I'm not exactly clear on how the Magnitude upgrade works. It increases the number of targets you can use it on (I think). So if you have a Presence of 3, you affect 3 allies. Do the Magnitude upgrades work like: 3 targets + (3 X # of Magnitude upgrades)? So one Magnitude upgrade increases it to 6, then 9, then 12, then 15?

Curses! I went to my campaign on Obsidian Portal (as I am away from home) only to realize I added all the Force powers to OggDude's character generator and not to my OP Wiki.... Curses!

That does appear to be the case, with the addition of the fact that magnitude can be activated multiple times. So if you have one rank and activate it twice, that also gets you 9 targets, two ranks twice gets you to 15, so the general form of number of targets is:

Presence + Number_of_Activations(Ranks(Presence))

Yeah, Battle Meditation can be used to affect a lot of people if you've purchased/activated the Magnitude Upgrade enough times.

Which is fitting with the Legends lore behind it, since it was the sort of thing that Force users did to influence entire armies. Said lore has Yoda using it at various points during the Clone Wars, as well as Palpatine during the Battle of Endor (used as an explanation/justification for why things went downhill for the Imps the moment the Emperor died). Granted, the PCs probably won't be able to affect an entire fleet, but then Palps and Yoda are pretty much plot devices in terms of the overall narrative.

I'm terrible at math, but let me try this and see If I got it. There are two ways I guess this works:

1: Targets = Presence + (Presence x # of Magnitudes triggered). You have to spend 1 FP on each Magnitude you trigger. This is a maximum of 5 x Presence.

2: Targets = Presence + (Presence x 1) + (Presence x 2) + (Presence x 3) + (Presence x 4). At Presence 3, this a maximum of 48 targets.

I'm terrible at math, but let me try this and see If I got it. There are two ways I guess this works:

1: Targets = Presence + (Presence x # of Magnitudes triggered). You have to spend 1 FP on each Magnitude you trigger. This is a maximum of 5 x Presence.

2: Targets = Presence + (Presence x 1) + (Presence x 2) + (Presence x 3) + (Presence x 4). At Presence 3, this a maximum of 48 targets.

Using my general form... well let me clean it up a bit so it looks more like algebra and less like pseudo computer code.

x = The number of targets that will be affected.

y = The number of times you activate your magnitude

R = the number of ranks in magnitude you have

P = the presence characteristic

x = P+(y*(R*P))

Step one, clear the innermost parenthetical. Multiply R and P.

Step two, clear the innermost parenthetical. Multiply the answer from step one by y

Step three, add P to the answer from step two.

The maximum number of targets actually depends on the number of FP generated and it would be (Total FP - 2)*(Ranks in Magnitude*Presence)+Presence for any given roll. Assuming a Force Rating of 3, you can get at most 6 FP, so assume presence 3 and all four ranks in magnitude you get:

(6-2)*(4*3)+3 which becomes 4*12+3 after we clear parentheticals, and order of operations says we multiply first, so we get 48+3 for a total of 51 targets at Presence 3, FR 3 if you want to go for maximum targeting. But without activating range, you have to be engaged with all 51 of them, so pack in! Also, the -2 comes from the cost of activating the basic power before upgrades.

Also, just to be clear 1 FP activates ALL purchased magnitude ranks, multiple FP can activate ALL the ranks multiple times.

I hope this is clearing things up.

Apologies for the necro post but this power has come into play quite regularly and has caused some minor discussion around the group. Just a quick note our game is rather high level, about 800 earned. The player has a FR 4, with a 5 presence, with the basic, all range, 2 magnitude and mastery purchased.

1. Why does the magnitude upgrades work/stack differently than the range upgrades? Seems real confusingly similar...

2. Can the force user target himself with the basic power or with the upgrades?

3. Can the force user take benefit from the mastery upgrade as well?

Ok, formula time:

Basic plus 2 ranks of magnitude:

x = P+(y*(R*P))

X= 5+(1*(2*5))

X=15 Allies at engage range for just two pips

Max # of allies

(Total FP - 2)*(Ranks in Magnitude*Presence)+Presence

(8-2)*(2*5)+5

6*10+5

65 allies at engage

Max # of allies at max range

(8-3)*(2*5)+5

5*10+5

55 allies at long range (planetary)

Bump, just could use some help with this questions:

1. Why does the magnitude upgrades work/stack differently than the range upgrades? Seems real confusingly similar...

2. Can the force user target himself with the basic power or with the upgrades?

3. Can the force user take benefit from the mastery upgrade as well?

Sorry, I've been away from the forum for a while, I got busy with stuff and holidays.

Ok, On with answering!

All your maths in the first post look good with a cursory glance, though 65 Allies at engaged range are begging for a grenade. (just saying)

Answer 1) There are many things in this system that are confusingly similar. (One that constantly trips me up is Defensive on a weapon does not equal Defense on armor. Defense on armor doesn't care if it's a melee or ranged attack, Defensive is only melee). Now, the range upgrades can be activated multiple times like the magnitude ones, but if your player has all of them, one activation moves it from engaged (or close at planetary) to long more efficiently than pumping a whole bunch of LSP/DSP into just one range upgrade. Also, range bands are an abstraction, and "number of targets" is a concrete integer.

Answer 2) At my table, the answer is yes. He is a valid target as he is an ally, not immune to the force, etc., and he's just about certainly to be within engaged range of himself. IMPORTANT NOTE! He counts as one of the targets. So if he can affect 65 targets, that means he gets himself and 64 others, not all 65 of his friends and himself on top to boot.

Answer 3) depends on how you answer two. At my table, since he is a character and affected, he gets the mastery skill boost. One of the other characters in my game has five ranks in lightsaber. Guess what skill gets passed around the most? Behold! the whole party has buckets of yellow dice!

For what it's worth, my interpretation of these rules on if the activator of the power can target himself comes down to "it doesn't say he can't" anywhere. Now, to be fair there may be an errata, a FAQ, or a dev comment I may have missed somewhere along the lines, but per the book, it seems legit.

Hope that helps, and apologies for my delay in answering!

Magnitude says:

No worries, I do appreciate the help!

Our table has adapted the general concensis above and nothing game breaking has come up yet. Thought, we did have a mass combat were the player/character was given the nickname "buffbot".

The thought of spending multiple pips on the same "upgrade" was new to the group. People just presumed you could only activate the upgrade once. I ended up sending a question to FFG and Sam Stewart was kind enough to respond with the following:

Hello,

Glad you got the answers you needed!