Hello

According the description, if you gain the advantage, the effect is working until the end of the next round, right ? After that, you loose the benefits and you have to Gain the advantage again ?

If you gain the advantage, your ennemy can try the same action to cancel out the effects, this works the same way but the difficulty is increased by one, if he is succeeding, does that mean he just cancels your effects? he doesn't gain the advantage for himself ?

The desciption is more and more obscur each time I read it sorry ...

Edit: bonus question, if someone gained the advantage on me, if I fly from close range to long range, he still has the advantage on me ?

Nobody ?

basically you do the gain the advantage action and roll. If you opponent does so they roll at an increased difficulty. You keep going back and forth increasing difficulty till someone fails.

Ok that's what I understood but that's seems strange. Once you have the advantage, why your rolls would be more difficult?

With this system, you can't maintain your advantage, even if the ennemy does nothing... it's like fighting with yourself... or maybe I missed something

Exemple : you gain the advantage on your ennemy. His turn, he accelerates 2 times to the same speed than you.

Next turn, you try to maintain your advantage, you roll again but with +1 die difficulty because you succeeded last turn ??

Once you are successful and your opponent fails on their roll, you upgrade your gunnery roll. So if normally, you are gunnery YGG and you are benefiting from Gain the Advantage you are now YYG

Ok that's what I understood but that's seems strange. Once you have the advantage, why your rolls would be more difficult?

With this system, you can't maintain your advantage, even if the ennemy does nothing... it's like fighting with yourself... or maybe I missed something

Exemple : you gain the advantage on your ennemy. His turn, he accelerates 2 times to the same speed than you.

Next turn, you try to maintain your advantage, you roll again but with +1 die difficulty because you succeeded last turn ??

In your example you do not need to roll again. Your opponent accellerated and did not try to gain advantage. So you can fire. If they do do a gain the advantage then it is an increased difficulty because they have the advantage and you have to take it back.

But what the OP is asking is once his GTA expires (after his opponent fails or does not try), and then wants to GTA again, does the dofficulty increase again?

You dont GtA again at that point. You fire.

But doesn't GTA expire at the end of the following round? Wouldn't the pilot want to GTA again on turn 3?

End of next round means you get your turn before it ends.

Yes. We agree there. Turn 2 you get your turn. Then what happens on turn 3?

Yes. We agree there. Turn 2 you get your turn. Then what happens on turn 3?

Should depend what you have done in turn 2, you could keep doing GtA, either because you have master pilot or your astromech/gunner do the shooting for you each turn. Or it could have expired and you start with a fresh try.

Though I totally would agree that the GtA rules are a mess and would love to get a more clear written version.

I think the main question here is:

If GtA expires (i.e. the end of the turn comes up) instead of being reversed by the other guy, does GtA suffer the difficulty upgrade on the 2nd test made by the attempting craft?

I believe the answer is "no, there is no upgrade" based on the block of test for the Action (p 247 of AoR, emphasis mine):

Once the advantage has been gained, on the following turn the opponent may attempt to cancel out the advantage by using Gain the Advantage as well. This works as described earlier, but his check is one step more difficult for each time he or his opponent has successfully Gained the Advantage against the other.

Based on this, if you let GtA expire and later attempt it against the same target, you will get no difficulty upgrade because it is only upgraded when the opponent (successfully) Gains the Advantage against you.

I think the main question here is:

If GtA expires (i.e. the end of the turn comes up) instead of being reversed by the other guy, does GtA suffer the difficulty upgrade on the 2nd test made by the attempting craft?

I believe the answer is "no, there is no upgrade" based on the block of test for the Action (p 247 of AoR, emphasis mine):

Once the advantage has been gained, on the following turn the opponent may attempt to cancel out the advantage by using Gain the Advantage as well. This works as described earlier, but his check is one step more difficult for each time he or his opponent has successfully Gained the Advantage against the other.

Based on this, if you let GtA expire and later attempt it against the same target, you will get no difficulty upgrade because it is only upgraded when the opponent (successfully) Gains the Advantage against you.

The part you emphasize suggests that even if GtA expired, trying to gain it again against that opponent would be upgraded as the player had gained it once against that opponent before. Then it would be two upgrades, then three for which ever party next tried to GtA against the other.

Totally agree on that Benjan, I think that part is relative clear.


What is imo unclear is if I get the increased difficulty as well if I am doing myself the second GtA action before my opponent had even the chance to cancel it out. For example if I take the last init slot to do my GtA and do another one GtA on the first slot in the following round. My interpretation of the rules would be that this are just two standard GtA checks and the increased difficulty only applies once the opponent tries to cancel GtA, but it really looks pretty unclean and they did not re-wrote this passage in the second EotE edition either.

" He or his opponent has successfully gained the advantage against each other ...", makes no sense whatsoever. You never gonna cancel out your own GtA and you do not gain GtA on your opponent by just canceling an opponent's GtA either. Might be just a typo or fragment from a earlier draft on GtA.

The part you emphasize suggests that even if GtA expired, trying to gain it again against that opponent would be upgraded as the player had gained it once against that opponent before. Then it would be two upgrades, then three for which ever party next tried to GtA against the other.

That would be very silly, furthermore it would ONLY apply to attempts when canceling a GtA as rules written, which means you own GtA counter never comes into play, furthermore in that case the keyword "per encounter" should be somewhere in the text. For all the reasons it looks like a typo.

What might be the intention was to add one difficulty each time you renew your GtA before it expires too, which would limit the amount of time you can stay behind your target based on your own pilot skill as well. This would make at least from balance reasons somewhat sense, even when it is still silly from a practical perspective. It does not get magical harder to stay behind someone just because you stayed on his tail for 5 minutes.
So I suggest to read it as: "…the opponent may attempt to cancel out the advantage by using Gain the Advantage as well. This works as described earlier, but his check is one stop more difficult for each time his opponent has successfully Gained the Advantage against him."

I think GtA should be renamed: Combat Manoeuvring, or Combat Manoeuvres.

It's basic effect could be similar to GtA, but there should be suggestions for how it can be used in different ways: providing cover for allies, trying to make your own ship a more or less likely target, and other things... like superior crazy stunts that makes it difficult for enemies to target you, or force them into making the same difficult, or a more difficult, check to avoid damage, death, collision, or loosing sight of you - and therefore the chase...

I mean, this is already in the spirit of the game, but more suggestions and options is good, because it gives a good idea of what things can be done, and how.

Adjust difficulty by what you want to achieve, but also just require a certain number or advantages and/or successes to achieve certain results. Base this on the GtA table, or make more use of the opposed pilot check option.

This allows you to add more details to how space combat works, or make it even more abstract: one check to just escape the whole encounter, or a series of difficult checks to navigate a the battlefield (see Stay on Target).

One should keep in mind talents (koiogran turn, corellian send-off, etc) and signature abilities (particularly in Stay on Target and Fly Casual) when creatively using GtA for other things than simple targeting and choosing defensive zones, but generally I think one should go crazy creative and describe the stunts, manoeuvres and the desired effects... then roll and see if that's actually what happened This isn't easy for all players and GMs (myself included), but I think it's how it should be done with this system. It feels more rewarding when you've gone outside the assumed restrictions of the system, going for the cinematically, impulsively and creatively much cooler options of your own imagination.

Double post sorry

" He or his opponent has successfully gained the advantage against each other ...", makes no sense whatsoever. You never gonna cancel out your own GtA and you do not gain GtA on your opponent by just canceling an opponent's GtA either. Might be just a typo or fragment from a earlier draft on GtA.

What might be the intention was to add one difficulty each time you renew your GtA before it expires too, which would limit the amount of time you can stay behind your target based on your own pilot skill as well. This would make at least from balance reasons somewhat sense, even when it is still silly from a practical perspective. It does not get magical harder to stay behind someone just because you stayed on his tail for 5 minutes.

So I suggest to read it as: "…the opponent may attempt to cancel out the advantage by using Gain the Advantage as well. This works as described earlier, but his check is one stop more difficult for each time his opponent has successfully Gained the Advantage against him."

This is the point, and I think one should track GtA actions maximum from the round before. So for someone doing this action again and again the difficulty will always be +1 difficulty. So basically, if you are under the effect of your own "Gain the Advantage" the difficulty is +1.

With the same thinking, the difficulty to GtA if your ennemy succeeded is then +2, and if you succeed the effects are cancelled. Noone has advantage at all...

Sounds like a reasonable way to deal with it.

Then you have the Koiogran Turn talent in the Hotshot spec ... as a maneuver spend 2 strain to cancel an opponents successful Gain the Advantage over the ship you're piloting.

About the wording: there are two types of pedants in the world, those who look for how it can be interpreted in a nonsensical and/or contradicting manner, and those that don't. Myself I tend to often lean towards the former, although the ideal would be the latter

If it was supposed to be: "each time GtA has been successfully activated against the ship that encounter", it would be odd I agree. As the wording doesn't say that, I think it would be odd to interpret it that way. To me the most sensible way, the only way, to interpret the rule is that each time they have, in a chain of checks over multiple rounds, gained the advantage over each other, the difficulty increases once per turn. So I gain the advantage, TIE adv gains the advantage on his turn (+1 difficulty), so on my turn I try again (+2 diff), and so on ... until one pilot fails his check, or fires his weapons on the other, thereby failing/forgoing his chance to continue the chain.

If you look to the Koiogran Turn talent, I think this talent could be made to ignore the increase of difficulty for the pilot with the talent, for 2 strain - but arguably just making it more difficult for his opponent (it is a 20XP talent after all.) Although you could argue that this talent removes the difficulty increase if used (but I would personally only apply the benefit to the hotshot.)

Then you have the Koiogran Turn talent in the Hotshot spec ... as a maneuver spend 2 strain to cancel an opponents successful Gain the Advantage over the ship you're piloting.

And spend directly afterwards your own action on GtA to basically make the hunted the new hunter.

Yeah, hotshots are awesome, especially when combined with pilot for that master pilot talent to shoot directly afterwards. Though my hotshot has a experimental astromech unit who does the shooting for him. He just needs to k-turn, GtA and send off any additional hostiles corillian style. Astromechs are freaking awesome too.

And just to be clear. The K-turn is a maneuver, there is no check involved, you just do it, remove GtA for 2 strain and that's it. It's really freaking awesome, though it is as well freaking expensive.

I think folks have done a good job discussing the Gain the Advantage as it is written and I have little to add there, but I have been experimenting with it recently and can share my experiences and how this action has evolved for us with use.

Probably the part we fiddled with the most was, "his check is one step more difficult for each time he or his opponent has successfully Gained the Advantage against the other."

We first tried it assuming your own successes counted against you too, and as others have noted it is counter-intuitive as you can become a victim of your own success. For characters and minion groups with large dice pools, this wasn't a big deal as GtA rolls often started trivially low, but for low or moderate dice pools or slower ships regaining GtA could become effectively impossible by the second roll even against equivalent opponents.

After that we experimented with only the opponent's successful attempt increasing the difficulty, we even eventually went back redid some of the previous encounters to get a feel for how they might have change. Here we found equivalent pilots, and ships had a fighting chance when their second roll came up. For advanced pilots with big dice pools (though not necessarily limited to just them) spending Advantage and Threat became a more salient factor on how challenging the next roll would be, and the give and take was often more variable and exciting.

We have since settled on using the latter style at our table, as it plays out in a way we find more enjoyable, but we did also agree the former was more likely the closer interpretation to RAW. We also see the former as a better stylistic choice if you are going for a more sudden and cutthroat feel to your dogfights.

Now how long Gain the Advantage lasts also has a baring on the options above. If you stick to the first option, but have the difficulty increase end after the end of the following round, like GtA's primary benefits, then the difficulty shouldn't increase by more than two steps, keeping it somewhat in check. Unfortunately two steps can be enough to make it effectively impossible to succeed again, particularly if your ship is slower than your opponent's. Despite succeeding on the first roll, and almost because of it, failure becomes the most likely outcome on the next. You might find yourself questioning why you'd even bother with GtA in the first place if it means you're nearly guaranteed to lose it before a shot is fired. Without limiting the increased dificulty by the end of the following round will eventually lock out GtA as an option for both parties. These were additional factors for us settling on the second option, believing it gives pilots an incentive to be pilots instead of just gunners.

Getting back on the time limit, though the primary benefits only last until the end of the following round, my group hasn't bothered capping how long the difficulty increases lasts. You could say we play it lasting until the end of the encounter, but that would be deceptive. It would be more accurate to say it lasts until the opponents mutually move on, or it makes sense to end it in the narrative. As long as they are scrapping their successful attempts continue to add up until they reach a conclusion, whether that is one defeating the other or disengaging to deal with other threats or objectives. If they re-engage at a later time in the encounter then they would start at again at zero.

For some reason doing it this way hasn't felt like we're tracking much of anything, the increase is there as long as we're dogfighting, then it is gone when we're not. Similarly with the primary benefits of GtA, if we have the advantage then on the following round can we apply them, then they're gone. I'm not sure if that observation makes any sense or not. . .

Another area we have experimented has been, "Once the advantage has been gained, on the following turn the opponent may attempt to cancel out the advantage by using Gain the Advantage as well." If successful do they merely cancel out your advantage or do they cancel your advantage and gain it themselves. In the beginning we were inclined to say in merely negates your advantage, leaving neither party with advantage, but we found it drew the duel out more than we liked, or at least in a way that created spaces of ineffectiveness. These times of ineffectiveness felt intolerable when our own successful attempts counted against our future rolls, and when our successful attempts didn't count against us, these dogfights didn't need stretching out. So having advantage trading hands made for a swifter encounter, and we generally agreed it felt more exciting. Though we haven't used it yet, I felt Koiogran Turn remains a little more unique when counter-rolls of GtA don't just merely negate advantage, but swaps it instead.

I think GtA should be renamed: Combat Manoeuvring, or Combat Manoeuvres.

It's basic effect could be similar to GtA, but there should be suggestions for how it can be used in different ways: providing cover for allies, trying to make your own ship a more or less likely target, and other things... like superior crazy stunts that makes it difficult for enemies to target you, or force them into making the same difficult, or a more difficult, check to avoid damage, death, collision, or loosing sight of you - and therefore the chase...

I mean, this is already in the spirit of the game, but more suggestions and options is good, because it gives a good idea of what things can be done, and how.

Adjust difficulty by what you want to achieve, but also just require a certain number or advantages and/or successes to achieve certain results. Base this on the GtA table, or make more use of the opposed pilot check option.

This allows you to add more details to how space combat works, or make it even more abstract: one check to just escape the whole encounter, or a series of difficult checks to navigate a the battlefield (see Stay on Target).

One should keep in mind talents (koiogran turn, corellian send-off, etc) and signature abilities (particularly in Stay on Target and Fly Casual) when creatively using GtA for other things than simple targeting and choosing defensive zones, but generally I think one should go crazy creative and describe the stunts, manoeuvres and the desired effects... then roll and see if that's actually what happened This isn't easy for all players and GMs (myself included), but I think it's how it should be done with this system. It feels more rewarding when you've gone outside the assumed restrictions of the system, going for the cinematically, impulsively and creatively much cooler options of your own imagination.

One problem I think people have with actions like Gain the Advantage is it is very easy to look at the basic benefits and costs and come to the conclusion that it is a sub-optimal choice, and discount it. Admittedly, ignoring an instance or two of Evasive Maneuvers and choosing which facing to hit on a fighter likely sporting relatively weak shields isn't all that impressive.

Its for this reason I so strongly remind and emphasize the use of excess advantage/threat/triumph/despair. Spending these resources are what helps you maintain your advantage, let the boost and setback dice fly, and as Jegergryte says, use Gain the Advantage creatively! For me, that last point is much of the point of this whole system to begin with!

With that in mind, we've codified a variable or two we found make Gain the Advantage more interesting:

One part of Gain the Advantage that hasn't really been discussed here is when multiple opponent's have advantage against you. With the rules as written it doesn't appear to explicitly be a factor, you pick one opponent, then try to counter their advantage with a roll of your own. And of course Koiogran Turn allows you to negate all their advantage with a maneuver. One thing we started doing after we stopped counting our own successful attempts against our future rolls of GtA, was to increase the difficulty for each opponent with advantage over us. For example, I'm about to counter TIE/ln Alpha 1's advantage over me with a GtA roll of my own, but Alpha 3 has advantage too, assuming we're all moving at speed 5, the base difficulty is 2, and I increase it two more steps for a new difficulty of 4. If I succeed I break Alpha 1's advantage, gaining advantage of my own, while Alpha 3 still has advantage over me. The logic behind this choice was simply that the more opponents with advantage over you the more difficult it would be to escape any one instance (I need to break left, but if I do I'll fly right into Alpha 3's line of fire - if I roll a despair, that is probably exactly what happens). I'm interesting in using more Challenge dice, we might try Upgrading instead of Increasing Difficulty. Admittedly, I don't consider this so much of a house-rule as, like I said, merely codifying one potential variable influencing a character's dice pool, though I doubt everyone would agree with me there.

Another area I'm 'codifying' a little (okay, so this is more of a house-rule, and still untested) is allowing a character to spend additional successes with Gain the Advantage rolls (and potentially other pilot checks), rewarding those pilots with more skill or an impressive roll. I've found a character can succeed at a Gain the Advantage roll spectacularly, but since excess successes are not usually counted, the opponent can very easily counter advantage on their next roll, so we're letting the character upgrade their opponent's next pilot or gunnery check once for every two excess successes they rolled.

Say I'm playing a highly skilled pilot who nets six Successes and two Advantage on their Gain the Advantage roll. With a positive result, she successfully gains the advantage over her opponent and with five excess successes she get to upgrade the opponent's next pilot or gunnery roll twice and chooses to spend the 2 Advantage to apply a Setback die on their next pilot or gunnery check. If the opponent chooses to counter her advantage, the base difficulty is increased one step for the successful roll, then upgraded twice for the excess successes, and they suffer a Setback die as well.

The aim of such a ruling is to reward skilled pilots by giving them an additional means of influencing dice pools and their own survival with said skill, while generally increasing the number of Challenge dice rolled in space combat. It may be that these upgrades are too fiddly to track, or that they are too dangerous or destabilizing, that is one reason I decided to use two excess successes instead of one per upgrade.

Regardless of what you think of my little, er, codification. I'd like to emphasize that Gain the Advantage is a means for a pilot to really use their piloting skill in aerial/space combat instead of relying almost solely on the gunnery skill, proving they are indeed the superior pilot.

Don't be afraid to use it creatively, Jegergryte, for example, pointed out some interesting alternative aims and goals that GtA could be used for.

Oh, and don't forget to apply Advantage/Treat and Triumph/Despair! They are game changers and narrative gold!

To summarize how Gain the Advantage has come to be used at our table, at least for the moment:

Gain the Advantage (Pilot-only Action; Silhouette 1-5; Speed 4+; Difficulty determined by relative Speed)

• Ignore any penalties imposed from the Evasive Maneuver starship maneuvers until the end of the following round.
• You may choose what defense zone you hit with your attack until the end of the following round.
• If an opponent has advantage over you, you may counter it by making a Gain the Advantage action on your turn. Increase the Difficulty by one step for every time your opponent has successfully Gained the Advantage against you. If successful, you have advantage now.
• House Ruling: Increase the difficulty for every opponent beyond the first holding advantage over you.
• House Ruling: For each pair of successes beyond the first Upgrade your opponent's next Piloting or Gunnery check once.