Jedi Counseling 1: Drain Energy

By JD Wiker

Arguments! Confusion! A Star Wars Gamemaster craves not these things! Read Star Wars Roleplaying Game designer JD Wiker's answers to your most perplexing rules questions. This installment of "Jedi Counseling" answers player questions about speed modifiers for atmospheric combats, the truth about Dissipate Energy, why Fear doesn't have a saving throw, and more!

Have a question for the counselor? See the link at the end of the column!

Q: In my campaign, all of the enemy pilots have only airspeeders, while the heroes have starfighters. I wanted to run scenarios in which the heroes face off against the enemy airspeeders, but I can't find a speed chart for atmospheric speed. There's one for ground vehicles, and one for space vehicles, but nothing in between.

A: Truly in tune with the Force you are -- because we hadn't noticed that. What's needed is a new speed table using the "one square = 50 meters" scale of atmospheric combat, one that applies both to airspeeders and to starships in atmosphere:

Q: My character has multiple attacks per round (because of his Base Attack Bonus of +13), and I'm trying to grapple. If I succeed on my first attempt, can I use the remaining attempts to inflict my unarmed damage? Or do I need to initiate a separate grapple for each of my unarmed attacks?

A: Your character can use his remaining attacks to inflict unarmed damage, and you don't need to initiate a separate grapple for each. You do need to make the opposed grapple check (as described on page 170 of the Star Wars Roleplaying Gamecore rulebook) for each attempt to inflict unarmed damage, though.

So, for example, if you have an opponent grappled and you have three attacks per round (because of your Base Attack Bonus), you can attempt three opposed grapple checks to inflict damage if you were already grappling; or one to grapple and two to inflict damage if you weren't already grappling; or two attempts at grappling and one to inflict damage (if the first grapple check fails).

Q: The feat Dissipate Energy seems overpowered to me. But then a friend said he saw some kind of FAQ about it that makes it less good. What's the story?

A: The write-up for Dissipate Energy managed to miss two important bits. First, the DC for the Fortitude saving throw should be "10 + damage dealt," not just "damage dealt." That makes it a bit harder to make the save, and therefore, a bit riskier. Second, the ability only applies when the character takes wound damage; it does nothing at all if the character takes only vitality damage (because vitality damage represents avoiding actual physical harm, and this feat isn't meant to work unless your body suffers energy damage).

For GMs struggling with how to get around a hero who has this feat, remember two things: One, it doesn't work against physical damage, and two, stun attacks inflict no wound damage.

Q: Speaking of "physical" damage, Force Grip says that it inflicts physical damage. In the original Star Wars core rulebook, Force Grip inflicted wound damage unless the target made a Fortitude save. Does "physical damage" mean "wound damage?"

A: No. "Physical," in the Star Wars rules, is the opposite of "energy." So that note is telling you that the damage from Force Grip can't be dissipated by Dissipate Energy, for example.

Q: A player in my game has the Drain Energy skill, and he wants to use it on everything. Weapons, droids, vehicles, starships -- everything! Can he do that?

A: The upper limit on size is noted in the skill description, but it might have escaped your notice. Any sort of power source larger than an E-web repeating blaster of a Medium-sized droid is too large to be drained by this skill.

Q: The players in my campaign don't understand why Drain Energy is a dark side skill, and, I confess, I don't either. They want their Jedi to be able to use it without getting Dark Side Points, and I really can't come up with a good reason why they couldn't.

A: Drain Energy is a dark side skill because it was based on a scene from Kevin J. Anderson's Dark Apprentice. On page 338 of that book, Kyp Durron drains the energy from Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, using an effect that speaks of a "wave of dark ripples," a "shadow" appearing at the core of the blade, and "a black taint." To us, that said "dark side." Now, that might not have been Kevin Anderson's intention, but since no other character in the Star Wars novels have used that power, Anderson's text is the only information we have on this ability.

Q: Shouldn't Fear have a saving throw?

A: Fear already has a way of avoiding the effects: taking a Dark Side Point. The skill is meant to simulate the effect that the Emperor's goading had on Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi: preying upon Luke's fear and hatred in hopes of turning him to the dark side.

Some people are apparently daunted by the range of penalties that Fear can provide, and, true, a -10 to skill checks and attack rolls is kind of scary. But since that requires a result of 30 or more on the skill check, that takes at least a +10 skill modifier and a really good roll, or a +20 skill modifier and an average roll -- neither of which is particularly easy. Of course, someone using Fear could spend a Force Point to ensure a high roll, but look at that from a personal perspective: Would you spend a Force Point and take a Dark Side Point to give someone a penalty that they could then erase simply by accepting a Dark Side Point? Or rather, would you do it more than once?

Q: How long does the effect of Fear last?

A: This might be part of why some players are so put off by Fear; it doesn't seem to have a duration. The answer, though, is that it lasts for 10 rounds or until the target takes a Dark Side Point to negate the effect. (Taking the DSP is a free action, by the way.)

Q: The table for Force Light (in the Power of the Jedi Sourcebook) seems off. Isn't a DC 5 Will save way too low? And isn't a 41+ skill check result way too high?

A: Well, the headers are a bit off (the second column should read "Will Save for Character/Creature," the third column should read "Damage to Dark Side Spirit," and the last column should read "Effect on Dark Side Site").

But the idea behind the low Will save is to keep it from being easy for a character to "blow off" Dark Side Points by having a friend use Force Light to burn them off; a low save makes this trick more difficult. As for the skill check result, it's intentionally high to make sure that it takes a lot of effort (in the form of a Force Point) to reduce the power of a dark side site or to destroy a dark side spirit with a single skill check.

Q: The Power of the Jedi Sourcebook implies that a Force warrior can become a Jedi Knight without ever having been a Jedi! Is this really possible?

A: Well, no. The "Jedi Knight" special ability of the Force warrior implies that the character needs at least one level of a Jedi class, but it doesn't actually say that in so many words.

Q: In the revised core rulebook, the deflect (extend) ability can be used to grant the defense bonus to others, if they're close enough. Could four 6th-level Jedi guardians group together in a square cluster -- so that they could each reach one another -- and thus each get another +3 dodge bonus to defense from the cumulative deflect (extend) abilities? I mean, that's a +4 bonus to each of them just from that ability, on top of the +5 Defense bonus they gain from class and level, and that doesn't account for their Dexterity modifiers! And what if they each have the Dodge and Lightsaber Defense feat, as well? Wouldn't that raise the cumulative bonus to +16? Isn't that a bit much for characters who are only 6th level?

A: It's true that each of the Jedi in an arrangement like this would gain a +4 bonus from the deflect ability: +1 for their own deflect ability and +1 for each other Jedi guardian in the group. But the bonuses from Dodge and Lightsaber Defense are personal; the other Jedi don't benefit from those parts of the bonus. (If it helps to clarify it in your mind, think of the shared bonus type as a "deflect dodge" bonus.)

Even with that limitation, though, the bonus seems to climb pretty quickly: The same group of Jedi guardians at 13th level gets a +12 bonus from the deflect ability. Remember, though, that they each have to forego a move action in the next round, and when they do move, they have to remain in that tight cluster if they want to continue getting the bonus.