Rogues: Jedi and Force-users

This sort of group should not be available to start with. A Human Jedi, maxing out with attribute, skill, and bonus skill dice, could theoretically have 7D in each Force skill and 21 Force powers at the start. This is at great sacrifice to other abilities - such a power-hungry character is clearly not experienced enough in life to reliably train new Jedi and at risk of falling to the Dark Side himself... which is not to say he could not already be there, and is doing this to create his own Dark Jedi followers<EG>. But even that character, so weak in the ways of life itself, might easily be slain by another.

3D in a Force skill is sufficient to train another character in that skill, but this is really not experienced either. 3D is also the limit on Force skills for characters played at home and then brought into SWC. Create a group for this at the start if you must, but if you have problems with legitimacy from other characters or groups, that's your problem.

The real purpose, then, of putting this page up, is to provide the guidelines SWC uses for training PCs in the Force, in or out of a group. Here is a post from Justin actually starting training:

Like the other Imperials that were enlisted in Force
training, Charis Styria was instructed by Supreme
Command K'tar to meet him at the imperial spaceport
at Byss, a planet in the deep core.
                        *   *     *
Once you arrive at the space port, a group of highly
trained Stormtroopers wearing black armor and red cloaks
direct you to a modified Imperial shuttle. K'tar is already
in there waiting for you. The shuttle takes of and enters
hyperspace and two hours later, exits in an area of the
galaxy you are not familiar with. "Welcome to the [planet]     [I'm not giving this out - David]
System, Captain Styria." the Supreme Commander says
after a long two hours of silence. "It is my hidden safe
world. A world within a system that does not exist in New
Republic logs for it is well hidden and I have kept it a
secret for many years." The planet before you is large.
(It's about twice the size of earth) It looks beatiful and
clean with large green land masses and light blue oceans.
"Yes," K'tar says again, looking down on the planet. "I
have made sure that the rebels never found it for they
would try to have it destroyed just like every other safe
world that  Empire has ever had. For years I have been
searching for    Palpatine's safeworlds and technologies.
They ones I have found have been moved here to [planet].
Here hundreds of  renegades from the New Republic and
victims of their corrupt democracy find confort and safety.
They offer their services to me only and to my cause. And
now my friend, this planet  shall be your training ground."
                          *   *  *
The shuttle lands at a small garrison base located on the
large center continent of the planet. There you an K'tar go
to a large transport skiff which will take you to your
destination. During the ride, K'tar explains what your
training will consist of:
You are a Force sensitive, Styria. You are sensititive
to the Force but have had no training in manipulating it
and controlling it. My goal is to provide such training.

The ability control the Force is broken down into three
skills, Control, Sense and Alter. For the next few week or
more if you wish, I will be teaching you more about the
Control skill, which represents how well you can control
and   manipulate your own "Force" or the energy field
around your own body.  I will be teaching new powers to add
to the ones you already know. This will also increase your
overall knowledge of control and help you master the skill.
The training process consists of you traveling to parts of
this planet. You are required to live in a small housing
development alone. You wil spend one week in each area or
more depending on the number of powers you wish to learn.
During the week, you will be doing certain exercises to
prepare yourself for the lessons. The exercises will be
done 4 days out of the 7 days of the week. The other three
days will be for lessons. During those days, I will come
and instruct you. Here is your typical week in
Force Training:

Day 1:     Day 2:  Day 3:      Day 5:   Day 6:     Day 7:
Excercises Lesson  Excercises  Lesson   Excercises Lesson

If you have done everything correctly at the end of the
week, you gain one power. Any questions?

Next Reply will be on Concentration exercises for this week.

                         Supreme Commander K'tar

Justin posted this same note more than once, changing the names to deal with different students. Take note that this was done under regular Second Edition, where improving existing Force skills took one week of study. Justin had templates for instruction in Force powers, which made up the training in Force skills.

"The first Force power I am going to teach you is
Concentration. Concentration is a power that many Jedi
Masters of the old republic taught their students before
anything else. It's a power that allows the Force user to
focus the Force in such a way the they can increase their
chances at succeeding at a certain task. It doesn't
increase their skill or knowledge but just gives them a
better chance at succeeding (via a 4D bonus to their skill
roll). Concentration has other more advanced properites
such as the ability to enhance other light side powers and
to speed up Jedi training but for now we'll concentrate on
it's power to enhance your skill codes.
To understand how concentration works, you first need to
know what it takes to channel the Force and access it's
power. For skilled Force user, results can be generated by
a mere thought. A Jedi Master can imagine his foes falling
before him and with a touch of willpower, the image becomes
reality. However, students like yourself who are sensitive
to the Force but do not truly know how to manipulate it,
will find it a little more difficult to produce results
with your weaker Force powers. You first have to open
yourself up to the Force and allow it to penetrate you.
That's how Force sensitivity works. How sensitive you are
to the Force depends on how much of it penetrates you. The
Force penetrates everyone but Force sensitives are more
open.. they are more attached to the mystical energy field.
Therefore, the first step is to open yourself up even more
on a concious level. Force Sensitives are more 'open' then
regular people but it takes a concious effort to open
yourself even more during your first weeks of training. The
Once you do that, the Force is yours to use and manipulate.
It takes a lot of focus to manipulate this field at
first. You need to concentrate, feel the power within you
and direct it toward the task at hand. It's a lot like
taking an academy exam. When you take an exam, you focus
the knowledge in your brain so that you can answer the
questions correctly. Same thing with the Force except you
always have the power with you and you don't have to study
beforehand.<G>" K'tar tries to relate his lessons to others
Styria has learned in her career for lessons in Force
manipulation are unlike anything she has even done.
"Any questions before move on to the exercises?"



"Yes. I sense your potential but your current skills and
powers are like a high qualility but blunt blade. It has
potential but must be tempered and properly forged. Now, it
is time for your first lession. It is a variation of a
famous concentration technique but more suited for your
profession." He holds up an automated remote. "You probably
know the drill already. This remote will play the role of
the annoying insect and you must swat it using your
blaster. Normally, I would give you a lightsaber and have
you deflect it's blasts but that practice is for beginners.
This is much more difficult because the target is very
small and very fast and it will be attacking you. The trick
is to put aside the thought of being hit with it's stun
blasts and focus on striking the remote with one carefully
aimed blaster bolt. Any questions?"



"No questions Master, and sorry beforehand if any wild
shots damage anything<G>." Charis pulls out her blaster
pistol, and looks at it intently. She then closes her eyes
and attempts to see what it looks like through the Force;
to get a feel for it. She then takes aim....



If you have no questions, roleplay how Styria would go
through with this exercise. The better you roleplay, the
better the percent chance of success. Be as acurate as you
can, taking into account her current skill level.

I have read some of these notes before. I'll give it a try.
I wonder what her opinion is on getting hit. In the
Pendulant, she's able to laugh off most shots, but out
here, we'll see<G>.



Ok. Start roleplaying out the entire exercise how you
would think Styria would perform it. I'll give you a % on
your successdepending on how well and reasonable you do it.


Charis slowly clears her mind of all the death that war
brings. She shook her head slightly, trying to snap a
wandering mind to full attention for the task at hand. She
briefly thought of herself doing this exercise heroically
with a lightsaber, then pushed it away. A flutter of anger
came as she fliched from a hit by the pod, but it was
overcome. Concentrate! She took the next a little more
calmly, then fired her blaster pistol. The bolt missed
widely. Charis dodged the next shot, and shook off the
fourth. Her second shot missed, but came closer than the
first. She foresaw the next shot, and braced herself for
it. As far as she could tell, it hadn't come. Opening her
eyes, she saw a new speck of black where the shot had
actually hit. She stepped into the path of the next, and
withstood it nearly as easily. She fired twice more
rapidly, missing both times. A third shot missed as well.
With the next pesky shot coming, she took a step closer.
The shot hit her in the cheek, and she winced. With another
step, she was at the lower limit of point-blank range. Even
still, her shot missed. She resisted the next shot, then
swung at the pod. It dove away, and was nicked by the
following blaster bolt. Temporarily immobilized, it was an
easy target for a final shot from her blaster. Charis
turned to K'tar. "How did I do?"



I give it a 85%. "Good job, Styria. You have the technique
down.. you just need more practice. Any fine mind can
condition themselves to use Force powers but the second part
of the equation is opening yourself to the Force. Let's
repeat this exercise again. This time I will use my powers
to enhance your dexterity skills. This time, concentrate
like you did before but also relax yourself into my power.
With both of us working on either end of the Force, we
should be able to open yourself up to the Force more
easily."



Charis stood there, her arms and blaster limp at her side.
She ignored two shots, and winced a little still as another
one hit her in the face. She continued to stand there
motionless, trying to be open. She had long been able to
feel the Force flowing around her. But there was no tug at
her arm. Charis didn't like the feel of this place. Dark
Jedi were probably being trained around here too. And then
there was the man standing nearby. She limply took another
blast. Don't wait for it to make your arm move!, she told
herself. Then let's try a faster one, something I would
never make on my own.... Charis swung her arm up, hardly
looking. She felt something happen, and her arm
straightened out in the middle of the swing, toward the
pod. A shot barely missed the dodging pod. Charis lowered
her arm again in thought. Might as well try to see the pod
through the Force. She shut her eyes, and searched for it.
Not there. She looked back onto herself as a reference,
then reached out again. The pod, as if sensing what she was
doing, fired off several shots in rapid succession. Charis'
eye twitched open again. Ignore it. She reached out to it
again, and grazed it. She got a firm grip on its position,
and opened her eyes. She tried to budge it a little, but
the strength wasn't there yet. It didn't even twitch. She
shut her eyes again, and aimed the blaster at the spot. The
blaster followed the pod, and she could almost see where it
would try to go next through the Force. Moving ahead of the
pod, trigger on the finger, she let loose the arm and felt
it swing again into place. The fried pod left a trail of
smoke as it fell to the ground.



I'll give that a 100%. Good job, David. No one writes 'em
like you.<G>

"Pretty good, Styria. As I said before, the skill is well
within your ability... you just need continued practice in
order to temper your skills to perfection. Let's do one
more exercise and we'll move on to the next power."

K'tar summons three remotes instead of one.

"Rebel pilots train against three to one odds to give them
an advantage in one on one dogfights. Let's see if the same
philosophy can be applied to this situation, shall we?"



Charis Styria stood before the three hovering pods. "Let me
think about this before I start." K'tar only looked on, not
even a nod came from his expressionless face.

I've taken pairs of bolts in rapid succession already. Only
one or two of these should do that at a time. That means
that almost always, I'll really only be fighting at two to
one odds as far as concentrating goes. Not even the Rebel
pilots face all three TIEs at once. Usually one in front
trying to get a away, with the others trying to get a clean
hit from behind. I wonder how well I can concentrate when
they're hitting my back instead of--

The three pods leaped into action, each firing a pair of
shots. Charis moved to the side, and shook off the three
that had hit her. She quickly moved towards the pods,
avoiding as many shots as possible, and withstanding the
rest. She began firing quickly herself, herding one off so
that it was too busy avoiding her blasts to join in
shooting at her. I've got you were I want you. Time to take
it out. Charis shut her eyes, and 'looked' for it, still
firing in the general direction. She continued moving
forward, still able to avoid some of the shots even with
her eyes closed. She had its position a moment later, and
was already swinging her arm towards it. The shot missed by
a few inches as the pod dodged. She aimed for it again,
looking at it through the Force. "Click." Her eyes opened
in amazement as she looked at the blaster pistol. Empty.
The pod she was chasing was no longer distracted, and swung
back towards her. She looked up, and saw the three pods
bearing down on her. She ducked, too late. The six shots
hit her on all sides, making her gasp loudly and sink down
to her hands and knees. They hit her again and again,
trying to overwhelm her. One of the shots even cut her.
Charis' anger flared as deep a crimson as the drawn blood
on her arm. It blocked off the pain, but it troubled her in
a far deeper way than the laser bolts could. Reaching out
into the Force, she pushed away HER dark side, and let the
light take its place. The bolts hitter her were a dull echo
now. This isn't so bad, she thought to herself. She opened
her eyes. The ammo for the blaster that had been in her
hand when she had run out was on the ground. With the
bright red light meaning it was overloaded. On its side,
she saw the carbon scoring from one of the pods' lasers. It
was almost ready to go. She picked it up, at peace through
the Force. The pod she had chased was the closest to her.
She quickly had its image and position again in her mind.
The ammo pack hit the pod dead on, and both fell to the
ground. Charis watched as several yards away, the tibanna
gas exploded, taking the stunned pod with it. The blast
didn't reach her, but the buffet of hot air did. She let it
go around her, and reloaded her remaining power pack as the
pods struggled against the turbulence. She focused and shot
the first down. The second dove away, but she followed it
with a Force-guided blaster pistol. It soon dropped to the
ground as well. Charis breathed heavily for a few seconds,
then composed herself before walking up to her master. The
sweat and blood sure didn't help, but at least she could
act like a veteran.



Damn.. 5 pages!! Adam could learn a lot from reading your
notes.

I give it a 95%.

"Your skills have improved in practice as I predicted. You
have practically mastered the power of Concentration, the
foundation of all Jedi powers. You have taken your first
step into a larger world."

I'll finish this soon. Just need to break open the books..

And that was it. In Revised and Expanded, training time has been changed to a number of days equal to the number before the D the character currently has in the skill. There's nothing in the above posts to suggest that it didn't all happen in one day, and Justin did not do seperate lesson posts at that time, but in this case, it did last one week of game time. Do remember that the training time is in real time, but game time can create gaps in this. If you can complete a series of training posts in a few hours one night, but your character needs 4 days of training, he can do nothing else until that training time is done in real time. On the other hand, if the trainer can't post again in a few days, going past those four days of real time, too bad. The time waited doesn't help here, because game time has held up real time (the same way construction is held up when there's a battle at a planet).

I recommend posting the stats for the skill to be learned before starting the training, so the PC learning the power knows what to describe. I don't know if Justin had any use for the scores he gave, beyond showing the player if improvement in his playing is needed.

Other than these things, what does a group actually need, or allowed to start with as a brand-new group rather than being formed in the course of a game?