I've got a Force Sensitive Emergent Doctor that is about to go to turn to the darkside (narratively). I currently don't have any points in Heal/Harm, but I was looking at it. One of my questions was whether or not it would be possible from the various perspectives (narrative, RAW, and gamebreaking) for him to be able to inflict Harm damage on a successful brawl. One of the ways I was considering was having it be similar to a dual wield where you would need to spend advantages to be able to activate it. Any thoughts or questions?

The way the Action economy works in this game, the answer is NO. This is because each is a different type of Action, and Harm is not a "weapon" that can be used with two-weapon fighting. Visually, you can describe an Engaged-range Harm usage as a martial arts technique if you like, but it still works as written in the power.

I agree that RAW it would be this way (I'm also discussing this with my GM, so this isn't me just going rogue btw). However, if I were to hit someone with two fists (dual wield would apply) with damage from both hands. Why would hitting with one hand and having a force power that is delivered via touch, not be any different? Maybe it requires a round of no action to prepare the necessary concentration?

As far as my knowledge goes fists without a brawl weapon won't work with dual wielding as you need an actual (brawl)weapon for it. As the book states very explicitly weapons for "Two Weapon Combat"

So from that point of view a touch attack including the Harm power also won't qualify as a weapon and though won't work at all.

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before you quote continue reading, thanks.

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I would say it is because the mechanics of turn, action and maneuver are abstractions. A single attack does not simply represent a single strike with one weapon or two with two, it represents a full exchange that can narratively last a second or full minutes. Therefore, when you narrate the results of your attack, you could in theory describe a number of attempted attacks. Ultimately, though, the mechanics of a successful attack reference the economy of a single Action. Therefore the effects are applied from whatever you determined was the focus of that action, probably as the greatest chance of successfully achieving your goals.

9 minutes ago, Malashim said:

As far as my knowledge goes fists without a brawl weapon won't work with dual wielding as you need an actual (brawl)weapon for it. As the book states very explicitly weapons for "Two Weapon Combat"

So from that point of view a touch attack including the Harm power also won't qualify as a weapon and though won't work at all.

From page 210 of the rule book (emphasis mine):

Quote

When attacking with two weapons. the character must be wielding two weapons that can each be reasonably held and wielded in one hand. Generally, these weapons are Ranged (Light) weapons- generally pistols and grenades- and one-handed melee or brawl weapons .

7 minutes ago, SanguineAngel said:

I would say it is because the mechanics of turn, action and maneuver are abstractions. A single attack does not simply represent a single strike with one weapon or two with two, it represents a full exchange that can narratively last a second or full minutes. Therefore, when you narrate the results of your attack, you could in theory describe a number of attempted attacks. Ultimately, though, the mechanics of a successful attack reference the economy of a single Action. Therefore the effects are applied from whatever you determined was the focus of that action, probably as the greatest chance of successfully achieving your goals.

I'm not sure I'm following you all the way. It sounds like you're saying that because of the economy of actions that both would not be possible. Is that correct? Again, I'm wanting to discuss this from more than just a RAW perspective. Why would an angry emergent not accidentally leech the lifeforce out of his opponent when he hits him? At the same time I have no interest in power gaming this to make my character the most awesomest ever. It makes sense to me narratively, but I don't want to break the game (too much)

Fists are no brawl- weapons when you look at the "Pressure Point" talent and the wording for "Two weapon combat" it is pretty obvious that they try do make it a difference between brawl and brawl-weapons. What saw lenghty discussions when people played around with the "Pressure Point" Talent.

So the touch for Harm won't qualify for a brawl- weapon , what the passage you quoted actually is speaking of, and i was thinking of from the start.

13 minutes ago, Malashim said:

Fists are no brawl- weapons when you look at the "Pressure Point" talent and the wording for "Two weapon combat" it is pretty obvious that they try do make it a difference between brawl and brawl-weapons. What saw lenghty discussions when people played around with the "Pressure Point" Talent.

So the touch for Harm won't qualify for a brawl- weapon  , what the passage you quoted actually is speaking of, and i was thinking of from the start.

It seems strange to me that putting a glove on would change the situation enough to allow for two mechanical hits. Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this and leaning too heavily on the narrative aspects.

48 minutes ago, Malashim said:

As far as my knowledge goes fists without a brawl weapon won't work with dual wielding as you need an actual (brawl)weapon for it. As the book states very explicitly weapons for "Two Weapon Combat"

So from that point of view a touch attack including the Harm power also won't qualify as a weapon and though won't work at all.

Expand that out: Why not instead use Harm twice, once with each hand? Why not a third time with a kick or headbutt too? And two more times as a four-armed species...

The power is based upon it being your only Action. It's a game rule. Break it at your peril.

13 minutes ago, Pheylan said:

It seems strange to me that putting a glove on would change the situation enough to allow for two mechanical hits. Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this and leaning too heavily on the narrative aspects.

Forget what i said about that unarmed are not "weapons" - i stand corrected there was some DEV answer that you surely can TWC (two weapon combat) unarmed.

It never came up for discussion on my table (as GM or player) so that is the first time i came across that problem - although i'm very surprised about the wording in the Rules and what the Devs intended.

That turns my attention to another much bigger problem:

TWC forces you to take the smaller of dicepools for the mixed attack. But to make this work with any "weapon" and Harm it must turn it into a combined force power check, that seems to actually qualify for some house ruling, as it won't really fit into TWCs basics.

3 hours ago, Malashim said:

Forget what i said about that unarmed are not "weapons" - i stand corrected there was some DEV answer that you surely can TWC (two weapon combat) unarmed.

It never came up for discussion on my table (as GM or player) so that is the first time i came across that problem - although i'm very surprised about the wording in the Rules and what the Devs intended.

That turns my attention to another much bigger problem:

TWC forces you to take the smaller of dicepools for the mixed attack. But to make this work with any "weapon" and Harm it must turn it into a combined force power check, that seems to actually qualify for some house ruling, as it won't really fit into TWCs basics.

Cool, I appreciate the feedback. I've pointed my GM at this thread, so we'll probably do some horse trading and see how we can handle it so that my character makes sense.

Yeah the biggest question at hand is if you want that level of ? at the Table - because, as HappyDaze said, using TWC with Forcepowers is kind of a Pandora's Box.

Once this starts it will open up even more **** than the combo you want to see (wich is quite horrible in my eyes as you will roll against base PPPP as the difficulty will be PP for melee and rise for TWC and for mixed skills - as no skill is still not the same as brawl skill - unless your GM comes up with some special ruling ) for example TWC forcepowers with other forcepowers and more stuff i even can't imagine right now.

This won't happen at my table, but im happy to have learned something out of the discussion as i'm playing a brawl Gadgeteer at the moment and until today i never thought of the option of TWC unarmed attacks for the situations you just don't have any weapons with you, thanks for that

8 hours ago, Pheylan said:

I've got a Force Sensitive Emergent Doctor that is about to go to turn to the darkside (narratively). I currently don't have any points in Heal/Harm, but I was looking at it. One of my questions was whether or not it would be possible from the various perspectives (narrative, RAW, and gamebreaking) for him to be able to inflict Harm damage on a successful brawl. One of the ways I was considering was having it be similar to a dual wield where you would need to spend advantages to be able to activate it. Any thoughts or questions?

I might allow it, but honestly it's definitely two different Skills so your rock bottom base Difficulty is 4 purple. Any kind of legit target will have defense, adversary, dodge, etc, so that's a pretty **** roll.

9 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I might allow it, but honestly it's definitely two different Skills so your rock bottom base Difficulty is 4 purple. Any kind of legit target will have defense, adversary, dodge, etc, so that's a pretty **** roll.

He's basically saying that Harm is a one-handed weapon. Would you allow him to use Harm twice (or more for species with 3+ arms) in the same Action (once per hand)? Consider this being used for Unleash too. Even weirder, consider Ithorians using Influence up to four times (four mouths!) in a turn.

I just think it opens up too many opportunities for abuse to extend multi-weapon fighting rules to Force powers.

It's definitely a discussion for him n his GM. Strictly in regards to Harm I think it's a kinda **** option which is why I'd allow it. He's better off TWC with just Brawl and Pressure Point than bothering with this. In fact overall TWC with 2 Skills and potentially 2 stats RAW is a universally crap idea.

10 hours ago, Pheylan said:

I'm not sure I'm following you all the way. It sounds like you're saying that because of the economy of actions that both would not be possible. Is that correct? Again, I'm wanting to discuss this from more than just a RAW perspective. Why would an angry emergent not accidentally leech the lifeforce out of his opponent when he hits him? At the same time I have no interest in power gaming this to make my character the most awesomest ever. It makes sense to me narratively, but I don't want to break the game (too much)

Apologies, I wasn't very clear here, was I?

What I mean to say is that, because your action is an abstraction, you have a lot of latitude in how you describe your what happens, whether it is an attack or activation of a force power. So you could simply flavour your attack narrative to have elements of force use, or describe your force use as a part of a physical attack. It's all about how you interpret the results of your roll.

Dual Wielding is another abstraction that allows the player to potentially deal more damage at the cost of a reduced chance of success. Again, it does not specifically represent 1 specific hit with each weapon - rather a cumulative effect of your attack. Really, it'd only be if utilising specific qualities of either weapon that you'd necessarily need to call out a particular weapon narratively.

You could also use the existing mechanics - by using advantage to inflict strain you could spin that as further force use.

As a GM, I would (personally) rule that you could not use Harm as a weapon in dual wielding mechanically. Dual wielding depends upon the difficulty to hit but Force Harm is not a physical attack and so doesn't require a combat roll to use. (Compare this to Force Move as an attack, which is still a dedicated action but is combined with a ranged attack roll). Instead, it requires concentration, thus requiring a full actiont to use; just like any other force power and wouldn't benefit from one or two hands in any meaningful way.

So, my perspective would be flavour your attacks and your force useage as appropriate for your character (though I'd encourage variety, as doing the same description repeatedly could be boring for you) and utilise the existing systems to add flair with advantage and the like.

I hope that's a little clearer! Sorry, I typed my previous response pretty much as I was going to sleep ?

16 hours ago, Pheylan said:

Maybe it requires a round of no action to prepare the necessary concentration?

If you did that I'd let it happen at my table. Spend a round/action building up Harm to where it might be if you actually connect. Maybe it adds damage to the second round Brawl roll. But that's potentially two actions wasted if you miss...

Really, @SanguineAngel has it nailed: you're stuck with the mechanics but you can describe it however you like. If you want to describe your version of Harm as flailing about trying to hit someone, you don't need to roll Brawl to make that happen. If you want to TWC one Brawl and one Harm, then it's two separate skills as noted by @2P51 , and those two extra difficulty dice are going to leech away any extra damage you might have done, never mind the advantages.

Strictly speaking from a rules perspective, brawl and harm difficulties are built differently.

Brawl is a combat check and follows those rules, starting with a base difficulty of average.

Harm is a force power check and does not list a difficulty in the power, which means it depends on your target. Minions and unimportant rivals, you would simply roll force dice. Important rivals, nemeses, other player characters, you are then making a discipline check opposed by the target's discipline it could be easier but more than likely is much more difficult to pull off than a brawl check.

Which is understandable, considering you could deal massive damage that ignores soak, can't be parried or reflected and you can't use dodge sidestep or defensive stance against it because it's not a combat check.

There is a talent in one of the lightsaber trees that allows the character to make an immediate Force Move action on a miss. I would go with something similar to this and make a custom talent that would have to be purchased. Then on a Successful Unarmed Brawl Attack, spend 2 Advantages to immediately make a single Harm attack against that target.

The cost of the talent should be in the 20-25 XP range

I'd just build a Brawler with Force sprinkled on. I'd go for Enhance which synergizes far better with Brawl. This combo is really swimming upstream.

The beauty of Harm is how it can be used covertly and not overtly. You don't have to be fighting, just engaged. It's the Vulcan neck pinch. You could find yourself being dragged off by a pair of Stromtroopers and drop them without twitching a muscle.

13 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

He's basically saying that Harm is a one-handed weapon. Would you allow him to use Harm twice (or more for species with 3+ arms) in the same Action (once per hand)? Consider this being used for Unleash too. Even weirder, consider Ithorians using Influence up to four times (four mouths!) in a turn.

I just think it opens up too many opportunities for abuse to extend multi-weapon fighting rules to Force powers.

It looks like I didn't do a good job of communicating what I was actually looking to do. I was hoping to use Harm as the second hit in TWC. Not because they're in any way related, but that they are parallel in application, i.e. using a second thing to inflict additional damage. In Brawl TWC it is a second blow. I was suggesting that Harm be the second thing. I wasn't hoping to stack it on top of TWC, but utilize the mechanics of TWC to provide a framework and difficulty to dictate whether or not Harm could be activated from a single mechanical success.

13 hours ago, 2P51 said:

It's definitely a discussion for him n his GM. Strictly in regards to Harm I think it's a kinda **** option which is why I'd allow it. He's better off TWC with just Brawl and Pressure Point than bothering with this. In fact overall TWC with 2 Skills and potentially 2 stats RAW is a universally crap idea.

You're definitely right. My Dr will hit harder and more consistently with TWC. There is a good chance that I'll be able to one shot some things now without using Harm. I was looking for a more thematic/narrative way of bringing out his latent force powers and the instability of his emotional state in the context of one of his obligations.

It might be better if I just take @SanguineAngel and @whafrog 's suggestion to just use advantages for more strain damage and then narratively describe them as being the effect of him leeching energy using the darkside.

3 hours ago, Varlie said:

There is a talent in one of the lightsaber trees that allows the character to make an immediate Force Move action on a miss. I would go with something similar to this and make a custom talent that would have to be purchased. Then on a Successful Unarmed Brawl Attack, spend 2 Advantages to immediately make a single Harm attack against that target.

The cost of the talent should be in the 20-25 XP range

That is an interesting suggestion. It does raise the stakes a bit in terms of investment to make this happen.

19 hours ago, Malashim said:

As far as my knowledge goes fists without a brawl weapon won't work with dual wielding as you need an actual (brawl)weapon for it. As the book states very explicitly weapons for "Two Weapon Combat"

So from that point of view a touch attack including the Harm power also won't qualify as a weapon and though won't work at all.

You can certainly dual wield your fists.

1 minute ago, Pheylan said:

That is an interesting suggestion. It does raise the stakes a bit in terms of investment to make this happen.

This is very op unless its once a session/encounter