I almost get the impression there might have been something left out somewhere by accident that is rather key.

Dulahan said:

I wonder if part of it is something like, you have to have a rank in Discipline for each level of Force Power? There are 5 ranks of Force Power, so it could work. That means you'd need Discipline Rank 3 (so, 30 XP) before you could even take Control Upgrade in Move.

Influence I actually don't think is too bad, so long as you make Nemesis NPCs immune. It only works for 1 round in combat, so, a Jed could lock down up to 4 max opponents in a best-case scenario (As it needs to be two Double Lightside faces), and nothing else. In more common situations, they'll only be able to stall a single enemy, which, he might as well attack.

One thing about Move, as well: the Range Upgrades don't mean that you can move the object further, but that you can effect it from further away. It starts with you needing to be Engaged, and then you need to spend additional Force points to move it. So, to me, that says that the Range upgrade allows you to pick an object up at Long Range, but you still need to spend more force to move it towards a target.

In this way, if an enemy stays away from the giant crate, you've got to spend a lot of Force to actually get said crate -to- your target. So, 1 Force to lift, and if the enemy is at Long Range, that means 3 more Force. That doesn't feel quite as bad to me, because then you've got Boba Fett being smart and staying away from all the things you can potentially hit him with.

Though, I still want to see where Vigilance comes into play.

Potentialy, it could also return back to the core dice mechanic. If you generate the Force point/points reqired to make an effect, you gain the ability to roll for it, then you would construct a dice pool as normal.

For example, if you wanted to strike someone with Move, you'd roll your Willpower-Displine against a difficulty of their Agility (or maybe just defense). Likewise, if you wanted to influance someone with Jedi-mind-trick, then it's very directly your willpower-Dispiline against a difficulty of their willpower-dispiline.

Therefore, someone who's spent a lot of xp in force powers, but not in disipline has raw potential, but lacks the control to effectly strike someone with it. On the other side, someone who's spent a lot of xp in disipline, but not force powers, may only be able to produce minor effects, but has much greater control over these effects.

Quicksilver said:

That's what I was thinking - stuff like Willpower+Discipline for Force Move, Willpower+Discipline opposed by Willpower+Discipline/Vigilance for Influencing, etc. That's what I might try out in my game, see if it works.

Quicksilver said:

I was envisioning that it would all work on one die roll. The character describes what it is they're trying to do then you assemble the dice pool. Force + Willpower + Discipline + Difficulty [+ whatever else applies]. The result is interpreted as normal: Successes, advantages, threats, triumphs, etc… all go to describing the narrative effect, with the caveat here is that you need to generate a certain amount of Force Resources to pull off the complete effect.

You want to toss that large cargo container onto the Stormtroopers one range band away from it, you don't generate enough Force Resources, but you did generate three advantages? The container topels over distracting the troopers, so the rest of the group get a Boost die for the rest of the round.

Even with a net result of zero force you can interpret the roll appropriately ("The container groans as the Force ripples through its metal skeleton, although it doesn't move, the Stormtroopers all turn expecting a new front of attack.")

JediHamlet said:

This seems to work well to me. It also increases the temptation side of the Dark Side. Imagine if you saw a series of successes, or even a Triuph on the skill dice, but only came up with a dark-side force point. Would you be willing to give in for that kind of success?

I will try to playtest this house rule next time I run. If I manage, I'll let you all know how it goes.

JediHamlet said:

Very nice - I'd definitely go for that! I'd suggest you send that in to FFG via their beta e-mail.

JediHamlet said:

An interesting idea. However, perhaps instead of the difficulty being based on the usual criteria or an opposed roll, perhaps something like the following:

Influence Power Dice Pool = Force Rating (to determine Force Resources) + Willpower/Discipline + Difficulty dice equal to target's Willpower rank.

Move Power Dice Pool to just lift an object = Force Rating (to determine Force Resources) + Willpower/Discipline + Difficulty of Easy

Move Power Dice Pool to lift and attack with an object = Force Rating (to determine Force Resources) + Willpower/Discipline + Difficulty dice equal to the target's Agility rank.

On the first one, this would reflect that takes someone with a strong will to shake off a mind trick, with Discipline reflecting a very strong will, and would be something a lot of Force-users would have in the first place.

Example A: Fledgling Jedi Chuck Skye wants to use Mind Trick on an Imperial Intelligence Agent (Willpower 3). He's got a Force Rating of 1, Willpower of 3, and a Discipline of 2, so his total dice pool would be: 1 Force Die, 2 Proficiency Dice, 1 Ability Die, 2 Difficulty Dice.

For the Move power dice pools, this makes it a lot harder to just suddenly dish out massive amounts of damage, a major problem with the existing rules for that power.

Example B : Hot-headed Force Exile Bob Walker wants to lift a heavy crate (Silhouette 2) to block off a doorway to keep a squad of stormtroopers from chasing after him. He's got a Force Rating of 2, Willpower of 3, and a Discipline of 1, so his dice pool is 2 Force Dice, 1 Proficiency Die, 2 Ability Dice, and 1 Difficulty Die.

Example C : A few minutes later, Bob comes face to face with a pair of stormtroopers on patrol, and decides to just hurl a couple of smaller crates (Silhouette 1) at them. His dice pool this time would be 2 Force Dice, 1 Proficiency Die, 2 Ability Dice, and 3 Difficulty Dice (for the stormtrooper's Agility).

In the cases of trying to affect multiple targets with differing ranks in the opposing characteristic (such as targeting a Twi'lek Black Marketeer and his Smuggler buddy with hurled objects via Move), it'd be simpler to just use the highest value to determine how may Difficulty dice to add to the roll.

I am sorry, but… there is something that i feel is not right. I mean, rolling all these bunch of dice every single time a player wants to make a force check, I feel something is lost in the process.

There was something almost intangible I liked in the beta resoluton mechanics for the force. Something that just felt right to me. Something I am afraid I can't really explain.

It was as if I liked the fact that the use of the force was mechanicaly different, on a fundamental level, than the main resolution system. Simpler and more elegant.

That I liked the simplicity of rolling force dice, unnencumbered by all those threat and advantage and sucesses and failures and thriumph and despair symbols (which in turn is a system I know I love in the middle of a firefight, a dog fight or other cinematic uses of skills, a dice system prone to produce hectic narration of complex conflits).

What I am trying to say is that I like the use of force to be different, simple and elegant. And I think the system in the beta book managed to be all these.

But I understand that it failed to provide acceptable results, notably on Influence and Move Power trees, which could be prone to massive inconsistencies regarding the designers intended game balance and emulation of source fiction.

I wish that sad inconsistencies will be solved rather than patched, and the abovementioned simplicity, difference and elegance will still be there.

Maybe this can be solved with only some tweeks on the existing system, a well thought out restrition here and there, the possibility for some categories of targets to actively resist certain kinds of effects, a decrease of damage dealt and/or an increase of force resource costs, etc, all these without mangling much of the original system. That would be my prefered solution, but only to the extent that the results produced are good.

Or maybe they can revert to an old iteration of said system, recuperate old ideas, or even came up with a new one. A better one, for sure.

But I really liked the simplicity of rolling just a few force dice and came up with those black and white dots, and make decisons based on that. I like to KISS.

On the other hand, i wonder what was the connection between Discipline, Vigillance and use of the force that was lost in translation, the text explaining such skills maybe an artifact from previous rules iterations, maybe something else.

I salute all the posters for all the ideas regarding the correction of percieved issues, but I really hope and have faith, judging for the brilliance of what i've read so far in the beta, that the design team can produce a better, stronger, more balanced and, at its core, simpler solution to one of the defining mechanics in all these games we are all excited to play for many years to came.

I know they'll put their best effort onto it.

I understand where your coming from OB-1. There is an elegancy to a simple system. On the other hand a to simple resolution system can cause as many problems as an overly complicated one. The main issue seems to be that using Force Powers does not occur in a vaccum. No consideration is given to what your trying to do.

The simple application, its fine. Lifting a box onto a ledge for example, could be resolved by a simple force die check. The system, however, has no way to adjust for changes in circumstance or solution. Summoning a lightsaber to your hand is equaly difficult if your standing there, hanging upside down, being shot at, it's being held by another person, your currently being electrocuted by the Emperor, or what ever else may be transpiring.

What ever method it uses, the Force Use mechanic needs some way to be adjusted according to the difficulty of the task attempted. Personaly, I've always perfered the force-use mechanics to be as close to regular actions as possable, rather then being highly seperated, as it helps tie in the way the force is really part of a Jedi (or other force user) rather then some external thing being manipulated (like a wizard's magic).

As for the quality of the game designers, I agree that we couldn't ask for better. However, It's perhaps just my nature to want to put my own ideas forward, and trust in them to weigh them and my fellow player's thoughts to come up with the best way forward. To that end, I will return to trying to keep the Force Use close to the main mechanic. Ability, Proficiency & Boost dice vs. Difficulty, Challenge and Setback dice may not be the most elegant solution, but it makes the Force feel grounded to the reality of the system, at least in my opinion.

Okay.

So much of my earlier musings here were around Move. Let's talk Influence for a bit. The films tell us (numerous times) that a mind trick only works "on the weak minded".

So what does that mean? How can we translate that into the game mechanics? Can a stronger Force User "do it better"? Or more consistently? Or against stronger-minded people?

Also - the "calculation" needs to be quick. Compared to a SINGLE number in the NPC stat block, for example. And I wanted to try and do this by avoiding dice rolls - if possible. It slows down what is already a very fast and cinematic system.

A few ideas for Influence (with the caveat that I've willingly sacrificed precise super-accuracy for simplicity):

- You can't use a Mind Trick on anyone whose Willpower is higher than your Force Rating . This is very interesting. It allows even beginners to mind trick those with very poor Willpower, and someone with a Force Rating of 2 (a padawan) can now mind trick your average Joe. It also allows for a reigning control mechanic on the power, without complicating things with extra dice or extra rolls. But having said all that… it does have some serious drawbacks. Namely, I'll bet Darth Vader's Willpower is a 2. MAYBE 3. And even Master Yoda shouldn't be able to mind trick him. ;-) Which leads me to another option:

or

- Mind Trick can only be used against minions, and henchmen whose Willpower is less than or equal to your Force Rating. This way - you can always mind trick a minion (as it should be), and SOME henchmen. But you flat out can't mind trick a nemesis. (Keep in mind, I'm just talking about the use of the control upgrade. You should still be able to cause strain…) I think this is keeping with the spirit of the game, and of Star Wars. But wait… there's one other option I've been considering:

or

- To use a Mind Trick on a character, you must spend a number of Force Point equal to that character's Willpower. Now we're in different territory. This option has some advantages and disadvantages as well. First of all - it means that a beginning character will have a less-than-easy time Mind Tricking anyone with a Willpower of 2 or higher. It's POSSIBLE, but not easy. I consider this a positive. The major negative is that a force-user with a Force Rating of 2 or 3 can EASILY Mind Trick just about anyone. That's the huge negative that makes this my least favorite of the options.

My personal favorite is #2, as I think it's narrative and cinematic. It adds control to the mechanic - but without any additional dice rolls or extra dice in a single roll. Easy.

So let's talk about Move again. Same precepts as above. Serious control of this mechanic is needed, here, methinks. Aside from GM fiat, there's nothing to stop me from hurling Darth Vader off the rails of Cloud City - or smashing him with a shuttle. Much like my proposed solutions for Influence - I really wanted to come up with something that didn't involve a roll of the dice. Keep it simple. Here's what I got:

- To use Move on a living character, you must have a Force Rating greater than or equal to their Willpower. Clean and simple. We see higher level force users knocking each other around all the time in combat this way - and moving a living entity is very much a test of will vs. power.

- To hit a target with a moved object, you must spend an additional number of Force Points (beyond the activation cost) equal to the target's Agility. (You also reduce this Force Point cost by the size of target's silhouette.) Minions are treated as having an Agility of 0 for this effect. Stay with me on this one. Hitting a foe with a crate needs to give them the option to GET OUT OF THE WAY if you are too slow or innacurate. Your speed and accuracy is in using the Force should equate to how many Force Points you spend on the power. And larger creatures should be easier to hit - smaller creatures harder, etc. For a medium-sized character, this is going to basically mean a number of Force Points equal to their Agility (because a size 1 silhouette will cancel out the 1 FP cost of simply activating the power).

Thoughts?

Donovan Morningfire said:

I would suggest upgrading (some of) the difficulty dice to challenge dice for more than one target.

GM Chris,

While the idea of basing what you can affect with the Control Upgrade of Influence and with the Mover around one's Force Rating isn't a bad idea, the problem quickly shows itself in that officially, you can't get your Force Rating above a 2, and even reaching that level of ability is going to take a while to reach (most direct and cost-effective route still costs you 95XP, or almost all of a starting PC's XP budget), especially if the player has any desire to purchase or enhance their actual Force Powers. And going by the sample stats provided in the Adversary section, there are very, very few NPCs with a Willpower less than 2. Which means that for the most part, a Force-using PC isn't going to be able to do jack, and the XP they've sunk into enhancing their powers is pretty much wasted.

Now believe me, I agree quite a bit with enjoying the basic simplicity of activating Force Powers that's presented in the book, but the problem with that is it doesn't leave the target with any form of defense against said powers.

The trick for FFG is finding that sweet spot between having Force Powers be useful and not complicated to activate (at least no more complicated than your average skill check) while giving the target at least some form of defense. As this thread has proven, the system in place for Force Powers as it stands has the potential to make a Force-User an unreasonably dominant force if they choose to min-max their character into and hyper-focus on one of those two Force Powers to the exclusion of all else.

While having the Force-User make a skill check does slow things down a little, it at least gives the target some hope of not being crushed outright. while still giving the PC a chance to make use of the abilities they've paid valuable XP to attain.

As it currently stands, for the sake of balance some of the simplicity is going to have to be lost.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Why shouldn't Padawans be limited in their Force ability, though?

If you can Mind Trick all minions, and a good chunk of Henchmen, why isn't that acceptable? Why do you need to be able to Mind trick Boba Fett? This is, after all, not the game focused on Jedi. And you can always house rule it so Force Rating is a Characteristic, and then you can solve the problem to your own liking that way.

The problem is, you seem to want a Force Rating 2 Jedi to be powerful. But then what happens when you get access to Force Rating 3-7? If you balance it with Force Rating 2 allowing you to be a top-tier Force-User…um..things are going to get ridiculously broken later.

Inksplat said:

Did you actually bother read both GM Chris' suggestion and my response?

His suggestion makes it so that with a Force Rating of 1, you are completely unable to use Influence against anyone with a Willpower of 2 or higher until you've reached a rather high level or have done nothing but invest your XP into buying the Force Rating talent. BTW, NPCs with a Willpower of 2 or higher covers all but 7 of the NPCs provided in the Adversary section (there are droids that have a Willpower of 1, but their immune to mind trickery anyway). Hell, you couldn't even mind trick a stormtrooper under that method.

And maybe you should re-read my posts here in this thread. I don't want Force Rating 2 to be on par with the higher ratings, and never once said that I did, but I still think those players that have sunk plenty of their hard-earned XP into their Force Powers might want to be able use their abilities a little more frequently than once in a blue moon. Unlike Dulahan (who you seem to be confusing me with), I'm not looking for god-like Jedi PCs in this stage of the game, and while I wouldn't mind the ability to reach Force Rating 3 (on par with a Young Jedi Knight), if that option doesn't exist in the final product, I'll be perfectly okay with that.

If I really wanted god-like Jedi, I'd say just leave the Force Power system exactly as it currently is, as that already makes Force-users overwhelmingly powerful. I'm trying to offer suggestions that will balance Force Powers without making things overly complicated or outright nerfing them. And isn't that part of the entire Beta process, to poke holes at the existing mechanics, see where they break, and offer thoughts on what might be done to fix them?

Donovan Morningfire said:

GM Chris's 2nd option, which he marked as his favorite, says you can ALWAYS mind trick a minion, and that only Henchmen have the Willpower requirement.

So, I apologize if I misinterpreted your post as saying that that wasn't acceptable. I thought you were saying always being able to mind trick minions and sometimes henchmen wasn't enough, which is why it came across as you wanting Force Rating 2 to be able to do more than that.

GM Chris said:

The only complaint I have with this is it encourages an artificial divide between levels of NPCdom.

Player: Why can't I use mind trick on that Imperial officer? I was able to mind trick that security guard in the last encounter no problem.
GM: That's because the security guard was just a minion, but the officer's a Henchman, and his Willpower is higher than your Force Rating.
Player: Oh. Well, that sucks.

Maybe it's skewed perspective on my part, but I think the player should at least have a chance (reasonable or not) of being able to use mind trickery on something other than just minions. It certainly doesn't need to be an auto-success like it currently is against Henchmen or even Nemesis, but I think the option to at least try should be there. After all, Star Wars contains plenty of examples of the underdog accomplishing feats that might otherwise be beyond their abilities.

I'd offer a counter-suggestion that if you want to increase the activation cost of Influence in regards to Henchmen, maybe it should instead cost that it should cost one extra Force Point to target a Henchman for a total of two Force Points, and then have it be Force Rating = to Nemesis' Willpower if you want to target them with the mind trick aspect of Influence. In regards to Force-users, let them add their Force Rating to their Willpower to determine just how strong a Force-user you need to be to mind-trick them. A self-taught exile (Force Rating 2) wouldn't have much chance of mind-tricking a Dark Jedi (Willpower 3, Force Rating 3), but Yoda or Grand Master Luke (Force Rating of at least 6) might be able to give it a shot.

GM Chris said:

On the first option, this has the same concerns to me as the Influence suggestion, which I've already detailed my thoughts about above.

The second option has much more potential I think, but it makes it so that high Agility foes (pretty much anyone with a 3 or better) that's not a minion is going to be immune to hurled objects, at least given the rules as they exist for Force-users and being limited to a Force Rating of 2 at this stage of the game. Again, the PCs should have a chance to affect any target with a hurled object. Going largely by the movies, the only time we actually see anyone stop a Force-hurled object is when Yoda gets involved, typically with him either brushing it aside with his own Force ability or stopping it cold before hurling it right back at you (Senate Duel in RotS). I do agree that for the sake of game balance, something is needed to provide at least some measure of defense, especially given the huge amounts of damage that are possible. Perhaps instead of basing it off Agility, base the extra FPs required to hit a target off their Ranged Defense rating in addition to the point required to lift the object in the first place?

Or, as I posited earlier in the thread, instead of increasing the cost of Move, how about decreasing the amount of damage? So instead of 10 damage for every point of Silhouette the object is above 0, you instead deal 5 damage for every increment? Admittedly it doesn't stop the auto-damage,but if we go by the main sources (the movies), nobody but high-end masters of the Force are really able to do anything to stop such attacks in the first place. Luke tries in ESB but fails miserably (granted, he was going up against a Sith Lord), and we don't see telekinesis being used offensively on a regular basis until the prequels, with Anakin and Obi-Wan's brief "Force thrust duel" in RotS being the only non-Yoda example of really being able to resist being hurled around like a rag doll. And unless the player spends a Destiny Point to say "hey, there's a really big and heavy object I can hurl at the bad guy," the reduced damage would generally limit the PC to 20 damage at most for a Silhouette 3 object, which will likely be far less common than Silhouette 1 or even 2 objects.

Is it really any different than "I killed that security officer with a critical injury, why can't I kill this Imperial Officer?" the whole point of having minions, and not just weaker henchmen, is that it allows different rules to govern them.

Its easy enou to understand that someone who got to be an officer has a stronger mind than a basic security officer, and you're still a noob when it comes to the Force.

Inksplat said:

But with the critical injury, you are at least getting something out of it, even if it's not instant death, rather than "sorry Dave, that ability you spent XP to gain just doesn't work on this guy."

However, back to the main topic of discussion,

On the subject of Influence, maybe there's a middle ground to be found between GM Chris' 2nd option and my response to such.

Minions I think we agree can be mind-whammied for just the 1 Force Point and leave it at that.

For Henchmen however, you need to equal or exceed their Willpower rating with a combination of your Force Rating and Force Points.

With regards to Nemesis level villains, you need to equal or exceed their Willpower Rating times two.

So as an in-game example, if you as barely-trained F/S Exile (Force Rating 1) want to convince that Stormtrooper Sergeant (Henchmen, Willpower 3) that these aren't the Twi'lek slaves he's looking for, you'd need to generate two Force Points to match his Willpower rank.

Meanwhile, trying to mind trick that Wookiee Gladiator (Willpower 2) is a lot easier, as you'd only need to generate one Force Point to equal his Willpower rank. As for mind tricking an apprentice bounty hunter (Willpower 2, but a minion) that his quarry "went that way" is almost trivial because he's a minion.

But if you want to mind trick that Imperial Moff (Willpower 4), your F/S Exile is SOL because you'd need to met or beat an effective Willpower rank of 8 (base 4, doubled for being a Nemesis). However, the Forsaken Jedi has a shot, since he's got a Force Rating of 3 and better odds of getting the 5 Force Points needed to make up the difference. Someone like Yoda (Force Rating of 6, at the very least) would be able to mind-whammy that same Moff with a casual wave of his tiny wrinkled hand, and even Obi-Wan (I'd peg him at around a Force Rating of 5) wouldn't have much difficulty either. Now Luke as of RotJ (probably Force Rating of 4 due to his Skywalker legacy) might have some difficulty, but he's still got a decent chance to pull it off.

For NPCs with Force Ratings, given how rare those are in this setting, they'd automatically qualify for Nemesis status, which the two sample Force-using NPCs in the book (Emperor's Hand and Forsaken Jedi) actually are. Granted, the Forsaken Jedi only has a Willpower of 2, but even without other examples of actual Jedi to go by, I think we can safely say he's "weak-willed" for a Force User. One possible idea is to add their Force Rating to the doubled Willpower rank, which would put the Emperor's Hand at 8 (Force Rating 2, Willpower 3) and the Forsaken Jedi at 7 (Force Rating 3, Willpower 2).

As for when NPCs (like the Emperor's Hand) want to use the Influence power on the PCs, they get the perks of being treated like a Nemesis under this option, meaning said NPC needs to beat the hero's Willpowerx2 with their Force Rating + Force Points in order to mind trick them.

This way, you've got the simplicity of the original system, but also means to keep high-level NPCs from being mind-tricked too easily that leaves it within the realm of possibility to affect them. And it also keeps the PCs from also easily being mind-tricked themselves.

I haven't played a session with the Force yet but I have read the rules and I wanted to chime in.

I don't think at all that the Force needs to be balanced mechanically with a pilot or bounty hunter. That's the point. It's powerful. If the GM and players aren't balancing it by role then there will be problems I admit.

I think trying to tinker with it too much to balance it with this fringe setting does the setting a disservice.

Any time you see a Sith or lightsaber or the like you should probably run. I think a lot of video games and Saga did a diservice to the notion that the ability to destroy planets is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

I think there should be dire consequences and RP expectations of anyone using the Dark Side. It does not usually fit with an RP party.

And if you are an ex-Jedi you should be hunted, which should be no fun for a Force rating 1 character and would probably mean you won't have many friends. Making it more fun to limit yourself as a player. A character like Dass Jennir comes to mind.

And if you are a Force user and you are untrained you would probably not know how to use such powerful applications such as Move. You might try to influence a game of sabacc here or there but you'd be unimaginative about the true power at your disposal. You have power but it's limited by role. It's a fun RP opportunity.

You should not be getting anything but the most basic Force powers without training in any session so after character generation I'd require training to take more Force powers. D6 had excellent guidelines for this. Playing your role might or might not lead you to a master.

I agree with OB-1 that the current rules have a good feel to them. I like the openness and separate mechanics. I think adding a bunch of combat-like rolls cheapens it. Almost always in the movies when they try to use the Force it works. But they don't try it in combat as much as Star Wars games beg.

Influence should have a threshold against which it does not work. No rolls. It works on the weak minded but you can also be strong in the Force. Maybe compare willpower to Force rating. But power in the force should matter so the defense should not work the same against a Padawan as it does against a Sith Lord. GM Chris has some good ideas here. I also don't think there should be combat options for Influence. I can't recall that in the movies at all.

Going by the movies Move should not be an easy combat option. In the movies they pretty much move anything they try to move, but they do not use it as a combat option very often. Obi Wan moved his lightsaber to himslef fighting Jango but never tried to move Jango or the times he fought Vader. In Empire Vader had time to move objects at Luke but never tried to move Luke into the cabon chamber. It's not that he tried and failed. He just didn't try. I read this as it requires too much time/concentration to attempt a big use of Move in a hectic fight. In a fight maybe limit move to small objects or require more time and concentration.

A few combat applications of Move come to mind in the movies, though. Dooku trapped Obi Wan's leg and also dropped some chuncks from the ceiling. So maybe you have to be Dooku level before you can do that sort of thing. Maybe a high Force rating in addition to the power should be required. But I would not require a check. If you can use it you can use it. In the movies if they try to use the Force it usually works.

In the game though I don't see any problems. With a Force Rating of 1 you can get maybe 1 or 2 (or 0) Force Points to use a very limited application. Maybe just restrict the combat options. Spamming Move Object in Saga was boring and not realistic to the setting. If a Jedi is in combat option number one should be a wickedly powerful lightsaber.

In my opinion Influence and Move should be lesser combat options and for combat there should be more Force abilites that have to do with LS deflect and reflect and agility and quickness and speed and leaping.

usgrandprix,

You've got some decent points, and the Force system might be fine, if it was strictly the domain of NPCs, where the GM can much more easily assert narrative control over when their NPC uses those abilities.

But the moment you put those same abilities in the hands of the PCs, that's when some method of checks and balance needs to be implemented.

While the movies do show that the Force is indeed powerful, the problem comes in that the only people we see using Force Powers in the movies are themselves powerful individuals. Vader was probably the "weakest" of the bunch that we saw in the Original Trilogy (due to his cybernetics and less training than the others we saw on the screen), and even his abilities are amazingly formidable, due to him having roughly four decades of studying both Jedi and Sith lore. So naturally anything we see him do is going to be **** impressive.

The closest analog we have to a low-tier Force-user is Luke in the early parts of Empire Strikes Back, when he struggles to call his lightsaber to his hand while hanging upside down in the Wampa cave. But after a crash-course training regimen with Yoda, he's able to easily perform various telekinetic feats and is able to avoid getting creamed in the opening rounds when going up against Vader in the same film; I'd peg him at having a Force Rating of 3 at that point in the trilogy, which should be about as high as a Force-Sensitive PC should aspire to reach in this stage of the product line.

As things stand, a PC with Force Rating one and only 20 XP spent on Influence (10 to buy the power, 10 for the first Control upgrade) can just mind trick anybody that doesn't have a built-in immunity to mind tricks (such as Hutts and Droids). And they only need one Force Point to do this, something that's easily achieved by flipping a Destiny Point and suffering a point of strain. Oh, that Imperial Moff that was going to have you brought up on charges of treason and executed by a firing squad? You wave your hand and say "It wasn't me." The Moff blinks, and then replies, "yeah, it wasn't you." And this isn't even a combat application of Influence, just a social one. It might not be permanent, but five minutes is plenty of time for an inventive player to turn the momentary confusion into a chance to escape, possibly by even Charming (or once again mind-tricking) the Moff into letting you go about your way as this was obviously some grave misunderstanding. By the time the Moff even realizes he's been hoodwinked, the Force Exile has a chance to be long gone. Hell, this is almost exactly what Qui-Gon did to Boss Nass in TPM; mind-tricked the Gungan leader into giving them a ship, an act that took the other Gungan council members by surprise if their expressions were anything to go by.

For Move, it takes twice as much XP to reach the danger threshold, but it's still easily attainable by a starting character (10 to buy the power, 10 to buy the first Range and Magnitude Upgrades, 10 to buy the first Control Upgrade, and then 10 to buy the first two Strength upgrades). At this point, you can hurl a Silhouette 2 object for 20 damage that's within Close Range of you. That's enough damage to one-shot just about every humanoid NPC in the book, with no means of resistance. And you only need one Force Point, with a second needed only if the object you're throwing starts at Close Range from the intended target since you need to move it across one range band to have it be Engaged. And you can do this to two targets on the same turn, or hit the same target twice with the two objects, pretty much ensuring that they're getting dropped. Hell, you could even set up an ambush, waiting for an intended target to get close to a sufficiently large object and then telekinetically smash the object into them the moment they come within arm's length of it. You mention'd Saga Edition being bad for spamming Move Object? This almost makes Move Object look perfectly balanced in comparison. At least with Move Object, you had to also had to make what amounted to a successful attack roll against the target, something that got progressively harder as the bad guys got more and more formidable, and unless you took nothing but Move Object powers and Telekinetic Savant, at low levels you were only bound to have one or two instances of it in your Force suite.

Now, both of those examples that I've given assume the GM allows a character to be Force-Sensitive or even to buy Force Powers right out the gate. But even if the GM says "you can't start Force-Sensitive" or "you can't learn Force Powers with your starting XP," unless they are going to outlaw those things entirely, all they've done is postpone the inevitable, and the point will come after a mere handful of adventures where the GM now has a dedicated Force-user in their party that can solve most encounters with a single roll of a die.

To be honest, on the first read-thru, I didn't think the Force Power section was all that bad either. It was on subsequent read-thrus and a deeper look at the mechanics, as well as GM Chris' example from much earlier in this thread (seriously, dig thru and read it, as it's quite the eye-opener) proved that as they are currently written, the lack of any sort of defense on the part of the target makes Force Powers way too good for something that PCs can have access to.

Of the various options given, I think the blending of GM Chris' increased FP cost and my additions to such are probably the best solution going for how to resolve this. It keeps the simplicity of "roll your Force Rating to determine how many Force Points you generate," but it also provides some degree of protection for the NPCs to keep them (especially the Nemesis-level threats) from getting curb-stomped, in or out of combat.

As an interesting note to add in, we almost never see Move Object used in combat against non-minions. In Vader's famous example on Bespin, he is already essentially victorious over an underpowered foe and throwing items at him is less of an effective combat technique as it is a demonstration of power and gloating of inevitable victory. It's also worth noting that these objects did negligible damage to Luke, even when he didn't manage to cut the item before it struck. They were disorienting more than damaging, and forced Luke to deal with them rather than advance on Vader, who had plenty of room to concentrate.

In the council chamber fight, both combatants were distant from each other and without weapon. Even then, the time it took them (arguably two of the most powerful force users of the era) to throw large items at each other was extensive by combat standards. Although, though Yoda did hit where he was aiming, the Emperor did successfully get out of the way of the flying senate pod.

The far less precise force-strike is used by Jedi-Knight level characters against minions a couple times, doing the effective damage as a good sucker punch, which again makes it far less effective than just striking the target with a light saber, unless your target is at range, or you don't want to kill them.

Using move object as a combat power is really a video and rpg concept, rather than one based in the movies.

Quicksilver said:

Darth Maul used it heavily against both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon during the Battle of Naboo. ;-) Anakin and Obi-Wan also used it quite a bit against each other during their battle on Mustafar. (Remember, per these rules "Move" is more than just levitating and moving something - the classic "Force Slam" and "Force Thrust" also fall under this power.)

Donovan,

All good points. Especially about low power force users. Just to be clear I'm coming from a little different perspective of how the Force works. A lot of people are ok with moving huge objects around in combat and they just want resistance or it to cost more xp, etc.. What I'm saying is that if you have the ability to move an x-wing you should be able to if you have the time and concentration, but you should have to concentrate and you shouldn't be able to move something in combat/while distracted that can do 10 points of damage unless you are very strong in the Force. Maybe have a Force rating requirement for some powers. Maybe move a small object to cause stress or cause a distraction that makes attacks harder (difficulty dice).

In the movies I can't recall a force user ever moving a living target with Move anyway. As for damaging someone in combat, Dooku on Obi Wan, a few droids, and maybe Vader against Luke in Empire.

And there should be no combat use for Influence.

Non-combat use of the Force should be a bigger focus and simulate how it works in the movies. But then I was the one that always took the non-combat spells and actually RPed them to earn money, influence PCs, move the keys to help us escape, read the warning signs, etc. I like how Luke used Move on 3PO to influence the Ewoks.

As for influence defense I agree there should be people it doesn't work on. In fact I'm saying there should be people it never works on. It just should not be a roll. But if I can influnce a toadie I can influence a toadie. They don't get a roll. A strong mind like a Moff--it's not possible no matter how well I roll, unless I'm a Jedi Master or something. And that should require RP and training, not just XP as it does RAW. You should have to train with someone who knows the power if you want to use it. Like D6. You might also require communication to use Influence but there are no languages in this game.

The Force works when they use it in the movies. I would not change that. I would just not make it so combat focused. It requires more concentration and training than these rules ask.

I'd also like to see a few more mechanics than are there for using the Force just to make your regular abilities like agility, movement, and pilot better.

Lots of talk about combat applications of the Force. I just want to remind everyone it's an RPG and that always carries responsibilities for the players. Also changes to the mechanics should always consider non-combat implications. You should never have to roll to move C-3PO if you have that ability and if you have the opportunity to concentrate.

Oh, right. I had forgotten those uses… I feel stupid. Still, it reinforces my point that being hit by a Move power is not particularly painful, as it is annoying. We don't see Obi-wan or Anakin being injured by strikes themselves. Indeed the danger of a Force Push nearly always seems to be the environment, rather than the push itself. One way to translate this mechanically may be to have the Move power cause strain, rather then wounds.