5 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

What happens when you activate the basic power of Imbue multiple times?

Target an additional character?

Increase another characteristic of the original target?

Increase the same characteristic of the original target further?

Oh, sorry, forgot to add the qualifier. Imbue can't be activated more then once per Force power check. It's one character per activation.

And as Blackbird reiterated, a character can be imbued only once per encounter, and it normally only lasts for one round. Make the most of it!

Also, since I really dislike it when people can augment other people but not themselves, does anyone see anything innately wrong, balance-wise, with allowing Imbue on oneself? I think it would be a great way to approximate Dark Rage: big boost to Brawn and Willpower, boost to the crits you inflict, but you take a fair amount of strain to do it (6 normally, 4 at minimum with 2+ ranks of Resolve) and without training (and committing di(c)e) it doesn't last long.

I know that Enhance is supposed to be yourself and Imbue is someone else, but I can boost my buddies' Cunning and make them harder to crit while I do it, but I can't do that for myself? If I can manipulate their life force that precisely, why can't I do it to my own? It's MY life force! There's no way I'm not intimately more familiar with it.

1 hour ago, Garran said:

The idea that someone who owns a change of clothes can't possibly meet the demands of asceticism is reasonable?

And that every ascetic in the galaxy inherently knows and agrees with that particular point?

Using encumbrance isn't perfect (no mechanical measure of 'asceticism' will be since it can't measure attitude toward life or personal habits), but it's far and away the simplest and most straightforward approach for a narrative-driven system that isn't designed around putting lists of arbitrary limitations on character archetypes (or characters generally) and is big on allowing individual interpretation of what it means to be X.

It doesn't say he can't own a change of clothes, which I think is just 1 enc. But even if it prevented him from bringing a change of clothes with him everywhere he went (as opposed to leaving it back on the ship/in the monastery/in a yurt) , I don't think that's unreasonable.

So I guess you can activate it multiple times to target multiple allies if you want but that's it.

As a bit of minmax power gamer speculation let's consider some of the crazy stuff that can be done with Imbue. Imagine for a moment a Sage Ascetic with a FR of 4, One with the Universe and Empty Soul. That's a minimum of 7 Force Pips on checks when OwtU is active. With a better than average chance of 4 Dark Side Pips, particularly if your meditation happens in some kind of hate fuelled area (Probably what the Emperor had in mind for Vaders fortress location!) thus increasing chances of getting lots of Threat.

Now if said Sage targets a Makashi Duelist with Imbue they could potentially spend 4 Dark Side Points to increase Presence by 2 and add 60 (wrong) to all Criticals they deal, at up to extreme range.

Let's also entertain the thought of a Teacher Seer who uses Once a Student to provide that same Makashi with a FR of 4...

Now how about that Makashi, add Executioner for 3 ranks of Lethal Blows. Collect a lovely double bladed Lightsaber with a Dragon Pearl, Crit 1 and a few ranks of Vicious (3 from memory but I'm afb). You also get the excellent Marked for Death talent.

So the Dualist has 60 (wrong) added to each Crit from the Imbue power, 30 from Vicious, 30 from Lethal Blows, adds 2 automatic Advantage to attacks, then rolls 3 Force Dice to activate Makashi Finish for at least +30 to crits from the attack. That's +150... with the potential of hitting twice and potentially causing 2 crits.

This also works very well where the Lightsaber User is an Ataru, hit 3 times using Saber Swarm and roll 3 Force Dice with Hawk Bat Swoop.

Edit: my understanding was wrong, see below, the Imbue power adds less to crits than I thought.

14 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

So I guess you can activate it multiple times to target multiple allies if you want but that's it.

As a bit of minmax power gamer speculation let's consider some of the crazy stuff that can be done with Imbue. Imagine for a moment a Sage Ascetic with a FR of 4, One with the Universe and Empty Soul. That's a minimum of 7 Force Pips on checks when OwtU is active. With a better than average chance of 4 Dark Side Pips, particularly if your meditation happens in some kind of hate fuelled area (Probably what the Emperor had in mind for Vaders fortress location!) thus increasing chances of getting lots of Threat.

Now if said Sage targets a Makashi Duelist with Imbue they could potentially spend 4 Dark Side Points to increase Presence by 2 and add 60 to all Criticals they deal.

Let's also entertain the thought of a Teacher Seer who uses Once a Student to provide that same Makashi with a FR of 4...

Now how about that Makashi, add Executioner for 3 ranks of Lethal Blows. Collect a lovely double bladed Lightsaber with a Dragon Pearl, Crit 1 and a few ranks of Vicious (3 from memory but I'm afb). You also get the excellent Marked for Death talent.

So the Dualist has 60 added to each Crit from the Imbue power, 30 from Vicious, 30 from Lethal Blows, adds 2 automatic Advantage to attacks, then rolls 3 Force Dice to activate Makashi Finish for at least +30 to crits from the attack. That's +150... with the potential of hitting twice and potentially causing 2 crits.

This also works very well where the Lightsaber User is an Ataru, hit 3 times using Saber Swarm and roll 3 Force Dice with Hawk Bat Swoop.

Umm...how are you getting +60 to the Duelist's crits? There are only 3 Strength upgrades, and they don't have a cost to activate, it automatically applies when you hit someone with Imbue.

I think I see the problem: you CANNOT activate the base power of Imbue more than once when you use it, not to double-boost the primary target, not to affect additional targets. You spend two pips to boost a foo' and give them the benefit of the Strength upgrades, one more to maybe boost a skill, and then any pips left over can only be spent on range upgrades, two per activation.

Ahh, I misread your description of the Strength upgrade, I thought Strength still took a pip to activate: I was counting 2 for base, 2 more to activate strength twice for +30 x 2... but nope. On the plus side it requires far less to activate and allows 4 Pips total to extend the Range to extreme.

So the Makashi gets +120 to the first Crit, +130 to the second (due to the first Crit adding 10 to the second )

Yep! I mean, it's ridiculous, but by the time that you're at the point where one character can have essentially filed out most of the Teacher and Seer specs, you're playing at around 1,000 xp. At that point, a 70% chance to auto-kill a single target after the team inputs a large amount of setup is not all that horrible.

You know, perspective!

Of course an Executioner/Assassin/Marauder can add 90 to their crits just with Lethal Blows talents, throw in a Vibroaxe and your well on your way to One Hit Kill City, which a skilled Sage could probably boost using their Ebb/Flow power.

What does meditative trance do (ascetic), I can't find it in oggdude's generator so I'm presuming it's a new talent

34 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

What does meditative trance do (ascetic), I can't find it in oggdude's generator so I'm presuming it's a new talent

when suffocating, the character suffers 1 strain instead of 3. when exposed to vacuuum character suffers 1 wound instead of 3.

Hmm Imbue gives me another option for space combat...

So after looking through ebb/flow in the text descriptions, I was curious how the spending of the pips for the advantage, threat, success, and failures work due to the fact the powers can not be activated multiple times. Does this mean it can only net 1 of the desired effect, or can you spend multiple pips on the single activation?

Here is a text example in the book:

"When making a combined Ebb power check, the Force user may spend (pips) to add (threat) to all checks made by engaged opponents until the end of the Force user's next turn. The Force user may not activate this multiple times."

19 minutes ago, ldgif said:

So after looking through ebb/flow in the text descriptions, I was curious how the spending of the pips for the advantage, threat, success, and failures work due to the fact the powers can not be activated multiple times. Does this mean it can only net 1 of the desired effect, or can you spend multiple pips on the single activation?

Here is a text example in the book:

"When making a combined Ebb power check, the Force user may spend (pips) to add (threat) to all checks made by engaged opponents until the end of the Force user's next turn. The Force user may not activate this multiple times."

I don't have the book text, but usually "spend [pip] to get [benefit]. May not be activated multiple times," means that you can spend exactly one pip to get the benefit exactly once. If they intended for you to be able to spend multiple pips, it would be much simpler to allow you to activate the upgrade as much as you want. With the upgrades, you could probably spend pips to get, say, one strain, one advantage, one success for one pip each, but not spend three pips to heal three strain.

2 minutes ago, Kaigen said:

I don't have the book text, but usually "spend [pip] to get [benefit]. May not be activated multiple times," means that you can spend exactly one pip to get the benefit exactly once. If they intended for you to be able to spend multiple pips, it would be much simpler to allow you to activate the upgrade as much as you want. With the upgrades, you could probably spend pips to get, say, one strain, one advantage, one success for one pip each, but not spend three pips to heal three strain.

That is what I was thinking, thanks for a little clarification. Makes sense especially with the seperate upgrade to allow you to spend more pips to heal/inflict strain.

Essentially they designed it so doing it once costs a certain amount of xp, activating it multiple times costs more xp.

On 2017-6-3 at 3:29 AM, Blackbird888 said:

Ascetic is hard to compare, and fits in its own unique role; it's very utilitarian. The actual focus on asceticism is interesting, with three talents requiring the character to carry very little equipment. I think the spec will appeal to those really interested in the concept, but more meta-style materialistic players will gloss over it. By the way, Mind Bleed can be avoided entirely if desired. The biggest problem is Force Protection (nothing new); it has a good concept but is poorly designed. If it worked differently, it might be worth having, but falls into a 'could have been' category. Ascetic works well with any Consular specialization, but also blends well with the Hermit and the Seer, and I can see the Warden getting mileage out of it as well. If Force Protection worked differently, I would say Protector would also be a mix.

The worst thing about force protection, is that enhance brawn does the same and more for the same committ, and since it can be used multiple times 4 force rating can get you, +4 soak, +4 dmg with melee , no strain cost, trading an action to activate instead of a maneuver, problem is that it's limited to 6 maximum, for the same FR4 a player can get 10 soak without armor with 6 brawn. Does make the protector/ascetic/x build interesting, esp as with your fr committed you still can generate 1 dark side and light side point with empty soul on your force checks even with every dice committed.

1 hour ago, syrath said:

The worst thing about force protection, is that enhance brawn does the same and more for the same committ, and since it can be used multiple times 4 force rating can get you, +4 soak, +4 dmg with melee , no strain cost, trading an action to activate instead of a maneuver, problem is that it's limited to 6 maximum, for the same FR4 a player can get 10 soak without armor with 6 brawn. Does make the protector/ascetic/x build interesting, esp as with your fr committed you still can generate 1 dark side and light side point with empty soul on your force checks even with every dice committed.

Enhance brawn can be used multiple times? I gotta read that again. But I'm fairly certain you can't commit more then once unless the force power states otherwise.

The main advantage with force protection over enhance is that it can be commuted to on a situational basis with with a move instead of an action. It's the same reason that imbue item is sometimes better then jury rig; because it is superior in imbuing short term items such as grenades, or improvising while jury rig rewards planning ahead, but is fairly impractical to use in the middle of an encounter.

It can be activated more than once in a single Action, the same as you would activate the Influence Basic Power multiple times to inflict more than 1 Strain in a single Action.

Could you give more details on the gear and force traditions? Does the mentor in the core book represent a Jedi mentor or could they come back and add that? What does Savvy negotiator do?

On 6/2/2017 at 10:21 PM, Absol197 said:

Mastery: Increase characteristics boosted by this power by 2 (maximum of 7).

I want to be sure that this is how it is written. There is a difference between "by 2" and "to 2". In this case, increasing boosted characteristics by 2 should mean it stacks with the initial base power and boosts a total of 3 characteristic ranks. To 2 would mean it goes up 2 total.

No it counts as a contradiction

1 minute ago, TheShard said:

No it counts as a contradiction

Now I'm extra confused.

1 hour ago, JinFaram said:

Could you give more details on the gear and force traditions? Does the mentor in the core book represent a Jedi mentor or could they come back and add that? What does Savvy negotiator do?

Go back a few pages in this forum topic, there was a good bit of info released & there likely won't be much more as it's technically flavor text and you should pick up a copy of the book if you want all of its secrets.

I would guess that the mentor in the core book is a more traditional jedi type of mentor.

Savvy Negotiator can be found in one of the articles about Disciples of Harmony, which is why nobody has posted what it does in here, it would be redundant to do so.

2 hours ago, LordBritish said:

Enhance brawn can be used multiple times? I gotta read that again. But I'm fairly certain you can't commit more then once unless the force power states otherwise.

The main advantage with force protection over enhance is that it can be commuted to on a situational basis with with a move instead of an action. It's the same reason that imbue item is sometimes better then jury rig; because it is superior in imbuing short term items such as grenades, or improvising while jury rig rewards planning ahead, but is fairly impractical to use in the middle of an encounter.

Enhance brawn and agility can be activated multiple times so you can jump from 2 to 6 Brawn in one action, If you already have a high brawn force protection is not as bad as people often make out, it certainly isnt amazing, firstly it costs 1 strain per round but is always up so even compared with supreme reflect it's cheaper than getting hit using parry with 4 ranks of parry, granted it doesnt work with lightsabers but it does work against blasters making it similar to having both parry 4 & reflect 4 , that is always on for 1 strain per round as long as your arent fighting breach weapons. It takes a maneuver to activate and doesn't cost a strain until your next round, as it is always on you dont have to re-up it, it is a little niche but I like it.

What it lacked was the ability to take it beyond 2 ranks which with 3 specs is now possible ( in case you wonder why 3, you need protector and ascetic, neither of which have 2 ranks of force rating leaving you at FR3 and you need 4 for the 4 ranks force protection so you need another one, Armorer would be a good choice if you have soak 2 armor)

I was responding to the Ferrari monk comment I didn't realize I was a page behind when I commented.

Out of curiosity (because otherwise I will have to wait until Thursday) what are the stats of the crucible, (it seems like a reasonable ship to use in a KotoR era game, and I am going to be playing in one)

2 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

I want to be sure that this is how it is written. There is a difference between "by 2" and "to 2". In this case, increasing boosted characteristics by 2 should mean it stacks with the initial base power and boosts a total of 3 characteristic ranks. To 2 would mean it goes up 2 total.

The full text description is, "The Force user increases characteristics boosted by this power by 2 (to a maximum of 7) instead of 1 (to a maximum of 6)." So no, you can't activate it twice to get a total of +3.

You also can't activate it separately because it doesn't have a separate activation (or pip cost). It's a permanent alteration of the basic power.