Hi all, so a few questions have popped up in recent sessions which id like to clarify with you fine folks

So first Id like to ask about is the Technician signature ability "Inventive Creation" the ability to make any item that lasts 1 round up to rarity 5 with enough investment in this ability it can go up to rarity 8 ... now it sounds epic, boom i have a water filter system that i have made out of rocks... it sounds awesome, he can pretty much macgyver his way out of any situation HOWEVER .... when he used it... he made a foam grenade out of parts from a escape pod ... after this he pointed out that he was one investment in this ability away from making FRICKEN THERMAL DETONATORS!!!! tick tick BOOM any big bad guy that is put in his way with just spare parts (yes i know must be approved by GM common sense)

So I have 2 questions regarding this ability...

1) is making weapons actually a thing with this ability (personally id say yes)

2) in combat how long would it take to make up something like a grenade... because one turn no grenade... second turn he has now thrown a grenade ... it was great narratively as he threw the foam grenade hitting both an ally and a minion group with it but im concerned 1 round is too short of a time to make up functional weapon.

A possible solution I have to this as im writing this is to upgrade the difficulty of a check by 1 for making a weapon and another upgrade if making an explosive and a despair makes the weapon blow up in his face regardless of pass or fail

ALSO

Force power "Move"

this ability has been the bane of many encounters.... Me: "there is 2 large groups of minions coming at you" ... Jedi: "i use force move to pick up one minon group and throw them into the other group" (thus damaging both groups) ... or bigger stronger dude Jedi: "i use force move on a large silhouette 2 rock and use it to crush the guy". With force rating 3 my little jedi has been able to consistently pull this off but it is forcing me to really try and consider what is balanced when putting up people against my PCs... of course my Jedi has been using this creatively too... long planned chase scene through a jungle trying to catch a imperial scout trooper on a speeder bike "I use my force power to activate his breaks" (did not see it coming and was fricken hilarious although destroyed multiple pages of work) or just recently used it to snake charm a rope down a turbolift shaft.

So after a long time of use I want to make sure of some things regarding force use and in particular this ability

A) When a player decides to do an action IE lift up a dude but only gets black pips on the force roll... can he choose not to do it (we have gone under the assumption that he can choose) but i have recently came to the thinking... you decide what you want to do but the dice determine your fate.

B) picking up dudes and throwing them into other dudes dealing 10x silhouette ... is this actually legit ... that amount of damage without any chance of defence for minions or non plot important rivals? (seems like it, but FUUCCKKK its super OP)

C) Force move with fine manipulation ... person wants to use the force to tie a rope around something... As a GM I think it is something that the PC would have to make a relevant skill check with, in this case a survival roll to actually know how to tie a decent knot, is that what you guys would do?

Edit: Yes, The PC has heavily invested in this power and makes sure everything is followed to the letter, correct amount of pips required, upgrades difficulty for autofire, the whole shebang, i was mainly concerned of using the enemy as ammunition to hit other enemies.

all in all... force powers can really ruin my day

although I think i have thought of a way to increase the danger of using force powers so publically as this jedi has, by using the obligation system of EOTE ... kinda like bounty but "hunted", any time force is used in a harmful or obvious manner increase the obligation by 1, increase by 2 if there are surviving witnesses (maybe 3 if surviving witnesses are of the imperial forces), when the obligation hits a sith inquisitor or 2 comes to play after which that obligation is reduced by half

so D) is that obligation system fair ... I did warn players blatant use of force powers could bite them in the @$$ so this should make them think twice before using such powers so openly so now there will be actual consequences.

B, Might be used with squadron rules, that a formed squadron is silhouette +1, compared to the largest silhouette member of it. So handle a minion group in this case as it were silhouette 2.

D, don't use the obligation system as punishment. Picking up obligation should be a choice of the player and it should have some narrative attached to it.
what you want to use, is Morality. Look up in Force and Destiny and assign morality to every force user. Then use those rules and give the mconflict if they are irresponsible, or harmful with their powers

I can’t really answer your first question, I’ve never gotten a chance to have that in one of my games, but I can give my own experience with the second, Move.

A. No the player doesn’t have to do it, but then they just wasted their action...

B. First question I have is are you using the Autofire Rules as is required when using Move on multiple targets? The difficulty is increased once, the character then needs to succeed on a Discipline check, have enough advantages, and also have enough Force Pips. That should be keeping the damage down somewhat. Also it’s a combat check, anything that would make a normal attack harder makes this harder too; Adversary, Defence, environment, etc

As @Rimsen said making minion groups Silhouette 2 is a great solution, a minion group then becomes a single object that causes 20 damage, just watch out for your Nemesis characters. This also works for disarming a minion group, treat their weapons as a single Silhouette 1 object instead of 5 silhouette 0. This entire concept does wonders in making minions seem far less important than Rivals and Nemesis.

Next I would ask if you are requiring the player to have enough Magnitude upgrades activated for all the targets affected? The minion group that’s moved and the target group that are hit both need to be “moved”. An easy way to think about this is thinking of these examples:

1. How much does it take to throw 1 silhouette 1 rock at 3 minions, hitting them each once? Sounds more like 3 objects.

2. How much does it take to throw 3 silhouette 1 minions at a nearby wall? Again sounds like 3 objects.

3. How much does it take to cause 2 groups of 3 minions to move toward each other and crash together in the middle? Sounds like six objects.

4. So how much does it take to throw 3 minions at 3 other minions? Sounds like six objects to me if you follow the above examples

A further addition can be to increase the Force Pip cost to activate the Strength upgrade to 2 Force Pips instead of 1. This makes lifting lots of things or really big things much more difficult. Although I would only make this a last resort thing.

Then finally there’s the significant moral implications of bludgeoning people to death using the force. Sure Storm troopers are faceless evil, but not everyone the pc’s face is an imperial. Did those people need to die? Could they have be neutralised by moving them somewhere such as over a fence or onto a building? Could they have been disarmed instead?

Your idea of tracking obvious force use over an extended period is a good idea too, that should either result in “there can be no survivors” dark side thinking, or “I really should be careful here”

What worked with my jedi group, is scolding them with my master and not allowing them to resolve conflict as long as they continue to abuse the force. Force is not meant to be used to solve all the problems, jedi learn it from a young age, and generally attacking without trying something else, incurs conflict and generally disdained among jedi.

2 hours ago, LMasterList said:

s... of course my Jedi has been using this creatively too... long planned chase scene through a jungle trying to catch a imperial scout trooper on a speeder bike "I use my force power to activate his breaks" (did not see it coming and was fricken hilarious although destroyed multiple pages of work) or just recently used it to snake charm a rope down a turbolift shaft.

...

C) Force move with fine manipulation ... person wants to use the force to tie a rope around something... As a GM I think it is something that the PC would have to make a relevant skill check with, in this case a survival roll to actually know how to tie a decent knot, is that what you guys would do?

I love it when players come up with creative ways to resolve issues. In the case of the speeder bike, I would make this at least a daunting Discipline check, especially if the Force user was on his own bike. Imagine going at those speeds trying to focus on the small brakes on another bike that's probably firing at you at the same time. It's a cool option but it's not something easily done. Now pushing the bike into an oncoming obstacle would probably be much easier.

For question about fine manipulation, other than seeing young jedis assemble lightsabers with the Force, we don't see to many examples of tying knots and other tasks like that. I wouldn't say no outright but it would take time and good discipline checks.

As far as making weapons with Inventive Creation, I would point out to the player that while, Yes, he can make weapons, he should keep in mind that he's going to be making little more than zip guns and homemade pipe bombs as far as reliability. Sure, he can cobble together a missile tube if he likes, but the thing is going to be a glorified potato gun when you get right down to it...It's going to look butt-ugly, and theres always the chance it will just blow up in his hands when he uses it. The same would hold true for any explosives that he wants to make. If he wants his thermal detonator, let him have it. And gawd have mercy on him if he drops the thing...or sets it down hard...or blinks near it.... you get the idea. As far as how quickly he can make a weapon, thats more up to you than any hard and fast rule. I would point out to him that anything made in the middle of a firefight is going to be fairly crude and most likely a quick-and-dirty one-shot item. Rather than whip up some AP grenades, hes going to make a molotov cocktail, for example. If he wants to make something more...substantive...than a one-and-done weapon, hes going to have to invest time into it outside of combat, with a good supply of tools and materiel.