So I was curious just how many of the 35 available skills can be enhanced with non committed Force Die and power checks that grant success or advantage for Force Points.

Two of the possibilities seem vastly out of parity with the other options while one seems redundant. I was wondering if anyone has found any issues with them?

For reference, skills and sources of upgrades with costs

Athletics - Base Enhance Force Power - 10XP

Coordination - Enhance Force Power Control Upgrade - 5 XP

Piloting (Planetary) - Enhance Force Power Control Upgrade - 5 XP

Piloting (Space) - Enhance Force Power Control Upgrade - 5 XP

Resilience - Enhance Force Power Control Upgrade - 5 XP

Brawl - Enhance Force Power Control Upgrade - 5 XP

Coercion, Charm, Deception, Leadership, & Negotiation - Influence Control Upgrade - 15XP

Leadership - Enhanced Leader Talent - 15 XP

Ranged (Heavy) & Ranged (Light) (combat checks only) - Intuitive Shot Talent - 25 XP

"combat check with a vehicle weapon" (i.e. Gunnery) - Intuitive Strike Talent - 25 XP

1) The Influence Control Upgrade seems overpowered to me, since it blanket effects 5 skills

2) Enhanced Leadership is redundant with the Influence Control check and I am very tempted to just remove Leadership from the Influence Control upgrade to ensure its uniqueness and nerf the upgrade slightly

3) The Intuitive Shot Talent combat limitation makes sense, although the Brawl enhancement upgrade doesn't have it and its kind of annoying for there to be difference between the combat skills like this

4) The Intuitive Strike Talent really annoys me, since it breaks the format in 3 ways, it doesn't call out the skill even though AFAIK any combat check with a vehicle weapon is a Gunnery check, it costs 2 Force Points per success or Advantage as apposed to ever other example of the same effect, and it has the combat check limitation.

For the record I like the limitation to combat checks on combat skills, and will probably house rule that to apply to the Brawl enhancement, the inconsistency is what annoys me on this.

Does anyone have any experience with the Intuitive Strike Talent and insight in why it costs double the mechanics of the other examples?

Has anyone experienced any issues with the huge skill bumps the Influence upgrade can give across so many skills?

Thanks,

Add Draw Closer and Hawk Bat Swoop for lightsabers as they can always be used to enhance a light saber attack even if already engaged. Though Draw Closer can only add hits and Hawk Bat can only add advantage.

Animal Empathy enhances checks dealing with animals.

Not enough experience with starship combat to say why Intuitive Strike is two force pips.

I come from the background th e force should help with any physical skill and social skills.

Add Draw Closer and Hawk Bat Swoop for lightsabers as they can always be used to enhance a light saber attack even if already engaged. Though Draw Closer can only add hits and Hawk Bat can only add advantage.

Animal Empathy enhances checks dealing with animals.

Not enough experience with starship combat to say why Intuitive Strike is two force pips.

Thanks, I'm aware of Draw Closer and Hawk Bat Swoop, I left them off because of their core focus, which isn't really to enhance the lightsaber skill, but to allow Movement/Engagement/Attack all as a single action, as opposed to multiple maneuvers followed by an action. They are powerful talents even without the addition of extra successes or advantages

I had noted Animal Empathy, but forgot to include it. I like the thematic limitation when looking at its place in the Pathfinder Specialty chain as an entry into Animal Bond, Mental Bond, and Shared Pain. I do think it worth noting in relation to the other skills that are enhanced without such a limitation it has a relatively high 15XP cost. When you look at the wider focus of the Pathfinder Specialty, I do wonder why they decision wasn't made to simple make the talent apply to the entire Survival skill.

I come from the background th e force should help with any physical skill and social skills.

I agree, I would just like a little consistency in application and the value add when purchased. The Influence Control Upgrade seems overpowered and Intuitive Strike under powered.

I realize that the system is not built on a linear power increase vs XP expenditure. I just have a bit of cognitive dissonance when I look at buying enhancements for each version of a physical skill individually, but every social skill is lumped together with one cheap purchase. There is plenty of space in the Influence Power Tree to break them out into individual purchases.

I wonder if the dependency between the way Enhance and Influence Powers address the gaining of the skill enhancement is a hold over from being introduced originally in two different game lines and desire to maintain what had already been published in the third line to prevent compatibility questions.

4) The Intuitive Strike Talent really annoys me, since it breaks the format in 3 ways, it doesn't call out the skill even though AFAIK any combat check with a vehicle weapon is a Gunnery check, it costs 2 Force Points per success or Advantage as apposed to ever other example of the same effect, and it has the combat check limitation.

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Does anyone have any experience with the Intuitive Strike Talent and insight in why it costs double the mechanics of the other examples?

It accounts for more factors.

It works with "planetary scale weapons", not "vehicle weapons", an important distinction when you consider:

• Planetary weapons do not have to be fitted on a vehicle, so this talent can apply to oddball situations and may account for weapons that haven't been released yet, or only exist in a specific supp. The anti-vehicle cannons in Arda for example would allow a character with this talent to benefit without the need to be in a vehicle.
• Vehicles need not mount planetary weapons. So this talent is geared more toward full vehicle operations and vehicle encounters and not hybrid encounters like you can have with speederbikes and such, gearing the tree more toward a "Pilot" character and not a "Driver".
• Planetary scale weapons tend to be more powerful than personal scale. They tend to have linked more often, which an additional Advantage can certainly help activate. In personal scale they get a x10 damage modifier and can gain a +50 on crit rolls, so it can instant-kill players. This is likely why the cost increase, the net payout of an additional success or advantage of planetary scale weapons can have a greater impact then a personal scale weapon.
• Not all Gunnery weapons are planetary. If you look at the talent chain, from start to Intuitive strike, the quickest path gives you 1 vehicle talent, and 3 general purpose talents. If intuitive strike applied to Gunnery checks, and I carried a heavy personal weapon that used the gunnery skill, taking this tree would be a no-brainer. I have to get 1 rank in skilled jockey, but in exchange I'd get intuitive strike, several general purpose talents, AND to sweeten the deal, the next talent down is +1 FR. Never, ever underestimate what people will do for a higher FR.

There's more odds and end, but I think you get the idea. Not all content is created equal, as the game/system progresses you'll see more and more odds and ends that need to be managed or they'll stack to become something they weren't' intended to be.

I appreciate the breakdown. My friends and I are just learning the system and haven't gotten much into vehicular combat yet, so this will give me things to watch out far when we do. In my group I tend to be the rules wonk/tweaker since I usually have a good head for system mechanics and have actually had a few adventures and rules sets purchased by an rpg publisher. I'll keep your breakdown in mind as we go forward before we decide on any house rules on Intuitive Strike.

My feeling is that the Influence/Control effect is getting a discount because there's a lot of overlap (they're all social skills) and it's unlikely that any character will be heavily invested in more than 2-3 of them anyway (due to XP costs, mechanical redundancy, and thematic concerns).

It can't be straightforwardly compared to Enhanced Leader because, as a talent, EL could potentially appear with a cost of anything from 5-25 in any given talent tree, talents don't necessarily have equivalent costs in the first place, and from what I've seen, talents that allow you to add force dice are more expensive in general than force power elements that do the same thing.

Then an easy fix is to make influence have multiple upgrades instead of one pair two skills up together and three up together. Other alternative is to group some of enhance skills together

My feeling is that the Influence/Control effect is getting a discount because there's a lot of overlap (they're all social skills) and it's unlikely that any character will be heavily invested in more than 2-3 of them anyway (due to XP costs, mechanical redundancy, and thematic concerns). It can't be straightforwardly compared to Enhanced Leader because, as a talent, EL could potentially appear with a cost of anything from 5-25 in any given talent tree, talents don't necessarily have equivalent costs in the first place, and from what I've seen, talents that allow you to add force dice are more expensive in general than force power elements that do the same thing.

I get what you are saying, but at the same time there is a part of me that thinks that if the skills have that much overlap then they shouldn't be separate skills.

The same could be said for pairing Athletics/Coordination or Piloting (Planetary)/Piloting (Space) or Resilience/Brawl. Giving a potentially large boost to multiple skill for such a cheap expenditure seems to cheat anyone else that works to get the bonuses another way.

But honestly, the reason for the post was less to talk game design philosophy and more to see if anyone had encountered any issues are concerns with it in actual game play. If no one has experienced any abuse from the upgrade in game play, then the warning bells it rang in my head when I was looking at it in comparison to everything else are ringing falsely and there is no need for adjustment. I really am not trying to fix something if it ain't broke.

Respect and thanks for the input.

I get what you are saying, but at the same time there is a part of me that thinks that if the skills have that much overlap then they shouldn't be separate skills.

The same could be said for pairing Athletics/Coordination or Piloting (Planetary)/Piloting (Space) or Resilience/Brawl. Giving a potentially large boost to multiple skill for such a cheap expenditure seems to cheat anyone else that works to get the bonuses another way.

But honestly, the reason for the post was less to talk game design philosophy and more to see if anyone had encountered any issues are concerns with it in actual game play. If no one has experienced any abuse from the upgrade in game play, then the warning bells it rang in my head when I was looking at it in comparison to everything else are ringing falsely and there is no need for adjustment. I really am not trying to fix something if it ain't broke.

Respect and thanks for the input.

Keep in mind that the average Force User has fewer Skill levels because they have to spread the EXP around more than a non FU PC. Essentially, with a few exceptions, Enhance really only brings a FUs Skill up to the average of a non-FU PC.

As for overlapping Skills a good GM will give different results when different Skills are used to accomplish a task.

Unlike other Star Wars RPGs FFG spent a lot of time making sure Force Powers and Force Using PCs balanced out with non-Force Users.

I don't think the control to get success or advantage on social skills using influence is unbalanced. First, the base power, which costs 10xp, does almost nothing without upgrades. Second, you have to purchase either a magnitude or range upgrade before you can get to the control upgrade (5 xp). So once you actually get to the control, you've spent 30 xp for that ability, not 15. (Because without the other control upgrade, for 10 xp, the base power and the range or magnitude upgrade do virtually nothing).