Lesser Force Shield

[borithan]

Last session a question came up in game regarding the force power Lesser Force Shield. The wording is... well a bit odd, and so we weren't sure on how to apply it.

The text says that it provides Str+1d Armour. Now, just taken as it is stated this suggests that you should take the characters Strength and add 1d and then add that as armour to the Strength roll to determine the damage soak roll. This would mean doubling strength and adding 1D.

This just seems... well, too powerful. This means even a mook level strengthg of 2d would get 5d soak, and anything more than that starts to get to absurd levels, with a maximum of 9d soak with a strength of 4d. This is particularly the case when combined with the description of it being a limited form of protection and, from what I can tell, not being a too difficult power to put into action.

The only other way I could see it working is 1) it simply adds +1d armour to your soak, or 2) it adds a barrier of Str+1d between you and any damage, meaning it follows the rules for penetrating cover (make a damage roll against cover, and then use the damage result to work out if there is any affect on the amount of damage inflcited on the person behind cover). The first seems... possibly underwhelming, though still useful, especially if you can combine it with other armour and you take into account the other effects like preventing gasses getting through to harm you (which is the major effect it has had so far, as it has prevented one of the party being gassed by an aneasthetic gas which the rest of the players in the room have been knocked out by). The second option is... well fiddly to say the least. I have generally been avoiding the cover damage rules by just placing things in the way that could reliably be expected to either stop a shot completely or reduce it to insignficance. I would use them if the players wanted to try shooting through cover specifically or if there was a particularly powerful weapon on the field of combat, but otherwise the extra work is generally not worth the effect.

The other thing is when investigating it one of the players found a reference to it causing you to gain a Dark Side point. This is not the case in my copy of the Tales of the Jedi sourcebook, and doesn't really make that much sense to me. Is there anywhere where such a rule is referenced?

[Quetzacotl]

Lesser Force Shield just gives you a bonus of +1D to your soak roll.
A person with 2D STR and activated LFS would roll 3D to soak damage.

[garhkal]

Yup.. All it does is give 1d of 'force armor'.
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[cheshire]

[CRMcNeill]

Personally, based on what we see in the prequels and the Clone Wars, I'd rather dump Lesser Force Shield entirely in favor of an expanded and enhanced form of Absorb/Dissipate Energy.
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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

[nuclearwookiee]

I'm away from my books at the moment, but I seem to remember a Force power from the Jedi Academy book that functioned kind of like an anti-life aura used to repulse vermin and such. As I recall, this was considered a dark side power because of its "anti-life" properties. borithan, maybe your player is thinking of this power as a "shield?"