Using force powers together

[Kilcannon 177]

My players want to use force powers together to sometimes accomplish things that they normally can't or to experience the power together.   I was going to make it similar to using skills except that if one player uses the Dark side other players will take the strain damage and have a choice to break free of the combining of their powers or risk taking Morality loss as well.

 

Anyone have any ideas for this?

[whafrog 10,384]

Seems like a good suggestion.  Anakin and Obiwan work together a lot, giving each other a jumping boost or teaming up to hold up a Kyber crystal, so it certainly seems doable.  One caveat is that if they share the Force point pool they could become very potent, so you might want to call for a DP flip to work together, maybe impose a Strain cost, or cap the number of points that can be shared (maybe tied to Discipline ranks or something).

[Lathrop 838]

There were a small handful of threads on the Beta forums with thoughts on the topic, this was the only one I could find though:

 

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/124450-skilled-assistance-and-the-force/

[Josep Maria 685]

I use this houserule:

 

- Force Support: Each additional assisstant let exchange 1 generated pip to the main user [LS ↔ DS]. The rest of cooperation rules still applies.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

My players want to use force powers together to sometimes accomplish things that they normally can't or to experience the power together.   I was going to make it similar to using skills except that if one player uses the Dark side other players will take the strain damage and have a choice to break free of the combining of their powers or risk taking Morality loss as well.

 

Anyone have any ideas for this?

This was asked of the lead designer Sam Stewart on an Order 66 appearance, and it seems the official stance is "you can't combine Force efforts," so odds are good that this sort of thing won't be addressed in the official rules, or at least not the core rulebook.

 

As for how to go about it, my idea would be similar to Josep's, in that each contributing Force use can only add a number of Force pips equal to the lower of their Force Rating or Discipline ranks, but still need to roll their Force dice to see if the actually generate any Force Points in the first place.  If any member of the group effort decides to convert a dark side pip, then each member of the group would suffer 1 conflict per pip.

 

However, if they're going to try and do this in the middle of combat, for that I'd require each contributor to make a Hard (possibly Daunting) Discipline check on their turn to be able to retain the clear focus needed during a stress-filled dangerous situation; it's one thing to work together when things are nice and peaceful, but another when there are people actively trying to harm you.  It'd also cut down on having PC groups simply pool their efforts into activating combat-powers like Move (whose early balance is that the PCs won't be able to reliably generate a lot of light side pips) or Influence (a mass mind whammy by triggering the Multitude Upgrade several times over).

[Kilcannon 177]

Thanks for ideas. I'm thinking of this more for non combat when they can focus without distractions to help one another. I could see move object, healing if both parties are healing someone other than the group using the power, seek if meditating together, Farseeing if meditating together, or 3 sense if meditating