2 hours ago, Benjan Meruna said:

How would you incorporate the Burn quality into that?

Resonance frequencies. I'd imagine if you've got such control over sound you could make it so whatever you strike with it rings like a bell on its natural frequency. I mean, lightning having a significant after-effect doesn't really make that much sense either if you run with realistic electricity. Once that grounds out it's gone, and people can't catch on fire because human bodies are 60% water.

4 hours ago, Aetrion said:

Unleash doesn't specify anywhere that it has to project lightning. It just says you are projecting your negative emotions as a form of energy, which could be pretty much anything. Sound, heat, light... You can have some fun with it if you want to use it as an unusual/unique power. I'm thinking if I get it on my Ithorian character I'll play it as destructive sound vibrations he shapes with his four throats, like a highly advanced form of Bellow.

Yep, I'm gonna have characters shoot fireballs out of their hands, because Hadouken!

Also, the only time it actually says "this is force lightning" is when speaking of the Mastery upgrade for Unleash. So it does say that it is, but only when you're using the Mastery upgrade apparently.

58 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Yep, I'm gonna have characters shoot fireballs out of their hands, because Hadouken!

Also, the only time it actually says "this is force lightning" is when speaking of the Mastery upgrade for Unleash. So it does say that it is, but only when you're using the Mastery upgrade apparently.

Hmm, you're right, it says "This upgrade represents mastering the ultimate dark side technique, the dreaded Force lighting", which you could read as saying that hurling lightning bolts is a step beyond regular unleash, and until you attain mastery you should be playing it as something else.

10 hours ago, Dunefarble said:

I think I stepped away from this thread too long. How are you stunning all these troopers? Unleash is terrible for stun. Mediocre at best. You have to do wounds to even do stun, and the stun is probably not gonna be enough to knock anyone out.

Indeed, protect/unleash is mediocre in a lot of things, it does them all in one power. It immobilize cheaper than bind, it deals low amount of strain damage and will inflict wounds while doing so, and it needs very high amounts of xp to become a decent damage source and that damage is on top damage over time. The only thing it actually is good for is burst damage and action efficiency as it comes with oot incidental options.

And now how you knockout 12 stormtroopers in one go with unleash: Roll 3 success and 3 advantages on your discipline check. Activate the power for 2 pips and activate magnitude 6 times. All 12 troopers soak the 5 base damage, get 3 wounds from the freeze, lighting, fire, whatever your unleash does and get knockout by the inflicted strain hopefully under the assumption that inflicting strain is not reduced by soak, which should be the case. All going down from strain, so they should be alive, now that assumes that you can target individuals in a minion group, which seems fine to me, but might be disagreed by others. In case you roll 6 success you are in trouble, because now you actually bring them below their wt with just pure damage and inflict a critical on top. But 6 successes are unlikely, so it is a calculated risk and in case you screw up you can always choose not to activate magnitude and keep the conflict manageable.

It as well to expensive in most case on the pips, thus activating ensnare for 1 pip was suggested to hold off the whole group instead and just knockout a one or two based on advantages rolled, most likely one if I see the chance distribution on that die roller.

Bind still would be the more elegant solution, just stagger the whole minion group and influence is for sure better against a single target to inflict strain, but seems to fall off when used against multiple targets as activating magnitude and inflicting strain itself uses the same force pips resources. 6 strain on 12 targets still requires 8 force pips, which is equal to unleash and which is around the average force pips of a FR6 user who is willing to use dark and light and thus spending a destiny point. Still, no risk for accidently carnage involved in influence and just sending the troopers away might work too, so for sure the less violent solution … you gotta work with what you got. ;-)

Off-Topic

With all that said: My character would freeze people to death with unleash. Because claiming to be a cold blooded killer makes so much more sense that way.

8 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

which is equal to unleash

Que?

And there's no intention in this. It's just luck. If you roll 4 successes? They die anyway. If you roll no advantage, you've failed to take them down after spending eight pips . You're trying to do stun damage with something that's clearly not meant to cause stun damage.

Anyway, if it requires six force die to become viable, then that kind of proves the point. At that point you either have a character that's cripplingly overspecialized (sank every last bit of XP into Willpower, Unleash, and getting to 6 FR) or a 5000xp monster who can do everything anyways. Either way, the same character rebuilt around Bind or Harm could do way more damage and have way more precision about how that damage is utilized. Sure, Unleash can be okay in certain circircumstances... but it's in no way competitive compared to other powers.

Wait a minute.... you can't use magnitude to hit the same group of minions more than once...

And rivals don't have wounds that low.... so that still doesn't work.

12 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Indeed, protect/unleash is mediocre in a lot of things, it does them all in one power. It immobilize cheaper than bind, it deals low amount of strain damage and will inflict wounds while doing so, and it needs very high amounts of xp to become a decent damage source and that damage is on top damage over time. The only thing it actually is good for is burst damage and action efficiency as it comes with oot incidental options.

How is Unleash "cheaper" to immobilize than Bind? Unleash takes 3 force pips and a Successful discipline check to immobilize, Bind Immobilizes as the base power and can have die committed to sustain it indefinitely, no further rolling required. Bind is just better in that regard. As for burst damage, Unleash is highly underwhelming in that department.

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And now how you knockout 12 stormtroopers in one go with unleash: Roll 3 success and 3 advantages on your discipline check. Activate the power for 2 pips and activate magnitude 6 times. All 12 troopers soak the 5 base damage, get 3 wounds from the freeze, lighting, fire, whatever your unleash does and get knockout by the inflicted strain hopefully under the assumption that inflicting strain is not reduced by soak, which should be the case. All going down from strain, so they should be alive, now that assumes that you can target individuals in a minion group, which seems fine to me, but might be disagreed by others. In case you roll 6 success you are in trouble, because now you actually bring them below their wt with just pure damage and inflict a critical on top. But 6 successes are unlikely, so it is a calculated risk and in case you screw up you can always choose not to activate magnitude and keep the conflict manageable.

Ignoring the fact that you're depending on a very exact roll to do just the right combination of strain and normal damage, that's a pretty high roll even for 6 FR + a flipped DP. As for targeting individuals in a minion group...that's not RAW. If you want to houserule it that's certainly fine, but then the whole purpose of this discussion is to toss around what houserules Unleash needs to be viable, and you're claiming it doesn't need any... even as you propose houserules for it.

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It as well to expensive in most case on the pips, thus activating ensnare for 1 pip was suggested to hold off the whole group instead and just knockout a one or two based on advantages rolled, most likely one if I see the chance distribution on that die roller.

Bind still would be the more elegant solution, just stagger the whole minion group and influence is for sure better against a single target to inflict strain, but seems to fall off when used against multiple targets as activating magnitude and inflicting strain itself uses the same force pips resources. 6 strain on 12 targets still requires 8 force pips, which is equal to unleash and which is around the average force pips of a FR6 user who is willing to use dark and light and thus spending a destiny point. Still, no risk for accidently carnage involved in influence and just sending the troopers away might work too, so for sure the less violent solution … you gotta work with what you got. ;-)

Bind isn't just the most elegant one, it's also the cheaper and more efficient. For purposes of control, it beats out Unleash in every way.

As for "you gotta work with what you got," Unleash is an advanced, powerful Force technique. Choosing to pursue and hone that power instead of Bind or Misdirect or Influence or some other less violent power IS a choice for a more violent option. That alone is worth Conflict, and using it on living beings regardless of your intent worth more Conflict. It's not a power lightsiders should be using which is why it came packaged with a light side power that, by the same token, darksiders will rarely be using.

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Off-Topic

With all that said: My character would freeze people to death with unleash. Because claiming to be a cold blooded killer makes so much more sense that way.

21 hours ago, Aetrion said:

Unleash doesn't specify anywhere that it has to project lightning. It just says you are projecting your negative emotions as a form of energy, which could be pretty much anything. Sound, heat, light... You can have some fun with it if you want to use it as an unusual/unique power. I'm thinking if I get it on my Ithorian character I'll play it as destructive sound vibrations he shapes with his four throats, like a highly advanced form of Bellow.

The Mastery upgrade for Unleash does specifically say that it is the classic Force Lightning .

2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The Mastery upgrade for Unleash does specifically say that it is the classic Force Lightning .

We went over this earlier in the topic. Second post on this page.

So looking at the scenes in the movies where Force lightning (i.e. Unleash) gets used...

Nowhere in the primary source material is the power ever seen to be a one-shot kill move. If anything, it's really more a means of torture than a "destroy your enemies in one fell swoop" type of effect.

For instance, when we first see it in RotJ, the Emperor blasts Luke several times with lightning, leaving the boy screaming in agony before finally declaring "and now, you will die!" So there, mechanically speaking, it was probably a case of Palpatine not doing a lot of damage, but instead triggering critical injuries in the hopes of eventually getting that 151+ result that would result in PC!Luke's demise. Vader had already taken a beating during his earlier fight with Luke (i.e. had a couple of critical injuries inflicted), and so when he got hit by Palp's Force lightning, he probably got the "end is nigh" result which lead to Vader dying in the next scene.

In AotC, we see Anakin get blasted with Dooku's Force lightning, he's knocked for a loop, putting him out of combat for at least a round or two of combat, possibly even due to suffering a critical injury that left him staggered for that time. Dooku tries it on Obi-Wan, who counters it with his lightsaber, and again on Yoda who not only no-sells the attack but even reflects it right back at Dooku.

In RotS, we see Palps break out the lightning a few times. First time vs. Windu, he winds up getting it shoved right back into his face, while the second burst also included throwing Windu out a window to a very long (and most likely lethal) drop. He manages to zap Yoda pretty good before they break out the beatsticks, but Yoda is still able to get up and fight afterwards. Palp's second blast at Yoda winds up getting blocked before literally blowing up in his face, but neither he or Yoda get taken out by the backlash.

So in that respect, FFG has modeled Unleash pretty well, as it's not an insta-win super-attack (especially when initially purchased) but rather a means to attack and deal critical injuries without needing any other weapon at hand.