How wild would it be if there were to be a unique Scum pilot (X) whose pilot ability would be to assign at the beginning of the game a condition to an opposing ship that turns off its own pilot ability until said ship X was destroyed? Maybe s/he could pilot a ship that could do with some buffing in an aces pack, such as the Dead-on-Arrival Mist Hunter?

Without thinking too hard about it, it seems as if it is an incentive to introduce more generics into the meta, or at the very least, give the rebels a taste of their own medicine in having an otherwise pointless support ship that must go down immediately (especially considering how X would give some high-synergy fortress lists or traitor Fenn some panic). However, there surely must exist some broken combos with this very scummy ability if we gave it enough thought. Any ideas/comments/criticisms/expressionsofoutrage?

This idea is exactly the sort of thing people point to as negative play experience.

It would probably be balanced, but it would be incredibly annoying to fly against, so no. Thanks.

You gotta be careful with npes

If it's just something dumb like "you can never ever avoid my shots" you get stuff like turrets

But under the right conditions it could be a fine thing that checks some of the more incredible pilots in the game

BUT IT HAS TO BE CONTROLLED BY PLAYER DECISION

So not "at the start of the game, get ******" but more like disabling pilot abilities of ships at range 1, in arc (for as long as they remain there)

If player input (ie manuevering/positioning ie is the "game part of the game") controls the ability, then it is not npe

Actually thought the Silencer would do that because of "silence" as an RPg mechanic and Ren trying to hunt down the last Jedi

5 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

This idea is exactly the sort of thing people point to as negative play experience.

It would probably be balanced, but it would be incredibly annoying to fly against, so no. Thanks.

Thanks for the input! But to be fair, that would make it the Sheathipeade, so whhhhhhyyyyyyyyy n0t? lol

8 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

You gotta be careful with npes

If it's just something dumb like "you can never ever avoid my shots" you get stuff like turrets

But under the right conditions it could be a fine thing that checks some of the more incredible pilots in the game

BUT IT HAS TO BE CONTROLLED BY PLAYER DECISION

So not "at the start of the game, get ******" but more like disabling pilot abilities of ships at range 1, in arc (for as long as they remain there)

If player input (ie manuevering/positioning ie is the "game part of the game") controls the ability, then it is not npe

Actually thought the Silencer would do that because of "silence" as an RPg mechanic and Ren trying to hunt down the last Jedi

Thanks for the input! Thinking about what you said for a few minutes, I am also thinking that ideally this is put on something that either costs a bunch, is not very mobile, does not have mounds of health, does not have multiple arcs (although a mobile-arc could be balanced for it) or does not have high-PS. Without one or more of those stipulations, we could still end up (although avoidable with cautious play and careful engagement) "at the start of the game, get ******".

16 minutes ago, player3010587 said:

Thanks for the input! Thinking about what you said for a few minutes, I am also thinking that ideally this is put on something that either costs a bunch, is not very mobile, does not have mounds of health, does not have multiple arcs (although a mobile-arc could be balanced for it) or does not have high-PS. Without one or more of those stipulations, we could still end up (although avoidable with cautious play and careful engagement) "at the start of the game, get ******".

Lets just get a new Rebel/Scum HWK expansion with a handful of new pilots and perhaps a new title.

I had the same idea a year ago. . .

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/245664-the-anti-ability-ability/

You could limit it by Range, requiring an Action (thus canceling your own ship's opportunity) or make it random (success on a die roll).

So, as a general rule, any control element added to a game needs to be inefficient. The primary reason for this is that you want that control to be a fall back when all other options fail, not your go to option. Control elements are simply not an engaging experience to play against. Nobody has ever said, "Man, that game where none of my stuff worked was awesome". And it gets substantially worse into mirror control fights. For an example, how many times in the game's history has Ion ever been efficient enough to see substantial tournament play? Even Ion in Legion is being handled very conservatively because the designers likely don't want big expensive models being casually disabled.

The other major issue, is that any sort of control mechanic will also have a lot of unintended side effects. A good example is the spell Purification from Warmachine. The game needed a way to deal with powerful upkeep spells, so Purification, which removes all upkeeps in a massive radius started showing up everywhere, but a lot of B tier casters that were heavily reliant on upkeeps got incidentally caught in this and became pretty close to unplayable.

I don't think it's a good idea, just like Kylo crew really wasn't a good idea because the only time it sees play, one player is losing a lot of agency and a lot of mid tier pilots will get curb stomped, but some of the better pilots can coast pretty well just on upgrades and high PS.

While I like the idea and mechanic that conditions have added to the game, I think the lack of being able to remove them is where NPE really lies. There should be a balance to allow the defender to "shake" the condition w/o further damage or another negative mechanic happening.

7 minutes ago, shaunmerritt said:

While I like the idea and mechanic that conditions have added to the game, I think the lack of being able to remove them is where NPE really lies. There should be a balance to allow the defender to "shake" the condition w/o further damage or another negative mechanic happening.

Agreeing with issue of player control, you could introduce it as something like "when a pilot with the condition card chooses to trigger their ability, gain a stress" or something like that.

Or pilot ability is disabled while stressed

It could be interesting if it came with an alternate condition card like A debt to pay and A score to settle.

If the pilot that had "At the end of the setup phase, you MAY assign the If you're not first you're last condition to one of your opponents ships at the beginning of play, and assign "I don't like you either" condition to yourself.

I Don't Like You Either: Your pilot skill is 0 as long as any ship in play has the "If you're not first you're last" condition assigned to it.
If you're not first, you're last: You may not use your pilot ability. Treat your Pilot Skill as 12 as long as an enemy ship has the "I don't like you either" condition" assigned to it. When no enemy ships have the "I don't like you either" condition assigned, you MAY remove this condition.

I think you could do it this way as a pilot ability, call the pilot The Seeker or something. Requires some setup and it sticks around if you ignore it.

Action: target 1 enemy ship within range 3 with a red TL token, assign the "No, I'm all—Aargh!" condition to it.

"No, I'm all—Aargh!"

While you have this condition you may not use your pilot ability. You may spend a focus or evade token immediately or at the end of the round to remove this condition.