Fair enough, I had forgotten about the extra costs that could be incurred for Influence or Move.

Still, I'd make this something difficult to attain, especially given the currently unbalanced nature of Force Powers. To say nothing of making this talent too easily available negates the "lure of the dark side" option that comes with spending Strain and a destiny point to treat a Dark Side Force Point as a LS one.

My philosophy was to make it difficult and expensive to use, instead of difficult to attain. A freshly minted character with Discipline 2 and Willpower 3 will be tossing YYG. This roll (free of other bonuses and penalties) has, approximately, a 58% chance of success (based on 50k MC simulations). I feel a 58% is still a risky roll; Theres a 42% chance you end up 3 strain down, out a maneuver, and no bonus. Yes, its less likely a player will have to activate a dark side point via destiny, but its still a real possibility. I think this maneuver and strain expense is fair to try avoid a wasting an action on an unsuccessful force use.

As the character advances, a Hard difficulty free of other modifiers has a ~ 77% success rate at Discipline 4 & Willpower 4.

-WJL

Whelp, looks like it's back to the old drawing board for those of us with an eye towards re-balancing how Force Powers work.

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

The Week 2 update just dropped, and there's some significant changes to all three Force Powers.

The Highlights:

The mind trick part of Influence is now an opposed Discipline check.

You need to spend an extra Force Point to use those Range, Strength, Duration, and Magnitude upgrades.

Sense's Strength and Duration upgrades to the Ongoing Effect don't cost extra Force Points, but rather you now only get one of each, and they cost double since they now gobble up both rows (this is probably my least favorite change of the updates).

Move now requires a Discipline roll with successes equal to the size of the object you want to move (in addition to paying an extra FP just to use those Strength Upgrades), and the target still doesn't get any chance to avoid getting pasted by a heavy object. For this one, rather than simply adding an opposed Agility roll, simply have any setback dice that would be incurred from the target's Ranged Defense or Defense (which ever one's better) applied to the Force-user's Discipline check instead.

The new update looks great. The only thing I wish they had addressed was whether or not Force Rating is a Characteristic.

It clearly establishes the curve for Jedi. Now, a Force Rating 1 char can simply lift an object, while a Force Rating 2 user can lift and throw a size 1 object at someone close to them.

That feels really good to me, and still leaves room for a FR 7 Jedi to crush people under X-Wings.

Nice. They went with the skill + Force dice rolled as one pool.

JediHamlet said:

Yeah. I'm still not 100% sold on adding a skill check into this, but at least it's not a separate roll, and it does still give those low-level Force-users a chance to use their abilities even against Nemesis-level foes.

I'd have to play around with it a bit first, much like I had to with the game's base skill system in the first place. It sounds simple enough on the surface, and I think we all knew it was a given that the Force system would have to be made more complex in the name of balance.

Inksplat said:

I don't see how this is even a question. Beyond the word "rating", the characteristics and force ratings have nothing in common, e.g. there are no skills associated with a "force" attribute, force dice aren't eligible for upgrades, the results of a force roll are evaluated on different criteria, etc. The only reason I can see it matters is so you can spend xp at creation to improve the force raaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAHH I see what you want them to say.

No. You can't do that.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Riiight. I am not looking for all powerful Jedi. However, the Force Exile Spec now says that "If you already have a Force Rating before you take this specialization, it doesn't increase."

Which seems to suggest that there is some way to raise it outside of the Force Exile Spec itself.

And actually, it had nothing to do with XP at creation. It had to do with the numerous Dedication Talents.

Edit: Also, I almost solely GM, so yes, I CAN do that.

Inksplat said:

You mean aside from the Force Rating talent, which will probably be found in any future Force Specializations that get released down the product line once the final version of this game is released?

I get a feeling that progressing beyond a Force Exile specialization is probably how FFG are going to handle becoming full-fledged Jedi in much the same way Luke did. I could easily see him starting as a Force Exile with a very nice introductory gift from Obi-Wan, and then later buying into a Jedi-centric specialization to further enhance his Force abilities and lightsaber prowess. When he went to fight Vader in ESB, he was either just shy of the XP to increase his Force Rating to a 3 or had just gained it. In fact, for the Beta they have just put in the Force Exile so as to curb the "Jedi syndrome" that ran rampant with the d20 versions of Star Wars.

You know, know that I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering if FFG will take a page from WFRP2e and have "advanced specializations" that you can only enter from certain base ones or after meeting certain requirements. You're still likely to have the "max 3 specializations at any time" bit, but this could cover progressing from "lowly initiate in the ways of the Force" all the way up to "esteemed Jedi Master."

So for a Jedi Knight specialization, you'd need to have a Force Rating of 2 and probably at least a rank (more likely two) in Discipline and Lightsaber to be able to enter this specialization. Now on this particularly talent tree, the Force Rating talent would appear twice, once in an early row (probably 2nd) and again in the 5th Row, allowing you to reach Force Rating 4, or "well-trained Jedi Knight," with other talents devoted to improving your lightsaber prowess as well as expanding what you can do with the Force. And then once you're done with the Jedi Knight specialization, you move onto Jedi Master, which will have talents that probably cost an arm and a leg, but make you an undeniable badass as well as letting you raise your Force Rating to 6, leaving the 7 in the realm of either very dedicated players or legendary NPCs such as Yoda or Grand Master Luke Skywalker.

LethalDose said:

I'm taking another look at this in light of the Week 2 updates.

I'm thinking that if this is going to available to anyone with a Force Rating of 1 or better, then perhaps instead of a maneuver, make it require the character's action. After all, the only characters we see in the movies that "focus briefly and then bust out the Force mojo" are fully-trained Jedi, namely Yoda in ESB. So for them, getting into the right frame of mind should be fairly simple (i.e. just cost a maneuver to use).

But for Luke, he really had to stop and concentrate just to grab his lightsaber, and tried the same with his X-Wing on Dagobah.

So rather than just making this a free maneuver option or just a high-ranking talent, perhaps a middle road.

Clear Your Mind or Force Focus
As their action, a character with a Force Rating of 1 or higher may roll Discipline against a Hard Difficulty (or Daunting if a dark side Force-user). If successful, they may roll one additional Force Die when activating a Force Power until the end of your next turn. The character may spend three Advantage or one Triumph to roll an additional Force Die, for a maximum bonus of two Force Dice when activating a Force Power. You can do this a number of times per session equal to your Willpower rank.

and then add the following to the Force Exile tree:

New Talent : Improved Clear Your Mind or Improved Force Focus
You can use Clear Your Mind/Force Focus as a maneuver rather than action.

Put this in Row 4 in Column 4. replacing the Street Smarts entry, which itself could replace the Convincing Demeanor entry in Row 2 of the same column.

Given my opinion that dark side Force-users should be the realm of NPCs, who aren't bound to the talent trees the way the PCS are, so they can suffer a higher difficulty than most PCs would, especially as they get the perk of DS Force Points being a tad more common on the Force dice, and keeps with the "easier, more seductive" aspect of the dark side.

@Inksplat

No, you can't do that with the RAW. You can house-rule whatever you want, I've got no problem with that whatsoever. But the fact that there's a "force rank" talent in contrast to the "dedication" talents, and, basically ALL the rules, makes it pretty clear the devs intent was not, is not, and will not be to treat FR as a 7th attribute. Its bad enough they had to say "Droids can't be force sensitive", they can't make EVERYTHING explicit.

So, basically everything Donovan Morningstar said (future supplements, later specializations, avoiding Jedi syndrome, etc.)

-WJL

@Donovan Morningstar:

Thanks for the feedback on Clear Your Mind. I was also considering "Let the force flow through you", but it seemed long… Regardless, it should be a movie quote, like the pilot maneuvers. CYM is almost too The Matrix. Almost.

Trust Your Instincts could be good too… or maybe used for something else (A Sense Control "Precognition" upgrade, maybe)… ACK off topic. I wanted to give you some insight on why I made the choices I did in my original post.

The main reason I made CYM a maneuver was to avoid book-keeping confusion (did the player activate CYM last round or the round before). Also I saw the mechanism most similar to the "aim" maneuver, though substantially different in implementation. Making it an action with the option of a ranked talent I think is also very appealing, though. Regardless, I really hope we see some form of this show up in the final product.

I think there should be strain expense to represent how taxing it is to bring one's self to the level of calmness necessary to feel the force. Attaching a strain cost also helps to avoid a character's combat sequence from devolving into a CYM-Force Power cycle. Though they could spend the advantages on strain recovery instead.

Also, for book keeping reasons, I don't like dynamic per time period (Round, Encounter, Session) limits on activations. Instituting a strain cost also avoids this.

The difficulty of Hard I think is fine if its static, but if there is a ranked talent, I think the base difficulty should be increased to Daunting. This would put it more in line with "Hard Headed" and similar talents.

The choice of Coerce for dark side force users has the to do with the fundamental difference between the way DSFU's and "normal" light side force users interact with the Force:

• Lightsiders feel themselves to be "extensions of the Force's will", and need to make a Discipline check to calm themselves to "hear" the Force
• Darksiders feel the Force is a tool to be used, "The Force is subject to my will", and need to make a Coerce check to impose their will on the Force.

Both checks are still based on the same characteristic (WP), so I felt it was not only thematically correct, but a chance for the game system to flex some different muscles.

I think that's it, we'll see how it plays out and if people (and devs) like it. Again, thanks for your feedback!

-WJL

@LethalDose

As far as the Talent: Improved CYM/FF/whatever, it wouldn't be a ranked talent. Just something you could take once to allow you to do said act that much quicker. Again, per the movies, the only person we really see do this sort of thing with any speed is Yoda, the former Jedi Grand Master, and one of the most proficient Force-users in the entire galaxy. The difficulty doesn't change, and after you buy enough ranks in Vigilance and/or Willpower (which most Force-users are bound to do anyway), the difficulty level becomes close to meaningless.

In retrospect, instead of a multiple per session use, how about just a "once per encounter" use with a 1 strain cost. That makes it easier to track "have I used Character Feature X this combat?" but also keeps it from being something players will frequently abuse. Especially with how easy it can be to recover Strain, particularly with talents like Balance and Resolve. And since combat rounds flow so much quicker in this game than they ever did in d20 games, there's less opportunity for players to forget that they activated such-and-such ability.

Regarding Dark Side Force-users, I see this ability as "being at peace and as one with the Force," which doesn't jibe at all with the general Dark Sider mindset of "must control everything in sight!" Also, making it different skills just feels clunky, in addition to breaking from "Discipline is very important to Force-users" aspect that the Week 2 update has pretty heavily endorses. Using the same skill but just upping the difficulty by one if the person is a Dark Sider works a lot easier.

LethalDose said:

RAW do not specify either way. Force Rating gives you more dice. I'm not sure why you're being so aggressive about it, as a lot of people have been wondering, so I just said it would have been nice if they addressed it. If they said it wasn't raisable via Dedication, then fine, but its easy enough to add a line that says "Force Rating does not count as a Characteristic."

As for intent being clear..um.. Force Exile is in the back of the book right beside FR. So, if an entire Spec could be moved to the back of the book, why not a Characteristic?

I'm not sure why you are being so aggressive about it. Its a question a lot of people had, and if a lot of people have it, it needs to be mentioned.

Sorry, but Force Rating is not a Characteristic by any stretch of imagination.

That's abundantly clear. There is no need to further clarify the obvious.

That would be a waste of language and space resources.

Why do you seem to think otherwise? Where is that in the book somewhat implied?

OB-1 said:

It's probably more to do with some of the earlier posters in this thread that desperately wanted to jack their Force Ratings up to Jedi Master levels without having to wait for Force & Destiny. With Force Powers now being more expensive to operate, that desire may well re-assert itself in the minds of those folks.

I agree completely that there's nothing in the book that has ever suggested that Force Rating is any kind of characteristic, but you know the old adage about fools and hope…

Although, given how often the question of "can my Jedi take Force Training as a class bonus feat?" or "do I get another trained skill if I raise my Intelligence modifier?" kept coming up well after the release of Saga Edition's corebook, perhaps it's something that could be added to an on-site FAQ once the final version of EotE is released.

Donovan Morningfire said:

So… it basically functions like Starship combat - in other words. Where your "attack roll" is determined by the relative silhouette of the target (in this case, the silhouette of what you're trying to move). I'm okay with that. If we change it… we also need to change Starship Combat.

I also think it represents how it's "harder" to move bigger things (force point cost aside… since you're only spending one force point extra to move something larger than silhouette 0 - whether it's 1, 2, or 4). I like that.

I have to agree that the Ranged Defense setback dice should also be added to the pool. If they add to a ranged attack roll where I pick up a chair and toss it at somebody, it should also apply to the roll where I do it with The Force. [shrug]

Other than that, I'm pleased as punch with the changes to Move. It destroys my "Telekinetic Badarse Build" - which is what I was hoping would happen. :-)

Hi everyone,

Just to make sure it's clear, everyone understands that when you use Move to throw something at someone, the difficulty of the check is equal to the silhouette of the object being thrown, not the target? This means that while you can chuck the Falcon at someone, it's much harder to hit with it.

And yes, you are able to use any defensive talents or other defensive abilities to protect yourself from flying YT-1300s.

FFG_Sam Stewart said:

I think we did get the first part (at least I know I did), with the second one being the one up for debate.

Thanks for the clarification on defensive abilities being applied.

FFG_Sam Stewart said:

ROFL…

Thank you, Sam! That's great news, thank you for the quick response!

I'm now [officially] a complete fan of the updates to The Force.

Thanks everyone,

It does sound like the second point could be clarified slightly more, so I'll make sure that happens in the future.

GM Chris said:

I just got this mental image of a Greedo-like character holding up a wooden sign, Wiley Coyote (Super Genius!) style, that says "Help?" in the center of the the ever-expanding shadow of a hurled YT-1300

Inksplat said:

Hmmmm… regarding Force Power: Move, Strength, and Range Upgrades (pages 184-185) the latest text (week 2 updating) is the following:

Strength: "Spend [power] to increase the maximum Silhouette (size) of objects the Force user can move by a number equal to the number of Strength upgrades purchased."

Range: "Spend [power] to increase the maximum range at which the character can move objects by a number of range bands equal to the number of Range upgrades purchased.

The Force user may activate this multiple times, increasing the range by this number each time. However, remember the Force user must still spend Force points to activate the power's actual effects."

As I understand it, your interpretation regarding Force Rating (FR) 1 and 2 capabilities (which I like, by the way), for each increment in range and/or size, the force user would have to spend 1 power, up to the limit of the number of upgrades purchased.

Addicionally the Force user must still spend Force points to activate the power's basic effects.

That means that, according to this interpretation a FR 1 character could only spend a max of 2 power (1 for activating the power basic effect and 1 to either increase the size to 1 or the range band to close: throw a human sized object within arms reach, or a jawa sized object within several meters away).

This means also that, within the same reading, a FR 2 could extend the range of size 0 objects up to extreme range (more than hearing distance) or throw a size 3 object within arms lenght.

I kinda agree with your reasoning, except I think the minimum range band for Force Power Move should be Close (not engaged).

And maximum should be long (not extreme).

According to my own (hypothetical) house rules, the basic use of the power would have a range of close and silluete of 0, for the cost of 1 power.

That would allow a FR 1 to be able to throw a size 1 object (10 damage) at close distance for 2 power, and a FR 2 to throw a size 1 object at long range, a size 2 object (20 damage) at medium range or size 3 object (30 damage) at close range, all for 4 power, the discipline check would be needed for damage.

Although I agree with this solution in general terms, I don't think this is what the designers intended in the current iteration of the rules, nor is this interpretation supported by the current wording.

It seems to me that, according with the current rules, for the cost of only 2 power (acessible for a FR 1 character), providing the right upgrades have been purchased, a force user could easily move an YT-1300 towards any target for 40 damage, to extreme range. This for only 2 power (the destiny and strain costs are negligible considering the potential damage).

Thinking about the movies(OT) this power seems to me excessive, at least on paper.

I am willing to test it before making further comments

But frankly, I am still trying to understand how it works now.

OB-1,

Inksplat's not entirely correct on how the revisions to Range, Strength, and Magnitude work.

Instead of paying 1 FP per upgrade, you simply pay the 1 FP to access all the upgrades that you've purchased for that category

So a Force-user with Move, the 1st Control Upgrade, 2 Range Upgrades, and 2 Strength Upgrades would only have to generate 3 Force Points to attack a target at Medium Range with a Silhouette 2 object, just as they would to attack a target at close range with a Silhouette 1 object.

Donovan Morningfire said:

This is how I read it at first, too: 1 FP accesses ALL the upgrades of one type the character has bought:

• Spend one FP to increase the silhouette he can use to attack from 0 to the # of strength upgrades he has purchased
• Spend one additional FP to increase the range at which you can make an attack by a number of bands equal to the number of range upgrades purchased.
• Spend one additional FP to increase the number of objects (listed as "targets", oddly, unless I'm misinterpreting the text) to be equal to the number of magnitude upgrades .

This costs must be paid in addition to the 1 FP to activate the power.

But there's two weird inconsistencies concerning the range upgrade :

• The basic power description says you can move an engaged object "to his power's maximum range," without mention of a FP cost, but in the upgrade description, the FP is listed.
• The ranged upgrade also states "The Force user may activate this multiple times, increasing the range by this number each time."

So, I think this is how to interpret this:

• If the force user starts engaged with the object he's using, I don't think he has to pay to use the range upgrades (as per the base description), to move the object away from him, but if he wants to move something at a distance, he must pay for the upgrades, wherever they move
• If you have one range upgrade, you can pay 1 FP to move an object at close range, or spend 2 FP (the multiple activations) to move an object at medium range. If the character has two ranged upgrades, he needs to spend only 1 FP to move an object at medium range.

I'm left to wonder why the other abilities don't have the multiple activation options.

Also, this seems pretty f***ing complicated.

-WJL