Hi All,

So I asked this question to the devs a few days ago:

Rules Question:
Hello! Can talents like Scathing Tirade be used in conjunction with the Influence control upgrade that allows the user to add their Force dice to coercion checks? Or are they each considered to require an Action and as such cannot be combined? I ask because the description of Scathing Tirade indicates "Take a Scathing Tirade Action and roll a coercion check", while the base rules for using Force powers indicates they require an Action to use in structured time unless otherwise stated (p. 282 of F&D). The Control talent description just states "...the user may roll an influence power check as part of the pool…" with no qualifier that would trump the basic rule. Thanks, Bob

And the answer I got was:

Today, 10:03 AM You

At our table we definitely have always played that you can add the Force dice. The Influence ability says you add Force dice to a Coercion check, Scathing Tirade says you make a Coercion check... seems pretty cut and dry and there's nothing in either that suggests you wouldn't. Then again this game system is chock full of ambiguous wording.

Yeah it seems like it very well should allow you to add your Force Rating to Scathing Tirade since the talent itself specifically says it's a Coercion check.

I think the key difference, though, is Force powers default as actions when being used, unless otherwise making an exception. So even though you're just adding dice to a regular check, if you're using Influence, the check becomes an Influence action. And Scathing Tirade is it's own action, so the two can't be merged.

On the other hand, talents like Enhanced Leader, Force Connection, and Intuitive Navigation are all passive , not active. So they could be tacked onto talent checks, where applicable.

1 hour ago, Blackbird888 said:

...if you're using Influence, the check becomes an Influence action.

That's the part I have an issue with, considering how it is written in the rules, which says that it's whenever you roll a Coercion check and nothing explicitly states that the check is now considered an Influence power check.

It also opens up a whole can of worms with several other talents such as Inspiring Rhetoric or Full Throttle. These talents use similar language of "Take an XXXX action; Make a dd ZZZZ check...". I would presume the same logic that would apply to Scathing Tirade interacting with Force Powers would apply equally to other talents that use the same basic wording.

On the flip side, this ruling actually does make Enhanced Leader worth the XP cost.

2 hours ago, Blackbird888 said:

I think the key difference, though, is Force powers default as actions when being used, unless otherwise making an exception. So even though you're just adding dice to a regular check, if you're using Influence, the check becomes an Influence action. And Scathing Tirade is it's own action, so the two can't be merged.

On the other hand, talents like Enhanced Leader, Force Connection, and Intuitive Navigation are all passive , not active. So they could be tacked onto talent checks, where applicable.

Got a page number for where it says that adding Force dice to a skill check makes it become a force power check? Nothing I see in the abilities themselves suggest that.

That would also make a lot of other interactions very messy. For instance my Executioner uses the Essential Kill talent to add his Force dice to a Ranged (Heavy) attack. According to this it is no longer a Ranged (Heavy) attack it is now an Essential Kill skill check, so any talent which affects a Ranged (Heavy) skill check should no longer apply correct?

As far as I'm concerned you can use the force dice on any check unless the game specifically states otherwise.

That said, I'm not a big fan of how the game lets you add force dice to skill checks, currently, because it creates a situation where characters with a high force rating wind up with this binary switch between being meh at a skill and being amazing at that same skill. It simply feels wrong to me that if you're building a Consular Healer who is supposed to be great at healing you're 20 XP away from rolling fists full of dice at pilot checks too, just because of the force ratings you built up for your actual specialization. Once you hit the higher force ratings it just starts feeling like it's too cheap to slap those force dice on all kinds of skills that would cost you hundreds of XP to get dice in if you raised their actual ranks.

I really love force abilities that benefit from skill ranks, like how Heal/Harm gets a bonus from your Medicine skill. I really wish there was a lot more of that in the system where you need skills to back up force powers, rather than force powers that replace skill ranks.

Even better is when my character adds in Hawkbat Sweep... so both Hawkbat Sweep and Essential Kill add my Force dice to the check (with different ways I can spend my rolled force points). So now what is that action? A Hawkbat Sweep? An Essential Kill? A Lightsaber check? It's all just very messy going that route.

2 minutes ago, Phlushot said:

Even better is when my character adds in Hawkbat Sweep... so both Hawkbat Sweep and Essential Kill add my Force dice to the check (with different ways I can spend my rolled force points). So now what is that action? A Hawkbat Sweep? An Essential Kill? A Lightsaber check? It's all just very messy going that route.

You can't add both to the check. You have to pick which one you are using.

15 minutes ago, Phlushot said:

Got a page number for where it says that adding Force dice to a skill check makes it become a force power check? Nothing I see in the abilities themselves suggest that.

Force and Destiny page 282 third paragraph, bolded text. Under the Force Powers section.

Force powers are actions be default, unless stated otherwise. Influence's control upgrade does not state otherwise. Scathing Tirade is it's own action, and Influence is it's own action, and you cannot use them on top of each other.

Actually, I can't help but recall somewhere (it may have been a comment on the Order 66 podcast, or a developer question) that it was said that they treat talent actions as being different then normal skill checks.

I personally would ask for clarification as to the ruling that this comes under. Example if they had intended that it work this way the the likes of enhance , and the influence control uprade should have been worded "When taking a athletics check, as an action, add the force dice to the roll......." this would then mean if you use a talent as your action you wouldnt ger force dice on the roll, you would have to be using your action to perform the skill check. This would have been easy enough to set up during play testing, because that question must have come up at some point, given the number of times it would come up in game. Instead the wording is that each time you perform the skill check (no prerequisite here), so unless your force dice were otherwise used (*)you could use them

(*) by this I mean if you were using terrify you have already been asked to add your force dice to the check for the terrify action, and as the rules on the force specify you cannot apply more force dice to the roll than you have uncommitted force rating. So you couldnt roll , with FR2, coercion +2 force dice for terrify +2 force dice from inflences control upgrade, effectively allowing you to double up.

FWIW I dont mind if they do intend it that you only get the force dice on PURE skill checks and not checks called for in talents, but they really need to make that clear. On some things (like engaging and disengaging combined with freerunning talents) they are quite strict on the wording and interpreting the rules whereas on this they seem to be saying that RAW is pretty much wrong.

Truthfully, I can see Sam's reasoning as to why you couldn't add Force dice from Influence when using things like Scathing Tirade, much less Enhance when using Full Throttle.

I can also see it from the perspective of game balance as well, since talents like Scathing Tirade and Full Throttle have tacit effects as opposed to the more nebulous and situation-specific effects a general skill check has. Scathing Tirade deliberately hammers the strain threshold of opponents, and being able to add additional successes and advantages largely at will from Force dice via Influence makes the talent a good deal more potent than it would be using just straight ranks of Coercion and Willpower.

Now, with that being said, I personally don't see an issue with allowing those sorts of combos to stack, as it's an XP investment for a character to have both the Scathing Tirade talents and enough of a Force Rating for the combo to be an issue, especially as thus far none of the FaD specializations even offer Scathing Tirade.

Full Throttle shows up in a couple of FaD specs (Racer and Starfighter Ace), but you're looking at 25 XP to be able to add your Force dice to both Piloting checks, and extra uncancelled successes after the first on the check don't really have that much of a benefit, while extra advantages generally aren't that big of a deal.

There's Fear the Shadows (Endless Vigil, Sentry spec) which requires a Hard Deception check, so again Influence could be a factor if allowed to contribute Force dice to the pool, but like Full Throttle uncancelled successes after the first don't have any impact.

21 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

Force powers are actions be default, unless stated otherwise. Influence's control upgrade does not state otherwise. Scathing Tirade is it's own action, and Influence is it's own action, and you cannot use them on top of each other.

Actually, I can't help but recall somewhere (it may have been a comment on the Order 66 podcast, or a developer question) that it was said that they treat talent actions as being different then normal skill checks.

I understand that, however all these talents etc are worded all the same starting with "when you make an X check". The repercussion of such a ruling is actually quite widespead because imagine a player with enhance piloting space . They can use the force dice on their piloting checks if it is a standard piloting check, however if they try to perform gain the advantage (which calls for an opposed piloting check in the same way as a talent) just found out that hisnforce enhanced piloting counts for squat in that opposed check. Chase encounters could be have similar repurcusions unless it is a PURE skill check where the player uses it specifically as his action. IE he says Id like to make a piloting -space check , this pretty much says hey you are an Ace pilot ........some of the time.

4 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Truthfully, I can see Sam's reasoning as to why you couldn't add Force dice from Influence when using things like Scathing Tirade, much less Enhance when using Full Throttle.

I can also see it from the perspective of game balance as well, since talents like Scathing Tirade and Full Throttle have tacit effects as opposed to the more nebulous and situation-specific effects a general skill check has. Scathing Tirade deliberately hammers the strain threshold of opponents, and being able to add additional successes and advantages largely at will from Force dice via Influence makes the talent a good deal more potent than it would be using just straight ranks of Coercion and Willpower.

Now, with that being said, I personally don't see an issue with allowing those sorts of combos to stack, as it's an XP investment for a character to have both the Scathing Tirade talents and enough of a Force Rating for the combo to be an issue, especially as thus far none of the FaD specializations even offer Scathing Tirade.

Full Throttle shows up in a couple of FaD specs (Racer and Starfighter Ace), but you're looking at 25 XP to be able to add your Force dice to both Piloting checks, and extra uncancelled successes after the first on the check don't really have that much of a benefit, while extra advantages generally aren't that big of a deal.

There's Fear the Shadows (Endless Vigil, Sentry spec) which requires a Hard Deception check, so again Influence could be a factor if allowed to contribute Force dice to the pool, but like Full Throttle uncancelled successes after the first don't have any impact.

The other aspect to remember is that Influence can add success or advantages, and the player gets to make the choice after rolling the dice. So it has a lot of powerful flexibility. A lot of time my players will add advantages to a roll with the Force Pips just to get some strain back (but then again Force Users also burn strain a lot easier so there is that balance).

6 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Now, with that being said, I personally don't see an issue with allowing those sorts of combos to stack, as it's an XP investment for a character to have both the Scathing Tirade talents and enough of a Force Rating for the combo to be an issue, especially as thus far none of the FaD specializations even offer Scathing Tirade.

Full Throttle shows up in a couple of FaD specs (Racer and Starfighter Ace), but you're looking at 25 XP to be able to add your Force dice to both Piloting checks, and extra uncancelled successes after the first on the check don't really have that much of a benefit, while extra advantages generally aren't that big of a deal

Warden has it , not only thst it can leverage those advantages to cause opponents to lose their maneuvers using No Escape.

What it probably boils down to is how they separate actions in structured time. Starting on p. 209 (F&D), it lists types of actions, in order, "exchange an action for a maneuver," "spend an action to activate an ability," "activate a Force power," "perform a skill check," and "perform an action."

Again, talents are unique from skill checks. A chase check would fall under a skill check (although chase rules are a little different from standard structured encounters either way). Gain the Advantage is fishy, but if you are spending an action to do something worthless like Gain the Advantage, you have other problems.

20 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

What it probably boils down to is how they separate actions in structured time. Starting on p. 209 (F&D), it lists types of actions, in order, "exchange an action for a maneuver," "spend an action to activate an ability," "activate a Force power," "perform a skill check," and "perform an action."

Again, talents are unique from skill checks. A chase check would fall under a skill check (although chase rules are a little different from standard structured encounters either way). Gain the Advantage is fishy, but if you are spending an action to do something worthless like Gain the Advantage, you have other problems.

I was just using that as an example, because there are many examples of talents /actions /and maneuvers that allow you to do similar things . I can understand why you wouldnt want someone with scathing tirade and FR9 rolling a dice pool of , YYYYYYWWWWWWWWW PP for potentially up to 30 mix of advantage and success. Now that may sound quite powerful, remeber that every success hits another target and only advantage lets you pile that up. So if you have a mix of 15/15 you can do 16 strain on 1 target , and 1 on a further 14 , or 2 strain on 15 targets., however bear in mind that same character , without wasting xp on coercion with the strength and a few upgrades on range and magnitude , getting the same double results on the white dice can cause 32 strain damage each on 4 characters at long range ( 1 pip on 3* range, 1 on 3* magnitude and the strength upgrade allows you to double the strain damage, this is 4 times more powerful than scathing tirade and doesnt require the talent or any ranks in any skill, just the raw infleunce power upgraded. Tirade seems tame and xp intensive in comparison.

Edit have a look at the edge forum for a comparison to one punch man which for 400 xp can punch you for about 20 strain dmg ignoring soak (and using another talent the op didnt figure can land another 15 ignoring soak immediately after, for 35 base dmg befor adding success)

1 hour ago, Phlushot said:

Even better is when my character adds in Hawkbat Sweep... so both Hawkbat Sweep and Essential Kill add my Force dice to the check (with different ways I can spend my rolled force points). So now what is that action? A Hawkbat Sweep? An Essential Kill? A Lightsaber check? It's all just very messy going that route.

This one is covered in the rules as you cannot add more force dice ro a single check than you have uncommited force dice. So you cannot add it for one thing, then get to add again for another, it has also been confirmed you cannot split the dice either. So you couldnt , with FR2 , to have 1 dice on swoop and the other on essential kill.

27 minutes ago, syrath said:

This one is covered in the rules as you cannot add more force dice ro a single check than you have uncommited force dice. So you cannot add it for one thing, then get to add again for another, it has also been confirmed you cannot split the dice either. So you couldnt , with FR2 , to have 1 dice on swoop and the other on essential kill.

Committing force dice is not the same thing as including them on a skill check. I wasn't suggesting I would be adding more dice than my current FR, just saying that both talents lets me spend the generated force pips in different ways. And nothing in either talent (or elsewhere in either book that I'm aware of) says that the talents don't work together, one is an action, one is a passive. Now if the devs have stated that it shouldn't work that way then is one thing but RAW... it should. Again my comment in my first post about poorly written ambiguous rules.

1 hour ago, Blackbird888 said:

Force powers are actions be default, unless stated otherwise. Influence's control upgrade does not state otherwise. Scathing Tirade is it's own action, and Influence is it's own action, and you cannot use them on top of each other.

Actually, I can't help but recall somewhere (it may have been a comment on the Order 66 podcast, or a developer question) that it was said that they treat talent actions as being different then normal skill checks.

See I read that upgrade as stating the power check becomes a part of the skill check, so it's no longer the default action. If it is still an action then I would argue it should be 2 actions, one for the force power check and one for the skill check. Reading the way you are stating there's nothing that says one check is absorbed into the other check (and thus reducing it to one action).

Sorry, I stopped listening to Order 66 after their episode on dealing with high levels of xp and their suggestion was basically "we just don't let our players get that high".

8 minutes ago, Phlushot said:

Committing force dice is not the same thing as including them on a skill check. I wasn't suggesting I would be adding more dice than my current FR, just saying that both talents lets me spend the generated force pips in different ways. And nothing in either talent (or elsewhere in either book that I'm aware of) says that the talents don't work together, one is an action, one is a passive. Now if the devs have stated that they it shouldn't work that way that is one thing but RAW... it should. Again my comment in my first post about poorly written ambiguous rules.

If you are referring to hawkbat swoop and terrifying kill from the executioner. You would spend force dice on your hawkbat action, then you make a force chack following the kill as a maneuver the dice are not used on the same check.

7 minutes ago, syrath said:

If you are referring to hawkbat swoop and terrifying kill from the executioner. You would spend force dice on your hawkbat action, then you make a force chack following the kill as a maneuver the dice are not used on the same check.

No I'm talking about Hawkbat Swoop and Essential Kill. Hawkbat is an action which adds my force dice to a lightsaber check. Essential Kill is a passive which allows me to add my force dice to non-Gunnery combat skill checks (so lightsaber in this case). Both allow me to spend force pips generated in different ways.

For clarification I may have found the rule that covers this on page 280 F&D core.

Combined Force Power Checks

Some Force powers and Force talents require the character to make a Force power check that is combined with a skill check. This generally represents the character using Force abilities in conjunction with other skills. it also comes into play when the character's Force abilities may be opposed by the skill of his target.

When a character combines a Force power check with a standard skill check , he combines the Force Die he would roll to make the Force power check with the dice he would roll to make the skill check. RELEVANT powers and talents specifically state when a combined chck should take place.... ( now this part is interesing). ....Unless specifically stated otherwise , the character must generate enough pips ro activate the force talent or force powers basic power AND must generate at least one uncancelled success for the check to succeed.

Now if this is the ruling that applies jn this case it is even worse because someone with enhance brawl and no ranks in brawl would still need to succed their attack without the benefits of the force dice before they could use the force pips to add success and advantage , if they fail the basic skill check they get nothing.

Edit though these powers state - When making a skill check so it doesnt work the way Sam says RAW.