FYI - The Force And You
Or, Powers Permissions Post. "You" is used generically.
Presence
A big thing Zahn introduced was the "presence", or "sense". Your emotional state and thoughts are reflected in your sense. Luke can read someone's sense the way he can read faces and body language. And that's a good analogy; it's passive observation, not mindreading.
So, what is it? Largely it's receptive empathy. He can sense if you're distressed, weary, or ecstatic. The sense changes if you've had an idea or are surprised. It reflects doubt, desire, and distraction, and who you're paying attention to or ignoring. Everyone's is a little different. If he's familiar with your sense, he knows if you're near. If you're nonhuman he can sense it, and there's a specific frequency to the sense of a clone which he'll recognize, even if he doesn't remember what it means.
The more he knows you, the more he can infer from your sense, and the farther away he can detect it from. People of an unfamiliar species are very, very hard to read; even sudden hostility can be difficult to pick up. If you have enough emotional self-control, you can suppress changes in your sense just like you can control your facial expressions and body language.
You leave traces of your presence in places where you've been and things you've touched. Luke can pick up on this with his mild psychometry.
If someone's sadistic and cruel without being self-controlled, it's reflected in their sense. If they're around it feels like a sudden tornado on a sunny day, a cold draft in a warm room, the news of a loved one dying. Oddly, though, he can't just listen to the senses of the people around him and go "There, that's the evil one". He just senses that they're near.
If you want Luke to be unable to read into a character's sense, even if they're entirely human and don't have great control of their emotions, please say so. If you play an unrepentantly puppy-killing nasty sonofaSith and don't want him to sense that nearby, please tell me.
Mind Trick
It's rare for him to use it, but he does know the Jedi Mind Trick. I don't subscribe strictly to the idea that it only works on the "weak minded". Sure, if you have no initiative and just follow orders, it's more likely to work; similarly for if you're drugged or half asleep, but the big thing is what he's trying to get you to do. It's easier to persuade you that these are obviously not the droids they're looking for than it is to get you to hand over all your credits and jump to your death. When a Mind Trick succeeds, you don't remember the incident as being strange at all. When it fails, you can see that this guy is standing here giving you orders.
Other Mind Trick skills include calming someone's emotions, making them see things that aren't there, and memory recovery. That last will not work in ES as it does in canon.
I will always ask muns before having him even attempt to use any sort of Mind Trick on anyone but an NPC. There's also a failure rate for the illusion powers; again, I will ask.
Anything Else
Luke can heal with the Force, but there's a failure rate. He can put people in comas, refresh them with the Force (the insta-caffeine power), make someone sick, stun them, or temporarily enhance specific senses. If you don't want him to be able to use these very personal powers on your character - or, hey, if you don't want him telekinesising them or anything else - let me know.
My default assumption for everything but sense-reading will be "no", and I'll ask permissions and link you here for anything. Even insta-caffeine; aside from sense-reading, it's what he'd use with the least hesitation.
Presence
A big thing Zahn introduced was the "presence", or "sense". Your emotional state and thoughts are reflected in your sense. Luke can read someone's sense the way he can read faces and body language. And that's a good analogy; it's passive observation, not mindreading.
So, what is it? Largely it's receptive empathy. He can sense if you're distressed, weary, or ecstatic. The sense changes if you've had an idea or are surprised. It reflects doubt, desire, and distraction, and who you're paying attention to or ignoring. Everyone's is a little different. If he's familiar with your sense, he knows if you're near. If you're nonhuman he can sense it, and there's a specific frequency to the sense of a clone which he'll recognize, even if he doesn't remember what it means.
The more he knows you, the more he can infer from your sense, and the farther away he can detect it from. People of an unfamiliar species are very, very hard to read; even sudden hostility can be difficult to pick up. If you have enough emotional self-control, you can suppress changes in your sense just like you can control your facial expressions and body language.
You leave traces of your presence in places where you've been and things you've touched. Luke can pick up on this with his mild psychometry.
If someone's sadistic and cruel without being self-controlled, it's reflected in their sense. If they're around it feels like a sudden tornado on a sunny day, a cold draft in a warm room, the news of a loved one dying. Oddly, though, he can't just listen to the senses of the people around him and go "There, that's the evil one". He just senses that they're near.
If you want Luke to be unable to read into a character's sense, even if they're entirely human and don't have great control of their emotions, please say so. If you play an unrepentantly puppy-killing nasty sonofaSith and don't want him to sense that nearby, please tell me.
Mind Trick
It's rare for him to use it, but he does know the Jedi Mind Trick. I don't subscribe strictly to the idea that it only works on the "weak minded". Sure, if you have no initiative and just follow orders, it's more likely to work; similarly for if you're drugged or half asleep, but the big thing is what he's trying to get you to do. It's easier to persuade you that these are obviously not the droids they're looking for than it is to get you to hand over all your credits and jump to your death. When a Mind Trick succeeds, you don't remember the incident as being strange at all. When it fails, you can see that this guy is standing here giving you orders.
Other Mind Trick skills include calming someone's emotions, making them see things that aren't there, and memory recovery. That last will not work in ES as it does in canon.
I will always ask muns before having him even attempt to use any sort of Mind Trick on anyone but an NPC. There's also a failure rate for the illusion powers; again, I will ask.
Anything Else
Luke can heal with the Force, but there's a failure rate. He can put people in comas, refresh them with the Force (the insta-caffeine power), make someone sick, stun them, or temporarily enhance specific senses. If you don't want him to be able to use these very personal powers on your character - or, hey, if you don't want him telekinesising them or anything else - let me know.
My default assumption for everything but sense-reading will be "no", and I'll ask permissions and link you here for anything. Even insta-caffeine; aside from sense-reading, it's what he'd use with the least hesitation.