Hey there all!

I was reading through the books again today ('cause, you know, there aren't any new books to read through...), and as I was perusing the gear chapter, I read through Linked, and...well. The point of Linked, according to the description, is to increase the chance to hit as well as damage. But as given, Linked doesn't...do that. Instead, it requires you hit, and then can massively increase the damage with Advantage. So I had an idea for a slight addition to Linked. The quality would work the same as normal, except it adds the following additional clause:

"If an attack with a Linked weapon misses, the character may spend [AAAAA] or [T] to inflict a single hit, dealing wounds equal to the weapon's base damage, minus any uncanceled [F]. The [A] cost to activate this effect is reduced by the Linked value of the weapon."

So an X-Wing, which has its four wingtip cannons, can spend [AA] to hit if it misses, while a standard TIE fighter would need to spend [AAAA]. Makes it difficult, and there's likely something else just as good you could do for those Advantage, but it does allow a vehicle firing with a Linked weapon to have an increased chance to hit due to their tandem weapon-blasts. Speaking of blasts, I based this idea on the Blast quality, although in general it is more expensive than Blast.

Whaddya think? Yea? Nay? Probably nay, but I thought I'd share .

Just off hand I'm thinking it changes the normal all or nothing approach of Linked and makes it be more about the extra chance to hit more weapons might give. I think I see where you are going with this because the X-wing's four cannons that are widely spaced could have a spray pattern that is easier to catch at least some damage with as opposed to single weapon mounts. At the risk of advocating more clunk, do you think this quality you have proposed would apply as well to a mount that has say two guns but bore-sighted to each other and mounted inches apart?

Also I wonder if allowing a Triumph to essentially become a successful check might have other implications. I like the idea of a failed attack getting a Triumph, but I admit that sometimes it can be hard to describe that Triumph effect without just converting a miss into a hit.

Huh, I was just contemplating a change of 2A to increase the damage by the linked amount but I hadn't considered the accuracy part. You could always add accurate equal to linked value.

So the X-wing's laser cannons would effectively gain accurate 3, spend 2A to add 3 damage. I think it fit's FFGs idea of abstract combat a bit better.

Linked is already very powerful as written, especially for personal scale weapons in those few instances where it shows up. It's brutal enough in starship combat (where is shows up on just about every starfighter published thus far at least once).

Changing Linked to allow a chance to hit even on a miss I think starts to push the weapon quality into the "too good" realm. It may not look so bad for laser cannons or that HH-50 blaster from Stay on Target to allow those weapons to "hit on a miss" if a Triumph is spent, but once you start delving into the realm of Breach weapons such as concussion missiles, proton torpedoes, and double-bladed lightsabers, then it becomes a whole 'nother ball game as the Breach quality means those weapons will still be doing significant damage.

I also think scaling the cost to 5A minus the Linked rating can lead to problems as well. While in most instances you've only got Linked 1, thus requiring 4A to trigger, there's ships like the X-Wing (Linked 3) and the YT-2400 (2 quad laser cannons, both Linked 3) that would only require 2A to "hit on a miss," which is going to only worsen the "rocket tag" aspect of starship combat that plagues the game since failed combat checks tend to come with advantage.

You've also got the can of works that is an Ataru Striker with Saber Swarm and a high Force Rating. While it might be more of an end-game thing given the XP investment required, it's not impossible to have an Ataru Striker with Force Rating 3 or 4 using a high damage 'saber crystal (highly-modded Ilum, Krayt Dragon Pearl, or modded Mephite for instance), which after using Saber Swarm means that if they miss, they can still dish out a high-damage hit that thanks to Breach 1 is going to shoot past the target's Soak.

If you really do want to give Linked the "hit on a miss" ability, I'd suggest just making it a flat 4A, with a possible further house rule that you can't spend a Triumph to score the hit, only advantage, which keeps the "hit on a miss" aspect from being too reliable for those PCs that are rolling 3+ proficiency dice on their combat checks. Of course, bear in mind this is going to make Linked weapons all the more valuable to the PCs, something that's mitigated with the Blast quality due to the bulk of the weapons with Blast also have Limited Ammo 1.

You all make good points . Let's discard it as a bad idea then, shall we?

Only way I could see it working is if you have to choose before you fire the Linked weapon to either do a "burst" (works like normal Linked) or a "spread" (works with the second-chance-to-hit house rule you suggest, but *cannot* hit multiple times).

Even then, I might make it cost 5 advantage or *2* triumph to turn a miss into a hit. If you've got a bunch of proficiency dice in your pool triumphs can come up a lot.

Edit: Alternatively, you could have the "spread" fire option add Accuracy equal to ranks in Linked (again, taking away any chance of multiple hits)

I remember the video game XWing vs TIE Fighter. The XWing had an option to fire all the 4 lasers at the same time, but the rate of fire was pretty low. Second option was to fire 2 lasers at the same time, then the next two etc, the rate of fire was faster. Last optin was to fire one laser at a time and then the next one, like a rotary machine gun canon. The rate of fire was very fast. Of course you had better chances to hit with the last option as you were spamming laser shots. The first option, firing a single volley of 4 laser shots did large amount of damage but you need better aiming skill ...

I would like something similar and I am thinking about a game mechanic around it

Strangely there's not a lot of mechanics in the game that give re-rolls, and I think Linked could easily be retooled into giving them.

Quote

Linked X: When making a combat check with this weapon, you may re-roll up to X dice. You may not reroll a single dice more than once, and you may not re-roll any dice scoring [Triumph] or [Despair].

Linked weapons will tend to be more reliable and more damaging, at the tradeoff of a dramatically reduced damage cap (X-wings no longer being able to swing from 7 to 28+).

2 hours ago, Talkie Toaster said:

Strangely there's not a lot of mechanics in the game that give re-rolls, and I think Linked could easily be retooled into giving them.

Not a big fan of re-rolls... they slow down combat, especially in online games.

Plus, the few instances of re-rolls already in the system are talents, and those are limited to "once per session" for a couple of specific skills. The ones that affect combat skills tend to cost 20 or 25 XP to acquire, and again are limited to "once per session."

Being able to re-roll missed combat checks is a pretty huge bonus in comparison, especially since anyone could do it, and would probably only escalate the "rocket tag" aspect of starship combat.

Ooh, how about this: Linked can be activated (with the normal cost) to add a Success to your check, or to add an additional hit of the check is successful? It doesn't automatically make a miss a hit with a single [AA] or [R], unless the check was already super-close to hitting, anyway.

Maybe? There's still probably issues I'm not seeing, but...

What about 2A: increase the number of successes by the linked amount. This would allow the weapon to hit easier and do more damage. And it limits the shot to one crit.

5 hours ago, Absol197 said:

Ooh, how about this: Linked can be activated (with the normal cost) to add a Success to your check, or to add an additional hit of the check is successful? It doesn't automatically make a miss a hit with a single [AA] or [R], unless the check was already super-close to hitting, anyway.

Maybe? There's still probably issues I'm not seeing, but...

If you have to declare before attacking which option you're using, this seems reasonable. Otherwise I think it's still too good

10 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

If you have to declare before attacking which option you're using, this seems reasonable. Otherwise I think it's still too good

Agreed. Make it so that before they roll, the attacker has to choose between increased chance of success (though it does make ships with Linked 3 like the X-Wing, YT-2400, and the TIE Interceptor a lot more dangerous in a fight since if you do "add successes = Linked") or the opportunity to score extra damage.

Gives an interesting option to Linked, and for the most part isn't too bad as majority of Linked weapons are just Linked 1, and adding one success isn't too bad of a prospect.

16 hours ago, Absol197 said:

Ooh, how about this: Linked can be activated (with the normal cost) to add a Success to your check, or to add an additional hit of the check is successful? It doesn't automatically make a miss a hit with a single [AA] or [R], unless the check was already super-close to hitting, anyway.

Maybe? There's still probably issues I'm not seeing, but...

Adding an additional hit isn't a great idea, as the huge damage caused by multiple hits is part of why starship combat is so rocket-taggy. May convert [A] up to Linked rating to is a nice simple way of doing it.

Good catch, Absol. Holdover from an alpha iteration, I wonder? It had never caught my eye.

Spending 2 Advantage to remove 1 Failure (up to Linked rating) after a missed attack pushes boundaries of what Advantage can or should do, but it's pretty reasonable. Dual cannons can save a would-be failure, but not automatically; while a quad cannon needs improbably high Advantage to overcome a difficult shot or weak roll. Plus, as noted above, if a player can choose how each AA up to Linked rating is spent, it captures the tactical choices of firing patterns in X-Wing or TIE Fighter.

Really, all that's left are issues that tables have had with Linked from the start, and can address however they want.