I have a player that's just managed to dedicate into a brawn 5 rating, and has also purchased the Enhance ability force power. He's stated that his plan is to essentially meditate each morning so that he can ramp his brawn up to 6. But when he says meditate, what he really means is that he's going to sit there and roll his single force die until it doesn't come up with a dark side pip. Are there any limitations I should be putting on this behavior? I feel like it's against the spirit of the game to just constantly reroll the die waiting to trigger an ability in unstructured game play. The only thing I've thought of for now is to make every attempt take an hour or so, in hopes that the player doesn't essentially get a guaranteed, permanent boost to brawn 6.

You don't roll to use Enhance to boost Brawn, you just Commit the Force die, which takes an Action. This means the Force die is not available for anything else. For example, he can't then use it with the Athletics skill roll. But yes, if he Commits the die every morning, he effectively has Brawn 6 permanently.

Personally I'd start racking up Conflict for that, since he's basically acting out of fear.

Many people treat the long term commitment of Force Dice as beacons that Force Users can detect.

Brawn 6 all the time but announcing yourself to every other Force User in a reasonable distance.

When people focus a single stat like that, I generally have to ask what's the point? I've never had a character with more than a 4 in their primary stat. I was always perfectly satisfied (and more than reasonably competent) with a 4 and also got to be good at lots of other things as well.

I'd bill Strain and wouldn't allow it.

When people focus a single stat like that, I generally have to ask what's the point? I've never had a character with more than a 4 in their primary stat. I was always perfectly satisfied (and more than reasonably competent) with a 4 and also got to be good at lots of other things as well.

Sounds like he's trying to min/max a game that's designed to punish min/maxing. There are many tools to deal with this, but at the end of the day it sounds like he needs to understand the cinematic emphasis of the game.

Personally I would give him 2 conflict every day he does this since a Jedi uses the force for knowledge and defense, never attack ( and he's been fling brawn obviously to increase his attack). Also since he's broadcasting his position through the force a sith inquisitor would take notice and start to hunt him down (and bully the group) until he learns he best knock it off.

I'd bill Strain and wouldn't allow it.

I would totally allow it, and make a note of the amount of hours he keeps those force dice committed. The second the PC wants to actually use brawn will him a discipline check to keep it going or the constant light concentration has worn out the character and he lost his mental ability, losing access to that force dice for the same amount of hours.

Besides, each time he rolls he gets conflict has he is literally using the force out of fear, using darkside pips or not is kind of irrelevant in that case.

There might be cases like reasonable expectations of combat and/or ambushed within the day, in which case conflict might not be necessary, but even than constantly using the force requires great discipline and could drain the force users of parts of his powers.

Are there any limitations I should be putting on this behavior?

Yeah, talk to him away from the table and tell him to knock that S off, that it runs counter to the spirit of the game.

Are there any limitations I should be putting on this behavior?

Yeah, talk to him away from the table and tell him to knock that S off, that it runs counter to the spirit of the game.

Are there any limitations I should be putting on this behavior?

Yeah, talk to him away from the table and tell him to knock that S off, that it runs counter to the spirit of the game.

It really is just trying to use it as a Dedication bonus and that's not the intent.

The gray box on the matter in F&D presents a good option as well for nipping the behavior.

Ignoring the Enhance power and looking more at the concept of re-rolling a check until it has favourable results. This system is really designed to not allow re-rolling at all. A single roll of the dice could represent a 10 second conversation or 10 weeks of hard work on making a suit of incredible power armour. But the one thing in common is that the dice are rolled once, with the results representing your characters absolute best attempt at that task.

If a task is so simple that you feel a re-roll should be allowed then there probably should never have been a roll in the first place. Remember a simple check can have far reaching consequences if they succeed with a larger amount of Advantage or Triumph, polishing your shoes should not be the only task required to win the heart of your true love.

Are there any limitations I should be putting on this behavior?

Yeah, talk to him away from the table and tell him to knock that S off, that it runs counter to the spirit of the game.

This is no joke: I sincerely wish I could play at Desslok's table.

Is there a Kickstarter or Patreon I can subscribe to so I can be part of the game as well? Or in Marcy's game for that matter.

Are there any limitations I should be putting on this behavior?

As others have said you commit, not roll.

In that vein, the rules suggest that when a player commits a die and maintains it across encounters they not be allowed to regain strain at the end of encounters. That won't seem bad at first, but it'll add up fast.

In that vein, the rules suggest that when a player commits a die and maintains it across encounters they not be allowed to regain strain at the end of encounters. That won't seem bad at first, but it'll add up fast.

And if Mr. Min-Maxxer drops the committed Force die just so that he can recover Strain and then re-commits that Force die, then the next time he drops the committed Force die to recover Strain again, he should find that it doesn’t work.

And the next time he tries that, maybe he finds out that he can’t re-commit the Force die at all for the rest of that session.

I'm really confused by the tone of this thread. There seems to be a prevaling notion that using Enhance (the Force power that allows you to increase your Brawn) to increase your Brawn is contrary to the spirit of the power, or the system, or both.

This perplexes me.

Why so many made up suggestions on how to punish someone for using a Force power? If you have a player at your table who is ruthlessly min/maxing in a way that's disrupting the the fun for the other players, that should be evident through actions they've taken in the game that cause problems. Simply getting your Brawn to 6 hardly counts, in my opinion, as the kind of munchkinery that needs to be dismissed out of hand...and if you believe it is, perhaps you should have said something to your player when they bought their 5th rank in Brawn?

I don't know, I feel like posters here often jump to answer questions as though the OP is gaming with the worst players imaginable. Issuing strain or conflict for simply using a force power (as intended!) smacks of heavy-handed GMing to me: if there's an issue with what your player is doing with their 6 Brawn, then by all means create penalties (ideally after talking with the player, explaining my they're being disruptive, and why you need to levvy these additional penalties), but I don't understand the assumption that the player is acting out of fear or aggression. Comitting a Force die is a fairly heavy cost to gain a Dedication talent, especially at something the player is already so good at. But if that's what they've built their character to do, why allow them to build that character, and then not allow them to do the thing they've been built to be good at?

It's already been pointed out to the OP that the player doesn't have to roll at all; they simply get to commit a die, and RAW, benefit from 6 Brawn all the time. Whether or not Force powers in unstructured time should be permitted rerolls is something that has been addressed in other threads, and I generally agree that the answer varies on the power and the situation, but basically revolves around the fact that infinite rerolls could be a valid tactic, so you should probably agree with your players on a method of handling that that discourages it (either don't let them reroll, or allow them to succeed without needing to roll. Enforcing a length of time per roll works too.).

I'm really confused by the tone of this thread. There seems to be a prevaling notion that using Enhance (the Force power that allows you to increase your Brawn) to increase your Brawn is contrary to the spirit of the power, or the system, or both.

This perplexes me.

Why so many made up suggestions on how to punish someone for using a Force power? If you have a player at your table who is ruthlessly min/maxing in a way that's disrupting the the fun for the other players, that should be evident through actions they've taken in the game that cause problems. Simply getting your Brawn to 6 hardly counts, in my opinion, as the kind of munchkinery that needs to be dismissed out of hand...and if you believe it is, perhaps you should have said something to your player when they bought their 5th rank in Brawn?

I don't know, I feel like posters here often jump to answer questions as though the OP is gaming with the worst players imaginable. Issuing strain or conflict for simply using a force power (as intended!) smacks of heavy-handed GMing to me: if there's an issue with what your player is doing with their 6 Brawn, then by all means create penalties (ideally after talking with the player, explaining my they're being disruptive, and why you need to levvy these additional penalties), but I don't understand the assumption that the player is acting out of fear or aggression. Comitting a Force die is a fairly heavy cost to gain a Dedication talent, especially at something the player is already so good at. But if that's what they've built their character to do, why allow them to build that character, and then not allow them to do the thing they've been built to be good at?

It's already been pointed out to the OP that the player doesn't have to roll at all; they simply get to commit a die, and RAW, benefit from 6 Brawn all the time. Whether or not Force powers in unstructured time should be permitted rerolls is something that has been addressed in other threads, and I generally agree that the answer varies on the power and the situation, but basically revolves around the fact that infinite rerolls could be a valid tactic, so you should probably agree with your players on a method of handling that that discourages it (either don't let them reroll, or allow them to succeed without needing to roll. Enforcing a length of time per roll works too.).

This force power is not intended to be used 24/7, there is even a recommendation for the problems that this might cause. And there is a strong point for conflict of this action as well. Again conflict is no punishment. You actually can pay resources on char gen to reduce your mortally. It just a choice to make, a mechanic for morally, not a punishment.

I don't see how it automatically generates conflict. Someone proposed that "He's acting out of fear," but there's no basis for that in what we've heard, and being prepared is not the same thing as being afraid.

On the matter of general "rolling until the desired result is achieved', the only time I have encountered this is when rolling to buy goods using the rarity chart. My PCs would keep rolling until they found ITEM X. One player rolled 5 times for 2 days that they were on Nar Shaddaa for an item. Eventually, I just said you will get 1 roll per session for each item you wish to find.

I did this for several reasons, 1) it was taking an hour of our 3 hour play time to do this. 2) The roll is representative of you trying to find a rare item, which is made entirely irrelevant if you roll until you succeed.

My 2 credits.

He's built his character up to be very good at combat, I imagine he's still swinging with Brawn, and Soak 6 out of the gate seems pretty darned good. There appear to be two issues here that people are concerned with, both the manner in which this Brawn 6 goal is attained, and the fact that there is a Brawn 6 combat character. My question is, “Why the concern?”

That is a lot of points to dedicate to a particular thing. Obviously it is something that the player wants to do, and that player is probably quite pleased with himself. He set a goal of becoming a melee god, planned a path, and applied the points and now he’s achieved the goal. Even without armor and only wielding a stick, he’s a fearsome force (pun intended) to be reckoned with by his foes. What would happen if another character did this? If a slicer spent all the points in two different specializations and ran Intelligence up to 6, would he be penalized? If a mechanic took a Signature ability and suddenly the ship was invulnerable? If a thief convinced the rest of the group to pool all their resources and was able to afford a Stealth field on a brilliant Streetwise roll before the GM was ready for it? Should these actions be punished?

His crime seems to be doing it in a way that caught the OP by surprise, and didn’t quite mesh with the OP’s view on how that should have come to be. While admittedly, he is the GM, the whole reason the players play is to be part of the fun.

What is the harm in letting him have it? Well it takes your adventures in new directions, and means more varied challenges, as we all know what the problems that Combat God PCs can bring … to TPK or Not to TPK. You’ll have to come up with encounters and challenges that aren’t just straight combats. And as others have mentioned, there are more penalties and punishments to be mete out story wise that the OP shouldn’t have to resort to merely telling the player that he’s playing his character wrong. At least not out of game. In game consequences are far superior to simple GM fiat. Inquisitors are great like that.

If as GM you have a problem with what the player does with his character, then put him in situations where Brawn is not an asset. Puzzles, social encounters and technical problems don't use brawn for solutions (usually). Pretty soon he'll see the value of having that force die to enhance something else.

I don't see how it automatically generates conflict. Someone proposed that "He's acting out of fear," but there's no basis for that in what we've heard, and being prepared is not the same thing as being afraid.

Using constantly your force powers to be "prepared" fits rather well the bill of fear. It the same as building a police state just to be prepared in case someone might decide to do something bad. Sure, it certainly allows you to be prepared if you tap each and every telefon in the country, but it speaks volume of your fears as well. It lacks confidence in his ability to actually see danger coming in time and just use his powers when he really thinks he need them. There is as well a pretty obvious example for not using the force constantly even when you could: Yoda is not jumping around and throwing away his cane all the time, but only when he needs to, he does not waste the force for personal gain or just in case something happens.

And btw, the next stop to using enhance 24/7 would be to use sense 24/7 as well, just to be "prepared" and sense any hostility directed at you and dodge in time, etc you totally could commit a die to that as well, it's even more effective in most cases, but it comes with the same kind of issues too.

And again, conflict ain't a punishment, it just a mechanic to determine the alignment and morality of a force wielder. I am pretty sure that plenty of darksiders indeed keep their powers running most or even all the time. Hard to imagine that Palpatine is going to sleep without his sense powers still running, just in case someone tries to kill him in his sleep …

I appreciate all of the feedback, it's a decision I didn't want to make in a vacuum. My player mentioned rolling the die to activate it before I'd read the power myself, now that I know there's no roll involved it solves half my problem. I'm not opposed to allowing him to walk around with it activated long term, but there definitely need to be consequences/draw backs to long term Force usage like that.

I appreciate all of the feedback, it's a decision I didn't want to make in a vacuum. My player mentioned rolling the die to activate it before I'd read the power myself, now that I know there's no roll involved it solves half my problem. I'm not opposed to allowing him to walk around with it activated long term, but there definitely need to be consequences/draw backs to long term Force usage like that.

Glad your getting the answers you need. In which case I would suggest starting with the guidelines in the FaD core book. The suggestion is that they don't get to recover Strain after each encounter while the dice remain committed.

I have a character who uses sense fairly frequently as a defensive talent. I don't have it toggled on all the time though; only when I know that I'm about to start an assignment or if I have a good idea an encounter is coming. However, I also have farsee so even if my force powers are not commited; I still get the bonus of using my uncommitted force dice to improve my initiative check, which is a win win for character design and adaptability that I will usually get someone to react first to a surprise encounter.

I would not allow for someone to have enhance committed all the time, such skills require some degree of mental strain that makes it unviable to maintain for hours on end. However, I wouldn't "turn" these enhancements off after a encounter as if the characters got into one scrap, or one part of the mission, he/she will still be aware of more difficulties to come.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is narrative tools; I would consider using Triumphs or despairs to turn a commit buffs off, whether it's a nasty wound that pulls them out of the trance or a slip knocked the wind out of them. There's plenty of narratives where person with super natural powers are nay on invulnerable while it is active yet being winded or stunned makes them much more vulnerable.

I wouldn't use this trick all the time, I would probably only use it in combat encounters or chase scenes where a hectic series of actions might make it a challenge to simply regain composure. If a character relies on the force to be enhanced all the time, then use in game tools to narratively strip them of that protection periodically to force the character into a spot that they might find uncomfortable, though personally this character has utterly gimped themselves into making a 6 brawn meathead with few other redeemable qualities.

On the matter of general "rolling until the desired result is achieved', the only time I have encountered this is when rolling to buy goods using the rarity chart. My PCs would keep rolling until they found ITEM X. One player rolled 5 times for 2 days that they were on Nar Shaddaa for an item. Eventually, I just said you will get 1 roll per session for each item you wish to find.

I did this for several reasons, 1) it was taking an hour of our 3 hour play time to do this. 2) The roll is representative of you trying to find a rare item, which is made entirely irrelevant if you roll until you succeed.

My players would do the same, I've ruled that they can only search once on each planet they go to, with a failure indicating that it just isn't sold there by anyone they know. This tends to work out as 1 roll per session too due to how the adventures work out, though I may make your method of 1 roll per session regardless as they may just try to fly from planet to planet looking for stuff to buy if I'm not careful.