Now I understand that this would tip the balance of the game enormously. Yes, there'd be no party bus, things like PTL become less important, whole builds go right down the tubes. But would it make the game a better or worse place? We play a lot of rules variants in our local group to keep it fresh, I'm considering trying this one.

An example would be that you'd no longer see people using a focus and an evade in defending an attack, you have to choose one. Extra actions would be used more for things that boost the actual number of dice you're using, or for repositioning.
Gunners become more powerful, secondary weapons become more powerful as there is less to defend against large dice attacks. But those large dice attacks become less potent as you'd only be able to spend a TL, for example, not a TL and a focus.

Just curious how you would feel about a game with these rules, and the effect this would have on your list building.

oh god no

I like having something to fall back on before spontaneously com-busting to far below average rolls

though I would also like a better emphasis of conditional dice modification

for example, having Outmanuever as a base rule instead of as an EPT

2 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

oh god no

I like having something to fall back on before spontaneously com-busting to far below average rolls

though I would also like a better emphasis of conditional dice modification

for example, having Outmanuever as a base rule instead of as an EPT

That's not a bad idea either!

I do have to agree that stacked defenses can get very annoying. It especially seems that 1v1 battles these days just go on forever if you can stack defensive modifiers.

I personally believe that solution is to have modifiers that only apply under certain conditions that both players can influence, such as through arc placement (i.e outmanuever) or range, would be ideal

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

oh god no

I like having something to fall back on before spontaneously com-busting to far below average rolls

though I would also like a better emphasis of conditional dice modification

for example, having Outmanuever as a base rule instead of as an EPT

I second this. Excellent idea.

More conditional die mods would be neat.

As for 1 mod? ew, no. Especially not now as theres a ton of literal single die mods out there that on their own dont do much but coupled with a Focus or TL they make the attack pretty reliable.

I think this is too far in the right direction, as it were. Being able to control your dice is a essential part of what makes this game good, both in terms of strategy and competitive play. TL+Focus needs to be a thing; but it needs to take skill and planning to set up.

Norra Wexley becomes unusable. As in, her ability actually does nothing.

Considering that double modification has been possible since the beginning it is simply death to X-Wing as anyone knows it.

Is that one modification per die or just one type of modification period?

I've always wondered about a Corellian Conflict like condition for XWing... Limits upgrades to some number small enough to simplify builds and gameplay.

Maybe something like only 1 modification per squad, or only 1 unique pilot and 1 unique crew per squad... Something along those lines

A sweeping change like this would kill the dominant squads but new dominant squads would take their place. Kill the largest fish in the pond and the second largest becomes the largest.

Missiles and torps largely go back to being basically useless because you can't use any other mod and guidance chips.

For my 'what if' rule:

The one thing that's really bugging me in the meta right now is the proliferation of large numbers of highly accurate red dice. Fenn, Norra, Rey, Ghosts, TIE Phantoms, Sabbacc, Upsilon, and Swarm Leaders of various sorts can all be built to chuck 5 dice with a roughly 90% chance of dealing 4 or 5 hits (5 dice with TL/focus or TL/Expertise or various other forms of mod to get to that point), and that suppresses, HARD, any ship with low hit points and 3 evade dice. We've already seen Soontir go from dominant to basically dead in the water, partly because of all the anti-defender tech, partly because of this sort of thing. From a selfish perspective it's bothering me particularly because it makes my current list, which I really enjoy, a lot more risky to fly than it was even 2 or 3 months ago, because it's 4 mindlinked 4-HP 3-evade ships. I never had a chance to test it in a major tourney in the meta for which it was designed and I am strongly suspecting it'll fail hard at Yavin to the point where I'm considering abandoning it after some months of practice.

Even when I started playing about a year and a half ago, 2 die attacks were reasonably common, 3 die attacks were reasonably common, 4 die attacks were occasional, and rare outside range 1, and 5 dice were limited to a very few specific ships and/or upgrades, and usually only available at range 1 - Phantoms and Ghosts at R1, things with Opportunist, Prockets, N'Dru, etc. Now, 2 die attacks are getting extremely rare, 3 dice is looking a little low, 4 dice are common, 5 dice are not that UNcommon, and 6 or 7 dice is starting to be possible on more than an occasional basis via Swarm Leader

So, what if there was a maximum number of results you could end up with in an attack of 4?

"At the end of the attacker modifies attack dice step, the attacker must cancel results of their choice until no more than 4 results remain" as a default rule. Basically making 5+ die attacks with reroll and focus almost 100% likely to do 4 hits or crits, but never doing 5 and getting to the point where on average defence dice with focus or evade (2 evade results, roughly) a TIE Fighter just pops like a soap bubble without any chance to survive.

Swarm Leader is a bad gimmick and honestly if you're going to try to punch through defense you gotta bring quality attacks.

Most of the actual good attacks in this game are pretty much 4 dice max. The only 5 die attack you ever see on the regular is miranda with a homing missile.

21 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

Swarm Leader is a bad gimmick and honestly if you're going to try to punch through defense you gotta bring quality attacks.

Most of the actual good attacks in this game are pretty much 4 dice max. The only 5 die attack you ever see on the regular is miranda with a homing missile.

Someone's not been playing against Parattani. Fenn should routinely be getting 5 dice with focus/TL if that list is being played well. If ANY list with Fenn, Mana and Mindlink is being played well...

Not to mention Rey with Expertise, Finn, Kanan, new Falcon title. Routinely gets 5-hit attacks at range 1 and 4-hit attacks at all other ranges in arc, which it usually will be.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

Someone's not been playing against Parattani.

Do you think Fenn Rau is OP, then? He's pretty much the same firepower as a ghost or phantom at r1. In parattani he has only one reposition in any case.

1 minute ago, Panzeh said:

Do you think Fenn Rau is OP, then? He's pretty much the same firepower as a ghost or phantom at r1. In parattani he has only one reposition in any case.

I think Fenn Rau is part of a larger pattern of increasing numbers of red dice that low HP high evade ships struggle against.

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

I think Fenn Rau is part of a larger pattern of increasing numbers of red dice that low HP high evade ships struggle against.

Honestly I think it's more FFG had to make things that can actually hurt palpdefenders/palpaces and a lot of other things got caught in the crossfire.

I mean, we've had a competitive list with 2 4-die gunner/fcs attacks since wave 6.

4 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

Honestly I think it's more FFG had to make things that can actually hurt palpdefenders/palpaces and a lot of other things got caught in the crossfire.

I'd've far preferred to see them boost things doing automatic damage and control effects, personally, over just buffing red dice. In particular, making bombers other than the K wing a lot more useful, and making ion effect more common and easier to apply. You kill Defenders HARD by ioning them, but you don't have anywhere near as powerful an effect on a TIE, Scyk, or mid-PS Protectorate.

But really, I'd prefer them to not have undercosted /x7 and Palp to the point where this was necessary.

17 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

Do you think Fenn Rau is OP, then? He's pretty much the same firepower as a ghost or phantom at r1. In parattani he has only one reposition in any case.

A friend of mine said that to me yesterday "There's been 5 dice range 1 attacks with 4 green dice ever since Phantoms, Fenn Rau is nothing new".

To which I replied: "With Autothrusters, action economy and a free Evade from a title for 6 points less?"

Also, Phantoms don't routinely get focus and target lock on the first engagement unless they also have Gunner. Fenn does.

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

Also, Phantoms don't routinely get focus and target lock on the first engagement unless they also have Gunner. Fenn does.

I found Fenn actually to rarely get target locks early in the game against someone who's not asleep since it generally has to be manaroo unless someone does a dumb maneuver and manaroo generally wants to be able to focus stack someone to keep them from getting focus fired.

Phantoms always end up getting their TL, though, whereas Fenn rarely gets one.

What generally has to be Manaroo? The person taking the TL?

Not really. If the Fenn player is on the ball, his manoeuvre should take him to range 1, then he can target lock, and his focus comes from Manaroo. But that then becomes an argument about who's the better player, and that's not one either of us will win.

Either way, Fenn is a LOT more likely to end up with focus/TL for his first shot, given that the Phantom has no way to do so at all without outside assistance or not taking ACD.

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

What generally has to be Manaroo? The person taking the TL?

Not really. If the Fenn player is on the ball, his manoeuvre should take him to range 1, then he can target lock, and his focus comes from Manaroo. But that then becomes an argument about who's the better player, and that's not one either of us will win.

Either way, Fenn is a LOT more likely to end up with focus/TL for his first shot, given that the Phantom has no way to do so at all without outside assistance or not taking ACD.

I mean, i'm trying to speak from my experience with Paratanni here, which is probably going to be different from yours, so I think this may not be the best discussion. As I said before, I agree in general that ships like the lowly tie fighter and generics in that 3-green low-hp class have struggled but they've been struggling for a long time. Most people had to bring ways to hit a palpace and if you can hit a palpace you can shred a normal ship.

I look at some of the examples, like Rey/Finn and see FFG trying to make a turret done right- a ship costed between fat han and superdash that heavily rewards in-arc play. She's gotta be able to dish out that kind of firepower or that ship would suck because it costs so much and has lackluster defense and lower PS.

When FFG puts out a ship, they have to give the player something compelling and flinging 2 die attacks that bounce off a defender from ships that have too low a PS to really keep anything in their arc at ranges shorter than 3 just isn't compelling at all.

TIE Swarms were doing fine when I started up. I even ran one for a while.

They're pretty much dead in the water right now when there are large numbers of ships that can pop a TIE a turn, fairly reliably.

Yeah, I was gonna say I'm pretty sure I was 1pt of damage away from making into the Top 4 of UK Nationals with TIE Swarm last year...