So, player has a weapon that has a 3 advantage special activation cost.

He gets 1 advantage in a roll. Doesn't need to use it to recover strain, wants to save it.
Is this a thing? Then when he reaches 3 he can activate his weapon's special ability?

Technically no; you spend your advantage as you get it. However, if you would like to allow it, here's a quick and dirty house rule for you!

You can carry over as many extra advantage as you like for as long as you like, but you suffer 1 strain for each advantage so carried at the end of each turn. You cannot spend advantage to recover strain in a turn you are carrying over advantage.

Gives you a way to do it, but with a fairly steep cost. I just made this up off the top of my head, though, so you'd want to monitor it for abuse the first couple of sessions.

Perfect. Thank you!

So like, if they save 3 advantage, they lose 3 strain per turn until they use them...

Nice, I like it.

Definitely not per the rules.

Hmmm, not sure I like it. For starters unless you roll well, combat probably wont last long enough to gather up enough advantages to be meaningful.

Second, it doesn't make much sense from a story standpoint. I pass a blue to my friend because my blaster fire keeps that stormtrooper's head down. But what's the justification to having a huge pile of advantage in my back pocket.

And it could be ridiculously powerful. So somehow you plink away with your blaster, gathering up a nice pile of advantage. And then you drop a Scathing Tirade and unleash a nuclear bomb in the room. And yeah, a politico would have a ton of strain to burn through sitting on those advantages.

Yeah - I wouldn't allow it at my table. It looks like a small change, but it's got too many repercussions.

Id have to agree what appears to be a small changes usually have an unforseen circumstance with at least one talent in the game, advantage and threat, triumph and despair should have an immediate effect, the effect might not be felt until sometime later but it should still be as a result of the roll just made. I keep to this and would recommend you to do the same. Given that if you try it and it works for you, all the better for you.

I agree; it was just something I came up with real quick; I personally would not use this in my game.

But nobody is mentioning the suggested strain cost!

Wouldn't it be fair for a character to use this to change the tide of a battle and pass out because of it?

And, now I have a question. If nothing is done with the advantage the player got in the roll, it's wasted then?

There's always something to do! Free Maneuver is a good one, passing a boost, 3 advantage will even let you pass an Upgrade!

As characters gain experience they quickly get more and more ways to spend advantage on talents and equipment Qualities

Yeah those last two seem good enough :-)

But, there's a maximum number of maneuvers per round, isn't there?

And the other thing is the more experienced characters become them more ways they have to use Strain, and Advantage is the easiest way to recover so that becomes very important too.

Yeah those last two seem good enough :-)

But, there's a maximum number of maneuvers per round, isn't there?

And its limitations that talents and signature abilities allow you to change. The speed run talent for example or the explorer signature ability. These are just some things that can be overlooked ive come across a few house rules that didnt work and made a few myself. For example I allowed a player in a game to use a triumph to allow him to knockdown an opponent, reasoning at the time thst it could happen on a despair. It was a spot decision until I realised shortly after that ther is a weapon quality and a talent that allows you to do the same. I had essentially in one decision , had made both the quality and talent redundant and if I had let my decision stand......

More recently someone house ruled having adversay and nobodys fool affect a scathing tirade check because they felt tirade was too powerful and required a counterbalance, I used to agree with this , but this also has a knock on effect of making talents like no escape useless and also has effects on talents like bad cop. With a rank 3 coercion skill and 4 willpower it is still very hit and miss getting 2 advantage on a roll, make this harder and it isnt worth picking up No Escape.

The ramifications of a simple change can be further reaching than you think. For reference my knockdown mess up was about the 2nd time I GMd

Sigh there are other uses for advantages in combat other then recovering strain and activating weapon qualities.

Try educating the player on them first.

I try to encourage narrative usage where possible, for example even using it to add items that provide cover into the area, where there wasnt is perhaps the most obvious.

I haven't GMed yet. I'm trying to go in with as little doubt as possible, this is GREAT, you guys.

Yeah, there's plenty of other things they could do with the few Advantages they score. Saving them up to pay for a special effect kinda goes against the freeform narrative system. The point is; they rolled some dice, and something came of it. They may have wanted it to be one thing, but the dice said otherwise.

As others have said it's not RAW to save Advantages and Triumphs, or Threats and Despairs for that matter. If you changed this you'd upset the whole mechanic and basically break the system. Why? Well, the Activation costs for Effects etc. are based on the fact that getting enough Advantages with each individual roll is dependent on the Skill/Attribute Rank of the PC plus Mods and Talents. The whole metric for determining the number of Advantages needed to Activate a particular Effect is calculated based on this assumption. The less experienced and less well equipped PCs will Activate Effects less frequently, if at all, and more seasoned PC will be able to do it more often. This is exactly as intended.