Hey all

One of the PCs in my group is a Bothan Charmer. Now, this is something the player brought up, not me! Basically, he felt that spamming Inspiring Rhetoric every turn during combat was...well, both OP and boring. Obviously he can choose to do other things, but I just wondered whether anyone else had felt this was an issue, and imposed any sorts of limitations on it - say, once per encounter? Or is that just unnecessary?

Thanks in advance.

I think its great that the player brought it up, to me that shows that they want the game to be good and are not just focused on winning. I would say the limitation is mainly what the player identified, that it should be done when its cool and makes for a good scene, and not just as a mechanical ability disconnected form whatever is happening.

If they can hear the oratory and it is somehow inspiring considering what is going on then I would imagine it could be effective, but at some point the allies of the character might wish instead that the character pick up a blaster and join the fight. The characters don't know the mechanical effects so they won't be saying "I wish he would keep talking to I can heal strain or get a blue."

Also if the other characters are in combat they may simply be too busy and focused/terrified, to be paying attention to a speech.

IMO, the real benefit of Inspiring Rhetoric is the boost die from Improved which the character probably only needs to do once every few rounds (so only once per combat unless it’s a big fight) because the boost sticks around for rounds equal to Leadership. The character -could- use it every round, but unless the group is having major strain issues, why bother?

As you and the player seem to agree, there are other, more interesting things the character could be doing. Just get the bonus rolling one turn and then do better stuff on the other turns. Every turn they spam the talent is a turn they aren’t taking down enemies.

7 minutes ago, Hinklemar said:

The character -could- use it every round, but unless the group is having major strain issues, why bother?

While I don't have a problem with spamming IR, in five years of playing these lines, I have noticed that "major strain issues" are a frequent issue for many groups.

Maybe give a subsequent Setback dice every time he uses after the first one, as "It becomes less effective as the scene goes on"

I mean if someone would try to inspire me continously I would become annoyed soon

"Okay, okay, I can do it, thx. Shut up."

5 minutes ago, Rimsen said:

Maybe give a subsequent Setback dice every time he uses after the first one, as "It becomes less effective as the scene goes on"

I mean if someone would try to inspire me continously I would become annoyed soon

"Okay, okay, I can do it, thx. Shut up."

Other characters spam their things (often attacks) over and again, why not this too?

I've seen two Politico characters, both of which had this talent (and the Improved versions, one had Supreme) and made heavy use of them. I recommend (for a Politico) getting Scathing Tirade along with it so you can alternate from cheerleading to trash-talking during combat if you're one of those characters that doesn't believe in directly contributing to violence (but will support the rest of the group's right to express themselves in that manner).

48 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Other characters spam their things (often attacks) over and again, why not this too?

I've seen two Politico characters, both of which had this talent (and the Improved versions, one had Supreme) and made heavy use of them. I recommend (for a Politico) getting Scathing Tirade along with it so you can alternate from cheerleading to trash-talking during combat if you're one of those characters that doesn't believe in directly contributing to violence (but will support the rest of the group's right to express themselves in that manner).

As long as my player can make a valid argument how would this look like, I will allow it. I just didn't find one. Mind you I've never played a social character, so not experienced thia way.

Although I wasn't looking for one either, since the question was about limitations, I anwsered that.

So somone can shoot a gun every round but not be encouraging every round? There is no balance problem, if your pc finds it boring than they can do something else. Problem solved. No need to penalize the one effective way a social character can contribute to a combat encounter.

4 minutes ago, TheShard said:

So somone can shoot a gun every round but not be encouraging every round? There is no balance problem, if your pc finds it boring than they can do something else. Problem solved. No need to penalize the one effective way a social character can contribute to a combat encounter.

There are other ways a social character can contribute, but you often have to hunt down the right talents.

However, a Togruta doing the Aid maneuver is a great help on pretty much everything.

OK, thanks all - I'll pass this onto the player. Cheers!

8 hours ago, edwardavern said:

Basically, he felt that spamming Inspiring Rhetoric every turn during combat was...well, both OP and boring.

The rules agree with you. If you read Far Horizons or Desperate Allies, they address this stuff in the social conflict sections.

4 hours ago, TheShard said:

So somone can shoot a gun every round but not be encouraging every round? There is no balance problem, if your pc finds it boring than they can do something else. Problem solved. No need to penalize the one effective way a social character can contribute to a combat encounter.

I don't think it's a question of can it be done, but rather should it be done. I feel like the player was protecting the game by raising a red flag there. A lot of that can be overcome by creatively describing what is going on, but I think that there is only so much juice you can squeeze form that fruit if you are role-playing and not just playing like a strategy war game with pieces on a board.

Well then cant we just say 'Should someone shoot their gun every round?' Does the shooter describe in detail how he shoots someone every round?

I disagree that there is a red flag here. If the players are running out of strain, then the inspiring rhetoric is extremely useful, but there should not be any requirement that the player be good at rhetoric any more than the player of the shooter is good at shooting.

So, like TheShard said, there is no problem here. If the player wants to do something else, he should just do something else

33 minutes ago, korjik said:

If the players are running out of strain, then the inspiring rhetoric is extremely useful, but there should not be any requirement that the player be good at rhetoric any more than the player of the shooter is good at shooting.

You're only thinking mechanically, not psychologically. If I have some fitness trainer trying to get me to pump out one more rep, it might work for a while, until I decide I've had enough and tell him to shut his **** pie hole. It's the same with scathing tirade, at some point yelling "your mother was a hamster!" over and over again just falls on deaf ears, or even generates the opposite response. There's no comparison here to pulling a trigger on a gun, it's a ridiculous mechanistic point.

I find being told things like my "mother was a hamster" as very disconcerting... what does that make me? I really calls my whole existence into question.

5 hours ago, whafrog said:

You're only thinking mechanically, not psychologically. If I have some fitness trainer trying to get me to pump out one more rep, it might work for a while, until I decide I've had enough and tell him to shut his **** pie hole. It's the same with scathing tirade, at some point yelling "your mother was a hamster!" over and over again just falls on deaf ears, or even generates the opposite response. There's no comparison here to pulling a trigger on a gun, it's a ridiculous mechanistic point.

Unless you are making the player be the one who is good at rhetoric and not the character then there is no difference between the two. The character using inspiring rhetoric can be assumed to be good enough at his job to be able to use his talents appropriately. So using the talent over and over is not a big deal.

And it isnt a ridiculous point in that why should one player get to use all his talents at will, but the other cant simply because someone cant figure out a way to be inspiring once a round? Inspiring rhetoric isnt a continuous dialogue that has to take place over an entire turn, but a word or phrase at the right moment to get the most out of someone. Most combats arent hours or even minutes long either, so the thought that there should be some restriction is only a limit on imagination.

There's an Old School Revival D&D discussion on another forum: to wit, how do early editions feel different from recent ones?

Since I began with 2nd Edition, my assumption was that not only was the mechanical game simpler, but play was focused on a simpler standard. As in, not much more beyond sneaking around or slaying monsters.

Turns out, many posters recalled they not only interacted in complex ways with the game world, they and the GM could be much more flexible or expansive because so much was unregulated and reliant on rulings.

The best quote was "it encouraged you to look for solutions not on your character sheet."

This player is clearly reacting to the opposite effect that comes from feat-like talents. Since we're addressing a private game where both player and GM are concerned, and not the quality of FFG's design, my suggestion is to try a major change to either the talent or the experience of using action opportunities only as proxy-attack abilities.

7 hours ago, wilsch said:

There's an Old School Revival D&D discussion on another forum: to wit, how do early editions feel different from recent ones?

Since I began with 2nd Edition, my assumption was that not only was the mechanical game simpler, but play was focused on a simpler standard. As in, not much more beyond sneaking around or slaying monsters.

Turns out, many posters recalled they not only interacted in complex ways with the game world, they and the GM could be much more flexible or expansive because so much was unregulated and reliant on rulings.

The best quote was "it encouraged you to look for solutions not on your character sheet."

This player is clearly reacting to the opposite effect that comes from feat-like talents. Since we're addressing a private game where both player and GM are concerned, and not the quality of FFG's design, my suggestion is to try a major change to either the talent or the experience of using action opportunities only as proxy-attack abilities.

This is great. It's totally true and it is one of the things in the design of this game that can be exploited to bad ends in my experience. The older game were more open like that but that was dependent upon interpretation and over time they decided to have an exclusion model for D&D especially. In D&D if you don't have it you can't do it.

This game has that more open construction where the players can try to do things they don't have ranks in, which allows characters to react to more situations without being a specialist, but this also meant a much less structured base system than the industry standard D&D. I believe the trees and talents were put in to give the game enough structure to make it so that players did not experience vertigo from too many choices, and mud from not enough structured character archetypes and the schema to build the archetype.

But if players and GMs don't treat the game as having that open base, or decide that 2 greens to do something is as good as nothing, then the pre-made directions become laws and the flexibility of the system is diminished. The ability to occasionally do some of the things that Talents allow through combinations of skill use and context is in the spirit of the game I feel.

Anyone should be able to inspire others if they say the right things, have some ability to be persuasive, and haven't done it so much that everyone is tired of listening.

Only when there is a game world obstacle (having to be able to use the Force to use Force Talents or Powers, not having the extra arms to get the free maneuver) should it be exclusory in all cases, in my opinion.

5 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Anyone should be able to inspire others if they say the right things, have some ability to be persuasive, and haven't done it so much that everyone is tired of listening.

Only when there is a game world obstacle (having to be able to use the Force to use Force Talents or Powers, not having the extra arms to get the free maneuver) should it be exclusory in all cases, in my opinion.

Yeah, absolutely. I personally like structure and consistency that you get from codification, but it has its limits if roleplaying is a priority.

Agreed on the exclusion evolution of D&D, too.

One quick separate question concerning IR...

A player recently asked me if he could heal his own character's strain via using the IR talent.

I'm assuming this isn't allowed under the rules. Correct?

Is he schizophrenic?

Sure off of the adv generated yes

5 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Is he schizophrenic?

That's not how the Force schizophrenia works!

Multiple personality disorder?....

11 hours ago, 2P51 said:

Multiple personality disorder?....

I believe the term you are looking for is Dissociative Identity Disorder.