I recently picked up No Disintegrations and got excited about Unmatched Devastation for my BH:Assassin.

BUT, I just also picked up BH:Operator as a second career so I can wail on the baddies with Gunnery too. I was disappointed to see that Unmatched Devastation doesn't work with Starship/Vehicle weapons

It seems odd they would create a Bountt Hunter career, that can specialise in starship/vehicle weapons (the whole right side of the talent tree is dedicated to Gunnery) but the signature ability doesn't work for it!

I can see mechanically why it shouldn't, other than RAW. What do you think?

Since you need to use a different weapon for each attack of Unmatched Devestation I'd figure that's quite difficult to pull off with a starship.

In a Sil3 or Sil4 ship that would most likely be a frontward faced cannon and maybe a missile launcher before you run out of hardware anyway (that are reasonably operated from the same console).

And you can't exactly sprint through a larger ship and use every gunner turret it may or may not have. (At least I would rule against that. )

8 minutes ago, RicoD said:

Since you need to use a different weapon for each attack of Unmatched Devestation I'd figure that's quite difficult to pull off with a starship.

In a Sil3 or Sil4 ship that would most likely be a frontward faced cannon and maybe a missile launcher before you run out of hardware anyway (that are reasonably operated from the same console).

And you can't exactly sprint through a larger ship and use every gunner turret it may or may not have. (At least I would rule against that. )

Actually, there are several fighters, like the Y-wing and the Starchaser, that have multiple weapon systems for the pilot (lasers, ion and missiles/torpedos). Also, freighters like the milennium falcon seems to be able to use their turrets as forward firing pilot operated guns as well, so that might be multiple turrets, depending the ship.

Well I think the background here is that the "Unmatched Devastation" is accounted to the majority of the BH Specs, while "Opperator" is more the niche-Fly-spec between all the hunt on the ground specs.

Since the Signature-Abilities are all very narrative "Unmatched Devastation" is the Spec were the bad@ss Bounty hunter is walking down the street while pulling weapon after weapon out of his halfters to stop the target or/and his associates from fleeing .
It is not just the guy that sits in his cockpit pushing button a to d to fire one turrent after another to vaporize every ship in sight ( and the logic is that you still need a prove that the target is down and star dust doesn't count very much for that ^^")

It is the same with the Hired Gun and "Last-man-standing" that is the guy who plays rambo und shoots down all minions at once or blow them up or what ever.
Or the Soldier with "The bigger they are". Or guardian with "Fated Duell"

We see only one Spaceship related Signatures and that one is really totally dedicated to driving/ flying : Ace.

some others have also Sigs that are able to be used with spaceships like unmatched Vigilance or unmatched Fortune, but they are not as Power Full as Unmatched Devastion would be if it would also count for Star ships, so it is also some kind of balancing.

Also even if Operator would be your primary spec, unmatched Devestation would still be your ace upon the sleeve, because there should be no GM that runs all adventures by letting you stay solemly in your cockpit (to be hionest I guess the most GMs will try to have all players running around rather than doing only spaceship stuff ^^)

It also isn't that unusual for there not to be a signature ability that matches your base character well.

I have an Artisan who specialises in Crafting, Mechanics and Computers, but the Sentinel Signature abilities are My city (knowing where to find things in cities) and Unmatched Vigilance (being fast in combat).

6 minutes ago, Darzil said:

It also isn't that unusual for there not to be a signature ability that matches your base character well.

Yep. An Ace that's a dedicated Gunner (like a turret gunner) will find that neither of the Ace signature abilities are usable unless the character is also piloting the vehicle.

I think overall SA's are just shiney baubles that cost way too much xp that could be better invested personally. Never taken one, never had any of my guys take one.

Yeah. I'd also house rule that you can buy any signature ability that matches the career that you have reached the appropriate talents at the bottom of the tree of.

I really don't see what the rule that you can only buy them on your starting career adds to the game, and it makes changing the focus of the character as they develop less important than where you start (if you care - as you say, I've not bought it so far either).

4 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Yep. An Ace that's a dedicated Gunner (like a turret gunner) will find that neither of the Ace signature abilities are usable unless the character is also piloting the vehicle.

And if that is your gunner, going with Sharpshooter: Soldier first and then add the Gunner would have been (imho) the better choice because the career itself is meant to be for aces. Nothing wrong with picking a career based on your character style preferences, which lead as well to signature ability preferences.

10 hours ago, Darzil said:

Yeah. I'd also house rule that you can buy any signature ability that matches the career that you have reached the appropriate talents at the bottom of the tree of.

I really don't see what the rule that you can only buy them on your starting career adds to the game, and it makes changing the focus of the character as they develop less important than where you start (if you care - as you say, I've not bought it so far either).

Our group just decided on allowing Signature Abilities for any spec, no matter the starting career - though, we are limiting them to two per character. If a player invests enough experience and time into a talent tree to qualify for an SA, I say go for it.

21 minutes ago, O the Owl said:

Our group just decided on allowing Signature Abilities for any spec, no matter the staring career - though, we are limiting them to two per character. If a player invests enough experience and time into a talent tree to qualify for an SA, I say go for it.

Hehe if I would allow this I would end up with 3 Player characters with Unmatched Devistation and Last man standing (while every one is a Force sensitiv...)

25 minutes ago, O the Owl said:

Our group just decided on allowing Signature Abilities for any spec, no matter the staring career - though, we are limiting them to two per character. If a player invests enough experience and time into a talent tree to qualify for an SA, I say go for it.

If I did that I would still recommend choosing a career set of signature abilities, as looking at it already I can see very game breaking combos. Even without this restriction I think there is a lot of min max shennanigans possible. Letting an operator choose from either or both Ace or Smuggler signatures wouldn't be.

12 minutes ago, Nightone said:

Hehe if I would allow this I would end up with 3 Player characters with Unmatched Devistation and Last man standing (while every one is a Force sensitiv...)

6 minutes ago, syrath said:

If I did that I would still recommend choosing a career set of signature abilities, as looking at it already I can see very game breaking combos. Even without this restriction I think there is a lot of min max shennanigans possible. Letting an operator choose from either or both Ace or Smuggler signatures wouldn't be.

Fair enough. I can see that at some tables, (perhaps most) with a certain type of player, you could end up with a striking lack of diversity in character abilities. As with all house rules - which I generally try to avoid - YMMV. Then again, if your party face and tech-head are racing each other to spend the final two destiny points on Last Man Standing you may just have a party of murder-hobos - and if that is how the group wants to have fun so be it.

4 hours ago, 2P51 said:

I think overall SA's are just shiney baubles that cost way too much xp that could be better invested personally. Never taken one, never had any of my guys take one.

I think it really depends on the Ability. The ability to build a boat out of coconuts and bamboo is super appropriate to my Engineer and the ability to make every single person in the room dead for the Hired Gun is really fun (and cinematic - see Bruce Lee with Nunchucks or Django with his coffin machine gun). But yeah, they really are just fun addons more than core components. I wouldn't put too much weight behind them.

1 hour ago, O the Owl said:

Our group just decided on allowing Signature Abilities for any spec, no matter the staring career - though, we are limiting them to two per character. If a player invests enough experience and time into a talent tree to qualify for an SA, I say go for it.

Yikes, that is a terrible idea. I can think of at least 6 different ways to utterly break the game engine if I were allowed to mix and match Special Abilities.

Yes, I'd open it out to just being able to take two Signature Abilities, which must be of same Career, and must join them to appropriate specialisations. It just doesn't have to be the starting career.

4 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

And if that is your gunner, going with Sharpshooter: Soldier first and then add the Gunner would have been (imho) the better choice because the career itself is meant to be for aces. Nothing wrong with picking a career based on your character style preferences, which lead as well to signature ability preferences.

My point is that there are Specializations that feel like "outsiders" within their career. In some cases, these can even feel like they might fit another career better, but it can be particularly glaring when such a character doesn't seem to benefit from the Career's Sig Abilities since they can't (under the RAW) pick up other Sig Abilities.

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

My point is that there are Specializations that feel like "outsiders" within their career. In some cases, these can even feel like they might fit another career better, but it can be particularly glaring when such a character doesn't seem to benefit from the Career's Sig Abilities since they can't (under the RAW) pick up other Sig Abilities.

And my point was that those specs are usually builds around the concept that they will taken as complementary specs, either from within their career or outside .... as mentioned Sharpshooter/Gunner, Rigger/Gunner as examples for this. They come together, fit their career, but rarely fit in as first spec.

As you said, there are specs that feel like outsider within their career when they need to stand for themselves. Operator is another example, works great as secondary spec for bounty hunters, works great to take as secondary specs for other careers too. Not so great as first spec, comes together as secondary spec. Though usually those specs work as first spec too WHEN you combine them with a group with several of the same career. An operator, an assassin, a martial artist and a gadgeteer are a great bounty hunter team. But as individuals they certainly have a lot of weaknesses.

If you and your GM sit down and discuss why your character should have access or has earned the ability to gain access to a non-career Sig ability, I don't see the problem with allowing it at a table.

Game-breaking combos exist, yes, and you as a GM would be foolish to allow them/allow them to continue once recognized.

All this comes down to the quality of player you have in your group. Don't have **** heads. If you must, don't allow them to violate the RAW.

4 hours ago, Desslok said:

Yikes, that is a terrible idea. I can think of at least 6 different ways to utterly break the game engine if I were allowed to mix and match Special Abilities.

Hey, your table, your rules. You know your players best. For our group the question arose with a player that started with a Wookiee Pilot, but over the 7 months of gaming had picked up the Mercenary Soldier specialization and gravitated into our second biggest damage dealer. If he could go back in time, he likely would have started with Merc Soldier, but here we are. We decided as a group it wouldn't upset our game to open up SAs.

I realize you can find a way to abuse our house rule. But then, there are already existing exploits of the rules that can be abused. I'm lucky to have a group that wants to have a fun, shared storytelling experience rather than five players looking to win against an antagonistic GM.