Optional Rulings: Adding Sense to Perception/Initiative?

[tetsuoh]

Okay I need some help here.

We have one of our players saying theres an optional ruling to add your force skill - sense - to your rolls for perception and intiative, among other things, such as locating objects, searching for stuff, etc.

Is this true? and if so where can the rules for such be found?

I myself don't nessesarily have a problem with this, other than the fact that these all sound like force powers. But if its true our GM needs the info for where to find it.

This is somewhat important as we roleplay tomarrow and the players asking about wiether or not he will allow it.

[Volar the Healer]

I don't remember any such rule. But, it does sound like a (workable?) force power with a little research and some character points being spent.
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[garhkal]

Officiall.. not to my knowledge.. Commonly used as a house rule.. yes.
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[tetsuoh]

i have looked through the jedi companion and the core rulebook and not find this optional ruling.

but i have found multiple powers that work like he wants.
clumping them together as one power seems a bit much considering how many there are to assist in this.

combat sense
danger sense
magnify sense
shift senses
farseeing

theres more if his search involves living things.

Edit in reference to garkal:

I dont see why you would house rule that - they already say to mold powers to similar uses - so its the same thing, but merely requires the type of power to fit the situation....

In truth theres no need to allow the addition of dice to rolls when there are powers that almost always allow the force user to roll and use a power instead, without having to roll to search or for initiation.

I guess I just dont get it, but then I am biased towards giving force users easier gain to their already powerful abilities.

[vanir]

Under the original 1e system back at the beginning you used the Force very abstractly in this way, PCs were encouraged to be creative about how to use Control, Sense and Alter to enhance their regular skills.
But as the system was further developed into the Rules Companion and then 2e this shifted to listed Force powers and instruction requirements to learn them.

There was always the optional rule, again encouraged for PCs to develop Force powers through gameplay as opposed to formal instruction and this is relevant to this scenario.

Your PC is essentially, thinking "in-character" trying to develop the Force powers of Magnify Senses, Danger Sense, Combat Sense, etc. through gameplay instead of instruction. You should encourage this as a GM, but the way you should handle it under 2e/2re systems is to treat it like the PC is trying to teach himself these specific powers as a quixotic.

The best way I found to do this is to force the PC to make "Scholar: Jedi Lore" rolls every time he tries to use his Sense skill in this way, double all difficulties for self training without instruction, if he makes the difficulty roll for the power in a Jedi Lore roll, let him roll again using Sense at one difficulty level higher than the power as listed, if successful in that then let him use the power without having it listed. Treat it the same as if he had that power.
Also an option to the scholar: jedi lore roll is to roll Perception instead, if the PC has low skills in knowledge but a high Perception.

eg. Say I want to use my Sense skill to enhance my search roll within rough terrain, to spot some hiding soldiers. But I don't have Magnify Senses and as a Player I claim that I should be able to use Sense skill in this way as an optional rule. No worries the GM says, but secretly he treats me like I'm attempting to teach myself Magnify Senses, since that power describes what I'm trying to do. No need to tell me that, why start a debate mid-game, just go ahead and tell me which rolls to make, it goes like this:
I want to enhance my search of the forest using Sense to find enemy soldiers.
Okay says the GM, you start to meditate upon your connection to the Living Force with the specific intention of enhancing your Search roll, what is your scholar: jedi lore dice?
4D I say, but I'll use a character point.
Now the GM rolls against a double difficulty of 20 to spot some hiding soldiers about 400 metres away in the trees using Magnify Senses. It succeeds.
The GM says, well you manage to recall some references in your Jedi training of just how to use the Sense skill in this way. You can roll a Sense to enhance your Search roll, but you'll have to roll the Sense separately to the Search due to modifiers.
So I roll 3D Sense say, and make a nice 13.
The GM tallies up the difficulty of using Magnify Senses at the range of the hiding soldiers, which totals about 10 but because I do not have this power he increases the difficulty from easy to moderate or a 13 minimum. I made it he says.
Now the best analogue to use for enhancing Search with Magnify Senses is the macrobinocular bonus to Search at the 400m range, which is +3D (designed to effectively cancel the +3D situational hide modifier at that range).
So the GM tells me my eyesight is enhanced through the Living Force to zero in on specific lifeforms at great distances, in rough terrain and this provides me with a +3D bonus to my search roll to find any hiding soldiers within several kilometres, and I can see many kilometres as clearly as if it were right in front of me.

After I do this process several times during gameplay the GM finally instructs me that, the next time I put a pip of advancement in Sense skill I can write down Magnify Senses as a new Force power I've taught myself.


Get PCs to learn to use their Force skills this way, to keep it within the ruleset of how the Force is used and learned, is my advice.

[CRMcNeill]

I've been working on a house rule version of Danger Sense that replaces the automatic initiative win with an initiative bonus like you describe. By making initiative for Jedi roll based, but then applying situational penalties that quickly roll back the bonus to account for complex traps and multiple attackers, it allows for Jedi to still automatically win initiative in most combat situations while still being potentially vulnerable to things like Order 66.
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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

[vanir]

I get what you mean crmcneill, one of the Lightsabre Forms optional rules expansion does the same sort of thing adding a division of Sense (1 for every 3d I think) to initiative for that particular form, and it looks like it would work very well in game.
The automatic initiative of combat sense is exceedingly powerful, when we came from AD&D to this game all the players remarked that it made Jedi use the rules for deities on the battlefield, it sort of blew us away that by D&D rules Jedi are gods, I mean throw in Reduce Injury and you're immortal and get automatic initiative, that's a D&D god.

[garhkal]

[CRMcNeill]

Maybe just modify Enhance Attribute, with an open-ended bonus chart that doesn't cap at +3D. That way you can add actual bonuses to the requisite skills without needing to write up an entirely new Forcee power; just expand an existing one.
_________________
"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

[tetsuoh]

Story does drive how and what force powers users learn in our games, but this isn't what we're talking about.

As far as I understand it, this optional ruling just plain allowed the jedi to add his sense dice to his rolls for perception and initiative and search (for anything evidentally.)

I'm sorry if I come off assanine but, aren't jedi powerful enough?

Now on that note though, our gm ruled that allowing a character to attempt such things will put him on the path towards the above powers depending on the situation.

[DougRed4]

I did away with Combat Sense in our game, but do something similar to what's been talked about, adding a bonus to Initiative for the Jedi to make up for it. I like the idea crmcneill suggests, though, to keep the chance of an Order 66 type situation possible.

[CRMcNeill]

[vanir]

[garhkal]