Right.

So I've been thinking (I know bad idea).

Auto-fire: Increase difficulty +1 [p] is how its now. What if we add an upgrade? basically, turn it into an "Add a challenge die" when attempting to auto-fire - instead of adding a difficulty die. Walking-fire only adds an additional difficulty die though, 1 challenge die added is beard enough. This goes a bit towards making the use more risky. Which is nice.

Further, I'm ok with increasing the cost of additional hits to 2 advantages (which is the same as linked and two-weapon fighting) - additionally one could perhaps argue that subsequent hits cannot benefit from uncancelled successes (unless walking-fire which divides them equally among the hits), and - perhaps - have diminishing returns? What if the base damage of an auto-fire weapon decreases per additional hits, to a minimum of - random number: 5 or something. So first auto-fire (non-walking) hit with a heavy blaster rifle damages 11 (1 uncancelled success), the remaining … lets say 3 hits (6 advantages, it was a good roll), does 9, 7 and 5 respectively - so reduce damage by 2 for each subsequent hit - based on total damage of the first hit. I know it breaks with simplicity and it adds a mechanic to the game - sort of - but I just thought I'd throw it out there. This mechanic could let the cost stay at 1 advantage, because the second and third hits would cause less damage - call it inaccuracy or power drainage or whatever… I'm not very big on this idea - and I'm not sure if anyone has already suggested it elsewhere - but its an idea.

LethalDose said:

To give an example from actual play … my character (Ag 3+2 skill) used autofire (after having aimed and used Fp to upgrade the attack) against a group of henchmen - gaining 5 hits ! using a hvy blaster riffle w/spin barrel modied for exstra penetration +2 (effectively +2 dam) thus effectively handing out 5 x (11 dam +2 pierce +2 extra successes) = 75 pts of damage ! Admittingly with the latest update taht would ONLY have been 67 pts of damage! - Now imagine a PC taking that hit!

Note: In our group we dissallow multiple hits against same opponent when using auto-fire, in return we dont impose +difficulty die from using walking fire…

Donovan Morningfire said:

Thanks for the advice, I'll try.

 Interesting question: under the new auto fire rules, when does extra damage from talents, weapon mods etc get added in? The rules specify that hits deal the weapons base damage.

Venthrac said:

All of the relevant talents have been re-writtten to only apply to one hit. Which does make things better. I don't think there is any argument that the changes are better, just that the wepaons base damage is still significant and it's too easy to get multiple hits on a single target, still resulting in a lot of damage.

gribble said:

Have they?

I'm looking at the PDF for the Week 10 update (low-res), and there's no mention of Barrage or Point Blank (the two talents that would add to damage for Auto-fire or Linked weapons), so going by what's listed, those talents would still apply their bonus to each "hit," as the only change made was regarding the bonus damage from extra successes.

Jegergryte said:

I had kinda suggested that back on page one, in regards to someone else's idea (don't recall who's) about having greater odds of auto-fire weapons running out of ammo more frequently (a usual drawback to autofire weapons in the various d20 versions of Star Wars), mostly as a means to be able to use the Despair result when it came up rather than add another mechanic to auto-fire.

Just to make sure I'm reading your suggestion right, instead of adding a Difficulty die as per the usual rules on increasing the difficulty of a roll, you want to add a Challenge die?

For instance, a PC with a heavy blaster rifle takes a shot at an Assassin Droid (Adversary 2) that's at Medium range (typically 2 Difficulty).  Under your proposal, instead of the roll being at 3 Difficulty, it'd be at 1 Challenge & 2 Difficulty?

Have to admit this would probably go a long way towards helping to keep major NPCs alive in the face of autofire assaults, as the PC could potentially be rolling nothing but Challenge dice on their attack roll depending on the ranks of Adversary involved.

Do agree about walking fire still being additional difficulty rather than an upgrade.

It's not a bad alternative, though I think with adding a Challenge die instead of just upgrading the Difficulty to include a Challenge die (which was more of my initial suggestion), there won't be the need to increase the Advantage cost any, as the Challenge die is more likely to make the attack fail outright, particularly if some of the after-action reports by some posters are accurate about the math making successes about as rare as hen's teeth.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Hmmm… you're right. I was thinking of deadly accuracy and it's ilk, and missed these talents.

gribble said:

No problem.  I'd forgotten about those talents being updated way back during the Week 4 update, and was looking for red text entries.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Yeah, I stole the whole idea from you. well the core idea of it anyways.

Yes, I want to add a challenge die instead of a difficulty die. So, in your example, if I understand the adversary talent correct, the PC would actually roll three challenge dice wouldn't he? I mean, doesn't the adversary 2 talent upgrade difficulty to hit twice?

The only problem with that mechanic is that it stays very effective against PCs … few PC abilities upgrade the difficulty to hit them, mostly they add setback dice, no?

Jegergryte said:

Yeah, in the example I gave, it would be 3 Challenge Dice, making it a pretty darn impressive shot given the amount of Failures and Threats are likely to generate barring a PC who is exceptionally skilled (such as rolling 4 dice, most of which are Proficiency dice).

As for affecting the PCs, see my remark above about GM asshattery and spending Advantage for multiple hits on a player character.

In the situation of targeting a PC, my suggestion would be for the GM to spend the extra Advantage to trigger a critical hit on the first attack rather than just spending them all on extra autofire attacks should he wind up with a plethora of Advantages.  The character's gonna be in rough shape, having suffered two crits (with only one of them being at +10), but it's far less likely to result in a dead character.

Also, a lot of the NPCs that the party are going to be facing off against aren't going to have more than 1 or 2 ranks in their combat skills, particularly if their minions in a group.

As i suggested weeks and weeks ago to someone else in one of the threads here, use an autofire weapon as being used by a minion group, much like the two Snowtroopers we saw in ESB setting up that E-Web blaster.  This way, the PCs have an incentive to take down those minions as quickly as possible, thus denying them Proficiency dice and decreasing the odds of getting blasted by the tripod-mounted repeating blaster.

Jegergryte said:

They can use Destiny points to upgrade the difficulties of attack checks targeting them.

Frankly, Autofire being deadly makes sense. Just look at how many and how easily troops were mowed down by machine guns during WWI. If a PC finds themselves up against an opponent with an Autofire weapon, then it is time to do things to not be out in the open. Duck behind cover, change the range to the target, etc…

The players should learn better tactics than what they are used to from other systems, like D&D where really only level 1 characters are one hit wonders.

As for defensive talents adding setback rather than giving upgrades, find the thread on the dice probabilities. Adding a die (Ability or Boost) is better than upgrading a die from Ability to Proficiency. This also applies to the negative dice. Adding a Setback is better than upgrading a Difficulty to a Challenge. This remains true as long as you have unupgraded Difficulty dice.

Kallabecca said:

Funny thing is that taking cover only adds one setback die to your PC's defense.  So that enemy with Auto fire as written… still pretty likely to kill your PC if he hits.  taking cover isn't really a solution in this game.  Noticably so.  IMO