17 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I'm starting to wonder if Sam and crew have opted to lean more towards "sure, why not? Have fun!" when answering some of these.

This comment is in large part why I've stopped even sending any questions to the Developers. Its my game, I can figure it out.

3 hours ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

Its my game, I can figure it out.

That's my approach as well, which I've stuck with unless I've really had a bad issue that won't go away.

Sadly, it seems too many folk are hung up on having the "official" word on things or hoping for an excuse to twist the rules, such as the malarkey with Pierce dealing automatic damage based on a very liberal interpretation of the English language.

So before going farther I'm going to say that I haven't fully read this thread, only the first few posts, but something stands out to me.

Is it just my interpretation of E&F that when you use it it only applies to SUBSEQUENT rolls of that same skill? So there wouldn't be a point to use E&F on a Draw Closer check unless the person was going to just Draw Closer on their next turn...

From the E&F tree out of Disciples of Harmony: "When making a combined Flow power check, the user may spend [light or dark pips] to add [success] to any checks the Force user makes that use the same skill before the end of the user's next turn. The Force user may not activate this multiple times."

That phrasing seems, to me at least, to indicate that you're giving using the Force this turn to enhance something next turn. You're flowing the Force forward.

Now, be gentle as I'm relatively new to the forums and not up on all the errata or dev comments on things, so please if I'm interpreting this wrongly, be kind but point out how/where I went wrong. Now back to finish reading the thread...

Smeeg699,
You're correct on the part about adding success (or advantage for Flow, or threat/failure for Ebb), but the base power is either inflict strain on your foes or recover strain as part of the very same check the character is actively making, which for PCs that rely on Parry and Reflect that later part is a godsend as it helps keep them in the fight longer. I've got a player in my F&D campaign that finds that part of the power (along with the Strength Upgrade) to indeed be a godsend for his Soresu Defender/Protector, as the power helps keep him in the fight and fulfill his role as party tank for more than a couple of rounds.

Granted, with Draw Closer (and similar talents that let you add Force dice to specific skill checks) you'd have to be diluting the effectiveness of the talent to make use of Ebb/Flow (be it strain recovery or bonus successes the following round), so that might be a reason why Sam's response amounted to "okay, sure, you can do that." Which thinking about, seems a bit like the classic game design approach of handing players just enough rope to hang themselves if they aren't careful. I think it might also be a case of where the devs aren't as concerned about the high-end spectrum of PCs (the ones with over a thousand of earned XP), so his answer is likely based on the notion of the character only having a Force Rating of 2 or 3 at best, for which it'd not be that big of a deal and again the player has to dilute the effectiveness of Draw Closer to get the benefits of Ebb/Flow. That is of course pure speculation on my part.

But part of the concern is that it does fly in the face of an early dev ruling (for a specific Force power and Force talent combination) that said you couldn't stack effects, that you had to choose one or the other. In that case, it was the Overwhelm Emotions talent and the Influence Control upgrade that lets you add Force dice to social checks, which in hindsight the ruling may have been based upon how what Force pips you rolled for Overwhelm Emotions impacted the roll.

7 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Smeeg699,
You're correct on the part about adding success (or advantage for Flow, or threat/failure for Ebb), but the base power is either inflict strain on your foes or recover strain as part of the very same check the character is actively making, which for PCs that rely on Parry and Reflect that later part is a godsend as it helps keep them in the fight longer. I've got a player in my F&D campaign that finds that part of the power (along with the Strength Upgrade) to indeed be a godsend for his Soresu Defender/Protector, as the power helps keep him in the fight and fulfill his role as party tank for more than a couple of rounds.

Granted, with Draw Closer (and similar talents that let you add Force dice to specific skill checks) you'd have to be diluting the effectiveness of the talent to make use of Ebb/Flow (be it strain recovery or bonus successes the following round), so that might be a reason why Sam's response amounted to "okay, sure, you can do that." Which thinking about, seems a bit like the classic game design approach of handing players just enough rope to hang themselves if they aren't careful. I think it might also be a case of where the devs aren't as concerned about the high-end spectrum of PCs (the ones with over a thousand of earned XP), so his answer is likely based on the notion of the character only having a Force Rating of 2 or 3 at best, for which it'd not be that big of a deal and again the player has to dilute the effectiveness of Draw Closer to get the benefits of Ebb/Flow. That is of course pure speculation on my part.

But part of the concern is that it does fly in the face of an early dev ruling (for a specific Force power and Force talent combination) that said you couldn't stack effects, that you had to choose one or the other. In that case, it was the Overwhelm Emotions talent and the Influence Control upgrade that lets you add Force dice to social checks, which in hindsight the ruling may have been based upon how what Force pips you rolled for Overwhelm Emotions impacted the roll.

I think it also had to do with the fact that both abilities enhanced the same skill set (social checks).

10 hours ago, Smeeg699 said:

So before going farther I'm going to say that I haven't fully read this thread, only the first few posts, but something stands out to me

I believe you meant to say "further" not "farther"

10 hours ago, Smeeg699 said:

Now, be gentle as I'm relatively new to the forums and not up on all the errata or dev comments on things, so please if I'm interpreting this wrongly, be kind but point out how/where I went wrong. Now back to finish reading the thread...

And the above is about as harsh as I will be!

You are correct about Ebb/Flow and the success/advantage control upgrade. My personal opinion is Ebb/Flow is one of the more poorly worded and vetted Force Powers, rumor has it even Sam Stewart fumbled a little bit when trying to explain how it works on an Order 66 podcast.

8 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I think it also had to do with the fact that both abilities enhanced the same skill set (social checks). 

Tramp, I am not looking to pick a fight, nor disparage you here. So just take that little nugget of context for what it is worth.

Ultimately I think this statement is complete conjecture, and honestly, indicative of what we all as a community tend to ascribe to these Developer Answered questions. We are assuming there is more to their answer "behind the scenes" that some how peels back the design of the system.

My own conjecture is nothing could be further from the truth regarding these Dev answered questions. My supposition is they read the question exactly as it is worded, and provide an answer exactly based on the context given in the post. Nothing more, nothing less. I highly doubt rulebooks are even consulted by the person answering the question, and (again without any intent to disparage the Developers) I often question whether they even know what the proper rules are.

We tend to assume these guys and gals have infallible knowledge of not just the rules, but the full design philosophy memorized to perfection, and as such an answer they are giving is guided by this wisdom. In fact, I suspect they don't really know the rules that well, don't really play the game much, and don't really have time to do much more than give a cursory reading and answer to a question. These folks are working hard developing games, which requires vast amounts of time doing stuff other than memorizing rules. We are assuming Sam even remembers answering the original post back from 2014 or 2015 when giving his most recent answer on Ebb/Flow + Draw Closer.

I've found the answers given when this system was fresh out of the gate were far more detailed and helpful. But once most of the supplements were released, answers are far more brief and simple.

All in all: I go back to what I said before. I no longer send the Developers any questions, I'd rather they spent their time writing and editing new source books than giving half hearted answers to questions that are best left to the GM to decide anyway.

8 minutes ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

Tramp, I am not looking to pick a fight, nor disparage you here. So just take that little nugget of context for what it is worth.

Ultimately I think this statement is complete conjecture, and honestly, indicative of what we all as a community tend to ascribe to these Developer Answered questions. We are assuming there is more to their answer "behind the scenes" that some how peels back the design of the system.

My own conjecture is nothing could be further from the truth regarding these Dev answered questions. My supposition is they read the question exactly as it is worded, and provide an answer exactly based on the context given in the post. Nothing more, nothing less. I highly doubt rulebooks are even consulted by the person answering the question, and (again without any intent to disparage the Developers) I often question whether they even know what the proper rules are.

We tend to assume these guys and gals have infallible knowledge of not just the rules, but the full design philosophy memorized to perfection, and as such an answer they are giving is guided by this wisdom. In fact, I suspect they don't really know the rules that well, don't really play the game much, and don't really have time to do much more than give a cursory reading and answer to a question. These folks are working hard developing games, which requires vast amounts of time doing stuff other than memorizing rules. We are assuming Sam even remembers answering the original post back from 2014 or 2015 when giving his most recent answer on Ebb/Flow + Draw Closer.

I've found the answers given when this system was fresh out of the gate were far more detailed and helpful. But once most of the supplements were released, answers are far more brief and simple.

All in all: I go back to what I said before. I no longer send the Developers any questions, I'd rather they spent their time writing and editing new source books than giving half hearted answers to questions that are best left to the GM to decide anyway.

Oh, there's no question that this is conjecture on my part. However, it is educated conjecture based upon the fact that both Influence and Overwhem Emotions basically serve the same function in affecting a target's emotions and/or how said character responds to your social checks.

53 minutes ago, Magnus Arcanus said:

Tramp, I am not looking to pick a fight, nor disparage you here. So just take that little nugget of context for what it is worth.

Ultimately I think this statement is complete conjecture, and honestly, indicative of what we all as a community tend to ascribe to these Developer Answered questions. We are assuming there is more to their answer "behind the scenes" that some how peels back the design of the system.

My own conjecture is nothing could be further from the truth regarding these Dev answered questions. My supposition is they read the question exactly as it is worded, and provide an answer exactly based on the context given in the post. Nothing more, nothing less. I highly doubt rulebooks are even consulted by the person answering the question, and (again without any intent to disparage the Developers) I often question whether they even know what the proper rules are.

We tend to assume these guys and gals have infallible knowledge of not just the rules, but the full design philosophy memorized to perfection, and as such an answer they are giving is guided by this wisdom. In fact, I suspect they don't really know the rules that well, don't really play the game much, and don't really have time to do much more than give a cursory reading and answer to a question. These folks are working hard developing games, which requires vast amounts of time doing stuff other than memorizing rules. We are assuming Sam even remembers answering the original post back from 2014 or 2015 when giving his most recent answer on Ebb/Flow + Draw Closer.

I've found the answers given when this system was fresh out of the gate were far more detailed and helpful. But once most of the supplements were released, answers are far more brief and simple.

All in all: I go back to what I said before. I no longer send the Developers any questions, I'd rather they spent their time writing and editing new source books than giving half hearted answers to questions that are best left to the GM to decide anyway.

Anyone should feel free to ignore "dev rulings" - Sam Stewart isn't going to kick down your door and flip your gaming table over if you don't - but I'd be surprised if people taking the time to answer these questions don't look up the rules before answering. And these questions seem to be most often answered by Sam Stewart who's been part of the creating the rules since the very beginning so the idea that they don't know the proper rules is dubious.

I do agree that the responses can too often be incomplete or not detailed enough. I've sent in questions which got Sam Stewart answers that were the minimal response required to answer but were still somewhat unclear. I even tried to make a quick response easy by asking "is it A or B or C or something else" and the answer avoided that. I am glad they answer questions and think it's nice that they take the time to do it but I too see diminishing reasons to send in questions.

On 2/8/2019 at 3:45 PM, Magnus Arcanus said:

If you can only activate one Force Power at a time, how can you activate Ebb/Flow and Draw Closer at the same time? Because one is a Force "Power" and one is a Force "Talent"? I have a very hard time with that level of parsing words.

Even if the argument is this 'stacking' can only occur with Ebb/Flow, there are a lot of Force Powers/Force Talents that have a skill check as part of the roll. This would imply you could use the augmentation effects of Ebb/Flow in addition to whatever benefit the Force Power/Talent in question offers.

Is using Ebb/Flow considered a manuever or is it an action? If its an action then you can't do both at the same time since draw closer is a lightsaber check using force pips which is an action. I think it will come down to your dm and how he wants to do it. Could work if Ebb/Flow doesnt use an action. My GM makes using force powers an action unless the force power specifically says otherwise.

Ebb & Flow is neither.

Sounds more like a Star Trek statement than related to Star Wars but it allows you to make any non-Force check into a Force check.