“Force Wizard” is my series on the Force powers in Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars RPG lines. It is primarily aimed at new players/GMs, and more experienced players playing a Force-sensitive character for the first time.
Today I look at Imbue, from Disciples of Harmony, the Consular career sourcebook. It has a prerequisite of Force Rating (FR) 2. Imbue is strictly a buff power, only affecting allies, not the wielder. The Basic Imbue and the Strength upgrades have differing effects depending on whether Dark or Light pips were used. Since only the text for Range upgrades mentions multiple activations, the Basic power and other upgrades are all single activation.
Using Basic Imbue, “The Force user lends strength to allies, making them more potent, resourceful, and resilient for a time” per the tree (bolding mine), which costs 2 Force pips. What does that mean? The wielder increases one “of another Engaged character’s characteristics” by +1, up to 6. If Dark pips are used, it’s a good news/bad news effect–a second characteristic is also increased by +1 up to 6 maximum, but both wielder and target take 3 Strain each.
Upping a characteristic is a rare effect. Basic Imbue is similar to the Stim Application talent series. It’s also similar to the lowest tier Enhance Control upgrades, which grant +1 to Brawn or Agility for the Wielder only. This Basic power is always once per character per encounter and the characteristic increase/s lasts until the end of the wielder’s (not target’s) next turn. So you can use it more than once/encounter, if you target different characters.
The lone Control upgrade allows you to spend +1 Force pip to give your target ranks in a single skill equal to your ranks in that skill. This is one of those “Read the fine print!” upgrades. (That is, read the text as well as the tree entry.) Control’s “fine print” is it can’t be just any skill; it must be a skill “linked to the characteristic improved by this power.” So the wielder buffs the target with both an increased characteristic plus ranks in a skill, for 3 Force pips total. Of course, it’s still once/character/encounter and lasts until the end of the wielder’s next turn.
There are 3 Strength upgrades in the Imbue tree, costing 5/10/20XP. They cost no additional Force pips to activate, and have a unique effect. They affect Critical injuries both inflicted by and suffered by your target. If the wielder doesn’t spend any Dark pips to activate Imbue, decrease the result of Criticals inflicted/suffered by the target, by 10 for each Strength upgrade bought, reducing the severity of damage taken by the target, at the cost of lessening the severity of wounds they inflict. Seems really situational at best. Perhaps Target is squishy, but there are heavy-hitting PCs to fight, so Target can hang back, and Imbue will only come into play if Target gets hit.
If the wielder doesn’t spend any Light pips, the effect is reversed. Increase the Criticals inflicted/suffered by the target by 10 for each Strength upgrade. In effect, the target is granted the ability to do more serious, lasting damage by making them more vulnerable to severe damage. If you’re inclined to do this to your allies (regardless of your Morality score), you may want to consider the in-game and out-of-game consequences first. Even if the GM doesn’t think the circumstances warrant Conflict, I think spending Dark Force pips here sends a clear message to your target: “I am using you and I don’t care if you get badly hurt or killed.” Your PC’s friends, NPC or PC, aren’t going to be too happy with your character. And if you pull this stunt repeatedly, your fellow players probably won’t be happy with you…
Range upgrades are standard–increase Imbue’s range (from Engaged) by the number of Range upgrades bought. It costs 2 Force pips to activate your Range upgrade/s. You can activate Range multiple times, unlike the other upgrades. However, you won’t be able to do so reliably until FR 3 or 4, since it will cost 4 Force pips.
The 10XP Duration grants you the ability to sustain Imbue as long as your target remains in range. To do so, you must commit 2 Force dice. Right below this Duration, and linked to it, is a second Duration, costing 20XP. It reduces the number of committed dice from 2 to 1. Both could be handy, if you want to spend 45XP for the first, or 65XP to gain both Durations.
The 25XP Mastery upgrade will cost at least 100XP to reach! What do you get for that 100+XP? It is the only way I have seen in the entire line for a character to (temporarily) get characteristic rank/s of 7! You read it right. Mastery increases the target’s boosted characteristic/s by 2 each, up to 7.
What upgrades should you buy or forego? And when should you buy them? Since Range upgrades cost 2 pips/activation and can be activated more than once, the only reason to buy more than one is to reach that lone Control upgrade. While the Control is pretty useful, it effectively costs 30-40XP, not 10, reducing its appeal somewhat, as I mentioned above. If you really want it, the cheapest way is to buy the right hand 5XP and 15XP Range upgrades, then the Control. I suggest waiting until you’re FR3, since you probably won’t be able to roll enough Force pips, of either type, to activate more than the Basic and either Range or Control, at FR2.
If you want to avoid the downsides of the Strength upgrades, only buy the upgrades in the far right column of the tree (and the Control if you want it). To be honest, I don’t think the Strength upgrades are going to be that useful–except maybe as a Temptation of the Darkside. Sticking to the right side of the tree comes with a downside of its own–no path to Mastery, no buffing pals to Characteristic 7. And by now, you know I don’t advise putting loads of XP in one tree. Buy (at most) the 5 and 10XP Range upgrades, the Control upgrade, and maybe 1 or both Durations.
Fine Print Alert. The Upgrades intro (p. 36) states, “The upgrades…tend to increase the number of targets who can be affected by one use…” No upgrade does that. The closest thing to increasing targets is the Basic power’s “once per character per encounter” clause, allowing the wielder to use it multiple times in an encounter, as long as they target a different ally each time. I think that sentence was left from an earlier draft of the power and should be ignored. GMs, if you have a different interpretation, tell us in the comments.
Next power up is Ebb, of the Ebb/Flow power, also from Disciples of Harmony. Until then, may the Force be with you always!
Force Wizard Index (Book/s)
Alter (Unlimited Power)
Battle Meditation (F&D)
Bind (F&D, Rise of the Separatists)
Conjure (Unlimited Power)
Ebb/Flow (Disciples of Harmony)
Endure (Knights of Fate)
Enhance (AoR, F&D, Rise of the Separatists)
Farsight (Savage Spirits)
Foresee (AoR, F&D)
Heal/Harm (F&D)
Imbue (Disciples of Harmony)
Influence (EotE, F&D)
Jerserra’s Influence (Ghosts of Dathomir)
Manipulate (Endless Vigil)
Misdirect (F&D)
Move (AoR, EotE, F&D)
Protect / Unleash (F&D) – Part 1 (Intro & Protect) and Part 2 (Unleash)
Seek (F&D)
Sense (EotE, F&D)
Suppress (Keeping the Peace)
Warde’s Foresight (Chronicles of the Gatekeeper)
Linda Whitson
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