Okay, first, let me say that this thread MIGHT have some spoilers for Chronicles of the Gatekeeper. I haven't played it, so I can't really spoil much, but I'm going to ask something it involves, and if you don't want spoilers, you might want to skip it, all together. Thanks!

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So, in Chronicles of the Gatekeeper, you find, almost at the beginning, a holocron. This holocron claims to be the work of a Jedi Knight, Suljo Warde, from the time of the Clone Wars, and, like most holocrons, contains detailed history, philosophy, and rhetoric from the point of view of the Jedi who made it. This one contains knowledge of a seemingly unique Force power, but much of its information is sealed, if you will, requiring extra accessories to further unlock it (even though it seems sort of weird for a Jedi to be this paranoid, but still commit the knowledge to be remembered). As you track down these mcguffins, you gain further access to the upgrades of the power, in question; the campaign actually falls in here, for me, because if all you want is to safeguard the knowledge, you have it, and the mcguffins are useless without the holocron, so there is actually very little incentive to pursue them, instead of just stashing the cube somewhere "safer".

Here are my questions:

1. What is the deal with this Force power being attached to a holocron, in this way? Warde's Foresight has some nice options, I suppose, but compared to, say, the lost, and vaunted, art of Battle Meditation, or Sever Force (thankfully, they skipped this one, so far, I think), it doesn't seem SO huge, yet I can figure out Nomi Sunrider's secret skill, as used by Bastilla Shan, just by trying, but I need a special holocron to use this focused foreseeing? Should other, awesome Force powers have this sort of weird "locked in holocrons" motif?
2. To get further upgrades, you need successive mcguffins. Why? Any other Force power you can further unlock by "practicing". The holocron can give you the basics, letting you know it even exists, which only requires the cube, but why can't you just practice, and unlock the secrets of the power over time, as any Jedi would any power? Is this power impossible to just "learn"? Warde did it, or are we getting back into bloodline powers, unique skills, and some of the other stuff that made the Force more "D&D magic", and the EU less popular?
3. Did I miss this holocron's bonus skills? It's sort of my understanding that, if you take a holocron, you get the career skills discount on two skills within it, as you have ample access to study them. Is that only the one holocron you could take as a starting asset? Are any other holocrons just lore repositories for plot hooks? Otherwise, as a holocron dating from the Clone Wars, I thought it could be cool for this holocron to contain Warfare (not often a F&D skill), and Lightsaber, to help those who maybe picked a Spec that didn't hand out that skill.
4. Further mcguffins further unlock the power. Do you just get these, for meeting the prerequisite, or do you still pay XP costs for the base, and upgrades? Where many power bits mention a cost, I seem to remember this one only saying how far unlocked the cube needs to be.

Well, I think that about covers my silly questions, regarding the cube, and its mechanics. Again, sorry for any spoilers, but I endeavored to keep it vague, so hopefully, you can still enjoy Chronicles of the Gatekeeper.

It's simply due to the construction of the adventure's plot, with "unlocking" more of Warde's special snowflake Force power being the primary carrot to drag the party through the rest of the adventure path.

That Warde was able to make his own personal holocron during a time when the process was hinted to be fairly rare only adds to his "special snowflake" status, or at least it does for me.

The Val Isa holocron from Lessons of the Past at least makes sense as she was from the earlier "golden age" of the Jedi, and was herself a historian, scholar, and artist.

As for the "unlocking" the upgrades for Warde's Foresight, you'd still need to pay the XP cost to acquire them. It's just that the adventure is set up so that the PCs can't spend the XP to do so until after they acquire the appropriate macguffin.

It also doesn't provide any bonus skills, as it's main bonus is providing access to Warde's Foresight as well as a means to learn more about the Jedi Order as it existed prior the Empire's rise.

1. It's an Adventure Hook. It's not a great one, but hopefully your players shouldn't need a ton of encouragement to follow the White Rabbit. I really can't see more than one of my players taking the power in the first place, but it's neat. If you're going to "lock down" any of the powers in the Core Book, I would make sure you explain that to your players well ahead of time, to avoid a mutiny. I would also only do it with powers that require FR 2 or greater, or maybe those found in the Career Books.

2. Again, Adventure Hook. Gotta lead them players toward some kind of reward, right?

3. Dang, this took me a while. Page 19, very bottom of the left-hand side: Brawl and Vigilance become Career skills. Apparently Warde was into MMA?

4. Pretty sure you have to pay the XP cost. Getting the full tree for one long adventure would be one hell of a reward.

Also, seeing as the additional crystals are Kyber crystals, I don't see any problem with them being used in a lightsaber. In fact, that could be precisely where they're found. Warde could have given them to certain trusted friends for safekeeping. In Chapter 2, his proximity to said friends could have allowed him to passively record his memories, just by being nearby. That would eliminate the "useless McGuffin" problem, especially if they crystals are uncommon and/or modded to some extent.

Or they could be some sort of talisman that gives you some other bonus.

Personally I would allow players to harvest the crystals for lightsaber or other uses with no problem. Lorrdian crystals seem a great fit, as does creation for some artifact related to understanding and predicting others. As for the Foresight power, the next time I start this adventure I will grant bonus experience for purchasing the power to players that meet the Gatekeeper's standards and study underneath it, as a mentor like experience. Perhaps 5-15 xp per episode, allowing character to really explore the tree as a reward in addition the usual. Tie the bonuses especially to proper, in the Gatekeeper's eyes, use of the Foresight power. This Gatekeeper in my current game is already trying to take the group to task and teach them proper ethical behavior. In games I run, the Gatekeepers of holocrons are not full impressions of the creator, but rather unique reflections of the state the creator was at the time. Even at creation I would design them to be more two dimensional, with imperfect copies and interpretations of the creator's memory. Further I would suggest Suljo Warde's holocron to act mentally unstable with glitches until it has been completely restored. Something I wish I had done previously.

My PCs actually foiled the "If you want to protect the knowledge, you have it" angle pretty fast. They realized that a power that would allow you predict someone's future in the hands of totalitarian dictator like Palpatine or Vader would make the oppression of the galaxy almost unstoppable. There'd be nothing you could do, assassination wouldn't work, spies couldn't hide, enemies to the state couldn't even mature - just judge the children's the future.... It was enough to scare the group into collecting the other shards just in case partial knowledge of the power (or even the existence of the power as a possibility) could be gleaned from them. They decided to hunt down everything just to make sure that Palpatine couldn't get it.

As for purpose of placing a power into it - discovery and personalization of Force powers is a really rare thing. In the case of Nomi Sunrider and Suljo Warde, they were the only ones who initially could instruct someone in how to use it or unlock its secrets. As such, tutelage under them or their students was necessary - in the case of Warde, his holocron. Bastila was initially meant to have access to the rare power of Battle Meditation, but it can be assumed that by the time of the Saga films (which this represents) the practice was widespread enough that there would be many practitioners and thus teachers/evidence of the power. In my game at least, to learn a new Force power, one must be instructed by a teacher, or have a text or reference work to learn from - kind of like learning a martial art or philosophy.

My only regret is only being able to like your comment once, Kyla. I've played through Chronicles recently and had a similar experience. Our players saw the bigger picture and committed themselves to denying the Sith access to any part of the Holocron and leading Warde back to the light. It was done not out of self interest, but because it was right. Don't know what this snowflake humbug is about.

It also doesn't provide any bonus skills, as it's main bonus is providing access to Warde's Foresight as well as a means to learn more about the Jedi Order as it existed prior the Empire's rise.

Actually, it makes Brawl (what?) and Vigilance into career skills (p.19).

I think it would be an interesting premise for an all Jedi campaign to make it so you can't buy most force powers without being trained in it somehow. Afterall, there is no reason why Warde's secret technique should be any more difficult to discover by yourself than any other force technique. The only powers that seem to just come to force sensitive people are Sense and Foresight, with maybe a breakthrough of Move. But then you get powers like Heal/Harm which in the movies you never actually see anyone do, you just get some hints that it's possible, so would it be something people simply discover by accident, or is it a grand mystery of the force that should require some study? Battle Meditation was played in many Legends sources as being the ultimate power to win wars with and only known to a select few people.

The number of holocrons and lightsaber crystals you find if you go through multiple F&D adventures on the same character gets a little ridiculous. Having some other rewards than just more holocrons and more lightsabers is kind of nice.

We have seen Annakin's Holocron in Rebels its not a full on mystical sentient Gate Keeper, but more of a holographic semi interactive lessons on lightsaber techniques. So they still made Holocrons during the clone wars they just weren't as awesome as the previous generations.

I think it would be an interesting premise for an all Jedi campaign to make it so you can't buy most force powers without being trained in it somehow. Afterall, there is no reason why Warde's secret technique should be any more difficult to discover by yourself than any other force technique. 1. The only powers that seem to just come to force sensitive people are Sense and Foresight, with maybe a breakthrough of Move. But then you get powers like 2. Heal/Harm which in the movies you never actually see anyone do, you just get some hints that it's possible, so would it be something people simply discover by accident, or is it a grand mystery of the force that should require some study? Battle Meditation was played in many Legends sources as being the ultimate power to win wars with and only known to a select few people.

The number of holocrons and lightsaber crystals you find if you go through multiple F&D adventures on the same character gets a little ridiculous. Having some other rewards than just more holocrons and more lightsabers is kind of nice.

1. Rey used Jedi Mind Trick, so Influence. Also, Ezra started out being able to leap with the force, so Enhance for him. Both were untrained.

2. Kylo Ren uses Harm multiple times in TFA in conjuction with the Sense Thoughts power. Obi-Wan and presumably, Palpatine use heal, both on Skywalkers (Palpatine saved Anakin from death on Mustafar, Obi-Wan saved Luke after the Tusken Raider attack). These examples are of people that either have some training or are masters of their craft.

I don't know if Obi Wan touching Luke after he got knocked down or Palpatine fixing Vader with the help of medical droids and cybernetics really qualifies as force heal. You can interpret it that way, but the movies in no way make a clear effort to show that injuries are being removed via the force. There is a fan theory that Palpatine does use an advanced form of Harm to kill Padme and restore Vader with her life force, since in the movie her heart monitor stops right as his starts up again.

I'd argue Kylo Ren used Bind, not Harm. Harm literally sucks people's life out, if he could do that why is he punching his wounds instead of just sucking Finn's life? Bind paralyzes people and inflicts pain and crushing injuries, that's what he seems to be doing when he's physically controlling people. Influence can strain people mentally and break into their mind, which is also what he does.

It seems that a lot of material produced in games and other media points towards Obi-Wan healing Luke to an extent. While true we never see him get injured by the Tuskens but by the time Obi-Wan shows up, Luke isn't moving at all and it isn't until Obi-Wan touches his head that he wakes up and starts moving around again. The force seems to not have the ability to restore lost limbs and such but it does seem to be able to speed up someone's recovery, which could possibly save a dying person.

Palpatine made almost the exact same gesture in Revenge of the Sith when he found Anakin's burnt body.

I agree Kylo used Bind on multiple occassions but I was mentioning when his victims were already strapped down in the chair, when Bind would have been useless as they couldn't move anyway. He put his hand up to them, causing pain while asking them questions to get them to think about the answers, then he used Sense to hear their thoughts.

There are lots of powers that can cause pain or strain, I still think saying he actually drained their life force is a stretch if he couldn't use it to heal himself when it would have helped him.

As far as forehead touching being a healing technique, there are just way too many scenes where Obi Wan is with an injured person in the prequels and Clone Wars and doesn't do anything of the sort for me to believe he can actually heal people that way. It's probably more of a checking of the pulse, using a very simple form of sense to see if someone is still alive.

The base power of Harm doesn't actually heal you though, so it wouldn't really be a life-force drain if he had no upgrades to the power.

It's possible that Obi-Wan simply knows the limits of what he can do and chooses not to make vain attempts to heal others. Also, Clones weren't people, they were property, so if any of those examples from the Clone Wars were Clones then I don't think he'd be as sympathetic about it.

The forehead thing does seem a little odd but Palpatine also does it to a clearly still alive and moving Anakin (you can see his head turn towards Palpatine when Palps kneels down). If it's a simple pulse check, why do it when the person is still alive, conscious & moving in a way that suggests coherency?

It does seem a pretty weak argument that it could be some form of force healing technique considering we don't see much to suggest so. However in Legends it was pretty clear that force users could heal injuries to an extent. There is a ton of information saying Obi-Wan actually did something to heal or revitalize Luke there and the inclusion of Palpatine doing almost the exact same thing can't be a coincidence.

Obi-Wan didn’t treat clones as property. He treated them like people. So, that theory is out.

Heal can be used to help recover Strain right? So, if Luke didn’t have major wound damage but had suffered Strain, it makes sense that Obi-Wan could potentially have healed that and woken him up, right?

As for Palpatine, I believe that he might have been able to use Heal to cure the critical injuries and keep Anakin from dying, then brought him back to the lab where they could replace his limbs, etc….

Maybe Obi-Wan's forehead touch to Luke in ANH was a narrative explanation for him making a Medicine check to help Luke recover enough strain to regain consciousness instead of it having to be the Heal power.

As for Palps on Mustafar, maybe it was the same, a narrative explanation for him using Medicine to stabilize Anakin enough so that he wasn't taking any more critical injuries from the extreme heat. Or the scene simply cut away from him cradling his apprentice's extra-crispy noggin before Palps broke out his medical kit to help the boy recover Wounds.

Except that the medicine skill use means that you are actually doing something to help the person, not just kneeling over them and touching their forehead, which only really gives you information such as their temperature and maybe their heartbeat (there are much better places to check the pulse of someone and Obi-Wan did in fact, check Luke's pulse on his wrist before touching his forehead, so there was no reason whatsoever to have checked his pulse again).

IMO that would be a very ineffective narrative description of what you actually did to help someone recover wounds or strain, just touching their forehead.

Several sources, including Wookiepedia & FFG seem to indicate that what Obi-Wan did to Luke healed him in some way with the force. The script for A New Hope shows that Obi-Wan placing his hand on Luke's head had the effect of waking up Luke, who seemed to be unconscious but didn't necessarily explain how he was able to wake him.

(taken from the Star Wars Living Card Game)

Obi-Wan Kenobi used a basic form of this ability on Luke Skywalker after the latter's confrontation with Tusken Raiders on Tatooine in 0 BBY.

(taken from wookiepedia on force healing)

Artoo waddles over to were Luke lies crumpled in a heap and begins to whistle and beep his concern. Ben puts his hand on Luke's forehead and he begins to come around.

(taken from the script)

While true there is no official confirmation of this that I've found, there's a lot of evidence to support it, similar to some things that only make sense if explained a certain way but won't get into because they might be spoiler territory for some.