I think it's fair that people have more problems with Autofire than most other high damage weapons because of a couple of reasons:

Available at character creation (with 4 agility and 2 ranks of Rng Hvy)

Jury Rig is simple to get early on and highly effective in that it doubles the number of potential hits

AF weapons are hand held as opposed to vehicle weapons.

Now I am obviously in the camp of resorting to other methods first before house rules, but I do understand the basic argument.

But we are playing not a 5 vs 5 capture the flag, but trying to roleplay in a space fantasy universe. So I am not sure what is breaking the game here. It a freaking machine gun, yes it does tons of damage, still it is on the weaker side of weapon systems overall.

edit:

If autofire is breaking your game than should lightsabers on ataru strikers or a simple pair of HH-50 not do so as well? Or Jury Rigged crit monster guns, grenades, missile tubes, turbolasers …

Any game still requires a balancing element, no matter what kind of game it is.

And in any case, the problems that the Auto-fire combo has is not the damage output. The problem is: A, it's not really about dealing the most damage, just dealing enough damage, and that aforementioned combination deals enough damage (and it gets even better as time progresses), and B, it's how easy it is to access.

Now I am obviously in the camp of resorting to other methods first before house rules, but I do understand the basic argument.

The only problem I have with that is most of the solutions boil down to the GM using the rules at their disposal, which are intended to be used to craft an interesting story and a fun game, and turning them into tools to counter the players, and they start to slide dangerously close to a GM vs. PCs style game, which does not comply with the way the game was made.

But we are playing not a 5 vs 5 capture the flag, but trying to roleplay in a space fantasy universe. So I am not sure what is breaking the game here. It a freaking machine gun, yes it does tons of damage, still it is on the weaker side of weapon systems overall.

edit:

If autofire is breaking your game than should lightsabers on ataru strikers or a simple pair of HH-50 not do so as well? Or Jury Rigged crit monster guns, grenades, missile tubes, turbolasers …

Any game still requires a balancing element, no matter what kind of game it is.

And that balance is now broken because why? Apparently doing mediocre damage compared to half of the weapon systems available in the game is breaking the game. And now I god damnit want to know why. Why the **** is a auto-fire weapon breaking this game. Explain it to me, instead of keep stating what you think. I don't care what you think, I want to know why you come to that conclusion. Make a point instead of a opinion dumb, because I am interested in your point. If I would be able to see who autofire is breaking the game, I would not ask why you think it does break the game.

Let's try this less ranty.

What part of auto-fire is breaking in your eyes the game and why?

You say it is not the damage output itself, so what is it and how is this interaction ruining the game and why?

It's not the output of high damage numbers themselves, but the ability to pump out just enough damage to kill an adversary. A heavy blaster rifle is capable of doing enough minimum damage to kill a stormtrooper minion in one hit; the ability to multiply that multiple times in a single attack is the problem, as it is often used to turn what are supposed to be dangerous nemeses into interpretive wall art.

And the other aspect is that it's easy to pick up and run with it. All the other character builds (combat or not) are capable of pulling off cool stuff, but at least it takes investment; top tier talents, if not an entire tree. This is just beginner level, pre-first session, and you already have a character who has combat in the bag.

It's not the output of high damage numbers themselves, but the ability to pump out just enough damage to kill an adversary. A heavy blaster rifle is capable of doing enough minimum damage to kill a stormtrooper minion in one hit; the ability to multiply that multiple times in a single attack is the problem, as it is often used to turn what are supposed to be dangerous nemeses into interpretive wall art.

And the other aspect is that it's easy to pick up and run with it. All the other character builds (combat or not) are capable of pulling off cool stuff, but at least it takes investment; top tier talents, if not an entire tree. This is just beginner level, pre-first session, and you already have a character who has combat in the bag.

It's not the output of high damage numbers themselves, but the ability to pump out just enough damage to kill an adversary. A heavy blaster rifle is capable of doing enough minimum damage to kill a stormtrooper minion in one hit; the ability to multiply that multiple times in a single attack is the problem, as it is often used to turn what are supposed to be dangerous nemeses into interpretive wall art.

And the other aspect is that it's easy to pick up and run with it. All the other character builds (combat or not) are capable of pulling off cool stuff, but at least it takes investment; top tier talents, if not an entire tree. This is just beginner level, pre-first session, and you already have a character who has combat in the bag.

A simple 35 credits grenade will do the same, easier, more effective and without increasing difficulty multiple times.

A pair of HH-50 will it as well to minion groups and you will not need to roll 2 or 3 natural advantages for this to get 4 damage 7(8) hits. That is for sure still a little less damage than a those 3 hits from a heavy blaster rifle you get from 4 or 5 natural advantages, but it does sound hardly game breaking.

And speaking of game breaking, you have yet to explain your reasoning why the decent performance from weapons with auto-fire is breaking the game. If you want to talk abou game breaking, talk to my GM about the use of our freighter against adversaries and those incidents were only "game breaking" because the encounter design in those cases did not take this option into consideration. But we are talking here about auto-fire which at best is taking out a few more minions, not dealing a few hundred points of damage to a minion group in one shot.

But let's go with your assumption that the automatic rifle is so much stronger than the rest of the groups armand, so that the hired-gun merc is incapacitating twice as many rivals per turn as the the face characters with their blaster pistols, the encounter is build in a way that bringing a vehicle guns was not an option and we are in a sub 100 xp game, so the gunslinger lacks some essential talents to just do the same with his pistoles. Why would this situation breaking the game? It still would be only a case that one weapon is a strong choice for the encounter, it does not sound like that encounter breaks down and all challenge is gone just because of one guy or even the whole group is using automatic weapons. And I totally forgot to rule out grenades, but they are not available for some reason too.

The guy with the heavy automatic blaster rifle is still doing just more damage than the rest of the group. What is breaking and why? Please give me your reasoning why this breaks the game. Not your conclusion, but your reasoning behind it.

Ooo boy... seems a little heated here lol. I think the main problem here is that autofire 'unbalances' the party more than it should. In any RPG you don't want 1 character to be so powerful that anything that is a threat to him is an automatic death sentence to everyone else. A higher level (5 agi/ 2+ gunnary/ modded out gun / add in some true aim for fun) with an autofire weapon ends fights. It literally does not matter what you throw against them - if its personal scare combat it is dead. Period. Even without the jury rigged which makes it even more silly. If you want to deal damage - auto-fire does the most - period.

The other issue here that people might be missing is also fairly common to modules for any RPG... they are made for an average underpowered unoptimized group to be able to win and so if you enter those with an optimized autofire gunner.... its really easy for them. Make the fights harder. Spread out the minions. Give them higher stats and better gear. Or do what my DM does...in addition to raising stats on enemies / and not allowing rigged with autofire (his offer to us was if we can do it... so can enemies and they often will... so we decided to opt out for both sides) // he just house-ruled that when you overkill enemies too much it often wrecks the bejezus out of their gear so you get minimal loot if you go around auto-firing/lightsabering/disruptering everything to horrible/overkill/death.

On nemesis.... crit builds w/ an optimized character and modded out vibro weapon/ disruptor / lightsaber also basically just 1 shot kill anything you hit unless you deck out the opponent with like adversary 4/ dodge XX/ Sense force talent upgrade attacks 2x / defense 4+/ durable 5+/ parry or reflex 5+/ wearing cortosis armor of 8+ soak. So on that front the autofire isn't as big of a deal since dead is dead. If you want a nemesis to survive... make it SUPER FREAKING TANKY. Have minions jump in front of it. Put it behind a forcefield/blast door. Give it 2 turns per initiative round.

I would also like to point out the RAPID-RECHARGE XCITER has the line: "This attachment can be applied to any blaster." So... hurray.. now every blaster can have autofire.... well at least all the guns can be balanced now

I have had one character in a game I DM, a second character in a game I play in, AND I am playing now in third game where someone focuses on using autofire and who at one point or another all 3 had it with jury rigged. It really unbalances the game. Don't be that guy that plays "pun-pun" and then tries to argue "but its legal per the raw" or " i dont understand why your having problems with my character". No one likes that guy!!!

Also its been said before but to reiterate.. this is a story game. Have there be STORY consequences for carrying around a huge autofire weapon. More than that... if a player character has a reputation of murderbotting everyone he disagrees with an autofire weapon.... have the enemies focus fire them... prepare accordingly..... and show no mercy. Vehicle weapons are BRUTAL !! (even using the common hous rules of only 5x more damage or X vehicle Silhouette damage)

Autofire w/ Jury rigged. Advanced Targeting Arrays. Both Broken !!!

I must admit though that that a MinMaxed Politico can completely outshine the rest of the group in a Social encounter and a GM still has to deal with that. Its really all about learning to GM a system where the numbers are not the only balancing factor (looking at you and your crunch DnD). And also learning to GM a system where splitting the party doesn't actually result in TPK's (the rescue of Leia from DS1 is a great example of this)

As has been mentioned earlier, it's reasonable to just say "you can't jury-rig autofire". If you *have* to allow it, then say the jury-rig only applies to the first application of Autofire: 1 adv to activate the second hit, 2 more for every subsequent hit.

Aaaand then I'm just gonna leave this (Dev response during EotE beta, when autofire cost 1 adv to activate ALL the time) here:

[W]e want to continue to evaluate Autofire before making any changes, if any changes are to be made. Currently Autofire has some significant penalties (with +1 difficulty for using autofire, and +1 difficulty for attempting to hit multiple targets), and we want to ensure that any changes we make balance autofire with other abilities appropriately, but also maintain the feel of firing a weapon on full auto. One thing to keep in mind, though. Autofire is supposed to be good , and we don't want to limit it or complicate it to the point where it becomes a hindrance or an otherwise worthless investment.

Because increasing the activation cost of autofire to 2 adv would 'limit it or complicate it to the point where it becomes a hindrance or an otherwise worthless investment'.

[ Link for context]

Just one thing to keep in mind... Developer lulz?

As has been mentioned earlier, it's reasonable to just say "you can't jury-rig autofire". If you *have* to allow it, then say the jury-rig only applies to the first application of Autofire: 1 adv to activate the second hit, 2 more for every subsequent hit.

Aaaand then I'm just gonna leave this (Dev response during EotE beta when autofire cost 1 adv to activate ALL the time) here:

[W]e want to continue to evaluate Autofire before making any changes, if any changes are to be made. Currently Autofire has some significant penalties (with +1 difficulty for using autofire, and +1 difficulty for attempting to hit multiple targets), and we want to ensure that any changes we make balance autofire with other abilities appropriately, but also maintain the feel of firing a weapon on full auto. One thing to keep in mind, though. Autofire is supposed to be good , and we don't want to limit it or complicate it to the point where it becomes a hindrance or an otherwise worthless investment.

Because increasing the activation cost of autofire to 2 adv would 'limit it or complicate it to the point where it becomes a hindrance or an otherwise worthless investment'.

Just one thing to keep in mind... Developer lulz?

Im assuming they increased the Advantage cost being fully aware that it could be Jury Rigged to bring it back down.

Im assuming they increased the Advantage cost being fully aware that it could be Jury Rigged to bring it back down.

Well, seeing as how they had to errata Jury-rig in an earlier the Beta update to prevent it from reducing the activation cost to 0 for that exact reason... yeah, I'd say they were aware.

And not everyone who uses an autofire weapon uses Jury-rig.

absolutely but it adds a level of advancement to the weapon, it lets anyone be good with Autofire since anyone with a machine gun will be devastating, but the best are just truly horrifying with it.

absolutely but it adds a level of advancement to the weapon, it lets anyone be good with Autofire since anyone with a machine gun will be devastating, but the best are just truly horrifying with it.

It's almost like there's a reason to house-rule disallow a game-breaking combination...

Or just don't let your PC's get Autofire weapons, stick to linked, blast and breach; theres plenty of other ways to do crazy damage. My point was that the Devs set out intending to replicate in the rules the devastating nature of a real fully automatic weapon. If you don't like that then either change the laws of physics or remove the entire concept of an automatic weapon. Personally I much prefer to let the PC have their cake and eat it, but let the cake give them food poisoning and all of us sit back and laugh while their meat head over there tries to argue for the 20th time today that his little piece of paper says he is allowed to carry Big Bertha on the subway.

Adding red dice instead of purple is great with autofire. Be Out of ammo could be more common with autofire than other weapons.

Adding red dice instead of purple is great with autofire. Be Out of ammo could be more common with autofire than other weapons.

Haven't tried this yet, but considered giving Autofire a rank. Autofire 2, for example, means that weapon can autofire twice per session. After that it needs to reload. Or, that's how many times you can autofire before the challenge dice start adding up automatically to reflect the higher chance of overheating, running out of ammo, generally breaking down.

Emphasizing different aspects of the game might help as much as direct changes to Auto-fire. Many of my players are over 1,000 xp and absolutely deadly in combat. However, nearly all missions include plenty of non-combat encounters so that there are RP and mechanical incentives to diversify character xp investment.

Combining Auto-Fire with Slow-Firing. Thoughts? Activate autofire, need to wait to fire again. Don't activate, don't need to wait. Allows that one cool moment of PEW PEW PEW PEW, but with a cost.

Combining Auto-Fire with Slow-Firing. Thoughts? Activate autofire, need to wait to fire again. Don't activate, don't need to wait. Allows that one cool moment of PEW PEW PEW PEW, but with a cost.

I prefer just to have the player decide how many extra shots they want to try for, then upgrade (not increase) the difficulty of the roll that many times. Introduces the possibility of Despairs into the mix and also increases the amount of Threat the player has to overcome, making autofire highly risky for the untrained but viable for the specialists without being broken.

So, while I'm in my Clone Wars period, and all my players who may be wanting auto fire are republic troops on official missions, would the "big guns in public" apply to them? The only time I remember clones not having access to their weapons were when off duty at a bar..

This is less a question of how to reign in auto fire as it is making sure that particular would actually apply. Will they just enjoy that freedom until they become outlaws?

So, while I'm in my Clone Wars period, and all my players who may be wanting auto fire are republic troops on official missions, would the "big guns in public" apply to them? The only time I remember clones not having access to their weapons were when off duty at a bar..

This is less a question of how to reign in auto fire as it is making sure that particular would actually apply. Will they just enjoy that freedom until they become outlaws?

Well, it's not impossible to come up with scenarios where heavier weaponry might not be available. Paratrooping in behind enemy lines with limited cargo space, assigned as bodyguards to a senator who would prefer not having people around him carrying around very large guns 100% of the time, etc. Something that's important to note that tends to get forgotten in these discussions, though, is that situations like these aren't necessarily meant to be the norm. Every campaign is different, and I'd tell any player joining a Coruscant spy thriller campaign that their opportunities to break out the heavy weaponry are probably going to be the exception, not the norm. The flip side is your campaign, where you can expect to have the big guns more often than not.

The one thing I try to avoid is what I call 'balance by railroad.' If someone picks up or mods a really really nice gun or other piece of gear, I don't endeavor to shove them into polite social situations forevermore because I think that gun is overpowered. Instead, I work out a houserule so that the gun is more in line with what the rest of the party can do and the players can enjoy their toys without me throwing them out of the pram every other session. They still have the occasional 'you don't have your usual equipment' scenarios from time to time but only because it's fun and a change of pace, not because I'm trying to nerf them.

My game has a member with Jury-rigged autofire, 13 minimum damage, and the bantha scope for good measure. It's a beast. He's a beast. And it's pretty much the end of any opposition I throw them up against.

Their first encounter using it was during the "Dead In the Water" adventure. A group of rogue protocol droids entered the bridge via the main turbolift, and were instantly slaughtered as he did 4 auto-fires to the group. "Raining Hell" was how i described it, as droid parts exploded across the air and floor.

As awesome as it is in practice, it really is a GM's worst enemy. This player is a one-man army, and the other players pale in comparison when it comes to damage.

Some will argue "but don't forget the extra purple dice!", to which I say... well if I add that to a character's dice pool who is shooting at short range... that's 2 purple dice. And considering that this player has minmaxed his character, his dice pool is pretty much only in his favor. And of course by the time his turn shows up he usually has and additional 4 blue dice waiting for him via other player's actions. It's an absolute mess.

For the next session after that I upped the HP on a lot of the droids. It made the fights last a little longer, but it doesn't do anything to make the other players feel like they are contributing to the battle. If anything it just makes it worse for them in particular just to give the 1 broken player a bit of balance.

Unfortunately the only true way to balance it is at the source. I'm cursed with players who don't like to be "nerfed". Having a discussion with them about what I feel is broken and how I'd like to fix it usually just ends in bitter arguments. Since its in the rules and hasn't been a subject of any kind of errata then it must be legit and stay, so they believe.

If I were to fix it I would say that the only way to make it work is to increase the amount of advantages needed to trigger it. Or apply a sort of diminishing returns effect where every additional hit does less damage. I don't even understand how it makes sense that two completely different blaster bolts do the exact same amount of damage on two different targets. I mean do they both hit in the exact same vital area on both targets each and every time?

Auto-fire also has the game harming effect that it completely eliminates the need for the player to ever choose "Crit" as an option. Critting in Star Wars is a very important element to the game due to its influence on the story. But why maim the recurring villain when you can simply reduce him to jelly with three jury-rigged auto-fires instead of applying a single crit?

It's actually kind of insane that Crit is worse than Auto-Fire, and even on average without Jury-rigging, Crit costs more advantages so theoretically it should be better.

Crits need time to stack before they start to have major effects, so really the best way to compare it to auto-fire is damage to damage. While crits do not outright do "damage", they do auto-kill a minion. Let's say your standard Stormtrooper minion has 5 hit-points and a soak of 5. The crit essentially does 10 damage. An un-modded auto-fire could easily do 12.

No, sir. I don't like it.

If you do indeed have all your players insisting things are fine as is, there are a few routes you can take:

A. Do nothing. Players say they’re happy, after all. They’ll continue to steamroll encounters, of course. If they start to complain about the combat monster overshadowing them all, remind them that there’s a way to fix that if they’re willing to deviate from the Holy Word of Dev.

B. Beef up the encounters even more to keep things balanced with the monster. If he doesn’t have pierce, give them more Soak. If he stacks up on Pierce, use Defense. Again, if the other players complain that they can’t do anything against the new enemies, point out that you’re just keeping pace with the guy that mows them all down otherwise.

C. Fight fire with fire. Throw them up against autofiring rivals, and focus on the clear threat: the guy with huge amounts of laser fire spraying out of him.

I’d probably do a combination of B and C, depending on the response of the group as a whole. My general take is: I am not here to enable your mary/gary stu fanfic. If I put an encounter in the game (combat or otherwise) it’s because it’s a challenge for everyone to overcome, not a breezefest for a single player to dominate. Thus, if my minions are getting slaughtered wholesale with no damage done in return, I’ll beef things up in the future to give more of a challenge.

My game has a member with Jury-rigged autofire, 13 minimum damage, and the bantha scope for good measure. It's a beast. He's a beast. And it's pretty much the end of any opposition I throw them up against.

Their first encounter using it was during the "Dead In the Water" adventure. A group of rogue protocol droids entered the bridge via the main turbolift, and were instantly slaughtered as he did 4 auto-fires to the group. "Raining Hell" was how i described it, as droid parts exploded across the air and floor.

As awesome as it is in practice, it really is a GM's worst enemy. This player is a one-man army, and the other players pale in comparison when it comes to damage.

Some will argue "but don't forget the extra purple dice!", to which I say... well if I add that to a character's dice pool who is shooting at short range... that's 2 purple dice. And considering that this player has minmaxed his character, his dice pool is pretty much only in his favor. And of course by the time his turn shows up he usually has and additional 4 blue dice waiting for him via other player's actions. It's an absolute mess.

For the next session after that I upped the HP on a lot of the droids. It made the fights last a little longer, but it doesn't do anything to make the other players feel like they are contributing to the battle. If anything it just makes it worse for them in particular just to give the 1 broken player a bit of balance.

Unfortunately the only true way to balance it is at the source. I'm cursed with players who don't like to be "nerfed". Having a discussion with them about what I feel is broken and how I'd like to fix it usually just ends in bitter arguments. Since its in the rules and hasn't been a subject of any kind of errata then it must be legit and stay, so they believe.

If I were to fix it I would say that the only way to make it work is to increase the amount of advantages needed to trigger it. Or apply a sort of diminishing returns effect where every additional hit does less damage. I don't even understand how it makes sense that two completely different blaster bolts do the exact same amount of damage on two different targets. I mean do they both hit in the exact same vital area on both targets each and every time?

Auto-fire also has the game harming effect that it completely eliminates the need for the player to ever choose "Crit" as an option. Critting in Star Wars is a very important element to the game due to its influence on the story. But why maim the recurring villain when you can simply reduce him to jelly with three jury-rigged auto-fires instead of applying a single crit?

It's actually kind of insane that Crit is worse than Auto-Fire, and even on average without Jury-rigging, Crit costs more advantages so theoretically it should be better.

Crits need time to stack before they start to have major effects, so really the best way to compare it to auto-fire is damage to damage. While crits do not outright do "damage", they do auto-kill a minion. Let's say your standard Stormtrooper minion has 5 hit-points and a soak of 5. The crit essentially does 10 damage. An un-modded auto-fire could easily do 12.

No, sir. I don't like it.

I think you've well illustrated the issues with Auto-fire.

Some suggestions that are worth what you paid for them:

If you still want to try to talk with them about reducing Auto-fire's effectiveness ask them this: If it's not too powerful how would they feel if it's used against them? Don't become an adversarial GM but appropriately throw enemies at them capable of similar tricks.

Use the squad rules in the Age of Rebellion GM's kit. Basically, it lets the mooks take the hits for your big bad.

It's not feasible to carry an auto-fire capable weapon in a lot (most) places. I don't know your campaign details but use more scenes where auto-fire weapons are not really an option. Don't rob your auto-fire player of his schtick but mix in more encounters where the auto-fire weapon won't be at hand.

If your players enjoy the overpowered auto-fire splattering then give them what they want. I can understand it being frustrating and not fun for you as a GM to have dramatic and "tough" encounters so easily overcome but try to find your fun in the other parts of the game. Social encounters, story developments, tough choices the PCs need to make etc. Adjust your expectations so that most any combat encounter almost boils down to a single skill check - similar to a Computers or Mechanics or Lore check: it's just a check that pushes the plot along in a certain way.

I have an autofire addict and a lightsaber machine in my game right now... last night I tried something new and gave a whole encounter's worth of enemies armor instead of soak.

Lower WT way down, everyone does minimum one damage. Everything else is standard. Needs tweaking, but maybe...