Star Wars Saga: Unstoppable Force vs. Imperial Military Training ?

[CaptRory]

Unstoppable Force gives a +5 insight bonus to Fortitude and Will Defense against any attack or effect requiring a Use the Force check.

Imperial Military Training: Once per encounter, as a free action on your turn, you can negate any one mind-affecting effect targeting or currently affecting you.

Context:

I don't have any abilities or things that let me use once per encounter things more than once.
The GM take a broad view of what constitutes an encounter. They might last awhile and draw in what might be called several encounters.

So I'm wondering, how many mind effecting things aren't force powers and whether a single "Get out of jail free" card will be much help. "Oh, he broke out of mind control." *Whammies him again* I'm wondering if a persistent +5 bonus isn't better.

[Unbeliever]

I've just started getting into SWSE again.  There's a fair number of Noble talents that are mind-affecting.  Though, I don't know how many of them have durations that are longer than a turn.  This is stuff that would inflict penalties or deny you actions.

They are both pretty good feats if you're looking for mental defense.  I generally think Unstoppable Force is quite a powerful feat.  Though it depends on the number of Sith, et al. you encounter.  Most GMs can't help themselves and make all the BBEGs dark force users (following all Star Wars media, it seems), so it's a big help.  On the other hand, I like Imperial Military Training's "always works" effect.

It sounds like you're leaning towards IMT, but are worried about its utility.  A lot of SWSE abilities are like force powers and expended for the encounter.  So, I don't know how big a concern it would be that you'd just whammied again and again.  Unless your GM is really cheesy and a bit cheaty. 

As a side note, if he's messing up the nature of an "encounter" then SWSE is going to get pear-shaped real quickly.  It's inherently a little vague, but still.

[CaptRory]

Thanks for replying, you helped frame it a bit better. I'll just ask the GM.

[Unbeliever]

I'm glad my rambling, noncommital comments were at least a little bit helpful.

[Captain Karzak]

As your GM, I would say that both feats are excellent choices for any character in this campaign. However, I would suggest Imperial Military Training has a higher benefit right now.

It is likely that the longer the campaign goes, the more force users you will encounter. Early on, if you are affected by mind-affecting effects, they might be the result of abilities that are not force based. Many noble talents, and fair number of scoundrel talents (and a few soldier talents) do afflict targets with mind-affecting effects. Unstoppable force would be useless against such abilities, but Imperial Military Training will counteract them.

Also, if you do manage to get into hostile encounters with force users early in the campaign, your will defense won't be high enough, even with Unstoppable force, to guarantee that mind-affecting power will fail to affect you. Imperial Military Training on the other hand could prove its worth in such a situation. In an espionage campaign, you should fear the Mind Trick power above all others. Imperial Military Training is an excellent defense against this power.

Not all mind-affecting effects are worth bothering to negate via Imperial Military training. Some affects are a byproduct of an a standard action attack, or the result of a swift-action ability. These kind of effects may often be minor annoyances because they are essentially riders on an actual attack. You can conserve your use of this feat for a more serious instance. If someone dedicates a standard action or a full-round action to afflicting you with a mind-affecting effect, then that MA-E is probably serious enough that you want to activate your Imperial Military Training.

Also, there are 6 of you guys. It's not terribly likely a single player will be bombarded with multiple MA-E's over the course of an encounter while the rest of the party is ignored.

As for things going pearshaped for messing with the nature of "an encounter" I'd like you to back that up, Unbeliever. I have run Saga before and I am confident that almost nothing could be worse than running encounters via the RAW "definition."

I have told the players that a single encounter could span multiple combats and that they should evaluate abilities that last for an entire encounter more favorably, and evaluate 1/encounter abilities more harshly. Players can also gain additional uses of of 1/encounter abilities by spending a force point (we use the daily force points variant rule from JATM) and force powers no longer recover after 1 minute of meditation, they recover at the end of an encounter like any other encounter ability.

[CaptRory]

Sounds good! 

[Unbeliever]

As for things going pearshaped for messing with the nature of "an encounter" I'd like you to back that up, Unbeliever. I have run Saga before and I am confident that almost nothing could be worse than running encounters via the RAW "definition."

Sure, though you already made the argument yourself. 

I have told the players that a single encounter could span multiple combats and that they should evaluate abilities that last for an entire encounter more favorably, and evaluate 1/encounter abilities more harshly. Players can also gain additional uses of of 1/encounter abilities by spending a force point (we use the daily force points variant rule from JATM) and force powers no longer recover after 1 minute of meditation, they recover at the end of an encounter like any other encounter ability.

The definition in the rulebook is pretty fuzzy.  But, there are many 1/encounter abilities, and the longer an "encounter" is the less valuable those all become.  Hence you have (a) warned your players of that fact, and (b) instituted a house rule to allow for extra uses of abilities.  That is, you recognized that this broader treatment of encounters had a substantial effect on the game, that it hurt the stock of some abilities and improved the stock of others, and have taken steps to mitigate it. 

If your treatment of encounters didn't substantially impact game balance, and in a way that might be undesirable (extreme example, everyone avoids 1/encounter abilities), you wouldn't have developed and instituted the above house rules.