I have been GMing a game for many months now and my PCs are getting reasonably strong, (+500 EXP) and they are starting to test themselves against each other, and due to this I'm trying to get all the combinations of their powers clear myself, before they start using them on each other. (They're good sports and do it narratively so I allow it.)

There's a description of the Suppress power, that depending on what inflection and modulation you read it with, has different meanings, so I want to check with your collective wisdom to see which interpretation would be best.

Keeping the Peace, page 39, under the heading "Mastery", in part says; "the user causes the target Force user to immediately uncommit all committed force die and immediately end all ongoing effects of Force powers, Force talents, and any other effects that required committed Force die."

Now depending on the inflection when you read it, it could mean

1. All force die are uncommitted.
2. All on going force powers stop.
3. All on going force talents stop.
4. Any other effect that relies on committed force die ends.

OR

Anything that depends on committed force die stops. (Whether a force power, force talent, or anything else that needs committed die.)

The main difference between these two interpretations is that the first one stops ALL on going effects of force powers, where as the second ONLY stops the ones that use committed die.

This becomes important to my players in the following scenario: Player A uses the Seek mastery to add a triumph to every attack against Player B for the entire match. Player B activates Suppress to counter this on going force effect. The problem? That effect, although on going, doesn't require any committed force die. So if the first interpretation is correct, the effect is dispelled, if the second interpretation is correct I'd have to say; "sorry, but that only works on force powers that commit a die".

Either way, I'd like to know my ruling before they ask! Thanks in advance for your help, and if this was already answered on the forum, please paste a link.

6 hours ago, Vanahemir said:

Keeping the Peace, page 39, under the heading "Mastery", in part says; "the user causes the target Force user to immediately uncommit all committed force die and immediately end all ongoing effects of Force powers, Force talents, and any other effects that required committed Force die."

It seems pretty clear that it's just anything that requires a committed Force Die(ce).

That seems reasonable.

In which case, can anyone think of a defence I could suggest to Player B to protect against a permanent triumph against him every turn?

Shroud. Spend a Destiny and for the rest of the scene you can not be detected by the Force. Shuts down Seek, Farsight, sense, foresight and forsee.

Really? Well that would certainly be useful, but I was under the impression that shroud only did two things.

1. Make it impossible to detect their presence via the force, so if someone wanted to know where he was (using seek), they wouldn't find him.

2. Player could be force sensitive, using force powers, and other force sensitives wouldn't feel their presence. (Like Palpatine every time he met the Jedi.)

I'm just not sure it would work part way through combat, when your opponent already knows where you are, and knows you're using force powers. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Well, it's not like activating a cloaking device. Yes, they already know you're there, that you're Force Sensitive, and that you've been using the Force, so activating Shroud at that point does lose a lot of its benefit (No, no, I'm totally not a Force User, whatever gave you that idea?) It still prevents you from being sensed or targeted via the Force, so activating against someone with a lot of "Force Wizard" type abilities will still be beneficial.

A personal cloaking device would require some movement, and presumably cover or low light, to make someone "lose track" of you completely, thus unable to effectively target you because they don't know you're there. Shroud mid-battle is less like an invisibility spell against the Force, and more like, say, putting on a breath mask when the enemy has lots of poison cloud type weapons. The opponent's options are now limited because you have become functionally immune to a certain category of attack.

So taking a look at the full text of the Mastery Upgrade, it very much reads that so long as a Force power/talent doesn't require you to have Force dice committed to keep it running, so the Seek Mastery Upgrade wouldn't be affected. Now for the Seek Mastery, I'd very much say that's an opposed check to target Player B, and if Player B has either used Suppress against Player A or has the Control upgrade to use Suppress as an out-of-turn incidental, then Suppress would help there.

Honestly, I've always felt the Suppress Mastery Upgrade as written was kind of a waste for PCs to take, since NPCs very infrequently have Force powers/talents that require them to commit Force dice. Given it's an opposed check, I'm inclined to house-rule that it would indeed cancel any ongoing Force effects (essentially anything that required one or more Force points to activate) the target has on them, whether they require committed Force dice or not, so that things like the Seek Mastery Upgrade would be shut down. Of course, same would apply to negative effects as well, such as the target being immobilized by Bind (or suffering setback dice due to having been targeted by Bind and its Strength Upgrades).

1 hour ago, ErikModi said:

(No, no, I'm totally not a Force User, whatever gave you that idea?)

? ?

1 hour ago, ErikModi said:

... become functionally immune to a certain category of attack.

Interesting... I'd never realised Shroud was so powerful. Thanks for the clarification!

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I'm inclined to house-rule that it would indeed cancel any ongoing Force effects (essentially anything that required one or more Force points to activate) the target has on them, whether they require committed Force dice or not

That was my first gut reaction too... might house rule it... Thanks so much!

Shroud is powerful but it only last an Encounter and you can only do it once per session so a smart/malevolent GM can set up a situation where they can't use it because either they already have or there are no DPs to flip...

I wouldn't House Rule it unless you actually are having an issue, it's a key Talent for the Shadow and there are plenty of other Talents out there that are equally effective in their own way. If you Nerf this one and not other powerful Talents as well then your Player might feel like you are singling them out.

Offhand it looks like Suppress:Control would allow you to apply some strain on the person activating Seek Mastery, assuming they used Dark pips.

After that I think a lot of the usual tactics for dealing with Force users would come into play.