Disclaimer: This thread is about house ruling existing rules. If the idea of people discussing some house rules to tweak an overpriced card offends you to the point that you feel the need to kvetch about it here, I suggest you immediately close your web browser, go outside, and take a walk. The fresh air, combined with a bit of perspective, will do you good.

I don't like Opportunist. It has too high a price point and too many restrictions for a very situational ability. Take stress to roll an extra die (not even a guaranteed result) if and only if you're not already stressed AND your target has no focus/evade tokens? Pbbb. Yeah yeah, I know you can build your entire list around it with the right pilots or upgrades (Wes Janson, Hotshot Copilot), but let's face it, it's just not that great. I'm not interested in suggestions about how to use the card... odds are I've probably tried or at least theory-crafted it already. I'd like to brainstorm about ways to house-rule it to make it good enough to take and have it be competitive. If you think the card is fine as-is, that's great. No need to tell me... I'm not interesting in being convinced to play with it as-is.

A 4-point upgrade card needs to be really, really good. Expertise is an example of a 4-point EPT done right. In fact, I came up with a homebrew rewrite of Marksmanship that was virtually identical to Expertise. The only difference was that my version didn't shut off when stress is applied, but I'm fine with the stress clause in the official version. Thanks FFG, now I have to re-re-write Marksmanship to something else now. I plan to create several threads on various underused/overpriced upgrades, so maybe I'll bring up Marksmanship in a future post.

Anyway, I've been thinking about ways to make the card better to the point that somebody might take it, and I have a few thoughts:

I think the simplest way to fix it would be to keep the price at 4, and simply remove both stress clauses. The ability would simply read: When attacking, if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens, you may roll one additional attack die. Clean, quick, and easy. Or, if that's too strong, can keep the part about needing to be stress-free. Maybe drop the cost to 3 if you keep the restriction. Or, keep it the way it is and drop the cost to 2. I kind of like having another strong 4-pointer to compete with Expertise though.

One thing I'm not inclined to do is keep the "take a stress" clause but remove the "must be stress-free" clause. We learned our lesson about the dangers of that sort of thing from Dengaroo and Zuckuss.

The only combo that I can think of that might make it too strong is Gunner + Opportunist on a PWT ship, especially with a Hotshot Copilot. That's pretty strong... shoot once to strip tokens, then get an extra die on your second shot. However that IS a 9-13 point investment. That's akin to the Punisher JM5K title that just straight-up adds a die, or what the Outrider title has to pay to get the HLC Turret going. If it IS too strong, though, I could add a clause that states "when attacking a ship in your firing arc." PWT ships would have to fly more carefully to get a benefit. Could be quite strong on Rey... but then, so is Expertise.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Wow, you've really, really thought about this card. Well done.....I got nothing to add really.

Now do Expose.

the EPT, not the act! Get your clothes back on you filthy person!

i think removing both stress clauses is good.

Why: Unlike Expertise, which simply happens regardless of PS order long as nobody stress-attacks, Opportunist is actually a bad card for your Aces or whatever high PS you got. High PS will more than likely never get this card off unless you bump them/connernet them to strip actions, and even then theres ways to get tokens anyway (mindlink....). So, this card defaults to the medium guys around PS5, the ones that have an EPT and still deadly enough to justify a 4pt upgrade, Sabaac or Ryad come to mind mainly.

Even then it would be a rare card to see since thats a 4pt card on a mid-PS pilot, AND you either need to have higher PS ships to strip tokens or fire second to even get it. One could also see it as a sort of defense... "Yeah im not going to spend that focus to get those 2 extra hits...then you get Opportunist on me and you have double mods..." which, again, rewards going second and typical "aces" wouldnt be doing that.

Much like Expertise, its an investment card. High value going in, big penalty if its shut down. Opportunist w/o the stress factors could be considered vastly stronger than Expertise, but it requires setup and a lot of it while Expertise is mostly luck on not facing stress mechanics.

As for Expose: just have it simply happen at the start of the Activation phase. No action, same effect, telegraphs youre going risky mode. Make a bad call you could be in a world of hurt (also "Cannot equip if agi is 0" clause)

@mkevans80 Real quick while I'm on my break, because I want to get this in. I think your future threads on this should have a pre title tag like the [CCL] tags on the custom card threads. [homebrew] or [HB] or something so that the people you warned off in the first paragraph can know not to click on it

I'll be back to actually comment on the thread at hand later, I've go some opinions on opportunist that might be worth sharing.

I'm of a mixed opinion with Opportunist. It seems like it could be a really good EPT, but I agree that the restrictions and the cost seem high by today's standards where token stacking is such a prevalent thing that it seems to not be worthwhile. The problem I have with removing the stress requirements is that it makes it pretty much open season on any list that doesn't deal with token stacking. For instance, I am fond of the simple TIE/ln actually using its barrel roll action. No PtL, or token passing, no craziness, just rolling into position. Also, ships like Dutch Vander, whose primary action is taking a Target Lock, are punished just by being who they are.

I would prefer to reduce the cost of the EPT, but keep the limitations on it. 2pts would be a good spot. Keeps it kind of the Juke line with a decent chance of additional damage with limitations.

Damnit! You're the man!

Have never seen any better Opportunist card ever. Ever. Ever.

FFG hire that man right away.

Once per round, When attacking, if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens, you may roll one additional attack die.

Opportunist is actually much better than you think. I've clubbed tons of baby seals with a few specific builds with it. But yes, its not a great card. But doing that over multiple attacks would really NOT be good.

Imagine this: your opponent accidentally clips a rock. Quickdraw goes into R1. With your opporunist QD is offloading TWO 5 die attacks. That's too good. Dengar, same issue.

Or simply still retain the assign a stress part.

I really like how Opportunist works as is. I just think it needs to be 3 points.

It's kind of like comparing Outmaneuver and Predator. Outmaneuver should have been 2 points since it is more situational.

I agree 100% about removing the Stress penalty. Thanks for your reflexion.

Removing the stress penalties and adding that the enemy has to be in arc would make it perfect IMO.

I really, really want more things that are good for turrets to force them to care where they're pointing.

I can see Green Squad, Opportunist, snap shot a wings being a thing. add on prockets for even more funsies!!!

I do like the homebrew side of it but it does need to be once per round (or phase so A wings get an even nicer boost and can push some damage through)

Expose

Cost 4

When attacking. You may decrease your Agility value by one or more until the end of the round. You may add an attack die for each Agility point removed in this way.

Removes the action cost, prevents agi 0 ships from using it, buffs low PS ships that can take an EPT.

6 minutes ago, Keffisch said:

Expose

Cost 4

When attacking. You may decrease your Agility value by one or more until the end of the round. You may add an attack die for each Agility point removed in this way.

Removes the action cost, prevents agi 0 ships from using it, buffs low PS ships that can take an EPT.

Oh how I wish the generic HWK had an EPT slot

1 hour ago, Keffisch said:

Expose

Cost 4

When attacking. You may decrease your Agility value by one or more until the end of the round. You may add an attack die for each Agility point removed in this way.

Removes the action cost, prevents agi 0 ships from using it, buffs low PS ships that can take an EPT.

Can you imagine a stealth deviced green squad pilot!! 6 dice (7 at range 1) I'd take that over Prockets any day. I think adding a no stress requirement to stop k turning and chucking out that many dice!

Expose being scalable is a big nope and will result in some reallllly dumb alpha strikes.

40 minutes ago, taulover55 said:

Can you imagine a stealth deviced green squad pilot!! 6 dice (7 at range 1) I'd take that over Prockets any day. I think adding a no stress requirement to stop k turning and chucking out that many dice!

I can, and it isn't a problem really -as that poor Little A-Wing would still die to bombs, Gunner/Pred/Vader/Kylo shenanigans, etc.

But at least we'd get A-Wings on the table again eh?

2 minutes ago, Panzeh said:

Expose being scalable is a big nope and will result in some reallllly dumb alpha strikes.

Then cap it at 2.

1 hour ago, Keffisch said:

I can, and it isn't a problem really -as that poor Little A-Wing would still die to bombs, Gunner/Pred/Vader/Kylo shenanigans, etc.

But at least we'd get A-Wings on the table again eh?

Then cap it at 2.

A cap similar to prockets would work as well i reckon.

I still bring a wings when i can. might be OK now Defenders have been nerfed a bit!! but i'm running a dirty k wing list so have no time for your puny EPT's!!!

Guys, regarding the Expose stuff, that's all good, but let's put that in another thread, ok? In fact, in Summer 2016 I created a thread just for that purpose. It can be found here . I think now may be a good time to raise that thread from the dead and resume the discussion. There was a lot of good stuff there.

I'll respond to Opportunist-related stuff here later today, as I have time.

12 hours ago, kris40k said:

For instance, I am fond of the simple TIE/ln actually using its barrel roll action. No PtL, or token passing, no craziness, just rolling into position. Also, ships like Dutch Vander, whose primary action is taking a Target Lock, are punished just by being who they are.

This is no more "unfair" for the Tie or Dutch than it is unfair to take Assault Missiles against a swarm, or to use Carnor Jax against people who have focus-related abilities. Same thing for stress-causing abilities and upgrades. Forcing another player to play differently (or accept the consequences) in response to your squad's abilities is part of the game, so I'm not convinced by this argument. Picking ships only to find that they have been countered by something on your opponent's team is just part of the game.

14 hours ago, nitrobenz said:

I think your future threads on this should have a pre title tag like the [CCL] tags on the custom card threads. [homebrew] or [HB] or something so that the people you warned off in the first paragraph can know not to click on it

Excellent advice. I've modified the title of this thread (as well as my really old thread dedicated to Expose) and will have bracketed tags in the future, to go with small disclaimer at the start of each article.

I also use the barrelroll on tie fighters alot, theyre super fragile and the moment a high dice attack or bad greens befall them they fold. Taking a barrelroll to dodge the shot entirely is common, but if i dont think i can dodge the shot i just focus up as the roll would do literally nothing anyway.

With how easy it is to get tokens, i dont see this being a gamebreaker change. Powerful one no doubt, but not a metasweeper change. Much like Expertise people are going to be very picky on who they dump 4pts on, especially when in this case it may add a die but it also removes a mod, since majority of doublemods come from the EPT slot. Plus, unlike Expertise, this can be messed with casually by just adapting your playstyle to deny opportunist (keep that focus token instead of being greedy for the 3rd hit)

It looks like I'm seeing three major thoughts in response to my suggestions:

1) Keeping the EPT as-is but reducing the price to 2 or 3 points.
2) Imposing a "Once per turn" limitation
3) Imposing an "In arc" limitation.

In regards to reducing the price, this is certainly an option. I suppose it's then a question of how many 4-point EPTs do we want there to be in the game? Expertise is good. Expose is rubbish (literally should be a zero-point EPT) and Opportunist is 2 (imo) points overpriced. Do we want to have only one 4-point EPT, or 2+? I personally like the idea of having more than one really excellent 4-point EPT so I will personally focus on playtesting versions of the card that are strong enough to be worth 4 points. I also disagree with the poster that suggested dropping it to just 3 points. That's not enough, IMO... consider that Predator and Dengar are arguably better abilities with no downsides AND situational upsides that double their power, and cost 3 points.

I could be down with imposing either a "once per turn" limitation, or an "in arc" one, but not both. Imposing both adds too many clauses to the card, which is partly what I was hoping to get away from. Both limitations are to prevent abuse, so let's look at the situations that they're trying to prevent.

Being able to get additional dice on multiple shots is very strong, certainly. Possible abuse I can think of: Dengar, Quick Draw, Corran Horn, Luke/Gunner. Maybe Cluster Missiles too? The abuse example somebody provided above where Quickdraw got two 5-dice shots... I would argue somewhat that the player in that example that clipped the asteroid is at least partially sleeping in the bed that he made by clipping the asteroid. There are also other ways for these ships to get great bonuses to multiple attacks. Some have downsides but are super cheap (Overclocked Astromech, Rage), others are overpriced for what they do (Marksmanship), and some are strong but well-priced (Fire Control System, which only works on the second shot unless you've previously attacked the target or had a TL already). Considering that Opportunist is either situational or requires a list to be built around it, I'm not sure I'm convinced that "abusing" it would be too strong. I think we'd need to see some playtesting.

Limiting the ability to "in your arc" really just applies to PWT ships, specifically the Falcon and Decimator. I don't have quite as much of the hatred of PWT's as some folks do because I haven't had to play in metas where they are ubiquitous (I only started playing in earnest in the last year or two). However, I would also say that existing EPTs and Crew (Predator, Dengar) are quite powerful, arguably as or more powerful than getting an extra red die, while generally being less situational. When you consider the 4 point price tag, plus the cost of other cards or pilots you might need to use to get a powerful combo going (Hot Shot Copilot or specific aces like Carnor/Wes/Palob/Old Teroch) I'm again not certain a limitation needs to be applied.

Would people be willing to try various versions in some of their pickup games with willing participants?

51 minutes ago, mkevans80 said:

This is no more "unfair" for the Tie or Dutch than it is unfair to take Assault Missiles against a swarm, or to use Carnor Jax against people who have focus-related abilities. Same thing for stress-causing abilities and upgrades. Forcing another player to play differently (or accept the consequences) in response to your squad's abilities is part of the game, so I'm not convinced by this argument. Picking ships that happened to be countered by something on the other team is just part of the game.

Don't misunderstand me, I do not think it is "unfair" (your words, not mine ). I just do not think it is good for the game as it currently stands.

Back in the early days, taking a barrel roll instead of focusing or evading was a reasonable choice. These days, fully modded shots and defense rolls are more and more common, and required , to be able to hit and survive being hit. I do not think the meta needs even more punishment for not token stacking. You risk pushing non-token-stacking lists even more out of the meta in the attempt to bring Opportunist back into play.

Alternatively, remove the 'gain stress' part only and keep the 'if you have no stress' part.

-> Suddenly it becomes usable but 'still in line' with the other 4-pointers.

-> Expose is similar; if the card would say to perform a free action after the Expose action, it would be usable.