Sorry if it has been asked before, but do you think one could create a sensory effect such as a sound, a smell, or even a taste, by using the Misdirect power ?

Would you allow it at your table ?

RAW, it doesn't seem to be explicitely forbidden, but only visual effects are mentionned

If you scroll down to the Force Illusion part of this page, it describes how the Force potentially could manipulate all of the senses with a variation of Mind Trick, which is what I think the is the intended purpose of the Misdirect power.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mind_trick/Legends

While not RAW, I would certainly allow it if a player gave enough descriptors.

Yes.

Obi-Wan used misdirect to distract the stormtroopers guarding the tractor beam on the Deathstar.

5 hours ago, AbsatSolo said:

Sorry if it has been asked before, but do you think one could create a sensory effect such as a sound, a smell, or even a taste, by using the Misdirect power ?

Would you allow it at your table ?

RAW, it doesn't seem to be explicitely forbidden, but only visual effects are mentionned

Some think Obiwan used misdirect on the stormtroopers when he was turning off the tractor beam.

Some think it was pretty obvious.

I am some 😁 .

So I waited to respond to this until I could access my book and the full write-up of Misdirect.

The basic power says the user can deceive the senses of a living target within range (pg296). I underlined that particular word as very heavily suggests that Misdirect's basic power doesn't just hit one sense (such as visual), but uses the plural to say the user can hit all of them.

Now, the control upgrade that lets the user change the appearance of something, that one is by strict wording limited to just visual senses, and same with many of the other control upgrades as well as the mastery upgrade. So if the GM goes strictly by what's in the book, then those upgrades are indeed just visual and have no auditory, olfactory, or even tactile components.

That being said, I'd certainly allow a character with Misdirect and those upgrades to also create auditory, olfactory, and tactile deceptions, such as phantom voices or masking a verbal conversation as being some banal topic like weather or the performance of the local kiddie-league sports team. Or that the smell of a distinctive perfume is instead the rancid smell of stale tabacc, or that the target touches an object but instead of the object looking and feeling like the priceless crate of kyber crystals you're trying to smuggle, it looks, feels, and smells like a crate full of common variety vegetables.

Of course, it's still possible for the Force user to fail an opposed check and the person being affected is able to note one or more inconsistencies with what their senses are supposedly telling them, but that's more in the realm of reading the results of the dice.

8 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Some think Obiwan used misdirect on the stormtroopers when he was turning off the tractor beam.

Personally I always saw that as Obi-Wan using a mind trick to make the troopers think they heard something for a few brief moments and thus were too distracted (or compelled by the mind trick) by the whole "what was that?" to notice him slinking away. After all, there's not really anything that says a mind trick (or use of Influence) must have a verbal component to it, other than making it easier to communicate more complex suggestions, such as "You don't want to sell me death sticks" followed by 'You want to go home and rethink your life," or the classic "You don't need to see his identification."

Another option is he used move to smack a panel.

12 hours ago, AnomalousAuthor said:

O bi-Wan used misdirect to distract the stormtroopers guarding the tractor beam on the Deathstar.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Personally I always saw that as Obi-Wan using a mind trick to make the troopers think they heard something for a few brief moments and thus were too distracted ...

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

Another option is he used move to smack a panel.

One of the many reasons I love this system.

All 3 of them are a reasonable way to explain the narrative of the canon fiction. All 3 can easily be represented in the mechanics.

4 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

So I waited to respond to this until I could access my book and the full write-up of Misdirect.

The basic power says the user can deceive the senses of a living target within range (pg296). I underlined that particular word as very heavily suggests that Misdirect's basic power doesn't just hit one sense (such as visual), but uses the plural to say the user can hit all of them.

Now, the control upgrade that lets the user change the appearance of something, that one is by strict wording limited to just visual senses, and same with many of the other control upgrades as well as the mastery upgrade. So if the GM goes strictly by what's in the book, then those upgrades are indeed just visual and have no auditory, olfactory, or even tactile components.

That being said, I'd certainly allow a character with Misdirect and those upgrades to also create auditory, olfactory, and tactile deceptions, such as phantom voices or masking a verbal conversation as being some banal topic like weather or the performance of the local kiddie-league sports team. Or that the smell of a distinctive perfume is instead the rancid smell of stale tabacc, or that the target touches an object but instead of the object looking and feeling like the priceless crate of kyber crystals you're trying to smuggle, it looks, feels, and smells like a crate full of common variety vegetables.

Of course, it's still possible for the Force user to fail an opposed check and the person being affected is able to note one or more inconsistencies with what their senses are supposedly telling them, but that's more in the realm of reading the results of the dice.

Honestly I would not limit any of the upgrades to only be a visual illusion. Part of what makes an illusion convincing is the sounds and smells that accompany it, perhaps even a sudden temperature drop or heat emanating from the object.

Hiding an object also means masking any sounds or smells as well, otherwise anyone could know they where being tricked immediately. Even in the Mastery upgrade it mentions “howling terrors” which certainly suggests an audible illusion.

I think it’s best to simply draw the line at “create whatever you can come up with, but it can only ever affect the minds of your enemies and not their bodies or the actual world around them. Of course you should be able to do things like masking the targets sense of temperature the room they are in slowly falls and freezes them, thus indirectly causing death.

It also is in the mind of the target. Nothing is visible to droids. It does not actually create anything outside of the mind of the target