I have a player in my game who has basically put all his XP into being very good with Move, and opens every encounter by disarming everyone . In the most recent, I had 3 sets of 4 minion groups (count as one target each by my understanding), plus a Nemesis against whom he had to roll his Discipline, and even at 4 Challenge dice, he managed to succeed. This at Force Rating 2, with a Discipline of, I believe, YYY.

My baddies can't hold onto a weapon to save their lives (literally), and I'm finding myself at a loss for what to do here.

He managed to Move 12 objects at once with FR2? It's not entirely clear that Minion groups count as a single entity for being targeted by Move, and even if they are, use the Auto-fire rule to see how many weapons can be ripped away with one use of Move (one on a successful opposed Discipline check, plus one per two Advantages or one Triumph spent on Auto-fire effect). And don't forget that many opponents have secondary weapons (like grenades!).

With FR 2? At the most, that's 4 force pips, not caring whether they're light or dark. 1 pip to activate the power itself, 1 more pip to activate magnitude every time(I'm not sure I see why minion groups would count as one entity since he's trying to yank individual blasters out of their hands), and assuming combat doesn't start at short range he would need a third pip to activate a range upgrade. He must be flipping destiny points like a madman since that's barely above an 8% chance to get 3 light pips with FR2. Plus, if you check the odds on a YYY vs 4 challenge dice... and he was even willing to make that roll in the first place, more power to him because that's almost a 30% chance for at least 1 despair and even the odds of rolling successes still isn't that great compared to the failures.

Creatures, political intrigue, space battles. Basically you can negate his advantage by changing the paradigm of the challenges.

Creatures, political intrigue, space battles. Basically you can negate his advantage by changing the paradigm of the challenges.

This is Star Wars. A character that can negate any and all armed opponents without effort is a fun-killer. Fortunately, there are rules (like Move using the Auto-fire mechanic for grabbing/tossing multiple objects at once) that keep this from being quite the issue that the OP initially thought.

He managed to Move 12 objects at once with FR2? It's not entirely clear that Minion groups count as a single entity for being targeted by Move, and even if they are, use the Auto-fire rule to see how many weapons can be ripped away with one use of Move (one on a successful opposed Discipline check, plus one per two Advantages or one Triumph spent on Auto-fire effect). And don't forget that many opponents have secondary weapons (like grenades!).

I'm a little fuzzy on minion groups then--when do they, and when do they not, count as a single unit? Also, Move doesn't require a Discipline roll just to move something unless it is being opposed. I want to have him roll a skill for this sort of stuff, but RAW, even with the addendum in F&D about resisting powers, this would just be using pips.

I make sure most of the enemies have secondary weapons (all stormtroopers have, at minimum, an integrated vibroknife in addition to their blaster rifle/carbine), but it's more acquiescence on the part of the player to not just strip them of their next set of weapons than anything else.

Creatures, political intrigue, space battles. Basically you can negate his advantage by changing the paradigm of the challenges.

Unfortunately, my group doesn't do intrigue very well. Tried running them through the adventure in the F&D book, and they made a huge mess of that. Trying to come up with some adventures that strongly stress that they are not to cause damage/allow their presence to become known.

1. Force the Force User to use more than they can, such as more enemies than he has Magnitude upgrades, as well as keeping them outside Medium range. Your goal should be to have him choosing between using Dark Side and not doing everything he wants.

2. Unarmed foes. It's hard to take the weapons out of their hands. These should be close quarters encounters to assist the NPC's as well.

3. Beasts for the same reason as suggestion 2.

4. Have 3 sides to a fight. If your PC disarms only one side then they can't protect themselves, opening up the chance of him earning Conflict.

5. What are all the survivors saying about this Force User. The Inquisitors tend to hear about rogue Force Users, then chase them down for capture. An inquisitor with Suppress or Bind could be interesting.

6. Quick Draw and a couple of backup weapons on the NPC's

7. Stager the arrival of NPC's, have backup show up when its advantageous to them

Minion groups are fuzzy in the rules. The designers view this as a feature rather than a bug, and many posters here do as well. Ask yourself in this case if the power is trying to grab one weapon or many. Since it appears to be the latter, then use the same rule that would be used for flinging multiple items at them (the Auto-fire rule). And having weapons ripped out of their hands would certainly be opposed by pretty much anybody in a fight.

1. Force the Force User to use more than they can, such as more enemies than he has Magnitude upgrades, as well as keeping them outside Medium range. Your goal should be to have him choosing between using Dark Side and not doing everything he wants.

2. Unarmed foes. It's hard to take the weapons out of their hands. These should be close quarters encounters to assist the NPC's as well.

3. Beasts for the same reason as suggestion 2.

4. Have 3 sides to a fight. If your PC disarms only one side then they can't protect themselves, opening up the chance of him earning Conflict.

5. What are all the survivors saying about this Force User. The Inquisitors tend to hear about rogue Force Users, then chase them down for capture. An inquisitor with Suppress or Bind could be interesting.

6. Quick Draw and a couple of backup weapons on the NPC's

7. Stager the arrival of NPC's, have backup show up when its advantageous to them

I've been trying some of this. In the case of unarmed enemies, he just bodily picks them up and tosses them, as he did with a certain basilisk war droid. That fight was disappointing.

Definitely contemplating an Inquisitor approach, though I've set this a few years after the battle of Endor, but before the Empire has fallen completely.

Minion groups are fuzzy in the rules. The designers view this as a feature rather than a bug, and many posters here do as well. Ask yourself in this case if the power is trying to grab one weapon or many. Since it appears to be the latter, then use the same rule that would be used for flinging multiple items at them (the Auto-fire rule). And having weapons ripped out of their hands would certainly be opposed by pretty much anybody in a fight.

My only issues with this approach are: what, then, does spending a bunch of XP on Magnitude do for you, if, most of the time, you are being gated by needing a ton of advantages to make use of them? And how would you handle a minion group that is no longer homogeneous in its weaponry being used? Split them up?

Another tactic to use occasionally would be an Initiative Monster for an NPC. If the NPC's get the first slot then they at least get one shot off.

On the topic of targeting Minions with Move I am a fan of increasing the groups Silhouette by 1. So instead of having to move 5 Silhouette 1 Stormtroopers they instead have to move a single Silhouette 2 squad. It increases the difficulty slightly, and the damage is in one big chunk instead of many smaller pieces. You could try the same thing with the weapons. It will force him to activate the Strength upgrade, and making the Force Point cost higher.

I have a player in my game who has basically put all his XP into being very good with Move, and opens every encounter by disarming everyone . In the most recent, I had 3 sets of 4 minion groups (count as one target each by my understanding), plus a Nemesis against whom he had to roll his Discipline, and even at 4 Challenge dice, he managed to succeed. This at Force Rating 2, with a Discipline of, I believe, YYY.

My baddies can't hold onto a weapon to save their lives (literally), and I'm finding myself at a loss for what to do here.

Quickdraw and sidearms. Negative this completely.

Just having MORE minions compensates just fine as well.

Literally jumping after the weapons with force jump catching them mid-air and slicing up your opponent is still the coolest way to counter ;-)

In a post endor setting I would forget the idea of inquisitors and instead go the way of darksiders trying to seize power.

Cheese as the videos from Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight are, they still have imo the right idea of former Inquisitors trying to seize power and fill to power vacuum which is left after Palpatine's death, similar how the imperial navy admirals became warlords in the EU and tried to become the new imperial leader.

Disarming opponents with Force Move still requires an opposed check, usually countered by Resilience or Athletics, against the most powerful opponent they intend to disarm, and requiring them to spend 2 advantages for every opponent beyond that on the check isn't unreasonable. Force Move is really broken if you don't make the Discipline checks appropriately difficult, because it takes so few force pips to activate it in ways that are more powerful than anything ever done in the movies.

Definitely contemplating an Inquisitor approach, though I've set this a few years after the battle of Endor, but before the Empire has fallen completely.

There isn't much canonical material for that timeline, but in legends that's when you get the reborn, so you could throw literally thousands of force users at the party if you chose to incorporate that into the story.

It is pretty easy to be a munchkin with Move, so you have to put some limits, and more importantly ask for the player to reign it in a bit and maybe redistribute his XP to something less monotone. Also, remember you can do this too: toss in your own Move-master and disarm the party, see how they like being on the receiving end of munchkinism.

Mechanically speaking, personally I'd allow a disarm resist by anyone using a relevant skill: Athletics or Coordination for muggles, and add Discipline for Force Sensitives. Plenty of canon examples if you watch TCW or Rebels. This means even if you treat minions as one group (which I wouldn't) some of them are considered trained in those skills, so the resistance becomes pretty difficult to overcome, the larger the group, the harder it is.

It is pretty easy to be a munchkin with Move, so you have to put some limits, and more importantly ask for the player to reign it in a bit and maybe redistribute his XP to something less monotone. Also, remember you can do this too: toss in your own Move-master and disarm the party, see how they like being on the receiving end of munchkinism.

Mechanically speaking, personally I'd allow a disarm resist by anyone using a relevant skill: Athletics or Coordination for muggles, and add Discipline for Force Sensitives. Plenty of canon examples if you watch TCW or Rebels. This means even if you treat minions as one group (which I wouldn't) some of them are considered trained in those skills, so the resistance becomes pretty difficult to overcome, the larger the group, the harder it is.

That only applies to minions if the resisting skill is in their skill list. If it's not, their die pool doesn't improve.

It is pretty easy to be a munchkin with Move, so you have to put some limits, and more importantly ask for the player to reign it in a bit and maybe redistribute his XP to something less monotone. Also, remember you can do this too: toss in your own Move-master and disarm the party, see how they like being on the receiving end of munchkinism.

Mechanically speaking, personally I'd allow a disarm resist by anyone using a relevant skill: Athletics or Coordination for muggles, and add Discipline for Force Sensitives. Plenty of canon examples if you watch TCW or Rebels. This means even if you treat minions as one group (which I wouldn't) some of them are considered trained in those skills, so the resistance becomes pretty difficult to overcome, the larger the group, the harder it is.

That only applies to minions if the resisting skill is in their skill list. If it's not, their die pool doesn't improve.

...hence the phrase "some of them are considered trained"...

That only applies to minions if the resisting skill is in their skill list. If it's not, their die pool doesn't improve.

Yea, but it is perfectly reasonable to rule that it takes advantages to affect them all. If you want offensive force uses to be balanced in the game you have to essentially treat them as a weapon with variable stats. You roll the force dice to determine what the weapon is capable of, by activating it's various upgrades, but then you still have to use skill dice to actually utilize all those abilities. For example if someone activates a bunch of magnitude upgrades for a force power the GM should treat it as though the force power gained the autofire or blast quality, not as though the force power is now simply capable of hitting a huge number of targets without any additional effort by the user. Just like having a weapon with autofire doesn't mean you hit every single enemy, having a force power with magnitude shouldn't mean you hit everyone. It just gives you the option to hit more people.

If the opponents are Force users, give them the Resist Disarm talent. 2 strain and the target negates the disarm.

If the opponent is a BBEG. give them 2 initiative slots. Not having their main weapon is a small price to pay to beat on your PCs twice a round.

I have a player in my game who has basically put all his XP into being very good with Move, and opens every encounter by disarming everyone . In the most recent, I had 3 sets of 4 minion groups (count as one target each by my understanding), plus a Nemesis against whom he had to roll his Discipline, and even at 4 Challenge dice, he managed to succeed. This at Force Rating 2, with a Discipline of, I believe, YYY.

My baddies can't hold onto a weapon to save their lives (literally), and I'm finding myself at a loss for what to do here.

So the character in question at the start of every fight does something that paints a huge bullseye on his chest? A few ideas:

1.) The fight ain't over just because the bad guys lost their primary weapons.

2.) Those same weapons are still lying around; its not like the force user can catch all of them. I'd have the minion groups just take some maneuvers to go pick up their weapons. Perfectly reasonable to have the GM use a destiny point in this situation to rule some of the weapons are only one maneuver away.

3.) The Nemesis level character didn't get to be a Nemesis level character without having back up plans. He/she should at a minimum have a back up ranged and melee weapon.

4.) Consider giving your minions the brawl skill. Take away my weapon? I just engage with you and beat you up

5.) Back to that whole bullseye thing? I would have the bad guys focus their attacks on him/her, as it is clear whatever freaky, spooky, 'Force Sorcery' they've got going is unnatural and should be eliminated first. If it means using brawl and/or some improvised weapons [GM tap Destiny Point to insert into narrative a bunch of rocks, metal pipes, or maybe even a vibroblade just lying around for use] do it.

6.) Give a rival or nemesis an occasional Resist Disarm talent. While it is on the Makashi Duelist tree, its not a Force Talent, so even the muggles can use it. Don't use this trick every time; just enough to make the player wonder "will this trick work this encounter or not?"

7.) Have an enemy force user use the same trick against the PCs. Do this repeatedly for several encounters to drive home the point about how boring it makes the game

Other options:

8.) Discuss with the players what their goals are, and that how this technique is ruining the fun for you as the GM. After all, GM's get to have fun too, and nothing is more frustrating than planning out an adventure to have the players do everything they can to subvert it just for fun.

9.) Consider adjusting it so that at your table minion groups are considered separate targets for taking away their weapons.

10.) Make sure you read the Move power diligently, and are playing it right. In the scenario above, assuming each minion group is one target (which for this power is questionable), you need at a minimum 2 force pips to pull it off (1 to activate power, 1 to activate 4 magnitude upgrades), and that is presuming the player in question has all magnitude upgrades. If they don't have all magnitude upgrades, that means it takes more FP. This also assumes the targets in question were at short range, as it would require more pips to extend the range.

11.) If this player has spent all his XP into just the Move Power, then he is a bit of a one trick pony. Look for areas he is weak and challenge him there.

12.) Consider crafting an encounter where defeating the enemy isn't the goal, but instead his bogus skills in the Move power are the only thing that can save the party.

Oh one last thing... remember that skill check the Force User made to succeed on the check? I believe my understanding is that if he failed that opposed skill check, it fails against ***all*** targets. That is, you make one check against the best skill to resist, and it is all or nothing. I'll have to go back and look, but I believe this what the Dev's said on the topic.

That only applies to minions if the resisting skill is in their skill list. If it's not, their die pool doesn't improve.

Yea, but it is perfectly reasonable to rule that it takes advantages to affect them all. If you want offensive force uses to be balanced in the game you have to essentially treat them as a weapon with variable stats. You roll the force dice to determine what the weapon is capable of, by activating it's various upgrades, but then you still have to use skill dice to actually utilize all those abilities. For example if someone activates a bunch of magnitude upgrades for a force power the GM should treat it as though the force power gained the autofire or blast quality, not as though the force power is now simply capable of hitting a huge number of targets without any additional effort by the user. Just like having a weapon with autofire doesn't mean you hit every single enemy, having a force power with magnitude shouldn't mean you hit everyone. It just gives you the option to hit more people.

IMO, the big thing that the OP is missing here is that if the Hurl or Disarm upgrades are used against a conscious opponent, then they should always be opposed. That should make the skill check a lot harder.

I’ll leave the reader to peruse the other comments above.

I believe there's an armor attachment in KtP, Magnetic Grip or something like that. Could help in this situation. It's fairly cheap if I remember correctly and if your player continues using this technique, then perhaps the enemies should adapt accordingly, equipping their soldiers with such devices.

I believe there's an armor attachment in KtP, Magnetic Grip or something like that. Could help in this situation. It's fairly cheap if I remember correctly and if your player continues using this technique, then perhaps the enemies should adapt accordingly, equipping their soldiers with such devices.

He has brought up, reasonably, that the power allows for pulling objects off of fixed mountings (ie., Darth Vader in ESB ripping fixtures off of the walls). I don't see a magnetic grip necessarily being any different from bolts in this case.

Thanks everyone! Your replies have been super-helpful!

As for him being a one-trick pony, I tried talking to him about that at the start, but he was insistent on being able to do this very well at the expense of basically everything else. He does have Intense Focus, though, so he has a psuedo extra rank in every skill, which has meant he doesn't fail checks as often as I would like (I recall using IF myself and succeeding on some outrageously difficult checks, albeit with a ton of threat, or a despair).

The party, for the post part, sticks together, and it takes a lot of contriving on my part to split them up: years of gaming has ingrained in them an aversion to splitting the party. That means, for most important checks, there is someone else to handle it, and in combat, if he fails to generate light side pips, and doesn't feel angry or like they are in dire enough straights, he just doesn't do anything for a turn.

That means, for most important checks, there is someone else to handle it, and in combat, if he fails to generate light side pips, and doesn't feel angry or like they are in dire enough straights, he just doesn't do anything for a turn.

So make sure they are always in dire straits!

Seriously start to stress that there are lots of witnesses to his Force use. Then it won't be a big surprise when an Inquisitor or 3 comes after him. Just because the Empire is in decline doesn't mean factions are not still at full power.