Spitfire Question

By KnightVeritas, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Hey, all. I ran a one-shot last night (using my Mass Effect conversion rules which are posted around her somewhere) and I had a question. One of the characters was playing a Gunslinger using the Spitfire talent, using paired pistols. In the climactic final battle between 4 Rivals and a high-powered Nemesis, the Gunslinger got first action and opened up on an enemy that was very easy to hit, and rolled really well, netting something like 8 or 9 Advantage. Using those, she proceeded to burn through the Rival she had initially targeted, then his friend standing next to him - and then proceeded to keep going to the other two Rivals. The first two Rivals I'm fine with her taking out; they were poorly positioned, she got the drop on them, so bravo. But when her shots then proceeded on to the second pair of Rivals - who were above her, farther away, and behind cover - I was not thrilled; the player insisted that by a strict reading of Spitfire, she could keep firing at any enemy within range of her weapons, which they were, but it allowed her to use a good roll against disadvantaged enemies to bypass the protective measures of the other enemies.

Is Spitfire supposed to be that deadly? Autofire can be pretty disturbing as well, especially when Jury-Rigged to cost 1 Advantage, but Autofire, at least, has you pick your targets before you fire and use the target with the highest difficulty and/or defense. This just seems like an ability that is really easy to abuse, and for further games I'd like to know if there are recommended fixes to this that don't involve keeping all enemies outside of the Gunslinger's range.

Yeah, pretty sure she's totally wrong. Two weapon fighting allows the user to hit with a second weapon, while Spitfire allows that second weapon to hit a second target. Not for continuously shooting.

Dual weapon attacks only allow two attacks (one for each weapon), unless the weapons are Linked and the appropriate Advantage spent or if one of the weapons has Auto-fire, which must follow Auto-Fire difficulty rules in addition to the dual weapon attack rules and has the appropriate advantage to spend.

5 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

Yeah, pretty sure she's totally wrong. Two weapon fighting allows the user to hit with a second weapon, while Spitfire allows that second weapon to hit a second target. Not for continuously shooting.

Correct, Spitfire doesn't allow for additional extra hits, only for those to hit other targets. In case she were using double-barreled Linked pistols, for example, she would be able to redirect those extra hits freely; Advantage for Paired, twice double Advantage for Linked: three extras for 5 Advantages. Therefore the vague description.

It looks like she can only hit a second target.

If she tries to start with something easy to hit then apply all those successes and advantage to things that are harder to hit, I would start rolling the difference in their various difficulty and disadvantage dice, and using the results to pare down her remaining successes and advantages.

EG

Guy 1 is at short range, has adversary 1, and has padded armor. Plus added difficulty for 2 weapon fighting. Difficulty 1R1P.

She targets him, winds up with a load of successes and advantages, kills guy 1, and then sends shots off to guy 2.

Guy 2 is at medium range, has adversary 1, is in cover, and has armored clothing. Difficulty 1R2P2B.

Roll the difference between the two defenses (1P 2B), and use the results to negate her remaining successes and advantages. Apply any remaining successes and advantages as a hit. If she has no remaining successes, she doesn't hit the second target.

Edited by Spatula Of Doom
1 minute ago, Spatula Of Doom said:

EG

Guy 1 is at short range, has adversary 1, and has padded armor. Plus added difficulty for 2 weapon fighting. Difficulty 1R1P.

She targets him, winds up with a load of successes and advantages, kills guy 1, and then sends shots off to guy 2.

Guy 2 is at medium range, has adversary 1, is in cover, and has armored clothing. Difficulty 1R2P2B.

Roll the difference between the two defenses (1P 2B), and use the results to negate her remaining successes and advantages. Apply any remaining successes and advantages as a hit. If she has no remaining successes, she doesn't hit the second target.

Or, just do what Auto-fire does: the player declares their intent to use Spitfire, and is forced to target the adversary with the hardest difficulty.

That's probably a lot better of a solution.

Much simpler.

RAW dual wielding weapons allow you to trigger a second hit against the same target assuming you roll enough advantage. Spitfire allows you to declare that the second attack hits another target other than the one you rolled against. This is situationally better than autofire because it ignores adversary and defensive talents like dodge. So even with adversary 7 and dodge 20 , all you would need to roll is sufficient damage to bypass soak, and enough advantage to trigger the 2nd shot (probably 1) the difficulty would be 2 purple assuming you fire your main shot at the mook at short range.

I think if you nerf this too much it's largely useless compared to other talents. Having spitfire used to target more then two targets tough seems against RAW.

Although, considering Spitfire's placement on the Gunslinger Talent tree, this would be a fairly acceptable talent location to allow more than two shots as well.

Autofire allows as many shots as you have advantage for - it would make perfect sense for a capstone talent to allow a gunslinger to do the same.

23 minutes ago, Darcune said:

Although, considering Spitfire's placement on the Gunslinger Talent tree, this would be a fairly acceptable talent location to allow more than two shots as well.

Autofire allows as many shots as you have advantage for - it would make perfect sense for a capstone talent to allow a gunslinger to do the same.

Not when said talent allows you to hit the hardest to hit NPC in range while accepting the difficulty (increased once) for the easiest to hit. Alwo dual wielding has the limitation already of being able to only hit the same opponent, which is what this overrides.

Edited by syrath

Spitfire doesn't give you extra attacks. It simply allows you to place those extra attacks on hard-to-hit targets. Its foil is twofold: 1) you've gotta be able to generate those extra hits in the first place (two-weapon fighting can only give you one extra hit, while Linked and autofire are potential other sources for extra hits), and 2) it requires the use of smaller arms, so you don't get to use it while wielding a heavy repeating blaster ;)

7 hours ago, Darcune said:

Although, considering Spitfire's placement on the Gunslinger Talent tree, this would be a fairly acceptable talent location to allow more than two shots as well.

Autofire allows as many shots as you have advantage for - it would make perfect sense for a capstone talent to allow a gunslinger to do the same.

Autofire guy can't throw 2 grenades at 2 different targets. Gunslinger can. Talent is fine as is, it doesn't need anything else.

How does spit fire interact with the autofire pistols?

I don't know as the off hand use of an autofire pistol was ever answered by the devs. It may be in that FAQ thread. Otherwise it would depend on a GMs ruling as to whether or not they would allow the off hand were it autofire to stack up extra hits with the additional Advantages without the addition of an extra Difficulty for the autofire. Personally I find it too loopholey for my tastes.

Edited by 2P51
5 hours ago, TheShard said:

How does spit fire interact with the autofire pistols?

Very simply! The additional hits from an autofire pistol are eligible for distribution with the autofire talent.

2P51 makes a good point about autofire in the "off-hand." I would absolutely require that one declare (and increase the difficulty appropriately) the intent to use autofire, no matter which gun he uses as the primary weapon.

Also, as an aside, it doesn't matter if the character is using one or two autofire pistols. Autofire is autofire, doesn't matter whether it's coming from one gun or two.

Two Weapon Combat requires the difficulty of the check be set by "the highest difficulty of the two weapons being used". Since Autofire has an increased difficulty common sense would suggest that it applies.

But why? Your increasing the difficulty twice for no significant benefit... other than lobbing a grenade then unloading your Uzi, which is rather cool ?

On 30.4.2017 at 7:06 PM, Grimmerling said:

Correct, Spitfire doesn't allow for additional extra hits, only for those to hit other targets. In case she were using double-barreled Linked pistols, for example, she would be able to redirect those extra hits freely; Advantage for Paired, twice double Advantage for Linked: three extras for 5 Advantages. Therefore the vague description.

No redirecting targets freely either. As always, you have to take the hardest difficulty of your targets for the roll and thus assign potential targets before rolling.

I have yet to find a dev answered question on this so I was going to submit this question. If you have additions, changes or clarifications before I go ahead... Let me know.

Question about the spitfire talent.

First can you give a brief explanation of how this works, specifically can you target more then two targets?

Does this bypass things like soak, dodge, etc?

Do you have to declare targets before your roll?

Does this allow you to hit an additional target even if it would have been of a higher difficulty Then your initial target's difficulty?

How does this interact with linked, paired, double barrel and autofire pistols?

Edited by TheShard

RB is right in that two weapon combat does require you to use the highest Difficulty of the two weapons for the dice pool, so really there's not much mechanical reason to use an autofire pistol in 2 weapon combat as it only makes the check more difficult.

The Talent becomes the most interesting with a pair of pistols with Link like the HH-50s. Then you've got some shots to spread around with the Talent......or you could just use a machine gun....

9 hours ago, TheShard said:

I have yet to find a dev answered question on this so I was going to submit this question. If you have additions, changes or clarifications before I go ahead... Let me know.

Question about the spitfire talent.

First can you give a brief explanation of how this works, specifically can you target more then two targets?

Does this bypass things like soak, dodge, etc?

Do you have to declare targets before your roll?

Does this allow you to hit an additional target even if it would have been of a higher difficulty Then your initial target's difficulty?

How does this interact with linked, paired, double barrel and autofire pistols?

I think you meant the defense provided by armor rather than soak, because soak certainly applies

Yes I did mean that

I would write the questions to be far more specific. Sam has a habit of giving Yes/No answers so you need to write questions where a yes or no will be satisfactory.

eg:

If I have two targets, one with no defence and at short range (Difficulty of D). The second has 2 Defence, Adversary 1 and is at Long range (Difficulty of DDCSS). I chop target the first opponent, if I hit and have enough Advantage can I use Spitfire to hit the second target who would normally be much harder to hit?

On ‎02‎.‎05‎.‎2017 at 4:24 PM, SEApocalypse said:

No redirecting targets freely either. As always, you have to take the hardest difficulty of your targets for the roll and thus assign potential targets before rolling.

I'm somewhat confused what exactly you're objecting to, as both double-wielding and Linked, normally, only do allow for extra hits against the original target, anyway.

Only the application of Spitfire is changing that quite clearly: "Each additional hit generated [by any means] as part of the attack can be allocated to any other target within range [...]".

So, you can attack any eligible target normally, using two weapons. If successful the initial hit is against said target. Any extra hits (normally against the same target) can now go to anybody within range; no mention of assigning targets in advance whatsoever.

EDIT: I'd like to remind you that the need for selecting possible targets beforehand is only ever mentioned in the description of the Auto-Fire quality; it isn't even, to my knowledge, mentioned in chapter VI.

Edited by Grimmerling