Force User PCs and move object obsessions

Thanks, and by the way the do unto others thing has inspired some pretty evil gm ideas/thoughts to start popping up all over the place but i save the example for something special (if you don't mind koohi(did i spell that right?))

 

And just what kind of evil GM thoughts do you have cooking Yuul_Shamar?

 

Almost. 2 "i"s

Try this one.
"Make a perception roll"
"uh, 18"
"Oh good. You notice that some time in the last 5 seconds, the grenade you are carrying has lost it's pin and is about to go off" or "your thermal detonator is somehow set to go off" (silently counting to 5--if the player doesn't say something like "I toss the grenade away" by the time you finish, it goes off in his hand) Needless to say, this is best done in a crowded area so that these actions will endanger bystanders and call down legal authority, as well as possible DSP.

 

hehehe... evil.

One of my players recently threw me for a loop... she's dueling a high level Sith Lord and wants to pick up some molten metal to throw at him... one of her allies had him occupied, and she's no good with a blaster (and she's almost down to WP damage at this point so she can't wade in to duel)

My Q is how I would decide the Ref Save DC and the damage for something like that? (should it hit)

 

heh going by the RCR, and guess work, then if she hit he'd either be dazed or dazed and hurt, and would have to make a dc 15 reflex save to avoid catching on fire (pg 287)?

good luck

 

I would think the lava would do damage like acid if it touched you. I mean, it cools pretty rapidly, but if he fails his reflex save I think he'd probably take WP damage...

 

or you make it LOOK like the player threw the grenade...

"I saw the whole thing, officer. Everything was peaceful and quiet. Suddenly the jedi spun arround with a lightsaber in his hands and the mercenary soldier threw a grenade into the crowded schoolyard. Boy, I bet he's in for a rough time. Did you know that the children of several reputed invisible-market merchants and underlords attend that school? Maybe they were involved in an attempted hit by a rival lord."--concerned bystander acting as witness 7 for the prosecution.

 

The other thing you can do as a GM is bring causality into it. If you players are little more than potentium adherents from a Denning story - that is, using the Force as a crutch and without consequence - then you need to counter that whatever way you can. One of the most amazingly sensible yet evil things my GM did when GM'ing a Jedi game was tell you after the fact you got a DSP. He figured the players should know right from wrong as well as their characters, and if they were good RP'ers they'd play their morality right so he'd say after combat, "You got a DSP". It wasn't always for overtly evil acts either; he gave someone who used TK too much one, claiming the ease of the power was suggesting he wanted more and he gave into it.

It's punitive, and if he's not an especially good GM it can ruin the game but if you are fortunate enough to have a good GM, like I did, you suddenly remember right and wrong.

dp, my GM dislikes the potentium far more than I do.

E_S

 

Our GM also simply assigns DSPs after the fact, though not from overusage. Given how much we all value our Vitality in his campaigns (deadly... oy) we tend not to overuse the Force.

The only way to avoid those DSPs is the successful Farseeing check to replay an action (usable once per week).

 

Do you appreciate it more, dp, when the GM does it? I personally think it's fantastic.

E_S

 

"potentium"?

 

Sure, potentium. That?s the name the cool kids are giving the theory that the 900 year old Jedi master who was in the movies didn't know what he was talking about, and in reality there is not darkside or lightside, just a potentium of energy that can be used to do really nifty party tricks, and it's totally OK to use those powers how ever you like because there is no darkside.

Ugg. I feel dirty just typing that.

 

Of course. But then again my friend and I have nearly identical views on the Force, so it's not a surprise to me.

For instance, my non-FS will get a DSP for finishing off unconscious non-FS bad guys (since, to the Force, that's evil) but will NOT get one for shooting a fleeing Dark Jedi in the back or blowing their (then) unshielded transport out of the sky with my quad lasers (since, to the Force, I'm ridding it of the Dark Side). I most certainly would have gotten one in all three cases had I been Force Sensitive to begin with. Different set of value judgments...

It's about the "Will" of the Force.

 

Isn't the overall will of the Force to be in balance? Hence the chosen one's creation by it?

That makes me think that destroying a dark force user isn't always necessarily the will of the Force. A Sith Lord trying to take over the galaxy? Or even Thrawn, as the example that probably came closest that's non-force using. Both should be stopped, and more than likely killed if not stripped of the force/incarcerated.

 

Now see, I?ve always thought that the Jedi were in balance with the Force, or at least that was their ideal. I think that Anakin bringing balance to the force was not about reducing both sides down to equal numbers, but about, in the end, destroying the Sith who unbalance the force by their very philosophy. In the end the Sith are no more, and the Jedi have returned.

Balance is restored, in the long view.


Of course that isn't quite in line with EU, but you can't have everything.

 

NOt really, since the "Will" in this case (as we're heroic) is solely that of the Light Side. It won't control our actions, but it'll let us know that ridding the Galaxy of Dark Side users is perfectly permissible.

 

As a GM, I follow pretty much the same set of rules that dp4m does, except in cases where the darksider is an ex-party member--more so if he was a good friend of the party--I usually consider handing out a dark side point if no attempt at redemption is made. (At the very least through role playing, if not an out right diplomacy check.)

How does your GM rule in situations where the darksider was once a party member, dp4m?

 

Well, considering that most of the ones I killed WERE ex-party members...

 

Well, we've had some issues with party members and party-NPCs turning (a lot). One of them WAS redeemed and turned back again within a few sessions, so he's the one who attempted to escape in a transport which I blasted from the sky. ("Fool me once, shame on you; fool me TWICE, shame on me." //fires guns)

What's funny is that the life expectancy of the Light Side Jedi MASTERS who were assigned to our party by the Council for our Old Republic missions when we needed serious support could be measured in (literally) minutes. It got to the point where my character would, no joke, warn them as they were assigned to us and they'd die anyways.

 

What? You mean your party just appeared to have some bad karma--in that all the masters died as soon as they joined--or were the fledgling darksiders assassinating them without you (the good guys) knowing?

I've had a couple in my group who have a serious issue with using Dark Side powers as soon as things start looking grim. After one accumlated four in one session (Calling upon the Dark Side to use a Force Point to use Force Lightning in an unecessary way and then using Force Grip later), my character (Padawan Consular) reported him to the council, and they immediately assigned a master to supervise his activites AFTER calling him back to Coruscant. The best part was that the GM ruled that since he was back on Coruscant, he, of course, had to sit out on the next mission and all the XP that went with it, and instead had to go through a short "meditation" and "reflection" adventure imposed on him by the council.

It certainly made him think twice about spamming Dark Side powers around Light Side characters the next session, but he fell in the end anyway...

 

No, I mean here's the usual sequence of events regarding Jedi Masters in our party:

Step 1) Assigned a Master by the Council for a particularly tricky assault against Dark Jedi.
Step 2) Initiate the encounter.
Step 3) Jedi Master is critted (double-20) with a heavy repeating blaster inflicting max damage and dies in the first round.

That's usually what happened. Or we were captured and he died, etc, etc, etc...

 

Otherwise known as the "Obi and Ani" effect.

 

Any party member who went over to the Dark Side became an NPC villain for the party later.
Any Force Sensative who became Dark sider was not only an NPC villain, but the player who had control of him/her before was not allowed to play Force-sensative until AFTER s/he delt with (usually killed) his/her former character.

Odly enough, very few PCs have gone over to the dark side in our group. Actually, I only remember one...