I'm trying to build a Matukai character for one of my players. I'm sold on the Shi-Cho Knight and Enhance Power tree. I am looking at giving him the Heal Force power but limiting it to heal self as they have utilize the Force to achieve inward mastery and self-awareness of their own bodies.

My question is should I reduce the costs for the Basic power and the controls since I am not allowing this character to use the Harm options. Also, what would be good substitutions for the two Range upgrades or do I just ignore them and allow him to have direct access to the Control: Heal upgrade at the bottom left of the chart?

Is the question how to make a Heal power that only works on the user? As in, he won't ever be able to use this power to heal others (or harm them)? If so, then, yeah, you need to cut the base power cost in half or more and forbid all range improvements. You might do this by making Matukai (whatever that is) an alternative Force tradition of the type described in Disciples of Harmony . The Force tradition might grant the basic form of Heal/Harm for free, but forbid Harm, and allow the PC to ignore the Range upgrades on Heal while getting other upgrades. Not sure how much I'd charge for all that; it's pretty restrictive, actually.

I wouldn't change anything. If he only wants to use heal on himself but can use it to help others if needed. He doesn't have to use harm either but the option/temptation is there should it be needed.

In my group, having the knowledge to heal but only ever use it on himself would give the emotional weakness of selfishness and could, depending on the situation, grant conflict.

@SavageBob thank you for pointing me to the Alternative Force. It's been a while since I read through DOH. The cost reduction on Heal/Harm for the Sith plus ignoring range upgrades will work.

This is what I'm going from for the Matukai: http://starwars-exodus.wikia.com/wiki/Matukai

• Typical powers of the Matukai are similar of some of the powers that the Sith and Jedi use to enhance their bodies. Matukai are capable of jumping higher and moving faster as well as improving their reflexes. They are also capable of reducing damage and even healing themselves to some extent and are masters of their body.

  Those that become masters are able to harden their bodies to the point where they take little or no damage and feel no pain. Matukai are so in tune with their bodies that they become very aware of every illness, wound, and even poisons that have afflicted them. Many have found that they can force the wounds closed or remove the toxic poisons from their body through the Force and their own will.

@HistoryGuy This is something that I'm restricting as the GM. The player wants to play a non-jedi force user and this is one of the choices. The Madukai use the force for self improvement and focus so aren't able to heal others with it. That's why I was considering cost reduction, because I'm limiting the power quite a bit.

Gotta agree with @HistoryGuy .

Change nothing. What you're talking about doing is not how the Force works. And indeed flies in the face of and is counter-productive to effectively using the Morality/Conflict mechanics.

If they only use it to Heal it's because that's a choice, a choice they should be rewarded for via the Morality mechanics when they DONT hurt people with it. You're trying to change this game like it's a d20, but it is a very different ethos, and you're completely missing that with your proposition.

There is a Force talent in the Consular:Healer spec tree (and maybe somewhere else, but I know it's there), that allows you to commit a Force die for an encounter, and if you do, you can heal...I think it's 1 wound per die committed after the encounter is done? Haven't looked at it recently so I don't recall exactly. That could be another option to accomplish what you want. Not as powerful as Heal no, but it's something.

**EDIT**

I think it might be a ranked talent, making it more efficient down the line. Might require you to buy into spec trees you don't want to of course, but again, another option perhaps. Though I think the Alternate Tradition route is probably the best route.

Magnitude and Mastery are both going to be useless too. Instead of changing the power I have a couple of other suggestions:

Option 1:

Maduki Force Tradition: Gain the Heal/Harm Power for free, Medicine becomes a Career Skill. When healing yourself you always heal 1 additional Strain, even if you otherwise wouldn’t have healed any strain. Targeting anyone but yourself requires you to spend a Destiny Point and earns you 1 point of Conflict per Force Pip spent in addition to any other Conflict. Spend 20xp to remove this limitation.

Thus it is possible to use the full power, all the upgrades remain useful, but it is significantly less appealing to do so on anyone else.

Option 2:

Use Ebb/Flow with Medicine Checks to heal yourself.

You could perhaps replace the Medicine career skill part with:

When using the Heal power on yourself use your ranks in Resilience in place of your ranks in Medicine.

16 hours ago, Varlie said:

@HistoryGuy This is something that I'm restricting as the GM. The player wants to play a non-jedi force user and this is one of the choices. The Madukai use the force for self improvement and focus so aren't able to heal others with it. That's why I was considering cost reduction, because I'm limiting the power quite a bit.

Hey Varlie, it seems like you have a solution already but I just thought I'd throw these suggestions out there, as I think they'd require a minimum of fiddling.

It sounds like the discipline you reference could be interpreted as a combination of Enhance, Heal and Protect.

If you think that the use of those powers externally is counter to the player character's teachings then I would consider using conflict to reflect the difficulty (morally speaking) of using the power externally.

If it's simply that the player doesn't think their character would have learned how to porject those powers outward then this seems more like a roleplay choice. The player could work with you to put them in situations where they might develop that ability should they wish to.

If it is you as the GM who thinks that character wouldn't be suited to using the force in that way then I would consider giving them a Race specific talent like Primitive, though in this case they would suffer a penalty when attempting to use the force on others until they have sufficient experience. I'd offset that with a 5 XP bonus at character creation.

Hopefully that's kinda helpful!

Thanks for the great ideas. I like the idea of using setback penalty when trying to effect someone else and the option to overcome that penalty through experience. That ties in with him having learned to focus inward and, during the course of the game, projecting outwards.

I did realize Magnitude was another upgrade he couldn't use but I was thinking of letting Mastery give him the chance to save himself from death. If he took a critical hit that would kill him, he would make a Reslience Force check to stabilize and just be unconscious.

You could also use endure from the Knights of Fate supplement to represent them hardening their bodies. It also alows you to save yourself from death.