My groups almost always have characters from all three FFG Star Wars systems. This doesn't cause problems, and everything seems reasonably balanced...except force powers that allow force dice to skill checks (e.g. the manipulate control that allows FD to be rolled with mechanics checks). A force user with a force rating of 3 or higher tends to be better at skill rolls when they can apply FD than other characters that have invested more heavily in those same skills. When the party needs a critical roll made, it almost always makes more sense to have a force user do it, because they can always take some conflict to get the necessary successes and/or advantages. The Enhance tree give FD to Athletics, Resilience, Coordination, Planetary Piloting, and Space Piloting for 30 XP.

This doesn't seem to matter much at lower XP, but once the party is over around 500, the disparity starts increasing quickly. Does anyone else find this to be a problem? If so, has your table instituted any house rules?

6 minutes ago, TheSapient said:

My groups almost always have characters from all three FFG Star Wars systems. This doesn't cause problems, and everything seems reasonably balanced...except force powers that allow force dice to skill checks (e.g. the manipulate control that allows FD to be rolled with mechanics checks). A force user with a force rating of 3 or higher tends to be better at skill rolls when they can apply FD than other characters that have invested more heavily in those same skills. When the party needs a critical roll made, it almost always makes more sense to have a force user do it, because they can always take some conflict to get the necessary successes and/or advantages. The Enhance tree give FD to Athletics, Resilience, Coordination, Planetary Piloting, and Space Piloting for 30 XP.

This doesn't seem to matter much at lower XP, but once the party is over around 500, the disparity starts increasing quickly. Does anyone else find this to be a problem? If so, has your table instituted any house rules?

Force users have so many things to spend xp on, it’s not really a problem.

My Jedi toon is around 1200xp now and he’s not as well rounded as non force users in the party for instance we have another pc with 6 brawn and 5 in brawl.

Even with enhance I could only go from 2 brawn to 5 brawn if I committed all 3 force dice. Now if I had a higher stat to start with I’d still max out at 6.

It’s pretty sweet adding force dice on piloting rolls.

On top of that I am pretty sure that we used to confirm several times that you cannot commit more than 1 die to increase your stats with the Enhance power. So with 2 in Brawn you cannot go beyond 3 anyway.

Why you will ask? We stated on this forum that every force power except this very one says : « commit one or more » so this was intended to be unique, just « commit a force die. The user increases his Brawn by 1. » period.

It is still specified that your maximum is 6 because you can still reach 6 in Brawn without this force power, then later learn it and try to be superman with 7.

18 minutes ago, Rosco74 said:

On top of that I am pretty sure that we used to confirm several times that you cannot commit more than 1 die to increase your stats with the Enhance power. So with 2 in Brawn you cannot go beyond 3 anyway. 

This is not correct, you can commit as many force dice as you have to boost Brawn/Agility using the Enhance power (assuming you have the proper Control talents).

I definitely have not seen a problem with FD to characteristics. I'm just talking about skills. My 4 FD character is great at Mechanics. And Piloting. And Charm. And Resilience. And Vigilance. And a bunch more, spread out across the skill landscape. Increasing his FD doesn't increase his ability to do all his more magical abilities (these are not the droids you are looking for), and increase his lightsaber rolls via Draw Closer, but adds another die to about a dozen skills. And he can always take conflict to make those die rolls useful.

My Intellect 3 Ascetic with 1 rank in Mechanics is at least as reliable for Mechanics rolls as his friend, the Intellect 6 (7 when overcharged) Cybertech with 3 ranks in Mechanics. My crafting attempts never fail. My investment towards mechanics is small compared to his. But when it comes time to disarm that huge bomb, we have my character do it, because a bad roll can be compensated for with conflict. We have the same number of Dedications. We probably have a similar number of tricks through talents and force powers. But those extra dice for skill rolls are very powerful.

3 minutes ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

This is not correct, you can commit as many force dice as you have to boost Brawn/Agility using the Enhance power (assuming you have the proper Control talents).

You can definatly boost agility by 1 and brawn by 1 at the same time if your force rating is 2, but the rules were not intended to allow you to boost your brawn by 2, it is just interpretation. But as always your call, you can still apply any interpretation.

5 minutes ago, Rosco74 said:

You can definatly boost agility by 1 and brawn by 1 at the same time if your force rating is 2, but the rules were not intended to allow you to boost your brawn by 2, it is just interpretation. But as always your call, you can still apply any interpretation.

The developers have stated you can use the Enhance power to commit dice upto to your Force Rating and boost a stat by the same amount. It is in the Developer answered questions.

10 minutes ago, Rosco74 said:

You can definatly boost agility by 1 and brawn by 1 at the same time if your force rating is 2, but the rules were not intended to allow you to boost your brawn by 2, it is just interpretation. But as always your call, you can still apply any interpretation.

Other way around I think, boosting agility by 1 and brawn by 1 would be two actions.

I know that’s why I specified that it is what the majority had concluded accordng the wording. You are right that in answered questions the Devs uses this very exemple, but like many other times they just say the opposite of what the core rule books says.. You know, they wrote the rules years ago, they probably don’t play anymore, and they wrote tons of other rules since, so.. but as I said, just interpretation, and for me it is clear, this force power is the only one that say « commit one die » instead of « commit one or more die »...

1 hour ago, TheSapient said:

This doesn't seem to matter much at lower XP, but once the party is over around 500, the disparity starts increasing quickly. Does anyone else find this to be a problem? If so, has your table instituted any house rules?

No this isn't a problem, it's by design. In the Star Wars universe, people who use the Force (i.e. invest XP into Force related stuff), are pretty much guaranteed to be better at stuff than a mundane person. That's kind of the whole point of the Force. Using it makes you More than Normal. So no, I don't think it's a problem, that a PC who has made a concerted effort to become powerful in the Force...to actually be powerful. That's kind of the whole point. Nerfing them with house rules pretty much makes it pointless to play a Force user, as it makes your XP investments less effective, to try and force them to be "balanced", when they are not supposed to be by that point. At low level, sure there's not much difference, but higher XP, if they aren't showing significant proficiency compared to others, then something is wrong.

Besides, there is no need to house rule it. Just have things going on that require more than just 1 skill check to resolve it, and have them going on at the same time. Have a situation, where the PC's need to do a Computers check, a Coordination check, and a Stealth check, in the same action, to have the optimal result. There's no way the Force user can do all of those at once, so it then means other people have to also participate, or if they are just letting the Force user do everything for them (and if so...why? Don't they want to play too?) , then they will have to suffer some negative consequences to the outcome.

Force users have to invest a ton of XP to become genuinely powerful, XP they could've been putting in other things. To nerf a player who made that effort to the detriment of other paths of growth is unfair.

2 hours ago, Eoen said:

Force users have so many things to spend xp on, it’s not really a problem.

My Jedi toon is around 1200xp now and he’s not as well rounded as non force users in the party for instance we have another pc with 6 brawn and 5 in brawl.

Even with enhance I could only go from 2 brawn to 5 brawn if I committed all 3 force dice. Now if I had a higher stat to start with I’d still max out at 6.

It’s pretty sweet adding force dice on piloting rolls.

yeah however an important thing to note that skill checks called for by talents cannot be enhanced this way. As an example, to benefit from force dice you are required to do an enhance force action, this in itself means you cannot use a talent that calls for a piloting check as either the talent is a maneuver or an action, both mean that you can't enhance. So while you may be able to replace your standard piloting check with an enhance piloting check, the pilot who puts the xp into the skill will do better with talents that call for skill checks, as part of their resolution.

It's also worth bearing in mind that if you have used a destiny point to upgrade your roll, you cannot then spend that to use dark pips on the force dice, as you can only use one per roll.

19 minutes ago, syrath said:

yeah however an important thing to note that skill checks called for by talents cannot be enhanced this way. As an example, to benefit from force dice you are required to do an enhance force action, this in itself means you cannot use a talent that calls for a piloting check as either the talent is a maneuver or an action, both mean that you can't enhance. So while you may be able to replace your standard piloting check with an enhance piloting check, the pilot who puts the xp into the skill will do better with talents that call for skill checks, as part of their resolution.

17 minutes ago, Darzil said:

It's also worth bearing in mind that if you have used a destiny point to upgrade your roll, you cannot then spend that to use dark pips on the force dice, as you can only use one per roll.

I think these are both good points.

2 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

No this isn't a problem, it's by design. In the Star Wars universe, people who use the Force (i.e. invest XP into Force related stuff), are pretty much guaranteed to be better at stuff than a mundane person. .

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Force users have to invest a ton of XP to become genuinely powerful, XP they could've been putting in other things. To nerf a player who made that effort to the detriment of other paths of growth is unfair.

I agree that force users are significantly more powerful in general than no force users in the SW universe. My question is to whether this is true in the game, and if others find it unbalancing. I don't think it is unfair to "nerf" force users to a power level that would have been achieved had they taken another path.

I can make a very strong combat Jedi. I can make a gunslinger who is similarly useful in combat for the same XP. With 4 Force Points, my Jedi can spend 30 XP to add 4 force dice to Charm, Coercion, Deception, Negotiation, and Leadership. Two sessions of XP takes my Jedi from a charmless bumpkin to a pretty good social character. For the same XP, my Gunslinger can upgrade his Deception 3 times, and only because it is career skill. My upgraded Jedi isn't going to be as Charming as a Charmer, but he is at least a serviceable Face for the party.

Now, my Gunslinger decides to spend 45 XP to upgrade his Athletics 3 times. My Jedi spends the same amount to add 4 force dice to Athletics, Brawl, Resilience, Coordination, Piloting Space, and Piloting Planetary, AND can commit force dice to Brawn if he so chooses. My Jedi isn't as good at piloting as a dedicated pilot, or as good with his fists as a Martial Artist, but he's suddenly become a reasonably physical character who is unlikely to crash into anything when he flies.

Force Dice to skills is a mechanic that scales weirdly with XP. At low XP, it doesn't matter much. At higher XP, it is a very cheap way of adding a LOT to skills.

2 minutes ago, TheSapient said:

I agree that force users are significantly more powerful in general than no force users in the SW universe. My question is to whether this is true in the game, and if others find it unbalancing. I don't think it is unfair to "nerf" force users to a power level that would have been achieved had they taken another path.

I can make a very strong combat Jedi. I can make a gunslinger who is similarly useful in combat for the same XP. With 4 Force Points, my Jedi can spend 30 XP to add 4 force dice to Charm, Coercion, Deception, Negotiation, and Leadership. Two sessions of XP takes my Jedi from a charmless bumpkin to a pretty good social character. For the same XP, my Gunslinger can upgrade his Deception 3 times, and only because it is career skill. My upgraded Jedi isn't going to be as Charming as a Charmer, but he is at least a serviceable Face for the party.

Now, my Gunslinger decides to spend 45 XP to upgrade his Athletics 3 times. My Jedi spends the same amount to add 4 force dice to Athletics, Brawl, Resilience, Coordination, Piloting Space, and Piloting Planetary, AND can commit force dice to Brawn if he so chooses. My Jedi isn't as good at piloting as a dedicated pilot, or as good with his fists as a Martial Artist, but he's suddenly become a reasonably physical character who is unlikely to crash into anything when he flies.

Force Dice to skills is a mechanic that scales weirdly with XP. At low XP, it doesn't matter much. At higher XP, it is a very cheap way of adding a LOT to skills.

The Force is a powerful ally ? .

A force user relying on a Force power won't have any of the talents that back up those skill dice. As an example, no matter how strong your piloting roll, you won't be winning races or vehicle/starship chases if they have Supreme Full Throttle and you don't.

Sure, they can just pick up those talents through buying specs. But that works in reverse, too: nothing is stopping a non-Force user from taking Force Sensitive Exile/Emergent and buying Force Enhance.

1 hour ago, sarg01 said:

A force user relying on a Force power won't have any of the talents that back up those skill dice. As an example, no matter how strong your piloting roll, you won't be winning races or vehicle/starship chases if they have Supreme Full Throttle and you don't.

Sure, they can just pick up those talents through buying specs. But that works in reverse, too: nothing is stopping a non-Force user from taking Force Sensitive Exile/Emergent and buying Force Enhance.

Well, yes. I'm not suggesting that Jedi are going to be better at things than non-Jedi who are focused on those things. I'm saying that Jedi can easily become very good at things they don't specialize in far more easily than non-Jedi. My Ascetic can become a decent pilot far more quickly than my Gunslinger can, and he gets a ton of other useful stuff on the way. And still has enough XP left over to put his force dice to Mechanics.

I get the feeling that the Enhance tree in particular is very cheaply priced. When you look at the cost of other force powers it seems quite low cost.

Enhance you can get Athletics, Resilience and Coordination for 20 xp, to be all round good at basically all active rolls that aren't combat. Can then throw in both Piloting for 10 xp, Brawl for 5 xp, and have opened up Brawn and Athletics.

Influence is very good too, Coercion, Charm, Deception, Leadership and Negotiation for 30 xp.

Farsight gives you Vigilance and Perception for 20 xp.

Foresee gives you Vigilance and Cool for 20 xp, but only for initiative checks.

Manipulate is Mechanics for 25 xp.

The weird thing is several of the force trees offer the ability to commit dice to upgrade those skills, which seems pretty pointless as less effective than enhancing the skills as above (though I guess that would work with talents - if you can spare the extra action).

Yup. For 50 XP, you can add force dice to 11 skills. I don't know if a force die is better than an ability die, but I'd say they are of the same order of magnitude. That is a good deal, even for a young force user. For an experienced character, it has a bang for the buck that a non-force user can't match.

For the record, my current character has those 11, plus Mechanics from Manipulate. He hasn't bothered with the Foresee skill improvements because he uses Warde's Foresight on initiative checks (which is also pretty loony). He hasn't grabbed anything from the Farsight tree, just because he doesn't want to step on another character's toes.

Well I like getting seven successes on my initiative check.

So can we get a list going?

Obvious one is enhance

And manipulation.

How bout talents? Hunter has the one to add force dice to ranged... Hermit has one that adds to survival

47 minutes ago, TheSapient said:

I don't know if a force die is better than an ability die, but I'd say they are of the same order of magnitude.

Especially as you are talking the difference between a force die and a proficiency die minus an ability die, as you commit to upgrade, not add.

As long as you are willing to take the strain and conflict, and have destiny, a force die is always a minimum of your choice of success and advantage. As much as anything it's powerful for having that choice.

3 hours ago, TheSapient said:

I think these are both good points.

it ends up being weird when you get asked to do a resilience check as the result of something else, for example , drinking a poisoned drink , this means that you cant use your force dice for the majority of Resilience checks which tend to be reactive rather than active. Think, how often you get to roll Resilience as an active skill, of course the most common one is to roll to get rid of crits.

1 minute ago, syrath said:

it ends up being weird when you get asked to do a resilience check as the result of something else, for example , drinking a poisoned drink , this means that you cant use your force dice for the majority of Resilience checks which tend to be reactive rather than active. Think, how often you get to roll Resilience as an active skill, of course the most common one is to roll to get rid of crits.

I still allow Enhance to work on those types of checks.

4 hours ago, syrath said:

yeah however an important thing to note that skill checks called for by talents cannot be enhanced this way. As an example, to benefit from force dice you are required to do an enhance force action, this in itself means you cannot use a talent that calls for a piloting check as either the talent is a maneuver or an action, both mean that you can't enhance. So while you may be able to replace your standard piloting check with an enhance piloting check, the pilot who puts the xp into the skill will do better with talents that call for skill checks, as part of their resolution.

That is only partially true. IF the talent is a maneuver , or if it a passive talent, then yes, you can use the Force with it. For instance, The Improved Full Throttle talent allows you to use Full Throttle as a maneuver . As such, you can use Enhance as part of your Piloting check for that roll since you're not taking two actions, but only one action, and one maneuver, which is perfectly allowable.