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This is all assuming of course that electronic locks are able to picked like mechanical ones.

I don't have any working knowledge of it, so I can't speak to it beyond that question. But anywho, yeah, the line of sight requirement renders it moot.

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Sense surroundings removes line of sight barriers. Core Rules page 77 DC15 check to ignore the effects of concealment and cover when making perception to detect and observe targets.

There is another fine control element from that list....the multiple simultaneous defusing and later rearmng of the bombs on Cloud City. They were a combination of mechanical and electronic locks, none were in line of sight (all around the perimeter of the city) and the fine control demonstrated even extended to being able to separately arm and detonate just the detonators without tripping the main charges in an elaborate bluff.

Like Obiwan says, "your eyes can decieve you, don't trust them". Line of sight and line of effect are game constructs that have little to do with how the Force is used, or even how it is trained. Check out the (d6, d20, or SAGA) Jedi Academy Training programs in those supplements. The Cadences are intense, fine control exercises, and often done eyes closed.

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FULONGAMER aka Johannes M. Bowers
http://thelostholocronpodcast.info/
It's not My planet Monkey-boy! / I Waste Him With My Bowcaster!
THIS is my LIGHT-Stick!, The next one of you Furry Tree-Hugger Yub-Yub Primitives EVEN TOUCHES me...//FZOOOK!//

All of those are actions you could take with one hand with no particular difficulty. I can't call any of those "fine manipulation", at least on the level of what we're talking about in terms of picking a lock.


Multitasking and lifting heavy things is not the same as fine manipulation. You don't use the same muscles to lift a box that you do to write your name; why would the force be any different?


These might actually count as examples, but only maybe.

Ritual lightsaber construction has never seemed particularly tasking to me; from what I've seen it's a job you could easily do in a few minutes with two hands. My understanding is that it's the very tricky crystal alignment that is the real force-related bit. And anyway, it may be that it would be nearly as easy to use your hands for the task, and doing it through the force is just to show that you have attained that level of mastery.

The Marvel Comics are hardly the best place to go for any analysis of what's possible in the force, so I really have no problem dismissing that out of hand.

And the cadences, well, I don't know much about, so I can't speak to them. The Cadence force regimines from JATM are all about lightsaber use, and that hardly has anything to do with accurately controlling very small objects with the force.

I could comment that the game only requires line of sight, not actually LOOKING, but that's probably silly... The point is that doing something as fine-tuned as picking locks doesn't seem to be in most force users' repertoires. I wouldn't mind seeing a homebrew force talent for doing things like that, but it's a bit absurd to suggest that any force user is capable of such feats.

Note that it specifies the Perception skill, NOT Force powers. Force powers have very plain distance and LOS restrictions in their texts, and this application of the Use the Force skill does nothing RAW to mitigate them.

But what seems to be being ignored is that, even were it allowed by the game rules, it would require knowledge of how locks worked, not to mention that the lock would have to be able to be affected mechanically (and not electronically).

I say, KEEP THE RULES INTACT. Homebrew a solution, but don't just start letting Force Users be able to do anything they want with the Force. Creativity is excellent, but omnipotence should never be on the table. I feel that allowing a Force User to just use a standard action to "move object" a blast door into opening (with no hitpoints being associated with the attempt) breaks the game. Why didn't Qui-Gon, a Jedi Master, just move object the blast door? Because the lightsaber was his best bet. Some things are beyond most Force users' capabilities, and Blast Doors are one of those things. It's a balance issue. If you want your Jedi to be able to telekinetically open a door, allow the controls to be affected that way (lever, button, whatever) or make it sufficiently weak enough to be torn off its hinges by the damage dealt by move object, as the Devs indicated.

One more thing: move object is the name of a specific Force power with specific functions, and is not synonymous with "telekinesis." It's a telekinetic power, but shouldn't be able to be used in the way suggested here any more than Force Slam or Balistakinesis should be.

_________________
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My Google Docs Character Record Sheet
SE Official FAQ Compilation - SE Official Errata & Clarifications - Jedi Counseling 105 to 115

Edge of the Empire Resources: Beta Updates, crib sheets, and other goodies

I agree it would require knowing how a lock works. As to it not working on electronic locks i disagree. We are not talking about fooling the electronics. We are talking about moving the physical locking mechanism. Having actually worked on electronic door looks I know that they have a physical mechanism that if you were to be able to move remotely you could open the door.

Think of it this way it would be like using a slim jim to open a car door. you are just shoving the locking part out of the way. not picking the lock. Yes picking the lock would be as hard as doing it by hand. but shoving the locking latch out of the way would be easy.

Right, but what about electric impulses in the doors, causing them to be actively (rather than passively) bolted? Blast Doors are "bump-proof," as it were. Power is being fed into them to KEEP them closed. The Force user would have to work against all those rods and hypdraulics or whatnot to open the door, and that's what we're talking about with the high Break DC.

EDIT: perhaps we need to have a better knowledge of how Blast Doors differ from regular doors? There is no "simple latch" to move to slide the door open. Blast Doors are designed to be fool-proof.

_________________
Saga Edition Resources:
My Google Docs Character Record Sheet
SE Official FAQ Compilation - SE Official Errata & Clarifications - Jedi Counseling 105 to 115

Edge of the Empire Resources: Beta Updates, crib sheets, and other goodies

For one, I will go confidently out on a limb here and say that you are looking at it backwards....Blast Doors....being emergency implements to prevent the spread of explosions or explosive decompression, in addition to resisting direct assault, are inherently Closed, and have to be powered into the Open position. It takes the introduction of a mechanical bypass (crank or lever/ratchet) to re-open a damaged blast door in an emergency, and is VERY slow. When power is interrupted, they snap shut. When they have a secondary door layer (and latch) like the bunker door in RotJ, you can have a rather robust blockage. See Qui Gon's reaction to the additional bridge door seal in TPM.

Think of it like the Air Brakes on a heavy truck, the brakes default into the "applied" position in the event of a failure, not the other way around. They require the air pressure in the lines and tanks to be active and sufficient to keep the brakes off the striking surface.

Blast doors (as seen in their motion) are generally fast movers, but can either be slow opening or fast, or fast closing or slow.....in general they tend to be fast, blindingly fast.

Doors like on the Death Star Hangar Bay (Vader vs Obiwan ANH) are mechanically 4-part doors that interlock to provide enhanced strength, by overlapping their leaves as they close. The door to Jabba's Palace (RotJ) was a massive dropgate with locking teeth at the bottom, passively down, and requiring active pressure to open. The lesser doors in the Death Star and Bespin are STILL blast doors, but are far faster vertical dropgates.

Generally it takes an Unleashed level of force use to "Break" a Blast door physically and just punch through the sucker, tearing it free from its mount and tracks. Powerlifting it open within the bounds of the mechanism is FAR easier. Finessing the electronics or mechanical elements in the lock are more technical, but still easier than bruting the door open.

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FULONGAMER aka Johannes M. Bowers
http://thelostholocronpodcast.info/
It's not My planet Monkey-boy! / I Waste Him With My Bowcaster!
THIS is my LIGHT-Stick!, The next one of you Furry Tree-Hugger Yub-Yub Primitives EVEN TOUCHES me...//FZOOOK!//

I agree with everything Darth Pseudonym wrote.



Line of sight has EVERYTHING to do with using the Force. That’s why many Force powers say “within line of sight.”




Closing your eyes does not affect your line of sight. This is shown by many force-users who close their eyes and then use a Force power that requires line of sight (such as Move Object).

To determine whether or not you have line of sight, you use the “draw an imaginary line from you to your target” as described under Line of Sight in Core rulebook page 160. The things that block line of sight are things that provide total cover (walls, doors) or total concealment (total darkness, fog, smoke).

Furthermore, I did check out the lightsaber training regimens. The only one I found that uses blindness is Training Remote. That just enhances your Deflect, which has nothing to do with using Force powers that require line of sight. As for the Cadences, they use your lightsaber, which has nothing to do with this discussion.




It’s inaccurate to state that Sense surroundings removes line of sight barriers. You can use Sense surroundings to detect a person on the other side of a wall. But that does NOT mean you have line of sight to that person. You CANNOT use Force powers that require line of sight against that person.

Here are some more clarifications regarding Sense surroundings according to the Saga Edition FAQ:

Q: How does Sense Surroundings work exactly?

A: Sense surroundings allows you to ignore cover and concealment for the purposes of making Perception checks (including any penalties resulting from cover or concealment). Thus, a Jedi could "sense" other characters, creatures, or droids in another room even though the door is shut. You must still make a Perception check to detect the targets and you suffer all the normal penalties to your Perception check with the exception of those from cover or concealment (thus, you still cannot detect targets that are extraordinarily far away due to the accumulative range penalty). You must still roll a Perception check to detect targets who aren't actively hiding (DC 5 for a Medium creature; +5 for every size difference smaller than Medium, -5 for every size difference bigger than Medium). Sensing targets in this manner does not allow you to see them or determine what they are. You are simply aware of their presence and location. In any event, you do not have line of sight to your target (and thus can't target them with a great deal of Force powers). Sense Surroundings also works on bypassing total cover and total concealment (for the purposes of making Perception checks) despite its wording.

-emphasis mine

Bottom line:

You cannot use Sense Surroundings to ignore line of sight requirement to use a Force power!!




But if you can't see the physical locking mechanism, then you can't move it with Move Object or Move Light Object! Both of these powers require line of sight. You can't use the Force as you would when blindly whacking away with a slim jim.

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I think you are far overthinking Line of Sight. Breaking it down to perfectly viewing the mechanism of the door interior seems a line too far. You can see the frelling door. You can affect the Door and all it's components. You do not have to see the pulsing veins in someone's head to cause a fatal embolism. Line of effect = line of sight, as proven by Vader with many a Holocomm force choke. You see THEM. That is enough. If I am going to use a FP or DP to Move Light Object and Pickpocket a code cylinder out of a pocket or a Weapon out of a holster, I simply have to know it is basically THERE and on that person. I do NOT need x-ray scanners looking what's inside their pocketses, or in the holster under their coat. If I have picked up on the fact there IS a concealed holster, I can do something about it without having to flip their skirt over their heads.

If you as a force user are familliar with the operation of a given standard door, bulkhead door, blast door, hut door, cage door, cell door, airlock, padlock, whatever, there should be nothing imparing your ability to use the force to affect that door (inside or out, brute or fine) as long as you can see the frackin' door.

Even if I personally don't have the mechanical details of the guts of every door memorized, and am NOT looking at it with a deep-mag-scan, I can see the door, I can FEEL the door. Heck, if my trusty astromech can holo-up a basic schematic to aid me in imaging the interior of the door mechanisms, as long as I can see the DOOR I can affect the door's LOCKS. To do less is fundamentally uncinematic, unheroic, and uncool.

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FULONGAMER aka Johannes M. Bowers
http://thelostholocronpodcast.info/
It's not My planet Monkey-boy! / I Waste Him With My Bowcaster!
THIS is my LIGHT-Stick!, The next one of you Furry Tree-Hugger Yub-Yub Primitives EVEN TOUCHES me...//FZOOOK!//

If as a GM you really want to split hairs on the matter, it's true you can't see the lock itself. But you can still see the door, and can see where the locking mechanism is. For me, that's close enough, but then I as a GM or player don't constantly try to twist the rules to my own personal benefit, so I'm a bit more forgiving on behalf of the player when it comes to areas of the rules that are on the fuzzy side of things. Yes, Force-users are powerful, but that doesn't mean the GM has to be an utter ass about keeping PC Force-users in check unless they are being an utter ass about abusing their powers.

Though it looks like a lot of people are really overthinking the matter, at least in my opinion. But if you are going to be so technical about it, then Yoda shouldn't have been able to lift that X-Wing in ESB because he couldn't literally see it due to having his eyes closed the entire time. So using that tidbit from the movies, I'd say needing to see in exact and precise detail what it is you're trying to affect with the Force isn't required.


The Skills section was written for all characters, not just Force-users, and aside from Use the Force, the majority of the Force-related stuff is in the chapters devoted to The Force. Most people are going to use Mechanics to disable a lock because that's the only recourse (aside from high explosives to destroy the door outright) they have.

And quite simply there is no way in hell that any game developer is going to anticipate every possible way that a player is going to use the system. To quote Rodney, "No game system every survives contact with the player base." The fact that using the Force to bust open a door wasn't touched upon until a Jedi Counseling article is proof enough of that.

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"If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid."
- Eddie Izzard

Contributing Author of the GSA
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
Follow me on Twitter at @donovan421

Word.

(Oh no, 2012 must really be the "End Times"....Dono and Fulon agree on something! )

_________________
FULONGAMER aka Johannes M. Bowers
http://thelostholocronpodcast.info/
It's not My planet Monkey-boy! / I Waste Him With My Bowcaster!
THIS is my LIGHT-Stick!, The next one of you Furry Tree-Hugger Yub-Yub Primitives EVEN TOUCHES me...//FZOOOK!//

I took a quick gander at page 151 of the Corebook, particularly the section on Locks, then took a look at the entry for Mechanics in regards to disabling a device.

Under a lot of circumstances, the person using Mechanics is going to have a much easier time disabling a lock than a Jedi trying to do the same via Move Object, if going by the idea that the Jedi needs to beat the Break DC of the lock in order to disable it. For a complex lock (much like those probably found on most blast doors), which I'd equate to at least a High Security lock as listed on page 151, the DC of the Mechanics check is a 25, while a Jedi using Move Object would have to beat a Break DC of at least 35. On an Average or Cheap electronic lock, the Jedi has it a bit easier than the guy using the Mechanics skill, but it'd be the same DC for an Average non-electronic lock.

But as a GM I'd also treat a door broken open this way as not being able to be re-sealed (something that can be problematic as I know from first hand, in-game experience), where as a lock that was picked via Mechanics means it's still usable and the door can be resealed after your group of plucky heroes have opened it (handy thing to have when being pursued by nasty creatures that want to do equally nasty things to you).

Fulon,
Well, we've managed to agree in the past, and the world has kept on spinning, so I wouldn't empty out your 401K just yet

_________________
"If you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid."
- Eddie Izzard

Contributing Author of the GSA
Dono's Gaming & Etc Blog
Follow me on Twitter at @donovan421

I think I get what you guys are saying here. Pardon my thick skull. I'm getting better.

1) How many rounds would you suggest for using move object to open one of these bad boys in general? I suppose it would just be situational, based on size and door layers. (Here I'm thinking back to The Force Unleashed video game where Starkiller is in the TIE Fighter facility. There are doors he just opens by approaching them (ala Obi-Wan), doors he has to Force Push through (I'd liken that to Force thrust) and then there's that dual-stage hangar door close to the beginning that he has to spend some time opening with "Force Grip" (the game's move object analog). Though I'm loath to liken tabletop game mechanics to video game mechanics, is this somewhere near you guys' lines of thought as to how things should work?)
2) Would you suggest maybe a UtF vs. opposed Strength? Although that'd be almost as hard as breaking it. Or should it just happen, given enough time?
3) Maintain the power to keep it open? Or once it's open, it's open until someone actively closes it again?
4) You sure that doesn't wreck game balance? Scoundrel: "Let me slice into those door controls!" Force user: "Meh" (move object, door slides open). "Go home. You can't hit anything and we don't need your skills anymore because I have the Force." I feel like we are given hit points and Break DCs for a reason. I don't consider it being an ass to throw in some reasonable limitations on what the Force can do.

I hope I'm understanding your points. I do appreciate that we shouldn't be "overthinking" things; however, we also shouldn't be letting our Force-using PCs outshine the rest of the group by virtue if the fact that they can move things with their minds. I think the built-in DCs and hit points of doors are an excellent check & balance to that end.


How about, as a house rule, allowing a Force user to maintain move object against a door, making a new UtF check AND dealing damage each round? That seems well within the power's scope and true to Star Wars' Force usage without being an automatic "I win" button. Eventually, the door will open. Also this would be an excellent opportunity to throw other more interesting powers like cryokinesis or shatterpoint at it!

PS: I took forever composing this in between breakfast and whatnot, and see Dono's most recent post and yes, completely agree...you beat the door's break DC, it is broken

_________________
Saga Edition Resources:
My Google Docs Character Record Sheet
SE Official FAQ Compilation - SE Official Errata & Clarifications - Jedi Counseling 105 to 115

Edge of the Empire Resources: Beta Updates, crib sheets, and other goodies