Destiny Points and talents in combat

By ShadoWarrior, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

I'm a bit unclear on something. The RAW states that you may " spend only one light side Destiny Point during a single action ". My question is this: if a player spends a DP to upgrade his attack dice pool, then are they forbidden from using a DP to activate a talent such as Dead to Rights ? Or is resolving the results of an action (aka interpreting the dice result) separate from the action itself?

If a player can't, then it seems to me that such talents aren't quite as useful as they may seem at first glance as you have to risk not getting at least one success (by choosing not to upgrade your dice pool) and hope that you hit in spite of not using a DP so that you can have a DP to apply the talent. "Oh, I got lucky and I hit anyway, so now I can really do some damage."

My group has ruled that if you spend to upgrade, you can't then flip to use Dead to Rights, Just Kidding, or things like that. I think the trade is fair, essentially you are risking a slightly lower odds of success with 3-5 additional "successes" when calculating damage, which can be crucial to overcome soak or something to get a crit on a heavily armored boss or something.

Gotta limit it somewhere or the min/max hogs would beat up the DP pool imo.

It's also worth noting that If you are a Force user rolling your Force Dice along with a skill check and you spend a DP to modify the Dice Pool, you cannot spend an additional DP to make use of Dark Side points.

Thanks, all. I thought that's how the RAW worked, but I wanted to make sure.

Yes raw is that you cannot spend more than 1 Dp spend, so if you flip a DP to allow an impossible check you cannot then upgrade the check, this also includes if you spend 1 or 2 DP to activate a signature ability, you cannot use it on the check to activate it either.

The only caviat to that is with Signature abilities which typically require that you spend 2 DP. Granted, they can only be used once a session, but still.

On 17/05/2017 at 7:51 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

The only caviat to that is with Signature abilities which typically require that you spend 2 DP. Granted, they can only be used once a session, but still.

actually sometimes twice

Basically as everyone else has said, but I'm here just to clarify further, in case it might help. In essence, only 1 effect that can be achieved through Destiny Points can be applied to each side of a roll, and this is taken into account starting from when the type of action is declared ("I'm going to do this ") through when the final results of that action are applied ("Here is what happened when you did this "). So the actor (the one rolling, and using positive dice like Ability dice, Proficiency dice, and Boost dice) can activate any ONE of the following:

-Upgrade the Ability of the check;

-Activate a talent that requires a Destiny Point;

-Activate a Force power that requires a Destiny Point;

-Enable an Impossible check to be made;

-Activate a Signature Ability;

-Become able to spend black (or white) pips from Force dice to generate Force points (at the cost of 1 strain - and possible 1 conflict - per pip).

At the same time, the defender (the character or player who is affected by the action, and who wants to add Difficulty , Challenge , and Setback dice to the pool) can, concurrently, add any ONE of the following effects as well:

-Upgrade the Difficulty of the check;

-Activate a defensive talent (like Coordination Dodge or Preemptive Avoidance) that requires a Destiny Point;

-Activate a defensive Force power that can be used out-of-turn that requires a Destiny Point (can't think of any off the top of my head, but they may exist at some point).

This has some consequences, which I think fit quite well with Star Wars. Firstly, if something is Impossibly difficult, then you can't apply any of your extraordinary talents to the attempt. Additionally, if you want to be able to do something really big with the Force, you can use both types of pips, but you also can't upgrade your roll or use a Force power that needs a DP. Things like that.