I think that's the beauty of that power, there are so many ways to describe it. It could be hot air, a fireball, dragons breath, a blizzard, acid, plasma... hot soup! It only mentions controlling the energy, and basic protect specifies it only protects against energy attacks but that's what the upgrade is for.

Ensnare 2 could be vines growing up out of the ground, it could be Ice freezing the target, it could be an invisible barrier, or many other options. Burn could be from fire, oil, cold, acid, again so many choices.

Mastery is the only thing that's more specific in its description, but that's almost as a service to the fans, it could easily be described as something else entirely that is an enhanced version of the particular characters base power.

I love the idea of a low tech world like Weik where Sorcery exists and people walk around throwing fireballs at each other.

Protect is just as broad too, stone skin, bark skin, a force field, a swirling blizzard

It's a really cool power, especially if you don't mind conflict!

My pacifist character is learning Unleash. But wait, you ask: why would a pacifist want to learn one of the most aggressive powers out there?

Because she's self-taught, and for her the arcs of electricity don't look like crackling lightning, they look like the graceful bands of an aurora. She fuels Unleash with emotion like everyone else, but she uses joy and love to do it, and her entire goal for developing the power is to learn how to make planet-scale auroras so everyone can enjoy how beautiful it is.

Protect/Unleash is an awesome, versatile power ! You can narrate it to do a whole lot of stuff! The same character will use the Protect side of it passively to allow her to walk barefoot on the hot sands of her home world without getting burned, like a fakir.

Okay, so, forget Force Powers...

What about some Sith alchemy?

Another choice would be signature powers to attach to individual force trees.

Since Force Lightning is trappings of the mastery level of Unleash, I wonder what the visual trappings of basic Unleash is supposed to look like.

I imagine it could look like anything you want. I recall some examples from the EU over the years, everything from "shadow lightning" (the old KotOR comics), "head-sized orb of dark energy" (Splinter of the Mind's Eye), a sudden mini-hurricane, and so forth. My take on it is to customize the power's manifestation to the individual user, something that fits their style and personality, and stick with that.

For those dismissing future Force powers, may I ask why you buy supplemental material in a line designed to showcase Force-sensitive characters?

While nobody wants repeated Force powers in new books, we have at least four new books to be written/printed for the remaining F+D careers.

I enjoy recalling my days as a FRPG wizard, and wonder how many spells would port to SW gaming. I realize they are two different genres, let alone systems. However, we have Heal effects, illusion effects, and generic boots to physical abilities. I cannot imagine a wizard turning down that list, or prospective Jedi or other Force users. I agree that 'weather' is a nice addition, while 'plants' seems like a missed opportunity from Savage Spirits' connection to living things.

Heck I think you could even narrate the Protect part as Bullet Time or The Matrix Dodge.

Like Kreiger said get creative when your choosing this Power for your character, create the flavour then and run with it throughout.

One thing I thought I should bring up is I'm a bit disappointed with Battle Meditiation in the new system. It's not too bad, but they did miss the boat a bit. The original Battle Meditation had two effects. The first effect, FFG got only half right. that effect of Battle Meditation is supposed to not only enhance your allies abilities and will to fight, but also simultaneously weaken your enemies' abilities and will to fight. FFG missed the boat on this one. There is also another effect of Battle Meditation that FFG didn't include in the power. That being the ability to cause enemies to turn on one another. Both of these effects were used in Tales of the Jedi , which actually introduced the power. The D6 system had both effects as part of that one power. D20 made the Enhance allies as the Feat Battle Meditation , then added the Force Skill Battle Infuence *which required Battle Meditation as a prerequisite) to account for the weakening of the enemies wills to fight and turning them against one another. So, unlike some others, I do see a need for more Force powers, in particular to cover the rest of the effects of Battle Meditation .

but also simultaneously weaken your enemies' abilities and will to fight

I do agree there is no Force Power for weakening you Enemies in regards to making their skill checks more difficult, other than Sense but thats very focused on combat and improving your reaction times. Suppress obviously affects Force Users, but not normal skill checks. Will to fight can be measured with strain, and Influence is highly capable of inflicting decent amounts of strain.

the ability to cause enemies to turn on one another.

Wouldn't the ability to cause enemies to turn on each other be covered by Influence and the first Control upgrade on the right hand column? Believing something which is untrue could definitely be "your allies are actually your enemies" it would also fall into the category of negative emotions and require the Dark Side to power it.

but also simultaneously weaken your enemies' abilities and will to fight

I do agree there is no Force Power for weakening you Enemies in regards to making their skill checks more difficult, other than Sense but thats very focused on combat and improving your reaction times. Suppress obviously affects Force Users, but not normal skill checks. Will to fight can be measured with strain, and Influence is highly capable of inflicting decent amounts of strain.

the ability to cause enemies to turn on one another.

Wouldn't the ability to cause enemies to turn on each other be covered by Influence and the first Control upgrade on the right hand column? Believing something which is untrue could definitely be "your allies are actually your enemies" it would also fall into the category of negative emotions and require the Dark Side to power it.

No. It's not. This was a very specific ability specifically established in the lore as a form of the Battle Meditation power. In Tales of the Jedi , Nomi Sunrider used this on a number of occasions. Meditating on the battle at hand in each instance sh, she created an image in her mind of her opponents fighting each other, moments later, this became reality. The book specifically refers to this as an aspect of Battle Meditation . It's not like Influence (aka Affect Mind) where you tell a Storm trooper that "These aren't the droids you're looking for", or some such. During the Freedon Nadd Uprising, She used the other aspect--Emboldening her allies while weakening her enemies. This too is referred to as an aspect of Battle Meditation , and is the aspect Bastilla Shan used in KotOR. The F&D Core rules only cover half of this aspect, neglecting the weakening the enemies (i.e. making their rolls harder.)

while 'plants' seems like a missed opportunity from Savage Spirits' connection to living things.

It may be that they couldnt come up with enough effects to fill a Force Power tree that kept the Star Wars theme and so they just created the "Force Connection" talent in the Hermit tree which lets you add force dice to your Survival and Knowledge Xenology checks to be able to gain S or A per Pip spent. whilst your not influencing the environment your ability to interact with it will be greatly enhanced.

As far as connecting with the natural world thats what Sense is for.

If we really think about it a lot of the powers people want are in the game in some form or fashion, just not as the powers we used to know and understand. I do find FFG's creative approach to incorprating old powers into the system to be refreshing and will hopefully prevent the bad power creep that I saw in Saga edition when it came to Force powers.

but also simultaneously weaken your enemies' abilities and will to fight

I do agree there is no Force Power for weakening you Enemies in regards to making their skill checks more difficult, other than Sense but thats very focused on combat and improving your reaction times. Suppress obviously affects Force Users, but not normal skill checks. Will to fight can be measured with strain, and Influence is highly capable of inflicting decent amounts of strain.

the ability to cause enemies to turn on one another.

Wouldn't the ability to cause enemies to turn on each other be covered by Influence and the first Control upgrade on the right hand column? Believing something which is untrue could definitely be "your allies are actually your enemies" it would also fall into the category of negative emotions and require the Dark Side to power it.

No. It's not. This was a very specific ability specifically established in the lore as a form of the Battle Meditation power. In Tales of the Jedi , Nomi Sunrider used this on a number of occasions. Meditating on the battle at hand in each instance sh, she created an image in her mind of her opponents fighting each other, moments later, this became reality. The book specifically refers to this as an aspect of Battle Meditation . It's not like Influence (aka Affect Mind) where you tell a Storm trooper that "These aren't the droids you're looking for", or some such. During the Freedon Nadd Uprising, She used the other aspect--Emboldening her allies while weakening her enemies. This too is referred to as an aspect of Battle Meditation , and is the aspect Bastilla Shan used in KotOR. The F&D Core rules only cover half of this aspect, neglecting the weakening the enemies (i.e. making their rolls harder.)

Battle Meditation has a dark side option to force people to obey the command unless they succeed on a Discipline check...which you make harder by lowering their Willpower. That sounds to me exactly like what you're talking about, except that they can't be done at the same time as bolstering your allies, although I could see someone with a Force Rating of 6+ being able to activate and sustain one version, then perform the other.

I wouldn't mind seeing future books add small branches to existing Force powers, like, say, a Control Upgrade for Move that says something like, "You may spend 2 Advantage to knock an affected target prone at the end of the movement."

Protect doesn't really have an "Absorb" ability. I think that's a big one missing that we see in the books: absorbing energy and then channeling it into Force powers.

I wouldn't mind seeing future books add small branches to existing Force powers, like, say, a Control Upgrade for Move that says something like, "You may spend 2 Advantage to knock an affected target prone at the end of the movement."

Protect doesn't really have an "Absorb" ability. I think that's a big one missing that we see in the books: absorbing energy and then channeling it into Force powers.

I'm pretty sure you can already do that with Move.

Also ... and this is just me .... I don't want to see current powers gain more abilities in future books. That adds more bookkeeping to a game that has a fair amount of bookkeeping to it. Now .... notes on how to use current and old Force powers in new and inventive ways would be book space well worth it!

Now .... notes on how to use current and old Force powers in new and inventive ways would be book space well worth it!

Or possibly good fodder for FFG News articles... just saying

Now .... notes on how to use current and old Force powers in new and inventive ways would be book space well worth it!

Or possibly good fodder for FFG News articles... just saying

It certainly would be better use of bandwidth than that last article they published that's for sure.

Yoda's hadouken. I want THAT power. Absorb Force Lightning and then hadouken it back.

Yoda's hadouken. I want THAT power. Absorb Force Lightning and then hadouken it back.

Protect + trigger Strength Upgrades a couple of times + trigger Light Side Mastery since you reduced the damage to zero.

Yoda's hadouken. I want THAT power. Absorb Force Lightning and then hadouken it back.

Protect + trigger Strength Upgrades a couple of times + trigger Light Side Mastery since you reduced the damage to zero.

Like seriously ..... FFG has done a very good job of placing most of what people are requesting in the game already. They really need to do articles on how their current set of Force powers replicates a whole host of other powers while keeping the list of powers manageable.

And if this isn't the best use of Protect in any piece of artwork then i have missed something big

And if this isn't the best use of Protect in any piece of artwork then i have missed something big

Isn't that Move though?

nope, move is never able to be performed as an out of turn incidental. Protect on the other hand can.

This picture would be:

Im assuming this is a Flechette launcher, damage 9+ a couple of success, so 12 total

• Flip a Dp to use out of turn
• Protect base activated 2 pips, lets say 3 success so total of 5(this guys willpower) + 3 = 8
• 4 Strength Upgrades activated once for 1 Pip
• 1 more pip to activate the protect against all types of attacks
• finally 2 pips to reflect it back

So thats 6 pips... need a good Force Rating to pull that off! A 4 at least, FR 5 would be even better. One with the Universe would be a helpful talent here too. so something for a 1000xp character, but thats why its so dm cool.

How about that nifty power where you become a one-with-the-Force ghost when you die?

Or Sidious' "stop people from dying" power?

Or Palpatine's "transfer life" power he used in the EU to transfer himself to a younger clone?

Well, I restrict my players to only use the force powers from books we have at the table.

But I buy all the books... hmm...

And we've already got some Force-ghost stuff in keeping the peace. Since it is a power you only get to use once, I'm glad they are keeping it as just RP flavor.

The clone-transfer thing should definitely be the Dark-side version.