A little backstory:

Out group consists of relatively experienced characters with 310 earned XP. We started off as Rebel recruits, but have since evolved into free running operatives operating a Light Freighter. The game is a mixture of AoR/EotE where we do the odd smuggling job that mixes with hits on imperial bases.

My charcter is Human (Ace) Gunner/Chamer, who has 4 Presence and 3 in AGi, Willpower and Cunning. I have most of the Gunner tree filled out. My character is the captain, but he is usually in the gunner seat. I took a 4 in Presence with my Gunner Dedication and have branched into social stuff afterwards.

Another player is a Chadra Fan (Engineer) Mechanic/Pilot with 5 Agi and 4 Intelligence. He is our hacker, mechanic and pilot baked into one.

Another player is a Gank (Hired Hun) Enforcer/Gadgeteer with 4 Brawn (now 6 due to armor and mechanical arms) 3 Agi and Willpower. He is the party tank and my right hand man in social encounters.

The argument

My character uses a Jury Rigged Heavy Blaster Rifle and a Cybernetic Retina implant for +1 advantage on Ranged [heavy] checks. The Chadra-Fan carries a generic blaster rifle and pistol and the Gank uses a Shield (modded with concussive quality) and a Vibroblade.

• Note that we all agreed that Jury rigging Autofire was broken and the rifle has been rigged for damage instead.

The ST is constantly complaining that Autofire is too good and that landing a 2-4 advantage Autofire on is too easy and it allows my character to vaporize all but the toughest opposition with my 3 yellow dice. He has come with all sorts of house rules to make enemies tougher, the latest one being that non-minion enemies need to receive a 150 crit on the table to die (but for NPCs previous crits increase the crit multi by +10 per severity instead of flat +10).

Naturally I am pretty pissed with that. I find it pretty ridiculous that if someone comes in short range of me I have to hit him at least 4 or 5 times before he drops dead. If it was a dangerous Nemesis like a Jedi, a rancor or something similar it would make some sense, but at the moment your average Strorm Trooper sergeant takes at least 2 actions of dedicated full auto fire before he drops dead. And that's with average-to-good dice.

Considering that I've invested around 200xp into the gunner specialization I expect to be able to vaporize people Autofiring them with my Heavy Blaster Rifle, but he thinks that an ordinary Blaster Rifle modded for damage would already good enough to emphasize my character's prowess with weapons and that Autofire is just a broken mechanic I am abusing.

On the other end of the spectrum is our Chadra-Fan, who is basically solving most of our non-combat problems with his high Computers and Mechanics. His 5 agi allows him to consistently hit with his blaster Rifle without putting any ranks in the skill itself and he is pretty happy with that. The gank was having some difficulty as a melee character, but after he lost his arms and we replaced them with new ones + bought him Brawn enhancing armor he is able to reliably stun one NPC or occasionally deliver nasty criticals with his vibro sword.

The argument is getting bitter now. I don't want it to end our game, but at the same time I feel that while using Autofire is important for my character concept and his contribution in combat. Without that I'd be no better than the Chadra Fan in-combat, but without access to his wider skill set and abilities. I am trying to branch into a more social role, but we just started a premade adventure on the Arda planet and it looks like the next few sessions will involve a lot of combat encounters and Autofire arguments.

Help me with some arguments to present to my DM, so that he can create the encounters around the ability without introducing arbitrary house rules to keep the enemies alive for more than a turn.

Everything other than a minion doesn't die with just a single critical hit unless you roll very high anyway, so maybe I am just misunderstanding you.

You should be able to Wound out a Stormtrooper SGT with one round of fire, so again I may just be misunderstanding you.

There are rules for challenging a group, but the problem your GM has is that in oder to do that, particularly with only 3 of you to 'soak' up hits, he is very likely to going to routinely risk crossing one of you off.

I don't think you're looking at it from his perspective frankly, autofire isn't just broken because it hands out too much damage (and it is broken for that reason alone), it's also broken because it forces a GM into having to stack opponents, increase target sets, add more lethal weapon options, in order to challenge the machine gun guy. The problem is in this game everyone always remains pretty squishy and the steps to challenging that machine gun guy results in people getting killed.

So you could suggest he increase the number of target sets, stack high initiative options, utilize the squad rules, and add weapon options in order to challenge you better, but don't be surprised if he kills you in the process.

I think there was a suggestion here to limit autofire by requiring something like an extra advantage per additional targeted enemy. Or I've seen using successes to do the same thing so your damage goes down per additional enemy. I think I'd you search these boards for the old autofire thread you'll give a few more reasonable house rules that might strike a better balance then how your gm is handling it now.

My personal home rule which I adopted from another post on these forums is to limit the total number of autofire targets to brawn rating.

One solution is to allow you to spend advantage to hit *another* target, just not the same target twice. That way, sure, you can mow down minion groups and multiple enemies but you don't have the ability to knock a Nemesis unconscious with a single action. Seems more fitting for auto fire too- the idea that you can concentrate an entire automatic burst on a single character unerringly is a bit iffy.

If it is pissing off your GM, maybe you should rethink the character. Autofire is obviously causing problems for him, and if running the game is no fun, he wont be running it long.

Coming from a GM, you're right simply for being a player. The GM's job is to create a game that is fun for everyone, and he clearly isn't doing that. On the other hand, though, I can understand the GM's perspective that combat is too easy. Instead of creating house rules to annoy you, he should instead try:

• Using situational factors to increase duration of combat. Reduced visibility, for example. This is very important, since skilled PCs and villains both tend to have very high damage outputs, but are still similar to starters when it comes to their defenses and wound threshold.
• Giving the others their own issues so that each gets a chance to shine, and that he doesn't have to send enemies at all three. Your character might have his own thing trying to have a sniper duel at long range from a balcony. On the ground, the Gank gets a horde to deal with. Both of you are trying to buy time for the Chadra-Fan, who is doing something mechanics related inside. Taking down all three at once would require some very OP adversaries or house rules, but in one on one, the enemies don't need to be as good to have a close fight.
• Understanding that not all combat encounters need to be balanced. Especially with high-level characters and good weapons, you should do well in combat.

I also don't understand exactly why crits are relevant to an autofire conversation, however, my 2 creds are to nerf autofire because even without any enhancements (reduced cost, free advantage, buffed weapon damage, etc) it is still an overpowered mechanic (as you're finding out). Specifically, I recommend keeping everything the same except simply allowing only 1 autofire triggered hit per target. This means you can hit the main target twice (normal hit and autofire triggered) and any other targets once (you have to declare extra targets in advance, per usual). Of all the house rules which have come through this board, I think it's the easiest and maybe the most balanced/fair since it keeps autofire almost mechanically identical (a player could even self enforce if they wanted) but puts a hard limit on the extra damage a single target can take.

This being said, the GM needs to realize that enemies taking damage twice from a single attack roll is going to happen pretty frequently (autofire on many weapons, linked on at least 1 pistol, any weapon used with two weapon fighting, etc) and should be designing enemies accordingly. Larger minion groups, an extra point or two of soak, extra wound threshold, more defense dice are all steps which can be taken individually, not to mention all the stuff others have said about talents and encounter design. Finally, some GMs build NPCs like they do PCs. If your GM is doing this then they are hamstringing themselves and will invariably end up with NPCs which cannot stand up to PCs.

6 hours ago, Azmodael said:

Help me with some arguments to present to my DM, so that he can create the encounters around the ability without introducing arbitrary house rules to keep the enemies alive for more than a turn.

OK first off: Autofire is a broken mechanic and you are abusing it. Just getting that out there right up front. Its not your fault the designers messed it up so bad, and you've avoided the uber-broken Jury Rig combo so feather in your cap for that one. But unfortunately my experience is that very few things can take multiple hits in a single round and stay standing, and this includes some of the big mean nasty nemesis level NPCs.

But the flip side is your GM allowed Autofire in the game from the start and you've built your character around it. I too would get frustrated if my GM didn't allow me to use the skills and talents I spent XP on, and especially started doing it in an ad hoc fashion without at least giving me a heads up first so I could make better informed decisions on how to spend my XP.

My advice to you would be to start by talking to your GM outside of the actual game sessions. He/she is nerfing autofire because he/she isn't having fun at the gaming table, and the GM absolutely has that right. Clearly the mechanic is overwhelming their ability to manage combat (which is easy to have happen). But I would also consider your words above:

"Help me with some arguments".

That is not collaborative. You are not in competition with your GM and vice versa. It is an unfortunate by product of the D&D mentality that the GM is supposed to 'beat' the PCs. Instead I would offer suggestions of encounters that could allow you to have your Autofire fun. For example, there is a HORDE of storm troopers coming your way. There is no way you can take all of them down. Instead you need to hold them off for three to four rounds while the Rebel Base evacuates key support staff and supplies. The more you can mow down, the more stuff the base staff is able to load up and get away with. But eventually you also need to decide when the better part of valor comes in when it is time for you to also bug out. I will tell you as a person who has sat in the GM chair, having player input into encounter construction is highly valued. It is a ton of work for the GM to constantly have to write material, and assistance is often appreciated.

All in all, I would approach your GM in a fashion that is constructive and focuses on what is fun for you both. If you get adversarial about it, expect your GM will to, and that will spoil things in a hurry.

The crits were part of a house rule to prevent NPCs from dying too fast to pure damage.

Anyway, we were able to come up with a compromise to test next session. Enemies with Adversary quality will need +1 advantage to activate qualities on them. This should allow me to mow down inconsequential mooks, but protect bossess against heavy burst and stunlocks.

I typically find the Auto-Fire rules as written just fine. Heroes only getting hurt except during dramatic moments in the story, taking out dozens of faceless enemies and facing overwhelming odds is a regular Star Wars thing, so I celebrate when my players do cool Star Wars stuff like use Auto-Fire to mow down a line of Stormtroopers.

As GM I have an entire toolbox to find ways to challenge the players beyond just throwing hordes of baddies at them. One can use enemies who use tactics, snipers, mobile enemies (jetpacks or speeder bikes), one can use environmental factors to create problems for the machinegun wielding character, challenge them to get their big gun through security checkpoints or make them have to carry an ally while also keeping hold of their big gun, etc.

That said, the easiest solution for your table might just be a free respec & Auto-Fire being banned from there on

or

You and the GM collaborate to make Auto-Fire less "broken" so that you can still do the cool things you have bought into and the GM can be happy not having all their precious NPCs dying.

I agree with @GroggyGolem . The Autfire rules are fine as is. As someone who has actually fired autofire weapons in real life (both the M-60 and M-16), the Autfire rules work very well to emulate this.

i personally feel autofire is not broken that badly until you throw in jury rigged. I have played as a GM with pcs with autofire weapons and there are ways round it, someone can ambush you at melee range, thats 4 purple difficulty at engaged range to trigger.

Im going to give an example, I have 4 ranks of coercion, and 3 willpower for a 3 yellow, 1 green pool on scathing tirade , as a warden I also have no escape, which needs 2 advantage on a coercion check to trigger and to be honest apart from the odd freak roll (which usually fails due to lack of success on the roll) I dont get to trigger No Escape as often as I like or expected.

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=3&ability=1&difficulty=2

The chance of 2 advantage on a GYYYPP check is approx 40% and 4 is 7 %, hardly happening every round and thats short range , medium range brings it down to 25% to trigger once.

Another thought: consider the logical, in-universe standpoint: auto-fire weapons tend to be both heavy and expensive. For this cost, the logical trade off is that they are more effective.

4 hours ago, syrath said:

The chance of 2 advantage on a GYYYPP check is approx 40% and 4 is 7 %, hardly happening every round and thats short range , medium range brings it down to 25% to trigger once.

I wouldn't rely on statistics like this because it is a real simple matter to get 3 boost die in there and even a setback. Not to mention the copious amounts of upgrade talents that exist for various roles.

14 hours ago, Azmodael said:

The argument

The ST is constantly complaining that Autofire is too good and that landing a 2-4 advantage Autofire on is too easy and it allows my character to vaporize all but the toughest opposition with my 3 yellow dice. He has come with all sorts of house rules to make enemies tougher, the latest one being that non-minion enemies need to receive a 150 crit on the table to die (but for NPCs previous crits increase the crit multi by +10 per severity instead of flat +10).

(((His approach is not the best by amending rules when there are so many other options that don't require that. Many of which have been shared.)))

Naturally I am pretty pissed with that. I find it pretty ridiculous that if someone comes in short range of me I have to hit him at least 4 or 5 times before he drops dead. If it was a dangerous Nemesis like a Jedi, a rancor or something similar it would make some sense, but at the moment your average Strorm Trooper sergeant takes at least 2 actions of dedicated full auto fire before he drops dead. And that's with average-to-good dice.

((( You are trying too hard to mix realism into a sci-fi game. That is generally a bad practice. It is also narrative. If you are trying to bend the rules to make this a slaughterhouse flick (or your GM is bending rules to stop you) you guys ARE playing this wrong; mechanics are secondary.)))

Considering that I've invested around 200xp into the gunner specialization I expect to be able to vaporize people Autofiring them with my Heavy Blaster Rifle, but he thinks that an ordinary Blaster Rifle modded for damage would already good enough to emphasize my character's prowess with weapons and that Autofire is just a broken mechanic I am abusing.

(((You said you had earned 310xp and spent 200 in Gunner spec. With all other info you provided, either you have way fewer points actually in the spec as you say or you have misquoted the amount. Also, 310xp is nothing. If you expect to be a Baze equivalent at this point, you are sadly mistaken.)))

On the other end of the spectrum is our Chadra-Fan, who is basically solving most of our non-combat problems with his high Computers and Mechanics. His 5 agi allows him to consistently hit with his blaster Rifle without putting any ranks in the skill itself and he is pretty happy with that. The gank was having some difficulty as a melee character, but after he lost his arms and we replaced them with new ones + bought him Brawn enhancing armor he is able to reliably stun one NPC or occasionally deliver nasty criticals with his vibro sword.

(((This is for your GM: If you are allowing your tech to slash through your non-com obstacles like a ninja, you are not making the encounters challenging enough (or challenging at all). The relevance to all players is that perhaps the imbalance of combat for your combatant comes from the encounters you are establishing. You can make things so much more difficult just using the terrain and environment.)))

The argument is getting bitter now. I don't want it to end our game, but at the same time I feel that while using Autofire is important for my character concept and his contribution in combat. Without that I'd be no better than the Chadra Fan in-combat, but without access to his wider skill set and abilities. I am trying to branch into a more social role, but we just started a premade adventure on the Arda planet and it looks like the next few sessions will involve a lot of combat encounters and Autofire arguments.

(((If you guys are bitterly arguing, then your gaming styles are not a good fit. You should leave the game and find another, or conform. The responsibility of the GM is to the group, not to your character. If you do not wish to leave, work with him on finding a solution.)))

Help me with some arguments to present to my DM, so that he can create the encounters around the ability without introducing arbitrary house rules to keep the enemies alive for more than a turn.

(((This is a collaborative system. If you are trying to win an argument and get your way with mechanics, you have already made the decision that this is not the game for you.)))

Having a Gadgeteer in my PC group, I've had an Autofire 1 capable Heavy Blaster Rifle to deal with for a long time. My fixes for this were as follows:

1. Allow Cover and Armor to stack. PCs targeting Troopers behind heavy cover suddenly get 3 setbacks. Combined with the increased difficulty usually makes it difficult to proc Autofire. Also, I've never wrapped my head around the fact that there's no benefit to taking cover if your armor is sufficient. (Though it certainly explains some Star Wars tactics.)

2. Don't worry about it. If the Heavy Tank of the party wants to blow up bad guys, let him blow up bad guys. Minions by the score? The Empire can afford them. Rivals blasted to smithereens? Looks like more opportunities just opened up. I mean, I love how fast the Killbot of the party takes care of opposition. If it's not the end fight, I don't want my party to fail mid story (or, actually, at all really unless it's a setback they can overcome), and if I don't want my party to fail, then why not let them win in extraordinary fashion?

3. But the Nemesis. The nemesis merely forces me to craft and create locations and scenes that are terrible for my players. Melee nemesis with a simple sword who used a super ion pulse EMP detonation to rid the party of their gear before the brawl started. Fight in a no gravity derelict ship with smoke bombs to obscure everything and the first thing to use Triumph/Advantage/Threat/Despair on is to knock out any kind of sight enhancement gear. Party hanging onto a swaying and rapidly decaying bridge over a pit of lava is great for making the cannon think twice about using his two-handed weapon.

(Fun Mid-Post Challenge: Leia, R2-D2, Luke, Luke again, R2-D2 takes a wallop, Luke Again, C-3PO, Lando, Luke AGAIN, Luke, Omg Luke again, Lando, Han, R2-D2 again, Leia again, and finally LukeLukeLuke.... are all the direct damage, wound or strain, to character hits against our original gang in the original trilogy that I can think of. Did I miss any? Can you name them? (Hint: I tried to do them in order.))

It was not me, but in what I found kind of jerky/kind of funny move yesterday, I watched a GM tell the party he was going to hit them with their own tactics. There were three quick fights. After the first, he said something akin to, "Man that Autofire is something else." After the second it was something like, "So I notice you like to concentrate fire on the biggest threat." Third fight started with, "There are two guys on opposite rooftops of this alley you're in. The first one targets the big guy with the big gun and fires with Autofire. Aims once first..." PC was put down by the second 'rival'... (later admitted to be carbon copies of the heavy gunner PC, "just without all the talents except for having Autofire 1"). The rest of the characters ran away... and as far as I saw that night, that was the end of his campaign.

Anyway, the point of the game is to have fun. It doesn't sound like you're having fun. It doesn't sound like he's having fun. Talk, and talk about what would make the game fun for everyone.

3 hours ago, Geodes said:

I wouldn't rely on statistics like this because it is a real simple matter to get 3 boost die in there and even a setback. Not to mention the copious amounts of upgrade talents that exist for various roles.

Actually this is very relevant, I had already factored in an upgrade from 3 yellow , now lets add 2/boost say from (double aim) and a boost from another player, with absolutely no setback, I hope as a more extreme example that will be more than enough for a more extreme check of YYYGBBB vs PPP. this is still only 60% chance of triggering the first additional hit at medium range. Remember this is with no setback. With autofire in play the character should be target priority number one (assuming no lightsabers on the field) , so will likely have setback from attacks on him, he should also be getting harrased from melee range, meaning the player should be trying to move around (preventing that double aim in the first place) , the character can also be fighting in rough terrain , meaning moving takes double maneuvers, preventing even a single aim, larger ranged weapons can be a liability , anyway here is the above check

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=3&ability=1&boost=3&difficulty=3

Here is the same check without boost against a melee character in range , with 5 setback, to represent the other end of the scale when the same player tries to fight an npc at engaged range with ranged defense 1, fighting in poor lighting conditions without the benefit of aim, also under the effects of disorient, and feared from an opponent using fearsome and nemesis 2 (note thats 5 setback before you add more from previous threat or the attackers own advantage. Which to me is not unreasonable at knight level and above play.

http://game2.ca/eote/?montecarlo=100000#proficiency=3&ability=1&challenge=2&difficulty=2&setback=5

6% chance to tigger autofire. This is similar to a pair of opponents my own group faced in the last game, and we only had 2 opponents like this.(2 acklay with soak 12 fwiw so autofire would hardly damage these guys , anyway without breach weapons).

So at the better check above 60% chance isnt fantastic, yes you do get an occasional check where they will mow down masses, but let them have their moment, but if you occasionally throw a tough combat their way then expect to get checks like the second one, where I suspect the player may have a much tougher time, esp as they are the no 1 target because of said weapon. They also cannot take that same weapon everywhere they go.

I still maintain that without jury rigged its hardly broken, because it is much harder to roll 2 advantage , never mind 4 in a check and if you do you start to run the risk of failing the check. My own groups players are realising that dual wielding lightsabers is not as consistent as single wielding, firstly you roll less advantage and increase your chance of mssing by about 10%

Don't forget squad rules. Use them.

I feel that you and your GM have different ideas of what is fun in an RPG. He obviously wants a lower power curve, and wants to have fights feel like they are challenging. You built your damage bot and now you want it to be unleashed to the effect that RAW allows, which is understandable.

This is game cancer if not sorted out. If you guys can talk about what you each expect and be honest, you may find that the game itself may need to go bye bye, or go through a serious revision.

I suspect that your GM wasn't really into the advancement and equipment mongering aspect, and really just wanted what he thought was a Star Wars type game. The Autofire thing is making him feel like the game is more like an 80's action shoot em up, with the players pushing their instant death button on normal foes. This means that Death is not really a concern for you guys unless you get killed in your ship or he puts you in a trash compactor. That frustrates his sense of storytelling because he can't actually challenge you with stuff that would normally have a chance to cause damage and maybe kill the kind of characters he is thinking of being in his game.

You guys could also look into GNS theory or some equivalent and see if you are actually after the same thing. I suspect you are a Gamist player while the GM is probably a Simulationist or a Narrativist. Either way you guys need to square your expectations with the game that is actually going on each week as opposed to the one you guys want separately.

My DM's biggest argument is that Autofire is inconclusive. Two good rolls can end a battle in two rounds, but if he accounts for that and my character misses tow turns in a raw we'd be in big trouble.

I can understand why people believe that Autofire is broken. There are only three mechanics in the game that allow you to turn advantages into hits&damage - DW, Linked and Autofire. DW is capped on 2 hits and Linked is very rare, mostly found on Gunnery weapons. Autofire is the only one that allows you to cap in as many advantages as you can.

But the issue is that our characters are nowhere near the power level required to get enough advantages to land 3+ Autofire hits. In the last 6 or so battles I've only landed a 3 hit Autofire TWICE and only on targets in short range with 0 defense. I assume a trained trooper with an assault rifle would be able to score multiple hits on a target that is several meters away no matter how inaccurate spray&pray is.

=====

I would like to thank everyone for their thoughts. I think we are not using the system to its full potential - for example we've never rolled a fear check despite facing some really overwhelming odds. Visibility is usually perfect and so forth. Adding some black dice will reduce my advantages and make both of us happier - NPCs would take less damage and actually rolling a good roll would feel more meaningful to me.

The Squad rules in particular looks appear like the perfect solution to protect an important NPCs from an Autofire burst without adding extra firepower that could inadvertently kill us - the thing he has complained about the loudest.

15 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I agree with @GroggyGolem . The Autfire rules are fine as is. As someone who has actually fired autofire weapons in real life (both the M-60 and M-16), the Autfire rules work very well to emulate this.

What do the properties of real life guns (which aren't blasters anyway) have to do with making a balanced tabletop roleplaying game?

1 hour ago, Azmodael said:

My DM's biggest argument is that Autofire is inconclusive. Two good rolls can end a battle in two rounds, but if he accounts for that and my character misses tow turns in a raw we'd be in big trouble.

This I don't get. The system is FULL of this stuff, it's just an inevitability you have to deal with. I've had entire well planned boss encounters ended by one very good crit in the first round, and I've had players spend an entire combat missing against grunts. The game's pretty swingy, I don't think autofire is any more guilty of that than other mechanics in the game.

1 hour ago, Azmodael said:

I would like to thank everyone for their thoughts. I think we are not using the system to its full potential - for example we've never rolled a fear check despite facing some really overwhelming odds. Visibility is usually perfect and so forth. Adding some black dice will reduce my advantages and make both of us happier - NPCs would take less damage and actually rolling a good roll would feel more meaningful to me.

The Squad rules in particular looks appear like the perfect solution to protect an important NPCs from an Autofire burst without adding extra firepower that could inadvertently kill us - the thing he has complained about the loudest.

My approach is to try to avoid setting a fight anywhere that isn't "interesting". "Interesting" fights typically add black dice or upgrade difficulty for certain actions (different ones in different locations), or add extra hazards. This lets characters who can remove setbacks in the particular situation shine, and means I can use 'proper' stormtrooper weaponry without tearing the characters apart. I don't think the balance point of offence and defence in this system is open field with no cover, and you rarely see that in Star Wars anyway !

7 hours ago, R5D8 said:

Also, I've never wrapped my head around the fact that there's no benefit to taking cover if your armor is sufficient.

YES!

I think Autofire is not broken, it is supposed to be very lethal for anything you target. The problem you won't find in any other game is the ammo problem. In a standard setting with a machine gun, you cannot use autofire every rounds because you will run out of ammo in a couple of seconds, and you weapon will overheat.

In Starwars, ammo is not a problem...

So the most efficient house rule is to run out of ammo on 3 threats minus one each time you activate autofire. And don't forget declaring an autofire action increase difficulty by one

5 hours ago, Azmodael said:

I can understand why people believe that Autofire is broken. There are only three mechanics in the game that allow you to turn advantages into hits&damage - DW, Linked and Autofire. DW is capped on 2 hits and Linked is very rare, mostly found on Gunnery weapons. Autofire is the only one that allows you to cap in as many advantages as you can.

If you're using all the books, there's more than 3 things that turn advantages into damage (looking at you, Hawkbat Swoop).