I think the simple fact you can search and find multiple threads on autofire pretty much says it all. A starter PC with a 5 agility and 15 xp in the Gadgeteer tree is a death hose RAW.

A Simpler fix for that would be to say no PC may start with an ability over 4. Rather than attempt to change how the weapons themselves work.

Again, it's irrelevant. The thread topic is asking whether autofire is broken. If you limit stats to 4, that's still an effort to rein it in, which is still showing there is an issue. That and even a 4 agility character with a couple ranks in weapon skill double aiming a jury rigged autofire weapon is going to rack up 3+ hits consistently.

the issue, though, isn't that Autofire is broken... It is Characters built specifically to Abuse Autofire.

The design of the game appears to have been meant that such a combination not show up for quite a while into the game, where even the adversaries in combat became more powerful, armor became more prevalent and protecting. Big bads became harder to hit.

So the real fix isn't to change autofire, but to reign characters back in character creation to prevent players from start the game where the game was never intended to start.

By changing autofire, you change the game in whole from beginning to end. versus fixing the real issue at it's root.

the issue, though, isn't that Autofire is broken... It is Characters built specifically to Abuse Autofire.

The design of the game appears to have been meant that such a combination not show up for quite a while into the game, where even the adversaries in combat became more powerful, armor became more prevalent and protecting. Big bads became harder to hit.

So the real fix isn't to change autofire, but to reign characters back in character creation to prevent players from start the game where the game was never intended to start.

How precisely is autofire being abused? Take a 4 agility at chargen, that's hardly abusive. Jury rigged is a 10 xp talent in the Gadgeteer tree on the way to its Dedication bonus. RAW allows any weapon effect to be reduced by 1 to a minimum of 1. None of that is abuse at all remotely, that is RAW.

That character can be made session zero day 1. That is absolutely an indication of autofire being broken.

I think the point the cap'n is making is: if you can't let Auto-Fire lie as the rules as written, and have to do anything at all to compensate for it in any way , whether talking down a player from abusing it or modifying the cost or whatever, then it has a problem. Big or little. Glaring or subtle.

So:

Is Autofire Broken? If so, can it be fixed?

Apparently, yes. Apparently, yes.

The degree of its broken-ness is up for debate, and the solutions come in differently flavored bunches.

the issue, though, isn't that Autofire is broken... It is Characters built specifically to Abuse Autofire.

The design of the game appears to have been meant that such a combination not show up for quite a while into the game, where even the adversaries in combat became more powerful, armor became more prevalent and protecting. Big bads became harder to hit.

So the real fix isn't to change autofire, but to reign characters back in character creation to prevent players from start the game where the game was never intended to start.

How precisely is autofire being abused? Take a 4 agility at chargen, that's hardly abusive. Jury rigged is a 10 xp talent in the Gadgeteer tree on the way to its Dedication bonus. RAW allows any weapon effect to be reduced by 1 to a minimum of 1. None of that is abuse at all remotely, that is RAW.

That character can be made session zero day 1. That is absolutely an indication of autofire being broken.

your original premise wasn't a character with a 4 ability or 10 points in the gadgeteer tree it was :

A starter PC with a 5 agility and 15 xp in the Gadgeteer tree is a death hose RAW.

Now, I am not speaking from experience, as I have only been running this particaular RPG for a couple months now... though I can see a character with a 5 in any Ability being a Power house in many ways as it gives a 5 Dice pool to all related skills. Much more effective than a character who has any lesser sized dice pool with Proficiency ranks instead.

I don't see the game as having accounted for such characters being common in the game. A character so Narrowly focused would have many blind spots and weaknesses to exploit by the GM.

So giving me parameters from which to Argue your point in one post, and then changing those parameters in the next post is not a good way to argue.

My point is that the Game was not designed to "balance" an extremely narrow focused character, nor should it. Nor is Autofire, or jury Rig itself the problem. The problem is a player specifically power gaming the system to abuse what they see is a Loophole in the rules to try and build an unstoppable combat monster.

I am not saying the character is Unstoppable but having dealt with such players in games for my entire life as a GM, I know how they think. I had a Player Who always tried to "power Game" his characters around what "HE" felt would make his have no weaknesses in the game I was running. Of course he based this solely on reading the game books, and not on playing in my game. After a Few sessions played in my game, I started to see "changes" in his character based on what he "Thought" I was Emphasizing in my game to cover the "weak spots" in his character.... what this summed up to was the player was Cheating in his characters advancement to cover his weak spots to try and again "power game" the system so he would never fail anything.

Now I am no saying all Power gamers are cheaters. This was an Extreme example from my own history, but it does exemplify the true issue.

The problem isn't really in the game, it is in those who feel the need to exploit what they think is a games weaknesses in order to be the most baddass character possible. Which in most cases, really just ruined the game for everyone else.

My read, and you may not agree with it and that is okay, of the game rules and the situation is not that these things are broken, they are just being exploited by the player(s).

I as a Gm, either close the loop in the simplest way possible, Or I exploit the players weaknesses back just as they exploited the game.

As was said to me, in a personal discussion with some friends who are game designers of successful RPG games, you can only Attempt to balance a game so far and still retain a game the players want to play, as well as actually publish it in a timely manner. There will always be those who will find Loopholes and weaknesses in the game that those who are of a mind to will find and exploit. The Game designer has to let it go at some point and Trust that the GMs running the game will "Balance" back at those players to help maintain the integrity of the game. And that the other Non Power gamers, The Good ROLE players (vs the Roll Players) will aid the Gm in these efforts.

If all a Player wants to do is MOW down the Enemy, they will find a way to do it. If a GM continues to "change" the original game to try to compensate for this behavior, they will all end up with a watered down game. Best to let those player Find tables where people enjoy that kind of play, and Find players for your games where such changes aren't necessary and play within the SPirit of the game rather than trying to "Win" or "Beat" the game.

4 or 5 stat isn't really a big difference, particularly at short range. I'm also not arguing, autofire combined with Jury Rigged is OP RAW imo.

I think the simple fact you can search and find multiple threads on autofire pretty much says it all. A starter PC with a 5 agility and 15 xp in the Gadgeteer tree is a death hose RAW.

So are many other builds. If you can't write encounters for autofire. You are going to have the same problem with every lightsaber wielder, Gunslingers and any other build that is optimized for combat. The question should not be is autofire broken. It should be how do I handle someone who is optimized for autofire. Because I see the same kinds of threads for Marauders, doublebladed lightsabers. Gunslingers. etc. None of these things are broken. All of these things can be taken into account in encounter design. Think outside the box. Hit them in the dump stats. give them problems that cannot be solved with autofire. Stop assuming a good combination is broken. There are many good combinations in the game that can do similar things. And if you nerf autofire because you think it is too powerful you better be prepared to nerf every other combo in the game. Though I think that will be futile. Instead just plan for it. Autofire is not that hard to plan for. Bigger minion groups. Tougher rivals, throw in some nemesis npcs. use the squad rules from the AoR GM screen. Imperial valor. Adversary talent. There are many tools in the GMs tool box. Don't be afraid to get creative with them. And for the love of....this is not GM versus player. This is about telling cool stories.

Again, it's irrelevant. The thread topic is asking whether autofire is broken. If you limit stats to 4, that's still an effort to rein it in, which is still showing there is an issue. That and even a 4 agility character with a couple ranks in weapon skill double aiming a jury rigged autofire weapon is going to rack up 3+ hits consistently.

If they pumped all their xp into one stat theyare going to have major dump stats. hit them there. one trick ponies are weak. Because they only have one trick. You don't have to play into that one trick. In fact you shouldn't play into it all the time. You also shouldnt deny them the use of that trick all the time. Balance.

I make it the base cost, but +1 Advantage for each extra hit. So even with Jury Rigged it's somewhat under control.

Edit: I find Linked worse for space combat, I've replaced it with Autofire.

Clarification please on what you mean here. RAW it's 2 Advantage for each extra hit. Do you mean 2 Advantage for the 1st extra hit, 3 more Advantage for the second, 4 more for the 3rd? And thus with Jury Rigged, 1, 2, 3, etc for the cost of extra hits?

OR, do you mean first costs 2, any others past that point cost 3? With Jury Rigged that comes to 1, 2, 2, etc.

After two campaigns of Edge I have my share of Autofire woes.

The first autofire user had a heavy repeating blaster rifle, which was modified to the nines for damage, accuracy, and to be easier to use in melee. This particular player will be in my Age game, and actually retired the character because it was 1) Cracking the system a bit and 2) starting to bore him.

The second fellow, despite using an E-Web, was actually easier to deal with, because Gunnery straight up can't be used while engaged. So rushing him and clubbing him with stun batons worked just fine to challenge him. Plus, when he started to get bored, he got a personal stealth field and that tractor beam gun and had a great time. For the finale I let him mow down a platoon of stormies for one last huzzah, then chopped the **** E-Web in half and let him play 'hurl the Inquisitor across the room' to his evil heart's content.

It's by no means the only nasty piece of work, and probably not even the nastiest, but it does warp things a bit. Make something that can eat that many shots, or throw in enough minions to soak up the fire, and you might make other characters less useful or doom them if the autofire user goes down early. Again, autofire isn't the only thing that can cause such a dilemma, but it does seem to be the most common cause.

While I'm considering doing something like whafrog's increasing Advantage costs when I run Age, I'm not set on it yet. Whatever happens, if someone breaks out the laser SAW again, the habit of stormtroopers to focus fire will probably continue.

Autofire is by no means the only high damage output option. It's the one that PCs can do essentially right out of the gate for no session xp awarded and that's the principle issue.

I make it the base cost, but +1 Advantage for each extra hit. So even with Jury Rigged it's somewhat under control.

Edit: I find Linked worse for space combat, I've replaced it with Autofire.

Clarification please on what you mean here. RAW it's 2 Advantage for each extra hit. Do you mean 2 Advantage for the 1st extra hit, 3 more Advantage for the second, 4 more for the 3rd? And thus with Jury Rigged, 1, 2, 3, etc for the cost of extra hits?

OR, do you mean first costs 2, any others past that point cost 3? With Jury Rigged that comes to 1, 2, 2, etc.

Yes, I had meant the first option: 2, 3, 4...or with Jury-Rigged: 1, 2, 3

But the second option might be better: a nice balance between overpowered mowing, and giving the player suitable rewards for what they invest in. After all, 5 advantages for three hits with Jury Rigged doesn't seem unreasonable.

In a campaign I'm currently playing, we have 2 autofire weapons in a party with about 100xp post creation. As we've primarily been engaging targets at medium range, they've been essentially useless. The stats of the characters with the weapons and their lack of proficiency in those areas, have provided results of one to two hits with the weapon approximately 80% of the time. There have been several straight misses and on only one occasion were there three hits.

Out of the gate, autofire isn't nearly as large of an issue as seems to be argued. Can it become one? Absolutely, but starting out and for a good while afterward, it's far from overpowering. It takes a good amount of XP dedication to get to the point where 4 and 5 hits become regular occurrences.

cause ffg star wars is no game for power gamers

With all the respect for you and the game. You must be joking. FFG Star Wars is a game for power gamers, may be not as much as D&D, but definitively much more than many other rpgs. It is a game where "combos" pop up every other supplement that it is published.

cause ffg star wars is no game for power gamers

With all the respect for you and the game. You must be joking. FFG Star Wars is a game for power gamers, may be not as much as D&D, but definitively much more than many other rpgs. It is a game where "combos" pop up every other supplement that it is published.

I have to disagree. This is one of the least friendly power-gamer games I've played - The One Ring is at the top - but the narrative focus of the FFG Star Wars run and the limitations on what you can do with things makes it such.

My house rule fix has to been half damage on subsequent activations after the first.

Any game can be power gamed. That's not the issue with autofire. Selecting a 5 agility at chargen is not powergaming. It may not be the most economical build or jack of all trades, but then again agility covers a lot of ground, weapons, piloting, stealth, coordination, so it's not exactly niche.

The problem with autofire is that even with a 4 agility, 15 points into the gadgeteer tree, a day 1 PC can erase the bulk of opponents. By the time you've got 50 xp awarded and a few credits for some basic mods, a PC is smallpox walking. That's not a powergaming build at all, a 4 in a stat and progressing along a talent tree towards the dedication bonus is just playing the game. Using the RAW is not powergaming.

We aren't talking about hopping from merc to gunner to sharpshooter to max out ranks of True Aim and get multiple Deadly Accuracies, that's power gaming. Everything I point out is doable in one spec for practically no xp. That's not power gaming, it's bad design.

If you are setting it up so the auto fire PC is mowing through your opposition you are not taking the character into consideration during your encounter design. And you have no one to blame but your self. Auto fire is easy to deal with.

If you are setting it up so the auto fire PC is mowing through your opposition you are not taking the character into consideration during your encounter design. And you have no one to blame but your self. Auto fire is easy to deal with.

If you're setting up encounters for a weapon effect, you're admitting autofire is an issue. I'd rather just let PCs use it and be able to use it on them without having to think around the effect.

The quick fix I use combines two of them - the first is no jury-rig on autofire activation, and the second is you can only activate it additional times up to your ranks in the relevant weapon skill. Once a character gets 4 or 5 ranks in it, they have enough XP (and so does the rest of the party) to be facing serious badds where mowing through the minion groups may be needed. It helps balance expenditure, too - if they only have one rank in Ranged- Heavy, they get two autofire hits, and have to figure something else (expanding the narrative!) for the remaining pair of advantage.

So far it hasn't really been an issue, as they rarely wind up with more than 4 advantage - and frequently prefer the crit over autofire in that case.

The quick fix I use combines two of them - the first is no jury-rig on autofire activation, and the second is you can only activate it additional times up to your ranks in the relevant weapon skill. Once a character gets 4 or 5 ranks in it, they have enough XP (and so does the rest of the party) to be facing serious badds where mowing through the minion groups may be needed. It helps balance expenditure, too - if they only have one rank in Ranged- Heavy, they get two autofire hits, and have to figure something else (expanding the narrative!) for the remaining pair of advantage.

So far it hasn't really been an issue, as they rarely wind up with more than 4 advantage - and frequently prefer the crit over autofire in that case.

I had considered that house rule as well. I opted for the Brawn one as I think it makes common sense in that the beefier you are, the easier time you'd have holding a death hose on target. It plays off Agility nicely in that if you want more hits, you need a higher Brawn, if you have a higher Brawn, its a lot longer road to having a super high Agility. I guess I just found it keeps autofire in line longer as raising stats is the much more expensive xp road as opposed to raising skill ranks.

If you are setting it up so the auto fire PC is mowing through your opposition you are not taking the character into consideration during your encounter design. And you have no one to blame but your self. Auto fire is easy to deal with.

If you're setting up encounters for a weapon effect, you're admitting autofire is an issue. I'd rather just let PCs use it and be able to use it on them without having to think around the effect.

If you are setting it up so the auto fire PC is mowing through your opposition you are not taking the character into consideration during your encounter design. And you have no one to blame but your self. Auto fire is easy to deal with.

If you're setting up encounters for a weapon effect, you're admitting autofire is an issue. I'd rather just let PCs use it and be able to use it on them without having to think around the effect.

No I am not. By your logic every build is broken if you take them into account in your encounter design. And you should be taking your players into account. Is charm broken because take into account the fact that you have a charmer in the party for social encounters? There are so many ways to make a high damage output character in this system addressing just one breaks the balance. Instead of whining about one style of damage output learn how to deal with it. Are you guys going to whine about double sabers... oh wait there already is a thread about it...what about gunslingers? oh there is already a thread about it too. Or marauders and their high soak? oh thats right their are tons of threads on that too. It amazes me how many GMs can't seem to manage thes. even though FFG gave them a whole tool box of tools that can handle these problems with ease. a couple ranks in adversary and some cover can do wonders. Or a character with a lightsaber and ranks in reflect...Autofire is not that hard to deal with.

Should we nerf every combo just to make you feel better?

Part of the fun for players is being awesome. Yet I keep seeing instances of GMs wanting to squash players being awesome. Stop it. Let them be awesome. Use the tools available to challenge them as well.