Being unable to attempt to discover a marker after failing seemed like something that should have been removed with the transition from N3 to N4. Marker states are already extremely powerful and they don't really need it. It makes some profiles like Fidays and Speculos an absolute pain to deal with if you don't have a biometric visor and +3 discover. And the rest of the game doesn't work this way. If you fail to hack someone the game doesn't prevent you from trying again. If you fail to shoot someone you are not forced to wait until the next turn to attempt again. It's just an extra rule to remember that makes already powerful marker states even stronger if you get unlucky with dice.
This would actually make sense, and might satisfy the players who keep complaining that Impersonation is too good, without nerfing it too badly. Otoh, right now camo ARO pieces are among the few long-range AROs that are still viable. Allowing a guy with an HMG to just keep discover-shooting them until it works might push the balance too far towards the active turn and make null deployment the only way to play when going second.
I could agree that a marker should be able to be discovered any time it moves (or takes an action that wouldn't otherwise reveal it), regardless of previous failed attempts. Keep the rule otherwise the same, and it wouldn't allow for repeated active-turn discover attempts.
Agreed. Also, I never liked the fact that you had to keep track of the troopers that failed the discovery attemp.
In fact, just limiting the once-per-turn restriction to the active turn would accomplish this. Allow unlimited Discovers in ARO, but only once in the active turn. Good narratively, too. Like you order your guy to check those bushes again, and he's like "I already checked there, Commander. There's nothing there."
I do want to say that I do at least understand the "one discovery" limit narratively as a way to accommodate the abstraction of seeing your opponent's camouflage markers. It's the same reason why you can't go B2B with them, because technically even though you as the player can see them, your units can't really. To some extent I feel Discover is supposed to be understood as passive observation, so actively burning orders on it over and over to keep having a figure look at something that they didn't see is odd. If you didn't notice someone camouflaged, you're not going to keep looking just because you know something's there from a metagame perspective. I'm reminded of a similar issue in Dungeons and Dragons, where the DM asks for a perception check, a player rolls poorly (and can see their own roll is bad) and after the DM says "you didn't notice anything" every other player in the party decides they're going to roll as well because they know there's something out there that they simply failed to discover. The biggest issue to me mechanically with the single-discover rule is marking/remembering who did and didn't already attempt a discover on a trooper. That's very clunky. I do think the above ideas are feasible and elegant - my only concern would be that (as is the case with many proposed rules tweaks) using a broad brush to target a few limit-pushing characters (IMP-1 Impersonators in this case like Speculo) by allowing multiple discoveries also significantly weakens a lot of more common camouflage units.
Could apply a -3 penalty against trying to discover that marker if you've already tried once that turn, could make a consecutive -3 each turn till the discover roll is -12. This way the player can keep trying and choose for themselves when it's a sunk cost of orders
I’m also considering that, like with predator, while in motion the camouflage is less effective. Or that seeing “bob from accounting” moving toward a person with purpose is at least a little noticeable. “LT is being followed, what’s up with that?”
I agree on there should be multiple discovers, but in the active turn. After all, it's using orders to do it. It's a valuable resource. In ARO I'm not so sure. One one hand I like it on the other I don't. But for the sake of simplicity I'd be happy to have it in ARO too.
why? because you try to find if that strange bush is a bush or a person and obviously, you confirmed is a bush. So why keep trying? I'm ok with the mechanics involved
By that same reasoning, we could argue that allowing multiple dicover attempts would mean that Mission Control is insisting that "we have a blip in our radar and the IFF says that it is NOT one of our troopers. Go and check that again ASAP!" I understand the current ruling and reasoning, I'd prefer it to go away.
I feel Discover is more like humans and Predators (from the movies): they know for sure something is there, they just can’t make it out properly, it flashes in and out, etc. Lore-wise, I think it works: everyone has detectors galore, so it’s hard to entirely hide anything with just camouflage. But I also prefer this precisely because it answers the weirdness you describe that would otherwise occur. Now I’m not saying the rules should change just to fit this particular paradigm. But gaming-wise, it’s just frustrating: you know it’s there, you play as if it’s there, keep your troops out of LOS of that thing you’re not supposed to be seeing, but you just can’t shoot the darn thing. I think it’s much better to go for an “active search” concept - rather than passive perception - and thus let players reroll if they want to spend their orders on this.
