Requiring Justification for Rank 3+ in skills

By TrystramK, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

5 minutes ago, TheSapient said:

In my experience, this issue is rarely an issue anyway. People react to the game they are playing, and advance their character's accordingly. I've never seen a pump points into Astrogation in a campaign entirely on one planet. They put points into Astrogation because Astrogation has proved to be important in the campaign. If they were putting points into something that was irrelevant to the campaign, who cares? It doesn't affect anything. Seems a small price to pay for some character independence.

Then why are we debating it.

2 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

Then why are we debating it.

I think we are discussing it. I think we have very different views on it. Which is fine, of course. People should do what they enjoy, not what other people enjoy.

On 3/7/2018 at 3:27 AM, TrystramK said:

Please read the side bar for "Opposed Force Power Checks" on page 283 of the Star Wars: Force and Destiny Core Rulebook.

By RAW, Player Characters, and Nemesis and Named Rival adversaries may resist force powers using a contested check. As quoted above, the majority of the time this defaults to a Discipline check for the person using the power, and is resisted by an target's skill as determined by the GM. Minions, by raw, do not get a resist check, with the caveat that the GM can still require one if they so choose.

So as you can see, discipline is, by and large, the game mechanic by which you can actually use force powers against non-minion enemies.

Discipline is also used to resist the effects of Fear checks as outlined in the Fear section of Chapter IX of the Core Rule book (p. 326). Fear should come up occasionally.

No, that's not what it says at all. It does not say when you use it "on" a PC, nemesis, or rival it says when you use it "against" a PC. All the GM has to do is rule that this is a use "on" and not a use "against" and this will not apply.

Also a Force User can simply "Move" the enemies armor into the air, with the enemy in it, rather than moving the enemy themselves. The armor has no Discipline or Will.

Fear does use Discipline and should come up occasionally whether you are a Force User or not. It almost never did in the games I played in or the published adventures I ran.

On 3/12/2018 at 12:49 AM, pnewman15 said:

No, that's not what it says at all. It does not say when you use it "on" a PC, nemesis, or rival it says when you use it "against" a PC. All the GM has to do is rule that this is a use "on" and not a use "against" and this will not apply.

Also a Force User can simply "Move" the enemies armor into the air, with the enemy in it, rather than moving the enemy themselves. The armor has no Discipline or Will.

Fear does use Discipline and should come up occasionally whether you are a Force User or not. It almost never did in the games I played in or the published adventures I ran.

It absolutely does but I guess I'll just quote VERBATIM from teh book.

Quote

"Force powers are designed to be simple and inclusive, so that what Player Characters can accomplish with a power is often limited only by their imaginations. However, when confronting a powerful adversary, even skilled Force users may find their abilities stymied by an opponent's formidable will.

When any character attempts to use a Force power against a Player Character (or a PC attempts to use a Force power against a powerful Non-Player Character, such as a nemesis or plot-important named rival), the FORCE power check becomes an opposed check, if it is not already an opposed check or a combat check. This always applies when a Force power targets a PC, and the GM can use his discration as to when the rule applies to NPCs " (p. 283, Star Wars: Force and Destiny Core Rulebook).

While a GM may choose to rule opposite the rule book on this matter, the point is that would be going contrary to the written guidelines for PC use of Force powers VS Nemesis and Important Named Rivals. Most GMs will not gimp their own NPCs in this regard, as it is one method by which to control the challenge of encounters. The quibble over the word against vs on is a vapid one, where the intent of the rule is very apparent. Against implies that the user of the power is acting upon an unwilling host, which in most situations unfriendly targets will be unwilling. On would imply that the target of the ability is not resisting. Do you regularly throw your fellow PCs into the air, and they allow you to do so willingly? Probably not.

The enemy would also probably be able to mount the same defense if something on his person (including armor) were to be targeted instead. See http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_resistance for a general reference on how force users can resist powers. You see this in Canon where Rey is able to mount a defense against Kylo's mind probe in SW:TFA. If a GM were to allow you to pull this nonsense and not turn around and launch you into orbit 2 minutes later using the same justification, then they are a bad GM.

The entire purpose of the opposed check is to prevent egregious abuses of force powers against non-minion NPCs and Players. You can't throw this rule out without also throwing out its protections for your own characters. Now if you like having a maxed out Move using Inquisitor using his first round of combat to put you in orbit constantly, by all means continue to argue this point with your GM.

The only rule I have for spending EXP is that my Players can't go up more than one Rank in a particular Skill or down more than one row in a Talent or Power tree between sessions. I do this to keep the PCs from advancing too fast in any single ability, plus I've found it encourages them to spend some EXP on other less important but useful Skills because they know the'll get more EXP soon enough anyway.

On 3/28/2018 at 1:19 PM, FuriousGreg said:

The only rule I have for spending EXP is that my Players can't go up more than one Rank in a particular Skill or down more than one row in a Talent or Power tree between sessions. I do this to keep the PCs from advancing too fast in any single ability, plus I've found it encourages them to spend some EXP on other less important but useful Skills because they know the'll get more EXP soon enough anyway.

That's nice and simple, and seems rather effective. Thanks for sharing :)

1 hour ago, TrystramK said:

That's nice and simple, and seems rather effective. Thanks for sharing :)

Thanks, I haven't had any complaints so far :)