Simplified force skills

[raithyn]

Inspired by ThrorII's revised Force powers, I have been tinkering with my own set of single-skill powers. There is a strong first edition bias in my list but I have a few second edition powers (often simplified) since I'm playing in the Old Republic.

Any with an asterisk must be gained through tutors, giving in to the dark side, etc. Any without are automatically granted to all players with the appropriate Force skill. I would like to give my players cool powers without completely throwing off the balance between Force sensitive PCs and those without Force skills. I'd also like to have some rules on my side of the screen for NPCs that I can extend to the PCs if appropriate in the course of play.

These seem to work so far but neither I nor my players have a huge depth of experience in the system so any feedback is welcome, especially in regards to the difficulty numbers.


CONTROL POWERS

Inherent Ability: Whenever a character with the control skill uses a lightsaber, they add their control skill dice to the damage code when they hit.

ABSORB/DISSIPATE ENERGY
Difficulty: Medium + the damage roll
Effect: The user absorbs or dissipates energy damage instead of being injured.

BURST OF SPEED
Difficulty: Easy
Effect: The user’s movement rate is doubled for 1 round. If the roll exceeds the difficulty number by more than 10, the user’s movement rate is tripled instead.

FORCE CAMOUFLAGE*
This power may be kept up.
Difficulty: Easy
Effect: The user adds half their control dice, rounded down, to their sneak skill.

FORCE JUMP
Difficulty: Easy
Effect: The user adds their control dice to their jump skill and may jump up to 10 meters in any direction without taking falling damage.


SENSE POWERS

Inherent Ability: Whenever a character with the sense skill uses a lightsaber to parry in hand-to-hand combat, they may use either their sense skill or their melee parry skill.

Inherent Ability: A character with the sense skill may use a lightsaber to parry blaster bolts. They roll their sense skill and add the result to the attacker's difficulty number. Melee parry cannot be used for this purpose.
A character who parries a blaster bolt can try to deflect it toward a specific target as an additional action beyond parrying. The lightsaber wielder makes another sense roll as a new attack roll. Resolve the difficulty number and damage rolls as if the lightsaber wielder had fired the weapon at their intended target.

BEAST LANGUAGES*
This power may be kept up.
Difficulty: Easy (domesticated/friendly beast), Moderate to Difficult (wild, non-predatory beast), Very Difficult to Heroic (ferocious/predatory beast)
Effect: The user translates and “speaks” the target beast’s language. (Most beasts communicate surface emotions with grunts, growls, and other body language cues rather than using “true” languages.)
Subtract 2D from the beast’s orneriness code, if applicable, while this power is in effect (to a minimum of 0D).

FARSEEING
Difficulty: Very Easy (present), Easy (past), or Moderate (future) + Proximity + Relationship
Effect: The user sees in their mind the current situation of the place or person they target. This power can also be used to see the past or future.
A cautionary note is in order: The past and present are set. However, the future is always fluid, always in motion, never set until it becomes the present. It is always subject to change—including from the user’s own actions.

LIFE SENSE
This power may be kept up.
Difficulty: Very Easy + Proximity + Relationship + opposed control roll
Effect: The user can sense the presence and identity of the person for whom they search. The user can also sense how badly wounded, diseased, or otherwise physically disturbed the target is. If the user keeps the power up, they can use it to track a target.

SENSE FORCE
Difficulty: Moderate (general area) or Difficult (details or specific objects) + Proximity
Effect: This power is used to sense the ambient Force within a place. It cannot be used to specifically detect sentient beings. Sense Force will tell a user the rough magnitude of the Force in an area or object, the rough type and quantity of life-forms, and whether the area or object tends toward the dark side or the light. The user may also receive vague premonitions about the area.

SENSE FORCE POTENTIAL*
Difficulty: Moderate + Opposed Perception or control
Effect: The user must keep this power up for at least one minute while being within a few meters of a target to activate the effect.
The user probes the mind of the target to determine whether that person has the potential to be strong in the Force.

TELEPATHY
This power may be kept up (2e: if the target is willing and proximity doesn’t increase).
Difficulty: Easy + Proximity + Relationship + opposed Perception or control roll
Effect: The user can read the target’s surface thoughts and emotions. The user “hears” what the target is thinking but cannot probe for deeper information.
If the skill roll is at least double the difficulty, the user can probe the target’s mind and memories for the information they want.
Additionally, the user may allow the target to “hear” the user’s thoughts and “feel” the user’s emotions. This power is not used to control other minds, but to communicate.
The user can use Telepathy on more than one target at a time, but each additional target counts as an additional action.
Some aliens experience emotions of which humans are incapable, and vice versa, so when used with aliens, the sensations may be difficult to interpret. Telepathy may not be used with Droids.


ALTER POWERS

AFFECT MIND
Difficulty: Very Easy (momentary misperceptions), Moderate (minor hallucination or memory change), Difficult (conclusions important to the target), or Very Difficult (major hallucination or memory change) + Proximity + Opposed Perception or control
Effect: This power is used to:

• Alter the target’s perceptions, so that they sense an illusion, or fail to see what the user does not want them to see, etc.
• Alter the target’s memories permanently, so that they remember things incorrectly, or fail to remember.
• Alter the target’s conclusions, so that they come to an incorrect decision.

Before making the skill roll, the user must describe exactly the intended effect. A target who thinks they are struck by an illusionary object would feel the pain of the blow but does not suffer any true injury. If they think they would be killed, they become unconscious.
The power targets a single character. Two or more targets can only be affected if the power is used two or more times. This power cannot affect droids or recording devices.

DIM ANOTHER’S SENSES*
This power may be kept up.
Difficulty: Easy + Proximity + Opposed Perception or control
Effect: The user reduces the target character’s Perception, all Perception skills, and sense die codes by 2D for as long as the power is kept up. If the roll is more than 10 above the difficulty, reduce all die codes by 3D instead.
This power may be used on more than one target at a time, with an increase of +3 to the difficulty for each additional target. The target with the highest Perception or control rolls for the entire group.

FORCE LIGHTNING*
Warning: A character who uses this power immediately gains a Dark Side Point.
Difficulty: Easy + Opposed Perception or control
Effect: Energy flies from the user’s fingertips to a target they can see causing 1D of energy damage for each 2D of the user’s alter skill, rounded down. Armor provides no protection from this damage.

FORCE PUSH
Difficulty: Moderate + Opposed Strength or control
Effect: The user uses the Force to push a target they can see away by 5 meters and either knocks the target prone or causes them to take 4D physical damage by banging them against a wall or other solid object.
The user may choose before rolling to make a single alter roll for multiple uses of this power on different targets in a single round. Normal multiple action penalties apply.

INFLICT PAIN*
Warning: A character who uses this power immediately receives a Dark Side Point.
Difficulty: Opposed Perception or control + Proximity
Effect: The user causes stun damage based on their alter roll resisted by the difficulty number. If the target suffers any damage at all, they are so crippled by intolerable pain that they are incapable of acting until the end of the next round.

KINETIC COMBAT*
This power may be kept up.
Difficulty: Difficult
Effect: The user may telekinetically wield a melee weapon or lightsaber at a distance up to 10 meters. All skill rolls are treated as if the weapon were in their hands. Multiple action penalties apply.
The first round, the user can make only one attack as they establish control over the weapon.

TELEKINESIS
This power may be kept up.
Difficulty: Very Easy for object up to 1 kilogram plus one level for each factor of ten above that + Proximity + Opposed Perception or control

Target Mass: Base Difficulty
≤1 kg: Very Easy
1–10 kg: Easy
11–100 kg: Moderate
101–1,000 kg: Difficult
1,001–10,000 kg: Very Difficult
10,001–100,000 kg: Heroic

Effect: This power can be used to levitate objects, oneself, or others. The target moves as the user desires.
Levitated objects can be used to attack other characters.
This power can also be used as a primitive space drive in emergencies.

TELEKINETIC KILL*
Warning: A character who uses this power immediately receives a Dark Side Point.
Difficulty: Easy (wounded), Difficult (incapacitated), or Heroic (mortally wounded) + Opposed Perception or control + Proximity − Relationship
Effect: The user attempts to telekinetically injure or kill a target. The exact method used can vary. The target suffers the chosen level of injury if the alter roll succeeds.


SPECIAL POWERS

BATTLE MEDITATION*
This power may be kept up.
Difficulty: Varies based on the number of targeted individuals. This roll is made with the user’s lowest Force skill.

Number of Targets: Difficulty
1–2: Very Easy
3–20: Easy
21–100: Moderate
101–1,000: Difficult
1,001–10,000: Very Difficult
10,000+: Heroic

Effect: The user must keep this power up for at least five minutes to activate the effect. The user must fully concentrate on this power while it is up and cannot move or perform any other actions. Once the power is dropped, the effect wears off instantly.
The user visualizes an immediate goal (rescuing a prisoner, defeating a group of characters, etc.). The tide of battle is altered so that those who seek to uphold and forward the user’s immediate goal are strengthened with a bonus of 2D to an attribute chosen by the user (i.e., Strength, Dexterity, etc.). At the same time, those who seek to oppose the user’s immediate goal are weakened and decrease an attribute of the user’s choosing by 2D (to a minimum of 1D).

FORCE SCREAM*
Note: This is an involuntary power that may be activated when a Dark Jedi loses control of their temper.
Effect: A Dark Jedi must make a Difficult Knowledge roll whenever angered to the point of rage; if the roll fails, the Jedi reflexively releases the Force Scream causing damage equal to the Dark Jedi’s alter skill to all beings within 50 meters, including the Dark Jedi who unleashed this mental energy. Force-sensitive characters roll their alter dice to resist damage (those without the alter skill use Strength).
All of the Dark Jedi’s die codes are reduced by 2D for one hour, and they must rest for one hour or suffer an additional −2D penalty until rested (penalties are cumulative).

[Whill]

Wow, thanks for sharing your write-ups!

[raithyn]

[pakman]

I like it! Thanks for sharing.

Your rules.
I like them - nice and simple.
Some feel a bit easy - and don't offer any scaling - that is - can a jedi master jump further than a padawan? on Force jump?
I have only given them a quick once over - but like what you have so far.

Q: Were you planning on adding a healing ability of any kind?

What I was working on.
When I was working on my force power overhaul - I had started down this path - and have to say - really like what you have here (Have not had a chance to read each in depth yet....).

My version was slightly different in structure;

Force was an attribute.
Control, sense and Alter were Skills under it.
Force powers were specializations in control sense and alter.

Most powers could not be used without knowing the specialization, but a few could.

Powers that felt like more than one skill (i.e. force combat, etc.) - I was either going to require both to use it, or like you would roll the lower of the two skills or something like that.

Scaling -
I had many of mine scale - VERY SLOWLY - so as not to become too over powered.
But in the force jump example - I would make any value over the difficulty - add 1 more meter.
(or less - depending on what your base difficulty is).
I scaled a lot of them to add more more pip for each difficulty level above what was required.

Hopefully some of my notes may be useful as you continue to work on yours.

I did not finish this project - as about the time I was working on my house rules overhaul - my players wanted to play an all force user campaign, starting during the last days of the clone wars - and while I thought my simplified system would have been find for one or maybe two force users in a party - a full party - I went with something more detailed to help support character differentiation.
(while the rules were written for the rebellion era where jedi were rare - star wars has thousands of years of cool time periods for campaigns to explore....).

Again, thanks for sharing - I do plan on finishing my simplified version, as an optional rule for campaigns that are not filled with jedi....
_________________
SW Fan, Gamer, Comic, Corporate nerd.
Working on massive House Rules document - pretty much a new book. Will post soon....

[Whill]

[raithyn]

[pakman]