Concern? Or downright utterly unreasonable fear mongeringering?

This abilities sounds like lot of fun. I can almost picture Clint Eastwood telling a undertaker to get 3 coffins ready then at the end of the gun fight saying “make that 4 coffins”

On the other hand for the GM to make things even there might be more big baddies like a storm trooper hanging out on the corner of a hall way named Joe from engineering with 5 of his coworkers. I kill them , then out of left field are 4 rancor’s with a taste for Bothans that viewed Joe as their favorite pet .

Concern? Or downright utterly unreasonable fear mongeringering?

There's a thin line between those two, and where the line is depends a lot on the type of GM a person is.

Personally, I've generally been of the "wait for the full details before making a conclusion," particularly as the point of a lot of these articles is to build hype and thus interest in the book. Customers are more likely to purchase a sourcebook if they believe that said sourcebook will provide new and cool material for their games.

With what little information we have, on paper "Last Man Standing" looks very powerful, even after you factor in the cost of reaching at least two bottom row talents on a specialization (a couple hundred XP right there) plus the fact that more XP needs to be spent to really get the most out of said Signature Ability. But it's the equivalent of a movie's teaser trailer. I'm sure there are a number of Star Wars fans that thought Phantom Menace would be cool as all get-out based upon the teaser trailer alone (YMMV on how well said movie delivered on that promise).

Yousa thinkin people gonna die?

If the ability is anything like the narrative ability for explorers, Sudden Discovery, it will be usable once per session (assumption here is 4 hours so if your games run longer adjust accordingly), will cost 2 Destiny Points, and will include some sort of skill check (probably Hard as per Sudden Discovery). What skill is used remains to be seen. It could be a combat skill or possibly Knowledge (Warfare), which could be introduced in Dangerous Covenants, or maybe Vigilance. Just have to wait and see.

If the ability is anything like the narrative ability for explorers, Sudden Discovery, it will be usable once per session (assumption here is 4 hours so if your games run longer adjust accordingly), will cost 2 Destiny Points, and will include some sort of skill check (probably Hard as per Sudden Discovery). What skill is used remains to be seen. It could be a combat skill or possibly Knowledge (Warfare), which could be introduced in Dangerous Covenants, or maybe Vigilance. Just have to wait and see.

You're probably not to far off the mark.

I'd imagine the starting range of LMS might be fairly limited (Short Range to start?), with some of the upgrades increasing the range out to Medium, maybe even Long. Might also be that it starts out with only X number of minions/groups, again with upgrades to increase the body count, as well as an upgrade to reduce the Destiny Point cost down to one.

What skill to use for last one standing? Why that is simple - cool. Cool guys don't look at explosions. Or resilience.

What skill to use for last one standing? Why that is simple - cool. Cool guys don't look at explosions. Or resilience.

I think Cool might be a more balanced approach, if a skill is used at all for this ability. Hired Gun PCs are by their nature going to focus on their key combat skills, making it likely they'll have at least 4 (if not 5) ranks in those skills by the time they become eligible for a Signature Ability. Cool's not a skill those PCs are too likely to focus on (unless they do a lot of gambling or they set up a lot of ambushes).

Well we are almost out of January, so I wonder if FFG will narrow down a release date since it says Feb 2014 and we are there shortly.

The Hired Guns in my game are more the welcome to use LMS to clear out all the minions in am encounter anytime they like. They just need to hope they picked the right encounter...

I usually back up minions with at least one tougher bad guy, and my players love to look for combats. They will eat this one up.

Now if you have a group with multiple Hired Guns, each with LMS then I could see that it might present a problem. Maybe. However I think a Hired Gun at the level of experience needed to get LMS will likely have the skills and equipment to deal with large groups of minions fairly handily.

At this point I really need to see the rule as written and in play to see what it does to the game.

Rise! Rise from your grave!

Okay, here's the ability:

Once per game, spend two destiny points and make a <><><> resilience. If successful, skip the next turn and eliminate all minions in the encounter. It goes on to talk about how it should be cool and dramatic and needs GM approval, but that's about the core of it.

Now, the upgrades include remove black dice while trying to activate the power (two levels of that you can buy), add boost die to the activation roll (again, two levels), reduce the destiny costs from 2 to 1, let you kill a rival per level of advantage bought (so potential 2 rivals and all the minions in one go) and reduce the difficulty from 3 to 2 <>'s.

So, is it bad ass? Hell yes. Is it game breaking? If your adventure hinged on one encounter with Minions (and 2 rivals) being long and drawn out, you had issues in the first place - but otherwise, no. Besides, you have the "Subject to GM approval" rider right there in the text.

So yes, bring on the minions baby!

No, I want to complain about it1!!1

Rise! Rise from your grave!

Okay, here's the ability:

Once per game, spend two destiny points and make a <><><> resilience. If successful, skip the next turn and eliminate all minions in the encounter. It goes on to talk about how it should be cool and dramatic and needs GM approval, but that's about the core of it.

Now, the upgrades include remove black dice while trying to activate the power (two levels of that you can buy), add boost die to the activation roll (again, two levels), reduce the destiny costs from 2 to 1, let you kill a rival per level of advantage bought (so potential 2 rivals and all the minions in one go) and reduce the difficulty from 3 to 2 <>'s.

So, is it bad ass? Hell yes. Is it game breaking? If your adventure hinged on one encounter with Minions (and 2 rivals) being long and drawn out, you had issues in the first place - but otherwise, no. Besides, you have the "Subject to GM approval" rider right there in the text.

So yes, bring on the minions baby!

Agreed, I'm not sure how any game would be broken by any once per session rule. In all honestly some of the once per session rules are so timid I'm not sure why they're once per session.

I have only one hired gun in my group and he is not a big roleplayer. If he takes this ability I might poke him for some narrative description. After all, who doesn't want to make their character seem like a bad ass?

A good poke would be if he doesn't narrate it he doesn't use it................

Rise! Rise from your grave!

Okay, here's the ability:

Once per game, spend two destiny points and make a <><><> resilience. If successful, skip the next turn and eliminate all minions in the encounter. It goes on to talk about how it should be cool and dramatic and needs GM approval, but that's about the core of it.

Now, the upgrades include remove black dice while trying to activate the power (two levels of that you can buy), add boost die to the activation roll (again, two levels), reduce the destiny costs from 2 to 1, let you kill a rival per level of advantage bought (so potential 2 rivals and all the minions in one go) and reduce the difficulty from 3 to 2 <>'s.

So, is it bad ass? Hell yes. Is it game breaking? If your adventure hinged on one encounter with Minions (and 2 rivals) being long and drawn out, you had issues in the first place - but otherwise, no. Besides, you have the "Subject to GM approval" rider right there in the text.

So yes, bring on the minions baby!

So use it the Battle of Endor and how many TIEs does this one guy wipe out?

A good poke would be if he doesn't narrate it he doesn't use it................

Of course.

So use it the Battle of Endor and how many TIEs does this one guy wipe out?

Well, if I was staging a large scale fight like that, I'd break it down into a handful of scenes that'll directly affect my characters - initial engagement, dogfight over the Nebulon B, close up against the hull of a Star Destroyer, surface of the Death Star just after the shields go down and to the core. So no more than the ones in the immediate area, since that is all they'd be engaged with in the 'encounter'. I certainly wouldn't consider the entire battlefield an encounter, since it runs counter to common sense and - more importantly - the underlying theme of the game of "Story over rules".

Again, it gets back to that whole "subject to GM approval" condition.

I agree, these SAs are mostly narrative. A skill check I believe. 2 Destiny points. Once a session. GM approval. I'm not seeing a game breaking mechanic here.

I'm far more interested in WTF is Rain of Death?? Did someone spell it out?

I agree, these SAs are mostly narrative. A skill check I believe. 2 Destiny points. Once a session. GM approval. I'm not seeing a game breaking mechanic here.

I'm far more interested in WTF is Rain of Death?? Did someone spell it out?

Maneuver that lets you ignore the increased difficulty for auto-fire.

Oh, one other thing to consider. Lets say that I'm a terrible GM and I consider the entire battlefield of Endor (or Hoth or whatever) to be one massive encounter and the player wanted to blow away every single minion there. I would assign a buckets worth of blacks to get simulate ones around corners, behind doors, out of line of sight and beyond firing range. Go ahead and try, but you'll need to borrow every single black die at the table to do so.

And then I might be a douchewaffle and spend a point to upgrade the difficulty, to boot.

I'm far more interested in WTF is Rain of Death?? Did someone spell it out?

It's a new Talent, accessible only to the Heavy - character may perform the RoD manuver. If he does so, when he point makes an attack in the same turn, he does not increase the difficulty of the attack due to the autofire quality.

The Battle of Endor is an interesting iteration, although truthfully the signature ability is geared more at the crowded bar or the hordes of aliens bursting through the floor than from the gunnery chair of a spacecraft. Curiously enough, the mass combat on page 81 of the book indicates that encounters within a very large battle are still handled at a "local" scale. In other words, even if a Hired Gun in the gunnery chair goes Death Blossom with Last One Standing, he still only eliminates minions in the (present) encounter, and therefore a localized area within the larger terrain of the space battle. Additionally, most starfighter weapons are close range anyway, which also sets reasonable limits on this.

Again, the wording is "all minions in the encounter" --not "all minions in the battle." In addition, since XP is calculated by session and not by individual creatures/NPCs offed, the size of the pile of body/debris at the end doesn't give that player any more advantage in the XP department. The idea is that it allows alll minions to be removed from the encounter, in a way that is a cool narrative... and it specifically says that the GM must also approve it.

Have to say that Resilience was a bit of a surprise for which skill to use, but it does make sense. Applying foot to that much hind-quarters is going to take a lot out of a guy

Even with the full upgrades, it doesn't look game-breaking, since by that point all the PCs are going to be pretty **** bad-ass based on the amount of XP gained.