I like that Protect and Unleash soak / cause the same amount of damage, i.e. 1x Willpower. It would seem odd to me that the light side of the power could not counteract the dark side of the power. It would be somehow an unprecedented declaration towards "the Dark Side of the force is more powerful than the Light side".
The issue here is that we meet with the game mechanics, the intrinsic SOAK value of characters (to begin with this mechanic should not even exist, but this is not the thread to talk about it). Soak is in favour to Protect, but there is nothing similar for Unleash. Hence people asking that base damage is 2xWillpower. Although, to be 100% fair and equal to Protect, Unleash base damage would have to be Brawn + Willpower, since soak is based on Brawn and not on Willpower, but this won't be elegant at all.
Moreover, in order to reflect an attack with Protect, Protect has to reduce its damage to zero. If Unleash base damage would be 2xWillpower, it would be very difficult to reproduce scenes such as the ones were Yoda reflects the lighting attack from Dooku and, also from Sidious in Episode III.
Since Protect is not Soak, a different solution to the 2xWillpower would be to give to the basic power Unleash something like Pierce 4 or Breach 1 while keeping the base damage as 1xWillpower.
One question, can you maintain Protect by committing 1 Force die?
Edited by Yepesnopes