People get stuck on the star destroyer example even though it is non sense to consider. The simple fact is for 70 xp and 3 Force pips, RAW, a Force user can wipe an AT-AT. A FR2 PC can just annihilate a walker. You don't have to toss, it, just lift it to Medium range and drop it, or just flip it over on its back like a big roach, or just push it over, regardless, it's disabled. Just my opinion, but RAW, a Force user with Move unbalances the hell out of combat.

The problem isn't even being able to do these things with the power imo, it's that such a low level Force user can do it. So I do my Force pips for upgrades method and it still allows it all to occur, it just takes a really really powerful Force user to do it. That is right where I want it, the stuff of legends, not just something Bob the Twi'lek mechanic learned to do for 70 xp.

Wouldn't the Force wielder have to make a difficulty 4 Discipline check? I believe so as you need the Control upgrade to aggressively throw things around quickly. If you don't have that then the AT-AT is just going to keep on walking through your attempt. So the force user must first get 3+ pips on two dice (having made their way to the bottom of the tree and bought the upgrade). That's only a 25% chance of success. Now they have to also succeed at their Discipline check. That's an average of two failures they have to beat. Suppose they have a very good Discipline pool. Let's say YYYG. On average they'll score 2.5 hits so would succeed, but probability is about more than averages - especially once you start chaining things together. You need an uncancelled hit to succeed so with a Discipline 4 check (which is nasty), they're still only ahead by 0.5. My back of the envelope puts it around a 60% chance of success with YYYG.

If we chain those two together (which we must because the player has to pull off both of them at the same time), that leaves the player with a 15% chance of success overall (25% chance of getting the Force pips with a 60% of passing the Discipline check).

All this requires a character who has bought their way all the way down a Specialization (minimum 75XP), the Move power and six upgrades (Power itself + 4x Strength upgrades + Range to gain access to the Control upgrade + the Control upgrade itself = 80XP) and has also managed to get their Discipline up to YYYG (let's call it 10XP to be generous).

So we have a player who has spent 165XP to have a 15% chance of being able to pull this off. And this is all before the GM decides to throw in a Challenge die or Setback. Exactly how long are you expecting this character to stand there taking vehicle damage from an AT-AT whilst they're trying this?

I'm not saying it's not good, I'm saying that I think you have presented something as cheap and overpowered when it's not.

You don't have to throw something to Move it. Just pick it up. Who said throw?

My reading is that if you want to damage targets you need the Control upgrade. Additionally, as it's an animate thing being piloted around, an Opposed roll would seem appropriate. Else where would you draw the line and why? This bantha is a living thing and gets to resist. This large droid is an animate thing and can resist. This large walker is controlled by a person rather than a droid brain, it can't resist? That seems weirdly inconsistent to me.

My reading is that if you want to damage targets you need the Control upgrade.

One of the more commonly thought of ways of damaging something with Move without dealing with throwing it at high speeds (and so avoiding most difficulty checks and auto-fire rules) is to simply lift it high up thanks to Range upgrades and let it drop.

So if I lift something to Medium range, 200 feet, and drop it that won't damage it? Throwing is to pick something up and throw it at something. You can just tip an AT-AT over with Short range and the Str upgrades purchased. Do I need to damage a AT-AT if I just tip it over? Seems like it's effectively removed from the fight to me.

My reading is that if you want to damage targets you need the Control upgrade.

the true power gamer just picks you up with the basic power and strength/range upgrades, then drops you from maximum height. saves a few precious xp!

So if I lift something to Medium range, 200 feet, and drop it that won't damage it? Throwing is to pick something up and throw it at something. You can just tip an AT-AT over with Short range and the Str upgrades purchased. Do I need to damage a AT-AT if I just tip it over? Seems like it's effectively removed from the fight to me.

It's a narrative game. If you want to pick a rock up and drop it from ten feet in the air, go ahead with the basic Move power. If you want to pick up an active, moving vehicle with armour, damage track and pilot, purchase the Upgrade that states you can now damage things. Solves all your problems and is not unreasonable by the reading of the rules. Or you could allow an Opposed roll for reasons given in the previous post. Either way, you're good to go. If a player complains just go "waaah!! I can't do stupid stuff cause the GM wont let me" whilst making exaggerated bawling motions with your fists to the corners of your eyes. That's what I do.

I enjoy it, too.

It's a narrative game. If you want to pick a rock up and drop it from ten feet in the air, go ahead with the basic Move power. If you want to pick up an active, moving vehicle with armour, damage track and pilot, use the power that states you can now damage things. Solves all your problems and is not unreasonable by the reading of the rules. Or you could allow an Opposed roll for reasons given in the previous post. Either way, you're good to go.

I'm applying RAW. That's all I am doing.

It's a narrative game. If you want to pick a rock up and drop it from ten feet in the air, go ahead with the basic Move power. If you want to pick up an active, moving vehicle with armour, damage track and pilot, use the power that states you can now damage things. Solves all your problems and is not unreasonable by the reading of the rules. Or you could allow an Opposed roll for reasons given in the previous post. Either way, you're good to go.

I'm applying RAW. That's all I am doing.

Yes. But I'm saying that there's an upgrade that explicitly says you can start doing damage to both target and object so it's not unreasonable to read it that you need the upgrade. The point about it being a narrative game is that in a narrative game, rules are written about the idea of outcomes, not description. The description is applied post-fact. So in a game like D&D or Eclipse Phase or whatever, the rules define your actions. In a narrative game like EotE or Mage, the rules control what outcome you can get and you fit a description to the outcome. RAW, it's perfectly reasonable to require the Control upgrade and it completely solves the problem you have.

I'm also saying that if living creatures can resist powers, if droids can resist powers, then piloted vehicles can resist powers. This is consistent with the rules and again solves your problem. If an NPC tried to use Move against a PC in their speeding Swoop-bike, the player would very much want some kind of Piloting roll or something to shake them off, not suddenly find that some rookie force user had taken them from 300km/h to nothing because the bike happened to be Silhouette 2. And by RAW, I think the PC should get that resistance roll based on what FFG wrote in F&D. So it surely goes the other way as well. Even if you reject the idea of needing the upgrade that lets you do damage to damage the AT-AT, you still have the Opposed roll to deal with the situation.

People get stuck on the star destroyer example even though it is non sense to consider. The simple fact is for 70 xp and 3 Force pips, RAW, a Force user can wipe an AT-AT. A FR2 PC can just annihilate a walker. You don't have to toss, it, just lift it to Medium range and drop it, or just flip it over on its back like a big roach, or just push it over, regardless, it's disabled. Just my opinion, but RAW, a Force user with Move unbalances the hell out of combat.

The problem isn't even being able to do these things with the power imo, it's that such a low level Force user can do it. So I do my Force pips for upgrades method and it still allows it all to occur, it just takes a really really powerful Force user to do it. That is right where I want it, the stuff of legends, not just something Bob the Twi'lek mechanic learned to do for 70 xp.

Moving to medium range and dropping isn't a big deal to an AT-AT. A fall from that height is only 30 character-scale damage—the AT-AT has armour of 5, enough to negate the measly 3 damage from the fall.

Flipping them over, however, is a valid point. I can't find any rule in EotE about it, but F&D has a rule for resisting Force powers. It becomes an opposed check, which I would use the AT-AT pilot's Piloting (Planetary) as the base difficulty, and throw in a few setback dice—say 1 per silhouette difference. So for trying to flip the AT-AT that's a difficulty of 2 red, 1 purple (based off of the Imperial Vehicle Corps rival AoR419), and 3 black. And they have to score enough pips on their Force dice.

Granted, it's not exactly alleviating your main concerns, which I understand, and it's using a F&D rule which I cannot find in EotE or AoR. That's just how I'd do it at my table.

-EF

Dropping from 200 feet won't hurt the vehicle but it'll turn occupants into raspberry jam.

Dropping from 200 feet won't hurt the vehicle but it'll turn occupants into raspberry jam.

Crash webbing? Inertial compensators? Resilience check instead of Athletics or Coordination to reduce the damage? To be honest, I never though about the squishy drivers.

-EF

200 feet means terminal velocity. 200 feet to ground means instantaneous stop, which equals death without some mechanism to cancel gravity and inertia.

Wouldn't the Force wielder have to make a difficulty 4 Discipline check?

...(snip)...

I'm not saying it's not good, I'm saying that I think you have presented something as cheap and overpowered when it's not.

This wouldn't be much for a Yoda or Palpatine. Granted the Discipline check does help restrict things at the high end, but it's not even there that's the problem. Somebody with a measly two Strength upgrades and a single Magnitude upgrade can throw two Sil2 objects, and using the Autofire rules, it's only PPP. The XP cost for this is minimal. Add a cheap second Magnitude for 5XP, and you can fling three of them with the same difficulty, and you might get lucky and get those 4 advantages.

Never mind the damage, there's the flavour. We never see this kind of rampant object-flinging...except Palpatine at the end of E3, which could be chalked up to plot, or maybe a once-per-session Signature Ability.

Dropping from 200 feet won't hurt the vehicle but it'll turn occupants into raspberry jam.

Crash webbing? Inertial compensators? Resilience check instead of Athletics or Coordination to reduce the damage? To be honest, I never though about the squishy drivers.

-EF

Also, bend the knees as you land.

Wouldn't the Force wielder have to make a difficulty 4 Discipline check?

...(snip)...

I'm not saying it's not good, I'm saying that I think you have presented something as cheap and overpowered when it's not.

This wouldn't be much for a Yoda or Palpatine. Granted the Discipline check does help restrict things at the high end, but it's not even there that's the problem. Somebody with a measly two Strength upgrades and a single Magnitude upgrade can throw two Sil2 objects, and using the Autofire rules, it's only PPP. The XP cost for this is minimal. Add a cheap second Magnitude for 5XP, and you can fling three of them with the same difficulty, and you might get lucky and get those 4 advantages.

Never mind the damage, there's the flavour. We never see this kind of rampant object-flinging...except Palpatine at the end of E3, which could be chalked up to plot, or maybe a once-per-session Signature Ability.

I don't care if by the rules Yoda or Palpatine could lift an AT-AT, quite frankly. Firstly, neither the players nor anyone they ever face are going to be as powerful as those two so if the rule doesn't fit with personal cannon in that instance, you're never going to notice. Secondly, I'm not here to argue that everything is perfect for everybody all of the time, I'm just pointing out what I think is wrong in 2P51's post which presents the Move power as some easy path to AT-AT flinging and that it's nothing like as bad as that, imo. And actually, having watched the entirety of TCW, I would say that contrary to your post "rampant object-flinging" is not only seen, but de rigeur.

As regards the specific numbers you gave above, they don't work for me. You make it sound as if for a "measly" three upgrades they're throwing around speederbikes. Well no, to even attempt this someone has to have reached the bottom of a Force specialization and bought a second Force point, then even then they only have a one in four chance of actually getting the pips they need. Then they have to actually have invested enough in Discipline to have a reasonable chance of hitting those two opponents you want them to hit (more XP). So they need something like YGG to even hit fifty-fifty chance of that on this second roll which is far from enough to be a reliable damage dealer - you're going to need a lot more.

Remember that the attack is subject to all the normal range, cover and other penalties along with Adversary trait and whatever other defensive talents they have.

So what you end up with is someone who after investing all this XP is able to target two people for 20 damage each (nice) but is subject to all the same things that would cause problems for a ranged specialist using their weapon only with shorter range, inconsistent ammo availability (unless you bring your own speeder bikes ), a distinctive identifying trait to the authorities, probably lacking a number of talents that their shooter counterparts have - and you can only get to even attempt all this one time out of four due to needing three Force points.

I'm not getting how monstrously terrifying this is, tbh.

Wouldn't the Force wielder have to make a difficulty 4 Discipline check?

...(snip)...

I'm not saying it's not good, I'm saying that I think you have presented something as cheap and overpowered when it's not.

This wouldn't be much for a Yoda or Palpatine. Granted the Discipline check does help restrict things at the high end, but it's not even there that's the problem. Somebody with a measly two Strength upgrades and a single Magnitude upgrade can throw two Sil2 objects, and using the Autofire rules, it's only PPP. The XP cost for this is minimal. Add a cheap second Magnitude for 5XP, and you can fling three of them with the same difficulty, and you might get lucky and get those 4 advantages.

Never mind the damage, there's the flavour. We never see this kind of rampant object-flinging...except Palpatine at the end of E3, which could be chalked up to plot, or maybe a once-per-session Signature Ability.

a signature ability! great idea!

And actually, having watched the entirety of TCW, I would say that contrary to your post "rampant object-flinging" is not only seen, but de rigeur.

Some examples would be good, because I don't know what you're referring to. They certainly use Move, sometimes to even push (not lifted, but grinding along the ground) a tank or a shuttle, but nothing like Palpatine's E3 moves, which even a nominally experienced character could accomplish by RAW.

a signature ability! great idea!

Take a bow, sir!

Crash webbing? Inertial compensators? Resilience check instead of Athletics or Coordination to reduce the damage? To be honest, I never though about the squishy drivers.

Nobody thinks of the drivers. Poor, poor minions...

First off, i don't want a player throwing big stuff around, its wrong, and not in my cannon... but as RebelDave mentioned there are some MinMax Rules Lawyers that need a RAW reason it can't be done, so here are some of my ideas as to how to handle "Those" players:

1. If pulling a gun from an opponents hand requires its own control upgrade then moving a piloted vehicle should have the same penalty applied, thats an extra force pip required, so assume they have the entire tree (MinMaxer remember) then to move anything bigger than sil 0 at all requires 3 pips minimum (so your standing under it when you tip it over that AT-AT?),
2. 4 pips if you want to do it further than short personal range.
3. 5 pips if you plan on targeting something with it. This is something a FR2 PC will be spending a lot of Darks side Pips to achieve, and not regularly.
4. Criminal Obligation of 20... those Inquisitors have heard your name now.
5. The Force does not give 2 hoots about how many millions of lives you saved by killing the Moff in that AT-AT, that was 30 people you just murdered, lots of conflict for you Mr. Minmaxer,
6. It would be worth while pulling the player aside and reminding them that all this conflict on a regular basis and you may even get to call Darth Vader "Master" and rename yourself Darth Fumble.

As with so much of this system that blends Crunch and Narrative in such an interesting way its the Narrative component that keeps the Crunch in check, if they want to use the Crunch as a giant beat stick use the Narrative to beat back at them.

I feel that while there are plenty of good points on what the canon shows and what is reasonable to allow in game there is ONE mnetion as far as I recall as to the size of objects that can be moved;

"Size matters not" - Yoda ESB. (And then with much less visible effort than in the prequels for objects of not wildly different mass pulls Luke x-wing out of the swamp.)

Though in the time period any canon source shows movement taking a ISD going to annihilate most targets in the time taken to move it noticeably...

Sure you can pull that ISD, you move it 6 feet, it fires every TL it has at your party.........

Yes, and Yoda talks backwards in metaphors...

I think you're assigning way too much mechanical definition to that phrase, The simple blunt truth in a game is you have to set parameters and boundaries to present and retain challenge.

The Move power regardless of the Silhouette issue is too little xp for too much capability. Why on earth would any Force wielder sink the xp necessary into Lightsaber training of any competency, when for far less xp they can tip Sil 4 AT-ATs over like dominoes?

To me it isn't even a Silhouette issue, it's just a bad game design issue.

Well I suspect you're mostly misunderstanding my point. Which was simply that the canon doesn't itself place any restrictions on the size of object that can be moved. Ever other canon source we have gives us a size that we know can be moved but I can't recall a moment where a jedi master fails to move an object because of its size. This isn't actually advocating letting the power be force unleashed stupid, just that canon isn't a great help for showing a limit.

But even so I'd be tempted to house rule more towards the size limits the effect of the power and the difficulty rather than ever making it a flat no. The ISD example I gave was designed to show this, that attempting to do something outlandish was likely to take time and leave you open. As for the persuading them a lightsaber is a better option, give them scenarios that an ATAT dominos champion narrow spec is still useful but a broader character would be better.

I don't think you watched the same canon I did because we clearly see limits placed on Move, or rather it's what we don't see. We don't see the Emperor just grab Windu and his Jedi buddies and toss them out the window. We don't see him throw 5 senate dais' at a time at Yoda. We don't see him just drop the building on Yoda. We don't see him pick up the Jedi Temple and take care of the Jedi himself. We don't see him do any of what someone with a FR3 could easily do with RAW, and I'm pretty sure if the evil dread Sith Lord Palpatine didn't do it, it's because there are limits.

We don't see a lot of things that are quite reasonable to do either. Not seeing something done in canon is not proof that something can't be done (otherwise we'd have to strip out a lot of talents and abilities in this game...) RAW actually allows a GM to just about any of those things. P297 in AoR specifically includes in RAW time limits being entirely the GMs call, Yoda and the X-Wing gives more than enough canon reasoning to suggest to a player that while they could push over a ATAT with the force, it will have ample time to gun them down. The reason we don't see those things? They are impractical and the RAW can easily make them so, this allows Yoda's statement that size matters not, and the fact that we never see objects above a certain size being moved to not contradict, and also happily agrees with physics, while also stopping the move rule being overpowered in the size of objects that can be moved, all in RAW.

That black box on page 297 is a very powerful tool in RAW to cap Move's power, as the rule as written is that the GM decides how long something takes to move, and is can require further checks, committed dice and/or strain (and strain based on silhouette at that, its a mighty strain threshold indeed that can perform a task that takes over a few turns, in addition to other sources of strain). The RAW even says this is done to allow the GM to decide (rather than the standard caveat that the GM is allowed to house rule).

Plus the Move power with the right upgrades could easily be used to arm any grenades present in the cockpit (a destiny point flip could easily excuse someone in it carrying one, or a stormtrooper stepping into the cockpit) or otherwise cause mischief (conversely if no DP was flipped to ensure it, a DP flip by the GM could be used to explain why not).

Sorry bud, the fight between Yoda and the Emperor was the canon match up of the millennium. The pinnacle of dark side and light side clashing. There was no tomorrow, they both needed to bring their A game to that fight. No medals for second place. So the fact they didn't do things like toss ships, or collapse buildings is proof that it can't be done by the most powerful force wielders per canon, because they both had to win that fight and neither had any reason whatsoever to hold back.

Not seeing something done in canon is not proof that something can't be done (otherwise we'd have to strip out a lot of talents and abilities in this game...)

As always, it's a judgement thing. There are certain aspects of the game mechanics that are more important to me flavour-wise than others. Overwrought Force use is one of them, because it's central to the metaphysical grounding of the characters in the universe. It's worth noting that Lucas is far more restrained in his demonstration of the flashy power Force than the EU, and that's the flavour I'm after.

Meanwhile, I could care less about whether a specific ship is canon or not. The moral and philosophical implications of a non-canon ship is non-existent.

Sorry bud, the fight between Yoda and the Emperor was the canon match up of the millennium. The pinnacle of dark side and light side clashing. There was no tomorrow, they both needed to bring their A game to that fight. No medals for second place. So the fact they didn't do things like toss ships, or collapse buildings is proof that it can't be done by the most powerful force wielders per canon, because they both had to win that fight and neither had any reason whatsoever to hold back.

Funny definition of proof. Maybe Palpatine just isn't that good at moving things around. Maybe he put most of his points in Force Lightning, Sense and Influence. Maybe saucer like hover platforms from the senate are just more aerodynamic and thus faster and thus make better missiles to throw against a Jedi master than some very heavy masonry. According to the rules, your Discipline check to hit people increases with Silhouette so by the book, those two or three seater senator saucers give Palpatine a much better chance of hitting.

Meanwhile, I could care less about whether a specific ship is canon or not. The moral and philosophical implications of a non-canon ship is non-existent.

EDIT: I should also re-emphasize that one would have to put extraordinary amounts of XP into the Move power and Force ratings in order to be able to pull this stuff off normally so objecting to the rules allowing this stuff as being against the tone of the movies is kind of a non-argument. If you don't want epic level play, just don't have epically powerful characters in it.

Anyway, your response isn't to their point which is that one can't argue that something is against canon if the canon doesn't show evidence either way.

As I noted, it's a judgement call. I'm not trying to split hairs over what minutia are canon, but rather what fits the flavour, at least the flavour as I see it and would like to present it at my table.

The "absence of evidence" argument is particularly pointless: Lucas clearly did not portray a Michael Bay kind of "moar powah!" movie, though he surely had the means to do so. If that's what he'd envisioned, that's what we'd have seen. Compared to "coruscating power effects" of nearly every other movie franchise, Star Wars is actually kind of subdued. Personal displays of power are...personal.

If you don't want epic level play, just don't have epically powerful characters in it.

I guess we have different ideas of "epic". Epic is Frodo refusing to drop the ring and fighting Gollum for it, Luke tossing away his lightsaber and saying "Never! I am Jedi"... It's not "I wave my pinky and starships go flying".