I have a PC who just bought into Misdirect and had some questions regarding it's use in large crowds and combat.

1. If they use misdirect on themselves and commit force dice, does that make them "invisible" or at least more likely to be noticed when walking through large crowds?

a) Would it give them boost dice depending on how many dice they commit, or setback to people who try to use perception to see them?

b) Or should it be like when in combat, the person attempting to hit them automatically gets 1 threat per committed force die when attempting to detect them?

2. When in combat does Misdirect essentially make you "invisible" to the enemy you are using it on?

a) Should attacks just miss completely if you stay still, or would it still generate the auto-threat depending on amount of force dice committed?

3. If you attack an enemy while you are using misdirect on them would it alter the attack dice pool (upgrading attack dice, adding boosts, etc.)?

1. Misdirect is a targeted power. If you used misdirect on yourself, then you would no longer be able to perceive yourself. And that would probably be a real head-trip But you just mean the Control upgrade that allows the Force user to commit Force dice to add automatic Threat to anyone attacking him, then no, he wouldn't be "invisible." He would look like the description says—he would "blur his own form." Not invisible, but blurry.

• a) I would think that this would actually attract more attention, if anything: "Hey how come that guy is all blurry?"
• b) Again, no. This upgrade is specifically for combat: it makes you harder to be critically wounded and gives you more opportunities for counterblows. Notice it doesn't make you harder to see or to hit , just harder to make out. Because you're visually blurry.

2. The base power does this, yes, but it's not just invisibility. You choose your targets, activate the power, and they cannot perceive you (or another thing/person you choose within his line of sight). This goes beyond sight and into perception in general.

• a) I would say, if the victim of the Misdirect power had previously seen the Force this round—before getting whammied by the power—then his attacks against the Force user would be upgraded twice, provided that the Force user was still within short range of his original location. If the Force user in question has committed Force dice to maintaining the power, I'd say that he would only be able to be targeted by a combat check is if he was doing something to give away his position, like making attacks himself.

3. If the target is unaware of you, I would perhaps give you a free maneuver to aim. Since you are not being actively harassed, it would seem reasonable that you could spare plenty of attention to your primary target, in your attempt to wound or incapacitate him.

Everything Away said is spot on. I'll give a little explanation of how I would handle the "I want to hide from the crowd" question if a player asked me.

First off the PC would need to "target" the crowd when activating the power. This could be an opportunity for an opposed check if I felt the crowd had reason to be opposing (perhaps it's a linch mob!).

"But the crowd could be hundreds of people, there are not enough Magnitude upgrades" I hear you ask... Minions are the answer my friends. I am perfectly comfortable with a group of Minions being considered a single "target" for this (and many other) Force Powers. I'm also comfortable having really large groups of Minions, I may even call that entire crowd only 10 targets, that's 25 to 30, even 50 per Minion group (still at least 2 magnitude activations for most characters). The crowd are plebs, worthless scum, snooty nosed merchants... just so long as they are not Droids!

Then they still need to activate Range to cover the entire crowd. Your looking at a minimum of 4 Force Points to do this; theoretically conceivable with FR2, possible with FR3, always possible with FR 4 (and the Dark Side ). That's a high level character doing something really cool, let them.

Now if you pc is lower level, then the entire crowd is probably out of the question, so scale down a bit. Perhaps only the crowd near them need tricking so a single Minion Group is enough, or just the area they are going to walk through, 3 or 4 groups of Minions. With 1 or 2 Force Points spent on the power the people that are most likely to identify the character will have no memory of them.

Important NPC's in the crowd could change things, an enemy Force User could detect the character, and even oppose them. A prominent figure may also provide opposition to the roll.

When attacking an "invisible" target you can use full concealment rules (+3 setback) instead of just rendering them unable to attack.

Invisibility is one of those things that's often misused in video game for simplicity. It's easier to just turn off the AIs ability to target a player than it is to create a good spray and pray system.

Remember, star wars is a universe with stealth fields and cloaking devices, so the ability to turn invisible isn't a complete mystery.

6 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

1. Misdirect is a targeted power. If you used misdirect on yourself, then you would no longer be able to perceive yourself. And that would probably be a real head-trip But you just mean the Control upgrade that allows the Force user to commit Force dice to add automatic Threat to anyone attacking him, then no, he wouldn't be "invisible." He would look like the description says—he would "blur his own form." Not invisible, but blurry.

• a) I would think that this would actually attract more attention, if anything: "Hey how come that guy is all blurry?"
• b) Again, no. This upgrade is specifically for combat: it makes you harder to be critically wounded and gives you more opportunities for counterblows. Notice it doesn't make you harder to see or to hit , just harder to make out. Because you're visually blurry.

2. The base power does this, yes, but it's not just invisibility. You choose your targets, activate the power, and they cannot perceive you (or another thing/person you choose within his line of sight). This goes beyond sight and into perception in general.

• a) I would say, if the victim of the Misdirect power had previously seen the Force this round—before getting whammied by the power—then his attacks against the Force user would be upgraded twice, provided that the Force user was still within short range of his original location. If the Force user in question has committed Force dice to maintaining the power, I'd say that he would only be able to be targeted by a combat check is if he was doing something to give away his position, like making attacks himself.

3. If the target is unaware of you, I would perhaps give you a free maneuver to aim. Since you are not being actively harassed, it would seem reasonable that you could spare plenty of attention to your primary target, in your attempt to wound or incapacitate him.

I gotcha, so for #1 it's more like Richard explained it below...if he wants to walk among the crowds without being seen I would have to roll it as something like his stealth vs the crowds passive perception.

For #2 I like the idea of upgrading the attacks against them instead of using concealment rules, the setbacks just don't seem like enough of a boost IMHO. The only caveat I would probably want to add would be if the person who is hidden attempts sudden movement or to attack then the rule of them being attack drops to concealment instead of upgrading.

5 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Everything Away said is spot on. I'll give a little explanation of how I would handle the "I want to hide from the crowd" question if a player asked me.

First off the PC would need to "target" the crowd when activating the power. This could be an opportunity for an opposed check if I felt the crowd had reason to be opposing (perhaps it's a linch mob!).

"But the crowd could be hundreds of people, there are not enough Magnitude upgrades" I hear you ask... Minions are the answer my friends. I am perfectly comfortable with a group of Minions being considered a single "target" for this (and many other) Force Powers. I'm also comfortable having really large groups of Minions, I may even call that entire crowd only 10 targets, that's 25 to 30, even 50 per Minion group (still at least 2 magnitude activations for most characters). The crowd are plebs, worthless scum, snooty nosed merchants... just so long as they are not Droids!

Then they still need to activate Range to cover the entire crowd. Your looking at a minimum of 4 Force Points to do this; theoretically conceivable with FR2, possible with FR3, always possible with FR 4 (and the Dark Side ). That's a high level character doing something really cool, let them.

Now if you pc is lower level, then the entire crowd is probably out of the question, so scale down a bit. Perhaps only the crowd near them need tricking so a single Minion Group is enough, or just the area they are going to walk through, 3 or 4 groups of Minions. With 1 or 2 Force Points spent on the power the people that are most likely to identify the character will have no memory of them.

Important NPC's in the crowd could change things, an enemy Force User could detect the character, and even oppose them. A prominent figure may also provide opposition to the roll.

The PC in question is a Force rating of 4, so he is pretty high level. Basically he wanted to be able to sneak around without people noticing him. The group might be walking together, but he is a very squishy player so he wants to sometimes "blink out of sight" in order to play the support character that he is. I think these rules would be pretty good in order to make him sustain this, like I mentioned above do it as his stealth vs the crowds passive perception or something. The only problem I see with this is if he does it to the entire group, then things could get dicey if I allow all of them to be hidden.

2 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

When attacking an "invisible" target you can use full concealment rules (+3 setback) instead of just rendering them unable to attack.

Invisibility is one of those things that's often misused in video game for simplicity. It's easier to just turn off the AIs ability to target a player than it is to create a good spray and pray system.

Remember, star wars is a universe with stealth fields and cloaking devices, so the ability to turn invisible isn't a complete mystery.

I think the concealment rules just don't do the skill justice, it feels like if you buy into this skill and have the ranks to hide yourself then you should be able to do so fairly well if you are stealthy about it. If you were to hide yourself then run around and attempt to attack enemies then you would be more of a blur instead and the concealment would be in effect instead.

The wording of it is that the target cannot perceive the hidden object/person. To me that says noise is gone, footprints are gone, smell is gone, everything that could be used to locate the character or item is blocked from the targets Mind. Remember this is a mind altering Force Power, its not altering the physical world. It's very powerful if used in the wrong hands

So in that sense it shouldn't effect droids at all?

Correct

1 hour ago, Ender07 said:

For #2 I like the idea of upgrading the attacks against them instead of using concealment rules, the setbacks just don't seem like enough of a boost IMHO. The only caveat I would probably want to add would be if the person who is hidden attempts sudden movement or to attack then the rule of them being attack drops to concealment instead of upgrading.

Hmm. Yeah, that might be a bit too much bookkeeping for me...but if it works, it works

I got the double-difficulty-upgrade thing from the "Blinded" injury on the critical injury table. It's limited in that it's only applied to the one hidden target specified by the Misdirect power.

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The PC in question is a Force rating of 4, so he is pretty high level. Basically he wanted to be able to sneak around without people noticing him. The group might be walking together, but he is a very squishy player so he wants to sometimes "blink out of sight" in order to play the support character that he is. I think these rules would be pretty good in order to make him sustain this, like I mentioned above do it as his stealth vs the crowds passive perception or something. The only problem I see with this is if he does it to the entire group, then things could get dicey if I allow all of them to be hidden.

Yeah no, just run it as written. Depending on his Presence he can still affect an impressive number of people, but not necessarily a "crowd." There are talents that can help with stealth checks, but you can't just make yourself vanish from whole crowds of people. However, with a healthy dose of the Indistinguishable talent and the Slight of Mind talent, you can be very Force-sneaky.

So one thing I realized I still unsure about...if the Force user commits dice to generate threat when attacks are made against him when he is "blurred" but then another part mentions that they can no longer perceive you...which is it? Why is it blurred at one moment and total "invisibility" for lack of a better word later?

On 03/05/2017 at 11:03 PM, Ender07 said:

I have a PC who just bought into Misdirect and had some questions regarding it's use in large crowds and combat.

1. If they use misdirect on themselves and commit force dice, does that make them "invisible" or at least more likely to be noticed when walking through large crowds?

a) Would it give them boost dice depending on how many dice they commit, or setback to people who try to use perception to see them?

b) Or should it be like when in combat, the person attempting to hit them automatically gets 1 threat per committed force die when attempting to detect them?

2. When in combat does Misdirect essentially make you "invisible" to the enemy you are using it on?

a) Should attacks just miss completely if you stay still, or would it still generate the auto-threat depending on amount of force dice committed?

3. If you attack an enemy while you are using misdirect on them would it alter the attack dice pool (upgrading attack dice, adding boosts, etc.)?

1) Misdirect has to have a target no matter the application. It's not so much the player becomes invisible, but the targets are unable to preceive the character. So in that crowd situation they would become invisible to the target if they succeed on that check though the target can interact with the "invisible" user, and any projections of that user (blaster fire) would be visible.
a) Usually if the user fails his discipline check then he would be unable to visualise the person at all; though he may notice any impact that player has on the environment. Basically, if you beat his will then I would probably give the player complete cover vs attacks or a dice upgrade, whichever is greater, though I as the GM may not attack that person if they chose not to reveal themselves. Just the players would still have to roll stealth checks against any who could see him.
b) see above.

2) Yes, and silent. But it does not erase the traces that character would leave on the environment. If they feel something is there then they may attack. In addition if there are any allies of the NPC that can see the PC or if he ever leaves the range of the PC, then he can attack and in the latter case the misdirect would end.

3) I would argue it would add a boost. Two boosts if the character was completely unaware up to this point. I would almost never allow mitigating factors to upgrade a check unless they were exceptional factors as that reflects a genuine skill in a field. However this is entirely subject to the DM.

3 hours ago, Ender07 said:

So one thing I realized I still unsure about...if the Force user commits dice to generate threat when attacks are made against him when he is "blurred" but then another part mentions that they can no longer perceive you...which is it? Why is it blurred at one moment and total "invisibility" for lack of a better word later?

The thing is that commit effect leaves the actual effect of the "blurring" up to the GM and players. But in essence it's a fleeting misdirection that makes pinning that character down annoying at best. E.g. The character is slightly offset from where they actually are. Or that seem to gain adnormal reach, or fleeting bursts of invisibility that lasts very short stints, (less then a second) but it's enough to find as a distraction. The more the player commits, the more irritating/elusive this illusion becomes.

The Commit upgrade for Threat is an entirely new way to use the Force. You don't have to activate the power first to do that part, it's just and Action and suddenly your blurry, but not invisible. Obviously it's much easier to do than the Duration upgrade which is how you maintain "imperceptibility"

53 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

The Commit upgrade for Threat is an entirely new way to use the Force. You don't have to activate the power first to do that part, it's just and Action and suddenly your blurry, but not invisible. Obviously it's much easier to do than the Duration upgrade which is how you maintain "imperceptibility"

So rather than doing one action to activate the power, then doing a second action the next round to commit the dice for the threat aspect...instead you just commit the Force dice right away and immediately gain the benefits of being "blurry" therefore not being able to be hit very easily. If you wanted to completely hide yourself or others, you would have to roll the Misdirect check to get enough Force pips, then would a discipline check come into play if it's against a higher level enemy? If the enemy fails the roll to detect them, then they are imperceptible to them (minus environmental effects)?

Yeah basically, with every upgrade purchased there are 2 ways to use Misdirect, both requires a single Action to perform:

1. Basic Power. This activation requires you to roll your Force Dice and spend Force Points to hide something or someone(the Object) from the Target of your power. This may be opposed by the Target if the GM deems it necessary, or if the Target is a PC.

Range increases the distance your target can be away. Magnitude increases the number of affected Targets. Strength increases the size of the Object. Mastery increases the number of Objects. There are 2 control upgrades (on the right hand side) that allows you to create illusions or change the appearance of the Object in the eyes of the Target.

Finally there is the Duration. After resolving the check and determining the full effect of the Force Power the user may Commit 2 Force Dice to maintain the generated effects until they uncommit those dice, or the Target moves outside the activated range of the power.

2. The second way to use Misdirect is using the single Control upgrade in the second column from the left. The character commits any number of Force Dice, up to their current Force Rating, to add that many Threat to combat checks targeting the Character.

Think of it like this too, its all mental, nothing is physically changing. Sensors, cameras all can still record your pressence.

The more a target knows your there, the harder it is for you to "force" their mind to not pereive you.

So if your attacking someone it would be really hard to convince their mind that you arnt standing right in front of them. Not so hard to nudge their mind so they dont perceive exactly where you are at or to suggest your half a foot to the right or left. Thus blurry.