Sorry, I was asking my hypothetically since I couldn't figure out how we were getting to 8 attack dice.
I'm still not convinced this combo works that way.

"You can do it as many times..." is a huge not very well supported presumption.

Buhallin: You keep on referencing Howlrunner, however I think your argument is a little flawed. Howlrunners ability isn't a "do something for something" in structure. It is an "if this occurs, then this happens" in structure. If you are within range 1 of Howlrunner you get 1 die to reroll. As many ships that can be within range 1 of Howlrunner can get this 1 die reroll option. You can't roll more than one die because her ability grants a singular reroll only if you meet the conditions to get it.

If you could meet the conditions more than once with the same ship ( a virtual impossibility) the yes, you could take more than one reroll.

You're right, I shouldn't have used Howlrunner (although it's not really that different). I should have used Krassis. Let's compare:

Krassis: When attacking with a secondary weapon, you may...

Opportunist: When attacking, if the defender... you may.

So how many times can Krassis activate his ability? How many times can an Opportunist, that has the identical structure, activate their ability? Does the fact that one gives you a stress mean that you interpret the same words differently?

The "if it's 'free' you can only do it once, if it has a 'cost' you can hypothetically do it an infinite number of times if you can figure out how to pay the cost" argument hurts my head. It seems like there's a big assumption there that the 'limiters' are there for the sole purpose of preventing an ability from working an infinite number of times.

Given that some of the abilities have very similar wording and no limiters/cost, I'd argue we don't know that this is in fact their intent at all. They may simply be there for balance purposes - not to stop you from using them repeatedly, if you account for the possibility NONE of them can be used repeatedly, but simply to make some of the really good ones a bit more 'expensive' to use.

So, to clarify, look to the purpose of the limiting phrase. In conjunction with the once per trigger interaction. Without the limiter we can only do the action once, so why limit?

The answer to that question, is that you must therefore find a way to deal with the effects of limitation. In these cases, stress. You can't pull opportunist every turn, unless you use green maneuvers to deal with the stress, making your positioning more predictable. I'd say that gives us a balance to the ability and justifies the purpose of the limiting phrase.

But again - cost, limiters, these are terms that we are making up wholesale, or borrowing from other sources and shoehorning into X-Wing. Even calling it a "limiter" comes with a huge assumption as to that being its purpose for being there. Like I just said; I'm not sure we can assume that.

There's nothing clearly indicating that ANY of these abilities in question can be used more than once, limiter or no, in which case they may have simply included some of them causing stress or whatever as a means of giving good abilities a downside.

I really hesitate to get into this 'limiter' thing because it's another made-up concept and the very use of the word makes assumptions as to its reason for being there when we really don't know that's the purpose.

You don't have to call it a limiter - I'm just trying to shorten the amount of english used to describe the portion of text in abilities that acts to limit the conditions in which you can use the ability.

I don't think it's out of line to look to the purpose of included ability text in order to try to understand something further about the game design. Certainly, we can agree that all ability text has a reason for being included on the card?

Perhaps my biggest assumption is that "RAI" and "RAW" are supposed to be the same, and if they are, we can probably assume that what text does is the reason the text is there. My intent was to merely to show that the included text was not rendered meaningless by the idea of a once per trigger rule - if the text's sole purpose was to guarantee once per activation using the stress rules - it would be an unneeded phrase, but since the text actually has another deeper game effect that transcends game turns, it has a good reason for being on the card - whether or not that is the intended purpose of the phrase.

You're right, I shouldn't have used Howlrunner (although it's not really that different). I should have used Krassis. Let's compare:

Krassis: When attacking with a secondary weapon, you may...

Opportunist: When attacking, if the defender... you may.

So how many times can Krassis activate his ability? How many times can an Opportunist, that has the identical structure, activate their ability? Does the fact that one gives you a stress mean that you interpret the same words differently?

Krassis Ability: "When attacking with a secondary weapon, you may reroll 1 attack die."

Opportunist: "When attacking, if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens, you may receive one stress token to roll 1 additional attack die.

You cannot use this ability if you have any stress tokens."

I agree that they both have the same triggering phrase, "When Attacking" but Opportunist has a different limiter clause contained within it that is different that Krassis' ability.

Krassis's ability has the limiter "with a secondary weapon". Thus the rules that pertain to using secondary weapons apply and limit this ability.

Opportunist has a limiter, "if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens" and a stopper " You cannot use this ability if you have any stress tokens". So, if your opponent has focus or evade, or you have a stress token, you can't use it.

But then Opportunist has something different contained in it that is very different than Krassis' ability. "you may receive one stress token to roll 1 additional attack die" vs " you may reroll 1 attack die".

Krassis' ability would only be triggered multiple times if he had more than one instance in a round to attack with a secondary weapon. The rules say you can only attack with one Primary or one Secondary attack per turn, so no go on multiple times. If a new gunner card came out and used a secondary weapon for a new attack then I would then say yes, because a card now overrules general rules on the matter.

I can choose to receive a stress token to roll one additional die is what this all hinges on. There is enough evidence that a ship may have more than one stress token at any given time and Opportunist is not an action, so as long as I activate it when I am attacking, and don't have a stress token, I can use it.

The choice to recieve a stress token isn't limited enough to an specific amount. You can take it as one or more than one.

What in the rules tells me that I cannot choose to give myself more than one stress token? Nothing, yet. But there should be.

There are other cards that allow the choice of receiving stress tokens when using an ability so the concept is not new. The ability to remove stress tokens before they can be applied is. That is what Yorr's ability, in the new wave 3, does. We now have a new card interaction that can allow a player to want to choose to receive more than one stress token when using an ability. This interaction concept is brand new to x-wing and is only now being talked about.

Lets look at another similar card and see if the chain can also work:

Elusiveness

" When defending, you may receive 1 stress token to choose 1 attack die. The attacker must reroll that die.

If you have at least 1 stress token, you cannot use this ability."

Very similar to Opportunist in many respects. Here you may choose 1 stress for 1 die. Can I choose more than 1 stress token to have my opponent roll more than 1 die? Can I choose to take 2 or 3 stress tokens at once and have my opponent reroll all his attack dice? I would be stuck with 2-3 stress tokens for 2-3 turns in which I needed to do green maneuvers to remove all those tokens. I would not get any actions during that time either. So I fuddle up one attack to limit my movement and actions for 2-3 turns. That seems like a fair trade off.

OR

Is it plausible to use it once, have Yorr strip the stress token off, and then use it again to force a reroll of another die, and keep doing this with Yorr until the defending ship has received a stress token? Its not an action, I'm doing it during the defender modifies the attack dice step, so could I do it to each die that was rolled? But there is nothing in the rules saying a non-action can't be used more than once. It only states that actions cannot be repeated. So by inference, non-actions can be used more than once, as long as triggers are met, limiters obeyed, and stoppers used.

I know I'm using non-standard terms for this particular argument but I don't see any other way of getting the point across without labelling the components of an ability by what it does.

a trigger: is a clause that allows an ability to initiate. eg. "When attacking...", " After executing...".

a limiter: is a clause that narrows the function of the ability or sets restrictions on its use. " on an [hit] result...", " with the ship trait...".

a stopper: is a clause that negates the use of the ability if the clause proves true. " if you are hit, discard this card." " if you have ____ you can't use this ability"

I'm putting in the definitions of these terms so that what I am describing can be understood better.

and as always, I don't agree with the multiple use of either of these abilities but I am merely working through the arguments that could occur to some poor T.O. that is going to get this mess someday.

Arguments that follow "it was never in the game before" won't work as it is a brand new ability, and concept, being introduced; Wanting to take more than one stress token.

The problem is, I've said, we don't even know for sure yet if any of those definitions are right.

If abilities are only meant to be used once per 'trigger,' there's no need for something to limit their use, and what you call Limiters may simply be there to balance out the cost of using various abilities by giving them a drawback.

Krassis's ability has the limiter "with a secondary weapon". Thus the rules that pertain to using secondary weapons apply and limit this ability.

Opportunist has a limiter, "if the defender does not have any focus or evade tokens" and a stopper " You cannot use this ability if you have any stress tokens". So, if your opponent has focus or evade, or you have a stress token, you can't use it.

But then Opportunist has something different contained in it that is very different than Krassis' ability. "you may receive one stress token to roll 1 additional attack die" vs " you may reroll 1 attack die".

Krassis' ability would only be triggered multiple times if he had more than one instance in a round to attack with a secondary weapon.

This is a problem though.

Using your terms, the two abilities have the same trigger. They both have a different limiter, but I think we can agree that that doesn't materially change how we interpret them.

You say that Krassis will only trigger multiple times if he has more than one instance in a round to attack with a secondary weapon. So why can Opportunist trigger multiple times during a single instance in a round to attack when the target has to tokens?

That's the point I'm trying to make here. You're choosing to interpret the "When attacking" trigger differently based on whether or not the "take a stress" part is present. IMHO, you can't do that. If Krassis only triggers once per attack, then Opportunist should only trigger once per attack.

Exactly, the only thing that makes sense (that doesn't break the rest of the game (by halting game or causing infinite loops) for triggering opportunist multiple times is a cost argument, where you can pay the cost multiple times, as pointed out, that has to be inferred from the ability wording, but such an inference has no support from precedent. So, the cost method and such rules can work, but they aren't currently supported by the rules we have.

Exactly, the only thing that makes sense (that doesn't break the rest of the game (by halting game or causing infinite loops) for triggering opportunist multiple times is a cost argument, where you can pay the cost multiple times, as pointed out, that has to be inferred from the ability wording, but such an inference has no support from precedent. So, the cost method and such rules can work, but they aren't currently supported by the rules we have.

Maybe we're saying the same thing here, but the implication is not just that cost can be paid multiple times - it's that activation triggers function differently on abilities with a "cost" and abilities without a "cost", even though they use the exact same words for the activation triggers.

It may just be a personal standard, but at the point when you start arguing that the same words mean different things in different places, you're on very shaky ground.

we're pretty much saying the same thing - I also agree that the same words have to have the same meaning across the board.

Your interpretation of what likely exists (and is based on precedent) is the "one activation per trigger" rule - I get and accept that as the likely state of the game.

My supposition is about what could exist (based on an alternate structure that doesn't break the game, which isn't based on precedent, as the abilities with cost outside of the action and attack headers have no precedent ) is the idea that costs become part of the conditional state, probably best written as "one activation per cost per trigger". (and further definition that something without a cost necessarily becomes "one activation per trigger" as the a lack of a cost necessarily can not be paid to give recursion to the trigger.

I'm fairly certain that in this situation, the meanings are the same across the board and does indeed imply that triggers function differently where there is a cost vs where there isn't. I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge there may be a game interaction where this would break down, and I may have missed a wave 1-2 card that has one of these cost structures. (This alternate rule structure would indeed allow you to take 4 damage to give 2 crits with Vader... although, the after attacking may no longer be true after you use the vader ability, depending on the definition of after)

(p.s. I hope I've made myself clear, I'm not always the best at getting across my point - It's not about making abilities work as I "want" them to - I'm not invested into the outcome, I'm more interested in understanding the design space, specifically so I can word abilities for home brew and balance - I often wish there was a more complete and comprehensive x-wing rulebook available. I'm quite curious at how the developers design games. I get the feeling that X-wing isn't designed in a "how does this ability affect the rules we have, but a "lets make this ability and see if it works" kind of way.)

So... triggered abilites...

"When trigger condition is met resolve effect"

"When attacking... "

Everytime I am attacking I resolve that effect.

If theres a "may" in the effect I can choose to resolve or not resolve that effect.

"When attacking" triggers everytime I am attacking.

Why should anybody be allowed to trigger it multiple times during one single attack?

If there are multiple attacks than every attack triggers, but we are talking about 1 single attack.

When someone with Oportunist attacks, or Backstabber attacks, or any other ability that starts with "When attacking".

Th trigger is met. How often is the trigger met? One time. So resolve the effect one time.

There is no possibilty that triggeres works diffrently for every single card.

Same for Elusiveness.

The trigger is "When defending".

Resolve the effect every time you are defending.

Why are you still arguing about effects?

The whole problem was from the beginning: how often are you allowed to resolve the effect.

This is about triggers (aka conditions). Ignore the effect!

Tell me one single card with a trigger written on it that will resolve more often as it was triggered.

Is there any?

we're pretty much saying the same thing - I also agree that the same words have to have the same meaning across the board.

Your interpretation of what likely exists (and is based on precedent) is the "one activation per trigger" rule - I get and accept that as the likely state of the game.

My supposition is about what could exist (based on an alternate structure that doesn't break the game, which isn't based on precedent, as the abilities with cost outside of the action and attack headers have no precedent ) is the idea that costs become part of the conditional state, probably best written as "one activation per cost per trigger". (and further definition that something without a cost necessarily becomes "one activation per trigger" as the a lack of a cost necessarily can not be paid to give recursion to the trigger.

I'm fairly certain that in this situation, the meanings are the same across the board and does indeed imply that triggers function differently where there is a cost vs where there isn't. I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge there may be a game interaction where this would break down, and I may have missed a wave 1-2 card that has one of these cost structures. (This alternate rule structure would indeed allow you to take 4 damage to give 2 crits with Vader... although, the after attacking may no longer be true after you use the vader ability, depending on the definition of after)

(p.s. I hope I've made myself clear, I'm not always the best at getting across my point - It's not about making abilities work as I "want" them to - I'm not invested into the outcome, I'm more interested in understanding the design space, specifically so I can word abilities for home brew and balance - I often wish there was a more complete and comprehensive x-wing rulebook available. I'm quite curious at how the developers design games. I get the feeling that X-wing isn't designed in a "how does this ability affect the rules we have, but a "lets make this ability and see if it works" kind of way.)

And I'm not trying to accuse you of that. I'm just wary of throwing in with the way you're defining how it breaks down, because the terms themselves that you're using carry certain implications. If you say something has a cost, there's a cost/benefit implied there even though the closest thing we have to that in the game is the wording "spend a target lock."

Spend certainly sounds like a cost, but Homing Missiles only require you to have a target lock, and there's a big difference between a 'cost,' which then owes you something, and simple 'requirements,' where you do what the card tells you to, no more, no less.

Same with triggers - we call them that, but there's no mention of triggers anywhere in the rules. It's shorthand, but it can also lead to confusion because a trigger, to use an analogy, can get 'pulled' multiple times. If you can create the 'trigger' condition, as with the combo in question here, there's an argument to be made that some abilities could be made to work over and over again - which then leads you to the idea of some of the cards having 'limiters' to keep them from doing so, which as we've seen creates a ton of "well why does this card say this, while that card says that" conflicts.

On the other hand if the card simply lists a condition which must be met, and you assume the game only moves forward, and does not jump backward, the condition is met or not, the effect is granted or not, and you move on. And as Zy said above, I'm not aware of any abilities which explicitly state they can be used multiple times in that way, so there's no clear precedent for such - at best there are a handful of abilities which might be able to be used multiple times under specific conditions, and others which clearly cannot.

The problem I have is that we really don't know if, for example, Jan Ors taking a stress token is there specifically to prevent her from being able to hand off more than 1 attack die a round, or if - because it's a really powerful ability, the stress token is just there for game balance, to give a powerful ability a drawback to work around.

You raise some very valid questions - but in the absence of any clear proof of any ability anywhere in the game which concretely CAN be used multiple times per trigger/conditions being met/whatever, with or without something there to 'cap' its use, I err on the side of NO abilities being able to do this. Because if they could all be used over and over, or most of them, or a bunch of them, I have to believe there'd be some wording to that effect somewhere in the rules. I'll go back and dig but I haven't come across anything giving that implication.

we're pretty much saying the same thing - I also agree that the same words have to have the same meaning across the board.

Your interpretation of what likely exists (and is based on precedent) is the "one activation per trigger" rule - I get and accept that as the likely state of the game.

My supposition is about what could exist (based on an alternate structure that doesn't break the game, which isn't based on precedent, as the abilities with cost outside of the action and attack headers have no precedent ) is the idea that costs become part of the conditional state, probably best written as "one activation per cost per trigger". (and further definition that something without a cost necessarily becomes "one activation per trigger" as the a lack of a cost necessarily can not be paid to give recursion to the trigger.

I'm fairly certain that in this situation, the meanings are the same across the board and does indeed imply that triggers function differently where there is a cost vs where there isn't. I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge there may be a game interaction where this would break down, and I may have missed a wave 1-2 card that has one of these cost structures. (This alternate rule structure would indeed allow you to take 4 damage to give 2 crits with Vader... although, the after attacking may no longer be true after you use the vader ability, depending on the definition of after)

(p.s. I hope I've made myself clear, I'm not always the best at getting across my point - It's not about making abilities work as I "want" them to - I'm not invested into the outcome, I'm more interested in understanding the design space, specifically so I can word abilities for home brew and balance - I often wish there was a more complete and comprehensive x-wing rulebook available. I'm quite curious at how the developers design games. I get the feeling that X-wing isn't designed in a "how does this ability affect the rules we have, but a "lets make this ability and see if it works" kind of way.)

You make excellent points. I would submit that we use the "one use per trigger" method for no other reason than it makes certain abilities very OP if we don't. It seems to me that some of them would be so powerful they would break the game entirely if they were allowed to function in the other way.

I agreee.

There is nothing in the rules that mention Cost as a term or game mechanic. So we can not assume that it is a mechanic being included into the game. Not unless it was clearly worded on the card. The fact that its a new card doesn't matter either. While they might be introducing a Cost mechianic into the game, that is not been spelled out yet. So the only thing we can do is look at existing rules and precident.

If for example it said "You may gain 1 attack dice at the cost of gaining 1 stress token" then the Opportunist and Capt. Yorr combo might make sense. But that's not what the card actually says. So the only way this combo could work is by including a mechanic that does not actually exist.

So unless they come out and say that the cost of opportunist is gaining a stress token, I don't see how anyone can really claim that you can do this more then one time. Not when the precident clearly is "one action/activity per trigger, and no repeating of actions/activities".

The other thing that sticks out at me, and I mentioned this earlier but didn't really work the thought through in my head all the way until now... I was saying it 'felt wrong' to have abilities with no 'limiter' (taking for granted from here on that it may or may not actually be such) only work once, where abilities that DID have a limiter have a (purely theoretical) infinite number of uses - so long as you could find a way to work around the cost.

Now obviously, my gut feeling is not the valid basis for an interpretation of the rules; it just alerts me to where there's something that's not reading right to me. But I think what it was telling me here, if I can figure out how to put this, is that it created this weird double standard.

It created almost this one side where things were "well yeah, that's just common sense," and the other side was "well obviously this one would be open to abuse, so they had to limit it."
Like look at, I don't know, Mauler. He gets an extra attack die at range 1. We just take it as a given that he can only add a single extra die, precisely because there's nothing there saying he can't? That's kind of weird somehow. It's like this "well clearly he can't, because if he could there would be something there telling us he's not allowed to" logic.

So an interesting question for me is, then you take Jan Ors - similar effect to Opportunist, Mauler, etc; extra attack die, however you get it - who takes a stress for handing an attack die out. It's splitting hairs, but the question becomes "does she take a stress to prevent you from handing out more than one (unless you can find a way to wiggle around it by offsetting the stress)?

Or, is the stress there simply because her ability is much more powerful and versatile than, say, Mauler is? Mauler has to be at range 1. He's in a 2 attack die TIE, plus the normal bonus die for range 1, plus his ability. But to use it requires him to be in range 1 of his target in a fragile, undergunned TIE.

Jan can use her ability at up to range THREE, and can hand it off to anybody, for any weapons system. She can make the Falcon fire 5 dice in a range 1 attack. She can make a B-wing fire 5 dice on an HLC at range 3. She can pump up an APT to six damage - even on Wedge, who is going to also subtract one of your defense dice while he's at it. It's an incredibly powerful ability, obviously, with a lot more uses than Mauler.

Now let's strip away the 'cost' for a moment, or the limiter or whatever, and see what it looks like.
Jan Ors: When another friendly ship at Range 1-3 is attacking, you may allow that ship to roll 1 additional attack die.

Here's where I split hairs for a second. Bear with me. With the stress token stuff removed, it clearly works every time a friendly ship attacks. BUT, it also suddenly resembles someone like Mauler a lot more: if the conditions are met, add an additional attack die. With the stress stuff removed, it actually reads less like there is any justification for her giving someone more than 1 die on a single attack, right?

I mean can you read that and say "well, it doesn't say I can't let him roll 1 additional die four times....?" No, suddenly like Mauler it seems pretty obvious that this ability is meant to give one ally 1 additional die on his attack. With the stress text removed it seems, to me at least, incredibly obvious this ability could be used once on each attack, but only once per attack.

So now rebuild it for a second, and try to figure out "If it's clear to me that I can only use it once per attack with the 'cost' text removed, why does it suddenly seem like I could use it over and over again if I could mitigate the stress somehow when the text is reinserted?"

With the purported 'cost' or 'limiter' taken out, there's no way anyone would argue she could just hand Wedge two, three, or four dice on his attack. No way. So why assume she could just because she takes a stress when she does so?

That's why this felt so weird to me. I tried taking the bit about stress out and suddenly it was obvious how it would work without the stress. But when you add the stress in, the only thing making it seem like it can be used repeatedly on a single attack is our assumption that the stress is a cost that can be paid. We don't know that, as we've discussed, and it looks a lot less like a cost if you ignore that part of the ability for one moment.

Now filter it back through the way I was looking at it for a second. You take out the stress text, it clearly works one time per attack. Assume for one second that it only works that way once you put the text back in. Why does she take the stress if she can't mitigate it somehow and hand off as many dice as she is able to ditch stress?

Because her ability is inherently more powerful than Mauler's, for all the reasons above. Range, the ability to buff more powerful weapons, the ability to hand the buff off from a safe distance, all things Mauler lacks. You get a more powerful buff, but it comes with a drawback. If you remove the drawback it just reads like an incredibly OP version of Mauler, like you said. And if it's a drawback, not a cost, or a hard limit on use (which can be worked around, in theory - at least the Imperials can, currently, don't think the Rebels can yet), having her take a stress for it keeps it from being too overpowered all on its own.

In fact having it be a drawback and not a cost or limiter does a better job keeping it from being overpowered, because if it was a repeatable ability, and you came up with a way to lose the stress, there would be nothing stopping you from abusing it, which is I think what is happening with Yorr and (the so far unreleased, ironically) Opportunist card.

Maybe I'm off, but it's just incredibly compelling to me to re-read an ability like Jan's, and remove the text regarding stress for a second, and see how disproportionately powerful that makes her ability. By having her take a stress, if you assume one effect per activation, even if she could mitigate stress, she could still only ever give one ability per teammate per attack. And that would be powerful (and might be why the Rebels don't have a stress mitigator like Yorr yet), but it wouldn't be "stack four bonus dice on top of an advanced proton torpedo" overpowered.

Now let's strip away the 'cost' for a moment, or the limiter or whatever, and see what it looks like.

Well put Your post makes a ton of sense to me.

Agreed (with myself, durr). But I mean with the rest of what you had to say. Given that we have nothing (I know of) in the game which explicitly lets you pay a repeated cost, and that minus the 'cost' all abilities seem to look like they work very straightforward - and very consistently - I think considering them a side effect or drawback for balance purposes makes a lot more sense and is a lot better supported.

You only get 1 chance to check for your pre-attack dice modifier step, meaning once you check for range 1 TIME you declare your range (say range 2). Your opportunist comes in during this step as well, you only get 1 TIME to check for opportunist. You don't get to check/recheck/recheck/recheck.

After checking everything 1 TIME you move on to the next step, ie roll attack dice

Maybe stop at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.
I don't know.
I don't know if we'll have TIME.

thyme

ok I gave in

I was just quoting Old School because you kept saying TIME in big letters and I couldn't get that out of my head.

I actually absolutely agree with you, that there's nothing in the rules but wishful thinking to indicate that any ability can just be used repeatedly at will unless something like stress stops you from doing so.

I think I have enough for a condensed question to FFG:

P.S. thanks to everyone who participated in this discussion. I found the general tone nicer than some other threads I have been on.

Nice points and discussion

Fly casual guys!