There we go!

I have taken up on an idea to sort of "translate" or rework Force rules in order for them to fall in line with new Magic rules we got in Genesys.

In the beginning, I'd like to point out a few facts or answer a few, likely to appear, comments:

• I do not speak English on a daily basis, so I apologize to anyone whose eyes are bleeding
• I know it is impossible to fully maintain every old mechanic while redoing an entire system. I want to preserve the same feel but I and my players are ready for big changes
• I do not want to rework every existing talent in every specialization tree in FaD but I am willing to change some of them
• Yes, I am crazy to take up that challenge

With that out of the way I want to share already prepared stuff.

Activating Force Power costs 2 Strain.

The Force Powers will be activated using one of three new skills which are: Alter, Influence and Sense.

• Alter is used for any powers that directly interact with the environment. Examples of Force Powers using Alter are Heal/Harm, Protect/Unleash, Imbue, Move
• Influence is used for powers affecting minds of others. These are for example: Influence (no s**t Sherlock), Battle Meditation, Misdirect
• Sense is used for powers which enhance or alter the way you perceive the surrounding world. These are Forsee, Farsight, Seek, Sense (again), etc.

These skills are decoupled from characteristics. When you use a certain skill, the characteristic you use is dependent on the Force Power in question. For example Battle Meditation would use Influence(Presence) while Misdirect uses Influence(Cunning).

Next, when targeting an enemy with a Force Power add Setback dice equal to ranks in Discipline. It essentially means that Discipline works as Force Defense.

Force Rating stays. When targeting an enemy with a Force Power, ignore Force Defense equal to your Force Rating. In addition, when acquiring Force Rating (every Force Rating talent purchased) choose Alter, Influence or Sense. You permanently reduce difficulty of Force Power checks using that skill by one. You can choose the same skill multiple times, reducing the difficulty by one each time (to a minimum of one).

I was thinking about reducing the XP cost of force powers as you have to purchase skill ranks now.

I do have an example Force Power , namely Heal/Harm, ready for testing. I will use it to visualize an example Force Power check. I do not have a tree ready but this is what a maxed out would look like.

Force Power: Heal/Harm

• Base Power: [1 Difficulty] Perform an Alter(Intellect) check against one engaged target. If successful, the target restores wounds or suffers wounds (ignoring soak) equal to number of successes rolled.
• Range: [+1 Difficulty] Increase the power's range by one range band (you may activate it multiple times up to a maximum of medium range)
• Magnitude: [+2 Difficulty] Affect additional targets equal to Magnitude upgrades purchased (max. 3). You may spend 2 Advantages to affect an additional target (You may activate Magnitude upgrade multiple times)
• Control 1: [+1 Difficulty] Change power's base damage/heal to equal to your ranks in Medicine
• Control 2: [+1 Difficulty] Heal: Let one target perform a Resilience check vs severity rating to heal one Critical Injury. (I don't know about that. I also think about you making Medicine check.) Harm: Force one target to take an opposed Resilience vs Medicine check or suffer a Critical Injury. Spend Threats from this check to add to d100 roll.
• Control 3: [+1 Difficulty] Heal: Remove one status effect from your target. Harm: Heal wounds equal to damage inflicted.
• Control 4: [-] Heal strain equal to damage inflicted or let target recover strain equal to wounds restored.
• Heal Incapacitated: [+2 Difficulty] You may heal targets whose wounds exceed their wound threshold.
• Mastery: [+4 Difficulty/ - ] Heal: Once per session, you may restore one target who died after the end of your last turn to life. You may flip a Destiny Point to heal wounds on target equal to your ranks in Medicine and target's ranks in Resilience. Harm: When you kill someone with this power you may restore a single target that died during this encounter to life. You both receive 7 Conflict.
• Duration: [-] You may spend a maneuver next turn to heal or damage targets within range for wounds equal to power's base heal/damage.

This Force Power reinforces advantage of Force which is affecting multiple targets while preserving the power of Medicine checks (especially with ranks in Surgeon). Please note that healing from Force Power: Heal/Harm is limited in the same manner as Stimpacks.

I still do have a lot of work ahead and a few issues have come up:

• Talents adding Force Dice to checks (I'm getting rid of Force Dice so...)
• Commit Force Dice (I do not think that some powers are worth spending maneuver to Concentrate but I also do not know how to handle them otherwise)
• Tapping into the Dark Side?

Thanks in advance for any feedback and I invite you to collaborate and throw your ideas at me

Why not Control, Sense, and Alter (the "skills" from WEG D6 Star Wars?)

Control would be powers that affect the Jedi him/herself (like Enhance). Alter is anything that affects the environment (Move) or others (Influence, Misdirect). Sense is for mental powers (like Sense).

Interesting idea, certainly.

2 hours ago, ErikModi said:

Why not Control, Sense, and Alter (the "skills" from WEG D6 Star Wars?)

Control would be powers that affect the Jedi him/herself (like Enhance). Alter is anything that affects the environment (Move) or others (Influence, Misdirect). Sense is for mental powers (like Sense).

Interesting idea, certainly.

I guess the problem is, that the Alter skill would be underrepresented.

Under WEG's Alter the only (non-dark side) Power was telekinesis. This would/could lead to a skill, that is only used for the move power.

And using a combination of force skills as in WEG would be unnecessarily complicated and/or make no sense under the actual rules.

To tapping into the dark side:

Perhaps you could just hand out conflict for every threat rolled.

Or a character may ignore a certain number of failures/threats and gain conflict for each one ignored. Or both

31 minutes ago, Rogues Rule said:

I guess the problem is, that the Alter skill would be underrepresented.

Under WEG's Alter the only (non-dark side) Power was telekinesis. This would/could lead to a skill, that is only used for the move power.

And using a combination of force skills as in WEG would be unnecessarily complicated and/or make no sense under the actual rules.

To tapping into the dark side:

Perhaps you could just hand out conflict for every threat rolled.

Or a character may ignore a certain number of failures/threats and gain conflict for each one ignored. Or both

So do you propose counting threat before or after subtracting advantages? There's a problem with that because either you start to gain a lot of conflict when you face powerful enemies or stop gaining conflict at all (if it would work after subtraction). I do like an idea of removing failures/threats for conflict, though. I think that removing a difficulty die for some conflict would work too.

3 hours ago, ErikModi said:

Why not Control, Sense, and Alter (the "skills" from WEG D6 Star Wars?)

Control would be powers that affect the Jedi him/herself (like Enhance). Alter is anything that affects the environment (Move) or others (Influence, Misdirect). Sense is for mental powers (like Sense).

Interesting idea, certainly.

Like @Rogues Rule said, some skills would be underrepresented. I'm working with Alter, Influence and Sense but there certainly is a better way to divide the Force Powers, I still can't find it, though.

I only meant uncanceled threats.

You are right, you would not get a lot of conflict. At least not for the basic power. But I guess most people would use one or two upgrades.

Or set the base difficulty for some powers higher than one.

@Rogues Rule It may be the case that I'm a little biased towards high level play because I run a campaign with everyone hitting the 1000xp mark but I'm sure that uncancelled threats would be present all the time in 250ish xp play.

It could certainly represent how dark side temptation is more powerful when you're just starting your training in the force.

Maybe something along the lines of "suffer one strain and receive conflict up to your force rating to remove an equal amount of failures from a force power check. In addition, if you remove any failures, suffer conflict equal to number of uncancelled threats." It would represent how much power the Dark Side has to offer but also at a high cost.

Then I would just rule it that you cannot go below 0 Morality and when already fallen to the Dark Side, you automatically generate Idk - 1 Conflict?

If you want to do a Force conversion to Genesys, it seems to me that you should start by having it follow the baseline rules of Genesys. Otherwise you're just creating ANOTHER disparate system that ppl won't know how to use unless they read your special rules.

And de-coupling the Force (essentially Magic, right?) from set Skills instantly deviates from the core Genesys rules.

Already failing your stated design goal from the very start to have it fall in line with Genesys.

@emsquared Well... you got me Although I could argue that de-coupling skills is exactly that - a rule showed to us in Genesys Core Rulebook, that's not the point.

I just think that making every skill be linked to a single characteristic would make no sense thematically and balance-wise. I do agree however that it would be more convenient to make the rules simpler and easier to use, I just cannot find this perfect set of skills that could represent all Force Powers in a way that would be both balanced and thematically appropriate.

Furthermore, I even doubt that such a perfect balance could ever exist unless you would create a huge number of skills or make Force Powers use existing skills (which would in turn make all non force users unimportant).

The basic idea of magic in Genesys for me is using a certain Magic skill in order to use a spell, adding difficulty dice before the roll in order to gain additional benefits but I also want to preserve the basic Star Wars feel and I feel that my players will withstand the avalanche of rules I will cause (They succeeded when I reworked Assassin and Sharpshooter specializations and turned them into Assassin, Ambusher and Marksman)

@DarthDude You lurkin' round here Leave the shadows and join our discussion, would you? Hahahah

28 minutes ago, MrKillean said:

@DarthDude You lurkin' round here Leave the shadows and join our discussion, would you? Hahahah

Got me!

First I love the the idea of three separate skills for Alter, Influence and Sense and I love the idea of decoupling the skills from attributes. 2 Strain per use according to magic rules.

About targeting an unwilling target with Influence an opposing skill check using discipline as as you mentioned instead of using set back dice might be an additional approach. If the force rating/defence is really necessary I am not sure. One has to do some playtesting.

I love the example force power. Eagerly looking forward how you develope Force with Genisys!

I will do some playtesting over the coming weeks as I will be playing as a PC for the first time and it just so happens that I'm a force wielding emotionally unstable teenage girl with force rating of 6.

I need to make rules for Protect/Unleash. I've already tried to come up with something, with no success, though.

1 minute ago, MrKillean said:

I will do some playtesting over the coming weeks as I will be playing as a PC for the first time and it just so happens that I'm a force wielding emotionally unstable teenage girl with force rating of 6.

Yikes, an impulsive attitude with a very dangerous touch!

@MrKillean

Dont get me wrong, I see what you're wanting to achieve with it. And I'm not saying it's a bad way to approach Force Powers, just that it's not inline with basic Genesys which may give it a different appeal/utility to the community.

Couple considerations tho;

You said it would require creating a huge number of Skills to recreate the Star Wars system Powers, yet that's exactly what you're already essentially doing, so it's no great amount more work. You're just reducing the base investment by only actually having 3 Skills, and simultaneously reducing the number of places a PC has to spread XP, thereby making the Force inherently more powerful than it was in SWRPG, where of course there was essentially completely new Talent Trees for each Power. A huge spread in XP allotment.

And I get that the increasing difficulty scheme of Magic is a higher bar for PCs to overcome than Force pips, but on its face I just question the balance of this method you're using.

Whereas, were you to create "true" (individual) Skills for each Power, you're coming out closer to SWRPGs model of Talent Trees for each Power. Yet still reducing the XP investment needed to "Master" a Power to perhaps make up for that higher bar of increasing Difficulty.

Just food for thought. Appreciate the work you're doing either way.

@emsquared I see your point. I have to admit that xp part of my idea isn't well thought out yet.

I don't want to remove Force Power tree cost entirely but I thought about making the trees simpler to compensate for added xp cost for skills.

I guess it is more "How I would handle force - inspired by Genesys" than "Star Wars to Genesys Force conversion" by now xD

Well, if you went Control/Sense/Alter (starting from the basic idea that Control is using your own Force, Sense is feeling the Force, and Alter is manipulating the Force to do something outside oneself), here's how I see the existing Force Powers breaking down:

Control: Ebb/Flow?, Enhance, Heal/Harm?, Protect/Unleash?, Suppress?

Sense: Farsight, Foresee, Seek, Sense

Alter: Battle Meditation, Bind, Ebb/Flow?, Heal/Harm?, Imbue, Manipulate, Misdirect, Move, Protect/Unleash?, Suppress?

Alter actually has the bulk of powers currently. The Question Marks are ones that I could see fitting under more than one skill, either intrinsically or because they're actually two powers linked together. For example, Protect is pretty expressly Control, since it's basically what other RPGs would call "Absorb/Dissipate Energy," the user using the Force to soak up energy directed at them, like blaster bolts. Unleash, however, is expressly Alter, since you're unleashing the Force as raw destructive energy to harm another being. Heal could be Control or Alter, depending on if you're using it on yourself or another, while Harm is straight Alter. Ebb/Flow is another where the two linked powers fall under different disciplines, Control for Flow and Alter for Ebb. Suppress could either be Control or Alter, Controlling your own Force to absorb or deflect Force attacks against you, or Altering the Force directed at you to make it less effective, depending on exact fluff.

At which point I would suggest decoupling those linked powers completely, or else noting that, for instance, Ebb is Alter while Flow is Control.

EDIT: Thinking about the way I would break down powers more fully to work with the Skills, we'd have the following list:

Control: Flow, Enhance, Heal (self), Protect, Suppress.

Sense: Farsight, Foresee, Seek, Sense

Alter: Battle Meditation, Bind, Ebb, Heal (other), Harm, Imbue, Manipulate, Misdirect, Move, Unleash

Battle Meditation COULD be moved to Sense (it's kind of a square peg in a round hole no matter where you put it).

You COULD have some powers rely on multiple skills, though that would take an extra leg. How I'd do it is: You roll the lowest skill of the ones you have, but add a Boost Die for each skill you have with more ranks. So if, say for example, Battle Meditation was Control, Sense, and Alter, and you had two ranks in Control but three in Sense and Alter, you'd form your dice pool based on the two ranks of Control and add two boost die (one for higher ranks in Sense and one for higher ranks in Alter). But that is probably needlessly complicated.

@ErikModi And further powers under Alter: Influence, Jerrsera's Influence, Move.

I'm just afraid that in this system Alter would be straight up THE way to go every time just because of the sheer amount of Force Powers linked to that

2 minutes ago, MrKillean said:

@ErikModi And further powers under Alter: Influence, Jerrsera's Influence, Move.

I'm just afraid that in this system Alter would be straight up THE way to go every time just because of the sheer amount of Force Powers linked to that

True, but Control and Sense have some useful powers, so you wouldn't want to neglect them if you wanted to be truly well-rounded. Plus, the Control and Sense powers, I think, would be game-changers in the hands of clever players who know how and when to use them.

Kind of like, if I can be forgiven from delving into D&D a moment, a well-played, well-statted Bard. Can't cast as well as the Wizards and Sorcerers, can't fight as well as the Fighters and Rangers and Paladins, but makes everyone around him better. Control and Sense powers wouldn't have the direct effects of Alter powers (physical and social nukes), but used the right way at the right time, make something significantly difficult a breeze.

Hmm. In the interests of using things "straight out of the book" as much as possible, how does this grab you:

When something asks for Force Points to be spent to activate it, spend Success and/or Advantage instead.

Effects that ask for Committed Force Dice remain the same, and the Committing mechanic remains the same. Thus, when using a Commit aspect of a Power, your Force Rating is lowered by the number of Dice Committed, making you less able to overcome Discipline "Force Defense." (Really like that aspect, by the way.)

For XP costs: Two Three possibilities:

One: Instead of reducing difficulty for Force checks when Force Rating is increased, you can use any aspect of any power (provided enough Success/Advantage to spend) with a "Tier" equal to your Force Rating. Thus, at Force Rating 1, you could use the Basic Power of any Force Power. At Force Rating Two, you could use the Basic plus anything directly on the "second tier," etc.

Two: Shared spending. Buying the Basic level of any Force Power gets you the Basic level of all Force Powers. Buying one Strength Upgrade gets you one Strength Upgrade for all Force Powers, buying one Magnitude Upgrade gets you one Magnitude for all, etc.

EDIT: Three: Spend XP for "Basic" of a Force Power as normal. Once that Power is "Unlocked," you can use any "Tier" of upgrade for that Power less than or equal to your Force Rating.

Kinda just spitballing here, tossing out ideas and seeing what sticks. I've been hungering for a way to make Force Powers more accessible for my characters, but haven't really hit on an idea that moves me (and won't make the Droid member of my play group feel completely overshadowed), so this is really exciting to me.

@ErikModi Yeah, that's a good point about D&D bard. I'll have to take that into consideration.

I'll get back to you ASAP. I'm afraid we'll have to continue our discussion tomorrow.

I've been lied to with all this "GMs and evil need not to sleep" thing

Fair enough

I like the third idea. I think that this or something similar could work. I think that then, after having the highest tier unlocked, you can purchase Mastery upgrade for additional xp.

Another thought: Force skills are not class skills for anyone, unless you have Mentor, which makes them all class skills.

2 hours ago, ErikModi said:

Another thought: Force skills are not class skills for anyone, unless you have Mentor, which makes them all class skills.

Great, it would bring xp costs closer to original, remove need for updating specialization bonus career skills and emphasize need for mentor (not "just" a holocron or some old Jedi scrolls)

By the way, where can I find Mentor rules? I can recall that some book has them but I don't know which

Main Force And Destiny. Basically, it's -5 XP to the cost of the basic level of all Force Powers.

I was thinking about Commiting dice and I came to a conclusion that keeping active effects like Force Power Sense , Force Power Enhance or Control Upgrade in Force Power Misdirect (the part where you add Threats) could be ruled that you are just worse at overcoming Force Defense.

Other powers, however, would be too strong.

Adding 3 Setback dice isn't as restricting as removing 3 Force dice so powers like: Control Upgrade in Seek (Pierce = Perception + Cunning) or Force Power Misdirect or even Force Power Battle Meditation should be ruled otherwise. I think that spending a maneuver would be fitting but.. I dunno