Hmm, what if it was something like:

"When attacking, you may modify your dice after your opponent rolls their defense dice."

So you can roll attack dice, leave them as is, opponent rolls their defense dice and have to modify based on what they think you'll do. Then you can choose to spend your focus if it would actually result in a hit, or bluff them into spending all their mods on a single roll.

Oooh... I like that. Taking it one step further, how about something like:

"After declaring the target of your attack, the defender rolls and modifies his agility dice prior to rolling the attack dice. Then receive one stress."

Having the greens go first would be pretty sweet. Against someone like Fel, you would be forced to spend tokens to maximize the evades, assuming that the attacker is going to get full hits. And against someone like a Y wing, you'll know how many hits you need prior to spending/wasting that focus that you could have saved for defense. The stress prevents it from being too rampant.

Who receives one stress? Ok, when I first read that I though the target of your attack received the Stress as well and while that isn't what it says I'd bet you get plenty of people who read the period as a comma which totally changes things.

Forcing a target to complete Defense before starting the Offense is a LOT stronger than simply making the target roll defense before any modification, to attack or defense, take place. Having both rolls before any modifications is going to be worth much less than finishing the defense before an attack is even rolled. She may not get an EPT but imagine Miranda's ability when you already know what the defense is going to be!

I wonder if this is an appropriate ability for a 4 point EPT:

"Ships attacking you skip the 'modify attack dice' step of the attack."

Putting it another way any ship attacking the ship with this EPT must do so with naked dice. Not so strong is "simple" play but when you get to tournament play and the chance to have two or more modifications to dice it would become very strong.

I think Wedge Antilles's ability could be worth 4 points as an EPT...

I agree, if the defender had no idea what kind of damage was coming that would be monstrously powerful. If it's before modifying your dice, then at least they could see "oh crap, that was three natural hits" or "all blanks, he's going to need to burn that TL if I use this evade." I do agree on maybe adding a stress requirement, or finding another way to limit it.

As for removing the ability for the attacker to use modifications, I really don't like that. It would need a huge restriction, or else a swarm would never be able to touch you.

...

As for removing the ability for the attacker to use modifications, I really don't like that. It would need a huge restriction, or else a swarm would never be able to touch you.

That's all going to depend on how much defense the ship would have vs. how much offense. Obviously the more defense the ship with that EPT has the stronger it is and just like everything else the less offense the attacker has the stronger any defense becomes. Even now how welll do swarms fair against those high agility arc dodgers with Autothrusters.

Just making the attacker skip the "Modify Attack dice" step is pretty severe. Stepping down you could say no player may modify the attack dice and even further down you could say no to game rules modifying the roll which would then allow a HLC to keep any crits it rolls.

Another possible restriction is the good old "once per round" sort of restriction with various ways of instituting that.

It is simply a suggestion for a 4 point defense based EPT which unfortunately should be pretty strong as you need to compare it to things like PtL and Predator. I am kind of looking at that "only use the naked attack dice against this ship" as a PtL alternative for Interceptors and other ships.

I'm wondering what one of these abilities might be worth:

(1) Once per round, when attacking or defending, if your opponent modifies his or her dice, you may return one die to its original facing.

(2) Once per round, when attacking or defending, if your opponent modifies or forces you to modify your dice, you may return one die to its original facing.

I'm wondering what one of these abilities might be worth:

(1) Once per round, when attacking or defending, if your opponent modifies his or her dice, you may return one die to its original facing.

(2) Once per round, when attacking or defending, if your opponent modifies or forces you to modify your dice, you may return one die to its original facing.

This might belong on an Imperial Ace as an expensive Pilot Ability. Tie F/O Omega "Alpha"

(2) Again, really effective at auto-adding one almost every roll. The game is 40% dice modification, 40% flying, and 20% luck (dice and critical hit cards). I'd say 4 points just because there are less ways to modify your opponent's dice than there are to modify your own.

Immunity from TL's (is there already an ability/upgrade that lets you pass-off red TL tokens to other ships?) - at the beginning of the Combat phase, you may move 1 red TL token from yourself to another friendly ship at R1-3.

(a reverse Inq-y) When attacked by a primary weapon, you are always regarded as being at R3 (auto-combo with auto-thrusters ).

Once per round, after performing an action from your Action Bar, you may perform that action again (perhaps worth more than 4pts? - so impose a stress, ion or 'skip next perform action step' penalty, or simply add "You may not perform a free actions." - and make it Small Ship only!).

When defending, you may spend an Evade token to cancel one of the attackers [crit] results OR (if that's not good enough for 4pts) When defending, your [evade] results may cancel one [crit] result before cancelling [hit] results. - though, some variation on this is what I'd like to see as a unique Kihraxz upgrade (a la, reactive plating).

Immunity from TL's (is there already an ability/upgrade that lets you pass-off red TL tokens to other ships?) - at the beginning of the Combat phase, you may move 1 red TL token from yourself to another friendly ship at R1-3.

(a reverse Inq-y) When attacked by a primary weapon, you are always regarded as being at R3 (auto-combo with auto-thrusters ).

Once per round, after performing an action from your Action Bar, you may perform that action again (perhaps worth more than 4pts? - so impose a stress, ion or 'skip next perform action step' penalty, or simply add "You may not perform a free actions." - and make it Small Ship only!).

When defending, you may spend an Evade token to cancel one of the attackers [crit] results OR (if that's not good enough for 4pts) When defending, your [evade] results may cancel one [crit] result before cancelling [hit] results. - though, some variation on this is what I'd like to see as a unique Kihraxz upgrade.

Dude. These are awesome. You should send these to the Devs or win Worlds lol

Interesting challenge. I'm thinking here about strong pilot actions that could affect a dogfight tactically. How about...

Feint (Elite, 4pt)
After you perform an attack, if you are unstressed, you may cancel all damage and any other effects caused by your attack, perform an attack, then take a stress token. You cannot perform another attack this round.

This is a similar effect to Gunner, except you can use it even if your first attack would have hit. The added versatility (either attack can be performed with a secondary weapon) makes it an interesting option for many lists. The stress limits its use so it cannot be easily spammed.

It's a good way to burn defensive tokens off slippery opponents. Of course, if the defender suspects you're feinting, (eg. if you have saved up a focus or TL for a second attack) he might not use up his defensive tokens and eat a damage from the first attack instead... at which point you might decide the attack was NOT a feint and not use the ability, making that damage stick.. OR, you might choose to go for the second attack and confront his defensive tokens with your saved up offensive tokens. Mind games.

So.. Worth 4pts? Should it be restricted to primary?


And how about..

Gloat (Elite, 4pt)
Once per round during the end phase, if an enemy at range 1 has been hit by an attack during this round, you may receive a stress token and cause the enemy to receive two stress tokens.

Not sure on the wording for the first part, but basically if a nearby enemy has taken a hit to hull or shields, you can take the time to cheer, boo, flip the middle finger or otherwise humiliate or irritate him/her. Is range one enough? Should it be scum only? Small ship only? Mad Max War Boys only?

Oh, here's another one, based on some brainstorming I did in a Star Fox thread:

Overconfident (Elite, unique, 4pt)
Increase your primary weapon value by 1. If you perform an attack that misses or if you are hit by an attack, discard this card.

A lot like Stealth Device, only for attack. If you get even one attack to land, it's about as good as a proton torpedo, on a 3-attack ship. It can also potentially last for more than one round, especially on high-attack, high-agi ships. If you're faced with a slippery enemy or hit before you can fire, tho, it's a complete waste. Good on Whisper, Echo, Poe. Very good on Corran. Even better on Corran+Biggs. In fact, Biggs is the overconfident pilot's best friend.

Oh, here's another one, based on some brainstorming I did in a Star Fox thread:

Overconfident (Elite, unique, 4pt)

Increase your primary weapon value by 1. If you fail to hit with a primary attack or if you are hit by an attack, discard this card.

A lot like Stealth Device, only for attack. It can potentially last for more than one round, especially on high-attack, high-agi ships, but if you're faced with a slippery enemy or hit before it can fire, it's a complete waste. Very good on Corran. Even better on Corran+Biggs. In fact, Biggs is the overconfident pilot's best friend.

Forget Corran - it would be a perma-buff on Blount (weeell, at least until Biggs bites it).

Just a haiku for the thread:

4 point EPTs

are really bad, but maybe

they wont always be

Forget Corran - it would be a perma-buff on Blount (weeell, at least until Biggs bites it).

Yes it would but... a 21-point 6PS Blount at 3/2/2/2 is not really better than a 23-point 4PS red squadron pilot at 3/2/3/2. Take a hull upgrade with Blount and a hypothetical VI for the RSP (no EPT, I know), both land at 24 points, and the only difference would be the Astromech slot (in favor of the Xwing) and the 3kturn (in favor of the Z95), and torpedo vs missile. Then, of course, once Biggs bites, it you have a significantly weaker Z95 on the board.

Now, Corran + Biggs with two times 4-dice from corran and 3-dice from Biggs (plus anything else you can fit on the list) at first contact would be a cool mini Alpha Strike.

Yeah, I was just narrow-mindedly focused on the point savings.

(vs Corran)

- - -

Regarding the RSP comparison, it wouldn't be able to guarantee keeping the "Confidence" for as long - LB aaaaalways hits!

Expose is great with Decimators though.

Its isnt really.

As a thought experiment:

""Traitor/Defector (unique)"

Your ship may be fielded within another faction. You cannot equip upgrades with faction restrictions."

Probably it should have another disadvantage (stress first time attacked by the origin fraction?), cause I guess it will enable some hysterious combos. Note however, no PTL, Predator etc, if not used on an A-wing. Neither any faction crew. Right now it is probably too cheap at 4. Normally these kind of things give more points to the one killing the traitor, difficult to do within the X-wing point system.

As a thought experiment:

""Traitor/Defector (unique)"

Your ship may be fielded within another faction. You cannot equip upgrades with faction restrictions."

Probably it should have another disadvantage (stress first time attacked by the origin fraction?), cause I guess it will enable some hysterious combos. Note however, no PTL, Predator etc, if not used on an A-wing. Neither any faction crew. Right now it is probably too cheap at 4. Normally these kind of things give more points to the one killing the traitor, difficult to do within the X-wing point system.

Howlrunner suddenly appears in basically any swarm.

Erratic Handling:

ACTION: Perform a barrel roll using the [bANK] 2 template. If you do not have the Barrel Roll action icon, receive 2 stress tokens.

You may then remove 1 enemy target lock from your ship.

So, it's a butchering of expert handling, with a huge leap in repositioning at the expense of 2 stress.

So currently, there are only two 4 point EPTs...

I think a strong defensive mod may be worth it, similar to Autothrusters. Maybe something like "When defending, if the Attacker is in your arc you may convert one [blank] to [focus]" Call it something like Dauntless.

What kind of abilities do you think would be worth 4 points as an EPT?

What about indefatigable?

Erratic Handling:

ACTION: Perform a barrel roll using the [bANK] 2 template. If you do not have the Barrel Roll action icon, receive 2 stress tokens.

You may then remove 1 enemy target lock from your ship.

So, it's a butchering of expert handling, with a huge leap in repositioning at the expense of 2 stress.

Terrible for four points, possibly not even worth using for two. Double stress is a GIGANTIC penalty. For comparison, look at Rage which is franly ludicrous benefits for a single action, but costs 1 and is situational *at best* if not outright bad, at 1 point.

And Rage gives you dice mods...