In my game there are issues regarding how force powers are used. Can anyone spare a minute or five to give me and us a breakdown in 5 year old terms how to use force powers?

Two in question would be bind and move.

Specifcs follow: with no point system does one have unlimited ability to move things (bringing down the Star Forge wasn't THAT big a deal bring on some star destroyers!), does it involve rolling force die(ce) with an additional trait?

The PC would be able to move pretty much anything (within reason) once they buy into the different levels of each power. There are levels of magnitude, strength, and things of that nature that would allow the user to Move larger items, grab things from further away, and stuff like that.

The same applies to Bind the only time a check would accompany this would be if the thing they are Moving or Binding can try to resist the action. In that case the GM must make a call to have the PC conducting the Move/Bind to roll a Force check to determine if it works, as well as an opposed check (discipline vs. discipline) to see if they can overcome the resistance they are being met with.

So as GM, based off this, it's my decisions how many X-Wings my move player can move. Yes he has the requisite strength upgrades. What would be the force check, Force die per force rating, plus discipline?

1. All force powers require you to roll Force Dice equal to the Character's Force Rating, less any that are currently "locked" to another power (like locking one in Sense to upgrade 1 attack 1 time per round).
2. The Game assumes you are an LS force user, so for each LS pip that comes up the player can freely use them, to use DS pips the player must flip a Light side DP to Dark, suffer 1 conflict*, and suffer 1 strain per DS point used.
3. Based on the power used (Move) they need to spend 1 FP to use the basic power and each upgrade that they wish to fuel. So to throw a Sil 1 item at an enemy at Medium range, they will need to have generated a minimum of 3 FP (1 each for the Basic power, Strength, and Range upgrades) AND have purchased 10 point Control upgrade that allows them to throw an object at someone (total minimum 35 XP spent). Plus the need to make a ranged attack using their Willpower and Discipline using regular Ranged combat modifiers.

*That is 1 extra conflict on top of whatever else the action is deemed to carry

If the PC is a Dark Sider (Conflict of 25 or less) Then reverse the process in step 2.

If the player wants to throw something bigger than they need Strength upgrades = to the Sil of the target, r if they wish to lift multiple objects then they need Magnitude upgrades = Objects lifted -1, and if they want to throw beyond Short range, then they need Range upgrades for each band beyond short

So in theory to use Move + 3 str upgrades would take a force rating of at least a 2 (1 for move, 1 each for str, roll 2's on both dice).

Taking this up another notch would that mean to activate the entire tree one would need a rating of 12, or 6 with good rolls? 1 for the power, 4 for magnitude, 4 for strength, 3 for range.

One confusing thing is that you can activate all your Strength upgrades with a single pip. If you want to activate them again, that requires a second pip.

Same for range upgrades, and magnitude upgrades.

Yes, this gets really confusing.

So this tells me that full tree would look like: 1 power, 1 str, 1 mag, 1 control for a total of 4 pips (min 2 dice, force rating 2) unless otherwise specified like in Bind where some upgrades are 2 pips.

Generally you want to focus on one type of upgrade at low levels. When you hit FR 2, you can start using an upgrade reliably, but if you spread it out it's going to be difficult. Taking Move as our example: If I want to start throwing things at people and doing a lot of damage, I could invest in Strength (to throw something big) or Magnitude (to throw a lot of things). Now, I could invest in both,as that gives me options, but I can't rely on generating enough Force Pips to power both upgrades at once. I would get more bang for my buck if I grab several ranks of a single upgrade. If I have Strength 3, then with only 2 pips, I can pick up a TIE fighter and throw it. If I have Magnitude 3, I could basically start auto-firing rocks, shards of glass, or whatever debris is lying around, again for 2 pips. That TIE will hurt a lot more, but a smart GM won't be giving you too many Sil 3 objects to throw. Some, of course, because that's cool, but not a dozen each fight. Rocks and garbage should be abundant all the time.

"So this tells me that full tree would look like: 1 power, 1 str, 1 mag, 1 control for a total of 4 pips (min 2 dice, force rating 2) unless otherwise specified like in Bind where some upgrades are 2 pips."

I think you meant 1 for range instead of control (control doesn't cost any extra pips). In that case, if you had those 4 pips you could move (power) 5 objects (magnitude) of up to silhouette 4 (strength) up to extreme range (range). Keep in mind these upgrades can be activated more than once if you have extra pips. For example, if you had 5 pips instead of 4 you could activate magnitude twice and move 9 objects (1 for original, 4 for each magnitude activation), or move a silhouette 8 object instead of just silhouette 4. Check with your GM when activating range upgrades to imply going beyond extreme range. RAW says nothing about move being able to be used in the planetary range bands, but I'm sure some GMs would allow it.

So here's the full situation, I try to ask general questions to get an idea of what should be vs what I've allowed and avoid bias. I'm the GM in this case.

I have a Sith who has 3 str upgrades for Move (more or less can move an X-Wing). I allow a bit of liberalness in use, magnitude for multiple objects is a thing but if I have a row that's close together is that one thing or many? I argue one because I'm GM. We ran into the issue of what, if anything, needed to be rolled for him to smear a bunch of baddies on a wall. He did this two times, maybe 3 (this game I wasn't running). The big issues being 1. What rolls should have been made or are they auto. 2. How long until the fatigue from using so much power hits? We're all used to D&D where a power system is already in place as psionics have. You get X number of points per day to do things, once they're out you're a regular mook. It would seem to do what he wanted to he'd needed to have rolled at least 2 pips on a force die 1 for power and one for the str upgrade. Then he'd narratively be weakened for a time and need to rest before doing so again.

This system doesn’t cause you Strain to use your Force powers. So, if you were Force Rank 5 or 6, and your name was Starkiller, you could pull Star Destroyers out of orbit all day long, without breaking a sweat.

If you, as GM, want to provide a narrative whereby someone can only use Force powers for a certain number of times per day, then that would be a house rule and entirely up to you and in your game. There’s nothing like that in the standard FFG SWRPG.

Personally, I would rule a row of starfighters to be multiple separate craft. But even just picking up one and tossing that would cause a massive amount of damage and smear just about anyone — unless they were a strong enough Force user that they could catch it and throw it back.

Sith who has 3 str upgrades for Move (more or less can move an X-Wing)

Yes, that would allow him to lift up to a Sil 3 object, so long as he activates enough FPs to use the Base power, Str, and Rang (if needed)

Magnitude for multiple objects is a thing but if I have a row that's close together is that one thing or many?

Move allows you to move exactly 1 object. If you want to lift more than 1 you need you use the Magnitude upgrade. So, even though your player has 3 Strength Upgrades for Move, he can still only lift 1 object that is Sil 3 or less, end of story. They will need to purchase the magnitude power to use it on additional objects.

The big issues being 1. What rolls should have been made or are they auto.

The player needs to roll force dice no greater than their Force Rating to activate the power, then allocate the Force Points as desired with a minimum of 1 for the base power and allocating the remainder among Strength, Magnitude, and Range. Then assuming that they are using the power to throw something at a target, they will then need to make a ranged attack substituting Discipline (Willpower) for Ranged (Light) at the appropriate difficulty (1 for Short, 2 for medium, ect).

2. How long until the fatigue from using so much power hits?

If by Fatigue, you mean Strain. Then the user will only take Strain damage If they are forced to use the opposite sided FPs then they are. So your Sith (morality 25 or less) would get 1 strain point per Light Side force pip that they were forced to use. This will then last until recovered per the strain recovery rules.

We're all used to D&D where a power system is already in place as psionics have. You get X number of points per day to do things, once they're out you're a regular mook.

Force powers have unlimited use. However, they require you to generate a specific number of Force Points. As mentioned above, you only take strain if the power requires it or you were forced to flip a Destiny Point to use the "Opposite sided" Force Points (one per point used as detailed above).

Honestly, forget everything you know about D&D, this system does not have anything in common other than that it is also an RPG. It would be like trying to learn how to SCUBA dive using your driving knowledge.

I didn't see it clarified, so...just note that if your Sith PC wants to use move to throw an X-Wing, he also needs the Control upgrade to throw things. Just having the Strength upgrades only means he can lift it and move it where he wants (provided he gets 2 pips to use), but he can't hurt anybody with it (unless, I suppose, they are already down and he just "lays" it on them).

It's the Discipline that's the real kicker: to throw Sil3 objects at a target the check is Hard (PPP), so you need at least 4 positive dice to succeed "on average" and that will likely deal some Threat.

I allow a bit of liberalness in use, magnitude for multiple objects is a thing but if I have a row that's close together is that one thing or many? I argue one because I'm GM.

Narratively, I would let a lot of this slide. Mechanically I would be pretty strict, as Move can get pretty crazy if not watched carefully. Let's say there's a fight in a skyscraper, and a big plate-glass window gets blasted and goes crashing to the ground. Someone goes, "Oh, I want to use Move and start throwing a bunch of shards of glass at the bad guy!" The shards are a Sil 0 object, so no Strength upgrade needed. Without Magnitude, he's only supposed to lift one object, but I have no problem saying that a half-dozen large shards of glass go flying at the enemy, but it's only one attack, for 5 damage plus successes. If he does have a few Magnitude upgrades, he can just machine-gun them at the bad guy, as per the usual auto-fire rules. Why? Because that's badical, and i like the mental image of a Sith lord diving behind a desk as it and the wall are suddenly riddled with a hundred glass shards.

The intent of 'move' in this case is similar to the Force Push ability seen in Force Unleashed or KOTOR where the act in and of itself can cause damage up to death if a thing (person or group of people) is moved from point A into a wall at a rate of speed. Seeing the bit about control makes sense, might this be a good time to abandon 'move' and create a 'push' for the intent of shoving a person or small group of people into things to squish them or is it still move plus strength plus the control upgrade?

The issue taken with magnitude vs strength comes from how FFG handles mooks in game, mooks are treated as a single group entity (p400). Treating a group as a single object for ease and speed makes sense. As a single group although made of 5 or more individuals that take up about the same sil as an X-wing shouldn't this work, for narrative sake and possibly mechanics sake. Control for this is easy, fewer groups of mooks and use fewer but more spread out rivals instead. Intent being that direction matters and coming from multiple directions it eliminates the ability to move an area of things.

I do agree that to use plate glass window shards one would have to use some degree of magnitude due to the raw number, different locations within a 3d world, different masses, etc.

I'd recommend going and reading through the chapter in the Core Book about the Force. Every few months I read a chapter that I've read before just to refresh my knowledge of the rules.

The issue taken with magnitude vs strength comes from how FFG handles mooks in game, mooks are treated as a single group entity (p400). Treating a group as a single object for ease and speed makes sense. As a single group although made of 5 or more individuals that take up about the same sil as an X-wing shouldn't this work, for narrative sake and possibly mechanics sake. Control for this is easy, fewer groups of mooks and use fewer but more spread out rivals instead. Intent being that direction matters and coming from multiple directions it eliminates the ability to move an area of things.

Ahh now I see your issue. While the Minions, when grouped only make 1 attack, they do not really share a wound pool. Also, Silhouette is not really linear either, a smaller than average human is Sil one as is a really larger Wookie. If you need realism, just because you have the strength to lit a 100 Kg weight does not mean you can lift 100 distinct and separate 1 Kgs at the same time.

As it is throwing an X-wing at group of minions would do 30 points of damage plus 1 per success. You can easily describe this as the X-wing breaking apart as it is impacts and spreads the damage over the rest of the minion group.

I would break the minion rule when grabbing them with Move, if the PC doesn't have any Magnitude upgrades they can only grab one at a time. However if they throw the minion (narrated as Force Push) the damage still applies to the group, and you would do 10 + successes, which might take out more than one. They still need to generate 2 pips (edit): 1 for basic, 1 for Strength.

If the Sith PC has Magnitude upgrades then they can pick up more than one minion and use the Auto-fire rule. Say they get 2 hits out of it, the total will still apply to the minion group. They will need to generate 3 pips though: 1 for basic, 1 for Strength (Sil1), and 1 for Magnitude.

Moving with Throw isn't reliable until FR2 (edit: unless throwing Sil0 items). Moving with Throw and Auto-fire is pretty reliable at FR2 (and you can always do the single toss), and is reliable at FR3. This assumes the player is okay spending dark pips.

If you threw something at a minion group, then I’d let that damage be spread over their whole pool.

But if you’re picking up a minion to throw him at something/someone else, that’s different. And it should be an Opposed roll (PC Discipline versus minion group Athletics or whatever, as appropriate), because the minion(s) is/are presumably (an) unwilling participant(s).

Picking someone up to throw them around is a whole new bag of worms that you might not want to open at this stage.

The issue is RAW, there is a lack of force Push. The closest thing is move, which RAW is designed to move single objects (up to as many magnitide upgrades are purchased). I agree with the idea of the X-wing breaking apart to squish baddies.

If there were a Push power I would hope it would be treated as a magnitude power out of the box to push X opponents as there are magnitude upgrades. Strength upgrades would determine speed, control..not sure what if anything needs to be done here. I'll reference Force Unleashed again as well as SW:TOR when we see Setele do her super hero landing and push a group away. I think Malgus also does some pushing in other cinematics.

I also reread things often to try and improve my grasp of things. This last session our group (we started knight level and are around ~300ish XPs in) took on 8 Nemesis NPCs and surprisingly won.I think though that some of the rolls may have been done incorrectly cause there were an awful lot of purple dice used for a primarily melee group.

The issue is RAW, there is a lack of force Push.

Personally I agree with you, and dislike Move enough for other reasons to have made my own Move tree. However, if you stick with RAW you can simply narrate the throw as a push. You can also consider allowing advantages/triumph to be used to cause Disorient or Knockdown effects.

Often times I am very liberal now that I get how triumphs are to be used. I'm becoming more tempted to do my own force powers due to issues of 'You can move a Sil 2 or 3 ship, buuuuuut you can't move a Sil 2 worth of people.

In some ways I almost wish FFG would do a single compendium of force powers, the arguments against doing so make sense.

In some ways I almost wish FFG would do a single compendium of force powers, the arguments against doing so make sense.

I wish FFG had done two Move powers: one for movies and TCW effects (limited flash, with more emphasis on utility and tactical usage); and one for Force Unleashed or TOR effects.

That is a good plan.

Personally I agree with you, and dislike Move enough for other reasons to have made my own Move tree. However, if you stick with RAW you can simply narrate the throw as a push. You can also consider allowing advantages/triumph to be used to cause Disorient or Knockdown effects.

I don’t have a problem with using Force Move as Force Push. I don’t see a need for two separate powers — there’s plenty of narrative room in Force Move to allow it to work that way.

I do wish that the developers had given us more exposition and examples of how the Force Move power was intended to be used in the various ways, based on examples from the movies, cartoons, etc…. I think more concrete examples of this sort would go a long way to resolving most of the questions that tend to get posted and re-posted on these forums, time after time.

What I really don’t like is how easy it is to stack the upgrades up so that someone with FR 4 or FR 5 could potentially pull a Star Destroyer out of orbit. Or, playing tiddly-winks with AT-ATs. IMO, that’s just way, way too overpowered.

If you were to make it so that each upgrade costs a pip to activate, or that you can activate each upgrade only once, then it would be toned down enough that I could live with the rest.

But then we’re off into the realm of house rules. Sigh….