Errata'd Hair Trigger: Fixed or still needs work?

[Mangaholic13]

Name pretty much says it all: Who here thinks the addition of 'last person you Aimed at' to Hair Trigger's requirement fixes it completely, and who thinks it still needs a bit of nerfing?

[Justnobodyfqwl]

Mangaholic13 wrote:

Name pretty much says it all: Who here thinks the addition of 'last person you Aimed at' to Hair Trigger's requirement fixes it completely, and who thinks it still needs a bit of nerfing?

I think it's good that they balanced it with a reasonable downside that has interesting gameplay implications, instead of just a flat debuff. The new conditional is unique because it incentives you to not just aim at someone you want to attack THIS turn, but leading up to your next turn as well. I think that's a fun twist on the usual use of Aim, but still feels intuitive! I could absolutely imagine a round where you do the stride+aim, fire at a threat, then stride+aim back and refocus your aim at someone who you expect to be able to interrupt with Hair Trigger.

I've found that my operative player tended to get the most Hair Trigger attacks when NPCs first run up to them and try to close the gap. I think that's going to be the biggest situation where Hair Trigger no longer works.

What I find really unique about the change is that...it's no longer bound by the range increment rule, right? Like your Aim benefits only work within your first range increment, but the new Hair Trigger just says "the last creature you aimed at"- and nothing about Aim says that you can't just Aim at someone you can see from 100 feet away, right? (I'm no rules guru, so PLEASE correct me). That might be really interesting- the idea of there being an enemy much farther in the distance that you normally can't get Aim benefits against, but you CAN get a hair trigger shot on from across the map!

I wonder if Sniper builds might actually want to use Hair Trigger more now- it gets around unwieldy, you can threaten a HUGE chunk of the map with both Aim and Hair Trigger, and being able to interrupt move actions towards the rest of the party is huge. Just...don't think too hard about all those reload actions on the single shot rifles you're going to have to juggle, lol.

[Teridax]

It only changes anything in two situations: the previous target of your Aim has died, or for some reason you desperately need to react to a different target and not the one you've been Aiming at. In all other cases, the target of your Aim is almost certainly going to move, shoot, or cast when they're at range, so you're still going to get a MAP-free extra attack each round. The fundamental problem is that Reactive Strike-style triggers are still far too broad for a reaction that triggers at such a large range, and the list of triggers needs to be pared down so that an opponent has a reasonable chance of avoiding the reaction without wasting their entire turn. Put another way: if an enemy had this reaction, it would still feel awful to play against due to the lack of counterplay, and so I think it still needs some more changes.

[Karmagator]

Yes, the change has removed the range limitation and Aim doesn't have one in the first place. So theoretically you could Aim at a creature much further away and it would trigger Hair Trigger.

In practice I doubt it will come up very much, given that you really want to benefit from Aim on your turn.

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As for Hair Trigger being fixed now?

I really like that it has the appropriate theme now, which the whole "I can shoot everyone" thing very much didn't.

Mechanically, the substantial nerf got rid of the cases where the feat was actually too good, so it's fine now. Still doesn't have competition and is therefore still a basically mandatory pick, but you can't fix that without adding more feats.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

I am still apprehensive about the ability to disrupt spellcasting at range, as that happened at a crucial moment in my A Cosmic Birthday game, it absolutely is a nerf, but I feel like the ability to interrupt spellcasting is an issue.

It might be fine if it could just interrupt interact actions and ranged attacks.

[Mangaholic13]

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

I am still apprehensive about the ability to disrupt spellcasting at range, as that happened at a crucial moment in my A Cosmic Birthday game, it absolutely is a nerf, but I feel like the ability to interrupt spellcasting is an issue.

It might be fine if it could just interrupt interact actions and ranged attacks.

You forgot it can interrupt movement too.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

Mangaholic13 wrote:

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

I am still apprehensive about the ability to disrupt spellcasting at range, as that happened at a crucial moment in my A Cosmic Birthday game, it absolutely is a nerf, but I feel like the ability to interrupt spellcasting is an issue.

It might be fine if it could just interrupt interact actions and ranged attacks.

You forgot it can interrupt movement too.

My understanding is that like Reactive Strike it can only disrupt manipulate actions:

Starfinder Playtest Handbook wrote:

You attempt a ranged Strike against the triggering creature.

If the attack is a critical hit and the trigger was a manipulate
action, you disrupt that action. This Strike doesn’t count
toward your multiple attack penalty, and your multiple attack
penalty doesn’t apply to this Strike.