I just recently bought all 3 core books and am planning a game in the future. This is my first post, so "hi everyone".

Quick question for the group. Reading through this particular thread, I see many believe that Bind can only be used on living beings. My question is how they would simulate using the force to crush something like a droid, like an empty beer can? We see at the end of Revenge of the Sith, that Vader/Anakin uses the force to crush the droids around him when he learns of Padme's death. I would rule this is Bind, but if it can't be used on inanimate objects, then I'm not sure how to simulate it.

I'm not aware of anything that would prevent Bind being used on non-living creatures such as droids. The rules for Bind simply refer to "the target". You may be thinking of Heal / Harm which specifies "living creature". Hope this helps!

I think the key distinction being missed is not whether or not a force power (or even using a lightsaber) kills or harms but whether the method chosen is unnecessarily cruel or instills terror/fear in the target.

This is often subjective. Using the force to slam a crate into someone is not more terrifying that just being in normal combat where someone is shooting at you. But using the force to lift someone high into the air and letting them drop to their death or severe injury seems like undue cruelty and would very likely cause terror/fear in the target in a way that simply shoving them with the force into the wall or ground wound not. Maybe others don't think this method of using the force to attack is more terror inducing than normal life and death combat and/or that it's not unneccessarily cruel - this is subjective. But the key part is that actions that are cruel and involve causing fear in others earns Conflict in force senstive characters.

If a player wanted to use the force to lift/fling opponents into the air to cause extra damage to them from falling I simply wouldn't allow it and would not use awarding Conflict to discourage it or to "balance" it out mechanically. If the player wants to do it then I'd probably award Conflict because I think the action is unnecessarily cruel and terror inducing. But I don't think lifting someone into the air and dropping them is some sort of loophole to do more damage - the power says it does X damage and that's how much it does regardless of the narrative spin attached to it. I would allow them to push someone off of a cliff or into a chasm as that fits the setting and is a natural use for the power.

This is a self-consistent rationale. But I don't think it's one that has any particular reason to be adopted. If one did adopt it, why would one not apply it to any cases of the Force being used to kill someone, e.g. throwing a crate into someone with Force Move, or hurling the victim against a wall which some are suggesting is okay? Again, if one, why not the other?

Hurling a living victim (as opposed to a droid) against a wall, lethally, SHOULD be cause for feedback, but throwing a crate at them puts enough karmic separation between using the force on an unliving object, and a different living creature dying.

I'd argue that the "lift and drop" technique also has a certian amount of karmic separation, but that 30+seconds of levitation followed by a drop should be cause for a discipline check on the target, failure being terror, and thus darkside, success being escape (ascention cable, grapple, ect) and thus pointlessness.

Sorry, not buying it. Maybe back in the WEG days when the lights side was for knowledge and defence, but we've had the Prequels and a bunch of TV series since then. We have regularly seen Jedi throw people into things, throw things into people, and shove people into danger.

Obi-wan and Anakin shoved people around, or caught and threw them, and you have Yoda trying to squash the Emperor with senate pod. Even in Rebels you see them deliberately toss Vader under a falling AT-ST, and the only conflict they showed was how disappointed they were it didn't crush the life out of him.

If a player uses Influence to make a person dive into a wood chipper then Conflict. But it's the same Conflict that you give the other player that just picked a guy up and shoved him in. What matters is what they did, not how they did it. Otherwise you're just treating players differently due to arbitrary stuff you're making up. And then you will see conflict, with your players.

May I add to this and mention that not only do actions result in Conflict, but utilizing dark side pips as well. That's more than enough "Gotcha'!" for Force users. Let's face it, there should be some awesome fun involved in being a space wizard and using your powers. As mentioned, questions of morality should be based on actions.

Sorry, not buying it. Maybe back in the WEG days when the lights side was for knowledge and defence, but we've had the Prequels and a bunch of TV series since then. We have regularly seen Jedi throw people into things, throw things into people, and shove people into danger.

Obi-wan and Anakin shoved people around, or caught and threw them, and you have Yoda trying to squash the Emperor with senate pod. Even in Rebels you see them deliberately toss Vader under a falling AT-ST, and the only conflict they showed was how disappointed they were it didn't crush the life out of him.

If a player uses Influence to make a person dive into a wood chipper then Conflict. But it's the same Conflict that you give the other player that just picked a guy up and shoved him in. What matters is what they did, not how they did it. Otherwise you're just treating players differently due to arbitrary stuff you're making up. And then you will see conflict, with your players.

May I add to this and mention that not only do actions result in Conflict, but utilizing dark side pips as well. That's more than enough "Gotcha'!" for Force users. Let's face it, there should be some awesome fun involved in being a space wizard and using your powers. As mentioned, questions of morality should be based on actions.

To me the gotcha is the unnecessary fear involved in tossing them into the air what shoving them into the ground will do just fine. And the knowing that it will generate fear.

circumstances do matter so i can see if the slam into the ground didn't work...

I just recently bought all 3 core books and am planning a game in the future. This is my first post, so "hi everyone".

Quick question for the group. Reading through this particular thread, I see many believe that Bind can only be used on living beings. My question is how they would simulate using the force to crush something like a droid, like an empty beer can? We see at the end of Revenge of the Sith, that Vader/Anakin uses the force to crush the droids around him when he learns of Padme's death. I would rule this is Bind, but if it can't be used on inanimate objects, then I'm not sure how to simulate it.

I'm not aware of anything that would prevent Bind being used on non-living creatures such as droids. The rules for Bind simply refer to "the target". You may be thinking of Heal / Harm which specifies "living creature". Hope this helps!

My question was directed more at a few people in this particular thread that said "Bind is for living targets, and Move is for non-living targets". So my question was how they would handle the "crush droid" scenario with the Move force power. I personally agree that Bind should be usable on droids. If a player wanted to smoosh an empty beer can with the force, I'd use Bind, and that's a true inanimate object.

I was just curious if the "Move for non-living target" groupies had considered how they'd handle such a scenario.

crush droid would be bind. Not move. That is the problem with thinking either one is living or non living only. is that to causes problems like this.

Alderaan Crumbs, on 24 Nov 2015 - 3:06 PM, said:

Defenstrator, on 23 Nov 2015 - 10:33 PM, said:

Sorry, not buying it. Maybe back in the WEG days when the lights side was for knowledge and defence, but we've had the Prequels and a bunch of TV series since then. We have regularly seen Jedi throw people into things, throw things into people, and shove people into danger.

Obi-wan and Anakin shoved people around, or caught and threw them, and you have Yoda trying to squash the Emperor with senate pod. Even in Rebels you see them deliberately toss Vader under a falling AT-ST, and the only conflict they showed was how disappointed they were it didn't crush the life out of him.

If a player uses Influence to make a person dive into a wood chipper then Conflict. But it's the same Conflict that you give the other player that just picked a guy up and shoved him in. What matters is what they did, not how they did it. Otherwise you're just treating players differently due to arbitrary stuff you're making up. And then you will see conflict, with your players.

May I add to this and mention that not only do actions result in Conflict, but utilizing dark side pips as well. That's more than enough "Gotcha'!" for Force users. Let's face it, there should be some awesome fun involved in being a space wizard and using your powers. As mentioned, questions of morality should be based on actions.

Following that logic, we should ask ourselves why comic book hero bother respecting the law. There is no fun living a crappy life as a reporter when you could just rob banks and became millionnaire.

That doesn't make any sense at all. You still get conflict for doing bad things. The point is you shouldn't get extra conflict for using powers. Batman throwing a guy off a building and Superman blowing his head off with heat vision are both still murder and should generate the same conflict. Batman doesn't get a pass just because he only used his Brawn.

That doesn't make any sense at all. You still get conflict for doing bad things. The point is you shouldn't get extra conflict for using powers. Batman throwing a guy off a building and Superman blowing his head off with heat vision are both still murder and should generate the same conflict. Batman doesn't get a pass just because he only used his Brawn.

Judging by the Clone Wars Cartoon... yes he does.

That doesn't make any sense at all. You still get conflict for doing bad things. The point is you shouldn't get extra conflict for using powers. Batman throwing a guy off a building and Superman blowing his head off with heat vision are both still murder and should generate the same conflict. Batman doesn't get a pass just because he only used his Brawn.

Judging by the Clone Wars Cartoon... yes he does.

What specifically are you thinking of? I have watched all of TCW and don't recall anything that suggests a double standard.

That doesn't make any sense at all. You still get conflict for doing bad things. The point is you shouldn't get extra conflict for using powers. Batman throwing a guy off a building and Superman blowing his head off with heat vision are both still murder and should generate the same conflict. Batman doesn't get a pass just because he only used his Brawn.

Judging by the Clone Wars Cartoon... yes he does.

What specifically are you thinking of? I have watched all of TCW and don't recall anything that suggests a double standard.

When Akosha was captured by the trandotian slavers, the other girl force choking a slaver was giving in to the dark side, but physically pushing one to fall out of a tree into a spike pit is fine.

I'm sorry but tossing a Wannabe Sith 50 feet into the air and bouncing him off the side of a ruined jedi temple does not induce fear in the force lightning wielding terror causing dude. He isn't going to be scared that the guy he just impaled with a 6 foot long war sword pushed on the brink chose hurling him into the air, because the guy who did it is pretty much almost dead at that point.

I'm sorry but tossing a Wannabe Sith 50 feet into the air and bouncing him off the side of a ruined jedi temple does not induce fear in the force lightning wielding terror causing dude. He isn't going to be scared that the guy he just impaled with a 6 foot long war sword pushed on the brink chose hurling him into the air, because the guy who did it is pretty much almost dead at that point.

But he's not going to be taking falling damage either, he's going to force leap to the high ground you tossed him toward, cakle something about the power of the darkside, and secretly write in a few range upgrades on his Unleash power behind the GM screen so he can Bring the Thunder.

Throwing someone upward simply isnt something you do for damage, only narrative.

That doesn't make any sense at all. You still get conflict for doing bad things. The point is you shouldn't get extra conflict for using powers. Batman throwing a guy off a building and Superman blowing his head off with heat vision are both still murder and should generate the same conflict. Batman doesn't get a pass just because he only used his Brawn.

Judging by the Clone Wars Cartoon... yes he does.

What specifically are you thinking of? I have watched all of TCW and don't recall anything that suggests a double standard.

When Akosha was captured by the trandotian slavers, the other girl force choking a slaver was giving in to the dark side, but physically pushing one to fall out of a tree into a spike pit is fine.

Possible, but if you watch it Kalifa has the drop on the Trandoshan and it is four to one. Ahsoka's exact words to Kalifa are "Don't kill him out of hatred - it's not the Jedi way". It's not about Force use from what she says, but that Kalifa wants / needs to kill him... the dark emotions. Where the other trandoshan later on is killed by the spikes, Ahsoka is fighting him one on one and nearly dies herself before she twists and kicks him backwards where he falls and lands on the spikes. It's very quick and she seems very neutral and Jedi-like in this scene which is kill or be killed. I don't get any feeling she is filled with dark emotions as Kalifa explicitly was (both by dialogue and the animation).

Throwing someone upward simply isnt something you do for damage, only narrative.

But that's the point - this IS why people do it: the damage. Some people do this because they look at the range bands you can move people, look at the falling damage table, and decide that raising people straight up is a neat trick to inflict huge amounts of damage. And this is also why when a GM asks about this on these forums people start telling them to add Conflict penalties as a way to control the player and confine them to throwing crates at the target instead (which mysteriously doesn't generate Conflict).

Now I don't consider using the Falling damage to be a correct interpretation of the rules so it's a non-issue for me. But if a GM IS going to allow this technique, then I don't think arbitrarily penalizing the player with Conflict is a good idea. Most players would rightly feel hard done by. There are plenty of ways to damage people both with and without the Force but the clever way they have come up with is specially treated, and seemingly because it 'coincidentally' happens to do lots of damage. They're not doing it for narrative, they're doing it for damage. And the Conflict is generally deployed as a means to stop them. There might be exceptions to that. You might be an exception. But this has come up many times on this forum (raising and dropping victims) and repeatedly GMs are advised to reign it in by using Conflict and the rationale that someone enduring those few seconds of falling is far more Conflict worthy than a few combat rounds of shooting at them.

That doesn't make any sense at all. You still get conflict for doing bad things. The point is you shouldn't get extra conflict for using powers. Batman throwing a guy off a building and Superman blowing his head off with heat vision are both still murder and should generate the same conflict. Batman doesn't get a pass just because he only used his Brawn.

Judging by the Clone Wars Cartoon... yes he does.

What specifically are you thinking of? I have watched all of TCW and don't recall anything that suggests a double standard.

When Akosha was captured by the trandotian slavers, the other girl force choking a slaver was giving in to the dark side, but physically pushing one to fall out of a tree into a spike pit is fine.

Possible, but if you watch it Kalifa has the drop on the Trandoshan and it is four to one. Ahsoka's exact words to Kalifa are "Don't kill him out of hatred - it's not the Jedi way". It's not about Force use from what she says, but that Kalifa wants / needs to kill him... the dark emotions. Where the other trandoshan later on is killed by the spikes, Ahsoka is fighting him one on one and nearly dies herself before she twists and kicks him backwards where he falls and lands on the spikes. It's very quick and she seems very neutral and Jedi-like in this scene which is kill or be killed. I don't get any feeling she is filled with dark emotions as Kalifa explicitly was (both by dialogue and the animation).

Throwing someone upward simply isnt something you do for damage, only narrative.

But that's the point - this IS why people do it: the damage. Some people do this because they look at the range bands you can move people, look at the falling damage table, and decide that raising people straight up is a neat trick to inflict huge amounts of damage. And this is also why when a GM asks about this on these forums people start telling them to add Conflict penalties as a way to control the player and confine them to throwing crates at the target instead (which mysteriously doesn't generate Conflict).

Now I don't consider using the Falling damage to be a correct interpretation of the rules so it's a non-issue for me. But if a GM IS going to allow this technique, then I don't think arbitrarily penalizing the player with Conflict is a good idea. Most players would rightly feel hard done by. There are plenty of ways to damage people both with and without the Force but the clever way they have come up with is specially treated, and seemingly because it 'coincidentally' happens to do lots of damage. They're not doing it for narrative, they're doing it for damage. And the Conflict is generally deployed as a means to stop them. There might be exceptions to that. You might be an exception. But this has come up many times on this forum (raising and dropping victims) and repeatedly GMs are advised to reign it in by using Conflict and the rationale that someone enduring those few seconds of falling is far more Conflict worthy than a few combat rounds of shooting at them.

You're right, the correct answer is to tell them the abuse doesnt work. Grapple hooks, acrobatics, force leaps, jet packs- any attempt to use this abuse should be met with the enemy being badass enough to ignore it.

Now I don't consider using the Falling damage to be a correct interpretation of the rules so it's a non-issue for me. But if a GM IS going to allow this technique, then I don't think arbitrarily penalizing the player with Conflict is a good idea. Most players would rightly feel hard done by. There are plenty of ways to damage people both with and without the Force but the clever way they have come up with is specially treated, and seemingly because it 'coincidentally' happens to do lots of damage. They're not doing it for narrative, they're doing it for damage. And the Conflict is generally deployed as a means to stop them. There might be exceptions to that. You might be an exception. But this has come up many times on this forum (raising and dropping victims) and repeatedly GMs are advised to reign it in by using Conflict and the rationale that someone enduring those few seconds of falling is far more Conflict worthy than a few combat rounds of shooting at them.

You're right, the correct answer is to tell them the abuse doesnt work. Grapple hooks, acrobatics, force leaps, jet packs- any attempt to use this abuse should be met with the enemy being badass enough to ignore it.

Don't be facetious. That's not at all the point I was making nor do you think it is. I haven't said ignore any and everything, nor is there any particular reason the things you list should be regarded as abuses so why imply that I'm ruling against all these things. I don't even necessarily consider the use of Move to inflict damage on someone abuse. I just said that double-standards that don't make sense to a player are a bad fix for a GM finding something overpowered. And that is a reasonable point. If all you can respond with is sarcasm and strawmen, why bother responding at all. Seriously - you think I'm saying that an enemy should just ignore what the player comes up with because they're "badass enough to ignore it". You know that's not what I'm saying. If you want to argue that something I've said is wrong, then please stick to what I've said.

Those wernt abuses, they were solutions to the abuse.

Double standards are a fact of life in the jedi order. Maiming someone to the point of being unable to participate in the workforce without a cybernetic replacement is "good", putting someone out of their myisery is "bad."

knasserII, on 26 Nov 2015 - 1:32 PM, said:

this IS why people do it: the damage. Some people do this because they look at the range bands you can move people, look at the falling damage table, and decide that raising people straight up is a neat trick to inflict huge amounts of damage. And this is also why when a GM asks about this on these forums people start telling them to add Conflict penalties as a way to control the player and confine them to throwing crates at the target instead (which mysteriously doesn't generate Conflict).

Now I don't consider using the Falling damage to be a correct interpretation of the rules so it's a non-issue for me. But if a GM IS going to allow this technique, then I don't think arbitrarily penalizing the player with Conflict is a good idea. Most players would rightly feel hard done by. There are plenty of ways to damage people both with and without the Force but the clever way they have come up with is specially treated, and seemingly because it 'coincidentally' happens to do lots of damage. They're not doing it for narrative, they're doing it for damage. And the Conflict is generally deployed as a means to stop them. There might be exceptions to that. You might be an exception. But this has come up many times on this forum (raising and dropping victims) and repeatedly GMs are advised to reign it in by using Conflict and the rationale that someone enduring those few seconds of falling is far more Conflict worthy than a few combat rounds of shooting at them.

It could be the less way of dealing damage, I will still give conflicts for that. It is not about preventing player abuse, it is about respecting the morality mechanic. A force user, who slowly lift (in the rule the movement is supposed to be a slow process) someone while looking at him in the eye and then releasing him when the target is high enought and pleaing for his life, shouldn't walk away after that like nothing happened.

Those wernt abuses, they were solutions to the abuse.

Then you're still mischaracterising what I've argued. A GM suddenly saying "nuh-uh, they have a jet pack / grappling hook / use their acrobatics skill" in response to a player doing something that the GM considers too over-powered is still destructive to the game.

Double standards are a fact of life in the jedi order. Maiming someone to the point of being unable to participate in the workforce without a cybernetic replacement is "good", putting someone out of their myisery is "bad."

Characters within the setting having double standards does not make the GM applying double standards to players suddenly go down well.

It could be the less way of dealing damage, I will still give conflicts for that. It is not about preventing player abuse, it is about respecting the morality mechanic. A force user, who slowly lift (in the rule the movement is supposed to be a slow process) someone while looking at him in the eye and then releasing him when the target is high enought and pleaing for his life, shouldn't walk away after that like nothing happened.

See, the above works for me. That's a Conflict-worthy scenario because that is a slow-drawn out and deliberate torturing of a defenceless (at this point) victim. But is that what a character is necessarily doing? With the upgrades you can throw something or someone fast enough to use as a projectile weapon and with the range increases, you can be sending them pretty far. This is the scenario that a player would typically use. It's essentially one of those Force throws only upwards. So it's not slowly raising someone who is begging for their life whilst you watch them coldly. It's a ball go up, ball come down event that would last around five seconds in Earth-like gravity.

As I said, for me it's a non-issue because by the rules as written, I think a victim only takes the damage listed under the power description. That's both a more robust way of dealing with it if you don't want players to do this (as they can't) and it's not applying what most players will legitimately argue is a double-standard.