[SWd20] How to make a new force skill

[Fealak]

Hi everyone!

I´m trying to adapt force skills to a medieval campaign. Can anyone help me? I need to know the basis of a new force skill Or where can I find more information. Thank you very much!

PD: Sorry if I post this here and its not the best place.. I was in doubt where to put it!

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I think this is the right place.

Can you give me some more info, though?

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

That's sort of a left-field request. I don't think there's a real known baseline for force skills.

Generally the way it works is:
Split up the result in some way. Gradiations of saving throws, gradiations of bonus, gradiations of damage, etc. For an easy-use skill start with 1-10 for successes, for a harder skill start the minimum at 15.

Anything useful in combat should cost 3+vp and anything only really useful outside of combat can cost 2vp (generally). Self-only skills can cost as little as 1vp if useful outside of combat and not in combat.

After that its guestimations, really. There's no formula that we have access to, though I'm sure the designers had some internal guidelines they came up with.

--fje

 

[Fealak]

Thank you very much for the info!

About damage force skills I think they run in a different way, because there is only 3d4, 3d6 and 3d8 I think for damage... Perhaps they have something related. I try to study that. Thank you very much again for your information. Its very useful!

 

[Fealak]

For Jonh Q.,

What do you want to know? I need something like the rules to make force skills, that´s all.
Thanks anyway for your interest

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Well, just what specific effects you wanted these skills to have.

 

[Khorod]

Your best option is to look at the existing Force Skills. Choose the closest one or two powers, and use them as a baseline for balance and mechanics.

Remember that about one rank in a force skill is worth, say, 2-3 skill ranks in most mundane skills. Why is this important? Well, if you have too few force skills to cover all the powers, then your pseudo-Force user will have a no-brainer in choosing them. If you have too many Force Skills, it undervalues the mundane skills, and the pseudo-force users have to struggle to stretch their skill points across the various powers they should have. This latter point is a problem I see in Star Wars.

Bear in mind that it is reasonable to have a skill skill cover more than one power- just different usages. Bear in mind the balancing factor skill points are meant to represent for acquiring these powers.

I know this isn't very organized, but its all I can boil down offhand.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Yea. There are A LOT of problems with the StarWars d20 Force system as it stands.

Almost all of the skills and feats could be concievably boiled down into a few real "powers" that the Jedi have ... they have some psychic abilities, they have some Telekinesis, and some sort of mystical control over their body's reactions. D6 boiled them down to Alter, Sense, and Control, but that's still sort of a boiling-down.

SWd20 then takes those three core "abilities" and splits them into finite "skills". But they're still very fuzzy ... Force Strike is TK, Move Object is TK ... they flow into eachother, but the skill system limits them. As-written, you can't use any power to toss people across the room like you see in the movies. So in the Jedi Counseling articles they added (back) Force Push to the Force Strike skill ... and made it synergize with Move Object ... because that's really all they could do. Then, to cover the huge jumps up and jumps down we see Jedi making in the movie they let Move Object work to change Jump.

Etc etc. As it stands, the single most useful skill in the game is Move Object because it adds up to alot of abilities from the movies. But that's because, in the movies, Jedi use ALOT of TK stuff. It's all one real ability, TK, and "Move Object" is the closest thing to real TK. In PrCs I think they strap even more stuff on MO.

Then there are odd-out powers like Plant Surge and Force Lightning. FL in particular, as its actually in the movies, is totally unconnected to the usual "powers" jedi display. I think it was in there mostly for the "cool" factor, but there it is and we have to deal with it. So it gets its own power/skill but its the ONLY thing that power/skill does.

When you split it down into so many skills its hard to do everything at top power ... and watching players, most people will naturally choose ONLY the things that are most useful to them at top power, instead of spreading themselves across alot of powers. So you get Jedi who can do one thing from a "power" but nothing else ... they might Force Strike all day long, but can't lift a teacup otherwise ... or lift a tank and can't hit. Mostly the Guardians max out Enhance Ability, Battlemind, and Move Object so they can leap and hit and ... that's about it.

So you have to decide how many skills you really NEED to demonstrate the powers you want.

--fje

 

[Khorod]

To help you with a metric, I think the balance of SW would have been served by, say, almost halving the number of Force Skills and merging a few mundane ones. Frex, Handle Animal and Ride have no business being separate skills in Star Wars.

Force Lightning could be fused with Drain Energy (IIRC).
Force Stealth with See Force.
Telepathy with Affect Mind.

 

[Fealak]

Hi again!

Hi again!

Well... I want to make a Skill that you can use to communicate with animals... Something like for 4 ranks you can understand a little about an animal, with 6 more, with 8 you have total comprehension.
I want to do other like Elemental Power that can make you do some things with an scaled difficulty with an element (and of course can be used to attack, perhaps damaging 3d6).
There are some many others but I have to think a bit more about them.

Thank you very much for your help! I´ll try to do my best!