Is it just me, or is the Strength upgrade somewhat underwhelming? It looks to me like you need an extra pip for a max of +2 Wounds, whereas if you just go down the left side you can add Control which adds your Medicine ranks for no extra pip cost. It's almost cheaper (and more generally useful) to just add ranks in Medicine.

I guess if you had a high FR and pips to spare...

That's probably it, the "if you had a high FR and pips to spare..." scenario.

Not all characters that would take Heal/Harm would also be looking to grab Medicine, especially if it's a non-career skill. A Seer or Sage that's angling to be a Force wizard probably won't be too fussed about Force points seeing as how they can get to FR3 with a single specialization, even more so if they're looking to use Harm as their main offensive effect and aren't worried about the Conflict gain from doing so.

It seems that with many of the Force powers, FFG is trying to avoid the "one true path" scenario of how to progress within that power's tree. I agree, there are paths that are mechanically advantageous to take, but a player isn't forced to take them if they don't want to. For instance, a PC that takes Foresee but only focuses on the visions portion but ignores the initiative-boosting side of the power; in terms of mechanical optimization they're nuts for doing so given the perks of ensuring that multiple PCs go first before the bad guys, but the character isn't unduly penalized for doing as they've done. And the same can be said for all of the Force powers, as they're built so that a player can pick and choose how they want to progress, be it taking what makes the most sense for their character or what's the most optimal path to effectiveness.

Its a multiple use increase. Basically your engaged with the dude you roll your pips and come up with 4 pips.

1 to activate 1 to heal yourself then 2 for strength upgrades and lets say you have 2 strength upgrades thats 2 additional wounds twice. So you are now inflicting 14 damage healing yourself for that and if you got a black pip healing 14 strain. Not bad right?

Could it be them trying to avoid another uber power like Move? (Do not de-rail to discuss Move please, you can pick up big stuff, enough said). The fact you can activate strength multiple times, plus the Medicine, plus ignore soak makes for a powerful tool in the wrong hands. Then finally there's the Strain recovery that takes no pips, and wound recovery that only takes 1 pip to use.

With 4 ranks in Medicine and only 3 pips to spend the Force User could inflict a minimum of 7 Wounds bypassing soak, heal themselves 7 wounds and recover 7 Strain! If the characters Intelect is 4 then the number jumps to 10, it maxes out at 14 (7int, 5 med) for just 3 force pips. If ever you want an absolute Tank of an Inquisitor, Or Armorer, then this power is just amazing.

Then for every pip beyond those initial 3 all the wounds/strain numbers go up by 2. So in reality the change to all characters involved could be 6 per single force pip spent on Strength. It's a crazy good deal if you ask me.

Good points all, thanks.

4 int, 4 med and 4 force pips could do 8 damage to 2 targets and heal the Force User 16 Wounds and 16 Strain! You would want an FR of 3 to do it reliably, but wow.

Edit: make that 8 damage to 4 targets, 32 Wounds and Strain recovered!

I don't think it works that way, the text says "the user heals of an amount of strain equal to the wounds he inflicts on one character". I would say you get 8 strain/wounds back (wich is still really good). You can still crank it up with strength upgrades though.

I never got a chance to use this power as Harm on my Sage/Niman Disciple/Healer before we just ended our campaign. She was just to goodie goodie. Very sad as it would do I think 8 plus any extra I could pump into Strength. Possibly hitting multiple targets if I really generated a good force roll.

Of course she had over 100 pnts sunk into the power plus everything she'd poured into Medicine. These were 800 earned xp characters before we finished.

She could heal like a maniac though. I began to see why it was such an expensive power. I was able to heal multiple party members for 8ish towards the end, turning the tide of a couple battles.