balancing homebrew signature abilities

By Stormbourne, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

okay so i have a few homebrew signature abilities i'd like help balancing

first:

when making a skill check may add a black to dice pool to add gain a charge to a max. of 4, or remove any number of charges to add an equal amount of blue to the current skill check

second:

once per session when you make a piloting planetary skill you make instead make a astrogation (willpower) to teleport the vehicle to any where in short planetary range

third:

when making a force check may make a combined knowledge check, adding further details and benefits for each uncancelled S

Edited by Stormbourne

need more info. These are too vague

4 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

need more info. These are too vague

These are the alpha draft of the base ability, I'm still working on suitable upgrade trees

But in the first case the player asked for luck

The second case the resident pilot wanted an ability to use while driving

In the third the player requested "a deeper understanding of the force"

Edited by Stormbourne

still way too vague. No one is going to really be able to tell you anything. Because 1. you dont give a design intent. So one cant say if you intent is reasonable and can't really tell if you even accomplished your goal. Also are these supposed to be signature abilities? Because it is hard to tell what you mean by unmatched ability. and if they are a signature ability what career would they belong to? because signature abilities can only be taken by someone in that career.

Edited by Daeglan
Just now, Daeglan said:

still way too vague. No one is going to really be able to tell you anything. Because 1. you dont give a design intent. So one cant say if you intent is reasonable and can't really tell if you even accomplished your goal. Also are these supposed to be signature abilities? Because it is hard to tell what you mean by unmatched ability.

Edited

yeah that is not how signature abilities work. They are attached to a talent tree in a career and they are supposed to be iconic to said career.

Daeglan is correct. We need to know which career these will attach to as well as the suggested upgrades to each of them before we can help balance them. I would be very hesitant to adding a Teleport option with Star Wars (I did just do a search and found that it is already in there but doesn't appear to include vehicles with the ability).

I also don't understand the first one at all, what do you mean by "gain a charge"

11 minutes ago, Varlie said:

Daeglan is correct. We need to know which career these will attach to as well as the suggested upgrades to each of them before we can help balance them. I would be very hesitant to adding a Teleport option with Star Wars (I did just do a search and found that it is already in there but doesn't appear to include vehicles with the ability).

I also don't understand the first one at all, what do you mean by "gain a charge"

in short they can add a black to a check so that they can add a blue to a future check

1 minute ago, Stormbourne said:

in short they can add a black to a check so that they can add a blue to a future check

Then why don't you say it like that ?

37 minutes ago, WolfRider said:

Then why don't you say it like that ?

to much MTG and Terraforming Mars

Edited by Stormbourne

So he can opt to add a Setback dice to add up to 4 boost dice or he has to add a number of black dice to one check in order to get boosts on the next one?
Is the costs for this the standard two Destiny Points?

5 minutes ago, Varlie said:

So he can opt to add a Setback dice to add up to 4 boost dice or he has to add a number of black dice to one check in order to get boosts on the next one?
Is the costs for this the standard two Destiny Points?

he can add up to 4 black dice to a single check or across multiple to add an equal number of blue to one check or again across multiple

eg.

4 black ---> 4 blue is good

1black, 2 black ----> 3 blue is fine

3 black -----> 1 blue, 1blue, 1 blue is allowed

Edited by Stormbourne

The smugglers book has a luck one may wish to look at that

the force one seems off you may wish to look at the mystic one for reroll ing force dice and adding free points though

18 minutes ago, Oldmike1 said:

The smugglers book has a luck one may wish to look at that

the force one seems off you may wish to look at the mystic one for reroll ing force dice and adding free points though

okay so the premise of this is that i wanted these to be wholly unique to the characters in addition i am drawing inspiration for these powers from a few fantasy series

the first comes from mistborn where people have the ability to store attributes like luck or strength suffering the consequences of not being lucky or strong, to latter draw upon those same attributes to become luckier or stronger for an equal amount of time

the second is from skyward where a genetic mutation (idk it's not fully explained beyond being genetic) allows select individuals to physically become part of the workings of their ship to perform several different effects most notably instantaneous travel of the ship and everything aboard

the final one is from elantris where your knowledge and understanding of magic dictates how well you perform at it

That is not teally a thing in this system. And i am not sure you can balance them as they are too broadly applicable.

On 8/11/2019 at 5:46 PM, Stormbourne said:

first:

when making a skill check may add a black to dice pool to add gain a charge to a max. of 4, or remove any number of charges to add an equal amount of blue to the current skill check

I'd change this to:

"Once per encounter as an incidental, the character may spend two Destiny Points to add two Setback die to any skill check. They can then spend a third Destiny Point to add two Boost die to one skill check this encounter."

And you could have add ons to this ability to change the number of dice, or even add straight advantages or successes. Maybe even the price. Later I'll see if I can type up something on the other two.

As an aside, I would have a house rule that requires this signature ability to be attached to a universal spec.