Single roll Force use

[ZzaphodD]

Im still trying to come up with a force system that feels more intuitive and less like casting spells. The idea is to make force use more similar to skills.

One way is to cut down on the multiple dice rolls.

I dont want to remove the whole system (ie Control, Sense, Alter) but instead come up with a rule that results in a single dice roll vs a single difficulty.

Dice rolled:
The idea is that each force power as a 'primary' force skill. With secondary skills being added to the die roll like 1st ed coombining rules. If a character has 5D in the primary skill Control and 4D in the secondary skill Sense the character rolls 5D+4.

Difficulty:
Here Im still theading water really. The idea is that you use the difficulty of the primary skill with the difficulty of the secondary skill/skills as a modifier. Say, for example, by the RAW a power calls for a Difficult Control and an Easy Sense check. This could mean Difficult + 3.

This is and idea and I havent had time to run it against lots of powers and different combinations.

Any opinions or ideas?
_________________
My Biggest Beard Retard award goes to: The Admiral of course..

[vanir]

This is just a point of view so don't blaster artillery my face but...

You're proposing the SW magic system. Like Dathomir spells, you have each Force power as a skill with a die code for the power, used for any/all difficulties related to that power. Each power is learned individually as a skill. The Dathomir spell system does of course do away with control/sense/alter and I see you'd make yours a bit different but the theme is similar.

The whole point about the control/sense/alter system is better appreciated coming from 1e gaming imho. Back then the powers were less defined for the most part, a lot more loose, and the player described how he would use control and/or sense and/or alter in a descriptive fashion to achieve the desired effect in game, the GM would then assign difficulties, rule on multiple action penalty, etc.

This was before the powers were defined like in 2e/r&e so these days I guess players sort of figure if there are powers it's just the RAW powers and it's all less abstract.
But once upon a time you could simply desire to do something like a Force Push and the GM would say, okay then you need to focus your Control of the Force to shove non-lethally modified by relationship and then Alter for the telekinetic shove itself modified by proximity.

And the process is very describable in terms of how a Jedi is using the Force to achieve specific effects, in other words elaborates on how the Force works for Jedi, so makes the whole control/sense/alter system give a working mechanic and a lot of sense to what a Jedi is.

I think as the powers have become all about RAW and less about Player creativity and abstraction this relationship has been a little bit lost after 2e onwards. But GMs can reintroduce that, by considering the listed powers of RAW as guidelines in how the Force is using control/sense/alter and allowing Players to discover new powers and work with existing ones using more creativity and abstraction about using control/sense/alter as the skills foundations, with the powers being almost an afterthought, just a common description of how using the three core skills in such a way usually, but not necessarily always, works out.

[KageRyu]

[Naaman]

To the OP:

I have been working on this myself. So far what I have come up with is to use cross -skill powers as prerequisites but only roll the primary skill. For example, needing to know projective telepathy to use affect mind but rolling only alter to actually generate an effect.

Basically, the application of the prerequisite power is so basic, it's principles are used simply as a spring board into the more advanced power, so the difficulty for the telepathy roll would be zero. Kind of like going from driving a lawn mower to driving a minivan to driving a ferrari to driving a bus. The basic kinetics are the same (i.e. gas, brake, steerin wheel) and so are not a factor when considering how difficult the action should be. Only the specific, unique characteristics of each vehicle need to be a factor. Or in this case, only the part of the Force power that is actually responsible for the effect generated need be rolled.

[ZzaphodD]

[Bren]

[KageRyu]

To combine the difficulties for multi-skill powers uses, keep in mind a few things about the core D6 system. Each Difficulty level is set up to represent a near exponential increase, with Each Die Code in a skill being Likewise (i.e. 6D is representative of being twice as skilled as 5D and four times as skilled as 4D). This isn't readily apparent because of the way in which the numbers are set up, but becomes clear when you look at things like the Linked Weapons charts, and a few other places. Given that I'd say:
• Two equal difficulties on force skills for a power could become One difficulty of one level higher.
• Each Difficulty of 1 level Lower becomes a +3/+1D to the higher difficulty.
• Each Difficulty of 2 levels lower becomes a +2 to the higher difficulty.
• Difficulties more than 2 levels lower a +1, or simply dropped.

To combine the force Skills into a single roll, take the most appropriate skill to the power (the one with the highest difficulty). For every full D in the other skills needed, add a +1, converting every +3 to a full new Die, and roll this. You may or may not wish to assess a -1D to the final for what would have been multi-skill use and to keep the difficulties closer to achieval rate.

Example: So, a character with Control 4D+2 and Sense 3D wishes to Raise Lightsaber Combat which normall has a moderate control difficulty and an easy sense difficulty has a new baseline Moderate +1D difficulty and rolls 5D+2 (4D+2 with +1 for Each D in sense).
Using this method, force skills that are close, or even money end up slightly more likely to succeed however. So it is a far from perfect setup, but the difference is usually a few pips.

Those are my thoughts.
_________________
"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[garhkal]

[vanir]

my quote makes no sense with your reply garhkal, I said the Dathomir system and possibly what ZzaphodD is proposing was more akin to spells than the RAW. The Dathomir spells use a skill code for each power individually, raised individually by CP as skills.
ZzaphodD was proposing to reduce the multiple rolls for power activation to a single roll, which I thought was more like using the Force as spells.

I offered the 1e descript of Force use to show how it was strongly tied into control/sense/alter but abstractly by description and desired effect, which the GM effectively assigned ad hoc difficulties and MAP rulings for. This I felt was more like the way the Force is used in the movies, involving character visualisation and roleplay for each part of the effect.

So I was suggesting that perhaps counter-intuitively at least for ZzaphodD I feel the Force is more Force like and less spell like with more roleplay per power activation, rather than less. Reducing powers to single rolls and maintaining strict RAW listed powers and reportoire imho becomes more spell like and less Force like.

I wasn't saying the 1e Force use was akin to spells, I was saying the opposite. Offering a counterpoint argument for ZzaphodD.

[Bren]

[garhkal]

Lets look at say projective telepathy.
Control and sense power.
Control Difficulty: Very Easy. Increase
difficulty by +5 to +10 if the Jedi cannot verbalize
the thoughts he is transmitting (he is gagged,
doesn’t want to make a sound). Modified by
proximity.
Sense Difficulty: Very Easy if the target is
friendly and doesn’t resist. If the target resists,
the difficulty is the target’s Perception or control
roll if target resists. Modified by relationship.

So which difficulty would be primary? The control or the sense? Which of the 2 higher diff 'modifiers' (prox/relation) would come into play?
What of the resistance factor?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Naaman]

[ZzaphodD]

[ZzaphodD]

[vanir]

gotta keep playing counterpoint argument

In at least one RAW source (dark side sourcebook), it says specifically for lightsabre combat you roll the sense roll to add sense to lightsabre skill, and control to add control to damage, being very literal in our house rules because we have low skilled jedi that find it hard making a moderate control during MAP, our house rule is you can fail one and still get the other. It roleplays out nicely and believably, it's easier for a Jedi to learn to start reacting with the Force like Luke and the training remote, than it is to later start using the Force to increase lightsabre damage, and a low skilled Jedi maybe able to do one but not the other.

Don't forget some Jedi start as quixotic or some other manner where Sense maybe a starting skill and Control learned later so lags behind, eg. a low level Jedi maybe Control 2D+2, Sense 4D and being a low level padawan has lightsabre combat. He'd fail pretty consistently with a single roll system, or hard arse RAW enforcing failing one roll excludes all the power's effects, under a roleplay-justified house rule he still gets lightsabre combat to deflect blasters and increase skill, but just not to increase damage without spending CP on the Control roll.