Have you seen or allowed players to use their advantages/triumphs as a stored resource during a combat? Like say a player rolls a Triumph/Advantage on a turn but decides to just save it for later in the combat. Is this intruding too much on Destiny Points? How much would you allow to be stored if you decided to let them do it? I just wanted to have a discussion about this because I thought it was an interesting concept, what do you guys think?

Frankly, this to me is like letting someone bank the extra they rolled over the TN in D&D for later rolls. There are tons of ways to spend them in each round. If they can't think of a way, then other players can offer suggestions

Nope, pushes too many Talents that trigger on Triumphs to OP imo, not for me thanks.

Ok cool. Would you think it might be better if it required Strain to hold? Or if it required a Destiny Point to use? Also 2P51 could you give me an example of a really bad talent to have go off at will? Thank you for the replies btw

Improved Stunning Blow.

The balance behind all of the potential uses of Triumphs is that randomness. You take that away you impact balance.

You have an attack where you roll 3 Triumphs. In your idea a PC can cause a crit, bank the other two, and have two more crits on two more hits. Then there is all the other potential weapon effects. One good roll and they can essentially stack their deck for the rest of the encounter. There are weapons as well, like the Bola that has a crazy fantastic effect for a Triumph. Weapon effects also don't need to penetrate Soak, just a successful check, and with banked Triumphs you have a Triumph and a success. Failed rolls suddenly become successful and a weapon effect is triggered. It's way too unbalancing an idea.

Ah I see. Ok cool. What about if you said banked stuff cannot be used for talents? Still too much? lol

Yes, still too much as it means strain recovery almost at will. Means that other effects become nothing.

"Oh, he threw a setback on me, well I'll just add a boost and counteract that problem."

2 minutes ago, Kallabecca said:

Yes, still too much as it means strain recovery almost at will. Means that other effects become nothing.

"Oh, he threw a setback on me, well I'll just add a boost and counteract that problem."

So instead of doing it a bit at a time they would be adding a bunch at once I see. Also the strain they are taking from banking it is a factor. What about limiting it to no more than 6 banked advantage?

2 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

So instead of doing it a bit at a time they would be adding a bunch at once I see. Also the strain they are taking from banking it is a factor. What about limiting it to no more than 6 banked advantage?

Which is 3 hits from an Auto-fire weapon, or 2+ crits for any future hits, etc...

Again, think of other systems like D&D

What would happen if you needed a 15 to hit someone and rolled a total of 20 and were able to bank those 5 extra points for one or more future rolls? And kept doing it round after round?

That's really what you're suggesting here.

Just now, Kallabecca said:

Which is 3 hits from an Auto-fire weapon, or 2+ crits for any future hits, etc...

Again, think of other systems like D&D

What would happen if you needed a 15 to hit someone and rolled a total of 20 and were able to bank those 5 extra points for one or more future rolls? And kept doing it round after round?

That's really what you're suggesting here.

Yeah but I think the dice dynamic is a bit different because those 5 points on the d20 are useless. This way you don't pass a blue to an ally, you don't hit an enemy with a setback. You take strain, but when you unleash it then it's dramatic. Not just a lot of extended rounds of exchange. The rounds are described as not being single shots or hits and taking up to a minute! lol I figure dead bad guys in three rounds isn't anything I would be too upset about. I think this is all great advice though and a good thought experiment so thank you for being good sports. Sometimes it seems like people get mad or defensive when you want to discuss things like this.

It occurs to me that this would also be something that would lead to people not giving boosts to allies. It would have to be something you could pass to another teammate. The other problem with it is that it's a good way to annihilate normal bad guys who aren't built to cope with these big hits. So definitely not for a game where you want long fights with mooks.

1 minute ago, Archlyte said:

Yeah but I think the dice dynamic is a bit different because those 5 points on the d20 are useless. This way you don't pass a blue to an ally, you don't hit an enemy with a setback. You take strain, but when you unleash it then it's dramatic. Not just a lot of extended rounds of exchange. The rounds are described as not being single shots or hits and taking up to a minute! lol I figure dead bad guys in three rounds isn't anything I would be too upset about. I think this is all great advice though and a good thought experiment so thank you for being good sports. Sometimes it seems like people get mad or defensive when you want to discuss things like this.

I love having discussions of the merits of things and seeing where they go

And those 5 points on a d20 aren't useless. You've effectively given your character a +5 bonus on some subsequent roll, making it far more likely for the next roll to also succeed by enough, resulting in more banked points, etc... For example, having a character with a +30 on Stealth (yes, I've had characters like this at level 10) rolls to be stealthy. The enemy gets a total of 25 compared to my 41, so I bank the 15 points from Stealth and then use them in an attack to make my normally +11/+6/+1 be a +11/+11/+11 and get all my extra damage on the rolls as I'm attacking from Stealth and just rip through that enemy.

I'd worry about the possible gaming of the system. What's to prevent me from taking my advantages from my best skill that I get to roll unopposed and use all those banked advantages later to just chew up some other roll with a much weaker skill that normally wouldn't have a chance at that much advantage?

And paying strain to hold them, well, are you paying strain for each one or for just the bunch? Each advantage represents 1 strain recovered. A triumph even more. So, if it costs me 2 strain to hold onto any amount of advantage/triumph, then why would I not bank all I can to later just recover the strain and unleash 20+ advantage/triumph against the big bad...

11 minutes ago, Kallabecca said:

I love having discussions of the merits of things and seeing where they go

And those 5 points on a d20 aren't useless. You've effectively given your character a +5 bonus on some subsequent roll, making it far more likely for the next roll to also succeed by enough, resulting in more banked points, etc... For example, having a character with a +30 on Stealth (yes, I've had characters like this at level 10) rolls to be stealthy. The enemy gets a total of 25 compared to my 41, so I bank the 15 points from Stealth and then use them in an attack to make my normally +11/+6/+1 be a +11/+11/+11 and get all my extra damage on the rolls as I'm attacking from Stealth and just rip through that enemy.

I'd worry about the possible gaming of the system. What's to prevent me from taking my advantages from my best skill that I get to roll unopposed and use all those banked advantages later to just chew up some other roll with a much weaker skill that normally wouldn't have a chance at that much advantage?

And paying strain to hold them, well, are you paying strain for each one or for just the bunch? Each advantage represents 1 strain recovered. A triumph even more. So, if it costs me 2 strain to hold onto any amount of advantage/triumph, then why would I not bank all I can to later just recover the strain and unleash 20+ advantage/triumph against the big bad...

Well I still think the d20 thing is different. The actual analogy would be that you needed a 13 to hit so you rolled an 18 on round 1 and banked 5 pts. If you rolled a 14 next time on round 2 you would now have +6 and be down 2 HP. As for using that to heal the strain that seems like its not much of an issue unless what you don't like is the sudden removal of significant amounts of strain. I never let them take off more than one strain a round but that is me misreading the rules (I just saw that it says they can use that more than once). But lets say you banked 6 advantage and suffered 2 strain to get that, you use 2 of the advantage to get back 2 strain and now you have 4 advantage to use instead of 6. Not seeing how that is so bad, but maybe I'm missing something. Also this could be crazy if used by Force users I'm thinking

The other thing that would complicate things is needing to keep track of what skill you used to get the advantages. For example, my pistol specialist rolls 4 yellow in Ranged light. I shouldn't be able to bank my advantages and triumphs and use them on Brawl that I only have 2 green in. But the game does allow you to "bank" some for a round. Use a triumph to upgrade your next check. Use 2 advantage to assign yourself a blue die.

Storing to later. Not for us. Because it would break the connection between action and result. Destiny points are for feat like that. But using triumph now to something which benefits later, definitely yes (i.e. narrative use which gives strategic benefit). Outside of combat I sometimes allow PCs to decide (or actually propose, as I as GM make the final decision, but usually I accept what PCs propose) Triumph result later if they are totally out of ideas at the moment, and stopping to decide now would break the game flow. But even then, the triupmh result happened when result was rolled.

And as always, groups are different. Storing for later might work for some groups.

14 minutes ago, Edgookin said:

The other thing that would complicate things is needing to keep track of what skill you used to get the advantages. For example, my pistol specialist rolls 4 yellow in Ranged light. I shouldn't be able to bank my advantages and triumphs and use them on Brawl that I only have 2 green in. But the game does allow you to "bank" some for a round. Use a triumph to upgrade your next check. Use 2 advantage to assign yourself a blue die.

Thank you for that Ed. I like that point about using a greater skill to weirdly pump up a lesser skill. That's serious food for thought there I think for me a heroic brawl check after a successful pistol shot could mean that you are swashbuckling it up though. The momentum of battle was with you and all that.

3 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

Thank you for that Ed. I like that point about using a greater skill to weirdly pump up a lesser skill. That's serious food for thought there I think for me a heroic brawl check after a successful pistol shot could mean that you are swashbuckling it up though. The momentum of battle was with you and all that.

To each their own. But in my games, that is what upgrades, assist dice, and destiny points are for. As an alternative, maybe allow a "stored" triumph or up to 3 advantages with flip of destiny point and an idea of what you are saving for - disarming the boss, blowing an escape hole in a wall, etc. Then when they get enough stored to trigger the effect, it goes off.

16 minutes ago, kkuja said:

Storing to later. Not for us. Because it would break the connection between action and result. Destiny points are for feat like that. But using triumph now to something which benefits later, definitely yes (i.e. narrative use which gives strategic benefit). Outside of combat I sometimes allow PCs to decide (or actually propose, as I as GM make the final decision, but usually I accept what PCs propose) Triumph result later if they are totally out of ideas at the moment, and stopping to decide now would break the game flow. But even then, the triupmh result happened when result was rolled.

And as always, groups are different. Storing for later might work for some groups.

Thanks for the response kkuja. Yeah I'm not sure by any stretch of the imagination if this will even get tested, but I thought it was a fun idea and know everyone here has great knowledge of the game. So are you saying that you feel that there is a connection to what is rolled in the moment that banking would break? One of the things about this game is that you kind of roll and then describe, which does afford you some ability to move stuff off for later like you said, but I am definitely talking about a radical departure form the intention so I see your point. I heard that the new Star Trek game had a momentum system, and even though I don't think it actually works like momentum from what I have heard, the idea of like military initiative or momentum in combat fascinates me. I once played in a Fate game where in a combat me and two friends as players helped each other to gather bonuses. I felt like I was really doing a lot to support the group, and the fight was won because we actually worked as a team instead of just taking turns doing our own DPS. If bank and share was a thing I could see a similar effect happening, and taking a strain to help a buddy seems like a noble sacrifice. Plus non-combat characters could help out that way, and give bonuses instead of just having the option of only their own attacks. Great points thank you

2 minutes ago, Edgookin said:

To each their own. But in my games, that is what upgrades, assist dice, and destiny points are for. As an alternative, maybe allow a "stored" triumph or up to 3 advantages with flip of destiny point and an idea of what you are saving for - disarming the boss, blowing an escape hole in a wall, etc. Then when they get enough stored to trigger the effect, it goes off.

Yeah that's awesome! And in the spirit of what I was thinking of with banked bonuses. Great stuff.

What about crits? That would be another problem right?

14 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

One of the things about this game is that you kind of roll and then describe, which does afford you some ability to move stuff off for later like you said, but I am definitely talking about a radical departure form the intention so I see your point. I heard that the new Star Trek game had a momentum system, and even though I don't think it actually works like momentum from what I have heard, the idea of like military initiative or momentum in combat fascinates me. I once played in a Fate game where in a combat me and two friends as players helped each other to gather bonuses. I felt like I was really doing a lot to support the group, and the fight was won because we actually worked as a team instead of just taking turns doing our own DPS. If bank and share was a thing I could see a similar effect happening, and taking a strain to help a buddy seems like a noble sacrifice. Plus non-combat characters could help out that way, and give bonuses instead of just having the option of only their own attacks. Great points thank you

If group is experienced, and there is no competitive attitude between PCs, and/or PCs vs GM, that might work. I really like the empowerment of players, and storing triumphs would really increase it.

So are you saying that you feel that there is a connection to what is rolled in the moment that banking would break?

Yes, it might break it. Much depends on players. Example, if pilot gets Triumph in piloting roll, we like to keep the triumph result related to piloting (not necessary very hard connection, and this is more like a guideline than a rule). If Triumph could be banked, pilot might use it later on his test to shoot opponents, fix the ship, or on first aid. There is no direct relation to piloting anymore. As said very much depends on players, and how they see the social contract of the game. Anyway, if I would allow banking, I would keep it restricted to current encounter. Otherwise I would end up with situation, that at the epic end encounter with campaign nemesis, PCs would have dozens of triumphs banked.

Biggest drawback of banking triumphs would be that it might discourage the narrative use of triumphs.

16 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

What about crits? That would be another problem right?

I wouldn't allow banked triumphs to be used on crits at all. It might even be that I'd allow only narrative use for them. "I succeeded a week ago, so now I can do critical damage ." doesn't juts sound right to me.

2 minutes ago, kkuja said:

I wouldn't allow banked triumphs to be used on crits at all. It might even be that I'd allow only narrative use for them. "I succeeded a week ago, so now I can do critical damage ." doesn't juts sound right to me.

Yeah I see your point on that one.

Meh. There are already ways of using advantages to improve future actions. I don't think more are needed, particularly not so extremely reliable ones.

3 hours ago, kkuja said:

I wouldn't allow banked triumphs to be used on crits at all. It might even be that I'd allow only narrative use for them. "I succeeded a week ago, so now I can do critical damage ." doesn't juts sound right to me.

Well it's almost like the Wookiee that is somehow still raging a week after taking an unhealed minor critical injury...