“Force Wizard” is my series on the Force & Destiny Careers’ Signature Abilities.
Welcome back to the Force Wizard, where we are moving on to the Sentinel Signature Abilities (SAs) from Endless Vigil, starting with My City (MC). Sentinels are different from many Force users. They prefer to keep to the shadows and avoid attracting attention, as a way of ensuring justice is meted out; rather than doing so because recognition would mean death or worse.
This was as true in the time of the Old Republic and the few decades of Master Luke’s Jedi, as it was when the Empire and the First Order hunted down Force sensitives. So it should be no surprise that Sentinel SAs are different from those of the other F&D careers with unusual Base abilities and mostly unique upgrades. Both My City and Unmatched Vigilance are designed for what I think of as the Batman Style of Sentinel.
On to the MC Base ability, which is where this SA starts to diverge from the rest. Once activated, by making a Hard skill check and spending two Destiny Points (DP) as usual, it lasts for the entire game session. The activating skill is either Knowledge: Core Worlds or Knowledge: Outer Rim, depending on the planet. While in an urban area (which is undefined, so up to your GM), you may take two Strain to find or recall information about any “individual, group, or establishment” in the city and relevant details. Remember, this isn’t a one-off, you can learn information (or use the upgrades you own) for the whole session. Unless you leave the city.
Examples of information the GM may give you are covered in the “fine print,” the text. Note that Imperial and Rebellion ties are mentioned there. I feel that GMs should include ties to First Order and Resistance (or equivalent groups if your campaign takes place in another era).
The upgrades’ entry points are the upper left and right of the MC tree and form two connected rings. Both starting upgrades are Boost Skill, each one adding +1 Boost to a pair of skills. The left hand grants a Boost to Streetwise and Survival checks; the right hand to Skulduggery and Stealth checks.
The top tier is completed with Reduce Difficulty (linked to left Boost Streetwise/Survival) and Cover Upgrade (linked to Boost Skulduggery/Stealth). Reduce Difficulty drops the Knowledge Core Worlds/Outer Rim activation check to Average Difficulty. Cover Upgrade increases your Range Defense by +1 any time you are in cover.
The bottom/15XP tier is bookended by the two Change Skill upgrades for the MC activation check. The left and right substitute Streetwise and Knowledge: Underworld checks respectively.
The Downgrade upgrade costs 2 Strain to downgrade the difficulty of a Stealth check once. The final upgrade is the Destiny upgrade found in most SAs, which reduces the DP flipped to activate MC to one.
What to buy? Which upgrades you choose will depend partly on the campaign. What kind of Sentinel you are and what kinds of threats and adversaries the GM uses (which you probably know well this late in the campaign) will inform your decisions. If your Sentinel faces many criminal groups or makes use of street-level/lower class informants, the left side Boost Skill and Change Skill – which affect Streetwise – is probably where you want to start. An Investigator or other Sentinel who does a lot of crimefighting (or intel gathering for, say, the Alliance/Resistance) might be better served by the corresponding upgrades on the right.
That said, taking all four of those will give you a lot of options, especially in a campaign where the party visits places of all sizes. Buying all of them will also help you if, for whatever reason, you didn’t prioritize maxxing out ranks in those skills.
My minimum would be Left (or both Left and Right) Boost Skill > Reduce Difficulty > Destiny. If you want to buy more, all of these are useful upgrades, and Defense is relatively rare. But personally, I would buy one or both Change Skills and then the Cover and/or Downgrade upgrades.
What specializations? While any Sentinel spec can make use of MC (unless 90% of the campaign takes place shipboard or uninhabited/rural planets), MC is most useful to Sentinels who take a less combat oriented approach to righting wrongs. Sentinels who expect to get into combat, or plan or lead such operations, might prefer Unmatched Vigilance, which we will look at in August. Until then, may the Force be with you, always!
Linda Whitson
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