Now that all eleven Force Powers are known, to my surprise I've found that I still mostly prefer the Powers that were introduced in EotE and AoR:

Introduced in EotE:

• Influence: I like this quite a bit - my favorite in this book. I'm not sure I care about the basic function to stress opponents, but with a little bit of investment this gives a great boost to your character's social skills.
• Sense: Mind-Reading, yay! My only dislike is that it depends a lot on the GM whether this is worthwhile or not. I fear that it may be reduced to a device for the GM to give players hints when they seem to be stuck and do nothing useful, otherwise. But even just sensing nearby beings should be useful, and the combat-related applications will not require GM fiat to work.
• Move: While potentially useful, I like this one the least, mainly because there's no subtle ways to use this. So, either you can only ever use this while unobserved, or you'll have to make sure any observers won't alarm the Empire. Also, using this effectively in combat will require quite a bit of investment; then, however, it's pretty effective.

Introduced in AoR:

• Enhance: My favorite by far, because it's useful for almost any character, it's subtle (well, okay, except for the Force Leaps), and doesn't require a lot of investment to reap its benefits.
• Foresee: I have some reservations about this that are similar to what I wrote about the Sense power: Without GM fiat, this will do nothing. There are some combat-related applications, but they don't seem as good as the ones you get by investing in Sense.

Introduced in FaD:

• Heal/Harm: Ignoring the Dark side applications of this, you become a kind of glorified Stim-Pack. Ho-hum. Okay, being able to resurrect someone with the Mastery is obviously a big thing, but only a dedicated Medic character is likely to make that investment.
• Misdirect: Meh. While I love Sneaky characters, and this seems to be right up their alley, it seems to expensive for what it does. I'm also not too keen on the illusion-related applications of this.
• Seek: This is a mixed bag. On the one hand it's awesome that you can track any kind of person or object with this, on the other hand, just like with Sense and Foresee, the GM will control how useful this will actually be. The other application, i.e. seeing through illusions, strikes me as mostly useless, however. When will you ever have to face illusions? Okay, in a purely FaD-style campaign, this may happen more than once, but for any other type of campaign?

I was a bit disappointed by the 'advanced' force powers:

• Battle Meditation: Probably the best of the bunch, it doesn't seem to require a lot of investment to be useful. Very fitting for Commander-type characters.
• Bind: I'm maybe rating this too low because I'm unsure how effective it is to immobilize a target. I feel you need to get Mastery with this to be worth it.
• Protect/Unleash: This is probably something I'd need to see in play to appreciate it. Unfortunately, requiring a Force Rating of 3+, it'll be a long time until I get to see it...

What I seemed to notice about most of the FaD powers is that they're more closely tied to certain characteristics or sometimes skills to be useful. The powers in the previous two books seemed to be more widely useful, regardless of what type of character you're playing. Did anyone else get that impression?

So, what are your favorites?

I'd also be quite interested to hear some recommendations regarding whether it's 'better' to invest heavily in a single Force Power or dabbling in many different Force Powers.

I agree with you that my favourite is Enhance, it's so useful and very subtle, although I like the Foresee power for its narrative options as well.

I would really like to use the Heal/Harm power with a character that was essentially self taught, from a primitive or isolated world. Someone who has no idea what they are doing, or the consequences of using Harm to protect themselves. Of course they would come to realise through time that what they where doing was a bad thing and then the Moral choices would really get interesting!

Whilst Enhance is one of my favourites, both Unleash and Bind work nicely, in my experience. And I'm not concerned that the former requires a Force Rating of 3+ - Force Lighting was supposed to be one of the most dangerous and advanced expressions of the dark side, as I recall.

I'm playing two different characters that both use Bind and it's nice. Especially if you use the darkside to cause wounds. You can immobile, cause strain equal to Will whenever they move, and cause lots of wounds neither of which are soaked. Not to mention being able to stack crits on them with a decent result.

Bind might be my favorite for the sheer utility and the various ways to re-skin and re-flavor its usage.

I like most of them, all have interesting applications and all have this Jedi cheese on it. Probably due to having a Sage in SWtOR I like Move a lot and I don't think you need a big investment - actually, you could just throw silhouette 0 items (they do only 5 base damage, but they have 0 difficulty!). Sense is also one of my favs, even if it doesn't work for me - our GM has quite an ability for getting blanks on red dice...

Influence

Aside from stopping a creature eating you for dinner, I like to (de)stress opponents unconscious. Narratively speaking, my character is relaxing them to the point where they fall asleep. Though it could be used for mind tricks, those are my two favourite uses for Influence which is my favourite power.

Misdirect is easily my favorite.

Back in the late 90s, my WEG SWRPG character was proto-Jedi that used any and all methods available to him to stay under the radar. Misdirect would have been his bread and butter. Sense would have seen a lot of use, too, to keep an eye out for potential threats, in addition to other abilities like Cloak and Now You See Me.

Enhance and the left side of Sense are my faves. Haven't had anybody use Seek or Misdirect yet, but they look fun. Everything else is good, except Move, which I've already expended too many negative words on.

Some great replies, thanks. Keep 'em coming (It's a pity FFG's site doesn't support polls - or does it?!)

Several replies got me thinking about something else:

How many of you are using the Dark-side applications of Force Powers?

So far I've been thinking, I'd try to avoid using them if possible, i.e. reserve them for truly dire situations.

Or are some of you actually playing a 'Fallen' Force Sensitive? If so, how does the rest of your group think about it?

Originally I was going to be a "Dark Side Hero". Yes HERO. But I've found it more fun and engaging thinking of ways to use my powers within the bounds of morality. I'm going to try and play without ever getting conflict....., not likely but I'll try.

I've found that Force Seek is a great instrument for pushing narrative elements through in a session.

During a game that I was playing in, we had just ventured onto the Sanctuary star-ship (from the FaD Core-Rulebook mission) and made it to the training room. My character used Force Seek to try and understand the significance of the room. It was then that the GM described to me a vision of Clone Troopers shooting down Jedi. What I had seen was a vision of the past, giving our group more context on why the ship was abandoned.

Misdirect is easily my favorite.

Back in the late 90s, my WEG SWRPG character was proto-Jedi that used any and all methods available to him to stay under the radar. Misdirect would have been his bread and butter. Sense would have seen a lot of use, too, to keep an eye out for potential threats, in addition to other abilities like Cloak and Now You See Me.

Definitely this. I really love playing a Shadow with Misdirect. Taking on another appearance, creating phantoms, and hiding my entire group from sight is a lot of fun. Committing Force dice to gain automatic Threat has been occasionally helpful for Improved Reflect too.

Misdirect is easily my favorite.

Back in the late 90s, my WEG SWRPG character was proto-Jedi that used any and all methods available to him to stay under the radar. Misdirect would have been his bread and butter. Sense would have seen a lot of use, too, to keep an eye out for potential threats, in addition to other abilities like Cloak and Now You See Me.

Definitely this. I really love playing a Shadow with Misdirect. Taking on another appearance, creating phantoms, and hiding my entire group from sight is a lot of fun. Committing Force dice to gain automatic Threat has been occasionally helpful for Improved Reflect too.

This is the build I'm planning on playing in my next game! I love Misdirect. In my last DnD game I relied heavily on Minor Illusion, you can just do so many fun and creative things with illusions.

Misdirect is by far my favorite followed by Enhance and then Move Object.

For those who are Sam Jackson fans, Seek does contain Shatterpoint. It's not just 'find my lost puppy.'

Typically, my jedi have the Enhance/Foresee/Influence/Move/Sense set. I consider that the basics, really.

After reading through I have to say move. There's to many situations where this power can be amazing. From simply getting something out of reach, creating distractions by knocking something over. To shoving enemies around (learn some discretion you don't have to be video game super animated!!)

trying to flee a scene stormtroopers looking for you? Guard defending the way out lots of people around? Pull another PC close put your arms over their shoulders and lean in close. Just gonna look like a couple enjoying each other but in reality your hand is reached out to the trooper as you concentrate before shoving him. Than escape in the confusion

/rant

For the most part, when Star Wars was born, Jedi were ninja-leaping psychics with laser swords. They weren't comic book super-heroes (don't get me started on the video games). The proliferation of parsed out lists of of force powers and "kewl" new abilities started in RPGs and the EU. Then video games, Wuxia action influences in Hollywood, and super-hero syndrome influenced the prequels. It was decades of fan-**** building the Jedi into Mary Sues.

You could build Luke from ANH with Sense. Finito. In ESB you add Enhance + force leap mods and low-level Move. He arguably used Foresee (badly). In ROTJ he had opened the Influence tree and, for the most part, failed at it. His Lightsaber skills amount to some parry and reflect. There was ONE form. It was Chanbara rather than Wuxia. And, he probably had a FR of 3 in Jedi. Obi-Wan and Vader probably had 4-5. The Emperor and Yoda? Sure, call it 6.

Yes, we see Obi-Wan use a "mind trick" and "misdirect," but those were more leavening than signature powers. They were a MASTER demonstrating how clever an old man he was. Yes, we see Darth Vader hurl large objects and choke people and absorb a blaster bolt. To make him scary. He's the big bad. Presumably being able to do that makes him SPECIAL. Yes, we see the Emperor use Force Lightning. To make him even MORE scary.

But, overall, our introduction to the Jedi is not about a gazillion and one powers - or ungodly power levels - that came later. When we oldsters watched the OT we watched Luke BECOME a full fledged Jedi. He was, until prequel and video-game power creep hit the scene, very impressive. He was, both in the spirit of his final choice in the throne room, and the skill and power with the force he developed by Jedi, the DEFINITION of a Jedi Knight.

It didn't take laundry list of power trees to make him that way. Or a massive force rating. Or video game power. Now? Now people sit around saying, "Well, he never would have been a Jedi Knight back in the Old Republic! Those guys had real ultimate power!" I guess. Yeah. Those movies are canon. But, they also completely ret-conned, power-gamed, and overdid the definition of a Jedi Knight while never showing us a run-of-the-mill Jedi Knight. We see MASTERS and THE CHOSEN ONE.

How many trees - and how much power parsing - is necessary if you don't take game balance with non-Jedi into account? Move and Bind and Force Choke are effects of Telekinesis. Mind Trick and Misdirect and Sense Emotions are effects of Telepathy. Foresee and Seek are effects of generically psychic attunement. Being Leapy and pushing the body to the limits is Enhance. I see 3, maybe 4, powers total if we don't include major antagonists being scary with Force Lightning.

Luke in Jedi is really all I need to be a real live Jedi Knight.

/rant

That said, book-wise, Enhance + force leap enhancements are my favorite. That with Jump Up and Quick Draw gives you a ton of mobility. Stand-Draw-Leap as an incidental. Add in Sense (with duration and control) and Move (basic) and you've got a ninja-leaping psychic with a laser sword. Everything else is, as you add it, just gravy.

Influence: I like this quite a bit - my favorite in this book. I'm not sure I care about the basic function to stress opponents, but with a little bit of investment this gives a great boost to your character's social skills.

The Basic power actually grows really strong with FR 2+ and the Strength upgrade. While playtesting F&D with a few FR 2 and 3 characters, it was sometimes possible to inflict 4-6 strain per action against an opponent. When several members of your group do this to the Nemesis one after another, the bad guy goes down fast, and there's little defense against it. We got to calling it the Care Bear Stare.