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? Their 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?

I'm not getting into some petty back and forth and I'm not repeating my points anymore. The OP feels its broken, so do I, so do a lot of folks as this thread pops up essentially every 3 months. He asked for ideas which I am providing.

It is not broken. any more than a double lightsaber or an ataru striker or a demolitionist is.

It is not broken. any more than a double lightsaber or an ataru striker or a demolitionist is.

I have pointed out many different methods to get just as high or higher damage output. One method of creating high damage out put is not broken if there are many methods of creating high damage output. And there are many many methods a single character can create a combo that generates a lot of damage. Instead of worrying about one method. Learn how to deal with it overall. Because if you nerf autofire you are going to be back here tomorrow with some other combo that a player came up with.

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

You do realize each hit has to, independently, go through the soak of the target, right? That means that if soak is up near the damage of the weapon, then subsequent hits won't do anything at all at that point.

For example, weapons is base 8, target is soak 7. Then a success gets 9 damage vs 7 soak. 2 Advantage gets a second hit, but your rule of halving the damage means nothing gets through (5 damage vs 7 soak).

I think it's kinda funny that people are discussing if an additional hit/2 adv is too good. In the beta, it was a hit/ 1 adv , and at that level Sam expressed concerns that nerfing it would make it irrelevant.

LOL

Anyway, IMO, Auto-fire is fine where it is given that even attempting the auto-fire increases the difficulty of a shot by a purple die and it costs 2 adv to activate an extra hit. It's really good, but not game-breaking.

That said, I don't think a lot of (or ANY) auto-fire capable weapons should be getting handed out at creation. That kind of fire-power should be a reward.

Something I don't think I've seen mentioned here is that, in addition to all the mechanical bits that balance auto-fire weapons, there's also the narrative bits that can be used to balance the weapons. Specifically, these things should be illegal as [expletive redacted]. I'm AFB, but I'm pretty sure the HBR & LRB have pretty high rarities and are probably restricted.

Out in the rim, yeah, you need firepower for protection. However, I would expect hauling around this kind of hardware around in even semi -civilized areas would at best raise eyebrows (or their anatomic equivalent, let's not be speciesist) and would at worst would be straight-up felonious. So, narratively, this could lead to confiscation, fees, imprisonment/confinement, distrust, etc. Beyond the obvious game penalties, these narrative elements can translate into more mechanical penalties, like obligation and adding setback dice or difficulty upgrades to social skill checks. In some aspects, it's similar to carrying a lightsaber.

I'm not going to debate what weapons these are equivalent to IRL, but, in my mind, and HBR is akin to an AK-47 and the LRB is like a .30-06 BAR 1918. My judgement about the 'gravity' of carrying these weapons is based on that point of view. If you have a different opinion about these weapons' IRL counterparts which leads to different conclusions, that's fine. I'll respect your opinion as long as you respect mine.

Now, this is primarily an EotE fix, since AoR PCs will probably be expected to be toting around some military hardware, and I doubt autofire weapons are particularly common in F&D. But in EotE the characters are civilians, at least nominally and civvies just don't typically need this kind of hardware.

Finally, I'll point out that this game doesn't have an explicit power curve like other more 'traditional' RPGs *cough*D&D*cough* have. This means that there's absolutely not any kind of benchmarks for character advancement vs encounter difficulty, so what constitutes balanced or unbalanced mechanics are almost universally going to be dependent on what feels good to the table. I say 'almost' because some mechanics can be so borked they cause problems and reduce fun at almost any table, and IMO those can be called unbalanced and broken. Now, this means that pretty much any judgement I provided above is really opinion and can only really be applied would apply to my table. I'm going to respect that different tables will have different comfort zones for character power, and I'm providing that respect in the expectation of reciprocity.

tl;dr: IMO, I don't think autofire is broken, hence it doesn't need to be fixed. That's my opinion, and it's conditional on the facts that carrying autofire hardware can cause narrative issues for the PCs and the things aren't given out like candy.

Totally separate issue from my post above:

For the individuals that hold the valid opinion that autofire broken, I'm curious in which 'direction' the problem lies:

1. NPC shooting autofire weapons at PCs
2. PCs shooting autofire weapons at NPCs
3. Both 1 & 2

And is that opinion based on experience, expected results based on RAW, or another source of information?

I'm not going to debate or even discuss anyone's answer, I'm just curious about where people see a problem specifically and how they came to that point of view.

Totally separate issue from my post above:

For the individuals that hold the valid opinion that autofire broken, I'm curious in which 'direction' the problem lies:

1. NPC shooting autofire weapons at PCs
2. PCs shooting autofire weapons at NPCs
3. Both 1 & 2

And is that opinion based on experience, expected results based on RAW, or another source of information?

I'm not going to debate or even discuss anyone's answer, I'm just curious about where people see a problem specifically and how they came to that point of view.

To cut through to the crux, it's autofire coupled with Jury Rigged. Based on experience and the fact as I laid out a session zero BH Gadgeteer with even a 4 Agility can evaporate most opponents. I don't see narrative constraints as anything more than GM fiat and avoiding a mechanical flaw in the rules.

I don't have a strong opinion either way on whether or not Autofire is too powerful (or too powerful in combination with Jury Rigged or other options etc) but I think that narrative solutions to mechanical effects is usually a bad way to go because it usually comes down to denying a player use of their character in some way simply for being "too powerful".

I do applaud the original poster as a player who doesn't want to make a character that's so good they outshine the table and are too powerful (or taking advantage of something that may be broken).

I'm not saying that a blaster rifle of any flavor should be able to be used anywhere without some of the narrative reactions to it (social penalties, law enforcement, etc) but I think such reactions should be driven by a desire to make the setting/story interesting and more immersive.

If a character who prefers to use a big rifle to mow down opponents doesn't fit into the campaign or group then that should be made clear in session 0.

And a player of such a character shouldn't expect to always have access to their preferred method of doing things but should expect that most of the time they will be able to.

Similarly, balancing out Jedi and lightsaber/force use with the narrative "balance" of attracting the ire of the Empire and the Inquisitors is a bad way to go about it.

Playing your character and attracting the attention of the Empire/Inquisitors sounds like a fun and good story development and should not be used as a hammer of death from above, in my book.

So, I think using Daeglan's suggestions (cover, Adversary, NPC construction to be tougher and use better tactics, Squad Rules, etc) are good because they use mechanical tools to deal with what is a mechanical consideration. House rules are also good for the same reason.

In short, I think the solution is found in encounter design and/or house rules instead of "threatening" deadly encounters or hassling the characters merely to discourage the player in playing their character in a "problematic" way.

To cut through to the crux, it's autofire coupled with Jury Rigged. Based on experience and the fact as I laid out a session zero BH Gadgeteer with even a 4 Agility can evaporate most opponents.

I was going to ask 2 questions to clarify your position via PM but you've got me blocked for some reason (I don't see any previous PMs in my history, maybe I deleted them?), so I guess I'll ask them here... Feel free to not answer. I definitely won't be asking follow-ups.

1. Would you still see AF as being broken if the Jury-Rigged/AF combo was disallowed
2. Would you still see a need for a house rule if the Jury-Rigged/AF combo was disallowed.

These are intended to be simple yes/no questions. As there will not be any follow-up, I'm not intending to use them to pull any kind of 'gotcha' stunt.

Thank you for the previous answer.

Totally separate issue from my post above:

For the individuals that hold the valid opinion that autofire broken, I'm curious in which 'direction' the problem lies:

1. NPC shooting autofire weapons at PCs
2. PCs shooting autofire weapons at NPCs
3. Both 1 & 2

And is that opinion based on experience, expected results based on RAW, or another source of information?

I'm not going to debate or even discuss anyone's answer, I'm just curious about where people see a problem specifically and how they came to that point of view.

both (obviously). experience. i have an autofire abuser in a current group and i prefer the sessions when he is not there, cause then combats are fun. no "yay, 6 hits for 15 damage each... again!". (and the character is far from being maxed out.)

the beta-quote you provide is interesting to me because the way i read it there was an additional modifier for trying to hit more than 1 oponent at the time. that's similar to my houserule to upgrade the combat check if you want more than 2 hits. nice, i like that. the number of shots has to reduce accuracy in my mind. great minds thinking alike and all that.

but, to be quite honest, if the designers actually thought that autofire might be too weak at that time, with 1 advantage/hit, and the effect it actually has on many tables with the current rules, really makes me question their playtesting. great minds? hm... what iconic star wars moment inspired that version of autofire?

to all of you who keep repeating "there are other ways to cause lot of damage, autofire is fine as it is", try the following: create a few different builds and compare them at different xp-levels. at low xp-levels there's nothing that gets close to juryrigged autofire. i challenge anyone to prove me wrong here. as xp-levels increase, other options become viable. give me the maths for those builds that are supposedly more efficient (i'd be happy with "as efficient") and the xp needed.

To cut through to the crux, it's autofire coupled with Jury Rigged. Based on experience and the fact as I laid out a session zero BH Gadgeteer with even a 4 Agility can evaporate most opponents.

I was going to ask 2 questions to clarify your position via PM but you've got me blocked for some reason (I don't see any previous PMs in my history, maybe I deleted them?), so I guess I'll ask them here... Feel free to not answer. I definitely won't be asking follow-ups.

1. Would you still see AF as being broken if the Jury-Rigged/AF combo was disallowed
2. Would you still see a need for a house rule if the Jury-Rigged/AF combo was disallowed.

These are intended to be simple yes/no questions. As there will not be any follow-up, I'm not intending to use them to pull any kind of 'gotcha' stunt.

Thank you for the previous answer.

AF wouldn't start out the OP option that it is, but I'd still cap it in some fashion as it's too easy now between laser sights, the superior mod, spin barrel, to add Boost dice or auto A's to a pool. That coupled with ranks in things like True Aim and you wind up with tons of A's to burn and ridiculous #s of hits. The house rule I use lets even a 3 Brawn PC land 3 hits, which if it's an HBR is hardly impotent.

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.

How does your Brawn-based house rule apply to vehicle-mounted weapons with Autofire? I don't think it takes a high Brawn to keep the Firespray's autoblasers on target.

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.

How does your Brawn-based house rule apply to vehicle-mounted weapons with Autofire? I don't think it takes a high Brawn to keep the Firespray's autoblasers on target.

I doesn't, I said it applies to unmounted autofire weapons. On a vehicle it's game on, and I allow +1 hit for bipods and the weapon set in a position to use it.

both (obviously). experience. i have an autofire abuser in a current group and i prefer the sessions when he is not there, cause then combats are fun. no "yay, 6 hits for 15 damage each... again!". (and the character is far from being maxed out.)

Since you also invoked the Jury-Rigged/AF combo, I'd like to hear your position on the follow-up questions I posed to 2P51. Again, not going to be asking any follow-ups. I have my opinions, you have yours, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind.

I will say this, If I do make a Modification to Autofire at all....

I would go with the Increasing need of Advantages, suggested by Wharfog earlier.

Having shot an AR-15 even on just burst fire,

And everything Military friends and relatives have told me.

The Kick of an Auto-fire weapon makes it difficult to maintain aim on a target. The More shots fired in the burst the more our aim is going to be moved. Which is why Full Auto Guns are usually aimed lower than intended.

This game is one of the VERY Few that I have seen NOT account for this issue.

Auto fire is pretty broken with jury rig but disriptor rifle and jury rig is also pretty broken

With minimal xp expenditure a BH gadgeteer/assassin can get +80 base to crit rolls and can equip superior mod and a laser site mod for +2 advantrage to all rolls or roughly +90 to the crit activation roll before the dice are rolled.

and with a second jury rig in gadgeteer he can get auto fire

both templates lead directly to dedication for a nice +2 agi

A presssure point character with max brawn deadly accuracy brawl and medicine can deal a minimum of 17 strain that bypasses armor on a successful hit and they can do it without any weapons they can also flurry for a less impressive 12 strain on the second hit.

The system is not really broken you just need to use the tools to keep your players challenged.

Adversary rating to groups of hardened mooks can make that extra auto fire difficulty die less fun, putting in one guy with decent armor

will subtract from the roll against all of them. I enjoy a battle armor suit that is jury rigged +1 ranged defense on a mook with improved armor master giving them 3 defense. For strong NPC's even ranks in dodge can be appropraite on top of adversary.

A short range autofire check is 2 difficulty and your players likely have 2 yellow and 2 greens at least probably a boost die or two of accuracy. So of course your goting to get a lot of hits. With adversary 2 and 3 defense auto firing is not going to kill 6 guys on average.

Using durability can counteract high crit builds

Using public locales is a great way of limiting blatant use of force powers

Some combats powerful pc's should be able to destroy fluff but unchallenging fights should not be the norm.

Autofire murders mooks. That's what it's meant for.

Against a Rival or Nemesis with some defensive talents, decent armor and a Adversary score?

Still powerful, but not more than other options I think. 3 purple at medium range can become 2 red and a purple, and bad things will happen.

with the combo disallowed it would still be a useful option, but not op imo. as it is, going for the combo is a bit of a nobrainer.

even with the combo disallowed i would probably still use my houserule to upgrade the combat check if you want to cause more than 2 hits (want 4 hits, upgrade twice). having fired a machinegun in the army i know you can't fire accurately on full auto. there are so many ways to increase offense in thegame and very few for defense, it would still be a powerful tool in my view.

edit: to clarify my houserule, in case it isn't clear. if you want to cause more than 2 hits with autofire you have to anounce the number of hits you want to cause beforehand. for each hit above 2 you have to upgrade the difficulty of the combat check. if you are skilled enough (or lucky) you can still get 3 or 4 hits. beginner characters usually won't be able to do this, which is intended.

an aimed shot is fired with no modifiers

a short burst uses the autofire rules as written, with a maximum of 2 hits

full auto uses my houserule

this seems reasonable to me. limiting the number of hits with brawn or skill of the weapon used also look like great ideas to me, but they don't address the increased difficulty of firing a hail of shots.

I'm aware of the various upgrades to opponents. Are people really serious when the counter to my example of a session zero PC and what they can do with Jury Rigged and autofire is to use a Nemesis with 3 ranks of Adversary as the counter weight? Really?

I will say this, If I do make a Modification to Autofire at all....

I would go with the Increasing need of Advantages, suggested by Wharfog earlier.

Having shot an AR-15 even on just burst fire,

And everything Military friends and relatives have told me.

The Kick of an Auto-fire weapon makes it difficult to maintain aim on a target. The More shots fired in the burst the more our aim is going to be moved. Which is why Full Auto Guns are usually aimed lower than intended.

This game is one of the VERY Few that I have seen NOT account for this issue.

Who says it doesn't? The chances of getting those advantage aren't a linear solution. Each die can only give so much and the results are off on two axes of results, not the numerical one axis that most other games use. So, if you get more success, that came at the cost of more advantage and vice versa.

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.

In these forums every other day appears a post of the like "this (insert here: auto-fire, soak, vibroax...) is very powerful, what can I do?" These sort of posts, like the one we are derailing right now, appear often in these forums. Call it design mistake, as 2P51 did, or design decision. Reality is this game system creates this issues, and it will keep on doing it, while (many) other RPG systems do not. And honestly, I don't know for the rest of you, but for me as a GM, it is a pain in the a$$ if I have to spend time thinking how I can challenge the different PCs builds (some times it seems we are talking of World of Warcraft here) instead of spending my energy in creating an appealing history for my players to play it.

And by the way, I also want to express my opinion in that players do not need pcs with 13 different powers to feel awesome. In a rpg players with characters that have lived many adventures, survived impossible perils and have had an impact on the game world also feel awesome. Not need for superpowers.

Reality is this game system creates this issues, and it will keep on doing it, while (many) other RPG systems do not.

What? This system is hardly unique in having dark corners where things don't work quite as expected. Personally I think this system is far more robust and "error tolerant" than most, one reason I've decided I won't play anything else...even if it's a fantasy campaign I'll be using one of the several well-constructed adaptations.

Sometimes a "one size fits all" approach, as they've done for Weapon Qualities, doesn't quite fit. The trade-off is simplicity so it's easier for all players to remember what triggers one. But if the GM and table can handle a minor tweak that allows greater immersion, I think that's a more sound strategy than the GM just upping the body count or making a nemesis more resistant. Those are strategies which have their own implications right from the start, and leave very little room at the high end.

Meanwhile, to me, being able to mow down mooks isn't "awesome", it's cartoonish and I'm not interested in having that at my table; so a tweak to a rule helps everyone remain immersed. If you scale the opposition consistently, then the player's investments will still bear fruit in their eyes, and they'll feel plenty "awesome" in the context of your campaign.

Meanwhile, to me, being able to mow down mooks isn't "awesome", it's cartoonish and I'm not interested in having that at my table; so a tweak to a rule helps everyone remain immersed. If you scale the opposition consistently, then the player's investments will still bear fruit in their eyes, and they'll feel plenty "awesome" in the context of your campaign.

I'm guessing you've never seen footage of troops in WWI or WW2 charging at a machinegun nest... That is autofire and a bunch of mooks. It isn't cartoonish.

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.

I highlight this, because it brings something important up, related to what 2P51 said.

In these forums every other day appears a post of the like "this (insert here: auto-fire, soak, vibroax...) is very powerful, what can I do?" These sort of posts, like the one we are derailing right now, appear often in these forums. Call it design mistake, as 2P51 did, or design decision. Reality is this game system creates this issues, and it will keep on doing it, while (many) other RPG systems do not. And honestly, I don't know for the rest of you, but for me as a GM, it is a pain in the a$$ if I have to spend time thinking how I can challenge the different PCs builds (some times it seems we are talking of World of Warcraft here) instead of spending my energy in creating an appealing history for my players to play it.

And by the way, I also want to express my opinion in that players do not need pcs with 13 different powers to feel awesome. In a rpg players with characters that have lived many adventures, survived impossible perils and have had an impact on the game world also feel awesome. Not need for superpowers.

you sound like those WOW PVPers who are constantly calling for rebalancing the game every update.

They tweaked this so we need to rebalance that. and so on.

I am guessing you guys don't remember the Hollywood shoot out? Where initially the robbers did well. Until ALL the cops showed up and they died.

1. rifles are not appropriate most places. A GM should have NPCs behave accordingly.

2. Autofire is going to draw a lot of attention in any non military situation. The GM should have NPCs behave accordingly.

The biggest flaw in autofire is in most situations the weapons that are appropriate don't have it. I have a hard time believing a Cantina is going to be ok with a guy walking around with a rifle.