Hello.

I'm the player in Kilcannon's game that posed the question about the chandelier.

I think there have been interesting points made in this thread and people have covered what I may have said. I'm just here to fill in how it came up for anyone who may be interested.

It was after a game and someone was in XP range of Spitfire, so we started talking about it. It seemed odd that you could pop off relatively easy shots at a nemesis while there were minions around, but as soon as you killed the last one, you'd have to concentrate on the nemesis, which would make for a more difficult shot.

Just thinking through, there seemed to be nothing special about shooting at a minion specifically, so why not just shoot at something else first. The difficulty would be the same, roughly. You could even shoot at something within short range, to make the shot easier. When it was noted that just shooting random nearby objects to get a better chance to his was silly, I thought of some "good reasons" to shoot at an object, such as a control panel or radio console or exploding barrel or even a chandelier for the purpose of dropping on an enemy. There seemed to be some continuum ranging from "that's reasonable" to "that's absurd" when picking the target one rolls against. I think we basically agreed to try and stay on the reasonable side, but there wasn't an exact ruling.

I was just pushing the thought to see where it would go, not intending to implement the tactic.

just shooting random crap around the rooms seems lame. Shooting the chandelier to drop on the nemesis or a barrel of fuel or something with the intent to do damage to the nemesis seems much better.

This is something that can be done without Spitfire.

But a falling chandelier on a Nemesis to make his shot easier was what I was thinking when my player asked. Never thought he would shoot the chandelier and then 20 feet away shoot the nemesis. That being said i still think an official ruling on the talent is needed and we may never get one.

Reminds me of old Murphy, who stood up one night to protest the purchase of a new chandelier for the local parish. "This is for three reasons. Firstly," he told the congregation, "I'm fairly certain that only a few of us can spell it. Second, there's no one in the church who can play it. And thirdly, what we're really needing is more light."

I know how it works. Because I can read. It is not a complicated talent. Why some people have trouble with it I don't know.

It reads pretty high on the Too-Good-To-Be-True-Ometer—for some, it's too high. That, and the fact that the name of the talent (for some) implies a very different mechanic, lead some to believe that the text is missing something, or is in need of greater explanation.

At least, that's what it looks like to me!

Every talent is a break from the norm of how you run things. That is kind of the point. Some downgrade difficulties, some lower difficulties, Some make things easier...So on and so forth. I say as a GM you should rely on more than just the adversary talent to make things challenging.

So you get a single shot onto a nemesis without adversary or setbacks being involved. You still get to soak the attack. so we are talking about what maybe 5 damage? That is what you are fighting about? 5 damage to a Nemesis who likely has around what 50 wounds? We are talking about characters that likely have at least 75 xp. And since I don't think people are going to make a B line to that talents as there is some really good stuff along the way the player is likely going to have more.

I don't see how you can interpret the talent in any other way. Run it like autofire and it is not longer a good expenditure of xp. It becomes pretty lame if you run it like autofire. Certainly not worth 25 xp.

Yeah I know, I agree with you there Daeglan.

I don't think players should be allowed to "shoot bushes" and then hit a Nemesis with the talent. That's obviously abusing the RAW, and any GM would be within their rights to make a rock fall on that PC

FWIW, the Order 66 Podcast gave a pretty good review of this talent, a good several episodes back. They ruled it as written , and even gave the example of being able to hit an Adversary-heavy nemesis at medium/long range by first targeting a minion at short range.

There are other ways for the nemesis to stop damage, though. Squads, Imperial Valor, and Reflect all come to mind.

I know how it works. Because I can read. It is not a complicated talent. Why some people have trouble with it I don't know.

I can read, too. And I read it totally differently than you do.

Why some people have trouble with that I don't know.

I know how it works. Because I can read. It is not a complicated talent. Why some people have trouble with it I don't know.

I can read, too. And I read it totally differently than you do.

Why some people have trouble with that I don't know.

Come on now guys. There is a plain reading of the text which Daeglan prescribes to, and an inferred effect that bradknowles prescribes to. Let's leave it at that.

Yeah I know, I agree with you there Daeglan.

I don't think players should be allowed to "shoot bushes" and then hit a Nemesis with the talent. That's obviously abusing the RAW, and any GM would be within their rights to make a rock fall on that PC

FWIW, the Order 66 Podcast gave a pretty good review of this talent, a good several episodes back. They ruled it as written , and even gave the example of being able to hit an Adversary-heavy nemesis at medium/long range by first targeting a minion at short range.

There are other ways for the nemesis to stop damage, though. Squads, Imperial Valor, and Reflect all come to mind.

I agree shooting bushes and then shooting a nemesis is lame. On the other hand if the GM provides targets that make sense this wont be a problem. Shooting a door control to close an escape root then shooting the nemesis.

I believe the Rules as intended is for a player to be able to shoot a rival or minion and then hit some other NPC with the second shot. And I can see creative uses for the talent like trying to effect the environment in some way and placing another shot into something else. Shooting the floor and then a nemesis is abusive I agree and should be shut down. But if you are trying to do something creative one should not say no.

And BradKnowles. The text is pretty straight forward. Why you are ttrying to add some subtext that is not there I don't know.

This is the long form text.

"After making a successful combined check with 2 range (light) weapons, each additional hit generated as part of the attack can be allocated to any other target within range of the weapon."

Please show me how you arrive at your version Bradknowles.

Please show me how you arrive at your version Bradknowles.

There are plenty of cases where the developers have given us clarifications that amount to “If it hurts, then don’t do that!”.

Or, “Here’s this completely logical limitation that you obviously overlooked, and which we clearly forgot to mention.”

Or, “Here’s this different reading of the rules that you might disagree with, so feel free to house rule it some other way, but this is the official ruling.”

Pick one.

But speaking only for myself, I strongly disagree with your “reading” of the text.

Please show me how you arrive at your version Bradknowles.

There are plenty of cases where the developers have given us clarifications that amount to “If it hurts, then don’t do that!”.

Or, “Here’s this completely logical limitation that you obviously overlooked, and which we clearly forgot to mention.”

Or, “Here’s this different reading of the rules that you might disagree with, so feel free to house rule it some other way, but this is the official ruling.”

Pick one.

But speaking only for myself, I strongly disagree with your “reading” of the text.

You disagree. I said explain to me how you get to where you are with reading that text. As I see no where where it reads like autofire. Or anywhere where it talks about using the more difficult target.(probably because like any two weapon fighting attack you only have one target.) In fact the way I read it it gives you an extra thing you can do if you make a successful 2 weapon fighting attack on a target and have enough advantage to trigger qualities. IE if you have enough advantage you can spend 2 of them to hit a target anywhere in range. If you did not get enough advantage you just hit the first target.

DAeglan completely agree. If someone argues the case that the talent as written it is too powerful or the Devs need to errata then maybe I would say let's get those Devs to respond. But agree as written this is what it does.

And originally when asked I pictures the chandelier dropping on the nemesis head and the gunslinger takes advantage of an opening in the nemesis's distraction. I also run a game where I am in in control and if a player said I hit a bush over on the left and then hit a nemesis on the right with no explanation of how that helps him hit then it's not gonna happen.

In Spy: Infiltrator the Talent Clever Solution spells out that you need to explain how cunning helps in that roll to substitute another characteristic. I don't need that to be in the talent text for me to run my game that way. Anytime a talent can do something that cool and the player doesn't use it in a clear way I ask for explanation or description in the scene. That being said spitfire would just need thought before just using at my table of how am I gonna pull that off

You know, all this talk about minions absorbing hits for "higher ranked" antagonists reminds me, as an inversion, about the old yarns about the death rates for lieutenants in combat...

You know, all this talk about minions absorbing hits for "higher ranked" antagonists reminds me, as an inversion, about the old yarns about the death rates for lieutenants in combat...

Narratively speaking this is either bad luck for the minion they stepped into the shot or they are that loyal and sacrifice themselves or even someone like Vader stepping behind a minion. Narrative is important and this system is all about narrative. And how you narrate things will tell your players what kind of person the NPC is. Are they a monster? are they super well respected that they inspire self sacrifice? How does the squad leader react to one of their own dying? Are they like Vader who think underlings are like Doritos and that they will make more? Or does that leader get angry with each senseless death?

This system is flexible with what mechanics mean so that you can tell the story you want to tell. Mechanics tell you what you can do. You decide what the narrative is that explains what is happening.

You disagree. I said explain to me how you get to where you are with reading that text.

The rules are not meant to be read or taken in a vacuum. No rule in the book stands totally and completely by itself.

Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the ad nauseum pages and pages of “just use common sense!” threads.

For me, your reading of the rules fails to take into account certain common sense factors.

For me, if you want to target the BBEG, then you target the BBEG. No ifs, ands, or buts. If you want to shoot the chandelier so that it falls on the BBEG, you can do that. However, you’re still effectively targeting the BBEG with the chandelier, and so you’ve just made that shot all that more difficult by making it an indirect targeting.

If you want to target groups of minions, then with this talent you could shoot two different minion groups that otherwise have the same difficulty, and you do so without additional upgrading or increasing the difficulty of the shot.

So, this 25 point talent gives you something like limited Auto-Fire for your Two Weapon Combat, but without the increased difficulty, and that makes it worth it. It’s not the best 25 point talent in the game, but it’s decent.

I am not sure if this was mentioned before but I think shooting an inanimate object is more a "skill" check and not really a combat check. That is how I would handle any shenanigans about shooting the floor and the BBEG. I do think though that if you work your way up to that 25 xp skill then it should do something a little more than a limited version of autofire. I would allow the aim at minions and then hit the BBEG. You can do other things that can mitigate this talent.

• High soak
• maybe have a talent that allows him to "redirect" damage to a minion in engaged range
• Reflect

You disagree. I said explain to me how you get to where you are with reading that text.

The rules are not meant to be read or taken in a vacuum. No rule in the book stands totally and completely by itself.Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the ad nauseum pages and pages of “just use common sense!” threads.For me, your reading of the rules fails to take into account certain common sense factors.For me, if you want to target the BBEG, then you target the BBEG. No ifs, ands, or buts. If you want to shoot the chandelier so that it falls on the BBEG, you can do that. However, you’re still effectively targeting the BBEG with the chandelier, and so you’ve just made that shot all that more difficult by making it an indirect targeting.If you want to target groups of minions, then with this talent you could shoot two different minion groups that otherwise have the same difficulty, and you do so without additional upgrading or increasing the difficulty of the shot.So, this 25 point talent gives you something like limited Auto-Fire for your Two Weapon Combat, but without the increased difficulty, and that makes it worth it. It’s not the best 25 point talent in the game, but it’s decent.

Also 2 weapon fighting does not work in any way like autofire. In that you only choose one target. So you can't do things like autofire. Because this talent happens AFTER you made the roll and are spending adv.

What part of spend 2 advantage to hit ANY target in range is difficult for you? Why would they write that if they did not mean for you to be able to hit ANY target in range?

You asked me to explain. I explained.

If you refuse to accept my explanation, then so be it.

What I can’t comprehend is why you find it necessary to be reacting so violently to the concept that you might read a certain passage one way and someone else might read it differently.

If you want to go on a Jihad to wipe out all the infidels and non-believers, then you’re welcome to do that without me.

*plonk*

What part of spend 2 advantage to hit ANY target in range is difficult for you? Why would they write that if they did not mean for you to be able to hit ANY target in range?

You asked me to explain. I explained.

If you refuse to accept my explanation, then so be it.

What I can’t comprehend is why you find it necessary to be reacting so violently to the concept that you might read a certain passage one way and someone else might read it differently.

If you want to go on a Jihad to wipe out all the infidels and non-believers, then you’re welcome to do that without me.

*plonk*

You explained in a way that makes absolutely no sense given rules as written. You are applying autofire rules to something that makes no mention of autofire has no relation to autofire. Would never work like autofire given that 2 weapon fighting assumes a single target. Spitfire allows you to fire a shot at a different target if you have extra advantage and choose to do so. Hence the no mention of changing how you build your pool in the talent. Which should be a pretty good indicator. Since they say on a successful combined check. Which is what you use for two weapon fighting. not autofire. If they wanted it to work like autofire I am pretty sure they would have said to use an autofire check.

I agree with Daeglan here...

The talent puts no limitations on the first target, so you can freely target a minion, who doesn't have Adversary or any defense, for your first hit and then allocate the second hit with Spitfire to the Nemesis, who has 3 ranks of Adversary and a defense rating of 4. To me, it's a correct interpretation of the talent RAW. Wouldn't it be the same thing with a Grenade, throwing it at the minion and triggering blast to hurt the Nemesis ? same difficulty roll, 2 advantages to hit the Nemesis.... With that example in mind, I don't particularly feel that this talent is OP.

On a side note :

Some examples shown here would also fit the "Call'Em" talent... like shooting the door controls to cut off an escape.

But for shooting the chandelier to distract the Nemesis, my players would probably get this answer : "shooting the chandelier is standard range difficulty, to distract the Nemesis, you need to spend 2 advantages to allocate him a setback dice". I'd also allow the player to shoot at a minion and spend 2 advantages to hit the chandelier to distract the Nemesis... same effect for 2 advantages, but you shot something useful first

On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 5:47 PM, Daeglan said:

You explained in a way that makes absolutely no sense given rules as written. You are applying autofire rules to something that makes no mention of autofire has no relation to autofire. Would never work like autofire given that 2 weapon fighting assumes a single target. Spitfire allows you to fire a shot at a different target if you have extra advantage and choose to do so. Hence the no mention of changing how you build your pool in the talent. Which should be a pretty good indicator. Since they say on a successful combined check. Which is what you use for two weapon fighting. not autofire. If they wanted it to work like autofire I am pretty sure they would have said to use an autofire check.

I agree with Daeglan on this one, too.

A Narrative way to explain how this works would either be the self-sacrificing minion or the assumption that shooting the targeted minion first has completely lowered the Nemesis' defense/adversary rating. This is, as far as I know, the only mechanical way to shoot multiple targets and, given the steep 25 XP cost, this more than makes up for it.