The Misdirect power enables the user to conceal a person or object (in the example I'll use, themself) from another. With the right upgrade they can sustain this effect.

I really like this idea. I think it could make for a terrifying scene in some darkened maze where an Inquisitor with this power attacks from the darkness. The PC is alone, or out of reach of her friends, and the shadows themselves have knives.

I want to know how others would handle two things. Firstly, how would you handle combat where one combatant couldn't perceive the other. What effect does that have when attacking the one who can't see you, what effect does it have on the affected one when they try to attack you - if they even can?

Secondly, how do you handle the Control upgrade that says your opponent gains automatic Threat when attacking you. That would seem to be weaker than most things you'd apply automatically for the former effect. So do you read this as meaning the former effect (can't perceive at all) is not how it reads after all? Or do you add the effects in some way.

Really interested in how people have been / plan to handle this. I love my idea of the living shadows, or fellow PCs helplessly out of range screaming "it's right there? why can't you see it?"

Just remember that there is a very finite limit to the size of a crowd one can Misdirect against. 1 + 2 x Presence (two force points: basic plus double magnitude upgrade?) and if mastery is used + (Cunning + Deception) for two more force points. Effect can be sustained by committing two force dice thereafter. For 95XP plus spec cost.

Of course, if an NPC uses this against PC's the checks become opposed...

And at some point, one wonders if four force points are worth spending just to sneak up on a party of 6

And although my Misdirect character will definitely try this against NPCs at some point (just to show off, if nothing else ), I'll be keenly aware that invisibly attacking a party who are armed with lightsabers after they know you are there will likely be less fun than it sounds!

Just remember that there is a very finite limit to the size of a crowd one can Misdirect against. 1 + 2 x Presence (two force points: basic plus double magnitude upgrade?) and if mastery is used + (Cunning + Deception) for two more force points. Effect can be sustained by committing two force dice thereafter. For 95XP plus spec cost.

Of course, if an NPC uses this against PC's the checks become opposed...

And at some point, one wonders if four force points are worth spending just to sneak up on a party of 6

And although my Misdirect character will definitely try this against NPCs at some point (just to show off, if nothing else ), I'll be keenly aware that invisibly attacking a party who are armed with lightsabers after they know you are there will likely be less fun than it sounds!

I'm actually quite looking forward to the difficulty in affecting more than one PC at a time. I like my villains to have weaknesses that smart PCs can exploit. In the scenario I have in mind, it's a bit of an underground maze. The idea is that it will try to separate them for exactly this reason. It will be quite fun for other PCs to be able to see it but not the target, and maybe an advantage they can exploit.

Yes, it seems it should be an Opposed roll to me to pull this off.

This is just my two cents on this since as the previous poster pointed out your NPC going to have to spend 4 force pips but also commit 2 Force dice to pull this off. Now if he has a Force Rating 4 (SCARY!) he can do this and probably though I give it a 50/50 chance to generate those 4 pips every time in that encounter. Anyway how I would mitigate this is to spend a Dark Side Destiny Point halfway through to 'maintain' the effect. That way if the party is struggling they are now aware of the Destiny Pool to perhaps help them. Yes, being smart PCs is a good thing but sometimes the dice gods just don't like you. Just a suggestion though.

Have I misread this, or are you both talking about trying to target an entire group of PCs? The way I read the power, it takes one pip to activate the power which lasts until the beginning of the user's next turn. If I only want to target one PC with it, that's one pip, yes? Committing two dice if I want it to be ongoing without having to re-roll everything?

Thanks for the replies, both. They're very helpful.

As for "sustaining" the effect, I'd say that it's much like classic D&D, once you outright attack someone, then the effect ends and they are fully aware that you're there. If you want to go "unobserved" again, then you have to spend your action to reactivate the power, meaning the person you sneak attacked will generally get a chance to whack you in between.

Misdirect isn't invisibility but more a Star Wars version of the "somebody else's problem" field from the Hitchhiker's Guide series.
As long as you're not trying to interact with that person, they pretty much ignore you.

Plus, consider it from the player's end. Exactly how is it "fun" for them to try and fight an opponent they can never see and gets to attack them with impunity? Or view it from the perspective of the PC being the one that could "turn invisible" and attack a major adversary with no chance of retaliation because they can indefinitely sustain the effect.

Now, if you had the Inquisitor simply use verbal taunts on the PC (such as Scathing Tirade), that would be okay, as it reflects the Inquisitor slowly breaking the will of their target, all while not giving the victim a chance to effectively lash out at their antagonist.

As for "sustaining" the effect, I'd say that it's much like classic D&D, once you outright attack someone, then the effect ends and they are fully aware that you're there. If you want to go "unobserved" again, then you have to spend your action to reactivate the power, meaning the person you sneak attacked will generally get a chance to whack you in between.

Misdirect isn't invisibility but more a Star Wars version of the "somebody else's problem" field from the Hitchhiker's Guide series.

As long as you're not trying to interact with that person, they pretty much ignore you.

Plus, consider it from the player's end. Exactly how is it "fun" for them to try and fight an opponent they can never see and gets to attack them with impunity? Or view it from the perspective of the PC being the one that could "turn invisible" and attack a major adversary with no chance of retaliation because they can indefinitely sustain the effect.

Now, if you had the Inquisitor simply use verbal taunts on the PC (such as Scathing Tirade), that would be okay, as it reflects the Inquisitor slowly breaking the will of their target, all while not giving the victim a chance to effectively lash out at their antagonist.

But what about the GM's needs? What about what WE find fun.

I think I may have to play it the D&D invisibility way and say you can't conceal your presence whilst physically attacking them. It contradicts the rules in the book though, so I don't like this much. However, I do like the idea of using Scathing Tirade whilst concealed. Now that would be great. Alone, in the dark, hearing those whispers from the shadows... That could be an acceptable substitute for the above that will still provide me with the desired sadistic pleasure of torturing my players... I like your suggestion.

I could see it woring against a Single opponent. Having a sustained effect.

Maneuver in t engage, Action strike, spend strain to maneuver back out of engaged. Thus keeping them hidden, as long as the Opponent hasn't succeeded in countering it with an opposed check or other.

The last time I ran F&D it concluded with a major fight between my players and two Darksiders, one of whom had spent some XP in the Misdirection tree. And the limitations became clear quite quickly, even though she hadn't taken the upgrade that lets you sustain the power.

First of all, you need a lot of Force pips to activate the power on multiple opponents; odds are you won't be able to reliably get that - at least not without paying a lot of strain. Second, it's an opposed check, and in a case of multiple targets I'd rule that it has to be against the highest Discipline of all the targeted characters. Against a single opponent you might run it as an "invisible" foe attacking, but against a larger group you'd have a problem. Even with only two characters they could simply run in opposing direction, forcing the "invisible" character to break the range limit with at least one of them.

To reply more directly to knasserll's original post, I'd give players a bit of leeway with regards to coming up with creative ways of detecting the attacker. Stuff like ripples in the water, footprints in the snow/sand, and so on. Not something I'd normally take into consideration with Misdirect, but once a character knows that he's being repeatedly attacked by someone he can't see I'd probably run things a lot like the D&D Invisibility spell. Another solution would be to look at the "Blinded" result on the critical injury chart, where you have to upgrade the difficulty of all checks against the target twice (three times for Perception) because you can't see them.

Thanks SD, Krieger - both really helpful replies. I think this can work and I do trust my players to come up with clever ideas. Once they realize the fiend relies on isolation and figure out that it can't conceal itself against multiple opponents, I reckon they'll start playing a different game and trying to figure out ways of capturing "it" so it can't get away from them as a group. I'll post up the relevant details of the scenario once I've worked them out. Really appreciate all the responses.

It looks like you have things pretty well in hand here. In a scenario like this I think that the biggest potential problem is that the players get a feeling of "the GM is out to get us" by introducing something they can't defend against. As long as the GM has a clear end game in mind (which obviously you do) it becomes more of a tricky challenge that must be overcome with cleverness rather than brute force.

Misdirect is fairly easy to neutralize with Seek. How ever the better use for Misdirect is not to make yourself invisible, but to make a player look like a bad guy or the bad guy to look like a pc.

The invisible attacking dude causes problems if they have no way to find and deal with it. How ever the guy who makes himself look like a pc in a maze does allow for the players to figure out and deal with the threat in less frustrating ways.