else.

Change the Control power to "The user may make a Leadership check combined with the Battle Meditation power check...", and in the longer description they can point the reader to the Leadership skill description, and possibly remind players that orders which could result in harm to the ordered require an opposed check.

Change the Mastery power to omit the sentence, "If the user used Dark Pips to generate Force Points..."

And, in the Basic power, remove the sentence, "If the user used Dark Pips to generate Force Points..."

It still would be far from ideal, but at least it'd be reasonable for a Dark Side Force user.

Your solution is to take out the mind control? You're taking out the element of this power that makes it cool and unique for a dark sider, and replacing it with something that can largely be already done. This idea would neuter Battle Meditation, and make it fairly redundant with Influence which already allows a Leadership check that includes the force die.

The Easy difficulty of the Discipline check also seems to correspond to the Easy Leadership check required in order to be able to send orders in the first place. If you're going to increase the difficulty of one, probably best to increase the difficulty of both.

These two checks are completely unrelated, though I wouldn't mind having the Leadership check being Hard, but I've got a better idea:

How about the user making a Leadership check per the rules on p.81? No special difficulty, no special rule to resist, no need for negatives to Willpower or anything else.

Change the Control power to "The user may make a Leadership check combined with the Battle Meditation power check...", and in the longer description they can point the reader to the Leadership skill description, and possibly remind players that orders which could result in harm to the ordered require an opposed check.

Change the Mastery power to omit the sentence, "If the user used Dark Pips to generate Force Points..."

And, in the Basic power, remove the sentence, "If the user used Dark Pips to generate Force Points..."

It still would be far from ideal, but at least it'd be reasonable for a Dark Side Force user.

Your solution is to take out the mind control? You're taking out the element of this power that makes it cool and unique for a dark sider, and replacing it with something that can largely be already done. This idea would neuter Battle Meditation, and make it fairly redundant with Influence which already allows a Leadership check that includes the force die.

Well, what's in there now is hardly mind control. I'd rather remove it than leave the mess that it is.

Like I said, far from ideal, but better.

If the Dark Side effect of Mastery is supposed to be Mind Control, then I'd say it's even worse than I had thought. I expected that it was simply the author's way of penalizing a Light Side Force user who decided to spend Dark Pips. If, on the other hand, it is expected to be Mind Control then I would expect it to be approximate to Influence.

Let's take that approach:

"If the user used Dark Pips to generate Force Points, and activates the Control Power to send a command, they may make an opposed Leadership vs. Discipline check (instead of an Easy Leadership check) to ensure that the given orders may not be disobeyed."

Simple, clean, elegant. No strange rules or arbitrary difficulty levels. Done.

I completely and unequivocally disagree with Revanchist and Donovan in their interpretation that Easy is an acceptable difficulty.

1) At the point at which a character has Mastery in Battle Meditation, they have at least Force Rating 2 (by requirement) and 100 XP spent in Battle Meditation (assuming only the line to get to Mastery + Control). They likely have Force Rating 3+ and a whole mess of other powers and such. This character has several hundred XP and is extremely powerful.

2) The character's allies (or troops, in the case of e.g. Palpatine) are not going to be slouches either. Even Minion Stormtroopers have Willpower 3 (less 1 because DS use of Battle Meditation - more on that in a moment).

3) The power really ought to be more effective than the radio. "Tie Squadron 1, you are ordered to break off your attack on that freighter and attack the star cruiser." And that's what they'd do, because they're military and they follow orders. And if they were having second thoughts, they'd essentially be Coerced (a skill that probably works well over the radio in these circumstances).

4) -1 Willpower makes no sense . Like so much of this power, it is completely unreasonable and does not match what we see in the movies or the Extended Universe . If the penalty were "-1 Willpower to resist your Social Skills and Force Power effects", I could see that. But Stormtroopers are not less capable when under the effect of Battle Meditation - they are more capable. That's rather the whole point. They are not less scary (loss to Coercion), more likely to disobey or flee from battle (loss to Discipline), or more likely to fall asleep at their post and more sluggish in combat (loss to Vigilance).

It makes no sense . Can we agree that it is broken and needs to be fixed ? I believe the author wrote the power from the point of view of a light side character, and while that's fine for what it is, it completely disregards how the power is shown in many sources and the fact that it was used quite effectively by Dark Siders such as Palpatine.

1. So?

2. They're not necessarily going to be high-stat characters. Also, so what if they were? Is it unreasonable to assume a high-will character will have a harder time being mind controlled? Mind control is a HUGE deal from a balance stand-point.

3. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, that issuing regular orders works better than mind-controlling? Well obviously. (Although not in all situations) Dark siders don't have to do the whole mind control thing, they can issue orders as normally and still gain the benefits of the core power.

4. I totally agree with the "-1 Willpower to resist your Social Skills and Force Power effects" idea, though I don't think it's fatally flawed as it is. Although, even that doesn't fix your issue with them being more easily Coerced. Honestly, as a GM, I wouldn't allow a mind-controlled NPC to be coerced out of their orders anyway. That's the point, they're mind-controlled, their orders take priority over threat to their livelihood.

1. This should be a very powerful ability, since it comes at great cost and is only available after considerable time and effort. It will not easily be "overpowered" as so many seem to think, because the opposition should be equally powerful. If you've invested enough in it early on to make it seem "overpowered", then you're playing a one-trick-pony and the GM should be able to remind you of that very quickly.

2. What is this Mind Control that you keep speaking of? I have read the power many times, and if you mean, "If you fail this easy discipline check you're mind-controlled," then I'm saying that's a hilarious interpretation. It practically ensures that the so-called "mind control" will always fail . Also, it only works on allies .

3. The point I am making is that in its current form this power is less capable than giving your orders via radio. It is laughable, pathetic, and not worth the points .

In all seriousness, a lot of people in this thread seem to think this is a terribly powerful ability, easily abused and unabalancing. I don't get it. The power only works on allies. You won't be mind controlling them to run off a cliff, or you'll run out of allies.

I have read and reread this power in it's entirety, and feel that I have a good grasp on what it can and cannot do. I feel that a lot of people are making arguments based on what they believe it is intended to do, and that'd be fine, except the rules as written do not line up with those beliefs.

The reason this power is powerful is because it can grant a large number of Advantages to a group of people (and for a long time if you can activate the Duration upgrade).

It is not powerful because you can tell people what to do, or force them to do it. That is a completely negligible and unlikely side effect.

I agree that an Easy Discipline check is too low a bar.

To my mind, the best example of the Mastery Upgrade to Battle Meditation is when (Legacy Era)

If it worked on capital ships' captains, who I would assume to have, at minimum, 3 ranks of Discipline and probably at least a 2 Willpower, it's going to be rather difficult to fail a check rolling GGYP.

I think a Leadership vs. Discipline check would be reasonable. An alternative might be making it a straight Willpower check, in which case that reduction that comes with the basic dark side portion would be more meaningful.

Obviously, there needs to be some clarification of who the power works on, and how to get out of it--you should be able to push someone to do something extreme, but in line with their general principles/actions, but not drive them to do something completely out of character and inappropriate. So, pushing a military officer to fight more furiously, is kind of on the edge, but if you're already in an engagement, it's not really stretching things, while trying to get someone to, say, kill their friend when they have no reason to dislike/mistrust them, would be too much.

This should work more (using D&D comparisons) like Charm Person with the +4 bonus vs. a Cha check to push someone to do something, and less like Suggestion or Dominate Person, which are both more in line with the "mind trick" upgrade in Influence.

1. This should be a very powerful ability, since it comes at great cost and is only available after considerable time and effort. It will not easily be "overpowered" as so many seem to think, because the opposition should be equally powerful. If you've invested enough in it early on to make it seem "overpowered", then you're playing a one-trick-pony and the GM should be able to remind you of that very quickly.

2. What is this Mind Control that you keep speaking of? I have read the power many times, and if you mean, "If you fail this easy discipline check you're mind-controlled," then I'm saying that's a hilarious interpretation. It practically ensures that the so-called "mind control" will always fail . Also, it only works on allies .

3. The point I am making is that in its current form this power is less capable than giving your orders via radio. It is laughable, pathetic, and not worth the points .

In all seriousness, a lot of people in this thread seem to think this is a terribly powerful ability, easily abused and unabalancing. I don't get it. The power only works on allies. You won't be mind controlling them to run off a cliff, or you'll run out of allies.

I have read and reread this power in it's entirety, and feel that I have a good grasp on what it can and cannot do. I feel that a lot of people are making arguments based on what they believe it is intended to do, and that'd be fine, except the rules as written do not line up with those beliefs.

The reason this power is powerful is because it can grant a large number of Advantages to a group of people (and for a long time if you can activate the Duration upgrade).

I find the power to be good as is. It's meant to emulate what is mentioned in KoTOR as a method of coordinating forces and turning the tides of large-scale battles, and that's what it does. It's definitely a bit of an XP sink if you only use it for your party, but even then, it's still pretty powerful.

The advantages, are definitely nice, but they are not the main focus of this power. They're a nice little bonus, but they're just a small piece of what builds this power to being powerful.

The main focus is the Mastery upgrade of it for not using any dark side points. This upgrade essentially lets you copy over a fellow PC's 5 ranks in Gunnery to (assuming all Magnitude upgrades, and a Presence of 3) 14 other characters, or in a smaller scope: copy Discipline to the rest of the party so everyone is awesome at force powers, or Resilience so everyone can fight off poison, or even Leadership to try and start a simultaneous uprising in a city from numerous points. So to me, that's pretty **** powerful, regardless of if the power is just being used to help massive fights or just help the group of PCs get by something difficult.

The dark side Mastery is still pretty decent. The idea of Battle Meditation is that you're meant to use it to coordinate allies. You want to be a jerk to enemies and have them kill themselves? You go invest into Influence - that isn't the focus of something that is meant to connect groups of people together. The idea of using Battle Meditation if you're a dark sider, is that as is, you're tapping into the dark side - a clear and focused mind probably isn't your strong suit. As such, you're probably more likely to send direct orders and try and force your allies to do something stupid - like miniature suicide missions. That doesn't mean they won't do it if they think it's a good idea, heck, even light siders can send the same orders, but as a dark sider, you can basically force them to do it. The cost of this is that as a dark sider, you can't focus well enough to get the skill rank copy, and all allies affected get their willpower knocked down by 1. But, of course, that decreased willpower can actually be helpful when forcing orders they'd not otherwise do. But since you're able to slap the power on anybody that's an ally, much as it was mentioned before, by Donovan I believe, the easy Difficulty is to ensure PCs don't get forced into doing something stupid by a PC who thinks they know what's best.

Light-siders as is, have a pretty great power at their hands. Dark-siders, eh. It ain't exactly as powerful, and it is a bit more limited in uses, but I'd say that since Dark Siders get Force Choke (crit'ing with Bind), Force Lightning (Unleash), and an ultra fancy player reviver (mastery of Harm), that it's fine if the Light Siders get their own neat little power that's better than the dark side version of itself.