The Rancor Pit Forum Index
Welcome to The Rancor Pit forums!

The Rancor Pit Forum Index
FAQ   ::   Search   ::   Memberlist   ::   Usergroups   ::   Register   ::   Profile   ::   Log in to check your private messages   ::   Log in

Breaking Up Enhance Attribute
Post new topic   Reply to topic    The Rancor Pit Forum Index -> House Rules -> Breaking Up Enhance Attribute
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Director of Engineering


Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2019 1:18 am    Post subject: Breaking Up Enhance Attribute Reply with quote

It seems to me that perhaps Enhance Attribute is too generalized, in that with this one power, a Force Sensitive character can enhance any skill they've got. The evidence seen in-universe, however, would seem to suggest that this ability is more specialized. If we assume that Anakin used this ability when repairing things (assuming there isn't some more advanced Control/Sense skill involved), then a more narrow focus would seem to be appropriate, breaking down the general Enhance Attribute power into six separate powers: one, for each attribute, something like:
    Enhance Reflexes (Dexterity)
    Enhance Cognition (Knowledge)
    Enhance Piloting (Mechanical)
    Enhance Perception (Perception)
    Enhance Strength (Strength)
    Enhance Repair (Technical)
Thoughts?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Pel
Line Captain
Line Captain


Joined: 10 May 2006
Posts: 983
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2019 10:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like it the way it is. The Jedi (or Sith) is channeling energy to boost mental or physical capabilities. The Force doesn't care if it's making your character super-strong, super-smart, or a Solo-level pilot, so one power to increase Attributes works well.

If we substitute six separate powers then the players either learn them piecemeal, robbing it of functionality and creating a bookkeeping headache, or they learn them all at once, making this substitution moot.
_________________
Aha!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Director of Engineering


Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2019 12:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I can see both sides of it, and I agree there would need to be some sort of incentive built into the power to make it more worthwhile, like making the attribute bonus more open-ended.

And while the Force may not "care", it's worth taking into account the fact that the Force may provide the bonus in different ways. I mean, technically, it's all just the Force enhancing people, but we still break it up into discrete powers...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
MrNexx
Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral


Joined: 25 Mar 2016
Posts: 2248
Location: San Antonio

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2019 12:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While it's not breaking it up, per se, I think Enhance Knowledge could also be a sense power, letting you use Sense to substitute for certain knowledge skills.
_________________
"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Director of Engineering


Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2019 2:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
While it's not breaking it up, per se, I think Enhance Knowledge could also be a sense power, letting you use Sense to substitute for certain knowledge skills.

That's going to depend on how the enhancement is sourced. If it's somehow enhancing the character's own memories or cognitive abilities, then Control is still applicable. If, OTOH, the knowledge is somehow precognitive in nature - or otherwise dependent on information the character didn't already possess - then Sense would be appropriate.

Using Anakin as an example (assuming that his "I've always been good at fixing things" is Force related), if the Force is enhancing his innate talent for comprehending mechanical devices and their functions, tolerances and how they work together, then it's purely an internal enhancement, which is Control. However, if his ability is because he just gets a "feel" for how something will work even if he has never seen it before, it's probably Sense.

This is one of those things that's right on the borderline between Force skills when it comes to power classification, as it really could go either way.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Naaman
Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral


Joined: 29 Jul 2011
Posts: 3191

PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 8:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What about having only two, instead of six?

Somatic enhancement and cognitive enhancement. The power could either:

1) enhance all physical (or mental) attributes when activated (seems more "realistic" to me)

or

2) the player chooses a single attribute to boost.

FWIW, I've always felt that enhance attribute was too difficult for what you get out of it. I think it would be a better element of the game if it produced pip-based bonuses that last long enough to eliminate round-by-round book keeping.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Sovereign Protector


Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14023
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.

PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 11:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the idea of a 'somatic' and 'cognitive' version, so you have one for mentals, and one for physicals..
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Darklighter79
Captain
Captain


Joined: 27 May 2018
Posts: 529

PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 12:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:

FWIW, I've always felt that enhance attribute was too difficult for what you get out of it. I think it would be a better element of the game if it produced pip-based bonuses that last long enough to eliminate round-by-round book keeping.


Or make it one power (Enhance) with 4 effects (choose one):
1) Enhance Attribute
2) Enhance Force Attribute (if you use one)
3) Enhance Skill
4) Enhance Force Skill
Each effect with different difficulty (attributes are more difficult to boost), so low skill Jedi could jump high if only jump skill is enhanced.
Duration also possible. But sometimes I have doubts about this as in the movies all powers cease to work as soon as the initiator is wounded or dead.
_________________
Don’t Let the Rules Get in the Way of a Good Story.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Director of Engineering


Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 12:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I never said as much, but part of the reason I'm looking at this is because I specifically don't want Enhance Attribute to be usable on a Force attribute. You could potentially daisy-chain the dice bonuses to oblivion given enough time to stack repeated power uses.

I like the suggestion of Cognitive and Somatic Enhancement, but in at least half the attributes (Dexterity, Mechanical and Technical), there is a blending of both. Dexterity and Mechanical, for example, are both heavily dependent on hand-eye coordination, which would IMO be a part of Cognitive.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Sovereign Protector


Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14023
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.

PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 2:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So if you did a phys one, would that be just str, while dex was under cognitive with know, per, tech and mech?
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Director of Engineering


Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garhkal wrote:
So if you did a phys one, would that be just str, while dex was under cognitive with know, per, tech and mech?

At that point, it would be easier to just revert back to my original suggestion and have a separate enhancement power for each attribute, as each Attribute, by definition, focuses on a different type of physical and/or mental ability.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Naaman
Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral


Joined: 29 Jul 2011
Posts: 3191

PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 11:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
I never said as much, but part of the reason I'm looking at this is because I specifically don't want Enhance Attribute to be usable on a Force attribute. You could potentially daisy-chain the dice bonuses to oblivion given enough time to stack repeated power uses.

I like the suggestion of Cognitive and Somatic Enhancement, but in at least half the attributes (Dexterity, Mechanical and Technical), there is a blending of both. Dexterity and Mechanical, for example, are both heavily dependent on hand-eye coordination, which would IMO be a part of Cognitive.


Of course, everything you do starts in the central nervous system, so they're all "cognitive," even strength.

For example, the ability to exert force depends upon the body's ability to recruit electrons and distribute them to the various muscle groups (or, more appropriately, individual muscle fibers), while coordinating cooperating muscle groups together. Brain activity plays a significant role in this (the brain of an athlete doing athletic things is hard at work).

The differentiation could simply lie along the gross motor/fine motor line of demarcation with "knowledge" being the obviously "pure" cognitive function; while something like technical is a more "true" indicator of someone's "dexterity" as applied to exceptionally fine manipulations (while the technical attribute itself governs skills that depend primarily on a characters knowledge and understanding of man-made things).

In other words, since everything is cognitive, you could reasonably use a binary system (somatic/cognitive or physical/mental, etc.) without causing a logical problem (it would seem that finding the right terms for your categories is the issue, rather than having a particular number of categories per se).

In RPGs, there is a common division of attributes/qualities into physical and mental, with each of those being further subdivided into traits such as speed, strength, agility (on the physical side) and awareness, wits, social prowess on the mental side, etc. It appears to me that SWD6 makes it pretty easy to see the split right down the middle with respect to which attributes govern the archetypal "physical" stuff, versus the "mental" stuff.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Director of Engineering


Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16163
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.

PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2019 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It would depend greatly, IMO, on the exact manner by which the Force enhances each attribute. Yes, the nervous system plays a critical role in all human activity, but why would the Force be limited solely to interacting with the nervous system?
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
Naaman
Vice Admiral
Vice Admiral


Joined: 29 Jul 2011
Posts: 3191

PostPosted: Mon May 13, 2019 6:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It isn't. But once a decision is made to "do" a thing, the nervous system must be engaged in order to complete the task. No matter what the force is doing, the brain/nervous system is the gateway to performing that task.

FWIW, I've always imagined that powers work differently for each force user, while producing the game effect described in the rules. For example, one character's enhance attribute might actually increase the size of his muscles, yielding a +1D to Strength, while another's might flood his system with adrenaline, also producing +1D strength.

The how, to me, is less important since the purpose is to generate the effect described in the rules. That is, it's already established that force users can enhance their attributes, so we don't really need to know "how" they do it unless that specific information is impactful to the gameplay.

In any case, I wasn't trying to say that enhance attribute = enhance nervous system (after all, there could be some species of force user that doesn't even have a nervous system, yet, they'd still have access to the power).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    The Rancor Pit Forum Index -> House Rules All times are GMT - 4 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group


v2.0