Life Sense

[dph]

Hi Force Users.

Life Sense

In the core description it says it is affected by Relationship.
This means, in one of it's typical usages (namely checking your surroundings for hidden badguys) it's common to face a +30 modifier as, no doubt, you are surrounded by or looking for a 'Stranger of a differnt species'.

Now this is a pretty useful and potentially powerful Force Power but this does seem to take a lot of the use out of it, especially as the base TN is Difficult!

In the example (pg. 146) it doesn't seem to apply the relationship penalty..

I currently don't apply the relationship penalty but I'd be intersted to hear if other GMs have come up against the same problem and what you did?

Thanks all

[Hellcat]

Relationship can add modifiers to the difficulty as you know. I have used relationship modifiers on various Force powers were they say the difficulty is modified by proximity and relationship.

Life Sense says it is used to sense the presence of a specific character and if their wounded, suffering disease, or physically disturbed. Ok, so whose the character their looking for? Unless, that is, the character is another Force-sensitive in which case they get to use their Control to remain hidden, then relationship to remain hidden depends on how close to the PC the character is. If their a close relative then it's a Very Easy roll plain and simple, there's nothing added to the difficulty roll so the GM picks 1-5. . If the character is a close friend of the PC, then it's +2 to the difficulty to remain hidden. Just a friend means +5 to the relationship difficulty. They know each other well enough to be acquaintances, thats +7. Slight acquaintances, +10. They only met once and can't even say their slight acquaintances, +12. Know each other's rep but have never met, +15. Complete strangers of the same species, +20. It's +30 to the relationship difficulty if they are not only complete strangers but of different species as well. So on relationship alone you're looking at a possible 31 to 35 difficulty at the worst.

Then you start adding in proximity and it can go up. It's possible to have a difficulty roll of 65 for the PC to search for someone of a different species they don't even know beyond a simple name whose in a completely different star system (+30 to the difficulty for proximity if their in a different system)

I've more often used the proximity and relationship difficulty modifiers with receptive telapathy
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[garhkal]

I usually see this for someone the party knows, and is searching for. OR for those in the group when they are hunting down one of their own captured/traped comrades..
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