Hello all.

We've had our first game using the Beginner's Box, and had a blast with the game. Contemplating our experience the following is something I want to be sure we're handling correctly, so any rules lawyers please respond.

We comprehend the more "theatrical" uses of advantage and threat just fine (we're frequent FATE system players, so handling narrative play is old hat for us).

However, we wanted to be sure we're handling the more mechanical uses of threat and advantage properly. That said:

Can multiple boost or setback dice be bought when a player rolls multiple advantage or threat?

For instance, if a player generated four net advantages on a roll, could he spend it to add two boost dice to his next roll, or perhaps a boost dice each to two other pc's next rolls?

By extension this question would apply to the spending of threat or combinations of advantage + triumph or threat + despair.

Hi

I don't have the book in fornt of me but I'm pretty sure each effect can only be triggered once by roll, except when otherwise specified (e.g. Recover 1 strain, autofire, linked)

Yeah that's the part we're trying to clarify. It only came up because the strain option says it can be taken more than once, which to us indicated that perhaps the other options couldn't.

Still trying to get the straight of it.

It's unclear by a strict reading of the rules, but I allow the purchase multiple dice with multiple advantage/threat. It hasn't been hugely unbalancing, and does (somewhat) mitigate the fact that failed rolls tend to produce more advantage and successful rolls more threat, which helps to even out PC/GM luck as a factor.

Yeah, in our first session we allowed it when coupled with a reasonable explanation.

Such as in a firefight with stormtroopers when a character got four advantage and a wash in all other respects. We gave boost dice to two other pc's on the explanation that the acting character was laying down suppresive fire and giving the other pc's a chance to angle for a clean shot.

Didn't seem to unbalance things any.

I fired off the question to FFG's rules lawyers and will let you know what they say.

Aazlain said:

I don't think this is explicit in the book. I haven't looked recently, but we spent a lot of time trying to find this stated in the RAW when we first started playing. and never found it. Our final conclusion was that since the strain/recovery lines explicitly stated that it could be activated multiple times, and it that text was missing from other lines, it was implicit that the other lines could only be activated once/roll.

-WJL

I came to the same conclusion as Lethal Dose, but based also upon the explicit one per line for the obligation options.

Official response from the rules critters:

Good afternoon,

Deathseed said:

Interesting. Thanks. What is the official channel to send a question or clarifiction request to FFG?

Aazlain said:

Along the toolbar at the top, mouse over More -> Customer Service -> Rules Questions.

Fill out the form that comes up. It make take a few days for them to respond, but so far I've never had them not respond.

Much appreciated Deathseed. Thank you.

My pleasure. Glad to be of assistance.

Sorry for probably asking a basic question, but we played our first session this weekend and wanted to make sure we were doing things correctly. The question above answered one of mine - whether or not you could buy something more than once, and it implies we might be doing the rest correctly but wanted to clarify. The question - can you buy multiple Advantages from the table. If I roll net 2 Triumph (for example) could I use one to buy 1 strain recovery and the other to buy a Boost dice, or do I have to use the 2 Triumph result in the table. I didn't see anything saying you could only buy one thing from those tables but wanted to be sure before our next session.

Each option can be selected once, outside of the strain mechanics. The "currency" [symbols] used to purchase them aren't really relevant as far as I can tell, and you can split them up however you would like.

Sorry for probably asking a basic question, but we played our first session this weekend and wanted to make sure we were doing things correctly. The question above answered one of mine - whether or not you could buy something more than once, and it implies we might be doing the rest correctly but wanted to clarify. The question - can you buy multiple Advantages from the table. If I roll net 2 Triumph (for example) could I use one to buy 1 strain recovery and the other to buy a Boost dice, or do I have to use the 2 Triumph result in the table. I didn't see anything saying you could only buy one thing from those tables but wanted to be sure before our next session.

I'm pretty sure that, if you wanted to spend both Triumphs, each Triumph can be used to buy different things (1 for strain, one for boost, for exammple).

I would like to point out that, and this is purely based on personal preference, Triumphs should be used on something more substantial than recovering 1 strain. Again, just preference...i'ts not against the rules and whatever works for you, do it.

But Triumph should be something exciting and significant. I suppose if a player only has 1 strain left, then by all means, use a Trimph to help. In fact, if I were GM, I'd probably allow 3 to 5 strain gain on Triumph. As a representation that the player has mustered a second wind and significantly improved his mental clarity.

Thanks. That's what I thought (and the implication of buying multiple strain recovery at one time).

Hi

I don't have the book in fornt of me but I'm pretty sure each effect can only be triggered once by roll, except when otherwise specified (e.g. Recover 1 strain, autofire, linked)

Since the main question was answered, I'd like to clarify that you can recover 1 strain as many times as you can afford, you can fire Auto-fire as many times as you want, since the entry under Auto-fire says so, and you can trigger Linked a number of times equal to the Linked quality.

I believe the exception to the general rule on this is that Advantage can purchase one Boost die per character affected by it. So, if you roll enough Advantages on a check, you could give your character and each other character in the group a Boost die on their next check VS that opponent, but, RAW, could not give any single character more than one Boost die from that roll alone (though I'm not entirely certain if this effect stacks from multiple checks).

I believe the exception to the general rule on this is that Advantage can purchase one Boost die per character affected by it. So, if you roll enough Advantages on a check, you could give your character and each other character in the group a Boost die on their next check VS that opponent, but, RAW, could not give any single character more than one Boost die from that roll alone (though I'm not entirely certain if this effect stacks from multiple checks).

With the exception that, if I understand correctly, you could spend 1 Advantage to give the *next* player an boost, and then spend enough 2 Advantages to give every player a boost, that would give the *next* player two boost dice.

I'm almost positive that you could, theoretically, given enough Advantages on various player's rolls, amass quite the pile of boost dice for a player's next roll. (ex: A 5-player group, each rolling 2 advantage could end up giving one player a total of 5 boost dice that way, 6 if the preceding character rolled 3, and gave a boost to his choice *and* to the *next* character.)