Force Grip and dark side points

[Obryn]

First off, I think GMSarli's guidelines are great.

Second, under the default rules of SWSE, it's dirt-easy to get rid of Dark Side Points. I don't find anything at all wrong with a GM giving force-sensitive characters DSPs for moderate transgressions. If you're wantonly using Force Grip or Force Slam against non-Droids, I'd give out DSPs, too and make you use your Force Points to negate them.

At the end of the day, though, it's the GM's call. SWSE's very clear - the designers intentionally didn't publish hard & fast rules for borderline cases because they wanted to emphasize that these judgments are for the GM alone to make.

If you have an issue with Force Grip specifically, see if your GM will let you switch it out for something else.

-O

 

[Hammerhead]

Don't use the Force to kill people, it's pretty inefficient for that. Use it for basic utility, speed, combat buffs, and defense.

You use a lightsaber to kill people. They have a lot better damage. In fact, it's practically impossible NOT to kill someone with one, since it lacks any setting other than "kill" (or "maim" if you waste a talent point).

Yoda wasn't stating any kind of moral philosophy, just good tactics.

 

[daddystabz]

Don't use the Force to kill people, it's pretty inefficient for that. Use it for basic utility, speed, combat buffs, and defense.

You use a lightsaber to kill people. They have a lot better damage. In fact, it's practically impossible NOT to kill someone with one, since it lacks any setting other than "kill" (or "maim" if you waste a talent point).

Yoda wasn't stating any kind of moral philosophy, just good tactics.

You are dead wrong here. The force is actually WAY more efficient for killing people than a lightsaber in Saga Edition. Lightsabers do 2d8 dmg and you get to add half your heroic lvl to the dmg and also your Str mod or Str mod doubled if you are wielding the saber 2 handed. So with my 7th. lvl jedi I would do 2d8+5 with my saber wielding it 1-handed (with 1/2 my heroic lvl rounded down) or 2d8+7 wielding it 2-handed (with 1/2 my heroic lvl rounded down). With Use the Force, most jedi have VERY large Use the Force bonuses since you automatically get a +5 for it if this skill is trained and you get another +5 for having Skill Focus (Use the Force), this is +10 already! Then you can also add in your Charisma mod and half your heroic lvl for skill rolls and it is easy to see that a jedi's Use the Force Bonus is insanely high. At lvl 7 my Use the Force bonus is +16 and I can boost it to +21 when I kick in Fool's Luck.

Why is this important and what does it have to do with doing damage with the force? Because in Saga Edition when you use a force power from your suite of powers you use your Use the Force skill vs. the Damage Threshold or Will Defense or Reflex Defense or Fortitude Defense of your opponent. With such high use the Force bonuses that almost all jedi have, it makes it VERY easy to beat your opponent's defenses and do damage on the order of 6d6 or even 8d6 with powers like Force Slam and Move Object. Both these powers can do insane damage and you can spend a force point when using them to increase the damage a tad more. This damage EASILY beats what a jedi can do with a lightsaber.

 

[MerricB]

Second, under the default rules of SWSE, it's dirt-easy to get rid of Dark Side Points. I don't find anything at all wrong with a GM giving force-sensitive characters DSPs for moderate transgressions. If you're wantonly using Force Grip or Force Slam against non-Droids, I'd give out DSPs, too and make you use your Force Points to negate them.

This is Dawn of Defiance - once you have a DSP, you can't get rid of it.

Cheers!

 

[daddystabz]

Shouldn't Luke have automatically turned dark side after he used the force to target the death star's weak point and blew the station up, thus killing thousands of people? That should have been worth an entire row of dark side points easily according to some of you.

You see....it is all about context!!! If you use a power that accidentally kills a being while that being is trying to kill innocents and/or yourself it does NOT warrant a dark side point in my view. Luke didn't get a whole row of dark side points for this because the death star was about to destroy the secret rebel base on Yavin IV and with it, an entire planet teeming with life. In addition, he was trying to help save the lives of the Rebel pilots that were being killed at an alarming pace on this attack run. He HAD to kill thousands of imperials in order to preserve the lives of millions of innocents. He was forced to kill them because the enemy was not going to back down. In my games I try to give the enemies a chance to surrender and/or to flee and if they don't then we really don't have much choice but to kill the baddies that are trying to kill us. If you use the power blatantly and kill when not absolutely necessary or to maim or torture the opponent then you decide a dark side point, in my view. Maintaining the force grip should most of the time warrant a dark side point.

Mace Windu uses Force Grip on General Grievous, crushing his chest with it and thus giving Grievous the cough that he has all the time. I think people misunderstand jedi completely. Jedi TRY to not harm others with the force or at all for that matter BUT if they are forced to kill they will KILL to defend themselves and other innocents. Why is there no consideration of me killing a bad guy with my lightsaber? Did Obi-Wan absolutely have to slice Darth Maul in half with his saber? Did that deserve a dark side point too? Jedi are led by the force with their sabers in combat. The force is what makes them deadly in combat. No one seems to ever question or think of giving dark side points for using a lightsaber to harm others. I am sorry but the force sometimes has to be used to harm others by lightside jedi in order to protect others. What is the use of taking a freaking force power if everytime you use it you go right down the dark path? If this is the way it should be handled then most jedi would have been dark side a long time back if every time they had to kill someone they automatically would get a dark side point, without examination of the circumstances.

By the way, the GM didn't decide to enact a houserule on us because I was abusing the power or even using it too much. I in fact rarely use the power at all, only having used it very sparingly since I have had it. He actually was reading through the core rulebook and came to the conclusion that he hasn't been issuing dark side points often enough. What made him look in the core rulebook about this stuff is actually another character in our campaign who is a jedi as well. He goes overboard with his force powers a LOT and kills everything in sight. We joke about him all the time saying that it is only a matter of time till he starts spewing force lightning and we nicknamed him Anakin. We try to hide Tusken women and children from him. In one episode of our Dawn of Defiance campaign he used Move Object to drop a Z-95 Headhunter space fighter on Durga the Hutt, killing him. This whole conversation is especially important because this is a Dawn of Defiance campaign and if you have a GM that both changes the rules on you in the middle of a campaign AND starts giving out dark side points like mad it will affect the whole party because 3 out of the 6 players play jedi and in Dawn of Defiance you CANNOT atone a dark side point, according to the campaign standards. This means if you get a dark side point you are stuck with it for good and cannot erase it!

 

[WayneLigon]

Unfortunately, you're kinda between a rock and a hard place here because the source material contradicts itself over and over and over again. None of the non-canon sources can agree on anything because the canon itself is confused and muddied. Yoda says the Force is used for knowledge and defense, never attack, but that contradicts itself all throughout the movies; the Jedi are trained to use one of the deadliest weapons in existance which only they can use effectively due to their Force training. It's the very first thing Ben shows Luke, and the very first bit of Force training he gets is combat training.

 

[daddystabz]

CONTINUED!

GM Sarli already addressed all this in Jedi Counseling article #111 on the WotC website. He seemed to agree with me a lot, in my opinion. I posted his way of determining transgressions he gave above.

Now for example: If I fight against some opponents who refuse to surrender and who attack my friends and myself and are trying to kill us and I end up using force grip to keep a bad guy from slicing my friend with a vibroaxe, accidentally killing him, if you use this method you can easily answer 2 of these questions as "no." I did not harm a creature that was at my mercy and no to the result being intentional. This means accoridng to this philosophical framework that my transgression is considered a minor transgression and probably does not deserve a dark side point. This is according to one of the devs of the game! GM Sarli.

GM Sarli goes on in the same Jedi Counseling #111 article to state this again but in a similar situation as using Force Grip.

"Q: Would Severing Strike be a major transgression? It seems that you'd never learn this talent unless you intended to maim others.

A: No, Severing Strike, in itself, is not a transgression because it is designed to protect your target from an otherwise lethal blow. The same would be true for a doctor who has to perform a medical amputation. Although the act is "maiming" in the strictest sense, it is only to protect the target from a more dangerous medical problem. This doesn't mean that Severing Strike can't be used in a blatantly evil way, of course. Cutting off the limbs of an enemy who is at your mercy would still be tantamount to torture no matter how you do it (by lightsaber, scalpel, or angry Wookiee)."

P.S. When Yoda said the force is used for defense and never for attack what he meant is what I've been saying this whole time! You don't go off with the force and attack others, hoping to harm them in some way. But if you use it to DEFEND OTHERS or YOURSELF then you are within your rights to do so. I would argue that when Anakin attacked Obi-Wan, trying to kill him on Mustafar, after Obi-Wan warned him not to try it because he had the high ground, that Kenobi did not deserve a dark side point. In the Legacy comics Kenobi severs the arm of the future dark lord of the sith, A'Sharad Hett, when Hett was in hiding as a jedi on Tatooine. He severs his arm and then puts away his saber and refuses to finish him off. I would argue that this does not deserve a dark side point as well. Kenobi was trying to stop Hett from attacking settlers as a tusken chief and Kenobi came out to confront him. Kenobi spared him in the end, having taught him a lesson. This is how I try to play my character. I try to give my enemies a chance to surrender or to flee but our GM never bites. He always has nearly every enemy attacks us over and over until they die. That doesn't leave us jedi with much choice.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Shouldn't Luke have automatically turned dark side after he used the force to target the death star's weak point and blew the station up, thus killing thousands of people? That should have been worth an entire row of dark side points easily according to some of you.

Luke wasn't a jedi when he did that. He did use the force, but he wasn't a jedi.

 

[Tewligan]

A jedi never WANTS to kill but sometimes it is necessary to defend the lives and well being of the innocent.

Oh, man - if I were a Jedi, I'd want to kill all the time. Cut in front of me in line for coffeee? Force choke! Talking to loudly next to my desk at work? Jedi colon rip!

 

[El Mahdi]

Luke wasn't a jedi when he did that. He did use the force, but he wasn't a jedi.

A technicality, one which I'm sure Midi-Chlorians care nothing about. And since this didn't affect him in relation to the Force, then it must be Intent which matters most. (At least that's how I GM Star Wars, intent over power description or source).