If I'm trying to sneak past a force sensitive character does sensing my lifesigns kill my stealth.

Ah. I foresee a thread of much debate.

In short ... yes...?

The sensing force sensitive knows you're there. Somewhere. Whether or not he knows your exact location, size, shape, direction, distance, direction of travel and so on, is a bit more ambiguous. This is were people probably will debate.

Also, using the power to sense life-signs doesn't necessarily tell the user what kind of creature it is, what its intent is, whether or not it is actually sneaking or not. But yeah, the user will know that you're there, along with all the other life-signs present in the area.

So in that case, it doesn't necessarily break your stealth as such, that is to say knowing there's a life-sign somewhere within range, along with all the other life-signs ... doesn't mean a force sensitive guard will sound the alarm, attack or investigate.

Also, this kind of use I'd make into an opposed check, his discipline vs your discipline, or even stealth.

It depends.

Yeah, not exactly a straight answer, but then the power was written fairly nebulous to give GMs a bit of freedom in how to implement it in their games.

My take, would be that successfully using the Sense power allows to detect "all living things within range" but it doesn't exactly highlight what those lifeforms are. And I'm away from my book, but I'm not sure that Sense tells you where the detected lifeforms are specifically, just that they're within your sensory range; while short range narrows it down quite a bit, sensing out to medium or long range leaves a lot of ground to cover.

Plus, this would be a great opportunity for an opposed check, with the stealthy person using their Stealth to oppose the Force user's Perception or Vigilance. If the Force user succeeds and generates enough Force points for the power, then they've managed to pick out the stealthy person's location, while failure on the skill check but generating sufficient Force points means the Force user knows that somebody is out there, but doesn't know exactly where they are.

Of course, just because your Force senses allowed you to pick out where the stealthy person is, that doesn't mean you get a free pass in regards to concealment; you might know there's a space ninja creeping around in the shadows of a very poorly lit room, but you've still got to contend with the setback dice incurred due to concealment due to the level of darkness.

As far as I'm concerned sense doesn't tell you where exactly someone is, it only tells you that someone is there. It's more the "I sense a presence I haven't sensed for many years..." kind of power than the ability to see them through a wall.

That said, Sense will tell the user that a hidden person is there. If they know the person they can use Seek to find them. They can also use Farsight to see through walls and darkness to locate hidden people very easily.

Yes, he would be able to sense you and your Stealth roll, since Stealth is usually an opposed check, would probably have a Setback or two if they are not actively searching for you, a Challenge die if they are actively searching for you.

Yeah, like others have said, I'd use the Vader in New Hope as your guidepost. He sensed someone, in this case Obi, but wasn't entirely sure where he was.

However one thing to keep in mind, is that the stealth rolls might help you bypass the Sense check entirely. It's not like all Force users run around pinging Sense like active sonar 24/7. If they don't think there is any reason to do so, they likely wouldn't bother. So, if your Sneaky McSneakerson character is skilled enough to get through without making anyone even remotely think there is anyone there, it's likely the Sense situation would never come up.

On 22/02/2017 at 9:26 PM, Oden Gebhac said:

Yes, he would be able to sense you and your Stealth roll, since Stealth is usually an opposed check, would probably have a Setback or two if they are not actively searching for you, a Challenge die if they are actively searching for you.

Two setback is WAY more brutal than one difficulty upgrade. Although if you're adding a Challenge, rather than just upgrading, then that's a different matter.

Like Donovan said, why not simply make it an opposed check? Say, Perception plus the Force rating versus Stealth (or possibly Discipline) for the person sneaking?

So looked up the Sense power (had kinda forgotten about this thread).

Nothing in the power says the user automatically knows the precise location of where the living beings detected are, just that they're "within range." So based on that, I'd say using the Sense basic power wouldn't automatically negate the use of the Stealth skill.

How you as the GM handle it from there is up to you to determine.