One of the members of my group and I have had a debate about the Seek power, and I'm curious if anyone can shed some light on it.

The fluff aspect states that the Seek power is used to find things that are lost or hiding, and that distance and time have no meaning. This is even mentioned in the tree for the power itself states that "The Force user allows the will of the force to lead the way to something lost or forgotten."

The mechanical power sadly doesn't mesh with this. As written, the power only allows you to find things that you've previously encountered, which means that using the Force to guide you to a lost planet, finding a relic, or even doing a rescue mission for someone missing is a moot point.

My player was arguing that last part. The party has holographic images of the person they are trying to find and small clues and people to speak to about him. The player argues that having the image counts as "encountering" the person or object, and they can therefore use Seek to find them.

This feels like a stretch but still feels somewhat fitting for what a Jedi Seeker (or even a Gand Findsman!) should be able to do.

Does anyone have input on this, or know if there's an official ruling somewhere?

Well, some people have suggested that "encountering" something with the farseeing (foresee) power is sufficient to activate seek. Thus if you have a force vision about a lost planet, you could seek your way there.

I think that this power is highly narrative, allowing it to service the needs of the story, and allow for creative problem solving. It shouldnt be a chore to use, and neither should it be defaulted to finding anything and everything. The vagueness of the power is perfectly in keeping with talents such as familiar suns and know schematic, or Signature abilities such as Sudden Discovery or insightful revelations.

I think the most important thing is for the PC who wants to use this power more narratively to make sure they are on the same page as the GM. This prior discussion can avoid a lot of game time confusion. especially if they determine what qualifies as "encountering"

Me personally, I think that having a detailed file about something would potentially count as encountering it. I could also see a GM calling for a relevant knowledge check if you have only academic or impersonal knowledge about an item or artifact, or location. But the GM may have a m ore detailed plan for that mystery. Hopefully in that situation a GM would plan ahead for a PC using that ability and cue them into something they could seek to gain some advantage.

But like I said, it's mostly all about the story. IMO.

EDIT: not that I'm trying to be vague or say they couldn't be cleaned up, just that FFG has made some very open ended abilities that have no real mechanical boundaries already, so I see this as somewhat intentional on their part. thus, i can't give you a mechanical "answer" since I don't think one exists. Of course, i could be very wrong.

Well, some people have suggested that "encountering" something with the farseeing (foresee) power is sufficient to activate seek. Thus if you have a force vision about a lost planet, you could seek your way there.

I think that this power is highly narrative, allowing it to service the needs of the story, and allow for creative problem solving. It shouldnt be a chore to use, and neither should it be defaulted to finding anything and everything. The vagueness of the power is perfectly in keeping with talents such as familiar suns and know schematic, or Signature abilities such as Sudden Discovery or insightful revelations.

I think the most important thing is for the PC who wants to use this power more narratively to make sure they are on the same page as the GM. This prior discussion can avoid a lot of game time confusion. especially if they determine what qualifies as "encountering"

Me personally, I think that having a detailed file about something would potentially count as encountering it. I could also see a GM calling for a relevant knowledge check if you have only academic or impersonal knowledge about an item or artifact, or location. But the GM may have a m ore detailed plan for that mystery. Hopefully in that situation a GM would plan ahead for a PC using that ability and cue them into something they could seek to gain some advantage.

But like I said, it's mostly all about the story. IMO.

This is all very solid information, but as you said, as it stands it currently boils down to how the GM wants to interpret it. As it's written, the "mechanics" are rather ill fitting considering the name of the power, which has lead to the argument.

In my current game, the party is out hunting someone that actually is a Force User (an old padawan turned Inquisitorious) and is essentially a living MacGuffin and a "final boss" to get the party to band together for the task at hand. I know I am within my GM right to say "it won't work," but at the same time I don't want to totally nerf the power.

Your comments are valid, and I may incorporate them with other games in the future, but I am curious what others have experienced and if the writing will be cleaned up in the final version.

As far as Seek goes, like a number of elements of this system as a whole, it's going to ultimately come down to GM interpretation/input on how effective the power is.

It's very much like the talents that negate setback dice only being of use if the GM actually applies setback dice to various skill checks; there's been a number of threads complaining that said talents are useless because their GM is increasing/upgrading the difficulty of a check instead of the system's own recommendation of adding setback dice to the pool.

As for the Seek + Foresee combo, that is very much up to GM discretion on how it works, or if it even works at all, particularly since what information is relayed by Foresee is ultimately up to the GM to begin with. On a personal level, I don't see it as that big a deal, since I view Foresee as a great way for a GM to introduce plot hooks by having the Force user experience a sudden vision of whatever major plot element the GM wants to introduce.

In regards to Seek working, I've been fairly lenient in what constitutes "interacting" with the subject. As a GM, if the Force user had sufficient access to information on the potential subject of the Seek power, I'd probably allow the power to work even if they'd never physically interacted with said subject.

When I first read the Seek power, I thought it could allow the players to bypass my plot completely and go straight to the end. That would be... (Mordin Solus voice) problematic.

Then I thought - maybe the Force tells you where to go, but in a roundabout way. That is, the player gets to be cocksure that he's on the right track while completely following the plot I've laid out for the party. Maybe it's not the best example, but I've always liked that Qui-Gon Jinn wasn't particularly fazed by being sidetracked to Tatooine, the Force told him he needed to be there.

I would also say the amount of information is something the GM has a large amount of control over.

For instance, if you're an exiled Jedi trying to find a planet you've seen in a vision, or another jedi that traveled to the unknown reaches to fight a nameless evil, using the seek power may tell the a direction. or lead you on the first part of your journey. Not necessarily the end point.

it's not like it pings on your mini map.