My personal take on the talents Tinkerer and Jury Rig (and a comment on the blast quality and Autofire)

First I would like to say I did do a search here on these subjects and after checking 20 or so threads I decided to post my own. I do value constructive comments from others, I wouldn't be here otherwise, and I welcome input on the subjects below. Some information below is for my players who are getting copies of this in email.

The Talent Tinkerer: I will not post the exact language here because I don't want the post banned. References: EotE p.145 & AoR p.158

· The first sentence of the description describes the first limitation of Tinkerer. It only functions on a piece of equipment. I as the GM do not think a vehicle, of any type, can be simply described as a piece of equipment. I reinforce my decision by referring to the specialization of Rigger under the Ace career. That career does allow you to modify a ship outside of the hard point system. Not once is the Jury Rig talent or the Tinkerer talent used. Whole new Talents were created for the purpose of enhancing vehicles, ships specifically.

Slightly off topic...

Exception: Jet Packs. It hasn't happened in my game yet but I think this is reasonable. For the record Jet Pack is really only a descriptor. (Our Astronauts have EVA packs in Real Life. )

1. They can explode. do the damage of Blast 8 (wearer gets 1/2 soak) Advantage (4) or a Triumph can be spent to hit the jetpack. Your attack, in a single hit, has to do 10 or more points of damage.

2. You cannot get a Jet Pack that works in both space and on planet but you may buy a space only jetpack. (Miniature repulsor emitters and batteries or possibly ion thrusters and fuel.)

3. You can Jury Rig the speed, handling, System Strain, or Fuel.

4. No detail on how long you can fly... I hand wave this till I feel it's becoming a problem. I will say flight capability should be considered short duration. (nope not gonna detail it any more than that!)

Got a bit distracted there.

· In the following three sentences Tinkerer specifically states you may tinker a piece of equipment once only. You cannot Tinker it consecutive times to stack Hard Point slots. (Sadly it's Very clear in my opinion.) You can have Tinkerer more than once but the Tinkerer has to be on a different piece of equipment.

· The Last sentence I personally believe is intended to mean lost, stolen, destroyed or otherwise permanently inaccessible to the player character. This includes if the player, in the heat of the moment, chooses not to try and recover/save the equipment in question.

· A player may Tinker a new piece of equipment at any time provided the character has time, tools, and parts. (Effectively moving the Tinker to new equipment.)

1. No I would not charge a character to do it. IF YOU wanted to... 500 credits...

2. I would allow them to recover any attachment intact.

3. I may or may not, at my whim, allow them to keep any modds.

4. Yes. To be absolutely clear I would allow a player to {UnTinker} one piece of equipment to use the talent on something else.

5. Yes. You can keep different attachments handy and swap them out. Provided the character has time, tools, and parts.

6. NO! You cannot Tinker an item and sell it for extra money, or give it to another player or NPC. see below

· I firmly believe for any GM to try and permanently take away the talent from a player means they are being a huge ****. Tinkerer IS NO DIFFERENT than Toughened. It is a talent bought with experience. You cannot sell or loan your two wound points from Toughened or have them stolen any more than doing the same with Tinkerer. AS PROVIDED BY THE RULES (I admit it is my interpretation) Tinkered equipment can be lost, destroyed, stolen, or whatever. IT CANNOT be permanently taken from the player. TEMPORAIRLLY! Any more than a game session or two and the player should start calling foul!

Authorization. Copy this players and GMs alike! You can hold it up and point to it and say "See!? SEE!? this random guy off the internet agrees! You are being a **** too!"

Players or even groups of players; only your character can benefit from Tinker or Jury Rig you cannot "loan out" or sell your tweaked out monster-gear to the most lethal PC or NPC. The GM can then ****** away your copy of this, hold it up, point to it, and say " See!? SEE!? this random guy off the internet agrees! You are being a **** too!"

When I read or hear "It doesn't make sense" or "Logicaly it should" I just roll my eyes on this subject. We are after all playing a space opera/fantasy game. Just delete out the words 'The Force' and replace with the word 'magic' in every movie and book you have read...

<dodges flame posts by diving off my high horse>

Jury Rigging EotE p.138 AoR p.150

· I find it telling and critical that Jury Rig does not specifically state, like with tinkerer, that you may only Jury Rig an item once. Therefore YES you can jury rig an item multiple times.

· I believe that you can even stack Jury Rig to the same effect you did a previous time. With certain limitations which are handled by me on a case by case basis.

· As mentioned in the first bullet of Tinkerer; Jury Rig is not for vehicles. Its specifically only for weapons and armor.

· I MIGHT allow it to work on other equipment, not vehicles, on a case by case basis. For Example a PC who is a 'scanner specialist' had a Scanner that is unusually light (reduced encumbrance) or increased scanning range.

· Any GM who allows a player to reduce auto fire (beyond the first extra shot) to being triggered by a single advantage is out of their mind. However I did not have to house rule this as I stated the following at the beginning of a game session.

1. I made sure everyone was listening. Asked a few to put down books or phones as we hadn't officially started the game yet.

2. I told the players my views on exploiting or taking advantage of the rules. "Bad BAD! Don't do!"

3. Explained exactly how to abuse auto fire and showed them some pre-rolled examples using a previous game session and a PC with a soak of 10.

"Ok so Bob's character would have gotten hit with seven total blaster hits of 17 damage each. That would be 49 points of damage to his would points of a mere 20." looking at Bob. "What would have happened to your character Bob?

Bob replied. "He'd be pretty dead."

I Frowned. "No" I replied. "He'd be explody-chunky salsa all over the floor, wall, and nearby companions." I rolled a die without looking and pointed at Steve. "Your character rolled a Despair last game session so he accidently inhaled when Bob's character's brains splashed him in the face and he snorted goop up his nose. Two setback die to all actions until you get it out!"

4. Last I pointed this out. "There is nothing you guys can do with your characters that I can't do with NPCs. If you do me the courtesy of not abusing things like Auto Fire; I will reciprocate and not have the NPC's do the same to you."

5. So far this has worked great.

· A Second Example of Jury Rig. I have a player whose best combat skill is two yellow and a green. He rolled two Triumph one day on Raxis Prime the junkyard world while salvaging and came across a well preserved suit of heavy armor he suspects is of Sith manufacture (I am not telling.) as it had stealth capabilities and a shield generator. he has since used Jury Rig and raised the Ranged defense twice on the armor. Yes thats 5 Setback to ranged attacks.

This hasn't been a problem for a couple reasons.

1. I have rolled or seen him roll, more than once, all blanks on the setback die.

2. When he generates threat or when opponents generate advantage; I can short out the shield generator. Or even destroy it with Triumph/Despairs.

3. he is afraid the wrong people might see it so he doesn't wear it all the time.

4. Conceivably with more Jury Rig or even the Gadgeteer career specialization this could start getting silly. This kind of silly falls under the "Bad BAD! Don't do!"

· I have already ruled that a Character (PC OR NPC) who has jury rigged armor (for added defense or encumbrance) who simply buys new or takes from a foe armor can don it and get the benefits. As far as I am concerned the character has, through his/her life learned to wear armor as a second skin and benefits from it more than someone who, for example; dons the armor to masquerade as the enemy to break someone out of a cell block.

· I have similar thoughts in regards to weapons of similar design or modification maintaining Jury Rigged benefits for the same character.

1. There is no in-game die roll needed.

2. There is no in-game cost needed.

3. Only the expenditure of experience for the talent is needed.

4. I reserved the right to hassle the character a bit with this. maybe he needs to pull bits off more than one Stormtrooper to get a suit of armor to fit just right.

· Yes Jury Rigged Defense would add to armor that starts at 0 defense.

Lastly the Blast Quality. EotE p.155 AoR p. 168

Currently I know of no weapon that has a on/off switch for the blast quality. Therefore if your cannon/big gun/grenade/missile is fired it will most likely hit something and explode.

· If you get at least one success you hit your target.

· If you do not have enough advantage (2) to trigger blast you will only hurt your direct target.

· If you threw/shot it at a location; not a specific target, and hit, and fail to trigger blast you miss!

· If you miss a target or location but generate enough advantage (3) the explosion may still cause damage that is a benefit to you.

· If you miss you CAN expect me to use threat to break something you don't care to have broken or perhaps attract new opponents.

· I might even use a couple threat to break important stuff even if you ARE successful.

· I might even spend your advantage so that it helps you in some way.

· It IS REQUIRED that advantage you generate be first used to activate Blast. It IS NOT A CHOICE.

· Exploding things are dangerous things. Suck it up.

I can't resist a comment on auto fire. When you Auto Fire you are firing 'a bunch' of shots at foes. Not the one, three, or whatever you manage to trigger with advantage at specific targets. Therefore I can and will spend threat/advantage you generate to make unintended things happen. Threat for stuff that is bad for you. Advantage for stuff that is good for you.

I await responses. (and hope they are good and constructive)

PS: Why would I spend advantage to help you? I am one of those that think a GM is not the players enemy/opponent at the game table. I am a referee and a storyteller. If You the players leave my game table with smiles and a eagerness to return I have done my job well.

Quote

Question asked by 2P51 :

Can Tinkerer be used on starships?

Answered by Sam Stewart :

The Tinkerer talent refers to “one piece of equipment,” which implies personal equipment, aka not vehicles, starships, and other things too large to carry (and not generally found in Chapter V: Gear and Equipment of the Core Rulebook). However, if the GM wishes to let a starship or vehicle count as a “piece of equipment,” then it’s well within their rights to do so.

Quote

Jury Rigged

Question asked by Donovan Morningfire (Paraprhased) :

Can Jury rig be applied to the same item more than once with each rank.

Answer (Paraprhased):

Jury Rigged is a "one item per rank" talent. So each rank has to be applied to a separate item per the RAW.

Wait 2P51, you mean to say that the Developer Q&A thread, which is stickied at the top of the forum actually contains useful and highly relevant information?

I do not believe it! Sounds like one of your pirate tricks to me!

It saves some typing at times if nothing else...

2P51 Thanks for the referral to a relevant post. I read the relevant thread just now.

• Like the other poster in that thread I would have vastly preferred to see a copy of how the question was asked as we all know how a question is asked can be important. Please copy me the post where the developers post is directly quoted. Otherwise its just a he said/she said situation.
• There was a team of developers who created the game. One Dev in a post doesn't mean my argument is incorrect. Though I will admit it carries much more weight than a random poster. I have historically seen developers flip-flop on a subject several times. Best Example was with D6 Star Wars by West End Games. When asked if a lightsaber can deflect a projectile like a bullet one Dev said yes and one later said no. A third flipped no/yes/no!
• The language used in Tinkerer and Jury Rigged are both pretty explicit. The language elsewhere in the game has also been pretty explicit just one example being Dedication where (paraphrasing) One attribute may be raised one point, to a maximum of six. I would most likely change my tune if they change the wording in a later edition. An Errata by a single Dev will not do it for me.
• As I stated above, Jury Rigged says One personal weapon or piece of armor per rank. It does not say you can only Jury Rigged once on a particular item. Tinkerer is the opposite strictly limiting its usage on the same item.
• For the moment I and the group of 7 happy players will continue doing what we are doing and having fun.
• I have thought about the consequences of different ways this can be (ab)used and for the moment do not see it adversely effecting my game. Can you give or copy me examples that might break a game? (Excluding Autofire as I have already posted on that here please.)
• I hope you are having as much fun Playing/Running this game as I am!

oops! I see that it is a copy of an actual Dev post! Sorry about that!

Still doesn't change my mind though.

Arrakus

that post is 13 pages long with 90% of what's there I don't need or want. I do have a Life you know! I don't need to spend hours slogging through that stuff.

I don't think anyone ever said GMs can't just run their table the way they want, but those are the dev answers.

15 hours ago, Stormrunner said:

Still doesn't change my mind though.

That's your right. If you find a house rule, which works better than RAW for you, then use it ( I have found this to be common ideology here). And if you share it with us, someone else may find it useful. Sometimes we will tell some corrections if you have missed something.

17 hours ago, Stormrunner said:

· A player may Tinker a new piece of equipment at any time provided the character has time, tools, and parts. (Effectively moving the Tinker to new equipment.)

1. No I would not charge a character to do it. IF YOU wanted to... 500 credits...

2. I would allow them to recover any attachment intact.

3. I may or may not, at my whim, allow them to keep any modds.

4. Yes. To be absolutely clear I would allow a player to {UnTinker} one piece of equipment to use the talent on something else.

5. Yes. You can keep different attachments handy and swap them out. Provided the character has time, tools, and parts.

6. NO! You cannot Tinker an item and sell it for extra money, or give it to another player or NPC. see below

· I firmly believe for any GM to try and permanently take away the talent from a player means they are being a huge ****. Tinkerer IS NO DIFFERENT than Toughened. It is a talent bought with experience. You cannot sell or loan your two wound points from Toughened or have them stolen any more than doing the same with Tinkerer. AS PROVIDED BY THE RULES (I admit it is my interpretation) Tinkered equipment can be lost, destroyed, stolen, or whatever. IT CANNOT be permanently taken from the player. TEMPORAIRLLY! Any more than a game session or two and the player should start calling foul!

I agree in many of those. I would keep the 6. fluid, and MAYBE allow it once if it fits the story and makes game more enjoyable. Making sure to tell players they should try to take that as habit.

And for the second point. IMO, if player buys tinkerer for his/her character then the PC is tinkerer and can use it on equipments. They can lose that ability, if story requires it, and player doesn't oppose it. Personally I think that tinkerer describes how many tinkered equipments PC can keep working. If he uses the ability to new one, then the old one stops working. So, if PC sells a tinkered equipment, it soon stops working, and he may have angry NPC coming to ask why PC scammed him with broken equipment. Personally I allow PC to borrow tinkered equipment to other PCs (or NPCs) and it works well as long as tinkerer doesn't tinker new equipment for himself, and uses his downtime to maintain the equipment.

17 hours ago, Stormrunner said:

PS: Why would I spend advantage to help you? I am one of those that think a GM is not the players enemy/opponent at the game table. I am a referee and a storyteller. If You the players leave my game table with smiles and a eagerness to return I have done my job well.

I agree. GM / PC adversary really doesn't work in this game. I also dislike games where that is apparent.

On 9/3/2017 at 3:00 PM, Stormrunner said:

· It IS REQUIRED that advantage you generate be first used to activate Blast. It IS NOT A CHOICE.

· Exploding things are dangerous things. Suck it up.

Player generated Advantage is to be spent by players, subject to GM approval. I would be very hesitant to take away that agency from my players. The narrative system is such an enjoyable way to include players in the storytelling, and forcing them to spend Advantage or Triumph in a particular way strikes me as not in keeping with the spirit of the game. Now, I would certainly use Threat and Despair to trigger Blast in an unfavorable way.

What about a situation where the opponent targeted is out in the open and the grenade in question has both the Blast and Burn qualities? The player generates enough Advantage to trigger just one of the qualities. Sorry, no Burn on that rancor because my house rule.

Of course, your table, your rules. Further, a member of my group sent me a link to your post because he liked the idea of Blast being triggered first by advantage - and he plays a Demolitionist that lobs a lot of grenades.

On 9/3/2017 at 1:46 PM, Stormrunner said:

that post is 13 pages long with 90% of what's there I don't need or want. I do have a Life you know! I don't need to spend hours slogging through that stuff.

Your questions are answered in the first drop down and in the first ten questions I think.

1 hour ago, O the Owl said:

Player generated Advantage is to be spent by players, subject to GM approval. I would be very hesitant to take away that agency from my players. The narrative system is such an enjoyable way to include players in the storytelling, and forcing them to spend Advantage or Triumph in a particular way strikes me as not in keeping with the spirit of the game. Now, I would certainly use Threat and Despair to trigger Blast in an unfavorable way.

What about a situation where the opponent targeted is out in the open and the grenade in question has both the Blast and Burn qualities? The player generates enough Advantage to trigger just one of the qualities. Sorry, no Burn on that rancor because my house rule.

Of course, your table, your rules. Further, a member of my group sent me a link to your post because he liked the idea of Blast being triggered first by advantage - and he plays a Demolitionist that lobs a lot of grenades.

I have spent player Advantage on a couple of occasions - basically when there is a bonus possibility they would not be aware of on their own. For example, when searching the computer system to unlock the hangar bay door, finding out that a work order was logged to disable the ship's hyperdrive. The players would never think to spend an Advantage to learn that, until it was too late for them to retroactively do so.

On ‎03‎.‎09‎.‎2017 at 9:00 PM, Stormrunner said:

Exception: Jet Packs. It hasn't happened in my game yet but I think this is reasonable. For the record Jet Pack is really only a descriptor. (Our Astronauts have EVA packs in Real Life. )

1. They can explode. do the damage of Blast 8 (wearer gets 1/2 soak) Advantage (4) or a Triumph can be spent to hit the jetpack. Your attack, in a single hit, has to do 10 or more points of damage.

2. You cannot get a Jet Pack that works in both space and on planet but you may buy a space only jetpack. (Miniature repulsor emitters and batteries or possibly ion thrusters and fuel.)

3. You can Jury Rig the speed, handling, System Strain, or Fuel.

4. No detail on how long you can fly... I hand wave this till I feel it's becoming a problem. I will say flight capability should be considered short duration. (nope not gonna detail it any more than that!)

1. I do handle it slightly differently, but essentially: Yes.

2. Why is that I wonder? The Jet Pack, described in the book, is a gas turbine, strapped to your back, basically; it is going to burn atmospheric oxygen. Then, let's call it the rocket pack (like WotC had it in the Arms and Equipment guide), it does "operate underwater and in complete vacuum", and it is a rocket engine, strapped to your back; those do work in-atmosphere as well. The repulsor pack, on the other hand, "only [works] within a gravity well" ; not what I'd call a viable alternative for outer space.

4. Myself, I will allow about 10 pilot only actions/manoeuvres before running dry.

On ‎03‎.‎09‎.‎2017 at 9:00 PM, Stormrunner said:

· It IS REQUIRED that advantage you generate be first used to activate Blast. It IS NOT A CHOICE.

I do agree: That's unnecessarily harsh. Might I suggest exploiting your already considerable GM powers in a more rule-consistent manner, i.e. spending threats instead.

A jetpack is by definition a form of propulsion, so like a speeder bike it has it's own strain theshold and handling characteristics. When the strain runs out? It's fuel runs out. Much simpler.

21 minutes ago, LordBritish said:

A jetpack is by definition a form of propulsion, so like a speeder bike it has it's own strain theshold and handling characteristics. When the strain runs out? It's fuel runs out. Much simpler.

Simple? Yes. But not very consistent with how System Strain is handled generally.

Do you propose, that a space ship exceeding it's Strain Threshold is, in fact, just out of fuel? Where does damage control come into the equation, then?

...it can be applied situationally.

Jetpack 'running out of fuel' when it runs out of System Strain just gives you a nice easy way to explain why, after rolling all those Threats on your piloting check, the jetpack stops working.

On 9/3/2017 at 3:46 PM, Stormrunner said:

Arrakus

that post is 13 pages long with 90% of what's there I don't need or want. I do have a Life you know! I don't need to spend hours slogging through that stuff.

Wow, that is naïve and boarder line insulting. A lot of people have taken enormous amount of time and energy to write up questions, submit them, post them here and make a conscious effort to organize them to the best of this sites capability (this last part is where most of the time/energy goes). They do this for a lot reasons, but also because they genuinely want to help people and they know that there are others, like yourself, that do not have the time or know how to get the answers they need.

So when someone makes comments likes this, and just dismisses the time, energy and hard work that went into it, well, lets just say the comment speaks for itself.

On 9/5/2017 at 9:13 PM, Pyremius said:

I have spent player Advantage on a couple of occasions - basically when there is a bonus possibility they would not be aware of on their own. For example, when searching the computer system to unlock the hangar bay door, finding out that a work order was logged to disable the ship's hyperdrive. The players would never think to spend an Advantage to learn that, until it was too late for them to retroactively do so.

Great point, and I'd say totally in keeping with the intentions of the narrative dice. Player-rolled Advantage and Triumph is really the best way to advance the plot or add possibilities the players hadn't considered. And at times players struggle to spend Advantage, particularly with Perception or Knowledge checks.

On 9/7/2017 at 3:22 AM, O the Owl said:

Great point, and I'd say totally in keeping with the intentions of the narrative dice. Player-rolled Advantage and Triumph is really the best way to advance the plot or add possibilities the players hadn't considered. And at times players struggle to spend Advantage, particularly with Perception or Knowledge checks.

In line with that, and the comments about Blast - would it be reasonable to spend Threat to trigger the PCs Blast? If so, I'm assuming it would be at an increased cost. Basically, I can think of a pretty long list of situations where having Blast trigger would be a bad thing for the PCs.

1 hour ago, Pyremius said:

In line with that, and the comments about Blast - would it be reasonable to spend Threat to trigger the PCs Blast? If so, I'm assuming it would be at an increased cost. Basically, I can think of a pretty long list of situations where having Blast trigger would be a bad thing for the PCs.

I never bother with the dice pool results to determine the ill effects of a thrown explosive device. That simply is always a potential issue depending on the environment. Even if they 'hit' with a roll, throwing a bomb in a full of flammable cargo, sensitive electronics, thin hull, etc, is always an issue regardless of the dice pool outcome and something the players should be weighing before they throw the bombs....

My way of handling blast is that (usually, and always if it hits) the grenade (or whatever) goes off. It's just that with advantage it goes off somewhere useful. You don't do the base damage from being hit by the grenade, it's being at ground zero for the explosion. No reason why with threat it can't go off somewhere harmful.

5 hours ago, Pyremius said:

In line with that, and the comments about Blast - would it be reasonable to spend Threat to trigger the PCs Blast? If so, I'm assuming it would be at an increased cost.

I would say yes. When a friendly character is engaged with an enemy you are firing at with a ranged weapon, a Despair means a hit on the friendly. Similarly, if the target of a weapon with Blast is engaged with something the PCs don't want damaged I wouldn't hesitate to use Threat or Despair to do just that.

Further, Threat could be used to blow out the lights, cause a leak in a nearby coolant pipe that is now spewing a cloud of fog, cause a cave-in between the players and their target, or any number of fun things.

On 06/09/2017 at 6:17 PM, Grimmerling said:

Simple? Yes. But not very consistent with how System Strain is handled generally.

Do you propose, that a space ship exceeding it's Strain Threshold is, in fact, just out of fuel? Where does damage control come into the equation, then?

Under certain situations, a vicious hull breach on a despair might have a ship run out of fuel, though the jetpacks strain issue more stems from the point that it has a much lower fuel capacity then a space ship, probably only enough fuel for about a minute or five minutes. Given it's unique nature as a personal object that gives the flight capabilities of planetary scale; I believe that using strain to track climatic fuel consumption is only fair; it allows you to put a soft cap on the players flight capabilities so that they cannot use it indefinitely. E.g. When it exceeds it's strain theshold then letting the player know that "it's running on reserve" basically gives them a turn to land it otherwise they would fall. Likewise, a dispair on such a check at too great an altitude might result in them free falling and requiring rescue, or dying. Flying too close to the sun is dangerous.