Force attuned character with Jedi Training that hates Wookie

[vanir]

re: the shocking injuries and loss of his lightsabre, I should warn against offering a Player dark side options as the only role-playable options with what you lay before them, they will walk right into it so unless that's where you want to steer the campaign make sure you always give lightside options with visible rewards too. Give a dark side option, and give a light side option, give a dark side reward, and give a light side reward. Make it an even money character choice every time, keep it fun and try not to make them feel like victims unless within the plot and with a genuine, clear point to it and you hint this to the Player or he'll think you've got a personal problem with him outside of gameplay.

Face it you've beat this PC up pretty severely as it sounds, the Player himself is likely to feel a bit antsy over that unless there's a really good point to it all, just a GM reality of running games. Be brutal, but also appear totally reasonable in-game to your Players. It's not enough to know you're being neutral, you've got to let your Players know too, and if you're going to give one an extra hard time, you have to make the rewards for the PC making wise choices extra special too. Go harder being tough, then go harder with rewards too. Balance is key to appreciation and keeping it in gameplay.

For example, say a Jedi PC is a bit wild and bites off more than he can chew so I leave him captured, dismembered and his lightsabre is taken, well see the Imperial Base at which he is being held also happens to have a research facility run by the Investigations Department of COMPNOR, special ISB agents researching Jedi artefacts for the Emperor. Yes they took the PC's lightsabre and he is captured, but during one of the tedious interrogations (and annoying for the Player as he is held against his will while you just tell him what he does and what others do and he can't do anything), well one of the Interrogators lets slip that the facility happens to have a number of Jedi artefacts on another level, including some ancient lightsabres.
Now the Interrogators are particularly interested in what the PC knows about specific, archaic lightsabres (Scholar: Jedi Histories, or Scholar: Arcane Technologies), because apparently some of them have special abilities to infer to their user and the Emperor's agents are interested in discovering how these are unlocked. Perhaps a Jedi will know, hence the continuing interrogations.

Now the Player is going to be annoyed at his current situation initially, but this will soon be superseded by his interest in escaping and gaining some fantastic treasure. All of a sudden choosing the dark side options pale in comparison to maintaining his Jedi status and maybe getting out of all this with some powerful Ancient Lightsabre to replace his own, one that gives him a bonus to his Force Skills or Lightsabre skill or something like that.

Keep a ray of hope for the Player, especially when you're making their world dark. As a GM running Jedi PCs, in this context, think of the Living Force. Think of it as a living thing not just like karma, but also something that actually wants the PCs to come good and succeed.

[MattMartin23]

[vanir]

You know I'm just going to start shootin the breeze here because you made me think of some interesting things with what's going on in your game. As I said I'm interested for you to keep us updated on how this all turns out.

You brought up an interesting point with the Jedi being forced to rely on life without his lightsabre. And it's an interesting thing, within my party's gameworld we've previously discussed a lot of canon and created a SWU that suits our gameplay. In our galactic history the Jedi didn't always use lightsabres, and didn't invent them. They merely learned to channel the Force through that weapon and selected it as the most eloquent type for the Order, more precise and ceremonial than a blaster but just as deadly.

Being generally considered the weapon of the Jedi in the current age, there isn't really very much within the game mechanics for alternative militant emphasis using the Force other than with the lightsabre. It's a fairly unexplored area.

But lets say the Jedi did not have lightsabres. Ostensibly when taking a militant emphasis they will find ways of enhancing the use of other weapon types with the Force, they do this with lightsabres so why not?
There is some Jedi-like force users which wield blasters as their main weapons, as I recall in some game mechanics. Perhaps these Jedi have learned to use their Sense skill to enhance their Blaster skill? Perhaps if they construct special blasters using Force-imbued focus crystals they could also use Control to enhance damage? Effectively creating a new Force Power one might call Blaster Combat as synonymous with Lightsabre Combat.

I'm getting to a point. Within your game, what if a Jedi who was left without his lightsabre, began developing his use of the Force to enhance in whatever way is conceivable and reasonable, mundane items to increase his combat ability as a Jedi? An interesting character direction, no? Something for a Player to get excited about and offset the loss of his lightsabre?

How about whilst he is armoured one day, he is being shot at and suddenly you make him roll a Sense skill (reactionary roll), and if he makes the range difficulty for the blaster shot at him, you let him negate any Dexterity penalty of the armour he's wearing.
This is as a device to introduce a new power he may try to meditate upon and develop. Use it as a special case introduction that just randomly happens, to show the Player that if he can be creative enough with his use of the Force he maybe able to come up with new powers. This little action event device is to introduce this possible new power for the Player.

We could call it, Jedi Armour.
It is a control/sense power.
Prerequisites: danger sense, life detection.
An easy control difficulty +3 for each additional attacker; followed by a sense difficulty equal to the highest range class of the attack (ie. medium range = moderate).
This power maybe kept up.
When the Jedi activates this power, he prepares his stance and movement in combat, as such he is naturally in a good position and balance, with an almost premonition like capability to negate any Dexterity penalty of armour that he is wearing, when dodging ranged enemy attacks at a distance. The MAP penalty is not used for maintaining this power for dodge rolls (although it applies to other actions). This power cannot be used against melee or point blank attacks.

Just tossing that up there. The idea of course is an attempt to offset deleting advantages Players usually have, such as a Jedi with his lightsabre by distracting them with other directions to point their attention with some possibility of usable rewards. These sort of things might also help a Jedi to exercise some adaptability in overcoming trials by showing there are genuine rewards for lateral thinking, given by the Force for those attuned.

[garhkal]

[vanir]

Why not? That's largely what Luke did. But conceded I'm coming at it from my own angle here. In our game some of the Players have been with the group since the old 1e days when the Force in general was a lot less defined in RAW and required a lot of Player creativity to use, even as a starting Jedi. Of course the precept is the game originally being designed with the Rebellion era in mind, with the assumption that finding a Master was rare if it ever happened and PC Jedi often came into it from Quixotic ranks (they just developed Force powers by devotion).

The very premise of the Quixotic Jedi is that this is a PC which through his own creativity and avid interest in the Jedi Knights of old, none of which he has met personally, he develops Force skills. Constructing a lightsabre however would be a totally different kettle of fish and would require some sort of training and/or major Quest.

The way we approach it in our game is when in the Rebellion era the Jedi are few and far between and largely forge their own path. On average they have higher dice but fewer powers, the powers which they do have most they've discovered themselves through trial and error and PC creativity. The GM then essentially selects the power most resembling the effect the PC is trying to achieve, and helps him stumble along developing this power until he can use it on call. It can be quite a roleplay opportunity.

When we do an Old Republic campaign, rare but we have, the Jedi of those times tend to approach things a little more through training alone, rarely developing their use of the Force without direct apprenticeship to a Master. They tend to have lower skills on average but many more powers.
But in those times there were many more archetypteral options, you could be a Battlemaster, or a Jedi Healer, or a Beastmaster and so on, you could pick specific Jedi careers and received specialised training for that purpose. Jedi of the Rebellion era more forge their own path.

[Bren]

[garhkal]

[Fallon Kell]

[Bren]

[MattMartin23]

[MattMartin23]

[MattMartin23]

[MattMartin23]

[garhkal]

[vanir]