2 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

This is the crux of the matter, for me. It's all in the narrative. For example: using Move to throw an enemy to the ground is probably not Conflict worthy. Using Move to toss an enemy a dozen meters in the air, and then letting him fall to his death, is Conflict-worthy.

Similarly, if I use Baleful Gaze (and btw "baleful" doesn't necessarily mean evil; it can be menacing, hostile, pernicious, threatening) to look at a target in a hostile way that unsettles or intimidates him and causes him to miss me (or have second thoughts about attacking in the first place, etc), then that isn't worthy of Conflict. But if I use Baleful Gaze to feed abject terror into my attacker which causes his hands to shake and his shot to go wide, then I do earn some Conflict.

The narrative provides the distinction.

It's not all Coercion checks. The table you are referencing calls out specific coercive behavior (bullying behavior, basically), and Coercion is more than just the "bully" skill.

5 upgrades worth on a combat check is the level of someone's hands shaking terror, but I agree with your point.

52 minutes ago, Decorus said:

It does work while tied up, being tied up doesn't stop you from dodging attacks especially in a cinematic game like this.

Once again you are attaching things to a talent that does not exist.

The one conflict you get for having the talent that is applied every session until the game stops handles all the conflict you ever need.

There is no need to punish them further by charging them each time its activated thats just GM passive aggressive I don't like you took this talent BS.

Please also try to remember I'm personally on the fence on the talent and my general point and I could argue either case till I'm blue in the face, but I would recommend you listen to Max Brooke talk about it in the O66 episode, it won't provide the answer but it does clear up one thing the Warden functionally uses fear to their own ends , fear is a tool of the dark side and fear is also a path to the dark side, Pretty much the majority of the right 2 columns are effects that rely on the Coercion skill or fear, even a light side player feeling the effects of fear can earn confict.

Page 326 Fear is a MAJOR path to the dark side. It is a weapon in the hands of the Sith or other dark side Force users.

A coercion check is making someone fear you through the use of threats or acts of physical intimidation. My own quandry is at what point should you earn conflict for using these darker abilities, example knowing harm doesnt carry a conflict cost but using it does.

Here is another counter argument for conflict talents causing further conflict. Just k nowing Baleful Gaze and not even using it carries a conflict cost, so why shouldnt using it cause further conflict. When other force abilities or powers have costs for using them but not for knowing them, that would seem that conflict talents are further up the scale the likes of harm and force lightning. What gets me about this argument, and is by far the strongest argument for not applying conflict for Baleful Gaze is that , you think they would have mentioned it, at least in the full description.

2 hours ago, syrath said:

Yes even then that is still using fear. Fear of the punishment in this case, we arent talking about police here , we are talking about force users who are held to a higher standard. An enforcer has no penalty for using Fearsome in any way, a Marshal has no penalty for using Coercion, a force user is different and even in the order 66 episode 71 (I think) which is about Keeping the Peace made it clear that the Warden by using their abilities was definitely going to be earning conflict but smaller amounts as they can avoid more lethal modes of combat, or avoid combat altogether. My quesTions to FFG centre around that it's clear from Max Brookes description that they intended the Warden to generate smaller amounts of conflict, but if you apply even 1 for every time someone uses fear as a weapon , even for good reasons, a fully tricked out warden is pretty much getting over 10 every game and I dont see this from Max's description either.

I guess your take on it shows why Force sensitives should never be parents. Any use of punishment leads to Conflict and the dark side, while withholding that same punishment might just as easily do the same.

4 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

I guess your take on it shows why Force sensitives should never be parents. Any use of punishment leads to Conflict and the dark side, while withholding that same punishment might just as easily do the same.

Why is everyone putting words in my mouth Im on the fence with this one as Ive said all along Im trying to figure out a few things.

Fact 1 Coercion is listed in the book as having a tandard cost of 2 conflict though this can be adjusted by the GM to zero or inceased by 1 to 5 depending on motive

Fact 2 Coercion is a functional use of fear and fear is a path to the dark side and is a weapon of darksiders

Fact 3 Baleful Gaze and Scathing Tirade are keyed off Coercion

Fact 4 Fearsome is using fear against opponents

Fact 5 Baleful Gaze , just knowing it causes conflict.

Supposition Baleful Gaze could be considered as having used Coercio n

Supposition Fearsome could be considered as using fear , which is a path to the dark side so could or should cost conflict for using itt

Supposition Scathing tirade uses Coercion skill so could have the basic confllict cost of 2

Fact Coercion also has a cost of 2 conflict (see above about GmS hand waiving it, but it is listed in the conflict chart)l

Fact The Wardens talents are built round combat, specifically brawling type talents, and coercion and fear based talents and Max Brooke described it as more likely being in the grey area than likely to be low morality, obviously there is scope here also to be both ends of the scale

Now given that Baleful Gaze /Fearsome / Scathing Tirade and using the Coercion skill could ,justifiably based on the above suppositions and facts , generate 2 conflict each, it would be hard to remain "grey" in fact I would say it would be easy to be sub 10 for a fully tricked out Warden.

If you dont give out conflict for the above it would remarkably easy to become a paragon especially with Precision Strike giving you the option to drop opponents non lethally regardless of how you defeat them, by Wt, crits, ranged, melee whatever.

So where do you strike the balance , even giving out 1 conflict for each time you use fearsome could result in 10 conflict in one reasonable combat.

Can you see what Im trying to get at.

Use of Coercion is not different than use of violence. Both can certainly cause Conflict if used callously or indiscriminately, but using them in self-defense is highly unlikely to impart Conflict. By the nature of its mechanics, Baleful Gaze is a use of Coercion that is tied to the notion of self-defense.

IOW, Jedi abhor violence, but they are willing to use acts of violence to protect themselves and others. Why would it be unacceptable under those same circumstances to substitute threats of violence for acts of violence ? If Obi-Wan chopping an arm off in a cantina is deemed to not earn Conflict, how would it be at all reasonable that he would have gained Conflict from staring down the attacker hard enough to disrupt the attack before he lopped off the arm?

@syrath you keep saying that "Coercion carries a cost of 2 conflict," but you seem to be consistently ignoring the actual description of that table entry. It is not calling out every Coercion check. It is calling out a very specific type of coercion.

The rules do not prescribe a blanket Conflict cost for Coercion checks.

37 minutes ago, awayputurwpn said:

@syrath you keep saying that "Coercion carries a cost of 2 conflict," but you seem to be consistently ignoring the actual description of that table entry. It is not calling out every Coercion check. It is calling out a very specific type of coercion.

The rules do not prescribe a blanket Conflict cost for Coercion checks.

Its described as The PC threatens someone with violence OR coerces the person to do his bidding against the persons will.

The first part is the easy one to work around , define coerce the person to do his bidding ahainst the persons will - Making a criminal talk to reveal the location of a kidnapped child and to tell them who else kidnapped the child with them, that could certainly be defined as making them do your bidding against thaf persons will. At which point does the line get drawn. Baleful Gaze actually even falls quite easily under both of the descriptions, the idea that they have an upgraded check because they are essentially , non verbally being threatened with by your very gaze , or you have taken benefit of being good at coercion, and used it along with the Force to coerce a person to do your bidding against their will, IE they wanted to shoot you and you forced them to miss. It still falls under coercion as described here, the question is, Is using an evil tool to protect yourself worthy of conflict as minor as it is.

Would using Force Lightning on a known Sith be the right thing to do so that they can know the pain and torture of what they had done to others be the "Right" thing to do. At which point do you say that using the dark sides tools does cost conflct and the book and the devs have been very clear using fear is a dark side tool.

This is Star Wars and its common place to be armed but you carry a grenade launcher because you want others to fear you. Again all fine and well for an Enforcer , but the Jedi knew that using these aggressive tactics was skirting with the darkside, but if there is no conflict for using fear functionally, then if thats the way you want to play fair enough. To me I want to use the tools a Warden has and want to skirt with the darkside but even gaining 1 conflict for using Fearsome each time and nothing else will lead to a rapid fall.

They must have play tested the Warden and are clear enough thst it was more of a grey character, I just have trouble seeing how, it either got conflict aplenty or so little it would be a paragon in no time unless you take actions into consideration.

Going a bit deeper , here is one of the reasons Im asking. I want to play a character that does skirt with the dark side but for good reasons, the fear he generates in others though should have him close to falling as time goes on if the dice rolls dictate it he may even fall, but he would still want to do the right things (the wrong way) he would still try be non lethal but he would use fear ro solve conflicts where possible. Depending on how you judge using fear (Baleful Gaze et all) most people here would say that if I stick with talents alone, im going to end up a light side paragon, because unless im brutal enough using Coercion im going to get 1 conflict each session. If you say using these talents gets you one conflict I can assure you that I would fall in 2,3 sessions , that is a massive variation. Maybe I overuse my talents but the variance between the two ways of working is large.

Well that gets into the whole "sleeping your way to light side paragon" problem. This problem is solved by the GM being intelligent about when to call for Conflict rolls and not just blindly doing them every session, whether or not the PCs have had a decent chance to interact with their Moralities.

Bottom line, the GM should be presenting you with choices that have nothing to do with your talents or skill uses. I'm not the kind of GM that would just automatically slap Conflict on you for the use of a certain skill or talent (Force powers are a different story!); I tend to award Conflict for narrative actions and choices.

Granted, you might be a bit more likely to earn Conflict with the Coercion or Deception skill than with the Leadership or Charm skill

1 hour ago, awayputurwpn said:

Granted, you might be a bit more likely to earn Conflict with the Coercion or Deception skill than with the Leadership or Charm skill

If I were to put my real life into game terms, I have earned far more Conflict through my use of Leadership than Coercion, and my work has required me to use both.

10 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

@syrath you keep saying that "Coercion carries a cost of 2 conflict," but you seem to be consistently ignoring the actual description of that table entry. It is not calling out every Coercion check. It is calling out a very specific type of coercion.

The rules do not prescribe a blanket Conflict cost for Coercion checks.

Plus, the book itself even suggests that the chart is merely a guideline and not 100% set in stone.

F&D Core Rulebook, page 324, second bullet point, second sentence and third sentence:
"See Table 9-2: Common Conflict Point Penalties above, for examples of Conflict awarded for common negative or evil actions. The GM can and should adjust the penalties to account for unusual actions or situations."

So while "threatening with violence" might list a common penalty of 2 Conflict, it's entirely possible for the GM to decide that said threat might not warrant the full 2 Conflict based upon circumstances. Giving some young punks the Clint Eastwood death glare (so that they back down from the fight they've been trying to start so that your veteran soldier doesn't have to end them, in effect sparing their lives, might not carry any Conflict penalty. Clint's scene in Gran Turino when he first confronts the gang of Korean punks while carrying his old service rifle is a prime example of how using Coercion and the threat of violence might not carry the full suggested penalty of 2 Conflict, as his intent was to get the punks to am-scray and stop roughing up his neighbor's son rather than wanting to shoot them; as the GM I'd probably still give Clint a point of Conflict.

Baleful Gaze is the equivalent of the classic "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well? Do ya?" moment from the first Dirty Harry flick, leaving the other guy so badly unnerved under your steely gaze that their attempts to hurt you are that much harder.

Or, it's a version of Mace Windu's "this party's over!" line from Attack of the Clones, with Jango Fett likely having the difficulty of his flamethrower attack upgraded a bunch of times, enough so that all he did was set Master Windu's cloak on fire.

3 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Plus, the book itself even suggests that the chart is merely a guideline and not 100% set in stone.

F&D Core Rulebook, page 324, second bullet point, second sentence and third sentence:
"See Table 9-2: Common Conflict Point Penalties above, for examples of Conflict awarded for common negative or evil actions. The GM can and should adjust the penalties to account for unusual actions or situations."

Yes im aware of that , using Coercion has a spread cost of 0-7 , and I have pointed this out earlier in the thread as well, but does the Warden garner conflict for using the full spread of talents at their disposal, things like Fearsome etc, this is the crux of my quandry that led me to post the thread, the title is, perhaps, the most iconic of the talents but far from the only one. So lets say I run through a game and trigger Baleful Gaze on every attack I can , use Fearsome every NPC I meet, berate all my opponents with Scathing Tirade and then mildly use Coercion all I can aiding my associates with Bad Cop as often as I can, without stepping over the actual line to generate conflict because my actions arent bad enough. Should I then get away with only the 1 per session conflict from the named signature talent , or do I earn 1 -2 conflict each "offense". One leads to an easy path to lightside paragonhood, the other to a quick darkside fall, so the balance Max describes in the order 66 episode must be somewhere in between, but at what stage does using a talent like Fearsome (or Baleful Gaze) become conflict worthy.

12 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

Well that gets into the whole "sleeping your way to light side paragon" problem. This problem is solved by the GM being intelligent about when to call for Conflict rolls and not just blindly doing them every session, whether or not the PCs have had a decent chance to interact with their Moralities.

Bottom line, the GM should be presenting you with choices that have nothing to do with your talents or skill uses. I'm not the kind of GM that would just automatically slap Conflict on you for the use of a certain skill or talent (Force powers are a different story!); I tend to award Conflict for narrative actions and choices.

Granted, you might be a bit more likely to earn Conflict with the Coercion or Deception skill than with the Leadership or Charm skill

I understand you there but when you buy into Warden and Baleful Gaze etc (or Aggressor) you know you are going into a darker place , and should embrace conflict as a way of life, while you might not be Dark Side, you should be expecting a darker side of play (unless you stick to the left 2 columns of the tree, of course, which is the Brawler side of the tree). Of course you may only use these talents on rare occasions, or they might be your go to talents , that would definitely have an effect.

13 hours ago, syrath said:

Should I then get away with only the 1 per session conflict from the named signature talent , or do I earn 1 -2 conflict each "offense". One leads to an easy path to lightside paragonhood, the other to a quick darkside fall, so the balance Max describes in the order 66 episode must be somewhere in between, but at what stage does using a talent like Fearsome (or Baleful Gaze) become conflict worthy.

Yeah, a lot of this is gonna depend on your trajectory. It's the slippery slope effect. Or if you prefer, "repeat-offender" penalties. And it's not like the Force is a harsh judge; it's you yourself. It's human nature. As you darken your mindset, your outlook is going to become darker and will color your actions accordingly. But if you keep your outlook light, then you're going to look for less dark routes to similar outcomes. (not to say that this is an absolute thing; it's just a matter of habits and trends)

13 hours ago, syrath said:

I understand you there but when you buy into Warden and Baleful Gaze etc (or Aggressor) you know you are going into a darker place , and should embrace conflict as a way of life, while you might not be Dark Side, you should be expecting a darker side of play (unless you stick to the left 2 columns of the tree, of course, which is the Brawler side of the tree). Of course you may only use these talents on rare occasions, or they might be your go to talents , that would definitely have an effect.

The "should" there is difficult, because now the argument is based on someone telling someone else how to roleplay their character. I'd tread lightly there Just because the Warden was designed with a certain concept in mind, doesn't mean that a character who's bought every single talent in the Warden talent tree should embrace any certain thing. Your roleplay could be a "tightrope walk" of sorts, carefully treading the line between light and dark. It could also totally eschew any semblance of darkness, and you could simply take the 1 Conflict per session as the curse of knowledge.

3 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

Yeah, a lot of this is gonna depend on your trajectory. It's the slippery slope effect. Or if you prefer, "repeat-offender" penalties. And it's not like the Force is a harsh judge; it's you yourself. It's human nature. As you darken your mindset, your outlook is going to become darker and will color your actions accordingly. But if you keep your outlook light, then you're going to look for less dark routes to similar outcomes. (not to say that this is an absolute thing; it's just a matter of habits and trends)

The "should" there is difficult, because now the argument is based on someone telling someone else how to roleplay their character. I'd tread lightly there Just because the Warden was designed with a certain concept in mind, doesn't mean that a character who's bought every single talent in the Warden talent tree should embrace any certain thing. Your roleplay could be a "tightrope walk" of sorts, carefully treading the line between light and dark. It could also totally eschew any semblance of darkness, and you could simply take the 1 Conflict per session as the curse of knowledge.

This last part is a concern because using a load of talents that rely on Coercion and fear should result in conflict but even 1 per use IMO is a potentially a lot or conflict and 1 per session seems like I couldnt justify that given how much fear a Warden can bring to bear without actually having to commit any conflict worthy acts beyond using their talents. As I said though everyone will have their own way of working it.

I think the main question is whether the force cares about means or ends.

If it mainly cares about the ends ("I intimidated those guys so they wouldn't attack me and, hey, everyone ended the day with the same number of appendages they started it with!"), just slap a "for selfish/non-altruistic purposes" behind every conflict source (except direct applications of the Dark Side and posession of Dark Side talents) and be done with it.

If it mainly cares about the means, that makes it interesting, because it's then massively divorced from common morality. Intimidating someone is not conflict-worthy because it's bad, mkay? , but because it draws on the dark side emotion of fear, for whatever purpose. Conflict is no longer some kind of black/white alignment scale, but a set of "natural laws". When you step off a ledge, you fall - stepping off the ledge is neither inherently evil nor inherently good, but it will bring you closer to ground level. In the same way, coercing someone is neither necessarily evil nor good, it's just an application of fear, which is tied to Conflict like falling to gravity. From this set of natural laws, the Jedi constructed their code, like an OSHA bureaucrat constructing workplace safety rules from the laws of gravity (even if the latter obviously never happened in Star Wars).

If you subscribe to the latter version, an alteration of the Conflict mechanic may be in order: Intent is no longer relevant for conflict (every lie, every coercion, every killing of a defenseless being is equal), but at the end of the session, you roll 2 D10 minus Conflict. Negative results are subtracted from your morality score, positive ones are divided by 4 , then added to it. The result should be that you can get away with a certain amount of conflict-worthy actions per session (see: the warden), but if you overstep, it will take more time and effort to negate your prior misdeeds conflict-worthy actions. The benefit of this solution might be that you can get around discussions of intent and good ends justifying bad means and dilemmas because intent no longer matters and Conflict has no moral component - indeed, it's entirely possible a character who invites Conflict may act more morally by our standards than one who doesn't.

If you'd like a lesser change of the rules, one might keep the focus of both means and ends. In that case, I'd abjudicate the specific case of coercion like this: If someone coerces someone to do something , that is conflict-worthy. If someone coerces someone to refrain from doing something (or stop doing something or undo something done) for non-selfish purposes , no conflict is handed out. So "Kindly don't attack me or I'll have to kill you" is fine, "Stop mugging him and hand him back his cred-chip" is okay too, "Follow me along and play meat-shields so we can kill your crime boss together" gets the conflict stick.

2 hours ago, Cifer said:

I think the main question is whether the force cares about means or ends.

If it mainly cares about the ends ("I intimidated those guys so they wouldn't attack me and, hey, everyone ended the day with the same number of appendages they started it with!"), just slap a "for selfish/non-altruistic purposes" behind every conflict source (except direct applications of the Dark Side and posession of Dark Side talents) and be done with it.

If it mainly cares about the means, that makes it interesting, because it's then massively divorced from common morality. Intimidating someone is not conflict-worthy because it's bad, mkay? , but because it draws on the dark side emotion of fear, for whatever purpose. Conflict is no longer some kind of black/white alignment scale, but a set of "natural laws". When you step off a ledge, you fall - stepping off the ledge is neither inherently evil nor inherently good, but it will bring you closer to ground level. In the same way, coercing someone is neither necessarily evil nor good, it's just an application of fear, which is tied to Conflict like falling to gravity. From this set of natural laws, the Jedi constructed their code, like an OSHA bureaucrat constructing workplace safety rules from the laws of gravity (even if the latter obviously never happened in Star Wars).

If you subscribe to the latter version, an alteration of the Conflict mechanic may be in order: Intent is no longer relevant for conflict (every lie, every coercion, every killing of a defenseless being is equal), but at the end of the session, you roll 2 D10 minus Conflict. Negative results are subtracted from your morality score, positive ones are divided by 4 , then added to it. The result should be that you can get away with a certain amount of conflict-worthy actions per session (see: the warden), but if you overstep, it will take more time and effort to negate your prior misdeeds conflict-worthy actions. The benefit of this solution might be that you can get around discussions of intent and good ends justifying bad means and dilemmas because intent no longer matters and Conflict has no moral component - indeed, it's entirely possible a character who invites Conflict may act more morally by our standards than one who doesn't.

If you'd like a lesser change of the rules, one might keep the focus of both means and ends. In that case, I'd abjudicate the specific case of coercion like this: If someone coerces someone to do something , that is conflict-worthy. If someone coerces someone to refrain from doing something (or stop doing something or undo something done) for non-selfish purposes , no conflict is handed out. So "Kindly don't attack me or I'll have to kill you" is fine, "Stop mugging him and hand him back his cred-chip" is okay too, "Follow me along and play meat-shields so we can kill your crime boss together" gets the conflict stick.

I think you understand what Im getting at using fear as a means regardless of the end result is falling into the "dark side trap" of thinking I can do this after all its for the greater good. The force doesnt care if you stole from someone because you did so to feed a starving mouth or to buy X Piece of gear. You stole, period (although paradoxically, apparently, it is okay to steal from , for example, Imperials if its to give back money to overtaxed people). So using fear to save yourself (Baleful Gaze) is still using fear (let's put aside any argument that it might not be using fear for a minute , because in the game I play in we do believe it is using fear simply because it's effectiveness is tied to Coercion) , so it is a player using a dark side tool albeit to keep himself alive. Similarly using the talent Fearsome etc . although I personally draw the line at Scathing Tirade because it is very dubious that each time you use it, you COULD be using fear there is no absolute. The motive is important however , and while also using Coercion has a listing , using fear does not.

It is a difficult line to walk, time will tell in the games if I fall or not also time will tell how my own GM will adjudicate for it ,but I would like to thank all who chimed in with their viewpoints on it because it has definitely made interesting reading how others rule it and how others feel about it.

On 7/29/2017 at 8:17 AM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Clint's scene in Gran Turino when he first confronts the gang of Korean punks while carrying his old service rifle

They were Mung punks

Fwiw I came across perfect justification for not applying conflict at least when it comes to Baleful Gaze itself, Force lightning and harm each generate 1 conflict for using them and this is definitely a lesser "offence". Although I think I would say the jury is still out on Fearsome use.

6 minutes ago, syrath said:

Although I think I would say the jury is still out on Fearsome use.

Just because you're scary looking doesn't mean you're trying to scare somebody.

5 hours ago, Blackbird888 said:

Just because you're scary looking doesn't mean you're trying to scare somebody.

Scary looking would automatically work on everyone, fearsome allows a choice so it is in fact the latter and not the former (from a certain point of view)

19 minutes ago, syrath said:

Scary looking would automatically work on everyone, fearsome allows a choice so it is in fact the latter and not the former (from a certain point of view)

Who's making the choice, though - the player, or the character?

Well, technically, it's a passive talent, so it should be working all the time. I think the fact the player can choose to activate the talent is more of a meta thing, A) so as not to remove player agency, and B) to avoid overt fridge logic moments ('If a character is so terrifying that they paralyze armed combatants simply by standing close to them, what happens when they go buy groceries?')

And then you can get into the more technical understandings of the word "fearsome." Fearsome can mean "causing awe or respect, i.e. 'a fearsome self-confidence.'" People forget that fear can represent awe and respect, and not just terror and dread.

2 hours ago, Blackbird888 said:

Well, technically, it's a passive talent, so it should be working all the time. I think the fact the player can choose to activate the talent is more of a meta thing, A) so as not to remove player agency, and B) to avoid overt fridge logic moments ('If a character is so terrifying that they paralyze armed combatants simply by standing close to them, what happens when they go buy groceries?')

And then you can get into the more technical understandings of the word "fearsome." Fearsome can mean "causing awe or respect, i.e. 'a fearsome self-confidence.'" People forget that fear can represent awe and respect, and not just terror and dread.

FWIW I agree with you , otherwise rolling for everyone you engage with would be tiresome for the GM