Talk:Luke Skywalker (Crew)/@comment-30277232-20170126215010/@comment-454133-20170127163131

Coming from the explicit and consistent phrasing of games like Magic The Gathering and a host of board games with good rules text, I'm often frustrated that FFG hasn't established consistent wording rules to govern their cards. Instead, at most they rely on FAQs to resolve vague wording questions. In MTG, trigger and follow conditions are very clear from the card text (at least in modern editions), while several X-Wing cards are very contradictory with each other about whether a separate sentence constitutes a separate effect or a continuation of the previous sentence. FFG needs to set some wording guidelines and start following them, if they haven't already.

But yes, BadgerInExile is correct, Luke only grants the Focus->Hit effect during the extra attack he provides. That's the intended result, regardless of other possible interpretations. Consider the third sentence, "You cannot perform another attack this round.". If this is an "always on" sentence instead of conditioned on performing the bonus attack, that means equipping Luke Skywalker would preclude ever performing another attack by any means (e.g. TLT or Cluster Missiles) even if you don't trigger Luke's bonus attack. This is also not the case.

Instead this possibility is directly avoided by the FAQ entry: "When Luke Skywalker is used to perform a primary weapon attack, any additional attacks (such as Cluster Missiles) are forfeited.". The operative word here is "when" -- you don't forfeit the extra cluster missile attack if you don't activate Luke Skywalker when you miss with the first missile shot. Otherwise how do we know for sure? A bit of common sense, and common sense doesn't alwasy produce consistent results, even among sensible people, as we've seen here. That's a problem.

Corran Horn is another good example. How does his "you cannot attack during the next round" rule work? Does he attack on the first round and never again? Nope, that sentence only activates if you perform the extra attack during the end phase. This would be *very easily* avoided if FFG just said "If you do,  you cannot attack during the next round " the way Magic The Gathering would, but FFG is FFG. :/

For a counter-example to throw all of this straight to hell, consider Bossk (Crew). The intended effect is you get a focus and lock every time you miss, and if you're not stressed, you also gain a stress token. But the wording on this card is terrible, absolutely terrible. It breaks all the established rules that govern the cards above, and instead of an errata to correct the wording, they released a FAQ to correct the interpretation of that wording (basically saying "we didn't phrase it wrong, you just read it wrong"). This frustrates me greatly. They could do so much better!


 * grumble grumble hiss spit*

I'm better now.