So, I'm Going To Try and Play A Fallanassi...

... any advice?

Pacifistic, isolationist Force adepts. Covered in the Web Enhancement for the Coruscant and the Core Worlds book and the novels of the Black Fleet Crisis.

Moridin -- any more on them in the Hero's Guide?

Any other advice?

 

Pretty interesting. I've built a Fallanassi NPC for my upcoming campaign and the idea of trying to play one crossed my mind.

A real challenge. Really. It's hard to play a pacifist character. I once tried the pacifist cleric kit for AD&D (does anyone remember that kit?) and I almost gave up.

But I'd say: be creative. The Fallanassi relies upon illusions. Illusions are a powerful weapon, both defensive and offensive. I'd play the character trying to support the offensive abilities of the group. I like playing support roles, less roll-playing but extremely enjoyable role-playing. A well placed illusion can confuse the enemies and help the group to overcome the challenge without resorting to violence.

Have you thought the backstory? Why did he/she join an adventurer group? As I said, pretty interesting.

 

Yes, a Fallanassi character would very interesting indeed. If you have a nice arsenal of illusions, you would be a fairly strong ally. You may not want to fight, but you would help out your friends in their fights.

A neat back story would be that you went out into the galaxy to be a magician. Since most people, even jedi, won't know about Fallanassi 'magic', you could make a fortune going around to less civilized planets like Tatooine and Ord Mantell and putting on magic acts for credits.

 

I wrote up a bunch of stuff on the Fallanassi, but it was cut from the book for space reasons. Sorry. :-(

 

Several points...

A neat back story would be that you went out into the galaxy to be a magician. Since most people, even jedi, won't know about Fallanassi 'magic', you could make a fortune going around to less civilized planets like Tatooine and Ord Mantell and putting on magic acts for credits.

Fallanassi are EXTRAORDINARILY isolationist. They only come out for a "good" reason (or self-serving to the Fallanassi one). That's not one of them...

A real challenge. Really. It's hard to play a pacifist character. I once tried the pacifist cleric kit for AD&D (does anyone remember that kit?) and I almost gave up.

But I'd say: be creative. The Fallanassi relies upon illusions. Illusions are a powerful weapon, both defensive and offensive. I'd play the character trying to support the offensive abilities of the group. I like playing support roles, less roll-playing but extremely enjoyable role-playing. A well placed illusion can confuse the enemies and help the group to overcome the challenge without resorting to violence.

I'd probably help the group as a last resort, trying to end any conflict stumbled upon in the least-violent way possible (Immersion, Affect Mind and Friendship are your friends!). I'd also probably try and cast up Illusion as a defensive or bluffing method, like a blowfish perhaps...

Have you thought the backstory? Why did he/she join an adventurer group? As I said, pretty interesting.

Yep. Same universe as my last character (who left, not died) so it's the hellish Rebellion Era of a Sith Empire, right after we've killed the most recent Empress. My character's concept is a middle-aged or older Vuvrian who's been around long enough to almost remember when there WAS no Empire. So he's grown up in a Fallanassi settlement on some Outer Rim planet (undecided yet) and during the Empress' reign, we lost contact with another settlement elsewhere. Too dangerous to venture out (despite Immersion techniques), now that she's gone, we need to find out what happened to them. So out I go to go locate them, stowing away on a ship bound for their planet... only to discover it ends up where the other PCs are and not where I need to go.

I envisioned it sort of like Battlestar Galactica. Where I'd find the colony and it'd be gone, but a Scribing of where they might have travelled to was there. And I'd be searching the galaxy for them, locating Scribings here and there and eventually learning their fate. And then I'd go back to my people.

 

Nice. Yeah, the absolutely non-violent approach is certainly Fallanassi. And hanging around with the group just to find your lost comrades... I see lots of potential sources of conflict, but also the potential from an extremely epic campaign. Clues, puzzles, dead ends... that's the stuff great adventures are made of (well, and lots of stormtroopers to mow down )

The NPC I've decided to insert IMHC owes her life to the master of our Jedi Guardian, so know she is the shadow (literally) of his pupil just to pay the debt. Yeah, I know that life debts are overused, I know, but I'd like to develop the inner conflict between the isolacionist philosophy of the Fallanassi and the sense of honour and debts that she learnt from her father. Yeah, I like conflicting characters, even if they're NPCs.

Meh, she may even end being my next PC!

 

I'm confused, is the Fallanasi a non-player character or a player-character?

When I think of Akanah (sp?) in the BLACK FLEET CRISIS, I vaguely recall that she was a Fallanasi who "led/manipulated Luke to go where she wanted to go." The carrot to Luke being "I'll take you to find your mother."

Given the secretive and isolationist philosophy of the Fallanasi, I'm wondering how that would play into a group setting in a rpg adventure . . . would the rest of the players be dragged along on the Fallanasi's decision making? Are there any problems with the Fallanasi being the only one interpreting the "signs" as to his/her lost people, (meaning, why do the rest of the players share in the Fallanasi's quest/(tribe hunt)? What is the motivation for the group to follow these Fallanasi signs unless there's some other rationale ($$$; promises to the group - whether true or false - by the Fallanasi in order to the other players to come along; there's really "nothing better" for the group to do; Fallanasi illusions (manipulation) to motivate the rest of the group to go where the Fallanasi wants them to go; etc.).

I'm assuming the Fallanasi has no means of transportation, and thus, is dependent on the group.

This is interesting . . . but it does seem like a hard character to play, in particular if the Fallanasi is a player character. (And I also don't remember what WEG's CRACKEN'S THREAT DOSSIER had on the Fallanasi).

Best of luck! I hope you keep us posted on the hurdles and rewards!

Ana V

 

Well, the WEG'S Cracken's Threat Dossier had this to say:

"WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND AGAINST ALLOWING FALLANASSI AS PLAYER CHARACTERS."

So there's that...

But other than that, the party is acting as an infiltration team right now, and I've found my colony abandoned with a partial scribing. We're doing some work for an information broker, and my price is information about the possibility of escape (and location) of my people.

Yes, he's a PC. So his "carrot" was his Master Immersion capabilities and his "stick" was not using it until the party agreed to take him to where the colony was.

Interesting note: 15 Dark Side adepts boarded our ship in the middle of the night, so I hid with one of the Jedi character's padawans (the party, including NPCs, was outnumbered 15 - 5, not including us -- non-fighting types). We delayed actions so we both went at the same time, both using Friendship on two of the Adepts -- me using a Force Point to make him Helpful from Hostile and the other one being turned Friendly. I asked, as a free action, if they could help out, preferably non-violently. Now, this is Friendship and NOT Affect Mind -- so they were free to do whatever they wanted. Which included Move Objecting the remainder of the Force Adepts out of the, then flying, freighter -- killing two of them. The GM ruled that because of my actions, the others died -- thus using the Force to kill people, and assigned me a Dark Side Point.

What say you?

 

Never heard of them.

Ever look at the Rodian Pacifist character template from WEG's Heroes&Rogues book? "Oh, your blasters won't work because I removed the energy packs. Now perhaps we can resolve your conflict with those stormtroopers though meaningful dialog?"

If you need a rolemodel, look at some of the shaolin and buhdist monks in movies. Some are very isolationist and pacifistic, but know how to defend themselves when attacked. Consider the Aikido rules set from GURPS: Crappy attack damage, but the feedback damage to the attacker was devastating. Look at the absorb/redirect energy aspect. Mind you, I don't know the rules for 3rd ed, so you will have to look all that up.

I had an NPC pacifist in a group I was running as their pilot, with a Jawa tech. THe Jawa had to keep stealing parts to repair the ship's guns, which the pacifist would then remove and sell. They went through this constantly. Players enjoyed that, and hated it at the same time. They also hated the fact that 1/2 the ship had jawa-height ceilings.

Pacifist kit from 2ndEd D&D was pretty useless. Actually, all the kits from the priest & mage books were feeble. I allowed kits to cross classes--Priest of Justice with a bountyhunter kit, Mage with a swashbuckler kit, Paladin Investigator, etc.

 

Merk -- that's what I've been going off of in terms of powers and level advancement (it uses a modified Force Adept class)...

Just that a lot of the powers aren't as defined as one might like them to be, and some motivational issues aren't addressed (it IS only a Web Enhancement... )

 

I would say that that DSP should not have been given. Your use of the Force was not the direct cause of the deaths. It was the darksider that killed the others, not you; all you did was ask for help (even mentioned that you would prefer a non violent solution), the nature of that help was entirely up to the darksider. If that deserves a DSP, I do not know how any Jedi could keep from falling. It is common for practice for Jedi to use the Force to enhance their abilities with the Force in combat. As long as the Force is not used to directly cause harm to a living creature, there is no problem.

 

Hey, dp, have you ckecked the third Hero's Guide Web Enhancement? Fallanassi goodies! Including the White Current Adept prestige class.

 

Yeah, I did... I don't like it at all, actually. Doesn't address the Web Enhancement that was only released 4 months ago.

Unless these are "adepts" and true Fallanassi follow the Force Adept modifications listed in the original Web Enhancement.

 

Hmmm. I've just noticed the Alter requeriment. You're right. The Doppleganger feat is quite sweet anyway -it's good to see old WEG favs returning.


Contradicting rules =

 

I'd like to again take this moment to remind you that when I wrote the section on the Fallanassi for the Hero's Guide, which was well over a year ago, I did not have access to the CCW Web Enhancement.

That being said, I think the Hero's Guide version captures the essence of the Fallanassi much better. Class features are much easier to come by than feats, and Force Adept class features don't make much sense for the Fallanassi either. Of course, it's your prerogative, but I think the HG Web Enhancement version captures them in more detail, and is more true to the organization as we saw in the Black Fleet Crisis books.

 

That being said, I think the Hero's Guide version captures the essence of the Fallanassi much better. Class features are much easier to come by than feats, and Force Adept class features don't make much sense for the Fallanassi either. Of course, it's your prerogative, but I think the HG Web Enhancement version captures them in more detail, and is more true to the organization as we saw in the Black Fleet Crisis books.

I absolutely disagree with you 100% here.

I thought the CCW Web Enhancement captured it far better -- both in terms of characterization and scope of ability. They were more pacifistic (not getting ANY Weapon Group Proficiencies) and couldn't even USE any Alter-based power (even untrained) that wasn't Affect Mind or Illusion. That's it. It also accounted for certain aspects of the Fallanassi class not being applicable for the Force Adept heroic class (e.g. Comprehend Speech, Force Weapon, Force Talisman, etc.) by providing the character with different abilities (Master Immersion, Master Illusion, Skill Mastery, etc.).

How is a group of Fallanassi supposed to hide an ENTIRE COLONY if it costs 2 VP per turn AND they can only, at maximum, hide themselves and one other person. It's infeasible. It's why the CCW version made sense from a "worldview" perspective -- it allowed the Fallanassi to accomplish heroic feats of immersion and illusion at a fraction of the cost (or free, at higher levels) at the expense of being AT ALL effective in combat with weapons (which they shouldn't be anyway) or the ability AT ALL to affect others with the Force (or, The Current as my character was fond of reminding the Jedi).

Whatever the case though -- Revised Core Rules were supposed to be the "be all and end all" of the new ruleset. Now we have almost diametrically opposed rules for the same thing, within four months. I don't blame you, Moridin, I blame WOTC for bad editing decisions.