Suggestions: Custom Force Powers.

[Vroxen]

So I have been reading in my spare moments at work as I haven't been able to get on here as much the last week or so. From what I can see, the most developed characters in the star wars universe seem to be those who have a little something else. A little extra flavour.

- Darth Nihilus had perfected his drains to such a scale he could consume planets. While it wouldn't be fitting for something like this, you really understood his character as a power hungry being that fed off life itself.

- Vitiate, interesting because of his abilities to destroy all life on a planet, unlike Nihilus though it didn't consume him, it allowed him to gain immortality. Again immortality is fairly pointless here but again you got an idea of the character from the powers they use/create and their reasons for doing so.

- Master Windu. He created a whole new saber form. It showed his dedication, commitment to his combat proficiency, something that gave him a advantage against one of if not THE greatest duellist of the time, Darth Sidious allowing him to defeat him.

There are plenty of others, who discover, create or manipulate current force powers in to improve them. A natural step in progression of ability. In sport people often push the boundaries of what may be considered the norm. Due to the progression of characters being so important to so many on this forum, a natural state of progression would surely be the improvement of force powers. At least I think so.

I know that you could argue that few characters have 10's and therefor are not perfect in that which they currently do. However I would argue that in order to be perfect at something everything must be explored. "To get something you have never had, one must attempt to do something they have never done."

You could also argue that this could create a divide between how strong the force users are and the fringe/military sections. I don't think so. Considering that the force is already a strong asset as long as people play fair all is good. I would also go as far to say that with the right information, people could create, refine or improve metals... Durasteel and Plasteel in combination didn't happen by accident. It was likely tested, trial and error.


So what would I propose?

First lets look at the progression of a famous and well known force power:

Force shock:
- A nice force power. However it has limitations, note that it is a small burst and often dissipates after 5 seconds. The natural progressions for something like this was to make it more powerful. Last longer.

Force Lightning:
Again a nice force power, its widely used on this forum and with good reason. Its good for what it does, torture and instead of being a more single target bound ability it allows for spread across multiple enemies. Not only that people have again improved on it, finding ways to improve its power outage by absorbing forms of energy in one palm, while using the extra power to generate force lightning from the other hand. Offence and defence used as one, again a natural improvement to something. There are those however that want more...

Force Storm:
The last variant and one of the most powerful. Unlike lightning force, force storm creates more of an area of effect than lightning which goes where you aim it. While it is not as controllable it has its uses and is an explosion of electrical energy. Some people have said to manipulate the weather as powerful practitioners of force storm.


Thoughts??

[sparrow]

Uh... so, what are you actually proposing? We already have characters using powers like shock, lightning, and storm. And the ability to destroy planets by itself isn't going to make a character interesting.

[Vroxen]

the ability to destroy planets by itself isn't going to make a character interesting

What I said was that destroying a planet for the reasons he did were what intrigued me.

And my proposal is that we make ways for characters to progress not just story wise but actually progress peoples use of the force.

An example:

Name of Progression: Kinetite Sphere.
Progressed from: Kinetite.
Alignment: Dark Side
Force Usage Area: Destruction
Description - Where as Kinetite can be used with one hand, and thrown with one hand Kinetite Sphere requires two. Its large size makes it create a area of effect impact, much like if a meteorite hit the ground although not on that scale. Cast above the head with two hands Kinetite Sphere is a powerful weapon used by only the most powerful Sith.
History:
Here you will right who made the advancement from Kinetite. How they did it, why they did it and when they did it. This could be a NPC or a real character however if its a real character then the person must show it in their Bio and any wishing to learn this would need to learn it via that character.


That's just an example, it was quick and I just took a random force power that came into my head. Is that a little more clear?

[Jenno]

I want to reply to this now, but I know my response will be long and wordy and I don't have time to write such a response at the moment. Hopefully I will get to this in a few days.

[Vroxen]

Its cool, I understand that people are busy. From the poll votes it seems as though people don't feel it would add much as an idea etc. Just a suggestion either way.

[Apillis]

No.

Here's the deal most people don't get, and actually one the reasons why I friggin' loathe Wookieepedia. It's because oft people see the numerous flashy names to various techniques in the Force, they think they're utterly different powers when really they're just a sub-form technique a far more common ability. For instance, you mentioned Nihilus and Vitiate's planet destroying abilities. Here's the deal. They are both simply using Life Drain, in fact, Sidious himself also drained the lives of billions and an entire planet, but simply did it on a far more controlled and slower fashion. But all in all, it falls under the blanket of good ol' fashion "Life Drain". You also mentioned Windu's Vapaad form, he and its co-creator initially utilized Juyo's aggressive styling in order to create it. So what does this mean? None of these things are new techniques, what they are--are sub-forms of a far more common technique taken to vastly greater heights. The reality is there are no new "techniques" really, not in the purest sense, but what there is, is numerous methods and variances in which to utilize them in a different way outside of the most known. Sidious created a friggin' wormhole with Force Lightning, it's labelled as Force Storm, but even that is just another more extreme variation of the more commonly known Force Lightning.

That's why, really, there's just no point in trying to invent new Force powers, because even the flashy techniques that some yob in the EU developed is really just a variation of one of the more commonly known techniques--just with a bit of a twist.

[Meira]

Vroxen, I'm going to address what I believe is the core of your proposal.

And my proposal is that we make ways for characters to progress not just story wise but actually progress peoples use of the force.

What it seems like you're looking for is a very concrete, cut and dry, means of upping your character's stats as you go about RPing your character. I can certainly understand this, and believe me, you are not the first person who has brought this up. But here's the thing... progressing your character's story is EXACTLY how you progress their use of the force. That our system. You create the character, you play the character, and the character develops. Once you believe you've written enough to justify a stat increase for the character, you go to a mod and talk it over with them and they either increase the stat for you, or suggest how you can further develop the character to justify the increase.

Now, this isn't something you're going to do after just one thread. Understand that the lower the stat number, the quicker you're gonna progress. For example, going from a 0 to a 1 at ranged combat is going to be fairly easy. But going from a 7 to an 8 would require quite a bit more character development. Please understand that this is done on an individual basis and standardizing it or turning it into some sort of formula goes against what we've tried to create here on SWU.

And what is it that we've tried to create? From the beginning, SWU has been more about the story than cool characters with awesome powers and abilities. SWU is, and will always be, a community of writers. The writing always comes first. Story and character development is what we focus on here. Stats are only one piece of that. And in my eyes, they're something of a necessary evil. I personally view stats as merely a guideline, and a means to keep the play fair on the site. Without them, it would be difficult to infer the skills of a character, and if we can't do that, then things like power playing and god modding become a bigger issue.

With the stats, we have a standard way that we can say "no, your character is only at this level, they shouldn't be able to ______". So, we need the standard, but I don't think we need to take it beyond what is absolutely necessary. If we do that, the focus shifts away from the character and all people will look at is the stats. If it comes to that, then we lose what makes SWU so great.

I understand that it has been almost a month since you posted this thread, and I apologize for the lateness in my reply. Hopefully this question is still relevant to you and hopefully I've answered it to your satisfaction.

[tacschinu0biscuits]

I said yes because I want the awesome force power to make breast milk into cheese, Then throw said cheese up a Siths Bum-poopoo hole.

[Vroxen]

Oct 6, 2013 22:48:13 GMT -5 Apillis said:

No.

Here's the deal most people don't get, and actually one the reasons why I friggin' loathe Wookieepedia. It's because oft people see the numerous flashy names to various techniques in the Force, they think they're utterly different powers when really they're just a sub-form technique a far more common ability. For instance, you mentioned Nihilus and Vitiate's planet destroying abilities. Here's the deal. They are both simply using Life Drain, in fact, Sidious himself also drained the lives of billions and an entire planet, but simply did it on a far more controlled and slower fashion. But all in all, it falls under the blanket of good ol' fashion "Life Drain". You also mentioned Windu's Vapaad form, he and its co-creator initially utilized Juyo's aggressive styling in order to create it. So what does this mean? None of these things are new techniques, what they are--are sub-forms of a far more common technique taken to vastly greater heights. The reality is there are no new "techniques" really, not in the purest sense, but what there is, is numerous methods and variances in which to utilize them in a different way outside of the most known. Sidious created a friggin' wormhole with Force Lightning, it's labelled as Force Storm, but even that is just another more extreme variation of the more commonly known Force Lightning.

That's why, really, there's just no point in trying to invent new Force powers, because even the flashy techniques that some yob in the EU developed is really just a variation of one of the more commonly known techniques--just with a bit of a twist.

Everything you explained there... is what I already used. I said that they perfected their drains to such an extent that they could drain planets. What you also described is the fact that they are sub powers taken from main powers to vastly greater heights. Which is again what I was trying to explain. What I was stating that while currently someone may use absorb force powers the people only use the ones they can find on things like wookiepedia. Instead what I'm saying is that they roleplay improving their own use of a force power to a point where it may branch into a sub-power as you said.


As for Meira, i understand that IRL can get busy at times, i haven't been so active either. However as i have said before its fun to write here, and i thought that putting forward a suggestion would be something good. The main reason for my suggestion was that here we have a system quite like in KOTOR, your stats are increased as you grow as a character, which is why i felt giving incite to force power progression like KOTOR would add a little more flavour. Either way i like RPing here and i thank you for the reply either way

[Apillis]

And what you're not getting is that already exists as is on this site, what you simply don't see is someone essentially utilizing a "perfected" life drain and then giving it some b.s. name; i.e. an example being a character in a certain situation because of their talent in a certain field within the Force utilize a particular technique in an innovative way to resolve said situation or circumstance (another example being the various techniques the Stellar Mythics developed). What you seemed to miss entirely with my post because you seemed to focus solely on the criticism of what you wrote (and those too you missed the point of said criticisms) and therefore missed the larger point in the conclusion being made, which is that what you're asking is essentially redundant. And in a way with your response, you just made my point for me, because the "techniques" fall under the blanket of a greater whole they are simply that--in reality a more basic and broader technique, so really there is nothing to "invent". There are no actual "inventions" there's simply innovations. And what will determine how "innovative" with a particular power or field within the Force is your stat within it. So again, to repeat, what you're asking is essentially redundant, there is no point to it.

[keyz]

I'm sorry I simply don't see any real point. I mean it is true that you could elaborate on a force power in such a way as to progress to a use higher than has been seen; or even develop your own use in a flair of incredible creativity (and trust me it would take a lot of creativity. A great deal of things are covered in the usage of the force, many of which a pretty inclusive.) However this is no real advent, as canon masters such as Plagueis had progressed to the point of creating life with the force. I think it goes without saying that this scraps at the very upper limit of development in the force.

I think the power to "destroy a planet" was only used in example. I can only ask why. As has been stated above, the site in principally about story; and while using such a power could be a solution to a problem in the plot, it smacks of an unimaginative solution. On the other hand, if it were merely a demonstration of the power of a great sith master, I would have to fault the "master" there for once again being unimaginative. While that isn't really a crime, it's just the way I think of it.

I like the references to famous sith users, and master Windu. It does good to drive home the point you're making. However, when you said it was those powers that helped us to understand them; I cannot agree to that. The powers were a result of story motivation. There was a reason they craved power and drove themselves to improbable limits just to attain such a mastery.

I haven't voted yet, hoping that responding to the thread could help me finalize how I feel about the proposal. I'm not voting yes, but to be perfectly honest I feel like posting no would be closed minded of me.

[jedi334]

I would be open to it.  If nothing for the reason when I was creating Chias I was very stuck on what special Force Powers she should of had.  I had an ability to where she would use the Force to hel pher organzie vast amounts of informastion but it was put on the black list before she got approved.  All the other Powers were combat based and she was not really the best fighter.  So I guess I would be open to it if there were abilities that would balance some what weaker characters Just my opinion though