Jedi Package Deal, gimmie input

[Agent333]

I was hoping you guys wouldn't mind looking closely at this Jedi Package I put together for a possible future Star Wars game. Please poke holes in it and mention stuff I'm sure I missed.

Basic Jedi Knight Package

Increased Stats
10 EGO +5
3 INT +3

Powers
17 Detect Emotions: As a sense, Ranged, Discriminatory
22 Detect Force: As a Sense, Ranged, 360 degree
30 Mind Control 6D6
20 Missle Deflect All and Reflect; OAF Lightsabre (-1)
7 Telekinesis: STR 10; Affects Whole Object (-1/2), 2x END (-1/2), Concentrate: 1/2 DCV(-1/4)
10 Mental Defense [EGO/5 +10]
3 Leaping +3"
22 Spacial Awareness
13 +2 Overall Skill Levels; Costs END (-1/2)
32 "the Darkside" +3 DEX, +1 Speed, Aid 2D6 any one Force Power (+1/4); Self Only (-1/2), Costs END (-1/2)

Skills and Perqs
10 Lightsabre Combat Maneuvers (SH page 44)
5 Acrobatics +1
3 Breakfall
3 Combat Pilot
3 Fast Draw: Lightsabre
2 Weaponsmith: Lightsabre
6 Weapon Familiarity: Common Melee, Small Arms, Blades, Lightsabre
2 KS: Jedi Training
2 KS: Republic Law
2 TF: Space Vehicles
8 FB: Interstellar Police Powers

Package Total= 235 points

Disadvantages
Dis Fea: "Force Presence" (Concealable, noticed, Small Group) -0
Watched by Jedi Council (More, NCI, 8-) -10
Hunted by Sith (As, 8-) -10
Soc Lim: Subject to Orders (Very Frequently, Major) -20
Susceptability: 1D6 Major Transform (vs. EGO) every phase the Darkside is used, Transform into same character with "Cruel" and "Meglomaniacal" psychological limitations. (Common, every phase) -20


Additional Jedi Powers (which can be purchased later)

32 Unease Danger Sense, As a aSense, Any Danger, Immediate Vicinity
12 Energy Absorption Force Field +0PD/ +8ED ; Invisible Effects (+1/2)
30 Read Minds Tlepathy 6D6
11 Greater Tlekinesis +10 TK STR and Fine Manipulation; Same Limits (-1 1/4)
15 Expanded Awareness Add Discriminatory and +10" Telescopic to Detect Force
30 Illusions Mental Illusions 6D6
30 Reaching Out Mind Scan 6D6
15 Mental Speech Mind Link, Only with those who are sensitive to the force
13 Sense the future Precognition w/ Sight and Detect Emotion, Precog Only (-1), Vague and Unclear visions (-1/2), Activation: 11- (-1)
12 Body Control Simulate Death; Extended Breathing [1 END/ Turn]; Eat once per week; Sleep only 8 hours per week; LS vs. intense Heat/ Cold and High Radiation
20 Pure Body LS vs. All Known diseases/ bio-warfare and poisons/chemical warfare
10 Improved Reflection Missile Reflect against any target
32 Choke 2D6 EGO Attack; Continuous (+1), Concentrate: 1/2 DCV (-1/4)
10 Speaking Through the Force Universal Translator, Spoken Languages Only (-1)
10 Animal Control Add the Animal class of mind to Jedi Mind Control

I would've included my writeup of a Lightsabre, but that's a whole 'nother debate entirely!

[Syberdwarf2]

Very nice. Although, the cost seems a tad high unless you're doing superheroic point levels. IDHBIFOM, but would it help make it cheaper to put it in a "Force Powers" EC or MP?

Just a thought....

great job, IMO

[Aroooo]

I'm not sure I would do the Force the way you have it, but thats just me. If I had never played WEG's Star Wars, it would look really good - but i have to agree with Syberdwarf2 on this one. Make the "Force" a multipower framework. Bigger the pool, the stronger you are in the Force. The lower cost of the resulting slots means you can use Heroic point starting levels, and characters have a reasonable chance to improve themselves.

I do agree with you that you/the GM needs to have the Force powers pre-defined before the game starts. I like the list you've come up with. If you can find a copy of West End Game's Jedi Academy sourcebook, pick it up. It has just about all the Force powers in it. Very good resource.

Aroooo

[Heroman]

Excellent sample powers, but I personally would not put them in a MP or the like since some lower power campaigns may disallow frameworks.
One suggestion would be to maybe break up powers by 'Jedi Level'. Identify which powers are likely to be learned early on (with expected power levels) and work them up higher as one would be considered a higher level Jedi.

Also, you never really indicated what were 'darkside' powers (for the disad)...

[Sketchpad]

Looks interesting ... but I would've built it a bit differently.
First thing I would've done is not give any stat bonuses ... It's more of an occupational class than anything.
Secondly, I agree with the Force MP ... it would be more cost efficient. I also would've required skill rolls with Sense, Alter & Control being the skills in question (Ego based skills).
I also would've made Force Sensitive a Talent akin to some of the Psionic talents in Star Hero ... or perhaps a Perk.
As far as Disads ... I would have only a few, with one of them being a Psych Lim - Jedi Code (Com, Tot) 20pts.
The hunted by Sith would depend on the Era and the Darkside Transform should either be a plot device or tweaked a bit IMO ...

[Killer Shrike]

Ive had some experience doing Jedi in HEROs indirectly as one of my players played one in a cross-dimensional "in an infinite universe of infinite possibilities, anything goes" type game, at IIRC 250 starting, basic superhero's options.


We did the Force Powers in a Multipower, and it worked out rather well.

One thing that we found that really fit a Jedi well are Overall Levels. Jedi are generally good at everything they do, and the OLs depict that.


I dont recall off hand if how we did the Darkside.....the player of the character goes by Wily Quixote on these boards; Ill have to find out if he remembers when I get home later.


On a side note, I wouldnt do Force Choke as an EGO Blast; instead use TK, and buy a subset of Martial Manuevers usable with the TK, like Martial Choke, Martial Disarm, and Shove.

OR

Take Stretching, IPE, does not cross intervening space.

Actually Vader choked people over a vid link which is normally not legal by the LOS rules. He probably bought two Force Chokes, one for in person, and another for over vid links and similar long range Chokes. I dont have FREd with me, but somthing along these lines:

1) 6" of Stretching, IPE (SFX Only), DNCIS, Gestures

(good for lots of things besides choking too, including the ole Lightsaber fetch, pulling cargo boxes into Luke from behind, Grabbing pesky blasters out of Solo's hand and so on)

and

2) 1" of Stretching, IPE (SFX Only), DNCIS, Gestures, Megascaled 10km, can be scaled back

[James Gillen]

I was thinking about adapting the D20 Star Wars (which is itself adapted from West End D6) and thought of using the new Luck rules to simulate Force Points. Basically the character would get a certain number of re-rolls (or other options from the new version) depending on how many dice of Luck he got. The drawback is that the Points would generally be Independent (and thus worth about 1 or 2 points per die) and could only be bought back as a GM bonus depending on whether your action served the 'light side' of the Force or not. Mundane characters (like Han Solo) would still buy Luck up to 5 dice, but it would only apply as it does under the old rules. PC Droids couldn't buy Force Points (the Force is a property of living things) but would still be eligible for Luck and Combat Luck (how else did C3P0 waddle down a ship corridor with Rebels and Stormtroopers firing on either end?).

I'd also agree that Overall Levels can simulate this effect nicely.

Beginner Jedi (or potentials like Leia) should have either Mental Awareness or Latent Psionic talent. 'Sense Force' would be a required Enhanced Sense; I don't think Detect Emotions would be necessary if the Jedi has Telepathy. On the other hand, the Sense could be given options like Targeting to reflect a sort of Zen combat ability. To avoid making the character cost too much, I'd define most of the abilities as a Multipower. It would be piled on with Limitations at first (as with Luke in The Empire Strikes Back) most of which would gradually get bought off (as with Masters like Obi-Wan and Yoda).

The 'my take on the Light Sabre' thread offers advice in that area. One of my suggestions was to define the 'Lightsaber Combat' power as Martial Arts with Extra DCs.

I thought about it, and I agree that Force users (not just Jedi) would require the Disadvantages 'Force Presence' (Distinctive Feature) and Susceptibility (against using the Dark Side) although in the latter case, that's usually defined as ANY evil act, whether the character uses the Force to commit evil or not. According to the source material, this is because the sensitivity to the Force makes a person more sensitive to the Dark Side as well. Jedi deal with this by enforcing their Code; other sects are prone to corruption because they don't guard against the Dark Side, although they don't deliberately cultivate it like the Sith either.

JG

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Heh heh heh.

Oh boy. Okay, I have worked off of some of the .net-created Force conversions for HERO; I think the best one I've come across was a VPP with certain limitations, thus:

VPP (40 Power Pool Points, 20 Control Pool Points): Change Powers as a 0-Phase Action (+1), No Skill Roll Required to Change Pool (+1) (Control Active Cost: 60); Restricted Type of Powers (Force/Mental Powers Only, -1/2),
GM Must Approve New Powers (-1/2), Max Pool = (2 x Ego) + (Int + Pre)/2 (-1/4), Max Different Powers = Number of Points in Pool (-1/4) [Control Pool: 30 Points] [Total Real Cost: 70 Points]

At first glance, this is amazingly powerful, until you recognize that the Force Powers are a) first eyeballed by the GM, and b) limited by the number of points you have in the pool. The GM should, of course, pay attention to how you gain the abilities, and should reflect your training by the powers he lets you buy: first Control powers, then Sense powers, then Alter powers. Somewhere in there you can start mixing Contrl/Sense, so on and so forth.

As for the base 'Jedi package', I've copied across the following. One should remember that this is the 'first Jedi' in a campaign taking place in a world almost directly like our own; the 'Religion' skill is really rather necessary, so that he can prove that 'The Force' is not antithetical to any religion.

35 PKG,"Force Sensitive"
(5) 5 Power Defense
(1) 5 Mental Defense (Mental Powers)
(3) Mental Awareness (Mental Powers)
(2) PS: Lightsaber Construction 11-
(5) KS: Jedi Code 15-,(INT based)
(3) KS: Theology 13-,(INT based)
(6) Force Skill: Control 16-
(5) Force Skill: Sense 15-
(5) Force Skill: Alter 14-

In regards to the three Force skills (Control, Sense, Alter): these are all attribute-based skills. However, they're based on attributes that may seem odd at first glance.

Control: The easiest, this is based off Ego. One should control oneself before one can go about changing the world, and Ego relates to mental discipline and self-control.

Sense: An Intelligence-based skill, not only because PER rolls are based off one's Int, one also has to be able to interpret what one is sensing in order to decide what to do about it.

Alter: The oddest of the bunch, Alter is a Presence-based skill. Presence is very much a 'Force of Personality' attribute, the one used to make friends and influence people. It seems appropriate to use it for the Force skill that 'forcibly' makes friends and influences people, never mind the world at large.

I've a long, painful list of what 'Force Skills' I've created; if I have some time, and if people beat me about the head and shoulders in order to get me to do it, I might start giving you the powers I've got floating around here, as translated into the HERO system. I've still got a bit of translating to do, though, to go from the BBB to FREd.

[Aroooo]

I don't think " GM Must Approve New Powers (-1/2)" is a valid limitation. I mean, doesn't the GM have to approve VPP's in the first place? If you (the GM) have a predefined list of Force Powers written up, and those are the only powers the VPP can use (not sure if that is the case), then the "Restricted Type of Powers (Force/Mental Powers Only, -1/2)" should be all you need.

Can you explain what "Max Pool = (2 x Ego) + (Int + Pre)/2 (-1/4)" means? I interpret this to be a limit on the VPP pool size (40 in your example). Is 40 the max period, or is it the max for this particular sample character? Or, does this lim. mean its the max active points in any one power in the VPP, and the pool is always 40?

Otherwise, looks very interesting.

Aroooo

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Originally posted by Aroooo
I don't think " GM Must Approve New Powers (-1/2)" is a valid limitation. I mean, doesn't the GM have to approve VPP's in the first place? If you (the GM) have a predefined list of Force Powers written up, and those are the only powers the VPP can use (not sure if that is the case), then the "Restricted Type of Powers (Force/Mental Powers Only, -1/2)" should be all you need.

The GM has to approve VPPs, but the GM does NOT have to approve what POWERS go into it. Essentially, the GM gets to say, 'Okay, you've put your 2 points into the power pool, and your one point into the control pool. Your Master will teach you X power and Y power.' The GM DOES have a (rather broad) predefined list of Force Powers, many of which are 'non-Mental', such as Absorption, Damage Reduction, and a host of other things; however, the GM has the added say of what NEW power you get to use in your pool; you don't get to say, 'Okay, now I want to do THIS cool Force trick.' The powers you have in your pool are only gained a bit at a time, and each one has to be OKed by the GM. It may only be worth a -1/4 limitation, or even (in your game) not at all.

Can you explain what "Max Pool = (2 x Ego) + (Int + Pre)/2 (-1/4)" means? I interpret this to be a limit on the VPP pool size (40 in your example). Is 40 the max period, or is it the max for this particular sample character? Or, does this lim. mean its the max active points in any one power in the VPP, and the pool is always 40?

The pool maximum for this particular character is not 40, but rather 55 (EGO 20 x 2) + (INT 18 + PRE 13)/2 = 40 + 31/2 = 40 + 15 = 55. 40 is what he's currently bought it UP to; he has another 15 points that he can add to the Power Pool before he's 'maxed out' and must increase either his intelligence, his presence, or his ego. This prevents a Jedi from having a Power Pool that's 100 points or so without having the wisdom, intelligence, and force of personality to control it.

For a Dark Jedi/Sith Lord, I'd remove that pretty much entirely, instead giving the Pool a -1/4 'Side F/X', with GM-induced nastiness on deciding what any particular failure meant. On some spectacular attempt, he'd half destroy himself, but on some of the 'lesser' ones, things AROUND him would get corrupted.

The reason I went with the VPP, by the way, is because of the vast situation-specific variations a Jedi can pull out of his hat. Getting a MP to do the same thing is just ... hideous. The 'highly controlled VPP' is just more elegant, to my mind.

[Heroman]

The GM has to approve VPPs, but the GM does NOT have to approve what POWERS go into it.

P.210 'The GM should approve in a VPP to ensure that they are within the special effect of the pool'
While this is not as limiting as 'GM has final say (well, actually can be treated that way since it is a STOP anways) I am not sure it is worth a -1/2.
Also, I think the 'restricted set of powers' and 'GM must approve' kinda overlap; The GM is not going to approve anything which does not fit into the sfx anyways. It basically is a Cosmic PP (with your advs) but limited to powers which the GM not only allows, but it also seems like powers which the player 'learns'.

I am curious what you define as a 'power' in the VPP with regards to the cap on # powers. A normal will be capped at 20 powers, which to me sounds like a huge number. Having maybe written up a competent Jedi, is this really limiting?

In all honesty, with these type of limitations, I wonder if a MP is cheaper and more in line, along with a Power skill (for 'power stunts'). The Power skill could help reflect 'new cool stunts' they try on the fly (and which maybe they could add later in a slot). I have not read a whole lot of the novels, main exposure being the movies, but it appears that most 'force powers' are taught, not generated off the cuff.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Most Force Skills (i.e. Powers in our terminology) ARE taught. However, when you use your Force-based TK, do you:

• Grab the X-Wing and lift it out of the water?
• Control four things at once, balancing three rocks and lifting R2-D2?
• Start tossing a bunch of big heavy things at Luke?

With the VPP, once you've learned Telekinesis, the situational specifics are maleable, albeit within a defined zone. (I.e. the GM can say, 'well, that falls in under Y, not under X'.) And while 20 SOUNDS like a huge number, it isn't; you can take up the first eight or ten just with Sense skills alone. Trust me, this particular character has hit 40 and he hasn't even gotten to the 'these aren't the droids you're looking for' point yet. Though his Padawan has the Power to enhance coordination, i.e. give everyone he's working with the 'Teamwork' skill...

And before people start going 'huh?', in this instance I do permit Enhanced Senses to be placed within the Pool. I know they say that you're not supposed to, but it does, after all, say 'should not ... without the GM's permission'. To be able to focus on only certain aspects of The Force at one time fits the concept, ergo it belongs. If/when the player/character wants to move them out and have them going 24/7, then they can pay the points for it. Otherwise, the danger sense / sense force / sense life / sense whatever fits in perfectly well with the VPP.