Hi All,

I've been reading through the Force and Destiny CRB and came across the force power move tree. If a character managed to buy all the strength mods then they would be able to move silhouette 4 ships (correct?). Which is quite a feat considering light freighters like the millennium falcon are that size. But then Capital ships are silhouette 5, is there a way to force move a capital ship if there were two jedi masters each using a maxed force move. I don't think I want my players moving something that big, but it would be pretty cinematic. Just some thoughts.

Kevin

9 minutes ago, BlackSunAgent said:

Hi All,

I've been reading through the Force and Destiny CRB and came across the force power move tree. If a character managed to buy all the strength mods then they would be able to move silhouette 4 ships (correct?). Which is quite a feat considering light freighters like the millennium falcon are that size. But then Capital ships are silhouette 5, is there a way to force move a capital ship if there were two jedi masters each using a maxed force move. I don't think I want my players moving something that big, but it would be pretty cinematic. Just some thoughts.

Kevin

The power requires you to use x pips to activate and the size upgrade (strength) can be used multipke times, what this means is that for x +1 pip you get your str upgrade usable as size. So for x +2 pips you get double you strength upgrade in silhouette, for x+3 you triple it.

so lets say you activate your base lower and have 2 pips left over and you activate strength twice with them if you have

1 Strength upgrade you move sil 2 object

2 Strength upgrades you move sil 4 object

3 strength upgrades you move sil 6 object

4 strength upgrades you can move sil 8.

3 pips additional it would be 3/6/9/12(?)

Move's Strength Upgrades can be activated multiple times, so you would just need at least one Strength Upgrade and enough Force points from your Force Dice to activate them all, and there is really no upper limit to what you can move Remember Yoda's words, "No! No different! Only different in your mind ."

Now, that being said, you should most definitely make sure to strictly require them to spend Force points on Range upgrades in addition to Strength upgrades. How far away is the ship? If it's further out than short range, and it usually will be, then make sure to have them activate the necessary amount of Range upgrades.

Also, as a GM you're well within your rights impose some pretty difficult Discipline checks for moving large objects—especially if those objects have a good velocity to them, like if they're falling or in flight. If you want to pull a Spider-Man and save a bunch of characters from deadly falling debris, for example, your Discipline check (in addition to your Move check) will determine how quickly and accurately you were able to react. Cf. Yoda saving Obi-Wan & Anakin from Dooku's cowardly escape tactic.

In much the same way, holding on to the Millennium Falcon as it's flying away would be really hard...I'd probably treat it as a tractor beam, where perhaps your Force Rating forms the base Difficulty, and then upgrade it by your number of Strength upgrades...so that you could grab it for a round, but then it could possibly escape your grasp by throwing all its power into the sublight engines (or, if you're strong enough, it could rip itself apart with a nice Despair or two). Just spitballing there, but the point is that it should be possible for your PCs to move big stuff, just really hard.

Thank you for your input, that makes sense now on how to interpret it. I misread the "multiple times" portion of the strength upgrade.

The difficulty for Hurl is the sil of the object so while you can in theory do the Yoda slow move of sil 8 ships actually tossing them would be an impossible difficulty roll.

23 minutes ago, Decorus said:

The difficulty for Hurl is the sil of the object so while you can in theory do the Yoda slow move of sil 8 ships actually tossing them would be an impossible difficulty roll.

That's actually a really good use of the "Impossible" rules. Specifically, you should seriously consider requiring your players to spend a Destiny Point to even attempt moving such a sizable object. Like you say, @BlackSunAgent , it's very cinematic but it's also extremely momentous.

I could imagine a Force Unleashed type scenario, where "Starkiller" (more like a group of PCs!) is spending multiple Destiny Points to try and pull the orbiting Star Destroyer crashing down to the planet's surface while simultaneously dodging weapons fire from a squadron of TIE fighters

2 hours ago, BlackSunAgent said:

Thank you for your input, that makes sense now on how to interpret it. I misread the "multiple times" portion of the strength upgrade.

Yes, it's VERY important to read the full description of Force Powers (and Talents honestly), instead of just the little thumbnail in the tree. A lot of times, some very important information is left out of the thumbnail description, so that it fits in the graphic. Whereas in the full description, they can expand for several paragraphs if needed, on the fine details of the power/upgrade.

And also keep in Mind HOW BIG an SIL 5/6/7/8 Object must be even if the player actually lift it and hurl it... mostlikly it will also kill all his teammates and himself since he can't throw any further than extrem and well an ISD is already more than extrem from starboard to portside and even more from bow to stern even more... so everything above sil 4 is mostlikely a TPK...

On 7.8.2017 at 7:48 PM, syrath said:

The power requires you to use x pips to activate and the size upgrade (strength) can be used multipke times, what this means is that for x +1 pip you get your str upgrade usable as size. So for x +2 pips you get double you strength upgrade in silhouette, for x+3 you triple it.

so lets say you activate your base lower and have 2 pips left over and you activate strength twice with them if you have

1 Strength upgrade you move sil 2 object

2 Strength upgrades you move sil 4 object

3 strength upgrades you move sil 6 object

4 strength upgrades you can move sil 8.

3 pips additional it would be 3/6/9/12(?)

That is actually not true. With the base force power you have to spend 1 pip to move a sil 0 object.

The strength upgrade reads:
" Spend [pip] to increase silhouette able to be targeted equal to Strength upgrades purchased ."

So with 1 strength upgrade you have to spend 1 pip for the base power + 1 pip for the strength upgrade to be able to target sil 1
2 upgrades: 1 pip for base, 2 pips for both upgrades, target sil 2. And so on.

1+1 = 2 yeap the guys math checks out.

You may want to read his post again man he says 2 pips left over for strength upgrades you can move a sil 2 object with 1 upgrade.

And that is not true. You can move objects with a sil up to the number of strenghts upgrades you have. It doesn't matter how many pips you have, if you have 1 upgrade, you can move objects with sil 1. Not 2.

3 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

And that is not true. You can move objects with a sil up to the number of strenghts upgrades you have. It doesn't matter how many pips you have, if you have 1 upgrade, you can move objects with sil 1. Not 2.

Pips matter. You have to spend them on the upgrade. You can do this multiple times.

The full description of the "Strength Upgrade" text from the book:

"Spend [pip] to increase the maximum silhouette of objects a character can move by a number equal to the number of strength upgrades purchased. The user may activate this multiple times, increasing the silhouette of the objects he can move by this number each time."

So, one pip to activate the base. The OP was asking about if you had purchased all four Strength upgrades. The way the Strength upgrade is worded, a single pip=an increase equal to the number of Strength upgrades purchased. So if you purchased 4 Strength upgrades, then a single pip increases Silhouette by 4. And you're allowed to activate this multiple times. So, 1 pip for base, 1 more pip to get up to Sil 4, and a third pip could even get you to Sil 8. Of course, if you're going that big, you also really, really want to be using the Range upgrades as well to ensure you're not getting crushed by the Sil 8 object you're about to throw around, but the point is, you only need 3 Force points to move a Sil 8 object, as long as you purchased all 4 Strength Upgrades.

Personally, in the game I ran, I've homeruled the Move tree extensively. I changed it to only have a single Strength upgrade, and made the Move power require a Discipline check with a difficulty equal to the Silhouette of the object being moved. I made the "Fine manipulation" control upgrade far more easy to access, since such fine manipulation of the Force is necessary in canon for a Jedi to build their lightsaber, and it doesn't seem especially gamebreaking to have it easier to access (The top row of upgrades is laid out as Magnitude - Range - Manipulation - Strength). I added in a "Duration" power to the tree that is basically a simplified version of the sidebar on page 299 about the duration of Move. And I also added in an upgrade similar to the "The Force is My Ally" talent, allowing the player to flip a destiny point to use the basic power of Move as a maneuver instead of an action (You would not be able to use any upgrades to the Move power here. It's basically to allow players to "Force pull" their lightsabers back to their hands and other little things like that, similar to what we see Luke do in Empire Strikes Back while dueling Vader).

I know that's a pretty extensive list of homeruling, and there were a few more changes I made to it, but my players all really liked the tree I made a lot more than they liked the one out of the book. It seemed so ridiculous to be able to lift an AT-AT with just two Force points and 65 XP invested into Move, even if you can only move it a short distance. It was so excessive when compared to anything we see in the movies or TV shows that it broke the immersion a little for us. With my homerule, you have to spend an additional Force point for every single upgrade in Silhouette, meaning that sil 1 is 2 Force points to move, sil 2 is 3, sil 3 is 4, ect. This seriously cuts back on the amount of times you'll see any character, player or otherwise, able to move massive objects like starships and walkers. However, it is still possible to pull off such large-scale manipulation, if you have a high enough FR and roll moderately well (Or use the Dark Side).

7 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

That is actually not true. With the base force power you have to spend 1 pip to move a sil 0 object.

The strength upgrade reads:
" Spend [pip] to increase silhouette able to be targeted equal to Strength upgrades purchased ."

So with 1 strength upgrade you have to spend 1 pip for the base power + 1 pip for the strength upgrade to be able to target sil 1
2 upgrades: 1 pip for base, 2 pips for both upgrades, target sil 2. And so on.

In my post I had said that the chekc in questio that the person had already activated the base power and had 2 pips left over , and used BOTH to activate strength TWICE. So you add silhouette equal too the number of strength upgrades for EACH activation. So the first spare pip gets you to sil 1 , the second activation gets you to sil 2. My maths was correct.

2 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

The full description of the "Strength Upgrade" text from the book:

"Spend [pip] to increase the maximum silhouette of objects a character can move by a number equal to the number of strength upgrades purchased. The user may activate this multiple times, increasing the silhouette of the objects he can move by this number each time."

So, one pip to activate the base. The OP was asking about if you had purchased all four Strength upgrades. The way the Strength upgrade is worded, a single pip=an increase equal to the number of Strength upgrades purchased. So if you purchased 4 Strength upgrades, then a single pip increases Silhouette by 4. And you're allowed to activate this multiple times. So, 1 pip for base, 1 more pip to get up to Sil 4, and a third pip could even get you to Sil 8. Of course, if you're going that big, you also really, really want to be using the Range upgrades as well to ensure you're not getting crushed by the Sil 8 object you're about to throw around, but the point is, you only need 3 Force points to move a Sil 8 object, as long as you purchased all 4 Strength Upgrades.

My personal thoughts on this, is to implement an upgrade from Battle Meditation.

To me, it makes no sense to be able to Move an object potentially up to 10 kilometers in size (if you go for Sil8+ with enough pips), but still operate in personal scale distance bands. There would basically be almost no way to lift something that big, without having to actually be on it in order to be close enough. So, the thing that makes the most sense, is to stick at the bottom of the Move tree, the Planetary Range band upgrade. I forget the details of it, but I think it's a 20 xp purchase, and for some expenditure (I think maybe some strain? I don't have my book handy), you can switch the scale of range bands from personal to Planetary. If someone is really dead set on doing this level of Move, I would make that mandatory before they could attempt it.

2 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

My personal thoughts on this, is to implement an upgrade from Battle Meditation.

To me, it makes no sense to be able to Move an object potentially up to 10 kilometers in size (if you go for Sil8+ with enough pips), but still operate in personal scale distance bands. There would basically be almost no way to lift something that big, without having to actually be on it in order to be close enough. So, the thing that makes the most sense, is to stick at the bottom of the Move tree, the Planetary Range band upgrade. I forget the details of it, but I think it's a 20 xp purchase, and for some expenditure (I think maybe some strain? I don't have my book handy), you can switch the scale of range bands from personal to Planetary. If someone is really dead set on doing this level of Move, I would make that mandatory before they could attempt it.

I'd actually considered something similar when I was first making house rules for Move in my game. But my players and I all agreed that we didn't like the grand-scale manipulation in the setting. It really doesn't fit with anything we've seen from the movies or TV shows, or canon in general. Sure, it happened in Legends from time to time, but my group all agrees that Legends went way too far overboard with certain things.

Of course, that's just at my table. I see no reason this shouldn't work for a different group that is more inclined to have such massive-scale manipulation in their games!

45 minutes ago, Underachiever599 said:

I'd actually considered something similar when I was first making house rules for Move in my game. But my players and I all agreed that we didn't like the grand-scale manipulation in the setting. It really doesn't fit with anything we've seen from the movies or TV shows, or canon in general. Sure, it happened in Legends from time to time, but my group all agrees that Legends went way too far overboard with certain things.

Of course, that's just at my table. I see no reason this shouldn't work for a different group that is more inclined to have such massive-scale manipulation in their games!

Yeah, if the table doesn't want Exalted level Force power stuff, then there is no need for it, though by the basic rules, there's nothing stopping someone from moving a high silhouette object. But that's just a personal table preference.

Personally, I enjoy the potential for high level action with Force powers. Plus, I also find it strange that we seem to be ok with someone projecting their mind across the galaxy (well outside a personal range band) to get information and see events they have no business knowing about , but moving really huge objects is somehow OP.

I mean, think about it. The more mental powers are just as terrifyingly powerful, if not more so, than things like Move, but nobody seems to feel the need to nerf a power like Battle Meditation, that can let you control other living beings at insane distances. Or learn secrets by just tossing your consciousness into the galaxy, and seeing things bajillions of light years away. But being able to pick up objects bigger than the largest we have established in the films? No way! That's crazy talk!

The Force is a timeless energy field that spans an entire galaxy , and connects all things, living and non-living. Is moving something a few kilometers long really that big of a deal for something that vast and timeless? I've never felt it was a big deal, other than the "can the conduit survive the flow of the Force through them to accomplish this?" issue. But that's a separate issue.

36 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Yeah, if the table doesn't want Exalted level Force power stuff, then there is no need for it, though by the basic rules, there's nothing stopping someone from moving a high silhouette object. But that's just a personal table preference.

Personally, I enjoy the potential for high level action with Force powers. Plus, I also find it strange that we seem to be ok with someone projecting their mind across the galaxy (well outside a personal range band) to get information and see events they have no business knowing about , but moving really huge objects is somehow OP.

I mean, think about it. The more mental powers are just as terrifyingly powerful, if not more so, than things like Move, but nobody seems to feel the need to nerf a power like Battle Meditation, that can let you control other living beings at insane distances. Or learn secrets by just tossing your consciousness into the galaxy, and seeing things bajillions of light years away. But being able to pick up objects bigger than the largest we have established in the films? No way! That's crazy talk!

The Force is a timeless energy field that spans an entire galaxy , and connects all things, living and non-living. Is moving something a few kilometers long really that big of a deal for something that vast and timeless? I've never felt it was a big deal, other than the "can the conduit survive the flow of the Force through them to accomplish this?" issue. But that's a separate issue.

The big reasons people aren't calling for nerfs to mental powers, but are calling for them to Move is because of the damage system in this game, and the representation of Force powers in the source material.

It's not unheard of for Force users even in the movies to see into the Force on a Galactic scale (Luke while training on Dagobah with Yoda not only saw events that were happening in the future, but saw events happening on a different planet lightyears away that hadn't happened yet. Yoda senses the deaths of all the Jedi in the Galaxy. Sidious on Coruscant senses when Vader is in danger on Mustafar. I could go on and on with examples). However, when it comes to moving massive objects, we rarely see something even the size of a personal spacecraft get moved in canon, and even in Legends, only the absolute pinnacle of the Jedi or Sith could move capital-ship sized things with the Force. So when the players in this game, whom the core books try to portray as nowhere near the level of the movie characters, are somehow throwing around Star Destroyers with the Force with more ease and effectiveness than Starkiller, it's a little ridiculous.

And when it comes to damage, think of how much damage you could do if you threw a Star Destroyer at a city. It's what? Silhouette 8? And over a kilometer and a half long? So if you threw a Star Destroyer at a city, everyone in that area would take 80 damage. Bam. You just wiped out pretty much an entire city. With the Move power, 10 XP and 1 pip, 4 of its Strength upgrades, 55 XP and 2 pips, and all of its Range upgrades, 25 XP and a pip, and the Hurl upgrade, which requires no pips. So, 4 Force pips (Which can be done on two dice), 90 XP, and a really lucky Discipline roll, and you've killed an entire city that had a Star Destroyer hovering above it (Picture Lothal's capital city from Rebels). You can't do anything nearly as extreme with any other Force power in this game. That's basically nuking a city with 90 XP and two Force dice. Is this a likely thing to occur in any game? Heck no! but it's technically RAW.

This is why, at my table, I have heavily altered the rules of Move. If I'm not mistaken, there's already a huge thread on this forum about whether or not Move, as it's written in the book, is broken. Personally, for reasons stated above, I believe it is.

tl;dr Galactic scale for visions and mental powers happens in both canon and legends, but such grand-scale telekinesis is not known to happen in canon, and when it does happen in legends, it is exceedingly difficult for even the absolute most powerful characters.

1 minute ago, Underachiever599 said:

The big reasons people aren't calling for nerfs to mental powers, but are calling for them to Move is because of the damage system in this game, and the representation of Force powers in the source material.

It's not unheard of for Force users even in the movies to see into the Force on a Galactic scale (Luke while training on Dagobah with Yoda not only saw events that were happening in the future, but saw events happening on a different planet lightyears away that hadn't happened yet. Yoda senses the deaths of all the Jedi in the Galaxy. Sidious on Coruscant senses when Vader is in danger on Mustafar. I could go on and on with examples). However, when it comes to moving massive objects, we rarely see something even the size of a personal spacecraft get moved in canon, and even in Legends, only the absolute pinnacle of the Jedi or Sith could move capital-ship sized things with the Force. So when the players in this game, whom the core books try to portray as nowhere near the level of the movie characters, are somehow throwing around Star Destroyers with the Force with more ease and effectiveness than Starkiller, it's a little ridiculous.

And when it comes to damage, think of how much damage you could do if you threw a Star Destroyer at a city. It's what? Silhouette 8? And over a kilometer and a half long? So if you threw a Star Destroyer at a city, everyone in that area would take 80 damage. Bam. You just wiped out pretty much an entire city. With the Move power, 10 XP and 1 pip, 4 of its Strength upgrades, 55 XP and 2 pips, and all of its Range upgrades, 25 XP and a pip, and the Hurl upgrade, which requires no pips. So, 4 Force pips (Which can be done on two dice), 90 XP, and a really lucky Discipline roll, and you've killed an entire city that had a Star Destroyer hovering above it (Picture Lothal's capital city from Rebels). You can't do anything nearly as extreme with any other Force power in this game. That's basically nuking a city with 90 XP and two Force dice. Is this a likely thing to occur in any game? Heck no! but it's technically RAW.

This is why, at my table, I have heavily altered the rules of Move. If I'm not mistaken, there's already a huge thread on this forum about whether or not Move, as it's written in the book, is broken. Personally, for reasons stated above, I believe it is.

tl;dr Galactic scale for visions and mental powers happens in both canon and legends, but such grand-scale telekinesis is not known to happen in canon, and when it does happen in legends, it is exceedingly difficult for even the absolute most powerful characters.

I'm well aware of the damage scale that can be Unleashed with high sil objects, my point is that there is a player bias that that level of power is somehow inappropriate, but doing other things on a massive scale are somehow ok. I mean, if you just want to talk about damage, Battle Meditation would allow you to potentially unleash a ton of damage (and potential crits), based on the bonuses you would be providing to those effected by the power with a fully upgraded tree. If that math comes out the same, why is it ok to do it one way but not the other? And there is a really handy side bar talking about trying to Move things over long periods of time, that can easily nerf this Move issue you feel is inappropriate. I really don't know why this doesn't come up, since it's actually published in the books. So there's not way you could Move a Sil 8 ship in 1 turn, any significant distance. This would be an extended action, sustaining the power over several turns (pretty much just like you see it in Force Unleashed). The devs suggested (and I think it's a perfectly reasonable limit on this if it's really a problem at the table) To make the user suffer strain equal to the silhouette of the object being moved. So that would be 8 Strain per turn . How many characters would be able to pull that off for more than 2 turns? 3 at the most. Very few, especially if they've been doing other things the fight. So they would hardly have much time to actually DO anything with the big heavy object they are trying to move. Plus, the GM can always just keep the Sil 8 objects out of range. I mean if you don't include the Planetary scale upgrade to Move, they would have to basically be ON the object they are trying to move, and that would mean they would be squashed by it too. So if you have a Super Star Destroyer in orbit, and they're running around on the ground, it's really nothing more than background decoration at that point.

And I'm also familiar with examples from the movies of people using Foresee to see things far away, I'm not talking about canon examples, I'm talking about scope. Not every problem can be solved by throwing big rocks at it.

12 hours ago, syrath said:

In my post I had said that the chekc in questio that the person had already activated the base power and had 2 pips left over , and used BOTH to activate strength TWICE. So you add silhouette equal too the number of strength upgrades for EACH activation. So the first spare pip gets you to sil 1 , the second activation gets you to sil 2. My maths was correct.

12 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

The full description of the "Strength Upgrade" text from the book:

"Spend [pip] to increase the maximum silhouette of objects a character can move by a number equal to the number of strength upgrades purchased. The user may activate this multiple times, increasing the silhouette of the objects he can move by this number each time."

So, one pip to activate the base. The OP was asking about if you had purchased all four Strength upgrades. The way the Strength upgrade is worded, a single pip=an increase equal to the number of Strength upgrades purchased. So if you purchased 4 Strength upgrades, then a single pip increases Silhouette by 4. And you're allowed to activate this multiple times. So, 1 pip for base, 1 more pip to get up to Sil 4, and a third pip could even get you to Sil 8.

It seems there is a difference between the edge of the empire rules and the force and destiny rules. In eote the full description reads: " Spend [pip] to increase the maximum size of objects a character can move by a number equal to the number of Strength upgrades purchased."

Nothing said then. But the F&D variant seems much too strong for me.

12 minutes ago, MasterZelgadis said:

It seems there is a difference between the edge of the empire rules and the force and destiny rules. In eote the full description reads: " Spend [pip] to increase the maximum size of objects a character can move by a number equal to the number of Strength upgrades purchased."

Nothing said then. But the F&D variant seems much too strong for me.

Yeah, the F&D version is ridiculously powerful. When you only have a single Strength upgrade, the game works pretty well. But the moment you start getting more than one rank, Move gets ridiculously strong. There's already been a very lengthy discussion about this on this forum somewhere.

In addition with range upgrades the silly move of pulling a star destroyer out of orbit from "The Force Unleashed" should be totally valid, do you even need to be knight level for this?

1 hour ago, MasterZelgadis said:

In addition with range upgrades the silly move of pulling a star destroyer out of orbit from "The Force Unleashed" should be totally valid, do you even need to be knight level for this?

Actually the range is limited to extreme, so a way to stop it getting too stupid is to say the entire object must be in range , makkng star destroyer type objects out of scope for the power as even standing on one it would be further than extreme range.

1 hour ago, syrath said:

Actually the range is limited to extreme, so a way to stop it getting too stupid is to say the entire object must be in range , makkng star destroyer type objects out of scope for the power as even standing on one it would be further than extreme range.

I'd steer clear of trying to GM-rules-lawyer a solution. In this case, Extreme Range has no upper limit, so if you come at it from a "the rules don't allow you to do this," the players could just come back with a plausible argument for how the rules actually do allow for this and you're back at square one, except now your only recourse is "because I'm the GM and I say so."

Instead, just impose the "Impossible" rule: increase & upgrade the Difficulty of the Discipline Check multiple times, and require a Destiny Point to be spent. No sustaining over multiple rounds, and limit the speed at which you can move the thing. So we're talking multiple DPs flipped and many rounds spent trying to move something that large any significant distance—it it moves at all.

8 hours ago, awayputurwpn said:

I'd steer clear of trying to GM-rules-lawyer a solution. In this case, Extreme Range has no upper limit, so if you come at it from a "the rules don't allow you to do this," the players could just come back with a plausible argument for how the rules actually do allow for this and you're back at square one, except now your only recourse is "because I'm the GM and I say so."

Instead, just impose the "Impossible" rule: increase & upgrade the Difficulty of the Discipline Check multiple times, and require a Destiny Point to be spent. No sustaining over multiple rounds, and limit the speed at which you can move the thing. So we're talking multiple DPs flipped and many rounds spent trying to move something that large any significant distance—it it moves at all.

True I forget difficulty is tied to silhouette