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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#590280
It seems that a lot of the confusing interactions come from when a card (usually a dilemma) expects one personnel as "input" but ends up with two personnel. Most often this happens with random selections, because "your choice," "opponents choice," and "highest/lowest" selections always single out individual personnel from the dual-personnel card. So is it possible to change random selections in order to always single out one of the two personnel?

The best way I think to do this is that whenever a dual-personnel is selected by a random selection, the opponent of its controller chooses which one actually gets selected (if both are eligible for the selection). This is similar to how the opponent gets to break ties. From that point on, only the selected half matters, but of course the other half will tag along when the selected half changes location or status.

I think "opponent chooses which half" is slightly better than randomly choosing the half because I think another random selection will take longer, especially since players may not have dice/coins handy to do the 50/50. Opponent chooses also makes Chula: Trickery work smoother. I guess you could also just prioritize the first-listed (eligible) personnel but that seems less fun.

Has something like this been explored?

EDIT: P.S. Thanks James for answering my previous question in this thread.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
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1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#590305
PantsOfTheTalShiar wrote: Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:23 am I think "opponent chooses which half" is slightly better than randomly choosing the half because I think another random selection will take longer, especially since players may not have dice/coins handy to do the 50/50. Opponent chooses also makes Chula: Trickery work smoother. I guess you could also just prioritize the first-listed (eligible) personnel but that seems less fun.
I'm a big fan of more "opponent's choice" in theory regardless.

- It gives the opponent agency during a long stretch of gameplay they might have nothing to do -an issue that in endemic to STCCG
- It slightly weakens dual personnel
 
By HoodieDM
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#590483
Dislike this very much. Dual personnel are less broken than dual affiliation personnel.

Also, if the issue is actually dual personnel working with another card, perhaps look at the other card. If ASP is a problem, then change that. Or if its Sergey and Helena, then okay, thats fine, then give them another skill.

Dual personnel are a fantastic idea and should remain. Ive honestly been saying for years, we needed more of them. Theyre in swccg and they dont break that game either. Leave it. If theres a "broken interaction" thats NPE, then fix that interaction, not the type of template of the cards involved.
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First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
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#590503
HoodieDM wrote: Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:18 pm Theyre in swccg and they dont break that game either.
Do you have an example? I went searching on their site, and the only examples I could find look an awful lot like this proposal - one set of stats for the whole combination of ship/person/weapon, rather than splitting out separate stats for each.
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Moderator
#590506
AllenGould wrote: Fri Dec 23, 2022 12:36 am
HoodieDM wrote: Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:18 pm Theyre in swccg and they dont break that game either.
Do you have an example? I went searching on their site, and the only examples I could find look an awful lot like this proposal - one set of stats for the whole combination of ship/person/weapon, rather than splitting out separate stats for each.
Also those stats aren't vastly higher than what you'd get on a regular card.
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#590515
nobthehobbit wrote: Fri Dec 23, 2022 2:56 am
Also those stats aren't vastly higher than what you'd get on a regular card.
I'm not sure about that -if I'm reading the stat line right, it's the same cost to get the Falcon or "Han, Chewie, *and* the Falcon", but you get all the benefits of having them on board? (Been ages since I played, so I could be easily misinterpreting.)
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Regent
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#590516
AllenGould wrote: Fri Dec 23, 2022 10:51 am
nobthehobbit wrote: Fri Dec 23, 2022 2:56 am
Also those stats aren't vastly higher than what you'd get on a regular card.
I'm not sure about that -if I'm reading the stat line right, it's the same cost to get the Falcon or "Han, Chewie, *and* the Falcon", but you get all the benefits of having them on board? (Been ages since I played, so I could be easily misinterpreting.)
Let's take a look at this scenario...

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For the uninitiated, the deploy cost is the white number in the lower left hand corner. So the Milennium Falcon by itself costs 3 force to deploy. Captain Han costs 4, Chewie costs 4, and Han, Chewie, and the Falcon costs 6. So the combo Falcon costs almost half as much to deploy than Han, Chewie, and the Falcon separately. That said, there's upkeep on the combo falcon. At the end of every turn you have to spend 3 force or it goes out of play, and in SWCCG, a unique card going out of play can NOT be played again for the rest of the game, so that's no small consequence.

Han has ability 3 and Chewie has ability 2, so H,C,&F providing 5 ability checks out. Again, for the unitiated, ability 4 is the "magic number" as it allows you to draw battle destiny and cause attrition (aka casualties) to your opponent's forces in battle.

Han adds 3 to power of anything he pilots, and Chewie adds 2 to power of anything he pilots, so again, H, C, & F adding 5 to power is on par with having all three of those cards together.

Captain Han adds a battle destiny (aka, moar damage to your opponent), an ability that tracks with H, C, & F. However, you lose the ability to force a re-draw, and the additional maneuver bonus, making it easier to hit H, C, & F with starship weapons.

Finally, forfeit (The black number in the lower left corner below the deploy cost) is vastly different. Forfeit is how much battle damage you can "absorb" by losing the card in question. So if a fleet of Star Destroyers show up and win a battle against the Falcon by 20 power, H, C, & F forfeit for 8, which means the light side player would have to still lose 12 force from their hand/deck to satisfy the battle damage. On the other hand, if you have the 3 separate cards in play when that Star Destroyer squad shows up, they'd still all go boom, but the forfeit would cover ALL of the battle damage and the player would not lose any additional force.

Finally, there's card economy. In SWCCG, you get 60 cards. Total. That's it. So there's a lot more efficiency in H, C, & F than there is in Han, Chewie, and the Falcon all being in your deck.

So overall, there's tradeoffs, but the combo cards in Reflections III are definitely a power escalation from previous cards, if for no other reason than Card Economy, which is a large consideration when deckbuilding in SWCCG.

I'm not sure this makes a case one way or the other as a translation to STCCG, but I wanted to at least provide some context since I know not everyone plays SWCCG or knows how it works.

Hopefully this helps.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
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1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#590517
Excellent breakdown @Armus . There's also a downside to the combo in SW compared to STCCG, which is that in SW you are more likely to have times where you wish you could split them up.

If you play HCF, you are locking yourself out of being able to have Han or Chewie anywhere on the ground in those battles. While not as strong as a Jedi in ground battles, either is quite capable of turning a battle around. In ST, I can't think of any time off hand where splitting a dual personnel would have been as advantageous.


I think a good summary is that in SW, the combo personnel have significatly more downsides then in ST, yet were still power creep and meta-warping.
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#590518
Armus wrote: Fri Dec 23, 2022 11:19 am Hopefully this helps.
That absolutely does. Thanks!
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