Some builds are juggling things like Frenzied Attack, Defensive Stance, Side Step, and Dodge potentially, I'm not sure I'd beat em up too hard for recovering Strain with Advantages.

Right, what I mean is, there's enough of that already without changing another talent to also cost strain.

Why does Strain recovery automatically equal not narrative? I use combat breathing to mitigate the effects of adrenaline on myself and recover Strain. I chant my ancient foo foo monk prayer 'still water' over and over in my mind to center my being. etc etc

The way I look at it is this. A character within a tree that contains this talent is someone who is trained to use firearms. So, in the case of the Sharpshooter tree, for the first rank in the tree instead of spending the 10xp for rank 2 of either ranged light or ranged heavy, the characters skill can instead be shown through a rank of true aim, allowing for the same benefit as the one skill rank but making it useful across multiple skills. This trend continues for the second rank at 15xp in place of skill rank 3.

In regards to Frenzied Attack, the main difference is that it is an incidental. So for a character in melee it allows for them to take a guarded stance maneuver or even disengage without taking additional strain. So in terms of bonus/strain spent the real difference only seems to come once you approach 3+ ranks of the talent

Why does Strain recovery automatically equal not narrative?

I didn't say that. What I said was that I would prefer Advantage to be able to be spent on creative, narrative solutions—such as, blasting the control panel to a blast door that you need closed or opened, or finding something important underfoot, or felling a tree branch to unseat a scout trooper from his speeder bike. Or destroying light panels to give you some cover of darkness, or a stray shot (intended for you) blasting open a previously-unopenable crate. That's what I mean by "solutions."

Strain recovery (just like Boost dice being passed on) should definitely contain a narrative element. So it's not that it's "not narrative," but rather that it's not a creative solution. The narrative dice are capable of more than that, but if all you're doing with Advantage is to recover strain, you'd never know it. When "whatever I say in this roleplaying situation" always equals X strain recovered, it just feels a little too gamist for me.

As I said, a potential problem. YMMV.

Thanks would love to see what devs say. My player is going to get mad if I charge him 1 strain per rank which I actually like. Wanna see what the dev says before house ruling this must needed house rule (in my opinion)

I had a good talk with my players before I did it. I explained why I was doing it, and that if it turned out to be too much of nerf I'd undo it and figure something else out. Or, if they didn't want to play that character anymore, that they could re-spec. No one did a re-spec, everyone moved on.

Adding a strain cost to use True Aim sounds like a decent enough idea. I would still use it any chance I got with a strain cost.

The only potential problem that I see is that, in introducing new strain costs, you could be now guaranteeing that your players will be spending all their Advantage on strain recovery instead of creative, narrative solutions. IMO, strain is already enough of a gamist "resource management" system, and I'd prefer if it didn't get any further in the way of the roleplaying than is necessary.

To be honest, I got a bit more roleplaying out of the two characters that I did my houserule because of, simply because they didn't always want to suffer 4+ strain to Aim and True Aim before every attack anymore. They would sometimes do other things, and if they missed because they only got to shoot with their base pool of 3Y or 3Y1G, they would have advantages to trigger cool stuff.

And yeah, strain is a gamist resource management system. Doesn't mean you can't narrate inflicting strain with threat and recovering strain with advantage, though.

PC Optimisers will obviously use this talent to make an 8-9 dice pool + Boost's, but they wont have spread their abilities out, i wonder how they fare when a Melee monster lands in their lap?

I look at this talent as a way to make a low Agility character who can still shoot like a bad a**. It lets you diversify during character creation, or for a non-ranged focused character to make up the difference later on.

Cool will explain house rule and offer re spec if an issue

PC Optimisers will obviously use this talent to make an 8-9 dice pool + Boost's, but they wont have spread their abilities out, i wonder how they fare when a Melee monster lands in their lap?

I look at this talent as a way to make a low Agility character who can still shoot like a bad a**. It lets you diversify during character creation, or for a non-ranged focused character to make up the difference later on.

In the case of one of my true aimers, the get eaten by the zakkegg.

As for helping buff a weak shooter, I've yet to see a player start as or pick up sharpshooter/gunner because they were a weak shooter and wanted true aim. I've only seen players that already were good shooters do it.

If I were going to have some fun and pile this stuff on but still role play, I'd have my character decked out in impeccable clothing and never use anything bigger than a holdout blaster. Or maybe a primitive hunter that only uses primitive weapons and maybe use the compound bow from SoF and throwing knives only.

It is an incredibly powerful talent for sure, but it's somewhat tempered by the fact it costs you your maneuver. You must aim to get the benefit, so that means you don't get to move on your turn and you must already have your weapon drawn, unless you want to burn a strain to do an additional maneuver. So yeah, if you want to stand there and rain down hellfire without having any option to get behind cover afterward (which, to be frank my bounty hunter with two ranks of it giving me a dice pool of at least five proficiency dice has been known to do) you can, but it's not always the best choice. Like most things in this game, there is a balance there if you peel back the layers a bit.

Make sure your player is burning their maneuver to aim in order to get the boost. If they're just upgrading the check without doing so, they're doing it incorrectly and it will get of of control.

You are wrong. True Aim is a maneuver in and of itself and does not require you to take an additional maneuver to also aim. You could certainly move or draw your weapon or any other maneuver in the same turn you true aim.

I didn't say it took another maneuver to aim. I said that aiming is your maneuver, which means when you're aiming, regardless of whether you have true aim or not, you can't perform another maneuver without suffering a strain. So when you aim as your maneuver and then fire as your action, that's it. You can't get behind cover or move at all without incurring strain to take another maneuver. It's all covered in pages 200 through 203 of the CRB.

EDIT: This is assuming you plan to aim and fire in the same round.

You must play in odd games. I play this game a lot and people suffer the strain for additional maneuvers 90% of the time, it seems.

So I wasn't, in fact, wrong. It's just that apparently we manage our resources in our game differently than you do.

In my experience, it's always been a matter of how enticing that extra maneuver is, coupled with how much strain the character can suffer. If they can't think of a good reason to take the extra maneuver, or they are not comfortable with suffering the strain, they will just take their free maneuver & action and leave it at that.

Mine as well. It may be because I'm playing a strain-heavy character (two ranks of dodge, plus base 2 strain from being a Clawdite from the unofficial species guide) and our Wookiee marauder has passed out more than we'd like to have happen.

So I wasn't, in fact, wrong. It's just that apparently we manage our resources in our game differently than you do.

I was admitting I misread your post.

Hi. I'm the player in Kilcannon's game with True Aim. I'm playing a "sniper-bot", essentially. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Our skills are currently capped in the game, so True Aim is making up the difference a bit in my mind.
2. When interesting things happen in combat, True Aim doesn't get used as often. When my gun was knocked out of position in a hail of droideka fire, for example, I got to "draw" my pistol, use Sniper Shot (finally!) and, well, miss anyway. But that's not the point. If I'm just standing there, aiming, and shooting when it's my turn, It's not as interesting, so It's nice to have the better die pool to help make the fight go faster. If the scenes keep moving instead of being static, I'd constantly be spending strain anyway to keep up while aiming.
3. Ask Kilcannon how often I complain about my weapon. I got one of those pulse rifles with Blast. It seems to overall "suck", But at least I get some extra damage from the better rolls with True Aim. It's also medium range, so I have some reason to use Sniper Shot too.
4. When my droid is petulant, it's more fun not shooting at enemies until I get an apology while being a great shot than it is while being merely a good shot.
5. Related to that, on our ship, it's fun knowing how good I am at shooting but that nobody else (aside from the pilot) is a good mechanic, so I'm the engineer. That's droid-frustration there.
6. I'll probably whine a bit about the change. Definitely some grumbling too. But I suppose I'll live. It's still in the testing phase, right?

For me, the phrase "I use True Aim and Shoot" can be like a "battle Geiger counter" - if it clicks every so often, you're safe, but if it's clicking fast, get moving!

(Possibly too many smileys, but I wanted to err on the safe side with the person who holds dominion over my XP.)

Why does Strain recovery automatically equal not narrative?

I didn't say that. What I said was that I would prefer Advantage to be able to be spent on creative, narrative solutions—such as, blasting the control panel to a blast door that you need closed or opened, or finding something important underfoot, or felling a tree branch to unseat a scout trooper from his speeder bike. Or destroying light panels to give you some cover of darkness, or a stray shot (intended for you) blasting open a previously-unopenable crate. That's what I mean by "solutions."

Strain recovery (just like Boost dice being passed on) should definitely contain a narrative element. So it's not that it's "not narrative," but rather that it's not a creative solution. The narrative dice are capable of more than that, but if all you're doing with Advantage is to recover strain, you'd never know it. When "whatever I say in this roleplaying situation" always equals X strain recovered, it just feels a little too gamist for me.

As I said, a potential problem. YMMV.

In a lot of strain-heavy builds, advantages->strain recovery are essential. If a character is spending 2 strain on a maneuver, 1 strain on a focus, 2 strain on defensive stance, gets shot at twice and spends 1 strain to dodge each time, not being able to use advantages to recover strain can cause that character to strain out the second round of combat before anything much has happened.

As for passing boosts, I tend to play with larger groups and, if there are 5+ players sitting around a table trying to come up with cinematic and narrative effects for the (sometimes) 7 advantages they roll in this system, one round of combat could take an hour (and that was one of the reasons I stopped playing 4e). Advantages and boosts are simple, quick and effective ways to spend advantages that keep the pace of the combat fast. If a player has a great idea for spending their advantages, wonderful. However, if that player has to spend 3 minutes thinking it up and then another 2 minutes discussing it with the rest of the party before deciding, it makes for a very long and confusing round of combat.

Hi. I'm the player in Kilcannon's game with True Aim. I'm playing a "sniper-bot", essentially. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Our skills are currently capped in the game, so True Aim is making up the difference a bit in my mind.
2. When interesting things happen in combat, True Aim doesn't get used as often. When my gun was knocked out of position in a hail of droideka fire, for example, I got to "draw" my pistol, use Sniper Shot (finally!) and, well, miss anyway. But that's not the point. If I'm just standing there, aiming, and shooting when it's my turn, It's not as interesting, so It's nice to have the better die pool to help make the fight go faster. If the scenes keep moving instead of being static, I'd constantly be spending strain anyway to keep up while aiming.
3. Ask Kilcannon how often I complain about my weapon. I got one of those pulse rifles with Blast. It seems to overall "suck", But at least I get some extra damage from the better rolls with True Aim. It's also medium range, so I have some reason to use Sniper Shot too.
4. When my droid is petulant, it's more fun not shooting at enemies until I get an apology while being a great shot than it is while being merely a good shot.
5. Related to that, on our ship, it's fun knowing how good I am at shooting but that nobody else (aside from the pilot) is a good mechanic, so I'm the engineer. That's droid-frustration there.
6. I'll probably whine a bit about the change. Definitely some grumbling too. But I suppose I'll live. It's still in the testing phase, right?

For me, the phrase "I use True Aim and Shoot" can be like a "battle Geiger counter" - if it clicks every so often, you're safe, but if it's clicking fast, get moving!

(Possibly too many smileys, but I wanted to err on the safe side with the person who holds dominion over my XP.)

That sounds like a very fun campaign, but it also sounds like the party is making things harder on themselves than they should. Intentional ineffectiveness is something that I, as a player, take issue with. It's fine, from time to time, to have narrative reasons for making poor decisions in combat. However, I've found the best time for those situations when the party is facing somewhat less than life threatening challenges. For example, a bar fight, breaking into a building before the first door has been breached, while flying toward an outpost, while the face is negotiating in another room. These are great opportunities to embellish the character and establish a personality without endangering the entire party.

If the best shot in my party decided they didn't want to fire at anyone and just did nothing with their action for a turn, there would be severe consequences for that party member after the combat resolved (assuming my character survived). Either that would be the last time they ever did something like that, or it would be the last time my character worked with them on a job.

Of course, this is my personal perspective, but, my characters are always very professional in their sphere of influence and expect the same from others.

Well, there are more circumstances than I mentioned previously.

• If you have a quirky war-droid with you, treat him with respect.
• If he feels you don't, and demands an apology mid-battle, swallow your pride and apologize. You can always retract it later.
• If it were a "job" the other characters would be "paid." As it is now, from the droid's perspective anyway, it's a squadron leader trying to exert his Resistance authority beyond his jurisdiction. Proper cred-flow would ease that up nicely.
• When I want to proceed with caution and others decide to be reckless, I see no problem with letting them absorb the first few volleys of blaster fire. I get more mileage out of my medicine skill that way as well.
• Everyone in the group has some skill at fighting. There's a gunslinger, a cyborg with a light repeating blaster, an assassin with a vibrosword, etc. One round of war-droid doing something else isn't such a big hit on damage output.
• I didn't intend to be a Gunner at first. I was the co-pilot/engineer on our freighter and there were two others acting as gunners. Then we got a speeder with some weapons and I wound up being the tail-gunner. I thought I'd take the Heavy specialization, but since the Cyborg with the repeater joined, we were doing more space combat than I had expected, there were fewer skill overlaps, and True Aim would stack, it was an easy choice to go with Gunner.
• At the same time, nobody else improved their mechanics or medicine, so I wear a lot of hats. (I don't know about you, but I'd be honored to call a droid that special a friend, despite his quirks.)
• As a player, I saw that True Aim was really good, so I try an find other things to do so it doesn't get overpowering. But when a fight is in a corridor with no cover and no way out except past the enemy, True Aim tends to get used a lot, I admit. As it is,the strain-per-rank-used house rule seems specifically for me. (Note: this is whine number one, if anyone is counting.)
• We are having a lot of fun in the campaign. The GM is swell! Huzzah!

In my experience, strain when using True Aim worked out well in the game mentioned earlier by Were. It made True Aim very useful when I needed to make the shot and do something right now, and it allowed me to do something other than get my dice pools to insane levels.

We just tried the house rule and didn't see the use of True Aim go down and didn't make it less of a cool talent.

Now just gotta set up a cantina fight between bounty hunting droids, first order soldiers, and ......oh the players in between.

I don't think this past session was enough to judge. The droid with True Aim (me) was a gunner on a ship and there really wasn't much else to do but aim and shoot. We haven't tried it in a situation where spending strain for a second maneuver is important. The cantina fight might make for a better situation for considering how the house rule works out.

If I can remember, I think it would be interesting to note how often I use all 3 ranks vs. when I use fewer (including none) to save strain, vs. when I don't use True Aim because there is something else to do.

I don't think it's gonna stop you from using it lol

The nice things about Precise Aim is that it's a ranked talent, and it's also a discrete maneuver (e.g. you can Precise Aim and then Aim twice; either across two rounds, or with a free out-of-turn-maneuver, or even in one round if you have one of those shiny abilities that let you take 3 maneuvers in one turn; and still get the benefit of all of the maneuvers). Precise Aim works best when targeting enemies behind cover or Jedi with deflection capabilities, and really only shines when you have multiple ranks of the thing (like any skill or most ranked talents). It's situationally useful, unlike True Aim, which is more generally useful and therefore very powerful.

So this means a player with Precise aim can 1st round take an action and his maneuver to gain two aims and then the 2nd round make a maneuver to precise aim and their action to attack? Or precise aim 1st round, one aim 1st round, 2nd round aim again and attack?