So, when I looked at enhance I thought about how Yoda used the force to enhance is physical capability to fight dooku. How he did this was clearly and easily defined in the old d20 system.

Yoda probably due to his age and size had an agi and brawn of 1.

Dedicating a force die to up each by one did not make him do all that crazy stuff in the movie.

So I was thinking, what if one of the options in enhance was dedicating two force dice to allow a person to use their willpower as their stat for a combat check.

So a pure combat character could commit force dice to the extra brawn, and the sense stuff.

A mental character would have to sacrifice both dice just to get a decent roll on their attack, nothing extra for defense or upgrades.

Thoughts?

Keep in mind, Yoda probably had 6-7 Force dice to play with too, along with most of the talents in an as-yet-unreleased talent tree or four. You don't get the title of Grand Master by simply living a long life...

So, when I looked at enhance I thought about how Yoda used the force to enhance is physical capability to fight dooku. How he did this was clearly and easily defined in the old d20 system.

Yoda probably due to his age and size had an agi and brawn of 1.

Dedicating a force die to up each by one did not make him do all that crazy stuff in the movie.

So I was thinking, what if one of the options in enhance was dedicating two force dice to allow a person to use their willpower as their stat for a combat check.

So a pure combat character could commit force dice to the extra brawn, and the sense stuff.

A mental character would have to sacrifice both dice just to get a decent roll on their attack, nothing extra for defense or upgrades.

Thoughts?

Force of Will, a FSEm talent, lets you sub WIllpower for any characteristic for one check, once per session and it costs 25XP.

Allowing a Force Power to step on the toes of such a stunt—and do it better, too!—isn't such a good idea.

Besides, I'm sure that in FaD we'll see a Lightsaber Combat power!

Similar to Enhance, the base will allow a Force Check as part of the Lightsaber check, allowing LS pips to be used for success or advantage.

The "left side branch" would include a control upgrade to make a Deflection action, spending LS pips to increase your Ranged Defense until your next turn, later control upgrades make it a maneuver. Along with magnitude upgrades to "share" the defense bonus with those in close/engaged range. And a final control upgrade allowing you to commit a Force die to use Willpower instead of Agility/Brawn.

The "right side branch" will involve throwing the Lightsaber. A control upgrade to allow it to be thrown out to short range. two or three ranged upgrades to throw farther, and a magnitude upgrade to treat it like an autofire weapon?

This is all off the top of my head, so take it with a grain of salt

-EF

There's also the Sense power from EotE, which allows for two upgrades to any combat check. Yoda quite likely has five ranks in Lightsaber, so between those two items and the Enhance ongoing to increas Agility, that gives him a pool of three Proficiency and two Ability before taking not account his inherent Agility (which I'd peg as being at least a two by the time of the prequels). Add in who-knows-what for talents from his Jedi specializations, and you don't need to modify Enhance, especially seeing as how he can afford to have three different Ongoing Effects active at the same time and be able to use his other powers.

Plus I obviously don't have the book yet, but is there an ongoing effect that increases Agility and a temporary use that increases agility? Would it be possible to use both of these at the same time, thus increasing it by 2?

I don't know exactly what the options for the power are, but that could also play into it.

As mentioned by Donovan Morningfire, the last Control upgrade for Enhance unlocks an ongoing effect to increase Agility ("by 1 to a maximum of 6") but Enhance does not include "a temporary use that increases agility".

Ahh okay. I knew that there was a temporary boost to certain skills. I didn't know if that extended to characteristics. But even so, I think that can more than make up for all of Yoda's stuff.

Depends on what movies you treat as canon. I did notice that Saga Edition was very much into somehow accommodating the whole breadth of "power levels" in the prequels and EU (which could be hilariously, stupendously out of sync with one another -- it almost reminds me of Marvel & DC Comics) whereas the FFG SWRPG is focused on the Original Trilogy.

One wonders, for example, whether F&D will account for The Force Unleashed or pretend that it never happened... I'm perfectly comfortable with the latter.

I loved the Force Unleashed! They can use the story while downplaying the Unleashed part. I wouldn't mind some optional rules for higher silhouettes and move object, but Galen could just be a powerful Force User.

In regards to Force Unleashed, all that would really be needed is an Upgrade or Talent that lets the Force-user activate their Strength Upgrades more than once for those really big objects that need moving, like a Star Destroyer. That or it was a one-time handwave by the GM that required flipping a Destiny Point. Otherwise, the bulk of what Starkiller pulls off in the game is covered under the existing Move Power, just with all the Strength Upgrades purchased as well as a few Range and Magnitude Upgrades.

Hmm... is there anything in EotE or the AoR beta book about Destiny Points (and GM handwave) being the way to go when it comes to replicating the "higher end" stuff seen in TFU or (more relevantly) KOTOR, while "all the Strength, Control, Magnitude, Range" upgrades would suffice for the powers to the extent seen in the prequel trilogy/general EU as well?

Just trying to see where the RAW boundary is here, since Galen/Starkiller is basically just an exercise in "high Force power use during the Dark Times", though it was clear to me that one of the limitations of Saga was having to try and account for him with a level-capped system.

(It turns out that Dorsk 81 beat Galen/Starkiller to the whole Star Destroyer thing... he just didn't survive it, though that's because he pushed way more than one.)

It turns out that Dorsk 81 beat Galen/Starkiller to the whole Star Destroyer thing... he just didn't survive it, though that's because he pushed way more than one.

Well, Dorsk 81 had a lot of extra help, where as Starkiller did it all by himself.

As for rules on "pushing" one's Force abilities beyond the ability to activate certain Upgrades multiple times, that will probably be something covered in Force & Destiny, if at all.

Clear enough in my book!

Depends on what movies you treat as canon. I did notice that Saga Edition was very much into somehow accommodating the whole breadth of "power levels" in the prequels and EU (which could be hilariously, stupendously out of sync with one another -- it almost reminds me of Marvel & DC Comics) whereas the FFG SWRPG is focused on the Original Trilogy.

One wonders, for example, whether F&D will account for The Force Unleashed or pretend that it never happened... I'm perfectly comfortable with the latter.

For what it's worth, Star Wars media typically treats all of Star Wars canon as canon to at least some degree.

As for whether that'll change with Disney and Episode VII, well, that's up in the air.

I'm aware of the general tiers of canon, but it is interesting and almost refreshing to see FFG SWRPG use a narrower but more focused lens, so to speak.

Well, you see such wildly varying levels of "power" in any franchise where there are multiple writers involved. Case in point is Batman. Under some, he's an exceptional athlete with a brilliant mind and finely-honed detective skills. Under others, he's a freaking God that makes most other superheroes (including ones with actual powers) look like a bunch of wet-nosed cub scouts. Also Superman, who for a while simply developed new powers as the plot required (pretty much whenever the writer had written themselves into a corner).

Luke's level of power during the 90's was all over the map, ranging from fairly tame and semi-believable under Timothy Zahn, to being able to telekinetically rebuild a skyscraper by himself. Though I think half that problem is that nobody really knew what sort of stuff a "true Jedi Knight" would be capable of doing, and made an extrapolation that if Luke with less than a year's worth of training could take on and defeat Darth Vader, then he'd just get more and more powerful. It was only after Zahn's Thrawn Dualogy that Luke's level of power became a bit more acceptable, though later series have begun pushing him back up the scale, but not to the point where you'd be half-expecting him to go into Super Jedi Mode (complete with spiky blonde hair and energy aura) or anything.

I think that EotE and AoR take a more reserved approach simply because Force-users aren't a major story element to the setting and the designers don't want Force-users to completely overshadow the rest of the party. How much this will still hold true once Force & Destiny comes out remains to be seen...

I'm hoping that F&D will give us more diversity rather than more power. Heck. I'd be okay with even only a little more diversity -- and this is coming from a HUGE fan of KotOR, TFU, and SWtOR.

Since the games are supposed to be compatible, I don't see how F&D can give us considerably more powerful Force-users without something like an XP differential.

I'm hoping that F&D will give us more diversity rather than more power. Heck. I'd be okay with even only a little more diversity -- and this is coming from a HUGE fan of KotOR, TFU, and SWtOR.

Since the games are supposed to be compatible, I don't see how F&D can give us considerably more powerful Force-users without something like an XP differential.

There's also the Sense power from EotE, which allows for two upgrades to any combat check. Yoda quite likely has five ranks in Lightsaber, so between those two items and the Enhance ongoing to increas Agility, that gives him a pool of three Proficiency and two Ability before taking not account his inherent Agility (which I'd peg as being at least a two by the time of the prequels). Add in who-knows-what for talents from his Jedi specializations, and you don't need to modify Enhance, especially seeing as how he can afford to have three different Ongoing Effects active at the same time and be able to use his other powers.

I thought sense was 2 defense upgrades and one offense upgrade.

Ahh okay. I knew that there was a temporary boost to certain skills. I didn't know if that extended to characteristics. But even so, I think that can more than make up for all of Yoda's stuff.

Not so sure. Judging by how physically frail he is and the fact he is Sil 0, chances are both his brawn and agility are a 1. Judging by all the hopping he did, he was using agility for his LS not brawn. So he commits one force die to Agi, assuming five ranks in LS he now is rolling 2/5.

With the sense power he is now rolling 3/5.

If he constantly blows strain to upgrade via that skill on FsE/Scholar whose name I cannot currently remember, he would roll 4/5.

That is pretty decent. I mean it is nowhere near what someone with a 4-6 stat +5 ranks could do. Someone with a 6 agi and 5 ranks in LS is rolling 5/6. Commit a die to agi via enhance and now it is 6/6. Sense feat makes it 6/7, and if you want to blow strain you can make it 7/7, a big difference from 4/5.

Granted, the only two people we saw Yoda fight were two older weaker men who were probably in the same boat as him physically. And a few stock clone troopers.

So yeah, I guess what we have in the books available to us can explain it.

I thought sense was 2 defense upgrades and one offense upgrade.

Nope. Read the Strength and Duration Upgrades.

Both say "when using Sense's Ongoing Effects, which means that by the time the character is able to purchase that second Control Upgrade, they'd get the benefit of the Duration and Strength Upgrades as well, so it'd be two upgrades (Strength) to the combat skill twice per round (Duration).

Of course, per RAW there's not really any way for a Force-user to get a second attack roll per round... at least for the moment. That might very well change when Force & Destiny gets released.

If you have more than 1 Force die, can you commit more than one on a particular use of a Force power? Could you commit 2 Force dice to the Sense power and have the defensive side of things upgraded four times?

If you have more than 1 Force die, can you commit more than one on a particular use of a Force power? Could you commit 2 Force dice to the Sense power and have the defensive side of things upgraded four times?

Nope, you can only commit a single Force die per each Ongoing Effect, as you only have the one instance of that Ongoing Effect. It'd be the same as asking "Can I use Frenzied Attack to upgrade my dice pool twice even though I only have one rank in the talent?"

So with a Force Rating of 2, you could have any two of the following Ongoing Effects:

- Upgrade difficulty on incoming attacks twice, done twice per round

- Upgrade dice pool on attack rolls twice, done twice per round

- Increase your Agility by 1.

- Increase your Brawn by 1.

In the earlier example of Yoda, he's likely got a Force Rating of 6 (esteemed Jedi Master going by the chart in the EotE Beta), so he can easily assign 3 of his Force dice to upgrading his attack roll, upgrading the difficulty of incoming attacks, and then increasing his Agility by 1. So if you figure he's got a base Agility of 2 (I figure he's focused more on mental Characteristics than purely physical ones) and five ranks of Lightsaber (he is a Jedi Master), that means that he'd be rolling 5 Proficiency dice on any attack rolls he's making, possibly better if you assign him a higher base Agility (though I wouldn't go above a 3 personally).

Just to check, he can't actually get Lightsaber past 5, only stack on other stuff to combat checks such as boost dice or upgrade the dice pool further somehow?

I have to say that this actually would give a decently simple explanation for just how the elongated-seeming lightsaber duels would go on for so long, the combatants tending to commit Force dice to increasing difficulty on incoming attacks, since they presumably all had quite a few of said Force dice to do so with.

Just to check, he can't actually get Lightsaber past 5, only stack on other stuff to combat checks such as boost dice or upgrade the dice pool further somehow?

I have to say that this actually would give a decently simple explanation for just how the elongated-seeming lightsaber duels would go on for so long, the combatants tending to commit Force dice to increasing difficulty on incoming attacks, since they presumably all had quite a few of said Force dice to do so with.

Cap on skill ranks is 5 (2 at character creation), but if a PC has other means to upgrade or add boost dice, they can certainly apply.