How do you balance the force in mixed games?

[Magnus Arcanus 559]

Let's say Charm, the natural max for it is 5Y1G, with a bunch of talents to support it, but it maxes out at a point where charming really headstrong adversaries is still difficult. If you're force sensitive you can just keep going, stacking up more force ratings until no opponent can ever resist your charme.

 

Another thing is actually using force powers. Let's say you wanted to use Influence to inflict strain on someone, with a lot of force dice you could get a very powerful attack cooking, but the rules say defense against the force is an opposed check, and discipline caps out at a place where the big bads in the game can still win. If you use Scathing Tirade + the force however, where it's a standard check that purely counts successes you can shout an entire army into submission with those extra force dice.

 

This issue is any place in the rule where the force isn't there to activate a power that requires a separate skill check to succeed, but simply adds on top of a skill check. The game just breaks in those places, especially in opposed checks, since even if your target has force dice they don't count in opposed checks. Something that should be risky to do if your opponent has substantial defenses, like rolling coercion on a Black Suns gangster becomes easy. 

 

It's important to remember that Charm, Negotiate, Deception, and Coercion used as skills are not mind control. There is a separate control talent for "Mind Trick" ala "These are not the droids you are looking for." A regular 'social' check still has fall into the area of reason to be allowed. Walking up to the admiral in control of the Coruscant Defense Fleet and trying a deception check of "So, you're not going to believe this, but uh, your entire fleet is to be handed over to the Rebellion." simply isn't going to work. It falls into the category of an impossible check. Same thing with trying to charm the captain of a Star Destroyer into giving you the keys to his ship. At most the check will make him very friendly to you. Maybe you get a new Pen Pal, or maybe he would even let you take a tour of the ship while docked, so he can brag about the new turbolaser targeting computer upgrade to his BFF.

 

One other aspect to keep in mind, is getting a Force Rating of even 6 would require no fewer than three separate trees, and two of these trees would need to have access to two Force Rating increases. Then you're looking lots of experience to work you way down to the bottom of the various trees to get the various FR talent increases, and of course even more talents that are required to actually be able use all the powerful force using goody-ness.

 

Final point: Once you do have players that are in the 6 Force Rating realm, they are no longer "another just powerful PC in the Universe". They are the Movers and Shakers of the Universe. They are the leaders of the Black Sun, or the Empire, or the Rebellion. The challenges they face should be crazy epic in scale, and should go beyond a battalion of Stormtroopers.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Magnus Arcanus

[Merc1138 23]

Looking at character creation for this miracle charmer, a twi'lek with a 122226 for characteristics still needs another 600xp to start as a consular sage(2FR), get niman disciple(for sense emotions and dedication), and pick up seer(2FR), buy 3 ranks in charm(gets 1 from being twi'lek, and another from sage specialization) to have a charm dice pool of YYYYYG, -1 setback, +1 boost die, and 6 FR.

 

That would also mean a leadership pool of YGGGGG, -1 setback, and 6FR. A negotiation pool of YGGGGG and 6FR, ans well as a cool pool of YGGGGG. Deception and coercion would be GG, 1 boost, and 6FR each. Discipline would be YG. Literally everything else is a GG or G, while having no other force powers, nothing to really aid in combat of any sort, nothing really spend on defense of any type(defense dice, grit, or toughened).

 

Sure, that would make for an amazing face character, but you've literally gimped yourself for everything else unless you have a ton more xp to dump into force powers. Assuming a non force sensitive PC tried to also spend as much xp as they could to specialize that way(and they really can't), they'd still have xp leftover to put into just about anything they want.

 

All the GM would need to do to deal with this force user, is throw some droids or whatever else that's force immune at him and it automatically negates the extra dice from his force rating. Even a force using NPC with enough stats to make sense when facing this PC could simply have suppress. Heck, have this charming force NPC climb a mountain and he's done. Opposed discipline check? Yeah, he's hosed with that YG pool without spending a ton of XP on it, and he's got himself stuck at 2 willpower unless he goes down yet another tree to increase that with dedication(and even then it'll only be 3, unless you have this PC going down a 5th, and 6th specialization tree for a few hundred more xp). But even if he does that, literally everything else to do in the game he's still only got GG or G to throw at it.

 

Even if you have a combat monster of a jedi by spending 1000xp purely to make him amazing as an ataru striker(agility for lightsaber checks, and the natural agility for shooting at things), then you've still got a character that's still effectively gimped for everything that isn't physical(I would assume he'd go down the enhance power tree instead of influence maybe?) without a few hundred more xp pumped into skills and additional force abilities.

 

I say if you've got a character that specialized with hundreds of xp spent that way, and the GM doesn't throw any challenges at him to force reconsidering their xp spending to at least try to round out their characters abilities a little, then they deserve to be able to walk through everything relying on 1-3 dice pools like that.

[HappyDaze 10,108]

While you might not [C]harm the captain of a Star Destroyer into giving you the keys to his ship, if you try Deception to make him believe that you're an Inquisitor, you might end up with his ride (for a very short time).

[FuriousGreg 1,667]

 

I think what whafrog is going for is that Charm, or any Skill for that matter, isn't magic even if the Force is involved. A successful Charm isn't going to get the ISB agent to just open the cell door for you or a Hutt to clear your debt, what it will do is open them up to the idea but you still have to create a situation that makes what you want possible.

I disagree. It will do that. Of course, the issue is that the roll may be seriously penalized by Setback and/or Upgrades based upon the conditions you mention. Still, if you're successful despite all of that, then the other guy is going to give in.

 

Honestly what you are describing sounds a lot like roll playing rather than role playing, which is fine if you want to do it that way but I for one would get bored pretty quick. Theres a difference between cinematic storytelling where a hero does astounding and unexpected things, and one where it feels ridiculous. When you allow the ridiculous to happen often enough in a game then really cool ideas and solutions become less than commonplace they become boring. If the hero doesn't earn their success in some way it rips you right out of it, the suspension of disbelief in the scene, the whole movie in fact, just fails.

[whafrog 10,384]

While you might not [C]harm the captain of a Star Destroyer into giving you the keys to his ship, if you try Deception to make him believe that you're an Inquisitor, you might end up with his ride (for a very short time).

 

Or, to go back to my previous example, if a guy was dressed in a manner suitable to my hetero-preferences, I could be fooled for a while...but there would be an automatic Despair after the revelation...  

[HappyDaze 10,108]

 

 

I think what whafrog is going for is that Charm, or any Skill for that matter, isn't magic even if the Force is involved. A successful Charm isn't going to get the ISB agent to just open the cell door for you or a Hutt to clear your debt, what it will do is open them up to the idea but you still have to create a situation that makes what you want possible.

I disagree. It will do that. Of course, the issue is that the roll may be seriously penalized by Setback and/or Upgrades based upon the conditions you mention. Still, if you're successful despite all of that, then the other guy is going to give in.

 

Honestly what you are describing sounds a lot like roll playing rather than role playing, which is fine if you want to do it that way but I for one would get bored pretty quick. Theres a difference between cinematic storytelling where a hero does astounding and unexpected things, and one where it feels ridiculous. When you allow the ridiculous to happen often enough in a game then really cool ideas and solutions become less than commonplace they become boring. If the hero doesn't earn their success in some way it rips you right out of it, the suspension of disbelief in the scene, the whole movie in fact, just fails.

 

Call it what you want, but the game gives mechanical difficulties for convincing people to do things that they don't want to do. Sure, it's hard and it is likely to fail and produce Threat and even Despair, but it's still part of the game. Letting a character that's invested in a combat skill perform awesomely is just as much the same style of play as allowing someone that's invested in an interaction skill to perform awesomely. Both use dice rolls, and the use of interaction skills can often be even more difficult than using combat skills, so don't be so quick to just say "that's impossible" unless you really want to tell your players exactly how you want them to play out the scene.

[Aetrion 441]

Well, all social checks should get significantly more difficult when you're dealing with multiple people. Convincing one stormtrooper to look the other way is pretty easy, but a whole squad, where every one of them could rat out the others if they don't follow protocols? That should be very tricky. 

 

Social checks do have a tendency to kind of break the game if you simply assume that a success means the player gets exactly what they want. The way I try to handle it as a DM is that I think of three things: What is the NPCs primary loyalty (A person or ideal they will not betray), what is the NPCs primary weakness/trouble (A person or characteristic that can control them), and what is the NPCs primary vice. (A behavior they engage in for self gratification, even if it causes them issues) Those are the factors a social check can't violate, but if your social checks exploit them you get boost, and you can spend advantage in social checks to gain insight over these aspects of a character. A stormtrooper's aspects might be: Loyalty: His Unit, Fear: His Superiors, Vice: Hatred of aliens. So you'd never be able to convince that character to hurt the other people in his unit, you'd never be able to convince him to do something his superiors will punish him for, and you'll never be able to convince him to do something that benefits non-humans. However, if you offer him a way to save his unit from getting killed without his superiors finding out while somehow screwing over a non-human you get 6 boost. You can override one of the character's primary aspects if you successfully compel the other two against it.

 

 

 

Anyways, my main point about the force breaking the game is still that the force in the game is relatively well balanced everywhere where the force dice are used to activate a power, and then a skill roll is used to determine if it worked, and it's broken everywhere where force dice are used to just stack on top of an existing dice pool. Having a force pool of 15 wouldn't help you do a better mind trick, it's the opposed check that determines if it works. Having a force pool of 15 would make all social checks it applies to pretty much auto success with advantage for days though.

[FuriousGreg 1,667]

Well, all social checks should get significantly more difficult when you're dealing with multiple people. Convincing one stormtrooper to look the other way is pretty easy, but a whole squad, where every one of them could rat out the others if they don't follow protocols? That should be very tricky. 

 

Social checks do have a tendency to kind of break the game if you simply assume that a success means the player gets exactly what they want. The way I try to handle it as a DM is that I think of three things: What is the NPCs primary loyalty (A person or ideal they will not betray), what is the NPCs primary weakness/trouble (A person or characteristic that can control them), and what is the NPCs primary vice. (A behavior they engage in for self gratification, even if it causes them issues) Those are the factors a social check can't violate, but if your social checks exploit them you get boost, and you can spend advantage in social checks to gain insight over these aspects of a character. A stormtrooper's aspects might be: Loyalty: His Unit, Fear: His Superiors, Vice: Hatred of aliens. So you'd never be able to convince that character to hurt the other people in his unit, you'd never be able to convince him to do something his superiors will punish him for, and you'll never be able to convince him to do something that benefits non-humans. However, if you offer him a way to save his unit from getting killed without his superiors finding out while somehow screwing over a non-human you get 6 boost. You can override one of the character's primary aspects if you successfully compel the other two against it.

 

This^

 

Anyways, my main point about the force breaking the game is still that the force in the game is relatively well balanced everywhere where the force dice are used to activate a power, and then a skill roll is used to determine if it worked, and it's broken everywhere where force dice are used to just stack on top of an existing dice pool. Having a force pool of 15 wouldn't help you do a better mind trick, it's the opposed check that determines if it works. Having a force pool of 15 would make all social checks it applies to pretty much auto success with advantage for days though.

I don't think the adding of a Force Die(s) is game breaking, don't forget that Force Users are generally not going to have as many Ranks in Skills or Talents to augment them because that is what their Force Powers are for. With a few exceptions any Skill that gets modified by a Force Power can be raised easier and cheaper by a non-FU than what it costs a FU to get the Power.

Edited November 28, 2016 by FuriousGreg

[Aetrion 441]

I don't think the adding of a Force Die(s) is game breaking, don't forget that Force Users are generally not going to have as many Ranks in Skills or Talents to augment them because that is what their Force Powers are for. With a few exceptions any Skill that gets modified by a Force Power can be raised easier and cheaper by a non-FU than what it costs a FU to get the Power.

 

 

The problem is that it's very cheap to enable using force dice on a skill for the most part, and because of that despite the fact that force ratings are expensive they are cheaper than ranking every single skill they boost. On top of that they allow developing a skill pool well beyond the natural limit of other characters if you do boost their skills.

 

I mean like I said before, none of this is a huge issue on characters that are sitting at like 500XP, but I personally really enjoy the idea of a long game where you never have to stop because the characters got too crazy, so I don't particularly like that they left the force system so completely without caps that encourage horizontal progression after a point.

[SJanson 32]

What xp level are you talking about - i.e., how long a game are you wanting?  I've built a Force Sensitive Guardian character to almost 3000 xp (currently sitting at 420 xp earned), and still felt there were ways to improve her.  And given the builds for both Force-Sensitive and non characters that I'm seeing from my players right now (all around the 410 xp to 430 xp mark), i don't feel that she would in any way overshadow what they are capable of at that level.  Not to mention how much more attention she's going to draw if she uses any flashy Force powers or her lightsaber.  Given that it has taken this group a year of bi-weekly games to get to just over 400 xp, I don't see this as a short-term game at all.

[Kaigen 826]

Let's say Charm, the natural max for it is 5Y1G, with a bunch of talents to support it, but it maxes out at a point where charming really headstrong adversaries is still difficult. If you're force sensitive you can just keep going, stacking up more force ratings until no opponent can ever resist your charme.

 

Aside from what other people have pointed out about how getting a high Force Rating is much harder than you seem to think it is, there's another thing to keep in mind: After a certain point in this system, the mark of a master is not how many dice they can throw at the problem, but how many talents they have to enhance their results or enable new uses for the same skill.

 

Take your hypothetical Charm monster. They may be throwing 5Y1G plus Force Dice at every Charm check, but can they grant Boost dice and recover strain on their allies within short range? Not unless they've also cross-career spec'd into Politico/Ambassador, etc. in addition to all the experience they've spent on getting a good Force Rating, high Presence, and high skill ranks. Someone might have a supremely good Deception check, but can they reduce the Wound Thresholds of everyone in an entire organization? Not unless they're a Propagandist. You'd probably have a difficult time using Coercion to clear an area of bystanders before the shooting starts if you're not an Advocate with Improved Plausible Deniability. And if you're not a Diplomat with the Diplomatic Solution signature ability, you can probably forget about forcing a group of people actively engaged in combat to cool it and talk out their problems (unless the GM lets you try it with an Impossible check, which uses up your Destiny Point for the check, preventing you from using opposite color pips at all on your Force dice).

 

Go down the line of skill checks that Force Powers can enhance and you'll find similar cases. Foresee to improve Initiative? Okay, but you have to be a Vanguard if you want to use one excellent initiative check to let your entire party go first in the first round. Enhance to boost Brawl checks? My money's still on the Marauder. Manipulate to improve Mechanics? Only a specialized mechanic can MacGuyver their way out of a locked supply closet with reliability.

 

Even if you extend the XP budget way out to the point where the Force user can afford to get a FR of 6, maxed skill ranks, and those cross-career specs with their talents, the non-Force user will still finish the non-FR parts of that faster and be able to branch out for better synergy or versatility first.

[Aetrion 441]

Oh, a force sensitive Politico is overpowered as crap, just because of how broken Scathing Tirade is, and then you slap force dice into its roll. That's more dangerous than any force power, because there is just no defense.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Aetrion

[Endersai 513]

In terms of balance, part of the job can be done by setting expectations upfront between player and GM so as to ensure the Force users are properly contextualised.

 

People who grew up on the prequels and want to play one-dimensional flipping out space ninja wizards will almost certainly invite trouble from the Empire, and should be discouraged.

 

But a good player should be able to appreciate that using the Force is the easiest way to earn a death mark. That's why, IMO, the Force users in EotE and AoR are as they are. One is in hiding, the other is loud and proud and a rallying point for the Alliance. He has a military structure to, in theory, protect him.

 

The FAD classes, when mixed with EotE and AOR classes, should be necessarily humble with their power and reluctant to overtly use it. Meaning that whilst they could walk up and wave their hand at an Imperial captain, they wouldn't because the others watching might think it a bit odd and interject. And as was noted earlier, pulling out a Jedi's laser sword is an easy way to say "to collect your easy bounty, call 1-800-BOBAFETT". Cause and effect is the best mitigant to Jedi power abuse.

[Kaigen 826]

Oh, a force sensitive Politico is overpowered as crap, just because of how broken Scathing Tirade is, and then you slap force dice into its roll. That's more dangerous than any force power, because there is just no defense.

 

Oh, I don't know, there's always earplugs.

 

More seriously, yes, that's a potent combination. It's also about 700 XP just to be good at that one trick with a bit of miscellaneous capability in other social skills. You've got no offensive or defensive abilities to speak of, no skills that help you explore strange environments, and very little to do during planetary scale encounters.

 

Meanwhile, with the same XP budget, the Colonist Politico is really good at Scathing Tirade and Inspiring Rhetoric and they have Marshal to make them really good at shooting things, not getting incapacitated, not being fooled by Deception checks, and helping their allies do better with social checks and they have Unmatched Expertise to be utterly amazing at anything that involves a career skill check for one encounter per session.

 

I doubt the Politico is going to feel too overshadowed by the Force user.

[whafrog 10,384]

Oh, a force sensitive Politico is overpowered as crap, just because of how broken Scathing Tirade is, and then you slap force dice into its roll. That's more dangerous than any force power, because there is just no defense.

 

You keep making these statements, without anything to back it up.  You've yet to provide any details, whereas contrary details have been provided.  You do not seem to get how the system works.  Nor have you seemed to grok some important information in other sourcebooks, specifically Far Horizons.  And the capper is all this potential abuse is far into your gaming future.

 

I'm not sure why you're flogging this dead horse, but I'm starting to guess.

[EliasWindrider 2,714]

Let's say Charm, the natural max for it is 5Y1G, with a bunch of talents to support it, but it maxes out at a point where charming really headstrong adversaries is still difficult. If you're force sensitive you can just keep going, stacking up more force ratings until no opponent can ever resist your charme.

Charming someone means they like you. It doesn't mean they'll do what you say.

Charmed Bounty Hunter To Tied Up PC: you seem like a really great guy, we could have been good friends under other circumstances, unfortunately you have a death mark on you and I always complete contracts, because without a good reputation I couldn't get work. I'm truly sorry about this, but I can give you a quick and painless death. <BLASTER TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD>

BLAM.

which by the way permanently solves the problem of this PC having a FR of 6+

Edited November 29, 2016 by EliasWindrider

[bradknowles 4,449]

Charmed Bounty Hunter To Tied Up PC: you seem like a really great guy, we could have been good friends under other circumstances, unfortunately you have a death mark on you and I always complete contracts, because without a good reputation I couldn't get work. I'm truly sorry about this, but I can give you a quick and painless death. <BLASTER TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD>

Charm won’t solve that problem. But if they’re a FR6+ character, then they’ve probably got other Force powers that will.

[syrath 1,316]

Oh, a force sensitive Politico is overpowered as crap, just because of how broken Scathing Tirade is, and then you slap force dice into its roll. That's more dangerous than any force power, because there is just no defense.

Actually Scathing Tirade with a few force dice is hardly overpowered. Try sitting down with the dice roller app and roll 5Y1G2W vs 2P and work out how many people you can hit. Remember the result is 1 succes affects 1 target 1 Advantage allows you to boost that damage by 1 per advantage on 1 target. So with the best roll in the world you get 12 from the normal dice and 4 from the force dice. So if you get a mix of 8 and 8 you could cause 2 strain on 8 targets or you could cause 9 on 1, with 1 on 7. If you roll 1 success and 15 advantage you could cause 16 strain on 1 target. Well, some news for you, aan autofire jury rigged monkey can cause this sort of damamge to wounds, very easily with a minimal spend.

While the last Scatging Tirade example can take out a reasonable nemesis it is hardly likely to get 15 advantage, it has been noted that a GM can rule that the target has to understand you, so try it on a rancor.

Edit bte it is easier to cause consistent high strain damage with the influence basic power and the strength upgrade. With 2 FR and you are doing between 4-8 strain dmg to one target

Edited November 29, 2016 by syrath

[Benjan Meruna 797]

Aetrion, I really think you are overestimating how much use you get out of 5 FR or so vs. just being able to negate 2 setback and add 2 boost.

 

The numbers speak for themselves: 

 

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=5&ability=1&difficulty=3&setback=2

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=5&ability=1&boost=2&difficulty=3

 

Can 5 Force die match that?  I think the answer is 'barely.'  Meanwhile, those setback negations and boosts usually cover multiple skills, occur fairly early in trees, and (most importantly, in my opinion) don't come at the expense of Dedication talents.

 

In order to get that FR 5 AND that attribute of 6, you are either committing to a very slow FR gain through (non-lightsaber) Force Sensitive specs or you are sacrificing that Dedication to take one of the ones that offers 2 FR.  In the first case, the amount of XP that you have to spend to get to 5/6 FR is so wild that the non sensitive is already a master of the thing the Sensitive  is trying to be good at.  At that point, the Sensitive is the one playing catchup.  In the second...you STILL have to burn a ton of XP buying up specs that have dedications to get that attribute up after you pumped your FR up with Sage, Seer, and Hermit.

 

Basically, there is NO scenario where you can create some Force monster who can do everything without making a non-force sensitive who can do those things thing nearly as well while being miles better at several other tasks besides.  It's why I keep asking you to make a character, so that I can make one of the same XP to prove this to you.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Benjan Meruna

[killerbeardhawk 457]

Ran the numbers on Oggdudes. Human sage/seer with force powers and control upgrades in enhance foresee and influence that allow force dice to roll with ability, could roll 5 force dice on all initiative, social, and some physical checks at about 270xp. With few truly useful talents and a 2 statline it didn't look that impressive. After another 200xp or so you could get the two more force powers from hermit. After pushing 500xp you could in theory have 7 force rating that you roll on about 13 skills, if you count Vig/Cool as two but its only really initiative.

What I've come to realize is your not that great at one thing and you've spent all of your experience points to do so. I don't see broken, I see a very force sensitive person who uses the force naturally through all his actions and not just hopping or reflecting blaster bolts.

It's no more broken than a tank who puts 500xp into his soak and parry/reflect or a 500xp auto fire heavy clearing out rooms of minions, in fact looks fairly weak by comparison.

[Aetrion 441]

Well this thread was specifically about long running games where people actually max out their progressions in specific areas.

[Magnus Arcanus 559]

Well this thread was specifically about long running games where people actually max out their progressions in specific areas.

 

I have a campaign running that has characters with 1000+ XP. The PCs are very powerful, especially in the areas they are specialized in. But so far nothing appears to be "broken", and this includes the face of the party having a FR of 4, and lots of social skill buffs. There are enough checks and balances in the game system that I think prevents horrible abuse (and one of those "checks" is the players choosing to not intentionally push their characters into compete muchkin-ville territory).

 

There is still LOTS of room in this campaign for the PCs to grow.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Magnus Arcanus

[SJanson 32]

Well this thread was specifically about long running games where people actually max out their progressions in specific areas.

 

I think the biggest question many people are asking is, what do YOU define as "long running games"?  Unlike a d20 system, you don't necessarily ever max out your progression in specific areas, as you can easily find talents in another specialty that might add new aspects to your character even if you have maxed out your attributes and skills.  At any given xp level, a Force-Sensitive character is likely to have fewer skill ranks and/or a lower attribute than a non-Force Sensitive character, for the simple fact that if you are spending xp to boost your Force rating and acquire those Force powers that let you add your Force dice to specific skills, then you're not directly boosting those skills or the talents that support them.

 

Perhaps you could pick a specific xp level that you would consider "long-running", build a Force Sensitive character that you feel encapsulates this "all-powerful Force dice are greater than all" fear, and then let other contributors to the thread build non-Force sensitive characters that support their assertions that no, in fact, Force users are not overpowered in this system?

[killerbeardhawk 457]

Well this thread was specifically about long running games where people actually max out their progressions in specific areas.

I'm not sure what your trying to say. That force users have a higher "cap" to their progression? That non users are limited in what they can do in comparison right? There's a fatal flaw in your logic and it's that non users can become force sensitive. Thereby having the same high "cap" as anyone else.

If youre the GM make it so it's balanced, punish force users for having force rating. Lessen XP, gear, have harder fights, and put them in situations where their force won't help them.

I'm not sure you'll find the consensus here that it's unbalanced. I agree force users have more that they can spend XP on and that can strengthen an end game character, but is that unbalanced versus an ultimate non users? Nope.

[syrath 1,316]

At 300 xp per spec and 75 xp per skill and 36 specs per core book (plus splats) to get the 36th spec is going to cost 370 xp just to get the spec. Neither force users or non wont run out fast