There's some contention on balance issues with both the Pressure Point talent and the Gain the Advantage vehicle action. I have a few ideas on improving them and I am looking for feedback. This isn't a discussion on whether they need to be house ruled or not.

So, here are the ideas:

Pressure Point

The problem here is that ignoring soak is hugely powerful against high soak creatures. Teemo the Hutt could be taken down with 3-4 solid hits this way (and he was designed to take more damage than that). The alternatives are:

1. The attack does not ignore soak. Instead it gains Pierce equal to ranks in Medicine.

2. The attack does not do normal damage. Instead it does damage equal to successes + Medicine ranks (ignoring soak).

Gain the Advantage

You give up an attack to make the next attack easier (choosing shields and ignoring the penalty for Evasive Maneuvers, if you are making them). Most of the time, though, it's better to just shoot instead. What is worse, is that in theory it should be fighters that do this the most, but in reality it is multi-crew freighters and shuttles that gain the most out of it. The alternatives are:

1. Gain the Advantage lasts until canceled.

2. If successful, spend 2 Advantage to do damage to the target equal to base damage.

3. If successful, you may make an immediate Gunnery attack.

Which of these do you think work best? Are there any better alternatives?

I like solution #1 to Pressure Point. I'm not really liking either solution for Gain the Advantage.

I also like #1 for Pressure Point. Nice and simple.

Here's what we use:

http://triumphdespair.wordpress.com/category/house-rules-2/

Gain the Advantage currently suffers from two major problems:

The current prerequisites of using this action prevent light freighter pilots from ever using it. The rationale here seems to be grounded in some sort of sense of realism and simulation, but I don’t really care about that. I’m playing a game of make-believe with laser swords, afterall. What I do care about is that most Crew will be flying light freighters, and thus this action becomes worthless to the player characters. So, I am now opening the restrictions on the action, but giving stiff penalties for trying this against a faster vehicle than your own.

It’s not really a great tactical option for snubfighters either. In almost every situation, over the course of two rounds it is tactically better to attack twice rather than Gain the Advantage and then attack once. Thus, this needs to be a Maneuver, not an Action, in order to have it worth using for smaller vessels. This would also give starfighter pilots a more interesting tactical decision as they can now attack and then choose between Gain the Advantage and a different maneuver, such as Evasive Action. Furthermore, pilots in very clumsy vehicles (or very clumsy pilots) can opt to use the automatic, but lesser benefits of Stay on Target.

Here is the result:

Gain The Advantage (CSR)

Pilot Only Maneuver

Requirement: Speed 1+

Target one starship or vehicle in Close range and make an opposed Piloting check against the starship or vehicle’s pilot.

Upgrade the check for each point of Speed your starship or vehicle is travelling faster than the target, and downgrade the check for each point of Speed your starship or vehicle is travelling slower than the target. Add Boost or Setback die as normally determined by the starship or vehicle’s Handling rating.

On a successful check, combat checks from your starship or vehicle against the target are upgraded and you may choose the defense zone targeted.

I think part of the problem with Pressure Point is that it was intended for characters with a low Brawn score that weren't experts in hand-to-hand combat. Given the number of Wookiee Doctors that I've seen with that talent however does highlight that it can be an issue with the right build.

Of the two options, I like #1 the best, as it's quick and simple, and doesn't turn a high Brawn/Brawl character (like the previously mentioned Wookiee Doctor) into a "one-hit KO" combatant.

As for Gain the Advantage, maybe I'm not 100% clear on the rules for it, it lasts until the other guy turns it around and successfully uses that Action against you. So for a PC that's a really good fighter pilot, they should be able to use their Action to Gain the Advantage, and generally keep it. Seeing as how most starfighters have a positive Handling modifier where transports generally have a negative modifier, the edge goes to the fighter pilot. Of course, things start getting hairy when you start invoking various talents (such as Skilled Jockey which would negate a Handling penalty), but that's my general understanding of how the action works.

In combat, you probably are better off just blasting away at the target, so I could maybe see Gain the Advantage being made into a Maneuver instead of requiring an Action. That of if you score a Triumph and succeed, you can make a free attack, representing that you really outfoxed the other guy and have a clear shot a lot sooner than he might have anticipated.

Not run into a problem with pressure point myself, but solution #1 seems the simplest.

As for GtA I'm aware of people having issues with it, but I'm still thinking that the pilot talent tree provides numerous improvements that now could become "weaker" or at least less of an edge for someone that has invested heavily in the pilot talent tree.

I am considering improving the evasive manoeuvre though, thus making GtA more useful. Perhaps upgrade difficulty to be hit by ranks in pilot, or something along those lines (agility or cunning perhaps?) 5 upgrades plus pilot talents makes for a hard target. Although that is more in the talent area than a manoeuvre... Perhaps increase defense by 1 as with guarded stance?

Another idea for evasive manoeuvre is to upgrade/add setback dice equal to speed, speed above 2, or equal to handling...

As for Gain the Advantage, maybe I'm not 100% clear on the rules for it, it lasts until the other guy turns it around and successfully uses that Action against you. So for a PC that's a really good fighter pilot, they should be able to use their Action to Gain the Advantage, and generally keep it. Seeing as how most starfighters have a positive Handling modifier where transports generally have a negative modifier, the edge goes to the fighter pilot. Of course, things start getting hairy when you start invoking various talents (such as Skilled Jockey which would negate a Handling penalty), but that's my general understanding of how the action works.

I am also unclear about GtA right now, but in addition to this, I was also under the impression that you could take GtA multiple times with each successful use further increasing the bonus.

Unless I'm completely mistaken GtA doesn't provide any bonus as such, it removes the penalty from evasive manoeuvres, both incurred by opponent and ones own, if the manoeuvre has been performed. In addition to being enabling attacker to pick defence zone hit.

Pressure Point option #1 is nice and simple, and I think would work better than the alternative.

Gain the Advantage

You give up an attack to make the next attack easier (choosing shields and ignoring the penalty for Evasive Maneuvers, if you are making them). Most of the time, though, it's better to just shoot instead. What is worse, is that in theory it should be fighters that do this the most, but in reality it is multi-crew freighters and shuttles that gain the most out of it.

This is definitively for me THE reason why GtA calls for a houserule. It seems that fast single crewed fighters should be the beneficiaries of this action, but instead, it is only good for multi crewed ships like light freighters.

I think the problem with GtA is that Evasive Manuevers just isn't good enough. If Evasive Manuevers actually made it significantly difficult to shoot you, then GtA would have a purpose as written.

I like both of the options to Pressure Point. The first makes sense for a high brawl abusing character, the second makes it a bit more fair for actual doctors with little brawn to speak of.

I don't really know the answer to GtA. I don't think that Evasive Maneuvers is too weak however. Any stronger and you'd be faced with the prospect of having to Gain the Advantage on anything you even have a chance to hit. And if you are opposed by a similarly or better skilled pilot with a faster, more maneuverable ship, good luck. Any weaker and it becomes worthless. I think EM is in a good place right now.

I'm not saying the answer is as simple as a free upgrade to the next shot, either. Because that works both ways. Imagine a light freighter in combat against 2 wings of 2 tie fighters. The pilot of the freighter can only gain the advantage on one of the wings, not both. Meaning the other wing is free to gain the advantage and thus, the free upgrade and/or called shot and/or whatever.

I find it odd that a company like FFG that has a successful Star Fighting game based on the very same franchise didn't grasp the opportunity to combine like products. I'm not saying that X-Wing is an excellent combat simulator or anything. I just find it odd they didn't make it similar in mechanic.

Perhaps in the next edition we'll get more "maneuvers" we can attempt that will do different things. Maybe they'll call them cool names too, and instead of something lame like GtA, Loop, and Barrel Roll, we'll get Bigg's Gambit, Jek's Belly Run, and Antilles' Roll.

For single pilots in starfighters, I agree that there is little reason to GtA on anything when you could shoot instead. But for those guys in light freighters without guns (cause the other party members have fire control) they should have something to do.

The tough thing is that there needs to be something that captures the "I can't shake him" moments of dogfighting, and GtA isn't it.

I think any modification to GtA should involve factoring in pilot skill somewhere, just dont know how to implement it

I like the Perice 1 per rank of Medicine, but what about this?

Thinking in terms of Warhammer 3, Pressure Point could be a Brawl (Int) instead of a Brawl (Brawn) check.

Will this avoid the Dr. Wookie effect?