Hello, new GM here! Im sorry if this question has been asked before but I am having a little difficulty understanding how the force works and how a PC can counter them

Say I want to have an NPC use Sense to sense the thoughts of a non force user PC what would the PC roll to counter it? Or what if I want the NPC to use Misdirect to hide from a PC how would they counter that?

Thanks in advance

Although it's not explicitly stated (to my knowledge), I would make an opposed check of the NPC's Perception* + Force Rating vs PC's Discipline + Force Rating. If they only had the basic Sense power I'd say that they can only read the emotions. If they had the Control upgrade for surface thoughts I'd say that a success lets them read emotions + surface thoughts, with ADVANTAGE / TRIUMPH allowing them to delve deeper, akin to Kylo Ren's ability to sense memories and the like. A DESPAIR might mean the "rebound" effect, whereby the target actually lashes back and ends up reading the instigator's mind, ala Rey with Kylo Ren or Harry Potter with Snape. :)

* I've used Perception as an example, but you could conceivably use Coercion or another social skill, depending on the situation.

Discipline vs Discipline is how I've always run it. Who's skill with the Force shall triumph?!

16 hours ago, Dayham said:

Discipline vs Discipline is how I've always run it. Who's skill with the Force shall triumph?!

17 hours ago, Daronil said:

Although it's not explicitly stated (to my knowledge), I would make an opposed check of the NPC's Perception* + Force Rating vs PC's Discipline + Force Rating. If they only had the basic Sense power I'd say that they can only read the emotions. If they had the Control upgrade for surface thoughts I'd say that a success lets them read emotions + surface thoughts, with ADVANTAGE / TRIUMPH allowing them to delve deeper, akin to Kylo Ren's ability to sense memories and the like. A DESPAIR might mean the "rebound" effect, whereby the target actually lashes back and ends up reading the instigator's mind, ala Rey with Kylo Ren or Harry Potter with Snape.

* I've used Perception as an example, but you could conceivably use Coercion or another social skill, depending on the situation.

Thank you guys so much for the quick replies and the help! this is great info. i have one more question if you dont mind, how many do you determine the difficulty for these checks?

There is a sidebar in the force chapter. minions and unnamed rivals cant resist. Pcs and nemesis can. They resist usually with discipline but depending on the action sometimes resiliance, or athletics, etc. Might be appropriate.

The difficulty will depend on the force power. Often it will state.

Part of the beauty of this system is, if it's an opposed roll, there is no difficulty, rather the dice pool the opposing character would have becomes the difficulty. Their Proficiency (yellow) dice become Challenge (red) dice, and their Ability (green) dice become Difficulty (Purple) dice.

So, if using Discipline, a character who would have a Discipline dice pool of YYGG (that's 2 Yellow, 2 Green) opposing a character's check sets the difficulty for their roll at RRPP (that's 2 Red, 2 Purple).

With Force Powers, you need to have at least one uncancelled success and generate sufficient Force Points to use the effects of the power. Now, another part of the beauty of this system is you can spend as many Force Points as you can generate. If you want to activate effects totally six FP, but you only generate four, you can still use those four to activate effects, just not as many as you wanted. The GM doesn't get to say "Well, you were shooting for six, but you only got four, so you fail, HAHA!"

There are a number of power uses that simply add to/improve the user's die pool when making a skill check, such as Influence and Enhance. There's no special mechanic to resist those - it's the standard skill vs skill; the force user just has a better pool than normal.

In the event that a power is resisted via Discipline vs Discipline it isn't necessarily going to be down to a narrative 'no effect' even if there's no mechanical effect from the failed power. If Misdirect is used to alter something's appearance, it actually does look different but the PC/nemesis realizes that something is 'off' and isn't actually fooled, whether it's because they poke at it and discover the difference, just happen to have good intuition at that moment, etc.