"While
it is true that a Jedi uses his power only for defense, never for attack, it is
equally true that a Jedi must nevertheless prepare with great vigilance, for
only the Force knows when you may face your greatest battle."
-- Excerpt from Jedi Master Vo'ren Fallo's
Book of Practical Lightsaber Technique.
Novacron Press, 162. S*D/3/r^6.56.
All formats now banned
The Jedi are renowned for their skill with that most elegant of
personal weapons: The Jedi Lightsaber.
While there is no denying that the Lightsaber is lethal in
skilled hands, the amount of training and practice required to achieve any
degree of skill is staggering. True competence comes from not only training the
reflexes, but from training the mind as well. All too often young Jedi have
superior physical skills, yet their ability to concentrate and relax their
minds is lacking.
Like other Masters before him, Jedi Master Vo'ren Fallo
developed his own formal Lightsaber training for his young apprentices. Some Masters
studied his practice techniques (which he called "cadences") and
adopted them as part of their own training for their Jedi. The following
descriptions of Fallo's Jedi cadences are extracted from volume seven of
Fallo's writings on Lightsaber technique.
Materials
Fallo's cadences require several specific materials. Steel ball
bearings of no more than 1 millimeter in diameter are recommended for these
exercises; half a kilo is just under 100,000 bearings, and costs no more than
3.5 credits. The candles can be produced by any autochef.
On some worlds, where mass-produced steel ball bearings,
autochefs and wax tapers are not so commonly available, this exercise is done
using unlit candles. The object is to light each candle by contacting the
Lightsaber blade with the wick. This exercise would seem easier than the
traditional technique were it not for the fact that the candles, particularly
those created on low tech worlds, do not show the consistence of length that
many Jedi rely on to complete this exercise. This cancels out the bonus
attached to hitting the larger wick target. Some Masters prefer this less
technologically-based exercise as more elegant and aesthetically pleasing.
Duration: One hour
Preparation: Make a batch of 19 wax
Cylinders (10 centimeters high and half a centimeter in diameter) using an
autochef. Also obtain 190 metal (ideally steel) ball bearings.
Cadence: Start by placing one
cylinder upright directly ahead of you at a distance of one to one and a half
meters (so that you can just reach it with the tip of your Lightsaber), and
place one of the ball bearings on top of it. Then, from the rest position, draw
your saber, ignite it and strike the ball bearing. Your object is to completely
evaporate the ball bearing without harming the wax cylinder it rests on. This
requires that you strike to within one millimeter accuracy.
During the early stages of this cadence, a slight scorching of
the cylinder is acceptable. If, however, it is physically distorted to a
perceptible degree (by touch; remember the Guide of Perception) then you
have made an error and should restart the cadence form the beginning.
Having successfully completed one ball bearing, place two
cylinders directly ahead of you, by hand, with a 10 degree angle between them.
The first few times you perform this maneuver you should check the accuracy of
your placement with a protractor or angle beam. No more than a two degree error
is permissible.
When you become comfortable with this exercise, you should be
able to place the cylinders with no more than a tenth of a degree error without
needing to check. Talk to your tutor if you find this difficult.
Having successfully completed two cylinders, you should attempt
three, again spaced at 10 degree intervals ahead of you. Then four cylinders,
then five, and so on until you cover the full 180 degree spread with nineteen
cylinders.
Once you have completed all nineteen cylinders, you may want to
obtain additional ball bearings for repetition purposes. There are a number of
orders that you should remove the ball bearings in: From right to left; left to
right; alternate left and right working out from the center; alternate left and
right working in to the center; and, random. Your teacher may suggest others.
Only when you can perform all possible permutations two-handed, left-handed,
right-handed and blindfolded with equal facility are you ready to advance to
the Second Cadence.
Game Notes: This cadence, while
seemingly a primarily physical task, requires the utmost in mental discipline
and calm to successfully complete. The difficulty to place the cylinders for
the first cadence is Moderate with Control, Easy with Sense, and
Very Difficult if using Dexterity or Perception. Hence, Vo'ren
Fallo's warning: "If you find this difficult consult your tutor." If
the Jedi-in-training is trying to use one of his attributes to perform this
exercise, he has failed to understand exactly what is required of him.
Performing the initial exercise (one cylinder and ball bearing)
requires a Heroic Lightsaber skill roll, a Difficult Lightsaber
roll if used with a Moderate Control roll, or a Moderate Lightsaber roll
with a Moderate Sense roll. Each time the Jedi successfully completes
one phase of the cadence, reduce the difficulty by one level (minimum of Easy
difficulty).
Each subsequent step of the cadence has the same level of
difficult as the initial task, with modifiers based on the number of cylinders:
q
+5 for two to ten cylinders
q
+10 for eleven to nineteen
cylinders
Each time a phase of the cadence is completed, reduce the
difficulty by one level (with a minimum of Easy).
The Gamemaster may also add modifiers based on variations, for
example, adding +5 to the difficulty for left-handed; +10 for drawing the saber
and left-handed; +20 for blindfolded, drawing the saber and left-handed.
The student is expected to learn to spend time preparing for
this task, and he must master keeping his control roll up while
demonstrating his or her proficiency with the Lightsaber.
In order to advance to the second cadence, the entire set of
exercises must be completed one after the other within the allotted one hour.
This cadence may be simulated by only two or three die rolls instead of rolling
for every ball bearing.
If the student has any Dark Side Points, every Dark Side Point
raises the difficulty of this exercise by five points. This is because the
lesson requires a great deal of inner calm to be completed, and the Dark Side
destroys this calm. An astute Jedi might use this cadence as an indication of
how badly he or she has been tainted by the Dark Side.
Once the cadence has been completed, the Jedi will always be
able to complete it at will, unless his difficulty number rises later for some
reason (such as gaining a Dark Side Point). Therefore, even though the dice
might not cooperate, once a Jedi has succeeded once he will always be able to
manage this exercise unless he has accumulated Dark Side Points.
Duration: Two hours
Preparation: The second cadence
requires 72 cylinders and 2,701 ball bearings.
Cadence: The cylinders must be
placed at five degree intervals (rather than 10 degree intervals); by the end
of the cadence at full 360 degree circle is covered. There should be two
ball bearings at the zero degree position, so that you can start and end at
zero degrees.
Where the first cadence allows over 18 seconds to place each
cylinder and complete the saber strike, the second cadence permits just under
three seconds to complete each one.
This cadence requires the Jedi to be able to strike accurately
at all points around him. In the easier versions, you are permitted to turn to
face the point at which you are striking. Once you have mastered this, you are expected
to be able to strike at any point around you without having to turn at all;
simply reach with the saber and use the Force to guide the stroke.
Game Notes: The second cadence
requires a Moderate control roll to place the cylinders (or an
easy sense roll). Completing the each step of the cadence requires a
heroic Lightsaber roll with a Moderate control or a Moderate Lightsaber
roll with a Difficult control roll. Make six rolls to summarize the
entire cadence. this assumes that the Jedi has completed the first cadence.
Duration: Three hours
Preparation: The third cadence requires
a total of 180 cylinders and 16,290 ball bearings.
Cadence: The cylinders are placed a
2 degree intervals, and the strike patterns used generally involve destroying
every fifth ball bearing, then every fourth of the remainder, then every third,
and so on until none are left. The exercise allows only one third of a second
to complete all placements and all strikes.
Game Notes: The third cadence requires
a Difficult Sense roll to place the cylinders. Completing the cadence
requires a Heroic Lightsaber total, a Heroic (with a +15 modifier to the
difficulty) control and a Difficult sense total, rolling once for
each hour of the cadence.
Duration: Four hours
Preparation: This cadence requires 360
cylinders. By now, the student should know whether his strike is accurate
enough and therefore no ball bearings should be needed. Instead, the cylinders
themselves should be 10.1 centimeters long with a raised center.
Cadence: Place the cylinders at 1
degree intervals. The saber strikes must be made in patters corresponding to a
series of complex mathematical equations. This means that on top of the fact
that the Jedi can afford barely over one fifth of a second to strike, he also
has to perform the complex calculations needed in his head without error and
without slowing down.
Game Notes: The fourth cadence
requires a Heroic Lightsaber roll, a Heroic (with +25 modifier) control
roll, and a Heroic sense roll while performing complex mental
calculations (a Difficult Knowledge roll, or an additional Difficult control
roll). Roll once for every ten minutes of the cadence. Many Jedi are still
working on this cadence at the time they complete their training.
Duration: Three hours
Preparation: By this stage there is no
longer any need to use large numbers of ball bearings or wax cylinders.
Cadence: Completing this cadence is
the mark of a Jedi Master. The Jedi can know exactly where the cylinders would
have been; therefore they are no longer needed.
For the first two hours, the Jedi must concentrate to make
strikes at the appropriate locations, with a Heroic (with +25 modifier) Lightsaber
roll, a Heroic (with +35 modifier) control and a Heroic (with +25
modifier) sense roll, while performing complex mental calculations (a
Difficult Knowledge roll, or an additional Difficult control
roll). Roll once for every ten minutes.
For the final third of the cadence, the Jedi must use the telekinesis
Force power to levitate his or her Lightsaber and perform the saber strikes.
The Jedi must stand in the "middle" of the imaginary candle circle,
so the Lightsaber must be maneuvered around him. This requires a Heroic control
roll, and the telekinesis difficult is Heroic +60 (to be rolled once
every ten minutes).
The remote is a very old and surprisingly subtle form of Force
Training. The object is for the student to use his Lightsaber combat skill
to reflect an attack back at the globe sufficiently accurately to deactivate
it. Most remotes contain an on-board micro-processor that allows it to perform
under its own power, and can have anything form 2D to 6D in stunner
and/or dodge. The bolts it fires can likewise be set to do from 1D to 3D
stun damage. The globe may be set to have 1D to 7D Strength for damage
resistance purposes. More lethal versions of remotes have been known to be
employed as sentry or assassination units.
Tricks such as using absorb/dissipate energy to fend off
the stun bolts should be used by the pupil to help him/her complete the
exercises. While acting under tuition, the tutor may forbid the pupil from
using some of these tricks in order to stretch different areas of his skill,
and may also require the student to be blindfolded, to use his saber left- or
two-handed, or to only draw it on being attacked in order to make the exercise
more difficult.
One major point that this exercise covers is "what if the
Jedi-to-be uses his sense skill to guide a Lightsaber attack against the
globe itself?" This is using the Force for attack, which is an offense
that would normally gain the pupil a Dark Side Point. Fortunately, because this
is a training exercise, this penalty does not apply, and the flaw may be
corrected without further harm being done, though the pupil ma be rebuked by
the Master for violating the procedures of a defensive exercise.
The object of this training exercise is, starting with an empty
bottle and a vacuseal stopper, to finish with a bottle of pure oxygen,
extracted from air, using only Force skills. It is yet another test of a Jedi's
mental discipline and concentration, and teaches the student how to extend his
awareness and control beyond the readily perceptible. The base time to perform
this exercise is one day. This task requires knowledge of the telekinesis
power, and all difficulties apply to this power.
Step One: Emptying the Bottle
First the bottle must be completely emptied. Jedi tend to take a
very literal view of this type of instruction; completely emptying the bottle
means evaluating it to as close to a 100% vacuum as possible. A 10% vacuum
requires a Difficult roll (this reduces the pressure inside the bottle from 1
atmosphere to 0.9 atmospheres). A 90% vacuum requires a Very Difficult roll. A
99% vacuum requires a Heroic (with +15 modifier) and so on. This power must be
kept up or the bottle will immediately flood with air again.
At any time, a roll of 60 will tell the Jedi exactly how many
molecules remain within the bottle at any given time. One corollary of this is
that on a Very Difficult sense roll for any Jedi with the telekinesis
power, the Jedi can tell how much something weighs to the nearest 0.001
milligram.
Step Two: Filling the Oxygen
This is really difficult part. The Jedi must now permit oxygen
molecules (and no others) to re-enter the bottle. His earlier telekinesis
roll must be kept up, he needs a Difficult sense roll in order to
identify the molecules he is supposed to be admitting, and he needs a Heroic telekinesis
roll in order to make his barrier selectively permeable.
This process normally takes 12 hours. The Jedi must roll once
for each hour. The Jedi may speed up the process, by adding +10 to the difficulty
of each roll for each hour saved.
Duration: One hour
Preparation: You will require a number
of balls of equal size. 3D-billiards balls are a good size to use to begin
with.
Task: In the simplest exercise,
simply stack the balls one atop the other as high as you can go. Then
experiment with forming arches, free-floating structures, inverted pyramids,
orbital systems and so on. Try building the balls in as many different orders
as possible -- from the floor upwards, from the apex downwards, from the center
outwards, and at random -- so that you have to levitate and insert balls
through narrow gaps.
Game Notes: This task requires the telekinesis
Force power, requiring anywhere form a Moderate to Heroic totals; additional modifiers
may be applied as necessary.
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