So a question came up today with one of my players: is there a limit to what he can do the with Farsight Mastery Upgrade?

I ask because up until now he has always used Farsight to see from a location that wasn’t obscured. Basically seeing over a long distance.

Right now, they are infiltrating an Imperial facility and he wants to move his viewpoint deeper in the facility, using his power to effectively scout it out.

As a GM, I am not sure how I feel about doing this, it seems like an easily abused power that would make their extremely tense infiltration a cakewalk.

First, say that last line to the player. Then if he isnt willing to weaken the power, after the third or forth time he uses it as a mapping tool tell him he has a really good view of a Dark Lord of the Sith telling a Stormtrooper legion exactly where the players are.

7 hours ago, korjik said:

First, say that last line to the player. Then if he isnt willing to weaken the power, after the third or forth time he uses it as a mapping tool tell him he has a really good view of a Dark Lord of the Sith telling a Stormtrooper legion exactly where the players are.

Well that's also the thing. Should it be weakened? I mean it is a mastery power. I just always thought and it seemed logical that you need line of sight to the position you are moving your viewpoint to.

I think it would be ok to not be able to see the exact spot, but it says nothing about moving the spot around. But forcing a player to make multiple checks to essentially do the same thing goes against the design of the system.

I would give them one chance to activate the power, Mastery is required to even get a glimpse, so they need to spend at least 3 Force Pips. For that I would give them a basic and vague overview of the area; rough size, how many buildings, number of guards on the gates, any significant vehicles, a very vague guess at the number of troops.

If they activate other upgrades then they get extra information:

the 360 view? Get a good idea of the layout of the base, ways to approach it and safe places to hide inside

the Duration? Get more details on guard movements, possibly an idea on which buildings are more significant

The look through walls upgrade? Tell them the basic contents of the major buildings.

Microscopic details? Give them an access code to one or two buildings.

Range? Get a solid count on number of troops in the base

Perhaps you may choose to allow more than one roll, with hours or days to scout it’s not unreasonable. but it’s really important there’s a limit on the number of attempts. Without the strict limit laid out before the checks start being made there is no incentive to take conflict.

Perhaps you could even make it clear, every attempt beyond the first will earn a point of Conflict for their reliance on the Force.

A counterpoint to keep in mind: if someone is choosing and heavily using a power like that then they're telegraphing to you that they don't like 'tense infiltration, going in blind' scenarios, and trying to short-circuit the power so that they have to go into those scenarios anyway is just going to antagonize them.

7 hours ago, Garran said:

A counterpoint to keep in mind: if someone is choosing and heavily using a power like that then they're telegraphing to you that they don't like 'tense infiltration, going in blind' scenarios, and trying to short-circuit the power so that they have to go into those scenarios anyway is just going to antagonize them.

Going in blind is going to be difficult...for the blind guy.

In all seriousness, they made the decision to go this route. They are Rebel operatives on an unofficial infiltration mission that they decided to break protocol and go on anyway. If they didn't want a tense infiltration mission perhaps they shouldn't have made the decision to go on a tense infiltration mission...jus' sayin'.

Aye. It's like my general protocol with things like farsight is that I can only roll something like that once per scene as preforming the check takes an significant period of time (e.g. an action), but that check will give you some impactful knowledge that can be applied immediately.

"Ok, we are rolling up to the base, hey, what's your "bad feelings" telling you today?"

(Rolls check, sees vision.)

"That red head Hand is there; it's faint but I have her scent, she isn't expecting us though she suspects something. What we are after is in storage bay 3. I also saw some of the patrol routes; hard to count like this, but if we make an entry in 10 minutes we might find a way that catches the patrols at their lightest."

Basically, rolling that check identified key information that would be useful for the infiltration, but the "one check per scene" rule is both thematic but also imposes a hard limit on the amount of time looking into the bone stones, with any repeat of the check not turning up fresh information as the force is fickle at the best of times. On the flip side, if you use this way of thinking then you would have to yield some important information and describe the check as observing from a couple of key points before returning back to the body. Use the check to give situations that directly boost the PC's who act on the information (e.g. sneaking in would receive boost dice.)


Summery: Keep the force uses down to one check per scene to reflect multiple uses over a scene, that way you can keep some of the mystery while giving the players some of the information they need.

16 hours ago, Ebak said:

Well that's also the thing. Should it be weakened? I mean it is a mastery power. I just always thought and it seemed logical that you need line of sight to the position you are moving your viewpoint to.

If it is making your life difficult, then it is too powerful. The players should not have an 'I win' button, or in this case a 'I see everything' button.

It might make sense in the game even, but if it destroys your ability to ever surprise the players, it wont do anything good for the game.

The power is only really a touch better than google street view. Can you figure out the residents of a house from that! The registration of their cars? The time of day they go to work? The time of day the postie comes?

The power is awesome for getting a quick snapshot, but there should be significant strain and conflict costs for constantly using it.