Move power clarification

By mopfer1, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

This scenario came up in our game tonight

My turn to act during combat, I state I want to make a Force move check and roll a discipline check to see if I can throw something to deal damage, I fail on the discipline check but have rolled 3 light side pips and 1 dark. Even though I failed on the discipline check don't I still get to use the 3 light side pips to activate other parts of the power if I choose? For instance if I have the control to pull weapons from opponents hands? If the discipline check does not succeed have I lost the ability to use my force pool?

Thanks in advance for all input and clarification!

I find this aspect of Move a bit fuzzy as well, as far as how clear the player's intentions have to be before rolling the dice and how much they can modify that depending on what pips they roll.

That said, in this case I think you have a clear cut interpretation: Activating the power but failing the Discipline check means you hurled the object but missed. In the same way that a character shooting at an opponent can't decide to shoot something else or take a different action if they miss, if you fail to hit someone with a hurled object you don't get to abandon that attempt to do something else with the same action (though in either case a player might use advantage on the roll to generate some beneficial side effect). Even if you succeeded on the Discipline check and hit the target, you couldn't use extra force pips to also pull a weapon, etc., so why should you get to do that on a miss?

Thanks for the clarification! I did some more reading and that does seem to make more sense. I guess it also makes sense that I would have to know exactly what I'm attempting to throw because that determines the degree of difficulty for the discipline check.

So range may be the only thing that could be fluid in this scenario depending on upgrades purchased and pips generated?

I think you're on the right track. In order to assemble your dice pool for the attack, you need to know 1) the silhouette of the object you are throwing to set the base difficulty, 2) whether you are attempting to throw multiple objects at multiple targets, as that increases difficulty, and 3) what target(s) you are aiming at, because they get to apply ranged defense, Adversary, etc. to the roll.

Given that, I would say in most circumstances there isn't much fluidity. A GM could conceivably allow you to switch between targets that have the same defense modifiers or equal-silhouette objects at different ranges if they're comfortable granting you that flexibility. I would probably allow a character to attack fewer targets if they had rolled for multiple but didn't have the pips to activate the necessary Magnitude upgrades, considering they've already made things harder for themselves by increasing their difficulty. I'm not sure whether I would allow a character to throw a smaller object than they had intended based on similar reasoning.

Edited by Kaigen

I believe in raw that opposed checks only applies to rivals and above.

Or put it simply if it has adversary talents discipline check.

Edited by Tassedar

I believe in raw that opposed checks only applies to rivals and above.

Or put it simply if it has adversary talents discipline check.

That's true for most force power applications, but the Control upgrade for Move that hurls an object at a target specifically calls for the force user to roll a ranged attack as part of the pool, so it is an exception to that general rule.

This scenario came up in our game tonight

My turn to act during combat, I state I want to make a Force move check and roll a discipline check to see if I can throw something to deal damage, I fail on the discipline check but have rolled 3 light side pips and 1 dark. Even though I failed on the discipline check don't I still get to use the 3 light side pips to activate other parts of the power if I choose? For instance if I have the control to pull weapons from opponents hands? If the discipline check does not succeed have I lost the ability to use my force pool?

Thanks in advance for all input and clarification!

Since you failed the Discipline check to hit the intended target, that does mean by and large you failed the intended purpose of using the Move power, dealing damage to a target, and thus your action failed (though the power was still "activated" in regards to how your action that turn was spent).

Generally speaking, at least for when I GM, if the player has made a skill check, then the results of that skill check stand with no take backs. So in your instance, I as the GM wouldn't let you alter your intended action (hit somebody with a thrown object) to instead pull the weapon from the target's hand or any other aspect of Move. That's one of the balancing factors of the Move power in the first place, is that while it can deal some pretty nasty damage as the PC is able to hurl bigger and bigger objects, it also means that if you fail the Discipline check then you don't get any result no matter how many FPs you generate.

Im with both Kaigen and Dono, Your intended action was to throw an object at someone (or someone at someone!), failing the Discipline indicates you missed your target... or failed to move the object sufficiently fast enough to cause damage. As mentioned previously you need to know what your throwing before making the roll, so i as GM would allow you to still move that object (or even multiple of them) from wherever they where to wherever the target is, but cause no damage. In this way effective things could still happen, such as moving a vehicle away from one enemy and towards another, moving an enemy away from a vulnerable PC, or creating a road block of sorts for the target to deal with. But it all comes back to how you describe your initial actions and the way you approached the situation.

On a side note, one semi-house rule that I've heard of some GMs using is that for any Force power where a skill check might also be involved, the GM has the PC roll their Force dice first, and then roll the skill check second.

Generally, this is done so that the PC knows if they've got enough Force points on hand to do want they want to do (i.e. do they need to flip a Destiny Point to convert some dark side pips into FPs or not?) before they roll dice for the skill check portion.

Now, I'm not a big fan of this, simply for the notion that at the lower end of the Force Rating spectrum, you could have a PC burn a Destiny point and suffer strain/conflict to convert dark side pips into Force points, and then completely blow the Discipline check.

Of course, the flip side to that is if you roll them both at the same time, since you're only allowed to spend one Destiny Point per roll, you have to decide if you want to flip that Destiny Point now to upgrade your check, or hold it in reserve if your Force die doesn't generate the needed amount of light side pips. So there's pros and cons to both approaches.

On a side note, one semi-house rule that I've heard of some GMs using is that for any Force power where a skill check might also be involved, the GM has the PC roll their Force dice first, and then roll the skill check second.

Generally, this is done so that the PC knows if they've got enough Force points on hand to do want they want to do (i.e. do they need to flip a Destiny Point to convert some dark side pips into FPs or not?) before they roll dice for the skill check portion.

Now, I'm not a big fan of this, simply for the notion that at the lower end of the Force Rating spectrum, you could have a PC burn a Destiny point and suffer strain/conflict to convert dark side pips into Force points, and then completely blow the Discipline check.

Of course, the flip side to that is if you roll them both at the same time, since you're only allowed to spend one Destiny Point per roll, you have to decide if you want to flip that Destiny Point now to upgrade your check, or hold it in reserve if your Force die doesn't generate the needed amount of light side pips. So there's pros and cons to both approaches.

I really hate that HR. It leads to the thought that a Force Check can fail due to not enough LS pips. The dark side should be tempting, very tempting.

There is at least one other force power where trying to shoot for a better version of it then adds a discipline check to the roll resulting in a higher chance of complete failure as opposed to the easier part of it allowing you to use a lesser version. Ill try and find which one.

Edit Found it straight away Bind's mastery option automatically adds a discipline check that could cause bind to fail in a situation, where if you don't choose the mastery option you could use the power without requiring a check other than having enough of the force pips

Edited by syrath

Also often a GM can ask for an opposed check where a Force User (PC or NPC) is targeting an important target - PC and Nemesis are the normal ones - even for a check thats normally unopposed.

Love your Sig too syrath, thats both hilarious and brilliant.

Yeah, the whole "opposed check" aspect that FaD introduced to Force powers is a wrinkle, since at any time that you try to use a power against an important enough NPC you could very well have to decide before rolling "do I spend a Destiny Point to upgrade my check, or save it in case I need to convert dark side pips into Force points?"

I will say this, FFG has made using Force powers far more interesting in terms of rolling compared to WEG and WotC's systems, where after a certain point success was all but assured when using a Force power. Here, you can never reach 100% reliability with using the Force, as I've seen players with Force Ratings 3 and up roll nothing but straight dark pips, including one rather memorable instance where a PC with FR 3 (Mystic/Seer) rolled double dark pips on all three of her Force dice.

I think I'm missing something here. How are we getting Discipline as the go-to skill for the Move attack? The upgrade states "make a ranged combat check combined with the Move power check."

The ranged combat skills are Ranged - Light, Ranged - Heavy, and Gunnery. I'm looking, but I don't see where "use Discipline as the skill" for this is.

There is (or should be) a suggestion in the Core book (I don't remember where) that Discipline is used for that.

Edit: page 120, Discipline skill description. Second bullet point.

Edited by Arctanaar

The sidebar on page 283 also notes that you can default to Discipline for the Force User's check when a Force Power needs one. Previous core rulebooks specifically called for a Discipline check for that application of Move as well.

I think it would not be unreasonable for a GM to determine that, say, Ranged Light is a more appropriate skill to use for hurling objects with Move, but that should be well established early on, ideally at character creation, as the decision of whether and how to get Ranged Light as a career skill adds a significant complication to a character that wants to be able to hit people with Move well. Right now only the Seeker has convenient access to a ranged combat skill and a 2 FR specialization.

Okiday. I can dig it. Thanks!

Sentinel Shadows can get it as well with the well rounded talent allowing them to add 2 career skills of their choice.

I think I'm missing something here. How are we getting Discipline as the go-to skill for the Move attack? The upgrade states "make a ranged combat check combined with the Move power check."

The ranged combat skills are Ranged - Light, Ranged - Heavy, and Gunnery. I'm looking, but I don't see where "use Discipline as the skill" for this is.

Since Discipline was the skill specifically called out for Move in both EotE and AoR, that's what a lot of the community old-timers are used to, so we don't even consider the oddity that FaD didn't cite Discipline directly in the control upgrade like it did in prior core rulebooks.

But as others have said, in FaD the Discipline skill description specifically notes that it's the go-to skill when using the Force to attack someone.