I was looking through the force powers today and went through a handful that haven't been taken by players in my games and was wonder if your group has powers they avoid. If they they are common maybe we can think of ways to make them better.

Endure

Alter

Conjure.

These are the 3 that have never been taken.

Endure is a must have for any PC wishing to focus on lightsaber fights and fighting talents, both melee / brawl and ranged. Alter and Conjure are a lot less useful but might be given the right situation.

At my table, it's Battle Meditation that hasn't be taken by any player. But it's logical since the campaign I run is focused on the PCs escaping the Empire while discovering how to master their connexion with the Force. There isn't enough fights that'd make this power useful.

Any of them. I've only had a couple Force-sensitive PCs in my games, and when the other PCs see how much of an xp sink they are, they leave well enough alone.

For having ran and played in at least half a dozen Force user-only campaigns, and many more with mixed group's, there's really quite a lot that I've never seen taken.

Alter

Conjure

Ebb/Flow (I'm surprised as you)

Endure

Imbue

Manipulate

Protect/Unleash (again, a little surprised)

Suppress...

I don't think I've seen any of those taken by Players. I've played a PC that I planned on going into Ebb/Flow, but the campaign ended before I got into it (which is probably the same thing behind not seeing Protect/Unleash, it's a late-game Power), and I have had just about all of those used by NPCs (except Imbue or Manipulate).

There's definitely some that I see basically EVERY campaign. Probably the ones thought of as "the core" Jedi powers... Enhance, Influence, Move, Sense. Lot of Seeks and Foresees too. A couple Heal/Harm and Farsights. And then just one offs of the rest I think...

I personally love Alter, Conjure, and Suppress, as NPC abilities. But they're all a bit of a long game and so I can see why players don't gravitate towards them.

Endure is... very specialized. It's not only purely defensive, but focuses on Crits too. And as pointed out, it only makes sense really for a heavy Lightsaber focused PC, but moreso, it only makes sense in a game where you know there is gonna be A LOT of lightsaber duels too. Whereas Sense is very broadly useable, and does stuff besides defense. I think it's just a poorly conceived Power myself.

I think there’s a reason for enhance, move, influence, and sense being the most common powers to see. If you’re playing as Jedi, or even wannabe Jedi in the galactic civil war, those powers feel like Jedi. While many other powers are awesome, a lot of them start to feel more like sorcery and magic more than subtle Jedi powers.

20 minutes ago, yoink101 said:

I think there’s a reason for enhance, move, influence, and sense being the most common powers to see. If you’re playing as Jedi, or even wannabe Jedi in the galactic civil war, those powers feel like Jedi. While many other powers are awesome, a lot of them start to feel more like sorcery and magic more than subtle Jedi powers.

I think part of it is it seems like most games stop around 300 earned xp. And those are the first powers people invest in.

no one except the big 4: influence, move, ehance and sense.

it is not surprising considering how expensive developping powers is and how rarely campaign achieve high level.

I’ve got 9 different force powers. Then again we’ve been playing for 5 years. Generally:

Force powers that enhance checks (influence, enhance, Foresee) are super popular. They also take the drama out of said checks, but that’s fine given the GM usually throws challenges at us.

move object is pretty popular but most of us avoid taking it. Never really vocalised why.

misdirect, Surpress and farsight I have, but see so little use most of the time that they might as well not exist. Though, I’ve made an incredible amount of use out of farsight as a blind PC, and I’ve used the remote sight features to some incredible effects, including tracking conversations and spying without committing to a full adventure.

So Alter was on the list for everyone, do you this this power can be made better where players will want it? Or is it not overall useful enough to bother with?

Love you hear your thoughts.

I haven't used it or seen players use it, but Alter actually looks pretty useful, especially if you're fighting melee characters. It does kinda remove the need for Survival though. It's got good utility, tactical usefulness, and above all, it's very thematic.

Thinking about it has made me want to look into building a PC that uses Alter. It's a very thematic talent. Unlike Sense, Enhance, Move, it really does give quite a bit of flavor to a PC and is a fun shtick.

Alter and Influence might be a potent combination ...

4 hours ago, Bellona said:

Alter and Influence might be a potent combination ...

How so?

Alter is actually pretty awesome. I've had a couple different NPC's who used it as their primary power. It's a really flexible (SO many control upgrades) battle field control power, right? It's analogous to what a Wizard from D&D would use to be their best-self.

Which means it's really only useful to Force Users who aren't trying to attack with their Action, right? That's a rather small subset of PCs, in my experience. Most Force User PCs do either Ranged or Lightsaber or Move/an overt attacking Force Power, Harm, Bind, whatever.

Battle field control gets over looked.

But if you slap a highly upgraded Alter on a character that has a lot of Defense and other defensive upgrades (like the Sense defensive commits), AND Improved Parry/Reflect (or especially Supreme*)... It's beautiful.

You use your Action to Alter (non-attack Action, so Supreme triggers for cheapo), and dictate the flow of battle, and you let your defense generate your damage.

Lots of fun. But also a pretty long-game goal.

4 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

How so?

They're both a form of mindgame, and the Influence might back up the effect of Alter.