Sorcery, and especially of the Sith variety, is established and vindicated in certain areas of the new Canon (Both Sith sorcery, and the Nightsisters) and the old EU (which I will mine like the new canon is doing). I've been asked to run a dark sider game during the Old Republic for some Sith.

Now, I'm trying to figure out how one would model a sorcerer, in both the PC and NPC sense. I realize I'm really a noob at FFG's system, and would like to hear how anyone else would (or has done) it.

What powers are they interested in?

As I recall some involved what looked like the Artisan career endowing force abilities to say a glove in the case of a set of gloves that allowed the wearer to use force lightning or something similar.

Curious about the Taris plague of Rakghoul said to be due to an ancient Sith artefact but don't know if that can be called canon now due to its being explain in a Dark Horse Comic series.

Ritual sorcery in that the effect is achieved through either lots of practitioners supporting the caster or an actual sacrifice ala Yavin IV where the followers of a certain Sith were used to allow him to escape being killed albeit in spirit form but that's probably legend (as in SW Novel Legend) only now.

Well, always you can get the "free interpretation" of the actual powers.

- Harm/Heal can easily be the Dathomirian dark magiks like Regeneration (Savage/Maul) and Vodoo (Daka/Talzin to Dooku). Also, in a proper open interpretation, even you can "raise undead" with that (Mastery).

- Protect/Unleash can easily be the "Magik barrier" and also the "Green Lightning" from Talzin. Again, you can easily change the description and imagine that is Ta-Ree magic and instead "lightning" are fire, ice or other effects similar to "magic".

Also you can "bond" animals with some talent trees and the rest, well, just put some imagination and the F&D book will give you the rest

Take care and open mind mate!

Dark side is more about intent. All the careers and powers can be used with darksiders. Some things like the Aggressor spec and powers like harm and such lean more towards the Dark side. It should be easy enough.

If you want chants and hand movements to impact the actual rolls then I would suggest giving your sorcerer the "Intense Focus" Talent. Spend a move action to upgrade your check. This would be pretty potent on a Discipline roll. As a PC option I would modify it and call it the "Sorcery" Talent and only allow it on Force Checks. (Also I would have it require 1 or more strain). I would have it cost 15-20xp

Almost forgot illusions and "sword move powers" AKA lightsaber powers.

Ritual Sorcery could be multiple Force users pooling their Force dice on one check by taking a lot of actions and a lot of strain per person. Or a PPP Discipline test, where failure / threat makes you take strain because you can't control that much power.

EDIT: On second thought, this might be a Mystic signature ability. Spend two Destiny Points and everyone involved loses a turn, then you cast with Force dice equal to the sum of all involved Force users

If you're new to the system I suggest keeping it simple. Which is to say just play the game as it is, the powers are vague enough to be interpreted as Sith style sorcery in a lot of cases. That way you're not having to tinker and re-balance the game, just add your own visual flavour on top of what's already there. For example Bind could be Force choke or it could be a string of misty green tendrils, whatever fits the tone of your game best.

That's my suggestion anyway! I had a player that said she was interested in playing a Dathomir witch so I looked into it a little bit myself. In the end she went with a Jedi instead so I never actually saw it work in practice, but it was basically just a tone and role play thing anyway.

Interesting advice. I'll get them to see what they want during the character creation session. For NPC's I can just describe and assign some pools to it easily enough.

Most of the Force powers can quite easily be reskinned into being "dark side sorcery" as opposed to "the Force." The only difference would be the Force user would be using dark side pips to generate their Force points if they've opted to become a dark side Force user (which can be done as their starting Morality option).

Harm and Unleash are pretty heavily dark side to begin with, and can very easily be re-flavored as being some kind of dark side incantation to rip the life force out of a person (Harm) or deluge them with unnatural energy blasts (Unleash). Move could be shadowy tendrils of etheric nature that grab and hurl things about instead of the classic "hand gesture" method employed by the Jedi. Same with Influence, which could be akin to Dracula's "look into my eyes" form of mind control and dispensing with the "Jedi hand wave."

Well, Sith sorcerers are still Force Sensitives. Like, in TCW, Dooku and Palpatine do a scrying ritual in the sixth season. It was obviously magic, but not something that's quite like the powers I can see. Another is Sith Alchemy, which allows the user to reshape creatures with the Dark Side. Stuff like that. However, looking at the Artisan, it does fit the Talisman maker kind of sorcery, and I am pleased with FFG's foresight.

The Illusion force power, does however, cover a wide range of 'Sith Sorcery' and some refluffing for how it's cast gets there quite nicely. I'm satisfied with that.

I suspect that actual Sith Alchemy will be something more of an NPC plot device than something a PC would generally be able to obtain, given the product line is set during the Rebellion Era and there's only two active Sith Lords.

Frankly, I'd be fine with Sith Alchemy never getting mechanics that would make it suitable for usage by the PCs. But then again, I prefer my games to be on the heroic side of things.

This is the (only?) Star Wars TTRPG that doesn't take your character away at Dark Side. So, I'd wager that the having options for the dark side of things will, and should, be in the cards. Hell, the D20 Star Wars you lost your character at falling, and it still had the Dark Side handbook.

This is the (only?) Star Wars TTRPG that doesn't take your character away at Dark Side. So, I'd wager that the having options for the dark side of things will, and should, be in the cards. Hell, the D20 Star Wars you lost your character at falling, and it still had the Dark Side handbook.

And that Dark Side Sourcebook was largely meant as a GM resource for NPCs, with the book even admitting as much in the opening chapter. With the OCR/RCR system, a PC that went dark side wasn't taken away either, and yet still much of the focus of the crunchy part of the material was applying it to NPCs, since a Dark Side campaign is pretty much akin to an Evil D&D campaign in that by its very nature it's doomed to eventually collapse in on itself due to character in-fighting.

Hmm can't help feeling you're missing something important here.

The dark side is an easy way to power isn't that What Yoda said in ESB?

What if the use of artefacts maybe even Darth Vader's life Support suit are all mediums used with the dark side to make them more powerful?

What happened when Vader saved Luke?

His suit packed in, some would say Palpatine used his lightning in an effort to stop him but I figure once Vader stepped back into the light his suit could no longer worked...

Imagine that an artefact that depends on the user wielding the dark side?

Anyway is there a light side equivalent to these Sith Artefacts?

Yoda said the dark side was "quicker, more seductive" but that it wasn't more powerful. The Force dice already represent this by having more dark side facings (quicker) but only one pip on most of them, where the light side facings aren't as common but most of them have two pips (more powerful).

One of the recurring elements of Sith alchemy/sorcery is just how "wrong" it is, that it's unnatural and a twisting of the Force; you're not working with the Force but rather you're instead grabbing it around the throat and coercing into doing your bidding.

Vader's armor has generally been accounted for not as some creation of Sith alchemy rather a custom-made suit of combat armor to protect his broken body and cybernetic limbs (the initial set of which were intentionally sub-par) as well as house the various life support gear he needs to survive; it's no more mystical than Tony Stark's Iron Man armors. And Vader's suit gacked because it had an insane amount of electricity coursing through it; you'd probably get the same effect if Vader had been struck by a bolt of natural lightning. About the only reference to any kind of Sith alchemy being used was that the Emperor employed some sort of chemical to further bolster Vader's strength, but that was only in the OCR Dark Side Sourcebook and was pretty much ignored by later works, leaving his ability to use the Force the only mystical thing about him.

As for Luminara's coffin in "Rise of the Old Masters," it's simply a cyrogenic chamber to preserve her remains, and probably uses science to occasionally stimulate the brain so that a ripple is sent out in the Force to guide would-be rescuers to that location and thus their doom. So long as the Force user didn't know Luminara personally (and thus could pick up that something was very wrong with her presence in the Force), it worked perfectly as bait for a trap, especially for neophyte Jedis-to-be that were hoping to rescue a Jedi Master to help train them.

I suspect that actual Sith Alchemy will be something more of an NPC plot device than something a PC would generally be able to obtain, given the product line is set during the Rebellion Era and there's only two active Sith Lords.

Frankly, I'd be fine with Sith Alchemy never getting mechanics that would make it suitable for usage by the PCs. But then again, I prefer my games to be on the heroic side of things.

You don't know the power of the Dark Side!

I suspect that actual Sith Alchemy will be something more of an NPC plot device than something a PC would generally be able to obtain, given the product line is set during the Rebellion Era and there's only two active Sith Lords.

Frankly, I'd be fine with Sith Alchemy never getting mechanics that would make it suitable for usage by the PCs. But then again, I prefer my games to be on the heroic side of things.

You don't know the power of the Dark Side!

Also the Dark Side of the Force is the Pathway to many abilities some would consider unnatural.

I could see Alchemy getting included or homebrewed since the Sith weren't the only ones to use it another example of that discipline would be the Jedaii Order the precursor to the Jedi Order.

OOOOOO I love this subject as the Sith have such a rich history and background.

I actually made a LARP version of SITH sorcery. It was a tree purchase separately. Each tree had just a few expensive talents in it.

Example of one tree was: Augment Alchemy- a Sith sorcerer could create an elixir that could do a number of things in that particular tree...temporarily raise a stat in themselves or another being such as a bodyguard-- the trade off was that stat was than reduced for hours after the scene. Storing a stat in an elixir or even storing a force power to unleash automatically or be given to another to unleash. That was the Augement sorcery.

There was a Attribute tree, skill tree, body tree, enhance tree and life or death tree.

It was fun to create!