What force powers have you invented in-game?

We counter rule-lawyering in our runs by giving the Gm complete tyrannic powers over the rules. When the rules can be changed at any moment, there's no real point in going back to the book and saying "Nononono... cause it says here on pg. 237, paragraph 4, subsection 3a...".

There is yet a counter for my logic lawyering.
("That makes no sense. It should go more like...")

 

There's the "Paranoia" solution to rules lawyers:
The rulebook is a classified document. No player has access. Any player quoting the rule book is quoting forbidden knowledge. That makes him/her a commie mutant traitor who can be immediately shot by the other players.

Some players go through all 6 clones without getting through the mission briefing.

 

Dang hippie-pinko-commie-sympathisers! But seriously, we just follow the sterling example of the Ordinators from Morrowind...
We scream "OUTLANDER SCUM!" and give them a viscious sack-beating with ebony maces.
Maybe that's why we're getting low on players... but if we actually tried the paranoia style, we'd all go overboard and it'd be like some cheap spy film unfolding.

New Power! Use force pull and force push at the same time to create... Force Paralysis!

 

Yeah it's great. Perfect for that unassuming Jedi Master who only has a cane to "empower" it and parry lightsabers, blaster bolts, and/or Sith Swords.

Lots of blood and pretty messy. It's also "infectuous." IIRC it was originally in the Jedi Handbook but then I "adapted" it...

 

Or use push&pull to shake someone up. Shake a droid to pieces.

 

Yes, that'd work, but with an organic there'd be a high risk of snapping the poor *******'s neck by accident. Basically, We came up with this when we needed to capture an enemy alive and undamaged. Our Gm ruled that it'd take two of us to succesfully do this and move at the same time for some reason...

 

Just whatever you do, don't cross the streams!

Sorry, but for some reason, that brought Ghostbusters to mind.

 

Yeah... I kinda though that to, for some reason... although I wonder what happens when you cross the force?

"Whatever you do, don't cross the force." "Why, what happens?" "Ewoks."

 

Right, hullo again. Figured out what could possibly be one of the more horrific DS powers... Force Assimilate.

A Jedi, assumably dark, combines drain skill (I think that's a power), drain health (I know that's one), and drain attribute (I may have pulled that one out of my ***), to completly absorb a living being in order to become much more powerful. I may throw this against player in a campaign run, so do any of you have ideas about how to counter it/what the downsides are.

The only downside I've come up with is the possibility of a multiple personality disorder arising from over-use.

I zay... how do you zay eet...? K thx bye? Hoh huh!

 

Hmm, It sounds a lot like an idea I've toyed with, but never used, for a vampire sort of SW game. My suggestion:

Once this ability has been used the wielder?s relationship with the Force is irrevocably unbalanced. The user begins to have a natural 'drain' losing abilities and health at a steady rate, which can only be replenished by feeding again. Feeding, typically, leaves behind a husk of a body in a coma that they will never wake from. A trail of bodies and tears tends to follow these blights on the Force.
Further disfigurement occurs the longer the being uses this ability.

People who use this sort of thing never get invited to parties, that's for certain.

 

Sounds good to me... but those are only the physical effects. I want the player to have to put up with some sudden mental problems, like the peersonality disorder I mentioned earlier. And actually, these people would be popular security and bodygaurds (the power leaves no physical evidence, and you suggest it merely renders the target comatose... permanently) as they could efficiently remove annoyances without any of the public railing on the figure of their respective clients... so in essence they could get invited to a lot of parties .

 

The big problem is that it will draw investigators. Think of the Sherlock Holmes type who will spend hours working on a problem simply for the mental exercise. Eventually the bodies WILL attract attention. And if I Jedi investigates and finds the victim drained of Force essence...

Also, such a thing would be addicting. That is part of it. So even if the drainer's master does keep the drainer supplied with fresh bodies, there will be lapses in judgement.

 

That's a big if. IF Jedi are involved in investigating unexplained comas, IF anyone even thinks that it's a crime... it could just as easily be misinterpreted as some kind of horrific plague.

Of course it'd be addicting... on cocaine levels, even. However, there should still be some other side-effects. Something that a Dark Jedi would consider a serious problem. They have no problems with addictions, as every time they use the dark side the temptation to use it again becomes greater. The idea that if they do not continually use this power they will weaken is good, but it feels like there should be massive repercussions (is that right? oh, well) for using such a powerful technique.

Plus, how would someone defend themselves from it in it's current form? How can we make it less unstopable, but keep it's horrific appearance. This should not be something that an enemy bandies about, like Palpatines lightning.. it should be something unexplainable... terrifying... like Darth Nihilus draining an entire planet and wiping it out, or the Death Star obliterating Alderaan. A way to counter it but keep it a huge threat to the safety and well-being of all.

 

Oh, I like the schizophrenia idea too, very subtle at first, but growing with time and use.

Whatever you do with the idea, I hope you write in a rule so a victim can make some sort of will save. It may even be a save reasonable to achieve. That would go a great ways towards keeping balance. It makes a good adventure hook too: A victim escapes, terrified for her life, seeking the Jedi?s help?

 

You know, they have force lightning, why not force fire or some other elemental sort of foce power? I think it would be cool to manipulate multiple force powers to create a small area-effect earthquake sort of thing (ill leave the thinking of how one would manage that to you people since I havent played the game in so long)

 

Oh, I wrote up a Groundquake Force Power, but I'm sure as heck not letting PC's use it.

It's pretty simple from the proper point of view. Deep enough in the crust, just a shift of sand is enough become a quake at the surface. All the forces are static (equal and opposite) so a slight imbalance in the right place becomes a violent quake, but you have to be able to sense and use TK at that distance and if something goes wrong the devastation is phenomenal and DSP?s rain from the sky.

 

Well, elemental powers through the force would be cool, but not all would be practical. Force lightning is based on electricity providing that you are not part of a complete circuit. Fire however, would be almost suicidal to try and use, seeing as it's notoriously difficult to control. Force earthquake sounds good, though... I wonder about Coruscants safety if my players figured out they could do that. They'd probably be more interested in using the force to make people say weird stuff though...

("Yeah, so I was talking to Bob over in accounting, and he said PEEEEENIIIIIISSSS!" "...Well, Bob's kind of a wierd guy, it seems...")

Back to Force assimilate.... I found the perfect counter for it .
Instead of a throw to resist, the technique opens a direct path into the users mind, so there is a brief but powerful struggle between the minds, the weaker one being killed off and absorbed. DSPs would only be awarded to the person who actually used the ability, of course.
I've yet to decide how the struggle would be decided.

 

So, if the victim 'wins' they get the attacker?s mojo? Would the victim then have their mojo drain away?

Also, much like Affect Mind (aka Jedi Mind trick) has some heavy modifiers based on the target, I'd put similar modifiers for this ability. It's really easy for this one to get out of control.

 

Good Idea, however the technique itself requires at least Drain life and Drain Skill, so the modifiers shouldn't be too high... I think the modifiers should depend on the oppsing characters level.

Ex: -1 to affect for every level above you, +1 for every level below you.

Extra DSP for preying on those weaker then you, though.
Also, whenever you come close to failing the technique (GM rules on whether or not it's close), you gain another personality which you must adopt from time to time. (Gm brings out the other personalities at random, some of which resemble those he drained).

Another rule! Every time you succesfully use Force Assimilate, the Gm rolls. In d6 (unlikely, considering the nature of the ability), if he rolls 4 or higher, you develop a mental disorder! Whee! In d20, it's 15+.

Ideas for Mental disords include:
Phobias
Hallucinations (Chronic or temporary)
Schizophrenia (Like a terrible melding of MPD and Hallucinations)
Multiple Personality Disorder
Psychopathy (Actually a specific disorder, tends to spawn serial killers)
Sudden mood swings
Brain... stop... times...
Epilepsy (Paralyzed by moving/flashing lights)
and, everybodies favorite...
Narcolepsy! (Randomly falling asleep from no visible stimuli)

 

How about, if the victim wins, s/he gets transfered into the Drainer's body. Possiblly gets to be one of the pschytzophrenic personalities?

As for the addiction: the drainer gets one stat of choice increased by the victim's bonus for an hour. (Ok, it would suck to drain a person with a score of 10, which has no bonus, but an attribute score of 18 is still +4 to whatever). The downside is after that hour is up, the system comes crashing down and the drainer's ability drops by whatever it gained for the rest of the day. Or, the drainer's attribute drops by the victim's attribute (making it very dangerous to drain someone stronger than you because if an attibute drops to negative, you'd be in a coma until you recovered).

As for Force Fire, I think that would kinda work like Pyro in X-men2. There has to be a source of flame to manipulate.

 

No, I was thinking of something much more serious. I was thinking that the N/PC's scores themselves would be added to current scores, however it wears off in... say 6 hours. That's only for the first couple of times mind you. After, say... the fourth time, the player starts noticing that his stats are decreasing, however I simply tell them it's a result of their choices (I don't trust people to seperate their own knowledge from character knowledge). Uh-oh! It's not stopping! Better use Assimilate to boost my stats up while I look for a cure.

After around the seventh use, the drain is more pronounced... say -1 per hour. Also, assimilate isn't working for as long as it used to.

If all goes well, players will decide to try to keep a constant, wide-spread drain on all the life around them. Not a pronounced one, but one that definitely has effects on the world they live on. And, what happens when something starts going horribly wrong like that? Jedo or no, somebody's bound to notice. If they aren't a Jedi, that's probably who they'll call. If they are a Jedi, their search will be short when they find all of this suction, this pain, centers around a single being. No doubt the scars from such an abuse of the force would be evident, even to a padawan! What happens when Jedi think they've found Sith? They tell more Jedi, until the entire sect knws of this perversion of the Jedi teachings. After that, the pplayer has two choices, have the character flee, or go out in a blaze of glory.

It's all cause and effect, baby.

This could work two ways, either a character notices this maelstrom (LOVE that word) of pain and suffering, and investigaes, or one of the Characters figures out a "cool new move" that takes him down the DS hardcore.

As for force Fire, yes. An exterior source of flame would certainly do the trick, but there's something about shooting fire from your hands that seems rather painful to me.

Regarding the effects of the surviving victim... no. They keep their own body, with a permanebt addition to their bonuses for surviving such a horrendus attack. No addiction, no MPD, no DSP, and certainly no bad effects on their own stats.

 

Once me and my RP buddies played an overrated game - just for fun. The funniest thing my friend invented (GM) was a power in wich you can turn your enemies skin upside down by using the Force. It was hilarious. Of course, Sith only.

 

...Ow. That's just cruel, I can't even figure out how that would feel. I know what to call it! Force Ultimate Wedgie from Hell!

 

Um...Yeah. Remind me to tell you sometime about the Ewok Jedi we currently have sitting on the council...needless to say, alot of the petty beaurocratic squabbling gets curtailed when he gets bored and suddenly calls for a "Vote!"

Mariln Lazon, Jedi Guardian, Jedi Ace, Jedi Artisan

 

In regards to both Koohi's question and Nktalloth's response, in a manner of speaking, there ARE some manufacturers of, in some cases, large numbers of sabers. They're called Jedi Artisans, and I am one of them. I, for example, personally carry eight seperate blades of varying types, includin standard lightsabers, greatsabers, a dual-phase lightsaber, what I call a light-dagger with a blade length variable down to 30 cm, and my overpowered monster greatsaber wich uses d10s instead of d8s. (Lager crystals--the rules are in PotJ, I believe). Each of these wapons are hand-crafted by my own hands, and each has its own holster on my belt or under my heavy canvas coat; and these are far from the only blades I've made. I typiaclly wield my teal-bladed greatsaber to fend off attacks whilst using Kinetic Combat with the Split-Force technique to send my blue-bladed and green-bladed standard lightsabers ahead to attack. But I COULD wield up to FIVE of my blades at a time (using Split-Force at a cost of 16 times the vitality) for up to two rounds while wielding my light-dagger and my remaining standard lightsaber in my hands. That makes only seven objects, of course, but two of the standard blades have handle-locks, becoming a double-bladed lightsaber in the process. Now, THAT is a true wall of death!

I suppose with a certain amount of editing, such as using another technique or two to use two or more objects as a single application of Kinetic Combat, a person could certainly put a large swarm of sabers such as that which Nktalloth describes into play to devastating effect!

Just my opinion, of course...


Marli Lazon, Jedi Guardian, Jedi Ace, Jedi Artisan