This is hopefully a quick question as I'm sure I'm just overlooking something, but are there rules for detecting that someone is force-sensitive?

not exactly..Page 291 and 305 of Force and Destiny Core is all i am aware of.

There's a sidebar about handling disturbances in the Force narratively but there is no mechanical way to pick out a Force-user from a line-up or anything of that sort.

If you come up with something @P-47 Thunderbolt i'd like to see it. I often use threat/despair on force power checks to be that someone is aware of you doing something weird or even knows it to be the force.

1 minute ago, Luahk said:

If you come up with something @P-47 Thunderbolt i'd like to see it. I often use threat/despair on force power checks to be that someone is aware of you doing something weird or even knows it to be the force.

I ask a question and everyone instantly assumes I'm about to houserule something. I guess that's kinda my fault, isn't it?

I'll think about it and see what I come up with. Right now, my thoughts are that it should be linked to the Sense power and probably just be added to the base power. Something like: After spending a force pip to sense all living things in Short range, may spend two force pips to identify if any of the sensed characters within Short range are force sensitive. Then maybe add a clause like "cannot increase range of this application of the power."

Shroud is a talent which also requires a destiny flip, that conceals one’s force presence. In order for this to be of any use, it must not be too terribly difficult for force users to sense each other, feel a disturbance or something?

I usually run these checks as a perception or vigilance check (perception if they're actively looking for a force user, and vigilance to notice one if they're not actively looking) and let them add their force dice to the pool, where pips add more success.

The difficulty depends on the strength of the person they're trying to detect, how far away they are, whether they have the shroud skill or an Yslamiri (which makes it impossible) and where they are in the galaxy (e.g. I believe Yoda hid near a dark side nexus to mask his presence on Dagobah)

• Base difficulty is hard (becomes average if they have the sense or seek power)
• Add a boost die for each force rank of the person to be detected
• Add setback dice for distance
• Upgrade to challenge dice based on the strength of a force nexus (if applicable)

I have yet to work in mechanics for detecting someone familiar (Vader sensing Obi-wan on the Death Star) but maybe it just needs to be as simple as upgrading an ability die in the pool.

11 minutes ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

I have yet to work in mechanics for detecting someone familiar (Vader sensing Obi-wan on the Death Star) but maybe it just needs to be as simple as upgrading an ability die in the pool.

That situation is covered by Seek, possibly as a combined check.

8 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Something like: After spending a force pip to sense all living things in Short range, may spend two force pips to identify if any of the sensed characters within Short range are force sensitive.

Why do you want this in the game? It will undercut any sort of cat-and-mouse game between Force-sensitive PCs and Inquisitors.

6 hours ago, Edgehawk said:

Shroud is a talent which also requires a destiny flip, that conceals one’s force presence. In order for this to be of any use, it must not be too terribly difficult for force users to sense each other, feel a disturbance or something?

Shroud conceals you from Forcy ways to detect you (Sense, Farsight..., including the combat aspects of those powers) that work on everybody, not just Force-Users, and it makes it so other people do not notice your overt use of Force powers.

4 hours ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

I usually run these checks as a perception or vigilance check (perception if they're actively looking for a force user, and vigilance to notice one if they're not actively looking) and let them add their force dice to the pool, where pips add more success.

The difficulty depends on the strength of the person they're trying to detect, how far away they are, whether they have the shroud skill or an Yslamiri (which makes it impossible) and where they are in the galaxy (e.g. I believe Yoda hid near a dark side nexus to mask his presence on Dagobah)

• Base difficulty is hard (becomes average if they have the sense or seek power)
• Add a boost die for each force rank of the person to be detected
• Add setback dice for distance
• Upgrade to challenge dice based on the strength of a force nexus (if applicable)

I have yet to work in mechanics for detecting someone familiar (Vader sensing Obi-wan on the Death Star) but maybe it just needs to be as simple as upgrading an ability die in the pool.

I like your system, but I do perceive a problem. Assuming you want the player not to know there's a Force'y person about (although I've played in loads of groups where hiding info from players in addition to their characters wasn't necessary), if you ask someone to roll a Vigilance check, add their Force Dice to the pool, and give them, say 3 Boost Dice, it would be a pretty obvious guess for the player to assume there's a Force Rank 3 NPC lurking somewhere. Not necessarily a problem in many gaming groups, but worth considering, I guess.

5 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

Why do you want this in the game? It will undercut any sort of cat-and-mouse game between Force-sensitive PCs and Inquisitors.

That's an interesting side-affect I hadn't actually considered. However, it still needs to be active, the Shroud talent should fix that, and it would still require the Sense power. I don't use the Force in my games very often (and never used an Inquisitor), so I was thinking about it from a different angle entirely.

28 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That's an interesting side-affect I hadn't actually considered. However, it still needs to be active, the Shroud talent should fix that...

There is only one spec in the entire game that has Shroud.

1 minute ago, micheldebruyn said:

There is only one spec in the entire game that has Shroud.

That doesn't really matter if you're statting an NPC. If you want the Inquisitor to be undetectable from Short range (since that's as far as the power goes), you can just tack on the talent. I think the power's usefulness as an "offensive" measure is fairly conditional unless you know what you're looking for, which is why I put it in as part of the base power. It also requires 3 pips, which is a minimum of Force Rating 2, and not consistent until at least Force Rating 3 (assuming you're willing to use dark side pips).

9 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

There is only one spec in the entire game that has Shroud.

I think hermit has it, too?

41 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

However, it still needs to be active, the Shroud talent should fix that, and it would still require the Sense power.

I meant from the POV of Force sensitive PCs, if that wasn't clear. If Inkies just have to use Sense to pick out the hidden Force users from a crowd or line up, all those spy games and thriller tropes get lost and the setting as described in the books doesn't make sense.

Shroud only helps a tiny, tiny minority of PCs. And Sense is such a basic power that most Inkies would have it.

1 minute ago, Stan Fresh said:

I meant from the POV of Force sensitive PCs, if that wasn't clear. If Inkies just have to use Sense to pick out the hidden Force users from a crowd or line up, all those spy games and thriller tropes get lost and the setting as described in the books doesn't make sense.

Shroud only helps a tiny, tiny minority of PCs. And Sense is such a basic power that most Inkies would have it.

Ah, well I didn't see that as a concern since the powers (and use of the powers) is up to me as a GM, so if I don't want them to be able to do it, I just don't have them do it.

Regardless, it isn't going to be an issue in my game since I don't use Inquisitors.

2 hours ago, angelman2 said:

I like your system, but I do perceive a problem. Assuming you want the player not to know there's a Force'y person about (although I've played in loads of groups where hiding info from players in addition to their characters wasn't necessary), if you ask someone to roll a Vigilance check, add their Force Dice to the pool, and give them, say 3 Boost Dice, it would be a pretty obvious guess for the player to assume there's a Force Rank 3 NPC lurking somewhere. Not necessarily a problem in many gaming groups, but worth considering, I guess.

It's true, it requires them to not meta-game too much. A simple way of getting around it is to roll their check for them though (even though I know how people feel about that)

28 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That doesn't really matter if you're statting an NPC. If you want the Inquisitor to be undetectable from Short range (since that's as far as the power goes), you can just tack on the talent. I think the power's usefulness as an "offensive" measure is fairly conditional unless you know what you're looking for, which is why I put it in as part of the base power. It also requires 3 pips, which is a minimum of Force Rating 2, and not consistent until at least Force Rating 3 (assuming you're willing to use dark side pips).

The issue here is not undercover Inquisitors (which aren't really a thing) but Force-Sensitive PCs trying to pass for muggles while being around an Inquisitor, who gets Sense as part of the basic Inquisitor package.

3 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

The issue here is not undercover Inquisitors (which aren't really a thing) but Force-Sensitive PCs trying to pass for muggles while being around an Inquisitor, who gets Sense as part of the basic Inquisitor package.

What about the Emperor's hands? They're kinda like undercover inquisitors, but theirs are political targets rather than Jedi prey.

36 minutes ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

What about the Emperor's hands? They're kinda like undercover inquisitors, but theirs are political targets rather than Jedi prey.

They don't enter into the situation at all, since it's about Inkies and PCs sensing each other. Inkies vs mundanes isn't affected by changing how the game handles sensing Force-use(rs).

59 minutes ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

What about the Emperor's hands? They're kinda like undercover inquisitors, but theirs are political targets rather than Jedi prey.

What Stan said.

Plus, they don't exist in that way in canon anyway. The very non-Force-sensitive and extremely not undercover Gar Saxon had that title.

Just now, micheldebruyn said:

What Stan said.

Plus, they don't exist in that way in canon anyway. The very non-Force-sensitive and extremely not undercover Gar Saxon had that title.

They do exist in this game, however. Aside from that detail, they are a part of Star Wars, and thus the question is not irrelevant.

Maybe make sensing other force users not a thing you can actively do. Instead it is a passive thing based on someone using a force power and what pips and how many they use. or commiting force die.

So inquisitor is going through a market. they have a a force die commited to sense defense and are using 3 darkside pips to sense life. the jadi padawan 3 aisle could sense that. so the gm can make a roll of some sort for the player to detect it.

If neither use any force powers the odds are really low that they will detect anything as there is nothing disturbing the force

10 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Maybe make sensing other force users not a thing you can actively do. Instead it is a passive thing based on someone using a force power and what pips and how many they use. or commiting force die.

So inquisitor is going through a market. they have a a force die commited to sense defense and are using 3 darkside pips to sense life. the jadi padawan 3 aisle could sense that. so the gm can make a roll of some sort for the player to detect it.

If neither use any force powers the odds are really low that they will detect anything as there is nothing disturbing the force

That's a cool idea. The problem with that is that it doesn't really account for something like Qui-Gon sensing Anakin, which is the sort of thing I was really looking for.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That's a cool idea. The problem with that is that it doesn't really account for something like Qui-Gon sensing Anakin, which is the sort of thing I was really looking for.

Qui gon didn't sense Anakin. he deduced then ran a test