Lets talk Dark Side: Force Lightning and Telekinetic Kill

[Akumakaji]

Hello everyone,

today I want to discuss something that always bothered me in the rules: the two prime darkside damaging powers, ie Force Lightning and Telekinetic Kill, and some problematic rulings I found with them.

Both were shown in the OT, so they are as kanon as it gets. Well, the thing that bothers me is the mechanical side; Force Lightning seems so cool and powerful in the movie, and is the iconic move of the Emperor, but by the rules is vastly inverior to Telekinetic Kill. Maybe thats intentional and the Emperor was just showing off, but I like rule sets with different options for different (tactical) situations, with most options somewhat viable.

Force Lightning is an Control and Alter power with a Difficult Control roll, but in most instances modified by a small +2 due to proximity, and an Alter roll opposed by the targets Control or Perception. After all this you deal half your Alter skill in damage dies, that's armor piercing, but might be deflected by other force powers (Absorb/Disipate Energy).

So a super powerfull force user like the Emperor, with his 14ish dice in force skills, will be dealing a very respectable 7D of damage, but the darksiders your players might encounter in play will more likely do 2D or 3D of damage, maaaybe 4D.


Telekinetic Kill uses all three force skills, but the difficulty of Control and Sense are easy (both, again, probably with a +2 modifier in most situations), an an Alter roll, again opposed by the opponents Control or Perception. After this though, the damage is easily double that of Force Lighting. The rules aren't super clear here if the damage roll is a separate roll or another one, and if this one falls under MAPs. Telekinetic Kill seems to be intended to work like a ranged version of Injure/Kill, which explicitly states that you roll Alter vs Control/Perception and that this already determines the damage.
In the more favorable reading (and the one that I think is RAI) the ammount by which you beat your opponents Control/Perception roll sets the damage, on the more disadvantages reading you roll a forth time to deal this damage, so you will be rolling the characters Alter skill -2D(or -3D if it counts as the 4th action on that turn), opposed by Control/Perception instead of Strength.

So both powers in the end depend on your Alter vs your opponents Control/Perception, both ignore Strength in the damage resist part, but one does your full Alter dice code -2D in damage, the other does half your Alter skill as a stright damage roll. It should also be noted that Telekinetic kill can be used against targets behind glass or even in another rooms/on the other side of the planet, if you manage to sense them, while Force Lightning is limited to line of sight AND line of effect.

That aside, how about a small change to Force Lighting, by making it an upkeepable power. Once its up, you use your Alter skill as you would use your blaster skill and could potentially shoot several times a round, with Control/Perception as the substitude for dodge. There could also be an upgrade called Chain Lightning, which would roll once vs all targets in a certain AOE or maybe one target per 2D of your Alter skill.

I allways thought of Telekinetic Kill being super effective vs non-force users, as these had little to no resistance to this kind of attack, while Force Lightning was especially useful in combat with force users, where it was more on even footage and dependet on the different parties skill, but with the RAW I see little incentive to use Force Lightning on anyone, when I could much more easily and effectively use Telekinetic Kill on them, potentially from the room next door, especially as Jedi got the extra defensive ability of using Absorb/Disipate Energy.

Balance in the force is a rather difficult and finicky thing.

[garhkal]

I often found it strange how in the Tales of the jedi book, it seemed to indicate Force lightning did 1d per d in alter, and it got reduced in the latter era..

One thought i've had on it, is hows about you can keep it up, gaining +1d per round additional damage.

So if you FL someone in round 3, and keep it on them till round 6, they take (base damage say is 4d), 4d, 5d, 6d, then 7d damage..
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[CRMcNeill]

I always thought Inflict Pain (or at least something like it) should be included in Force Lightning, as well. Maybe game ruled as an optional Stun Damage mode...
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"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

[Darklighter79]

Force Lighting comes in variants: pure energy attack or with Force Push/Projected Fighting effect. So technically you should roll additional damage for smashing your targets into solid obstacles.

What's interesting: sometimes the Force Push effect comes some time after the lighting is in effect - Emperor vs Mace Windu.

Here's the video summary
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Don’t Let the Rules Get in the Way of a Good Story.

[Bren]

[CRMcNeill]

Just a thought...

The OpenD6 System introduced the concept of Strength Damage (1/2 Strength or 1/2 Lifting as a base Brawling and Melee Damage). Maybe you could do something similar here; have both TK Kill and Force Lightning do Alter Damage (1/2 Alter).
_________________
"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

[garhkal]

[Whill]

[Akumakaji]

Thanks for all the replies and good ideas. While I don't want to alter FL too much, by adding loads of new mechanics to it, i really like the idea of inflicting pain, but reading into the mechanic of inflict pain its interesting, that its exactly the same as TK, but without the Sense roll and that every damage above stun just incapacitates the victim. Maybe just add a flat -1D to everything, on top of any wounds or wounded twice would suffice?

@Bren: I think that Telekinetic Kill (TK) is supposed to work like a ranged version of Injure/Kill. The rules to I/K state "...if the attackers alter roll is higher then the characters resisting control or perception total, figure damage as if the power roll was a damage total and the control or perception roll was a strength roll to resist damage." The description of TK is missing a reverence that it works the same way, but the mechanic reads a lot like I/K. Here it says "the user makes his alter roll against the targets control or perception total to dertermine damage".
So a case could be made that the alter roll to get the power off (the third roll this round, at -2 MAPs) is also the damage roll, or that you roll the full Alter again vs Con/Per after that .. but this would essentially lets you repeat one roll two times without adding anything signifianctly, so I lean more towards the first reading.

I can also see merits of this general approach, ie making every damaging force power an alter/2 roll or something like that, but I really like that the defense against TK is more mind-based, while FL justs rends you physically apart.

So, if you add the inflict pain mechanic to FL, it becomes a really nasty power, effectively crippeling you in a one-on-one fight with a Sith sorcerer, who might laugh maniacally while slowly grilling you convulsing on the floor. That might not be nice or fair, but I like my dark side a bit unfairly strong.

[garhkal]

You'd love my 'flames of anger' force power then!!
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Mamatried]

When i used force lightning and gained no darkside points at all form it.

First we had a house ruling that intent of use was more important than mere use, and as such this happened.

My force User, a former dark side trained assassin had learned the force lightning power. he had atwo or three darkside points form previous adventures, and was in a redemption arc.

In a face off with a group of soldiers, the adventuring party was seriously out numberedd and out gunned, however in our galaxy the force is very mysical and most force users will be looked upon with suspicion.

In order to PREVENT death and destruction, the soldiers simply following orders of corrupt officers and thus are in a way innocent.
if a fight occured the adventuring party would most likely loose but they will make a lot of destruction and death in their wake.

I then took the initiative, I knew this "would normally" give me a darkside point.
I looked through what force powers I had that would scare them into fleeing, and found that Zapping one of them with force lightning was more or less the only real "safe" way to not kill them.

I then zapped one of the soldiers with some force lightning, causing them all to flee, the soldier hit taking damage, but was not killed or seriously injured.

Force Lightning here used to prevent loss of life and injury..........choosing the lesser evil if you will.

We talked about the situation after it happened and the GM ruled that this could not and should not give a dark side point, and that the mere use of a power should never warrant a DSP. only the intent should determine this

[Akumakaji]

Well, now you got me interested I found a post of you describing that power ("Basically it swells dark side energy from inside a target(s), that burns them. If they take a wound they not only drop but they are in such pain that for 2 rounds they can't do anything (similar to the inflict pain power") and wouldn't mind a full write down.


And regarding FL, I can see how for some characters and aplications there can be good ways to use it, and that intention should always somehow factor into the descision if you hand out a DSP or not, but for my games I really like the idea that some powers are ALWAYS channeling the dark side, so even recharging the battery of the airtight puppy cages life suport system, while technically being a good deed, will inevitable corrupt you at least a little bit, because you tapped into the dark side of the force.

I also like to tempt my players from time to time with a free use of these powers, ie they don't need to learn them, just let their anger flush out of them to finally get rid of that pesky bounty hunters over there etc. because normally a player wouldn't elect to learn this powers.

[garhkal]

[Mamatried]

@Gharkal

the sutuation was such that TK was actually not a learned power and the sole offensive power of the guy was the force lightning, however we could say that despite all and thespite the carrying through and making the target convulge, it was a "mere zap"

but yes it is an iteresting situation indeed

[Bren]