This hit can be fatal, repeat FATAL, because of how the multiple hits score increasingly dangerous critical hits. With 4 adv, you can score 5 hits. These hits are handled as separate hits, which can cause separate crits.

If the first hit (and with 10 damage, is likely, but not guaranteed) exceeds your wound threshold, it causes a critical injury. Then each subsequent you cause four more hits, at +10, +20, +30, and +40.

Okay, so I'm… a hit or two shy? Regardless, the demonstration illustrates my point, that these completely plausible, if not frequent, roll results will cause players to get absolutely f***ed! A player with most of their wound and one or two minor critical injuries from earlier in the combat could die, and will certainly be in a very, very bad way.

This is why I think AF's current state is broken.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Huh, I was thinking each attack [roll], not each hit. That makes me rescind my previous statement. Ouch!

-EF

Regarding Autofire (and by extension Linked), a question came up in another thread about if the target's Soak Value would be applied to each individual hit from an Autofire attack.

While it won't save a squishy character (Soak Value 2 or less, Wound Threshold 12 or less), having Soak Value explicitly apply to each hit (right now, it's not stated one way or the other) against an individual target might help a bit, at least for beefier heroes (Soak Value 4 or more, Wound Threshold 13 or better). It's probably one of those "strongly implied" rules, but maybe it should be expressly clarified.

Still, doesn't really alleviate the potential issue of the GM getting 5 or more Advantage on a single attack roll and using them to murder a PC, but that's less of a mechanics issue and more an issue of the GM being an ******* by spending all that Advantage to brutalize the PC for no real reason other than he could.

I'm not quite as worried about a PC doing to an NPC, since most NPCs are only there for the one scene and afterwards are largely forgotten about. Would be annoying for a major NPC villain to get gunned down so ruthlessly, but that's an issue with most any RPG (pre-4e D&D and fights against solo monsters, particularly 3rd edition, though 4e had it's problems too in that regard). Maybe the GM could just spend a Destiny Point to have said major NPC suffer a Disney Death or have a brief case of Joker Immunity? It sure looked like that guy got obliterated, but they somehow managed to survive, perhaps now with one or more obvious cybernetic enhancements? This isn't something that would need to be codified in the rules per se, but it's one possible method keeping plot-centric NPCs from getting whacked quite so easily, in addition to the issues that I know Cyril has raised about PCs walking around with Autofire-capable weapons raising a lot of eyebrows and probably drawing a lot of unwanted attention in the process.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Yeah don't think there's much question that soak applies multiple times in an autofire attack. Each separate "hit" should considered a separate and mutually external source of damage, therefore soak should be applied to the damage from each "hit". DM's right, this is surprisingly not made explicit in the rules. I searched the Autofire, soak, combat action resolution, and damage sections and couldn't find salient text.

I don't like playing games of "F*ck the players", thats not what RPG's are about, and its not how I design my encounters. But I also want to be able to design appropriate encounters, so if I feel a henchmen should have a autofire weapon, I want to be able to give the henchman an autofire weapon without concern that I will frequently have to pull punches. DM's comment about the GM being an ******* is the exact reason I feel this is an issue. Every GM has to decide on how to play hostile NPCs on a spectrum that ranges between the two extremes:

• Playing the NPC's soft, pulling punches, making sure the PC's don't get hurt 'too bad'
• Playing the NPC's Hard and to hilt, maximizing NPC advantage, and making tactically sound decisions

I prefer to design encounters where I can play the NPCs much closer to the "hard" end than the "soft" end because playing in this way:

• Allows the NPCs to act consistently, which I feel improves story-telling. I have a tactical combat goal the NPCs pursue, which allows for easy decision making about what actions to have the NPCs act
• Provides a more rewarding encounter for the players. Besting a incompetent, underpowered, or otherwise poorly matched foe doesn't lead to a sense of accomplishment.
• Prevents subjective and inconsistent application of the rules.

The current AF design forces the GM to either not use these weapons, even in encounters where they would be appropriate OR use these weapons, but play closer the "soft" end of the spectrum, and "pull punches" (what DM describes as not being an *******). If I have to decide as a GM whether or not to spend advantage to activate autofire on roll, the ONLY factor I should have to consider is whether or not it would be consistent for the NPC to do so.

This speaks directly to the mechanical balance issue of AF: the value of one adv on an AF attack roll is so radically increased in relation the value of an adv in other rolls that it creates a strong feeling of inconsistency and makes any other use of adv on these AF rolls seems a waste of resources.

Say what you want, but I think its clear this is a mechanical issue, not a Your-GM-is-a-prick-and-brutalizing-your-character-because-he-can issue. This can and should be fixed in beta instead of putting the burden on GMs to make the decisions for years after the games release.

-WJL

I just had a thought for a mechanic tweak that might 'nerf' auto-fire into the territory of incredibly dangerous, rather than innately lethal.

Instead of each Advantage granting an extra hit, have each Advantage allow a Success to be treated as an additional hit. It's a subtle, but distinct difference.

Instead of a 2 Success, 3 Advantage roll giving you 3 hits +1 damage, it gives you 2 hits and a stray advantage for other use. It's still incredibly dangerous, because the potential is there for, say, a 4 Success, 4 advantage roll, but it provides a secondary limiting factor in that you can't get more *hits* than Successes.

As long as each Hit is Soaked separately, this puts a 'solid, but not spectacular' auto-fire roll into the territory of a nearly deadly burst into a single target or a spray of shots which hit a few targets. A roll which is actually spectacular still has the opportunity to be just as nasty, but the odds of it decrease significantly.

Thoughts?

Voice said:

As I see it, there's no problem, per se, but it makes the mechanic work substantially differently than any other weapon quality or two-weapon fighting, which isn't needed. Lots of people have posted total reworkings of the mechanic, or involved modifications as it stands, and I've shared the same opinion. Mainly because they never show that a simpler solution doesn't fix it.

Increasing the cost to 2 adv keeps it in line with every other weapon quality (runs on adv), controls the damage, but still allows for a ton of damage and crit output, and places it in line with the linked quality and two-weapon fighting (2 adv = add'l hit).

A net of one success and 4 advantage on a roll with this result does triple damage, almost certainly downs a PC, and almost certainly inflicts one (probably 2, the second gettng a +10 bonus) crits. Thats simple and pretty good I'd say.

Compare to a non AF weapon, with 4 (probably 5) adv you could probably activate a crit, do normal damage, and give someone a boost die (I'm willing to concede you'd pribably have an additional adv on the roll from fewer purple dice). So… I think the AF still provides obviously superior results. It's just not bat-$#!t crazy damage and crits.

Really, just show me, either absolutely or conditionally, where that change just fundamentally doesn't work, and I'll support some other solution and shut up about the whole thing.

-WJL

PS: a one adv situation doesn't count as a situation where the change "doesn't work", because it essentially gives the decision of "recover one strain", "give the next guy a boost" or "Double my damage on this attack". One of those options is so much better than the others it's just stupid and that's the problem!

Right.

So I've been thinking (I know bad idea).

Auto-fire: Increase difficulty +1 [p] is how its now. What if we add an upgrade? basically, turn it into an "Add a challenge die" when attempting to auto-fire - instead of adding a difficulty die. Walking-fire only adds an additional difficulty die though, 1 challenge die added is beard enough. This goes a bit towards making the use more risky. Which is nice.

Further, I'm ok with increasing the cost of additional hits to 2 advantages (which is the same as linked and two-weapon fighting) - additionally one could perhaps argue that subsequent hits cannot benefit from uncancelled successes (unless walking-fire which divides them equally among the hits), and - perhaps - have diminishing returns? What if the base damage of an auto-fire weapon decreases per additional hits, to a minimum of - random number: 5 or something. So first auto-fire (non-walking) hit with a heavy blaster rifle damages 11 (1 uncancelled success), the remaining … lets say 3 hits (6 advantages, it was a good roll), does 9, 7 and 5 respectively - so reduce damage by 2 for each subsequent hit - based on total damage of the first hit. I know it breaks with simplicity and it adds a mechanic to the game - sort of - but I just thought I'd throw it out there. This mechanic could let the cost stay at 1 advantage, because the second and third hits would cause less damage - call it inaccuracy or power drainage or whatever… I'm not very big on this idea - and I'm not sure if anyone has already suggested it elsewhere - but its an idea.

LethalDose said:

To give an example from actual play … my character (Ag 3+2 skill) used autofire (after having aimed and used Fp to upgrade the attack) against a group of henchmen - gaining 5 hits ! using a hvy blaster riffle w/spin barrel modied for exstra penetration +2 (effectively +2 dam) thus effectively handing out 5 x (11 dam +2 pierce +2 extra successes) = 75 pts of damage ! Admittingly with the latest update taht would ONLY have been 67 pts of damage! - Now imagine a PC taking that hit!

Note: In our group we dissallow multiple hits against same opponent when using auto-fire, in return we dont impose +difficulty die from using walking fire…

Donovan Morningfire said:

Thanks for the advice, I'll try.

Interesting question: under the new auto fire rules, when does extra damage from talents, weapon mods etc get added in? The rules specify that hits deal the weapons base damage.

Venthrac said:

All of the relevant talents have been re-writtten to only apply to one hit. Which does make things better. I don't think there is any argument that the changes are better, just that the wepaons base damage is still significant and it's too easy to get multiple hits on a single target, still resulting in a lot of damage.

gribble said:

Have they?

I'm looking at the PDF for the Week 10 update (low-res), and there's no mention of Barrage or Point Blank (the two talents that would add to damage for Auto-fire or Linked weapons), so going by what's listed, those talents would still apply their bonus to each "hit," as the only change made was regarding the bonus damage from extra successes.

Jegergryte said:

I had kinda suggested that back on page one, in regards to someone else's idea (don't recall who's) about having greater odds of auto-fire weapons running out of ammo more frequently (a usual drawback to autofire weapons in the various d20 versions of Star Wars), mostly as a means to be able to use the Despair result when it came up rather than add another mechanic to auto-fire.

Just to make sure I'm reading your suggestion right, instead of adding a Difficulty die as per the usual rules on increasing the difficulty of a roll, you want to add a Challenge die?

For instance, a PC with a heavy blaster rifle takes a shot at an Assassin Droid (Adversary 2) that's at Medium range (typically 2 Difficulty). Under your proposal, instead of the roll being at 3 Difficulty, it'd be at 1 Challenge & 2 Difficulty?

Have to admit this would probably go a long way towards helping to keep major NPCs alive in the face of autofire assaults, as the PC could potentially be rolling nothing but Challenge dice on their attack roll depending on the ranks of Adversary involved.

Do agree about walking fire still being additional difficulty rather than an upgrade.

It's not a bad alternative, though I think with adding a Challenge die instead of just upgrading the Difficulty to include a Challenge die (which was more of my initial suggestion), there won't be the need to increase the Advantage cost any, as the Challenge die is more likely to make the attack fail outright, particularly if some of the after-action reports by some posters are accurate about the math making successes about as rare as hen's teeth.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Hmmm… you're right. I was thinking of deadly accuracy and it's ilk, and missed these talents.

gribble said:

No problem. I'd forgotten about those talents being updated way back during the Week 4 update, and was looking for red text entries.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Yeah, I stole the whole idea from you. well the core idea of it anyways.

Yes, I want to add a challenge die instead of a difficulty die. So, in your example, if I understand the adversary talent correct, the PC would actually roll three challenge dice wouldn't he? I mean, doesn't the adversary 2 talent upgrade difficulty to hit twice?

The only problem with that mechanic is that it stays very effective against PCs … few PC abilities upgrade the difficulty to hit them, mostly they add setback dice, no?

Jegergryte said:

Yeah, in the example I gave, it would be 3 Challenge Dice, making it a pretty darn impressive shot given the amount of Failures and Threats are likely to generate barring a PC who is exceptionally skilled (such as rolling 4 dice, most of which are Proficiency dice).

As for affecting the PCs, see my remark above about GM asshattery and spending Advantage for multiple hits on a player character.

In the situation of targeting a PC, my suggestion would be for the GM to spend the extra Advantage to trigger a critical hit on the first attack rather than just spending them all on extra autofire attacks should he wind up with a plethora of Advantages. The character's gonna be in rough shape, having suffered two crits (with only one of them being at +10), but it's far less likely to result in a dead character.

Also, a lot of the NPCs that the party are going to be facing off against aren't going to have more than 1 or 2 ranks in their combat skills, particularly if their minions in a group.

As i suggested weeks and weeks ago to someone else in one of the threads here, use an autofire weapon as being used by a minion group, much like the two Snowtroopers we saw in ESB setting up that E-Web blaster. This way, the PCs have an incentive to take down those minions as quickly as possible, thus denying them Proficiency dice and decreasing the odds of getting blasted by the tripod-mounted repeating blaster.

Jegergryte said:

They can use Destiny points to upgrade the difficulties of attack checks targeting them.

Frankly, Autofire being deadly makes sense. Just look at how many and how easily troops were mowed down by machine guns during WWI. If a PC finds themselves up against an opponent with an Autofire weapon, then it is time to do things to not be out in the open. Duck behind cover, change the range to the target, etc…

The players should learn better tactics than what they are used to from other systems, like D&D where really only level 1 characters are one hit wonders.

As for defensive talents adding setback rather than giving upgrades, find the thread on the dice probabilities. Adding a die (Ability or Boost) is better than upgrading a die from Ability to Proficiency. This also applies to the negative dice. Adding a Setback is better than upgrading a Difficulty to a Challenge. This remains true as long as you have unupgraded Difficulty dice.

Kallabecca said:

Funny thing is that taking cover only adds one setback die to your PC's defense. So that enemy with Auto fire as written… still pretty likely to kill your PC if he hits. taking cover isn't really a solution in this game. Noticably so. IMO

Boehm said:

Based on that roll, auto-fire as currently written that attack could probably have dropped 2 PCs at once for 18 (2 hits + 2 damage) & 21 (3 hits) points of damage ( after assuming 4 Soak on each hit). Prior to the Week 10 update, it would have been worse as 20 and 27 damage respectively.

With my suggested fix it would have only been 3 hits, with 2 advantage left over for other uses. Still dang dangerous, but a PC *might* survive it if they have good Soak. The left-over advantages would let a PC grant a Boost die, or recover some Strain.

With Lethal Dose's preferred fix, it would have been 3 hits + 4 damage. Similar results, but the +4 damage significantly increases the post-Soak damage on one of the hits since they don't have to be spread between the hits evenly.

As for the concept I've seen that turning an auto-fire weapon against a PC is 'GM ass-hattery', that's the clearest indicator that the mechanic (as it currently stands) is broken. PCs will be perfectly willing and able to 'one-shot' their Nemesis once they've gotten their hands on an auto-fire weapon, if the mechanic can't *fairly* be used on the PCs as well, it needs to be dealt with.

I'm also inclined toward the idea of adding a Challenge die rather than a Difficulty die for auto-fire. If for no other reason than to provide more opportunity for an auto-fire weapon to run through it's power supply.

Auto-fire also shouldn't be nearly as effective at long range (due to the inaccuracy of spray fire), it shouldn't benefit from aiming and it shouldn't benefit from the use of a telescopic optical sight either. And that's all in addition to the fact that it should consume ammunition incredibly fast and possibly overheat the weapon.

In reality, Auto-firing a weapon is a pretty desperate tactic that rarely pays great dividends compared to its drawbacks. Many RPGs incorporate this truth into their autofire rules. I cite FFG's Warhammer 40K line for its semi-auto and full-auto rules, which I think paint a more accurate picture of the pros and cons of such an attack..

As presented here, Auto-fire has all of the benefits with fewer of the drawbacks, which makes it a potent option for anyone possessing a high Ranged (Heavy) score.

Kallabecca said:

Yeah I remember those threads - I partook. Still, the despair is an out of ammo possibility which is going to affect the players more than npcs with this suggested change.

As for upgrade/adding, my players fear the red die more than a few black dice - for some reason, I think because of the despair result. Statistically I know, its a lot of yada-yada mumbo jumbo, but from experience during play and testing I don't really feel the fear or problem anymore. Its a step away from the binary good/bad, hit/miss next ones go that we know from most other games.

In this instance the idea is to add a challenge die, which is worse/better than either setback or difficulty. I also think that the adversary talent will cause a lot of mayhem and grief in the time to come - as long as I remember using it.

A comment on GM play style (being a **** vs. pulling punches):

The main issue for me here is that even if you pull punches as a GM, the players are NOT going to pull punches when they hit your main villain and roll 4 advantage.., so, what? You cheat? You use a destiny point?

Auto fire needs a cost increase (2 adv) to be playable, otherwise people are just going to house rule it in one way or another. What are the devs seeing that is making them so reluctant to increase the activation cost? I really don't get it. Play a couple of Stormtroopers Sergeants against a group of players with 5 soak each and see who wins. Autofire is ridiculously overpowered. Still.

… And as a side note, I love the "challenge die" idea - not upgrading existing difficulty, but just adding a challenge die to the pool. I'd slap this in on top of the activation cost increase.