Hulk Force Power

By P-47 Thunderbolt, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

Okay. This is completely pointless, but I had a weird dream last night and it gave me this idea:

Hulk Ahem. "Dark Rage" Force Power tree:

Basic power:
The Force user can turn into a nigh-uncontrollable rage monster by tapping into the Dark Side.
As an action, the user may spend [pip] to transform into a Silhouette 2 creature with the following Characteristics, Skills, Talents, Wound Threshold, and Strain threshold: Agility 1, Brawn 4, Intellect 1, Cunning 1, Willpower 3, Presence 1. Brawl 3, Melee 2. Enduring 2, Fearsome 1, Feral Strength 1, Intimidating 1. The creature has a wound threshold of 16+Brawn and a Strain Threshold of 10+Willpower.
The character adds 2 Setback to all Charm, Leadership, and Negotiation checks. Any armor the user is wearing at the time is destroyed (at GM discretion), so you might want to invest in some super-expanding pants and some very cheap clothing.
If the character fails a Fear check, they must make a Formidable Discipline check to avoid morphing automatically as an OOT Incidental (they must still make the force power check).
The first time the character suffers any wounds in an encounter, they must make a Hard Discipline check to avoid morphing automatically as an OOT Incidental (they must still make the force power check).
If the creature is incapacitated, they revert to their original form.
Each time the user transforms, they garner 5 Conflict.

Left side:

x2 Strength (Dark Side) 5 XP :
Spend [pip] to increase Brawl equal to Strength (Dark Side) upgrades purchased. Garners 1 Conflict when activating this upgrade.

x2 Magnitude (Dark Side) 10 XP :
Spend [dark pip] to increase Brawn equal to Magnitude (Dark Side) upgrades purchased. Garners 1 Conflict when activating this upgrade.

Left middle:

x3 Strength (Light Side) 5 XP:
Spend [light pip] to increase Discipline equal to Strength (Light Side) upgrades purchased.

x1 Magnitude (Light Side) 10 XP:
Spend [light pip] to increase Willpower equal to Magnitude (Light Side) upgrades purchased.

Right middle:

Control (Light Side) 10 XP:
Spend [light pip] to maintain your Presence, Cunning, or Intellect characteristic (player's choice). May spend an additional [light pip] up to two times to maintain an additional Characteristic.

Control (Light Side) 10 XP:
Maintain your ranks in the skills linked to the Characteristic maintained.

Control (Light Side) 15 XP:
Reduce the difficulty of checks to resist turning into the "other guy" by two.

Mastery 20 XP:
Maintain all Talents.

Right side:

Control (Dark Side) 5 XP:
Maintain your Agility.

Control (Dark Side) 10 XP:
Maintain your ranks in all combat skills. Garners one Conflict at the start of every session

Control (Dark Side) 15 XP:
Add 1 rank to all of the creature's talents. Garners one Conflict at the start of every session

Mastery: (See "Right middle")

What do you think? Have I gone crazy? :P

That said, I would definitely appreciate feedback. This was a fun thought experiment, and I'd like to know if there is anything I messed up from a force power-building angle.

This tree is designed to cost a lot of conflict, but did I go overboard with it? Should I cut the initial 5 conflict cost? Ideally, this tree wouldn't be impossible for a Light Side Force-user to use without going Dark Side in one session, it should just be something challenging they have to deal with for a long period of time.

Edited by P-47 Thunderbolt
Dark Rage
17 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Okay. This is completely pointless, but I had a weird dream last night and it gave me this idea:

Hulk Force Power tree:

Basic power:
The Force user can turn into a nigh-uncontrollable rage monster by tapping into the Dark Side.
As an action, the user may spend [dark pip] to transform into a Silhouette 2 creature with the following Characteristics, Skills, Talents, Wound Threshold, and Strain threshold: Agility 1, Brawn 4, Intellect 1, Cunning 1, Willpower 3, Presence 1. Brawl 3, Melee 2. Fearsome 1, Intimidating 1, Enduring 2. The creature has a wound threshold of 16+Brawn and a Strain Threshold of 10+Willpower.
The character adds 2 Setback to all Charm, Leadership, and Negotiation checks. Any armor the user is wearing at the time is destroyed (at GM discretion), so you might want to invest in some super-expanding pants and some very cheap clothing.
If the character fails a Fear check, they must make a Formidable Discipline check to avoid morphing automatically as an OOT Incidental (they must still make the force power check).
The first time the character suffers any wounds in an encounter, they must make a Hard Discipline check to avoid morphing automatically as an OOT Incidental (they must still make the force power check).
If the creature is incapacitated, they revert to their original form.
Each time the user transforms, they garner 5 Conflict.

Left side:

x2 Strength (Dark Side) 5 XP :
Spend [dark pip] to increase Brawl equal to Strength (Dark Side) upgrades purchased.

x2 Magnitude (Dark Side) 10 XP :
Spend [dark pip] to increase Brawn equal to Magnitude (Dark Side) upgrades purchased.

Left middle:

x3 Strength (Light Side) 5 XP:
Spend [light pip] to increase Discipline equal to Strength (Light Side) upgrades purchased.

x1 Magnitude (Light Side) 10 XP:
Spend [light pip] to increase Willpower equal to Magnitude (Light Side) upgrades purchased.

Right middle:

Control (Light Side) 10 XP:
Spend [light pip] to maintain your Presence, Cunning, or Intellect characteristic (player's choice). May spend an additional [light pip] up to two times to maintain an additional Characteristic.

Control (Light Side) 10 XP:
Maintain your ranks in the skills linked to the Characteristic maintained.

Control (Light Side) 15 XP:
Reduce the difficulty of checks to resist turning into the "other guy" by two.

Mastery 20 XP:
Maintain all Talents.

Right side:

Control (Dark Side) 5 XP:
Maintain your Agility.

Control (Dark Side) 10 XP:
Maintain your ranks in all combat skills.

Control (Dark Side) 15 XP:
Add 1 rank to all of the creature's talents.

Mastery: (See "Right middle")

What do you think? Have I gone crazy? :P

That said, I would definitely appreciate feedback. This was a fun thought experiment, and I'd like to know if there is anything I messed up from a force power-building angle.

This tree is designed to cost a lot of conflict, but did I go overboard with it? Should I cut the initial 5 conflict cost? Ideally, this tree wouldn't be impossible for a Light Side Force-user to use without going Dark Side in one session, it should just be something challenging they have to deal with for a long period of time.

Force powers in this system have a duality so that if a character falls or shifts to lightside their xp doesnt become wasted. Look at heal/harm as an example. so this power needs to be built in a similar way.

20 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Force powers in this system have a duality so that if a character falls or shifts to lightside their xp doesnt become wasted. Look at heal/harm as an example. so this power needs to be built in a similar way.

How about this: change all of it to just regular pips, but Dark Side pips can't be used on the light side upgrades, and the dark side upgrades cause conflict each time they are used. Does that solve the problem?

4 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

How about this: change all of it to just regular pips, but Dark Side pips can't be used on the light side upgrades, and the dark side upgrades cause conflict each time they are used. Does that solve the problem?

That still has loss of abilities for lightsiders. All of the abilities that have a duality in heal harm for example have lightside pips can do x and darkside pips can do y. The idea is that falling to the darkside does not deminish your abilities it just changes what access you get with pips.

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

That still has loss of abilities for lightsiders. All of the abilities that have a duality in heal harm for example have lightside pips can do x and darkside pips can do y. The idea is that falling to the darkside does not deminish your abilities it just changes what access you get with pips.

The point of this, though, is that when you are Dark Side, you can "embrace your hatred" and gain significant additional power by tapping into those dark emotions, but at the cost of slipping to the Dark Side, while when you are Light Side, you can learn to control the beast to avoid slipping to the Dark Side.

The point is to have a loss of ability for both. When you are Dark Side, it is going to be harder to pull yourself out of the frenzy, harder to gain control. When you are Light Side, you won't (well, shouldn't, at least) want to give into the rage and anger.

12 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

The point of this, though, is that when you are Dark Side, you can "embrace your hatred" and gain significant additional power by tapping into those dark emotions, but at the cost of slipping to the Dark Side, while when you are Light Side, you can learn to control the beast to avoid slipping to the Dark Side.

The point is to have a loss of ability for both. When you are Dark Side, it is going to be harder to pull yourself out of the frenzy, harder to gain control. When you are Light Side, you won't (well, shouldn't, at least) want to give into the rage and anger.

yes but every node has to be useable. the difference being what pips do.

you may want to consider alternative names

  • Berserk
  • Rampage
  • Dark Rage
  • Frenzy
  • Tempest
  • Furor

Just now, kaosoe said:

you may want to consider alternative names

  • Berserk
  • Rampage
  • Dark Rage
  • Frenzy
  • Tempest
  • Furor

Yeah, "Hulk Force Power" was just a working title...

Not sure what I actually want to call it.

If you do call it something like "Dark Rage" you can then dispense with all the "Okay, but you need a lightside duality to the power" arguments.

1 minute ago, kaosoe said:

If you do call it something like "Dark Rage" you can then dispense with all the "Okay, but you need a lightside duality to the power" arguments.

Good point. I'll think about it.

Yeah, I think I'll go with Dark Rage.

The main idea behind this power would be that it is almost like an Obligation, in a way, rather than a normal force power in that it is somewhat out of your control and both benefits and harms you.

6 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

If you do call it something like "Dark Rage" you can then dispense with all the "Okay, but you need a lightside duality to the power" arguments.

Problem is none of the powers are darkside only. and they specifically didnt do that per the Devs for the reason I stated.

Just now, Daeglan said:

Problem is none of the powers are darkside only. and they specifically didnt do that per the Devs for the reason I stated.

I see your point, but this isn't an ordinary power. The very point of this tree is to have the Light Side part of the tree and the Dark Side part.

I am thinking, however, of dropping the requirement for spending dark pips on the Dark Side upgrades and simply making it a conflict cost. Thoughts?

Just now, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I see your point, but this isn't an ordinary power. The very point of this tree is to have the Light Side part of the tree and the Dark Side part.

that isnt how force trees like this are written. They are alway written such that you dont lose XP when you fall or ascend back to the lightside.

Just now, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I am thinking, however, of dropping the requirement for spending dark pips on the Dark Side upgrades and simply making it a conflict cost. Thoughts?

I think that works pretty well.

4 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Problem is none of the powers are darkside only. and they specifically didnt do that per the Devs for the reason I stated.

As the airplane said, this is strictly a darkside power for OP's table, not something intended to be published for your average Joe to use.

Just now, kaosoe said:

I think that works pretty well.

As the airplane said, this is strictly a darkside power for OP's table, not something intended to be published for your average Joe to use.

Sure. but it is a problem to cause a player to lose access to a power they spent XP on. If my gm did that to me I would be pissed. So yeah I recommend against doing that to your players.

OP probably knows their table pretty well, if he gets buy-in from the group, then I don't see a problem.

13 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

OP probably knows their table pretty well, if he gets buy-in from the group, then I don't see a problem.

I wasn't actually coming up with this for any particular purpose, this was more of a "Wow. That was a weird dream. Guess I'll stat it now!" :P
Somebody once told me that "at least you don't think about this game 24/7" at which point I declined to inform them that most of my dreams had to do with story ideas. :D

However, if this were to be used, it would be up to the individual players if they want it. Nobody's forcing it on anyone.

24 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Sure. but it is a problem to cause a player to lose access to a power they spent XP on. If my gm did that to me I would be pissed. So yeah I recommend against doing that to your players.

They don't exactly lose access, it just becomes harder to use the ability. Also, it's not the GM doing anything to anyone, it is simply a matter of having to choose whether or not you want to deal with the consequences of spending certain force pips.

This ability is, like I stated earlier, in many ways like an Obligation. It is a tool for telling a character's story, their path between light and dark as they got saddled with an ability they can't fully control.
Most likely, if I were GMing it, there wouldn't be any XP expenditure to buy into it. If a player was interested, they might get it for free as part of their backstory or come across a Sith Holocron that corrupts them when they open it and gives them that second personality/form. Or something to that effect, at least.

On Kaosoe's recommendation, I'm going to go ahead and change it so that you don't have to use dark pips, but you garner Conflict each time you activate a Dark Side upgrade.

It's currently set that every time you activate this power, you gain 5 conflict. I feel like that's too much. Should I reduce it, or scrap it altogether?

Also, two of the Dark Side Control upgrades are Conflict talents that give 1 Conflict every session. Because they are passive, I figured that's the best way to do that. Are there any alternatives I should consider? I didn't attach a Conflict cost to maintaining Agility, though.

I also added Feral Strength so that his damage goes up when he gets the upgrade that increases his talents. Is this overkill?

Edited by P-47 Thunderbolt

I like the dark rage idea, but not sure about the transformation into a sil 2 beast. Has this power ever happened in SW?

Edited by CloudyLemonade92
2 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

I like the dark rage idea, but not sure about the transformation into a sil 2 beast. Has this power ever happened in SW?

This is really just Hulk as a Jedi. Sil 2 is take-it-or-leave-it and could really go either way, but I figured that if a Whiphid is Sil 2, then Hulk is Sil 2.

5 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Okay. This is completely pointless, but I had a weird dream last night and it gave me this idea:

Hulk Ahem. "Dark Rage" Force Power tree:

Basic power:
The Force user can turn into a nigh-uncontrollable rage monster by tapping into the Dark Side.
As an action, the user may spend [dark pip] to transform into a Silhouette 2 creature with the following Characteristics, Skills, Talents, Wound Threshold, and Strain threshold: Agility 1, Brawn 4, Intellect 1, Cunning 1, Willpower 3, Presence 1. Brawl 3, Melee 2. Enduring 2, Fearsome 1, Feral Strength 1, Intimidating 1. The creature has a wound threshold of 16+Brawn and a Strain Threshold of 10+Willpower.
The character adds 2 Setback to all Charm, Leadership, and Negotiation checks. Any armor the user is wearing at the time is destroyed (at GM discretion), so you might want to invest in some super-expanding pants and some very cheap clothing.
If the character fails a Fear check, they must make a Formidable Discipline check to avoid morphing automatically as an OOT Incidental (they must still make the force power check).
The first time the character suffers any wounds in an encounter, they must make a Hard Discipline check to avoid morphing automatically as an OOT Incidental (they must still make the force power check).
If the creature is incapacitated, they revert to their original form.
Each time the user transforms, they garner 5 Conflict.

Left side:

x2 Strength (Dark Side) 5 XP :
Spend [pip] to increase Brawl equal to Strength (Dark Side) upgrades purchased. Garners 1 Conflict when activating this upgrade.

x2 Magnitude (Dark Side) 10 XP :
Spend [dark pip] to increase Brawn equal to Magnitude (Dark Side) upgrades purchased. Garners 1 Conflict when activating this upgrade.

Left middle:

x3 Strength (Light Side) 5 XP:
Spend [light pip] to increase Discipline equal to Strength (Light Side) upgrades purchased.

x1 Magnitude (Light Side) 10 XP:
Spend [light pip] to increase Willpower equal to Magnitude (Light Side) upgrades purchased.

Right middle:

Control (Light Side) 10 XP:
Spend [light pip] to maintain your Presence, Cunning, or Intellect characteristic (player's choice). May spend an additional [light pip] up to two times to maintain an additional Characteristic.

Control (Light Side) 10 XP:
Maintain your ranks in the skills linked to the Characteristic maintained.

Control (Light Side) 15 XP:
Reduce the difficulty of checks to resist turning into the "other guy" by two.

Mastery 20 XP:
Maintain all Talents.

Right side:

Control (Dark Side) 5 XP:
Maintain your Agility.

Control (Dark Side) 10 XP:
Maintain your ranks in all combat skills. Garners one Conflict at the start of every session

Control (Dark Side) 15 XP:
Add 1 rank to all of the creature's talents. Garners one Conflict at the start of every session

Mastery: (See "Right middle")

What do you think? Have I gone crazy? :P

That said, I would definitely appreciate feedback. This was a fun thought experiment, and I'd like to know if there is anything I messed up from a force power-building angle.

This tree is designed to cost a lot of conflict, but did I go overboard with it? Should I cut the initial 5 conflict cost? Ideally, this tree wouldn't be impossible for a Light Side Force-user to use without going Dark Side in one session, it should just be something challenging they have to deal with for a long period of time.

You say "crazy" like it's a bad thing. :P

Going back to D6 roots, a light/dark power would be Emptiness/Rage. One increases control at the expense of raw power by subduing emotion while the other spikes passion to increase power at the expense of control. Neither should really cause physical changes/growth, but if you want high magic instead of more mystical abilities, do what you will.

While I might not let a PC do this an NPC or a group of NPCs with this ability would be great.

A group of purple robed people who don't carry weapons but suddenly expand to fight if they are annoyed would be fun.