Luke's gunner card has the following text:

"After you perform an attack that does not hit, immediately perform a primary weapon attack.  You may change one result to a result.  You cannot perform another attack this round."

Are the three parts of his text all linked, or independent?  Can he chose to change an result to a result on his attached ships first attack (be it with a primary or secondary weapon)?  Or does his pseudo focus ability only come into play for his granted attack on a miss?

doctormungmung said:

I'm going to say that his pseudo-focus only applies to 2nd attack.  It would be a very strange English construct if the 3rd sentence refered back to the 1st sentence but the 2nd sentence was stand-alone.

if that would be the case, shouldn't it read "You may THEN change one focus result to a hit result" for added clarity?

I'll agree that would be more clear.

If you think "change an eyeball to a hit" is an independent, always-on ability, then so is "You cannot perform another attack this round."  So if you're going to treat the three sentences as independent always-on abilities, you never get to attack.  To quote one of our favorite kids' movies, "I don't think this plan was thought through very well."

The first part of the ability specifies when it can be activated; the rest describes what happens when you do activate it.

Buhallin said:

That's pretty much my reasoning as well.

Buhallin said:

For the record, I came up with the question, doctormungmung just posted it, so to the extent that it's a stupid question, blame me, not him.

Also, I agree with Buhallin's reasoning, to a degree.  Because the third sentence says "another attack," it does allow for the ship to make an initial attack, because in order to make another attack, you have to make an initial attack.

So, while I think this approach (mini-focus only applies to the additional primary weapon attack triggered by the miss on the intiial attack) is correct, I don't think the card does a very good job of limiting it that way.  And yes,  I understand that there's only so much room on the card, blah bah bah, but the issue could be corrected by inserting "then" into the second sentence as Duraham says, or through the use of semi-colons. 

kingbobb said:

I don't think it's a stupid question. I at least understand the reasoning behind it--unlike, for instance, the perennial confusion over how to treat the damage done by an ion cannon.

But that second sentence has to be read in context. As dbmeboy pointed out upthread and you've acknowledged, the third sentence is clearly dependent on the first--which means that it's a stretch to assert that the middle sentence has anything other than the extra attack as its implied antecedent.

And further clarifying it in the ways that've been suggested might have associated costs, too. If the card said "You may then change…", that could be read as (or, at least, reasonably confused with) disallowing any intervening effect--like, say, a Target Lock or Han's pilot ability. You could assert a closer relationship between the first sentence and the second with a semicolon, but that assumes that your reading audience understands and correctly interprets the meaning of a semicolon.  You could say "When you make this attack, you may change…" but that probably is too much extra language to fit on the already-cramped card. And so on.

Here's another twist as brought up by a similar thread regarding Luke and Han Solo: If the first attack misses and Luke makes a second attack, does his pseudo-focus kick in before Han can reroll, or can you reroll with Han and then use the pseudo-focus?

ziggy2000 said:

You can reroll with Han before you use Luke's ability pseudo-focus.

ziggy2000 said:

Since both abilities happen at the same time (Modify Results step) you get to choose which order to apply them in.

Back on the original, I didn't mean to imply it was a stupid question, just that the full impacts of that interpretation weren't considered even within the scope of the card, much less the broader implication if all actions and abilities worked like that.

Hi, new to the boards, first post, please be gentle…

"You cannot perform another attack this round" - does this apply just to the ship Luke is on, or the whole Rebel squad?

Space_Jockey said:

Yikes.   I never thought of it that way…

Just Luke's ship thankfully. "You" basically refers to the ship.

That's great, thanks, Paradox

Nothing basically about it, actually - it's explicit in the rules.  Page 19, the blue callout box at the top.  "You" always refers to the ship with the ability, and abilities never affect other ships unless they explicitly say so.