Mechanics for the missing Force Powers

By DarthKaage, in Star Wars: Force and Destiny RPG

So I was thinking about the canon force Powers that have yet to show up in the game and came up with the list below. I think it would be fun to have mechanics for most of these powers, but I am no good at these things, so I am putting out here for you fine folks to take a stab at. I think in a lot of cases they could just be an additional upgrade on existing powers but is some cases maybe we want a whole new power tree. I think the missing powers are:

  • Weather manipulation, like the Bendu uses in Rebels. Maybe an additional upgrade to Alter would suffice.
  • Slow or Freeze objects and energy, this would be for Kylo’s antics with the blaster and Cal Kestis’ ability in Fallen Order. Could run of Bind or maybe a new power is needed here.
  • Force Speed, from the prequel trilogy and other places. I think I would just call this a narrative alternative to Jump in the Enhance power.
  • Psychometry / Sense Echo, this would be for Quinlan Vos and Cal Kestis. There are a couple of homemade trees floating around here already on this and I think I would use one or both of them. Although it could be an additional upgrade to Foresee maybe.
  • Force Projections that affect the physical world, Luke’s abilities in Last Jedi. Maybe an upgrade to Misdirect.
  • Levitation or Flying, Leia in Last Jedi or Rey in Rise. Just allowing Move to be done on yourself probably works or an upgrade could be included to cover that if we want them to spend more xp on it.
  • Projective Telepathy like in the force bond of Kylo and Rey and I am sure it has turned up in other places, but it does seem like it should be included. Maybe an upgrade to Sense.
  • Suppressing the force in yourself, like Luke in Last Jedi or Cal Kestis in Fallen Order. I am not sure this is needed at all but could be added to Suppress maybe.
  • Teleportation, like the Nightsisters in Clone Wars and Fallen Order and Kylo and Rey’s lightsaber teleporting. This probably needs a whole new tree with a hefty force rating pre-requisite.
  • Force Spirit / Transfer Essence, like the many Force Ghosts and The Emperors transfer into a clone body. I would not do anything for this as it should really just be a story element.

Have fun.

Edited by DarthKaage
2 hours ago, DarthKaage said:
  • Slow or Freeze objects and energy, this would be for Kylo’s antics with the blaster and Cal Kestis’ ability in Fallen Order. Could run of Bind or maybe a new power is needed here.

This has been discussed as a narrative description of Protect, possibly Protect by someone who also has Bind. Mechanically the Protect power, but narratively similar to Bind.

2 hours ago, DarthKaage said:
  • Force Speed, from the prequel trilogy and other places. I think I would just call this a narrative alternative to Jump in the Enhance power.

That would be narrative flair of the horizontal version of Force leap from Enhance.

2 hours ago, DarthKaage said:
  • Psychometry / Sense Echo, this would be for Quinlan Vos and Cal Kestis. There are a couple of homemade trees floating around here already on this and I think I would use one or both of them. Although it could be an additional upgrade to Foresee maybe.

@Donovan Morningfire and @Nytwyng have come up with custom powers for this.

2 hours ago, DarthKaage said:
  • Suppressing the force in yourself, like Luke in Last Jedi or Cal Kestis in Fallen Order. I am not sure this is needed at all but could be added to Suppress maybe.
  • Force Spirit / Transfer Essence, like the many Force Ghosts and The Emperors transfer into a clone body. I would not do anything for this as it should really just be a story element.

These two should both be story elements. In what situation does suppressing your Force abilities have any effect beyond what choosing not to use them would? (mechanically speaking)

2 hours ago, DarthKaage said:
  • Force Projections that affect the physical world, Luke’s abilities in Last Jedi. Maybe an upgrade to Misdirect.
  • Projective Telepathy like in the force bond of Kylo and Rey and I am sure it has turned up in other places, but it does seem like it should be included. Maybe an upgrade to Sense.
  • Teleportation, like the Nightsisters in Clone Wars and Fallen Order and Kylo and Rey’s lightsaber teleporting. This probably needs a whole new tree with a hefty force rating pre-requisite.

These three could probably be part of the same power, but I don't think the first one is one that should be statted for use in game. Best to be a narrative ability by an NPC (and that's what Luke was in TLJ).

I don't remember the nightsisters teleporting. I know Mother Talzin did a sort of Force ghost manifesting thing after she had sort of died, but I don't remember any actual teleportation.

Edited by P-47 Thunderbolt
Wrong guy! :D

I feel like at times you're missing a key factor in that, it doesn't matter what the power "looks like" - the system has the narrative flexibility to adjust that as needed, what matters is what it actually does...

1 hour ago, DarthKaage said:

Weather manipulation, like the Bendu uses in Rebels. Maybe an additional upgrade to Alter would suffice.

Not familiar with the show. What does Bendu do with the altered weather?

In Legends, I know there were "Force storms" on Bendu Nexus planets like Tython that could do anything from create lightning strikes, and other "natural" seeming phenomenon (earthquakes, animals going crazy, etc.), is it a broad thing like that, or an effect directed at a specific target?

Anyway, point is - it's not important that in the narrative Bendu is using the weather to do something, what's important is the effect it has. Look at that for your guide.

1 hour ago, DarthKaage said:

Slow or Freeze objects and energy, this would be for Kylo’s antics with the blaster and Cal Kestis’ ability in Fallen Order. Could run of Bind or maybe a new power is needed here.

All already exist.

As mentioned, this has been discussed at length, as well as addressed by devs. Slowing or freezing inanimate objects and machinery is likely Move, though could be other narrative flavorings of other Powers or Talents depending on the circumstance. Slowing/freezing N/PCs is Bind or Move. Energy is a narrative flavoring of Protect or conceivable other defensive Powers/Talents.

1 hour ago, DarthKaage said:

Force Projections that affect the physical world, Luke’s abilities in Last Jedi.

🤮 🤮 🤮

Oof, pardon me... don't know what came over me there.

Though could conceivably be a generous GM allowing - for a couple Destiny? - a long distance/galactic range Conjure with Mastery upgrade.

1 hour ago, DarthKaage said:

Levitation or Flying, Leia in Last Jedi or Rey in Rise. Just allowing Move to be done on yourself probably works or an upgrade could be included to cover that if we want them to spend more xp on it.

Just wanted to point out, this is already RAW. You would be "allowing" RAW. You can target yourself with Move by RAW. No need to make it cost more XP, cuz it's already a Conflict trap in my experience. If someone is using Move to move themself, they probably need or really want to do it, so they're gonna take whatever pips they get. This is a good thing.

Let Force Powers and Conflict do their things.

1 hour ago, DarthKaage said:

Projective Telepathy like in the force bond of Kylo and Rey and I am sure it has turned up in other places, but it does seem like it should be included. Maybe an upgrade to Sense.

Already exists.

Narrative flavoring of Influence to project your thoughts. Or the literal Read Thoughts Control upgrade of Sense. They're just "thinking" a conversation back and forth.

1 hour ago, DarthKaage said:

Suppressing the force in yourself, like Luke in Last Jedi or Cal Kestis in Fallen Order. I am not sure this is needed at all but could be added to Suppress maybe

There is the Shroud Talent, for making yourself undetectable by the Force.

But just suppressing/not using the Force is just choosing to not use the Force. No Power necessary.

1 hour ago, DarthKaage said:

Teleportation, like the Nightsisters in Clone Wars and Fallen Order and Kylo and Rey’s lightsaber teleporting. This probably needs a whole new tree with a hefty force rating pre-requisite.

Not familiar with how it manifests for the Nightsisters in Close Wars or Fallen Order, but if it's a Nightcrawler-like attack avoidance technique, or Batman-like exit/entry, just sounds like narrative flavoring of Misdirect - an illusory self and invisibility shroud to position yourself tactically, or just poofing invisible and walking away.

If it's actual long distance instantaneous travel, like Rey's Lightsaber...

🤮 🤮 🤮

Oof, oh my, excuse me.

Could conceivably be a generous GM with special Destiny use.

1 hour ago, DarthKaage said:

Force Spirit / Transfer Essence, like the many Force Ghosts and The Emperors transfer into a clone body. I would not do anything for this as it should really just be a story element.

Force Ghosts are a narrative thing.

And the life transfer already exists and is just narrative flavoring of the Heal/Harm power Mastery upgrade that brings someone back to life.

Next to nothing in canon requires a new Power (and absolutely nothing that would "require" it is actually worth doing so, cuz it's vomit-inducing drek, IMHO, of course 😜 ).

Edited by emsquared

The problem is that powers and power level vary between media. Comic books and the Force Unleashed video games are prime examples of what the Force isn't and shouldn't be - super hero powers. I say that only to bring up my point, in that you should be careful of what you want to introduce into an RPG and allow players to do. If the Force is too strong, there isn't much point in interacting with NPCs or engaging in scenes when you can just crush a Star Destroyer with your hand.

Main culprit on your list of new "canon" is the teleport.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

@Jegergryte have come up with custom powers for this.

I did? Cool. :ph34r: I can't recall, but I most definitely may have participated in the discussion.

I think P-47 has all the bases covered here.

8 minutes ago, Jegergryte said:

I did? Cool. :ph34r: I can't recall, but I most definitely may have participated in the discussion.

Oops, sorry. I think you were involved, but I was thinking of @Nytwyng . :D

2 hours ago, emsquared said:

3 hours ago, DarthKaage said:

Projective Telepathy like in the force bond of Kylo and Rey and I am sure it has turned up in other places, but it does seem like it should be included. Maybe an upgrade to Sense.

Already exists.

Narrative flavoring of Influence to project your thoughts. Or the literal Read Thoughts Control upgrade of Sense. They're just "thinking" a conversation back and forth.

This does kinda exist, but there are examples of a force power being used beyond the scope of what I would consider to be covered by the trees, which can be covered by narrative but mechanically breaks the rules.

One such example is Luke calling to Leia on cloud city for her to find her. Well outside of the range bands and very specific, and because there's a special connection that exists between then. (This would also be the case for the lightsaber teleportation in IX 🤮 )

I wouldn't want to see these as additional skill trees, but I think it would be good to have something that governs the nature of special relationships between two people, or a person and an object (e.g. with a relative, a padawan, or a lightsaber they've had for many years) because I see it come up in the Extended Universe and would like to enable my players to make use of it more in games without accidentally breaking the game.

8 minutes ago, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

One such example is Luke calling to Leia on cloud city for her to find her.

This too has been brought up before, it's narrative flair on Seek.

Leia doesn't know she can use the Force, but does so instinctively, Luke crying out was the narrative flair.

Edited by emsquared

Examples of the Fallen Order Nightsister Teleportation can be seen in this video. She frequently teleports herself and sometimes others around the planet. Ranges are not terrible long, and I suppose you could still flavor Jump to do this, but where is the fun in that. I thought a power to cover this and Rey in one package might be warranted.

I feel like they did this in the Clone Wars show as well, but I haven't seen it is a while and could not quickly find one on youtube.

10 minutes ago, DarthKaage said:

She frequently teleports herself and sometimes others around the planet. Ranges are not terrible long, and I suppose you could still flavor Jump to do this, but where is the fun in that

Yea, not gonna watch an 11 minute video to find the examples, mainly cuz it just sounds like pretty obvious, horribly lazy plot device/writing to me (Oh geez, how can we make this scenario work? Teleport! Duh. 🙄 ), like so much recent official "stuff" ... but...

Admittedly, I have done some... fantastic ... things with Force artefacts. It's an aspect I enjoy exploring in my campaigns.

Specifically RE: teleportation, I had a campaign with basically a Force-Stargate. Created by the Rakata aeons ago to connect Force nexii. Found by my PCs exploring an ancient ruin while looking for something else.

They were able to discern that it was some sort of gate, but no idea to where, they of course went through, ended up in the Unknown Regions, it was hilarious. Found a long lost clan of Rakata, stranded in the Unknown, who had lost the Force like all their race, etc. PCs eventually found another gate they learned to use/control to get back to the known Galaxy.

Tons of fun.

But point is...

When I made that up, I figured; "Eh, this isn't that great of a leap from the Rakata's Force-powered hyper-drives. So why not?" And I guess what you're describing is not that great of a leap from either of those things. Really even considerably lesser in magnitude ... so... eh, whatever, I guess? ... Maybe that capability is out there on a personal level?

Or maybe she has an artefact and we just never know it? That's probably what my head canon will be for that, because personally the alternative for me is... 🤮 oops, sorry, threw up in my mouth a little... just beyond my tastes.

It's just too powerful and flexible. Could easily take away too much gameplay. Too fantastic.

YMMV of course.

The “Force projection” Luke uses in TLJ, also known canonically as “Doppelgänger”, is covered in the game by the Misdirect Force Power, specifically the control upgrade that allows you to create illusions. The only “difference”, such as it is, is the range at which Luke projects his illusion, and the fact that even C3PO can see the doppelgänger.

28 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The “Force projection” Luke uses in TLJ, also known canonically as “Doppelgänger”, is covered in the game by the Misdirect Force Power, specifically the control upgrade that allows you to create illusions. The only “difference”, such as it is, is the range at which Luke projects his illusion, and the fact that even C3PO can see the doppelgänger.

He was able to physically interact with his surroundings, though. I don't think you can do that with Misdirect.

Maybe a combination of Conjure and Misdirect with eighty-five million range upgrades?

1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

He was able to physically interact with his surroundings, though. I don't think you can do that with Misdirect.

Maybe a combination of Conjure and Misdirect with eighty-five million range upgrades?

Conjure doesn’t let you do that though. The base power only lets you conjure up an object, while the Mastery upgrade in question allows you to conjure up a non-sentient facsimile creature, and only lasts until the end of the user’s next turn. It doesn’t create a doppelgänger. Misdirect can create a doppelgänger.

As for Luke’s doppelgänger physically interacting with his environment, did it really? Are you absolutely certain that is true? Let’s look at the fight scene in particular, if Luke’s doppelgänger was actually interacting physically with its environment then it would have left footprints in the salt, yet it didn’t. And, if you’re referring to his kiss for Leia, what makes you think she actually felt anything?

40 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Conjure doesn’t let you do that though. The base power only lets you conjure up an object, while the Mastery upgrade in question allows you to conjure up a non-sentient facsimile creature, and only lasts until the end of the user’s next turn. It doesn’t create a doppelgänger. Misdirect can create a doppelgänger.

As for Luke’s doppelgänger physically interacting with his environment, did it really? Are you absolutely certain that is true? Let’s look at the fight scene in particular, if Luke’s doppelgänger was actually interacting physically with its environment then it would have left footprints in the salt, yet it didn’t. And, if you’re referring to his kiss for Leia, what makes you think she actually felt anything?

You are correct, I remembered the scene backwards (partly because I haven't watched it since it came out). I thought they made a point of showing that he left footprints when he didn't really. I was basing most of my point off of that in particular, and I don't remember the rest of the scene well enough to argue the point from a different angle.

However, to my point about Conjure and Misdirect, I was not saying use Conjure instead of Misdirect, I was saying combine the two. Create a doppelganger with Misdirect, then give it form with Conjure.

1 minute ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

You are correct, I remembered the scene backwards (partly because I haven't watched it since it came out). I thought they made a point of showing that he left footprints when he didn't really. I was basing most of my point off of that in particular, and I don't remember the rest of the scene well enough to argue the point from a different angle.

However, to my point about Conjure and Misdirect, I was not saying use Conjure instead of Misdirect, I was saying combine the two. Create a doppelganger with Misdirect, then give it form with Conjure.

The rules don’t allow you to combine multiple Force powers, just as you can’t combine multiple skills in a single roll.

And that's when Destiny points become useful. Spend one or two and everything we see in the movies becomes possible.

36 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The rules don’t allow you to combine multiple Force powers, just as you can’t combine multiple skills in a single roll.

I am aware, but I sometimes do it anyway. With Force powers, it is generally something passive like Heal/Harm working on droids because you have Manipulate.

In the case of skills, it's generally just swapping a characteristic like Stealth/Skulduggery being Stealth with Cunning or Skulduggery with Agility.

Manipulate already allows you to heal droids.

9 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Manipulate already allows you to heal droids.

Not really, and you're missing the point.

2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

As for Luke’s doppelgänger physically interacting with his environment, did it really? Are you absolutely certain that is true? Let’s look at the fight scene in particular, if Luke’s doppelgänger was actually interacting physically with its environment then it would have left footprints in the salt, yet it didn’t. And, if you’re referring to his kiss for Leia, what makes you think she actually felt anything?

Didn't he hand her the dice though?

Edited by DarthKaage
1 minute ago, DarthKaage said:

Didn't he hand her the dice though?

Yeah, but there's a significant look from her the moment he "touches" her hand. Could be about the dice he is handing her, could be because she realizes he's not really there.

Later on Kylo picks up the dice and they disappear in his hand, proving to be yet another illusion.

59 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Not really, and you're missing the point.

No, I’m not, and yes, it does. Manipulate includes a control upgrade that allows you to heal wounds on a droid and includes a strength upgrade which increases the number of wounds healed.

21 minutes ago, DarthKaage said:

Didn't he hand her the dice though?

Yes, but as stated below, those dice themselves were illusory.

12 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Yeah, but there's a significant look from her the moment he "touches" her hand. Could be about the dice he is handing her, could be because she realizes he's not really there.

Later on Kylo picks up the dice and they disappear in his hand, proving to be yet another illusion.

Precisely.

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, I’m not, and yes, it does. Manipulate includes a control upgrade that allows you to heal wounds on a droid and includes a strength upgrade which increases the number of wounds healed.

Yes, you are, and no, not really. What about the Harm half of the power?

The point you are missing is that it is a singular example of a broader point. There are other abilities like Misdirect, Imbue, and Ebb/Flow that would not work on a droid, but as a GM, I might allow them to if the player has Manipulate as well.

18 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

There are other abilities like Misdirect, Imbue, and Ebb/Flow that would not work on a droid, but as a GM, I might allow them to if the player has Manipulate as well.

Yeah. This is going to be a potential issue in my ongoing campaign. I've a got a droid player, and a heavy Force-related plot for one of the PCs. The easiest way is to always split them up, but this discussion on combined checks gave me some ideas.

I think I'd let a player with Manipulate use certain Force powers that normally would useless on droids, like Misdirect, on droids if they have any fitting and relevant upgrades, but without a second roll. Perhaps too kind, but its easier. I also ignore most Perception checks that aren't risky - going straight off their skill ranks instead when appropriate (see EotE CRB page 322-323).

As for combined skill checks, that's a thing. It's two-weapon fighting. Last paragraph on page 217 in F&D core book, end of first sentence. There's no reason not to use this mechanic in other, appropriate instances.