Force Powers and Saber Skills
Force Powers & Saber Skills
The purpose of this guide is to give a high level overview of which force powers (and saber skills) are acceptable within the guild and how those powers will scale as their command over them increases. This guide is not intended to give a detailed description of each power, nor explain how to play those powers correctly. Those instead are things you can learn from some of the more detailed guides (where available) on the website, or through observing others roleplay and asking questions in Discord.
It's also worth noting that just because this guide says that a particular power is available to your character, it doesn't mean they can or should know it. Not every apprentice is going to be competent at Force Jump, nor is every sith lord going to have knowledge of Force Lightning. Roleplay is about making choices that reflect your characters concept and experience, but which also create strengths and weaknesses. So if you're playing a master sith sorcerer who is also expert with a saber, you're probably doing something wrong.
Ranks
Much like the sith themselves, our force powers are broken down into ranks. These ranks exist to help players understand what we believe would be a fair expression of a given Force power at any given time. For example, if you are just beginning to learn Breath Control we think your character holding their breath for five minutes is quite reasonable, whereas if they have reached rank five then holding it for some hours is equally reasonable.
There is a hard cap for how many powers of any given rank you may have, which is intended to encourage people to focus their character into a particular niche rather than excel in everything. This hard cap also ensures that our most active and industrious players don't get too far ahead of those who do not have as much time to focus on their characters training.
Gaining Ranks Your character can increase their ranks in a Force Power (or Saber Skill) through a few methods:
Above all however, we want to stress that it's the quality of the roleplay that counts above all. If all you are doing is emoting hitting a training dummy all day with no flair or panache, it's not going to help your character advance. If however you fight a long and drawn out spar with a rival, trading blows and delving deep into what your character is all about, that is going to carry a great deal of weight! Sub Abilities
Some powers are listed as sub abilities, below their respective parent power, which you can learn at that given rank, but they are not automatic. So you will not automatically gain Force Slow at Force Inspiration 1, but your character could learn it from someone who can teach it. Sub abilities are gained in much the same way as any new rank of an power, some more easily than others. Sub abilities do not have their own ranks though and scale with your overall rank for that power: Force Slow at rank 1 is not going to be as powerful as Force Slow at rank 2 for example. Requirements
Some powers (core and sub abilities) have requirements attached to them. These requirements are listed in this column and you must have them before you can start learning the respective power. Focus Focus states whether an ability needs your exclusive focus to use. That means that if you're in saber combat, you cannot make use of the ability that needs focus because you're otherwise occupied. That doesn't mean that if you're locked in saber combat with someone you cannot break off from the clash and then use the ability, it just means you cannot be emoting both things at once. Likewise you cannot use two abilities that require focus at once, even when outside of combat. Concentration and Mental Focus Restricted Some Force Powers are restricted and require explicit officer approval to be granted. These are powers we consider to be uniquely powerful or rare, so they will only be granted where we feel it is appropriate for the character and the guild to let the character have that power. This doesn't mean we won't grant it, only that we will apply extra scrutiny when doing so. We do not suggest planning your character around a restricted power as there can be no guarantee you will be approved to use this power for your character.
It is also worth noting that although we deem Rank 5 to be the highest rank that can be achieved within the guild, this is not to say that this is the highest skill level that can ever be achieved in the wider setting, it is simply what we consider a realistic upper ceiling within Perfidious. Vitiate for example could have been the equivalent of a rank 10 Sorcerer to drain life from an entire planet; this is not something that we could, or should aspire to, and so our upper limit is much more modest.
For example "Shasha'nahr attempts to stab Malachai in the throat whilst shooting Force Lightning into his face" would not be permitted. Nor would "Y'vass creates a Force barrier whilst sending a blast of Force Lightning into Dauphine".
Unless of course they had...
Concentration is a sub ability of Mental Shield which allows you to use a single ability which requires focus, whilst also engaged in melee combat. Furthermore, with the sub-ability Mental Focus you can make use of two focus abilities at once. So taking the examples above, both would become possible if a character had both Concentration and Mental Focus.