As per my habit of creating characters that are contrary to type, I've made myself a Hutt Ascetic (3,2,2,2,4,2). This is my first force user, and I find myself wondering what I don't know I don't know. Specifically, I'm uncertain if I have a reasonable path to dealing with the Hutt's limited movement (can not take more than one movement per turn).

My initial build included the first level of Ebb/Flow for role play reasons. My plan was to take the Niman Discipline as a second spec and use Draw Closer to deal with range issues in combat. After a session, I think I will need to grab up the Force Leap powers in the Enhance tree. I like Ebb/Flow, but I think that XP needs to go into Enhance quickly, and that once in battle I will likely just be using Draw Closer to generate successes.

My questions are: Are their movement options I am not considering? Is Ebb/Flow still worth putting 20 XP into for strain delivery and strain healing? I suppose a character might not always be able to use a lightsaber, though an Asthetic can't really carry much.

Story note: We are trapped on a poor, low tech world, and my Hutt lost an arm in the first session due to some very bad luck. There are rumors of someone who might be able to clone limbs, but I think that is many sessions away, if ever. Does this suggest a different path for force powers?

Had a guy play a Hutt Soresu Defender in a store game once. Worked out pretty well all things considered, He made pretty good use of the Defensive Circle talent to protect his allies. Just required a little tactical thinking on their part to stay in short range of him.

1 hour ago, TheSapient said:

As per my habit of creating characters that are contrary to type, I've made myself a Hutt Ascetic (3,2,2,2,4,2). This is my first force user, and I find myself wondering what I don't know I don't know. Specifically, I'm uncertain if I have a reasonable path to dealing with the Hutt's limited movement (can not take more than one movement per turn).

My initial build included the first level of Ebb/Flow for role play reasons. My plan was to take the Niman Discipline as a second spec and use Draw Closer to deal with range issues in combat. After a session, I think I will need to grab up the Force Leap powers in the Enhance tree. I like Ebb/Flow, but I think that XP needs to go into Enhance quickly, and that once in battle I will likely just be using Draw Closer to generate successes.

My questions are: Are their movement options I am not considering? Is Ebb/Flow still worth putting 20 XP into for strain delivery and strain healing? I suppose a character might not always be able to use a lightsaber, though an Asthetic can't really carry much.

Story note: We are trapped on a poor, low tech world, and my Hutt lost an arm in the first session due to some very bad luck. There are rumors of someone who might be able to clone limbs, but I think that is many sessions away, if ever. Does this suggest a different path for force powers?

From wording used by Sam Stewart using things like Enhance Leap is still considered moving. It isnt as constricting as you might think to lose the extra maneuver for movement.

1 minute ago, syrath said:

From wording used by Sam Stewart using things like Enhance Leap is still considered moving. It isnt as constricting as you might think to lose the extra maneuver for movement.

My thinking here is that the bottom of the leap tree has this movement as a maneuver instead of an action, and with enough force points you can move 2 range bands.

Technically, the Hutt is not allowed to "spend more than one maneuver moving per turn", which is a little different than what I said in my original post. So I think one would still be able to use the base leap power as an action and still use a maneuver to move again?

Anyway, I take your point that more limited movement is not the end of the world. I may need enhance regardless, just because having one arm and no legs is making it hard to get around on a ruined planet.

Thanks.

1 hour ago, TheSapient said:

My thinking here is that the bottom of the leap tree has this movement as a maneuver instead of an action, and with enough force points you can move 2 range bands.

In this you misunderstand the range upgrade. By default you can use enhance leap to move to another location in short range of a target (which is one of the three definitions of a move maneuver)

With the range upgrade you can move from short to medium range of a target (which is also one of the three definitions of a move maneuver). What is important is this can only be activated once.

Ultimately, enhance leap allows you to travel the same distance as a move maneuver can, except you cannot choose to use the move maneuver's third option of engaging or disengaging. The advantage leap gives you is to travel over , across, around or upwards to avoid rough terrain, or bypass normally impassable areas, or to allow you a third pseudo move by taking it as an action (giving you three maneuvers worth of movement in a turn, or 4 with the explorer signature ability)

2 minutes ago, syrath said:

In this you misunderstand the range upgrade. By default you can use enhance leap to move to another location in short range of a target (which is one of the three definitions of a move maneuver)

With the range upgrade you can move from short to medium range of a target (which is also one of the three definitions of a move maneuver). What is important is this can only be activated once.

Ultimately, enhance leap allows you to travel the same disfance as a move maneuver can, except you cannot choose to use the movce maneuver's third option of engaging or disengaging. The advantage leap gives you is to travel over , across, around or upwards to avoid rough terrain, or bypass normally impassable areas, or to allow you third pseudo move by taking it as an action (giving you three maneuvers worth of movement in a turn, or 4 with the explorer signature ability)

I appreciate the clarification. I'm not sure I understand properly. Suppose I am extreme range of an NPC. I use leap with the range upgrade to close the gap, can I not get to medium range?

I do now understand that using an action to use Force Leap is a move maneuver , which therefore precludes a second move maneuver for a Hutt.

1 hour ago, TheSapient said:

I appreciate the clarification. I'm not sure I understand properly. Suppose I am extreme range of an NPC. I use leap with the range upgrade to close the gap, can I not get to medium range?

I do now understand that using an action to use Force Leap is a move maneuver , which therefore precludes a second move maneuver for a Hutt.

No you couldnt travel from extreme to medium in one leap (or even get to long for that matter). Enhance Leap has two choices for range once upgraded the furthest of these is that you can move from short range to medium range of a target or vice versa, which if you look at the move maneuver description is also the furthest distance a move maneuver can travel. So you can infer that to move from extreme to medium will take 4 leaps (because it takes 4 maneuvers) to move from medium to short is another leap, then you have no choice but to use a move maneuver to engage the target.

Edit - The real advantage to leap is you can travel over rough terrain without penalty, you can travel across gaps in terrain, you. an travel over obstacles that may have needed multiple actions to get over, finally you can travel vertically the same distance. You can also chain two leaps or moves and finish off by using leap as an action to give you three maneuvers worth of movement in one turn.

36 minutes ago, syrath said:

Enhance Leap has two choices for range once upgraded the furthest of these is that you can move from short range to medium range of a target or vice versa, which if you look at the move maneuver description is also the furthest distance a move maneuver can travel. So you can infer that to move from extreme to medium will take 4 leaps (because it takes 4 maneuvers) to move from medium to short is another leap, then you have no choice but to use a move maneuver to engage the target.

Edit - The real advantage to leap is you can travel over rough terrain without penalty, you can travel across gaps in terrain, you. an travel over obstacles that may have needed multiple actions to get over, finally you can travel vertically the same distance. You can also chain two leaps or moves and finish off by using leap as an action to give you three maneuvers worth of movement in one turn.

Thank you for your patience! I did not realize that moving from extreme to long and from long to medium each took two maneuvers each.

EDIT: Never mind. I also now understand what I was getting wrong about engaging.

Further EDIT: So for my character with Draw Closer, Enhance Leap is more actually more useful out of combat, just for dealing with ladders, etc.

There is a Specialisation in the Endless Vigil book called Sentry. A central component of that Specialisation is a talent called Improved Saber Throw which allows you to throw your Saber to Long Range. If you succeed and spend a Force Pip you hit, then you need to spend 2 more Force Pips to have the weapon return to you. It's an awesome way to be a Ranged Lightsaber character. There are also 2 ranks of Reflect and at the bottom of the tree the Improved Reflect talent. It may suit your needs rather well.

I've got to agree there. Besides, I really don't see a "slug" being capable of leaping through the air.

I could imagine a slug sliding really fast though with some very slippery excretions, enough perhaps to get over rough ground. They are also very heavy so simply pushing through with sheer bulk is not bad... leaping vertically is a "stretch" though.

9 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

I could imagine a slug sliding really fast though with some very slippery excretions, enough perhaps to get over rough ground. They are also very heavy so simply pushing through with sheer bulk is not bad... leaping vertically is a "stretch" though.

4 hours ago, TheSapient said:

Thank you for your patience! I did not realize that moving from extreme to long and from long to medium each took two maneuvers each.

EDIT: Never mind. I also now understand what I was getting wrong about engaging.

Further EDIT: So for my character with Draw Closer, Enhance Leap is more actually more useful out of combat, just for dealing with ladders, etc.

Not entirely it has a lot of uses inside and outside of combat. Example you have your main BBEG sitting behind a squad of mooks, and you want to get in melee range and there is no way of doing so without engaging the mooks first because thay have bottlenecked you, you can leap over the top of them.

Find yourself in a canyon where your opponents think they are safe because they are at medium range vertical to you, for others they have to climb making a minimum of two maneuvers to get to short range , and perhaps longer if the GM wants you to use your action to do an athletics check, just leap and you just need a maneuver to engage. (Hawkbat swoop lets you make a saber attack from short range , force pips permitting, meaning, one maneuver to leap to short range and Hawkbat lets you attack and engage in the same action without the need for a move maneuver ,draw closer is similar only it brings the target to you)

A BBEG, who likes to snipe has set up shop at long range but made sure there is rough terrain, so doubling the maneuvers it takes to reach, so now for everyone else its 7 maneuvers to engage (4 from long to medium, 2 from medium to short and 1 to engage). Leap lets you jump 2 movements worth in the first round (one move and one action) your second round gets you to short on the first maneuver ,allowing you to attack with draw closer or hawkbat swoop on round 2. Rough terrain is the ranged combatants best defense against melee characters, being able to ignore that is available to a few specs, but a force sensitive can buy into leap and get a lot more on top of that.

The one I think is a little "nerfed" is the freerunning talents which get the same distances as leap does, with one allowing you to move from short range to short range for one strain, or short to medium with the improved talent for 4 strain, which is essentially the same as the pathfinder talent which allows you to ignore terrain effects, only they dont have the strain cost.

What I belive you could do as a hutt is pick up the pathfinder talent quick movement which allows you to pay strain to add force dice to your next skill check and then letting you use 1 pip to get an additional maneuver that doesnt count to the limkt giving a hutt 2 move maneuvers in the one turn or other races 3.

2 minutes ago, syrath said:

What I belive you could do as a hutt is pick up the pathfinder talent quick movement which allows you to pay strain to add force dice to your next skill check and then letting you use 1 pip to get an additional maneuver that doesnt count to the limkt giving a hutt 2 move maneuvers in the one turn or other races 3.

That's a really good option.

Is there a restriction on Enhance Leap's Range upgrade that says you can only activate it once?

Im comparing it to Move's Strength upgrade, which I thought could be activated multiple times (1 rank used 2+) to get the silhouette you need. 1st pip to activate, 2nd pip to upgrade to Silhouette 1, 3rd pip to upgrade to Silhouette 2?

I understand you activate all your ranks of strength at once, if you have multiple.

Yeah, unfortunately, the range Upgrade has the clause "can only be activated once" at the end of it.

A question: let's say that a Force using character A is at an extreme range from another character whom we will call B, does using Leap with a range upgrade bring A into the Long range of B, or merely advances A one manoeuvre towards the Long range?

1 hour ago, Arctanaar said:

A question: let's say that a Force using character A is at an extreme range from another character whom we will call B, does using Leap with a range upgrade bring A into the Long range of B, or merely advances A one manoeuvre towards the Long range?

Leap with the range upgrade is the same movement as one move maneuver, so it would take two leaps with the range upgrade to move from extreme to long.

Thanks Richardbuxton for the Saber Throw idea. Thanks syarth for the Pathfinder idea. These are exactly the sort of options I was hoping to find.

8 minutes ago, TheSapient said:

Leap with the range upgrade is the same movement as one move maneuver, so it would take two leaps with the range upgrade to move from extreme to long.

Thanks Richardbuxton for the Saber Throw idea. Thanks syarth for the Pathfinder idea. These are exactly the sort of options I was hoping to find.

It seems weird, then, as it essentially behaves like a single move manoeuvre until the character B is at Medium range from character A, at which point it starts behaving as two move manoeuvres, for some reason. That also makes space behave weirdly, as we now can't define distance between points X and Y the usual way, as the distance between them now varies depending on the mode of movement.

18 minutes ago, Arctanaar said:

It seems weird, then, as it essentially behaves like a single move manoeuvre until the character B is at Medium range from character A, at which point it starts behaving as two move manoeuvres, for some reason. That also makes space behave weirdly, as we now can't define distance between points X and Y the usual way, as the distance between them now varies depending on the mode of movement.

I struggled with this mightily yesterday, but I think leap with range always acts like a regular move maneuver. The wording of the power is such that it brings in a lot of unnecessary confusion. Leap allows you to move around within short range. Rangeleap allows you to also move from short to medium range. Neither allows you to engage (though it would be a reasonable house rule to allow it). So RangeLeap gives you the exact same range of movement as a move maneuver. To go from extreme to engaged takes 6 move maneuvers or 5 RangeLeaps+1 move maneuver.

EDIT: Better minds than mine work through all of this in this thread. Note that a lot of people are very wrong through the whole beginning. Read to the end to understand.

1. Let's take the old scenarion with characters A and B starting at extreme range from each other. Character A uses Leap with the Range upgrade once to move straight towards B. Character B now uses move manoeuvre to move straight towards A 4 times. What range are A and B, relative to each other now? What range is B at, relative to the starting position of A?

2. Why does Leap not allow you to engage from Medium range?

31 minutes ago, Arctanaar said:

1. Let's take the old scenarion with characters A and B starting at extreme range from each other. Character A uses Leap with the Range upgrade once to move straight towards B. Character B now uses move manoeuvre to move straight towards A 4 times. What range are A and B, relative to each other now? What range is B at, relative to the starting position of A?

2. Why does Leap not allow you to engage from Medium range?

1. I totally understand what you are saying. This is not a problem with Leap. It is a problem with the way the game handles Range Bands. Each RangeLeap and move maneuver distance is the same. As written, this would bring them to medium range, even though 5 move maneuvers by one character would bring them to short. If I were the GM, I would allow the second character to decide whether they made it to medium or short.

2. Engage takes a maneuver from short range. I don't know if this is right, but this is how I am thinking about it. Engaged is a condition that acts as a range band in most circumstances. It is not simply a distance. Engaging and disengaging is the action of carefully moving into a fighting position. So you can leap right up next to someone. But it takes a maneuver to get yourself positioned just right.

Or, another way to look at it is that engaging/disengaging is a seperate move maneuver than changing range bands (F&D pg. 208-209).

1. I am not trying to say anything, I am trying to clarify the situation for myself by asking this question. Because now we have character A at Medium range from their old position, and character at Long range from their old position. However, characters A and B are currently one manoeuver apart from each other, judging by the 'Leap = one move manoeuvre' approach. However, B is now at Medium range from A's old position, the same as A.

Now we have a situation where

1. A is 1 manoeuvre away from their starting position.
2. B is 2 manoeuvres away from A's starting position.
3. A and B are at Medium range from A's old position.

Using a rougher version of modus ponens we get that A is at the same range band from their starting position as B, from which, using the rules of movement between range bands, we get that A is 2 manoeuvres away from their starting position. Thus, we get that A is both 1 manoeuvre away from their starting location, and that A is 2 manoeuvres away from their starting location. As such, it seems that 1 = 2, which contradicts the standard model of arithmetic. Which model are we using, again?

2. I don't think that your position regarding the Engaged range band having a special status is well-supported. I may be wrong, but it seems like just trying to rule-lawyer a weird space.

3. But alright. You seem to be saying that characters can spend a single manoeuvre to move to Medium range, relative to their position, correct?

1. I mean I understand the conundrum. Range bands are weird in the game, as Long and Extreme are two movements wide (true regardless of whether using move maneuvers or RangeLeaps). (Sorry, I had edited my post above, but probably not in time for you to see it).

2. Please see this post for a clarification from a developer.

3. A single maneuver can take you from short to medium range. Yes.

It may also be helpful to note there are three types of the Move Maneuver.

1. Change range increment - Allows character to go from short to medium range from a target, or from medium to short. Two allows a change from extreme to long, long to medium, medium to long, or long to extreme.

2. Engage or disengage from an opponent - Self explanatory.

3. Move within short range - An unengaged character can move to another position within short range.

Note that #2 and #3 are distinct. Moving within short range does not include engaging or disengaging.