But you see this is why I keep picking people up on this stuff. These details people seem happy to gloss over matter. The difference between someone with FR2 and FR3 is an entire extra specialization and journey to the bottom (exception being Sage and Pathfinder which get FR+1 a level early out of pity for the fact that all their other talents are things like being able to read through books more quickly or having a puppy). You throw in "and then FR4", but behind those three words is someone who has gathered enough XP to the bottom of three specializations as well as build up all the necessary Move power upgrades.

I’m sorry that I didn’t provide enough information to begin with, although I thought I did give you enough clues by telling you how many total XP she has and how many have currently been left unspent.

The character in question already has both the Advisor and Seer specializations in the Mystic Career, and is well down the tree in Seer so that she has already picked up the first of the two FR+1 talents. So, the next FR+1 talent for her is just 60xp away, and the next FR+1 for her is from the Advisor spec and just 75xp away.

From there, we go to Sage and those two FR+1 talents. In hindsight, for this character Seer and Sage would have been a better combination than Seer and Advisor, but I’m not doing a re-spec at this stage in her life.

It's the mindset that sees an AT-AT could be thrown and fixates on this idea and defends it vigorously against any exploration of the context of that. E.g. when it's pointed out their numbers equate to a 3/100 chance of being able to pull this off, they don't think "well, my player's going to get bored trying to do that after the first six rounds of combat they spend achieving nothing whilst being shot at by an AT-AT's vehicle scale weapons" but rather they respond 'there are players out there who really well all the time, the system is broken'. I'm paraphrasing of course, but that seems to me roughly how it comes across.

It’s ironic that you say this, because the character in question recently participated in a lightsaber battle, by grabbing weapons out of peoples hands with the Move power. Out of the eight or ten rounds that the combat went on, she was only successful in generating enough lightside pips to do this twice, and the rest of the time it was all-black, all the time.

I am fully aware of how fickle the dice can be. If you look at my history of posts, I believe that you would find that I am more aware of this aspect than most.

The OP asked for powerful things in the game they'd have to watch out for. I find telling a new player that PCs will be "tossing around AT-ATs like tiddly-winks" alarmist and misleading to them. They'll be house-ruling out the Move power before they've even used it. And why wouldn't they when people on the forums tell them this stuff? That's what I'm trying to counter here.

Move can be easily abused, with the right combination of talents and FR. And it doesn’t take that much to make it surprisingly dangerous in the hands of the “wrong” person. That’s what I’m warning people about.

IMO, that is precisely what the OP asked for.

Creating the impression that the Move power is all kinds of broken and people are playing AT-AT Pong, well, it winds me up a little, to be honest.

I’m sorry it winds you up, but people (with the right talents) being able to spend just two pips to toss around an AT-AT or YT-1300 at Short range and just three pips to do so up to Extreme range, IMO that is the very definition of “all kinds of broken”.

And that’s before we get to any kind of discussion about how easily you can get to “Force Unleashed” levels of broken-ness.

But all this rules system gives you is "the AT-AT ends up two range-bands away from you" (or whatever distance). Deciding that the AT-AT is 300m in the air and falling fast, is something being added by yourself / your group. It's understandable if you're used to a non-narrative rules system and trying to turn "Close range band" into "20m" and such so it still works like D&D or Mage 1st edition, but that's not the design intent here.

The falling rules work by range bands, not distance. And falling from Extreme range would definitely qualify as hitting terminal velocity before hitting the ground.

@bradknowles: You're creating a massively distorted impression of how the Move power plays out. Do you really, genuinely not accept that telling people "with just three force points you can play tiddly-winks with AT-ATs" creates a vastly different impression for them than the more accurate "with quite a lot of investment in getting to the bottom of three specializations and buying up Move and six or so upgrades you can have a low percentage chance of being able to move an AT-AT into someone but the AT-AT itself wont take any damage". And that's even ignoring that by the rules, a GM would be perfectly within their rights to make piloted vehicles have a resistance test which we haven't even got into.

But you see this is why I keep picking people up on this stuff. These details people seem happy to gloss over matter. The difference between someone with FR2 and FR3 is an entire extra specialization and journey to the bottom (exception being Sage and Pathfinder which get FR+1 a level early out of pity for the fact that all their other talents are things like being able to read through books more quickly or having a puppy). You throw in "and then FR4", but behind those three words is someone who has gathered enough XP to the bottom of three specializations as well as build up all the necessary Move power upgrades.

I’m sorry that I didn’t provide enough information to begin with, although I thought I did give you enough clues by telling you how many total XP she has and how many have currently been left unspent.

I'm not missing "clues", I'm simply observing that a character that has gone down three specialization as well as built up all the necessary Move upgrades is a pretty advanced character. That is my point. It has little to do with your PC, it is a general point.

It's the mindset that sees an AT-AT could be thrown and fixates on this idea and defends it vigorously against any exploration of the context of that. E.g. when it's pointed out their numbers equate to a 3/100 chance of being able to pull this off, they don't think "well, my player's going to get bored trying to do that after the first six rounds of combat they spend achieving nothing whilst being shot at by an AT-AT's vehicle scale weapons" but rather they respond 'there are players out there who really well all the time, the system is broken'. I'm paraphrasing of course, but that seems to me roughly how it comes across.

It’s ironic that you say this, because the character in question recently participated in a lightsaber battle, by grabbing weapons out of peoples hands with the Move power. Out of the eight or ten rounds that the combat went on, she was only successful in generating enough lightside pips to do this twice, and the rest of the time it was all-black, all the time.

I am fully aware of how fickle the dice can be. If you look at my history of posts, I believe that you would find that I am more aware of this aspect than most.

Again, I made no comment that unlikely things never ever happen. I pointed out that stating characters "toss AT-ATs around like tiddly-winks" does not convey an actual situation where a character has a 3/100 chance of actually being able to apply the power to an AT-AT in that way; and that what a character is actually doing isn't what you're describe even if they do succeed.

Creating the impression that the Move power is all kinds of broken and people are playing AT-AT Pong, well, it winds me up a little, to be honest.

I’m sorry it winds you up, but people (with the right talents) being able to spend just two pips to toss around an AT-AT or YT-1300 at Short range and just three pips to do so up to Extreme range, IMO that is the very definition of “all kinds of broken”.

Except as already explained, you can't do this. You're not spending two pips to "toss around an AT-AT". You specifically are applying a description of an action that doesn't remotely match up with the outcome given by the rules. You can't even damage an AT-AT like this and yet you describe it as them flying through the air and a character tossing them around. It is not possible to reconcile the description that you choose to apply with the results specified by the rules. Example:

But all this rules system gives you is "the AT-AT ends up two range-bands away from you" (or whatever distance). Deciding that the AT-AT is 300m in the air and falling fast, is something being added by yourself / your group. It's understandable if you're used to a non-narrative rules system and trying to turn "Close range band" into "20m" and such so it still works like D&D or Mage 1st edition, but that's not the design intent here.

The falling rules work by range bands, not distance. And falling from Extreme range would definitely qualify as hitting terminal velocity before hitting the ground.

You do not understand. If the rules say that the outcome is that the AT-AT ends up two range bands away and takes no damage, what makes most sense - that it was driven or slid backwards, or that it shot up into the air like an electrified squirrel and plummeted powerless to crash into the ground from the heavens? The former matches better, obviously. Yet you wilfully insist on putting an inappropriate interpretation on the outcome purely so that you can create a situation you're unhappy with. You keep trying to turn it into a non-narrative rules system and put effects ahead of outcome. YOU are choosing to suddenly add Falling Damage when the rules under Move have already specified how much damage is done and which you are ignoring. It's nothing to do with whether the Falling rules use range bands, it's that you're choosing to use them in the first place when all you actually need to do is have the AT-AT end up at a different range to the PC. Why do you insist on an interpretation that doesn't fit the rules?

And that’s before we get to any kind of discussion about how easily you can get to “Force Unleashed” levels of broken-ness.

It isn't "easy" to get to such levels. The rules are written to be open-ended so that people who want this can have it. But it is not "easily" done.

I'm not missing "clues", I'm simply observing that a character that has gone down three specialization as well as built up all the necessary Move upgrades is a pretty advanced character. That is my point. It has little to do with your PC, it is a general point.

So, now you’re conflating completely and totally unrelated facts with this thread?

Except as already explained, you can't do this. You're not spending two pips to "toss around an AT-AT”.

Actually, try re-reading the description again. With the Hurl upgrade, plus all the Strength upgrades, with just two pips you can do PRECISELY THIS .

With the Range upgrades, you can toss that AT-AT further and further up into the air, or away from you, or wherever you might like, so long as it is within your range limitations.

Nothing else you can possibly say can change the facts of the way the powers and rules are written.

You do not understand. If the rules say that the outcome is that the AT-AT ends up two range bands away and takes no damage, what makes most sense - that it was driven or slid backwards, or that it shot up into the air like an electrified squirrel and plummeted powerless to crash into the ground from the heavens?

With the Hurl upgrade, as has been repeatedly discussed, you really are tossing or “hurling” the object, at least within your Range limitations. And if you should happen to “Hurl” that object straight up into the air and then let it fall, the damage done will be according to the Falling Damage rules.

It isn't "easy" to get to such levels. The rules are written to be open-ended so that people who want this can have it. But it is not "easily" done.

Actually, it is. Apparently, you need someone to do the math for you, so here goes:

Basic Move power - 10xp (unless they get a Mentor discount, in which case it’s 5xp).

This gets you the ability to move one Silhouette one object, up to a range of Short, and without causing it or anyone else to suffer any damage.

1st Strength upgrade - 10xp

This gets you Silhouette +1. Total that can be moved is one object at Silhouette 1.

2nd Strength upgrade - 10xp

This gets you Silhouette +1. Total that can be moved is one object at Silhouette 2.

3rd Strength upgrade - 15xp

This gets you Silhouette +1. Total that can be moved is one object at Silhouette 3.

4th Strength upgrade - 20xp

This gets you Silhouette +1. Total that can be moved is one object at Silhouette 4.

Range upgrade - 5xp

You have to get this in order to get the first Control upgrade for Hurl. This allows you to move objects out to Medium range.

Control upgrade (Hurl) - 10xp

This allows you to “Hurl” objects and do damage to them or with them. Note that you don’t need to spend any extra pips to activate this upgrade.

So, 10+10+10+15+20+5+10 = 80xp. Just over half the XP available after chargen, if you do Knight-level play. Or, less than six games worth of XP, if you’re doing 15xp per game.

With FR1, you spend one pip to activate the base power, and one pip to activate all the Strength upgrades, and you don’t need to spend another pip to activate the Hurl upgrade. Suddenly, you’re doing Silhouette*10 damage to your target.

Spend another 5xp, and you can do this at Long Range. If you want that last Range upgrade, it costs another 15xp, but that gets you the ability to do this at Extreme range.

Now, if you want to talk about probabilities of what you can do based on how many white pips you would activate, then yeah — you’d want more than FR1.

But FR1 is viable, if you’re willing to dip into the dark side. With FR2 and the willingness to use the dark side, you can be guaranteed of always being able to do at least this much.

And IMO, that is the very definition of OVER POWERED .

EDIT: Anyway, I’m done with you.

The thing is bradknowles, your whole point about the Move power being overpowered is the ability to move something up into the air and let it fall, correct?

I'm not missing "clues", I'm simply observing that a character that has gone down three specialization as well as built up all the necessary Move upgrades is a pretty advanced character. That is my point. It has little to do with your PC, it is a general point.

So, now you’re conflating completely and totally unrelated facts with this thread?

I don't believe so. You were talking about how your character would only need another 20XP or similar to get to Force Rating 3 followed by "...and then FR4". My point to you was that it's not a question of what your PC can do, it's that to get here a character has to go to the bottom of three specializations (or, just to be complete, you can get there a level earlier with Sage and Pathfinder out of pity by the designers given the rest of those specializations' talents). And you have to buy up all the necessary upgrades too. I'm just pointing out that this is a fairly advanced character.

Except as already explained, you can't do this. You're not spending two pips to "toss around an AT-AT”.

Actually, try re-reading the description again. With the Hurl upgrade, plus all the Strength upgrades, with just two pips you can do PRECISELY THIS .

With the Range upgrades, you can toss that AT-AT further and further up into the air, or away from you, or wherever you might like, so long as it is within your range limitations.

I am familiar with the text. I'm saying that your reading of them is off. If you want a strict reading of the powers, then you can't actually damage the object you're "hurling" at all - it's purely for harming the target with what you Moved. It's just a common house rule to say that you can do equal damage to the object you've thrown to what you've thrown it at. People make that house rule because, e.g. they think it's silly that you could throw a vase at an astromech and the droid takes damage whilst the vase is fine. Which is fine. But if you want to be rules-strict, you can't actually damage the missile at all with this power. When you see a Jedi in the prequels hurl a droid backwards into a wall damaging it, that's actually represented by Bind in this system - this is the power that refers to actual enemies and targets and results in them temporarily immobilized or damaged such as being flung backwards or force choked (the dark side variation in the Mastery upgrade). A lot of what is all one thing in the movies or cartoons is split into multiple powers in the game system. So Leia sensing where Luke is on the bottom of Cloud City and Luke sensing that his friends are in danger from Dagoba, are both in the films all just mystical forcey-worsy ESP but in the game they're the Sense and Forsee powers respectively, i.e. separate things. Similarly, telekinesis in the film splits out into separate powers like Bind, Move and Force Leaps. Sure, Vader lifting the AT-ST off himself in Rebels and choking that admiral who lacked Faith are both just telekinesis, but they're separate powers. Adding the same damage to the vase that strikes the astromech's head is actually just a GM adding common sense / narrative flavour as the section on Force rules advises a GM to do.

You're already making a house rule to damage what you throw with Move as the rules don't tell you to do so. And you're doing it against the intent of the rules to some extent because if Move can do everything - knocking people over, pinning them by holding them in the air, damaging them by telekinetic force - then what is the purpose of the Bind power? You've taken a bit of GM sensibleness (if what I'm throwing is fragile, shouldn't it be damaged too?) and extrapolated into this hyperbole about flying AT-ATs ("tiddly-winks" being your exact words). Given even with this common house rule you still can't damage an AT-AT, you shouldn't be describing this like so.

Nothing else you can possibly say can change the facts of the way the powers and rules are written.

I've nowhere said what is written is wrong. I'm saying you're reading too much into things and creating a mess for yourself. There's a Control upgrade that lets you now damage people by "hurling" things at them. You know how I would handle that? If someone took a hydrospanner as their missile it would fly across the room and strike their target (subject to Discipline check for attack roll). If it's a vehicle it would probably slide into them or tip over onto them. After all, does an AT-AT need to go tearing through the air like a cricket ball in order to damage someone? Making it step on someone will do just fine. Fits the lack of damage to the AT-AT as well.

That would be with a non-piloted object. If it's an active target, I would normally make the power use an Opposed Roll as suggested by the book (unless I have Minion AT-ATs in which case my game has become very high level indeed. ). But lets assume an empty AT-AT for the sake of your argument. All I've said so far is still valid.

Went over maximum allowed number of quotes - continuing in next post.

...continued

You do not understand. If the rules say that the outcome is that the AT-AT ends up two range bands away and takes no damage, what makes most sense - that it was driven or slid backwards, or that it shot up into the air like an electrified squirrel and plummeted powerless to crash into the ground from the heavens?

With the Hurl upgrade, as has been repeatedly discussed, you really are tossing or “hurling” the object, at least within your Range limitations. And if you should happen to “Hurl” that object straight up into the air and then let it fall, the damage done will be according to the Falling Damage rules.

No for two reasons. Firstly, with the basic power you are able to move something to a different range band up to your maximum. If you buy all Range upgrades and sufficient Magnitude / Force Dice to move an AT-AT to Extreme range, you know what you've done? You've moved the AT-AT to Extreme range band. Which the book gives as about as far as you can shout. The fact that Extreme range is defined in such terms should really give sufficient hints that this is a narrative-based rules system. Regardless, all we have is that the AT-AT is now at Extreme range which brings us to the second point. It's YOU who is deciding that this is straight up in the air and that's where the AT-AT starts its next turn. Me, I'd do something like the following:

"Marshalling the power of the Force, you extend your hand at the war machine and it scrabbles for purchase on the snow, slipping and scrabbling as it grinds backwards helplessly. You can only imagine the look or mortal terror on its pilot's face."

Remember that a round is not an instant moment, it's a minute of time or thereabouts. How far can you shout? Half a mile? Probably less. More like a fifth of a mile, I would say. Yodelling evolved for people in mountains, but we're talking speech here. Anyway, the point is that whilst a moving at a mile per five minutes (a brisk running speed) is no doubt pretty horrifying to see someone do to an AT-AT, it's not "tossing them through the air like tiddly-winks". It's more at the low-end of skidding in a car. I keep banging on and on about how this is a narrative-based rules system. This is why. You keep attempting to turn it into a non-narrative game system like D&D or 1st Edition Mage. You want something equivalent to "you can move X object Y metres in any direction of the players choice". But there is no such equivalent. And I don't mean that it just says "Extreme" in place of 300m. I mean it's not just a substitution. You're not supposed to work it like this. The rules give you an outcome - the AT-AT is now at Extreme range. It's you who are trying to turn this into AT-AT rain and add Falling Damage rules in place of the damage formula actually given under the Move power.

It isn't "easy" to get to such levels. The rules are written to be open-ended so that people who want this can have it. But it is not "easily" done.

Actually, it is. Apparently, you need someone to do the math for you, so here goes:

I don't need someone to do basic arithmetic for me, thanks. If a player wants to One-Trick Pony themselves and put everything into Move as you list it out in your post, then you're still missing things like being able to pull off a Daunting Discipline roll and by trying to keep the XP down for the sake of your argument and sticking with just one Force dice, they have an even lower chance of pulling this off than before. And they're STILL not sending AT-ATs flying through the air like tiddly-winks.

With FR1, you spend one pip to activate the base power, and one pip to activate all the Strength upgrades, and you don’t need to spend another pip to activate the Hurl upgrade. Suddenly, you’re doing Silhouette*10 damage to your target.

Again, you're skipping over things such as the Daunting Discipline roll. I mean if you're going to get patronising and ask me if I need help with my maths, must I in return repeat every time you narrow your focus down to one specific element all the bits and context that are being missed? Anyway, as I've gone into at some length, your narrative description doesn't match up with the outcome the rules give. And even if you apply the popular house rule about damaging the projectile itself, Silx10 wouldn't even scratch an AT-AT which works on the vehicle scale and has Armour 5. Pretty much all of your supposed over-poweredness comes from starting with what you think has happened and then working backwards to find rules you can use for it, rather than starting from the rules and working forwards to find out what the PC has accomplished.

And IMO, that is the very definition of OVER POWERED .

Not being able to damage an AT-AT is the very definition of over-powered?

I'm saying that your reading of them is off. If you want a strict reading of the powers, then you can't actually damage the object you're "hurling" at all - it's purely for harming the target with what you Moved. It's just a common house rule to say that you can do equal damage to the object you've thrown to what you've thrown it at.

It's not an house rule. The description of the hurl upgrade actually said both the thrown object and the target take the damages on a successfull roll.

Forgive the intrusion (and I'm afb to boot so only have the tree text), but the phrase "can hurl objects to damage targets) makes me think that RAW you would need something in the air at extreme range (which most flying craft would be further) to target w/ the AT-AT in order to get it airborne anyway. Assuming that can be done (maybe there's an elevated defense position, or enemies on flying mounts using personal scale weapons), RAW I don't think anything particularly bad happens if the AT-AT in question were to make it to extreme range in the air. An extreme range fall iirc is only like, 30-40 damage and a +75% critical injury. I am pretty sure it says fall damage ignores soak, but I'm not sure it says it ignores armor, so AT-AT would probably take no damage. Even if you let it through, it's only like 3 or 4 vehicle scale damage and in either case vehicles don't take critical injuries. I suppose you could treat it as a collision instead, and I don't remember the specifics offhand, but isn't that just a critical hit? If a player was trying to cheese Move like this I would absolutely stick to RAW and have nothing particularly bad happen to the baddies.

On topic: Thanks for posting this thread, I too wasn't sure I was aware of all the combos, but it looks like it turned out I did. I'm not sure i'd prohibit jury rig on autofire because there are other things it can be used on to good effect (namely criticals), but I would encourage the oft suggested "jury rig only reduces the advantage cost the first time it is activated each round"

The thing is bradknowles, your whole point about the Move power being overpowered is the ability to move something up into the air and let it fall, correct?

Not to speak for bradknowles, but that's only part of it. If the movie and TCW dark-side characters were half as evil as some of the players on this board we have seen this kind of thing regularly. But we don't.

The other part is how quickly you can throw large objects around with very little XP investment. It only costs 2 pips to throw a single AT-AT (doing 40 damage), and the XP cost is comparatively minimal. You can do this with FR1, and even if you don't throw it, you can move it. That's my main objection: that the rules allow you to do it at all.

The overpower-deniers like to try to explain these things away with: 1) encourage your players not to be a one-trick pony; 2) the Daunting Discipline check; 3) the Conflict you might generate; 4) the people who might see you and report it to the Empire; and probably other torturous attempts to explain it away I can't recall.

None of which are relevant to my, and I think bradknowles, objections. At the heart of the objection, at least for me, is the flavour. By all accounts in the media, moving stuff is really really hard. Even moving small things takes considerable concentration. These rules don't take that into account, at least not to the degree seen in the movies and TCW. And the core reason for that is that the developers created the Move power to allow for everything up to and including Force Unleashed-type activities.

I want none of that in my game.

I don't care how invested in Discipline they are, or how little they care about who is watching, or how much Conflict they might generate, or how much they've invested in the Move power, I simply don't want the players or NPCs to be able to use Move like the power-as-written allows. It's never seen in the media (so far), in fact it goes against almost every scene where Move is used.

Besides, Move-as-written has zero flavour. It's the boring oatmeal in an otherwise impressive, comprehensive, and flavourful set of Force powers.

The only solution for me was to create my own Move power, which is a lot more limited wrt the size of things, but has a great deal more utility and is far more interesting IMHO.

I'm saying that your reading of them is off. If you want a strict reading of the powers, then you can't actually damage the object you're "hurling" at all - it's purely for harming the target with what you Moved. It's just a common house rule to say that you can do equal damage to the object you've thrown to what you've thrown it at.

It's not an house rule. The description of the hurl upgrade actually said both the thrown object and the target take the damages on a successfull roll.

Huh, you're right. My bad. Thankfully my arguments were based on both being subject to the damage anyway - I just thought that it was a common house rule for some reason, rather than official. To be clear, the reason the AT-AT takes no damage is because it operates on Vehicle Scale and had Armour 5, which is what I wrote originally.

The overpower-deniers like to try to explain these things away with: 1) encourage your players not to be a one-trick pony; 2) the Daunting Discipline check; 3) the Conflict you might generate; 4) the people who might see you and report it to the Empire; and probably other torturous attempts to explain it away I can't recall.

Must we refer to people who don't agree with us as "deniers"? That's pretty offensive. So what - we're like Holocaust Deniers or something because we don't agree with you? "Denier" is a pejorative way of saying "This is a fact and you're just wrong". It's unpleasant.

Secondly, there's no "torturous attempt". I've supported everything I've written, it is in accordance with the rules and it's all fairly clear. You and bradknowles' essential issue is that you apply your own description to the action which doesn't at all match the results that the rules give, and then base objections on the fact that you don't like your description. If you don't like the idea that AT-ATs can be thrown through the air like "tiddly-winks" then stop describing something that doesn't even damage them and at most moves them around 12 miles per hour (Extreme range is shouting distance, i.e. 1/5th of a mile at absolute best, one round = 1 minute) as "being tossed through the air like a tiddly-wink". It ends up X range bands away from you. Nothing there about hurtling AT-ATs or starting your next round high in the air.

and even if you don't throw it, you can move it. That's my main objection: that the rules allow you to do it at all.

Then put a cap on the maximum silhouette of 3 and put a FR minimum on the Move power of (Sil + 1) for the thing you want to move. Two trival changes that will accomplish what I think you want which is that only powerful Jedi can do things like lift an X-Wing or hurl senate seats at each other.

But don't say the rules insist on something that they actually don't.

The overpower-deniers like to try to explain these things away with: 1) encourage your players not to be a one-trick pony; 2) the Daunting Discipline check; 3) the Conflict you might generate; 4) the people who might see you and report it to the Empire; and probably other torturous attempts to explain it away I can't recall.

Must we refer to people who don't agree with us as "deniers"? That's pretty offensive. So what - we're like Holocaust Deniers or something because we don't agree with you? "Denier" is a pejorative way of saying "This is a fact and you're just wrong". It's unpleasant.

Relax. "Deniers" was tongue in cheek, a "quick label" in the same vein as my "evil players" comment a sentence earlier. I'm generally sparing with emoticons, but here's the one for that section if it makes you feel better -->

I call your previous attempts at explaining away our issues with Move "torturous", but at the core I think you simply fail to understand our objection. I don't like what Move allows, and that it allows certain things *at all*. Relying on Conflict or Discipline checks or what have you to rein it in completely misses the point.

Then put a cap on the maximum silhouette of 3 and put a FR minimum on the Move power of (Sil + 1) for the thing you want to move. Two trival changes that will accomplish what I think you want which is that only powerful Jedi can do things like lift an X-Wing or hurl senate seats at each other.

Well, thanks Captain Obvious I've already handled that to my satisfaction.

Having looked the Move power over, I agree that it's not as easily as abusable as suggested. In time, maybe, but not at Knight level play.

Drawing on only the movies (can't recall clone wars or rebels clear enough to count them), i can remember around 30 uses of what could be considered move on screen. I can only remember 2 (Yoda grabbing the pillar to save Obi-wan & Anakin, Luke pulling his lightsaber from the ice) as seeming super hard on the user. Another 5 (Obi-wan jumping to kill Maul, Obi-wan & Anakin during their duel, Luke handstanding training, Yoda & the x-wing, and Luke on C3PO) effort is clearly being put in but i don't remember straining hard. The others (Dooku-yoda duel, yoda-palps at the senate, vader pelting luke on cloud city, luke pulling his lightsaber in from the emporer's chair, etc) all seemed to be made with little to no exertion on the part of the user.

It seems moving stuff in the movies can be hard when the user is doing another force power/action at the same time (obiwan had to leap out of the pit and pull qui-gon's saber at the same time, luke suspending multiple things and using the foresee power), when the object is very big (yoda saving anakin & obi-wan and the x-wing), when it is being resisted (anakin & obi-wan's duel, possibly lifting C3PO), or when you're inexperienced (luke in the wampa cave, and i do remember it being a sticking point for ezra). Normal force users probably couldn't do the senate scene without straining either, even though palps made it look easy.

I just read that force powers (or maybe it's just their upgrades?) can be activated more than once (previously unknown). I'm not sure that's the right call on the game's part, but that's not the point of the thread (or even the move discussion). Thankfully, vehicle scale is never a factor in using move and anything bigger than sil 4 is unlikely to be inside of personal scale for a character to even throw (And I'm doubly thankful for my interpretation of going above Formidible difficulty, i.e. if it would be 6+ difficulty you can't do it, so the biggest anyone could do is a sil 5 in my games). If the damage is too much then maybe trimming to 5 x sil could be considered. That way the 20 damage from something sil 4 is on par with the 20 damage from a missile tube.

I call your previous attempts at explaining away our issues with Move "torturous", but at the core I think you simply fail to understand our objection. I don't like what Move allows, and that it allows certain things *at all*. Relying on Conflict or Discipline checks or what have you to rein it in completely misses the point.

I don't believe so. Explaining that Move doesn't actually do what someone said they didn't like it doing, was exactly to the point. I'm also pretty certain that I said something much earlier in the thread to the effect that if someone simply didn't want an AT-AT to be moveable at all, like you've now started arguing, that my response would just be to offer some helpful houserules that would still be balanced. Which when you came along was in deed my response. So perhaps you missed my point to some degree.

Then put a cap on the maximum silhouette of 3 and put a FR minimum on the Move power of (Sil + 1) for the thing you want to move. Two trival changes that will accomplish what I think you want which is that only powerful Jedi can do things like lift an X-Wing or hurl senate seats at each other.

Well, thanks Captain Obvious I've already handled that to my satisfaction.

Well it's not all about you. Others might find it useful. But either way, it's off-topic as what bradknowles claimed needed fixing wasn't actually something that happened in the rules as written anyway. You've moved on to a different problem - which is that you don't want someone to be able to move the AT-AT to any degree at all. Which you say you already have handled to your satisfaction so what's the problem?

Having looked the Move power over, I agree that it's not as easily as abusable as suggested. In time, maybe, but not at Knight level play.

Agreed - you can get there in the end! But then many things are if you throw a lot of XP at them. I've heard some people say that it's around the 800XP mark that the game really starts to have serious issues. You can run into problems before then (such as the super-soaker marauder I mentioned earlier), but 800 is what I heard becomes problematic regardless. Not sure, myself. I built a PC version of Vader to use as a template for my simplified Nemesis version and it looked like it would be playable in a game, though terrifying by normal game standards. I think I had him around the 1,800XP level though I'd have to break out the character sheet to check. No matter how many XP you spend in this system, being shot by an AT-AT is going to mean a bad day. The system is open-ended but you hit diminishing returns, mostly. Move is open-ended but not that game-breaking in play. I mean sure with endless XP you could move a Star Destroyer. But when you're infiltrating some base, do you have one to hand? And if you do how do you hit someone with it without hitting yourself as well? Unleash is theoretically open-ended in that with everything maxed out you can increase the damage by 4 per pip you spend on doing that. If I were given infinite XP and told "break this game", I would probably make a Force Using Marauder who had maxed out Unleash and as many Force dice as possible.

But I'd still run away the moment an AT-AT pointed its guns at me!

Which you say you already have handled to your satisfaction so what's the problem?

You'll note I wasn't originally responding to you, but to leo1925, expanding the scope of at least my objection and explaining the foundation. That was all.

The other part is how quickly you can throw large objects around with very little XP investment. It only costs 2 pips to throw a single AT-AT (doing 40 damage), and the XP cost is comparatively minimal. You can do this with FR1, and even if you don't throw it, you can move it. That's my main objection: that the rules allow you to do it at all.

Ditto.

The overpower-deniers like to try to explain these things away with: 1) encourage your players not to be a one-trick pony; 2) the Daunting Discipline check; 3) the Conflict you might generate; 4) the people who might see you and report it to the Empire; and probably other torturous attempts to explain it away I can't recall.

Overpower-deniers. Good one. I like that!

None of which are relevant to my, and I think bradknowles, objections. At the heart of the objection, at least for me, is the flavour. By all accounts in the media, moving stuff is really really hard. Even moving small things takes considerable concentration. These rules don't take that into account, at least not to the degree seen in the movies and TCW. And the core reason for that is that the developers created the Move power to allow for everything up to and including Force Unleashed-type activities.

I want none of that in my game.

Me too. In the game that I am now running, it was my own character that was getting into the Move tree, and I was looking at how powerful and game-disrupting that can be, even without tossing around AT-ATs.

If you can reliably disarm the enemy, or reliably flip a switch from a long distance away, that really changes the whole flavour of the game.

How interesting would the initial scene from RotS have been if Anakin could just casually reach out with the Force and grab the buzz-droids and move them away so that they aren’t a threat? How interesting would the elevator shaft scene have been if they could just use the Force to create their own elevator?

Having looked the Move power over, I agree that it's not as easily as abusable as suggested. In time, maybe, but not at Knight level play.

I can abuse it at chargen, with just 60xp.

What part of that is not OP?

Which you say you already have handled to your satisfaction so what's the problem?

You'll note I wasn't originally responding to you, but to leo1925, expanding the scope of at least my objection and explaining the foundation. That was all.

Forgive me, but your post was actually about what "the deniers try to excuse with their tortuous arguments" which I took to be referring to myself. And which you confirmed when I did so. I don't think anybody here thinks you weren't referring to people such as myself whether you were talking to me or past me. So I don't think a response from me is uninvited. Regardless, your objection is one that you disagree with the design-intent of the rules - a PC should not be able to move an AT-AT ever. That's different to bradknowles claiming the rules allow throwing AT-ATs around like tiddly-winks which they don't, or insisting that it's overpowered when you can't even damage an AT-AT with this power.

So I don't think a response from me is uninvited.

Sure, fire away. But you asked "so what's the problem", which implies that I shouldn't have posted anything explaining my point of view now that I have a solution.

That's different to bradknowles claiming the rules allow throwing AT-ATs around like tiddly-winks which they don't, or insisting that it's overpowered when you can't even damage an AT-AT with this power.

IMHO, you're making too big a deal over poetic license, which is what I understood "tiddly-winks" to be. The point is, it's far too easy to do for the flavour we want. Whether or not you can damage AT-ATs is irrelevant...you can use them as ammo readily enough to damage *other* things.

Having looked the Move power over, I agree that it's not as easily as abusable as suggested. In time, maybe, but not at Knight level play.

I can abuse it at chargen, with just 60xp.

What part of that is not OP?

No. Not for less than 105XP would it even start to be a viable option in combat, and that's with perfect rolls every time.

The overpower-deniers like to try to explain these things away with: 1) encourage your players not to be a one-trick pony; 2) the Daunting Discipline check; 3) the Conflict you might generate; 4) the people who might see you and report it to the Empire; and probably other torturous attempts to explain it away I can't recall.

Overpower-deniers. Good one. I like that!

Well I find it offensive in its connotations and a bit ad hominem but if that's what you're aiming for...

Me too. In the game that I am now running, it was my own character that was getting into the Move tree, and I was looking at how powerful and game-disrupting that can be, even without tossing around AT-ATs.

If you can reliably disarm the enemy, or reliably flip a switch from a long distance away, that really changes the whole flavour of the game.

How interesting would the initial scene from RotS have been if Anakin could just casually reach out with the Force and grab the buzz-droids and move them away so that they aren’t a threat? How interesting would the elevator shaft scene have been if they could just use the Force to create their own elevator?

Well the problem with an RPG is that players will think of all the things that a writer glossed over to make a scene more pleasing to them. If a PC is able to hurl a battle droid back through the air, they're going to demand a good reason why they can't do the same with a buzz droid outside their ship. You're going to have a hard time giving the players any power that they wont use to its fullest effect regardless of what scene you envisaged in your head.

That said, there are some remedies to both of the situations you describe above. For the buzzdroids (minions), you're dealing with multiple targets so even if you've maxed out all the Magnitude upgrades, you need a Force point for every five and you would also need the upgrade to allow you to prise things loose given buzzdroids by design attach themselves to things. It's things like this I keep highlighting because you tend to just say "the Move power lets you do _____" whilst glossing over that this is a whole other set of upgrades different from the Strength ones for the AT-AT discussion. A GM could also legitimately give the buzzdroids resistance and make it an Opposed check. The Hurl upgrade is designed for throwing objects at your target, not so much treating your target as the missile. So resistance checks are a by the rules help here. Finally, he was flying a fighter in a combat situation. The buzzdroids are a complication added to an existing challenge. And that works fine in the game version of this as well. Remember - a game round is a minute long. So the player has to decide whether they're going to keep rolling to Gain The Advantage, make piloting rolls to keep up with Obi-Wan, whatever, or spend the round focusing their mind and jettisoning buzz-droids. The drama is still there if you GM it right. You're never going to be able to stop players coming up with clever ways to use what they have no matter how many rules you change.

For the lift-shaft example, I'm not sure what you're envisaging. Move doesn't let you fly and I've never seen anyone Move something they're standing on, either. Sustaining the Move power across multiple rounds is also something allowed only at the GM's discretion according to the sidebar on that page and at the potential cost of Strain. And you'd still need something to use Move on in the first place.

I can abuse it at chargen, with just 60xp.

What part of that is not OP?

We've been through this. How is it OP? Does it do too much damage for its cost? Demonstrably not. Is it easy to use in this way? No. A repeating blaster is far more dangerous, longer ranged and reliable as a method of dealing damage. And if not damage, then what about the power is over-powered? It doesn't let you survive unreasonable damage or generate wealth or similar. The only way it is "OP" from what you say seems to be that you insist on applying an inappropriate flavour-text to the effects and then back-porting from that a different set of rules to use for it. Unless like Whafrog you simply object to an AT-AT being movable at all in which case that's not an issue of "power" but a disagreement with design intent, nothing to do with game balance.

No. Not for less than 105XP would it even start to be a viable option in combat, and that's with perfect rolls every time.

I’ve done the math. Go back and re-read the post at https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/194635-need-to-know-about-the-powerful-builds/page-3#entry1921771

You don’t need to have the Hurl upgrade to abuse this in combat, from chargen — at 60xp. With 80xp you can get the Hurl upgrade, too. That will get you out to Medium range. 85xp will get you out to Long range. But even if you did have to spend 105xp to get something that could be “abused”, you could still do that at chargen.

And that’s still OP.

If you don't like the idea that AT-ATs can be thrown through the air like "tiddly-winks" then stop describing something that doesn't even damage them and at most moves them around 12 miles per hour (Extreme range is shouting distance, i.e. 1/5th of a mile at absolute best, one round = 1 minute) as "being tossed through the air like a tiddly-wink". It ends up X range bands away from you. Nothing there about hurtling AT-ATs or starting your next round high in the air.

Oh, cool, so if my PCs shoot their blasters at baddies at long range, the bolts move 12 mp/h, too? Do they get even slower when they shoot at closer ranges? At Engaged, the bolts really slow down to a crawl, right? Does Move get slower and slower the closer you are, too?

Of course not. The system is abstract on the concepts of time and distance as well as being vague about the specifics of actions in combat on purpose. That is spelled out very clearly in the rules and is one of the fundamental basics of the combat system. Maths like that do not belong in FFG's Star Wars line, which anybody who read and understood the rules would know.