This occurred to me today. Assume you have:

Garven + R5-P9

Kyle + Moldy Crow

Given the precedent of being able to spend focus tokens on rolls with no [focus] results, do you think Garven can spend his focus via R5-P9 at the end of the initial Combat Phases (before the enemy is close enough to shoot)? He cannot increase above his shield value of course, but the point is just to charge Kyle's focus banks.

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Seems like you can spend a focus token on R5-P9 even if you already have the maximum number of shields.

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Seems like you can spend a focus token on R5-P9 even if you already have the maximum number of shields.

Agreed

Well frak. I looked for an existing discussion prior to posting this, but the search function did not find that thread.

I'm going to be the dissenting voice on this one.

I'm actually not sure that the previous ruling on spending tokens for no benefit applies to R5-P9. At the very least, I think the parallel depends on something that we don't actually know.

You never actually spend a token for no benefit - you spend a (focus, for example) token to change all eyeballs to hits. You can accomplish that whether there are any eyeballs or not. Same for target locks - even if you reroll no dice, you have rerolled any number of dice, and adding an evade result works whether you need it or not. But R5-P9 is different. You spend one token to recover one shield. There's a difference between "an arbitrary range that includes zero", and "one".

Our understanding has generally been "can take an action to no benefit" but at no point does spending a focus to change results rely on having something to change, so it doesn't fail. I'm not sure the same applies to R5-P9. There are two questions that I don't know that we know the answer to:

1) Does R5-P9's ability fail if you're at max shields?

2) If it does, can you still initiate the ability (and pay the cost) even if it will fail?

None of our current examples answer these, because none of the abilities have limits or requirements which could make them fail. R5-P9 explicitly includes the "up to your shield value", which may mean it works differently.

For now I'd be inclined to say you can spend the token even if you're at max shields, but I think that's on shakier ground than a lot of people think.

With the huge ships if you choose the action to recharge your shields you "spend" all of your energy even if you don't increase shields for all of that energy or even increase them at all. I see R5P9 working the same way.

It does seem rather cheesy that you can use R5-P9 when you've got full shields in order to pass focus tokens onto Kyle. But the fact that you can spend TL tokens and reroll 0 dice does set something of a precedent. I wouldn't be surprised if this card might get reworded later down the track.

With the huge ships if you choose the action to recharge your shields you "spend" all of your energy even if you don't increase shields for all of that energy or even increase them at all. I see R5P9 working the same way.

I don't think the analogy quite works, though. Spending all of your energy to recover all of your shields is closer to the TL and Focus situations; you spend something to recover/change/reroll a given number of other somethings. It's just that zero is an acceptable number in those instances. As Buhallin explained better above, R5-P9 works a bit differently, and could simply fail in the same way as a boost or BR.

I think I'd agree with Buhallin in the end; at the moment it's probably okay, but don't be surprised if FFG end up saying otherwise.

Honestly, it doesn't worry me either way. Putting R5-P9 on Garven is a pretty bad combination, as their abilities really don't work all that well together. If you're interested in stacking focus to the Crow, there are much better ways to do it.

I think Garven could do it with R5-P9. The rules don't allow/disallow based on whether or not the spending of a token will or will not change a result, simply that the token gets spent/used. The only part of the phrase that causes concern is the "up to your shield value" which which I translate as you can't overcharge your shields past what your ship card/SU card allows.

Here's Garven and R5-P9 coming in with Biggs Kyle on an attack run against some TIEs...

Garven: R5! Try to increase the shields! [spends Focus token]

R5-P9: Beep bloop beep (Translation: Uhm dude, the shields are already at full power but if you really want me to try... ) [No effect on shields as they're at full]

Garven: Awesomesauce! Hey Biggs Kyle, pay attention out there and don't get shot up keep up your visual scanning! [Gives Focus to Biggs] [Gives Focus to Kyle for safe keeping]

Edited because I was trying to post on here instead of doing the work I'm getting paid to do... Thanks Rekkon.

Except R5-P9 activates at the end of the Combat Phase, so giving Biggs a focus token at that point does nothing. The only case where it would do something is Garven passing it to a Moldy Crow for use next turn.

The only case where it would do something is Garven passing it to a Moldy Crow for use next turn.

Or handing it to Corran Horn. Or handing it to the guy Corran Horn shoots.

Except R5-P9 activates at the end of the Combat Phase, so giving Biggs a focus token at that point does nothing. The only case where it would do something is Garven passing it to a Moldy Crow for use next turn.

That's what happens when I'm trying to do something quickly before a meeting, instead of paying attention to the meeting that's about to happen.