[RPG] Is the Jedi Power Mind Trick OP

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I'm GMing a Star Wars Saga Edition campaign, with a party of 2 Jedis (lvl 3). One of them took the Mind Trick Jedi Power and he takes advantage of the (basically) unlimited use per day (with only a 1 minute cooldown) to try it at almost every opportunity. Since he has a Use The Force of 8, he can easily overcome the Will of most NPC (in the range of 9-12 at their CL) and already has earned a lot of money by selling their loot at unreasonably high prices to regular traders.

I'm not opposed to them playing like a Chaotic Neutral D&D party (their descent on the Dark Side — and eventual redemption — is even the main plot, although they don't know it) and he has so far just used it for fun rather than to gain advantages, but I fear Mind Trick might give them too much money too early or, more importantly, allow them to completely bypass part of the campaign (as in "You will give us your spaceship and activate the self-destruct protocol of your base after poisoning all your comrades. Also give us all your money.").

Is there a way to mitigate the power of Mind Trick ? Or did I simply misunderstood its limitations?

Best Answer

Circumstantially Mind Trick is Good but it's not Overpowered

When looking at mind trick, specifically the suggestion aspect of this force power it's very important to make a note of the special description.

Special: If you are making a suggestion, you may spend a Force Point to improve the target's attitude by one step, plus one additional step for every 5 points by which your Use the Force check exceeds the target's Will Defense.

The mind trick power doesn't actually work like mind control, it works more along the lines of the D&D spell charm person where it changes a person's attitude rather than just acting as straight up mind control (attitudes are defined under the persuasion skill on page 71 but for reference the 5 attitudes are Hostile, Unfriendly, Neutral, Friendly, and Helpful).

If you hit a hostile target with mind trick and beat his will defense by less than 5 he's still going to be unfriendly, as defined by the book that means "the target wishes you ill but won't go out of his way to harm you". When used in this fashion it essentially allows a force user to use Use The Force situationally as persuasion.

Also, through the Haggling use of the persuasion skill you can only get a person to buy/sell an item at 50% above/below asking price. Even for helpful characters you still have to roll a haggling check, though the DC is going to be relatively low. In addition, the haggling section has a caveat at the bottom that may be relevant to your situation. "No matter how adept you are at haggling, a creature won't pay more for an item that can easily be obtained elsewhere for the standard listed price"

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