Can you ignore the crit clause in favour of just turning a die into a hit to avoid draw their fire for example?

There's a "may" and an "or" on the card so it is your choice.

2 hours ago, Goseki1 said:

There's a "may" and an "or" on the card so it is your choice.

I wouldn't be so sure. Guidance Chimps: "Once per round, when attacking with a [missile] or [torpedo] secondary weapon, you may change 1 die result to a [hit] result (or a [crit] result if your primary weapon value is "3" or higher)."

That could be interpreted two ways:

1. Once per round, when attacking with a [missile] or [torpedo] secondary weapon, you may change 1 die result to a [hit] result or a [crit] result if your primary weapon value is "3" or higher.
2. Once per round, when attacking with a [missile] or [torpedo] secondary weapon, you may change 1 die result to a [crit] result if your primary weapon value is "3" or higher.

Does the "or a [crit] result" part override the "[hit] result" choice, or simply add to it? We'll never know without an FAQ.

The brackets are there to guide you. You can change a result to [hit] but if your primary weapon value is 3 or higher it will change to a [crit] instead.

It would have specified that you may change to a [crit] if your PWV was 3.

Instead if your PWV is 3 the result must be a [crit]. You can't choose.

Remove the parentheses and the reference to firepower 3+ and you have "you may change one result to a [boom] or a [kaboom]". I think it's optional. The only thing that keeps me from a hundred percent on that is I'm not sure how I'd word it to make it non optional without using way too many words.

Other than maybe shooting at Prince Xizor (a pilot I've literally never seen played ever) is there any reason to not change to a crit?

I guess if there's even 1 case you gotta have an answer but ya know it's a very edge case.

My reading of the card would be that if you use Guidance Chips on a ship with a primary of 3+ then you have to make it a crit. You can choose not to use GC at all but if you do: crit. I do agree there is wiggle room to go the other way though at least in theory.

I asked my English professor and she said parentheses are used to offset additional information in a sentence. I showed her the card (she is a gamer as well), and she said that they way it is written, you can change one die to a hit or crit result. If it was a comma, then you would have to go to a crit result. She did state it was poorly written.

5 minutes ago, sharrrp said:

Other than maybe shooting at Prince Xizor (a pilot I've literally never seen played ever) is there any reason to not change to a crit?

I guess if there's even 1 case you gotta have an answer but ya know it's a very edge case.

My reading of the card would be that if you use Guidance Chips on a ship with a primary of 3+ then you have to make it a crit. You can choose not to use GC at all but if you do: crit. I do agree there is wiggle room to go the other way though at least in theory.

Draw Their Fire is the other major one.

27 minutes ago, shaunmerritt said:

She did state it was poorly written.

LOL

They'd have to have worded it more specifically to be preventative, as you're still qualifying for the standard effect, regardless if you qualify for the parenthetical text or not.

Also, simply removing "or" in the parenthetical text would have been sufficient if they wanted it to not be optional.

I saw on a Twin Cities Xwing group FB page where Alex Davy replied to an email that the crit was required for primary 3 and higher.

I know this is not necessarily official, but an interesting point of information.

I would clarify it with a TO prior to start of a tournament.

On 7/19/2017 at 9:49 AM, shaunmerritt said:

I asked my English professor and she said parentheses are used to offset additional information in a sentence. I showed her the card (she is a gamer as well), and she said that they way it is written, you can change one die to a hit or crit result. If it was a comma, then you would have to go to a crit result. She did state it was poorly written.

That's because it was written in Xwinglish, not English.

On 7/27/2017 at 6:13 AM, USCGrad90 said:

I saw on a Twin Cities Xwing group FB page where Alex Davy replied to an email that the crit was required for primary 3 and higher.

I know this is not necessarily official, but an interesting point of information.

I would clarify it with a TO prior to start of a tournament.

Changing to a crit was also mandatory at gencon.

On 7/27/2017 at 7:13 AM, USCGrad90 said:

I saw on a Twin Cities Xwing group FB page where Alex Davy replied to an email that the crit was required for primary 3 and higher.

I know this is not necessarily official, but an interesting point of information.

I would clarify it with a TO prior to start of a tournament.

Like we saw with Gonk, this isn't something that can be relied on. It's a reference for now, though.

On 7/19/2017 at 6:49 AM, shaunmerritt said:

She did state it was poorly written.

She probably saw the "copyright FFG" and was able to figure that one out without reading the card.

Seriously, I know plenty of game designers who will tell you, after a game comes out, "well, that's not quite what I intended, but that's clearly what the rule says, so go with what the rule says." Fantasy Flight instead prefers to only vaguely understand their own rules, put out very ambiguous text, and then clarify what they actually meant to a select few, and it's getting really old.