Jedi Counseling 36: Rock On!

By JD Wiker

Can your Rebel heroes tour the galaxy disguised as musicians? When do you make the saving throw for an illusion? What's the difference between Sympathy and friendliness? And are these answers really official? Designer JD Wiker tackles these Star Wars Roleplaying Game questions and more in the latest installment of "Jedi Counseling."

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

Q: I Gamemaster for a group who want to pose as traveling musicians as a cover for their Rebel activities (and as a way to earn money). I want to encourage such a creative idea, but since none of them are nobles (or Zeltrons), Entertain is a cross-class skill. This means that they aren't very good. Should I give them Entertain to use as a class skill, as long as they're in the band, or is that too unbalancing?

A: I can't imagine circumstances under which I'd call cheaper ranks of Entertain "unbalancing," but I suppose it depends on the nature of the campaign. Still, I don't think it would hurt to let players take advantage of their great idea by letting them purchase ranks in Entertain as though it were a class skill.

On the other hand, the hallmark of a brilliant plan is that the planners actually have the means to pull it off. It's all well and good to say, "We'll disguise ourselves as bodybuilders," but if you're 50-kilogram weaklings, it's not a very good plan. If your players really want to go through with their plan to pose as musicians, you might require that their characters actually take at least one level in a class that has Entertain as a class skill -- or continue to purchase ranks at cross-class prices. Otherwise, they should consider going back to the drawing board with their cover story plan.

Q: How important is it to calculate daily costs for characters? If the heroes in my game pose as traveling musicians, they will perform on luxury liners to earn passage from system to system. Do I need to deduct meal costs from their pay? Is that included in the costs for rooms? Does each player need to pay for a room, or do the costs in the revised core rulebook include all of them?

A: Keeping diligent track of how many credits the characters spend from day to day falls into the category of "accounting," not heroic fantasy roleplaying. But if getting by on meager earnings is one of the themes of your campaign, try the following rule.

When not living in hotels or aboard luxury liners, your heroes can choose their standard of living to determine how much it costs to pay for rent, food, and other mundane expenses: Luxurious (10,000 per month), wealthy (2,000 per month), comfortable (1,000 per month), average (500 per month), or poor (200 per month). The exact conditions for each of these will vary from planet to planet, of course, as determined by the Gamemaster.

As a general rule, though, the cost of meals is included in the cost for hotel rooms and berths on ships. They're just not top-quality meals (unless the accommodations themselves are top quality). If the heroes want to dine better, they'll have to pay extra.

Q: When should you award Sympathy, and when should you make NPCs friendly instead? Say my group of hero-musicians performs a great set of songs on a luxury liner. If they try to get another job on the liner, do they get Sympathy with the yacht's owner, or is he considered friendly? How important does a group or accomplishment need to be to warrant Sympathy?

A: The major difference between Sympathy and the friendliness of NPCs is that Sympathy is a measure of how much one of the galaxy's factions likes you, and friendliness is more of an individual measure -- how much one person likes you. So unless the yacht's owner is a member of one of the galaxy's factions, his appreciation for the heroes -- and their musical talents -- should be measured in terms of NPC attitude (hostile, unfriendly, indifferent, friendly, or helpful), rather than Faction Sympathy.

As for when to award Sympathy (or when to change an NPC's attitude toward the heroes), you should do so only when the heroes do something more or less selfless. Playing well in the band might make the yacht owner appreciate the heroes' musical talent, but it shouldn't convince him to loan them money or let them borrow his yacht.

Q: When players cooperate on a skill check, can someone helping the primary check spend a Force Point to improve the primary check? Is the cooperation bonus more than +2 if they roll a 20 or spend a Force Point?

A: No and no. The Force Points you spend to influence rolls apply only to the d20 rolls that you make. And the rules on cooperating on skill checks are pretty clear: Every helper who successfully makes a DC 10 skill check (using the same skill that the leader is using) grants the leader a +2 circumstance bonus.

Q: A friend and I had a rather heated debate about illusions. Four Imperial Inquisitors were chasing him, and he tried to create the illusion of a large bomb falling within 30 to 50 meters of them, so as to obscure line of sight with dust, smoke and debris. Now, because a sufficiently large bomb would create a shockwave that would knock flat everything within a 100-meter radius, I ruled that it was a form of interaction (reasoning that the Inquisitors would not experience the expected physical result -- the shockwave). First, was I correct in this ruling?

My friend then argued that, even if it was a case of interaction, the Inquisitors wouldn't get a save until their turn, because they had to stop, think, and consider the lack of a shockwave. And since the save is a free action, they couldn't take a free action until their turn. I agree that a free action can only be taken during your turn, but I would have thought a save would be a reaction. If I was right about the shockwave being an interaction, when would the Inquisitors get to make their save?

A: Ordinarily, a save is a reaction, but illusions are an unusual case. The text states that the characters encountering the illusion can't attempt a saving throw until they study it carefully (as your friend suggests) or interact with it in a significant fashion. I'd say that having an illusory bomb blow up in your face counts as "interacting with it in a significant fashion." So the Imperial Inquisitors in question should be allowed to make a save as soon as the illusory bomb blows up and they feel no shockwave.

Q: Sometimes the answers you give in the "Jedi Counseling" column cause as many disagreements as they solve, because if someone in the group disagrees, they say that your responses are not official rules but simply suggestions, optional variants, or subjective interpretations. Please tell us: Should we consider the answers in your column to be official rules?

A: Yes, my answers are considered official. There are times when I'm just making suggestions -- which are usually pretty easy to spot, because I generally say "my suggestion would be" -- but I'm one of the designers of the game, and I'm in contact with the other designers of the game. "Jedi Counseling," contrary to what some people believe, isn't answered by a group of help-desk employees, but by someone who participated on the design decisions for most of the roleplaying game books. (And if I wasn't in on the decisions, I can usually reach the people who were and find out what they intended.)

That all being said, it is true that once you plunk down your money, the game is yours. So if I rule, for example, that all Jedi must eat only tofu or turn to the dark side, you're free to rule otherwise in your own campaign, as long as you and your players agree to play by the same set of rules. If your group's default, though, is "We'll go by the official rulings," then you're in the right place.

Q: The Knights of the Old Republic game for Xbox has some interesting new rules about using different kinds of crystals to get different effects from lightsabers. It also introduces a new basic kind of Jedi, the Jedi sentinel. Since this game is based on the d20 rules, does that mean the Star Wars Roleplaying Game will introduce rules for these different kinds of crystals and the new Jedi basic class?

A: Possibly, but probably not as a "Knights of the Old Republic Sourcebook." Instead, you'll most likely see articles on the Wizards website or in Dungeon magazine. Unfortunately, because of the way computer and console games are created, there isn't a long lag time between when the game design is completed and when it's released -- meaning that Wizards doesn't get an advance copy to study and adapt to the roleplaying game rules. And that means you usually have to wait for a freelancer to finish playing the game before he or she can write such an article.

The same is true, to a lesser extent, of new Star Wars novels and comic books. The "final version to print" phase is a bit longer with these types of products, though, so Wizards sometimes gets copies in advance, and the freelancers who write articles on such things for the Wizards Star Wars Roleplaying Game website are right on top of them.

But try to remember that we're a lot like you: fans waiting for the latest news about Star Wars. We don't have access to a secret store of game data; we make it up as we go along, just like when we were gamers who didn't work for a roleplaying game company. If you're dying to use something you just read in a book or saw in a video game, and Wizards hasn't released official rules for it yet, why not take a stab at writing up your own rules for it? If an official version comes out later, and your group prefers it, you can always switch over.

About the Author