1 hour ago, Smoothjedi said:

Although not all of these mechanics are relevant as most of these are energy weapons, I can't imagine there isn't a similar, obvious notification of some sort.

Exactly. By design, any weapon that relies on some form of “ammunition” would inherently have some means of signaling that it’s empty. In many science fiction stories, the weapon has a built in gauge that keeps track of how much power the magazine has left. So, no matter what, with any ranged weapon it would be immediately apparent that it’s out of ammo.

A dispair never cancels successes. Spending dispairs to avoid being hit is canceling the successes.

This isn't RAW.

To each there own however.

1 hour ago, TheShard said:

A dispair never cancels successes. Spending dispairs to avoid being hit is canceling the successes.

True. Even using Reflect (Improved) to send a blaster bolt back at a target doesn't prevent that hit from damaging saber guy. Sure, the hit gets bounced at the shooter, but saber guy still takes damage (minus Reflect ranks +2) and can't actually bounce the bolt until after the damage is resolved (and no bounce happens if he's incapacitated by the damage).

9 hours ago, Smoothjedi said:

Although not all of these mechanics are relevant as most of these are energy weapons, I can't imagine there isn't a similar, obvious notification of some sort.

In some of the old WEG splats, there was mention of various means of indicators that a blaster was out of juice and needed a fresh power pack installed, from a digital read-outs to the handle pulsing/vibrating (something that could be overlooked in the heat of combat).

It's never come up in the movies as those seem to run on the assumption that "energy bolts = infinite ammo," for which I can't blame the films since Hollywood is notorious for guns never running out of ammo except at a truly dramatic moment. And for Star Wars films, most of those moments tend to involve lightsabers as opposed to blasters. And when blasters do get involved, it's rarely more than a couple of shots.

10 hours ago, TheShard said:

A dispair never cancels successes. Spending dispairs to avoid being hit is canceling the successes.

This isn't RAW.

To each there own however.

Strictly, it is using it to cancel advantages already spent (as spending advantages happens first), which it also doesn't do.

Well it would be canceling both. As success is the damage and sets up the ability to use those adv.

His GM was using despair to have it run out after the first hit (success) but before the auto fire extra hits (advantage).

22 hours ago, Darzil said:

His GM was using despair to have it run out after the first hit (success) but before the auto fire extra hits (advantage).

I could see this assuming that the advantage could still be used for other things. I’m not saying I’d do it this way but autofire can be pretty annoying ?

29 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

I could see this assuming that the advantage could still be used for other things. I’m not saying I’d do it this way but autofire can be pretty annoying ?

True, but players should try not to get shot at all, and should make use of cover, etc. Any shot in this game can incapacitate, so it makes sense that auto-fire would really mess you up, just as getting shot in real life will ruin your day.

56 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

I could see this assuming that the advantage could still be used for other things. I’m not saying I’d do it this way but autofire can be pretty annoying ?

Yeah, and full disclosure my character is the one with auto fire in this scenario. Our party is about 700 xp, and our GM wanted to run a different (5e) game, so I'm taking this one over. I want to take it in a different direction as we haven't really had any pressure from the empire at all for, in my opinion, some pretty blatant force use throughout the campaign. We've mainly been up against hutts, criminals and droids. My dude is an Executioner/Sharpshooter/Gunner with spare clip, true aim x4 and lethal blows with an LBR-9 stun rifle modified with an auto fire attachment so I'm not murdering everyone, but also gives people trying to use reflect a bad day as the extra damage they can't soak goes against their strain instead of wounds.

So, I am trying to figure out how to make my own character have a bad day against an Inquisitor, rather than just have him gunned down within a couple rounds of combat.

2 hours ago, Smoothjedi said:

Yeah, and full disclosure my character is the one with auto fire in this scenario. Our party is about 700 xp, and our GM wanted to run a different (5e) game, so I'm taking this one over. I want to take it in a different direction as we haven't really had any pressure from the empire at all for, in my opinion, some pretty blatant force use throughout the campaign. We've mainly been up against hutts, criminals and droids. My dude is an Executioner/Sharpshooter/Gunner with spare clip, true aim x4 and lethal blows with an LBR-9 stun rifle modified with an auto fire attachment so I'm not murdering everyone, but also gives people trying to use reflect a bad day as the extra damage they can't soak goes against their strain instead of wounds.

So, I am trying to figure out how to make my own character have a bad day against an Inquisitor, rather than just have him gunned down within a couple rounds of combat.

Ya auto-fire is really brutal in this game to the point where it is considered even more op than someone with a lightsaber. Just build your inquisitor correctly. Remember inquisitor's are nemesis characters so depending on the nemesis level that already upgrades the difficulty to hit them. Nemesis lvl 3 would be 2 red die and one purple because they get 3 upgrades to their difficulty alone from that, and this is before you start adding in their force abilities like sense with the whole far left tree. That can easily add 2 to 4 more upgrades depending if the GM lets him commit 2 force die instead of 1 to defense. Then the inquisitor has dodge, defense stance possibly depending how you want to build him. so in general you can be rolling against 4 - 6 red die not including their defense which could add in another 2-4 black die. That should make it hard with someone with auto-fire to hit him. You will not be rolling very many advantages against that if you do, and if you do it just means your roll was real good and his was real bad. Inquisitor's should be beatable unlike Darth Vader but it should take the whole group with good luck to do it. Auto-fire alone should not be able to from one character.

The GM has the power to put auto-fire in check it can go out of control really quick. Just make them work for their kills. Remember nemesis npc's are supposed to be powerful unlike rivals, and minions so just build them accordingly.

I remember I was in a group for maybe a month or so and from the beginning the whole group but me was picking a specialization that would allow them to modify their guns to put auto-fire on them just from skills alone. They were min maxers and only following the rules that benefited them. The GM was a pushover when it came to the rules (seemed like he was new to star wars FFG) and they were taking advantage of him pretty easy because of it. I really didn't like the PC's in that group cause they approached star wars FFg with a DnD mentality, a power gaming min-maxing mentality.

Oh btw your build with auto-fire is pretty op, our ataru specialist in our group was an executioner/sharpshooter before he took the ataru spec. He murders almost everything with a gun without auto-fire. Nothing wrong with your build, its up to your GM to give you a challenge.

On 10/19/2018 at 5:26 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

@Metalghost , to add to what @Donovan Morningfire said, as someone who was in the military, and has fired assault weapons (namely the M-16, M-60, M-203) I can tell you that anyone firing a weapon will immediately know that he is out of ammunition once the last shot fires. In the case of the M-16, for instance, once that last bullet leaves the chamber, and the gas pressure pushes the bolt back, if there are no more rounds in the magazine, the bolt locks in the open position immediately. As such, there is no question that you’re out of ammunition and need to reload.

Cool Tramp I was in the Army for 2 years as a combat engineer, when I got out went into the Air force for another 14 so ya I have allot of experience like you with combat weapons out in the field and have fired all the same weapons. Did not respond earlier cause I was confused thinking maybe you posted into the wrong forms cause we do not use those kinds of weapons in the star wars universe. It's a Sci Fi universe that has never made sense logically anyway so I try not to use real practical knowledge to try and explain stuff. You would think even with energy weapons you would have some kind of indicator that your are out of ammo but this game does not go that deep. That will be up to the GM and players to work out if their weapons show that. The movies/anime shows never did as far as I remember. In fact I don't remember seeing any scenes where they ran out of ammo, maybe a weapon malfunction but never out of ammo lol.

49 minutes ago, Metalghost said:

Oh btw your build with auto-fire is pretty op, our ataru specialist in our group was an executioner/sharpshooter before he took the ataru spec. He murders almost everything with a gun without auto-fire. Nothing wrong with your build, its up to your GM to give you a challenge.

Yeah, admittedly I can be a min/maxer, but I honestly didn't specifically make the character to break the game, rather to emulate Baze Malbus from Rogue One as I thought he was really cool, especially in the scene where he shot all those troopers around his friend. In fact we were in the early days of the campaign when the movie came out, and before it I specifically didn't make an auto fire character because of the threads on here decrying it, but afterwards I talked to the GM first and went for it after he approved.

I like a lot of your ideas! As I am now taking over as GM, to keep the story consistent I'm going to leave my character in the party for a little while until I write him out. I haven't put a significant amount of effort into building the Inquisitor beyond looking through the recommended building blocks, and I like the ability to sacrifice engaged minions to soak ranged attacks. Maybe give it some flair by using move to fling storm troopers perfectly into the path of the incoming shots or something. Those rules say to just pick two, but I'm thinking since he's supposed to be a bigger challenge just picking as many as I want from the list. Do you think staying within the confines of those abilities would be enough to challenge a 700 xp party, or do I need to start adding extra talents from trees as you suggested? I have a lot of experience GMing other games, but only playing this one. It's hard for me to judge right now what challenge is appropriate.

51 minutes ago, Metalghost said:

Cool Tramp I was in the Army for 2 years as a combat engineer, when I got out went into the Air force for another 14 so ya I have allot of experience like you with combat weapons out in the field and have fired all the same weapons. Did not respond earlier cause I was confused thinking maybe you posted into the wrong forms cause we do not use those kinds of weapons in the star wars universe. It's a Sci Fi universe that has never made sense logically anyway so I try not to use real practical knowledge to try and explain stuff. You would think even with energy weapons you would have some kind of indicator that your are out of ammo but this game does not go that deep. That will be up to the GM and players to work out if their weapons show that. The movies/anime shows never did as far as I remember. In fact I don't remember seeing any scenes where they ran out of ammo, maybe a weapon malfunction but never out of ammo lol.

No, it doesn’t. But, then again, it doesn’t need to. The way the RAW prioritizes the dice results cover that pretty well by having Despairs handled last. Thus, any “out of ammo” result must take place after the rest of the attack is resolved.

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, it doesn’t. But, then again, it doesn’t need to. The way the RAW prioritizes the dice results cover that pretty well by having Despairs handled last. Thus, any “out of ammo” result must take place after the rest of the attack is resolved.

? Think you quoted the wrong post but to comment on this one yes the book does establish that despairs and threats happen after damage is considered. In fact we had a discussion about this already confirmed among our selfs in the previous page that this is what the book says. I did add that my GM and some other's treat the specific despair that makes it run out of ammo happen when he pulls the trigger cause the despair says immediately but it doesn't clarify by what it means by immediately. GM's have the authority in their session to bend rules how they see fit for their game. This was pointed out as well. Regardless the despair when it come to them running out of ammo also says the weapon can not be used for the rest of the encounter which was pointed out as well. Now if they have a specific skill that lets them go around this and lets them reload then by all means they can reload. The GM is the one in control to all this. I also feel like I'm talking to a wall to some people in this post and I don't mean you tramp. Remember the GM has the final say what happens with the rules and if the players don't like it well they can always leave that group and move to another. They are not forced to play in that group.

23 hours ago, Eoen said:

True, but players should try not to get shot at all, and should make use of cover, etc. Any shot in this game can incapacitate, so it makes sense that auto-fire would really mess you up, just as getting shot in real life will ruin your day.

Ha. I meant that autofire is annoying when my PCs use it because they mow down all my threats. More of a problem is that they do a disproportionate amount of damage when compared to the rest of the party, especially at low to med XP.

I rarely give (or use) autofire with my NPCs. Only when I want to remind my players that autofire is scary or if my PC needs a new weapon. Luckily, my NPCs rarely have a five dice pool with the dominant color yellow, so in that way the NPCs aren't quite as OP as the PCs.

3 hours ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

Ha. I meant that autofire is annoying when my PCs use it because they mow down all my threats. More of a problem is that they do a disproportionate amount of damage when compared to the rest of the party, especially at low to med XP.

I rarely give (or use) autofire with my NPCs. Only when I want to remind my players that autofire is scary or if my PC needs a new weapon. Luckily, my NPCs rarely have a five dice pool with the dominant color yellow, so in that way the NPCs aren't quite as OP as the PCs.

Hmm, give your NPC’s riot shields or something to mess up their autofire. Have the NPC’s use smoke grenades and stun grenades or just plain ole grenades. Have them ambush the pc’s in a crossfire, and use nasty droids on them. Spread the NPC’s out so autofire is less useful. Have Melees or Brawlers get into engaged range so the party can’t use ranged without fear of hitting their own. Ambush them when they walk around corners, and just escalate the level of violence when they bring out the big guns. Have the police show up making the combat into three way chase scene. Put them in social situations where they can’t carry long rifles.

On 10/21/2018 at 6:43 PM, Metalghost said:

? Think you quoted the wrong post but to comment on this one yes the book does establish that despairs and threats happen after damage is considered. In fact we had a discussion about this already confirmed among our selfs in the previous page that this is what the book says. I did add that my GM and some other's treat the speci  fic despair that makes it run out of ammo happen when he pulls the trigger cause the despair says immediately but it doesn't clarify by what it means by immediately. GM's have the authority in their session to bend rule  s how they see fit for their game. This was pointe  d out as well. Regardl  ess the de  spair when it come to th  em running out of ammo also s  ays the weapon c  a  n n  ot be used for the rest of the en  counter which was poin  ted out as well.  Now if they have a specific skill that lets them go around this and lets them reload then by all means they can reload. The GM is the one in control to all this. I also feel like I'm talking to a wall to some people in this post and I don't mean you tramp. Remember the GM has the final say what happens with the rules and if the players don't like it well they can always leave that group and move to another. They are not forced to play in that group.

I disagree a bit here. It's a community game, not the GM's game for the players to ask mother-may-I. GM's can set alternate rules at the beginning of the campaign, but if they change things in the middle of a game that's not a good thing. Rulings on the fly and discussing it later is separate, but the whole table should come to a consensus in the later discussion before a way forward is finalized.

And to continue assaulting the dead equine... I don't think it has to define immediately. Immediately is pretty clear, it happens immediately as the despair is resolved. "Step 5 - Resolve Threat and Despair" Before it's resolved it's just a part of the dice pool. And since step 5 comes after step 4 it happens after the advantage is spent and the extra hits generated. Obviously your group is ok with the house rule you've come up with for auto-fire despairs and that's fine. However if this had come up in the middle of a game and I had a character that was built towards auto-fire I would feel completely justified in asking to rebuild my character if I felt the rule change was egregious enough.

21 hours ago, Ahrimon said:

I disagree a bit here. It's a community game, not the GM's game for the players to ask mother-may-I. GM's can set alternate rules at the beginning of the campaign, but if they change things in the middle of a game that's not a good thing. Rulings on the fly and discussing it later is separate, but the whole table should come to a consensus in the later discussion before a way forward is finalized.

And to continue assaulting the dead equine... I don't think it has to define immediately. Immediately is pretty clear, it happens immediately as the despair is resolved. "Step 5 - Resolve Threat and Despair" Before it's resolved it's just a part of the dice pool. And since step 5 comes after step 4 it happens after the advantage is spent and the extra hits generated. Obviously your group is ok with the house rule you've come up with for auto-fire despairs and that's fine. However if this had come up in the middle of a game and I had a character that was built towards auto-fire I would feel completely justified in asking to rebuild my character if I felt the rule change was egregious enough.

Yep all the games I have been in we don't change the rules in the middle of the game or try, but discuss it and show where the rule came from during the week. Not during the game cause it slows it down and disrupts it. Never said we do it during the game while its going.

On 10/19/2018 at 12:55 PM, Donovan Morningfire said:

So regarding the "Despair as out of ammo = no autofire hits" tangent this thread has gone on...

So looking at the Perform a Combat Check section of the core rulebook, starting on page 210:

Step 1 - Declare an Attack and Select Targets
Step 2 - Assemble the Dice Pool
Step 3 - Pool Results and Deal Damage
Step 4 - Resolve Advantage and Triumph
Step 5 - Resolve Threat and Despair
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries  

So going by the order of operations as laid out in the core rulebook, the spending/results of the Despair would come after the damage of the original attack has been dealt and the advantages spent to activate the autofire quality for the additional hits. So while the Despair could be used to have the weapon run out of ammo, per RAW those three hits would still take place.

It's even said in the book that a Despair should not in and of itself automatically invalidate the effects of a successful roll (even though the rules subvert this with rolling a Despair when shooting into melee where you have an ally present).

This is poor logic. It assumes all of the hits are one damage pool, they are independant damage pools. In fact activating auto-fire is AFTER damage is dealt by this very set of steps, because it is a weapon quality and you have to use your advantage to activate. The chart would look like this, assuming enough to activate auto-fire 3 times:

Step 1 - Declare an Attack and Select Targets
Step 2 - Assemble the Dice Pool
Step 3 - Pool Results and Deal Damage
Step 4 - Resolve Advantage and Triumph
Step 5 - Resolve Threat and Despair
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries  
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries 
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries 

And because you can use the despair to make the person run out of ammo you can make it

Step 1 - Declare an Attack and Select Targets
Step 2 - Assemble the Dice Pool
Step 3 - Pool Results and Deal Damage
Step 4 - Resolve Advantage and Triumph
Step 5 - Resolve Threat and Despair
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries  
click click

You are not negating the attack, you are negating the weapon quality activation with his part of the roll. The actual attack still hits.

2 hours ago, Lormif said:

This is poor logic.

The rules as written disagree with your conclusions.

Granted, if you're the GM and you want to spend Despairs to hose over your players, then you do you. Just don't be surprised if the players start getting ticked that you're using Despairs to screw them out of doing cool things.

12 hours ago, Lormif said:

This is poor logic. It assumes all of the hits are one damage pool, they are independant damage pools. In fact activating auto-fire is AFTER damage is dealt by this very set of steps, because it is a weapon quality and you have to use your advantage to activate. The chart would look like this, assuming enough to activate auto-fire 3 times:
  
Step 1 - Declare an Attack and Select Targets
Step 2 - Assemble the Dice Pool
Step 3 - Pool Results and Deal Damage
Step 4 - Resolve Advantage and Triumph
Step 5 - Resolve Threat and Despair
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries  
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries 
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries 

And because you can use the despair to make the person run out of ammo you can make it

Step 1 - Declare an Attack and Select Targets
Step 2 - Assemble the Dice Pool
Step 3 - Pool Results and Deal Damage
Step 4 - Resolve Advantage and Triumph
Step 5 - Resolve Threat and Despair
Step 6 - Reduce Damage, Apply to Wound Threshold, and Apply Critical Injuries  
click click

You are not negating the attack, you are negating the weapon quality activation with his part of the roll. The actual attack still hits.

Actually, this is the poor logic. Nowhere in the rules does it state that additional hits create additional 'pools' of damage that are resolved independently. Furthermore, resolving the advantage and triumph is still before resolving the threat and despair. The advantage is spent and the additional hits are generated, which add the stated damage as well as allow additional critical injuries in Step 6. That damage has been added to the following step, and can't be 'canceled out' by the despair because the weapon running out of ammo does not and cannot negate the damage that has already been dealt . The only way that a weapon quality is 'negated' is if there is insufficient advantage generated to trigger it.

11 hours ago, DarthHammer said:

Actually, this is the poor logic. Nowhere in the rules does it state that additional hits create additional 'pools' of damage that are resolved independently. Furthermore, resolving the advantage and triumph is still before resolving the threat and despair. The advantage is spent and the additional hits are generated, which add the stated damage as well as allow additional critical injuries in Step 6. That damage has been added to the following step, and can't be 'canceled out' by the despair because the weapon running out of ammo does not and cannot negate the damage that has already been dealt . The only way that a weapon quality is 'negated' is if there is insufficient advantage generated to trigger it.

Actually, yes, the rules do say that. Autofire, linked, and two weapon attacks, per RAW , add additional hits per x amount of Advantages. Each hit’s damage is calculated individually. This includes Soak. However, that does not mean that Despairs should cancel out the additional hits resulting from those above effects, since they are specifically a result of resolving the Advantages/Threats step, not a separate set in and of themselves.

On 12/12/2018 at 4:54 PM, Donovan Morningfire said:

The rules as written disagree with your conclusions. 

Granted, if you're the GM and you want to spend Despairs to hose over your players, then you do you. Just don't be surprised if the players start getting ticked that you're using Despairs to screw them out of doing cool things.

I disagree, weapon attributes are done, literally, after damage has already been calculated for the first hit but despairs are activated before those additional hits get to take effect.

On 12/13/2018 at 2:00 PM, Tramp Graphics said:

Actually, yes, the rules do say that. Autofire, linked, and two weapon attacks, per RAW , a  dd additional hits per  x amount of Advantages. Each hit’s damage is calculated individually. This includes Soak. However, that does not mean that Despairs should cancel out the additional hits resulting from those above effects, since they are specifically a result of resolving the Advantages/Threats step, not a separate set in and of themselves.

You are implying that advantages and threats should not cancel each other out for some reason? I am pretty sure that is how the rules state dice pools work, why would it not work for weapon qualities and critical failures? You are using someones poor roll to counter someones additional advantages..

The problem here is that unless I am looking at the rules wrong autofire is a POWERFUL advantage, one of the most powerful, at level one it could theoretically one shot an entire party on either side. While the players may not like that their autofire is cancelled because they run out of ammo with it, I am sure they would rather that happen once in a blue moon from a despair than their entire group get wiped out by some npc with autofire.

38 minutes ago, Lormif said:

I disagree, weapon attributes are done, literally, after damage has already been calculated for the first hit but despairs are activated before those additional hits get to take effect.

You are implying that advantages and threats should not cancel each other out for some reason? I am pretty sure that is how the rules state dice pools work, why would it not work for weapon qualities and critical failures? You are using someones poor roll to counter someones additional advantages..

The problem here is that unless I am looking at the rules wrong autofire is a POWERFUL advantage, one of the most powerful, at level one it could theoretically one shot an entire party on either side. While the players may not like that their autofire is cancelled because they run out of ammo with it, I am sure they would rather that happen once in a blue moon from a despair than their entire group get wiped out by some npc with autofire.

No, that’s not what I’m implying. My point is that Advantages aren’t cancelled out by a Despair. The effects of the Advantages/Threats take effect before Triumphs and Despairs are calculated. As such, the additional hits granted by Autofire weapons from Advantages must take effect before you apply any “out of ammo” from a Despair. That means you calculate damage for every hit granted by the Advantages spent then the weapon runs out of ammo.