So, the other night during our game, an interesting situation came up. A Droideka fired upon one of my payers. The Droideka hit and got a Triumph and a Despair. The unfortunate player was quick to shout out that he wanted the Despair to be spent on making the Droideka's blasters run out of ammo (good call! Those things are brutal). I said sure, and then I spent the Triumph on a critical hit. I got a 77, the result that says the offender makes another attack roll using the exact same roll as the attack that generated the critical injury.

My players all kind of sat there for a moment, trying to figure out how we could reconcile that. The Despair had already been spent to say the Droideka runs out of ammo--How could it shoot again with the same pool? Alternatively, do Critical Injuries override Despair results? Should I have told my player to change what he wanted the Despair to do, because of a result I rolled after his choice? In the end, I just rerolled the Critical Injury and everything proceeded smoothly. But it really made me curious: Is there a proper order of operations when it comes to this stuff?

Resolving Triumphs comes first, step 4. The Despair has to wait until you've spent and resolved the Triumph, so he would've been hit again. Your situation is an example of why the order is set up that way.

Strike this, forgot you roll the bloody dice in Step 6. I'm reading and thinking. The Despair certainly doesn't cancel a crit though.

I think a fair option is you have the PC suffer the crit and give them the 2 purple dice crit, but don't roll the attack.

Ahhh, I did not know there was a proper order! Huh. It's been years since I've gone through the rulebook. Thanks!

A Triumph shouldn't negate the effect of the despair. I would either play the crit as it landed, or use the next lowest crit result.

As an alternative, the blasters fall silent, there is a moment of relief, then something above the players hit by an earlier shot falls, doing the second attack (at the same pool).

12 minutes ago, Darzil said:

As an alternative, the blasters fall silent, there is a moment of relief, then something above the players hit by an earlier shot falls, doing the second attack (at the same pool).

This isn't a bad narrative, it's a little 'neener neener I got you anyway', but not too bad. Maybe a ricochet that bounces back and gets em...

Yeah, ricochet is even better, as it's definitely the same attack roll, and also fits the two hits happening at the same round as the blaster runs out of ammo.

It's a narrative system so I wouldn't get too wrapped up about it. Nothing about the out of ammo says that it happens right this second. A round is up to a minute long. Unfortunately for that character a few more bolts from the destryoyer are inbound before he runs dry. The crit is part of that attack so everything from it should be considered part of that attack IMO.

I don't think that you did it wrong, I just wold have done it differently.

Yeah, that critical injury result gives a free attack made with the exact same pool - even if that pool had a boost die for the next roll, a die upgrade from a destiny point flip, difficulty upgrades from the target using Dodge, and was made with a limited ammo 1 weapon. Some attacks will be easier to explain than others.

The aim is to tell a story, your solution worked well. Anything everyone has suggested would have been a suitable choice, this is one of those situations where the GM needs to be GM and make decisions.

As a completely different option you could have flipped a Destiny Point for the a Droideka to have a reload, then suffered 2 Strain to use the reload, then actually fire again.

"The fearsome Droideka fires relentlessly in your direction, bolts smashing into the building around you. A couple of them punch through your armour sending waves of pain up and down your body, until suddenly everything falls quiet. You stand and stare, the Droideka is still trying to shoot but it appears to have overloaded its power systems.

A series of clicks and whirls come from the deadly combat Droid, why is it still trying to shoot? Then completely without warning the blasters spring back to life... it had a spare power supply! Your caught completely off guard as more and more come crashing into you."