What force power/sith power used??

[garhkal]

Over on dragonsfoot in a thread on TFA, someone brought out this snippet from the prequel trilogy..

[Zarn]

There are several options. However, I suspect a variation on False Light Side Aura, http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/False_light_side_aura

[Naaman]

In d20 there is a power called Force stealth. As long as ther uses no other Force powers, they register to other Force users as non-Force sensitive.

[Naaman]

I suspect that Obi-Wan was using that power when he was spying on Dooku in AotC.

[vanir]

For ad hoc simplicity in our game, we simply refer to straight up dice value in d6 system, helps in a lot of situations during gameplay so we don't have to stop proceedings and look stuff up during combat rounds and player improvisation.

Basically the GM just references dice values of characters in Control and Sense where it comes to how aware they are of each other's minds, especially dealing with people like Palpatine and Yoda where their list of usable powers probably exceeds those written on any rendering of stats (it mentions things like "these are the powers so far displayed" and says in bold inferrence, "they probably know more").
Basically if someone has many more usable dice in Sense than someone else in Control, they're going to get past any difficulty value with a Sense vs Control contest to use a power of awareness versus resistance or concealment. And vice versa.

We also have a house rule regarding dark side points adding to force skill dice. We rule that "when the Force is on their side in the situation", meaning if the scene is more dramatic with the darksider being more powerful, and it seems appropriate to the scene, we add DSP bonus to their skill dice. However, when it is more dramatic for the lightsiders to have "the Force on their side" during a scene, the darksiders lose their DSP bonus to Force skill dice.
We argued that in the prequels the Force was on Palpatine's side due to his insidious planning and preparations unbeknownst to the Jedi, whom were too concerned with their own affairs to catch on in the early stages. Ergo Palpatine had his DSP bonus to his Force skill dice and outmatched even Yoda.
However, had things been different and "the Force was with the Jedi" rather than the sith in this case, Yoda would've picked up on Palpatine at their base skill dice with no DSP bonus, ergo Yoda and several other masters would've picked up on proceedings a lot sooner than they did.

Therefore placing the whole situation back into the ad hoc simplicity of usable Sense dice versus contestant Control dice as a quick glance measure.

This works well for us. It essentially means if a darksider is "evilling" better than the PC Jedi are "gooding", they're going to get DSP bonus to Force skills and be that much harder to combat.
How this works in game terms is we have low skill darksiders with say, 3D Force skills up against our 6-7D Jedi but with their 5-10 DSP they're scarier and more powerful than the Jedi PC if they play their cards right, even in combat. But if the PC play really well, and outgood the evillers using good roleplay, the darksiders lose their DSP bonus, "the Force is with the Jedi" in that instance, and they suddenly look foolish rather than scary when the blades light up and start clashing. It's kind of satisfying in gameplay for the Party.

We argue that Sith jealously guard personal power so do not teach each other except reluctantly, whilst Jedi freely instruct each other and refuse to teach any darksider anything the moment they identify them as a darksider.
So darkside force users wind up with lower Force skill dice on the whole than common jedi even at relatively similar personal experience (CP). However sith get DSP very easily, and lots of them. So it comes down to good roleplay to beat them, and this works out in stats to reflect that in gameplay.

In one game the Party was against a couple of darksider sithies with only 3-4D Force skill dice and lightsabres, but had several DSP so were using their rather limited power selection of evil powers at quite high dice. They were very scary in the early stages. The PC Jedi roleplayed very well, got the Force on their side during the climactic battle and suddenly their 4-5D Force skills had them chasing the sithies like cartoon villains, it was a hilarious and very fun night of gameplay. In the end a veteran stormtrooper NCO with them turned out to be as tough or tougher than the sithies in a toe to toe fight, which both gave the Party respect for unique stormtrooper NPC and also reinforced the Jedi standpoint that evil Force using doesn't pay in the end.
Of course people like Palpatine are the exception with high skill dice as well as lots of DSP. That's intimidating. And so it should be.

Speculatively rendering the prequel turn of events with this house rule system, I would say that in priori to Palpatine openly stating, Hi I'm a sithie hahaha die; at which point in the duel with Yoda they operated both at normal skill dice but Palpy had a couple of dice more (against windu in duelling a couple of dice less); before then, before revealing himself in person, it was all clouded by the dark side, so Palpy was getting his DSP bonus to Force skill dice in concealment or any other power used from the sidelines incognito. This raised his dice so much that even the entire Jedi council coordinating their dice under coordinated action rules, still couldn't detect nor know anything of him.

Under this same house rule system we noticed an unexpected, yet very appropriate effect. When referencing someone like Naga Sadow's stats from the ancient days of the original Sith Lords we saw why later darksiders and dark Jedi have always sought to emulate them. Not just for specialized powers, but the fact his usable skill dice range out to almost 100xd6 if you're going to make him your enemy, without the Force on your side. That's beyond intimidating and well into the demigod category. Makes sense in SWG lore.

It should be mentioned that any Force power of detection involves an opposed Control roll in the difficulty rating, for which powers like Force of Will add Willpower dice. And under our house rule system darksiders also get DSP where appropriate to the scene.
Similarly most powers of concealment work against opposing Sense roll adding to difficulty, there is at least one exception but is a highly specialized power and involves other detrimental effects and penalties instead, eg. can't use any other powers whilst in effect, plus other things, unlikely Palpy used that since he was proliferant in his Force using activities all the way down the line. He was just plain more powerful, enough to conceal himself with sheer dice versus opposing difficulty to detect...by the entire Jedi Council coordinating actions during meetings.

So doubly so, in our game all players and myself felt it was appropriate and logical to use the house rule and it makes things quick and easy to reference during gameplay with simple dice comparison on basic Force skills where one user clearly has a dramatic dice advantage over any opposing roll, like dozens of dice. Why bother looking up the power when you're like 65d6 rolling against 23d6 for the difficulty modifier, even if the base difficulty is heroic it's just not even going to make a dent in your ability to succeed in the use of that power type. What you need to do to win is get the Force on your side, and when you do, you get their Force skill dice back to within a few dice of your achievable Jedi dice. It works, and reinforces things Yoda said and other clips from the films and lore.

[dic1]

I remember a reference to yoda using the dark side nexus on Dagobah to hide his presence from vader and the emperor, I have always just put it down to generation after generation of light side force users leaving a imprint on Coruscant that covers the emperors presence.

[Naaman]

Interesting... kinda lke how a sniper masks the sound of his shot among the enemy's own artillery fire; or how a radio transmission can be hidden among other elctromagnetic "noise."