Recently I've been thinking about how I would build characters like Darth Vader, General Grievous, and Lumiya in this game. Mostly as a thought experiment, as I doubt I'll ever introduce such characters into my games. At most, Vader will continue to be an occasional name-drop (unless I manage to convince one of my player's characters to join the Inquisitorious, at which point he would be her new master). While pondering this, I had a thought.

Enhance has two control upgrades that allow you to commit dice. One reads, "This power gains the ongoing effect: Commit [Force Die]. The Force user increases his Agility characteristic by 1 (to a maximum of 6)." The other reads, "This power gains the ongoing effect: Commit [Force Die]. The Force user increases his Brawn characteristic by 1 (to a maximum of 6)."

There are also cybernetics, the Mod V, Mod VI, Mod II, and Mod III, that allow you to boost your characteristics. Specifically, Mod V is an arm that adds +1 to Brawn, Mod VI is an arm that adds +1 to Agility, Mod II is a pair of legs that adds +1 to Brawn, and Mod III is a pair of legs that adds +1 to Agility.

The important thing here, however, is a piece of description on page 173 of Edge of the Empire: "Cybernetic enhancements and replacements generally increase skills or characteristics, providing raw bonuses to characters' abilities. The combination of purchased increases and the increases provided by cybernetics can increase a character's skill or characteristic one step above the normal maximum (seven for characteristics, six for skills) ."

My question, then, is simple. If your character had a cybernetic enhancement that provided, say, +1 to Brawn, and the Enhance upgrade that allows you to increase Brawn, would you allow them to commit Force Dice to a maximum of 7 instead of 6? Effectively, they'd be increasing their natural Brawn up to 6, and then gain a +1 from the cybernetic enhancement. The rules as written allow this with Dedication, allowing you to buy 1 more Dedication for Brawn even when you're at 6, if you're only at 6 because of a cybernetic. So I don't see a good reason not to allow it with Enhance, especially since it would typically require multiple Force Die to get your Brawn that high anyway. What do you guys think? Yea or nay?

(Also posting in Force and Destiny forum)

I can see an argument for both cases, so this seems like the sort of thing that really comes down to the individual GM's preference. If you're OK with a more "power-gamey" approach to things then I see no reason why you couldn't allow someone to boost their characteristic to 7 in this manner. If, on the other hand, you're trying to keep dice pools a little low to avoid having to ramp up the challenge level across the board, then you can just as easily deny this option on the grounds that the cybernetically enhanced characteristic is already at 6 as default (since the cybernetic is always "on" for purposes of adjusting the characteristic) so Enhance can't raise it to 7.

I'm not sure. This is really the type of question to ask the Devs about.

Personally I'd allow it, but I agree with Krieger that it really comes down to how powerful you're willing to let your players get. I wouldn't feel hard done by as a player if you kept to the 6 cap.

I would certainly allow a character to amp their brawn or agility up to 7 if they were a Force-sensitive cyborg. If you can use the Force to telepathically command an entire army, throw multiple silhouette 4 vehicles around, and to add more hull threshold to a starfighter than it even starts with, then you should be able to make yourself stronger than humanly possible, on top of the bonus from your robot arms. It's not as if that one extra point of soak and one extra d8 on melee attacks is going to destroy the game's balance any more than whacking the BBEG with the Millennium Falcon will, especially since such feats of athleticism are already allowed for in the rules by a cybernetic attachment your player already has.

I would not allow it. Not for pure mechanical reasons actually, but for lore ones.
Cybernetics are reducing your connection to the force, they are basically counterproductive for force users. Allowing with them to push beyond the normal limits of the force seems wrong based on that. If there would be some cost involved with cybernetics like essence in shadowrun or whatever, my opinion would be most likely different, but the system has nothing like that, so I would at least now allow to min/max force powers with cybernetics. Part of grievous backstory for TCW was btw that he was not force sensitive and full of envy for those who could use the force and thus instead destroyed his "humanity" piece by piece by replacing his natural body with cybernetics until he was more machine than men. He still achieved his goal and in gaining jedi like powers this way. A sad story.

From a mechanical perspective it is not a big deal imho.

3 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Cybernetics are reducing your connection to the force, they are basically counterproductive for force users.

Vader's powers don't seem diminished.

Thankfully the new canon got rid of that idea about cybernetics. Otherwise we could run an experiment to have a Force power scale in-universe by lopping bits off Jedi and seeing how much they can still Force move. And that seems entirely counter to any sense of mysticism for the Force.

10 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Vader's powers don't seem diminished.

Thankfully the new canon got rid of that idea about cybernetics. Otherwise we could run an experiment to have a Force power scale in-universe by lopping bits off Jedi and seeing how much they can still Force move. And that seems entirely counter to any sense of mysticism for the Force.

Oh come on, that experiment would be a ton of fun to actually perform! We'll trim their nails, and clip everything below their elbows, then move on to their toenails, wash/rinse/repeat!

For, uh, science. Or something. Definitely not because I'm a psychopathic troll disguised as a pirate.

Accumulating penalties to the use of the Force by replacing ever more of your natural body with cybernetics is an older concept, which I still like. Many stories and RPG book lines embraced it. The Force is created by living things, and cybernetics do not live. The first part is still canon as per the words of some wise, old Jedi master, the second is assumed science and natural law, which also seems to apply to the Star Wars universe.

On 2-11-2017 at 10:03 PM, Stan Fresh said:

Vader's powers don't seem diminished.

I understand why you would be able to say something like that. We see Vader do typical Force stuff in the original trilogy. Choke people through viewscreens, block blaster bolts with 'his' hand and shoulder, telekinetically move stuff offensively at Luke, telepathically calling his son. But he lacks the super-athletic abilities we get to see in the prequels, or the Clone Wars series. Some small jumps down a stairs, sure. But no long jumps like in the duel of the fates on Mustafar. No super speedy sprints that would make Usain Bolt weep in shame. Also, his fighting in ESB and RotJ seems slow, sluggish. Appearently, the Force cannot compensate for the loss of limbs by guiding those cybernetics along just as fast as they do living flesh and bone. The cybernetics did make him strong as a gundark, though, as Vader lifts people off their feet as if they weigh very little.

And then there was the bit of fan service (for which I admittedly also sat drooling in my cinema seat when I saw it happen) in Rogue One. But did Vader really do anything we didn't see him do in the originals anyways? In some way or another? We just saw what he can do against minion mooks by himself. In a way it even diminishes the opening scene of IV. Why did he send in those stormtroopers as they boarded the Tantive? Why didn't he go in himself? Was he tired, or was his Force exhausted? I know I'm probably over-analysing this, but again, I don't see him do anything he didn't already do in the originals, and I still didn't see him do stuff even more extra-ordinary which he did in the prequels when he still had more of his natural body.

Mechanically though, I feel we don't need to enforce penalties. The game is a narrative. Most characters don't have an almost full-body prothesis, they have a cybernetics implants cap of 2 or 3. Suppose a character has a cybernetic arm, and Force rating 1. Should we say his Cybernetic value is 1, and thus his Force Rating is lowered by a like amount? No. Whenever the character rolls a Force power check and fails to do anything (or just receives the minor results) narratively blame it on the lack of 'feeling' from the cybernetic arm. In time, the character strengthens his link to the Force through the rest of his body (gains more Force Rating, probably) and thus finds way to cope with his lost limb and its non-living replacement. Simply tell other Force-Sensitive characters they fail because they (narratively) couldn't concentrate enough. Or they were simply not strong enough at the moment. Or they couldn't tap into the living Force around them as well as normal because there were a couple of living creatures just running away. Or... or... or...

On 2-11-2017 at 10:13 PM, Degenerate Mind said:

Oh come on, that experiment would be a ton of fun to actually perform! We'll trim their nails, and clip everything below their elbows, then move on to their toenails, wash/rinse/repeat!

For, uh, science. Or something. Definitely not because I'm a psychopathic troll disguised as a pirate.

Who says there couldn't be such an experiment going on? Nice adventure (or even campaign) hook you got there. Have the characters investigate a series of seemingly random mutilations only to have them find out each and every victim regardless of species, age, gender and whatnot is Force-Sensitive (probably hiding that fact when the idea is set in the Empire era). Shock and horror when this leads to some scientist working for a shady branch of current government (the Empire, perhaps) performing a black operation to see how the government can keep the power of Jedi specifically, and Force-Sensitives in general, under control. Wouldn't you fear for your office if some schmuck walks in past your guards unstopped, waves his hand around and tells you "it is a good idea to lower taxes for [insert group the schmuck is part of]"?

Which also brings us to the original post. How I Would Play It...

I'd say no to having cybernetics increase the maximum characteristic value, and then increasing it even further by use of the Force through committed Force dice in the Enhance power tree. That would be my personal preference, given by seeing how Anakin Skywalker seems far more athletic through the Force than Darth Vader is (and not simply stating that special effects at ILM have improved so much more) through that very same Force. More of a gut feeling and a classic way of looking at things than any RAW from the books.

4 hours ago, Xcapobl said:

But he lacks the super-athletic abilities we get to see in the prequels, or the Clone Wars series.

So does Obi-Wan, and he isn't cybered up. He can barely lift himself out of the hiding space in the Falcon.

I think drawing comparisons between Vader's and Anakin's athleticism is a bit of a stretch. Didn't Lucas pretty openly state that fight scenes in the original trilogy would've been much more impressive if it wasn't for the Vader suit limiting their options for stunt work?

1 hour ago, Stan Fresh said:

So does Obi-Wan, and he isn't cybered up. He can barely lift himself out of the hiding space in the Falcon.

Who is of an older generation. There is a clear age difference when the two meet up for the first time. Also, Vader has been in the tender love and care of the Emperor, and had his own castle with a bacta tank and personal guards and attendants as compared to the clay and sand hovel which Obi-Wan chose to live in for some 18 years all by his lonesome. All by canon, as seen on film. You and I might be a little stiff in the bones after such a choice. Obi-Wan isn't cybered up, but I imagine he is a bit messed up and washed out, physically.

Which also makes me wonder (though I am not actively proposing it in any way) about age modifiers? Suppose there was something like this, lowering Brawn and Agility by an X amount for every 10 or 15 years above 35 or 40 years of age (human-based, scaled up or down for other species such as Yoda's). Using the Enhance Force power to increase a hypothetically age-lowered Agility characteristic also doesn't give the same results as it does in the case of a twenty-something young man in his prime who hasn't got a hypothetically age-lowered Agility characteristic.

It is also rather safe to assume Vader has been searching for hiding Jedi whenever the Empire didn't send an inquisitor to do the dirty work. There are plenty stories where he hunts down Jedi and fights them to their deaths. Vader kept his skills trained, while we know little to nothing of what Obi-Wan did, other than sitting atop a sand dune and watching Luke farm moist with Beru and lars under the gruelling Tatooine suns.

1 hour ago, Tom Cruise said:

I think drawing comparisons between Vader's and Anakin's athleticism is a bit of a stretch. Didn't Lucas pretty openly state that fight scenes in the original trilogy would've been much more impressive if it wasn't for the Vader suit limiting their options for stunt work?

That's the practical side of film making. I think that should be totally separate from the (in-universe) discussion about the Force and cybernetics, which has been around for years of RPG history.

25 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

Obi-Wan isn't cybered up, but I imagine he is a bit messed up and washed out, physically.

He can train in the desert just as much as in a temple. He's old, but he's not given up on himself.

28 minutes ago, Xcapobl said:

which has been around for years of RPG history.

Lots of bad or wrong ideas stick around a long time. Doesn't make them accurate or interesting.

Just going to throw out something here. The Legends continuity and current canon have different stances on the Force and cybernetics. In Legends, yes, Vader was stated to have lost a massive amount of power and potential after his injuries on Mustafar. In canon, however, Vader is stated to have only grown more powerful and connected to the Force than ever before after being placed in the suit (Source: Lords of the Sith, the first page of the first chapter).

As for the difference in Vader's performance and Anakin's performance, we simply cannot ignore the technical limitations. Canonically, Vader is the most skilled lightsaber duelist of the entire Sith order (one of the source books actually places him above Sidious in terms of skill, although Sidious is still more powerful). So canonically, Vader wasn't a worse duelist than Anakin. As for acrobatic feats, Lords of the Sith and both of the Darth Vader comics (2015 and 2017) have plenty of acrobatic feats for Vader. The current 2017 Vader comic is doing a decent job of showing the transition from Anakin's movie fighting style to Vader's movie fighting style.

I also have a pretty simple explanation for the difference in how the two fight. Vader's armor might not restrict Anakin's power in the Force in canon, but it is definitely a very top-heavy suit that restricts a lot of his physical movements. Having worn a mostly screen-accurate Vader costume, I can personally attest to how hard it is to move in that thing. I can only imagine how much more difficult it would be with four prosthetics that aren't even appropriately scaled to the original body (after all, his legs and arms are longer as Vader than they were as Anakin, which would have definitely lead to some awkwardness of movement). They cybernetics don't need to hamper Vader's ability to enhance himself with the Force to prevent him from pulling off the same fluid acrobatic movements of Anakin Skywalker.

During the Clone Wars Anakin's Raw Potential was able to best even celestials, a feat Vader seems unable to achieve, meanwhile Anakin's powers are still raw and restricted by the jedi's teaching. The darkside is a strong ally indeed and Palpatine is a very knowledgeable mystic and seeker of knowledge about the force. So it is quite possible that Vader's raw power is just as restricted from the cybernetics as his body is from the suit, but compensates with his dark side training and the knowledge he acquired. Not to speed of that burning rage and crushing fears and and ice cold hatred which came with his transformation to the darkside.

38 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

During the Clone Wars Anakin's Raw Potential was able to best even celestials, a feat Vader seems unable to achieve , meanwhile Anakin's powers are still raw and restricted by the jedi's teaching. The darkside is a strong ally indeed and Palpatine is a very knowledgeable mystic and seeker of knowledge about the force. So it is quite possible that Vader's raw power is just as restricted from the cybernetics as his body is from the suit, but compensates with his dark side training and the knowledge he acquired. Not to speed of that burning rage and crushing fears and and ice cold hatred which came with his transformation to the darkside.

Out of curiosity, based on what are you saying that Vader doesn't seem able to beat Celestials? Vader hasn't come across the Ones, since they're all dead, so it's impossible to know if he could replicate that feat or not. If you compare everything Vader has done in the current comics and novels to everything Anakin has done during The Clone Wars, Vader is very clearly the more superior Force user, barring the display with the Ones. And like I said, we have a canon source that outright tells us being put in the suit made Anakin more powerful, not less. The current canon story right now is that Vader grew more powerful after Mustafar. On top of this, we have statements from Matt Martin on Twitter where he disagrees with the idea of cybernetics weakening Force users. The Force exists in all things, including inanimate ones like rocks and machines.

On top of that, diminutive Jedi like Yoda, Even Piell, and Yaddle were all be immensely strong in the Force, despite having far less mass to contain it in than larger Jedi. Amount of living mass is clearly not as important as Legends made it out to be. Heck, the movies imply that it's the ratio of midichlorians in the blood, not the total amount of midichlorians in the body, that determine how powerful someone is in the Force. Having an arm chopped off doesn't lower that ratio of midichlorians per blood cell. Characters like Maul and Vader continued to be immensely powerful Force users after having lost significant amounts of their living bodies, and there isn't anything in canon that says cybernetics weaken Force users. That was an entirely Legends concept based off one of George Lucas's ever-shifting opinions on how the Force worked.

On 11/5/2017 at 4:50 PM, Xcapobl said:

Accumulating penalties to the use of the Force by replacing ever more of your natural body with cybernetics is an older concept, which I still like. Many stories and RPG book lines embraced it. The Force is created by living things, and cybernetics do not live. The first part is still canon as per the words of some wise, old Jedi master, the second is assumed science and natural law, which also seems to apply to the Star Wars universe.

But, would that mean that larger creatures would be more powerful with the force?

2 hours ago, Ahrimon said:

But, would that mean that larger creatures would be more powerful with the force?

That's why the Jedi Order fell! They all ate themselves to death trying to get more powerful with the Force!

On 11/1/2017 at 11:09 AM, Underachiever599 said:

Recently I've been thinking about how I would build characters like Darth Vader, General Grievous, and Lumiya in this game. Mostly as a thought experiment, as I doubt I'll ever introduce such characters into my games. At most, Vader will continue to be an occasional name-drop (unless I manage to convince one of my player's characters to join the Inquisitorious, at which point he would be her new master). While pondering this, I had a thought.

Enhance has two control upgrades that allow you to commit dice. One reads, "This power gains the ongoing effect: Commit [Force Die]. The Force user increases his Agility characteristic by 1 (to a maximum of 6)." The other reads, "This power gains the ongoing effect: Commit [Force Die]. The Force user increases his Brawn characteristic by 1 (to a maximum of 6)."

There are also cybernetics, the Mod V, Mod VI, Mod II, and Mod III, that allow you to boost your characteristics. Specifically, Mod V is an arm that adds +1 to Brawn, Mod VI is an arm that adds +1 to Agility, Mod II is a pair of legs that adds +1 to Brawn, and Mod III is a pair of legs that adds +1 to Agility.

The important thing here, however, is a piece of description on page 173 of Edge of the Empire: "Cybernetic enhancements and replacements generally increase skills or characteristics, providing raw bonuses to characters' abilities. The combination of purchased increases and the increases provided by cybernetics can increase a character's skill or characteristic one step above the normal maximum (seven for characteristics, six for skills) ."

My question, then, is simple. If your character had a cybernetic enhancement that provided, say, +1 to Brawn, and the Enhance upgrade that allows you to increase Brawn, would you allow them to commit Force Dice to a maximum of 7 instead of 6? Effectively, they'd be increasing their natural Brawn up to 6, and then gain a +1 from the cybernetic enhancement. The rules as written allow this with Dedication, allowing you to buy 1 more Dedication for Brawn even when you're at 6, if you're only at 6 because of a cybernetic. So I don't see a good reason not to allow it with Enhance, especially since it would typically require multiple Force Die to get your Brawn that high anyway. What do you guys think? Yea or nay?

(Also posting in Force and Destiny forum)

I think the overall max seems to be 6 for any natural stat and 7 for any augmented stat. There are a few ways you can chain up stat bonuses: Dedication (of course; to a max of 6), Force Enhance (by committing Force die to a max of 6), Cybernetics (to a max of 7), Cyber Tech Overcharge talent (to a max of 7), and Doctor Stim Application talent (to a max of 1-2 stat increases). There might be a few others, but that's about all I can recall.

All characteristics are capped at 6 once play begins (FaD pg24), but it seems that there are some exceptions to the rule, as noted above. The Force capping you at 6 probably represents the peak you can boost yourself naturally i.e. without any form of technological enhancement (I'd include Stims in this category), while a cap of 7 for cybernetics and overcharging probably represents supernatural augmentation, using a technological device to do the boosting.

To simply answer your question : I would allow Dedication, Stim Application and Force Enhance to work up to a cap of 6. But if you had Overcharge or say cybernetics, I'd bring the cap to 7. It should never really exceed 7.

As an example: If you had Br3 and FR2, you could make your Br5 by committing two Force die. From there, if you also had 2 Br cybernetic upgrades, you could bring that up to Br7.

MS

On 11/18/2017 at 1:27 PM, Stan Fresh said:

That's why the Jedi Order fell! They all ate themselves to death trying to get more powerful with the Force!

That made me think of how "Pizza the Hutt" from Space balls died

Cybernetics and Enhance would both cap at 7 if I remember correctly (because they both state a maximum of 7, maybe enhance is 6). However Cybernetics plus Armor Strength Enhancement Attachment can cap out at 8 as the armor adds an effective +1 to Brawn (with no soak or Resilience gain) without a stated maximum. I'm AFB but I have a player who is emulating Grevious and that's the path he's on.

My son always comments that Vader is weaker in the force than expected because we never see him use Force Lightning (which Dooku does), but I've pointed out to him that perhaps channeling lightning through a cybernetic body would short out the cybernetics and so using that particular power would be self-destructive for him. This seems especially feasible given that a single blast of it from Palpatine leads to Vader's demise.

16 minutes ago, FinarinPanjoro said:

Cybernetics and Enhance would both cap at 7 if I remember correctly (because they both state a maximum of 7, maybe enhance is 6). However Cybernetics plus Armor Strength Enhancement Attachment can cap out at 8 as the armor adds an effective +1 to Brawn (with no soak or Resilience gain) without a stated maximum. I'm AFB but I have a player who is emulating Grevious and that's the path he's on.

My son always comments that Vader is weaker in the force than expected because we never see him use Force Lightning (which Dooku does), but I've pointed out to him that perhaps channeling lightning through a cybernetic body would short out the cybernetics and so using that particular power would be self-destructive for him. This seems especially feasible given that a single blast of it from Palpatine leads to Vader's demise.

Supposing that Vader doesn't use force lightning for the reason you said, doesn't that in a sense (from a certain point of view) mean the cybernetics make him weaker/more-limited with the force even though it doesn't decrease the amount of "force juice" he has to fuel other force powers? Basically wouldn't both sides of the argument be partially correct?

I guess so, but it seems like a dodge of an answer to me, as it only means he was restricted with this one particular power. My point is based on an inherent vulnerability of the cybernetics. For all we know Vader could project force lightning better than Palpatine, but doing so would short him out and likely kill him. So he had to restrain himself to force choking, catching blaster bolts, throwing objects, etc. It doesn't mean he's incapable of it, just too smart to do it...theoretically.

A water-dwelling Sith couldn't use lightning without electrocuting themselves, either. Doesn't mean they're weaker in the Force than land-dwellers.

Assuming Force lightning works like electricity in the first place.

There could hypothetically be other force powers that are detrimental to a cyborg. I think in kotor someone (maybe the darkwoman) could phase through walls, phasing and losing all your cybernetics would be bad.