Dulahan said:

Vader looks like he's tossing a large-desk-sized object every turn. Maybe the real problem is the damage it's doing.

What's your issue with Mind Trick?

Force Powers are not talent trees. If they were, their features would be listed in the talent section. Its clear that they intend for PCs to be able to know more than 3 distinct force powers (otherwise about every jedi we see in the movies is breaking the rules).

At this point, it really is just a matter of accepting that there is a very good reason this book doesn't intend Jedi characters to be used alongside "normal" characters.

Once again, my major qualm is the effectiveness of spent XP. That a force user will exponentially be more effective when allowed to put points into those powers. Yes, it can be gated by access, but if thats the case, then the force user can still train in other areas, and just spend a little xp every time the GM does let them past the next gate.

Also, on my comparison to a blaster rifle, one of the main points I was also trying to make is that pretty much, as long as the party has a destiny point available and the character can suffer strain, an offensive power like force movement is quite dangerous.

I'd say tweak the XP values of force Powers. If its 10xp to train the first box, make that the listing on the first row, then set the next row to 15, then 20, 25, and 30. That way it takes a fairly major XP expenditure to get to the "broken" point, while still highlighting just how crazy powerful the force can be. Still, it would allow other PCs to have their own effective abilities (or rather, pile of other talents).

I don't think it's enough to simply increase xp cost. Perhaps it should cost a force dot per size attacked with and a force dot per range tossed and per item tossed. This makes it really difficult for a low Force Sthenghth character to do rediculus stunts but still rarely possible. It also makes increasing your force strength via the FSE tree worthwhile. Increasing xp costs in addition seems like a fine plan though.

KommissarK said:

I dunno, we're seeing them laid out in tree format. And the book isn't about the Jedi, the book is about the Outer Rim.

cetiken said:

Wouldn't that also make it impossible to throw anything over Size 2? Or am I misinterpreting how Force Rating works?

If it did limit Size, that seems the ideal solution.

cetiken said:

I actually really like this idea. One thing I had considered was limiting the attack to objects of size 2 or less. There really haven''t been any depictions in the movies of jedi throwing (as an attack) anything larger than say the senate chamber skimmers, and those are about size 2 (or at least, smaller than a rancor).

Although it does make Yoda's apparent expectation that Luke could move the X-wing out of the swamp something of an actually impossible task for Luke (maybe Yoda was just a bad judge of other people's force power).

But yes, maybe forcing the amount of light side points required for each strength increases is a pretty nice solution (maybe even do it for the magnitude increases as well).

@TheRedBaron

It just means that anything over Size 2 requires having Force Power 2. It could still be possible, but the chances of throwing it without using the Dark Side are pretty slim.

Dulahan said:

Exactly.

If we do our jobs, and the designers do theirs, no GM will ever have to veto a build that was made legimately within the rules because it's overpowering. It should simply not be possible to make a character that broken right out of the gate.

cetiken said:

Good suggestion, Ceti, as long as this does not make it too easy for characters with, say, Force ratings of 3-5, who I could call middle of the road Jedi and Sith.

In my opinion, picking up and moving a starfighter is something only a top-level master of the Force should ever be able to pull off.

TheRedBaron said:

Short of GM fiat, there is no defense against it. Period. As someone said in one of these threads, you could have a fight going on, first one to Mind Trick wins "You should be on my side." It's that powerful right now. So you win initiative against Vader? You WIN!

A good point, particularly given that Obi-Wan qualifies that "The force can have a strong influance on the weak minded."

Even if it wasn't opposed, I'd agree that it should get more difficult depending on the willpower and species targeted, as well as potentialy their own Force Ability. Perhaps make each point (or 2 full points) of willpower a disadvantage, as well as targeting a Hutt or Force User.

A notion in regards to "limiting" the advancement of Force Powers.

Instead of jacking up the XP costs, simply add a caveat that you can only purchase Upgrades with an XP cost equal to or less than your Force Rating x5. This at least keeps the higher-end upgrades out of the hands of starting PCs.

In so far as Move goes, I had a thought earlier similar to what cetiken offered. For the attack upgrade of Move, instead of it just costing 1 Force Point, you instead have to pay an additional 1 FP for a total of 2 FPs to use that feature; 1 to lift the object, and a second to attack with it. While most of the Light Side pips have two pips, this at least keeps a PC from just taking a point of Strain and flipping a destiny point in order to unleash the telekinetic fury.

The only weakness to that, Donovan, is that currently 2 is the hypothetical max, unless Determination allows you to raise the Force (Which there's no clear cut answer on) or you really game the system by dropping and re-taking the Force Spec over and over (Which is a different issue I think should and will likely be dealt with in the beta, so not something that should be given as a how). So it would functionally keep ALL that tier permanently out of the PC's hands. Unless a new way to raise force rating is made (Which is another issue I do think is needed, and is extensively argued in a different thread by me and others)

Dulahan said:

Actually it wouldn't keep the 10XP talents out of PC hands, because there is the Force Rating talent for 25 XP on the Force Exile tree, increasing one's Force Rating to 2. And unless they've radically changed basic math since I was in grade school, 10 = 5 x 2. It just means that getting those 10 XP upgrades is a bit more expensive in the long run since you've got to run thru a decent chunk of the Force Exile talent tree first.

I would be mildly surprised if there weren't Force Power upgrades that cost more than 10 XP in future supplements, but those will probably come along with other Force-based Specializations which are bound to include the Force Rating talent as well.

Whoops, I confused myself and was thinking the bottom of the Force Power trees were 25 XP costs just like the Talents.

EDIT: Though I do remind! We shouldn't make presumptions about what is to come in the Beta. We should try to point out solutions based only on what we know already. This is about the Force Sensitive Exile Spec, not the presumption of new Force Specialties and Careers down the road.

Dulahan said:

No worries. I had to double-check myself to make sure there weren't some 15 XP entries that I'd overlooked.

While I agree that we should not make any great assumptions about the content of the upcoming books, we also can't ignore their existence. I think a major part of the question at this point is exactly where we draw the line on Force Ability. How strong of a Force User is appropriate & necessary for an Imperial Era, Outer Rim, Fringe-worlds game that does not include long lost Jedi masters (like Yoda and Obi-wan).

While I know that I'm fairly on one side of the coin, I personally think there doesn't need to be a lot of Force in this book, just enough for Luke to do what he does on Hoth (concentrate and summon a lightsaber to his hand) or what he did around Yavin (hit a very difficult target). Maybe even a little episode 1 Anakin (react at super-human speeds).

Actually, the Control Upgrade on "Influence" does cost 15 since it takes up 3 columns, it's just in the 5 point cost, but that is the question of how you wanted to divide that.

Beyond that, I think that does bring up another point. the costs for the Force Powers that take up multiple columns should be better delineated than a brief line earlier on.

Dulahan said:

I read that entry as being 5 XP, but with two different means of reaching it rather than the typical method used by talent trees. But having it cost double tor triple the XP… I'm sorry, but that is frelling ridiculous. It's already prohibitive enough to be a Force-user in this game, but that's just being down right petty.

Agree that it could use some clarification other than a single line that is very easily overlooked.

Quicksilver,
You've got a very good point. Unless FFG were to suffer some sudden and company-ending catastrophe, Edge of the Empire isn't meant to be a stand-alone game that encompasses everything Star Wars, merely the first in a series of games.

Donovan Morningfire said:

How is it prohibitive? Its already been shown that a Force User can wreck faces without any problems or XP shortages.

Inksplat said:

Um… no. It's been shown there is a completely different issue with the Force that needs to be fixed. You honestly believe that stuff is going to keep going as is? I wager within the first update or two we'll have the Force powers mentioned significantly nerfed. (And the only reason it might not make the first is likely that it is a major change that might take a bit of extra time to get things tweaked for the beta)

And it's prohibitive because by the fluff and rules, you can never get a force rating higher than a Padawan.

I'm not saying add new powers. I'm not saying anything else. Just letting us be able to raise our Force Rating. Leave the new powers for later books. After all, the Force and one's power in it is only partially due to training. Another major part is natural ability.

Inksplat said:

I think that's the problem.

That particular paragraph reads like it's a half-assed afterthought of an attempt to keep Force-users from being overpowering by making their abilities cost more, when that's really only a minor stumbling block at best, and if anything even encourages Force-user PCs from specializing in their powers instead of branching out into talents and skills that don't have anything to do with the Force, turning them into the one-trick ponies that have been outright despised in prior versions of Star Wars RPGs.

Frankly, they really do need to come up with some method of directly resisting Force powers if they want to avoid the "Jedi = insta-win" that became an issue with all the prior Star Wars RPGs. The old D6 version had it especially bad, but that was due to the system not really being designed for extensive campaign play, but that's a discussion for another thread.

Granted, part of the trick is finding a way that keeps the experienced Force-users from steamrolling everything but not totally gimping the entry-level Force-users in the process, or vice versa.

Dulahan said:

I'm not supporting the current anything about Force powers. Donovan said higher cost of powers was stupid because its already prohibitive to be a Force User. Which is wrong. Currently it is anything but prohibitive.

You keep arguing that the force rating leaves you at Padawan level. But the actual abilities don't back up the fluff. Fluff says 2 Force Rating = Padawan, and you are stuck on that, despite the fact that current powers are Jedi Master-level.

Now, to be clear, again, I'm not defending that or suggesting that it doesn't need to be fixed. I'm just replying to the fact that, CURRENTLY, it is not in any way prohibitive to be a Force User in the mechanical sense. You can always just flip a light side token and take a stress, and boom, you're a death machine for ridiculously low XP.

And one more time for good measure, I'm not saying that is okay. I'm just arguing against the statement that it is currently mechanically prohibitive to be a Force User, and so Force Powers should actually be CHEAPER than they are (which is what Donovan suggested).

But I absolutely think that Force Powers need to be reigned in. Once you can make Force Rating 2 actually restrict a character to Padawan-level feats, then sure, open up the ability to raise Force Rating. But as it is, Force Rating means nothing, because once you hit FR2, you're already able to do ridiculous feats, and there's no reason to go higher, except to keep yourself from taking a strain every now and then.

Follow-up thought, based on something I suggested earlier as a better way to balance Force Powers than artificial XP hike.

For any Force Powers that directly impacts the target, such as reading emotions/thoughts via Sense and any usage of Influence or Move, the target rolls Willpower, with a Difficulty equal to the Force-user's Force Rating + Force Point cost of the power. If the would-be victim score a number of successes equal to or greater than that value, then they're not affected by the power, with any Advantage or Threat assigned as player or GM feels is appropriate.

So in the case of Move and the example of Cale hurling big ol' crates at Boba Fett, using the above Fett would get to roll his Willpower (I'll use the Master Hunter from the Adversary as a placeholder), which is a 3. Now Cale only has a Force Rating of 1, and using the power takes 1 Force Point, so he's rolling against an Average Difficulty. We'll say that Fett rolls like a boss, and easily nets himself the required two successes with room to spare. That means Cale's hurled Crate of Doomy-Filled Dooms (patent pending) missed. This also means that a high-tier Force-user like Yoda, Darth Vader, Mace Windu, or the Emperor is somebody to be pants-wettingly terrified of, and with good reason. Heck, even Grand Master Luke Skywalker tops the list of "People You Do Not Screw With" by the time of the NJO and Legacy Eras.

Now the reason I didn't include the other aspect of Sense, increasing the difficulty of an attacker's roll, was that it already has a pretty steep cost, in that it's going to take a dozen sessions for a Force-user to get their Force Rating up to a point where they can use that ability and still be able to do other Force stuff; they're effectively exchanging their ability to use other Force Powers while only getting a handful of chances to up the difficulty of one attack roll, and even that may not matter depending on how the difficulty dice fall.

Again, just thinking out loud as it were, and FFG has full permission to take the above notion and run with it if they so desire.

Dulahan said:

There's no need for it, and you've seen the xp expenditure needed to raise your Force Rating. Just have the character drop another expenditure on the Talent.

Higher than Padawan level is completely unnecessary, and if they powers are going to be restructured so that higher level power talents cost more Force points (which seems a pretty simple solution), it'd break the game.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I played this a few years ago and it was my experience that Jedi kind of sucked in that game, when compared to a pure gunner character. Our party's soldier just dumped all his upgrades into the Blaster skill and had 8d in it.He could mow down a whole bunch of guys, while my Jedi had to walk up to an enemy to get into melee, then hit him with my weak lightsaber, and then the guy I was in melee with would just walk away without penalty on his turn, since the game had no attacks of opportunity. It was really aggravating because the game penalized you for taking more than one action, and walking up to an enemy to melee them counted as an action, so my lightsaber wielder was pretty much always taking penalties.

Anyway, sorry for the derail. Just saw that remark and kind of laughed to myself at the memory of my Jedi duelist getting getting totally shown up by a blaster specialist.