Some things I'd like to have clarified by our wonderful community:

1) In our last session, three disadvantage occurred on an NPC's roll, which I (as GM) spent on "major setback". Since the fight took place near a few landed ships, a stray blaster bolt punctured something that started a gas leak, obscuring vision and upgradeing the difficulty of attack rolls (which I promptly forgot to enforce, but that's neither here nor there.) One player has the Farsight power with the upgrade allowing him to see through objects, which he wanted to use to see through the gas and negate the penalty. Problem being, Farsight only lasts one round without Duration upgrades, which he didn't have, and I believe using a Force power is always an action unless specifically noted. In the interests of keeping the combat flowing, I allowed it (and a maneuver, which I probably shouldn't have), but can anyone give me a solid answer for how this should have worked by RAW?

2) Related, the player had a question when he first got the "see through objects" upgrade: could he use it to, say, see the screen of a datapad facing away from him? Basically, is the datapad a single "object", and you either see through all of it or none of it, or can you "peel back layers" of an object to look at different parts of it? (The character is also a bit of a sabacc enthusiast, so I imagine he might use it to cheat at cards. But maybe not, sabacc is Serious Business for him.)

3) I'm setting my players up against a Sith Lord, surviving through carbon freeze and based on a character I made for Star Wars: The Old Republic (because Purebloods be awesome). As a Sith Juggernaut, Force Choke (which is to say, Bind) is one of his go-to Force Powers. Bind would take an action, so he can't fight other characters while using it, correct? But he could use the proper Reflect and Parry talents to direct attacks back at those attacking him, yes? Is there anything I should give him to make those talents more effective/likely to trigger?

4) In anticipation of fighting lots of Dark Jedi, one of the players picked up the basic Suppress power. How does adding one Failure affect Force power rolls and the success thereof?

1. Yes, by RAW it takes an action, and without duration upgrades lasts only one round (I should take the duration upgrade on my force user!). The talent "The Force is my ally" allows using a Force power as a manouver for 2 strain, once per session. Of course, you could rule that Farsight normally takes a Manouver, as it isn't as dangerously high power as some others. If you do I'd suggest still only allowing use of one Force power per turn.

2. GM call. I'd probably say no.

3. Yes, though as a Sith lord Nemesis you can also give them the ability to take two initiative slots per round, one as normal position in round, one at the end. His ranks in Adversary will help generate Improved Reflect and Parry direct attacks back, but Sense upgrades would also work, as would any stance that upgrades attack difficulty (Side Step, Defensive Stance), or any equipment that had Deflection or Defensive.

4. Basic power would only affect combined force power checks where a skill check is involved.

4 hours ago, Darzil said:

3. Yes, though as a Sith lord Nemesis you can also give them the ability to take two initiative slots per round, one as normal position in round, one at the end.

Not familiar with that ability. Where can it be found?

16 minutes ago, ErikModi said:

Not familiar with that ability. Where can it be found?

You can mainly find it in the F&D core rulebook as a sidebar at the end of the Build-an-Inquisitor section of the Adversary chapter.

Fair warning that this option can make your Sith Lord Nemesis into a true beast in combat, especially if they opt to make two lightsaber attacks that round as well as having one (or both) of Improved Parry and Improved Reflect.

Noted, thank you. I do intend for him to find his twin daughters and the three of them to become recurring villains, so that might be a bit much when all of them come together.

6 hours ago, ErikModi said:

Some things I'd like to have clarified by our wonderful community:

1) In our last session, three disadvantage occurred on an NPC's roll, which I (as GM) spent on "major setback". Since the fight took place near a few landed ships, a stray blaster bolt punctured something that started a gas leak, obscuring vision and upgradeing the difficulty of attack rolls (which I promptly forgot to enforce, but that's neither here nor there.) One player has the Farsight power with the upgrade allowing him to see through objects, which he wanted to use to see through the gas and negate the penalty. Problem being, Farsight only lasts one round without Duration upgrades, which he didn't have, and I believe using a Force power is always an action unless specifically noted. In the interests of keeping the combat flowing, I allowed it (and a maneuver, which I probably shouldn't have), but can anyone give me a solid answer for how this should have worked by RAW?

I say Kudos for rewarding the player and keeping things gong. Once suggestion I have is you could have them flip a destiny point to do it as a manuever.

Don't forget about the Duration upgrade to Bind. The Sith could start off with it on turn 1, commit 3 dice to keep the effect going and then do other things on subsequent turns.

The basic Bind power has a duration of "until the end of the users next turn". So that should solve that problem.

Beware the Fallen Master [Nemesis] from page 412 in the core rule book. I used him and a Fallen Apprentice [Rival] in an encounter vs a knight level party with 1 light-saber wielder. He had the Move and Enhance Force powers and Rav Naaran's Wrack from Lure of the Lost module download. A lightsaber skill of 4 plus his brawn led to me rolling a double triumph late in the fight which turned the tide against my PCs.

Best thing I can think of is that it is often better to use Stun damage against a powerful adversary -- especially one who may be suffering strain to activate his own abilities as with Parry and Reflect.

In the core rule book it does say at the gm's discretion that force powers, could be used out of turn. The example they gave was using move out of turn when someone was about to fall off a cliff( I can't remember exactly).However I would make them use a destiny point, maybe suffer some strain.

I'm a little concerned at the peeling layers thing, it doesn't really make sense to me for digital applications, but maybe for hand drawn things it could work.

Pure blood Sith seems pretty cool, but others have said reflect/parry with some force powers taking up multiple slots will make him pretty tough, maybe do some practice rolls or something just to check your group doesn't get wiped, other than that sounds like fun.

38 minutes ago, Siuolis said:

Pure blood Sith seems pretty cool, but others have said reflect/parry with some force powers taking up multiple slots will make him pretty tough, maybe do some practice rolls or something just to check your group doesn't get wiped, other than that sounds like fun.

The suggestion to give nemesis characters two init slots is mainly for the reason that GMs often stick them into situation when they go alone against multiple PCs in which case the group has multiple actions per round and the nemesis is just boned.

10 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

The suggestion to give nemesis characters two init slots is mainly for the reason that GMs often stick them into situation when they go alone against multiple PCs in which case the group has multiple actions per round and the nemesis is just boned.

Yeah that's true, I usually gives the nemesis a couple ranks in adversary, but I get giving the nemesis more percentage in total actions so he doesn't get creamed.

13 hours ago, Siuolis said:

Pure blood Sith seems pretty cool, but others have said reflect/parry with some force powers taking up multiple slots will make him pretty tough, maybe do some practice rolls or something just to check your group doesn't get wiped, other than that sounds like fun.

Well, the point is for them to get wiped. . . this time. The PCs are on the verge of hitting full Jedi Knight level (500 earned XP by my rules-of-thumb) and I kind of want to end this phase of the adventure with a bang, as well as make their overall nemeses more dangerous (once the revived Sith and his daughters link up with the previously-established bad guys). The Sith in question ended up being built on about 2k XP (which is about where I have my Jedi Council Members), so that works for me narratively. The great thing about this system is I can utterly defeat the PCs, and unless I choose to activate a crit and get a 150+ roll, they aren't dead, so defeat does not mean "roll up a new character." I want to showcase that here, and let the players know that I'm shortly going to stop pulling punches, and if they want to triumph they'll have to work for it a bit harder than they have so far.

To make up for it, the next two sessions are the Jedi PC taking my version of Jedi Knight trials, then building her own lightsaber, then the third session I intend for the players to take part in a Battle of Hoth type setpiece. . . but on the Empire's side.

(Homebrew setting, I won't rehash the details yet again unless people are really interested).

Well, that didn't go entirely as expected. They got the Sith down to two wounds left before he managed to pull out a victory (I didn't have him use his Magnitude upgrade for Bind initially, because that would have decided the fight then and there).

It's amazing to me that, in this system, a character built on 1800 XP, with three Adversary talents, could actually be beaten by three characters at 450 XP and one GMPC at almost 900 (who was Bind immobilized for almost all of the fight, though one character's quick thinking to drag him out of Bind range got him back in).

But the players had a lot of fun and enjoyed the challenge, and the Jedi PC actually managed to disarm him twice on Triumph rolls.

And I swear I had another question I was looking to have answered that cropped up in this session, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Oh, well.

On 1/23/2018 at 5:15 AM, ErikModi said:

Some things I'd like to have clarified by our wonderful community:

1) In our last session, three disadvantage occurred on an NPC's roll, which I (as GM) spent on "major setback". Since the fight took place near a few landed ships, a stray blaster bolt punctured something that started a gas leak, obscuring vision and upgradeing the difficulty of attack rolls (which I promptly forgot to enforce, but that's neither here nor there.) One player has the Farsight power with the upgrade allowing him to see through objects, which he wanted to use to see through the gas and negate the penalty. Problem being, Farsight only lasts one round without Duration upgrades, which he didn't have, and I believe using a Force power is always an action unless specifically noted. In the interests of keeping the combat flowing, I allowed it (and a maneuver, which I probably shouldn't have), but can anyone give me a solid answer for how this should have worked by RAW?

2) Related, the player had a question when he first got the "see through objects" upgrade: could he use it to, say, see the screen of a datapad facing away from him? Basically, is the datapad a single "object", and you either see through all of it or none of it, or can you "peel back layers" of an object to look at different parts of it? (The character is also a bit of a sabacc enthusiast, so I imagine he might use it to cheat at cards. But maybe not, sabacc is Serious Business for him.)

3) I'm setting my players up against a Sith Lord, surviving through carbon freeze and based on a character I made for Star Wars: The Old Republic (because Purebloods be awesome). As a Sith Juggernaut, Force Choke (which is to say, Bind) is one of his go-to Force Powers. Bind would take an action, so he can't fight other characters while using it, correct? But he could use the proper Reflect and Parry talents to direct attacks back at those attacking him, yes? Is there anything I should give him to make those talents more effective/likely to trigger?

4) In anticipation of fighting lots of Dark Jedi, one of the players picked up the basic Suppress power. How does adding one Failure affect Force power rolls and the success thereof?

There is a solarri ?sp? Lightsaber crystal that really amps up improved reflect but I think it stops working if morality <50 but there is another crystal that does something similar for improved parry. If I was building a BBEG Sith Lord to tank a party, I would build the character as guardian:soresu defender/niman disciple/shien expert/seer to get a buttload of parry and reflect, improved and supreme parry and reflect, 2 ranks of defensive training, center of being and improved, primary stat would be willpower and he would use niman as his lightsaber fighting style (with improved parry and improved reflect mixed in), starting as guardian he has the guardian signature ability to have an epic one on one dual in the middle of a battle that other people can't interfere with. because while you want him to be able to tank the party if he has to, the climactic final battle would be a one on one or two on one lightsaber dual at the same time as a larger conflict, adversary 3 or maybe 4, maxed out move, bind, and protect/unleash

On 1/28/2018 at 5:04 PM, ErikModi said:

Well, that didn't go entirely as expected. They got the Sith down to two wounds left before he managed to pull out a victory (I didn't have him use his Magnitude upgrade for Bind initially, because that would have decided the fight then and there).

It's amazing to me that, in this system, a character built on 1800 XP, with three Adversary talents, could actually be beaten by three characters at 450 XP and one GMPC at almost 900 (who was Bind immobilized for almost all of the fight, though one character's quick thinking to drag him out of Bind range got him back in).

But the players had a lot of fun and enjoyed the challenge, and the Jedi PC actually managed to disarm him twice on Triumph rolls.

And I swear I had another question I was looking to have answered that cropped up in this session, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Oh, well.

So now I'm curious, if the Sith pulled off a victory, how did the game end? Did your players escape to fight another day? Was the batte interrupted? Did he capture the players? Come on, man! We need details!!

7 hours ago, Underachiever599 said:

So now I'm curious, if the Sith pulled off a victory, how did the game end? Did your players escape to fight another day? Was the batte interrupted? Did he capture the players? Come on, man! We need details!!

Okay, here we go:

So, the campaign is set 1,000 years after the New Jedi Order, ignoring all post-NJO Legends continuity. The GFFA fell apart in the interim, and the Imperial Remnant and Jedi Order found themselves working together to hold off the complete collapse of civilization in the galaxy. When the dust settled, there was a Second Galactic Empire working in concert with the Jedi Order, and things have been going strong for quite some time.

The group is a PC Jedi apprentice, a Force-Sensitive Ryn, and a combat medic droid, with the PC's Jedi teacher as a significant NPC. Their main antagonists have been the Ubese, who have strip-mined their whole home system to build a fleet and army, largely droids, to lash out at the Empire because they hate everyone. The Ubese are being backed by a splinter-sect of the Sith calling themselves the Tomat, but they're really closer to "just" Dark Jedi (though they do use the "Darth" honorific for high-ranking members). The Tomat are really good at remaining hidden, and the players have only encountered a few of them, none of them really significant.

They've allied with smuggler Ardar Karrde, decent guy who just doesn't want to live by Imperial rules and regulations. He'd tipped them to a fellow smuggler running lots of supplies to the Ubese, and they broke that up. On the way back, the picked up a small mass shadow in their hyperlane. It was a ship, from the Eternal Empire of SWTOR, having been derelict for 4,600 years at this point. The ship had been part of a convoy, hit mass shadow in hyperspace, which blew the main hyperdrive, the backup hyperdrive, and spiked the reactor enough for the coolant tanks to rupture, and the insanely toxic coolant they used 4,600 years ago killed the crew. Eventually, auxillary power, backup emergency power, and independent emergency batteries all wound down. The PCs found the Sith Lord (who introduced himself as just Xildrath) frozen in carbonite, thawed him out, and he begged them to help him find his daughters. Figuring out the ships computer (powering it up with portable power packs), they found that this ship and sent a distress signal with its status, and had also received a distress signal from another ship in the same circumstances. They'd drifted some over 4.6 millenia, but were still only a few hours apart in hyperspace. Once they found Xildrath's daughters, he also found his lightsaber in a chest nearby, turned on them, and gave them a thorough beatdown.

I described for the Jedi PC feeling a floating sensation, a warmth surrounding and suffusing her, and a dim light that began to grow brighter, noises that somehow simultaneously grew louder and quieter, before. . . she woke up in a bacta tank aboard Ardar Karrde's ship. He explained that one of his associates had seen their ship land at Abregado-Rae, had seen or heard no reports from the Jedi, but that another ship was stolen shortly thereafter. He convinced the port authorities to release the PCs ship to his custody, took a look at the navicomputer to see where their last stop had been, saw it was in the middle of nowhere and got very concerned, and rushed out to find them. They were all gravely injured, lying on the deck of this derelict ship, "dying" from a narrative standpoint but in no danger by the rulebook, so he had them well taken care of. Except the droid PC: he's a rare and advanced model, and he didn't want to risk messing something up by having his people try and fix him without the proper parts or knowledge. We kind of faded out with the Jedi working on him, which is where we'll pick up today.

Ok, some more questions:

Our Jedi PC is about to build her own lightsaber, and wants a lightsaber pike. Logically, the Cortosis quality would be ideal, but there isn't an attachment for that available for weapons, just armor. Is there a way, by RAW, to add that to a weapon? I'm thinking, narratively, it would make sense for the haft to be hardened like that, so she can parry/reflect with both ends if need be, since, specifically, reflect would be very difficult with a pike from a real-world standpoint. If not, what effect would Sunder have on a lightsaber pike, where 80 percent of the weapon is completely unconnected to the weapon's functionality?

Related to the above, I'm having an idea for a "collapsible haft" attachment, that would allow the pike to shrink down to, say, a double-bladed lightsaber-length hilt for easy carrying, then extend to two-and-half to three times that length when in use. My thought is that it would count as a shoto while collapsed, pike when extended. Is that too complicated, or should I handwave it narratively?

Combined ranged/melee weapons. The group's main opponents are Ubese, who are pretty savvy when it comes to fighting Jedi, and I want to up their threat level a bit. Currently, I have them equipped with blaster rifles and electrostaves, but I'm wondering if there's a better weapon I can give them, so they don't have to waste actions switching weapons when the Jedi get close (and because they don't have the Brawn to wield Cumbersome electrostaves effectively).

EDIT: Also, is there a way for Force-users to call their lightsabers to their hands quickly, like we see them do all the time in the films? Move takes an action.

pg 175, Force and Destiny Core - Lightsabers cannot be sundered.

For calling lightsaber, only way I can see is "The Force is my Ally", which lets you do it once per session. Though if you are just picking something up, it's just narrative flavour to use the force.

To add to this, the only way to break a Lightsaber is with 2 Triumphs on a successful combat check. When such an event happens, it is up to the GM as to whether the Kyber Crystal is intact or shattered.

7 hours ago, ErikModi said:

EDIT: Also, is there a way for Force-users to call their lightsabers to their hands quickly, like we see them do all the time in the films? Move takes an action.

This is more of a personal approach, but since I treat weapons lost through disarming as still being engaged with the original wielder (no more than a meter or so away from their location) if they have the Move power, then I allow the character to narrate spending their maneuver to pick the weapon back up as being them using the Force to do it.

In terms of RAW game mechanics, such a thing doesn't really exist outside of the Force Is My Ally talent which allows the user to make a Force power check as a maneuver instead of as an action.

That's mostly how I played it last time, thanks.

15 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

This is more of a personal approach, but since I treat weapons lost through disarming as still being engaged with the original wielder (no more than a meter or so away from their location) if they have the Move power, then I allow the character to narrate spending their maneuver to pick the weapon back up as being them using the Force to do it.

In terms of RAW game mechanics, such a thing doesn't really exist outside of the Force Is My Ally talent which allows the user to make a Force power check as a maneuver instead of as an action.

This is in general a good approach to force powers and spending advantages btw.

Another question, as regards Utility Belts, specifically the Jedi Utility belt.

When it says it comes with certain items, are those items counted against the players Encumbrance, or are they assumed to be part of the belt's Encumbrance? Because the Jedi Utility Belt comes with a lot of stuff that would be a pain for most characters to carry on their own.

24 minutes ago, ErikModi said:

Another question, as regards Utility Belts, specifically the Jedi Utility belt.

When it says it comes with certain items, are those items counted against the players Encumbrance, or are they assumed to be part of the belt's Encumbrance? Because the Jedi Utility Belt comes with a lot of stuff that would be a pain for most characters to carry on their own.

They're considered to be part of the belt's encumbrance. So yes, they're really handy for a PC that wants to carry a bunch of gear but not be weighed down by Encumbrance to have.