So, I've got this Jedi player who wants to use this power (Force Influence) in every situation, including mid-combat. Is it possible to use it during combat? The rules doesn't state anywhere that you cannot. But in all movies I have never seen a Jedi use it in mid-combat, only before combat, as a diplomatic solution to avoid combat.

My player is essentially trying to do this: I use my force Influence to try to make him/them feel "in peace, tranquility, or friendliness" so he/they stop shooting.

Can he do that in middle of combat? What a GM can do? Add some setback dices. since the npc is in hostile state of mind? Raise difficulty? Or deny such attempts?

Thanks for your answers.

You don't have to be angry to shoot someone. Er, I imagine.

"Huh, I feel really good today. I was feeling really conflicted about shooting civilians but now I feel at peace about it. Weird. Oh well, time to earn that pay."

Occasionally Influence may end the combat, but not always. If the opposing side can be bargained with, it may help to convince them to cease fire until a mutually acceptable compromise is negotiated (mercenaries can be paid off, gangs can maybe be convinced to find other people to harass, wookiees can be given belly-rubs - a sly bounty hunter may leave you alone if you give them information that leads them to a bigger fish). But that's a story decision the GM (I assume that's you ) has to make on a case-by-case basis. At minimum you could say they attempt defensive actions more than aggressive ones (taking cover / guarded stance instead of aim, for instance).

If their buddies are still getting shot at, however, that should get tossed out of the window.

I probably wouldn't let the base power do much against sentient targets mid-combat. They'd suffer strain (and while its been a while since I've GM'd, minions would take that strain as wounds, right?), but I'm not sure I'd allow as charged a situation as combat to be defused just by a light side result on an Influence power. Non-sentient I'd be OK with them calming down. Using the base power to end the encounter would actually require to give the target so much strain that they must back down.

If they even remotely want to try and end a combat with sentient opponents, I'd say it would at least take the control upgrade, a convincing verbal command, as well as the opposed discipline check (likely with setback dice for combat). Then also note it only lasts a number of rounds before they -stop- believing in the influence power.

It depends a lot on the situation, but on average I'm inclined to say no. It's difficult to focus on a social power when everyone is getting shot. That said, it's very useful to stop a fight before it starts. The player should have the opportunity to stop unnecesary fighting from time to time with Influence.

On the other hand, if he wants to use the Dark Side to cause fear and force his enemies to flee during a fight, I can see that working. Particularly after they've suffered some loses on their numbers.

I think that Force Influence can only be used to change a mind open to change. That it can't be used to whisk a conclusion out of nowhere, but it has to be something a character would reasonably think in a situation. Such as.

(Hired Bounty Hunters pulling arms on the group as an imtimidation tactic.

"You WILL tell me where the map to the Hutts treasure is."

The force sensitive, undeterred by this display of brutishness, decides diplomancy is the best option and applies mind trick.

"Please friend. This is a Hutt's treasure we are talking about. Even if we shared it among us, we would all likely be rich to the end of our days. Lets work together on this one and get there first."

or

"Pfft, please, you think this fellow even knows where the treasure is? Those tales are as old as the star in this system."

"You know what..." *lowers guns* "this was a stupid thing to pick a fight over."

Not

"I wish to influence the stormtrooper squad that is shooting at us! We are innocent!"

"You try and reach out, but you find your mind clad in displined rage and adralin, peace at this point is the most distant emotion, however, by tweeking their thoughts ever so slightly, they believe those crates over there might be concealing a flanker..."

E.g. in every time we have seen influence, the user hasn't been hostile to the user or has alternative lines of thought. for example, those either are or are not the droids that stormtrooper is looking for. He doesn't greatly care beyond personal interest, thus it's easy for him to dismiss them quite readily.

I don't see why you couldn't use the first control upgrade to stop combat. i.e. "I am your commanding officer. Cease fire!" or "Hold up, I'm on your side!". The force allows you to make someone believe something blatantly untrue, at least for a few rounds. But as stated before, this assumes your friends aren't firing back at them.

Mechanically it works like this: During Combat you'd use the Strain generated by the Basic power to represent the breaking down of the targets will to fight during the chaos of battle. Once the PC has overcome the targets threshold they surrender or run.
As for using the Control Power to end Combat this is how I do it: because of the nature of Combat (or any very stressful situation) a Success would indicate that the target is more susceptible to the PC's desires, not just automatically willing to give up, so I add a Boost die to an Opposed Charm/Coercion/Deception/Leadership or Negotiation roll. A Success with this roll would be the one that gets the target to surrender or run.

EDIT: I re-read the RAW and you would add either a Success or Advantage for each Force Point allocated not just a Boost die.

Edgookin, on 19 Jan 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

I don't see why you couldn't use the first control upgrade to stop combat. i.e. "I am your commanding officer. Cease fire!" or "Hold up, I'm on your side!". The force allows you to make someone believe something blatantly untrue, at least for a few rounds. But as stated before, this assumes your friends aren't firing back at them.

It would work if you have enought upgrade to affect more than one person and you can maintain to power for a couple of round.

So, I've got this Jedi player who wants to use this power (Force Influence) in every situation, including mid-combat. Is it possible to use it during combat? The rules doesn't state anywhere that you cannot. But in all movies I have never seen a Jedi use it in mid-combat, only before combat, as a diplomatic solution to avoid combat.

My player is essentially trying to do this: I use my force Influence to try to make him/them feel "in peace, tranquility, or friendliness" so he/they stop shooting.

Can he do that in middle of combat? What a GM can do? Add some setback dices. since the npc is in hostile state of mind? Raise difficulty? Or deny such attempts?

Thanks for your answers.

Personally, I don't think it works that way at all, especially in combat. It's not outright mind-control.

I'd start giving that Jedi character "cheese points" that you can call in later to cheese him with wacky applications of other people's special abilities...

The only time I'd let it work in combat is if it's used to tip someone who is caught between thoughts or emotions into one particular state -- someone who is hesitant to fight but following orders could be persuaded to stop, someone who is on the verge of fleeing could be made to say "screw this" and run, someone who is fighting because they think there's profit in it could be convinced that there's a better way to profit, etc.

In general, though, once the fighting starts, it's too late for the hand-wavey mind-tricky stuff.

So the Control upgrade mentions it can work in combat for 1 round. The Duration upgrade mentions extending the effects by 1 round per upgrade in combat. So, you can definitely make an opposed Discipline check, as per the power to use Influence on one or more enemies in combat. The question is what does success mean? Do they adopt a tranquil state and cease attacking? Do they immediately change their tactics to deal with what you made them believe? Does attacking them in the next initiative slot break the effect? All these questions should be answered based on the situation. Did the discipline check result in a good deal of success, advantage, and /or triumph? Maybe the fight ends as the opponents are temporarily pacified to the point of not resisting. Did you barely succeed? Maybe they have a setback on their next combat check. Keep in mind this won't typically be easy to accomplish. A 6 man squad of stormtroopers will count as willpower 3 discipline 5. That's a harsh pool to roll against.

All told, as a GM, I'd prefer if my players stuck to using the base power plus strength plus magnitude in combat, and just strain the brains of the enemies. However, RAW does call out that the control upgrade can be used in combat, it just doesn't spell out exactly what to do with it. However, for structured play, I prefer to stick with structured rules, for unstructured play, go nuts.

Now, onto the hidden theme here, of one-trick ponies. Encourage the player to try other things. Nothing against being really really good at something, but typically if any player tries to answer every situation with one ability, I believe fun starts to deteriorate for others. This could be Influence, a jury-rigged heavy blaster rifle, Move, Deception, whatever. It generally (not always, and maybe not this player's intent) speaks of a desire to have The One Ability. The power that answers all problems, that kind of thing. It's not fun for anyone else if one person can dump all their XP into one power and solve all the problems. I hope this is not the case.

So, I've got this Jedi player who wants to use this power (Force Influence) in every situation, including mid-combat. Is it possible to use it during combat? The rules doesn't state anywhere that you cannot. But in all movies I have never seen a Jedi use it in mid-combat, only before combat, as a diplomatic solution to avoid combat.

My player is essentially trying to do this: I use my force Influence to try to make him/them feel "in peace, tranquility, or friendliness" so he/they stop shooting.

Can he do that in middle of combat? What a GM can do? Add some setback dices. since the npc is in hostile state of mind? Raise difficulty? Or deny such attempts?

Thanks for your answers.

Personally, I don't think it works that way at all, especially in combat. It's not outright mind-control.

I'd start giving that Jedi character "cheese points" that you can call in later to cheese him with wacky applications of other people's special abilities...

I think it only becomes cheesy when you handwave it's effects. If you follow the RAW (as I outlined above) where the Power whittles the target down (by applying Strain "damage") and narrate it as working on their will to fight then it's fine. My take on the Control aspect IMO also keeps the power from being abused as it is going to require additional actions to accomplish.

My comments are more along this basis; I mind trick isn't a mind control, it just simply makes a person believe in an alternative answer. Plus it wouldn't necessarily be fair to the combat characters if the party face sensitive decided to intercept every attempt of combat like this. It would make sessions very boring, very quickly. So at the very least it shouldn't be used to end conflicts willy nilly, otherwise the Jedi would have used it all the time.

Sure, have it do additional effects, prey on the weak minded to turn on their comrades, or make them sympathetic, or conflicted. Basically it could be an effective tool for targetting weakminded people or; if during a chaotic situation have them turn their attention elsewhere. It's benefits would be more situational during combat however.

I let the mystic in my group "distract" with it, giving the enemy a Disadvantage die.

A similar issue cropped up in the d20 systems and D6 in regards to the "mind trick" power, though for Saga Edition it was more prevalent given how much more powerful a Force user was in that system due to how skill checks interacted with defense scores.

The general rule of thumb I've used across all systems is that once combat is actively joined, if you're trying to make the bad guys surrender via a mind trick, the best you can hope for is to get the leader to call for a temporary cease-fire, which gets broken the moment one of your allies attacks the NPCs. Getting the NPCs to outright surrender is nigh-impossible; in this system, I'd upgrade the difficulty at least once automatically, probably more if the PCs have already attacked using lethal force (i.e. any attack that doesn't inflict strain), and I'd probably spend a Destiny Point as well to further up the odds of a Despair coming up.

Now things like filling the target's mind with fear to make them run away (which would require you to use dark side pips as per the sidebar near the power's description), or leave them confused and thus not able to act at fully capability (reflected by either setback dice or even an upgrade to the difficulty) are within the realm of feasible while in combat. However, there might be some Conflict coming your way from doing either of those things depending upon the situation at hand, which I'd suggest handling on a purely case-by-case basis. Mucking with someone's combat ability so that they can't shoot up a bunch of innocent children wouldn't earn any Conflict (at least from me as the GM), but doing so purely to mess with someone that you know isn't much of a threat to you or your allies might generate a couple of points. Having someone run away from a fight in fear/terror would probably also net you a couple Conflict at my table, as it's not much different from using Coercion (which per the books also carries a suggested Conflict award if employed), though I might mitigate it a bit, down to a minimum 1 point of Conflict on top of whatever you may have earned for using dark side pips.

Why not just use the other application of influence and strain drain them?

From how I understand it, but I may of course be wrong, is that strain inflicted by using influence ignores soak, with the strength upgrade you can cause quite a bit of strain, and with magnitude you can do it to multiple targets... the only question is whether I'm right about the ignore soak bit, and how duration works - kind of like burn or is the duration only usable with the mind-trick bit?

Either way, the strain drain (as we call it around the table) version can be quite effective, particularly against minions, and I treat it as non-lethal, against most minions. In some ways this can have that same effect, going over the strain threshold could arguably turn an encounter (depending on context of course) into a social encounter, where they either give up or become willing to "talk it over", instead killing them or rendering them unconscious.

Thank you all for your replies. You all gave me insights and ideas on how to further deal with this power.

Why not just use the other application of influence and strain drain them?

I think a part of the issue is that the "mind trick" Control Upgrade appears to offer an instant "I Win!" button to certain player mindsets, where as the strain drain is notably slower, especially for PCs that only have a single Force die to roll. Yes the strain-drain is a viable (and rules-legal) tactic to "break a person's will" but it's slower, as the best you can hope for is to inflict 2 strain per FP spent, meaning it'd take 3 FPs to take down a minion. In contrast, a mind trick could conceivably take an NPC of any tier out of the fight with a single FP depending on how lenient the GM is with applying the effects of that Control Upgrade.

Much like it was in prior Star Wars RPGs, the abuse factor of the Jedi mind trick is pretty high. And frankly, there's nothing FFG could really do to combat the situation within the rules without either nerfing the effect into nigh-uselessness or adding a whole list of suggestions for "what if?" scenarios that would barely scratch the surface. After all, players are a deviously crafty bunch, and with their collective imaginations often come up with ways to "massage" the rules into doing things the designers never intended.

What I find pretty cool with the base Influence power is that for very high force ratings (5), and a willingness to spend a destiny point/gain strain/conflict to use dark side pips, the actual "power" this thing can churn out with the upgrades is pretty scary.

5 force die would on average drop what, like 7-8 pips? 1 pip for range, 2 pips for targets, 4 pips (at 2x strain per pip) = 8 strain damage to surrounding targets? Seems pretty potent, reeks of the imagery of a single powerful force user just walking through a crowd of opponents.

I also wouldn't allow the Control upgrade in question (the "These aren't the droids you're looking for" upgrade) to affect multiple targets without a Magnitude upgrade and the appropriate amount of Force points. This goes for minion groups as well as multiple individuals. Remember to apply range limitations, as well.

Just because minion groups share the same wound threshold, it doesn't mean they are all "one target" (for example, just because I pick up one stormtrooper with the Move power, doesn't mean I pick them all up). It is possible to mind trick several individuals; it just isn't easy. And don't shy away from throwing Setbacks into the pool for each additional target either, especially if we're talking about Rivals.

The Charmer tree has a talent "don't shoot" that creates a sufficient tableau for the character to turn a combat situation into a social situation. Insofar as shots aren't already being exchanged in anger, or a pause has broken up the fighting, I think committing if force pips via Influence could theoretically have the same effect.