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Yasriia
Sub-Lieutenant
Joined: 15 Aug 2010
Posts: 54
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 Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 4:26 am Post subject: Life detection vs. life sense |
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After sorting out, what force powers a starting jedi in my group will have, we stumbled upon a situation, which confused us.
After reading the rules I thought life detection works like a motion sensor (the Alien movies came to my mind) to know the location of beeings around you and life sense works like a tricorder to find out the name, race etc. of the beeing.
But when the jedi and I wanted to apply these rules in the game we stumbled across the wording of the rules.
Life detection tells the jedi the location and if he beats the score by 10 points the identity (name, race, if they have met befor).
Life sense: "The user can sense the presense and identity of a specific person for whom he searches." I have 2 problems: 1) what exactly means presense? The location? Then why should you use life detection? 2) Identity of a specific person: When I'm searching for example for my mother, I'm searching for a specific person, I allready know the identity. Whats the gain? (Except for finding out how badly the person is wounded)
Can someone explain to me how these powers are applied correctly and what the difference between these 2 are? And what information can you acquire? |
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Raven Redstar
Rear Admiral
Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 2648
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 5:35 am Post subject: |
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Life detection has a limited range of only 10 meters around the person activating the power. It lets them know whenever anyone (who doesn't beat their sense roll) steps inside of that 10 meter range.
Life sense lets them sense out the location and general state of well being of a specific person. It can be useful when you're trying to find a friend of yours who's been kidnapped, or perhaps when you're trying to find the location of the enemy's commander or something along those lines.
The primary difference between the two powers is the range. If someone rolls high enough, they can sense where someone is on the other end of the galaxy using the Life Sense power.
Both are useful, but I can see where your confusion comes from with the sort of vague rules behind them.
Last edited by Raven Redstar on Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2011 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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That plus Life sense is great for telling you how healthy a target is, great for those rescue ops.
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Yasriia
Sub-Lieutenant
Joined: 15 Aug 2010
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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Okay I think I have understood the 2 powers. But I have a follow up question to Raven: Do you actually have to know that the person exists (e.g. the emperor, enemy commander) or do you have to know the person personally (e.g. after the first meeting with the enemy commander)?
The encounter we ran into was:
A ship crashed. The whole crew is unknown to the pcs (which is important for Life detection). So they went into the wreck and the jedi switched into scan-mode with life detection. Lets say, he finds 4 persons, all under rubble. 1 uninjured, 1 with a wound, 1 out of action and 1 deadly wounded. Only with life detection he doesn't know who is about to die.
The idea was, the jedi uses life sense to find out, which crewmember they have to save first and which one can wait (maybe the one who will die, knows some valuable information). Is the information from life detection enough (the one back there under the rubble in the corner) to use life sense? |
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Jatrell
Ensign
Joined: 16 Sep 2011
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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Life detection is also good for finding people who are hiding. Or if you chased a villian into an alley and he jumped into a window. Say he is hiding inside a house. Life detection can be used to locate him.
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14133
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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I'd say he would get a reroll of sense, to make out which of those 4 were in which direction from his point.
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Raven Redstar
Rear Admiral
Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 2648
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Yasriia wrote: | Okay I think I have understood the 2 powers. But I have a follow up question to Raven: Do you actually have to know that the person exists (e.g. the emperor, enemy commander) or do you have to know the person personally (e.g. after the first meeting with the enemy commander)?
The encounter we ran into was:
A ship crashed. The whole crew is unknown to the pcs (which is important for Life detection). So they went into the wreck and the jedi switched into scan-mode with life detection. Lets say, he finds 4 persons, all under rubble. 1 uninjured, 1 with a wound, 1 out of action and 1 deadly wounded. Only with life detection he doesn't know who is about to die.
The idea was, the jedi uses life sense to find out, which crewmember they have to save first and which one can wait (maybe the one who will die, knows some valuable information). Is the information from life detection enough (the one back there under the rubble in the corner) to use life sense? |
The answer to the first question is a tentative: No. The player does not necessarily have to know the target of his Life Sense. Unless you as the GM feel that the player wouldn't be able to sense out the person he was looking for. You, as the GM, could require that the player at a very minimum, know at least the target's name to find them. The rules state that Life Sense is modified by both proximity and relationship. Relationship modifier if they have never met is a flat +20 to the base difficulty, if they're not of the same species and haven't met it's a +30. As you can see, the difficulty for finding someone that you've never met before can be rather difficult, but it's your job as GM to decide just how much more difficult it is over the base roll.
As for your encounter, it could have it taken in 2 steps:
1) The Jedi rolls Life Detection to find all living crew.
2) After the Jedi locates the crew members, he rolls Life Sense to find out which of them is the most fatally injured.
In splitting it up into 2 action, it takes the Jedi roughly 10 seconds to figure out which is the worst hurt, unless you want to be a stickler precisely to the rules, in which case, it would take 25 seconds or 5 rounds.
Another possible way to handle that encounter is to have the Jedi take a -1D to his Life Detection roll, to keep up a sort of passive Life Sense. In doing this, he detects each crew member and gets a vague sense of which is hurt the worst.
Depending on how crucial the the mortally wounded crewman was, or based on the Jedi's skill, I'd choose one or the other to accurately reflect either the Jedi's skill in the Force, or give him a fighting chance at finding the crewman who was vital to the continuation of the story.
So the answer would be yes, touching on the other person with Life Detection power is enough to be able to activate Life Sense and gauge how seriously injured they are. I would give it a modifier of +12 for have met once, and would make it a low difficulty for the sense simply because the target does not have the will or capacity to resist.
I hope this helps. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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And while that is going on, the MW target is rolling his 2d6 each round.
OR for a way to make the jedi player sweat.. have HIM roll it.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16259
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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On a related note, in The Last Command, Joruus C'baoth is able to use the Force to sense the exact location of a cloaked Carrack Light Cruiser (likely by sensing the crew) from several thousand kilometers distant. Would that have been an outgrowth of Life Sense, or some variation on Life Web (a truly useless power)?
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Bren
Vice Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2010
Posts: 3868
Location: Maryland, USA
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 7:50 pm Post subject: |
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Or a different interpretation of life detection. It has always seemed odd to me that you could detect life at only 10m but you could tell if your Great Aunt Matilda's lumbago was flaring up from the other side of the world or even on another world.  |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16259
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Or a different interpretation of life detection. It has always seemed odd to me that you could detect life at only 10m but you could tell if your Great Aunt Matilda's lumbago was flaring up from the other side of the world or even on another world. |
Exactly. I know ZzaphodD once mentioned a house rule whereby the number by which the Jedi beat the Sense difficulty was added to the 10m base of Life Detection, which seemed a realistic compromise to me (i.e. the more powerful / sensitive a Jedi is, the further out he can sense).
With regards to the long range version of Life Detection you posited, I would almost suggest taking the population size numbers of Life Web and applying them inversely to the difficulty of powers like Life Sense, in that the character could sense groups of life forms, with the difficulty to sense that group directly modified by the range, and inversely by the group's size.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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Fallon Kell
Commodore
Joined: 07 Mar 2011
Posts: 1846
Location: Tacoma, WA
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Or a different interpretation of life detection. It has always seemed odd to me that you could detect life at only 10m but you could tell if your Great Aunt Matilda's lumbago was flaring up from the other side of the world or even on another world. |
I would think anyone called Great Aunt Matilda would be significantly less difficult to detect than your average human!  | crmcneill wrote: | | I know ZzaphodD once mentioned a house rule whereby the number by which the Jedi beat the Sense difficulty was added to the 10m base of Life Detection, which seemed a realistic compromise to me (i.e. the more powerful / sensitive a Jedi is, the further out he can sense). |
That's a good rule. I wonder about detecting at half range at a reduced difficulty now, though...
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Naaman
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| Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: |
Exactly. I know ZzaphodD once mentioned a house rule whereby the number by which the Jedi beat the Sense difficulty was added to the 10m base of Life Detection, which seemed a realistic compromise to me (i.e. the more powerful / sensitive a Jedi is, the further out he can sense).
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This is how I've always done it. It's one of those things that helps to bring meaning to having a high(er) skill, rather than just having enough to make the roll. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Or a different interpretation of life detection. It has always seemed odd to me that you could detect life at only 10m but you could tell if your Great Aunt Matilda's lumbago was flaring up from the other side of the world or even on another world. |
I think it was more a form of life sense (to know where they are), receptive tel to link minds then enhanced co-ordination.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 11:08 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Bren wrote: | | Or a different interpretation of life detection. It has always seemed odd to me that you could detect life at only 10m but you could tell if your Great Aunt Matilda's lumbago was flaring up from the other side of the world or even on another world. :wink: |
I think it was more a form of life sense (to know where they are), receptive tel to link minds then enhanced co-ordination. |
Enhanced Coordination doesn't require telepathy, IIRC. Personally, I have this nebulous idea of getting rid of Life Web entirely and replacing it with a power called Force Web, which is Life Detection and Life Sense on a stellar scale.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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