What constitutes a BS Attack?

No.

Intuitive Attack tells you to make a BS Attack roll.

Discover tells you to make a WIP roll that is never called a BS Attack in the skill text. It tells you to use range bands and apply mods as per BS Attack.

The two are categorically different.

I guess the argument is that +1 B is a mod, since it fails to restrict it to mods affecting the attribute. That does not smell like it was intended to me, so I won’t play it that way. Or rather, I wouldn’t play it that way, since I can’t actually play the game, currently.

 

BS Attack is a Common Skill, as are Dodge, Discover, CC Attack, etc. If you read this passage too literally, BS Attack (+1 Damage), Dodge (+2”), etc. potentially don’t do anything at all because the skills you declare aren’t a “Special Skill, Weapon, or Equipment” in any clear sense, and the MODs aren’t clearly defined as Automatic Special Skills that you can use as part of another Skill declaration.

What we’re debating here could realistically be worded as:

Is using “BS Attack (+1 Damage)” a Short Special Skill that duplicates the BS Attack Common Skill? Is it a Special Skill acting as a notation that all BS Attack Common Skill (or counts-as) declarations gain that MOD? Is it a Special Skill acting as a notation that the user, when making a BS Attack roll as part of any Skill declaration, benefits from that MOD?

The argument that the MOD only applies to the BS Attack Skill (or counts-as due to the BS Attack label) because of the line quoted above seems to me to hinge on the idea that it could be interpreted as “only the user (trooper declaring) the skill BS Attack gains the bonus.” But that doesn’t work RAW because the same rule specifies only users of the Special Skill, Weapon, or Equipment named outside the brackets.

RAW, Triangulated Fire (+3 BS) works, but BS Attack (+3) doesn’t, because the former names a Special Skill next to the brackets containing the actual MOD.

 

I've been ignoring the "special" part because it leads to some highly annoying undefined behaviour... -.-;;

 

I think that whole rule is actually about where on the profile the MOD is printed:

(Special) Skills: BS Attack (+1 Damage)
Weapons: Spitfire (+1 Damage)
Weapons: AP CCW (+1 Damage)
Equipment: Tinbot (Firewall +6)

I think the most useful view is that the Special Skill is actually “BS Attack (MOD)” and being the owner makes you the user regardless of which BS Attack related Skill is getting the benefit.

So the Special Skill “BS Attack (MOD)” lets the user apply (MOD) to any BS Attack it resolves.

I hate how ambiguous this terminology is. Thus my stupidly long attempt at disambiguation upthread.

 

Note that the ESP versions of Intuitive Attack and Speculative Fire don't say 'perform a single BS Attack Roll' (my emphasis), but 'realizar un único Ataque CD' which translates better to 'perform a single BS Attack'.

So Intuitive Attack and Speculative Fire both have the user performing a BS Attack.

 

Yeah, there's four potential levels of "BS Attack".
1. The short skill BS Attack
2. The short skill BS Attack and any skill with the label BS Attack (e.g. BS Attack, Forward Observer, etc)
3. Any skill that causes a BS Attack (e.g. BS Attack, Forward Observer, Intuitive Attack, etc)
4. Any skill that acts like a BS Attack (e.g. BS Attack, Forward Observer, Intuitive Attack, Discover, etc)

In the previous edition the level officially sanctioned for things similar to this was number 2, but back then Intuitive Attack and Speculative Fire had BS Attack labels if memory serves.

 

The Labels for Intuitive and Speculative Attack are the same in N3 and N4. They can't have the BS Attack Label because of Coordinated Orders.

 

Polite request - please be specific. I can guess what you're referring to, but I really don't have the energy to play games at the moment.

 

Ah yes, they are and were Attack label, not BS Attack label.

But let me get this straight; are you saying e.g. Intuitive Attack is not a BS Attack for Coordinated Orders but may be so for a Modifier? Or are you perhaps referring to how it used to work in N3?

 

Just want to confirm something - you say here that Gizmokits and Medikits are 'BS technical weapon'
... I believe that they're not actually Technical Weapons in the rules, right (even though they have their own special short skill)? That is to say, they roll using a figure's BS skill rather than WIP... can we confirm that they do in fact gain the fireteam bonuses (+1B for 3 and +3MOD for 5 troopers) or not?

 

Fireteam bonuses apply to all BS Weapons except Technical Weapons. Gizmokit and MediKits are not technical weapons because it doesn't say anything about being technical weapons. Ergo, all you need to verify is whether they are BS Weapons at all and it does say "Non-lethal BS Weapon" so Fireteam bonuses do apply.

 

I believe that’s a copy-paste error on my part, because I can’t think why else I would have noted those two as technical weapons. Sorry about that.