Custom Force Power: Hide

By Sharatec, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

So... my friend created this Force Power for use in our current campaign, where we felt it thematically apropriate to have an established way of hiding from Inquisitors and their minions. The GM likes it, but I'm curious about what people on the forum think? Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Hide Force Power.pdf

1 minute ago, Sharatec said:

So... my friend created this Force Power for use in our current campaign, where we felt it thematically apropriate to have an established way of hiding from Inquisitors and their minions. The GM likes it, but I'm curious about what people on the forum think? Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Hide Force Power.pdf

First off, the link isn’t working properly. Secondly, there is already a power that does what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s called Misdirect . And if you further need to hide your Force signature, use Suppress .

21 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

First off, the link isn’t working properly. Secondly, there is already a power that does what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s called Misdirect . And if you further need to hide your Force signature, use Suppress .

Err...yeah. My instinct when I clicked the link is that you'd say something that would make me think "Isn't that Misdirect?" and since I don't have a working link I don't think otherwise. COuld you describe or screenshot it? So we understand how it's different?

Weird... does this work?

Hide.jpg

Yeah. Most of that is pretty well covered by either Misdirect or Supress .

The base power is already covered be the Shroud talent, so that's one strike against this already.

The rest of it is largely covered by the Misdirect power, making this whole thing largely superfluous. After all, if you're clouded from the target's senses via Misdirect, they can't see, hear, or otherwise detect no matter how good their Perception/Vigilance or how poor your Stealth.

Also, detecting if someone is Force-sensitive or not is largely a narrative effect handled by the GM, as for whichever reasons you want to ascribe, FFG opted not to include rules for doing so. A common house rule that I've seen (and use in my own games) is to use the Sense power only the user specifies that instead of the target's emotions they're assessing the target's degree of Force-sensitivity (if any). This makes it so that 1) you need to be deliberately searching for it, and 2) you need to be pretty close to the person in question.

To add to what @Donovan Morningfire said, the only other way to sense someone’s Force sensitivity is if they have a lightsaber with a Mephite crystal and you are within range while actively using Sense to sense your surroundings.

9 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

The base power is already covered be the Shroud talent, so that's one strike against this already.

The rest of it is largely covered by the Misdirect power, making this whole thing largely superfluous. After all, if you're clouded from the target's senses via Misdirect, they can't see, hear, or otherwise detect no matter how good their Perception/Vigilance or how poor your Stealth.

Also, detecting if someone is Force-sensitive or not is largely a narrative effect handled by the GM, as for whichever reasons you want to ascribe, FFG opted not to include rules for doing so. A common house rule that I've seen (and use in my own games) is to use the Sense power only the user specifies that instead of the target's emotions they're assessing the target's degree of Force-sensitivity (if any). This makes it so that 1) you need to be deliberately searching for it, and 2) you need to be pretty close to the person in question.

Thank you for your feedback!

First of all, I should of course have specified that our group uses a mechanical approach to sensing Force Sensitivity - opposed Discipline checks using the Sense Power. This is implied in the base Hide power, but I should have made it clear. (Also, I think this is actually identical to your houserule?)

Regarding Shroud, we thought about it carefully to avoid making that talent obsolete, even as we want the power to hide force-sensitivity not to be restricted to a certain specialization. Comparing them, we found that even though Shroud has a DP cost, it a) is infallible, b) allows free use of Force Powers (this requires upgrades with Hide), and c) makes the use of Force Powers undetectable. We consider this enough reason to pick Shroud even if Hide is available, but if people here disagree, it's certainly food for thought!

As for similiarities with Misdirect, we might consider tweaking the "sneak" aspects of Hide to avoid overlap. I will discuss this with my group; it is not a central part of the Hide power. Thank you!

I hope this explains our way of reasoning better. Thank you for your answer, it means a lot!

19 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Yeah. Most of that is pretty well covered by either Misdirect or Supress .

We didn't really think about Suppress when designing Hide, though I feel the powers work in very different ways. I will definitely ask the other players about this! (As for Misdirect, please see my last post above.)

Thanks!

3 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

To add to what @Donovan Morningfire said, the only other way to sense someone’s Force sensitivity is if they have a lightsaber with a Mephite crystal and you are within range while actively using Sense to sense your surroundings.

True, but we want to change that. Should have made it clear. :)

38 minutes ago, Sharatec said:

We didn't really think about Suppress when designing Hide, though I feel the powers work in very different ways. I will definitely ask the other players about this! (As for Misdirect, please see my last post above.)

Thanks!

38 minutes ago, Sharatec said:

True, but we want to change that. Should have made it clear. :)

42 minutes ago, Sharatec said:

Thank you for your feedback!

First of all, I should of course have specified that our group uses a mechanical approach to sensing Force Sensitivity - opposed Discipline checks using the Sense Power. This is implied in the base Hide power, but I should have made it clear. (Also, I think this is actually identical to your houserule?)

Regarding Shroud, we thought about it carefully to avoid making that talent obsolete, even as we want the power to hide force-sensitivity not to be restricted to a certain specialization. Comparing them, we found that even though Shroud has a DP cost, it a) is infallible, b) allows free use of Force Powers (this requires upgrades with Hide), and c) makes the use of Force Powers undetectable. We consider this enough reason to pick Shroud even if Hide is available, but if people here disagree, it's certainly food for thought!

As for similiarities with Misdirect, we might consider tweaking the "sneak" aspects of Hide to avoid overlap. I will discuss this with my group; it is not a central part of the Hide power. Thank you!

I hope this explains our way of reasoning better. Thank you for your answer, it means a lot!

The thing you're not getting is that, under this system, Force powers rarely , if ever overlap in the effects they have, and certainly not to the extent by which this custom power overlaps the effects of the existing powers and talent already mentioned.

18 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The thing you're not getting is that, under this system, Force powers rarely , if ever overlap in the effects they have, and certainly not to the extent by which this custom power overlaps the effects of the existing powers and talent already mentioned.

Except for, e.g., Bind and Move . Ring any bell?

Please refrain from telling me what I am or am not gett ing.

Please note: I am still more than willing to hear feedback! I've just been on these forum long enough to know better than trying to have some kind of discussion with Tramp Graphics .

4 minutes ago, Sharatec said:

Except for, e.g., Bind and Move . Ring any bell?

Please refrain from telling me what I am or am not gett ing.

Bind has one upgrade which somewhat overlaps with Move. And even then, only to a very limited degree. Bind's Movement upgrade allows you to push someone away from, or pull someone to, you. That is all it can do as far as moving someone. It is very limited compared to the multitude of things you can do with Move . The primary purpose of Bind is to immobilize a target so that he can't move and can't attack. So there is very little overlap there. That is also why I said "rarely" overlap, and "not to the extent" your custom power does.

On ‎9‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 7:26 PM, Sharatec said:

Weird... does this work?

Hide.jpg

1) What is it about existing powers/talents that isn't working for you?

2) Suggest you also accompany with long descriptions to clarify details (For example, does basic power allow detection on success with triumph, or will failure with triumph also work?)

3) Mastery is actually kinda interesting conceptually....

Wow. Ok dude. This is covered by the talent shroud..the power Misdirect..the talent now you see me and...another that doesn't immediately come to mind.

NO offence because I don't like doing what other people do and being condescending but it might read harsh so I apologise in advance.

THe amount of talent trees in this game goes way over 100 pages if you include everything so i am under the distinct impression that this is something you guys quite simply because you were unaware or did not understand what already exists in the game.
What is worse is that this tree actually makes those powers way cheaper by compartmentalising them all into one chunk rather than having to get 2-3 separate trees and a force power. So, with respect, I'd cut this out of the game you're in and re-look at something as to use your own arguement against you. This would be like not understanding/missing what bind & move do and being like 'We don't have a telekinesis tree' and making one that does both plus extras.
My assumption is that, as I said, you just didn't know and thus didn't understand what you'd accidentally created but that is in effect what you've done.

On 9/18/2018 at 1:17 AM, Luahk said:

Wow. Ok dude. This is covered by the talent shroud..the power Misdirect..the talent now you see me and...another that doesn't immediately come to mind.

NO offence because I don't like doing what other people do and being condescending but it might read harsh so I apologise in advance.

THe amount of talent trees in this game goes way over 100 pages if you include everything so i am under the distinct impression that this is something you guys quite simply because you were unaware or did not understand what already exists in the game.
What is worse is that this tree actually makes those powers way cheaper by compartmentalising them all into one chunk rather than having to get 2-3 separate trees and a force power. So, with respect, I'd cut this out of the game you're in and re-look at something as to use your own arguement against you. This would be like not understanding/missing what bind & move do and being like 'We don't have a telekinesis tree' and making one that does both plus extras.
My assumption is that, as I said, you just didn't know and thus didn't understand what you'd accidentally created but that is in effect what you've done.

Thank you for your honest feedback. I will bring it back to the group, and see if we need to revise or remove the power.

Regarding your belief that we didn't know about/missunderstood what already exists in the game, you are simply wrong, but that doesn't change the validity of your arguments against the power. :)

On 9/14/2018 at 8:06 PM, Ghostofman said:

1) What is it about existing powers/talents that isn't working for you?

Most importantly, Shroud alone doesn't work (for us!) because we think this kind of ability should be available to all Force users, not just those that would open the Shadow tree. We simply want it to be a more common ability. (This is why I like Shroud; it shows you're an expert in this field.)

On 9/14/2018 at 8:06 PM, Ghostofman said:

2) Suggest you also accompany with long descriptions to clarify details (For example, does basic power allow detection on success with triumph, or will failure with triumph also work?)

Good one, I'll have to ask the others! Thanks!

On 9/14/2018 at 8:06 PM, Ghostofman said:

3) Mastery is actually kinda interesting conceptually.... 

❤️ I do think it has a mistake, though: I'm pretty sure we meant for it to make it harder to remember what the character looks like. It's not meant to replace Now You See Me.

On 9/18/2018 at 1:17 AM, Luahk said:

Wow. Ok dude. This is covered by the talent shroud..the power Misdirect..the talent now you see me and...another that doesn't immediately come to mind.

By the way: If you remember that last talent, please mention it here! We considered Shroud, Misdirect and NYSM when creating Hide, but if there is yet another talent that touches on the subject, It would be very good to know which one. Thanks!

12 hours ago, Sharatec said:

By the way: If you remember that last talent, please mention it here! We considered Shroud, Misdirect and NYSM when creating Hide, but if there is yet another talent that touches on the subject, It would be very good to know which one. Thanks!

I looked over some of the more stealthy characters we had but couldn't locate it. Hmmmm.

12 hours ago, Sharatec said:

Thank you for your honest feedback. I will bring it back to the group, and see if we need to revise or remove the power.

Not enough people around here take criticism well/on the chin. I hope you figure it out.

4 minutes ago, Luahk said:

I looked over some of the more stealthy characters we had but couldn't locate it. Hmmmm.

Thanks for looking, I appreciate it!

5 minutes ago, Luahk said:

Not enough people around here take criticism well/on the chin. I hope you figure it out.   

I too hope I figure out how to take criticism well. ?

So I guess since Each GM has the authority to add or take away from their game when they want this could work. the force power is a bit to op for me. Having one force power that combines suppress, and misdirect into one force power and also gives you the ability to use shroud as a basic power whenever you want kind of breaks the purpose of how and why they put shroud into the game. (remember you can only use shroud once per session and you have to flip a desitny point. Its op thats why). Also remember with shroud activated you can still use the force to do stuff that's the purpose of it. I cant think of any way someone can sense you being force sensitive by using the force anyways until you actually using the force so the basic power you posted is actually pointless. The jedi power seek will still be able to track you even with this basic power cause its not tracking you cause your force sensitive its tracking you cause your an object.

Very few jedi survived the purge and the ones that did had shroud. Those that did were either Sentinals according to Luke skywalker or Obi-wan who had shroud through the hermit specialization tree. The only reason Yoda survived the purge was because he was on a planet that was so strong in the dark side it shrouded him from the emperor according to the books that's why he picked it. We have to assume yoda never had the shroud ability cause he never used it in any of the books or movies. It isn't a common ability amoung the jedi it was rare. If you could get shroud this way then 75% of the jedi would have survived the purge.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding a bunch of things, but this custom power doesn’t seem very much like Suppress at all. Similar in some respects and very specific applications, sure, but definitely not the same. And Misdirect is something completely different in my eyes. Shroud comes close, but like you said it’s a talent, and what you need is a power.

Seems the critics here aren’t listening to an important fact you mentioned: that you already created a force-sensing mechanic that works well for your campaign. The power you’re suggesting serves a very specific function for you that none of the other suggestions cover, so I don’t see why you wouldn’t create it. Maybe it’s just an issue of balancing it to make sure it’s not OP, but you’re just gonna get that with a lot of play-testing.

Sounds like you thought about it and you know the game, so go for it. :) Let us know how it goes, and please share the final power tree once you’ve play-tested and balanced. It sounds interesting, I might want to use it!

Also, I’m sure you already know this, but if you were to ever play with another group, you may have to shelf this and any other homebrewed powers if the other players don’t agree with it.