Force Rating

[zhentil 76]

How high can you get. I am trying to build that bad guy from KOTR and just trying to follow the rules so how high can you get in force rating. I think i got up to 8 but not sure if you can go higher. 

[Absol197 5,296]

Based on current data, the theoretical maximum is 37:

1 (base) + 36 (six careers X six specializations) - 5 (Lightsaber specs without a rank of Force Rating) + 3 (specs with two ranks of Force Rating) + 2 (Universal specs with a rank of Force Rating) = 37.*

This is for PCs, of course, and the XP required just for the Force Rating itself would be prohibitive, not even including the XP necessary to even buy the powers necessary to make good use of it.

However, if you're building an NPC, they don't follow the character creation rules (because they're not PCs, and it's better to keep it easy on the GM), so they can have whatever Force Rating you need them to.  However, if you give an NPC a Force Rating more that 3 greater than the party, you're gonna get some shenanigans called on you, real quick.

 

*  However, we do not have all the specs yet, so six of this we can't get at the moment.

[Tramp Graphics 2,328]

14 minutes ago, zhentil said:

How high can you get. I am trying to build that bad guy from KOTR and just trying to follow the rules so how high can you get in force rating. I think i got up to 8 but not sure if you can go higher. 

Absol beat me to it. 

[Absol197 5,296]

 

However, as a practical matter, unless something very odd is happening in my game, I put a hard limit of Force Rating 10 on living creatures.  Basically, Force Rating is, like Silhouette, a logarithmic scale, and 10 is the highest.  Like the Richter scale  .  Anyone who would gain a Force Rating above that, we'll decide something else.  But not only is rolling that many dice (and keeping track of that many commit effects) not practical, the in-universe ramifications are troubling.  If creatures like that can exist, why is the Force not widely known and perfectly accepted (if not understood)?

I personally put the likes of Palpatine and Yoda at around Force Rating 5.

[Tramp Graphics 2,328]

3 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

 

However, as a practical matter, unless something very odd is happening in my game, I put a hard limit of Force Rating 10 on living creatures.  Basically, Force Rating is, like Silhouette, a logarithmic scale, and 10 is the highest.  Like the Richter scale  .  Anyone who would gain a Force Rating above that, we'll decide something else.  But not only is rolling that many dice (and keeping track of that many commit effects) not practical, the in-universe ramifications are troubling.  If creatures like that can exist, why is the Force not widely known and perfectly accepted (if not understood)?

I personally put the likes of Palpatine and Yoda at around Force Rating 5.

I'd go higher myself, given the table from the EotE beta:

 

While, obviously not a hard, fast rule, I do think it's a pretty good guide as to power and knowledge in the Force at differing levels of training. 

[Absol197 5,296]

Hmm!  I like that chart!  I don't have the Beta book (anymore, I gave it to a friend), so I didn't know that was in there.  I may change my opinion.  I'd still limit living FR to 10, however.

[Edgookin 771]

5 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

Hmm!  I like that chart!  I don't have the Beta book (anymore, I gave it to a friend), so I didn't know that was in there.  I may change my opinion.  I'd still limit living FR to 10, however.

I would limit FR to 7, just like any other stat.  That should be enough for anything you are trying to do.

[Tramp Graphics 2,328]

3 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

Hmm!  I like that chart!  I don't have the Beta book (anymore, I gave it to a friend), so I didn't know that was in there.  I may change my opinion.  I'd still limit living FR to 10, however.

Yeah, I like it too. Apparently it was removed because players were using it as a strict rule that a character absolutely had to have these specific Force ratings to qualify for those ranks, which really isn't the case, given the lore. For instance, the Legends character, Tionne had a very weak capacity for actually using the Force (probably no higher than an FR3), but was considered a Master because of her extensive knowledge of Jedi lore, on how to teach students. 

[Ghostofman 8,319]

6 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

  If creatures like that can exist, why is the Force not widely known and perfectly accepted (if not understood)?

Well at that point you're probably also talking Dr. Manhattan types that really don't want to deal in mortal affairs anyway. You know the Mortis family and creepy mask people types...

[Ghostofman 8,319]

24 minutes ago, Absol197 said:

Hmm!  I like that chart!  I don't have the Beta book (anymore, I gave it to a friend), so I didn't know that was in there.  I may change my opinion.  I'd still limit living FR to 10, however.

The chart is interesting, but they also changed how the force worked enough between then and now that it's no longer really useful or appropriate as a reference.

It's a nice artifact for talking about the changes that a system in development goes through. From a " here's what this FR is" perspective, not so much.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

14 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

The chart is interesting, but they also changed how the force worked enough between then and now that it's no longer really useful or appropriate as a reference.

It's a nice artifact for talking about the changes that a system in development goes through. From a " here's what this FR is" perspective, not so much.

I would say if anything, the chart is useful as a metric as to what sort of Force Rating would you need to be able to use powers without having to use pips of the opposing color.

So for a Padawan to reliably use basic Force powers and only using light side pips, they'd need FR 2 to up the odds of getting roughly 2 light side pips to work with.  But if you're willing to delve into using dark side pips, then what you can accomplish increases, so long as you're willing to pay the piper.

[Donovan Morningfire 10,200]

15 hours ago, zhentil said:

How high can you get. I am trying to build that bad guy from KOTR and just trying to follow the rules so how high can you get in force rating. I think i got up to 8 but not sure if you can go higher. 

Hypothetically, there's no cap on how a Force Rating can go in this system.

Realistically, you're not going to need a Force Rating greater than a 3 for most things, less if you're willing to make use of dark side pips.  Anything above a Force Rating 5 is pretty much overkill, and I believe that when Keith Kappel ran his Jedi Council adventure at GamerNationCon a couple years ago, Yoda's build only had a Force Rating 5, and it was plenty effective to make Yoda a beast when it came to wielding the Force.

[FuriousGreg 1,667]

I'm with the others here with 5-6 being a good limit for the scale of this system, more than that and I think you move into a different kind of story.

Edited July 21, 2017 by FuriousGreg

[Garran 485]

It does depend a bit on what you want to do with the character and how much of that involves committing force dice. 5 is enough to cover most things but if you're big on trying to use other powers while dice are already committed you might need to push it a bit higher.

Of course, if you really want to be focused on force rating, you can be - between Sage and Seer you can get to FR 5 with about 40% of each tree taken (and if you don't mind diverging a little bit there are some very nice support talents directly adjacent to the beelines). This does mean that you won't be doing much of the saber stuff, although if you're aiming to include that on a budget, Niman will give you a decent form and another FR, albeit with more tree fill-in required.

None of this actually gets you any powers, which you'll have to buy separately, but if you're really focused on force wizardry as the character's shtick, it's within reach with a reasonable-length campaign, and in a longer one, 7-8 is certainly possible.

Edited July 21, 2017 by Garran

[Darzil 778]

Ok, clearly you wouldn't do this, but . . .

By my reckoning (and trying for shortest path on each specialisation tree, breaking ties by most unranked talents, and not looking for longer paths that might hit more unranked talents), you can currently get 31 Force Rating from 27 Careers, at a total xp cost of 6495 xp.

Interestingly you only save 60 xp from duplicate unranked talents, and interestingly get 17 Grit but only 2 Toughened.

And of course you miss most of the good combat talents, and haven't learned any skills or force powers.

[KungFuFerret 4,120]

I think if you really want to replicate...whatever character you didn't mention in your OP, I would more focus on powers, and buying up all the upgrades for them.    As others have mentioned, having a lot of Force die doesn't really do a lot of good, if you don't have the powers to use them.

If you've got a fully tricked out Move power, for example, you can do a LOT with just a few force pips.  The magnitude/strength/range upgrades stack, and many of them (not all) can be activated multiple times.   So being able to amplify a factor by up to 3-4 magnitudes, with 1 pip (because you fully upgraded it) is way more powerful, than having a massive FR,  IMO.   

Personally, I find the character who can do a lot with less, more impressive than the character who has to dump a ton of power to accomplish the same thing.   Not to mention this allows the "lot with less" PC to be more versatile, as they have a ton of diverse powers they can utilize in any situation.  Where the high FR person, probably only has one, maybe two tricks to pump their force pips into.  

Diversity, creativity, efficiency of power, much more effective at making a powerful concept, than just raw power with little to do with it. 

[TheSapient 596]

So what is being suggested here is an iterative development?  Get some force die, develop some powers, grab some talents, and slowly increase all over time?

I'm closing in on filling in the talents I want from the Ascetic tree for my first force using character.  That leaves me with FR=2 plus always having 1 light and 1 dark point.  It is tempting to pick up Sage or Seer to up the FR, but I suppose it would make more sense invest in 2-4 force powers or start delving into Niman (if I can get myself a lightsaber).

[Tramp Graphics 2,328]

2 hours ago, TheSapient said:

So what is being suggested here is an iterative development?  Get some force die, develop some powers, grab some talents, and slowly increase all over time?

I'm closing in on filling in the talents I want from the Ascetic tree for my first force using character.  That leaves me with FR=2 plus always having 1 light and 1 dark point.  It is tempting to pick up Sage or Seer to up the FR, but I suppose it would make more sense invest in 2-4 force powers or start delving into Niman (if I can get myself a lightsaber).

Pretty much. For example, my signature character has a Fr 4, and every Force power in the core rules plus Farsight, and Suppress, and a number of upgrades in most of them (including maxing out one or two). So he's pretty versatile. 

Edited July 21, 2017 by Tramp Graphics

[TheShard 1,861]

But that's because it's thousands of xp

[Tramp Graphics 2,328]

3 minutes ago, TheShard said:

But that's because it's thousands of xp

Very true.  But that's besides the point. The point is not a matter of how much XP is spent, but rather, how it is spent. To get a  Force Rating of 6 or 7 would also take well over a 1000 XP with very few, if any Force Powers to use it on. 

[TheShard 1,861]

I agree. 

I'm just pointing out that if you want to have a character that has everything there is no mechanical limitation to making mr. Uberman.

However most characters won't get no where near that.

[TrystramK 84]

16 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Very true.  But that's besides the point. The point is not a matter of how much XP is spent, but rather, how it is spent. To get a  Force Rating of 6 or 7 would also take well over a 1000 XP with very few, if any Force Powers to use it on. 

FR 7 Starting as kel'dor and sage, spending 60 starting xp on characteristics and the rest to go as far down the sage tree towards FR, then after getting the FR swapping to Seer and Hermit and only getting exactly waht is necessary to get FR 7 is a 460 post CC investment give or take.   So not insanely amounts of XP, but they would basically be a lame duck character until Force powers are purchased.  Lets just say you max out Protect/Unleash as your first FP, that's  another 210 assuming no mentor bonus (not necessary to be effective, just for the sake of discussion)  they'd be sorta ridiculous with one force ability. But that is around 27 sessions at a generous xp per session ratio of 25 xp ( I would imagine most people give 15-20xp as the session gain).  That said,  27 sessions of being potentially lame at everything is not cool, and as a GM, I would have to step in and ask the player to stop min/maxing and actually make a functional character.  

Ultimately it's up the GM what's available or not, and players have the obligation to work with their GM to make sure both that their needs are met, and that those needs don't unduly hinder the GM's ability to tell an engaging story for the entire group.

 

(edit: forgot to put that I did not use mentor bonus on the Protect Unleash calc).

Edited July 22, 2017 by TrystramK

[Desslok 13,571]

On 7/19/2017 at 2:07 PM, zhentil said:

How high can you get.

Pretty goddamed high. . . . .

[zhentil 76]

LMAO 

oh hell yeah, now it's a party

[DaverWattra 535]

On 7/20/2017 at 8:47 AM, Donovan Morningfire said:

Hypothetically, there's no cap on how a Force Rating can go in this system.

Realistically, you're not going to need a Force Rating greater than a 3 for most things, less if you're willing to make use of dark side pips.  Anything above a Force Rating 5 is pretty much overkill, and I believe that when Keith Kappel ran his Jedi Council adventure at GamerNationCon a couple years ago, Yoda's build only had a Force Rating 5, and it was plenty effective to make Yoda a beast when it came to wielding the Force.

So Suljo Warde has the same Force Rating as Yoda?